*facepalm*

[essayel]

You know you've gone too far when on reading the first paragraph of Captain Blood [Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater] instead of a feeling of pleasant anticipation you make a mental note to look up if they had geraniums in the late 17th century.

After a discussion yesterday about historical accuracy necessarily giving way to general appeal in the movies, I'm wondering now what the writers of historicals feel about that with books? I've seen opinions at both ends of the scale - ie, that it's the story that's important on one hand or, otoh, if you are going to write historicals get it right or don't bother.

As a reader I'm normally very tolerant of inaccuracies and anachronisms if the story and characters are good enough. I think it's a pity if my anxiety to get it right as a hobby writer is colouring my attitude to fantastic classic works of fiction.

Any one else found that?

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Well, to be really geeky, what everyone calls geraniums aren't geraniums at all, but pelargoniums. These are geraniums and are hardy - although imported as well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geranium

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Hee, I'll put you down in the get it right camp then.

The book is an old favourite and I was just shocked at myself for being so damn picky.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it looks like with Peter Blood's connections on the continent he could have had access to pelargonium seeds and been the envy of Bridgewater gardeners. And the Romans had window boxes so ...

[sandra-lindsey.livejournal.com]

I was about to say about geraniums/pelargoniums... and I was going to look them both up in my Chiltern Seeds catalogue!

Thanks for getting there first :-D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I should have answered the sensible question. I DO think that historicals should be "right, or not called historicals" - Dreamspinner do the right thing and call their history - lite range "Timeless Dreams" which does them an injustice actually as the two or three I've read haven't been Historical Wallpaper at all. A reader can tell if the author has tried (without shoving it down your throat) or whether they just don't give a flying fuck whether the facts are right at all - and it's these authors I hate with a deadly loathing. the ones who say "oh who CARES - it's FICTION - i can say what I like!"

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I noticed the Timeless Dreams category at Dreamspinner. I think that's a really sensible thing to have - a place for the, not dross exactly but the somewhat substandard, shall we say the 'well meant but wrong headed'? Because there are people who really enjoy reading the 'history they think they know' rather than the real stuff. I have several stories that might have fitted there if they had been good enough.

I've been convulsed with laughter on several occasions by that type of 'historicals'. They don't infuriate me because I'm still over-awed by anyone with the self confidence to get a book published.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

if something like that happens to me it sometimes is a sign that i'm not into the story yet. it's a great sign if i beta something and promptly forget to betaread (which is why I never sign up for that or answer to a call for those, i've tried it once and it just i don't know, the prose was jsut too good?) aaaand mostly I check wit hsomeone i know who knows the era to see if they found any anvil-sized anachronisms that might dunk you out of the narrative. because you can hand me a paperback set in regency time and i'd never knew if the clothing or interior descriptions sound ok.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I've been in that position - started reading and completely forgotten that I was supposed to be a critic.

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

hee-- the first thing I did after reading your post was to look up geraniums. (I think he could have had either kind, unless he lived in the Canadian Bridgewater.) I think you either look things up, or you don't. In your case, I wouldn't worry too much about it, because A. you know it's more RIGHT when you do, and B. your stories are all elegantly plotted and delightfully filled with cool characters anyway. (in addition to being right.)

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

(oops-- he couldn't have lived in the Nova Scotia one; it wasn't built then.) :D

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Awwww *blushes*

It's easy to make mistakes. Particularly with things that you don't question. I remember being very shocked to hear that rabbits aren't indigenous to the UK and so any story set before about 1500 that has wild rabbits in it will be wrong. They seem so much a part of the countryside that it's hard to imagine a time when they weren't here.

63K words of pirates! I have about another 20k to go then I'll be ready for the second draft.

[yakalskovich]

That issue seems to be a question ripe in the writing community at the moment; Elizabeth Bear discussed it yesterday as well. The problem is not just about historical research, it's about all research for all fiction.

There can be such a thing as 'Overresearched and underwritten' in fiction, not just in academic prose. 'The Swarm', the great best-seller by Frank Schätzing (who a few books earlier wrote the rather charming little historical whodunnit where I got Urquhart from) is a prime example of it. He did so much research into marine matters, his story and characters totally take a back seat to the research. It sold well, but I did prefer aforementioned little historical whodunnit, despite some misplaced pumpkins...

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Oh that is a good piece. Her journal looks fun so I friended it. Haven't read any of her work as far as I remember, but her writing name seems familiar so I may have done.

[yakalskovich]

Oh yes, I may have been going on about her books. The steampunk vampire detective story, where the (male) vampire likes to knit because he has so much time on his hands? Or 'A Companion To Wolves', which I totally love to bits because it deals with that 'níthing' memplex that I was wrestling with at the time because of playing Teja in Milliways, and discussing these subjects with the Lady Carolin for her WiP? That Elizabeth Bear.-

[essayel.livejournal.com]

No, not to me. Probably to Milliways players.

[ceitfianna]

I think it depends on the book and era for me. There are some eras that I know more about so I tend to be less forgiving and others where I got into the books early enough that I don't care. Ellis Peters is who I'm thinking of, I adore the Cadfael books and don't know a huge amount about the medieval era so I'm far more forgiving. On the other hand something about the Classical world that's done badly bothers me, so I don't tend to search them out.

Though I'm personally not a fan of what Neal Stephenson does and just plop all his research down in the text.

I prefer the Mary Renault, Lindsey Davis or Sharon Kay Penman way, where you're aware of the research but that fills out the world. Since knowing the world is great but it shouldn't get in the way of the story.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I could read the worst ever historical novel about, say, 19th century Korea and have no criticisms at all [unless the story stunk]. Sometimes I think that as a reader ignorance is bliss. Sometimes I think it's nice to know enough to be able to appreciate the work that the writer has obviously put in. I don't know which is more comfortable.

[innerslytherin]

In the class I took at university about History Fiction & Film, we talked about true invention versus false invention--where true invention is, of course, staying true to the attitudes and intent of historic events. For instance if there were two generals who disagreed with General Lee's decision to invade Maryland, you might take things they had both said and just give those lines to one of the generals, to keep the cast of characters less confusing. But false invention, of course, would be pretending that no one disagreed at all.

I don't mind overlooking certain small inaccuracies (even though I often notice them, such as the hobbits in the Fellowship movie talking about tomatoes when they wouldn't have had them, of course, in Middle Earth *G*) as long as the general events and portrayals of attitudes are correct. I hate reading fiction set in the antebellum South of the US, for instance, when the entire county is populated with abolitionists or people who believe that blacks were mentally, socially, and morally equal to whites. That just wasn't a wide-spread feeling at the time, even among Northern abolitionists, who largely felt that the blacks WERE inferior, even if they also felt that blacks shouldn't be enslaved.

Just my .02. :)

[mcgonagalls-cat.livejournal.com]

That sort of thing makes me crazy!

I know more about the history of the American West than the times you are familiar with, but just love it when the writer has a train to some area before it was even a town, definitely pre-railroad; all saloon girls were misunderstood and no one ever caught VD (the doctors at the time prescribed sunglasses because of the photo-sensitivity syphilis causes, so it was a good bet that if you saw her wandering about with dark glasses, you probably shouldn't play with her - that's about never in any story); most of the kids didn't make it to five years old, they didn't die of easily-curable-now diseases like measles, sore throats, or from falling out of trees, or starvation (and no one gets dysentery from eating only meat when times were hard and that was all that was available - there's a very cool diary of Freemont's expeditions where the guys can't sit in their saddles because their butts are so raw from this - enhanced, no doubt, by the lack of water to wash bodies and clothing in - and the soaps they did have being able to corrode metal - boy I bet they smelled delightful); people's bodies weren't broken and destroyed, old, by the time they were 30 - and they all had good teeth; it only takes a little while to get anywhere - half a state away, no roads, mile-and-a-half tall masses of granite, or canyons equally deep, between you and where you want to go. *shakes head*

I had a heck of a time with the movie Titanic for similar reasons Aside from most of the secondary characters being uni-dimensional and only stuck in because they were on the roster, whoever wrote it really didn't understand the social mores of those times. Rose would no more have been allowed to wander around on her own recognizance than she would have been allowed to swim to New York. If a young lady was out of sight of her chaperon, she could be sent to a convent, asylum, or kept under lock and key "at home"... Were she discovered in the company of a male she could be forced to marry him by her family, even if everything was completely innocent, just to "keep the family name respectable". It wasn't much different than Berkas at the societal level she was supposed to be in.

Its even worse when it is something I lived through and some "kid" is writing about it as though the outcome was a given and things are the same as now. People aren't beaten and killed in Civil Rights marches; everyone but a couple evil fuddy-duddy dominant males is ok with it and even they see the light by the end of the story. Everyone was against the war in Viet Nam; no one's family ever gave them grief over it or dumped them out because of politics. Women could get any job, go places on their own, buy houses and cars without the signature of their husbands, etc., just like now. * head explodes *

*steps down off soap box temporarily* Sorry.



It is really important that the details be kept true to the situations. People now would be imprisoned or burned in most of the "back thens" for doing things we consider normal. The context matters. By writers getting it wrong, it lulls future readers into accepting all sorts of inaccuracies and robs them of understanding the what, why, and how history could be as it was. So, please keep picking the faux pas out. It is important.


I just got the first volume of Mark Twain's "diary" for Christmas. He insisted it not be published until 100 years after his death. In just one hundred years the language has changed so much it is bordering on difficult to catch all the nuances and really understand what he was saying.

Again, please keep insisting on accuracy. It IS SO important.

.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

There's accuracy and accuracy. My point about the geraniums was that it was utterly irrelevant to the plot. Sabatini could equally well have said that Blood was tending primroses or kitchen herbs. Last time I read the book I hadn't got into the habit of spending so much time checking things that I don't actually write. Then if I had an idea for a story I'd bash it out in a huge burst of enthusiasm. I'd love to be able to recapture that kind of carefree enjoyment of just telling the tale and not fretting over whether I'll be marked down because I've mentioned a plant 50 years to early or my characters are displaying an unrealistic knowledge of medicine.

That said, it's nice to have the feeling that you have, or whoever you're reading has made an effort. One of the things that really impressed me was in one of the Falco novels by Lindsey Davis where the hero's wife tells him she's pregnant and he's SCARED rather than happy because there's a 25% chance she'll die. That's something most western couples don't have to face these days.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I suppose that Middle Earth hobbits shouldn't have had tobacco or potatoes either if the place was based on high medieval Europe. But you have some licence with fantasy.

Any story set in the South ante or postbellum has to deal with the dreaded n-word, a terrifying prospect.I'm very glad never to have had any kind of plot bunny for that period. It's awkward enough writing pirates and portraying their somewhat relaxed attitudes, that at best are still dreadful by modern standards.

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

As a reader I'm normally very tolerant of inaccuracies and anachronisms if the story and characters are good enough.

I am not, as long as I know anything about the time period at all. Tomato sauce in Ancient Egypt once put me off an otherwise decent series, and while I continued to enjoy a certain medieval fantasy romp (set in the real world, but with some ghosts and dwarves thrown in) after the mysterious appearance of lots and lots of trouser pockets in the 11th century, I kept wondering what else was inaccurate.

In my own writing, this whole problem made me stop trying to write historical fiction (even though I am not a published or even all that serious writer - I could be reasonably sure that few of my not that many readers would ever notice tiny historical mistakes). I just never felt I knew enough about any time period to write it more or less accurately, and so, I finally ended up writing fantasy (no need for historical accuracy in the details, and the possibility of adding dragons, which is always good, yay!).

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Maybe we can start a new genre and call it historical fantasy, or something. Guy Gavriel Kay has been doing it for years quite successfully.

It doesn't matter how much research you do, someone on your friends list will always have done more, or have read different books that come to different conclusions, and will accordingly think you an idiot. Why court contempt? Going down the fantasy route is a lot more comfortable.

Which medieval fantasy romp is that?

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

Der Goldschatz der Elbberge (http://www.amazon.de/Goldschatz-Elbberge-Ein-historisch-fantastischer-Roman/dp/3831904200/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295781734&sr=8-1), a German novel (I don't know if there is a translation). Bishop Adalbert of Bremen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_of_Bremen) is in dire need of money and is persuaded by shady advisors to let people dig for the legendary gold of the dwarves. A monk, a young soldier and a mostly useless healer (she only serves as a love interest for the soldier) get drawn into the events, and chaos ensues (including robbers, a virgin-sacrificing pagan sorcerer, a dragon and an undead bronze-age priest-king). It is about as whacky as it sounds, and definitely a guilty pleasure (not a serious historical novel), but I admit it was fun to read.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic. I'll recommend it to yakalskovich.

:D

[casfic.livejournal.com]

If I read a novel set in a time period that I am familiar with, and the author gets something wrong, I often find it completely throws me out of the story, and depending on how much I like the story may stop me reading altogether. For example, I've never had much time for Diana Gabaldon because (fantasy elements aside) the actual historical stuff she writes about, particularly in her early novels, is just so wrong.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Funny, ten minutes ago I was reading a blog by an historical writer who was praising Gabaldon's historical accuracy to the skies. I don't know much about that period, I just find her protagonists screamingly annoying!

It takes a lot to throw me out of a story if I'm enjoying it. I don't even object to clunky grammar if the characters have engaged my interest. But I'm coming to the conclusion that labelling anything I write as 'historical' is just making a rod for my own back. It's much safer to change all the names, add a ghost or a demon or two and label it fantasy!

[jrtomlin.livejournal.com]

Gabaldon is quite inaccurate. And not only are her protagonists annoying, her bad guy makes me froth at the mouth. Not all gays are rapists, thank you. (her--not you.)

I hate anachronisms. I am definitely in the "if you can't get it right don't bother..." camp, especially if the offender is the hateful Mel Gibson who managed to get EVERYTHING wrong. (Braveheart is a huge pet peeve. I believe it was Wodehouse who said you would never mistake a Scot with a grievance for a ray of sunshine.)

[essayel.livejournal.com]

you would never mistake a Scot with a grievance for a ray of sunshine.

*giggles*

Oh yes. That's a film I didn't sit through. It wasn't even fun. And Gabaldon - oh dear. How has she become so successful with such a desperate collection of Mary Sues?

"If you can't get it right don't bother" is a good rule of thumb. However I have a story I'm desperate to tell and am floundering around with little details I simply can't find the truth of. Possibly I might find them out if I spent a year or two learning Ukrainian so I could read the archaeological reports, but I suspect that I wouldn't. I think writing it as truthfully as I can, using little bits from similar cultures to fill in the gaps and finally labelling it historical fantasy might cover my ass.

[jrtomlin.livejournal.com]

I must admit that I don't know where to draw a reasonable line. I got very irritated at an author who placed spinning wheels in 13th century England. Was I being unreasonable? But it wasn't that hard for *me* to find out, so I think it shouldn't have been that hard for her. However, that's pretty minor. I think it was also probably forgivable.

It's ones who make no effort or deliberately skew it that really drive me crazy. It wasn't hard to know that Robert Bruce's father was dead when Gibson portrayed him as betraying Wallace and that the princess he said had an affair with Wallace was 9 years old when he died. *rolls eyes* Gibson knew he was lying and lying about national heroes. This is NOT a nice thing to do.

So I think I might let some of the little details go. A few pedants like me might squirm a bit, but it's forgivable if you get the big stuff right.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I think only the most pedantic reader will toss the book aside with a derisive snort over a minor non-plot-relevant anachronism as long as the rest of the book is up to snuff. I'm far more forgiving of Ms Dunnett's misuse of words. www.etymonline.com didn't exist then. Her library of research materials was astonishing, but she was quite a wealthy and well connected woman with access to big university research collections and a network of specialists to consult. That gives her a big advantage over, say, the enthusiastic impoverished writer in the little Mid-western town without a library.

As for Hollywood *eyeroll* it's a long time since I've been surprised by the travesties they produce.

[essayel.livejournal.com]

Actually I meant Sabatini. I was talking about Dorothy Dunnett elsewhere. Google is such a gift to a writer.

[aceofkittens.livejournal.com]

I do feel it is jarring... even with our precious Lady Dunnett, I always notice when she uses anachronistic language (e.g., Francis referring to a feat of cattle multiplication that was "genetically fabulous" or the subsequent reference to someone feeling "mesmerised."). However, if the writing and characters are good enough, I am more tolerant.

BTW, how is it that I did not friend you years ago? We've been trading comments on the Lymond group since 2003! Mea maxima culpa... do you mind if I friend you now? :)

[essayel.livejournal.com]

LOL< of course not. LJ does tend to compartmentalise people, doesn't it. I'm always surprised to find a Lymond fan commenting on the Mary Renault comms for instance. Yes, it's daft *goes to friend back*

I'm far more forgiving of Ms Dunnett's misuse of words. www.etymonline.com didn't exist then. Her library of research materials was astonishing, but she was quite a wealthy and well connected woman with access to big university research collections and a network of specialists to consult. That gives her a big advantage over, say, the enthusiastic impoverished writer in the little Mid-western town without a library. I like authors to have TRIED but if they fall short I won't write them off completely, they might do better next time.