Past & Future Story Challenge 2014

So obviously, the most expedient solution is to remove it altogether.

This is the site of 'spanking fiction' ...note the word 'fiction' please. My dear fellow authors please do not hesitate to submit your story just because of slight historical factors. We realize here that any story submitted that is about the future has no worries about facts and statistics because there are none to be had. In writing about the past do as you will, just write a good story and I am sure most would never care if it is accurate or not...LOL. Point is to have fun.

CS

Here here CS.

I have submitted a 'past' story and suddenly found myself panicking about the historical accuracies - but you are right, it is a fun challenge. Worrying now will only take the enjoyment out of having entered in the first place.

There is a spanking in it...THAT is the important bit, right guys?

Mini

XxxX

Well, there's literary license...

We're not writing research papers. Of course, it is preferable to get the facts straight, especially the major stuff, but there are bound to be mistakes. I think we should do the best we can and not worry about about it too much. It shouldn't be a stumbling block, and certainly shouldn't dissuade anyone from submitting his story.

Oops!

I've been reliably informed it is 'hear hear' rather than 'here here'.

Apologies everyone.

XxxxX

I read a lot of fantasy, and a lot of the current epics, while being set on secondary worlds, are analogous to certain historical periods on this world (Game of Thrones is a good example of this. The author used the War of the Roses as his idea and background, so made his setting similar to 15th century Europe/England), another good one is Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, most of that being set in mid 18th century Scotland. If you don't get details right people complain and from a personal point of view I like to try and make things as historically accurate as I can without getting completely anal about it, so I do understand the angst about getting small things right.

I haven't tried my hand at historical fiction (yet), but it seems the details of dialogue often trip people up - writing dialogue in the English of two or three centuries ago can sound very formal and stilted. This may be because our ideas of the English language from back then are based on writings of the period, and written English is usually more formal than spoken English. Words in common use now either didn't exist or meant something very different. I've just been reading that the adjective 'Dickensian' which now usually refers to old-fashioned squalor and poverty meant 'comical and light-hearted' in Dicken's own time. Most authors know to avoid OK, but some don't realise that 'hello' wasn't a common greeting until popularised by Edison for use on the newly-invented telephone. Before that, it was a cry to attract attention on the hunting field! I could give other examples, but I've realised that I'm writing this to avoid getting down to the task of working on my own entry for the challenge...

One good source for wardrobe details are the reenactment websites. Those people practically kill themselves in the name of historical accuracy.

No, I'm not joking. Imagine dressing in an authentic US Civil War uniform, complete with underwear and corset (men wore corsets back then) on a super hot day in the southern US. Or wearing a historically accurate dress with all the layers of undergarments (call it three or four layers of cloth) on a hot day - including the split drawers.

Go to their web pages and you'll find all the historic details you would ever want.

The last time I seriously researched something like (for the story The Reenactment, not to be confused with the recent series about being in an reenactment) I filled a page and half of notes like:
girls were chemise, stays, drawers and multiple starched petticoats. Sometime in her development, a young girl would adopt open crotch drawers like her mother.

The skirt length was a visible sign of maturity. Starting at her knees when a toddler, the skirt would gradually lengthen to mid-calf (approx. age eight), to bott top (age eleven or twelve) and finally to ankle length(age fourteen and up) as the young lady grew. Another sign of growing up was the adopting of the closed necklines and longer sleeves. After the age of thirteen or fourteen, most girls wore short sleeves only for formal wear in the evenings like their mothers. The change from a back closure dress to a front closure one also marked growing maturity and usually happened by age fifteen. The fashions found on little girls of the period share many characteristics found in adult women's clothes. Arm holes were dropped off the shoulder and shoulder seams fell toward the back of the garments. Popular sleeve styles included the full bishop sleeve gathered into a cuff, the fitted coat style, the bell shape and the pagoda. Older girls often wore undersleeves with the latter styles.
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I didn't save URLs for any of those sites, but they are easy to find.

Then there's the other tactic - ignoring history completely. Some years back Blue Moon Books came out with a line of faux Victorian novels and they clearly ignored most of the Victorian Age, going instead with the movie version of the Victorian Age that most people are familiar with. As long as it seems like something we've seen in movies, TV, etc then it passes as accurate in popular culture. As long as you avoid obvious anachronism like zippers and motorcars, you can get a pass on minor ones (like shoe laces).

Goodgulf

There's still a few days to go but so far we've received only 8 entries for the current challenge. Although it's not something we've advertised we set the minimum number of entries for challenges at 20 so if we fail to get that number we'll abandon the actual voting aspect and simply make the submitted stories available for viewing.

It would be a real shame to have to cancel the challenge, but I am optimistic that entries will pour in at the last minute. I really hope that the discussion here about historical details hasn't discouraged anyone from trying.