: Re: How can I write about historical realities that readers mistakenly believe are unrealistic? Readers have certain expectations about locations and time periods, things they "know". For example, people

@Voss1744584

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First of all, I wonder if you're over-thinking this. A lot of the phenomenon you're talking about seems to be bad-faith readers who don't "mistakenly" believe the historical realities are unrealistic, but who are pushing a view that they're unrealistic as part of sociopolitical agenda. The value of cutting them off in the text of your work seems questionable, but it is plausible that supporting the historical reality at the textual level will prevent them from convincing others to believe their version of history (and thereby treat your work as flawed and you as the one who's pushing a counterfactual agenda), so I think it's still worth considering what you can do.

I'm going to take your forks example to work with because it's not loaded in any way I'm aware of. I also don't know anything about the history of fork prevalence, so I'm going to make up some details with the idea that it's the principle that matters here.

So, if you're concerned readers will find forks unrealistic in your setting, don't just write that your characters are using forks. Describe them in terms of how they fit into your setting. For example if most fine forks in your setting came in via trade with another country or city, describe how the fork a character is picking up fits or differs from that in-world expectation. Is it an heirloom that differs from what's in widespread use at the time of the story? Is it something that shows great wealth beyond what most people would have? Or is it a simple piece of metal (or whatever material?) produced by local craftspeople? By doing any of this, you signal that you have awareness of how you intend that it fit into your world, rather than just haphazardly throwing it in. Then if someone comes to question it, they can check the historical facts and see that your intent matches them, rather than being able to assume "maybe you just got lucky that there were really forks in your setting".

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