Need to Know
Oct 20th 2007
Sabrina JeffriesOn Writing!
Did you know that women in the Middle Ages sometimes used urine to clean the castle? (Ammonia is ammonia, people, no matter where it comes from.) Or that a silk snatcher was a special kind of pickpocket who stole the bonnets off ladies’ heads in the Regency? Did you know that during the early 1800’s, any woman wearing drawers was considered “fast” (which meant they were generally wearing NOTHING under those skirts)? Or that condoms used to have ribbons? Yes, itsy-bitsy little ribbons to keep them on. Like in the picture.
I discovered these facts and more from reading and writing historical romances. I’ve learned more about history as a romance writer than I ever did in school. Take that, Dr. Howell!
Then there’s the stuff I learned from reading contemporaries. If not for Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Hot Shot, I would never have known that in the 70’s the large computer companies didn’t pursue personal computers because they couldn’t imagine why anyone would want one. Were they high? Thanks to Nora Roberts’ Honest Illusions, I learned all sorts of things about magic tricks. And I learned about how firefighters “practice” fighting fires when I read Susan Lyons’ Hot in Here.
Every time I learn some new tidbit, I go look it up, check it out, read more, and find out more. Instant education without the boredom of a classroom! I just love fiction.
So what about you? What’s the weirdest thing you ever discovered from fiction? Do you like to figure out which things in a novel are true versus those the author made up, or do you just go along for the ride? Do you tear your hair out when you discover something in a novel that you KNOW for a fact is wrong because that’s your field of expertise or do you overlook those little mistakes if the story’s good?
32 Comments »
32 Responses to “Need to Know”
Ann in IL on 20 Oct 2007 at 5:49 am #
Here’s another fact about human urine. It’s sterile and you can drink it if there is nothing else around. Also, urine was used to cleanse wounds.
Learning all these interesting facts while reading fiction is one of the reasons I keep telling kids to READ. After all, reading is FUNdamental.
Aemelia on 20 Oct 2007 at 6:59 am #
My husband wonders how I can always smoke him in Jeopardy…especially when I get the totally off-the-wall catagories…he hates playing Trivia games w/me. But I’ve picked up TONS of info from the romances I read. Though sometimes I wonder why people seem so damn surprised when I do know the answers. It’s rather irritating when they ask “How in the world did you know THAT?”
Lisa H on 20 Oct 2007 at 7:52 am #
I am one of those readers who enjoys the fascinating tidbits authors throw in their books but doesn’t care if they are true or made up. If the story is good, (as are the goddess’ novels) I don’t care if I am learning anything. I love the story line, the sexual tension, the moment when they finally overcome whatever obstacle has kept them apart.
I must say, I do love detailed descriptions of the clothing of the period. I mainly read Historicals so I do enjoy learning about the fabrics of their clothing and the styles of their shoes.
I also like to hear about their hairstyles. (I am a girly girl!)
Karen Hawkins on 20 Oct 2007 at 8:29 am #
I learned from a work of fiction all about firemen. (We must have read the same book, Sabrina!) I learned just enough to let me know it’d be nice to have one myself.
I’ve learned some VERY interesting things about the art community and security from Suzanne Enoch’s contemporary series (Who knew thieves could be so smart? It’s incredible the ways they’ve come up with steal things!).
I asked my DH if he’d learned anything interesting from a work of fiction and he gave me a wolfish grin and said, “I’ve gotten some good tips from some erotica I’ve read, but nothing you could post on Sabrina’s blog.”
Teehee!!!
Nicole Jordan on 20 Oct 2007 at 10:16 am #
I like learning new stuff! But I always take fiction “facts” with a grain of salt, since I never know what’s made up and what’s real.
And seeing things I know are wrong drives me nuts since I’ve spent so darn much time researching for my own work and trying to make sure my facts are right. However, there are a few authors I will forgive for their inaccuracies because their stories are so wonderful.
But still I don’t rely on fiction as my only source. My sis used to swear up and down to a “fact” about Marie Antoinette because she read it in a Victoria Holt novel. And sometimes facts in non-fiction books are wrong, too!
Julia London on 20 Oct 2007 at 10:27 am #
In the last few years, I’ve enjoyed reading biographies. They used to be dry as dirt, but now I find them fascinating. I love hearing how the English language was spoken and the etymology of words. And I love reading about what they ate, what they did, etc.
Antonia and Flora Fraser are two of the best biographers, in my opinion.
Cookiedough on 20 Oct 2007 at 10:35 am #
I always like learning new fun factoids!
While reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, I’ve found some interesting facts on the inner workings of Vatican City and the Grail quests that I never knew before.
jessie on 20 Oct 2007 at 10:55 am #
I’m taking Victorian Literature right now, and reading romance novels has helped me so much in understanding references in some of the books we read. I even helped a couple of my classmates understand the ranks of the aristocracy.
I really only read Nora Roberts’ contemporaries, but she has so many different professions that she gives to her characters that I feel like I’ve been exposed to so much outside of my realm.
I generally take the facts the novelist is presenting as true, because I figure they’ve done their research. Maybe that’s a little naive… But, after I started reading Regencies, I was so intrigued by the period that I went out and bought a bunch of history books on the culture of the 1900s to learn more.
J Perry Stone on 20 Oct 2007 at 11:47 am #
Though not fiction, I found this one from those Grossology books:
When Thomas a Becket (yes that one), the Arch Bishop of Canterbury was murdered, they found the hair shirt he wore under his clothes so alive with lice, it moved when they laid it on the ground.
Urp. I’m gagging. I don’t think I’d want a special license from him, no matter how Arch a Bishop he was.
And if a historical fact isn’t correct, but the writing is good, I’m yours. I’m not at all a nit-picker (to continue with my “lousy” subject–sorry).
Ellen Laureate on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:11 pm #
Karen Rose’s wonderful novels have taught me how to murder someone in a variety of ways. I am saving this knowledge for the next time someone cuts me off on the thruway.
Sabrina Jeffries on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:13 pm #
Once in a while, I come across a fact that I know isn’t correct, but for the most part I think authors do their research fairly well. The mistake that sticks out in my mind was in a book that described live crawfish in Louisiana as red. Crawfish are like lobsters or shrimp–they’re gray until you stick them in boiling water. So that one bothered me. But the average person wouldn’t know about that. Crawfish aren’t a common food.
For an author, sometimes you don’t know enough about a subject to KNOW that you need to research it. We all make assumptions about certain things. In doing research for this Christmas anthology, I’ve discovered that they not only didn’t have Christmas trees in England (I knew that already), but they didn’t have much gift-giving and no Christmas cards. I’ve heard they had no stockings or Father Christmas either, but I’m still researching that. It makes Christmas a little barren! But our image of English Christmas tends to be the Victorian one, which is later.
MizMacgyver on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:20 pm #
Unless the error is really huge I just keep enjoying the story. For that matter unless it is a big mistake I probably don’t even notice it. I have been known to go on the internet and check out the fashion things. If I am reading and something is mentioned that the heroine is wearing and I don’t have a clue what it is I have to go see so I can picture it as I read. Does that make sense to anyone but me??
Ellen Laureate on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:32 pm #
And…there have been many a day when the blogs had my laughing so hard…I could have cleaned the castle.
Ellen the castel cleaner on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:34 pm #
Sheesh…I was wearing a two day old name. Somebody could have told me! LOL
Ellen the castel cleaner on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:35 pm #
Sabrina…wasn’t Boxing Day bigger in England than Christmas?
Julia London on 20 Oct 2007 at 1:40 pm #
Oh Sabrina, do tell — I haven’t started working on the novella yet, so any tidbits you can pass along about Christmas traditions would be soooooooo niiiiiiiiiice of you!
Ellen — you make me laugh so hard. You and Sherri Browning need to have a wit-a-thon just for our entertainment.
Historical innaccuracies: Sometimes they can just be a mistake. In Hazards of Hunting a Duke, I turned a Miss Someone into Lady Someone by the end of the book. No one caught it–my editor, the copy editor, me…but I got a few emails explaining to me how she couldn’t possibly have been a lady and I should know that. I do! I made a mistake!
catslady on 20 Oct 2007 at 2:04 pm #
roflmao, Ellen!!
I want all my facts to be true! I love learning new things and what a wonderful way to do so in my fiction reading. I was shocked when an author I recently read said that she always makes up some things - I was aghast. I can understand mistakes but not willingly making things up.
ronlyn on 20 Oct 2007 at 2:46 pm #
I’m currently reading Tara Janzen’s Crazy series (again) and learning all sorts of things about American muscle cars. I keep asking my DH about things and he finally asked me last night, “What ARE you reading?? I might want to read that.” LOL
Cookiedough on 20 Oct 2007 at 3:13 pm #
Sabrina, that shellfish are a different colour, always bugged me when I watched The Little Mermaid”. Trying to point that out to children though, did not always go over too well.
Cookiedough on 20 Oct 2007 at 3:28 pm #
I meant “that shellfshish are not red naturally”
way to screw up a simple sentence.
Sabrina Jeffries on 20 Oct 2007 at 3:50 pm #
Well, I guess we can allow Disney some creative license in a cartoon.
The Christmas stuff is interesting. Prince Albert and Queen Victoria are the ones who brought the Christmas tree/Father Christmas stuff from Germany. What’s weird is that it was around in America earlier, because the German immigrants brought it there. So we had some of the trappings of Christmas before the English did!
Christmas cards came around in the 1840’s, if I remember right. Jo Beverley has a wonderful article about Regency Christmas on her blog, the Word Wenches, at http://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2006/12/the_nature_of_c.html .
It did depend on the part of the country you were in. Yule logs were popular in the north. And the Welsh had a very weird custom–the Mari Lwyd, a dead horse’s skull they carried around on a stick during the holidays. Not exactly Dickens!
Cookiedough on 20 Oct 2007 at 5:10 pm #
I own a journal reprint from 1815.
“Lousia’s Diary- the Journal of a Farmer’s Daughter”
Dartmouth,1815
Dec 24th entry:
“Nothing of any consequence has happened sicne I came home. This is Sunday. It has been a rather cheerless day…”
December 25th:
“Eliza Coleman came up this morning and spent Christmas with us…”
It went on for only a short lines about who came to breakfast, but nothing about trees, presents or feasts.
interesting.
Cookiedough on 20 Oct 2007 at 5:49 pm #
internet search alert!
I had forgotten, but in Toronto, there is a Museum of Contraception. There was a traveling exhibit that came to my city recently. interesting stuff
here is the link to the museum for anyone interested:
http://www.salon.com/07/features/contra.html
altough how I got from looking up Christmas facts to this one, is a mystery1
lol
Kim on 20 Oct 2007 at 6:07 pm #
Sabrina–I love to learn little facts from books!
I learned how to perform a labotomy from John Saul’s Blackstone Chronicles. Strangely enough, at my last job I used an ice pick-ish tool so I was often able to volunteer to perform the procedure on co-workers
Thanks to Julia Quinn I once won a radio contest because I knew what Pall Mall was, other than a cigarette brand.
Thanks to Rosalind Laker I became obsessed with Marie Antoinette and Versailles, both subjects I’ve since studied voraciously.
As far as mistakes in fictional novels. Its fiction! Any mistakes that I do happen to notice I chalk up to creative license. That stuff doesn’t bother me at all. I read for the enjoyment. If I wanted historical accuracy I’d read non-fiction:D
claudia dain on 20 Oct 2007 at 7:32 pm #
I’ll never forget sitting in my 7th grade Study Skills class. The teacher, Mr. Scully, was very snippy (though that might have been because he was closeted in a room full of 7th graders) and snappish. He took one occasion to bemoan the fact that we were morons of the first order who were in serious doubt of learning ANYTHING beyond the bare essentials in any subject.
“For example,” he said snidely, “you all know about Paul Revere and his famous ride, but do any of you know the name of his horse?”
My hand sprang up like gunfire. Mr. Scully, who had clearly not been expecting this, said, “Yes, Claudia, do you know the name of Paul Revere’s horse?”
“Sherry!” I shouted out, redeeming my entire generation in a single word.
“Short for?” he prompted.
“Scherrazade!”
I had just finished reading Mr. Revere and I, you see. Fiction! Facts! They go together!
Sabrina Jeffries on 20 Oct 2007 at 9:09 pm #
Hee hee hee. You showed him!!!
Santa on 20 Oct 2007 at 9:50 pm #
I found a nickname I called my father dates back to the Roman Empire from reading Colleen McCullogh’s ‘The Grass Crown’. I thought that was pretty cool.
TinaLouiseF on 21 Oct 2007 at 12:17 am #
I totally agree with Aemelia, when I know answers to strange question in Trivial Pursuit no one can believe that I learned the info in a romance novel.
The only book that I can recall off hand where I questioned something was the KarenR book that I just finished. Don’t worry, I only puzzled over it for a few pages. Sorry I can’t remember the name, but it is Abe and Kristen’s story. I wondered how the criminal accessed the trunk of her car. Did the criminal have a spare set of keys? Being associated with the vehicle towing industry for 20 years, I was rather puzzled. For example, we received a call today for keys locked in the trunk; luckily there was a release button in the glovebox, we were able to unlock the car. Another way into the trunk is an access where the backseat folds down. The only other way I know of other than those two methods to access a trunk without keys is a prybar, I think Kristen would have noticed if a prybar had been used on her trunk.
TinaLouiseF on 21 Oct 2007 at 12:17 am #
It was still a great story to read.
Susan Lyons on 21 Oct 2007 at 11:07 am #
Sabrina, I’m so pleased you read “Hot in Here”! Thanks so much for mentioning it. I had so much fun writing that “rescue me” firefighter fantasy. It was a case where I, as writer, thought I knew how the scene was going to go. So did my heroine, Jenny. She had this big romantic rescue in mind. But then I started writing and my hero Scott turned out to be a typical guy, and not really “get” what she had in mind. He was too literal, and she got smoke and grime rather than romance, so then she had to figure out whether to give him brownie points for trying and salvage the situation, or write him off. Well, of course I do write romance, and Jenny proved to be a flexible, forgiving, imaginative girl, and you know how that one turned out!
You never know when “research” is going to come in handy. I learned about firefighter training when I went to RWA’s conference in Reno - we actually visited a facility. Not romantic! Hot firefighters, though.
darkshire007 on 21 Oct 2007 at 4:12 pm #
I usually forgive the minor deviation from reality when it comes to the facts because a lot of authors make it a point to note that any inconsistencies are strictly their own. I take that apology at face value and jump right in to the book. Lastly, I have never read a book that had anything at all in common with my area of expertise; probably because most people view my job as boring.
Sherri Erwin on 21 Oct 2007 at 4:24 pm #
J Perry Stone, I was up itching all night because I kept thinking of your Becket fact! Ew!!
So, looking at ye olde condom, I can’t help but wonder… is that how they coined the phrase to really “tie one on?” (blush)