The primary purpose of a historical novel, as any publisher or agent will tell you, is to entertain. That’s why I am grateful to belong to a club with a wide range of writers. Each manuscript evening at Leicester Writers' Club is a master class in the art of entertaining.
Odd as it may appear, the primary purpose of a historical novel may not always be the primary purpose of its author nor the only reason readers choose that genre. Many multi-tasking readers turn to fiction not only for entertainment but also for information.
There seems to be a huge gender gap here at least in readers of my generation and older living in Leicestershire. (I am speaking now from 18 years experience as a WRVS volunteer delivering books to housebound readers.) Male readers who want historical information ask me to bring them non-fiction books only, women ask primarily for novels or memoirs. When speaking to volunteers in other parts of the country, I find their experiences experience are similar although of course there are always individuals who break the stereotype.
When it comes to the younger generation, many young men I talk to in Leicestershire, (apart from those on English courses at uni!) claim to read only nonfiction and that very sparingly. They say they can’t see the point in non-interactive fiction - they would rather play computer games. On the other hand young women I talk to read many more books with most of their reading being fiction or memoirs. They claim they learn a great deal from reading fiction but they also spend much of their leisure time watching soap operas. When you think of it the Archers, Casualty, Peak District originated as megaphones for public service announcements.
If many women are reading historical fiction for information as well as entertainment then authors have a duty to deliver historical fiction accurately, delicately weaving fictional weft between a warp of known historical facts. That means historical fiction writers have a duty to research primary sources in detail.
This is even more imperative where historical narrative underlies burning current issues. The most harm a novel, set say in 15th century England depicting Richard 3rd either as a villain or a hero, can do is to cause the proponent of an opposing view to burst a blood vessel.
In periods coming under the term historical, in publishing terms, but where many people living then are still alivel; and in locations were historical narrative underlies burning issues, there is far more at stake.
I have often found in these controversial areas most historical literature published in English have dates and events so skewed as to falsify cause and Frankly it is nothing more than propaganda.
One difficulty researching the particur period and location area I write in, where contemporary events were censored in both local and British papers under emergency regulations, is that it is impossible for hurried writing to be accurate. Only this week, for instance, after four years of research into the early thirties in the city of Haifa, I discovered major facts that made nonsense of many of my assumptions I made when writing my current novel. I owe it to the reader to be accurate and will have to rewrite.
Readers also often start reading with false assumptions that make it difficult for them to get into a book unless the author addresses the issues gently.
This is another area where I find membership of Leicester Writers club, with its cross-section of readers extremely helpful in discovering common assumptions held by the British public and gives me the opportunity to alter my writing so I can set scenes to open up vistas without sounding didactic.
