Aline Soules

Poet and Fiction Writer

novel

Historical Fiction Elements

Image credit: https://bit.ly/2TwiHQx

In historical fiction, a story is made up but is set in the past and sometimes borrows true characteristics of the time period in which it is set. That story can appear in movies, novels, even poetry (e.g., Omeros, by Derek Walcott, or Brébeuf and His Brethren, by E.J. Pratt). One of the most succinct blog posts on the elements of historical fiction was written by M. K. Tod in 2015, 7 Elements of Historical Fiction (https://bit.ly/2ChaCo1).

Many of the elements she describes are applicable to all story making–plot, character, dialogue, and so forth–but one is particularly interesting for this story genre, namely “world building.” Of course, all stories have “worlds”, but historical fiction calls for a world that requires extensive research into what Tod says are “the customs, social arrangements, family environment, governments, religious structures, international alliances, military actions, physical geography, layouts of towns and cities, and politics of the time.” She then quotes Harry Sidebottom, author of Warrior of Rome:

“The past is another country, they not only do things differently there, they think about things differently.”

She continues by listing an extensive list of “topics” to consider when conducting research into the period of your story (please see Tod’s post for the list).

Among the comments is one by “jazzfeathers”, who basically expressed concern about lecturing rather than presenting the historical setting, but also commenting that, sometimes, readers would like to be lectured. In response to the dilemma of how much historical “fact” to include, Tod compared  Conn Iggulden, who is sparing, to Sharon Kay Penman, who includes extensive historical fact. 

Finding the balance in any writing is never easy, but I recommend Tod’s post and subsequent discussion. It may be four years old, but it’s timeless.

Whew! NaNoWriMo ends

Remington12I emerge after a month of clacking computer keys and realize that, while I wrote 50,000 words, I still haven’t finished my novel draft.  No matter—I’m “over the hump” and am confident that I’ll finish by the end of December.  It’s been a whirlwind ride, but if I hadn’t leveraged NaNoWriMo in November, I’d be much further behind, so thank you NNWM.  I hope others in the NNWM frenzy have had good experiences, too.  

I also did something I didn’t expect—I signed up for two NNWM online groups, one locally, but one that gathers in my original home town—Dundee, Scotland.  I suddenly got curious about how another place in another country managed the month-long process.  They were fantastic.  There were tons of tips for everything from keeping writing to avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome.  The organizers were terrific.  As for my local online group, they were far less active, but I was also more involved with other writers face-to-face here, so perhaps I missed something.  Regardless, it’s been an interesting experience.  I don’t know if I’ll do it every year, but I’ll certainly do it again when I need to create a lengthy draft.  As many others have found, I got swept up in the camaraderie of it all, the deadline, the word count, the whole experience.  May all our drafts be good ones.

Image Credit:  http://sevenels.net/typewriters/rems.htm

Note on the image:  This is a picture of the make-and-model typewriter that my Dad was given during the war and had to carry with him wherever he went, usually on the back of a motorcycle.  He kept it well into the 1980s.  The platen was so narrow, he had to fold a business-sized envelope to fit into the typewriter if he wanted to type an address.