Be honest, who does not love the stories of Atlantis or Brigadoon or any other disappearing and disappeared world? World mysteries have always fascinated me, wondering what people imagined from these lost communities and - even more so - what they wanted them to be and represent. The Destruction of Ravenser Odd I stumbled across the history of Ravenser Odd entirely by chance. But what a chance! Here was a setting for a story, one which was almost Biblical in its existence and destruction. Unlike Dunwich, which gradually succumbed to the sea, Ravenser Odd was swallowed in a very short space of time, the final straw coming in The Great Drowning of Men on Saint Marcellus' Day 1362. As well as this, the town was in the Humber, an area with which I was very familiar, having lived in Barrow-upon-Humber for ten years and being an alumnus of Hull University. Could there be a better setting for a historical fiction tale which was to be laced with horror? Well, I didn't think so. The
Recently, someone on the Historical Writers Forum was talking about how to categorise their new WIP (which sounds like it will be amazing!), and had settled on "medieavally-inspired nonsense". And it got me thinking... why do we need to categorise books so rigidly?
Historical Fiction has, for quite a long time, been thought of as a settling as least as much as a genre. After all, we have Historical Romance, Historical Adventure, Historical Mystery, and Historical Fantasy. But this begs two questions: Is "historical" a subgenre rather than a genre or a setting? And then: does it matter?
Our love of labels has gone mad!
Amazon love to attitribute genres. I suppose there are those who go onto certain sections and have a look at them but, as an author, they are horribly flawed. Example: Beneath Black Clouds and White is listed on Amazon in the Historical French Fiction category. Why? Because it begins with the French Revolution. None of it, however, takes part in France, neither is there any French spoken in it (it would be a disaster if I attempted that with my severely limited French)! No one will ever find my book in that genre. C'est la vie...😕 What it's actually about is people, but it's not exactly Literary Fiction either. Grrr! What a nightmare!
I had mostly consigned myself to the fact genres were something of a stranglehold on an author. Then the fabulous Kevin Beynon of Scarlet Ferret bookshop picked up on how The Year We Lived did not fit into a generic genre. I'm immensely grateful to him for this, not only because Scarlet Ferret stock my eBook(!), but because I realised that there was no need for my writing to fit into these restrictive boxes.
The Year We Lived is a great example of putting our modern beliefs and (quite honestly) restrictive thoughts onto a historical setting. When I wrote it, I made sure that there was no part I could not justify or support with fact and research - yes, even the parts surrounding Dunstan. Then, I applied the viewpoint of Saxon superstition and early-medieaval Church law. As a result, what we now attempt to justify with logic, became supernatural. But this is not really a fantasy book per se. Instead, it's an historical book with an historical outlook.
So here's a challenge. Make the next book you choose to read something from an obscure subgenre, and the next book you chose to write something which doesn't look ahead to its genre. Instead, trust yourself. You could discover the next great book!
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