Tips on Writing Historical Fiction
And Must-See Videos
I have always thought historical fiction is the most difficult genre because you need to get every detail right for the time period. But if you are in love with a period in history and find yourself researching it anyway, your book will almost certainly have a ready-made readership.
The NYT Book Review’s list of the best historical fiction of 2023:
Absolution - Irish Catholicism and 1963 Saigon
The Fraud - late 19th century Britain
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - Blacks and immigrant Jews living together in Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, 1950s
The House of Doors - the island of Penang, 1920s
Kantika - early 20th century Istanbul among the Sephardic elite
North Wood - Puritan colony, Western Massachusetts
River Spirit - 19th century Sudan
South - Calabria, Italy during both world wars
The Other Eden - In 1912 the State of Maine forced former Black slaves to leave Malaga Island
The Witching Tide - witch hunt in East Anglia, c. 1650
1. Research well, but not endlessly & edit with care
It may be a good idea to hire a consultant from the history department of a university to double check your work, in addition to proofreaders.
You can do this early in your writing process as developmental editing too to help you decide where to take the plot.
2. Find your fictional characters in family stories & in history
Minor historical figures and family stories make great starting points for fiction. Illustrate the period by imagining the many details left out of the historical account. This requires going deep within yourself to try to suss out the truth of what happened, maybe not actually, but literally.
As Ernest Hemingway said: “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened.”
Writing advice you don’t need to follow:
Make the protagonist the RES PONDER most of the time. This will help readers identify with the protagonist (and not with others, like the character you write as the antagonist).
Personally, I don’t like this advice because I think readers can be free to identify with any character they identify with, and of course who they favor says a lot about them.
A great book presents every character with an even hand, honestly, and lets each character speak for himself/herself, as in Gone with the Wind. You may even find yourself identifying with different characters at different times.
What is a BEAT?
What is “a beat”? Usually from 1 sentence to 1 paragraph long, a BEAT is when something small in the story has changed.
Post Script
A lot has changed since the last time I was there!
For the next one, check out 16:30, the plan to enslave the entire world population, to be divided equally among whom?! Thank God they have free speech to let us know what they’re up to.
Thank you so much for recommending me! That is so kind.🙇♂️
Wow, someone switched out the 2nd video on the Talmud to something on Nehemiah!
But I am so grateful to all my subscribers, you really are truth seekers, writers made of the right stuff! Not a single one unsubscribed (unlike with the JK Rowling post).