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This was posted on one of my Historical Fiction yahoo groups, so I'm quoting the poster here. I knew this sort of thing went on in children's fiction, but .... really!!! There are no words.
"An author friend of mine writes medieval romances set in Scotland, She is half Scottish herself and knew her history very well, however, her editors wanted a lot of historical facts taken out of the story and she was told to dumb the book down. Why? Because the publisher ( a large mass market publisher in New York) said that the American public don't want too much history in their historical romances!
"So, she had to take out the real medieval words, like destrier and replace it with words the general public would know, like war horse. To me, this is disgusting. I know when I read a book and there is a word I don't know, then I'll look it up and feel better for knowing a new word.
"So, sometimes the lack of historical detail isn't the authors' fault. Sometimes, it's the publisher, who thinks the public don't want to be educated even in a slight way."
I have to praise my publisher mightily in this respect. My novel is pretty hard to catagorize, being a historical homoerotic romantic fiction, but she never once said to me "Do you really have to bang on about Linnaeus?" The editors did question my use of "big words" once or twice but I was firm and said that if they didn't know what words like "bursary" meant then they could go and look 'em up.
But really. I've ranted about this in Harry Potter fandom, where they changed the books to suit the American market and had the kids eating Jello and Fries instead of Jelly and chips, but dumbing down in historical novels? I learned a lot of my history from Jean Plaidy, and if I didn't know a word I looked it up. It's almost as if there's some conspiracy to keep people stupid. How is one supposed to improved one's vocabularly if you are never presented with a word you don't know? Call My Bluff is the best game EVER. Rant ranty rant rant.
Rant.
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But romance has the target group of: "lower to middle education women, housewifes, or low qualification women, such as shop assistants and cashiers, who read stuff on the way from work and largely as a form of escapism".
Historical romance is seen as "romance in historical costumes/in a historical setting".
And if you think that is really horrible of me to say this, as it's demeaning, beside the point and dowright arrogant
...
that is what an editor at the biggest German publish house told mew on the phone. With not a hint of guilt or hesitation.
That is, what they perceive as the "target group".
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No wonder I find many historical romances to be written on roughly the third-grade level. They're like...they could be kiddie lit if it weren't for the smut, because there are no big words.
When I find a historical romance that makes me think, I adore it and cling to it. Unfortunately, they are few and far between. Now I know why.
Yeesh. I'm with you--I learned a lot of history from novels, and from being inspired by novels to look up the real history of a time period.
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That being said, when I told a friend of mine about my latest sale, she said, "You didn't use a lot of big words like you did in the last one, did you?"
::SIGH::
There's plenty of stuff for the intellectually lazy reader. How about the rest of us?!
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/soapbox
That being said, there's plenty of literature out there for people who don't like big words...there's no need to make it all for them. UGH.
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Ok why was Braveheart such a big hit?
I wish they would look at trends and ask what do people want.
These things must give you headachs....
*nods*
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Besides, she says, "destrier" is a perfectly fine word, and one I knew when I was six. So there. PFFFT. (Okay, okay, I admit, I'm an anomaly, since I was reading H. Rider Haggard's "Cleopatra" when I was four, and Tennyson when I was seven, but sheesh. SOME of us like our words and our history just fine, thankyewverymuch, even if we do happen to have the misfortune of being American.)
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And yes, I agree. I remember reading Prince Caspian and his horse was called Destrier and I knew it must mean something so I went and looked it up!
It's these sweeping generalisations that drive me BONKERS.
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Oops!
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*grr*
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I'm being horribly arrogant and offensive; my apologies.
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~off in her own little button-filled world...~
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"He undid the coral buttons held on with the black oiled silk, then slid the watered silk blouse from her shoulders before moving on to the calico undervest..." only far far more detail than that it was about 2 pages of uber description!
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I particularly like the forums -- there is usually at least one convo at all times about wallpaper history or historical accuracy, and sometimes the author comes in and defends herself against charges of innaccuracy, and it's all very fascinating. In a "feeding the tigers at the zoo" way, if you don't mind seeing people savaged. Actually, that part is pretty rare. Mostly, people just state their own preferences. It's very true that most of the people who are readers there like more variety and more history in their novels.
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(goes off and tralala's her way into thinkng about buttons and lace and more lace and buttons and how those kneebreeches fit so nicely around ....)
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As long as you keep up the button porn.
*G*
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Me, too. *wg* Although I am supposed to be writing smut, so I suppose I can justify this as helping to create the proper mood...
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And I do so want to take my time and envision my boys. MMMMM mmmm mmmm mmmmm mmm.
Oh God that icon! Bwah hah hah! I love it! (Goes off to listen to some more Holmes/Watson on the otr podcast.... perhaps I can sate myself with that.)
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~froth~
This is not to say that sort of person doesn't exist outside the Mason-Dixon line, but they do seem to be more highly concentrated here. The stereotype is unfortunate, but far too often accurate. ~sob~
But. Buttons. ~lingers lovingly~
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Eet maketh me happy.
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:(
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Once more unto the breach!
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If I don't recognise a word, I look it up. On occasion I've had to do. I don't look at it feeling stupid/silly so much as 'hey, I learned something new today.'
The dumbing down bullshit really aggravats the fuck out of. As someone whose had 9 years of higher education and speaks 3 languages rather fluently, this offends me greatly.
Speaking of HP, do you know why they didn't call the American version of Philosopher's Stone that?
Because they didn't think the word 'Philosopher' would go over as well.
Being American does not equate to being uncultured or unintelligent.
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[remembers that there are not one but two deadlines to be met, and reaches for plot bunny stake]
And people wonder where authors get their ideas from...
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Squire bring my armor, my sword and my destrier,
I've raised an army to break Hanry's power.
South from the Humber, we'll march to the Severn,
With Douglas of Scotland, to join with Glendower.
What can I say, we're Irish. We get all our history (and our Shakespeare) from songs and poetry.
(I once had to sing the whole first verse of "Song of the Shield Wall" under my breath to remember the names of a couple kings in order to make the argument that calling Celts "Anglos" was offensive.)
http://calontir.sca.org/artsci/ferds-songs.html
Lyrics to both there