Getting In Their Heads

Novelist Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (who apparently prefers her historical fiction undead-flavored) has an article over on George Mason University's "History News Network" (HNN) on the difference in approach between popular history and historical fiction (besides the obvious "one of them has to get it right"). The article is basically a plug for her new, non-fiction book on the Third Battle of Lepanto, but she still has a few interesting things to say:

The challenge when writing historical fiction is to show the reader not what the people of the time in question did – that is known and readily accessible – but what they thought they were doing. Non-fiction may have a similar goal in mind, but it conveys its understanding of historical events by telling the reader about them. It may seem like a small difference, but it is not.