Is Writing Historical Fiction a Good Fit for You?

I enjoy digging into the past, following bunny trails of history, and learning about cultures long interred and nearly forgotten. And then weaving a plausible story using the events and people of another time period.

It takes a lot of excavating (sometimes years) to discover enough buried remains of the past to write authentic prose, avoid historical mistakes, and gain the trust of your readers. Then you live with the fact that, inevitably, there will be mistakes. And what you create will be neither true nor false, but only a probability of what may or may not have happened.

 You can’t depend on what you think you already know.

I write Biblical historical and my first novel is set in Ancient Egypt during the Abrahamic era. I started writing with my own memory of events (from Sunday School) having a large influence over my story and discovered several mistakes early.

• Abraham and Sarah were called Abram and Sarai at this time.
• Pictures of Abraham riding a camel through the desert are historically inaccurate–the camel had not yet been domesticated.
• Although Pharaoh’s army pursued Moses into the Red Sea on chariots, during Abraham’s day, the ancient Egyptians had no such vehicle.

Wear the hat of an investigative reporter.

I took a step back and spent nearly the next five years exploring the Middle Bronze Age, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Mesopotamia. And I realized I had to find research material beyond the internet because (surprise) it had a lot of false and flawed information.

Going “old school” and visiting libraries or buying and borrowing reference books often provide my most reliable resources.

I recently wrote a heart-wrenching chapter about the death of a beloved man named Mamre. Going back through my research, I realized I killed the poor fellow off too soon. I put him in an early grave before (according to history) he went to war and became a hero.

My WIP is from Genesis, so any student of the Bible would have caught my mistake and lost confidence in me as a writer. I was glad I took the time to fact-check.

You dig up a lot of gold nuggets, but only cash a few in.

One of the most difficult things to do when writing historical fiction is to not use all of your research. You spend countless hours exploring a specific time period, and you want to share all of that information, but most of it should never make its way into your novel.

The work you do is to give yourself a sense of time and space. Take your reader on an adventure in another age, but do so without overwriting. You have to know what to leave in and what to leave out. Remember that you are writing a novel–not an encyclopedia.

Questions to ask yourself if you are wondering if historical fiction is for you:

 Does reading about the past interest you?

• Does the prospect of a long process sound worthwhile to you?
• Are you willing to find research material beyond the internet?
• After all your hard work, are you willing to let most of it go?
• Do you see yourself reimagining history?
• Can you visualize combining past events or people with fiction?

If you answered yes to all of the above–good news–this genre is for you!

KD Holmberg is an author, blogger, and freelance writer. She is a member of ACFW, Word Weavers International, and a founding member of the Jerry Jenkins Writers Guild. She is represented by Hartline Literary Agency. A retired flight attendant, she has traveled and lived all over the globe. She and her husband, Keith, love to golf and live in South Carolina. You can find more about her: Facebook @authorkdholmberg, twitter @kdeniseholmberg, and kdeniseholmberg.blogspot.com