Writing Historical Fiction discussion

I thought I would start a new discussion topic re: what books have been helpful in writing, and learning to write historical fiction. There are a few books that I have read that have been helpful.

Persia Woolley - Persia Woolley, who has written historical fiction re: King Arthur, wrote a book on writing historical fiction, How to Write & Sell Historical Fiction. It is a little dated, but has some good take aways. The one piece of advice I took right away was when she said to get a bookshelf. I took a look at all the books I had on my chosen time period, and realized she was completely correct. I started with just one, now I have two. One for the historical topic and one with my writing guides, dictionaries, thesuari, et al.

Discovering the Diamond by Helen Hollick. She has some good advise about writing fiction, the basics, plus info about the current market for selling fiction. She has written a lot historical fiction.

Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer's (and Editor's) Guide to Keeping Historical Fiction Free of Common Anachronisms, Errors, and Myths - This is a great source for advice on how to avoid the annoying anachronisms that creep into inadequately researched fiction. For example, there were no pumpkins, tomatoes or potatoes in Europe before 1493.

Anyone have any other reference sources for writing historical fiction?

The Persia Woolley book is great. Thanks for the Susanne Alleyn reference—I just bought that one.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist--the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England is a classic for information on the 19th century.

Ian Mortimer has one book I love: The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. There is also a sequel, The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England, which I assume is just as good, but I haven't read it yet.

Great stuff both of you. I'll being checking them out.

C.P. wrote: "The Persia Woolley book is great. Thanks for the Susanne Alleyn reference—I just bought that one.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist--the Facts of Daily Life ..."

I make use of the Elizabethan Guide, CP. Only problem I've found is it relates to her later reign when I'm more interested in the earlier part. An earlier 16th century guide would be good, but I suppose not much will have changed since Medieval times so perhaps I should try that one?

Marie wrote: "C.P. wrote: "The Persia Woolley book is great. Thanks for the Susanne Alleyn reference—I just bought that one.

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist--the Facts o..."

I have found it best to have several references available. Sometimes you have to combine a couple to come up with a plausible result.

Another writer gave me this link to a Stanford University website. It helps to determine travel times in ancient to medieval times in the European/ Mediterranean area. I had guessed that the travel between two locations in my book would take about 2 days, when this website said it was about 1/3 of a day. http://orbis.stanford.edu/

The 14th-century guide would be a good contrast, Marie. At least you'd see what changed and what hadn't, although the books may not be too specific about when it changed.

I just ordered the Elizabethan guide. It was out of print and horribly expensive for a while, but it's about to be released in the US this summer, and that may have driven prices down. It's about $10 plus $4 shipping on the Bookseller That Must Not Be Named ;) right now.

Middle-grade children's books are also wonderful; they assume no prior knowledge and often have gorgeous illustrations. And for the military types, Osprey Books has slim volumes on just about every time, place, battle, and regiment that you can imagine. They vary in quality (and $15 for 48 pages of text is a bit steep), but I have some that show in full-color detail how to build a Russian fortress in the year 1200 (or 1500), how to dress as a Mongol warrior, how to raise a yurt, and all kinds of other good stuff.

C.P. wrote: "The 14th-century guide would be a good contrast, Marie. At least you'd see what changed and what hadn't, although the books may not be too specific about when it changed.

I just ordered the Elizab..."

I agree on the Osprey books of military history. They are a treasure trove of information on diverse periods. They are not inexpensive for the number of pages, but I've found them to be worth every penny.

Does anyone have any other reference resources - even if it is just on line? It could be period specific, or location specific. Penguin has some wonderful primary source material for writers covering the 11th century in Constantinople - The Alexiad of Anna Comnena and .

Anything else?

This isn't a writing aid or anything, but it could provide helpful info on diseases. .

It gives incredible descriptions and histories of various diseases that have struck mankind throughout history, including plague, cholera, yellow fever, and syphilis. I had never realized how important modern plumbing is to my health until I read that book!

What I've found most useful as a starting point is a technique I used as a teacher when trying to get children to develop an understanding of a period in the past. It works best if you do it "on location". What you do is methodically strip out the evidence of modern life, layer by layer: street lighting, petrol driven transport, watches, electric light, etc, etc. You can do this at a macro level or a micro level, say inside a room. You can take large steps and then very small steps where you get into territory such as: TVs had been invented but how many people actually had one?
I'm sure this technique is not original but I use it a lot when visiting places central to my stories.

Derek wrote: "What I've found most useful as a starting point is a technique I used as a teacher when trying to get children to develop an understanding of a period in the past. It works best if you do it "on lo..."

Good advice. Depending on how far back you go, you might have to strip quite a lot away!