The Historical Fiction Club, our Facebook group is filled with knowledgeable historical fiction authors with years of experience to help aspiring writers reach their dream of writing their first historical.
Below are quotes from HFC authors - writing tips specifically for historical fiction... and yet,
some of these can be applied to any area of writing.
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Angel Ramon Make you enjoy the time period you're writing. It will make the research fun and therefore the story will flow better.
David Spitz Double-check your history facts where your historical characters play out in your storyline. I find newspapers sometimes have underlining ulterior motives besides just selling newspapers
Cheryle Coapstick Lots of research, you want your characters to act within the context and flavor of their times.
Alina Rubin Author Come up with the story first (the hero’s journey). Do a bit of research during first draft, and dig deeper in further drafts.
Cathy McCullagh Read around your topic - in fact read everything you can lay your hands on. You have to know your time period inside and out. That will give you a comfortable familiarity with your characters' daily lives.
Jeri Westerson Wear the clothes, eat the food, and understand what "normal" was for the everyday person.
Karen Essex Don’t start the research in earnest until you know that you can deliver a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The research will suck you in as it does all of us. No sense in spending years of your life if you can’t actually deliver a book. If you have a story, then do the academic research, and then go to the locations and walk in their footsteps as much as you can. Soak in the ambiance! Nothing beats an in-person visit to your locations.
Tiffany Waller I second Karen Essex above. I actually had to step back from writing historical fiction because I obsessed about the details but couldn't produce good quality work. Went back to writing fanfiction for a bit, actually. Just to practise in a historical-based fandom... not quite there yet with my own fiction.
Rachel McWha I found myself getting too sucked down too many rabbit holes so in my early drafts. I will just write THE CARRIAGE or whatever and then go back and do the specific research I need in a draft.
Lillian Marek Well, that assumes you already know enough about the period to be certain that your plot is possible. You can research the minor details later, but you don't want to have someone getting from New York to California in two days in 1820.
Karen Essex Lillian Marek brings up a good point above. A dramatic arc has nothing to do with a time period. Or historical details. Characters either have a strong dramatic arc to their stories or they don’t. They are many fascinating people I wanted to write about, but their lives unfolded without much drama, so I didn’t take on those projects.
Pamela Taylor Watch out for linguistic anachronisms.
Fil Reid Walk in the footsteps of your MC if you can - it gives you a great feel for what he or she can see even if you have to imagine hard to rid yourself of whatever is modern. I do that for every place I write about. Either that or I just use somewhere I've already been. It makes the settings so much more real.
Carol Mcgrath Research, excavate, and bury it deep within the story’s fabric. Remember this is a story, not a History lesson. Transport to another world seamlessly.
Gareth Williams Remember people in any past era had the same concerns and anxieties that we struggle with. Pandemic? Plague, Black Death… and so on.
Beverlee Swayze Gareth Williams, I was about to say this! People are people. They are influenced by their times, of course, but at the bottom of it, their impulses, goals, aspirations, fears, etc, aren't so different from ours.
Jennifer Macaire Love the time period. Imagine your life there if you lived, worked, had children to raise. Picture yourself waking up in that year, breaking your fast, and watching the sun rise. Also sitting on a hard wooden stool in a cold, damp, unheated room while writing on rough paper with a quill pen might help. (grin)
Lin Treadgold Research, research, and research again. Remember this is history and you cannot afford to let history become fiction
Su Harrison Visit the locations, wear the clothes, learn about etiquette and behaviour for the period, especially if you are involving royalty, nobility, or clerics. So often overlooked, but rank is rank in my period of the Wars of the Roses and it must be preserved. Learn about the household servants and what they do; in the fifteenth century, there aren't scullery maids, it's not Downton Abbey. The only female servants in a fifteenth-century great household are laundresses.
Ruth Coulson Immerse yourself in the small day-to-day detail of the period, to really get a feel of it, and beware of using any word or object that wouldn't have been used in that time. Also, it helps to be old and remember things like stirring the washing with a copper stick and turning a mangle when you were too young to be at school.
Sharon Cathcart Thank you, Ruth Coulson, for the tip above! I am absolutely fed up with seeing "okay" used across numerous periods -- including ancient Rome and medieval England -- long before its 19th C. origin.
Carmen Radtke For 19th and 20th centuries, look at wages and price of staples like bread, flour, milk, and meat. Ads in magazines and newspapers show us what the lower classes aspired to! These are the dreams and realities of my characters. Changes in law are also rich sources.
Fiona Forsyth The interactive map ORBIS calculates traveling times. It’s based in the Roman world, but I don’t imagine it is much out of date for centuries after. https://orbis.stanford.edu
Amy Smith Heyman Just read!!!!!
Howard Loring Interview the real subject:
Robin Isard When you do your research, make sure you include the context of the age, don't just zero in on what was happening in a single town somewhere. What were the religious issues of the time? What kind of news would travelers likely bring? What was the last big war or conflict? Would the older people around your characters remember it? If so, how do they feel about it? Was there some scandal amongst the political class that people are still talking about?
Elaine W. Stock Resist becoming overwhelmed/intimidated by research, and do follow the "rabbit hole" route. Kick back and remember you're writing fiction and enjoy the art of storytelling.
Jeanne Johnson Martin If possible, read old newspapers, magazines, church records,and journals. It will put you in touch with the “real” world.
Pam Lecky Research is crucial but don't do a history lesson dump. You'll probably only use 5% of what you have mined from various sources, so use it to embellish your story (to give a sense of time and place), not distract.
Pres Lois Papedo I did my time and place research and then one day on a hunch, I looked up the origin of the word "bulldoze"(thinking one of my characters would say it to describe a character's movement) and discovered bulldozers didn't exist until after my story's time. I changed it to "steamroll". I was reminded of this when recently watching "Rings of Power" and one of the Harfoots said "Okay" to another character.
Alex Gough In response to Pres Lois Papedo above - What's wrong with a harfoot saying ok? What we hear is an English translation of the hobbit tongue. It's equally valid for a Roman to say okay. But it isn't valid for a Victorian character because they are speaking English. Admittedly it might sound jarring because we feel all medieval when we consume fantasy, but it's not technically wrong.
Michael Ross Check the market and what agents are buying before committing too much time and effort.
Sara Thomson More of a general writing tip, but make sure to add senses to your description, don’t just talk about how it looks or sounds, talk about smell, taste and feel - that way you bring your characters and their world off the page and allow your reader to really immerse themselves in your story. Many writers forget about other senses but it really can bring your work alive.
Josanna Thompson Never stop doing research. Fact check, fact check, fact check.
Bonnie Olsen Research like a son-of-a-gun, but don't cram every fact you've learned into your story. You need to trust that what you learned will color your writing invisibly.
Teresio Asola Respect the social context of the age you are setting your novel in.
Beth Poulson Love the period you're writing about.
Anne M. Beggs What can I add, that hasn't already been said in these comments? Write. Research. Write some more. If I had done all the research first, I would never have started writing. I write fiction, the history is important, but I think I will constantly run into conflicting experts and interpretations of that history. Write what you love, and to quote a friend: Parden me, your research is showing. 😉 The wonderful facts and tidbits MUST blend in and serve the story. =----->
Morgan Rohloff Corsets were just the precursor to bras…not torture devices (they’re actually kind of comfortable)
Suzzanne Sullivan Research, Research, Research then do some more researching
Sharon Cathcart If at all possible, put your boots on the ground. Even though the specific events of your tale may be long in the past, being on location matters. You learn things about terrain, food, weather, etc., by doing so. Nothing beats it.
Brandon Maggart Research and research
Mary E. Swigonski Read widely & wildly as a way of life...
Leann Labor McKinley Set your story in a time and place that you would have so much fun researching that it doesn't feel like work.
Cheryl Rosecrans Write background sights and smells. Street hawkers, traffic, if its WW2 in Europe write the adaptations to cars when gasoline rationing became severe. Make sure slang is era-appropriate etc. General tip, make people real. Not everyone was born I n to the aristocracy. Make animals era-appropriate.
Anne Elizabeth Find a story you believe in, a story you are convinced needs to be told. Holding on to that belief will get you through all the ups and downs of the process.
Dee Marley Best advice I ever received? Writers write. Get the story down on the page, then go back and revise. But, of course, do your research first! For more writing tips, visit our new WRITING TIPS series.
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