First thing, we must be passionate about history. We must love the past to relate to contemporary situations. Only then, can we write a historical fiction novel with ease. Therefore, it is necessary to start reading and understanding non-fiction books to appreciate historical events, places, and people. We must have this desire; somehow, we have the time machine, which could transport our mind to the past.
“What’s the date?” Aaron asked.
It’s October, sir. The twenty-third of October 1964,” Aziz answered.
Aaron took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and searched his memories. ‘How in the world did I end up in North Borneo?”
Slowly his memory of circumstances returned to him. “I’m here in response to the threat by Sukarno, the President of Indonesia.”
Based on the Malaysian Agreement, which was signed last year in London, North Borneo and Sarawak, a British colony in Borneo, had opted to join Malaya and Singapore to form a new country called Malaysia. The people of these two Borneo states had exercised their choice for such a union. “The anti-Western nationalist Sukarno threatened to declare war if the idea of Malaysia was implemented, and he made good of his threat,” Aaron thought.”Now here I am, thousands of miles from England, to protect her former colonial empire and her new allies.”
Page 5 – THE EURASIANS
Introduction
Just imagine, being part of the vulgar crowds watching the gladiators battling in the coliseum. Or we could go back even further, to see whether Alexander the Great did untie the Gordian Knot. Or we could witness the significant events such as the American Revolution, the Second World War, or even be part of the audience seeing the Summer of Love hippies gathering at San Francisco.
The historical background we had already understood through reading about the past could then be integrated with everyday drama, which we see happening all the time, from our observations and from news and media we see. Most of the ordinary real-life happenings will most likely also occurred in the past. All this could be shaped into historical novels or play. Here, we could incorporate other genres, such as romance and thriller, to make our historical novel enjoyable.
However, we have to be careful about chronological inconsistency, especially about the object we described. We don’t want to see, in our story, Swiss Pikemen, fighting alongside Roman Legionnaires! Or US soldiers fighting at the Battle of the Bulge carrying M16 rifles! But you could do so if you want to be creative. Therefore, your historical novel or play could be considered Anachronism or Ahistorical.
Definition of Historical Novel
Historical novel or fiction is a literary genre in which the plot took place in a setting located in the past. Among the essential elements to make historical novel or fiction are the manners, social conditions, and other details of the depicted period that we had in mind.
Notable figures could be chosen for these settings, sometimes crossing parts with the main character, allowing readers to understand how individuals might respond to the environment. The most interesting about the historical novel is the sub-genre. Among them are alternate history, historical fantasy, speculative and ahistorical.
Alternate History
This sub-genre is about stories in which one or more historical events occurred differently. These stories usually contain “what if” scenarios other than those from the historical records. The earliest example of alternate history was by Livy, which depicted a scene where Alexander the Great did not die but instead engaged in a war with Rome.
Historical Fantasy
This sub-genre incorporated fantastic elements such as magic into a more realistic narrative. Stories of this sub-genre may have plot setting in biblical time or classical antiquity. A good example is a movie, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Can you imagine, Honest Abe hunting for vampires amid the American Civil War?
Ahistorical and Anachronism
An inaccurate historical narrative, due to ignorant or deliberate, or merely disregarding historical facts, can be turned into a historical fiction novel. We see many examples of stories in books or movies, depicting dinosaurs and prehistoric human beings living side by side. Dinosaurs disappeared from this earth millions of years ago, long before human ancestors existed.
A similar genre to ahistorical is an anachronism. Sometimes I am tempted to see both these sub-genres are the same. Anachronism is a chronological inconsistency of history, especially events, objects, and customs from different periods; most common is object misplaced in time. A good example is a movie, Walker, where the period is supposed to be in the 19th century Nicaragua. Yet some helicopters came to rescue the US colonists stuck in this country!
The Evergreen Historical Novel
According to Jean Menzies, among the best historical novel or fiction of all time are:
- A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
- The Emperor’s Babe by Bernadine Evaristo
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
- The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
- The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse.
Conclusion
I have to admit that creating a historical fiction novel is quite daunting, especially if we had to be conscious of putting the correct details. For example, let say we are writing about the Second World War. The main character is a captain who experienced battle in Normandy and Sicily. However, we can’t write he fought first at the beach of Omaha (Normandy landing), only then he was transferred to fight another battle in Sicily!
Even though the historical novel is fiction, readers expect us to get our facts right, especially those who are well versed in history. If we want to be creative, we could deliberately make the story historically inconsistent so that it would appear to be an anachronism. However, I doubt many readers will tolerate this sort of genre.
I hope this answers some of the questions, but I am looking forward to hearing some comments from you.
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