The end of an awful fortnight

[sollers]

Slightly over, actually, but now I am at last properly mobile though walking is still uncomfortable - some of that may be due to some muscles not being used properly for two weeks.

I have never been more grateful for the internet. How else could i have written five chapters with all the incidental research involved, giving a new twist to this part of the story? How could I have checked the medieval forms of the names of Burgos, Zaragoza and Barcelona? How, for a critique of another group member's story, could I have checked the nature of Venetian? Come to think of it, until Manchester Central Library is back in full operation, this would have been well nigh impossible even if I were fully mobile.

Cue for rant: if I, with no more than a general interest in a period, can check facts with a few clicks, why the blazes can't the writers be arsed to do some basic research into what is supposed to be their period? Yes, I know about the fallibility of Wikipedia, but no reference work is perfect (see Christopher Tietjens' tabulation of the errors in the Encyclopaedia Britannica) and it's generally sound on broadly non-contentious matters. Even if you're stuck on your backside as I've been for the last two weeks, you can nose out an amazing amount of detail. THERE IS NO EXCUSE. If you're writing for an online group, well, obviously you have access to the internet.

ETA: there is one excuse, and that is the famous "unknown unknown". However, once attention has been drawn to it, it becomes a known unknown.

Comments

[oursin]

Today I was able to answer a media researcher's query by doing the googling - I will concede that just possibly they did not realise that looking under 'chemical castration' and 'anaphrodisiacs' would pretty much answer their question.

I suppose it was some slight advance that the query was embodied in a email and did not involve them ringing up and waffling around the topic until I worked out what the question actually was.

[green_knight]

I hope walking will soon be comfortable again!

But yes, I use Wikipedia extensively - it is, on average, no worse than the twenty-to-fifty year old books that make up the bulk of materials in the average library with little funding (eg, my own and many public ones). Just because it got printed does not mean it has been well researched; so *any* secondary source needs to be viewed with caution.

At that point, Wikipedia falls bang in the middle regarding reliability. I'd never use it on its own, but it's not too bad in pointing out what areas one should research, which keywords and key people/events one might look out for, and it's always there and free.

People who *copy* from Wikipedia, on the other hand...

[sollers]

Oh, absolutely; when doing serious stuff I find it most useful for giving directions to look - the notes and references can be extremely valuable.

What bugs me is that these people, who are writing historical fiction, don't take the couple of minutes to check readily available facts. Or to question their assumptions. One of them, thank heaven, is aware of the difference between Middle English and Modern English - so much as to agonise about how to represent it when her time-travelling heroine finds herself having to speak it - but she's an exception; some of them are under the impression that neither national frontiers (no, Ethelred the Unready would not view Carlisle as part of his realm at the relevant date*) nor languages (in my 5th century book I am repeatedly asked to make the language "sound more appropriate to the time") have changed significantly. Even when they do have some awareness, they do things like telling me my 5th century Saxon can't use the word "yard" because its first recorded usage is centuries later; I took some pleasure in telling them that in that case my character wouldn't be able to use the word "the" either.

Apologies for the extended rant.

*This writer also kept shifting the date. With regard to a scene where Ethelred is found in bed with a wench, I eventually had to ask whether he was supposed to be a precocious 13 year old, a normal Saxon 24 year old, or dead. Call me picky, but if you're writing about real historical characters, the least you can do, even if there is a question mark over their date of birth, is check out their date of death.

[green_knight]

What bugs me is that these people, who are writing historical fiction, don't take the couple of minutes to check readily available facts.

There's clearly a mechanism at work that has nothing to do with availability of sources.

The other day, a SF author was called out over [misuse of term]. And apologised and promised to do better next time, which is great... but it took me less than five minutes to find out how inappropriate that term had been, and there Is. No. Excuse. At least none that I will accept, homework-eating dogs nonwithstanding.

The longer I write the more I realise just how much research I need to put in in order to write well; and that's *with* a history/geography degree in the background.

As for the language thing - I am trying to not use words/concepts that are anachronistic - serial monogamy should never turn up in a historical novel - but sometimes that's a judgement call. (I am happy to have assassins, for instance regardless of the word origin, because I don't have a better word for 'someone who collects money and kills people in return' - and 'hired killer' is a lot _more_ anachronistic than assassin.

This writer also kept shifting the date.

What are a few years between friends? (Braveheart, looking at you.)

[sollers]

I work very hard at avoiding anachronistic concepts but as none of my characters speak even Middle English, practically every word I write is technically anachronistic! I concentrate on using appropriate language: where the language is Vulgar Latin, I use either literal translations (such as "shove off" for "go away") or equivalent slang terms ("block" instead of "jar" for "head")

The most peculiar vocabulary challenge I have had was the person who objected to Tom, a 12th century using the word "arses" of oxen, not because it was too vulgar, but because it was "too modern". They suggested "rear end" as a more authentic-sounding alternative... and this for one of the words for which I could sincerely state that it was indeed around at the time.

[legionseagle]

The one that really got me was someone telling me earnestly that my 19th character Friedrich wouldn't have such anachronistically radical political views at the relevant date. She appeared to have overlooked Friedrich's surname. It was "Engels".

[legionseagle]

Actually, I was almost more worried by the waves washing the foot of the cliff on which Carlisle castle stood than its having shifted into another kingdom.

[sollers]

Oh, that too. But I got distracted by zombie!Ethelred.

[gwendraith]

I hope your walking soon becomes more comfortable.

If the Internet is down the thing I miss most is Googling. I never realised how much I looked up online daily until I was without it.

Apparently Wikipedia is very slowly being edited for both accuracy and uniformity with regards layout and photos by a small volunteer team with the necessary skills for such a challenge.

[sollers]

I realised the other day that I don't actually use Yellow Pages or any equivalent any more; I automatically go for Google, which gives far more information.

I'm still mostly using the Spanish language version mostly for details of the towns they will go through - much more detail. For example, the Spanish version of the article on Barcelona has an 18th century view that makes it very clear that there was no actual harbour; I wouldn't have got that from the English version.

I'm still improving gradually, thanks; I've reached the stage of being able to do some actual housework. Whether this is to be seen as a good thing is a matter for debate, but at least I have been keeping up with the washing up. I shan't count myself as actually better until I can take the dogs for a walk; my next door neighbour/oldest friend has been quite wonderful in this respect.

[gwendraith]

It's great you have a great neighbour/friend to help out. Since I've been quite seriously immobilised most days with this sciatica I've been thankful for friends and neighbours. It's really made it difficult to plan going anywhere though!