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 reasons for writing historical fiction may be somewhat eccentric these days. I don’t do it to deep dive into the personality of an historical figure or to delve into the details of life in a particular era. Rather, I turn to the past to find the perfect stage on which to set the story I want to tell. The modern world is designed to remove as much drama from our lives as possible. That’s a good thing as far as daily living is concerned. I don’t want to live my life constantly trying to dodge starvation, war, and shipwreck. But when it comes to writing stories, this lack of daily drama is limiting. In particular, it tends to force the writer of contemporary fiction to find drama in the darker parts of the psyche and in the lost and the broken of society. There’s nothing wrong with that, but as an exclusive diet, it gets wearisome.

In the past, however, you did not need to suffer from alienation or mental disorder to have drama in your life. Even the rich and the healthy faced threats of many kinds and, by and large, had to face them alone or with the help of their friends. We may not live those kinds of lives anymore, but we still love those kinds of stories. Or I do, anyway.

For instance, in my latest published novel, The Needle of Avocation, my protagonist, Hilda, goes to fulfill a promise of marriage to a man above her station. Her ambitious mother wrung the promise out of the groom’s father at a time of sorrow, anger, and drunkenness. No one except Hilda’s mother wants the marriage to take place, not even Hilda herself. And yet, the consequences of refusing the marriage could be dire for her kin. This is not a situation that could possibly arise in the contemporary West. So I set it in 8^th century Northumbria. This was a story I wanted to tell, and the past provided a stage on which to tell it.

I have two degrees in history, but in history it has always been the deep ground of civilizations and societies that has fascinated me rather than individual lives and events. I am interested in understanding how all of the constraints of particular times and places shape the lives and mores of the people who live in them. We can be very glib today in either blaming or patronizing people of the past for not thinking the way we do. But I don’t believe human beings get better or worse. I think we are shaped by our circumstances, and what is horrific in one circumstance may be normal and necessary in another. For instance, in my 8^th-century Northumbria stories, my characters keep slaves, which is, to them, a perfectly normal thing. Everyone in that society is bound together by chains of obligation that are essential for maintaining life and defense. Degrees of liberty can be won by service, but only degrees. The slaves are simply those who have none of these privileges.

It is my goal to fully enculturate my characters in their milieu so that things like slaveholding do not seem exceptional or objectionable to the reader within the world of the novel. One of the things that most pleases me about my Anglo-Saxon series is that no reader or reviewer has ever brought up the issue of slavery when reviewing or discussing them.

Fully enculturating characters in this way is also part of finding the right stage for the story. If Hilda in The Needle of Avocation reacted to her dilemma the way that a woman of her age would today, it would be a very different and less authentic story. Hilda takes her obligations to her family entirely seriously. Her difficulties come with how to fit herself into a family that does not want her. It is, as far as I can make it, a story of a woman of the 8^th century, not the story of a woman of today dropped into the 8^th century.

But for my current work in progress, I have jumped forward 1000 years and to the other end of Britain to tell the story of a wrecker’s daughter in Cornwall during the Napoleonic era. Hannah follows her father in the trade, wrecking ships, killing crews, and stealing their cargos. But as she sees more of the wider world, her conscience 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, and once again I have tried to thoroughly enculturate Hannah in what is, admittedly, a circumstance that stands on the border between history and myth.

In other works, such as Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight, I have gone entirely into myth in search of the perfect stage for the story I wanted to tell. But for the most part, I find our vast and varied past provides the perfect stage for setting almost any story you might want to tell. The trick then is to thoroughly enculturate your characters in the time and place you have chosen, for the player 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