Krista's (Mostly Bookish) MusingsWhere you can get my two cents on this and that.
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...in which I overthink the genre historical fiction and what that means. Woohoo, this is my first (non-introductory) Musings post! I think this is actually the topic that made me decide to add a Musings section to my blog. The topic is...
Historical fiction. What do you think of when you hear that term? If someone says, "I like to read historical fiction," what type of book do you assume they're talking about? Let me just say right here, right now, that there might be librarians or reading enthusiasts or book pedants who read this post and find my lack of general genre fluency appalling. But that's fine. I'm just writing down my honest thought processes and enjoying the ride 😎 Back to the topic at hand. In my mind, historical fiction usually refers to book that meets these three criteria: it (1) is a work of fiction that (2) takes place in the historic past and (3) prominently features a true historical event at the forefront of the story. A Titanic retelling? Historical fiction, easy. A World War II novel? Hist fic, no doubt. A Pompeii re-imagining? Sure. But then I got thinking (or overthinking). What about the regency romances I read? The very first page usually states that it takes place during 1813 (or whatever) in London (or wherever). That's a historical setting. London is a real place. Is that historical fiction? Or is it just a fictional book that takes place in the past? I took to the bookstagram side of Instagram and asked people what they thought. I got some mixed responses, but one general conclusion was that a historical fiction novel does NOT need to highlight a real-life event (that statement is based on a quick poll I posted in my stories). That was interesting to me because I had this connotation in my head that historical fiction needed to feature a true historic event. The reason I was inclined to ponder this so deeply was actually for the sake of the Better Book Bureau. When I write book reviews, I tag them according to various categories so that site visitors can easily find book reviews they're interested in. I have a historical fiction tag, and I've struggled to know whether I should tag historic romances--which do meet the first 2 of my criteria above but not necessarily the third one--as historical fiction. To be honest, I haven't been consistent; some regency romances are tagged that way, and some aren't. It's not a perfect system any more than I am a perfect person. I have done a couple of quick Google searches, but I wasn't satisfied with what I felt were mixed results. (Of course, NOW my Google searches are yielding more consistent results, which happen to be pretty consistent with the criteria I came up with above.) According to that line of reasoning, historical romances would often not be classified as historical fiction. But here's the thing. I know that authors spend time, energy, and even money researching the periods their stories are set in--whether or not they prominently feature a major historical event, such as a war, election, civil rights movement, or catastrophe. So here's a new conclusion I have drawn: The best question to ask is not necessarily "Is this a historical fiction," but "Is the history in this work of fiction more overt or more subtle?" It's easy to look at a book like Under the Java Moon or A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice and confidently label them as historical fiction (both 5-star books for me, by the way); the history is right up in your face for the whole story. But history can still be found in stories like As You Are, a regency romance, and Protecting Her Heart, a Victorian romance (I also rated these 5 stars); the history is just more subtle. It's in the details. It's in the conversational mentions of current events. It's in the type of gloves characters are wearing. It's in the type of food they're eating at dinner, and the calling cards they're leaving, and the societal classes they're living in, and a hundred other tiny details. Do you know something? I started writing a regency romance, but I wanted it to be as historically accurate as possible. I was astounded--not to mention a bit discouraged--at how often I had to turn to the internet for answers about the smallest details--details that I gloss over and take for granted in the published regency romances I read. I repeat: The history is there. So what's my ultimate conclusion? It probably doesn't matter too much. Like I said, my book-review-tagging system is not a perfect one, and I'm not going to make everyone happy no matter what. For now, I've still been tagging those historical romances as historical fiction, but I will probably continue to be inconsistent. Okay, Krista, if you haven't really drawn a clear conclusion about what the term historical fiction means, what was the point of this blog post? Answer: I wanted to muse. And I suppose I wanted to play a little devil's advocate for the authors of fictional books that take place in the historical past but are not considered historical fiction by all. Just giving my two cents on this and that. Thanks for reading :) What are your two cents? Leave them in a comment below :)
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