Dear Author

[neadods]

(wow, it's been a while since I wrote one of these!)

Dear Author:

I know that you're British. I know that you're trying to set a scene very quickly. I know that America is surprising in how much territory our regional accents cover.

But just for the record, not everyone from New York sounds like they come from Brooklyn. And for that matter, Guys and Dolls is not an accurate record of Brooklynese.

Also - and again, I get it that you're British and this may be something that you either don't think about or don't want to think about, BUT! 1976 was kind of an important year in America. Especially July. Something about an anniversary of something, now what was it, it involved guys in red coats and a Declaration and some fighting, and yes we've made up and all, but you may have heard the odd mention of the event in your history classes?

SERIOUSLY. We as a nation didn't look up on July 4, 1976 and go "wow, it's the Bicentennial!" and then forget about it 24 hours later. Yes, it was particularly intense in early July, but it was kind of a year-long thing, especially for any state that counts as one of the original 13 colonies.

So, no, setting a story in New York on July 16, 1976 and not mentioning a certain little detail even in passing kind of stands out, no matter what the story is really about.

It especially stands out to old coots who *remember* 1976. Not all of your audience is knee high, I'm just sayin'.

Comments

[lagilman]

Everyone's comments about American history not being taught are missing one very important, nay essential fact.

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

Writers who write about something they know nothing about and don't do research deserve to be called out. And yes, if you're setting something in a very specific place/year, you make damn sure you know if anything major happened in that place/year.

Accents... well, that's sloppy but it happens. Overlooking something that consumed the entire city for the entire year? Bad writing.



[for the record: I learned about the British abdication crisis in high school. It was in the section called "WWI-WWII" and it was standard textbook stuff 20 years ago...]

(EtA: we also learned about the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War (ok, that was English class, not history) and "World History" as it dealt with things like the colonization of Australia and smatterings of Indian, Japanese and Chinese history. Standard stuff in American education ca 1970's/80's, from 6th grade on. So much for the "ignorant American" meme.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

This, this, this! And this one didn't. Just becuse it wasn't an American author and not writing primarily for an American audience is not a free pass out of research - note the British disgust elsewhere in comments about Connie Willis not getting it right.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

yes, and in fact the whole point of picking a particular setting is often not just to take advantage of a detail of that setting, but also to teach. If you're not writing about a setting you already intimately know for other reasons (vis a vie, Hemingway, or Louisa May Alcott), then you have to study the setting to present it with at least some accuracy, even if your point is more allegorical.

Great example is Brother Cadfael. Peters knew Shropshire (VERY well) and could easily pick up a thing or two on the first Crusade (a favorite topic of several noted British historians), but really had to work on putting together the details on the First English Civil War, because most of her audience was probably unaware it even happened. There's usually a "gap" between William I and Henry II even in the British audience, so in choosing to write in that gap, she had to present it right, and it comes through in almost every book in the series, even when the specifics of the politics of the age aren't a direct element of the plot.

And in getting it right, she invites her readers to read more.

If you get it wrong (by, say, setting a work in the mid 12th Century England and utterly failing to even MENTION Steven and Maud), you do your readers a grave disservice.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If you get it wrong (by, say, setting a work in the mid 12th Century England and utterly failing to even MENTION Steven and Maud), you do your readers a grave disservice.

Side note - it's my understanding that the co-authors of the Sister Frevisse books split up over how much should be about the politics of the time vs small local events, which is why the books suddenly took Frevisse out of the convent and threw her into politics.

In this particular case, I think it was a Brit pulling a summer month in exotic NYC out of the air without research (and possibly in the assumption that the target audience was all too young to know the difference.)

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Everyone's comments about American history not being taught are missing one very important, nay essential fact.

WRITERS DO RESEARCH.

I wasn't missing that - I actually agreed with the point. I was only replying to one very specific part of the original post in order to say that American history is not part of the curriculum in English, and most likely British, schools. I am completely in agreement with the overall argument of the post! Having read far too many books - frequently American writers setting their stories in the early 19th century in England - in which clearly little or no research has been done into period culture, language usage and even distances, how could I not?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Having read far too many books - frequently American writers setting their stories in the early 19th century in England - in which clearly little or no research has been done into period culture, language usage and even distances

Aie! Let me blanket apologize for that, for all the use that would be.

One of my favorite bodice rippers is my favorite *because* the heroine isn't a modern woman dumped in an earlier age or part of a modern family in funny clothes. She's very much a woman of her times, with the limitations and thought processes of those times.