I was wondering if there was some general rule in writing fiction not to use dates that could have ever actually occurred - for instance, in one novel I'm reading, it states that Aug. 17, 1989 was a Thursday, when it was actually a Wednesday. Is there a reason for this - kind of like the 555 phone # rule in tv or movies - or is this more likely just an oversight on the writer's part?
Hmmm. I try to keep my dates accurate. In fact, I was getting a kick out of the fact that up until Leap Year Day, my novel's days and dates and the days and dates for 2015 - early 2016 were the same. Does the author in question get the days and dates accurate in the rest of the book? Or are they consistently off?
So far I haven't found any other reference to a specific date, & I haven't read any of his other novels. So would you guess there is no such rule?
I think it's an oversight. Personally, if I have to use a real date, I look it up. They aren't too hard to find through Internet search engines.
It's an error with a lengthy pedigree, at least. I've seen people conclude that no time period makes sense for when Oliver Twist could take place based on the days of the week and month it mentions.
Definitely not. The reason the '555' thing exists is because, I'm not kidding, they want to avoid using anything that could possibly be real because people actually call numbers they see in shows and movies "to see if it's real". As there's no real equivalency to using calendar dates, there's likely no reason you couldn't use past dates that actually existed.
I've never heard of any deliberate policy on that. My personal inclination would be to get the date and day synched with a perpetual calendar.