Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
I did a lot of research and did the very best I could to make it accurate.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
Well, my beta reader seemed quite hostile about some of the things I wrote (that weren't accurate).
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I've been sitting on my hands since I first asked how much you know about London and English English, but I've been taken aback by your response. To put it mildly.
Gregg, I want to put this gently, but once you lose a reader because of the anachronisms, you'll never get that reader back. Can you really afford to alienate readers who are disposed to be interested in your books, until they read one? Do you have such a large potential audience?
Your beta reader is hostile? That tells me all I need to know. This was someone who was predisposed to be helpful at a minimum. And to have a reaction of hostility to me implies that s/he felt his time was wasted and that the book can't be fixed. Your reaction is to get rid of the reader, when my feeling is that you should shelve the book.
Again, there isn't an infinite pool of people who are going to be willing to give your books a try. Could you chalk this up to a learning experience, maybe cannibalize the bits that work into another novel with a setting that you know?