The 7 Pillars Of Historical Fiction

The 7 Pillars Of Historical Fiction

Are you a fan of historical fiction? Would you like to write a historical novel on your own? In this post, we define the 7 pillars of historical fiction to help you on your way.

This is part of a series exploring the pillars of literary genres. Previously, we have written about:

  1. The 3 Pillars Of Horror
  2. The 4 Pillars Of Fantasy
  3. The 4 Pillars Of Romance
  4. The 5 Pillars Of Family Sagas
  5. The 5 Pillars Of Thrillers
  6. The 4 Pillars Of Literary Fiction
  7. The 4 Pillars Of Science Fiction
  8. The 5 Pillars Of Police Procedurals
  9. The 4 Pillars Of New Adult Fiction
  10. The 4 Pillars Of A Memoir
  11. The 5 Pillars Of Action-Adventure
  12. The 4 Pillars Of Magic Realism
  13. The 6 Pillars Of Westerns
  14. The 4 Pillars Of Women’s Fiction
  15. The 7 Pillars Of Historical Fiction
  16. The 5 Pillars Of Speculative Fiction
  17. The 6 Pillars Of Young Adult Fiction

In this post, we will explore the seven pillars of historical fiction. (Click on pillars to find out what a pillar is.)

What Is Historical Fiction?

The Historical Novel Society defines the genre as describing events set at least 50 years in the past.  The author must write from research rather than personal experience. That excludes most autobiographical fiction.

According to Wikipedia, historical fiction is ‘a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events.’ This places this particular genre somewhat between a documentary and a completely fictional story.

This is exactly what creates its secret of success. Usually, readers of historical fiction are very interested in history. They could read a factual history book. They don’t because they love how historical fiction makes history come alive. Let’s look at how it’s done.

Some Great Examples Of Historical Fiction

  1. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  2. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  3. The Name Of The Rose by Umberto Eco
  4. War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  5. Waverley by Sir Walter Scott
  6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  7. The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimoore Cooper
  8. Eagles of the Empire series by Simon Scarrow
  9. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  10. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
  11. Wars of the Roses Series by Conn Iggulden
  12. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

The 7 Pillars of Historical Fiction 

Pillar #1 – Choose An Era

It is impossible to write about history as such. You must narrow it down. Choose an era that interests you personally, as you will spend a lot of time with it.

Consider that the market of historical fiction is vast. Some chapters of history have been covered extensively. You might want to avoid those, as it would make it harder for you to place your book on the market.

Once you’ve chosen your era, you can set to work.

Pillar #2 – Extensive Research

Readers of historical fiction already know a lot about history. They’ve watched all the documentaries. They’ve read all the books. As a writer, you need to compete with that knowledge!

Writers need to know more than the historical facts. You need to go to the library and delve into the archives. You need to visit historical sites. You need to become a historical detective. Here’s a post to help you with that research. Writers of historical fiction can easily spend years researching.

If you don’t do your homework properly, readers will find out. They will put your book away and never open it again. To avoid this, look at the next pillar.

Pillar #3 – Historical Accuracy

Historical accuracy is a must in this genre. But how do you achieve it? By treating the era you’ve chosen as the setting of your novel. This means you need to provide the reader with the correct details of everyday life. What clothes did people wear? What did they eat? What were some of the customs and social norms? Last, but not least: you need to know the language they would choose.

Here’s an example: Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes are set in the Victorian era. Let’s say I were to write a story about a fictional companion of Holmes. My detective couldn’t wear a baseball cap. That headgear is much too 20th-century. Men at the time wore a top hat, for example, or Holmes’s iconic deerstalker. How would they greet each other? Would they say, ‘What’s up?’ No, their greeting would be much more formal, like ‘Good Day.’ That’s the extent of historical accuracy.

[Top Tip: If you’re looking for help with setting, buy our Setting Up The Setting Workbook.]

Pillar #4 – Know Where To Take Creative Liberties

The main rule of historical fiction is that you need to stay within the historical framework provided by the facts. Known historical figures cannot act out of character.

When you do your research, note which questions about your chosen era have been answered extensively. Those are the topics that will get you in trouble when you bend the truth. So, when you write about the Tudor era, don’t question how many wives King Henry VIII had. We know. These are the major historical events that should take place off-stage.

Instead, look for questions that haven’t been asked yet. Those provide unique angles that grant you the leeway you want as an author. To stick with our example, ask if there had been a fictional duke in the Tudor era who had more wives than Henry VIII? Or: what did the priest think who married Henry to all his wives?

Pillar #5 – Strong Characters

Readers of historical fiction want history to come alive for them. The easiest way for authors to achieve this is to devise an exciting setting (see above) and a cast of strong characters.

Characters may include real historical figures. Usually, historical fiction weaves them into the background. Your main character should be fictional. Let this individual grant us first-hand experience of the period with all its struggles, confines, and joys.

Ellis Peters’ Cadfael series is a great example of this. These books show us Brother Cadfael, a medieval monk. He used to be a crusader and has travelled extensively. He solves crimes within the restricted possibilities of medieval science. In the Cadfael books, we also learn a lot about the everyday life of a monk in the Middle Ages!

Remember that action defines character. So, make sure you include enough plot to make your characters develop. Let us in on their inner thoughts by using more showing, rather than telling (here’s a blog to help you with ‘show, don’t tell’).

Pillar #6 – Sound Authentic

Finding the right tone for your historical novel will be a challenge. Your text needs to sound authentic, as if it had been written in your chosen period. The reader needs to believe your story really could have happened at the time.

Setting and diction help with that. Yet the writer of historical fiction needs to find the right tone. It needs to sound authentic, but it also needs to be modern enough to enable readers to understand the text. At best, the historical novelist is a translator between the past and the present, not just in subject matter, but also in language.

Let’s go back to the Brother Cadfael series. Cadfael, being a medieval monk, would have spoken in Middle English. That’s the language of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. How many people can read that in the original? Not too many. That’s why Ellis Peters created a character who is well-travelled. He’s been through a lot of hardship as a crusader. He would sound different from any typical speaker of Middle English anyway. That makes it easy to slip in the occasional modern phrase. On the whole, Cadfael speaks in modern English, yet in a formal register with an old-fashioned diction and syntax.

Here’s an example: In the book, The Leper of St. Giles, Cadfael talks about the crusades: ‘After the killing that was done in Jerusalem, of so many who held by the Prophet, I say they deserved better luck against us than they had.’

Cadfael’s complex syntax makes him sound Latinate, like any monk of the period should. So, the use of Latinate diction and syntax, and a few old-fashioned words, is enough to conjure up the illusion of medieval speech. He sounds authentic.

You can achieve this for your chosen era by reading extensively – not just fiction but also historical documents, newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines. Make sure you expose yourself to a wide variety of speech samples.

Pillar #7 – Universal Themes

Historical fiction addresses universal themes that resonate with readers across time. These themes may include love, identity, loss, suffering, power struggles, and social change.

In a sense, this is true for all great literature. Yet reading about these themes in historical fiction shows the readers how relevant they still are. Also, it’s often easier for readers to deal with difficult conflicts when they’re set in the past.

The Last Word

Historical fiction is a great genre. And it exists in so many subgenres! Blending historical fiction with romance, sci-fi, fantasy, or even time travel gives you more creative liberty.

  1. For example, the Netflix series ‘Travelers’ sends agents to travel back in time, altering historical events to prevent the apocalypse. Each episode lets them end up in a different time period. The whole series shows what happens when authors apply the question ‘What if?’ to history. By the way, this genre is called ‘alternate history.’
  2. Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series blends fantasy elements with time-travel and alternate history with historical fiction. This might sound like a wild mix, but I would definitely recommend reading it!

Further Reading

Susanne Bennett

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

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Posted on: 14th October 2025
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