Principles of Strong Historical Fiction

R. Clifton Spargo / photo by Susannah Shive
Photo by Susannah Shive

What are the rules for what can and can’t be done with historical fiction? How much license can a writer take with the facts?

In the latest Glimmer Train bulletin, author R. Clifton Spargo offers a few “rules” for historical fiction writers, including:

There’s no reason to abide by the scripts of biographies and histories. Why not take your characters off the grid? Almost anything can happen once Scott and Zelda tour a derelict bullfighting ring, or stay in a Havana hotel made famous by Hemingway, or find themselves escorted by a mysterious Cuban and his girl to a Havana juke joint—even if the real-life Zelda and Scott never visited, as far as we know, any of these places.

To read more advice from Spargo, click here.

Other features this month from Glimmer Train:

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Mary Burns

The Spargo column interested me. (Except that in his photo he looks so angry!) I am not a die hard fan of historical fiction. Too much of it seems to reflect a desire on the part of the author to keep all the research visible. One of my favourite historical novels is The Bird Artist, by Howard Norman. I like the way he just dropped me into the time period and I felt I was living then. Barry Unsworth’s book, The Sacred Hunger affected me the same way. Those were the two inspirations for my first historical novel, finished a few months ago. i think I was driven, too, by the desire to present a character we can relate to today. I agree with Spargo on the necessity of achieving that, no matter the time we write about.

Johney Gooch

What is the possibility of publishing a biography! Please tell me I need to know.