What categorises #HistoricalFiction?

Wednesday Wonderings!

Part of this article was written as a potential guest post for use during the recent blog tour for The Beltane Choice, Book 1 of my Celtic Fervour Saga series. It ended up being surplus to requirements but it's a good one to post here today on what is the day after the fantastic 7-day blog tour officially ends. The post topic is highly personal, as it's part of my publishing history, but I imagine that there may well be some other authors who can readily relate to it.

Pigeonholed…or not?

Thankfully, these days, an author can cross some traditionally held parameters and publish stories that don’t fulfil restrictive categorising.

When I wrote The Beltane Choice – Book 1 of my Celtic Fervour Saga Series – I had priorities for my characters and the setting of the story, though in all honesty as a new author (2011) I wasn’t really aware that my choices might prove difficult at the classification stages for publishing on internet sites like Amazon. 

My intention was to write a tale of a relatively ordinary clan, set in an era of great turmoil when armies of the invading Ancient Roman Empire were decimating any Britannic tribes who were resistant to adopting Roman rule and daily ‘Roman’ lifestyles. The setting would be northern Roman Britain, because few authors tackle fiction set in this location and the period I chose was during the first invasions of the barbarian north of Britannia. (Ancient Romans termed pretty well everywhere that wasn't included in their empire boundaries as inhabited by barbarians)

Early research gleaned virtually nothing written about Brigantia (present day Cumbria/Yorkshire/Northumberland), and even less about over the high hills into the probably even more barbarian territory of the tribes of Caledonia (modern-day Scotland). However, I had discovered that Brigantia had had a special ‘Client Kingdom’ status during the rule of the Brigante Queen Cartimandua, who made deals with the Ancient Roman Empire. These took place sometime after the Claudian invasion of Britain in A.D. 43, till approximately the civil war across the Roman Empire in A.D. 69 - often termed The Year of the Four Emperors. During this period of 'Client Kingdom' status it seemed that Rome held back from totally controlling Brigantia, so long as the Brigantes didn't attack any nearby Roman military installations, or the armies of Rome. An exchange of gold was probably the motivator for Cartimandua to ensure that her tribes obeyed, but that 'bribery' situation fell out of favour with King Venutius in the late A.D 60s. The tale that Cartimandua divorced him around this time and took up with Vellocatus, his erstwhile standard bearer, added salt to a very exposed wound. That Cartimandua had done some dastardly deeds like delivering the rebel King Caratacus to emissaries of Rome didn't make her very popular either.

from historic uk.com- Queen Cartimandua giving up King Caratacus (Caractacus) 

Since I’d read at least one novel which included Cartimandua as a main character, I chose not to write about her as my main character, and not her ex-husband Venutius either, though both of them are mentioned in passing in the The Beltane Choice.

Back in 2011 - although an avid reader of everything I came across in historical fiction and historical non-fiction - I wasn't discerning enough to acknowledge the fine nuances that determine traditional historical fiction. As a reader, I enjoyed well-written historical fiction whether or not the main protagonist was a 'historically known' figure. A novel ringing true to the era, full of accurate description  of settings and authentic depictions of fictional main characters was still historical fiction in my mind (even when not characters documented as historical figures). I was to find that some authors and publishers didn't think like I did!

The Beltane Choice was conceived as being about tribes who would normally be at war with each other. People who would find a need to unite together as a stronger force to fight against the Ancient Roman invading scourge. Though, what might unite them?

In A.D. 69, the Brigante federation of tribes endured a civil war where forces loyal to Queen Cartimandua fought against forces of her ex-husband King Venutius. During the same period the Roman Empire itself was in the turmoil of civil war, but when General Titus Flavius Vespasian(us) became emperor (A.D. 69) he took firm control. By A.D. 71, Vespasian’s Britannic empire expansion was well underway and Brigantia was invaded with gusto!

A.D. 71 became my start point for The Beltane Choice but who would be my Celtic clan? I got out a current Ordinance Survey map and looked at the area that would have been northern Brigantia in A.D. 71, the territory which most likely would have bordered the tribes of southern Caledonia.

Copyright- Nancy Jardine

The only mention of tribal names for these locations wasn’t actually documented till around A.D. 130-150, when the mapmaker Claudius Ptolemaeus wrote down his map references. Ptolemy’s information records the tribes north of Brigantia, in Caledonia, as being the Novantae, Selgovae and Votadini from west to east, north of what’s currently the Cheviot Hills.

From this map information, I decided my main female character would be of the Selgovae tribe and the main male character a Brigante.

I searched current north Yorkshire and Cumbria for suitable remains of a Celtic hillfort and settled on the name Garrigill for my fictitious Brigante clan. Similarly my O.S. map indicated a Celtic hillfort in the vicinity of Tarras, so that would be my Selgovae hillfort.

I set to writing an early 2011 version of The Beltane Choice. I did some research for UK publishers who might accept my manuscript but found that most submissions were only accepted via an agent. The processes all seemed to take a huge amount of time and the success rate was pretty low. (even dire)

However, since that research was mainly via the internet, I discovered that there were a good number of Ebook publishers who accepted manuscripts without an agent. The slightly negative side to that was that many of them were romance-only publishers.

Some might say it was mercenary of me, and others that I was super-keen to be published, but I made the decision to make my historical novel have a strong romantic theme in order to be published quickly. I made many changes to the early drafts of The Beltane Choice, ensuring there was an HEA ending, which all good historical romances needed, without losing my focus on the authentic heavy historical detail. It was first published in 2012 - a huge relief to me and a time of great celebration - but that's when issues over its categorisation began.

• The strong central romance and HEA ending makes it an exciting and enjoyable historical romance novel for many readers who appreciate great settings and detailed description.
• BUT...for other readers who favour lighter romance there's far too much historical description and too many strong secondary characters for them.
• Some readers who don't enjoy romance love the strong historical aspects of the writing but don't call it historical fiction because of the central developing relationship. 
• Readers who appreciate the adventure elements to the historical background are divided into two camps: 1) some enjoy the tussle between historical tribal loyalty and personal happiness 2) others don't enjoy the emotional character development arcs between Lorcan and Nara. 

When first published by Crooked Cat books in 2012 The Beltane Choice was marketed as HISTORICAL ROMANTIC ADVENTURE. 

From Book 2 onwards the series is a lot less about a central romantic development and more about the historical environments of what readers are happy to term my 'credible characters'. I'm now marketing the series as a HISTORICAL SAGA because those early main characters of Book 1 age to become the older generation.  It's mid-teenage Garrigill warriors who take centre stage in Book 4 Agricola's Bane. My current manuscript (work in progress) of Book 5 Beathan the Brigante is mainly about Beathan, the baby boy who is born at the end of Book 1. 

As in many sagas, there's continuity across the books, with 'next parts' to the life stories of my characters - some Celtic and others Ancient Roman. 

In conclusion, I'd like to say that the recent excellent blog tour organised by Rachel Gilbey of Rachel's Random Resources, for Book 1 The Beltane Choice, has garnered an excellent clutch of new reviews. Most of those bloggers have enjoyed the romantic aspects of Book 1 but have been overawed by the historical settings. 

I'll know later in the year what some of them think of my change of writing style and intentions when they (hopefully) comment on the later books when they are on their own blog tours.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that those readers still love my characters even though not all of the series are books with 'Happy Ever After' endings. Time will tell...

What do you think about the categorisation of novels with historical content? I've recently read other blog posts about strict categorisation of historical fictional writing. I'll be really interested to know what you'd need to read in a novel for you to call it HISTORICAL FICTION. 

Slainthe!