Keys to Writing Good Historical Fiction

Okay, we've covered how to write a good review. Now we have to get down to the writing task, and I'm going to talk about something that I know a little bit about: Writing good Historical Fiction.

Now obviously the best people who write about historical things are the people who were there. No one, repeat, NO ONE, will write the Regency like Jane Austen and William Makepeace Thackaray did, because -- big surprise here -- they lived it. C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien will draw close seconds, but no one can compare to the originals.

But we love writing historical fiction. I love reading it. I'm not just talking about novels, I'm talking about fanfiction, too. Jane Austen fanfics get published all the time. And there are some things to consider when we consider those fanfics and our humble little offerings.

There are two things standing between the Jane Austen section at ff.net and the publishing house at Scholastic.

One is volume of content.

The other is research. Yes, research, ladies and gentlemen, that lovely word that sends college students scurrying to their corners and high school teenagers screaming to their teachers about how hard the class is. Nothing ruins a historical peice faster than to find that someone has not done their research-

I hate to rain on an otherwise very promising and enjoyable passage, but paper bags weren't invented (or in wide use, sources seem to differ) until the early 1850s. Their pastries would have simply been wrapped in paper and then placed in a basket one of the woman probably had brought. Ah, the good old days before the epic paper or plastic bag decision. Anyway, small note, doubt anyone else besides me noticed, still a very cute passage.

Yes, that is an actual review by me, and yes, I did actually go and look up when paper bags were invented because it bugged me. And I'm not the only one. So here are a few things to consider when writing in a historical context.

• MONEY- It will make a big difference to your story whether people are carrying around Bank of England notes or gold bezants. Find out what people were using for money -- a 'gold coin' isn't going to impress your readers as much as florins, guiders, and guineas are. Especially if you can find how they convert to today's money.
  
• MODES OF TRAVEL- Nothing breaks up a good history more than "The hero left town, and using his horse, traveled across all of England to arrive with his battalion the next night on the opposite coast."A horse does not travel that fast. Find out how people are going from point A to point B, and how long it's going to take to get there. Edith Wharton makes a big to-do about the Brown Coupe people take home from the Opera, and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath wouldn't be the same without the beat-up car they drive around in. Transportation is everything.
• CLOTHES. A skirt is de rigeur attire for women from William of Normandy to the D-Day invasion of Normandy, but skirts have changed a lot in that time frame. Find out what your people are wearing, down to their shoes and underwear! (This just in -- people did not always have Hanes.) This is the fun part, because you, the author, get to look at lots of pictures! You can watch movies, too, but any period film before, say...the advent of Technicolor film is bound to be a little iffy on period accuracy. The more recent (and big budgeted) the film, the more accurate the costumes will PROBABLY be. There are no guarantees. Your best bet is still books. This is also a really good way to immerse yourself in the culture -- how women and men are dressing will tell you a lot about acceptable behavior. For instance, you can't run in a floor length skirt. Believe me on this one -- I've tried.
  
• MUSIC- Find out what the favorite tunes were. The mood alters significantly if you're playing Flo-Rida as opposed to Frederic Chopin. If you can find it, listen to it while your writing. I'm in the middle of a story about the Crusades and I've been listening to Gregorian Chant, Provencal chansons, and the Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack until my headphones were tired. Music is evocative -- use it and muse it.
• PASTIMES -- People did not always have monopoly for rainy days. When you were bored, you could not always pull up a game of solitaire on your computer. Chess is a good standby, but there are other games. Cards have been popular since the 1400s, but Poker and Go Fish were not always the games of choice. Find out what people did when they weren't talking to each other and moving the plot along. Who knows -- they could do this activity AND move the plot.
  
• RANK AND POSITION WITHIN SOCIETY. Believe it or not, doctors were not always as respected as they are today. In the 1700s, for instance, many 'doctors' (or physicians, as they were then called, were quacks and the real medical know-how came from men called barber surgeons. Find out who's who, and why.
• FORMS OF SPEECH AND DEPORTMENT. Somehow I can't see Mr. Darcy greeting Charles Bingley in a ballroom with a hearty "Yo, Whaddup, dawg?" and pounding it like some young men would do today. It's just not done, to use the Wharton phrase. People today do not talk the way people did hundreds of years ago -- you need to remember this and implement it. If you use a phrase with your friends, chances are you DON'T want to use it with your characters. If you have trouble with this, go to the original source. Maybe you don't know how people talked during the Civil War, but I'm certain Mr. Mark Twain does.
• POLITICAL STRUCTURES. It makes a big difference in a story if there's a monarchy or a democracy or a communist Soviet in place. Find out who was ruling who (and how they were doing at it) before you begin writing.
  
• CURRENT EVENTS. Nothing warms my heart more than to see small and often stupid references to things that would have been going on in the world at the time. If you're character is in a bar during the 1910s, how's the war going? (Props if you asked yourself which one.) Have we whooped the Kaiser yet? How are the Bolshies doing? Have those darned Irish stopped making a fuss about independence already? (Those were the three conflicts I can think of from 1910-1920, anyway.) If it's set in the 1830s, are your characters discussing how wrong they think it is that a woman (Victoria) is in line for the throne and will probably get it? Things like this really set the scene for the rest of what's happening, and they set the tone of your characters actions.

Finally, and very importantly, that Elephant in the Room,

• GENDER ROLES. We live in a very different world from the heroines of Charlotte Bronte, Edith Wharton, even Sylvia Plath, and unfortunately, women have not always been able to run around in combat zones (they're still not really, actually) and run businesses and represent people in Congress. Additionally, men were once upon a time very concerned with how they dressed and being 'fashionable' and caring about exactly how you looked was not always considered 'gay' as it sometimes seems to be labeled nowadays. Find out how people were expected to behave. Were women allowed to read at this point in history? Were men allowed to date a girl without asking her dad first?
  

Hopefully this list has given you some ideas to think about, perhaps not for a first copy of a story, but maybe for a revision or editing of a previously published work. This is what separates the published authors from the unpublished ones. It's called Research, and it is hard work.