Whether you have an idea for a novel based on true events or you wish to create a work of fiction set in the past, writing historical fiction requires a research process and deep consideration of character, narrative and prose to ensure that the work feels alive and relevant to a modern reader.
This workshop is designed to explain the ways in which research can be used to strengthen characterisation, setting and plot, and will teach efficient techniques and approaches to avoid burdening your fiction with superfluous historical information or lapses into anachronism.
Through a series of writing exercises and insights into the creative practice of developing a work of historical fiction, this workshop will teach you where to find research materials, what to look for in historical records, and will review the components that make up a manuscript (such as character, plot, dialogue, place and structure) within the context of the genre.
Hannah Kent is the co-founder and publishing director of Kill Your Darlings. Her debut novel, Burial Rites (2013), has been translated into thirty languages and was shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Stella Prize, the Guardian First Book Award, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year, amongst others. Hannah’s second novel, The Good People (2016) was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Queensland Literary Awards and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. It is being adapted for film by Aquarius Productions.