Steven Leibo, writing fiction as Li Bo, is the author of the Sino-American Tales which includes: Tienkuo The Heavenly Kingdom, Beyond the Heavenly Kingdom, and Under Heaven’s Watch (upcoming). He is also a professor of history.
Steven and I have been chatting back and forth about the challenges and synergies of being both a historian and an historical fiction author.
MKT: How do the roles of a historian and writer of historical fiction inform each other?
Steven Leibo: History and historical fiction are intimately linked in my mind and at the same time, held at arm’s length from each other. As with so many other readers of historical fiction, the works of writers like Irving Stone and James Michener played a huge role in inspiring my young imagination and eventually arousing my youthful ambition to become a professional historian. And once that was accomplished, during my half a century as an academic – I taught my first college class in 1973 and retired in the spring of 2023 – I always assigned works of historical fiction (particularly Lisa See’s books) to complement the more traditional textbooks and monographs all professors assign. And eventually, started writing my own works of historical fiction the Sino-American Tales.
On the other hand, nervous that material from historical fiction might ‘bleed’ into my classroom lectures, I carefully avoided reading such works during the many decades of my long career. Indeed, I am only now in retirement working my way through Ken Follett’s magnificent works.
Is the research the same for both history and historical fiction
Yes, for me, the same. I use both primary and secondary sources and even work in archives, just as I did while writing the many nonfiction books I have published during my career. But there is one major difference. With non-fiction, when I have written as Dr Leibo, I was always looking to recreate the best historical narrative that available sources allowed. When writing historical fiction as Li Bo (Doctors of History are not supposed to make stuff up) I have had a different goal and one that is perhaps a bit unusual for writers of fiction. I do not make up plot lines. Rather I look for real historical events that complement my multi-volume family saga and then plug in my fictional characters alongside those real individuals that took part.
How does your thinking about historical fiction differ from other writers in that genre.
Here I am speculating a bit. But when I read or listen to non-historians talk about writing historical fiction, they seem very concerned about getting the details of the past, of that different place and time, correct. Obviously, I care about that as well. But as a lifelong historian, someone who writes historical fiction on the same topics I wrote nonfiction, indeed my first novel Tienkuo the Heavenly Kingdom was a completely rewritten version of my dissertation, I have a very different concern. Not making my fiction writings historically accurate but knowing as some have said, the past is a “different country” my goal has been to make the past comprehensible and relatable for people in the present. In short, the past really is very different, different in so many ways consisting of what often seems like very foreign values, languages and behaviors, many very off putting to modern readers. Therein is the challenge for me. Creating a version of the past that works for modern readers. That is the far greater challenge.
And per your complementary question on what is missing from the seven elements of historical fiction, this is a spoke I would add.
What can a historical fiction writer do with a novel that a historian cannot do?
Well, this is the easy question, the one we all know intuitively. Apart from some of our greatest writers of popular nonfiction history, especially writers like Barbara Tuchman, works of narrative history do not usually include the very human drama, the unfolding beginning middle and end that all stories, be they a novel or screenplay, absolutely require to capture and hold an audience!
Indeed, that is why historical fiction far more than professional narrative history more easily finds an audience and why I, as a long time professor I always assigned a work of historical fiction to my students. And I should add those novels were complemented by term paper that required the students to do the necessary research to determine how well, how historically accurate the various authors had recreated the past. Thus, exciting the students with the drama historical fiction is far more able to accomplish than non-fiction history and teaching them critical historical thinking skills. The latter especially important because historical fiction remains the way most people encounter history from Downton Abby to the Gilded Age.
Do you incorporate insights about today in your works of historical fiction?
In my case, that is a huge part of my efforts though ironically it has become more important as contemporary history has evolved. My own historical fiction series, The Sino-American Tales is absolutely linked not only to Sino-American relations, easily one of the most important geo-political issues of our day. Additionally, in these novels the treatment of Chinese Americans in 19th century America, especially the development and implementation of 1882’s infamous Chinese Exclusion Act is at the core. In short, immigration, so much in the news today, is a fundamental and insightful part of these books.
Many thanks, Steven. For a further exploration of this topic, have a look at Steven’s article The Historian and Historical Fiction which is on his website.
I’m interested to hear from other authors who write both historical fiction and non-fiction.
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.
