A Guide to Writing Historical Fiction

How to Start

After you make your outline, you have to start writing the book. This is the hardest part, believe me, years of research have nothing on actually starting and finishing a novel. Writing a historical fiction novel is even more difficult than an actual novel. I'm sorry, I know you wanted to hear how this is going to be a breeze and you'll be done in no time. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, writing historical fiction is tough and takes plenty of time and patience. If you're passionate enough about the subject and the story, then things will be easier. When you're passionate, you not only fall in love with the end result but also the process. 

Historical fiction requires plenty of research, but you don't have to wait to start. As you're researching you can begin your rough draft. Every good story goes through hundreds of rough drafts until it finally reaches the perfect final product. The very first draft of any piece of writing is going to be complete rubbish, but that's why you revise. 

Whenever I write a draft, I just write. I start with a general idea of what life was like in that era. General lingo, general politics, gender roles, family roles, day-to-day life, pretty much things you would know by reading a short summary of the decade. It's simple stuff, just enough to build a foundation for your rough draft. 

Once your finished with your rough draft, you can revise it and start adding the details. You can star describing the car types in more detail, or what they are for dinner. You can do more research and realize one thing you wrote was completely wrong and you have to change it. There's no shame in revising, actually it's better if you do. 

Long story short, you can write however crappy of a rough draft you like and make it better later. You can start with no basis of historical accuracies than the common knowledge of the era and start adding more details later. 

When you start with a rough draft like this, you can focus on the story. Often, I do this myself, we lose track of the story in our efforts to explain the history. Then, the book ends up more like a textbook than an actual story. By writing the story first, then adding the details later, you have a better flow of the story and keep to the point. Later, when you add the details, it becomes a real historical novel. 

Some of the building blocks to build your rough draft on:

1. Big events

2. Gender roles (depending on the characters and the time period)

3. Exactly what time your story is in (I.E. 1966-68)

4. Basic political knowledge (I.E. who was president, or who was Queen/King in England)

5. Was there a war? (There's always a war)

6. Age roles (Depending on your character. If your character is a teen in the 1960s, they're probably going to school, listening to music, and protesting instead of going to work and smoking a pipe)

7. That's it, there's your foundation. You can add details as you research. 

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Does anybody have any specific topic ideas? I've got a list of topics I want to cover but I'm always looking to expand them. Leave any suggestions in the comments.