Historical fiction. A fictional story set in a recognizable
period of history. As well as telling the stories of ordinary
people's lives, historical fiction may involve political or
social events of the time.If I have any kind of modest ambition
for my writing, outside of writing good books that people will
enjoy, it's to write something that successfully disproves that
second definition. Better yet, something that successfully
combines elements of both genres - for most booksellers do list
them as two entirely separate genres, although there is a little
muddled crossover here and there. Louis L'Amour hit the nail
right on the head when he said, "If you write a book about a
bygone period that lies east of the Mississippi River, then it's
a historical novel. If it's west of the Mississippi, it's a
western, a different category. There's no sense to it." Western.
Genre with a setting in the West, usually between 1860 - 1890,
with a formula plot about cowboys or other aspects of frontier
life [my emphasis]. You c