On Historical Fiction

  Historical fiction is a great medium to connect with kids in a fun and exciting way while still teaching about historical events and encouraging Christian values. Someone asked me recently, however, if historical fiction will not only confuse our history more than it already is?

The “Civil War,” or War of Northern Aggression, is definitely a confused time in history. Will taking liberties with history or simply writing from a point of view as all authors do, skew the picture even more? I would like to propose that historical fiction clarifies the picture. For example, historical fiction touches on the spirit of the time. It shows how the people felt about what they were experiencing and allows the reader to lose their 21^st century frame of reference. Just as one must understand the culture when he visits a foreign country, one must also understand the culture of a historical time if he hopes to understand it. At best, textbooks recount facts and dates and who did what. Historical fiction should expound on “who felt what” and explain WHY so-and-so did such-and-such. Why did the South believe they were doing the right thing?

If we look back at history, we will find many important writings that employed fictional people to convey real-life lessons. Take, for example, Baron de Montesquieu. He was the same man who wrote Spirit of the Laws in 1748 and was one of the philosophers from which our founding fathers drew the idea of governmental checks and balances. Montesquieu also wrote another work called Persian Letters. This work included fictional letters from two Persians who wrote home about England's constitutional form of government. His readers could learn about his revolutionary ideas of government while not feeling like Montesquieu was giving a lecture. They were reading someone's personal letters. Many of you will doubtless remember Candide, a novel in which the French philosopher Francois Voltaire encouraged the use of Enlightenment principles through the use of a contrived story. Or how about the Civil War-era author Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin? President Lincoln said this novel started the war. While we do not agree with many of these authors, they do represent a good example of writers who taught non-traditionally---who taught without teaching. But perhaps our best example is the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself, who frequently utilized fictional parables so that “those that have ears” will hear, and those that don't have ears, will not.

Lastly, we do not write historical fiction with the purpose of taking the place of textbooks or historical documents. We use historical fiction as a persuasive medium, yes. A writer's goal is to persuade. But we also write historical fiction with the hope that it will encourage more people to delve deeper into history---to bring the past to life, to bring an understanding between our culture and theirs. And maybe, if we are successful, our readers will be inspired enough to study further and form their own perspective of the past.