The 7 Pillars Of Historical Fiction

October 14, 2025 by Richard Young

Are you a fan of historical fiction? Would you like to write a historical novel on your own? In this post, we define the 7 pillars of historical fiction to help you on your way.

This is part of a series exploring the pillars of literary genres. Previously, we have written about:

In this post, we will explore the seven pillars of historical fiction.

What Is Historical Fiction?

The Historical Novel Society defines the genre as describing events set at least 50 years in the past. The author must write from research rather than personal experience. That excludes most autobiographical fiction.

According to Wikipedia, historical fiction is ‘a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the setting of particular real historical events.’ This places this particular genre somewhat between a documentary and a completely fictional story.

This is exactly what creates its secret of success. Usually, readers of historical fiction are very interested in history. They could read a factual history book. They don’t because they love how historical fiction makes history come alive. Let’s look at how it’s done.

Some Great Examples Of Historical Fiction

The 7 Pillars of Historical Fiction

Pillar #1 – Choose An Era

It is impossible to write about history as such. You must narrow it down. Choose an era that interests you personally, as you will spend a lot of time with it.

Consider that the market of historical fiction is vast. Some chapters of history have been covered extensively. You might want to avoid those, as it would make it harder for you to place your book on the market.

Once you’ve chosen your era, you can set to work.

Pillar #2 – Extensive Research

Readers of historical fiction already know a lot about history. They’ve watched all the documentaries. They’ve read all the books. As a writer, you need to compete with that knowledge!

Writers need to know more than the historical facts. You need to go to the library and delve into the archives. You need to visit historical sites. You need to become a historical detective. Here’s a post to help you with that research. Writers of historical fiction can easily spend years researching.

If you don’t do your homework properly, readers will find out. They will put your book away and never open it again. To avoid this, look at the next pillar.

Pillar #3 – Historical Accuracy

Historical accuracy is a must in this genre. But how do you achieve it? By treating the era you’ve chosen as the setting of your novel. This means you need to provide the reader with the correct details of everyday life. What clothes did people wear? What did they eat? What were some of the customs and social norms? Last, but not least: you need to know the language they would choose.

Here’s an example: Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes are set in the Victorian era. Let’s say I were to write a story about a fictional companion of Holmes. My detective couldn’t wear a baseball cap. That headgear is much too 20th-century. Men at the time wore a top hat, for example, or Holmes’s iconic deerstalker. How would they greet each other? Would they say, ‘What’s up?’ No, their greeting would be much more formal, like ‘Good Day.’ That’s the extent of historical accuracy.

[Top Tip: If you’re looking for help with setting, buy our Setting Up The Setting Workbook.]

Pillar #4 – Know Where To Take Creative Liberties

The main rule of historical fiction is that you need to stay within the historical framework provided by the facts. Known historical figures cannot act out of character.

When you do your research, note which questions about your chosen era have been answered extensively. Those are the topics that will get you in trouble when you bend the truth. So, when you write about the Tudor era, don’t question how many wives King Henry VIII had. We know. These are the major historical events that should take place off-stage.

Instead, look for questions that haven’t been asked yet. Those provide unique angles that grant you the leeway you want as an author. To stick with our example, ask if there had been a fictional duke in the Tudor era who had more wives than Henry VIII? Or: what did the priest think who married Henry to all his wives?

Pillar #5 – Strong Characters

Readers of historical fiction want history to come alive for them. The easiest way for authors to achieve this is to devise an exciting setting (see above) and a cast of strong characters.

Characters may include real historical figures. Usually, historical fiction weaves them into the background. Your main character should be fictional. Let this individual grant us first-hand experience of the period with all its struggles, confines, and joys.

Ellis Peters’ Cadfael series is a great example of this. These books show us Brother Cadfael, a medieval monk. He used to be a crusader and has travelled extensively. He solves crimes within the restricted possibilities of medieval science. In the Cadfael books, we also learn a lot about the everyday life of a monk in the Middle Ages!

Remember that action defines character. So, make sure you include enough plot to make your characters develop. Let us in on their inner thoughts by using more showing, rather than telling (here’s a blog to help you with ‘show, don’t tell’).

Pillar #6 – Sound Authentic

Finding the right tone for your historical novel will be a challenge. Your text needs to sound authentic, as if it had been written in your chosen period. The reader needs to believe your story really could have happened at the time.

Setting and diction help with that. Yet the writer of historical fiction needs to find the right tone. It needs to sound authentic, but it also needs to be modern enough to enable readers to understand the text. At best, the historical novelist is a translator between the past and the present, not just in subject matter, but also in language.

Let’s go back to the Brother Cadfael series. Cadfael, being a medieval monk, would have spoken in Middle English. That’s the language of Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. How many people can read that in the original? Not too many. That’s why Ellis Peters created a character who is well-travelled. He’s been through a lot of hardship as a crusader. He would sound different from any typical speaker of Middle English anyway. That makes it easy to slip in the occasional modern phrase. On the whole, Cadfael speaks in modern English, yet in a formal register with an old-fashioned diction and syntax.

Here’s an example: In the book, The Leper of St. Giles, Cadfael talks about the crusades: ‘After the killing that was done in Jerusalem, of so many who held by the Prophet, I say they deserved better luck against us than they had.’

Cadfael’s complex syntax makes him sound Latinate, like any monk of the period should. So, the use of Latinate diction and syntax, and a few old-fashioned words, is enough to conjure up the illusion of medieval speech. He sounds authentic.

You can achieve this for your chosen era by reading extensively – not just fiction but also historical documents, newspapers, pamphlets, and magazines. Make sure you expose yourself to a wide variety of speech samples.

Pillar #7 – Universal Themes

Historical fiction addresses universal themes that resonate with readers across time. These themes may include love, identity, loss, suffering, power struggles, and social change.

In a sense, this is true for all great literature. Yet reading about these themes in historical fiction shows the readers how relevant they still are. Also, it’s often easier for readers to deal with difficult conflicts when they’re set in the past.

The Last Word

Historical fiction is a great genre. And it exists in so many subgenres! Blending historical fiction with romance, sci-fi, fantasy, or even time travel gives you more creative liberty.

For example, the Netflix series ‘Travelers’ sends agents to travel back in time, altering historical events to prevent the apocalypse. Each episode lets them end up in a different time period. The whole series shows what happens when authors apply the question ‘What if?’ to history. By the way, this genre is called ‘alternate history.’
Genevieve Cogman’s Invisible Library series blends fantasy elements with time-travel and alternate history with historical fiction. This might sound like a wild mix, but I would definitely recommend reading it!

Further Reading

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

Elmore Leonard’s 11 Rules For Writing Fiction

October 11, 2025 by Richard Young

In this post, we’ve included author and screenwriter Elmore Leonard’s 11 rules for writing fiction.

Elmore Leonard was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He was born 11 October 1925 and died 20 August 2013.

He started writing Westerns, but went on to specialise in crime fiction and thrillers, many of which were adapted for film.

His best-known works are Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Pronto: A Novel, 52 Pickup, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, and Rum Punch, which was filmed as Jackie Brown. He was born 11 October 1925 and died 20 August 2013.

He was a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Lifetime Achievement Award from PEN USA, and the 1992 Grand Master Award for Lifetime Achievement of the Mystery Writers of America.

He was well known for creating funny, detailed, well-paced stories featuring criminals. He was also known for writing incredibly realistic dialogue.

Elmore Leonard’s 11 Rules For Writing Fiction

Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leap ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
Avoid prologues: they can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ‘I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks.’
Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But ‘said’ is far less intrusive than ‘grumbled’, ‘gasped’, ‘cautioned’, ‘lied’. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ‘she asseverated’ and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ … he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ‘full of rape and adverbs’.
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
Never use the words ‘suddenly’ or ‘all hell broke loose’. This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ‘suddenly’ tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavour of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.
Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, what do the ‘American and the girl with him’ look like? ‘She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.’ That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story.
Don’t go into great detail describing places and things, unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Source for rules

by Amanda Patterson

Why Emotional Excess is Essential to Writing and Creativity – The Marginalian.

October 2, 2025 by Richard Young

The third volume of Anaïs Nin’s diaries has been on heavy rotation in recent weeks, yielding Nin’s thoughtful and timeless meditations on life, mass movements, Paris vs. New York, what makes a great city, and the joy of handicraft.

The subsequent installment, The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947 (public library) is an equally rich treasure trove of wisdom on everything from life to love to the art of writing. In fact, Nin’s gift shines most powerfully when she addresses all of these subjects and more in just a few ripe sentences.

Such is the case with the following exquisite letter of advice she sent to a seventeen-year-old aspiring author by the name of Leonard W., whom she had taken under her wing as creative mentor. Nin writes:

I like to live always at the beginnings of life, not at their end. We all lose some of our faith under the oppression of mad leaders, insane history, pathologic cruelties of daily life. I am by nature always beginning and believing and so I find your company more fruitful than that of, say, Edmund Wilson, who asserts his opinions, beliefs, and knowledge as the ultimate verity. Older people fall into rigid patterns. Curiosity, risk, exploration are forgotten by them. You have not yet discovered that you have a lot to give, and that the more you give the more riches you will find in yourself. It amazed me that you felt that each time you write a story you gave away one of your dreams and you felt the poorer for it. But then you have not thought that this dream is planted in others, others begin to live it too, it is shared, it is the beginning of friendship and love.

[…]

You must not fear, hold back, count or be a miser with your thoughts and feelings. It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them. If it seems to you that I move in a world of certitudes, you, par contre, must benefit from the great privilege of youth, which is that you move in a world of mysteries. But both must be ruled by faith.

The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 4 is brimming with such poetic yet practical sagacity on the creative life and is a beautiful addition to other famous advice on writing like Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-nonsense tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.

31 Writing Prompts for October

October 1, 2025 by Richard Young

31 Writing Prompts For October 2025

Writers Write shares writing prompts and writing resources. Use these writing prompts for October 2025 to get you writing.

Hello Writer

This month, we are talking about common mistakes and typos and other things that make you look like an amateur. In 2023, we focused on building habits, beating procrastination and improving discipline. In 2024, we worked on our novels and improved our craft. This year, we are taking a closer look at editing, specifically self-editing. It is an essential skill every writer needs to master, but man, being objective and cutting down your own work is hard.

Along with a short editing lesson, you will also receive your monthly prompts as usual. Editing is definitely second-draft stuff. Use the prompts to free write, THEN try to apply the editing suggestions. This is optional.

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If this is your first time using prompts, you can learn more about freewriting here.

Spelling And Other Mistakes

Spelling and silly mistakes

This is my most hypocritical post because I cannot spot typos for the life of me, but I have learned to pay attention to a few common culprits.

Words that sound the same:

The challenge is your spellchecker isn’t going to pick these up: they’re, their, and there or to, two, and too. Be sure to double-check.

Redundancies:

We don’t need these: a smile on her face (smiles are only ever on your face), shrugs his shoulders (we don’t shrug our knees).

Tenses:

Your spellchecker won’t pick these up either. Check carefully that you don’t switch tenses. I tend to switch when I write dialogue. I don’t know why, but I know to check it.

UK spelling vs US spelling:

Choose one set of spelling rules and stick to it. Both are accepted, but not in the same document.

Homework

Use the prompt to freewrite. Once you are done with the first draft, see if you can spot any of these mistakes in your work.

Next month, we’ll start looking at the tools we use to edit.

Download your prompts here: 31 Writing Prompts For October 2025

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Make the most of your writing prompts. Read How To Use Writing Prompts

Happiness

Mia

by Mia Botha

How To Write A Bestselling Book

September 25, 2025 by Richard Young

Have you ever wondered what it takes to write a bestselling book? And how do you write a bestselling book?

How To Write A Bestselling Book

What makes a book a best-seller?

The gold star of bestseller lists is The New York Times Best Seller list. But trying to get on the list is tricky. Firstly, there is no one defining list. The New York Times has sixteen different lists and the same 10 – 15 books can appear on all of them at the same time.

To even make the grade, you must have sold between 5 000 and 10 000 traditionally published books in one week – Sunday through Saturday – across America through multiple retailers, mostly bookshops.

Apart from the occasional romance book, self-published books don’t stand a chance.

Is it easier to sell non-fiction books? No. The market is far more competitive, and the minimum number of sales needs to be 7500.

Surely there must be more to it than that?

There is, but what that entails, as far as The New York Times is concerned, is a very closely guarded secret.

So what’s a writer to do?

It depends. Are you wanting to stay true to your own voice and write the books you want to read? Or do you want to chase the market?

If you want to chase the market and only write the types of books that are currently selling, it’s important to remember that you must research what books are selling now, write one, find a publisher and then sell your book. Just finding a publisher could take six-months to a year. Once you’ve signed on with a publisher it could take six months to a year before your book hits the bookshop shelves. By then, the Vampire Nuns genre that was selling off-the-chart numbers when you first researched ‘what books are selling now’, has given way to variations of Scotsmen In Mongolia.

I want to stay true to my own voice

Okay then.

In terms of the writing:

Read great books in your genre. Read a lot. Never stop reading.
Come up with as original a plot as you can.
Learn to write really well…
- Take great courses from reputable companies.
- Read great ‘how to write’ books.
- Join writing groups – not just to chill, but to write… a lot and get feedback as this will help improve your writing.
- Have book discussions with other authors and readers. This matters because it’s while debating the merits of Darcy of Pemberley vs Geralt of Rivia, that you discover what readers understand, prefer, and want, as well as when one type of hero is needed over another.
- Join writers’ groups preferably in your genre. These are great not just for the comradeship but can also help if a writers’ block falls out the ceiling and hits you on the head rendering you idealess.
- Join an author crit circle. One with strict ‘kindness’ rules.
- Go on writing retreats, alone or with other writers who actually want to write.
- Write as much as possible.
- Experiment with your writing. Don’t just stick to one genre as exploring other genres, voices, tenses, and word counts, will strengthen your writing muscles. You’re not required to publish these experiments; they are writing gym. Want to write great tension in romance? Practise writing horror stories with very short word counts.
Write a great book.

- One main plot.
- Don’t forget sub-plots.
- Create memorable and relatable characters/scenes/scenarios/locations/choices etc.
- Write with the audience in mind. If you’re writing romance, you must have an HEA (happy ever after) or a HFN (happy for now) ending, or it won’t qualify as a romance, and readers will be miffed. It’s hard to win back a miffed reader.
- Avoid cliches.
- Some advice blogs will tell you to edit for clarity not perfection. I’m not one of them. Edit first for clarity, and then for perfection. In this technologically driven day and age, there is no excuse for typos or incorrect grammar, unless the incorrect grammar is a plot device.

Get alpha reader feedback. Grow a thick skin and become humble and open to hearing criticism and learn what do with it.
Rewrite or edit some more.
Hire an editor for a manuscript appraisal.
Rewrite the book.
Edit until your fingers bleed.
Get beta reader feedback.
Edit some more.
Hire a proof-reader.
If you are self-publishing – Unless you are a trained graphic designer DO NOT design your own cover. Knowing how to use Canva does not make you a designer. The easiest way to tell if a book’s cover was created by a non-designer, is the typography. Hire a designer, preferably one with a portfolio that includes book covers in your genre.
(Optional) Find an excellent agent.
(Optional) Find a publisher.
(Optional) Sign a book contract.

The last three are optional as you may choose to go the self-publishing route.

In terms of ‘bestselling’:

Know that the average book sells no more than five hundred copies in the author’s lifetime.
Know that if you want your book to sell more than that you’re going to have to put in the work, and often potentially a lot of money, into making that happen.
Read as many books as possible on book marketing, Amazon marketing etc., that you can.
Learn about the several types of publishing available to indie-authors and how to avoid the charlatans.
Learn how to recognise and avoid the book launch scams.
Hire a great publicist – get recommendations from other highly successful authors. Look for a publicist that has experience in getting authors and or books known, discussed, and sold through a variety of media.
Launch the book more than once. One book launch does not a bestseller make. Research which kinds of launches are the most successful.
Do continual book promotion and marketing – but not to your friends and family. Not if you want to still be invited to pizza and Netflix evenings.
If you’re going to write a series, write the first three books and launch them all at once. This matters more than you realise.

Keep writing. Even if it’s just one short story a month.

The Last Word

If you’d like to write for children, young adults, or adults, why not sign up for one of the rich and in-depth courses that Writers Write offers to learn how to write the best book you possibly can.

by Elaine Dodge. Author of The Harcourts of Canada series and The Device Hunter, Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, including ghost writing business books, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.

6 Ways To Experiment In Short Stories.

September 19, 2025September 19, 2025 by Richard Young

Do you want to try something different in your short story? In this post, we give you 6 ways to experiment in short stories.

One of the best things about a short story is that you have the opportunity to experiment. It gives you the chance to do something you have never done before.

Here is a list of suggestions if you want to try something different. You can use them for any story – not just short stories.

6 Ways To Experiment In Short Stories

Change viewpoint: If you have been writing in the same viewpoint, try a completely different one.
Dialogue only: Flex your dialogue muscles and see if you can tell a complete story with only dialogue.
Descriptions and telling: I am a huge fan of showing, but I need to practise telling too. Try rewriting your story with telling only.
Unreliable narrators and anti-heroes: Try writing a character who isn’t a perfect guy or a hero. If you always write about bad guys, try writing a story about a character with a very strong moral compass.
Different genre: Pick a genre you have never written in before.
Devices: Try adding a new element to your story. Thinks of speeches, emails, letters, diary entries, songs, and recipes.

These are only a few suggestions, and it will be tricky. You may not end up with your best story, but you will have learnt something new and done something different. This is about learning after all.

Happy writing!

Top Tip: If you want to learn how to write a short story, sign up for our online course.

by Mia Botha

If you enjoyed this post, you will love:

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What Are Themes In Children’s Stories? 10 Powerful Recurring Themes In Children’s Stories

September 12, 2025 by Richard Young

What are the themes in children’s stories? We discuss what a theme is and what the 10 powerful recurring themes in children’s stories are.

What do children want from a story?

Children want three basic elements in a story: suspense, characters who are believable, and characters who act to solve problems. We find our themes in the problems.

Superficially speaking, children like stories that include adventure, mystery, excitement, discovery, daring, novelty, and humour.

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I want to repeat a quotation from my first post in this series on writing for children: William Nicholson had C.S Lewis say in Shadowlands: ‘We read to know we are not alone.’

Children want to know that there are ways to cope with dilemmas. Writers must offer ideas and strategies that show children they are not alone.

What are themes in children’s stories?

I have included a list of themes that deal with issues that are important to this youthful audience. They cover the anxieties, fears, and desires that children experience. There are many plots you can choose as vehicles for these stories, but all of them need the protagonist to find a way to address a problem.

What Is A Theme?

A theme can be found by answering one, or both, of these questions:

What does the protagonist learn about him or herself in the story?
What does the protagonist learn to cope with in the story?

[Recommended reading: 3 Steps That Will Help You Find Your Story’s Theme]

10 Powerful Recurring Themes In Children’s Stories

Courage.
Friendship.
Belonging/Identity.
Family.
Loss/Grief.
Growing Up.
Anger.
Suffering.
Jealousy.
Love.

Examples from popular fiction:

In Charlotte’s Web, Wilbur survives because of the love and friendship of Fern and Charlotte.
The Harry Potter series includes all these themes, but the most prominent theme is finding the courage to face evil so that good can prevail. You can read more about the other themes in the books in this post.
The main themes in The Hunger Games series are: suffering in an unequal and unjust society; loss of loved ones; and courage. Katniss has to find the courage to survive physically, to fight an unjust system, and to deal with loss and grief.
In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, Greg has to deal with the reality of growing up.
In Where the Wild Things Are, Max is sent to his room without dinner for disrespecting his mother. The author deals with Max’s anger by taking him on a trip to the magical land of the wild things.

Remember that the complexity and depth of the theme changes depending on the age level for which you are writing.

TOP TIP: If you want to learn how to write for children, sign up for kids etc. online

Children want to have fun

Remember that writing with a theme in mind does not mean that you have to preach. In fact, you should avoid it. You have to show and tell in these stories and reveal the theme through the development of the protagonist.

If you want to show a theme rather than preach, you may want to bear these in mind:

(The younger the child, the more true these will be.)

Be honest. Children are direct in their thoughts and actions.
Write to amuse. Children of all age groups respond to humour.
Look at the world through their eyes. Children like stories that poke fun at authorities.
Write in the moment. Everything is new to children and they live in the present.

In my next post, I will write about creating characters for children’s stories.

by Amanda Patterson
© Amanda Patterson

How To Use Contrast In Writing

September 11, 2025 by Richard Young

What is contrast in writing? We explore how to use contrast in writing with 7 different types of contrast (with examples) that you can use in your writing.

What Is Contrast In Writing?

Contrast in writing can be used as a literary device to compare. It is commonly used in many works of fiction. It is ‘the state of being strikingly different from something else in juxtaposition or close association.’ (Source: Oxford Dictionary) Basically, it means comparing two things to show the differences between them.

How To Use Contrast In Writing

Back in the day, when cowboy shows were popular on afternoon television, it was easy to see who the good guys were – white hats, and who were the baddies – black hats. That kind of contrast is way too on the nose. It was then. It certainly is now. When it comes to storytelling, there a number of different ways in which you can use contrast. We’re going to look at seven of them – with examples.

1. Juxtaposition

The most famous use of juxtaposition in literature is the opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ A Tale Of Two Cities’. Without going into any political or geographical detail, Dickens’ paragraph places the reader right into a location rife with danger, despair, upheaval, and confusion. It puts the reader on the edge of their seat right at the beginning.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all gong direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”

If you use contrast in terms of phrases, try not to use clichés. Yes, I know Dickens used them in this opening paragraph, but a) he’s Dickens, and b) the way he used them here matters. You’re not Dickens. Try to use unexpected words, Instead of ‘light and dark’ find words that either mean the same thing or evoke the same meaning.

You can also have juxtaposition in the different characters in your book – kind vs cruel, rich vs poor, content vs restless.

In North and South by Elizabeth Gaskel, the contrast between the mill owners and the workers are brilliantly contrasted. We are taken into the world of both by the main protagonist, Margaret Hale. We see them through her eyes. We understand and have empathy for both because we can see both points of view. We want both ‘to win’. It keeps us glued to the book. Glueing your readers is good.

2. Cognitive Dissonance

The act of holding two different thoughts and beliefs as true at the same time. This often leads to inner conflict within the character. ‘She loved him, and yet would die a happy woman if she never saw him again, even though she knew she would long for him every day, miss him sitting across the dinner table each night. No, she hated him, and prayed that he would stay.’

This kind of turmoil will inevitably lead to actions that will drive the dramatic arc of the book’s plot. Shakespeare was a master craftsman at cognitive dissonance – think of Macbeth and his internal struggle against killing his friend vs attainting the throne.

If your character has no cognitive dissonance, he or she is at best a psychopath or at worst, a two-dimensional character.

3. Fish Out Of Water

Being a fish out of water doesn’t necessarily mean the entire person doesn’t belong, it could just mean that the hero would rather no one knew about his heroic deeds. When they are discovered, his discomfort, his fish-out-of-water-ness, is in the acclaim, news interviews, his picture in the paper, etc.

Another fish-out-of-water type would be a character in a time-travel story. Just think of Marty McFly in Back To The Future. A normal, average young man transported from 1985 back to 1955. To the people he encounters there’s something just a little off about him. Not in a bad way, more as if he were a stranger from another country whose experience and knowledge is based on hearsay.

Forest Gump, the titular character from the novel by Winston Groom, could have been on the autism scale. He could either be a ‘fish out of water’ or an ‘odd person out’.

4. Odd Person Out

Legally Blonde is a perfect example of an odd person out. By the end of the film, she may still not be the archetypical lawyer from Harvard, but she has earned her place and stayed true to herself. The odd person out can be a breath of fresh air.

Another ‘odd person out’ is Mr Darcy. While the world around him has more easy manners and interactions, and is prepared to be pleased, Darcy’s upbringing, his family’s expectations of him, his wealth, pride, and shyness, tend to put him on the outside of any circle in which he finds himself. This includes the circles in which he is used to move – mainly because he’s bored to tears of them all. The trouble is, he doesn’t really know how to act in the new circles of Longbourn and Meryton in Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen.

5. Internal Dichotomies

Inspector Javert, in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, is a policeman whose passion for the law and justice is turned on its head when Jean Valjean, whom he has hunted for years, shows him mercy instead of killing him. Both are true at the same time – law and mercy. His internal dichotomy is so powerful that he can’t reconcile them and ends his life, Think of Hamlet’s need to keep Ophelia safe from the probable bloodshed in the near future vs his having to resort to breaking her heart to force her to leave. His internal struggle with this makes everyone think him mad.

Internal dichotomies, the internal arguments a character has make them interesting and more human, even if it’s just, ‘I really want chocolate cake, but I’m on diet, but I really want chocolate cake, but the wedding dress is already tight!’

6. Opposites Attract

This is an oft-used trope in novels, especially romance. It really only works in fiction. After all, she wants to go to her family in the country every weekend and he plays tennis at league level at the sports club down the road from their London home. He wants to go clubbing every night and she’s an introvert who is noise sensitive. Somethings got to give, and it’s usually the relationship.

7. Contrasting Descriptions

Cities are replete with juxtaposition – civic buildings vs the dirty alleys. They not only juxtapositions in their looks but even more in their intent and population. In one there is great privilege, wealth, corruption, greed, and racism – a dank alley of human emotions and actions. While in the other there is generosity of spirit, an inclusivity, a kindness, a strength in the despair, a community among the outcast – an invisible palace of goodness. Nothing is as black and white as that; I use these merely as examples.

Another source is the weather. A wonderful event is taking place in your book, a wedding for example, but raging around the church is a violent thunderstorm. A ship could be caught in the doldrums. The sea is as still and silent as a sheet on an unused bed. But the men on board are slowly going insane from boredom, the heat and the lack of water, despite seeing nothing but water stretching out to the horizon.

What makes contrast in writing exciting and fun is creating something marvellous in words that didn’t exist before.

The Last Word

If you’d like to write for children, young adults, or adults, why not sign up for one of the rich and in-depth courses that Writers Write offers to learn how to write the best book you possibly can.

What is Memory? & How to Use It in Writing.

September 8, 2025September 8, 2025 by Richard Young

In this post we look at what memory is and how to use memory in writing.

What Is Memory?

Memory is a wonderful thing. Many parts of your brain work together to collect, encode, store, and retrieve sensory, short-term, and long-term recall of events, people, and experiences you’ve had throughout your life. Sometimes, especially with trauma, those memories can be buried deep within your mind. Your brain is trying to protect you from those memories. At other times, a memory is such a beautiful one that even the lightest perfume, like vanilla, can trigger feel-good emotions within you.

Memories

All your memories will fall into either the ‘these are a few of my favourite things’ column. Others will be in the ‘do not open this box’ column. But all of them are useful to a writer. They are an almost inexhaustible resource. Don’t be afraid to use them. In fact, using them is almost a requirement when creating a good story.

You will have memories of:

People you loved – parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, siblings, cousins, friends, boyfriends, spouses, children.
People with whom you were friends or enemies.
People you met once.
People you interact with everyday but don’t know personally – your local coffee shop barista, for example.
People you see everyday but don’t really interact with – the security guard outside the building you pass on the way to work.
Interiors – offices, malls, shops, doctor’s surgeries, hospitals, vet’s waiting rooms, cars, ships, trains, places of worship, pubs, restaurants etc.
Locations – cities, game parks, lumber yards, garden shops, drive-in movie theatres, ice-rinks, the beach, theatres, public swimming pools and their change rooms, university campuses, school yards, etc.
Views – out of windows, from the edge of a cliff, out of an airplane, from the beach across the desert, across a field, in a forest. Don’t forget, views are never one way. Standing on a beach looking out over the sea is one view, but so is turning around and looking back at the fishing village, port, town, forest, desert, other people on the beach.
Animals – pets is an obvious one, but there are also zoo animals, animals you saw in the wild, creatures you see every day; the frog that lives under the broken pot in the garden, the neighbour’s cat, the crow that sits on your gatepost every morning, the hadadas digging for worms on the lawn etc.
Homes – the one(s) you grew up in, your grandparents’, your friends’, the boarding school you might have gone to etc.
Food and Drink – home cooked, at restaurants, take-aways, etc.
Clothing – school uniforms, military uniforms, wool, cotton, synthetics, wedding dresses, Lycra swimsuits that didn’t fit properly, socks that kept falling down, etc.
Events – first day at junior or senior school or university, on your first job, being fired, made redundant, first date, breaking up, coming-of-age events, engagements, weddings, births, deaths, funerals, the look of delight or disappointment on a parent’s face, finding an old love letter your grandad wrote – big all small our lives are filled with events that can be translated into our writing.

Food and Drink – home cooked, at restaurants, take-aways, etc.
Clothing – school uniforms, military uniforms, wool, cotton, synthetics, wedding dresses, Lycra swimsuits that didn’t fit properly, socks that kept falling down, etc.
Events – first day at junior or senior school or university, on your first job, being fired, made redundant, first date, breaking up, coming-of-age events, engagements, weddings, births, deaths, funerals, the look of delight or disappointment on a parent’s face, finding an old love letter your grandad wrote – big all small our lives are filled with events that can be translated into our writing.

Every memory is a mine of information.

Physicality – what does the person, place, mode of transport look like?
Senses – what did it/they smell like, sound like, taste like, behave.
Surrounds – was the weather trying to kill you, or did it taste like champagne.
At the time emotions – how did you feel at the time you experienced the event?
Looking back emotions – our feelings about our memories change. How do they make you feel now.
Music – a song can unleash a significant memory.

How To Use Memory In Writing

Yes, I hear you say, but I’m writing a space adventure not a memoir! Maybe, but the memory of not being picked up from school because your parents forgot you could easily be used to describe the feeling that an astronaut may feel if their spouse isn’t there to welcome them home after a mission. Of the feeling their child feels when they can’t be there for the kid’s sports day because they’re on a mission to Mars. You don’t have to describe the feeling you felt being forgotten at school, but you can use that confused sadness and anger to inform your protagonist’s emotion.

Every memory can feed your writing, whether you’re writing a period romance, a contemporary thriller, a comedy, or a dystopian story. While it may be your memory, it can be the thing that your character is experiencing. Rummage through your memory for something similar that you’ve experienced that can help you develop believable reactions, emotions, and experiences for your characters. The plot of your book is a series of steps from A to Z. The story is the experiences, encounters, and emotions your characters go through. Use your memories to give those life.

Memories may also be unreliable. This is great for causing conflict in fiction writing.

The Last Word

A Quick Start Guide To Writing Romance

September 4, 2025 by Richard Young

In this post, we provide a quick start guide to writing romance for all aspiring writers in the genre.

There’s a romance novel for everyone! My favourites include anything by Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. There are no books on my shelves with covers that fall into the category of ‘Dude, where’s your shirt?’. That’s the good thing about this genre. There are so many sub-genres that everyone; writers, and readers alike, will be happy.

A Quick Start Guide To Writing Romance

Why Write Romance?

The romance genre is the biggest selling genre on the planet. In 2021, romance book sales on Amazon reached US$1.44 billion. The closest competitor was Crime/Mystery which made US$728.2 million. Not even close.

Why Does Romance Outsell Every Other Genre?

It’s simple really, romance sells as well as it does because it gives the reader a taste of the romance for which they themselves are longing. The romance novel provides hope. Setting it in an exotic location tells the reader that their ‘own true love’ is ‘out there somewhere’.

Choose Your Sub-genre

Before drafting any book, romance or not, your genre/sub-genre will always be the first decision you make.

How many sub-genres are there?

Imagine opening a box of Quality Street. Everything’s chocolate, right? But not all the centres are the same. With romance, even the sub-genres have sub-genres! Romance/Sweet and Clean/Alternative History/Vampires/Victorian Paris – see what I mean?

The age group of your readers may play an important part in your choice of sub-genre. Are they young adult, new adult, or adult? These options all dictate plot, language, characters, and setting.

Choose Your Heat Level

Do romance novels need sex scenes? Jane Austen didn’t have any. Whether you include them or not depends entirely on you, the age of your readers, and the needs of your story.

‘Heat level’ is the industry term for level of sensuality, a.k.a. sex in a book. There are five.

In the first, your characters will be lucky if they hold hands.

In the second there may be one or two tender love scenes but no sex. But this doesn’t mean the book will be dull. There’s no sex in any Georgette Heyer romance and they are some of the most enduring romance novels of all time.

The third and fourth have increasing amounts of sex. Finally, there is Erotic/Erotica.

If you do choose to include sex scenes, bear in mind that the scene must advance the plot or show character development. In fact, all scenes in every genre, whether they are sex scenes or not, should do this. If you can, make them do both.

HEA Or HFN?

Should a romance have an HEA (Happy Ever After), or at least an HFN (Happy For Now)? Many writers, and readers, say yes. Others that say books like Gone With the Wind are romances. And yet that book is famous for, frankly, not giving a damn if it has a happy ending or not.

Personally, I think it all depends on what sort of romance novel you want to write. The Notebook is the story of a romance, but its end (spoiler alert) is tragic. So is that of Romeo and Juliet.

The Meet-Cute and Will-They-Won’t-They

There are two other foundations upon which all romance novels are built. These are the ‘meet cute’, and the ‘will-they-won’t-they’ question.

The ‘meet-cute’ doesn’t have to be the inciting incident. It also doesn’t need to be cute.

In Pride & Prejudice, the meet-cute between Darcy and Elizabeth, is neither the inciting incident, nor is it cute. Before they are introduced, Elizabeth overhears Darcy insult her. It’s not surprising then that Elizabeth is against him from the start. Their potential romance appears doomed. From the beginning, the question of will-they-won’t-they grips the reader.

This question drives all romances, including Gone With The Wind. So, make sure your novel asks it, and answers it, in a unique way.

Location, Location, Location

Do you like doing research? The era and location of your book will determine the amount of research required. A contemporary romance set in your hometown needs far less research than an historical romance set in a foreign country. The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye is a good example of this and is well worth reading.

What Do Rhett Butler, Fitzwilliam Darcy & Gabriel Oak Have In Common?

One is a rogue, one is an upper-class snob, and one is a hardworking, honest farmer. Yet, they are all completely compelling.

Compelling heroes need compelling heroines. No cardboard cut-out characters! They must:

Be complex, deeply rich characters.
Have interesting backstories.
Grow through strong character development.
Have chemistry with their soon-to-be significant other.
Work for the reward of love.

he Whisper Of Sweet Nothings

Great dialogue can be one of the most difficult things to write. But it’s an essential skill. Bad dialogue is boring in life, and on the page. It will kill any romance. It must suit the characters, the era, the location, and be realistic.

There are bonus points if it is also original. It’s a tall order. But it can be done.

Compare the dialogue between Rochester and Jane in Jane Eyre to that in the TV series The Gilmore Girls between Luke and Lorelai, for example. They are both true to their era and sub-genre. One is repressed and gothic, while the other is hilarious, and fast-paced. But both ring true.

That is the ultimate test of all romance novels. Does it ‘ring true’? Does it ring true in every aspect, from sub-genre, the big questions, location, era, and character, to passion, dialogue, and ending?

by Elaine Dodge. Elaine is the author of The Harcourts of Canada series. Elaine trained as a graphic designer, then worked in design, advertising, and broadcast television. She now creates content, mostly in written form, for clients across the globe, but would much rather be drafting her books and short stories.