The Writers' Lounge

Well, Philippa Gregory is enormously popular, and I think she falls down on both the mindset and the fact on a regular basis. Mindset is always tricky, since we can't REALLY know and there's also the issue that too much Values Dissonance makes a character unsympathetic for many readers--but some kind of effort is a good idea, and I think that can only really be made by reading all the primary sources you can get your hands on (reading a bunch of Elizabethan wills gave me more insight into actual people than a dozen histories).

I mean, I don't want to act like our ancestors were space aliens--whenever I see people go "No one bonded with animals or children! That kind of emotion is modern!" I want to pummel them with primary sources. But it's the kind of thing where going to the other extreme and going They Were Just Like Us tends to result in the costume-party feel.

Really, I'd agree - it's a matter of, whatever the genre, the fiction working within believable rules.

Yep! And there's a lot of fiction that collapses on examination--it can still be enjoyable (and popular, and best-selling), but I know I personally would like to do better.