Setting

So. I need to do more research and re-envision this home in 17th century Japan. It's hard (and why I need to re-think this whole chapter) because a lot of the things that we think of today as traditionally Japanese didn't come into being until some point in the Tokugawa/Edo period. And my story takes place in the early Tokugawa period. The time frame is one thing I don't want to change, due to a certain historical personnage that shows up in an early chapter. So I really need to figure out just what is available and plausible for that time period.

Also, I need to think about status. Even if say, there were shoji doors and fusuma doors and genkan in the early Tokugawa period, those were more likely to be found in the homes of samurai and wealthy nobles. My character, K-chan, is not of that class, and yet I had her living in a home suitable for a samurai (I am still so tempted to give her the finer things in life just because they're more "traditionally Japanese" and more known to us, but I need to be more realistic). Perhaps the first thing I need to do is to figure out exactly where she falls, socially, and what that implies for her material world.

It's hard to write about things you don't know. For example, cotton was introduced to Japan in the 14th and 15th centuries, but it didn't become widely used and grown in Japan until the 17th century (IIRC). Before that, people wore clothing made from hemp or ramie. I can look up hemp and ramie all I want online, but what do they feel like? How do they crinkle? How rough are they on the skin? And if you wore that material all your life because you were too poor to afford silk, how much or little discomfort/annoyance would you perceive? And how would your world change when you finally obtained a cotton kimono? ...Thank goodness cotton did become more widely used by the time my story starts. That's one less thing to worry about (and I hope cotton was as widely used by the time my story starts as I'm going to assume it was, or I will have more headaches trying to explain that people back then didn't have bedding; they just slept with their clothing covering them). Oh pre-modern Japan. You are fascinating to no end, but equally frustrating.

I am so paranoid that one day, after this gets published, critics will be cutting it to pieces for taking so many liberties with historical details, and for being historically inaccurate in general. Artistic license is not an excuse for ignorance or laziness.