How to Write Accurate Historical Dialogue for Your Novel: Part 2 | Explained by UK Book Editor

Professional book editor suggests how to make historical dialogue accurate in your novel, ensuring that all fictional characters sound believable to the era of the story.

“The past is another country,” said Henry Sidebottom, a historical novelist, but he could just have easily said: the past is another language.

After all, you only have to ask any student studying Shakespeare and they’ll tell you that the language is the part they struggle with the most. However, it does play an inherent part in setting the scene of any novel in its proper place in history.

When it comes to writing a book, the author can’t fall back on visual clues the way a movie or TV series can. They can tell us the car that’s being driven or the clothes the characters are wearing, but it’s through dialogue that the real era of the novel is portrayed.