In a Word, Anachronistic

by Jean Kavich Bloom

Readers who enjoy historical novels also love learning about actual events or past eras right along with their favorite fictional romance, mystery, and adventure. So they expect authors to have done their homework, ensuring historical details are accurate. But then there is the pesky problem of potential anachronisms. 

As noted on literarydevices.net, “anachronism is derived from a Greek word anachronous, which means ‘against time.’ Therefore, an anachronism is an error of chronology or timeline in a literary piece. In other words, anything that is out of time and out of place is an anachronism.” For instance, an author should not have a character driving a make of car that was not manufactured until the following decade. Furthermore, contemporary novels are in danger of anachronistic missteps because of the rapid development of communication technology. It would be easy to have a character texting in a time before texting became common practice.

Even Shakespeare failed to make all his works anachronism-free! But though authors and their editors make every effort not to follow his lead, what might still slip through several rounds of edits are words (or phrases and sayings) that were not yet in common use during a novel’s time setting. I recently spotted a few in a novel set in the late 1860s.

·         pep talk (first known use in 1925)

·         starstruck (first known use in 1968)

·         autopilot (first known use in 1916)

·         truth serum (the compound that could be called a “truth serum” was not developed until the 1930s)

Here are three tips for avoiding anachronistic words:

1.       Make it a point during one of your editing rounds to watch for words that could be anachronistic. Or ask a beta reader if they will specifically do that for you.

2.       Use a dictionary for information about the earliest date a word is known to have been used. I found the "first known use" dates above by consulting Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Note: Sometimes I am surprised to learn how early some modern-sounding words were put into common use!

3.       Google what would have been developed or invented to learn when it was commonly available or known. I deduced that no such compound as truth serum would have been known in the 1860s from the Wikipedia entry that came up. No further research was required, I decided, to let the author know the mention of truth serum was probably suspect for an 1868 character.

Do you have any anachronistic words that either slipped into your first drafts or that you have spotted in a book you read? 

After twenty-four years with publishing house Zondervan in Grand Rapids, Michigan, most recently as an executive managing editor, Jean Bloom returned to Central Indiana to be near family and take her freelance editorial business full-time (Bloom in Words Editorial Services). Her personal blog is Bloom in Words too, where she often posts articles about the writing life. She and her husband, Cal, have three children and five grandchildren.


Photo credit:  http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=46634&picture=time-on-book

In other's words

Christmas is cuh-razy time for me as a Pastor's wife, Christmas Pageant Director, mom and grandma. Instead of coming up with new material, this month I'm going to share some read-worthy blog posts from other writers.

First, if you love A Christmas Carol (especially the Muppet version) and you love to write, Kristen Lamb's post is a must-read:

Charles Dickens—Using Symbol, Theme & Allegory to Create Enduring Stories

If you want to know what to get your writer-friends for Christmas, you can read my blog post here:

Top 10 Christmas Gifts for Busy Writers (Or at least for this one)

Click to buy!

I really enjoyed our ACFW-Indiana president, Rick Barry's, blog posts on editing and pride. I think you will, too:

God Wants to Edit You

My Name is Pride

I was actually writing a post like the one below for Hoosier Ink before I read this one by Anne Garboczi Evans. I'd changed my mind because I didn't want to come across negative. But thanks to Anne, I might anyway, because I love this post!

5 Ways to Justify Scrooge-ness in a Christmas Elf World

How about you? Are you feeling overwhelmed at Christmas? Do you write much in the month of December? If so, what do you write? Weigh in!

Tweet this: In other's words: writing enduring stories and surviving the holiday

Karla Akins is author of the best-selling Jacques Cartier (that went #1 on Amazon in its category), O Canada! Her Story,  Sacagawea and The Pastor's Wife Wears Biker Boots. When she's not writing she dreams of riding her motorcycle and looking for treasure.

God's Love Most Gentle

by Mary Allen

What do you do when the one you love is shattered like glass?

In Jeremiah, God says that you can't heal a wound that you won't even admit is there. How true this is for recent missionary widow, Kim Macomb. With the help of close family and friends, she is physically healing from the horrors she experienced. However she's hiding choices she made that she can't forgive herself for, choices that effected other people's lives.

When running from the truth erodes her ability to be a good mother, Kim seeks help. Unfortunately, she still isn't facing all of what happened in Zaire, Africa. She isn't addressing her anger at God, nor the fear that compels her to run from Mitch, the new love in her life. 

Determined to be independent, Kim pushes away those who care most about her. Before long she is involved with Hank, a good man who understands brutal war experiences, but doesn't know God. Soon Kim realizes there are some wrong choices you can't hide. When Kim thinks she's lost everything, she finds redemption in God's Love Most Gentle.

Kim's story plays out against the comedic background of  quirky landlord Dora who stills sets the table for a dead husband and her mother's romance to a local rancher who rescues 'Catastrophe' Carol as often as she needs it.

"God's Love Most Gentle" written under the pen name Mary Marie Allen goes on sale December 8 on Kindle as ebook and soft covers are available from the author for $14.99. Leave a comment below for a chance to win a free copy - your choice ebook or soft cover.

Mary Allen's three books of poetry are still available. "Journey to Christmas" - the thoughts and feelings of those involved in the first Christmas sells for 4.99  as e-book through Amazon. 

Don't be a Turkey

Today is Thanksgiving, and most of us will sit around a table with family and friends eating turkey. These dinner companions are the people we know best, and some of them may have led fascinating lives. So it’s only natural to want to write about them.

But that could make you the turkey at the feast. So how do you get away with it without wrecking your relationships or getting sued for defamation?

As mentioned last month, nothing you do will guarantee that you don’t get sued. Still, there are actions you can take to make a lawsuit less likely or to make winning the probable outcome if you do get sued. They also may save your relationships with family and friends.

This month’s post gives suggestions specifically related to fiction. Don’t assume that you are safe just because of the label. While fiction gives you a little extra leeway, “little” is the operative word. And the main function of a disclaimer is to give you a false sense of security. Disclaimers may discourage some lawsuits, but they don’t usually work as a defense.

The basic test is whether people who know the person claiming to be defamed could reasonably believe that the fictional character portrays the real person. If they could believe it, the jury gets to decide whether they would believe it. So what can you do to keep people from believing it?

The best approach is to disguise, disguise, disguise. Change as many facts about the person as you can. Does it really matter that the character is tall and blond like your friend, or could she be short and dark? What about changing his age and profession? Depending on the story, maybe you can even change the character’s gender.

I call this the amalgam approach to creating characters. Let’s say you are fascinated by Aunt Becky’s profession as a stunt double and you want to turn her into a fictional thief who uses her skills to get into places most burglars can’t go. Give her a different name and physical description and mix in several noticeable characteristics she doesn’t have, such as your friend Mary’s shrill laugh and your boss David’s habit of rubbing his left leg when he’s nervous. Now Aunt Becky is no longer recognizable. Or at least you have changed her enough so that the reader who knows her will realize the character is mostly fictional.

For some types of fiction, you can also make the character or the character’s behavior so outlandish that nobody in their right minds will believe it. This isn’t a “nobody who knows her would believe she would do something like that” defense. It’s closer to “even if they don’t know her they’d be fools to believe it.” That’s how most people get away with parodies about famous people.

If you want to write about real people and situations in your fiction, change enough facts to disguise the characters. That takes more work, but it is also more creative. And isn’t that the goal?

Next month I’ll turn to non-fiction.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.

Why Julie Lessman Inspires Me

By Kelly Bridgewater

Here I am with my eleventh month of authors who inspire my writing. If you have missed any of them, go ahead and look back at my previous posts. I have written about C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. R. Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Steven James, Robin Jones Gunn, Dee Henderson, and Susan May Warren.

Today, I’m going to talk about Julie Lessman.

From Amazon

Lessman writes romance, which is not what I typically read, but I read her book A Passion Most Pure because I downloaded it for Free for my Kindle. But I was surprised how much I loved Lessman’s writing.

She does not write a simple romance story with obstacles in their way. Lessman really understands the internal, physical, and emotion behind the love. The hero and the heroine have to fight against the demands of love.

The characters are written so well with great obstacles to overcome. Plus, the stories are historical romances, so the reader can learn something about the 1930 in Boston and San Francisco.

I’m glad that Lessman has written ten books to date. I have read almost all of them and loved reading about the O’Connors, which were featured in seven books. As a reader who enjoys returning to familiar characters as they are the heroine or hero in the book, then returning to them as they grow and make an appearance in a future book, I was glad to see Lessman created seven book, which start with the story of how the parents fell in love, then moves on to tell the trials and tribulations of their six children as they handle the waves of romance in their personal lives.

Lessman has taught me how to construct a romance that is realistic and grabs the reader’s attention. I have spend time reading her book that she wrote on writing romance titled Romance-ology 101: Writing Romantic Tension for the Inspirational and Sweet Markets. I have spent time studying and losing myself in the romance she sparks between her hero and heroines.  The Love is realistic and grips my heart with every story. Lessman has also shown me the love between a man and woman should also parallel the love that we have for God. It is passionate and demanding of our time, but the more time we invest in our significant other and God, the better return on our investment. What a great lesson from a great writer!

How many of Julie Lessman’s books have you read? What is your favorite aspect about her writing?