update – Page 2 – Benjamin L. Clark, writer

8 June 201626 May 2020

“Bingo.” At the intersection of History & Slang

I can get swept along when writing, especially when writing dialogue. I’ve heard this state of writing called “flow” and that makes sense to me. Cruising along in my current story, set sometime around 1935 and out of the mouth of one of my characters comes the word “Bingo.” I’ve never used the word outside the game with the balls and whirlywheels myself, but this fictional gent decided to say it in my story. It jolted me out of the story and I thought: Did anyone even use the word Bingo in the ’30s? Just one of the things I worry about.

In my story, I mean “Bingo” in the sense of “you got it” not “I have aligned 5 arbitrary letter-number combinations, give me a prize.” Etymological dictionaries on my shelf say maybe Bingo goes back to 1815, the other says maybe only 1936 without much explanation. Not very helpful. I want my stories to capture language as it was used, to sound natural but be historically…well, probable if not absolutely correct.

Etymological dictionaries saying it was used in 1815, so yes, it would fine in a story set in the 1930s just isn’t good enough. In historical research, we sometimes get to that point of proving if something was at all possible and ignore if it was probable. It’s setting a too low bar for historical accuracy.

This is where Google Books’ Ngram Viewer can be helpful. It uses the collective bajillion-zillion words scanned by Google Books and charts them by year published. You can use it to chart a word or phrase’s popularity in all of GoogleBooks 450 million scanned published works. It’s not definitive, and may not perfectly reflect normal conversation, but certainly helpful to see how frequently the word was used in print. I don’t think it includes newspapers, which would be very useful if it would.

Turns out 1930-something isn’t a great time of the word Bingo. It was around, and was used earlier according to this chart, but has been climbing in popularity since then. The true high-water mark came in 1976, apparently. No idea why that would be, but that’s for someone else to chase. I have a story to get back to.

Like this post? Here’s more about historical research:
How to know Things are Bound to get Worse
How to Research History like a Novelist

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

22 April 2016

To new beginnings

This is definitely not my first blog post.

I had a blog about book collecting and bibliophilia for many years over on blogger. I’m active over on tumblr too, but that isn’t so much blogging as a constant stream of amusing/pretty/cool stuff. I post a lot of photos and quotes and things I happen to like, (i.e. typewriters. I love me some typewriters.) It’s more immediate too, so there will be music links and funny memes, you know, tumblr stuff. Here, I’ll share links to articles, tools, and especially historic research resources I find helpful. I may occasionally post music to write to, or cool images.

Here, I’ll talk about my research, my writing, whatever I’m working on as I progress toward my writing goals. What are those goals? Well, in the short-term, I’ve managed to get a piece of flash-fiction placed with cool series from Akashic Books. Next is to finish another short (but longer than flash) piece and get it placed somewhere. Longer term, I’m working on what I’m seeing as a novella series, and then another series of full-length novels. Both series are historic thrillers/mysteries. One of those series grabbed me by the collar and is dragging me along.

What I’m working on now: a novella set in and around 1930s Denver. I was not alive in the 1930s nor have I lived in Denver, so there’s some research to do. This story also features a main character who I think will be a series character. Anyway, the short has been a lot of fun, using info I’ve dug up previously, but haven’t used.

I’ve gotten to know the main character in this one pretty well. He first appeared as a supporting cast member of my first attempt at a novel back in 2007 or so. Through edits, rewrites, and dumping the whole thing and starting over a couple times, he’s emerged as one of the two main characters of that novel — he was too fascinating, and too much fun to hang out with compared to my original main character.

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Anyway, thanks for reading. No spoilers, but amazing poster served as a bit of inspiration this week:

23 October 2014

Book Review: First Impressions by Charlie Lovett

If you’re a follower of many bloggers, talkers, and reviewers in the bibliosphere (i.e., booklr, bookstagram, et. al.), you’ve probably already heard about Charlie Lovett’s new book, First Impressions. I received a copy of Lovett’s latest bibliomystery from his publisher for review.

It’s good.

For a long time I was a “Decide to read a book, finish it no matter what” reader. If I chose poorly, it was an act of contrition to the bibliogods to finish a crappy book.

But, I began to feel like Life’s Too Short for that kind of strict observance. I asked around what other readers did. Some read to page 100, which seemed like a lot. I was surprised how many were like me — finish it no matter what. Those who would drop a stinker didn’t follow any guidelines, which should have been obvious had I also lead that kind of bohemian, lawless lifestyle like some kind of flamboyantly dressed Borneo ape-man.

Then I heard Nancy Pearl’s good advice, to subtract your age from 100, and that’s the number of pages you should give a book. As you age, and your reading time on earth shortens, and you become a better judge of literature, you don’t have to be quite so full of grace for books that don’t quite deserve to take up precious reading time.

So, for me, that means 66 pages.

By page 40, Fred got his answer:

Yes. Yes, it is a kissing book.

And by page 66 (actually well before page 66 …), I was hooked. But it was good I had adopted that guidance to give First Impressions a fair shake — the opening is cheesier than the pickup lines borne bravely by our protagonist. (An aside: I had a lot of terrible First Impression puns I’ve spared you. You’re welcome.) Not that I’m cheesy-opposed — I’m a big fan of the Aubrey-Mauturin series, but when it comes to romance, I prefer it given a bit more straight.

I found myself drawn in by Sophie Collingwood, a bibliophile in modern London who inherits an amazing library and far more trouble than she ever wanted. A curious bibliophile through and through, I was fascinated to tag along with her for a fun story, intertwined with a story about Jane Austen. I’m no Jane-ite, so I’m definitely not the best one to tell you how accurate/ fulfilling/ uhhh….. Janey(?) that part of the story was, which I know is why many readers will pick this one up. To be honest, I found myself frequently wanting to skip ahead to the modern side of the tale. Not because the Jane side of the story was not interesting, but that I identified more closely with Sophie and her side of the novel.

In the end, it was a good story I’d recommend especially to Anglophile bibliophiles, and I deeply hope it’s a dandy for the Jane Austen fans out there. After all, it’s probably been at least a week since the Jane-ites had a new book to read, which can be way too long for you people. Also in the plus column, I’d rank it highly on “bibliofactor”. The book stuff was meaty and not at all the simple McGuffin some authors try to foist off on us, rather the only setting in which this story could be told. Very good stuff.

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5 October 2008

Leopard Bikini Found in Book

2917465248_3e2233f21e_b Had another book safari for the ages. I found some great books for myself, but also found an instruction book on Hawking! I’m not interested in hawking, personally, at least beyond the theoretical. Don’t get me wrong, training raptors to hunt for you is cool, but I already have too many hobbies. But what a fun book to sit with and learn a little from!

And also, if you’re like me, there is never quite enough money for the books I want, so when I find other interesting books I know are collectible in their own right, I pick them up and send them along to more appreciative owners. Like hawk trainers. For money.

Flipping through the book once I was home, I found a great flyaway. Flyaways are the little bits of stuff we leave in our books to be found later. Receipts, movie tickets, torn off bits are the norm, but I once found a chocolate chip and 30+-year-old pornography carefully Exacto knifed and taped into a compact accordion of pocket smut. Not in the same book, though. Some old-time booksellers refer to flyaways as “hay” though more and more collectors, booksellers, and antique dealers now refer to it as ephemera.

I know you doubt it, but the post card is actually hawking related. The Rare Bird Farm in Miami Florida sent a message to the effect “No, we don’t have hawks”. Photo by Bunny Yeager. Now to decide if I should sell the postcard separate on ebay, or just leave it in the book where I found it for the next guy.

19 April 2008

UCO Book Sale Report

college-photo_15695 — via U.S. News & World Report

Last night I attended the 8th annual Friends of the Library (FOL) sale benefiting the University of Central Oklahoma Library. I’ve visited the UCO campus a couple times before, but never the library. So I started in the visitor lot (mistake) and wondered around. There are no maps posted, so I relied on the kindness of students hanging around to point the library out. The Max Chambers library is in the Northwestern quarter of campus.

It was Friends day, so I joined at the door. Membership levels start at $5, which is quite a bargain! Books were shelved along general topical lines. You know; environmental law in gardening, etc. I arrived at the end of the evening, long after the afternoon rush, so it was a little rummaged, but I still found some great books. There was a good mix of newer and older, hardback and paperback, ex-library and donated. Found some great additions to my Modern Library collection. Prices are very reasonable, and of course, go to a good cause.

Also, I found a flyaway for the record books. Flyaways are the random stuff found in books. Usually postcards, receipts, etc. Well, this was nothing like that. The book was published in 1889, in cloth with a shaken spine and hinges starting. There seemed to be a good-sized pebble or something in the spine. I tried to peek down the back strip– something was down there alright, but I couldn’t see what. I delicately prodded it with my Parker Jotter, popping the invader loose. It clunked out on the shelf — a chocolate chip. Whole and unsullied. Weird.