The right way to write your historical novel

"That's half a million people in the UK," she tots up impressively as she passes me a cup of coffee and a plate of biscuits in the sitting room at her Bledlow home. Her dog Gypsey slumbers in front the television while, outside on the lawn, a poorly-looking wild rabbit slowly seeks shelter from the rain under a tree. Myxomatosis is rife around here, apparently.

"Most find it very difficult. They never get past chapter one," she adds, referring to writers not rabbits.

These are heartening statistics for Marina. She has just had her fourth book published in the How To range entitled Writing Historical Fiction. It is an addition to a list that already includes Starting to Write, Writing and Selling a Novel and last year's Writing Romantic Fiction.

These worthy tomes sell well, each featuring invaluable tips from Marina and friends that could help would-be Maeve Binchys and Barbara Cartlands achieve their lifelong ambitions. They include addresses of publishers and agents, hints on where to research, and tips on structuring your story, creating your characters and avoiding the pitfalls other wannabe writers have stumbled across.

Marina is well-qualified to help. She has successfully published a number of historical, romantic and crime novels under a range of names -- Sally James, Bridget Thorn, Vesta Hathaway, Livvy West and Donna Hunt are all our Marina.

She has also been chairman of the Romantic Novelists Association and is running the association's New Writers' Scheme, in which unpublished scripts are reviewed by published members.

She has seen a lot of common problems among the scripts submitted for historical dramas.

"There are often problems with setting modern characters and modern situations in a previous century. You have to change the attitudes and conventions," she says.

Marina cites one hopeful who had casual references to divorce in a novel set in the early 19th century when the termination of marriages wasn't as common. Another book had someone walking along Marylebone Road before it had been given that name and living in another part of London that hadn't been built.

She says an interest in history is absolutely vital.

"A sense of history has to pervade the book in just a few details, but come over completely, in the sense that everything in it has this history. It has to be convincing," she says. If a novel is set during the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, the fighting needn't be detailed but could be referred to by a character in passing. In fact, says Marina, huge amounts of detail are a no-no.

"You do not want a huge glossary. It is a balance. You want to make things understood by the modern reader," she says.

"Do make it interesting. A lot of people like to learn their history from reading novels. The history they did at school wasn't really interesting."

That, says Marina, is for another day, however. As a former teacher and the mother of four grown up children, she has a lot of experience of the last 30 years of teaching and is not happy with the way it has been done.

"People like to read novels if they think they are going to learn something, which is why John Grisham and Michael Redpath are so successful because people feel they are learning something in a fun way."

So you've read the book. You've read a previous book to find out how to structure your novel and create characters (details gone over in other tomes have been left out of this one -- a cynical marketing ploy or a space-saving device, you decide). And you've sent off your paper-baby to a publisher or an agent -- those involved in historical fiction are listed in the incredibly comprehensive guide at the back.

Then you encounter the next problem. Despite the profusion of costume dramas on television, at the cinema and on the stage, despite the continuing popularity of Jane Austen, the Bronts, Catherine Cookson et al, the historical novel is in decline

"Established authors sell and sell and sell, but it is difficult for new people to break in. I can think of very few writers who have broken in in the last few years," she warns.

"My agent thinks that it will be the middle classes that will be the main characters rather than important political figures. Maybe we will get someone who writes brilliantly and starts everything off. If one is published all the other publishers will want one similar."

Could that person be you? Marina says she receives scripts from people of all ages, sexes and backgrounds who are attempting to write historical novels. The better ones are those that have not been cynically set in past-times by people trying to emulate whatever is top of the book lists at the moment.

Marina chooses her period from the story itself -- one of her novels was set at the time of the Restoration because central to the story was the fact that it was the first time women were allowed to act.

Others are set at times of sieges and battles during the Civil War.

Although her Civil War novels were written before she moved to the Chilterns -- a hotbed of Cromwellian action -- in 1984, she still insisted on visiting the places her characters had lived. Little details will emerge that can bring a scene to life.

Marina also says she prefers to work with only a fleeting knowledge of her characters at the start of her books. As the story progresses she begins to get to know them better -- like having a relationship with a real person.

Marina always wanted to write. She was always scribbling away, even as a child. Eventually in the 1960s she started up a magazine for University educated women who wanted to return to work after having a child. She had her first novel published in 1974 and it went on from there.

She has recently turned publisher for a book about the school she attended in Walsall. It sold out 500 hardback copies at Christmas and has just been reprinted in paperback. And she has three novels on the go, a crime, a history and an 'ordinary' one, she says. In between, there's nothing Marina likes more than curling up with a good book.

She likes crime stories, Charlotte Macleod is her favourite -- she just bought all but one of the Canadian writer's books on a trip to America. But she is not one of those people who reads the last page before starting to find out whodunnit and how.

"I don't even read the blurb on the cover," she laughs.

Writing Historical Fiction by Marina Oliver costs £8.99, is published by How To Books and is available from all bookshops. Marina's Top Tips Anybody can write a historical novel if they know their history.

Although historical novels have to be well researched, don't make the research obvious. Mention things only where they are relevant, don't pack them full of peripheral detail.

Always try to visit the scene of the action to get a sense of place and the atmosphere. Places will not be exactly the same as they were hundreds of years ago but you might get ideas.

Use historical events, locally or nationally, to give a sense of reality. Marina has set books at the time of the Restoration and of the witch-burning frenzy in the mid 17th century.

Although the novel is set in the past, bring your research techniques up to date by using the Internet. If you do not have access at home, libraries often have terminals or use an Internet caf.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.