F is for Fact Finding

I write spanking fiction and have given myself perhaps excessive liberties to ignore some factual background elements in my tale.   I call it poetic license.   My critics call it bone idleness.

Sometimes it is obvious that what you have written has no bearing on the real world.   If you have Julius Caesar and his army using their wrist-watches to coordinate the invasion on the English mainland, at best your readers will think you are playing some sort of joke on them.

In one of my tales set in the early 1800's, I had a young lady disguised as a Midshipman get a caning while tied to the barrel of a gun on a Royal Navy battleship.   It might not matter to you that I had her across a 21-pounder on the top deck of the vessel.    And it did not matter to me.   But I got such a chorus of boos from those who knew that putting a 21-pounder on the top deck of wooden battleship was as silly as having Roman soldiers wearing wrist-watches.

Knowing about what guns went where on ancient Royal Navy vessels might lead you into the trap of go-gullibility (a condition of believing anything that is in a wiki).   But even so, there is some basic research you really ought to carry out if your tale is not set about today, about where you reside and about activities you are familiar with.   Our aim is to entertain, and the distraction of impossibilities really ought to be kept to the least we can manage.

But sometimes we don't stand a chance.   Suppose, for instance, you want some Puritan wench to get a beating for whatever plot device you happen to be using.    And suppose a Cromwellian soldier asks your heroine a question.  Her answer "I don't know" might be the very trigger that sparks the spanking action.   Now - did you spot the deliberate error in that short set up?   No - and neither did I when that very line of dialog took place in my piece,   A very kind person let me know that no Puritan could ever have said "I don't know" for that language format was another century in the making.   She could only have said "I know not."   I would suggest that knowledge of things that arcane is beyond the reach of most of us.  

So, having said you should do sufficient research to satisfy your average reader, it is quite OK if that piece of advice is taken with a large pinch of salt.    After all, some readers would find great pleasure in contemplating Roman soldiers coordinating their attack by using wrist watches.   It really does take all sorts...