This week I started a new story in my Babylon series. It’s a little different from most of the others because the main character in this story is the priest Arioch. The beginning is in the Esagila temple complex, Babylon’s main religious center, and I was on a roll, pounding the keys as the words flowed.


About three or four hundred words later, I paused, went back to tidy up what I’d written, and stopped at one word.


Bedlam.


I’d used the word to describe Arioch’s thoughts about the noise coming from outside. For some reason it didn’t feel right, but I wasn’t sure why. On an impulse, I reached behind my desk for the dictionary in the book case and flicked to the “B’s”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, bedlam is a corruption of Bethlehem, first used in England in the 1400’s and 1500’s in relation to the London mental hospital St. Mary of Bethlehem.


Over time, the word bedlam came to mean uproar and confusion. More importantly, it isn’t a word Arioch would have known or used.


There was a part of me that argued to leave the wording as it was. After all, how many of my readers would pick up on Arioch using a word that didn’t exist until nearly a thousand years after he lived? The thing is, I’d know, and every time I read that paragraph it would kick me out of the story, which means some of you are likely to have the same reaction.


I changed the paragraph, but Arioch’s still in trouble. Now, I just have to work out how he fixes it