I have a story set in a fictional country called Iptaj which is actually 1855 Egypt in our world. In order to create the country and make it like Egypt, but not really Egypt, I looked up the history and the major events at the time of 1850-55 and created a whole new historical timeline based on the real thing.
So, some events that were supposed to happen, never happened, or they happened in a different way.
But this isn’t historical fiction. I’m not trying to be accurate in facts. In fact, apart from mentioning technology or cultural trends of the time, I’m trying to not be accurate. I want people to feel Egypt-y, but not Egypt-y because it’s not Egypt but Iptaj.
Do you get it?
I’m calling this historical fantasy. Is that a thing? Or maybe alternate history? The genre of the story itself is paranormal.
Does anyone else do this? If so, how have you done it?
If not, have you considered it? What are your plans for an alternated historical timeline?
I’ve never done it but I’d say it’s either alternate history or some other subgenre of genre of fantasy other than historical. Historical fantasy is definitely a thing but it refers to a fantastical story set in an otherwise historically accurate time period, so the fact that you’re altering real life history means it doesn’t fall into that.
I did this once! I wrote a steampunk fantasy that takes place on an alternate planet resembling earth, only the land masses are different. But their history rivaled ours, and I took their timeline directly from the history of Europe and the American south. The main conflict involved a recreation of the sinking of the Titanic, only in the air.
I didn’t know what to call it either. It’s not alternate history, exactly, and it’s not historical fiction, even though it’s very Victorian. Fortunately I can call mine steampunk, since it involved flying ships.
Are you posting yours on Wattpad? If so, I’d choose whatever genres come closest to alternate history. I can’t remember any of their genres, since I don’t post there anymore. (♯ᴖ.ლ)
Somewhat. I happen to have lived 40 years of history and retained a bit on history classes, so I don’t have to fight with it too hard.
Where I find myself stalling is remembering what year something was made or became popular. You don’t write smart phones in the 1990s, obviously, but what the heck year Blackberry became popular? I have to look that crud up every single time.
Yes I do that a lot too! Genre definitions differ publisher to publisher, but this would probably fall under historical fantasy or alternate history, yeah, depending on what the other elements of the book are.
For one my worlds (whose book I have currently abandoned), the history of the main chraracter’s nation is very much inspired by my own country’s history. However I do like to switch things up, I just use our world as a guideline and then change a lot of things. Most of that world’s history is inspired by different regions and different timelines. It’s general history is from 1700-1850s Europe, to modern era, but the countries are all different culturally. There’s a middle-east inspired country, a euro-centric country, a country that is an international hub and hence has a mix of all these cultures, and so on. This is one of my favourite worlds ever, and I definitely want to write many books set in this world.
I actually don’t have any problem categorizing the story itself because the main genre is paranormal.
I was just wondering if I were to name this type of history as something would it be alternate or fantasy history or…inspired history or…something else?
