Resist the rabbit hole: writing convincing historical fiction without a time machine
In my 20+ years as an editor, one of my greatest joys has been working with authors who write historical fiction. For one thing, when I work alongside historical novelists, I get to learn all about the places, people, and events of another era.
Moments from the past come alive through characters, dialogue, and descriptive detail. Often, I also learn about a lesser-known or hidden history, as was the case with Rhys Bowen’s The Rose Arbor, which featured the sad fate of a Dorset village that was used for military training during World War II, or Caroline Laurent’s An Impossible Return (winner of the Prix Maison de la Presse), a haunting novel about how the inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean were driven from their island home.
I’ve also realized in my work that as much as history can fascinate an author, to the point they decide to dedicate months or years to exploring it in a story, writing a novel-length work of historical fiction has plenty of frustrations, too. After all, without a time machine, how can you really know if you’re getting it right?
How much research is enough, and how can you keep moving forward when you feel like there’s so much you still don’t know? What happens when there are gaps in the historical record, or when you want to create a page-turner but the true timeline of events is painfully slow?
Whether you’re just dipping your toes into a topic or you’ve already got a draft, here are a few tips for writing convincing historical fiction without getting lost down a research rabbit hole…
1. Don’t let what you don’t know stop you
For many authors, inspiration for a historical novel strikes when they first visit the place that will become their setting, or when they learn of a little-known fact that sparks a surge of curiosity. How can the world not know about this absolutely astonishing series of events? They nobly take up the charge of adapting it into a story, only to realize just how much they must learn to depict another time and place authentically.
It’s an overwhelming feeling, and it can arise again and again over the course of drafting an historical novel – not just at the outset. And while yes, you need to do your research, you’ll also need to make progress even when you don’t know everything. (Spoiler alert: You’ll never know everything!) This means managing your writing process with some semblance of a system.
For Emily Matchar, author of In the Shadow of the Greenbrier and The Lost Girl of Craven County, this meant deciding to draft 500 words six days a week and then researching and revising on the seventh. For Emily, modest goals (500 words is just two pages a day) and a simple system led to steady, consistent progress.
Beyond setting a realistic goal, to get to the end of a draft, you’re going to need to give yourself permission to do the best you can with what you know for now, and to fill in the gaps in your knowledge at a later point. It’s absolutely okay to write in your manuscript “More research needed here.” Keep going, and add detail later.
2. Stay organized
You already know you need to do your research, but you’ll also need to organize it. A tool like Scrivener might be helpful for keeping your discoveries gathered in one place, but you can also keep it simple with a folder on your desktop or in Google Drive. If you’re doing online research, a bookmark folder in your browser can help keep track of links to return to later.
Document your sources and make sure to note where you’ve found quotes and statistics so you don’t have to chase those down at a later date. If you’re working with primary sources in a library or archive, download a scanner app to photograph and upload key pages to your research folders.
Dedicate some space to images, maps, and other visual inspiration. Some authors create a physical vision board for this and put it up in their workspace, and others use online tools. Whatever tools you use, set aside some time each month to organize your materials, assess what resources you might still need, and keep chaos at bay.
3. Let the facts serve the fiction
Most historical authors run into a sticky problem at least once in their process: sometimes, the facts just don’t make for compelling fiction, and no amount of research will remedy that. Maybe an event that needs to feel important and urgent in the story actually unfolded at a snail’s pace over a series of years. Maybe the king’s key advisor was actually five different people. Perhaps a form of technology your protagonist needs is still a few years off.
Kelly Scarborough, an alum of the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and author of Butterfly Games (an IPPY Bronze Medal winner), did extensive research to write her novel (and even learned Swedish!). And yet, some of what she uncovered wasn’t well suited to a story that kept readers turning pages. That meant she had to find her own boundary between being true to the historical record and ensuring she told a great story.
Every historical novelist makes choices about when to stick to the facts and when to let drama lead the way. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but it’s normal to prioritize, at least to some extent, fictionalization over factual fidelity. After all, you’ve chosen to write a novel rather than a nonfiction account. An author’s note at the end of the book is a great place to let readers in on what’s fact and what’s fiction.
4. Class is NOT in session
While one of the things we love about historical fiction is its potential to open our eyes to other moments in time, readers are sensitive to being lectured, taught, or told about something the author has excavated in their research. This is especially true when details are unrelated to characters or key developments, or when it seems like they’re included primarily to demonstrate the extent of the author’s knowledge.
Exhaustive, pages-long catalogs of the various planes used in World War II, or the full text of a speech made by a famous historical figure, are likely to make the reader’s eyes glaze over. Maggie O’Farrell researched Shakespearean England exhaustively to write Hamnet, but she’s extremely selective about her details. She never lectures, and the result is a credible, cohesive story world.
Bottom line: Of all the research you do for your book, only a portion of it should appear in the actual manuscript.
5. Be at peace (well, try…) with not getting it all right
At the end of the day, even the most meticulous researchers are not going to ensure their novel is 100% accurate to the historical record, and that’s okay.
Keep learning, keep writing, and keep striving to tell a great story. Your readers will thank you!
Books mentioned in this post: The Rose Arbor by Rhys Bowen, An Impossible Return by Caroline Laurent, In the Shadow of the Greenbrier and The Lost Girl of Craven County by Emily Matchar, Butterfly Games by Kelly Scarborough, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.
Lindsey Alexander is a tutor on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. To find out more about the course, visit the web page or fill in this form and we’ll send the brochure straight to your inbox. Want to sense-check your story idea? Fancy meeting Lindsey one-to-one to see how working with her could help you? Book a twenty-minute mentoring session with her here. If you go on to study with us, we’ll credit the cost of the session back to you.