Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/42464
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

One thing that often annoys me in historical fiction or fantasy books is the dissonance between the writing style and the events and historical period described in the book. The writing is usually very modern, it's fast-paced and uses modern idioms and phrases. By contrast, I love reading works from the time periods themselves, as they often have a very interesting style. Just think of _The Odyssey_ and how weird it is in comparison to a modern novel, or the Old Testament or _Don Quixote_.

When writing my novel, I would love to emulate the style of the period that I am writing about. I would actually like my narrator to be a character within the world, a sort of historian who describes something that has happened in his world. And from time to time, he might add personal opinion etc. So this is even more reason why the book should be written stylistically fitting.

However, I am worried that this will be off-putting to readers, who might actually interpret this old way of writing as "bad style", or find that it borders on parody. I love the Khaavren Romances by Steven Brust, which are basically parodies of Alexandre Dumas' D'Artagnan Romances in a fantasy setting, exactly because the writing style fits the setting so well. But he gets away with it because it's supposed to be funny at times. I want to make a book that's more or less serious and dramatic.

So how can I avoid this uncanny valley and make it clear to readers that this is done on purpose, and how can I get them to like it?

Original score: 18