This is a tip for writers. These thoughts represent some mistakes I have made in writing, mistakes being the best teacher, of course. I continue to see other authors making the same mistakes that I have made.
How to avoid these blunders is the question. I think the most important thing is to write about what you know. But what if you are writing Fantasy or Historical Novels? Obviously, no one alive experienced the middle ages, or lived in your fantasy world. In that case, writers must depend on research. The importance of this is hard to overstate. My Stonegate Series is set in Colorado, more than a century after a civilization-ending event. My books never state very clearly what happened, exactly, on the assumption that those alive one century later would have only a very fuzzy idea as to exactly what did happen. I hinted at a plague, a very common plot device. Since one of my inspirations for the series came from Jack London's The Scarlet Plague, I suppose that is inevitable. I did not have to research plagues, though, since I did not give any details. So that is one way to avoid mistakes. Don't let yourself be tied down. I am very familiar with the landscape, vegetation, and wild animals in Colorado. So I set my series there. "Write what you know!" Remember? Since I was brought up on a ranch and my father raised horses, I also started off with a good working knowledge of horses and horsemanship. But I did have to research cavalry tactics and training, since I wanted horse cavalry to be part of my story. I joined an group called "The Society for Creative Anachronism" to study sword-fighting by practicing with armor and wooden swords and blunt spears. I even shot real arrows at mail armor to test how well they penetrate. But I fear many writers do not do this kind of research and their written works show it. One of my pet peeves are fantasy and historical fiction novels that depict horses in warfare, and the writer describes horses as "screaming in pain." What is wrong with this? Well, what is wrong with this is that horses do not scream in pain. I would say that they don't scream at all, but sometimes horses fighting do make loud squeals that might possibly be described as "screams" though I would not use that word. But, OK, if a writer said a warhorse screamed when attacking another horse or an enemy soldier, I could not call it an error. But scream in pain? No. That IS an error. Actually, I am of the opinion, albeit a tentative one, that prey species (and a horse is a prey species) tend NOT to scream in pain. I never heard a deer, elk or antelope scream in pain, though I have heard elk make a sound like a mew when stressed. Not a scream, but perhaps a whimper. It is the predators that tend to be the most vocal. How to avoid errors like this? The best thing, if your story involves horses, for example, and you have little experience with horse behavior, is to let a horse expert read your draft. Same with guns, if you are not an expert in guns. I do know a lot about firearms, having served in the US Army and owning and shooting guns for many years. Nevertheless, I did a lot of research into early cannons and artillery and had an expert review my rough manuscript. Now, I am not saying that a writer can't write about war unless they have fought in one or at least served in the military. Tom Clancy did not serve in the military as far as I know, but he has written brilliantly about war, both real and imagined. He immersed himself in the subject and talked with subject matter experts and picked their brains. So research can fill in a lot of blanks. But writing what we know, as authors, certainly makes the craft of writing much easier. But, some might insist, what does it matter if a few fine points are not right in a novel? Most readers won't know the difference, will they? But the truth is, some will know. These can leave bad reviews, and even if they don't, losing a reader's trust is a serious misfortune. It must be avoided if at all possible. Trust, once lost, is a very difficult thing to regain. And if you are caught in a howler of a blunder on a small point, the reader won't trust you on the big points either.
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Harry James Fox Award-winning author of Christian Fantasy and creator of the Stonegate series. Archives
February 2020
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