Novel Approaches to History

This is the title of a conference that I attended this week, at the Institute of Historical Research in London. The aim was to explore the relationship between academic history and historical fiction. The conference was opened by a session with Hilary Mantel and Dr David Loades. The former was a very engaging speaker. Dr Loades set out the three different ‘types’ of historical novelist: those who use an historical period as a canvas where the narrative content itself is pure fiction; those who understand the broad historical context and create fictitious characters alongside actual characters; and then those who only ‘invent’ where there are gaps in the history. This, of course, is mirrored by the spectrum of academic historians, including popular historians. Hilary Mantel focussed on the importance of detail as well as the understanding of intellectual history. She reminded us of the importance of honesty and how building on untruths can lead to farce.
The following day comprised a range of plenary sessions as well as a key note speech by Alison Weir. Key themes throughout the day included the ability of the historical novelist to provide insight, difficulty in the use of language, the need to look at history from fresh angles for a new audience and not to recycle well worn images (often inaccurate themselves) and the relative importance of accuracy, authenticity and plausibility.
The event will continue as a virtual conference next week – details can be found at http://www.history.ac.uk/historical-fiction
In terms of my novel, this week I finished Chapter Thirteen. I really missed writing over the last couple of days and can’t wait to get back to it.