Monday, June 5, 2017

A must-read for readers and writers of historical fiction

Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer's (and Editor's) Guide to Keeping Historical Fiction Free of Common Anachronisms, Errors, and Myths by Susanne Alleyn

For anyone who enjoys historical fiction, this is a good, fun read. For anyone who writes or wants to write historical fiction, it's a must-read. Nowadays there is no excuse for a writer getting basic historical facts or details of life in one's chosen time period egregiously wrong (an 11th century knight smoking a cigar--one of Alleyn's examples--is as much a sign of bad, careless writing as an inability to write a coherent English sentence). I'm putting it on my list of necessary research materials. And I'll be getting her novels, too.



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