Getting the details right

When you write a historical novel, you always get something wrong. And sooner or later, a reader tells you about it. My first novel, A FALSE DAWN, required more research than I initially realized, and I found that I loved learning all these new facts.

But every once in a while, I’d make a mistake. Once I had my main character, Louise, plant a garden in her native Montreal, filled with “corn, beans and tomatoes.” I had meant to say corn, beans and squash, but somehow tomatoes came out of my fingers on the keyboard, and it stayed there.

Years later, a reader wrote to me to ask how they grew tomatoes in Canada in the 1740s. Well, they didn’t, and when I called this reader to confess my error, she had a good laugh at my expense.

Another time, a woman looked at the cover of my novel – the cover! – and said, “That’s wrong.” “What is?” I asked. Turns out, on the cover Louise is dressed in the garb of an Amish woman, not a French-Canadian, according to this woman, whose specialty was historical costuming. Who was I to argue?

Needless to say, I’m doing even more research for SUNRISING, the sequel to my first novel, which contnues the story of Louise and her family. And just as needless to say, someday readers will find whatever errors I’ve made and let me know about them!