Sara Whitford asked Terri Evert Karsten:

I am loving A Mistake of Consequence so far! The dialogue is so vividly written, you can almost hear the characters speaking. What would you say helped you the most in being able to accurately write that time frame and the dialects used? Also, how did you come to learn so much about old sailing vessels. Your description is fantastic and spot-on.

Terri Evert Karsten I'm glad you are enjoying it! The answer to both questions is research. For the dialects, I read widely, especially from the time period I'm covering. So I've read newspapers from the era, as well as all of Abigail Adams letters, and a lot of Ben Franklin's writings. Another thing that helps is my degree in linguistics. I have studied a great deal of how language in general works. Finally, there are many websites that provide information on dialects. I always check several websites to verify the information.

For sailing vessels, I've done some reading and some hands on research, like touring period vessels, and sailing in San Francisco bay and Lake Superior.

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