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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37789
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It might depend on the genre and style you are writing in, but from your description it seems you are mostly interested in more realistic historical fiction. If that's the case, there is nothing wrong with trying to be historically accurate. Knowingly putting in anachronistic elements just because you _assume_ the readers expect it might get counterproductive, especially as interest seems to be gaining for more historically accurate fiction.

If you write light-hearted comical fantasy, then you can get away with lots of anachronisms, but many historical misconceptions get more and more known, so over time such unrealistic elements might move from the norm into parodies.

**So, what methods can you use to present historically accurate but generally misunderstood elements?**

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# 1 Addressing the reader

This will only work if done in very strict moderation, and is best suited for social norms and behaviors. Alexandre Dumas used it with great finesse, when one of his characters did something which was considered normal for that historical period, but the reader would find shocking if done today (or in the author's era), the narrator mentioned in a few words that times and social norms were different back then. To make it even more subtle, you can describe the actions of a character, and then you can present the other characters around acting normal, not finding it strange at all.

# 2 The Watson

Have a character who is either clueless, or from a different culture, so you can explain things from within the setting. Of course, it has to be done in moderation, but it can work very well if it's not overdone. Make this clueless character have the same misconceptions about the setting as you would expect the average reader to have, so the misconceptions can be debunked by that character actually encountering "the real thing". Of course, you shouldn't make that character a strawman or too unsympathetic, because you might insult the readers by making them think you hold them stupid.

Using one of your examples about Roman apartment blocks. Have someone from a foreign culture visit Rome, while talking to his Roman friend, and as they walk around they encounter some [insulae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building)). The foreigner is surprised, and tells his friend that he thought Romans lived in one or two storied mansions with an atrium in the middle, with a fountain surrounded by pillars, just like he has seen it on paintings and heard it in stories. The local then mentions, that only the rich live in houses like that, the poor live in crammed five-floor apartment blocks.

# 3 Details.

If you mention a realistic (but not well known) fact only in passing, the reader might think you just slipped up.

If you instead make it an integral part of the story, describe it in more detail, make it fit into the setting, and show how it works, then the reader can get a feeling that it must be normal.

If you give enough importance and enough detail to it, you won't need the narrator or another character explaining it, it will look self-evident.

For example, there is the widespread myth that medieval swords were extremely heavy and completely dull bludgeoning tools, and you could cleave through plate armor by using the sword's weight to crush the armor. What to do in this case? Show, don't tell. If swords are drawn, it is an action scene. Don't stop the action for the narrator to start giving an academic lecture about [HEMA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_European_martial_arts), just show how the characters use the sword and the armor. Show how the fighter handles his well balanced blade with swift motions, how quickly he parries attacks aimed at his most vulnerable spots, show how someone slips up by hitting the armor with the edge of the sword which just bounces off without even inconveniencing his opponent while throwing himself off balance, and then finally show the elaborate techniques master swordsmen used to make a stab at the hard to reach vulnerable spots of an armor.

Original score: 31