Apart from being set in the past, historical novels need have little in common with each other and there is no set genre with its own rules – as there is to some extent with crime novels. An historical novel could also be a mystery, a thriller or adventure story, a romance, a tale of political intrigue, a family saga or a soap opera and so follow some of the rules for these genres. It may be set in the distant or recent past. It’s sometimes easy to forget that books like A Tale of Two Cities, Vanity Fair, War and Peace and The Last of the Mohicans were all historical novels when they were written. The place and the era provide a setting, but ultimately the novel will depend far more on the story you want to tell, and in that respect it is the same as writing about the modern world.
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Historian, History Professor and historical novelist Adrian Goldsworthy at http://writinghistoricalnovels.com/2013/01/06/starting-to-write-historical-novels-by-adrian-goldsworthy
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