historical fiction
Imagined past narratives
Historical fiction is narrative set in a past era, blending invented characters and events with documented history.
The genre requires research to render period details convincingly—clothing, speech, social customs—while taking liberties with what actually happened: a historical fiction novel about Tudor England.
The line between historical fiction and fiction that merely happens to be old is fuzzy, but roughly thirty to fifty years back qualifies as historical.
- novelNew and unusual
- epicImpressively grand in scope
- narrativeAccount of events
- sagaExtended heroic narrative
- page turnerEngrossing book or story
the old days · bodice ripper · medieval romance · Victorian literature · Tudor England · hagiography · Bildungsroman · literary realism · period drama · social commentary · chivalric romance · costume drama · oral tradition · character development · romance · war · sweeping · manuscript
- genresaction, comedy, fantasy, horror, documentary
- girls fictionheroines, girl power, schoolgirls, princesses, coming-of-age
- historical fictionperiod drama, Victorian novel, costume drama, period film, Viking saga
- American proseessays, biographies, autobiographies, personal essays, narrative essays
- ebook genresyoung adult, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, cozy mystery, dystopian
- literary fictionliterary realism, character-driven, character study, character studies, novella
historical fictiondocumentary
Factual film about reality
nonfiction · history · academic history · biography · journalism
historical fictionscience fiction
Speculative fiction with technological themes
futurism · speculative fiction · contemporary fiction · dystopian fiction · utopian fiction
historical fictionfantasy
Imaginative mental wandering
high fantasy · science fiction · supernatural fiction · fairy tale · epic fantasy
history, fiction, historic, historical, prehistoric, histories, fictional, prehistory, nonfiction