In part one, I wrote about why writers and readers are so enamored of historical fiction, balancing historical accuracy and telling a good story, and how authenticity is more important than listing dates and facts to highlight how much you researched. I wrote about some of my high school and college history teachers who made history more like a story than rote memorization of key dates.

In this installment, we’ll talk more about story, as in “start with a story not just a historical period.”

START WITH A STORY OR A CHARACTER OR A CONFLICT OR A QUESTION

Let’s say you want to write medieval murder mysteries, like the Brother Cadfael or Sister Fidelma series. The medieval period, however, extends from around 500 AD (Fall of Rome) to 1500 AD (Age of Discovery). That’s a thousand years of history with uncountable tumults and invasions, barbarians and Vikings. That’s a lot to try to deal with in a series, much less a single novel.

So, you look for a story, some interesting tidbit in that thousand years. The Brother Cadfael series deals with a former soldier and sailor now a Welsh Benedictine monk whose specialty is healing with herbs and plants and also solving murders. The novels, by Ellis Peters, take place between 1135 and 1145. What’s so interesting about the mid-12^th century in England?

War between rivals for the English throne, some 300 years before the War of the Roses. King Stephen, Henry I’s nephew, rushes to grab the throne after Henry’s death. Henry I’s only legitimate child, Maud, however, was designated by Henry as his heir. Being medieval, Stephen and Maud fight over the throne for nearly two decades.

Peters not only develops a specific character authentic for the period, Cadfael, with extensive backstory, she uses a violent time in English history as a setting. The question is, can he serve both his abbot and King Stephen without upsetting Empress Maud. In the series, you learn a lot about medieval herbalism, political upheaval, and an era in England known as The Anarchy. However, because of Peters’ writing and careful narrowing of a specific event as a backdrop, the books read more like a modern day CSI rather than a history lesson.

And this leads into the next challenge.

RESEARCH CAN’T OVERWHELM THE NARRATIVE

I’ve read some historical fiction where the author wants to validate their extensive research by info-dumping their research notes into the novel. My early historical espionage fiction did just that, but I recognized I’d be boring the reader, so I edited it down to only salient facts that advanced the plot.

And that’s hard, especially for me, having been trained as an historian, but I managed to cut about 300 pages from a rough draft of a novel.

Remember, the story is the novel. If a person wanted a history lesson, they’d read non-fiction. In fiction, you want to be able for the reader to feel as if they’re in that historical period. Long expository passages of the minutia of daily life can turn a reader off. Personally, I love that minutia, but that goes with being a history nerd.

I recently ordered two books from my local book store, one about the War of the Roses; the other a history of the Crusades. The proprietor asked if they were research for my next book. No, I said, it’s just history. For me, reading a straight-up history book is fun on a level different from fiction. It’s a plethora of facts versus a damned good story.

How can you keep from letting all that research overwhelm the story you’re trying to tell?

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE CONNECTS PAST AND PRESENT

In fiction, you’re writing about the human experience. It doesn’t matter which historical period you’re in, readers have to be able to relate to the story through the characters as well as the narrative. In other words, you have to connect the past with the present.

Let’s get back to Brother Cadfael. He’s an odd man to become a monk. He was a soldier and sailor during the major Crusades and spent a great deal of time in the Holy Land, where he picked up his knowledge of herbal healing. He obviously had seen much violence done in the name of God, and it altered him. He found his refuge in the Benedictine Order. Peters has connected the past to the present, though not specifically current conflicts in the Middle East. Her books were written in the 1980s and 1990s, when we were developing a better understanding of PTSD in veterans of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In other words, we see how being a monk helps Cadfael deal with the aftermath of his actions in war.

The political background in the Cadfael books we can also relate to in the present, though again only through inference by the reader. The last book in the series came out in 1999. The concept of Henry I declaring his daughter as his heir in the 12^th century is appealing to feminists.

The one constant in history is people, their lives, their struggles, their triumphs, their loves, and their losses. In other words, the human experience is universal. If you can portray that in your fiction, you’ve created a story people will want to read.

SUMMARY

So, to write successful historical fiction, you have to go beyond simply choosing a specific era. One that does interest you is a good start. After that, develop characters who are relatable no matter the time period in which they live. Conflict is always a part of fiction, and picking an interesting period in history can provide you with a ready-made plot. Be careful not to regurgitate your research; provide only the details that are pertinent to the story. And finally, make sure your story gives people of the present an appealing glimpse into the lives of people in the past—the human experience.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In Part 3, I’ll write about how to research to give your story authenticity and how to organize that research.