Elizabeth Storrs

Yeah, there's a wide range.

The Historical Novel Society in the UK has put out this definition which says any novel set 50 years in the past, but also there's a bit of flexibility in terms of it's a novel where the author did not experience the event and has to approach it by way of research.

It is.

But, of course, when you're looking at then whether an author has to approach by way of research, my son is in his 20s.

So, of course, if he's having to interview me as a...

source for writing a novel in the 1980s, then that's historical fiction.

Historical novelists are very, very passionate about ensuring authenticity rather than necessarily accuracy.

So what we look at is the building blocks that are bringing to the fore the details that we can actually verify.

So the world around a particular character is

and what I call the familiar past and the unfamiliar past, where you can get details correct.

However, it is fiction, so you have to fill in the gaps.

You do your research.

The research is very important,

But you can't write a biography.

We're not writing a treatise.

You refer to historians.

You look at sources.

It's a case of balancing the history that you can access and ensuring that the reader feels like there is a legitimacy to what you're writing.

through the accuracy of the detail.

That is an interesting question.