Thanks for the support, guys. I think both are probably in play here. Some readers still stick with what they learned in school, despite new research, and others are influenced by faulty views of the period that keep getting batted around. And some, it seems, find the little-known things to be hard-to-swallow simply because they are little-known. There will certainly be a list of sources at the end, but I wonder how much that will help the reader who has issues from the very beginning.
I have a novel in the quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards and, although it's still fairly early in the competition, I have an excerpt (the first chapter) up on Amazon.com. I've been getting a lot of reviews and comments both on the website and via personal email and, although all are positive, there are too many of the "I'm sure you've done your research, BUT" sort of comments for my liking. And in all cases, yes, I have done my research. But what I'm presenting seems to be flying in the face of their misconceptions.
The opening scene takes place during an air raid in Edinburgh in the Second World War and I've had more than a few readers say, "I'm sure you've done your research, BUT Edinburgh wasn't attacked during the war." And most of these are people who live in Edinburgh. I can come back with, "Would you like me to give you the date and time of the particular attack where this scene is set?" when responding to an email, but is a skeptical reader going to stop and flip to the back to scan through my list of sources?
The other that I seem to be getting a lot involves the letters in the excerpt. Much of the novel is epistolary, being a series of letters ranging from 1912-1918. A couple of these letters are introduced right in the first chapter. I've had people comment that the letters just sound too modern to have been written that long ago. One reader thought they sounded too polished, because she always thought letters from that time were rougher and less literate. You'd better believe that, with an epistolary novel, I studied letters from that era. I would be surprised if there was even a word out of place, as I went through each letter with my OED open in another window. Yes, some letters sounded very "modern". And some were more formal. And some were less polished. Can readers really not believe that there are differences in letter-writing? Again, I'm happy to provide sources, but again I ask, is it enough? If readers are questioning my research from the very first chapter, how can I hope to hook them?
