The Tiffany Problem
This is a neat little writing conundrum I just learned of, so I thought I would talk about it here.
Credit where credit is due, I believe Jo Walton coined the term.
So what is it?
Put simply, the Tiffany Problem occurs when you have a medieval fantasy (or similar, of course) where a reader believes something is anachronistic because the reader’s perception of history is inaccurate. I’ve actually come across that issue a handful of times as a reader myself, and one sticks out: I read a cool epic fantasy where the main character’s name was Matthew. That name is Biblically old, of course, so there would be tons of people in the Middle Ages named Matthew. But… it didn’t sound right. I found it hard to read the book because I kept thinking the protagonist was just a regular guy from the twenty-first century. The common fix in that circumstance would probably be to name the character Matthias or Mayhew.
Another one I read recently was an Age of Sail adventure novel that mentioned something cutting like barbed wire. On that occasion, I was actually correct. Barbed wire wasn’t invented yet in the Age of Sail, or at the very most it had been around for an extremely limited number of days.
According to a few quick Google searches, a lot of complaints that end up being Tiffany Problems come from misportrayal of race. An African guy fighting alongside Vikings in 1100 AD feels wrong, doesn’t it? But it probably happened quite a bit in real life. People moved around way more in the old days than we tend to give them credit, and there was a little thing known as the Varangian Guard—Saxon Norsemen who fought for Byzantium as a professional army. You can find Viking graffiti in the Hagia Sophia still today (which is pretty cool!).
What is the lesson?
No matter how much you research and correctly write your medieval fantasy, some people aren’t going to like it because of their own lack of research. That sucks, and there isn’t much we can do about it. Changing a character from Alan (a name as old as humanity itself) to one like Ælan could be a quick fix for something simple, but rewriting history to better fit false preconceived notions isn’t great.
In the end, research your time period. It is better to be correct about the history and get complaints stemming from the Tiffany Effect than to cater to readers with limited knowledge of history. Don’t sacrifice your own vision, but use awesome historical details (like Vikings fighting in the Middle East) to enhance your story and bring it to life.
One final piece of advice: it helps to experience things. If you’re writing about the Age of Sail, for instance, see if you can get yourself on a sailing ship. Even a couple hours while docked at port or in a museum could be incredibly beneficial. When I first made the switch from writing thrillers and horror to epic fantasy, a friend of mine told me about a pseudo-realistic reenactment group he joined. They wore real plate armor with all the appropriate accoutrements and fought each other with real (though blunted) weapons. I went and hung out with the group a couple times, then got to try it out myself. Sure, the experience isn’t perfect, but it certainly helped. One thing that sticks out a lot was how loud getting hit on the helmet was. It didn’t really hurt—even at full strength—but it left my ears ringing for a long time. And the weight! The image of heavily armored knights doing all sorts of cool acrobatics during a fight is simply not true. Armor weighs a lot. I also recommend that authors writing about guns go to a firing range every now and then. Shoot the guns you write, and you’ll end up writing them better. And at the very least, research your firearms thoroughly. Gun nuts like to flex their knowledge and will be quick to jump on your 1954 Mosin Nagant firing 18 rounds without reloading.
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