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Traditions in AH

Salt emphasizes the historical effect of the point of divergence; these works emphasize the emotional effect of the point of divergence.
Sometimes, in fact, that emotional effect can be laughter, and I wonder whether in the following years broadcast AH may come up with more light-hearted shows in the vein of La Maison Bleue. Comedy, too, has cathartic potential, and in today's world a lot of people are looking for catharsis. After all, there's a comforting aspect to looking at what may have happened if a different decision had been made in the past, and realizing that actually we wouldn't be noticeably better off.
 
Sometimes, in fact, that emotional effect can be laughter, and I wonder whether in the following years broadcast AH may come up with more light-hearted shows in the vein of La Maison Bleue. Comedy, too, has cathartic potential, and in today's world a lot of people are looking for catharsis. After all, there's a comforting aspect to looking at what may have happened if a different decision had been made in the past, and realizing that actually we wouldn't be noticeably better off.
La Maison Bleue isn't the only example of that - there's a Swedish show in which PoD is a different house ruling Sweden that @Ares96 mentioned to me in a Zoom call that strikes me as doing similar.
 
There isn't much AH comedy I can think of off the top of my head other than Maison Bleue and various Sliders eps (our own Comedy Throughout The (P)Ages doesn't count because we had to write it), I wonder why that is?

While I still don't know the underlying reason why, I think there has been a precedent of self-seriousness in alternate history, sometimes to excess.

If I had to try and explain, I'd say different "traditions" have different reasons for pushing in that direction. The "internet"/pseudo-historical traditions concerned with at least nominal plausibility don't want anything goofy, and the dry tone doesn't lend itself to humor. The "print-broadcast"/popular fictional alternate history has a lot of (I've seen this with Turtledove) a lot of solemn THIS IS THE MASTER OF ALTERNATE HISTORY in its marketing. A lot of the popular topics (southern/Axis victories) don't lend themselves to the most obvious humor. AH that's trying to make a serious point about something clearly doesn't want to muddle it with silliness.

So it's a bunch of different ways to move in the same direction.
 
I just read this post on a baseball blog about sabermetric (statistical analysis) "generations" that reminded me a little of these "tradition" categories, and this particular segment reflected an issue with newer "internet tradition" AH in particular:

My concern is about the fact that with the wealth of information available today, particularly through sites like Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs, and StatCorner, it has become quite possible for members of the internet generation of saberpeople to cite statistics without really understanding them at all.

I feel like this hits the nail on the head concerning how this sort of pushes internet AH towards "broad but shallow", especially in TLs where it's clear that a lot of it is just grabbing names from Wikipedia without really getting the figures behind those names.
 
I just read this post on a baseball blog about sabermetric (statistical analysis) "generations" that reminded me a little of these "tradition" categories, and this particular segment reflected an issue with newer "internet tradition" AH in particular:

I feel like this hits the nail on the head concerning how this sort of pushes internet AH towards "broad but shallow", especially in TLs where it's clear that a lot of it is just grabbing names from Wikipedia without really getting the figures behind those names.
A good analogy, indeed. Of course there's a fair bit of crossover between sports stats and AH, as with Meadow and Roem's normie explanation of (their brand of) AH as "it's like Fantasy Football but with politicians".
 
I feel like this hits the nail on the head concerning how this sort of pushes internet AH towards "broad but shallow", especially in TLs where it's clear that a lot of it is just grabbing names from Wikipedia without really getting the figures behind those names.
It says a lot that when I started writing my recent political timeline I made sure I had read at least several books and watched documentaries on the characters of Gould, Kinnock and Mandelson and 80s Labour to ensure I could capture it well, and even then I'm still doing research and making sure I prepare for eventual second drafting's and stuff.
 
I dunno. Like the thing is you're never going to know everything, at some point you have to stop researching and start writing.

Like knowledge is fantastic but I think writing historical stories about areas you're not a complete expert on is fine. Writing gets you into the habit of writing. It doesn't have to be perfect to be worth doing. And honestly a lot of published historical fiction isn't particularly vigorously researched.

The problem isn't so much sitting down and writing Fatherland without a complete knowledge of Nazi agriculture but sitting down and writing a faux academic timeline about a surviving Nazi Germany without a complete knowledge of Nazi agriculture. The timeline structure is about showing off facts and thus rather requires facts because there's no narrative or characters, which doesn't mean it's bad, I enjoy just chatting about history but the knowledge requirement is high for it to work.

Saying the answer is more research is I think incomplete, so much as the answer is picking a format that fits the amount of knowledge you do have. AN actual story does not require as much knowledge because it's about characters and narrative.

Forums like AH.com have gotten into a culture where they expect timelines to both cover the entire world and every topic of humanity within in while also being primarily about well researched historical facts and obviously that's impossible.

You don't need to know the entire world before you write something, you just need to either only write that sort of dry chatting about history style essay about stuff you do know or write in a different style where your knowledge isn't front and centre.
 
Like Tom Clancy puts hours of research into weapons research and stuff and then has a plot involving India invading Australia or ethnic clashes in spain between two provinces both of which are entirely castillian. That kind of in depth knowledge about a specific speciality and nothing about anything else is as big a problem as 'broad but shallow'.
 
I dunno. Like the thing is you're never going to know everything, at some point you have to stop researching and start writing.
This is absolutely also true and I know a few people who've let the perfect be the enemy of the good and never pick up the pen (metaphorically) because they'll never have done enough research.

This happened to me recently with a list of leaders TLIA* I thought of, and then I got bogged down in "I should research this" first. Hopefully I can do a bit and know when to stop so I can actually write it.
 
It says a lot that when I started writing my recent political timeline I made sure I had read at least several books and watched documentaries on the characters of Gould, Kinnock and Mandelson and 80s Labour to ensure I could capture it well, and even then I'm still doing research and making sure I prepare for eventual second drafting's and stuff.
Then one reaches a point where doing more research becomes an excuse to postpone the actual writing.
 
I will also add that the story I wrote before hand was a fun pulpy crime thriller thing with an alternate history that I did based upon stuff I knew anyway . Really I say the best thing to do if your writing alternate history is to get non-alternate history folks to read it over so you can know if your writing an enjoyable story, research ensures you don't trip yourself up or get your characters acting wrong.
Then one reaches a point where doing more research becomes an excuse to postpone the actual writing.
That’s why I’m still writing my story, all further research can be used on second, third etc. Drafts
 
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