Reflections on the 2023 Historical Novel Society Conference

I attended the Historical Novel Society North America conference last week. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend in person in San Antonio. But I listened to many of the virtual presentations, and I downloaded materials from others. I have 90 days to watch the presentations I couldn’t watch live, and I vow I will watch many of them (I did a poor job of this after the 2021 conference).

What I confirmed last week is that historical fiction writers are my tribe. As keynote speaker Jamie Ford said, “We are a herd of unicorns, and we belong together.” I’m part of the herd.

Here are a few reflections from the conference:

1. One of my favorite sessions asked: “Who Are You: A Historian Writing Fiction or a Historical Fiction Author?” The panel made it clear the tribe (or herd) of historical fiction writers is broad. It ranges all the way from those who write mostly history about real people of the past to those who write mostly to entertain and provide escape. The balance between history and entertainment is individual to every author. I’m somewhere in the middle of this continuum. That’s where I’m likely to stay, though my balance has shifted some from one book to another. I want my novels to be historically accurate, and I want to educate readers about the period I write about. But my focus is on telling a good story and letting my characters develop in ways that resonate with modern readers.
2. James Scott Bell gave a great presentation on using dialogue, with clips from well-known movies as his examples. (I could have watched those clips all day.) He started his presentation with the reminder that every character in a novel should have an agenda. Dialogue is one tool the character uses to achieve that agenda. Dialogue is part of the action in a scene. All great dialogue has conflict or tension, whether the conflict is external between characters or inside the head of one character.
3. Book coach Robin Henry spoke about the five layers of revision: (1) structure, (2) intention, (3) character development, (4) foreshadowing, and (5) polishing. I just finished the editing of When Heart Shall Fail, so I’ve recently been through all these layers, though I didn’t use this specific framework to get there. I’ve seen many suggestions on ways to layer the editing process, and this one was as helpful as any. One thing Robin said that brought me comfort was that it is easier to assess the structure of a novel after it is drafted. I try to follow a structural plan as I write, but I always find it needs adjusting after the first (or even second) draft. She offered many other helpful tips as well.
4. During a discussion of historical romance, one attendee asked how to give women agency in historical fiction when they had few rights. That’s something I’ve thought a lot about as I’ve written about women in the mid-19th century. My answer is that I just give my characters the agency they need for the story. People at all eras of history—men and women alike, whether or not they had power—try to live agentic lives. Strong characters—real and fictional—take their own agency. Still, I watch to keep my characters’ actions plausible within the constraints of the era.
5. As I’ve written before, I’ve been dabbling with ChatGPT and other AI tools. AI came up as a topic in several of the sessions. One presenter used the acronym CRAAP as a way to evaluate the information AI provides—Currency, Relevance, Accuracy, Authority, and Purpose. Is the information current (recent)? Is it relevant and on topic? Is it accurate? What authority and credentials does the source have? And what purpose or bias did the source have for writing the information? Actually, these criteria are pretty good for evaluating any research an author does.
6. As James Scott Bell said regarding AI, writers should write with love, because that’s what humans can do that AI cannot. Writers pour their love into their work, and that is a noble undertaking. He writes commercial fiction, and he doesn’t apologize for it, because providing readers with a few hours of escape is a valuable purpose. And that’s what I want to do with my fiction. I want to entertain while opening a window into the past. I want to show how people in the past are similar to people today. Stories of the past should resonate today.
7. And I’ll finish by saying that the conference session about the state of the publishing industry was pretty depressing. I am satisfied with my decision to be an indie author who can keep control of my books and my schedule. It may be less lucrative than publishing a bestselling novel, but it is profitable and fits my lifestyle and family needs. Most indie authors I know are happy with their choice.

Overall, I learned that I am as competent as many of the presenters at the conference. Some are better writers than I am. Some have done a better job of marketing their books. Some spend more time at it than I do. As a result of one or more of these factors, some have had more success than me. But I have nothing to be ashamed about as a writer, and I am happy to be a part of the tribe.