Faralas said:
The way we write and speak today is not a good style in which to write a story that takes place in 17th century England. And frankly, I've seen a lot of people who attempt writing such an historical piece without ever reading anything from that particular time period. [Edit: btw, the word 'style' does not necessarily mean or pertain to historical writing, or 'how' we write. 'Style' also means grammatically correct. I wanted to clear that up before any ensuing confusion.]
Wordy McWord. If I see "okay" or "cool" or "alright" in a piece with a medieval setting one more time...
I've stated numerous times on this board that writing does not exist in a vacuum. One cannot break rules if they do not know what they are in the first place. And that is exactly what 'taking literary license' means. So, from a critiquing point of view, it is most frustrating to spend time giving advice to a new writer who hasn't bothered doing their homework. Equally frustrating are those who receive feedback, employ the advice 'verbatim' and repost it within a half hour's time. That tells me they have not considered how that advice might affect their story, their style and their voice.
I've run into a few authors who mean well, and try to follow a beta's or a reivewer's advice to the letter, but the result is often... misguided. There was a girl writing Harry Potter fanfiction who wrote up a profile of her character. People chimed in and commented that the character was horribly, horribly Mary Sueish. The girl tried to give her character flaws, but for every flaw she put in and for every Sueish quality she removed, she put in three more Sueish traits. Ah, what the heck, if you're morbidly curious, see the
fiasco for yourself, complete with author-whining and freak-out. It's almost a textbook example of what
not to do.
