:

Iszi Lawrence knows a thing or two about historical fiction and she reckons history is a great place to build a story from – so much is already there!  With the whole of time to call upon, the options are kind of endless and that seems pretty exciting.

Iszi has kindly shared what she loves about writing historical fiction and why it might be a great place to start if writing involves a lot of staring at a blank page…

~

I tell kids when they are asked by a grown up to write something to cheat. Cheating works brilliantly unless you are caught. However sometimes not only can you get away with cheating but you can actually be praised for it. Writing historical fiction is cheating. You don’t need to make up dramatic landscapes, extravagant spaceships, ludicrous dishes or elaborate costumes. You aren’t required to conjure up interesting characters facing unknown dilemmas. You don’t even need to think of a dramatic event your story can hang off. It is cheating. This is why I chose to write it.

Nothing is worse than a blank page. However the common fear of writer’s block is unknown by historical fiction authors. If you are stuck, there are countless museums, experts, books, documentaries and papers to inspire you. You can walk the streets of your own novel, read what your characters are reported to have said and try to work out why that matters in your story.

I try to get as much reality into my stories as possible. When Alex and Sunil in The Time Machine Next Door go to the past, I don’t go making up where Charles Darwin lived or imagine the type of overcoats Cartamandua’s tribe are wearing. I use the real ones. In Blackbeard’s Treasure, not only are the pirates real, the majority of the boats are, and they are exactly where they were in history (at least according to The Boston Newsletter and other sources).

The key to any book is coming up with an exciting story and working out how to make it matter to the reader. The trouble is, people think History is boring.

And it often is because it is presented as dry facts and it is full of words like ‘likely’, ‘probably’ and ‘our best estimate’. By giving history a story that people can relate to you open up the empathy circuits in your brain. It places you in the centre of the action. For example in City of Spies, if you thought you’d found one of George Washington’s spies in New York and everyone’s lives were at stake, how would you convince the grown ups to believe you? In The Cursed Tomb, you know that if you disobeyed the royal prince, your life would be in peril. However, entering a pyramid would also put your soul in peril. So, would you follow him down there?

By giving history a story that people can relate to you open up the empathy circuits in your brain. It places you in the centre of the action. For example in City of Spies, if you thought you’d found one of George Washington’s spies in New York and everyone’s lives were at stake, how would you convince the grown ups to believe you? In The Cursed Tomb, you know that if you disobeyed the royal prince, your life would be in peril. However, entering a pyramid would also put your soul in peril. So, would you follow him down there?

As I love to include as much reality as possible (even the weather is correct in The Unstoppable Letty Pegg) I find it hardest to write about periods of time where there isn’t much written history to go off of. Strangely it was in some ways easier to write about 1249 BCE in The Cursed Tomb than it was to write about 1086 CE in my upcoming novel, The Domesday Cows. Strangely, I found much more information about Ancient Memphis than high medieval Chester. Working through the organisation of the temples and high priests is a lot simpler than working out who was fighting who for which bit of Wales at what time two thousand years later.

Part of why Ancient Egypt is so great to write is that even the most basic facts about them jump off the page. They believed you thought with your heart, not your brain? Every fact pops out as brilliant world building. Whereas so much of what we assume about high medieval England is just plain wrong. They didn’t have fireplaces… they didn’t eat carrots… they often weren’t allowed to hunt deer… they believed in Elves… Witch trials are early modern, not medieval.. It is hard to write a book where you have to explain that, yes, entire families share a bed, it seemed disgusting to have toilets inside buildings and all the posh people spoke French.

Ultimately there is no time period that puts me off. Alex and Sunil in The Time Machine Next Door have gone as far back as the late Jurassic (returning a pterosaur called Dave back home). Of course the pterosaur depicted as well as what they meet in the forest is all based on the latest science. However, I do prefer to slip into the minds of our real human ancestors, walking around seeing the world as they saw it, with no idea of what the future will hold.

Where do I go next? Wherever history points me towards!

~

Many thanks to Iszi for sharing her insight into writing historical fiction.  You can find lots of her books below and our Historical Fiction list here.