Should historical fiction really be 100% accurate? No. It shouldn’t - and that’s the beauty of fiction.

Many readers confuse historical fiction with plain history for some undetermined reasons while others because of cheap snobism. The clean fact is that historical fiction does not have to be accurate, that’s why it is named fiction.

However, every author who forays into this genre has to do serious research in order to able to describe the historical environment from its architecture to civilization and sometimes to expose the complexity of the human thinking and philosophical currents that occur in their chosen time period. In other words, if you want to write a story about the fall of the Roman Republic, then you have to read Cicero, Suetonius and other Roman writers who emphasize the character of Julius Caesar or Octavian (later Augustus, the first emperor). Additionally, if your story is based in Rome at that time, then you have to consult as many scientific books on Early Imperial Rome as you can find. Why? Because you need to be able to contour in words the majesty and misery of the city.

Nobody knows what Cicero was talking about when eating or what he did outside the Senate house. Most of what we know is based on his comments (Against Catiline, Cicero’s Orations etc.). And here the historical fiction comes and fills this gap. The writer will make this well-known ancient history personality live again by conferring him emotions, inner struggles, grief, joy and everything that is human. This is never entirely accurate, the author can only imagine how Cicero felt in one situation or how nervous was he when he spoke in front of the Senate for the first time.

Nevertheless, authors keep the general events pretty accurate. What they like to do is play with the characters. If a writer has Cicero as his main character, then he must eventually say that Cicero was murdered - the circumstances are completely optional as long as the historical fact that Cicero was assassinated remains intact.

In my opinion, a story can be considered historical fiction when it implicates real historical events and characters. However, one can introduce a number of fictional characters as well, but the events must remain intact as I said before.

As a trained archaeologists and historian specializing in Roman military history (castrametation, studying the Roman forts, military tactics etc) I don’t really mind reading about real characters like Julius Caesar falling ill at the battle of Alesia and that Brutus took his armor and inspired the legions to fight on (as Conn Iggulden writes in the third book of his Emperor series) which is completely inaccurate from a historical point of view. However, the author emphasizes the hard battle that the Romans fought against the Gauls.

The historical fiction writer does not have to present the historical events as they were, this is a historian’s job. Yet, the author can offer his readers information about the events on which the story is based as well as on the characters implicated. By doing this he enkindles the reader’s curiosity who might want to do his own research on the subject.

The author’s accomplishment consists basically of getting the story told in a new way, in his/her own original way. Historical fiction is entertainment and should not be confused with plain history. Most authors offer a ‘Historical Note’ at the end or in the first pages of the book.