Historical Fiction is the genre established by the Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott. As a young writer, he took his inspiration from the land, people and histories of his homeland.
Historical Fiction has come to mean a form of fiction that is grounded in historical detail. Historical novelists spend a lot of their time immersing themselves in this detail, before allowing their creative inspiration to take flight to create their stories. They take readers on journeys in time.
If you are exploring history as the source for your writing, The Imagining History Programme UK is here to help you.
We create a writing and thinking environment that explores the social, political and emotional worlds of past times. Our aim is inspire your writer’s mind.

During our online and in-person workshops, we share with you ways to source, create and develop fiction that is based on a fascination with history. The best historical fiction keeps readers reading, opens up new areas of thinking and inspires them to do their own exploring.
What do you want to write about?
Where do you want to take your reader?
At IHUK we want your writing to reflect your most creative possibilities as a writer.
Here are the four characteristics of good writing according to us:

Trust your writer’s instincts.

It starts with your new thinking.
Open a new door.
Draw us in

Let your writing take YOU somewhere different.
Let it take US somewhere different.
Make us curious.

Put yourself into the world and discover.
Let your writing astonish you.

NOW TRY THIS…
If you haven’t tried writing historical fiction before, here is a short workshop to try for yourself. Give it a go. Take a bit of time to think it through. See what you come up with.
Share your writing with us….. we’ll give you some feedback.
If you would like to know more about how we would help you grow your skills of exploring history to find the stories that are waiting for you, click here.
You can find examples of the writing of previous IHUK workshop participants here. And you can check out the prizewinning and shortlisted stories to the Young Walter Scott Prize here.
If you are a teacher or a heritage venue manager looking to develop a workshop with us, please click here to find out more about the way we develop and deliver our inspirational workshops and projects.
title image: Safaa Alfahel on Scopio