Historical Fiction: Outside the Box

Hey Guys,

Today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite things in the world... *insert trumpet fanfare*

Historical fiction.

There's just something about the way I'm transported to another world that I love about historical fiction.

But for my writerly readers out there (ha! writerly readers. That's funny. :P) How the heck do you make it work? How do you make it new? I mean, there's only so many times we can hear a story of the colonists fighting for Independence before it gets old. (Unless you're me, I love that stuff.)

 Think outside of the box 

Okay, so this goes for all writing, but it is especially important with historical fiction. With historical fiction you are confined to a box, so to speak, you can't make too much up in terms of world building because it has to be, you know, historical.

So we rely on other ways to make our readers gasp. Maybe we go from the other angle, tell the story about Hitler's niece who was in love with a Jewish merchant... (That's a good idea by the way, I should write a story on that) No one's expecting that because Hitler isn't a 'good guy' Historical fiction is very one sided, we tell the story of the Patriots of the revolution, the allies of WWII, the pioneers from the wild west.

But what about the other side of it? What about the loyalists who were persecuted? What about the people who were fighting with the Axis Powers? Or the Indians who were just fighting for their homes?

Guys, it might take a little bit of research, but those sides can make great stories. Just writing this blog post my writing brain is itching to delve into these ideas. They're new, fresh, and exciting.

Or what about a character you wouldn't expect. Instead of telling the story from the soldier's sweetheart's prospective  (This can be done well, but it's pretty cookie cutter) tell the story from his father's, grandmother's or dog's perspective.

I've never read a war story from the POV of a dog... have you?

But, typically, at least I go for what's easy. My unfinished manuscripts are full of cookie cutter historical fiction, Trying to write original historical fiction is hard! It's hard to convince ourselves people will like this, or they aren't bad guys.

Maybe people need outside of the box historical fiction, after all, not all the bad guys are 'bad guys' and a story like that will show us that.

Thinking outside of the box is critical to writing. We can't be Jane Austen, JK. Rowling, or James Patterson, but we can be us. So our stories need to be ours too, even if they are historical fiction.

What about you? How have you spiced up your historical fiction?

-Libby

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" John 1:1