Avoiding Anachronisms & Howlers in General

[SlickTony]

Everyone can benefit by the wisdom of someone else whose experience has been wider and/or different. I propose to start a thread where you can ask kind of nuts-and-bolts questions about things you'd write about in period fiction. For instance, would the display window of a small town drugstore in 1943 have any kind of lighting, or would they have observed blackout precautions? That's the question I feel like asking now, but someone else may have other questions.

 

[rgraham666]

That would depend on where they were. I'm assuming the time of day you're talking about is night.

A shop in Europe would certainly observe blackout procedures. Especially mainland Europe as the bombers would come over pretty much every night.

Along the coasts of the U.S. they probably would. I know the U-boats had a happy time just after war was declared. As you can read in the article, it took a while, and a lot of ship losses, but blackouts were introduced.

Away from the coasts in the U.S. probably not. The Axis had nothing that could penetrate that far so blackouts weren't necessary.

Sigh. I wish Colleen was still around. She could probably have rattled of the laws and reality with out consulting a single book.

 

[Weird Harold]

For instance, would the display window of a small town drugstore in 1943 have any kind of lighting, or would they have observed blackout precautions? That's the question I feel like asking now, but someone else may have other questions.

That would depend on how close to a coastline -- and to some extent which coastline your small town is closest to. Mid-America had almost no blackout restrictions and those they did have were loosely enforced. The West Coast was a bit more paranoid about enforcing Blackout regulations even though the East Coast had more immediate dangers affected by Blackout violations.

I don't know very much about how the Gulf Coast treated blackout regulations. A recent istory Channel program about German U-Boats in the Gulf suggested that, at least early in the war, there were no Blackout preautions taken on the Gulf Coast.

The paranoia and/or patriotic fervor of the shopkeeper would have as much to do with blackout precautions as the actual regulations or danger.

I think almost every small town in America had at least one person who was obsessive-compulsive about blackouts and one that completely disdainful of any such "timidity."

PS: as rgraham666 noted, Europe, and other area had more immediate and tangible reasons for blackout conditions and had far fewer of the disdainful types and far more of the obsessive compulsive types -- as well as stricter blackout regulations and enforcment.

 

[Weird Harold]

but someone else may have other questions.

I have a question about writing period fiction"

Is it easier to avoid anchronisms and howlers if you go further back in history? Or are they just less noticeble?

 

[TE999]

Internet search engines are invaluable for doing all sorts of research, including getting details on a specific historical period. Everything has a web site anymore.

Proper speech to the period can be a booger, though. And don't get me started about period slang.

But don't worry about getting too detailed or accurate. Most people don't know history from a box of rocks. Also it gives the trolls a happy time to complain about some inaccuracy.

Peace.

 

[Weird Harold]

Proper speech to the period can be a booger, though. And don't get me started about period slang.

Oh how true that is!

I've read a couple of period pieces that were absolutley rigorous about period speech and period slang -- they were a real chore to read, almost as bad as reading an Original Edition of Dickens or Chaucer.

I want the flavor of the period to come through with reasonable accuracy, but I want the author to translate most of the story into at least twentieth century standards of speech and spelling.

 

[3113]

Is it easier to avoid anchronisms and howlers if you go further back in history? Or are they just less noticeble?

Generally speaking, yes, the farther you go back the easier it is to avoid the howlers because you get to stay pretty simple. I mean weaving on a loom was done for thousands of years, so whether you're in ancient Egypt or 14th century England, they're weaving on a loom.

There will, however, always be those who love a certain historical period and have done a hell of a lot more research than you and they may well catch you up, no matter how hard you try.

Frankly, there's nothing so annoying to an author, especially one who has researched and tried to get it right, than to recieve a letter from someone nitpicking errors. I have a friend, an author, who wrote a marvelous book that took place in the late 18th century. She got such an e-mail from a woman who had nothing to say about the book except to point out such faux pas. No comment on whether the story was a good one or not, just what things the author had gotten wrong.

I mean, WTF? Here, on Lit, we can edit, but if it's published and in print...what's the author suppose to do about it?

A coda on the story: I wrote to this woman to ask if I could ask her questions about a similar period...because I wanted to get it right and not have such errors. So, you'd think, given how eager she was to nail authors after the fact, she might be glad to help out?

Heh. "I feel I deserve to be paid for my valuable time and information," she loftily informed me. And I informed her that a poor author such as myself had not the money to hire her. I did not add that if I was a popular enough author to have the money to hire her, then I wouldn't need her because, obviously, my books would likely sell with or without the historical accuracy.

 

[deathlynx]

Proper speech to the period can be a booger, though. And don't get me started about period slang.

But don't worry about getting too detailed or accurate. Most people don't know history from a box of rocks. Also it gives the trolls a happy time to complain about some inaccuracy.

Oh, they'll complain no matter what...In one of my Laresa stories I prefaced the whole thing with a comment that I wasn't even going to try for dialect...Well, of course I got a one-bomb PC complaining about it...They probably wouldn't have thought of it had I not comented on it...

 

[oggbashan]

I try to be historically accurate but I still get flamed.

One reader objected because my version of the 1950s didn't match his experience. I suggested that the differences were because he had lived in a small town in the Mid-West and I was writing about London at the time from my own observation. He still argued that 'it couldn't have been like that!'.

I have provided advice on historic costuming, particularly to Colly who used to ask detailed questions and take my advice when it suited her, and ignore it when it didn't fit the story. That, to me, is the rational approach. If the historic reality doesn't fit the story you are trying to write, adapting it to suit the plot is OK - if you KNOW that is what you are doing.

There are people in the AH with a wide range of knowledge. If you want to know what weaponry was in general use in a particular era - someone will tell you exactly so that you don't have a doughboy fighting on the Western Front with a tommy-gun.

Og

 

[kendo1]

The flavour is important. Accuracy can get in the way of the story, but some things have to be avoided.


I was taken to task for 'Donal' '. Apparently I should have written it in Gaelic.

 

[bronzeage]

I try to be historically accurate but I still get flamed.

One reader objected because my version of the 1950s didn't match his experience. I suggested that the differences were because he had lived in a small town in the Mid-West and I was writing about London at the time from my own observation. He still argued that 'it couldn't have been like that!'.

I have provided advice on historic costuming, particularly to Colly who used to ask detailed questions and take my advice when it suited her, and ignore it when it didn't fit the story. That, to me, is the rational approach. If the historic reality doesn't fit the story you are trying to write, adapting it to suit the plot is OK - if you KNOW that is what you are doing.

There are people in the AH with a wide range of knowledge. If you want to know what weaponry was in general use in a particular era - someone will tell you exactly so that you don't have a doughboy fighting on the Western Front with a tommy-gun.

Og

Someone on the GB posted a picture of an Easter Basket filled with hand grenades. Another poster quickly identified them as WW1 vintage ordinance.