Research? Of Course, We Do.

At the end of his book, ‘A Soldier and a Spy’, a historical novel set in France in the 1890s and concerning the Dreyfus Affair, Robert Harris included a post-script about his sources, which extended for three pages.

Ros Kind, of ‘From Story Idea to Reader’ Facebook page fame and author of ‘Vi for Victory’ (about women’s football following World War I) reports that her normal practice was to spend equal thirds of her time researching/writing/editing.  

 

Me,  I’m reading up about Celtic saints, and, yes, I’ve already visited Lindisfarne… in preparation for writing a piece of… flash.

So how is that so many authors get things so wrong?  (I’m not naming names, by the way.)

• A famous fictional detective series (which appears on our televisions as well as in print)  includes a Irish M16 agent speaking in an Irish brogue, but addressing other characters as ‘boyo’ (Welsh).  
• A different author has one of her characters addresses King William IV as ‘Your Highness’ (Your Majesty).
• A third writer has dahlias flowering in England in the spring.  (Even I, the non-gardener but fond of dahlias, know not to expect these glorious and vivid blooms before late July or August.)

We allow authors a little leeway to make their stories work.  Maybe two historical characters meet on the page who didn’t meet in real life.  Maybe historic timelines have been… er…. ‘adjusted’.  Even Robert Harris admits he’s been economical with a few minor bits and pieces with respect to Dreyfus, but in the examples above I detect laziness and, actually, arrogance.  These things don’t matter, do they?  Well, they do actually.  These writers (all published and acclaimed) are not just annoying one or two pedants like me, but demonstrating that they don’t understanding their setting. The ‘Your Highness’ author had her English nineteenth century characters talking about ‘pinkies’ and swearing by ‘the Virgin’.  Clearly, she had no understanding of the prejudice against Roman Catholics at that time, whereas Robert Harris showed in every sentence that he fully appreciated the undercurrent of anti-Semitism in France in the 1890s.  The author in question, writing about nineteenth century England, also had characters using first names, even though in those days people addressed each other Mr, Mrs, Miss, even close friends and family.   Think Jane Austen.

Local government and anything to do with faith seem to cause the most common pitfalls.  We haven’t had Town Clerks in the UK since the Local Government Act of 1972 – writers anticipating shortcuts in research, please note.  ‘God is great’ (‘Allahu Akbar) is an Islamic acclamation, not a Christian one (although we do sing ‘How Great Thou Art’ in a hymn).  An (unpublished) writer on an Internet writing forum told me this was unimportant because it was all ‘religious’, wasn’t it?  

All writers will tell you very earnestly about the huge amounts of research they have carried out.  I know that many of them... most... do... but unfortunately not all.