Don't want to cut all those juicy historical details? Make them matter to your characters
Have you ever done an hours long deep dive into the research, found a long list of juicy details only to realize you have no idea how to fit them all into the story? Yeah, me too. Historical fiction writers are particularly invested in the nitty gritty details of their historical worlds. Which is great because those details can bring a story to life. Unfortunately, those same details can bog a story down, distract readers from your character’s plight, or worse, cause them to quietly tuck the book back onto a shelf because they can’t find the story in all that history.
Writers often lament that they will have to cut out their favourite details for the sake of story. Sure, you can’t include all the amazing historical facts you have discovered about fixing a loom in small Irish croft, but you can include many of them without losing your readers. The key to including those details you love? Make the historical details matter to your characters.
Give the detail, whether it’s a place, item, event, or activity, a role in the story and make it personal to your characters. Use it as a clue (or red herring) in your mystery, set an important conversation in a setting that mirrors the character’s emotions or a theme in the story, or allow an item to trigger a strong memory. You can use historical details to reveal aspects of a character’s personality, their background, or illuminate interpersonal relationships.
Put that loom fixing knowledge to work by having your character struggle to fix it only to have their feuding neighbour silently hand over the missing part needed to make it work again. Then not only will you get to include those fascinating details but now your story has subtext and messy character dynamics as well. This can work for just about any historical detail and all subgenres.
A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing the historical romance author Evie Dunmore for a feature article on the HNS website. One of the reasons I enjoyed her series was the way she pulled in a vast amount of historical detail without losing the reader.
While Dunmore’s books certainly fall into the category of swoony romance, they are also packed full of an astounding amount of history. She pulls this off by grounding her characters in the setting, making it “feel lived in rather than showcased.” This is evident when seemingly unimportant details have outsized impacts on the character’s lives.
Her use of tiny historical details illuminates much more than the themes of romance and friendship. In one scene, Catriona is pressed by her friends into helping with a fire drill and Dunmore uses it to highlight the plight of women in that time.
“…it’s such a great embodiment of the absurdity of women’s situation back then: that female college students had to train to be firefighters to save themselves in case of a fire because women’s colleges were built so far from town centers for the sake of preserving their reputation. Questionable priorities.”
So go ahead and dive into the research rabbit hole as long as you can find a way to make those details important to your characters. If not, save them for the next book where of course your character will need to know how to ride a draisine in order to escape from the angry mob.
