Things I Have Learned When Writing Historical Fiction

A year or two back, I wrote ‘Seed Of A Lord’ for a Nanowrimo project.

It follows the growth of a young burgravine who escapes her aunt trying to murder her and joins a knight’s family as a lady-in-waiting in order to hide. She starts out shy and wary, and then the family befriends her. Disaster strikes when a relative of her father’s threatens the family’s home, and she finds the inner strength to save her dad, her new friends, and herself.

As you may have gathered from the description, my story was set in the high Middle Ages. 1240, on the Danube, to be exact. The process has taught me a few things.

It’s Harder Than It Looks

Historical fiction walks many fine lines. You have to create characters that belong in a world we no longer inhabit but are still relatable. The world has to make sense to the reader without detailed info dumps, and you have to stay with the historical facts while also giving your plot an arc.

There is also something about the human memory that has to be taken into account: it’s shoddy. We often read historical fiction and then file away things it relates as ‘fact,’ even when it’s demonstrably false. Then we forget where we read the ‘fact’ and repeat it. There are enough ‘facts’ derived from ‘Ivanhoe’ that people are confused about already. You wind up double-checking your facts to spare everyone that confusion.

You Don’t Know What You Need To Know

I think this was the most difficult aspect for me to swallow. I wanted to just start writing from what I remembered for 7th grade history class. Get me to the fun part already!

History classes by their natures do not cover what you need to know as a writer, however.

The summary of feudalism such classes teach are so general as to be useless, and they skip important aspects, such as the changing legal system and the advances in technology. Worse, the day-to-day details of what people ate, smelled, wore, touched, and saw get completely buried.

You can spend all day taking notes and get nowhere close to the truth. I don’t think I did the subject justice at all.

The Fun Part

I highly recommend picking up some old hobbies. There is a lot to be learned from making medieval gingerbread and chemises. It gives you an appreciation of what your characters are experiencing and makes your notes more personal.

I recommend writing historical fiction, despite the obstacles. For one thing, we can commiserate over our hard lives together. If you do try your hand at it, look up old recipes. Gingerbread for the win!