Too Accurate?
We all can (probably) agree that there’s such a thing as a story being ruined by gross inaccuracies due to poor research. But it there such a thing as too much accuracy?
I’ve been thinking about this ever since I read Brenda Coulter’s post on Regency titles over at Romancing the blog. It’s a pretty interesting comment trail, too. At least one blog reader remarked that readers of historical fiction know and love history, so historical accuracy in fiction should be obligatory. At least one other blog reader remarked that she could give a fig less about historical accuracy; she just read to be entertained.
Where do you fall on those lines?
I don’t want my Regency miss saying “Hello” to the hero, or the young pup dancing attendance on her to lose his dukedom to his bastard brother on the turn of a card. The reader reading purely for entertainment probably has no idea why these two things rub me the wrong way when I come across them.
Then again, I don’t want my Medieval laird hero to suffer rotting teeth or the Sassenach heroine to go unbathed for long periods during the winter regardless of how accurate that may or may not be. I want them clean, I want them bathed, I want their clothes smelling halfway decent, their food unspoiled, and all their teeth nice and healthy. (Crooked is fine.)
But that’s just me, and historical is a sticky wicket anyway since obviously that period of time is over.
What about other genres? Uncoply cops, unnursely nurses, ridiculously precocious three-year-olds who take care of themselves for chapters at a time and spout college-level vocabulary? Does that stuff roll off your back, or does it make you want to scream?
I work in the IT industry. I know a thing or two about web sites and computers and networks and firewalls and databases and software because I deal with these things every day of my life. I absolutely cannot watch a movie whose plot hinges on one of these things as a suspense element because, without fail, the scenario will be utterly and completely impossible, thus ruining the plot for me. Some of the hacking/tracing stuff they allegedly do on Law and Order is so laughably ridiculous to me that I can’t even finish watching the episode. Those moments are relatively few, and I tend to like the show in general. I have a close friend who’s an attorney, however, and L&O makes her roll her eyes like nothing else. To her, many episodes are unbelievable.
We know not to get our research from novels and movies and we know not to believe everything we see and hear and read, but we wouldn’t know to watch out for such things if inaccuracies weren’t printed and filmed and played with alarming regularity.
Does it not matter? Is it all about the art, the story, the thematic premise? Poetic license? Changing the plot to please the laymen in the audience?
Or is it a big deal? Should we be ashamed of ourselves when we slip a word into our Regency that doesn’t exist for another decade, when we have our villain hack into the Pentagon from the campus library computer, when our hero gives away his birthright because we need that for the sequel, when the heroine flies Delta direct from Tampa to Portland even though there is no such flight because, well, there could be, and hey, this is fiction?
YOUR TURN: Tell me! When is inaccuracy wrong? Is it always wrong? If it’s sometimes all right, when is it all right? Is there a line in the sand or a huge gray middle? What inaccuracies burn you up inside? Which ones don’t bother you at all?
Great blog topic. I am like you, I find it bugs me when a duke throws himself across a ballroom to talk to a woman 3 classes beneath him….I understand they have to get together but how about a different way? And my characters have to be periodically bathed and reclothed too.
Id on’t mind if the visit the bahtroom, WC, privy but I prefer not to have to read them doing it every day. Am I going to look up on wiki if you described the construction of said Midieval castle correctly? Prolly not.
I read a book awhile back where the 2 year old played with blocks for what seemed to me like 2 hours in the book. Having a 2 year old and knowing his attention span can’t make it over 15 minutes I rolled my eyes…..but fort. the story over rode the parental error to me…
I find it bugs me when a duke throws himself across a ballroom to talk to a woman 3 classes beneath him….I understand they have to get together but how about a different way?
Great point, Cinde. Sometimes I think authors expect allowances to be made simply because, duh, he’s the hero and she’s the heroine and they’ve got to get to HEA. But like you, I want a plot arc that doesn’t overstretch my ability to suspend disbelief.
Of course, as an author that means I must also challenge myself to make sure my own stories are plausible. (By “myself” I mean my tirelessly faithful cabal of CPs… *g)
Great post! I go nuts when I read historical details or figures of speech that I know to be inaccurate. I then generally pigeonhole the author, no matter how illustrious s/he may be, as a know-nothing arriviste who has no business writing books.
I suppose the reason that there’s no commercial non-stop flight from Tampa to Westchster Airport (a stone’s throw, quite literally, from Greenwich) is because it could only happen in fairy tales. So I guess that means I’ll just have to charter a jet for my heroine…
LOL, Bill. I’ll have my suitcase ready.
And I know what you mean… There’s a best-selling author whose books came to me highly recommended from many trusted friends. I picked one up and read it. While written extraordinarily well, the plot hinged on an historical impossibility (as did several subplots) which ruined the whole thing for me, and I have not tried another of her books.
Unforgiving of me, perhaps, but I’ve got a teetering To Be Read pile as it is…
Great topic Erica!
It does drive me nuts when there is not accuracy in a book whether it be a historical or a contemporary. It just shows me that the writer didn’t care enough about their project to make sure it was right.
Although I do agree with the hygiene thing for historicals…I think that is fine, it’s part of it being romance. But you definitely don’t want your regency heroine wearing a dress from the medieval era, or your medieval heroine, saying “hey babe, what’s up?”
I have to say that as far as the words go, a lot of people wouldn’t believe the words that were around back in the day. I’ve seen on several loops some people using a word, and everyone says on no, you can’t use it, and then you look at a piece of writing from that time that uses the word. For example, I found out that the word “crib” for “house” existed in 1811…go figure MTV could be historically accurate!
Eliza
LOL re: “crib” for “house”. Same with “car” for “carriage”, I believe.
That’s probably a good example of the “too much accuracy” line of argument. The story should be as true to life as possible, but at the same time, the reader shouldn’t be jerked out of the moment by seemingly out-of-place words. Or, I suppose, overly-period dialogue. A story should also be readable, right?
I have to ditto everyone else, wonderful topic!!
I am somewhere in the middle. I can ignore some things for the sake of a good story, like how easy it is to get out of full garb is (really, those corsets aren’t easy!). But some things do annoy me, for instance, having historical details that are way too before or after the setting of the story. Unless there is time travel, chances are you won’t see a Honda in a Regency story
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Like everyone else who’s posted, I am perfectly ok with bathing, despite the historical accuracy. Nothing grosses me out more than what was described above *shivers*.
But I also feel that if you know the topic inside and out, the little things will bother you. Ask Kalen Hughes about the historical inaccuracies in books…she can probably list a ton of books that have hit her walls hehe! While I might go nutty over someone portraying an unrealistic cat lol. We each have our own vice.
Sadly, as writers, we can’t know what that vice might be. I guess it goes back to knowing your audience!
Certain things bother me a lot when reading a book – while other things don’t seem to phaze me at all.
I don’t like it when they get the forms of address wrong, or the way titles are inherited etc. I once even read a story where it bothered me that they were dancing the waltz several years before it was even officially accepted – but admittedly the only reason I caught that was probably because I’d just read up on it myself
If an author accidentally use a word that wasn’t in use yet doesn’t bother me as much – as long as it’s not a very obvious one of course, but one that we would seriously think was used unless we checked and found it wasn’t. I can’t be 100% I’ve not used a wrong word myself at some point! After all – we hardly do a history validity test on every word we use in a story. If we did we’d never get anything written!
One thing I admit to skimming when reading is when we mention the name of a certain piece of furniture.. like.. a Queen Anne chair or whatever. It’s of little interest to me as a reader and I would never even think to check whether or not this would be the correct name etc.
One thing often used wrong – which we all seem to accept – is the annulment of marriage. It was really much more difficult than most novels of the time make it sound
And from what I remember rarely happened – if at all. However, personally – if it works for the plot – I can live with the annulment idea that most stories have.
I would be annoyed with the inaccuracies if I knew about them. This may be a case of ignorance is bliss. If that Delta flight you mentioned doesn’t exist it wouldn’t have annoyed me, but it does because I know Delta’s major hub is in Atlanta and most if not all flights probably go through there. I’m with you on the personal hygiene. I want my hero and heroine to be clean and smelling pleasant. I would like to read that they bathe daily even though that was probably not the case.
I look at this way: You lose no one by being historically accurate, but you do lose some (many?) readers by being historically inaccurate. So why chance it? Sure we all make mistakes, but I wouldn’t insert something I new to be wrong out of negligence (it’s too much work to google it so I’ll just fake it) or willfulness (I don’t care if it’s illegal, my plot won’t work if I change it *stamp foot*).
And Erica, now you’ve got me wondering if this is the same author I read because her first book was a BIG DEAL and I spent the whole time tearing my hair out and cursing. LOL!
Great post, E! And I’m thinking I know where you came up with it, LOL!! When I read, see a movie, or watch TV, I’m always prepared to suspend a little disbelief. How much depends on the book/film/show. I’m willing to forgive plenty for something that’s reeeeaaaallllly entertaining.
wow, it was really fun to read through all those. I want to be a copyeditor eventually, so it was interesting to hear everyone’s opinions on the topic!