Double Crossing discussion

I'm curious as to what you think about how accurate authors need to be when writing/publishing a historical. Please let me know!

I think that there is always wiggle room for somethings but the things that are totally historically out of place would annoy me. I'm not a stickler much to my son's (who is going for his masters in medieval history) dismay.

Hi, Patti! First, a big WOOT to your son! How awesome!! I love reading medieval history fiction books - Sharon Kay Penman, Judith Merkle Riley, Sharan Newman, Ellis Peters, Alan Gordon and others... I think I would be LESS tolerant of mistakes in historicals that far back, if they're blatant - like modern words or tools being used. Maybe readers are more accepting of modern slang or things being used before they were invented or used in a certain place in American history? My husband dislikes whenever I question a movie or book with "they didn't use that word in that time..." LOL

I like my books to be historically accurate (types of jobs, war related, vernacular, etc.) but there is always room for a little bit of straying. I don't read a fantastic, or even not so fantastic, book and then feel the need to check up on the accuracies within it.
Hope this helps!

Saph

With historical fiction, I think there is room for straying. It is fiction and as long as I can get into it, I'm not really concerned about the trivial bits of information. :)

I agree, Amanda and Sapphyria (what a gorgeous name!) Amanda is a beautiful name too, since I named my daughter that. :-) Anyway, the only time I get steamed is when books like The Other Boleyn Girl and others really play around with historical ACCURACY and then people take that as how it really happened. Uh, NO. I'm plotting out a book that takes *some* of history and using a fantasy element for a YA, and will market it as that - a historical fantasy.

So I guess the general consensus is that minor gaffes are okay, but blatant stuff bothers readers? I'm just wondering if I'm in the minority or majority. Which is why I posted this discussion.

I think it's hard to please most people on historical accuracy because there is no common knowledge that is certainly shared. I don't know a whole lot about most history but I do sometimes notice when words show up that seems to be an anachronism. I just finished a book set in late Victorian era that had an upper middle class character end a line with "...or something" which read wrong to me.

Ultimately, I agree, minor gaffes are ok (research has got to stop sometime so that the book can be written!) because I don't usually remember mistakes after the book, just the feelings about the story as a whole.

Yes, I agree with you both, Lori and Misstrangelove - FICTION is the key word, but when something throws you out of the story, it's AWKWARD! But the only things that I truly will throw a book across the room for are either an ending that is totally WRONG (as in hero/heroine gets clunked on head and wakes up to murderer caught by someone else, or something similar and stupid, LOL) or if the hero/heroine is TOO STUPID TO LIVE... I'm pretty forgiving for the most part.

Now that I'm on the "other side" of the fence, as an author and reader, it's funny how I've heard more nitpicks than ever! LOL