I’ve noticed over the years that writers tend to have a genre that comes naturally to them. For me, it’s contemporary YA. Even before I knew that YA contemporary fiction existed (true story: I thought I invented the young adult genre) most of my stories came out as YA contemporaries.

Historical fiction is not my natural genre.

While I’ve enjoyed reading historical fiction since childhood, writing historicals didn’t come easily to me, and I never imagined that I would someday identify as a historical author. While, yes, I did occasionally have vague story ideas for historical novels, they were never ideas that compelled me to do the work of learning to write a new genre.

Until I had the idea for a book that was Veronica Mars meets Downton Abbey, and I became completely obsessed with getting that book written.

This idea came to me in late 2013, and even though I had already published five books and knew a lot about telling a story, I knew zilch about writing a historical OR a mystery. The next few years involved a lot of struggle and self-doubt as I tried to get my book onto the page, and the payoff was absolutely worth it. My story idea evolved into The Lost Girl of Astor Street, published by Blink/HarperCollins in 2017. The success of that novel led them to buy another historical YA novel from me, Within These Lines, which came out in 2019.

I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve written an ebook called The Newbie’s Guide To Writing Historical Fiction that you can get for free when you sign up for my author mailing list.

For those of you wanting to wade into the historical waters with me, here are my top three tips for getting started:

Tip 1: Get specific

My best friend Roseanna White is a historical author. (I highly recommend having a best friend who is an expert at something you want to try!) When I told Roseanna that I had a historical idea I was desperate to write, but I had no idea where to start, she told me everything would get easier when I picked a very specific time and place for my story. Then I would know what mattered and what didn’t.

This was the absolute best advice for a newbie like me, and it’s the same that I say now when I’m asked “Where do I start?” While it’s inevitable that you will research things that won’t wind up mattering to your story, you can significantly cut down on this by getting very specific.

The Lost Girl of Astor Street went from being set “sometime in the 1920s” to 1924 because that was when the flapper look had firmly taken hold, and that’s the look I wanted for my story. Now I knew that nothing after 1924 mattered to me from a research perspective. Then I narrowed my focus from 1924 to spring of 1924. And then it went from being set in Chicago to the Astor Street District. Each time that I narrowed my focus, it meant more clarity on what I could ignore.

Tip 2: Know as much about the events of your story as you can before you get started writing.

If you’re naturally a writer who likes to outline stories before you draft, I’m guessing you don’t need me to talk you into this idea, so I’ll focus on speaking to the discovery writers in the room. Hello, discovery writers! I used to be one too! It’s delightful to uncover your story as you write. I won’t try to talk you out of it.

But it is easier to write your historical novel when you know specific details about where the plot is heading. For example, when I wrote Within These Lines, I knew that my Japanese American character would be sent to a concentration camp. Because I knew that ahead of time, I was able to pick out which one his family would go to and research that camp before I started writing. While researching Manzanar, I learned about a pretty scary and intense situation that happened at the camp, which I decided would be the climax of my novel. The entire time I was writing that book, I knew that’s where I was headed, and it really cut down on rewrites.

I’ve yet to write a novel that works exactly the way I initially planned, but in my experience, mistakes in historical novels feel like they cost more. It’s not just the pain of cutting away words from the story, it’s also the time you spent researching the part of the story that you’re now cutting. Plus the extra research you’ll have to do now to make the story work with the new plot.

Tip 3: Don’t look up stuff when you’re writing.

It felt like it took me about 900 years to write the first chapter of The Lost Girl of Astor Street because every single sentence invited questions. Did they have drinking fountains in 1924? What about sidewalks? What were benches made out of? Did kids use backpacks? And I would click over to Google thinking, “Obviously, I need to figure this out right now!”

After days of slogging and feeling like my story had absolutely zero flow to it, I made a rule for myself. “If it will impact the plot, I will pause to research. If it doesn’t, I will keep writing.” You cannot get in any kind of rhythm with your story if you’re constantly popping off to the internet to find out what movies cost in 1924. (Fifteen cents, by the way.)

But if you know that the piece of research you need to do will impact the plot of your story, that’s absolutely a time to pause writing and find some answers. I had to do that a lot when writing Within These Lines because part of my plot was based on well-documented history. I knew I would save myself a lot of rewrites by knowing my stuff the first time through.

Speaking of Within These Lines, right now there’s a great audiobook giveaway going on that includes that book, Jill’s By Darkness Hid and Shannon’s Winter, White and Wicked along with five other great novels! Find all the details and get entered to win here.

If you write historical (or historically-inspired!) fiction, what era do you write in? If you don’t write historical, what genre comes most naturally to you to write?

And if you want allllll my tips on writing historical fiction, make sure you get that free ebook from my author website!

Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.