Writing Alternative Histories Craig Cormick

There’s something particularly intriguing about those two magic words – what if?

What if Adolf Hitler had died in the First World War? What if the Roman Empire hadn’t collapsed? What if the Black Plague hadn’t hit Europe? What if the Spanish Armada had successfully invaded England?

So many what ifs.

That’s one of the joys of writing alternative histories – being able to take those imaginings and build on them. Look at all the factors that would need to change to make one of those premises come to happen. Let’s consider the Spanish Armada. If they had invaded England and deposed Elizabeth the First, how would they have maintained control? Would the citizens have rebelled against them? Would the country have split into a Spanish half and an English half? Would Scotland have become the hold-out for English-speaking people?

And if the Spanish had successfully invaded, what impact would that have had on English settlement in the new world? Would North America have gone the way of South America, and currently be another third world country, or countries, having struggled for development against corruption and dictators and be soccer mad?

So many possibilities, all waiting to be explored.

My own alternative history is set in Renaissance Italy. The premise of my first book, the Shadow Master, set in a walled city like Florence, was that science works like magic. The sequel, the Floating City, is set in a Venice-like city, is based around the city being supported by magic, and attacked by beings who control their own magic.

So how do I go about creating these worlds and asking those important – what if questions?

To create a credible alternative history I find I need to fully understand the actual history. So I research and read a lot. Visit the cities I’m writing about if I can. Look at what the tipping points for their history were.

And tipping points are vital for alternative histories – those moments in history when things could have gone one way or the other and it seems the fickle finger of fate just decreed that they go one way. Would the Renaissance have happened if Florence had been devastated by the plague? What would have been the future of Venice if the Turks had invaded it?

Reading over history you come to realise just how close to different outcomes some of these tipping points were. And that brings out the science geek in me, making me ask if our history is a set path, or a fragile one, that not only could go in many different directions, but in fact does go in many different directions. Quantum physics argues that every possibility is a probability, and every alternative history is a reality – just a different reality to the one we are travelling in.

If so, we are not exploring alternative histories, but histories that are actually happening in other realities! That’s a story I explored in a YA novel, Time Vandals, being able to jump between the different realities, and track the tipping points that led to the differences in them., and basing it all on science rather than fantasy. What if I explored that more in an adult novel.

Another what if…

Craig Cormick is an Australian-based author. His latest book is the Floating City. Angry Robot Books.

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