30
Historical Fiction
Janet Fisher
Historical fiction, paradoxically, must be based on fact, which makes it different from
other fiction. Its task is more difficult because of that mixture; having said that, it must
be like other fiction by creating a world into which the reader can be drawn, a credible
world with characters he or she can relate to, the only difference being that that world is
in the past.
It is not enough to know the facts to write such a story; the difficulty is to place them
in the plot, so that the historical background is clear, the place is evident, and any
unfamiliar terms are self-explanatory. There is the great problem of the language the
characters speak; modern idioms cannot be used, neither can ‘gadzookery’; both can
easily destroy a carefully created atmosphere. Many writers overcome this by a
rearrangement of the words, which has the effect of making the prose sound authentic
without being incomprehensible; for example, Joan W.Blos in A Gathering of Days
(1979).
I Catherine Cabot Hall aged 13 years 6 months 29 days, of Meredith in the state of
New Hampshire, do begin this book. It was given to me yesterday, my father
returning from Boston Massachusetts, where he had gone ahead to obtain
provisions for the months ahead. My father’s name is Charles; Charles Hall; I am
daughter also of Hannah Cabot Hall, dead of a fever these four long years.
Blos 1979:5The field can be divided into two categories: those books which use real historical figures
and those whose characters are wholly imaginary. A device often used is to tell the story
of a real figure, for example, King Alfred, through the eyes of an imaginary one as in
C.W.Hodges’s The Namesake (1964). Other stories have glimpses of real figures, for
example Fairfax and Cromwell in Simon (1957), by Rosemary Sutcliff. In the early years
of the genre real figures appeared frequently, but increasingly as the emphasis has
moved from a political to social history, lives of ordinary, imaginary people have been
told.
Some writers, for example Cynthia Harnett, use a wealth of detail to make the story
live, others such as Gillian Avery use characterisation and leave an impression of a
period; a few, like Rosemary Sutcliff, paint so vivid a picture with words the reader can
inhabit the past. A sense of place is vital and it is notable that the great writers in this
genre have made a particular place their own: Rosemary Sutcliff—Hadrian’s Wall,