Susan, the email link in your profile doesn't seem to be working...

I just fixed it. It should be susansw AT gmail DOT com

Insent, CaBil.

Next thread title, can we have "The Great Write Way, Act Four: Where's the gin?", because that's what I've been reading in Message Center for a while now.

And in real life.

Nonsense. A writer always knows where the gin is.

So that's my problem.

I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence WRT the whole concept of my alternative history. Which sucks, because I love my characters and my story and I need to restore my own suspension of disbelief.

You see, originally I was going to change one thing, and one thing only. Everything different in my timeline had to flow from that single initial change, not necessarily as the most obvious or likely result, but as a possible outcome. This struck me as being intellectually rigorous and elegant, and in general the Only Proper Way to write alternative history, at least of the non-magical sort.

Problem is, my desire for elegant intellectual rigor is clashing with my desire for a cracking good story. So I want to let in a few other changes that'll make the story work better, only I'm afraid that all the truly intelligent readers are going to point, stare, snicker, and generally sneer at me for sloppy worldbuilding.

I've lost track of the times DH and I have had discussions like this lately:

Me: I'm stuck because I can't make X work!
Him: Easy. Just have a traitor at the highest levels of government who feeds the decision-makers false information. Your protagonist tracking this guy down and killing him would make a nice subplot in Book 2 or 3.
Me: But...but...that's not a possible outcome of my initial change in the timeline! That Change wouldn't lead anyone to commit treason.
Him: You're writing FICTION.

I guess what I'm breaking down over is Cause vs. Result. You could approach an alternative history from either direction--e.g. if I were doing the Civil War, a Cause-based story would be, "What if Stonewall Jackson wasn't shot at Chancellorsville?" A Result-based story would be, "How might the CSA have won the Civil War?" Since IMHO there were multiple reasons why the South lost (and in 20-20 hindsight, the odds were hugely stacked against them from the start), you'd probably have to change more than one event to get there. And that's my problem. I thought of my Result before I thought of my Cause, and my Cause has turned out a bit too flimsy to bear the full weight of, um, causing the desired Result.

Is that OK, do y'all think? Can I change what I need to in order to get the cracking good story that allows me to do the most with my beloved characters (and I am CRAZY about these characters--I'd HATE to feel like the story is so broken I can't write about them anymore)? Or is that too sloppy a route to produce a good alternative history?

Susan. Tell the story. It's an AU, yes? The whole purpose of an AU is to give a writer the room to tell the story s/he wants to tell, unhampered by inconvenient history.

It sounds to me like you've tied yourself up so tightly and repeatedly trying to "do justice" to the characters you fell in love with and the period you've researched so deeply that you're losing sight of your story.

Everything can be sacrificed--or at least take a step back--to tell the story, to move it forward, to maintain momentum and tension and suspense. When you get bogged down in the precise shade of a uniform jacket or the intricate forms of social politesse, you're losing sight of your story.

The whole point of research is to immerse and familiarize yourself with background and details. Honestly? Mostly, your readers don't care. They just want to read a good story about characters they can relate to and care about. Can you give them that? I think so. Then it's enough that *you* know all those precise details. Now trust your own awareness of period and get on with telling the story. If there are plot points or details or other factors that can't be handwaved by the fact that this is alternate history, you can fix them after you've finished the story.

I know you want to be perfect. Nobody can be. Not even you. And dithering about details like this is just another form of procrastination, you know. I have SO been there, believe it or not.

Admires Beverly's spicy brains. (Or: what she said.)

Me: But...but...that's not a possible outcome of my initial change in the timeline! That Change wouldn't lead anyone to commit treason.

But it might lead to certain people living or dying out of order. Rather than turning someone a traitor, someone who may have died in the original timeline (say in a ferocious battle that now never happens) they now live, grow older and end up in a position of power...