#ReadingRant when you are writing in a historical period, for the love of everything, give the reader context somewhere--mentioning the year would be great, but if not, something we can use to ground your story as something other than "vaguely medieval" or "sometime in the vague past"
I beg you.
ETA: a footnote. an endnote. an author's note before or after. Just...something, pretty pretty please.
Yeeeeessss, I hear what you're saying. But sometimes, I don't want to have to research too much and it's only a couple thousand words.
(This is, of course, a filthy lie. I have a set of time-travel flash fictions and the amount of research I did into ancient Egypt and the Hittite empire is... uh. A lot.)
@JoanGrey I hadn't thought about something like flash fiction or vignettes, to be honest--but it generally helps to at least have an idea where and when unless it's fantasy, in which case, whatever goes?
But when I'm starting a series set in a country with centuries of history with a somewhat-continuous governing system, it would help to know what century or ruling family we are in. Otherwise I'm at "anywhere from 600 to 1600--give or take a few 100 years" and that ain't helpful.
I actually agree with you; I was just being silly/devil's advocate.
Even just a quick reference to a larger-world event that happens in/around the story's time period would be great. Who's the pope?
@JoanGrey Exactly;
I've reached a point where I get one indicator of the general period, which tells me this is happening somewhere within a 220 years period.
Better than a millennium, but still kind of vague.
Suuuuuper vague, but at least we can make some assumptions about womens' skirts.
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Joan Grey