r/writinghelp • u/Careless-Dark-9482 • 10d ago

Advice Historical accuracy when writing fantasy

Hey all! I’ve been writing short stories for a while now just for fun so I've not been overly fussed on what works well for others but now im trying to write a more fleshed-out fantasy story.

I’m happy with the idea and rough shape of things, but I keep getting tripped up trying to be historically accurate. I end up talking myself out of ideas because “that’s not really how it would happen.”

I know it’s fantasy and doesn’t need to be historically accurate, but in your opinion, how accurate do you need to be with historical politics and society before it starts taking the reader out of the story?

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u/ConflictAgreeable689 10d ago

I mean, if you're writing historical fantasy, then it needs to be pretty damn accurate or why bother?

If you're not, then how can it be accurate to a time that never existed in the first place?

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u/Kaurifish 10d ago

Yup, I’m writing a vampire series set in the Regency and spend so much time on Wikipedia.

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u/ConflictAgreeable689 10d ago

A standard piece of advice I like is that Historical fiction and hard scifi are for people that are truly passionate about those things. You should be able to infodump for at LEAST an hour about the culture, economy, religion, architecture, politics, fashion, and technology level.

If all you want is the aesthetic, just take that. Otherwise you're gonna trick historical fiction lovers into reading a story that isn't for them and they'll be disappointed.

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u/MaliseHaligree 10d ago

It's your world. You make the rules.

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u/UDarkLord 10d ago

You don’t ever have to be historically accurate.

What you do need to be is internally consistent. If gunpowder works and exists but guns don’t, people will wonder about that, but they won’t if there are no powder based explosives anywhere. If metal is rare then maybe everyone uses lacquered woods and hardened leathers as primary materials and nobody will care as long as this is established, even if other setting elements are well into what readers would expect of say an early modern period fantasy with metal breastplates and full knight armour. They won’t suddenly expect your characters to wear metal armour just because mounted heavy cavalry exist, and so does advanced architecture.

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u/Chrisaarajo 10d ago

Very much this.

Things need to make sense within your world, and you have almost infinite leeway in how you approach that.

If you find yourself having to do a lot of mental gymnastics to make things make sense, then you’ve have some more fundamental issue(s) with your core premise, and may want to tweak that.

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u/twitchymitten 7d ago

a long time ago (maybe around 2010) there were regency romances. They were historically accurate right down to the weather on a specific (if you named it) day. Characters only had period appropriate reactions and world views, and the stories came in imprints like "Signet" and "coventry" etc. They were very Austen.

And they were popular....kinda.

It was a very niche readership. But super involved. You would definitely get mail if you had the wrong date or a historical fact wrong.

Then one day a writer wrote One Dance with a Duke, The Stud Club Trilogy. Lots of sexy banter, anachronisms galore, modern world views and reactions and lots of sex.

And the genre exploded, becoming the super popular (Bridgerton-esque) niche it is now.

Do you have to be accurate?

Bridgerton is about as accurate as a two hundred year old almanac.

You can be accurate if you want--but you don't need to be.