Accuracy (and the Lack Thereof)

What pisses me off more are non-fiction books that aren't accurate.

New ones. Glaringly obvious mistakes. Like this one: Wovoka was another name for Crazy Horse.

NOT.

Different tribes; not comtemporaries. I mean where are the editors?

Don't mind me. It is late. Or maybe early. But big fat mistakes are a pet peeve of mine.

Yes, no, maybe ... I think readers will always like mythic stories (if I'm interpreting what you mean by that correctly - fictional mc set against real settings/scenarios) and there's a lot more flexibility in those stories than in ones in which the mc is a known - like Doc Holliday or whomever - where the author does not dare make mistakes.

Readers are not always correct in their assessments of inaccuracies. I know that first hand from a discussion I had with a reader about my historical novel. His information was 35 years later than mine - so in a way, we were both right, but he wasn't in the context of my story.

Handling accuracy and research - I sweated blood trying to make my historical as accurate as possible - but there were still the niggling fears that I'd missed something. That's where the introductory author's note comes in to cover the possibility that something was missed. I also listed extensive references at the end of my book in case any reader wanted to check my sources. Puma

I do a lot of research for anything I write set in the Old West, not in small part because I tend to weave in real people as supporting characters and you do have to be accurate.

However...

On my shelves in my office are far more reference books for the Old West than my husband likes to add up. And many times, they don't agree.

My favorite is that, within the same reference text, the date for when Ed Masterson died was different. Within the same TEXT.

I tend to do the Rule of Three. I look in at least 3 reference books. If they all agree, I go with it. If they don't agree, but there's a majority, I go with the majority. If they're all over the place, I do what I want.

Historical readers, in my experience, tend to be history buffs, and they really know their periods well. They'll catch more than any editor ever will. Which is why it's great to have one as a beta for you if you're doing historicals. I'm lucky, I have one. (And, no, none may share her. Back off, she's mine.) (Just kidding.) (But not really. )

As for the mythic versus the realistic, I want at least a real attempt to be accurate. One of my favorite western movies is "Winchester '73". Or...I thought it was. And the latter 2/3rds actually are. See, I'd never caught the start of it on TV, I'd always come in at the start of the 2nd or 3rd act. And I LOVED it. So, the hubs bought me a copy a few years ago. And...I watched it, and started frothing at the mouth.

Why? Because they have Wyatt and Virgil Earp portrayed as ANCIENT old men whose reputations were already cemented. And, in 1873, in reality, Wyatt was a WHOPPING...23 years old. Virgil wasn't even 30.

Inaccuracies like that, when it's so EASY to check, drive me crazy. I literally start "Winchester '73" at the start of the second act and pretend the first one doesn't exist. I'll allow certain creative licenses (I think "Tombstone" is an awesome movie, but it's not the king of accuracy), but not whoppers. So I guess I fall on the side of mythic with a few liberties.

I tend to do the Rule of Three. I look in at least 3 reference books. If they all agree, I go with it. If they don't agree, but there's a majority, I go with the majority. If they're all over the place, I do what I want.

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That's a good rule. I try to find the oldest books available for reference works - written by someone who was actually there. Not necessarily a participant or someone with a bias but someone who was involved or at least alive at the time.

But when I write fiction - it really isn't "historical" fiction because it's 100% fiction. Didn't happen ... I made it all up.

Good thing, too. Or the Indians would have won. double

Unique said:

I tend to do the Rule of Three. I look in at least 3 reference books. If they all agree, I go with it. If they don't agree, but there's a majority, I go with the majority. If they're all over the place, I do what I want.

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That's a good rule. I try to find the oldest books available for reference works - written by someone who was actually there. Not necessarily a participant or someone with a bias but someone who was involved or at least alive at the time.

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I never really got the rule of three, though you hear it a lot. I think it depends entirely on the question. For some things, more than one source is pointless. For others, a hundred isn't enough.

What did a particular person have for breakfast on a particular date? If he left a diary or wrote a letter that gives the answer, trying to corroborate it with two more sources would be virtually impossible, and overkill, in my opinion.

How did freed slaves feel about their former masters? There's so much individual variation, nuance and complexity, that three sources wouldn't begin to touch it.

Like Unique, I prefer primary sources, but I think it's really like being on the jury at a trial. You hear all the evidence, take into account the biases, weaknesses and motives of the "witnesses," compare it with the physical evidence (artifacts, archaeology), and make your best judgment as to what actually happened. It's why I prefer to research from scratch myself, as much as possible, rather than rely on secondary sources, because at least then if I make a mistake, it's my own mistake, not a copy of others'.

The advantage of writing about an era like the 19th century (though I write about the east more than the west) is that there's so much surviving stuff available from the period and much of it is online--newspapers, court records, letters, diaries, magazines. I was researching a fellow who lived for a short while in California in the 1850s and had a very minor part for a few weeks in putting down an obscure Indian uprising. He left no papers or records of his life that I know of, but not only was the expedition described in several contemporary newspapers, I was surprised to find that two of the thirty or forty men who participated had left diaries. Excerpts were online, and had I been in California and if it had been the focus of my research rather than a minor bit of background, I could have gone to archives and read even more.

It's why I prefer to research from scratch myself, as much as possible, rather than rely on secondary sources, because at least then if I make a mistake, it's my own mistake, not a copy of others'.

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...there's so much surviving stuff available from the period and much of it is online--newspapers, court records, letters, diaries, magazines.

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Are these not still secondary sources? Even a diary writer has personal biases.

One account of the Custer battle that I read recently - one of the warriors was talking to .. a young relative and said all he remembered was a cloud of dust. There was too much going on to see what was going on where he wasn't.

But I do like the old books best. Even if he didn't have a bird's eye view, his contemporaries were there as well and they knew each other.

It's an amazing thing, history. There's what you know, what you thought you knew, and what really happened.

Is that Dream Time Machine ready yet?

Unique said:

Are these not still secondary sources? Even a diary writer has personal biases.

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I'm using it in the general sense that historians do, for example from http://www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html:

A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include:

• ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS (excerpts or translations acceptable): Diaries, speeches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records
• CREATIVE WORKS: Poetry, drama, novels, music, art
• RELICS OR ARTIFACTS: Pottery, furniture, clothing, buildings

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The link also goes on to define a secondary source as one that "interprets and analyzes primary sources."

One account of the Custer battle that I read recently - one of the warriors was talking to .. a young relative and said all he remembered was a cloud of dust. There was too much going on to see what was going on where he wasn't.

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And yet again, it depends on the question. If the question is: "What was going on in the other side of the battlefield?" his memory is useless. If the question is: "How did that particular warrior remember his experience in the battle?" there's no better source.

Pup said:

I never really got the rule of three, though you hear it a lot. I think it depends entirely on the question. For some things, more than one source is pointless. For others, a hundred isn't enough.

What did a particular person have for breakfast on a particular date? If he left a diary or wrote a letter that gives the answer, trying to corroborate it with two more sources would be virtually impossible, and overkill, in my opinion.

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I'm talking facts, in terms of Rule of Three, and research tomes, not conjecture -- how someone felt is conjecture in many/most cases when we're talking history.

If it's factual that someone ate X for breakfast, and in some way it makes my story more interesting, fine. However, as a writer, I see things like what the characters thought and felt as being my job, based on research. If there is only one book, as in your diary example, then there is no other option and obviously the rule can't work.

However, the Battle of Little Bighorn happened on a specific date. Wild Bill Hickock was a specific age when he died, on a specific day, in a specific year. And, from experience, not all those kinds of facts add up, ergo, the Rule of Three.