Category Archives: Research and Writing
By Melissa L.
If someone asked you to define “historical fiction,” you would probably say that it’s fiction set sometime in the past. And if you gave that answer, you would be fundamentally correct. But historical fiction isn’t just historical fiction anymore. More and more, it’s being crossed with other genres to produce books that toe the line between historical and something else.
Historical romances. Historical mysteries. Historical fantasy. These are all examples of the types of books I like to call “historical hybrids”: books that can be called historical fiction, since they do have a historical setting, but are also strongly tied to another genre. In the YA market, these books often seem to sell better than straight historical fiction because they can appeal to a wider audience. Many teens, who otherwise find history boring, will pick up a book that’s fundamentally a romance.
The question with such books, though, is the extent to which they can actually be called historical fiction. For example, many historical fantasy novels are meticulously researched, and their authors certainly deserve credit for including as much historical accuracy as possible—but they’re still fantasy. Part of the point of historical fiction is that the events described in it could have happened, and we all know that people didn’t really work magic in historical times. Is there any way you can ascribe the label “historical fiction” to such a novel? Or is it solely fantasy?
Discussion:
What do you think about the so-called historical hybrids? Can you call them historical fiction, or do they really belong more to their other genres?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
If you write historical fiction, the chances are excellent that you also like to read it. I’m sure many of you will agree that losing yourself in a nice thick historical novel is a fantastic way to spend a day. But reading historical fiction can serve another purpose besides entertainment. In fact, you might even be able to consider it a form of research.
The next time you read a historical novel, ponder these two important questions: What do you love, love, love about this book? What do you hate? You can highlight passages you feel strongly about, make notes to yourself in the margins, or just think about the answers. Doing this can help you to figure out what to do – or not do – when writing your own novel.
If you’re frustrated with the way an author uses dialogue to create an “info dump” of historical facts, your readers are probably not going to appreciate it if you do the same thing. On the other hand, if you love the way an author uses specific details to create a believable setting, it’s time to see where you can add a little more detail in your own work.
Discussion:
What books do you really love (or hate)? What have you learned from them to be used in your own writing?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
One of the first books about writing historical fiction that I ever read described setting as “another character in a historical fiction novel.” I can’t completely agree with this analogy—in my opinion, “character” should really refer to a person—but it made me think about the huge role that setting plays in historical fiction.
As I’ve discussed several times before, historical fiction should, above all else, tell a compelling story. But the point of historical fiction is that the story grows out of the time and place. You may choose to use specific historical events as the basis for your plots and characters, or you may simply write a book that’s set in a given point in history, but either way, there should be a clear reason for the book to be set when and where it is. Otherwise, I would argue that you aren’t really writing historical fiction—you’re writing a middle grade or young adult novel that just so happens to be set in the past. (And honestly, if a historical setting isn’t a vital part of your story, is there any reason not to set it in the modern day?)
In most cases, a setting doesn’t drive your plot in quite the same way that your characters do. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t every bit as vital as strong characters. A strong setting gives historical fiction a strong base—a base that distinguishes it from other kinds of books.
Discussion:
How important is setting in historical fiction? Can it accurately be called “another character”?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Kelly O’Connor McNees
Louisa May Alcott was a remarkable woman who lived a full and unusual life. When I first decided to write a novel about her, I wanted to include everything I had learned in my research. Alas, the novel had other plans.
Ultimately, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott became a story of Louisa in the summer of 1855, when she was just 22 and on the precipice of her career as a writer. But this is just one of the many stories I could have written about her. Here are some other fascinating episodes in her life that seem to cry out for exploration in fiction:
–In 1843, when Louisa was ten years old, her father Bronson moved the family, along with a few like-minded philosophers, to a 90-acre farm called Fruitlands. The group planned to renounce commerce, eating meat and dairy products, taking warm baths, wearing wool or cotton clothing, and using animals to work the land. They lasted until January of the New England winter.
–In 1862, Louisa answered Dorothea Dix’s call for nurses to care for the thousands of wounded soldiers streaming in to the nation’s capital. For three weeks, she fed and bathed patients, changed bandages and linens, and then developed typhoid fever.
–In 1879, Louisa’s youngest sister May gave birth to a daughter and died a few weeks later. The following year, little Lulu came to Concord. Louisa, at age 47, became a mother after all.
Kelly O’Connor McNees lives in Chicago. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott
is her first novel. To read more about the author and the book, click here
IMAGE: Famous daguerreotype of a young Louisa May Alcott
Congratulations to the following W & M readers and winners of this title:
Molly, Margay, and Cheryl
We’ll be in touch real soon!
By Melissa L.
The amount of information about writing historical fiction that you can find on the Internet never ceases to amaze me. While I was playing around one day, I discovered this interesting quiz about historical fiction for children. It was actually designed as part of a children’s literature course for teachers, but writers will benefit from knowing this information, too.
There’s one aspect of this quiz that I found particularly interesting. (Warning—I’m basically going to give away an answer or two here, so you may want to try the quiz before you read the rest of this post.) The curriculum this quiz is taken from is intended to show teachers how to use historical fiction in the classroom—namely, to supplement their history curriculums. I’ve always been under the impression that teachers who choose to use historical titles in this way are more concerned about the historical aspects of the books than anything else. But this quiz emphasizes that the story overrides the history—something that I, as a writer, find incredibly refreshing.
Of course it’s important to write a book that’s true to the time period, but in the end, it’s the story that’s the heart of the matter.
How well did you do on this quiz? Do you think it does a good job of covering the basics of historical fiction? And if not, what other basic ideas would you choose to add?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
Like nearly everything else in life, it seems that writing historical fiction comes with its own set of rules. While browsing the Internet, I discovered an article entitled “Seven Rules for Writing Historical Fiction,” by Elizabeth Crook, the author of three historical novels. Crook’s article is intended for authors of historical fiction in general, but I found some of her rules especially applicable to writing for children.
At first glance, Crook’s first two rules—“Sweat the Small Stuff” and “Cut the Ballast”—seem to contradict one another. In reality, though, both are vital to a good novel for young readers. As a historical fiction author, you need to know virtually everything about your time period in order to write accurately; after all, you don’t want to give your readers a false impression of history. At the same time, though, all of the details you learn don’t have to make their way into your book. Kids have notoriously short attention spans, and if you bog them down with information they don’t want or need to know, they’re likely to put the book down.
The idea of including only necessary details echoes in Crook’s sixth rule, “Don’t Get Bogged Down by Back-story.” You need to know the entire back-story, of course, but your readers only need it to a certain extent. Kids in particular like their books to open at a fast pace. If you devote your first chapter entirely to the back-story, you’ll quickly bore and lose your readers.
What do you think about Crook’s set of rules? Are there any other rules you would say are important in historical fiction for kids?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
Most children’s book authors are familiar with the Newbery Award, which is, as I’ve written in another post, very friendly to historical fiction. But there’s another award in children’s literature that is less well-known but definitely more interesting to historical writers. The Scott O’Dell Award, named for the author of the Newbery-winning Island of the Blue Dolphins, is given annually to the best work of historical fiction for children. And in addition to its specific focus, there are several things that make this award unique.
First of all, an author actually has to apply in order to win the Scott O’Dell Award. This may not seem that unusual, but consider all the other major awards given out in the children’s publishing world. A committee selects the winners from all of the eligible books published in a given year; authors don’t need to do anything for their work to be considered. This submission requirement may be part of why the award isn’t very well-known: since authors have to submit their books, the pool of eligible titles is presumably a lot smaller.
Second, the Scott O’Dell Award comes with a cash prize—the only award in children’s literature (at least to my knowledge) that does so. It’s true that winning any major award will help boost sales, but if you win this one, you’ll also receive a check for $5000. While I don’t know the exact rationale behind the cash prize, I’ll say that it’s definitely another incentive for you to submit your book for the award if it’s eligible.
Are you familiar with the Scott O’Dell Award? What do you think about these features that make it unique?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
Since my historical fiction is set mostly in non-English speaking places, I’m not especially concerned about when particular words entered the English language. But when I attended a historical fiction conference recently, one of the presenters shared a link to an etymology site, and I must admit: I am now obsessed.
The Online Etymology Dictionary (www.etymonline.com) can tell you when any word, prefix, or suffix was first used in English—and includes a fair number of phrases and expressions, too. This obviously comes in handy if you’re setting your novel in a specific year and are unsure about a particular word. It can be surprising to see when words first appear: I would have thought that “bomb” was fairly modern, but its use actually dates back to the 1580s. Similarly, I always believed that “D-day” was first used to refer to the operations at Normandy during World War II, but it actually came into use in 1918.
The Online Etymology Dictionary does offer the disclaimer that its dates may not be entirely accurate, “since a word may have been used in conversation for hundreds of years before it turns up in a manuscript that has had the good fortune to survive the centuries.” I also believe that a word’s appearance in one manuscript at a given time doesn’t necessarily mean it was in common use. Still, if your novel is set in 1776 and a particular word wasn’t in use until 1976, you need a substitute. Resources like this one can make your novel stronger by pinpointing such anachronisms.
(And by the way: If I were writing this in the 19th century, I wouldn’t have used the word “pinpoint.” It was originally aviator’s slang, and it isn’t attested until 1917.)
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
Over the past twenty years or so, history and historical fiction books have been used more and more as part of the school curriculum. In many of the books I’ve reviewed lately, I’ve noticed an abundance of features that are clearly intended to make the titles classroom-friendly. Bibliographies or “further reading” sections give teachers resources they can use to build an entire unit around a historical event. Glossaries define unfamiliar terms. And author’s notes provide additional information about a topic and, in the case of historical fiction, help to explain what parts of the book have been fictionalized.
Of course, there are definitely some budding history buffs who read historical books outside of school, and these resources can also help them to sink their teeth into a topic. But overall, it seems to me that features like this are designed to make it easier for teachers to use books in the classroom. Being unpublished myself, I don’t know whether authors write glossaries and author’s notes early in the process and submit them with the manuscript or if the publisher suggests them later, but all of these things are definitely something to consider as you write.
So have you noticed any particular features in historical titles that seem engineered for use in the classroom? What do you think about them?
And if you’re a published author who has experience with glossaries, bibliographies, and the like, I’d love your input on when they become a part of the book!
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
By Melissa L.
While many areas are underrepresented in historical fiction, there are also some that are way overrepresented. That’s not to say that books about these topics don’t need to be on the market, but they take up an incredibly large share.
In historical fiction about the United States, the overrepresented areas can be expressed in one word: wars. The American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II are all extremely popular topics (though World War I isn’t as prominent). I suspect that wars are covered so often in children’s fiction because they’re a great chance to write action scenes, particularly if your novel takes place on the battlefield. This tactic can help to draw reluctant readers, especially boys.
In the rest of the world, it’s harder to say what areas are overrepresented since there’s a much wider variety of titles. Wars tend to be covered pretty well in world history too, with the French Revolution and World War II (especially the Holocaust) being popular topics. And there’s an abundance of fiction about Western Europe during virtually every time period.
It’s certainly not impossible to write and sell a novel about one of these topics, but you’ll definitely need a fresh angle. A title we recently featured at Wonders & Marvels, The Sniper, is a good example. While it’s a World War II story, it approaches the war from an unusual perspective: a Russian teenager recruited as a sniper.
So what areas are overrepresented in historical fiction for children?
How do you make such topics fresh? And what makes wars so popular?
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
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