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Historical Fiction Conventions for Interactive Fiction

Craft guidance for writing historical fiction—research balance, period voice, handling historical figures, and avoiding anachronisms.

Research and Accuracy

The Research Balance

The Challenge:

Too much accuracy bogs down story. Too little accuracy breaks immersion. Find the balance where historical detail serves narrative.

Guideline: Research deeply, use sparingly. Know ten times more than you show.

When Accuracy Matters

Critical (Get Right):

  • Major historical events
  • Technology that affects plot
  • Social structures and laws
  • Death and life of real figures
  • Geography and distances

Flexible (Can Adjust):

  • Exact dialogue of real people
  • Minor timeline adjustments
  • Composite characters
  • Telescoping events for drama

Minimal Importance:

  • Weather on specific days
  • Exact menus and recipes
  • Precise fashion details (unless plot-relevant)

Research Sources

Primary Sources:

  • Diaries, letters, newspapers from the period
  • Government records and documents
  • Contemporary accounts

Secondary Sources:

  • Academic histories
  • Biographies
  • Period-specific encyclopedias

Caution Sources:

  • Wikipedia (starting point only)
  • Historical fiction (other authors' interpretations)
  • Movies and TV (often inaccurate)

The "Small Lies, Big Truth" Principle

You can change small details to serve story as long as you preserve the larger historical truth.

Acceptable:

Moving a meeting from Tuesday to Thursday for dramatic timing.

Not Acceptable:

Having the wrong side win a famous battle.

Period Voice

Dialogue Challenges

The Problem:

Authentic period dialogue can be unreadable. Modern dialogue breaks immersion.

The Solution:

Create the illusion of period speech without literal transcription.

Techniques for Period Voice

Vocabulary Selection:

  • Remove obvious anachronisms
  • Use period-appropriate terms for technology
  • Match formality to era and class
  • Avoid modern slang and idioms

Sentence Structure:

  • Slightly more formal than modern speech
  • Period-appropriate contractions (or lack thereof)
  • Address forms matching social relationships

Rhythm and Flow:

  • More important than vocabulary
  • Read period sources aloud to internalize rhythm
  • Match speech patterns to era

What to Avoid

Archaic Overload:

Bad:

"Prithee, good sirrah, wouldst thou deign to inform mine humble personage of the hour?"

This is unreadable and often historically inaccurate.

Good:

"What time is it?" (Even historical people asked simple questions simply)

Modern Intrusions:

Bad:

"I'm totally stressed about the war."

Good:

"This war weighs on me."

Inconsistent Register:

Bad:

"Methinks we should check out that tavern."

Mixing archaic and modern reads as parody.

Class and Education

Different characters speak differently:

  • Educated upper class: more formal, longer sentences
  • Working class: simpler vocabulary, regional patterns
  • Servants to masters: deferential forms
  • Friends among equals: relaxed versions of above

Daily Life Details

Why Details Matter

Period details create immersion. The reader should feel transported. Small authentic touches matter more than grand historical set pieces.

Categories of Detail

Domestic Life:

  • How people wake, eat, sleep
  • Lighting and heating
  • Clothing and dressing routines
  • Food preparation and meals

Social Interactions:

  • Greeting customs
  • Forms of address
  • Gender expectations
  • Class interactions

Work and Commerce:

  • How money works
  • What jobs exist
  • Trade and shopping
  • Travel methods and times

Technology:

  • What exists and what doesn't
  • How things actually work
  • Limitations and dangers
  • Rate of adoption

The Lived-In Test

Ask: Could my character describe their morning routine?

If you can't answer basic questions about daily life, research more.

Common Era-Specific Considerations

Medieval:

  • Limited mobility and communication
  • Church as central authority
  • Feudal obligations
  • High mortality rates

Victorian:

  • Rigid class structure
  • Industrialization's impact
  • Empire and colonialism
  • Gender restrictions

WWII:

  • Rationing and shortages
  • Censorship and propaganda
  • Home front vs combat
  • Technology of war

Regency:

  • Social season structure
  • Marriage market
  • Etiquette rules
  • Limited female agency

Handling Historical Prejudices

The Challenge

Historical periods had views modern readers find abhorrent: racism, sexism, homophobia, religious persecution, colonialism.

Approaches

Acknowledge Without Endorsing:

  • Show prejudice existed
  • Don't have characters approve
  • Let readers see injustice
  • Avoid making oppression "normal"

Protagonist Perspective:

  • Protagonist can hold modern-ish values (rare but existing)
  • Or can learn and grow
  • Or can be complicit (darker narratives)
  • Avoid protagonist lectures on modern values

Marginalized Perspectives:

  • Consider whose story you're telling
  • Research how affected groups actually lived
  • Avoid trauma tourism
  • Consult sensitivity readers

What to Avoid

Sanitizing:

Pretending prejudice didn't exist. Breaks historical authenticity and erases real suffering.

Gratuitous Depiction:

Detailed portrayal of violence against marginalized groups without purpose.

Modern Savior:

Protagonist solving historical injustice with modern enlightenment.

Anachronistic Attitudes:

Characters with 21st-century progressive values in 1600s without explanation.

Interactive Fiction Considerations

  • Player choices around prejudice (participate, resist, avoid)
  • Consequences reflecting historical reality
  • Multiple perspective characters
  • Content warnings for period-accurate content

Real Historical Figures

When to Include Them

Real figures add authenticity and interest. But they bring responsibilities.

Good Uses:

  • Brief appearances establishing setting
  • Known figures doing documented things
  • Background characters (crowds, officials)

Risky Uses:

  • Extended dialogue and scenes
  • Private moments with no historical record
  • Actions contradicting historical record

Guidelines

Respect the Record:

  • Don't contradict well-documented facts
  • Can fill gaps in record with plausible fiction
  • Mark clearly what's invented vs documented

Death and Life:

  • Don't change when/how documented deaths occurred
  • Don't resurrect the dead
  • Be careful with causes of death if uncertain

Character Assassination:

  • Don't depict historical figures negatively without evidence
  • Particularly careful with descendants still living
  • Libel concerns with recent figures

Sympathy for Villains:

  • Can humanize without excusing
  • Show complexity, not rehabilitation
  • Don't make historical monsters misunderstood heroes

Dialogue Attribution

When putting words in real people's mouths:

  • Base on documented views and speech patterns
  • Don't have them say things contrary to record
  • Acknowledge in author's notes what's invented

Common Anachronisms

Vocabulary Anachronisms

Words that didn't exist or meant different things:

  • "Okay" (19th century American)
  • "Mob" (17th century, from Latin mobile vulgus)
  • "Boyfriend/girlfriend" (early 20th century)
  • "Stressed" (modern psychological sense)
  • "Scientist" (1834)

Research: Check etymology of any word that feels modern.

Technology Anachronisms

Using technology before invention:

  • Matches before 1826
  • Telegraphs before 1840s
  • Anesthesia before 1846
  • Photographs before 1820s
  • Antibiotics before 1928

Conceptual Anachronisms

Modern concepts applied to past:

  • Modern psychology before Freud
  • Evolution before Darwin
  • Nationalism before 19th century
  • Privacy expectations in communal societies
  • Individual rights before Enlightenment

Social Anachronisms

Modern social patterns in historical settings:

  • Casual mixed-gender socializing in strict societies
  • Class mobility in rigid hierarchies
  • Women's independence before legal changes
  • Racial integration before it occurred

Food and Drink

Foods not yet available:

  • Potatoes/tomatoes in Europe before 1500s
  • Coffee/tea in Europe before trade routes
  • Sugar before it became affordable
  • Specific dishes before cultural exchange

Interactive Fiction Considerations

Player Choice vs Historical Constraint

The Tension:

History is fixed. Player agency requires choice. How to balance?

Solutions:

Fictional Protagonist:

  • Real history happens around fictional character
  • Player choices affect personal story, not major events
  • History constrains options but doesn't eliminate them

Alternate History:

  • Explicitly diverge from real history
  • Player choices create alternate timeline
  • Clear signals about historical divergence

Micro vs Macro:

  • Macro history fixed (wars, rulers, technology)
  • Micro history flexible (individual lives, personal outcomes)

Consequences of Anachronistic Choices

If player can make ahistorical choices, show consequences:

  • Social rejection for breaking norms
  • Legal consequences for forbidden behavior
  • Practical failures (technology that doesn't exist)

Multiple Paths Through History

Different paths can show different aspects of period:

  • Upper class vs lower class perspectives
  • Different geographic locations
  • Different professions
  • Different marginalized experiences

Research Burden

Historical IF requires more research than contemporary:

  • Location descriptions must be period-accurate
  • NPC dialogue must fit era
  • Available choices constrained by period
  • Consequences must reflect historical reality

Character Archetypes

Historical fiction characters operate within the constraints and opportunities of their era. The archetypes below are defined by their relationship to the historical forces around them.

The Witness

The character who experiences history firsthand. The most common historical fiction protagonist.

Variations:

  • The Ordinary Witness — an everyday person caught in extraordinary events. A baker during the French Revolution, a clerk during the Blitz. Their ordinariness is the point: this happened to real, unremarkable people
  • The Privileged Witness — sees events from a position of power or comfort. Their challenge is recognizing the suffering they benefit from
  • The Chronicler — a journalist, diarist, or letter-writer whose act of recording is itself dangerous or significant
  • The Unreliable Witness — memory, bias, or self-interest distort their account. The gap between what happened and what they claim happened is the story

The Rebel

The character who resists the prevailing order of their time.

Variations:

  • The Ahead-of-Their-Time — holds views that will eventually prevail but are dangerous now. Abolitionists, suffragettes, dissidents. Risk: making them a modern person in costume. Mitigation: show them as products of their era who reached progressive conclusions through period-appropriate reasoning
  • The Pragmatic Rebel — does not resist on principle but on necessity. Survival demands breaking rules. Smugglers, black marketeers, resistance fighters who act from self-preservation as much as ideology
  • The Failed Rebel — history records them as a footnote or not at all. Their cause was just but their timing was wrong, their resources insufficient, or their allies unreliable. Valuable for stories about persistence and incremental change

The Collaborator

The character who works with the dominant power, whether invader, empire, or regime.

Variations:

  • The Survivor Collaborator — cooperates because the alternative is death. Morally ambiguous: are they a coward or a realist?
  • The True Believer — genuinely supports the regime. The most uncomfortable archetype because they are often otherwise decent people who believe they are doing right
  • The Double Agent — collaborates publicly while secretly undermining. Lives in constant fear of exposure from both sides
  • The Profiteer — exploits the situation for personal gain without ideological commitment. War as business opportunity

The Outsider

The character who does not belong to the dominant culture of the setting.

Variations:

  • The Foreign Observer — a traveler, diplomat, or merchant who sees the culture with fresh eyes. Useful for exposition but risks the "white savior" or "exotic observer" trap
  • The Marginalized Insider — belongs to the place but not to the power structure. Women in patriarchal societies, minorities in hostile majorities, the poor in aristocratic worlds
  • The Displaced Person — refugee, exile, or transported prisoner. Their relationship to the setting is involuntary. History happened to them

The Authority Figure

The character who wields institutional power within the historical period.

Variations:

  • The Reformer — uses their position to push for change within the system. Constrained by the very power that enables them
  • The Tyrant — exercises power without restraint. Most effective when their cruelty follows a logic the reader can trace, even while condemning it
  • The Reluctant Ruler — holds power they did not seek and cannot relinquish without catastrophe. Duty as prison
  • The Puppet — appears powerful but is controlled by advisors, factions, or circumstances. The gap between apparent and actual power is the dramatic engine

The Artisan

The character defined by their craft, trade, or profession.

Variations:

  • The Master — at the peak of their skill, whose work intersects with historical events. A shipbuilder during the Age of Sail, a printer during the Reformation
  • The Apprentice — learning a trade while the world changes around them. The craft provides structure; history provides disruption
  • The Displaced Craftsperson — whose skills become obsolete as technology or politics shift. The weaver facing industrial looms, the scribe facing the printing press

For Interactive Fiction:

  • Historical archetypes gain depth when the player must navigate period constraints. Playing as a Marginalized Insider means options are genuinely limited by the era's social rules
  • The Collaborator archetype works powerfully in IF because the player makes the compromises themselves. No comfortable distance from the moral weight
  • Allow players to choose their relationship to power: Rebel, Witness, Collaborator, or Outsider paths through the same historical events

Common Mistakes

Protagonist Knows Too Much

Character knows things they couldn't know:

  • Future events
  • Scientific discoveries not yet made
  • Other countries' secrets
  • Information not available to their class/gender

Everyone Is Remarkably Modern

All sympathetic characters have 21st-century values. Feels false and breaks immersion.

History Tourism

Using historical setting as backdrop without engaging with it. Characters could be in any era.

Info Dumping Period Details

Stopping story to explain historical context. Integrate through action and dialogue.

Inconsistent Level of Detail

Some aspects carefully researched, others clearly wrong. Inconsistency breaks trust.

Assuming Universal Experience

Writing one class/gender/region as if universal. Medieval peasant life differs vastly from noble life.

Quick Reference

Element Guideline
Research Know more than you show
Voice Illusion of period, not literal transcription
Accuracy Critical for major events, flexible for details
Prejudice Acknowledge without endorsing or sanitizing
Real figures Respect the record, fill gaps carefully
Anachronisms Check vocabulary, technology, concepts, social patterns
Player choice Constrained by period but not eliminated
Details Daily life matters more than grand events

See Also