Rich sensory detail is often thought of as one of the hallmarks of historical fiction. Writers in this genre have to work extra hard to conjure the alien world of the past, bringing it to vivid life and immersing their readers with the help of touch, smell, sight and taste. Characters might caress a silk brocade, cover their nose against the stench of a tannery, price a person’s dress by the yard at a single glance (as Hilary Mantel has her Cromwell do) or tuck into a spiced pottage. Hearing, though, is one sense which tends to be overlooked and underutilised. To neglect it is to miss out on an opportunity.
The sonic landscape of your novel, otherwise known as the ‘soundscape’, is a key dimension of the way your characters experience life. It can add another layer of depth and authenticity to your historical setting. Considering your novel’s soundscape is less about reminding yourself to ‘insert sound effect here’ and more about being aware of the acoustic environment through which your characters move. It can even drive plot.
What is a soundscape?
A soundscape encompasses all ambient noise in a particular location. This includes sounds made by human activity, by the natural world and by living creatures. Call it noise pollution, call it a low-level background hum, this symphony (or cacophony) is as much a part of daily life as the air we breathe.
The soundscape of a person living in a city in 2026 likely includes traffic noise, building work, sirens and electrical items. This loud, post-industrial hubbub tunes out the kind of low-frequency sounds which would have dominated centuries ago. In rural sixteenth-century Cambridgeshire, for example, the calls of hen and marsh harriers (later persecuted to near extinction) would have dominated the skies and the loudest noise might have been thunder or the church bell.
How to research yours
Historical soundscapes are a fascinating and growing area of academic research. David Hendy’s book Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening offers a great place to start.
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K.F. MacCarthy is a guest contributor to The History Quill. Her debut novel-in-progress, set in Quattrocento Florence, won the Farnham Literary Festival’s inaugural ‘First Five Thousand’ Prize and was longlisted for the Cheshire Novel Prize. She won the Historical Writers’ Association Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Prize 2024 with a story set on a remote Scottish island in the 1800s. You can find her on Instagram and Substack.
