@dvmheather@bookstodon This is what bothered me about The Rose Code. There were just so many little details that didn't add up -- and I'm not even British.
@dvmheather@bookstodon This is one reason I set my writing in places I have at least some understanding of. Or can look up - it is easy enough. Admittedly, most of my writing is not very place dependent, so when it is, I want to get it right.
I used a square in London, and it exists and it does have a ghost story about it, which I used.
Using a plantation, without knowing what that meant, is just lazy.
@dvmheather@bookstodon There's been plenty of times when I've read a book only to go, "This author is not from X" and I have to look to make sure. I once stopped reading a book set in Sweden written by an American as it was obvious they had never been in Sweden.
@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon so presumably you would never read any SF story set away from planet Earth, or any historical story or...
Surely it is just a question of how well it is written?
@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon Yes, that's what we're saying. You need to do some research and ask a few questions if you're not familiar with the time and/or place. Or you might look like an idiot.
It either needs to be a well researched version of the place the story is set in, or the writing needs to make it clear that it is a fictional version of it. The example just sounds like sloppy writing.
The same goes with other details. In Ishiguro's novel Clara and the Sun, the sun sets in the same spot every day - that took so much away from the story for me as there was no indication that it was a version of the earth that didn't have seasons.
@Phiznlil@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon I've read many books when it feels like "place holder" dialog. A story set in 1920's London and a maid sounds like modern day cliche New York. I read a lot of murder mystery and I never know if it's a clue or bad writing, maybe the maid is from New York? Nope, well okay...
@PickPoppies@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon In fairness, I am lazy so tend to set my writing somewhere I can control. But the places I use that are real, I do try to make sure there is some sense of reality. I have referred to a hotel in my WIP, and I made sure there was a hotel of that name there. It may be unrealistic in other senses, but it need to feel like there is a connection to reality.
I know that stories set in London that have the geography completely wrong annoy me.
@PickPoppies@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon that is because I know the geography of many parts of London well enough that it jars when it is wrong, and it is pleasing when it is right.
I suspect others have the same issue for places they know.
@SteveClough@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon Yes, 100% The book set in Sweden will probably only annoy a few picky Swedes e.g.
This conversation started with me replying to a blog post and was about stretching things a little too much. In the end everyone experience of a time and place will be different but if you get on a I don't know, a cable car in London to look at the city from the mountains, you've gone to far (this was a made up example, never read this)
@janus@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon SF and fantasy are arguably a bit different, but still need to make internal sense. If science in SF departs from what we currently know, it needs a rationale, not just handwavium and anything goes. Can't turn gravity on and off at a whim or eliminate momentum with a snap of the fingers.
And historical fiction needs to be as accurate as it can be, or some readers will get angry.
In both, research and imagination have to work in harmony.
@JonSparks@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon Historicals can be very tricky. We read with modern minds and sometimes if we make things too historical correct we get confused or dislike the character.
@PickPoppies@janus@dvmheather@bookstodon Interesting point. Just as reading fiction originating in earlier times can be challenging. Though sometimes I have more difficulty with stuff originating in the 20th C than the 19th. Harder to swallow the sexism in Fleming or Chandler. Or even early Inspector Morse. Some of these books were written in my lifetime.
@JonSparks@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon This all bears out my point, if the book is not properly researched then it is badly written, which will probably come out in other aspects as well.
@janus@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon For any SF story set away from Earth, there is the advantage that I haven't been there either, so if they get it wrong I usually wouldn't know. But it can still be jarring when something is obviously wrong based on details I happen to know, and I've been careful with my own books for that reason. E.g. my way-overdue third book has a setting on a planet of a star w/low intensity. Will be dark and cold. If I know that, at least some readers will too.
@janus@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon I can put up with all kinds of mistakes about places I'm unfamiliar with. That opens the door for lots of writing to be terribly inaccurate about less known places without it annoying too many readers. But some features of some locations are more known than others, and also more historically sensitive - for someone to write about a plantation in the US South without thinking about how to address its history is ... an interesting choice.
Our nearest star is 4 Light years away. To get there in 4 days - the sort of time that most ships would manage it in at lower speeds - would require travelling at 400x the speed of light.
To do this and return in only a week from home breaks everything we know. But we accept it.
To put it in your words, a book which talks about a place without having researched it and saying plainly false things about it for no other reason is... badly written. If the place also has a sensitive history, which the book ignores for no reason, it's doubly badly written.
@janus@PickPoppies@dvmheather@bookstodon (Now, if the author did research and changed the context of the place for a specific reason, that may or may not be a success, but it's not 'badly written' per se)