Why I Write Historical Fiction - A Guest Blogpost from G. M. Baker
G. M. Baker is trying to revive the serious popular novel, the kind of story that finds the truth of the human condition in action, adventure, romance, and even magic. He is the author of the historical novel series Cuthbert's People (The Wistful and the Good, St. Agnes and the Selkie, The Needle of Avocation) and the literary fairy-tale Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight. He writes the newsletter, Stories All the Way Down, which examines serious popular fiction in theory and practice.
My reasonsfor writing historical fiction may be somewhat eccentric these days. I don’t doit to deep dive into the personality of an historical figure or to delve intothe details of life in a particular era. Rather, I turn to the past to find theperfect stage on which to set the story I want to tell. The modern world isdesigned to remove as much drama from our lives as possible. That’s a goodthing as far as daily living is concerned. I don’t want to live my lifeconstantly trying to dodge starvation, war, and shipwreck. But when it comes towriting stories, this lack of daily drama is limiting. In particular, it tendsto force the writer of contemporary fiction to find drama in the darker partsof the psyche and in the lost and the broken of society. There’s nothing wrongwith that, but as an exclusive diet, it gets wearisome.
In thepast, however, you did not need to suffer from alienation or mental disorder tohave drama in your life. Even the rich and the healthy faced threats of manykinds and, by and large, had to face them alone or with the help of theirfriends. We may not live those kinds of lives anymore, but we still love thosekinds of stories. Or I do, anyway.
Forinstance, in my latest published novel, The Needle of Avocation, myprotagonist, Hilda, goes to fulfill a promise of marriage to a man above herstation. Her ambitious mother wrung the promise out of the groom’s father at atime of sorrow, anger, and drunkenness. No one except Hilda’s mother wants themarriage to take place, not even Hilda herself. And yet, the consequences ofrefusing the marriage could be dire for her kin. This is not a situation thatcould possibly arise in the contemporary West. So I set it in 8thcentury Northumbria. This was a story I wanted to tell, and the past provided astage on which to tell it.
I have twodegrees in history, but in history it has always been the deep ground ofcivilizations and societies that has fascinated me rather than individual livesand events. I am interested in understanding how all of the constraints ofparticular times and places shape the lives and mores of the people who live inthem. We can be very glib today in either blaming or patronizing people of thepast for not thinking the way we do. But I don’t believe human beings getbetter or worse. I think we are shaped by our circumstances, and what ishorrific in one circumstance may be normal and necessary in another. Forinstance, in my 8th-century Northumbria stories, my characters keepslaves, which is, to them, a perfectly normal thing. Everyone in that society isbound together by chains of obligation that are essential for maintaining lifeand defense. Degrees of liberty can be won by service, but only degrees. Theslaves are simply those who have none of these privileges.
It is mygoal to fully enculturate my characters in their milieu so that things likeslaveholding do not seem exceptional or objectionable to the reader within theworld of the novel. One of the things that most pleases me about my Anglo-Saxonseries is that no reader or reviewer has ever brought up the issue of slaverywhen reviewing or discussing them.
Fullyenculturating characters in this way is also part of finding the right stagefor the story. If Hilda in The Needle of Avocation reacted to herdilemma the way that a woman of her age would today, it would be a verydifferent and less authentic story. Hilda takes her obligations to her familyentirely seriously. Her difficulties come with how to fit herself into a familythat does not want her. It is, as far as I can make it, a story of a woman ofthe 8th century, not the story of a woman of today dropped into the8th century.
But for mycurrent work in progress, I have jumped forward 1000 years and to the other endof Britain to tell the story of a wrecker’s daughter in Cornwall during theNapoleonic era. Hannah follows her father in the trade, wrecking ships, killingcrews, and stealing their cargos. But as she sees more of the wider world, herconscience begins to trouble her, setting up a deep conflict of loyalties.Again, the time and place are chosen as the right stage to tell this story, andonce again I have tried to thoroughly enculturate Hannah in what is,admittedly, a circumstance that stands on the border between history and myth.
In otherworks, such as Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight, I have gone entirely intomyth in search of the perfect stage for the story I wanted to tell. But for themost part, I find our vast and varied past provides the perfect stage forsetting almost any story you might want to tell. The trick then is to thoroughlyenculturate your characters in the time and place you have chosen, for theplayer must own the stage, or the play will be a dud.
Mark's website is https://gmbaker.net
Blog Host Helena P. Schrader is the author of 25 historical fiction and non-fiction books, eleven of which have one one or more awards. You can find out more about her, her books and her awards at: https://helenapschrader.com
Her most recent release, Cold Peace, was runner-up for the Historical Fiction Company BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 Award, as well as winning awards from Maincrest Media and Readers' Favorites. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/cold-peace.html
