fret fret

[erastes]

I find myself worrying about the most ludicrous things, and I simply can’t help it, and then I get frustrated when I can’t find the information I want. 

The Norfolk Broads, as some of you probably know, were cut out (for peat) many many years ago, sometime around the 12th century and as they started to fill with water they were abandoned. 

Horsey Mere, where Mere Mortals is set, is linked to Hickling Broad by a “cut” e.g. a thin channel – and I’ve been trying to find out when this cut was “cut.” because if it was AFTER 1847 it will just about ruin my book.  Part of me is saying “oh come on – no-one will ever know, not anyone who buys your book.”  But then part of me says “but they MIGHT—and I’ll know that I didn’t know.”

What do you do? Do you give up and wing it if you really really can’t find out?

M/M is misogyny. Discuss

Torchwood!  Oh God. So much goodness. So much… nakedness. And not female either. So much brave Ianto. So GOOD.

Heirhunters is the most boring programme ever. Official.

Comments

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

I turn to drink when this happens to me.

Well, not too much.

Seriously, I was obsessing way way way too much on these kinds of things and ended up deciding that I'd bloody well put magic in my world, so I didn't have to worry about what store was in the proper section of NYC in 1888 so my protag. could buy an evening suit OFFSTAGE. I mean, I still try to make sure that the tiny details are right, but if they aren't -- it's an alternate world, okay?

[angrboda]

It says here that peat digging was abandoned already in the 14th century, so surely you'd be safe with 1847?
Unless I'm misunderstanding and this is not what you mean.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

yes, the main pits were abandoned in the 14th century, but some of the "cuts" were made much more recently, to enable sailing from one pit to another as the tourism and sailing took off in the area.

i've asked the Broads Authority, but they haven't replied... :(

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the beauty of the AU! :D

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Unexpected Ianto in the hi-res jacket and helmet, driving a fork lift truck ftw! The man is seriously awesome, and all without having a superpower of any kind.

Gwen and Rhys were pretty awesome too :D I think I like the new pared down team, though I wish Dr. Rupesh was joining up and hadn't turned out to be a baddy. I liked him.

[angrboda]

I'd say if they don't know, nobody knows unless you go out and ask people who actually live there. And they still might not know.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I had good thoughts for Rupesh too, and I was all jaw-dropping when he whipped out his gun!

I have much MUCH love for Rhys.

Cut to Hickling Broad

[johnrw.livejournal.com]

Without some research I can't be 100% sure, however Arthur Ransome set two books in the Broads and I'm pretty sure that Hinkling broad was used as a location (Coot Club) If so the ut was definitely there between WW1 and WW2

Re: Cut to Hickling Broad

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Nod nod - yes, many of the "new cuts" were done in the 19th century, but I'd be happier if I knew about 1847 - I'll keep nagging the Broads Authority, and then panic afterwards!

[yud.livejournal.com]

The oldest sources I can find online that mention the waterway between Horsey Mere and Hickling Broad data from 1896 (On the Broads by Anna Bowman Dodd and Joseph Pennell) and 1903 (The Norfolk Broads by William Alfred Dutt). Both those books talk about sailing between Hickling Broad and Horsey Mere as a standard thing to do, so it sounds like the cut between them had existed for at least some time before those books were written, but that doesn't really answer your question unfortunately.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

In that case - I think I will ignore the subject, and simply try and ignore the nagging voice - or see what the BA come up with and rewrite accordingly....

[yud.livejournal.com]

From The Norfolk Broads, talking about sailing from Hickling Broad/Heigham Sound to Horsey Mere: "yachtsmen, daunted by the difficulties the Old Meadow Dyke, seldom visit the Mere, and the only boats seen on it are those belonging to its owners."

If the cuts in the 1800s were to facilitate boating, it seems unlikely that the channel would be difficult to navigate, more evidence of it being fairly old.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh - that's brilliant, it is a very wiggly cut between the broads,and not one I'd like to attempt by sail, that's very true!

Thank you!

[rwday.livejournal.com]

What do you do? Do you give up and wing it if you really really can’t find out?

I think so. Depending on where/when your book is set, it can be next to impossible to find specific details. Earlier periods were far less obsessed with keeping records than we are and often those records they did keep didn't survive, and if you're dealing with pre-literate culture, the situation's even worse. You've got to make those intuitive leaps, or you end up like me, bogged down in details and afraid to proceed because you may have a building located in the wrong street or some other detail that 99% of your readers won't even care about.

I think that as long as the details you invent are logical and consistent with your research, you're okay.

I posted on something similar today - must be something in the water, though my issue came from reading, not writing.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

That would do my head in. I couldn't wing it, and I'm not sure you could.

Keep nagging the Broads authority. Also - got any local history societies/nerds you can ask?

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

A suggestion for you - have you considered checking old maps to check whether the cut was there back then or not? The Ordnance Survey had certainly covered the entire country by the dates you're concerned with, and it looks like you can get hold of the 1937-38 map for that part of Norfolk.

http://www.cassinimaps.co.uk/shop/product.asp?numRecordPosition=2&mapNum=134&P_ID=252&strPageHistory=cat&strKeywords=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=71

(And yes, Torchwood is turning out to be pleasingly not-crap.)

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I just had a similar problem. Like you, I'm a fanatical researcher, and if I write something in a story, I want to be able to hold my head up in a crowd of other research-fanatic novelists, if not actual historians or scientists or whatever.

In my case, I needed a quote from a certain type of travel-exploration writing. Such, I discovered, did not exist in the right time-frame. But I found something from about 30 years later that was otherwise perfect. So I changed the type of weaponry mentioned, altered the quote a little, and told myself, "Well, something like this COULD have existed. And at least it sounds about right."

I'd never just cave to the Dan Brown standard, but there comes a point where story is more important than absolute accuracy, don't you think?

By the way, your setting sounds really interesting.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

I had a look through the discussion in your link to Alex Beecroft's journal. I think m/m IS a bit misogynistic. I mean, I write it, I read it, I love it to the point where het stuff seems boring to me, and I'd be the first to admit that there's probably an element of female self-loathing in there.

On the other hand, I could argue that applying a broad, negative label to an activity or artform or expression that seems to be carried out mostly by women is also misogynistic. We like m/m. We feel it. We're drawn to it. We don't owe explanations to other women about it any more than we owe explanations to men for our feelings.

Um...so there. I think.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i will look and see if i can find one--thanks!