You Don’t Belong Here

Anachronism 1: the error of placing a person or thing in the wrong period 2: one that is chronologically out of place

Writing historical fiction is difficult. It is so easy to let details of modern life slip into the story—things that are so commonplace today we rarely even notice them, like electricity (which was not used to power lights in homes in the 1700s). I know this is difficult not because I’ve tried to write historical fiction but because I’ve edited it and have seen some of the mistakes authors make.

Lights get “switched on” in the eighteenth century. Criminals escape in speedboats in the nineteenth century. Everyone has a cell phone in the 1960s. (This last one makes me feel really behind the times: I didn’t get a cell phone until 2004.)

Editors can hope and pray that authors do their homework before they write, but the hopes and prayers are often in vain. Often writers just write, expecting the editor to catch and solve any problems. Some fixes are easy. If a 1950s housewife answers her cell phone in the kitchen, I can just edit out “cell,” do a little more rewording if needed, and everything is patched up. But if that same housewife answers her cell phone while driving her car (hopefully using a hands-free device for safety), things are a little more complicated. And if she’s also heating dinner in the microwave and sending e-mail to her astronaut husband while he orbits Earth in the space shuttle, we have some major problems. Large parts of the book will have to be rewritten.

The message to authors: Research the time period you are writing about before you write that novel. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but the results—accurate period detail that will bring your novel to life—will be worth the effort. The message to editors: Keep your eyes open for anything that doesn’t belong—anachronisms can easily slip right by you, even when you’re being careful.

(Definition from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)