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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42477
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42477
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> Is it possible to narrate a novel in a faux-historical style without alienating the reader?

### Presuming you mean "the majority of readers", I don't think this is possible.

Most readers of fiction enjoy getting into the "zone" when reading, absorbing the story almost as if they are not reading, their imagination is fully engaged and the reading is effortless.

I do not think that is possible when the reading is **work** , when it doesn't meet their expectations of a modern story.

That said, I think you **can** stick to modern words that had equivalents in your time, and skip the modern idioms. You can look up both etymology of a [word](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=word) and the often the idioms.

Personally, when writing for medieval times, I eschew all idioms and make up my own.

You can also stick to attitudes, beliefs and science that is plausible for the time, these are easy to research.

But that is the limit of what I would try. I would make the prose and dialogue, _minus modern words and idiom,_ easy to read without breaking the reverie of reading.

In my opinion, for the majority of readers, if the reader has to struggle through archaic grammar, or spelling, or words no longer in use or with different meanings, even one per page, they will give up and quit reading. I don't think they expect a novel to be _work_.

Original score: 3