Historical fiction readers are a different breed.
They notice when your Regency heroine uses a word that didn't exist until 1847. They spy the anachronistic zipper on your Civil War soldier's coat. They know exactly when the fork moved from the left hand to the right... and in which countries.
Get everything right, and they'll follow you anywhere. Get it wrong — even once — and you've lost them forever.
This is the unique terror of writing historical fiction. You're building a world that already existed, for readers who may know it better than you do.
That's why we built the Era Engine – a structured approach to mastering the demands of Historical Fiction without disappearing down research rabbit holes, never to be seen again.
From writing characters whose thoughts, speech, and actions feel genuinely of their time, to crafting a tactile sense of place, true social atmosphere, and dialogue that's authentic without being alienating to modern audiences, the Legacy & Lore masterclass is your best path to writing confident Historical Fiction that stands the test of time.
Many historical fiction courses offer a sweeping overview of "writing the past."
This one is different.
We'll be breaking historical fiction into six of the strongest, most commercially viable eras...
And we treat each one as its own market with its own narrative engine.
As historical authors, we know a Tudor court drama does not operate like a Victorian gothic. A Roman political epic certainly does not read like a WWII survival novel. And a romance in Regency England does not behave the same way as a romance in medieval France.
If you understand the era, you understand the rules.
And if you understand the rules, you can break them for new, astounding effects... strategically.
Legacy & Lore is a six week masterclass that meets once per week for a two-hour session. Each session will be focused on one major historical era.
Session 1 – Power, Empire, & Fate (Ancient World; Egypt, Greece & Rome):
We will learn how to write ambition, conquest, political intrigue, and belief systems without losing emotional intimacy. Our session will explore how myth, hierarchies, and empire shape character agency.
Session 2 – Blood, Faith & Survival (Medieval and Early Middle Ages):
During this session, we will learn about rigid hierarchies, brutal justice, and religion as power. This week will also explore survival-driven storytelling and how constraint builds conflict.
Session 3 – Courts, Queens, & Consequence (Tudor & Renaissance):
This session covers marriage used as strategy, reputation as currency, and all the court politics, dynastic stakes, and women's power in a restrictive era.
Session 4 – Manners, Money, & Marriage (Georgian, Regency & Enlightenment):
For this session, our focus will be on how to use dialogue as a weapon and class tension as a driver of the plot. We will understand social constraint, emotional stakes, and the line between historical fiction and romance.
Session 5 – Progress, Hypocrisy, & the Gothic (Victorian & Industrial Age):
During this session, we're confronting polite society, urban transformation, and hidden rot. We will learn how to write secrecy, social reform, and moral tension with depth and atmosphere.
Session 6 – War, Loss, & Modern Identity (WWI, WWII, and Interwar):
This session will focus on trauma-informed storytelling, moral ambiguity, and love under global stakes. We will learn how restraint, memory, and consequence shape modern historical narratives.
SPECIAL PRO BONUS SESSION – Historical Romance:
For our AutoCrit Pro members, we will offer a 7th session focused on writing historical romance without breaking the world. Romance behaves differently in each era with power imbalance, consent, marriage traditions, reputation, and autonomy each functioning differently depending on the century.
Absolutely. While we focus on the six “powerhouse” commercial eras, the frameworks we teach—handling research, writing period-accurate dialogue, and managing social constraints—are universal. You’ll learn how to “decode” any era you choose to write in.
You don’t need a PhD to write great historical fiction. In fact, sometimes “knowing too much” leads to an info-dump that kills your pacing. We teach you the “Point of Impact” research method: how to find the 10% of historical detail that provides 90% of the atmosphere.
No. This is actually most effective for writers in the pre-draft or early-draft stage. It will save you dozens of hours of “research rabbit holes” by helping you identify exactly which historical details actually move the needle for your story.
Every session is recorded and uploaded to your student dashboard within 24 hours. You’ll have lifetime access to the replays any era-specific workbooks/handouts provided during the class.
Yes. World-building in historical fiction is about constraint. We show you how to map out the legal, social, and physical boundaries of your setting so your characters feel like they truly belong to their time, rather than feeling like “modern people in costumes.”
We focus on the structural stakes of romance. Whether you’re writing “sweet” Regency or “steamy” Medieval, the romantic tension relies on the barriers the era puts in the way. We teach you how to use those barriers to maximize emotional payoff.
This is one of the biggest hurdles for historical writers. We dedicate time in each session to “Period-Flavor Dialogue.” You’ll learn how to strip away modern idioms and replace them with the sentence structures and “social weight” of your era without making the text unreadable for a modern audience.
The past offers a canvas for the human spirit that the modern world sometimes struggles to contain – and there's a specific kind of magic that happens when we step out of our own time and into another.
When we reach back through the centuries, we find that while the clothes, laws, and landscapes have changed, the human experience unites us. Universal feelings of love, grief, ambition, and courage run through the pages of history. Through fiction, we are able to explore the "what if?" on a grander scale, placing our characters in a world where a single letter could change the course of a kingdom, or where a whispered conversation in a Victorian parlor can begin a chain of life-or-death struggles.
From the grand architecture of ancient Rome, to the stunning shrines of Japan or the incredible construction of Egypt's pyramids, history fascinates us all. But beyond the grand imagery and catastrophic events, there is a profound, quiet intimacy in discovering the small, lost details of a vanished life. Through historical fiction, we honor voices never heard, and find ourselves in the stories of those who came before us. We build bridges to these worlds through our work, and give our readers a place where they can lose themselves in a different time.
Learn The Secrets of Writing Historical Fiction.
6 complete modules of craft guidance, featuring video lessons, live classes and module assignments.
Access to supplements and examples for key learning.
Easy-to-follow worksheets and reference guides.
Kat will discuss all things historical romance as a special bonus session for AutoCrit Pro Members!
Connect with like-minded authors and discuss course content.
When you purchase a course or workshop you have access to the course materials forever, so you can come back whenever you need a refresher.
Learn The Secrets of Writing Dark Fiction
6 complete modules of craft how-to's, featuring video lessons, live classes and module assignments.
Access to supplements and examples for key learning.
Easy-to-follow worksheets and reference guides
AutoCrit Pro Members will have an extra session of this course to discuss all things marketing for Dark Academia.
Connect with like-minded authors and discuss course content.
When you purchase a course or workshop you have access to the course materials forever, so you can come back whenever you need a refresher.
