Blatant errors can turn a reader off, but too much information can have the same effect. You have to balance your writing with enough factual information to make it seem real without writing a textbook.
Do your research to make sure that your facts are consistent with your setting. There are some places where lack of authenticity can trip you up. If your action takes place in another country, or another time, then know authentic facts about currency, fashions, trends, social attitudes, etc.
Dialogue should reflect the location, ethnicity, social status, education and time period. But your narrative needs to be readable by today’s readers. While it may fit very well to have a character in the UK talk of a boot (in their car), don’t expect your readers in America to understand the same terminology.
When you are writing it sounds real when your character seems knowledgeable about their career and throws out a term or two that is consistent with the job. Stop short of trying to teach your readers how to be the same biomedical engineer, for example, that your heroine is. You are not writing a textbook and while professionals may enjoy reading about people in their chosen field, fiction is escapism – and your readers may not be schooled in the same things your character is or even looking to immerse themselves in “work”.
Let’s imagine that your character is a teacher and part of their job is to lecture to a class of eager students – there is no need to include the lecture in its entirety. Instead of including several pages that read like an encyclopedia entry, just include a few highlights for authenticity and pepper those with student reactions, teacher thoughts, etc.
While there is always room for “poetic license” be careful if you are writing a historical novel. Remember history actually happened and you have to stay within parameters. The ways you can alter some of the actual facts include basing a fictional story with fictional characters on a historical timeline and staying far away from the very well known and actual events, or in some form of fantasy such as time travel or parallel universes.
While including lots of detail about history, settings, procedures or even furnishings or fashions may make things seem authentic, too much just becomes a lot of unnecessary verbiage. Unless an item or situation has a direct bearing on the story, try to trim the description a bit. Think how important an item, or its specifics, is before you decide how much emphasis you put on an object.
An example of this is: Ordinarily it may not be important that the there is one of four throw pillows on a couch that is a faded red, but if faded red fibers are pulled from the throat of a strangulation victim, suddenly that pillow may be pivotal to the story.
Writing exercise: Choose an important time in your life, make notes about the styles, news items, language, and fads of the time. Create a fictional character (try to make the character UNLIKE you) and write a short diary entry of a day in THAT character’s life.
Writing prompt: Choose any five objects in the room you are presently in. Write ONE thing about each object that might make it pertinent to a fiction story (see the example of the throw pillow above).
