Elements of Historical Fiction

Five or seven? Or more? How many elements of historical fiction are there? It’s said that the five main elements of a story are:

• Setting
• Plot
• Characters
• Conflict, and
• Theme

A Writer of History wrote that there are seven elements. To the five listed above, they added two other elements:

• Dialogue
• World building

But then, they went on to add that historical fiction has one additional challenge. They write:

All writers of fiction have to consider seven critical elements: character, dialogue, setting, theme, plot, conflict, and world building. While every story succeeds or disappoints on the basis of these elements, historical fiction has the added challenge of bringing the past to life.

You can see their excellent post at A Writer of History.

Help Teaching has a fun little video clip about the elements of historical fiction. It’s geared towards students, but I still enjoyed watching it. It’s only a minute and a half. Check it out. See if it prompts any ideas for you.

https://youtu.be/2EpSrNHQOGU

Now I’m off to go contemplate about how I can put more effort into making sure that my writing brings the past to life.

 

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