The Limits of Accuracy or When to Stop Digging and “Just Write the Thing!”

Alma T. C. Boykin

Anyone who has read my books, especially the Merchant series and the stand-alone Chinese story, knows that I am a compulsive researcher. I wouldn’t have survived two graduate degrees in history without suffering from this affliction. Or perhaps reveling in it. However, there are limits to what you need to write a good story, and especially to what your readers want to read about. A full description of the scent of a medieval city in a dry summer would come under “Not needed, no really, blarrrrgh!” Or a description of the aftermath of a pre-modern battlefield in hot weather, unless you know that your audience truly wants that level of misery. (See ‘Why Alma does not like to watch the battle scene from Kenneth Branaugh’s Henry V” for an example.)

I caught myself spending way too much writing time trying to find a map of central Lotharingia as it would have been around AD 950 CE, and contemplating how to use InterLibrary Loan (ILL) to obtain books and articles about the geology and mineral resources of said region. No. This is a novella, not a monograph! And it is fantasy, and I’m mucking with the history, so it was time to quit fossicking and write.

There are times when you do need to down-to-the-dirt level research for novels, especially historical novels and some hard sci-fi. Soft sci-fi as well, but the focus in that genre is less about the science and technology than it is about characters and their interactions. For example, when I researched genetics for Hubris, I did enough to make sure that I was close to the ballpark in terms of genetic modification and some concerns about “just snip and correct” changes to the genes of complex creatures. And about some general geology that plays a role in the story, and that I had nodded at in other books. That took a few days, since I knew what I needed and roughly where to look. That was sufficient, because the story did not center on the technology, but the social consequences of decisions on how to use that tech.

Historical novels, especially of periods that lots of people know something about, are worth doing basic info on. You know, so you don’t have Henry VIII involved in the War of the Roses? Or say that Albert the Prince Consort came from Prussia (or Italy. THAT was a good one. Not.) Chronology, ranks for your country or region, a little about climate and weather, sanitation or lack thereof (I didn’t wall the book with flush toilets in the Italian Renaissance, but I laughed in the wrong place. No, not an old Roman latrine. Modern-style flush toilet, even though porcelain wasn’t manufactured in Europe until long after the Renaissance.) Those are the really big ones that toss people out of the book, and may lead to the book getting tossed.

At other times, you have to ignore what really did happen, because popular understandings of history are so firmly locked. Like, oh, bras being invented in the late 1800s-early 1900s. As it turns out, archaeologists found a very worn cloth garment in a late Medieval latrine pit in what is now Austria, and there are written references to support garments that go back earlier. However, if you are going to make that a plot point (romance? Murder mystery as someone is looking at the corpse?) you’d better not call it a brassiere, because modern readers will imagine a modern garment, and everyone knows that said item was not worn back then. And don’t make it stretchy unless you use smocking or a knit fabric. And even then, someone will get irked because “everyone knows …” There are other things like this, such as the name “Tiffany” being purely modern, that might not be worth arguing against, even with footnotes.

You need to do enough research that readers don’t wall your book. Beyond that? To build a believable world, one that feels real while people are in the story. I tend to go overboard, especially where history is concerned, because 1) I’m obsessive about research, 2) I know where to go to do it quickly, 3) I’ve been very fortunate to manage to arrange research as part of other travels (and so I can stock up on reference material not easily or cheaply available on-line or in the States), and 4) I can often use what I find for books at Day Job, and vice versa.

The good news for writers is that for certain periods of time, other people have done nice books with quick guides to certain time periods, usually in England or the rest of Britain. Some apply more broadly, such as the Middle Ages in general. Things for reenactors are also useful, because they have to sort out how clothing and sanitation works, the perils and pleasures of cooking with open flame, or older Victorian stoves, and so on. Failing that, a general overview history of a place or country or time period is a good launch pad. Also, reading fiction that gets things right also gives you a sense of what works and what shouldn’t be there. For example, Pillars of the Earth gives you a less painful insight into the politics, economics, and shinanigans sometimes associated with major medieval building projects than does reading through church or municipal archives. You can probably find all that you need in those books without needing to resort to tracking down academic papers and monographs that might or might not be helpful and that will add time to your pre-writing.

Can you build a world? Can you give characters a culture and mind-set that is consistent and that readers will believe, even if they don’t entirely agree with it? Can you get the geography and travel times right? Can you get the weapons correct [not just firearms, but those are a common source of unintended mirth]? If so, Just Write It.

Stop digging and write. Don’t be Frederick Jackson Turner. Get it written, so you can sell it to readers.

Image Credit: Author Photo, Yorkminster, York, England. The structural model of the interior of the chapter ceiling and roof. Your book probably does NOT need this level of detail and description, unless you are re-doing Pillars of the Earth as written by a structural engineer.