It’s time for a renaissance in historical fiction

We’re smack in the middle of a social revolution, and it’s time for historical fiction to reflect that journey.

by: E.B. Johnson

It’s hard to find mainstream historical fiction these days that isn’t basically a white-washed, Phillipa Gregory inspired, undercover bodice-ripper. It seems whenever it comes to history, the stories we choose to tell are full of tropes and romanticized, 21st century ideas on everything from love and lust, to race and politics. We rarely apply historical logic to our historical fiction, and it’s resulted in a white-washed, gate keeping mess that turns people off of history in so many ways.

History is so important — now more than ever. We are living in a society that is more volatile and charged than it has been in a very, very long time. We’re divided across state lines, social lines, political lines, diplomatic lines. You name it, we’re struggling with it in the modern world. By looking to our history, we can uncover the lessons of our ancestors and discover how to come together and combine our knowledge and skills in the name of a better world. That starts with telling the right stories, though, and getting people invested in their pasts.

Historical fiction has become eternally disappointing.

Historical fiction, as a genre, has become eternally disappointing for everyone but the comfortably brain-dead. The stories of the mainstream are regularly shallow, white-washed and with little real historical perspective save for that of garments and big, ivy-covered houses in the English countryside. Our readers deserve more honest, diverse stories. And women deserve more than bodice-rippers.

Undercover bodice-rippers

Like it or not, most historical fiction winds its way down into some kind of toxic, bodice-ripping romance into which the entire story hinges on whether a male and female couple get together. There’s usually a woman chasing a man, and some of prestige (or anti-prestige). In the end, they get together and produce children and all is well. Or, they don’t get the guy and then dissolve into melancholia. These stories do little — if nothing at all — to address the true strides made by men and women alike throughout history. It also romanticizes behavior and partnerships that were little more than business deals and survival tactics.

Little (if any) queer representation

To think about the last historical fiction novel you read, which included a queer character or story line. Can you name one? If you can: was that character or story used to demonstrate representation? Or was it a plot device that was meant to add an extra layer of sensuality and “steaminess”. Queer people existed in history, and they didn’t just exist for extra sex scenes. They were real people who often lead complex double lives that were often an open secret in their households, or at royal courts.

Whitewashing as a standard

If you are someone who has regularly taken part in the historical fiction world, then you know how white-focused it is. Over-and-over again, the same stories are told about the same white kings and queens, their “white” courts, and the “white” worlds around them. When we deign to tell the story of a soldier or a commoner, there again — the stories are usually white in nature. It’s disappointing, when you truly know history, to see such blatant lies stretched across time periods that were so crucial to people of all races, genders and creeds.

Gate-keeping sub-par stories

Because the vast majority of the historical fiction genre relies on such a small range of white-centered narratives, we often find ourselves with a sea of sub-par books which receive praise and adulation in the historical fiction society. Along with this, we get a seemingly endless barrage of painful tropes (which reinforce toxic views of self, gender, race and relationships) that are championed throughout the genre by the publishing community. They claim it’s “what the public wants”, but perhaps if they gave the public different history…they would get different results.

Why it makes such a difference.

So what, you might be asking yourself. What difference does it make if there’s no Black people in my Tudor story? A big difference, actually. By creating more inclusive and honest stories, we finally allow the lessons of our pasts to be seen. And, we level the playing field while creating a greater sense of investment for those who have been marginalized by white-washed, anglicized stories.

Finally learning the lessons

We keep repeating these horrible, toxic parts of history because too many of us fail to learn from the mistakes of the past. People need to realize that what’s happening right now is a result of what happened centuries and even decades, and they need to know how to look at history from an analytical point of view.

When we learn history — a wide scope of history — it enables us to see ourselves and the world in a powerful new way. This, in turn, can inspire action and a deep motivation to change a world that is entirely of our own making.

Including the marginalized

Frankly, people have a right to be included and represented in the history they had a hand in making. England today would be nothing without the contribution of Black and Muslim merchants, doctors, scholars and philosophers of the classical and renaissance ages.

Queer people were in the highest ranks of society and have a right to know how their predecessors navigated the difficult realities of living at odds with a pseudo-religious society. There are a million lessons of the past, and we all have a right to see ourselves included in those lessons…where we’ve always been.

Creating a sense of investment

We need people to care about history right now, and we can do that by creating more inclusive stories that allow people to feel invested in the common history that’s been taken from them. When they see their ancestors living out the tropes and making the tough decisions that they have to make now — they realize they aren’t so alone in this world. They can also come to realize that their neighbor has been their neighbor all along. It allows them to see past the rhetoric and the division that focusing solely on the future just doesn’t allow for.

Leveling the playing field

A lot of the negative social constructs we find ourselves battling with today are perpetuated (both intentionally and unintentionally) in the stories we of modern historical fiction. In these stories, women fall into the powerless bracket of “to-love-or-not-to-love-this-abuser” and men are cast as one-dimensional, sex-obsessed brutes (with an occasional philosophical streak).

While gender inequality and racism were certainly facets of old world society, there were still a number of marginalized people who managed to thrive independently (and within these constructs, and despite them). When we tell their stories, we level the playing field by revealing the contributions we have all made to history.

How we can transform our historical fiction.

As writers of historical fiction, it’s our responsibility to take charge of this mess and start telling stories the right way. This means letting go of our lazy tropes and relying on our instincts as writers and our knowledge as historians. It’s time for better historical fiction, and we can do that by being more inclusive and championing better stories.

Letting go of the white-washing

There has never been a point in history in which a society was all white. While white-ruled societies have certainly existed (and continue to do so) — people of color have always been present in every level of society, even when their presence was uncomfortable. Black men and women lived, loved and worked at every level of Tudor society. They were at the Russian courts and traveling up and down the continent in the age of Ancient Egypt. As historical fiction writers, we have a responsibility (now more than ever) to tell authentic stories with authentic representation for all of our readers. They all deserve to know the truth that we do.

Letting go of the need to hetero-cize

If you are writing about a royal court or nobility in any time period — you’re doing yourself a major disservice if you don’t include queer characters. One of the few things that almost every point in history has in common is the existence of queer people. Their existence was often an open secret among the nobility, their families and even the higher ups among clergy and rulers. To pretend that all relationships in the Tudor age or Victorian times were heterosexual in nature (or even motivation) is terribly naïve and a disservice to your queer readers. While we certainly have a duty to reveal the reality of homosexuality in “ye olden times” — we also have a duty to acknowledge that it existed in the first place. This includes intersex and non-binary people.

Being more gender-sensitive

Believe it or not, your stories — even when reliant on the historical perspectives of binary gender — don’t have to be over-invested in the “he / she” narrative. There are many opportunities in which you can lay off of the gender biases and gender-based dialogues in your story to take the reader on small side-investments. These investments are moments in which the focus in shifted onto world-building, or perhaps on intricate action (political subterfuge, social nuances of the time, etc). In these instances (think Steinbeck’s turtle moment in Grapes of Wrath) you can give the reader a break and give your queer and non-binary readers an opportunity to immerse themselves with deeper freedom of identity.

Giving women better representation

Women make up a huge demographic when it comes to the historical fiction world, but that doesn’t mean that all they want is bodice-ripping heart-throbbers. Romance (like all genres) has its time and its place. To pretend that it had much a place in history is naïve, however. We need to tell the stories of women who made bold decisions. Women who educated themselves, who educated the men who went on to write the history. Women have always played a key and active role in the biggest moments in our past. To limit them to bedtime games and courtly vanity is to sell short all the sacrifices they made. Where are our warrior queens and queer suffragette abolitionists?

Championing the voices of POC

Perhaps the biggest stride we can make in the name of better historical fiction is to champion the voices and stories of all marginalized communities (especially for people of color). This means letting go of the white-washed gate-keeping and making room for Black stories, Asian points of view, and all other manner of diversified history. At times, this will mean stepping aside on our own panty-dropping Tudor tropes — and that’s okay. As the creators of this ultra-vanilla history, we have to take direct action to correct those mistakes. And that means supporting Own Voices writers across the genre.

Putting it all together…

History is more important than ever, and it’s crucial that we get people engaged and invested in real and honest history that empowers them to change the present. Historical fiction can play a big part in this, but it’s going to require a renaissance of sorts for the genre. Rather than insisting on the same broken, tired, white-washed tropes, we have to reach for better stories and more honest depictions. That starts with the stories we write, and the stories we choose to publish.

Stop relying on comfortable and lazy stories that rely on romantic notions of a world that never existed. Start crafting more authentic, engaging stories by letting go of the white-washing and all the hetero-normalized nonsense. People of color have always existed in society, and they have always existed in the most crucial moments of our history. Queer people to deserve more honest representation in our stories, and they deserve more than sexual plot devices that minimize the hell their lives must have been. Women deserve more than the endless pursuit of babies and a man’s validation — after all, we were also politicians, warrior queens, priestesses and divine movers of this earth. As historians, it’s time to tell more honest stories, and it’s time to champion the stories of marginalized people the world over. Historical fiction is long overdue for renaissance, and that begins with us…the writers.