Boyle's first novel mixes historical fact with fiction, a technique that he exploits in later novels as well. In the "Apologia" at the beginning of Water Music, Boyle admits to being "deliberately anachronistic" and to exercising other liberties in the reconstruction of history. A complementary technique is Boyle's constant use of literary allusions, which would lend a fictional aura to even the most straightforward presentation of historical fact.

The novel begins by tracing two plot lines, that of Mungo Park's African adventures and that of Ned Rise's British escapades. Destiny and coincidence bring the characters together, a technique that Boyle has borrowed from the many eighteenth-century novelists that he cites. Boyle also borrows the epistolary mode from the eighteenth-century novels, most memorably when Park writes letters from Africa to Ailie, his long suffering fiancee and later his wife back in Scotland.

When Boyle reproduces excerpts from Park's travelogues...