The main reason it is taking me so long to make progress on the historical novel I'm working on is that there are so many ways to trip up. Recreating the past is a minefield of anachronisms, missteps, and potential howlers that you have to carefully creep your way through.
For example, you can never tell which common phrases might not have been around during the time you are writing about. In the past few days, almost randomly, I've learned from both A.J. Liebling's Mollie and Other War Pieces and Paul Fussell's Wartime that using the phrase "This is it" in its modern usage (to signify the start of something dramatic or momentous) is an invention of American infantrymen during the early days of the Second World War.
I guess it one of those small points, but if historical novelists don't lose sleep about them, who will?
For example, you can never tell which common phrases might not have been around during the time you are writing about. In the past few days, almost randomly, I've learned from both A.J. Liebling's Mollie and Other War Pieces and Paul Fussell's Wartime that using the phrase "This is it" in its modern usage (to signify the start of something dramatic or momentous) is an invention of American infantrymen during the early days of the Second World War.
I guess it one of those small points, but if historical novelists don't lose sleep about them, who will?
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