The Art of Historical Mysteries

October 2020 Gimme Five: The Art of Historical Mysteries

By Jen Collins Moore

Anna Lee Huber knows what it takes to write a great historical mystery. She’s the Daphne award-winning author of the national bestselling Lady Darby Mysteries, the Verity Kent Mysteries, and the Gothic Myths series, as well as the forthcoming anthology The Deadly Hours. Anna has written fourteen novels and loves the escape historical fiction provides from our everyday modern lives and problems, not to mention the opportunity to explore eras that fascinate her. This month she shares her tips for tackling a story set in the past.

1) Choose a time period you love

While some time periods seem to be perpetually popular (think Jane Austen’s Regency era and Sherlock Holmes’ Victorian), others come and go. Anna says authors shouldn’t try to chase the trends. Readers of historical mysteries are open to trying new periods, so authors should choose the periods that appeal to them.

“Write in an era you love," Anna says. “Historical mysteries require a large amount of research to do well, and if you don’t love researching the era you chose specifically, you will dread it.”

2) Research, research, research. (Did we mention research?) 

Anna grounds herself in a time period by reviewing history books, letters, journals, travel logs, fashion plates, maps—whatever she can get her hands on. Then, when she has sketched out the plot and setting on an individual book, she digs deeper into the elements central to each particular story.

This work is necessary for her work to feel authentic. “Readers of historical fiction are very intelligent,” Anna says. “They enjoy being challenged and doing additional research.” These readers will notice if you get your facts wrong, which means you must have a deep understanding of the era’s social history, customs, manners of speech, the dress, the food, and the way people lived and moved and interacted.

Anna says she’s become a more efficient researcher as she’s gained experience. One tip is to use the bibliography of books you’ve found useful to find additional information. Another is to avoid relying solely on other works of historical fiction. (Authors and filmmakers sometimes get it wrong.)

3) Learn the language

There is an art to producing the right voice for an era. “Each time period has its own rhythm and cadence to the dialogue, its own slight variation in the manner in which people strung together sentences,” Anna says.

To get this right, spend time checking the etymology of words and phrases in your story. Words you might think are old might be modern, and others that seem too new to use might actually be very old. 

That focus on authenticity doesn’t mean you can sacrifice voice, though. Anna says a poor voice is perhaps the most lethal mistake she sees historical fiction authors make. 

“It isn’t always easy to produce a compelling narrative voice when you’re trying to use the correct language for the era and make it fit the time and place without sounding stilted," Anna says. "But no matter the genre, the narrative voice is incredibly important. If readers don’t find the voice interesting and enthralling, they will not continue to read.”

4) Resist the information dump

You’ve done all the research, and it might be tempting to put everything you’ve learned into the story. Don’t do it. Just as in contemporary fiction, it will bog down the narrative and take the reader out of the story.

Anna says only about ten to fifteen percent of her research actually makes it onto the page. But that doesn’t mean the other work was wasted. “There is an art to seamlessly weaving in what the reader needs to know only when they need to know it,” Anna says. “Even what I don’t use directly still critically informs the narrative and my characters’ mindsets and actions.”

Authors should also beware of using research as a form of procrastination. “To write historical fiction, you have to love doing research. But you also have to be able to know when to set it aside and begin writing,” Anna says. “Otherwise, you’ll simply continue researching forever, and the story will never be finished.”

5) Write respectful and relatable characters without rewriting history

Many authors of historical fiction struggle with how to address the social, racial and gender inequality of the eras they write about.

Anna says there were always people who disagreed or struggled with the injustices and prejudiced mindsets of their time, and it’s realistic for your narrator to do so as well. “In this way, you can be true to history and respectful of the pain and discrimination some people faced, but you're also opening a relatable door to the modern reader.”

Anna says the trick is to make it clear that these characters are not the norm, and that their beliefs or behavior might be unacceptable to a large portion of society. “I’m always uncomfortable when addressing these issues in my books,” Anna says. “But pretending they didn’t occur or portraying them falsely is a dangerous disservice to all humanity—past and present, oppressor and oppressed. When in doubt, humbly reach out for advice from the appropriate sources.”

Jen Collins Moore is the author of  Murder in the Piazza from Level Best Books. Her short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly, and she is the editor of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest newsletter.