I was having a discussion about historical fiction on Twitter not too long ago and someone brought up an interesting question: How far back in time does the setting of the book have to be before it’s considered historical? We can all probably agree that a story set in the 1800s is definitely historical, but what about books set in the 1970s, 1980s, or even 1990s? Are they contemporary or historical? One person argued that if she could remember the decade, then the book isn’t historical. For someone like my grandmother, this would mean only books set before the 1930s could be considered historical fiction but for a 12-year old, a story set in 1998 would be considered historical fiction since they weren’t even alive during that year.
Personally, the fewer cultural and societal norms that I can relate to in the story, the more likely I am to consider it to be historical fiction. For example, I don’t remember the 1980s but many of the events, clothing, and music still influence my life now, so the decade isn’t very “historical” to me. On the other hand, I consider the 1960s (or as I like to think of it, the Mad Men era) to be historical because typewriters, rigid gender roles, and black & white televisions seem so far removed from my everyday life.
I think, as a rule of thumb, the fewer people alive from a particular era a book is set in, the more “historical” the book becomes for readers.
What defines historical fiction as “historical” for you?
I think you have a good working defintion. I never really considered it. One of my favorite detective series is by PJ Parish. It starts in the 1970s, in America. I was born in 68, have an unfortunately good recollection of the 1970s. But what makes it different is that my perception of 1970 is from a young white northeastern american female, and the pov character, Lewis, is mixed race (AA/Caucasion) who was born down south and went to live with foster parents in the frigid Midwest. So even though i can relate to a lot of the historic set elements the perspective is wildly different and that’s enough of a jolt to make it historical for me.
I admit when I watch TV shows, though, like Life on Mars, that had 1970′s NYC, it didn’t feel that historical. so I’d have to go with your definition, plus enough of an alien perspective to anchor me into a specific pov from that era.
I use the term ‘nostalgic’ for books set anywhere from 1920 to 1999. Prior to 1920 I consider historical. Anything after 2000 is contemp.
That’s just how I label things, though, it’s certainly not a hard and fast rule I apply to anyone else lol.
“I don’t remember the 1980s” just made me feel really old.
An antique is something 100 years old or older. I guess that could apply to “historic” novels, too.
I agree there’s a difference between ‘new’ history and ‘old’ history when it comes to historical novels. The other difference is whether those differences have a bearing on how the story plays out. Small details like whether a character listens to their music on an LP, a Victrola or an MP3 player often don’t make a huge difference in the outcome of a story, so as a reader, I can slide over those details and not think about the time differences. Having to travel by barouche or four days by train or no telephones or something is a big difference
I think my definition of “historical fiction”, whether straight historical fiction, or alternate history historical, or historical fantasy, is that *all* the characters in the world of the story have to have different mindsets from that of the reader, to a sufficiently radical degree that readers have to approach the story as some kind of science fiction (or SF) and approach the characters as if they are an alien species, in order to be able to read the story and relate to the events and characters.
The story has to function “hostilely” towards readers who can only read stories about characters who think like themselves. It has to bounce away those with inflexible minds.
I think that requires rather more temporal distance than a mere half decade.