Discrepancies from lack of research

[Caged Maiden]

I am big fan of the research forum. I actually enjoy researching, and it is quite obvious I am not the only one. I would consider myself lucky in the things I have done and experienced in my life, and a sort of jack-of-all-trades.
Because of it, I have spotted some pretty critical mistakes in novels, and I can't help wondering why the writer didn't just fact-check a little more thoroughly.
I was wondering what other readers have come across, and how it affected your overall enjoyment of the book.

 

[Caged Maiden]

a corset conundrum

Sorry this one is about clothing..... my obsession.
I read a romance novel set in the 1450's and one scene goes something like this: "Her maid pulled her corset laces tight, slimming her waist until she could barely breathe....."
I rolled my eyes, then I read a little more, and then just skipped over the bits about what she was wearing (which can be quite lengthy in a romance novel).
In the 1450's, there were no corsets.
"Corsets" weren't invented until about the first half of the 16th century. Then they were made of linen and silk and stiffened with bents (like reeds) bundled together and sewn into channels, and a wooden busk in the very front. Even after they were invented, the main purpose of a corset was not to slim the waist, but to give the torso a cylindrical flattened look, smoothing any bumps and bulges which were considered unsightly. In many 16th century portraits (especially Italian) very buxom women with thick waists are painted with straight torsos, achieved with nothing more than a layer of stiff sailcloth in their bodices.
Corsets were not tight-laced until much later, when whale baleen and steel began being used to support them.
16th century corset - The Corset Wiki

 

[MattBone]

I'm sure you're right about how different corsets were from modern conceptions, although in Ian Mortimer's (generally very well-researched) The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England - which is concerned principally with the years 1300-1400 - there's the following line: "Over this you might wear a short bodice of a contrasting colour, with a corset underneath accentuating your hour-glass shape..."

I hasten to add I'm far from an expert myself on medieval fashions! I'm also slightly worried that my first post on these forums is about corsets...

 

[grahamguitarman]

I can't bring to mind any novels offhand. But I do remember recently getting annoyed at a History channel documentary I'd bought on DVD, about Leonardo Da Vinci (one of my all time historical heroes).

What made me so disappointed was the reconstruction scenes showing him painting, they showed close-ups of some rank amateur just wiping liquid paint onto a a painting. If you are going to make the effort to make an historically accurate documentary, at least make the painting techniques historically accurate too! As some one who knows a lot about historical painting techniques - especially renaissance painting (and has even taught those techiques on occasion) I was appalled at the lack of basic research into how Leonardo's paintings would have actually been made!

So yeah I guess I'd be pretty annoyed if the same lack of artistic research happened in a novel. Though luckily the only novel with an artist in that I've read so far was pretty well researched.

BTW if anyone ever wanted to know about medieval / renaissance painting techniques then I'm your man

 

[MattBone]

BTW if anyone ever wanted to know about medieval / renaissance painting techniques then I'm your man

Coincidentally, this could be very useful for a chapter I'm currently working on. Mind if I PM you a few questions?

 

[grahamguitarman]

Coincidentally, this could be very useful for a chapter I'm currently working on. Mind if I PM you a few questions?

sure no problem

 

[Caged Maiden]

Not to be nit-picky, just trying to explain..... The term corset is a later term, and would not have been used even in the 16th century, it was called a pair of bodies, whether it was stiffened with buckram or bents or whalebone. Even in a well-researched book there may be some inaccuracies, and more than likely, the author used a modern word inappropriately, without consideration to the actual garments' history; using an example of the effect created by the advance in tailoring practices of the late 1400's.. I have never seen a historical reference to a pair of bodies before say 1530-ish. The reason the scene sort of ruined the book a little was not because of the wrong term for the garment, which I might have blown past and considered a compromise for modern readers; after all, it's hard to get someone to imagine the picture in your head. I was really angry about the mention of tight-lacing which is the most distorted aspect of an already controversial garment.

Spoiler: A little research

Before the use of the pair of bodies (early 1500's), women wore a sort of band around their waist over their gowns. You see this in the pictures where women were wearing the hennin (tall pointy hat) which is early to mid-1400's. Perhaps that is what the passage is referring to. As far as I have researched, kirtles, which were tailored to fit closely, came into fashion late in the 1400's, and gowns were stiffened with buckram for the first part of the 1500's. Also it should be noted that embroidery became a necessity for fashionable garments during the 1400's and the heavy embroidery lent stiffness and structure to even soft fabrics.

Spoiler: My experiences

I am 5'3 inches and 135 pounds, certainly not thin. My natural waist measurement, the smallest part, above belly-button, is 32". I can with minimal stiffening (a layer of weighty interfacing) turn almost any fabric into a rigid bodice that will maintain a fashionable shape when laced tightly. That being said, imagine what could be done with a buckram-stiffened bodice, and a separate stiffened bodice underneath! No whalebone, metal or wood necessary. And, people were not heavy back then. I'd have been a buxom lady!

I have a wonderful book called The Corset: A Cultural History one of the best resources I've found on the subject, and it refutes many corset myths from the era or tight-lacing (18th and 19th centuries), but there is sadly not much in the way of surviving garments from the 16th century, the oldest being from 1598. Thanks for shedding more light on the subject. It might help others who are doing their own garment research, and it definitely exemplifies the importance of looking over several reputable sources.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I do love Leonardo da Vinci. I was just doing some research on his works, but am really at the beginning. I want to recreate some of his anatomical sketches for a historical research project, and I was wondering, could you suggest a medium which would give a close approximation? I was going to use graphite pencil, as I've already got all sorts of those and I've done mostly pencil drawing, but I don't actually know what silverpoint is. Can you shed some light? Having someone to ask the details of is probably just what I need to tip the scale for me and really get me excited about it.

 

[grahamguitarman]

Lol I havn't done silverpoint for 20+ years!

Silverpoint is basically drawing with a silver wire, silver when used for drawing leaves a very precise, light grey mark, which over a period of months oxidises to a warm brown colour.

The parchment was usually prepared first with a mixture of rabbit glue, pigmented with bone ash, which would be just abrasive enough to enable the silver to leave behind a better mark (if the paper isn't prepared properly the lines can be too light)

Recreating a silverpoint drawing is actually fairly easy today. All you need is a piece of silver wire (about 0.5 - 1mm dia), which any jeweller can supply you with, and white some gouache paint (such as Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache).

You will also want some kind of holder to put the wire in, simply to make the wire easier to hold on to while drawing.

Coat a piece of heavy paper with white goauche paint, let it dry thoroughly, and then basically just draw with the wire as if it was a pencil.

As mentioned above, initially the drawing will be grey, but over the months it should turn a nice warm brown, just like Leonardo's drawings.

Here in England there is a wonderful little shop near the British Museum which supplies traditional art materials, including silverpoint supplies such as rabbit skin size pigmented with bone ash:

Silverpoint - Drawing & Calligraphy

Whenever I go to London I always try to make a beeline for this place as its like walking into a timewarp. It hasn't hardly changed since Victorian times, with all the old fixtures still in place, and has shelves full of traditional pigments, and old drawers full of otherwise impossible to find traditional materials.

I often buy 'lump sanguine' from there, which is a natural red chalk sold in raw lumps, and is also often used in Renaissance drawings by Leonardo and Michaelangelo. These days its usually mixed with clay and baked into sticks, but the real thing is soo much nicer to work with, and gives me and my students a better sense of the history of drawing.

 

[Graham Irwin]

I have a similar problem with musicians portrayed in film. They usually have no idea how to play their instrument. It totally takes me out of the story.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I'm going to look into the art supplies; I really want to do it now.
I have a funny gouache story..... I paint illuminated manuscripts for the SCA, and gouache is supposed to be a good period choice... Anyways, When I was in high school, I was big-time into art, taking painting classes and printing... anything I could. Well I used to use watercolors, but I ran through them like crazy fast because I just wanted them to be more opaque..... see where I'm going?
Anyways, I went to buy my scroll-painting supplies, and instead of the vellum I was buying watercolor paper (because I like to go back to my roots and use the things I know how to), and the other girls were all telling me to buy gouache, when I was begging them to let me just get watercolors.
Long story long, hehe, I bought the gouache and I used it once and LOVED it. It was everything I had always wanted from watercolors but couldn't have. I'm in love with gouache and sound like a ranting lunatic, but could there be a more perfect paint ever?

Okay, now that that's over with, I am going to look into the supplies. This was my first gouache painting BTW. Thanks for the info.

View attachment 442

 

[grahamguitarman]

I'm going to look into the art supplies; I really want to do it now.
I have a funny gouache story..... I paint illuminated manuscripts for the SCA, and gouache is supposed to be a good period choice... Anyways, When I was in high school, I was big-time into art, taking painting classes and printing... anything I could. Well I used to use watercolors, but I ran through them like crazy fast because I just wanted them to be more opaque..... see where I'm going?
Anyways, I went to buy my scroll-painting supplies, and instead of the vellum I was buying watercolor paper (because I like to go back to my roots and use the things I know how to), and the other girls were all telling me to buy gouache, when I was begging them to let me just get watercolors.
Long story long, hehe, I bought the gouache and I used it once and LOVED it. It was everything I had always wanted from watercolors but couldn't have. I'm in love with gouache and sound like a ranting lunatic, but could there be a more perfect paint ever?

Okay, now that that's over with, I am going to look into the supplies. This was my first gouache painting BTW. Thanks for the info.

View attachment 442

Looks good, though its a bit too small to see properly.
Gouache is a great medium, especially for things like illuminations, posters and pretty much anything that requires a flat even finish. You can even combine gouache and watercolour in one painting, which I was doing yesterday with one of the art groups I teach. Turners watercolours often had gouache in them, he even used white gouache to paint hi-lights, which a lot of watercolour artists would be horrified at today.

For me personally though, the greatest medium of all is oil paint, nothing matches the unique qualities that an oil painting can achieve. It takes some learning to do properly, and is a slow process compared to other mediums but the results are just ... wow!

but for what you are doing Gouache is still best

 

[Caged Maiden]

I'm jealous of oil painters. I wish I was disciplined enough to try it again, but see with oil paints, you work from the background forward, and it is just so very opposite to how I draw and paint (front to back), that I can't get it.
I would give it another go, I guess, like in a class or something, but I'm so sucky I hate investing in materials when I know I'll just make something horrible.

 

[Caged Maiden]

HA! and I can draw way better than that painting, I just had to make a copy of a medieval manuscript. I sometimes hate it because they drew so badly back then, but I must make it look authentic, no matter my personal feelings! I'll try to make a bigger copy.

 

[Amanita]

Everyone has his or her special areas of expertise where they're highly bothered by mistakes made others. Still, an author can't be an expert on everything and readers can't expect him to be.
If something features prominently in a story, such as the painting mentioned above, it should be researched properly. If learning to fight with swords is important to the story and broadly described, the writer should know how it works, if an important characters suffers from a traumatic experience, he should bother to research what this will do and what may or may not help them cope with it. Other things such as clothing styles that don't match the historical period don't bother me in fantasy.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't care about clothing styles and that sort of thing in Fantasy . After all, it is a fantasy world so there is nothing to match clothes to. Could be anything. Historical fiction is another issue. There it should match up.

 

[Kelise]

I agree with Amanita. My father is an airline engineer and he struggles to watch or read anything involving an aircraft malfunction because they generally have something occur that's utterly impossible. Apparently LOST was laughable.

It's probably impossible for any author to get anything perfectly right if they base their story too much into reality. An Australian author, Trudi Canavan, apparently always gets something to do with horses wrong, even with a few beta readers.

With so many people out there (hopefully thousands or more) reading someone's book, someone out there will always find an error in the way you cooked the soup, cleaned the clothes, crashed an airplane, etc

This doesn't mean we shouldn't try our hardest to avoid any errors, of course It's a simple matter of respect for the reader to try our very best... but errors will always slip through. We can only hope that our writing otherwise in general will be so GOOD that they'll be able to read on and forgive. And hopefully send a nice email informing us for next time.

 

[grahamguitarman]

I agree with Amanita. My father is an airline engineer and he struggles to watch or read anything involving an aircraft malfunction because they generally have something occur that's utterly impossible. Apparently LOST was laughable.

It's probably impossible for any author to get anything perfectly right if they base their story too much into reality. An Australian author, Trudi Canavan, apparently always gets something to do with horses wrong, even with a few beta readers.

With so many people out there (hopefully thousands or more) reading someone's book, someone out there will always find an error in the way you cooked the soup, cleaned the clothes, crashed an airplane, etc

This doesn't mean we shouldn't try our hardest to avoid any errors, of course It's a simple matter of respect for the reader to try our very best... but errors will always slip through. We can only hope that our writing otherwise in general will be so GOOD that they'll be able to read on and forgive. And hopefully send a nice email informing us for next time.

Lol I just now finished reading the Black Magicians Trilogy by Trudy Canavan (my wife saw them in a charity sale and picked them up for me) I don't know much about horses, so can't comment on that. But what I did find annoying was the way there was an uber rich nobility, then the extremely poor living in slums - and nothing inbetween! This to me was a much bigger world building flaw than any minor details about horses ect. Even the Merchants were all so rich that their clothes were encrusted with jewels ect.

It was also one of those extremely annoying stories where people made so many stupid decisions, that you end up getting angry at the author for expecting us to believe that people could really be so dumb. But maybe that's just me being too critical.

 

[Amanita]

Well, I don't dislike the series that much even though it surely has flaws but world-building really isn't her strong side. The nations are really flat too and in every one they have a different skin colour making foreigners easily recognisable...
The growing slums around the city also don't really fit the pre-technological setting either. There's no evidence for developed agricultural technology and therefore people would be required to work there rather then spent their lives on the city edges as thieves.

 

[grahamguitarman]

I didn't dislike the story in itself, just the lack of anything approaching pragmatism in either the story or the world design.

Edit: And I agree with you that in a pre agricultural technology world, many of those people would be working in the countryside not living in the slums. a bit of historical research would have shown that to her.