Comments on: Historical Definitions

By: Peter Knutsen

Peter Knutsen — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 08:26:59 +0000

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.

By: Elyse Mady

Elyse Mady — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:26:52 +0000

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

By: J.L. Hilton

J.L. Hilton — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:56:13 +0000

“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.

By: Fae

Fae — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 23:44:27 +0000

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.

By: Ursula

Ursula — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 20:10:08 +0000

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.