How to Time Travel: Balancing History and Narrative in Historical Fiction
When I was in seventh grade my mom handed me my first copy of Jane Eyre. I’d been obsessed with books since I could read and would devour anything with pages, words, mystery, and a dash of romance.
(The Secret of the 25 Chapters in Nancy Drew Books.)
Jane Eyre was different, though. The language was denser and the plot darker than the Nancy Drew hijinks I’d sprint through in one sitting. I had to slow down and savor the 1847 tale of a resilient orphan who grew into a heroine I looked up to. I’ll never forget how my seventh grade language arts teacher took the book from my hands as I was reading it, opened it to a random page, and made me read in front of the room, trying to prove I wasn’t really reading the classic book. She handed it back to me after I proved I could decipher the flowery, Victorian language, with a warning: I was going to get bored.
I didn’t.
But it wasn’t the big words that held me spellbound by Jane’s tale—it was the story. Never before in my life did I consider that people who lived over a hundred years before I was born could have rich, realistic, and emotionally complicated lives. The damage was done—I was hooked on the magic of book time travel.
Now, as an author, I get to dabble in the bookish arts daily and I’ve found writing is a lot like bodysnatching. I spend a good chunk of my day living inside someone else’s head and body. That often means I’m spending my days in an unfamiliar place and era. Jane Eyre is a contemporary narrative from its own time period and my first few novels were about writing within the context of my own modern timeline.
So, as I transitioned into a historical fiction perspective, I had to learn how to take what I knew about setting, character, and story and apply it to a time period I was less familiar with.
Setting
A vivid and relatable setting for any work of fiction is critical. One of the greatest compliments I’ve received as an author is when a native from a town or country I’ve written about tells me that they felt like they were home as they read my words. For my modern settings I often visit the town I’m writing about, use Google Maps to travel the streets I describe in each scene, search up unique aspects of food, clothing, or language, and talk to locals to make sure I get it right.
Historical fiction settings can be a touch trickier. To properly tell a tale anchored in a specific time period it’s important to establish a foundation of historical reality for the story. Any flaw in the established time period can pull the reader out of the moment, which, even if brief can cancel out the magic of the agreed-upon displaced reality.
Usually, I start by immersing myself in a time period by watching documentaries, and films from the era if available, reading both fiction and nonfiction books, or researching specific topics unique to the time in order to provide a basic understanding of the setting. This includes but is not limited to: technology, language/slang, brands, clothing, dates, customs, real locations, rules, make-up, popular names, etc.
Along with help from beta readers, critique partners, and editors, I continue to fact-check and add layers of specificity to ensure the authenticity of the surroundings to the best of my ability as I draft, revise, and edit, with a willingness to make changes that bring further accuracy to the storyline.
Check out Emily Bleeker’s When We Were Enemies here:
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Character
The changes that happen to a character depending on historical context are also important to explore. Value systems, gender roles, and social norms have shifted over time and need to be properly researched and represented.
Even if the character is outside those norms or has a more modern moral compass, it’s important to acknowledge the ways in which he or she strays from that societal expectation. If the character doesn’t comply with these societal expectations (which, let’s be honest, the most interesting characters won’t) it’s important to have some representation of how someone more traditional in the time period would look at the unusual outlook the character represents.
For example, in the bestselling series Outlander, when the main character Claire is a skilled healer far beyond the scientific or social boundaries of the 1700s, it makes her stand out and even leads to her being tried as a witch. There is nothing that takes me as a reader out of a storyline faster than a modern-minded character being plopped into a timeline that just accepts the fish-out-of-water individual.
Story
Of course, one of the most exciting aspects of writing historical fiction is having access to stories that are wholly outside of our modern experience. My most recent novel is about an Italian POW camp in the US during WWII, the daughter of Italian immigrants who works as an interpreter there, and an Italian priest who is a prisoner.
This story could not be told outside a 1943 context and there was a plethora of specific layers that needed to be researched relentlessly. I loved the intricacies of that narrative and the questions I had to ask myself as a writer and then present to readers. It’s time travel, plain and simple.
In order to find the right story for a historical fiction novel, it takes a lot of curiosity. Every location, time period, and culture have stories that are waiting to be told. Often, I find mine in my family history, but I also try to face the world with a sense of exploration—Take a walk through a museum, stroll through the historic part of your town, talk to older family members, look through an antique store, visit a place you’ve never been before, read a book from an unfamiliar time period and then read another. You’ll find your story—in fact if you’re anything like me—you’ll find too many stories.
Don’t forget…
As a writer of historical fiction, it’s important to remember that despite the notable differences between present-day and any historical timelines, it’s the universals keeping a reader spellbound. The inner story of Vivian Snow, learning to come out of her shell after being in a home with a controlling father and mentally ill mother, is one that could be told in any era. The emotions of love, loss, greed, anxiety, longing, pride, desire and so many more, are core human feelings that are the same today and in the 1840s. Other themes that tie readers to a story because of its universal nature are family, a sense of ethics and humanism, the process of changing or evolving from one mindset to another, survival, tenacity, and empathy.
George R.R. Martin, author of the well-loved Game of Thrones series, said “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” I think this goes for writers as well.
Writing historical fiction has allowed me to experience lives and times incredibly different than my own. I’ve come to treasure research and travel as tools to grow my knowledge and empathy. But I think my favorite part of this magic we call creative writing is understanding that whether in 2024, 1924, or 1424—there are universal experiences that bind us together as humans, despite our differences.
So, thank you Mom for handing me the longest book you owned so I’d stop asking for new books every day. Little did you know that one act could change me so profoundly. And, to my misguided Language Arts teacher, I’ll quote Jane Eyre, “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” Time travel isn’t for everyone, I guess.