Editing historical fiction is a nuanced art form, demanding more than just stylistic polish or grammatical correctness. It requires a meticulous eye for historical accuracy, a deep understanding of period voice, and the ability to weave well-researched details seamlessly into a compelling narrative without overwhelming the reader. This definitive guide will equip you with the actionable strategies needed to transform your historical fiction manuscript from good to exceptional, ensuring it resonates with both history buffs and lovers of compelling storytelling.
The Foundation: Understanding Your Genre’s Unique Demands
Before diving into specific editing passes, recognize that historical fiction carries burdens and opportunities unique among genres. Your primary duties are to transport the reader, authenticate the experience, and craft a human story within a historically accurate framework. This means every editing decision must weigh narrative impact against historical veracity.
Authenticity vs. Accessibility: The Constant Tug-of-War
One of the most significant challenges in historical fiction editing is balancing authenticity with accessibility. You want to immerse the reader in the past without alienating them with arcane language, obscure customs, or a dizzying array of historical facts.
Actionable Tip: As you edit, ask yourself: “Does this detail enhance immersion or create a barrier?” For example, a historically accurate greeting might be “God save ye,” but if used excessively without context, it can feel anachronistic or difficult for a modern reader. Consider a more accessible yet still period-appropriate alternative like “Well met,” or ensure the context clarifies the meaning.
The Period Voice: More Than Just Old Words
Achieving an authentic period voice is paramount. It’s not simply about inserting archaic words; it’s about syntax, rhythm, and the mindset of the time. People thought, spoke, and perceived the world differently.
Actionable Tip: Read primary sources from your chosen era aloud. Listen to the cadences, the sentence structures, and the vocabulary (both common and formal). Then, apply this understanding to your dialogue and narration. For example, a character in 18th-century England might use more formal sentence structures and less slang than a contemporary character, but still exhibit individual personality. Eliminate modern contractions where they feel jarring, but don’t eradicate them entirely if a more relaxed character might believably use them within the period’s linguistic norms.
The First Pass: Macro-Level Historical Accuracy
Your initial editing pass should be a high-level sweep focusing on the structural integrity of your historical elements. This is where you catch major anachronisms and ensure your timeline is inviolate.
Chronological Integrity: The Unbreakable Spine
Historical fiction relies heavily on a believable timeline. Even minor chronological errors can shatter reader immersion.
Actionable Tip: Create a detailed timeline of your story and cross-reference it with a historical timeline of your chosen era. Note key events, technological advancements, social customs, and even weather patterns. If your character experiences a major historical battle, ensure your narrative places them there at the correct date and location. Example: If your novel is set in 1666 London, ensure the Great Fire occurs at the historically correct time and place relative to your characters’ movements. Don’t have them using a gas lamp in 1820; electric light didn’t reach widespread domestic use until much later.
Technological and Material Culture: The Fabric of the Past
Readers expect the material world to be accurately represented. Anachronistic technology, fashion, or even food can immediately break the spell.
Actionable Tip: Scrutinize every object, piece of clothing, mode of transport, and food item mentioned. A specific anachronism, such as a character pulling a cell phone out in 1940s occupied France, is obvious. More subtle errors include referring to “trousers” in 17th-century England (where “breeches” would be more accurate) or a peasant in the Middle Ages eating a tomato (a New World crop not widely disseminated in Europe until much later).
Social Norms and Belief Systems: Beyond the Surface
History isn’t just about dates and events; it’s about how people lived, thought, and interacted. Their beliefs, prejudices, and societal structures shaped their decisions.
Actionable Tip: Research the prevailing social hierarchies, gender roles, religious beliefs, and political anxieties of your period. Ensure your characters’ actions and reactions are consistent with these norms, even if they are rebelling against them. Example: A low-born woman in 19th-century Victorian England would face vastly different legal and social constraints than a titled lady, and your narrative should reflect this in their opportunities, speech, and challenges.
The Second Pass: Weaving Historical Detail Seamlessly
Once the major historical elements are sound, it’s time to refine how you present these details. The goal is integration, not exposition.
Show, Don’t Tell (About History)
Resist the urge to lecture your reader about historical facts. Instead, incorporate them organically into the narrative, dialogue, and character experience.
Actionable Tip: Instead of a paragraph explaining the intricate workings of a medieval mill, describe your character watching the water wheel turn slowly, the grinding sound of the millstones, and the dusty miller wiping his brow. Let the setting and character actions convey the historical context. Example: Don’t state, “Life for a Roman slave was brutal.” Instead, show a slave’s day: the arduous tasks, the constant fear of punishment, the meager rations, and the lack of personal freedom.
The Glossary Dilemma: To Include or Not to Include?
While some readers appreciate a glossary for obscure terms, relying on one too heavily can signal that your narrative isn’t self-explanatory.
Actionable Tip: Strive to make your prose understandable without a glossary. If a term is crucial and genuinely obscure, either provide context within the narrative or consider simplifying the language. If you do include a glossary, make it supplementary, not essential. For instance, if a character is wearing a “doublet,” the narrative should make it clear it’s a piece of clothing, perhaps by describing it as a “close-fitting jacket.”
Sensory Details: Immersive Time Travel
Engage all five senses to transport your reader to the past. What did it smell like? Sound like? Feel like?
Actionable Tip: Research common sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of your chosen period. Was the air thick with coal smoke? Did the cobblestones vibrate beneath carriage wheels? Was the market cacophonous with cries of vendors? Example: Instead of saying, “The city was dirty,” describe the pungent stench of raw sewage in the gutters, the clatter of horse hooves echoing off narrow buildings, and the ubiquitous dust coating every surface.
The Third Pass: Character and Plot Within Historical Context
With historical fabric firmly woven, focus on how your characters and plot integrate with—and are shaped by—the historical setting.
Character Motivation: A Product of Their Time
Your characters’ desires, fears, and motivations must be believable within their historical context. What was important to people then that might be less so now?
Actionable Tip: Explore how societal expectations, economic realities, and prevailing beliefs influence your characters’ choices. Is a character seeking social advancement in a rigid class system? Are they rebelling against religious dogma? Example: A young woman in 17th-century Puritan New England might dream of education, but her actions would be severely constrained by religious and gender expectations, shaping her pursuit of that dream differently than a modern woman’s.
Conflict and Resolution: Historically Plausible Stakes
The conflicts your characters face and the ways they resolve them should be consistent with the opportunities and limitations of the era.
Actionable Tip: Consider what constituted high stakes for people in that period. Was it land ownership, honor, religious purity, or political power? How would a character resolve a dispute without modern legal or technological recourse? Example: A legal dispute in a feudal society might involve trial by combat or an appeal to a lord, whereas a similar dispute today would go through civil courts. The stakes and methods of resolution are inherently different.
Avoiding Modern Sensibilities (Anachronistic Emotions)
While human emotions are universal, their expression and the societal response to them vary across time. Be wary of projecting modern psychological frameworks onto historical characters.
Actionable Tip: Research the prevailing views on concepts like mental health, individual rights, personal freedom, and romantic love in your period. A character experiencing anxiety might express it through religious torment in one era, whereas another might be viewed as melancholic. Example: A grieving widow in a society with strict mourning rituals would express her sorrow very differently from a modern widow. Her expressions of grief would be performative, public, and governed by strict rules for a specific period.
The Fourth Pass: Linguistic Refinement and Period Voice Micro-Details
This pass dives deep into the language, ensuring every word choice reinforces the period and the overall tone.
Dialogue: The Sound of the Past
Authentic dialogue is crucial. It’s not just about using older words, but about rhythm, formality, and the way beliefs are conveyed.
Actionable Tip: Avoid overly archaic language that becomes unreadable, but also steer clear of slang or sentence structures that are distinctly modern. Think about social class and education levels when crafting dialogue. A street urchin wouldn’t speak like a university scholar, even within the same period. Example: Instead of a medieval peasant saying, “That’s awesome!” (modern slang), they might say, “By God’s beard, that is a wondrous sight!” (period appropriate exclamation). Conversely, a character from 19th-century London might say “How do you do?” or “Quite so,” but not “What’s up?”
Narration: Eloquence and Immersion
The narrative voice should subtly reflect the period without being ostentatious. It sets the tone and provides context.
Actionable Tip: Pay attention to sentence length, vocabulary, and descriptive techniques. Does your narrator sound like someone from the period, or are they a modern observer? Avoid modern similes and metaphors. Example: Instead of describing a fast horse as “going zero to sixty in three seconds,” a 19th-century narrator might say, “The horse bolted like a shot from a musket,” linking the imagery to the technology of the time.
Word Choice: Precision and Periodicity
Every word matters. A single misstep can pull a reader out of the narrative.
Actionable Tip: Use a historical dictionary if available, or cross-reference words against their first known usage. Be wary of common words that have changed meaning over time. Example: The word “nice” once meant “ignorant” or “precise.” Using it in a modern sense in a very early historical setting would be anachronistic. Similarly, if writing about the American Civil War, differentiating between “Rebels” and “Confederates” or “Yankees” and “Union soldiers” impacts accuracy and perspective.
The Fifth Pass: Polishing and Final Checks
This is the meticulous sweep, catching the minutiae and ensuring overall flow and impact.
Consistency Check: From Minor Details to Major Themes
Ensure consistent terminology, character traits, and historical details throughout the manuscript.
Actionable Tip: Use a find-and-replace function for specific terms you might have debated changing. Confirm names are spelled correctly, especially historical figures. Check that your protagonist’s stance on a particular historical event remains consistent unless their arc dictates a believable change.
Pacing: History as a Propellant
Even with layers of history, the story must move. History should drive the plot, not halt it.
Actionable Tip: Identify areas where historical exposition delays the narrative. Can a historical fact be revealed through dialogue, action, or character reaction rather than a lengthy descriptive paragraph? Ensure your scenes have propulsive energy.
The “So What?” Test for Historical Detail
For every historical detail, ask: “Does this enhance the story, character, or setting? Is it necessary?”
Actionable Tip: If a detail is fascinating but doesn’t serve the narrative, consider cutting it or finding a way to integrate it more naturally. Avoid information dumping just because you researched it. Example: While you might know the exact daily diet of a medieval king, only include details that illuminate his character, the challenges of the time, or the social dynamics of a meal.
Conclusion: The Resonant Echo of the Past
Editing historical fiction is a rigorous, multi-layered process. It demands relentless research, an unwavering commitment to authenticity, and the narrative skill to make the past feel alive and relevant. By meticulously addressing historical accuracy, refining period voice, seamlessly integrating details, and ensuring your characters and plot resonate within their temporal context, you won’t just create a story; you’ll create an immersive experience, allowing readers to walk through history and feel the resonant echo of lives lived long ago. Your efforts ensure the past is not merely presented, but truly relived on the page.