Being a Better Writer: Historical Fiction · 11:30pm Jul 31st, 2018
Welcome back, readers! And sorry for the delay. Life … finds a way. That isn’t always to one’s benefit! This week is just looking crazy.
Which means it’s probably best if I dive right in, given my ticking clock today. So, historical fiction …
Okay, disclaimer. I give these every so often. I don’t write historical fiction. So I’m not the best authority on this subject. While I have written stuff that has taken place in other time periods, both future (Colony) and past (Shadow of an Empire), both of those also deviate quite a bit from what would be considered historical fiction because one’s the future, and the other isn’t Earth, but a fantasy world with magic thrown into the mix.
Which doesn’t mean you can’t throw a little magic into things with your historical fiction—it’s been done. What I’m saying is that my grasp of historical fiction is not as complete as someone who writes historical fiction full-time. I touch on it, they embrace it.
But … even with those who embrace it, there is plenty of historical fiction out there that is truly terrible. Just bad. And if you want to write historical fiction, you’re going to want to avoid stepping into those same mistakes, and into those same pitfalls. So, what are they? Well, let’s talk shop! Writing shop!
I have a good summary of the research requirement here: "PHD not required, but strongly preferred." Seriously, there are so many weird little details would would never have thought could be a thing, so many incomplete records, and so many places you need to piece clues together from something seemingly unrelated that you are guaranteed to be wrong. This is definitely one of those areas where mastery is defined more by how many unanswered questions you have than how many facts you have dug up, but on the flip side, if you do your research right you may be able to put out an academic publication on some esoteric detail no one else figured out in addition to your novel.