The Writers' Lounge

I think your point about naming conventions is a very valid signifier. Personally, I don't feel I've quite understood the fashion for 'what-if' tellings of things, unless there's a clear hook to hang them from, and all too often it does just smack of shoddy historicism, especially if - like you say - there's no differentiation made between historical fiction and fantasy.

The whitewashing, though - writing out or writing around misogyny, racism, homophobia - is, I confess, what pees me off in the extreme. I know there are some imprints of certain publishers that allow it, or present it as a kind of escapist fiction (yeah, yeah, my esoteric little corner of the romance market again, I know...), but, to me, it saps a lot of valuable contrast and ready-made conflict out of the diegetic world. Which is pants. I agree, though - there needs to be a clearer line in what's 'real' or 'not-so-real'; not sure if it's because readers (or people's perceptions of readerships?) don't care about that much accuracy, or just a level of knowledge that isn't assumed? :\