Authors Speak Out - Katherine Tomlinson

Is it Wrong to Want to Be Right?

Okay, pop quiz!

Which of the following terms is incorrect?

Naval Base
Army Base
Marine Base
Air Force Base

The answer is b. The correct term is “Army post.”

Here’s another one: Which of the following is incorrect?

The state of Wyoming
The state of Florida
The state of Ohio
The state of Virginia

The answer is d. Virginia is a “Commonwealth.”

The point of this exercise is not to establish that I’m really good at Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy, although I am unless I get stuck with a bunch of questions about rivers and mountains in Eastern Europe, but that thanks to a lifetime of reading and a career working as a general assignment reporter and a lifestyle writer, I know a lot of stuff.

And a surprising amount of that stuff is not something you might expect me to know if you just look at my bio or my Goodreads page or my Facebook timeline, where I post pictures of flowers and deer in my yard, or occasionally share a link to an interesting story about art.

If you write mysteries, romantic suspense, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, or dark fantasy, you probably see me as your perfect reader.

And I am.

Except for one small thing.

If you didn’t bother to check your facts; if you just made something up and figured no one would notice or care—then I am your worst nightmare. Because I can tell. And if I can tell, I’m not the only one.

But it’s just a fluffy romantic suspense novel, you whine. How many people are going to know or care that a Piper Cherokee is a low-wing plane and if you have to bail out in a hurry, you have to reach back and open a door instead of just scrambling out the way you can in a Cessna?

I don’t know how many other people know that but I do because my best friend has a private pilot’s license and we used to fly all over the Southwest. I hated it when we rented a Cherokee because he would always do “fire drills” to see how fast I could get out of the plane in an emergency. (The answer was not very fast. There’s only one door in a Piper Cherokee and it’s on the passenger’s side. So if the passenger can’t get the door open fast enough, everybody dies.)

I can’t be the only romantic suspense reader who’s ever been in a small plane.

Give me a break, you’re thinking. You’re just being persnickety.

Why yes, I am. And I am not the only one.

I have a friend who majored in costume illustration in art school. She loves historical romance, but she knows exactly when the fashions changed in 17th century Germany and if a writer fumbles the description of the furbelows (or even misuses the word “furbelows”), that writer is going to get a one star review from her.

And you know what?

Rightfully so, in my opinion.

Fiction is not fact. But when you’re writing something that takes place in the real world, set in a particular time period, set against a real backdrop, in a real profession, it’s up to you to GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.

For example, you can’t plead “innocent” in a court of law. It’s guilty or not guilty. And every law student, paralegal, legal secretary, or attorney on the planet knows that. (It has to do with the concept that in America, we’re innocent until proven guilty.) But how many times have you read that in a story or seen it on a television show? Probably a bazillion trillion times. I know I have.

I come from a journalism background, so I’m pretty obsessive about checking my facts. But I’d like to think I’d do it anyway. Because if I make it up, somebody will know. And for that reader, the reading experience will be spoiled—if not a lot, at least a little—and I don’t ever want that to happen because I got sloppy or lazy.

And by the way, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth” is not a quote from the Bible, it’s from King Lear. People get that one wrong all the time. And English teachers, biblical scholars, and actors know it.

Get it right.

Questions for the Readers:

1. Is there something writers often get wrong that you know about? A detail of a career, for example? A mistake in a time period that you actually lived through?
2. Do you think I am being too persnickety? Do you think readers, in general, don’t care about how accurate something is as long as they’re being entertained? Is it too harsh to subtract a star for getting it wrong?
3. Have you ever gotten something wrong?

I have. Once in a review of a new Stephen King book I referred to a character from The Stand, which is one of my favorites. And because (hubris!) I love the book so much, I didn’t bother to check the character’s name. And I got it wrong. Which a commenter pointed out. And rightfully so. I should have checked.

About Katherine Tomlinson

Author Bio:

Katherine Tomlinson is a former reporter who prefers making things up. Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including Weird Noir, Pulp Ink 2, and These Vampires Don’t Sparkle. She writes fantasy romance under the name “Kat Parrish.” (No relation to the children’s author Kat Parrish.) She is the author of Bride of the Midnight King, A Dream of Sun and Roses, and the upcoming Daughter of the Midnight King. She lives in Bellingham, Washington within walking distance of a waterfall and a haunted cemetery.

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