The first rule of writing is: Don't yank your readers out of the story. Historical readers are so sophisticated, an inaccuracy will pull them out of my fictive dream and make them want to hurl the book across the room. So I have to get the details right, as much as humanly possible.

And I confess, as a reader, I'm the same way. I opened a historical set in Boston(where I've lived for a couple years now) over the weekend. The author opened with the sound of locusts droning. I've never heard locusts here, but when I checked the jacket (yanked out of the story, you see) I saw that the author lives in Missouri, where I've heard locusts sing their eerie song many times! When she went on to mention hearing the mournful call of loons(a bird I only associate with Great Lakes States), I closed the book.

I write paranormals and I keep a detailed "Bible" of what's allowed in the worlds I create. Otherwise readers *will* notice.

My other books are contemporaries and I try to get most of the details right, but I do fudge it now and again, especially in settings. I do try to get the appropriate details for the season and try to make sure my heroine has the same color eyes throughout the book...

Some readers are probably satisfied with a good story with incorrect details, just as some movie goers are satisfied with Alaska that looks like the Pacific NW or Colorado (so not!). But for most people, suspension of disbelief requires a consistent story world, and if the story takes place in the real world, that means details consistent with the real world. In other words, facts. Correct ones.

There are ways around that, though. A while back I started to set a book in Jamaica—until I realized there just wasn't enough detail available about Jamaica out there to make me happy. I knew people would cream me on whatever was wrong, and since I couldn't afford a trip, I made up an island, used the Jamaica research as far as it went, then fudged everything else with more general Caribbean information. More than one person asked about St. Sebastian, not realizing it was make-believe.

Sometimes, though, even correct facts can make a reader jump out of story if they don't *feel* right. Witness Emily's comment above. In point of fact, even though loons are far more plentiful in MN and WS, the extreme southern breeding range of the common loon does extend into Massachusetts, and they migrate to coastal waters from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Mexico to winter. So, yes, they could be in Boston. And though they may have last burst out before Emily moved there, cicadas, otherwise known as 17-year locusts, also live in Boston (just google "cicada Boston" to see how happy—and noisy— they are there). So, correct details but wrong feel equals one lost reader. It's a tough line, sometimes, and frankly, the writer in this case might have done better to use details more commonly evocative of the Boston area, especially if they weren't crucial to the story. And if those details were crucial, a factual set-up would have helped ground them for readers like Emily (perhaps à la James Michener).

Geez, that ran on. Can you tell *I'm* a research geek?

As Emily commented, if the gaff is jarring enough a reader is pulled from the story, this is a Very Bad Thing(tm). Locusts in Boston would do it for this Oklahoma girl. World building is a precarious exercise and the unwary writer may well lose readers from inconsistencies and too literal a translation of facts. Like J.L., I keep a detailed journal of physical descriptions, pertinent facts, and double-checking accuracy.

The research involved is one reason I don't write historicals, though I read them. I've written one book in an area I didn't know well, and never felt grounded, though I researched. Since then I've stuck to areas I know.

If I'm not familiar with an area (i.e. Boston), I wouldn't notice the details being off so it wouldn't pull me out of the story.

What does is the line an historical writer has to walk in the language of the characters. How do they decide about historical accuracy in the conversation (slang, etc.) of the times? Enough to flavor without confusing the reader (or sounding silly)? I've read some historicals were the characters sound so contemporary that it's jarring and takes me out of the story (even if I later found out the usage was accurate). But some sound so stilted that it's dull (again, if accurate).

It's not only in historicals. I remember reading a romance involving a museum curator who jetted around the world acquiring antique clothing that she then wore on a date with the hero...

At the time, I WAS a museum curator. I didn't jet much of anywhere -- I was too busy taking care of the artefacts and doing other exotic things like cataloguing newly donated items :-) And I would have rather ripped my own arm off than wear any item of clothing in our own collection. (Curators put on cotton gloves before we even TOUCH an artefact -- the oils on even clean hands can destroy fabrics and paper as surely as acid).

Needless to say, the book was a wallbanger.

I remembered that book when I started writing my own, though, and whether I'm working on a historical plotline or a contemporary one, I try hard to get all the facts right. I've had actors, archaeologists and former spies all help me out with that (which makes the writing very fun, I have to say!)

Even paranormals must be researched. Because while the rules are totally different when you're dealing with magic or futuristic science it still has to be plausible. Paranormals for example: While you can make up your own rules about things you've got to base them in their own mythology. And if you're going to write about obscure creatures then you'd better research them thoroughly. Also if you're writing about an area you're not intimately familiar with then you'd better get some facts straight about that area. Despite popular belief we do not all have alligators in our backyards in Louisiana. Then if you're going to use a law enforcement group then you got to make sure that you're not writing about how officers react when they'd never do that, they have their own code of conduct and you’d better stick with it. And if you're using weapons you got to do research on that. If you kill someone by bleeding them out through say the femoral artery then you'd better research how long that would take. Readers no matter what genre deserve a book that is as factual as it can be. A willing suspense of disbelief can be ruined if the author doesn't make it believable and most of the time that takes research. I personally did lots of research on everything for my book including werewolves and vampires. Learned all kinds of interesting things and I feel like it made my book better. But perhaps I'm not normal and most paranormal writers don't have to do so much research...

What's interesting is that very often I can read through details, even while wondering if they're accurate. But some details in some settings just really don't work.

Case in point, Victoria Laurie has her psychic eye character get picked up by the mafia in Detroit. While I don't think of the Mafia is being in Detroit, I was willing to suspend my thoughts on that & keep reading, until she had her character look out the window & see Lake Michigan. I kept wondering if I'd missed a page & actually re-read the section several times, before finding a map to check the Detroit highway numbers.

And I wondered how in the world the Mafia had managed to spirit the character three to four hours across the state to the west. That really ruined the setting of the novel for me.

Note to anyone who may not know, the lakes surrounding the state of Michigan are not collectively called Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is on the west border of the state & is not near Detroit at all.

Ok, too much detail, but being that far wrong (and not just a matter of relocating a street a few blocks, which is poetic license)is jarring.

Boy, you've all nailed it. I'm a reader, and it does matter to me a great deal whether that famous building was actually standing that year, and whether that 18th century character says "I'm doing this... why?" While I've heard cicadas in a city, this MN girl, who grew up on a lake with loons as summertime occupants, associates them with isolated, uncongested areas. Those things matter, and I'd consider them too. Whether the "facts" of the story are historical or created by a fantasy author, one thing is certain...they must be consistent all through the book/series, or that book will go flying. Thanks to all authors for all their hard work.

A wrong detail might pull a reader out of the story, but another reason to use historical (or any other) detail is to make the story come alive for the reader, to satisfy all the senses and make the reader feel as if he or she is indeed inside the story.
To say that your heroine ran through a field is not that same as saying she ran through a field of lavender in bloom.

Oh boy, good one, Barbara. I want the facts as accurate as possible. In my time travel romances, I spend hours researching to give my readers as clear a picture of what the time was like as possible.

I write time travel romance and many of my settings are historical. In my current release, My Heart Will Find Yours, the heroine is transported back to 1880s Waco, Texas. For the story to be effective, it has to be historically correct and I've strived to make it so. The second book in the series takes place in Chaco Canyon and the hero and heroine travel back to 1000 AD. I want the picture I paint to be a real one, so again, loads of research. In my opinion, time travel must be as accurate in the time period as a historical.

Now, for sci-fi, the sky is the limit. However, I'm presently writing a futuristic story and it's required much research so that the predictions of how the earth will be after the effects of global warming are reasonable.

Wonderful topic!

Linda
www.lindalaroque.com

When I read "The Last Templar" and the author clearly described a bay horse but called it chestnut, it totally through me out of the story. Ditto on his description on how to shoot a pistol (it sounded like he'd never done so and was describing his actions from a manual).

So yes, in my mind, details matter.

Ditto in the sci-fi land. The writer can make all the stuff up she wants, but she better stick to her own dogma then.

While I'm not likely to be pulled out of a novel by minor details that are incorrect, when a story moves characters from Renaissance, Venice to something that feels suspiciously like Victorian, England, when the characters travel from one to the other via steamship... well, I raise an eyebrow. The details have to be *really* wrong in a historical for me to notice.

I think fantasy writers (of which I am one) do have it easier to a certain degree -- but the details still all have to work together. You might get to make them up, but the world has to have its own underlying logic and rules -- or you might as well toss the whole thing, because you'll lose readers as much as having the London Bridge in the incorrect incarnation!

Science fiction writers could go with either camp, depending on whether they're writing space opera (where the science isn't quite as important), futuristic romance (where I don't think I've actually seen any real science, ever), and hard SF, where the science has to have the possibility of really, truly working. I know some hard SF writers who come out of backgrounds in astrophysics, etc., and they really have to know their stuff to get it right for their audiences.

Just read Linda's comment above, so I rescind my comment on futuristic romance -- as clearly there are writers out there doing convincing science research! Linda, I'll have to look for your series when it comes out so I can change my statement!

Hi Alana,
I'd be pleased if you did so!
Thanks,
Linda
www.lindalaroque.com

Hi Barbara
I won prizes in the Anniversary Bash in March and I never received my prizes. I emailed you at bhbwinner2009@gmail.com but never heard back in March or June. My friend never received her prizes either from the same contest.

I totally agree that the details are important. I know people who don't read historicals because of inconsistencies beyond artistic license.

I write sci-fi, but you can't totally disregard stuff. If things work differently, there needs to be a reason. And ditto on keeping the stuff straight.

Although I notice quite easily and frequently as a reader, I find that as the writer I miss this stuff. I've had occassion where I didn't notice until I'd sent it off as a submission!! UGH

Well as a reader, the book even a paranormal needs to be plausible. Look at Ashes of Midnight. Love Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed, but I think the author went stupid, because she didn't adhere to the rules of all the previous book. What was wrong with her. I loved the series. I hope the next one is better or I'll stop reading the series.

RachelfromNJ: Please send me an e-mail to barbaravey@gmail.com with the name of the author and prize you won. I'm sorry this happened, but we can fix the problem. Also let your friend know.