Episode 184: Historical fiction part 1

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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re talking about books that fall under the umbrella of historical fiction.

Using several different sources, we loosely define historical fiction as stories that are set in the past in a real place during a culturally recognizable time. It conforms to the norms of the day and the setting is integral to the story.

Towards the beginning of our conversation we unpack some of the wide-ranging historical fiction subgenres along with examples, included are:

Biographical Historical Fiction - Ex. Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough
Historical Series and Epics - Ex. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
Historical Mysteries and Thrillers - Ex. A Study In Scarlet Women (The Lady Sherlock Series) by Sherry Thomas
Historical Romance - Ex. Bridgerton: The Duke and I (Bridgertons Book 1) by Julia Quinn -
Historical Adventures - Ex. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Historical Fantasy - Ex. Kindred by Octavia Butler

We also dive into several other aspects of these types of stories, such as:

Avoiding anachronisms or the reader feeling that something is off or out of place by accurately representing the manners, traditions, culture, rules, attitudes, speech, fashion, and other details (such as technology and food) of the timeframe and setting.
Using the knowledge and norms of the present to contrast with the past or to create dramatic irony and tension
The difference between “Based on” and “Inspired by”, the necessity of taking creative license, and a case study of an attempt to discredit the film “The Woman King” based on an arbitrary and ill defined bar of historical accuracy
That these stories may open our eyes to history, but the purpose is not to teach us history. We feel their actual purpose is to teach us some truth about the human experience.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

In this episode, we touch on the following previous podcast episodes:

Here are a few articles and videos we referenced for this conversation: