Learn how to write a historical novel with expert tips on research, blending facts with fiction, and building authentic worlds your readers will love.
Have you ever read a book set in ancient Rome or medieval England and felt like you were actually there? Like you could smell the bread baking in the market or hear the clang of swords in a battle? That is the magic of a good historical novel.
Writing one is not easy. But it is one of the most exciting things a writer can do. You get to travel back in time, build a world from the past, and tell a story that feels completely real even though it comes from your imagination.
In this guide, you will learn exactly how to write a historical novel step by step. From picking the right time period to mixing real facts with made up stories, we will cover everything you need to know.
---
## What Is a Historical Novel?
A historical novel is a story set in the past. Most people agree that the events in the story should take place at least 50 years before the time the book was written. The story can be about real people, made up people, or a mix of both.
Some famous historical novels you might know are:
- *The Pillars of the Earth* by Ken Follett (set in medieval England)
- *Gone with the Wind* by Margaret Mitchell (set during the American Civil War)
- *Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall* (set in the court of King Henry VIII)
Each of these books feels like a window into another time. The writers did a huge amount of research to make that happen.
Now let us talk about how you can do the same.
---
## Step 1: Choose Your Time Period and Setting
The first thing you need to do is pick when and where your story takes place.
This might sound simple, but it is one of the most important decisions you will make. Your time period will shape everything: the clothes your characters wear, the food they eat, how they talk, what they believe, and what dangers they face.
**How do you pick the right time period?**
Start with what excites you. Do you love stories about knights and castles? Pick the Middle Ages. Are you fascinated by the struggles of people during World War II? Set your story there. Are you drawn to ancient Egypt or the days of the Roman Empire? Go there.
When you are genuinely excited about a time period, that energy comes through in your writing. Readers can feel it.
Once you pick a time period, narrow it down to a specific place and year if you can. "Medieval Europe" is too big. "Paris, France in 1348, during the Black Death" is much more specific and gives you a clear world to work with.
---
## Step 2: Do Your Research (The Right Way)
Here is where most beginner writers get scared. Research feels like homework. But when you approach it the right way, it is actually one of the best parts of writing a historical novel.
**Start Wide, Then Go Deep**
Begin by reading general books or watching documentaries about your time period. Get a big picture understanding first. Who was in charge? What was daily life like? What were the big events happening?
After that, dig deeper into the specific things your story will need. If your main character is a blacksmith, learn everything you can about how blacksmiths worked in that era. If your story involves a sea voyage, study what ships looked like and how sailors lived.
**Types of Research You Should Do**
*Primary Sources*
These are original documents from the time period you are writing about. Letters, diaries, government records, and newspapers from that era. These are gold. They show you how real people thought, spoke, and felt. Many are available online through libraries and universities.
*Secondary Sources*
These are books and articles written by historians who have already studied your time period. A good history book can save you hundreds of hours of research. Look for ones written by respected historians and published by well known publishers.
*Visual Research*
Look at paintings, drawings, maps, and photographs from your era. A painting from 1600s Holland can tell you more about how people dressed and lived than pages of text.
*Museums and Historical Sites*
If you can visit a museum or historical site related to your story, do it. Standing in an old castle or walking through a recreated village gives you sensory details that books cannot always provide.
**Take Notes the Smart Way**
As you research, write everything down in an organised notebook or digital document. Separate your notes by topic: daily life, food, clothing, language, politics, religion, and so on. When you are writing and you need to know what someone would eat for breakfast in 1720 London, you want to find that information quickly.
**Know When to Stop Researching**
This is important. Some writers get stuck in research forever because it feels safer than actually writing. Set yourself a research deadline. At some point, you have to start writing and do more research as questions come up.
---
## Step 3: Understand the Balance Between Facts and Fiction
This is the heart of historical fiction. And getting it right makes the difference between a book that feels authentic and one that feels fake.
**What Are Historical Facts?**
Historical facts are real things that happened. Real people, real events, real dates, real places. These are the bones of your story.
For example: The Great Fire of London really happened in September 1666. It started in a bakery on Pudding Lane and burned for four days. These are facts.
**What Is Historical Fiction?**
Fiction is everything you invent. Your characters' thoughts, their personal conversations, the small moments in their daily lives, the fictional people who walk beside the real ones. These are the muscles and skin that go over the bones.
**The Golden Rule**
You can invent freely in the spaces where history is silent. History tells us the big things. It rarely tells us what a servant girl was thinking while she watched the fire from a rooftop. That is your space to create.
However, you should never contradict well established historical facts without a very good reason. Do not move a battle to the wrong year. Do not put electricity in a story set in 1750. Do not have a character do something that was physically impossible in that time.
**When You Use Real People**
Many historical novels include real historical figures. Kings, queens, generals, artists. This is completely fine, but you need to be careful.
Stick to what is historically documented when showing them in important moments. In smaller scenes where you have to invent their words and actions, make sure those words and actions fit what we know about their personality and beliefs.
And never, ever make a real person do something in your novel that is clearly harmful to their reputation without solid historical evidence.
---
## Step 4: Build Your Characters
Even the most perfectly researched historical novel will fail if the characters are not interesting. Readers follow characters, not history lessons.
**Your Main Character Needs a Personal Story**
The historical events happening around your character are the backdrop. But your character needs their own personal journey. They need a goal, a problem, a fear, something they want more than anything, and something standing in their way.
Think about it this way. World War II is the setting, but your character's story might be about a young woman trying to find her brother who went missing in the war. The history is the world. Her search is the story.
**Make Your Characters Feel Human**
People in the past were not robots following the rules of their time. They questioned things. They fell in love with the wrong people. They made selfish choices. They had a sense of humor. They got bored and angry and scared just like we do.
Do not make your historical characters stiff and formal just because they lived in the past. Give them real personalities.
**Avoid Modern Thinking in Old Clothing**
This is a mistake many writers make. They take a character from 1400 and give her the exact same values and thinking as a person from today. That does not work.
Your characters should be products of their time. They might accept things we find horrifying today, like slavery, the treatment of women, or religious persecution. They do not have to agree with these things, but they live in a world where these things exist and are normal.
You can write a character who quietly rebels against the norms of her time without turning her into a modern person wearing a costume.
---
## Step 5: Create an Authentic World
World building in historical fiction is different from fantasy world building. You are not inventing a world from scratch. You are reconstructing one that actually existed.
**Bring the Setting to Life Through the Senses**
Use all five senses when you describe your historical world. What does it smell like? (Streets in medieval cities smelled terrible, by the way.) What sounds fill the air? What does the food taste like? What does the fabric of a dress feel like against the skin?
Sensory details make the world feel real. A reader should feel like they have stepped through a portal.
**Language and Dialogue**
This is one of the trickiest parts. People in the past did not speak the way we do today. But if you try to write completely accurate old English, most readers will not understand a word.
The solution is to find a middle ground. Avoid obviously modern slang and expressions. Do not have your 1800s character say "cool" or "no problem." But also do not go so far into old fashioned language that it becomes unreadable.
You can suggest the flavour of older speech without going overboard. Use slightly more formal sentence structures. Leave out modern idioms. Let the rhythm of the dialogue feel different from today without being impossible to follow.
**Get the Small Details Right**
Big historical events are easy to research. The small everyday details are what most writers miss. What kind of candles did people use? How did they preserve food? How did a woman fix her hair? What games did children play?
These small details are what make readers feel completely transported. When a character lights a tallow candle that sputters and smells of fat, that is a detail you cannot fake.
---
## Step 6: Handle Historical Events in Your Story
At some point, your story will probably intersect with real historical events. A war, a plague, a royal coronation, a famous disaster. Here is how to handle those moments.
**Put Your Characters at the Center**
Do not write history lessons. Write your character's experience of the historical event. How does the news of a battle reach a small village? How does a young soldier feel the night before a major fight? How does a family survive a famine?
History becomes powerful in fiction when we see it through the eyes of a single person with something at stake.
**You Do Not Have to Cover Everything**
You do not need to explain every political detail of your time period to the reader. Trust your readers. Give them what they need to understand the story, not a complete history lesson.
If the Thirty Years War is happening in the background of your novel, your readers do not need a full explanation of all the religious and political causes. They need to understand how the war is affecting your characters and their lives.
**Use Historical Events to Create Conflict**
History is full of conflict. Wars, revolutions, famines, disasters, power struggles. These are gifts to a novelist. Use them to put pressure on your characters and force them to make hard choices.
---
## Step 7: Plan Your Plot
A historical novel still needs a solid plot. History gives you the backdrop, but you have to build the actual story.
**Start With a Compelling Question**
Every good novel is built around a question the reader wants answered. Will she survive the revolution? Will he find the treasure before his enemies do? Will their secret be discovered?
Your historical setting should make this question even more urgent and interesting.
**Structure Your Story**
Most novels follow a basic structure. Something happens to upset your character's normal life. They go on a journey or face a challenge. Things get harder and harder. There is a big crisis. Then there is a resolution.
This structure works in any time period and any genre. Use it.
**Subplots Add Richness**
Historical novels are often longer than other kinds of novels because there is so much world to explore. Subplots involving secondary characters, political intrigues, or romantic storylines can make the world feel fuller and keep readers turning pages.
---
## Step 8: Write the First Draft
Now you actually have to write the thing. Here is some honest advice.
**Do Not Stop to Research While Writing**
When you are writing your first draft and you realise you do not know what kind of shoes someone would wear in 1650 France, do not stop and spend two hours researching shoes. Put a note in brackets like [CHECK SHOES] and keep writing. You can fill in the details later.
Stopping to research every little thing will kill your momentum.
**Write Every Day**
Historical novels are long. Most run between 80,000 and 120,000 words. You will not finish one by writing whenever you feel inspired. Set a daily word count goal and stick to it. Even 500 words a day adds up to a completed draft in less than a year.
**Let Yourself Write Badly**
Your first draft is allowed to be terrible. Every great historical novel you have ever read went through multiple drafts. The goal of the first draft is simply to get the story down. You fix it later.
---
## Step 9: Revise With Research in Mind
Once your first draft is done, go back through it with your research notes open.
Check your facts. Did you accidentally use a word that was not invented yet in your time period? Did you describe something that could not have existed then? Did you accidentally give a character an attitude that is completely out of place for their era?
There are great tools online for checking word origins, which can help you make sure you are not using modern words in historical settings.
Also ask yourself: Where does the story feel thin? Where does the world feel flat? Those are the places where more specific historical details can bring things to life.
---
## Step 10: Add an Author's Note
Most historical novels include a note at the end where the author explains what is real and what they made up. This is a gift to your readers.
Explain which characters are real historical figures and which are invented. Talk about where you took creative liberties with known history and why. Recommend books for readers who want to learn more.
Readers love this. It shows honesty and respect for both history and your audience.
---
## Common Mistakes to Avoid
**Dumping too much information at once.** Do not explain your entire historical world in the first chapter. Weave information naturally into the story.
**Making all characters think like modern people.** People in the past had different values and worldviews. Respect that, even when it is uncomfortable.
**Ignoring the lives of ordinary people.** History books often focus on kings and generals. But the most interesting historical novels are often about servants, farmers, merchants, and everyday people.
**Being afraid of getting things wrong.** You will make some mistakes. Every historical novelist does. Do your best, be honest in your author's note, and accept that no book is perfect.
**Forgetting that it is a novel first.** Story always comes before history. If the historical details are perfect but the story is boring, no one will read it.
---
## Final Thoughts
Writing a historical novel is a big project. It takes time, patience, and a genuine love for the past. But there is nothing quite like creating a world from another time and making it feel completely real to a reader.
Start with a time period that excites you. Research it deeply and honestly. Build characters who feel like real people, not history textbook figures. Let the big events of history crash into your characters' personal lives in ways that feel urgent and true.
And most importantly: keep writing. The first draft of any novel is always a mess. But a messy first draft of a historical novel is still the beginning of something wonderful.
History has millions of untold stories waiting for a writer brave enough to dig them up. Go find yours.
