Contemporary history writing is characterized by fragmentation and

According to this reasoning, both history writing and fiction can be narratives and organize their material to displays a genre, theme, or message.
In both discourses a narrator recounts events retrospectively to a listener or reader.
Yet writers of fiction and historians have different pretensions and observe different terms.

The reason why some historians appear reluctant to talk about modern history writing in terms of narrative would thus not be that they shy away from this text type but rather that narrative is associated with old-fashioned, non-academic traditions, mostly presenting history writing void of theoretical perspectives and real analysis.

Historical novels challenge the distinction between history and fiction since they, though the dominant discourse is fiction, also aspire to relate to a historical reality.