Reading Fiction: A Moment of Arrgh!

[akirlu]

Okay. Say your story is set in London in the early 19th century, and you've established that a group of characters are poor. They're a guild of servant-class laborers who collectively have not had work in months. And they were never well paid or prosperous to begin with. And now, because of public antipathy, these guys have been stuck in their

Comments

[smofbabe]

Arrrgh indeed! I read a lot of historical mysteries so I have experience with this type of arrrgh.

[harvey_rrit]

Obviously they contacted their friends via email.

[bedii]

There's a wonderful swashbuckler set in the late 1700's where the captain calls a scam they'll be running a caper. Twice. That's when I have to go get popcorn, else my blood pressure blow the top of my head off.

[malkingrey]

Some people simply don't have an ear for period-appropriate language, and that's all there is to it. And then there are the people like us, for whom a word from the wrong period is as jarring as a houppelande with a zipper down the back.

[athenais]

Oh dear oh dear oh dearie dear.

[malkingrey]

"Lifestyle" and "relationship" are two of the ones that will set me off. ("Lifestyle", in particular, if the character in question is at all educated, will have me muttering, "What on earth is wrong with modus vivendi, huh?")

Also the phrase "be there for him/her/[insert noun or pronoun here]."