Historical fiction or not?
Sometimes it is better just to tell the story the way you want and would like it to be told but at that point you slide away from historical fiction into simply storytelling or fantasy. There is nothing at all wrong with that. I do it. Many others also but at that point aiming your book at a historical fiction market is foolhardy. Like Science Fiction readers many readers of Historical fiction will have an idea of the real history (Or science for SF fans) behind the event. They tend to be smarter and more informed than many others and will pull apart a book when the detail is incorrect. I mentioned earlier certain instances of this. Sure if you are not bothered about genre then just write your story but if you wish to then make it "Historical fiction" don't take too many liberties, if you do then expect the worst. I have only made two forays into Historical fiction in my many years of writing and the first was a disaster. I did everything correctly, I researched my subject matter diligently and had a great story to tell, more I was also writing of a lesser known period of history and so was not competing against a thousand other novels about Julius or Genghis or Napoleon. Yet much of what I was writing was based upon the archaeological discoveries of a french team. A team who later admitted that they had all the information wrong, they had jumped to conclusions to make the find sound so much more important. I had used much of their information and as my book was published all the real information and history came to light. I endured a torrent of claims that I had misrepresented the information. Yet when I was writing the book I had done everything correctly. Anyway, It was not that bad for me as i tell a good story (if i do say so myself) and despite a barrage of adverse comments the book did OK. Luckily for me there was another book coming out at around about the same time by David Rhol, a far better known writer than I but who had also made the same mistake. In his case what was initially looking to be a best seller started getting widely panned. A shame. My research was good but I just read the wrong things. Had it just been a story then it would not have mattered in historical fiction it did.
