Alternate history is a genre that basically tries to imagine what the world would look like had certain events happened differently or not at all. It’s always been quite a popular genre and a lot of people enjoy the idea of creating “what if” scenarios for historical events. Writing an alternate history book, however, is not as easy as simply having some sort of idea regarding what the historical event is. That’s why for today’s post, I’m going to be teaching you about how you can create your own alternate history story and turn it into a book.
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First, What is Alternate History
Alternate history is also referred to sometimes as speculative history and a subgenre of sci-fi. This literary genre also sits within speculative fiction. Alternate history deals with established historical events or time periods and attempts to create a different version of that event. From there, the writer attempts to essentially imagine what the world or the specific location of the event would look like following this change.
A lot of alternate history deals with things like World War II, and one really good example of this is actually a video game series titled Wolfenstein where Nazi Germany won World War II and began to invade the United States. It’s a really good example of alternate history, in my opinion.
The idea of an alternate history requires three things:
- A point of divergence from the historical record before the time in which the author is writing
- A change that would alter known history
- An examination of the ramifications of that alteration to history
How to Write Alternate History
The Point of Divergence
The first thing you’ll need to do when you go to write an alternate history is to select your point of divergence. The point of divergence is essentially the moment in history where you will begin to take events on a different course.
The point of divergence could realistically be anything including a well-known historical event, a battle, a political decision, a signed treaty, a natural disaster, a rebellion, and anything similar to these ideas and concepts. The scope of your point of divergence is up to you to decide; where you will stand out is what you believe the outcome could look like following from this point of divergence.
You could select a point of divergence based on your own personal interests or you could conduct some academic research to see which event you would be more interested in writing about. Once you’ve selected an event though, you should conduct more research to understand the event in its entirety so that you can understand the time period that you’re writing in as well as what the world was like at the time and what that event entailed for the world. If you want to learn more about how to properly research, check out this post.
Understand the Event, the World, the Times
Creating a believable alternate history requires that you have an understanding that is solid in regards to the history itself. You can pick an event at random and decide to branch off from there, but you’ll need to know more than just a surface-level of knowledge.
That’s why I mentioned research before, because this is a genre where you need to do your proper research. You need to understand the historical figures involved in the event, the cultural and social norms of the area where the event took place, the state of the world surrounding that place, how the economy and political structures were, and so on.
For instance, I have a deep interest in the French Revolution, and this is what I have gathered as facts to keep in mind:
- France had a grand discrepancy between the wealthy and the common classes of society
- King Louis XIV was married to Marie Antoinette
- The aristocracy enjoyed quite a lot of privilege and power
- The country had just gotten out of war with Britain in defense of the American colonies’ revolution
And so on and so forth, but I just want you to get the general idea of what you’re supposed to do when you research. I recommend keeping a notebook at your side so you can jot down these details, and you can check out this post I made about notebooks I recommend for world building. This is technically world building too, if you think about it. Just more historically grounded.
Develop the Change
Now that you’ve selected the point of divergence and have an understanding about the era that you’re writing about, it’s time to develop a change that would alter the facts of history and make sense in the context of your story.
It is at this point where you want to think about a realistic scenario that could occur that would genuinely create a change in the world. For instance, what if Napoleon never became Emperor following the French Revolution? This is plausible and you could branch off from here in a plethora of directions.
You need to think about the long and short-term effects of the change in history. What will this genuinely mean for the world? Like in the case of Wolfenstein, if the Nazis won World War II, there were A LOT of depicted changes that are plausible considering the story of the game.
World Building Applies Here Too!
Even if your story is still set in the reality of our world, you still will have to do some level of world building for your idea because you have an alternate timeline that you are branching off to.
You’ll want to think about things like the cultural changes in society, how technology has/has not developed and why that is, as well as things like how the political landscape has changed and what countries still/don’t exist.
For instance, if Napoleon never became the leader of France, maybe the country would have split into different factions vying for power in the wake of such a vacuum. Then, you’ll want to think about things like if these factions have different cultural and societal standards, if the different factions have different ideals, etc…
Create Characters That Make Sense
Next, you’ll want to create characters in your story that make sense in the context of your story. Characters are a really important part of any story because most stories are written in the style of being somewhat character-driven. Characters need to be well-developed, interesting, and should have properly defined motivations and goals. They also need to have a well-written character arc. The character must also be affected by the alternate world that they are living in.
You can show historical figures that existed in real history but change them to fit the context of your story as well, but you’ll want to make sure they act in a believable way based on this divergence in history.
Furthermore, no matter what characters you create, you’ll need to give them some level of complexity and intrigue for the readers.
If you want to learn more about how to write memorable characters, check out this post.
Integrate the History
Even if you’re writing alternate history, you can still take historical elements that you know about and integrate them into your story. You can reference real historical figures and places that existed in the original timeline and show how they have changed as a result of your divergence.
However, you don’t want to overdo this as you are still writing an alternate history and you want to avoid things like info dumping on your readers. If a reader wanted to read about the real historical event behind your story, they would’ve done that instead. Keep your audience in mind and have fun playing around with the history!
Create a Plot Outline to Help
The next thing I recommend you do is to create a plot outline to help you with your story writing process. I’ve talked about why plot outlines are helpful before, so you should go check that post out. The idea of a plot outline is very helpful because it allows you to figure out what your story will look like, how your conflict will evolve, how your character arcs will look like, and what sort of plot twists and changes will happen.
A plot outline also helps you to keep track of events that are happening so that you don’t create issues with consistency and lead to things like plot holes.
Conclusion
Alternate history is a really creative and interesting genre that can be a bit challenging to start figuring out how to write. However, by using the tips I gave and by ensuring that you do proper research, then your story will turn out amazing! The idea is to weave history and your own original thinking in a way that feels plausible and engaging for readers.
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