What is "historical fiction"

n. A book, poem, movie, or video game based on real historical events, but in which the characters are not real, and the minor events may not be realistic.

Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. Historical fiction can be an ambiguous term: frequently it is used as a synonym for describing the historical novel; however, the term can be applied to works in other narrative formats, such as those in the performing and visual arts like theatre, opera, cinema, television, comics, and graphic novels.

An essential element of historical fiction is that it is set in the past and pays attention to the manners, social conditions and other details of the period depicted. Authors also frequently choose to explore notable historical figures in these settings, allowing readers to better understand how these individuals might have responded to their environments. Some subgenres, such as alternate history or historical fantasy, insert speculative or ahistorical elements into a novel.

Works of historical fiction are sometimes criticized for lack of authenticity because of readerly or generic expectations for accurate period details. This tension between historical authenticity, or historicity, and fiction frequently becomes a point of comment for readers and popular critics, while scholarly criticism frequently goes beyond this commentary, investigating the genre for its other thematic and critical interests.

Historical fiction, as a contemporary Western literary genre, has its foundations in the early 19th century works of Sir Walter Scott and his contemporaries in other national literatures such as Frenchman Honoré de Balzac, American James Fenimore Cooper, and later Russian Leo Tolstoy. However, the melding of "historical" and "fiction" in individual works of literature has a long tradition in most cultures; both western traditions (as early as Ancient Greek and Roman literature) as well as eastern, in the form of oral and folk traditions, produced epics, novels, plays and other fictional works describing history for contemporary audiences.