Be not a fliperous fleak nor a chitty-faced blore
Writing a novel is hard. Writing a historical novel is another layer of hard because of the research required to build the world of the time you write in. I write in the 14th century, about Chaucer’s life and writing. A few years ago I had written a draft of my first novel and attended the Surrey International Writers Conference (SiWC). While there I submitted the first page of my draft to the Idol contest. It’s a fantastic opportunity to get immediate feedback from agents on your writing. Or it’s a nail-biting, sweat inducing exercise in humiliation. Depends on whether you are ready or not. I wasn’t.
Here’s how it works. Your page is randomly chosen form the submissions pile and read aloud in front of 100 people and five agents. The MC reads the story, trying to get to the end of the page. If an agent raises her or his hand it signals they have a problem with the page. Once all five agents put up their hand the reading is over and the agents share why they put up their hand.
I was very nervous, as this was the first time anything I had written had ever been shared publicly. Luckily the MC didn’t share the author names, just the title. But my writer friends in the audience knew my story’s title. They also had submitted their pages, so there was at least a sense of shared fear.
As luck would have it, my first page of The Storyteller’s Reputation (the first novel I wrote, but the second in The Storyteller series) was chosen by the legendary writer and huge SiWC supporter Jack Whyte, who read my first page in his thick Scottish brogue.
I was over the moon, for Jack was one of the reasons I had begun writing historical fiction in the first place after becoming enthralled by his Camulod Chronicles series.
I was so excited to hear his voice transport me back in time. But after three sentences he stopped. No agents had put up their hand – so why had he stopped? He told everyone he had spotted a word in the story, an historical anachronism, that did not exist until the 17th century. I forget which word it was, which would have made this a better story, but the point is, my story is set in the 14th century. I had not done my research. He carried on, the agents hands began to go up, and he didn’t quite finish the page by the time all five hands were up. While I received some positive feedback it was clear the page wasn’t ready. Nor was I. Lesson learned: I needed to spend more time tending to my craft. Do more work, and do more research.
But even if I had landed the right word, it might have been one that no one can understand. So context needs to be added so the reader can deduce the meaning. And I wouldn’t want to have too many period words on one page, or I might lose my readers.
So for almost every sentence I write now, I consult a raft of research tools. My first go-to is the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary at www.oed.com. I also use www.etymology.com. Another good one for historical fiction writers is Green’s Dictionary of Slang (online) or the book The Vulgar Tongue: Green’s History of Slang but as most of the entries are from the 16th through 20th centuries, this is less useful for me (but do check out the incredibly dense bibliography for other excellent sources). And on my desk sit Medieval Wordbook by Madelaine Pelner Cosman, A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases by Christopher Coredon and Ann Williams, The Palgrave Literary Dictionary of Chaucer by Malcolm Andrew, and A Chaucer Glossary by Norman David et al, along with many other sources and biographies.
I also created a gloss list (glossary) of period words that I will include in the first novel in The Storyteller series, The Storyteller’s War: Geoffrey Chaucer, reluctant spy, coming May, 2025. Right after I sent off the MS to the publisher I spotted two more anachronisms, and had to re-send. I’m sure readers will find more. Shakespeare and Dickens had them so there’s that.
That said, I know each historical fiction author must do his or her best to do the research, or may yet be called a fliperous fleak (17th C.) or a chitty-faced (nope – 17th C.) blore (close, but not quite close enough, as C. 1440) by some, whereas I’d rather be called a complaining grutch, a jangler, or a heanling. If you’re going to slag someone in your writing, slag them proper (“slag” entered the lexicon in the early 19th C., BTW). And so it goes…