Setting the Stage for Historical YA

It can be tricky to grab a reader and plunge them into a different world, and even more so for historical, since it’s necessary to weave in facts. There are so many things to consider! How do you get the setting just right without overwhelming the reader with too many details? How to you make it feel realistic?

Major on the Majors First

Providing intricate details of the year, the culture, the current fads of your time but neglecting to mention that it is fall or summer until six pages in will disorient the reader.

The Filter You Give the Reader

Everything in opening chapters establishes reader expectations. Everything on the page affects how your reader filters the rest of the book. If there are repeated mentions of music, readers will expect the character to be interested in music. If there are repeated mentions of literature, then literature. If there’s a mishmash of details, then a reader won’t know what to think about this character and may give up before reaching the end of chapter one.

Over Setting the Stage

I’ve read books and noted ten unique historical markers in less than four pages, things in addition to the usual description. Once established in a time period, I’m there. The next descriptions should add something to the story and help move it forward.

Interesting Factoids

Don’t use every nugget of research that you have. While details can be fascinating, they can also be overwhelming, do the opposite of the author’s intention of immersing the reader. Worse, it can make a reader feel that you have insulted their intelligence. At the very least, excessive dropping of historical details can bog down a story. If the information isn’t vital for the current story, leave it out so it doesn’t crowd out what you’re trying to convey.

Under Researching

While it’s easy to want to use all the historical details when we don’t need them in our story, a lack of research can also be problematic. Readers want an immersive experience, to stay engaged in the character’s plight. Historical errors yank them out of a story. Authors would be wise to do enough research to provide an authentic backdrop for their story.

Clever or Trendy

The current trend of dropping in literary references to classic books can work, but if excessive could backfire. As with all description, the author should ask themselves: Why is this here and how does it fit into the overall story? Is this description for description sake? Is it repetitive, redundant, or unneeded?

Tone

After you’ve set the stage it’s time to add a bit of shading to add authenticity. Research the vocabulary and speech patterns of your story’s era by reading novels, stories, and even looking up vocabulary tools from the time period. Although some language may need to be modernized for today’s readers, they won’t want a girl from the 1800s to sound too modern. At the same time, if writing historical for teens, it needs to have a young adult vibe as well. (Easier said than done!)

Start with these tips, and you will have a good start in setting up your historical fiction.

What do you think? Do you have any tips to add for setting the stage for historical fiction? Leave a comment!

Donna Jo Stone is an award-winning multi-genre author. She writes contemporary young adult, historical fiction, and southern fiction. Many of her novels are about tough issues, but she always ends her stories on a note of hope. Finding the faith to carry on through hard battles in a common theme in Donna Jo’s books.

The first novel in Donna Jo’s young adult series, Promise Me Tomorrow, is scheduled for publication in 2025.

Her short romance, A Wedding to Remember, released Feb 1st, her adult 1960s inspy romance, JOANN: Apron Strings Books 5, released May 15^th, and her Small Town Christian Domestic Suspense with Romance, The Key Collector’s Promise, releases September 6^th .

Stephanie Daniels writes Christian historical fiction for young adults and the young at heart. Her debut novel, The Uncertainty of Fire, first appeared on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform where it spent a number of months as one of the 250 top favorite stories and as the top story under the Christian tag.

Follow Stephanie on Amazon and stay tuned for the continuation of a new story in The Uncertain Riches series on Vella, and for future stand-alone young adult historical fiction books in her series. https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0B73RD41H

Though she currently lives in Southwest Missouri, she spent most of her youth moving every few years. She feels privileged to have seen some of the world and believes it probably encouraged her lively imagination. When not writing, she is studying God’s Word, spending time with her very supportive husband, homeschooling her three boys, and watching clean period dramas. And reading. Lots and lots of reading.