Word Wenches

Crowning Glory

       From Loretta:
      
      I didn't blog on Saturday because I went to the hairdresser.  Two of my sisters and I drive an hour to a salon in Newton Highlands called Mann Made Style to get our hair cut by Isaac Mann, one of the proprietors.  Then we go to lunch and then we shop.  If we had to, we would drive two hours.  If I had to, I would book a plane flight.  Because I’m shallow?  Yes, of course.  But I think how your hair looks has a lot to do with how you feel, and Isaac has never made me feel less than fabulous.
      The makeover shows have a similar philosophy about the importance of hair.
      I’m not a big fan of reality shows but I do like some of the makeovers.  My favorite is--or was--the British What Not To Wear because (1) Trinny & Susannah had less than model-perfect figures, (2) their subjects ran the gamut of sizes, shapes, and weights and were not all between the ages of 19 and 30, and (3) they paid attention to the psychological aspects of one’s appearance, e.g., pressures on working women with families, menopause and what it does to body and mind, etc.  I have not yet seen the most recent incarnation of the show, which, I’m sorry to say, has replaced these wonderful ladies with a pair who look much more like their U.S. What Not to Wear counterparts, pencil-thin Stacy and Clinton.  Just what we need, more supermodels giving fashion advice.  Do they have any clue what it’s like to deal with a diminishing waistline?
      Never mind that.  Let’s talk about the annoying U.S. version and let’s get right to the hair.
      The British version showed mainly the finished result, not the hysteria and agony in the hair salon.  The U.S. version does spend time in the salon.  The women seem to find this part far more disturbing than the 360 degree mirror.  Time and again, despite being in the hands of Nick Arrojo, a top level stylist, the woman is terrified.  The scenario rarely varies:  Nick is poised behind her, scissors in hand as he studies her in the mirror.  And she says, begs, insists--sometimes tearfully, “Don’t cut my hair.”  Or, “Just trim it.”
      And I think, “Take a pill.”  Here is a woman whose hair is practically screaming “I need a style!”  Wouldn’t any rational person realize that, to make a style, you need to cut?  To make clothes, you need, first, to cut the cloth.  A rational being would realize that not everybody looks good in long hair and not all long hair looks good.  Plus, she’s getting this free.  But confronted with the logic of hair--either cut it or go on looking exactly as she did before, which was what got her on the show in the first place--she will cry.
      Look, I love my hairdresser dearly.  He is a friend as well as a genius of a stylist.  But am I the only non-celebrity who isn’t afraid to let a talented hairdresser cut her hair as much as he wants to?
       Some of you may be nodding in sympathy with these women.  You are probably thinking that they have all had bad haircut experiences.
      Well, so have I.  When my sisters and I were little, my mother used to send us to a lady down the street who cut hair in her house.  She did not put a bowl on our heads and cut the hair along the rim of the bowl, but the haircuts looked as though she did.  She gave us “pixie cuts” that looked like those BEFORE pictures on the commercials for hair replacement.  And we had home permanents that made us appear to have been recently electrocuted.
      This is why, as soon as I was earning my own money, I started looking for a good hairdresser.  For a time I frequented a fine salon in Boston.  But the stylist kept giving me cuts that resembled those pixies from the lady down the street.  Then I went to a local salon, part of a chain bearing the name of a hair superstar, and for a time did well--good cuts, interesting styles--until the day the stylist went insane and gave me a permanent that looked like the ones my mother gave me.  I complained to a friend, who introduced me to
      ISAAC.
       This was a long time ago.  I won’t say how long because I intend never to stop lying about my age.  But Isaac looked at my hair with an expression of shock and awe.  “It’s all burnt,” he said indignantly.  And he cut it all off, very short, and turned an atrocity into a thing of beauty.  Since that day, Isaac has been my one and only stylist and a dear friend.  Since that day, I have never, ever had a bad haircut.  I sit in the chair and let him do as he pleases.  All I ever say about the proceedings is “Should we try a different color?” or “Should we let it grow?” or “Should we cut it short again?”  A creature of habit I am not, and my hair has been every color and every length.  The one thing it hasn’t been is hard to maintain.  Isaac knows I have neither skill nor patience with blow dryers, curling irons, or other beautification tools.  Wetting it, throwing some goop on it, and running my fingers haphazardly through my whatever-color locks is the summit of my achievement.
      Apparently, a lot of other women give up the search too easily, or settle for untrustworthy hairdressers.  It’s a lot like the search for love, the way we do it in romances.  In both cases, the woman needs to find a man (or vampire or whatever) she can trust implicitly.  In both cases, she ought to settle for nothing less.
      It might even be more important to trust your hairdresser, because your average hero is not usually wielding sharp or very hot objects about your head, and applying the mysterious contents of various jars and bottles.  Apart from doctors and dentists, few people get closer to us--and the doctors and dentist don’t have nearly the impact on our appearance as well as, in many cases, our self-confidence.
      This realization gave me some insight into what it was like to have a lady’s maid.  To be a lady’s maid, you had to be a hairdresser along with a seamstress, stylist, manicurist, pedicurist--well, a full-service salon and boutique, in other words.  I found myself wondering what it was like to have someone always so close to you, who knew every personal detail there was to know about you--maybe even things your mother or your spouse didn’t know.  Wow, that was some significant trust going on there.  I know these ladies had a lot of money to throw around, and many were spoiled to a degree we can hardly imagine without imagining Paris Hilton, which I for one had rather not do.  But would they ever settle for someone they couldn’t trust?  Should anybody?
      What about you?  If you were sitting in Nick’s chair, would you be terrified or palpitating with anticipation?  Do you have an Isaac?  Or are you still trying to get over a traumatic hair experience? 
      

The Son Also Rises

Today is Sonday. That's right, just direct your feet to the sonny side of the street.

My son, Adam Felber, he of NPR's WAIT, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME, fame; he who is writing and performing in a new TV show to be debuting on FOX next season; he who does Improv and sells movie and TV scripts, he who got a gold star for his finger painting in first grade.... (Oh, I could go on) has his first novel coming out in TWO WEEKS!

SCHRODINGER'S BALL, a Random House Trade Paperback, ISBN #081 297 4425 <-- click to buy

It has gotten raves, I tell you, actual raves from Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal.

It's funny and soulful and thoughtful and Boy! Am I proud of my boy! (yes, I am.)

Adam Felber: SCHRODINGER'S BALL <-- click for offical website

(Doubt me? If you check my copyright, I am actually, really: Edith Felber. And surprise: I have a book coming out in November from NAL Trade paperbacks under that name. More about that, later)

Today belongs to Adam.

SCHRODINGER'S BALL

Buy it. Read it. Believe me, you'll love it.
Then let me know how you liked it, so I can gloat.

Grand Openings

From Susan/Miranda:

Publishers spend a fortune on packaging books. They worry about the illustration on the cover, the size of the title versus the size of the author's name, which review quotes to include, and how much plot to reveal in the back cover blurb. But while all these can make a potential reader choose a book from the shelf, the real deciding factor still lies in the hands (or more accurately, on the keyboard) of the author. Most readers will do just that in the store: open the lovely, foil-embossed cover, ignore the half-naked guy, and read the first page.

The old adage is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. For writers, if you have a lousy first page, the majority of readers won’t make it to the second. They’ll put the book down, and move on to another. Even editors who are paid to read will say that they know whether they’ll buy a new manuscript from that first page alone.

I was a slow learner about openings. My first book, which has long been mercifully out of print, had one of the slowest openings EVER. I had the heroine sitting by the river, watching the sun set, reflecting on how tedious her life was, how boring all her friends and family were, how much she wished something exciting would happen to her. Likely the reader felt that way, too, for this internal meandering went on for at least the first four or five pages, before, at last, someone else finally spoke out loud.

There’s no right or wrong way to write that magical opening, of course. Some are punchy and provocative, some shocking or funny, while others rely on a bit of fascinating scene-setting. All that’s required is a way to make the reader ask, “What happens next?”

Everyone has favorites, the openings that lead into an unforgettable story. I’m including a few choice ones (and certainly not all!), and I hope you’ll post yours, too. And I’m keeping my choices to current or nearly-current books. If I went backwards, “Call me Ishmael” would win best in show, hands down, but we’ll put Melville in the Hall of Fame, and limit the field to those writers who never worked on a whaling ship.

The Bartered Bride, by Mary Jo Putney:
Alex had finally dozed off in a corner of the cage, but she jerked upright at the sound of footsteps. Slavery had taught her that changes were seldom for the better, and she’d been frightened ever since guards brought her to the palace to confine her in this triple locked cage in a strange, luxurious chamber.

Nobody’s Baby But Mine, by Susan Elisabeth Phillips:
“Let me get this straight,” Jodie Pulanski said. “You want to give Cal Bonner a woman for a birthday present.”

The Challenge, by Edith Layton:
It was a peculiar bordello. The English gentleman was in a position to know.

To Catch an Heiress, by Julia Quinn:
Caroline Trent hadn’t meant to shoot Percival Prewitt, but she had, and now he was dead.

Smalltown Girl, by Patricia Rice:
Flynn Clinton rubbed his whisker stubble with his aching left hand and gazed over the dance floor of lithe gyrating bodies. He might be bad, but he sure the hell wasn’t young enough to make an ass of himself any more.

The Mad Earl’s Bride, by Loretta Chase:
The devil was partial to Dartmoor.

The Angel Knight, by Sarah Gabriel:
She stood on a green hill at dawn and watched her home burn.

Tell Me Lies, by Jennifer Crusie:
One hot August Thursday afternoon, Maddie Faraday reached under the front seat of her husband’s Cadillac and pulled out a pair of black lace underpants. They weren’t hers.

In the Company of the Courtesan, by Sarah Dunant:
My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.

Lord of Midnight, by Jo Beverly:
With the rhythm of a tolling bell, men pounded stake after stake into the dry summer ground. Others trailed behind, tying ropes to mark off a grassy circle. A court battle, a battle to the death, would draw a fair crowd, and a crowd must be controlled.

The Where of the Story

From Loretta

Yes, I know, I know.  Everyone wants to see more Barbies.

But two of the Wenches have brand-new books out, and I got all excited (1) because two Wenches have new books out and (2) I have been to locales in their books and have actual pictures. 

My first (and so far only visit) to Scotland took me to Edinburgh, which I think is one of the most interesting looking cities in the world. 

This is a view of Edinburgh Castle which is built at the top of...a volcano.  A very dead volcano.  The Old Town is built along its sides.  One's first view is pretty dramatic.  However, my picture-taking skills weren't really up to the challenge of capturing Edinburgh, so here are some post cards. 

Before coming here, I had seen men in kilts playing bagpipes.  But the men I saw in Edinburgh in kilts playing bagpipes strongly impressed upon me the fact that a man could look really manly in a skirt.  Especially when it's sleeting.  In June.  Every day at one o'clock, there is what sounds like a terrifying clap of thunder.  This is the One O'clock Gun going off from the castle ramparts.  For more on Edinburgh and manly men, you can read Susan/Sarah's book.

On to Sarah Churchill.  Here's a view of the place she & John built.  Well, mostly she, IIRC. 

But I'm not going to offer any of my limited information about Sarah, since a talented Wench is offering you the complete scoop.  I'm just here with the illustrations.  Another view:

And some more: 

We took a boat ride on the lake, I recall.  Our traveling companion is from Atlanta, and the English tourists loved his accent. 

Here's the front door, or one of them.  But to get inside, for the inside scoop, you know what you've got to do.  Read Susan/Miranda's book.  That's what I'm going to do, too. 

Au Chocolat

Thursday, and Susan/Sarah back again... after last night's groaning feast and all that hot historical pizza (fresh though!), I'm thinking a bit o' chocolate would be good just about now. It's a quiet afternoon (at least where I am), and we were talking historical foods, and there's a tailor-made foodie thought if I ever heard one.... ooooh, chocolate!

                                                      

Have I got history of chocolate for you. My Sarah Gabriel book from Nov. '05, KEEPING KATE, involves lots of chocolate. Alec Fraser's family runs a chocolate shoppe in Edinburgh, and he's something of an expert in the family biz...but at the time, he's a captain in the Highland Watch, and is assigned to bring a spy to Edinburgh to face trial. Well, he ends up chasing Kate MacCarran, sometime spy and accused thief, all over the Highland hills, because she has radically different ideas about where she should go. Finally he drags her unrepentant arse to Edinburgh to face the Judge of the Session Court for her espionage crimes. And by that time, natch, he's fiercely attracted to her, and she to him, and jail and a hanging is just not something they want to think about just now....

BUT WAIT, what does that have to do with chocolate? Oooooh lots. Yummm...it's all through the story.... hot chocolate, spiced chocolate, hot chocolate with hot peppers (yes you read that right), hot chocolate with cream, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon/ hold the hot peppers (really I'm not kidding). Oh, and chocolate-dipped liver (hey, you liked 18th c. cuisine yesterday!).  And then there's the uncle who's experimenting with a form of hardened chocolate for eating, but just can't get the formula right....

Chocolate drink was extremely popular by this time (18th century), and "chocolate houses" had sprung up all over England and Scotland. It was imported in solid logs that were serrated to be broken easily--this stuff was bitter and powerful, and had to be melted and mixed with water, milk, sugar, and a variety of other ingredients to create hot drinks. Originally the Mayans and Aztecs were drinking it when the Spaniards came upon them -- the South American natives would drink the stuff cold, full bitter, mixed with chili peppers and liquidated just enough to choke it down. Xocolatl, they called it. The Spaniards called it horrifying, a tortuous concoction, but they were forced to drink it to be polite, and probably to prove their manliness. Soon, though, some Spaniard got the brilliant idea to mix the stuff with sugar and milk and heat it--suddenly it was GOOD STUFF.  They started importing it to Spain and Portugal, and by the 16th century it had caught on fast. In Spain they were still drinking it with chili peppers in it (one cannot fathom why), and adding cinnamon too. Even today, hot chocolate with cinnamon is called Mexican or Spanish chocolate. It was mixed in silver pots, sometimes ceramic, and stirred with a stick until it was frothy -- this was a technique learned from the Aztecs, who drank the froth and left the rest.  In Europe, the foam was regarded as the best of the drink, the frothier the better.

The chocolate that we know, "eating" chocolate in bars and shapes, was not fully developed until the 19th century (Fry's and Cadbury's among the first to do so), though in the 18th century they were experimenting (just like Alec Fraser's uncle) with other forms of chocolate other than for drinking.

Hence the failed experiment, Liver Dipped in Chocolate....

So there ya go, now that you're craving the stuff, your brain is hunkering for a hit of natural serotonin and caffeine, go dig out that special chocolate bar you've squirreled away for an emergency, or sit down with a steaming cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon (and pepper!), and read a good book. Something by one of the Wenches, maybe. Oh hey...you could read KEEPING KATE by Sarah Gabriel (well, it IS Thursday and my day to shamelessly promote!)!

~Susan/Sarah, who just gave herself a craving and has to go find that 70% cacao bar she hid in the drawer....

P.S.  CONTEST !!!  Are you signed up for the Word Wenches newsletter? If not, hurry! I'll send a signed copy of KEEPING KATE to a person whose name will be chosen at random from the Word Wenches email list by 12 noon EST, Friday, 7/28/06.  That's when I'll ask Sherrie for the list. And I'll throw in some fancy hot chocolate packets too.  ;) 

Site Updates

From Sherrie, the Blogatrix:

I've been piddling around in the background (too shy to piddle in the foreground!) doing site maintenance and tweaking here and there.  Over the next few days you'll see updates to our Favorite Blogs and Reissues sidebars, and the addition of a new Favorite Websites sidebar.  In the meantime, check out the latest update:  scroll down and click on Susan Holloway Scott's face and it will whisk you to her gorgeous new website!  If you'd rather, scroll down even farther and click her name under "Links to Author Websites."  ( I'd rather click on the Wench's name instead of her face, because every time I move my mouse to the face, the arrow turns into a hand with a pointing finger, which always manages to look like it's picking the Wench's nose.  Nasty.)

CinderSherrie, ready to party with the remaining CinderWenches in true Cinderella style while the other Wenches do National

Historical Feasts Parte le Deux

Another CinderSusan here...

Cullis of Crawfish!!  <gag>

Um, I mean, what a FINE feast Susan Miranda has ordered for all you people who didn't make it onto the magical silver coach to the kingdom of Atlanta. Back here in the kitchens, we Cinderellas <pausing to wipe sooty hand over sootier brow and gaze longingly at castle on hill, etc.> can only sniff at the fine dishes as they're carted in and out of the kitchens by the liveried staff....well, some of us only want to sniff, and that's about it.

Cuz I'd rather do just about anything than eat jellied crawfish, larded oyster ragooooo, or venison with red currant jelly.

We've been hard at work all day on another spread of par-tay cuisine, and while some of you may elect to dine in fine fashion out in the Grande Salon, back here we're waiting on the pizza.

That's right. Historical feast, you say?  Yes! Yay. Thank gawwwwd. We can have pizza instead of venison swimming in turtle sallet, or whatever.

Pizzaioli, which dates back as far as the Romans, perhaps farther... when flat bread was baked on hot stones and spread with olive oil and basil, with a little cheese. Later when tomatoes were brought from the New World, specifically Peru, once people figured out they weren't poisonous and got brave enough to try them, theyc hopped them up and threw them on the flat bread that was already baking on the hot stones. What a GREAT idea.

Vendors in Naples as early as the 16th century were selling these tasty pies, and by the 18th century, some of the Neopolitan aristocracy had special ovens built just for making pizzaioli.

Those Italian counts and countesses were no fools. Left with a choice between Curry of Rabbits and olives, served with lightly braised calf's head.... or a nice focaccio with olive oil, cheese, basil, and fresh tomatoes, believe me, they scrambled to get those ovens built, and invited their friends over.

Bring the Madeira! Grab that bottle of claret! Wear your finest silk turbans and all your jewelry, drop that golden two-pronged fork you're about to use on that calf's head and come join us for fresh, hot pizza!

The Cinderellas are chowing down in the kitchen... then we have to go back to work, sweeping those ashes and writing those books...

    

~CinderSusan (the short one)

Our Party is Served

So the stepsisters have flown in their magic silver coach to the grand ball in Atlanta, and we Cinderellas are left here to entertain.

But we’re resourceful, we Cinderellas. The first thing we’ll do is spread a suitable historical feast. Let those other sites have Bud, beans, and nachos! Our cook is French (trained in a noble house, and barely smuggled across the Channel before the Revolution could claim his head) though familiar, too, with English cookery. He should be; he’s the best-paid member of our house’s staff. We’ve ordered him to spare no expense in contriving our entertainment. And, of course, our smuggling friends have also supplied us with a fine assortment of French and Spanish wines and brandies, and, for those of you with piratical or colonial tastes, Rhode Island rum.

Thus we'll throw open our French doors to the ballroom, and present our bill of fare, chosen for the season:

Cullis of Crawfish with Onions
Fricando of Veal. Rais’d Giblet Pie
A Ragoo of Cucumbers
Another Ragoo of Oysters & White Wine
Pheasant, Larded & Set in a Gravy with Clove, Mace & Sweet Herbs
Muffin Pudding
French Biscuits & New Butter
Sallet of Elder Buds
A Fine Salmagundy of Herrings & Chicken
Curry of rabbits, preserver of olives
Turtle, dressed in the West Indian Manner
Soup, Braised Haunch of Venison in Sauce of Red Currant Jelly
Calf’s Head, Dressed with Sweet Herbs & Bacon upon bed of Greens
Open Tart syllabub, Rais’d Jellies
Sweetbreads en Cordonnier
Buttered Lobster & Crawfish
Portugal & Spanish Cakes
Shrewsbury Cakes
Neat Ratafia Cake

(Special thanks to “The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy” by Mrs. Glasse, “Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery”, transcribed by Karen Hess, and “Jane Austen’s Town and Country Style” by Susan Watkins.)

Ugly stepsisters

From Pat Rice:

If those of you staying behind are all Cinderellas, does that mean those of us forced to attend the conference are all ugly stepsisters?  Is that why we have no ball gowns, splendid coaches, and glass slippers and have to pack our own bags, slog through innumerable tedious airports, and drag our weary bodies to taxicabs to reach this tremendous affair?  The danged prince ain’t worth it.  Give me a martini. Well heck, a girl can't even find a good martini in here.  Chocolate and wine it is!

We can enjoy it while relaxing in a quiet hideaway behind the palm trees in the ballroom reading Susan Scott's DUCHESS---check out her website at http://www.susanhollowayscott.com!  Ahh, much better than airports...

Fame, Part II

From Susan/Miranda:

OK, so I lied. We writers DO want a little celebrity -- but for our books, not ourselves.

My new historical novel DUCHESS will be released next week (August 1), and I've finally, finally gotten my new website up and running to give Her Grace a fitting launch into the world. I'd be delighted if you'd all stop by and take a peek. The address: http://www.susanhollowayscott.com

Fame, Hah

From Susan/Miranda:

Mary Jo’s recent post about preparing for the Romance Writers of America conference this week made a very valid point: most writers are introverts, and uneasy with any kind of celebrity. Fortunately this isn’t much of an issue, because celebrity doesn’t chase after writers. We’re not Bradgelina. No paparazzi stalk our every move. No tabloids scold us for being too thin (yeah, right). No one cares what designer we’re wearing, who we’re seeing, where we vacation. Yes, Dan Brown may have sold more books than Ronald McDonald has cheeseburgers, but would you be able to pick him out of a line-up?

And for the most part, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Writers cherish anonymity. We’re not by nature a glamorous bunch. Books may be considered part of the entertainment industry, but writing is not a performing art. Which is why when we have to “go public” –– whether at a big conference like RWA, or a small book signing at a local store –– the results can be, well, challenging.

I’m not saying that we don’t like the chance to meet readers, that rare, loyal group who can quote our dialogue back to us and are more familiar with our characters than we are ourselves. That’s a wonderful thing, and one we all cherish. I mean the other, ah, encounters.

I’m sure every writer on this blog has had her share of book signing nightmares. Those mall signings where you’re deposited at a card table across from the food court, sitting in a broken chair that’s too low and behind a stack of books that’s too high, and left to smile so widely that your face hurts. It’s a lot like being the last puppy left in the litter: like me, like me, like me, buy my book, pleeeeease!

Desperation makes a bad companion. You cling to passersby like the Ancient Mariner. You obligingly offer suggestions for the nearest rest room and the best fast food. You admit to never having met that nice R. K. Rowling, but agree that yes, she sure has made a pile of money. You stare off into the benign middle distance when that strange, black-clad guy with the shaved head and devil-worship tats shakes hand-cuffs in your face. You praise ugly babies whose strollers put them at your eye-level in your too-low chair. You gently correct the snaky morons who believe that writing a romance novel makes you a sexologist. You sell one book, a mercy-sale to a neighbor because you bought her kid’s Girl Scout cookies last month. Finally you end up scorching your MasterCard to buy a whole bunch of the leftovers because the store manager guilts you into it.

You vow you’ll never do another book signing again. Ever.

How about speaking to school groups? “Mrs. Scott writes books for mommies!” the perky second-grade teacher announces. “Boys and girls, do you have any questions for Mrs. Scott?” Only question: “Is your hair real?”

OK, let’s go with older kids. A middle school career day. I’m put on the “Creative Careers” panel. I should be pretty cool: a genuine novelist! One dad is a professional sports agent, with clients that include the biggest local sports stars, dishing plenty of juicy gossip. The next woman is in public relations: she knows movie stars, and brings cool t-shirts for the entire class. The last mom is a writer, too, but she writes screenplays for television. Her “visual aid” is her Emmy.

Have you any idea how BIG and SHINY and IMPRESSIVE a real Emmy is?

And we can’t forget those chance encounters with the public. Like many writers, I carry around a strip of “Autographed Copy” stickers to put on any of my books that I might find for sale in stores. I’d stopped into my local grocery store right before dinner. I was dressed like a writer. I was wearing an old t-shirt, sweat pants, and a baseball hat. I spotted several of my newest books near the magazine racks, and whipped out my pen and stickers. An elderly man stopped his cart beside mine, and asked what I was doing. Cheerfully I told him I’d written the book in my hand, and was autographing it. I flipped open the back flap with my author photo (the 90’s big-hair version, supported by enough make-up and hairspray to immolate a small village) and held the picture up as proof.

The old man looked at the photo, then to me, then back at the picture. He’s nobody’s fool, that old guy.

“That’s not you,” he scoffed. “That’s a picture of a beautiful woman!”

Bradgelina, I feel your pain.

American Royalty

Sunday already?
So then I must be Edith.

Yes, we Cinderellas are going to party like it's 1799!

Well, everyone's off at the ball (the RWA National in Atlanta), and we stay-at-homes do feel left out, because we are left out, even though some of us chose to be left out due to a multiplicity of good reasons.

But instead of sulking or drinking myself under the Hepplewhite, I think I'll just expand upon what my fellow Cinderella, the clever Loretta, said about Royalty. Specifically, the failure of some royals to get dates right, or do addition, etc.

Funny, because I was just thinking about it the other morning in the shower. (From whence come my best thoughts. If I could only write underwater!)

These days, we Americans mostly pay attention to foreign royalty if they make asses of themselves, which they are prone to do. Or if they wear really ugly hats, which they are also fond of doing. Or if they cheat on each other in spectacular fashion, or marry people who look like thoroughbreds - of the racing track. Otherwise, the general American attitude towards royalty seems to be "what's it to me?"

But for centuries, the peasants of every land filled their hardworking, joyless days with gossip about their royalty. It enlivened their lives and enthralled them completely. Thinking about all that money and fame and all those lives of lechery and privilege made them envious, but also gave them something to dream about, and in a way, made them feel better about their own lot in life too.

As in: "Aye, she's got jewels and money, but look 'ow 'er 'usband treated 'er. 'e took 'er 'ead off, din't 'e?"

Seeing royalty suffering or acting like idiots in spite of their power and position somehow made pulling up beets and hauling dung easier. People needed royalty for a sense of direction as well as entertainment and lessons in morality.

(I've always thought the bright cry: "The King Is Dead, Long Live the King" that goes up when a king dies pretty much sums it up. Sorta like, "OK, enough of that, bring on the next act!"

And in those days royals were shrewder, more vicious and clever than their well born relatives. Breeding, or inbreeding, however, will tell. These days most of their royals can't find their posteriors with both hands.

We don't have royals here in America. So what did we do instead?

We create our royalty out of nothing.

We make royalty of actors and singers, musicians, sports figures, chefs and dancers, starlets and hunks, and even some famous people who are famous because they say so.

They don't even have to be talented. Only eye-catching and present.

We talk about them. We have newspaper articles and TV shows and magazines devoted to them. They have money! They have mansions and jewels and lovers and live as licentiously as any depraved duke of old ever did.

Most of these people come from humble origins, so that gives up hope for ourselves. And they're better than European Royalty because any old body can become one of them. Not just marrying into an inbred family, or being born into one.

To be American royalty you can even just win a talent show on TV, or be a winsome runner-up. Or eat more slugs and bugs than your competitors. Then get a bucket for the money that will come rolling in, and prepare to bask in public adoration.

The best part about it? We dispose our Royalty when they bore us. And eventually, they always do.

We did it over two hundred years ago, after all. I guess we sort of got the hang of it.

So if a member of the English royal family can't count without taking off her shoes, who cares?

We've got heaps of royals. And if any one of them stops amusing us - off with their heads! Or at least, their incomes.

That, I think, is as it should be.

And not just because I'm not going to the ball or meeting Prince Charming there or anything like that!

(Now where did I put that bucket of soap suds? The Wenches will be furious if the kitchen floor isn't just sparkling when they return, y'know.)

The Princess Diatribe

       From Loretta:
      
      While some of the other Wenches go to Atlanta for the Romance Writers of America convention--which. in my opinion, is very hard work--the rest of us are going to party.

      Here we are.  I know it looks like a lot, but three of us are Geminis, which increases the Wench population exponentially.
      So I’m going to focus on the trivial.  Trivial-er than usual, I mean.
      I was sitting in the doctor’s office the other day, reading last month’s Ladies Home Journal.  The cover story was about the Duchess of York--AKA Fergie-and her two daughters, Beatrice and Benedict.  No, that’s Shakespeare.  I mean Beatrice and Eugenie.  The older one is about to make her social debut.  As a writer of stories revolving around an imaginary aristocracy, I know more than is mentally healthy about bluebloods’ comeouts.
      At about age 17 or 18, privileged young ladies were presented at Court.  The funny thing is, the ladies of the Regency era had to wear clothes from their grandmothers’ heyday:  hoop skirts and plumes.  Because the Queen said so.
      Candice Hern has some fabulous pictures of these costumes:
      http://candicehern.com/collections/06/court_dresses.htm
      Since Candice explains the presentation at Court so beautifully, and with illustrations, I strongly advise those who want to know more to read what she has to say.
      Back to the Duchess of York.
      May I say, first, I am not addicted to the Royal Family.  The trouble is, they, like Angelina Jolie, are impossible to avoid--although at the moment Angelina seems to have beaten them out for the Most in Sight in The Magazine Racks At The Supermarket Checkout Counter Award.  May I also say, for the record, that I am sick to death of Angelina Jolie and I don’t even read those magazines.  Yet one more reason I wish I had servants to do my shopping for me.
      This is not to say I haven’t opinions about the Royal Family.  For one thing, one can’t avoid seeing and hearing more about them than is, in my opinion, strictly necessary to a balanced life.  I don’t think even the Dalai Lama can avoid them no matter how hard he meditates.  For another, knowing their history is part of my job.
      Thanks to my job, I also know that the cult of celebrity is nothing new.  Some say it started in Regency times.  Look at Beau Brummell.  But he at least did something useful, in encouraging aristocrats to bathe more frequently and wear clean clothes.  Look at Lord Byron.  At least he wrote some fine poems (Don Juan is, I think, brilliant).  Even the Prince Regent, later King George IV, who made today’s royals look like models of rectitude and sanity, did leave us some beautiful buildings and a lot of neat stuff in various British museums and libraries.
      Which brings me back to the Duchess of York.  She said that her daughters would share the comeout  party (I think I remember this part correctly) and the theme would be 1888 because, among other things--and this part I remember distinctly--they love PRIDE & PREJUDICE.
      Now, this wasn’t all Fergie had to say in the interview.  People got their panties all in a bunch because she said she and her daughters were couch potatoes--so all the health advocates and diet people and a lot of others got all self-righteous and slammed her for watching TV all day.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how she can be a couch potato yet get her picture taken at this charity event and that celebrity event or fashion show or whatever or doing something people don’t approve of or wearing the wrong clothes or losing or gaining weight or whatever.  If all she did was watch TV all day, what would the photographers have to take pictures of?  And if they didn’t have anything to take pictures of, how could she be on all those supermarket magazine covers, where I can’t escape her, no matter what I do?  Not that I care how much TV she & her daughters watch.  It’s not like they’re supposed to be running the country or are in charge of nuclear weapons or anything.  So all the ranting and raving about the couch potato thing struck me as illogical at the very least.
      But no one seems to have noticed the part that drove me completely insane.  You know, though, don’t you?
       You know that PRIDE & PREJUDICE came out during the Regency period, in 1813 to be precise.  Since I’m one of those dreadful Renegades who uses the broad social/cultural definition of Regency era (I have tomes on my shelves that do the same thing, so let’s not get into that argument, please) rather than the strictly legal definition (1811-1820), I would give more leeway than most regarding what is and isn’t Regency.  Still, as broad as my definition is, it stops at the moment Victoria is crowned queen.  This is in 1837, 51 years before 1888.  Half a century.
      1888 is Victorian.   Nothing borderline about it.  The world of 1888 is pretty much the antithesis of Jane Austen’s world.
      So fine, I don’t expect members of the Royal Family to know much about history.  If they did, they’d quit repeating it, and then a lot of photographers would be jobless.  But you’d think that somewhere along the road to this big comeout, some one of the advisers and assistants and secretaries and such who take care of these sheltered ladies would have gently pointed out that 1888 and the PRIDE & PREJUDICE theme were not a match, that it’s like saying you want to do a SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER party because you love doing the Charleston.

      But what I really want to know is, Are they going to wear corsets?
      

Conference Crazies

From Mary Jo:

The purple coneflowers and stargazer lilies are blooming behind the house, so it’s time for another national RWA conference.  They are always held at the end of July, which is statistically the hottest time of the year.   As a born northerner who hates heat, I complain bitterly that the conferences always seem to be held in southern locations that are apparently about two miles north of Hades. (In Orlando, it was so hot that my Wenchy roommate and I only left the hotel once, for a midnight walk around the hotel pool).

In fairness, even on RWA’s last trip to the fine northern city of Chicago, the city had a historic heat wave with temperatures that rose to 104 F.  The heat wave lasted exactly as long as the conference, then ended.  It is best not to ponder the implications of this. 

I remember that conference fondly.  It was the year of Chicago’s Cow Parade, so hundreds of artist-decorated fiberglass cows were scattered around the city.  I loved them.  To me, those critters represent the best of urban charm and whimsy, and they inspired other cities to look deep inside and find their inner animal. 

In Cincinnati, there was a Big Pig Gig in honor of the city’s meatpacking past.  I believe Louisville had horses, Toronto went for moose, and Buffalo, naturally, did buffalo.  My hometown of Baltimore chose fish, charming and easy to decorate, but it was a cop-out—this is a crab town, not a fish town.  So last year they repented and flat decorated crabs were everywhere. (If the subject interests you, here is a fun article that elaborates: http://tinyurl.com/rkks6 )

Traditionally, when an RWA national looms, appearance anxiety strikes women who don’t get out often enough.  E-mail loops of writers buzz with panicky questions from newbies about what one should wear.  For RWA, the dress code is professional—anyone asking if she can wear jeans will hear horrified gasps.  This is very different from an sff con, where appearance runs to hippy casual or alien appendages.  For RWA, black is always good since most of the editors and agents are wearing black.  It's a New York Thing. 

Attendees also discuss humidity—meeting in places like New Orleans tend to make some of us look like dandelions in full fuzzy mode. 

Serious aspiring writers who are close to selling their first book often freak at the prospect of agent and editor appointments, and rehearse pitches for their books.  Old hands assure them that agents and editors are not (usually) writer-eating monsters.  Industry pros are generally quite kind when dealing with desperate writers.      

My personal dress code for writing events is artsy professional and comfortable.  In a pinch, jettison the artsy professional and go for the comfort.  A great boon to me and many of my sister authors is Chico’s, the clothing chain for aging baby boomers who want to look dashing but have lost the taste (and the figures) for wearing tight garments, no matter how fashionable.

A friend said that Chico’s clothing is made of materials that will never rot in a landfill, but their stuff is great for aging baby boomers.  At my last national conference, two years ago in Dallas, I spotted lots of Chico’s outfits.  Usually this consisted of solid color knit top and slacks paired with a great jacket and splashy, fun jewelry.  It’s a good look—and how can you not like a store where you get to try on a size 2 rather than a “large?” <g>

At heart, RWA is a business conference, and writers go to meet with their agents and editors, or perhaps look for new ones.  We go to learn and to see our friends and make new ones.  Maybe we also go to do some research in that particular city, or visit a relative there while being able to deduct the trip.  Several years ago, I gave the keynote address in Washington, DC, and coined one of my better phrases if I do say so: “An RWA conference is 2000 introverts pretending to be extroverts.”

At the end, we head home wrecked, overfull of talk and information (and maybe appetizers as well), carrying a ton of new books—and most of the time, we go home happy.  We’ve just been able to spend a few days with Our Own Kind—and isn’t that something just about everyone enjoys?

Mary Jo, who really needs at least one new jacket per national conference…

What Makes A Storyteller?

Susan/Sarah here....

And Susan/Miranda said...

>>I think that the storytelling impulse is something we’re all born with, long before books and reading enter the picture. We all want to explain things that happen in our lives, or understand them, or escape them, and stories remain the best way anyone has discovered for doing this. Whether we whisper stories to dolls, or read them to children, or exchange them in a blog on the internet, the real power of storytelling itself never changes.

Fantastic quote, Susan/Miranda, and it got me thinking about that storytelling impulse.

What shapes us to become storytellers in the first place? What early influences come along to start that yearning in us? I’m convinced we’re each born with the spark of something unique, some ability or inclination that can bring us satisfaction and direction in our lives, whether it’s art, writing and storytelling, acting, math (yeah, I hear some people are born mathematicians!), or nurturing, analyzing, healing – the list goes on, and can be archetypal. And I think each of us has our own individual mythic base and power. Maybe that’s part of our inner connection to myth and story. We could go on about Joseph Campbell, et. al., delightful stuff -- but I've got a deadline and I'm going to ramble off in another direction here....

For those of us here who aren’t storytellers, but avid audience, drawn by the power of a good story, what shapes that, too?  Some are compelled toward story and some aren't. I got to thinking about how I got hooked...

The power of Story, that "story soup" that Tolkein once talked about, got hold of me early on, maybe from the very first.

I remember a favorite, tattered fairy tale book that I kept throughout childhood (I think I teethed on that thing) – and I still remember the pictures in it. Besides that one, there were so many favorite storybooks that I loved as a kid: fairy tales, Greek myths, Norse myths, Arthurian legends, Tolkein, all of it. And for me in particular, the illustrations helped bring the stories to vivid life for me--Rackham, Dulac, Neilsen, N.C. Wyeth, others–give me a good book of fairy tales with great pictures, and I was in paradise (and stayed quiet for hours, which my parents, with three other little girls to raise, probably appreciated).

For me, it wasn’t just the books and pictures, though they were portals to magical places in the imagination. I was lucky to have a couple of natural storytellers in my everyday surroundings.

My great-grandmother, who was French, lived nearby; we could walk to her house after school, and if we were very good, we could stay overnight at her house, do some baking, and listen to stories (and sometimes hear her argue in French with my other grandmother, who was Canadian French; they would dispute the pronunciation of French words <g>). In the evenings, she would sit knitting, and begin to tell stories of her childhood in France in a large family; we’d hear about life in rural France, the pranks and adventures of six siblings, and her adventures crossing to America with her older brother and their young twin sisters.

These were funny, clever, and sometimes poignant stories (the day they sold their beloved cow and the children stood in the dusty road crying and waving while the cow mooed–that had me in tears every time!). I would beg to hear more, and though she would say it was getting too late and I must go to bed, she could usually be talked into just one more story, usually a favorite (the time the cook chased her around the ship to get a kiss and her brother came to her rescue! The time her brothers snatched pears from an orchard and the visiting bishop saw them and dragged them to confession! And the pears weren’t ripe and one brother’s loose front tooth came out!). Lovely, funny stories from a dear and charming woman.

My older sister had a gift, too, though her stories were fabricated, hilarious, and supremely silly. We would stay up late whispering and giggling while she made up one story after another (one continuing goofy theme involved tricking the bratty neighbor kid into jumping into a pool filled with jello). And then I would make up a story for her, while she dissolved giggling under the covers.

I’ve always thought that those early, simple, delightful experiences – books I truly, madly, adored, and my family members who made storytime such a treat, brought out the storytelling impulse in me. From an early age, I was absorbing the elements of good storytelling, what Tolkein called "the Pot of Soup, the Cauldron of Story."

As an avid reader, crazy mad for stories, books, genres of all sorts, I kept on absorbing those elements. And when I had kids, from the time they were babies, I read to them every night, and often during the day. That gave me the chance to revisit all the wonderful stories, myths, legends, and books that I had loved as a kid. The Mom was sometimes more eager for reading hour than the busy kids: – Oh c’mon, don’t you want to hear another chapter of Babe? How about you, there, baby boy-–let's read another Max the Rabbit book! --Maybe later, Mom <big sigh>).

When my boys were older, the oldest was a crazy-mad reader, the middle one less so, the younger still willing to let Mom freely indulge herself among the kids’ books. The reader was okay on his own, surrounded by huge TBR piles, and I gave the middle guy tapes to listen to: myths, legends, King Arthur, Tolkein, Japanese and Celtic fairy tales, all of it, everything I could find. He insisted he didn’t like reading, and didn’t want to be read to – but he loved those tapes. And I felt better knowing that he was still going to absorb those mythic elements that I think are so essential to the human psyche (the pay-off on those tapes came unexpectedly one day when he was a teenager... his girlfriend had the flu, and he sat on the phone with her, telling her a story from King Arthur to lull her to sleep...and beautifully told it was, too. And P.S. he's crazy for reading now!).

Stories, and myths, and legends are not just entertainment, not time-wasters. We gain something on an inner level when we hear a good story, well told, well-framed: we're learning, exploring, feeling, thinking, experiencing -- even if we just think, hey that was a great story, and move on quickly to the next one. 

Stories are part of the fabric and weave of the human spirit. They embody and express qualities that we all explore in life–hope, fear, joy, sadness, love, courage, all of it. Storytelling has been an essential part of human social activity for eons, from the myths told by shaman to the Celtic myths of the seanachaidhean or the Norse myths and epics recited by the skalda poets – those very tales and legends, remembered and handed down for ages, and their modern incarnations in genre and general fiction, are still important today.

As fiction writers, especially genre writers, we are still an active part of that great storytelling stream, that story soup, still dipping into that great mythic cauldron. There may only be a few basic story types and a handful of elemental themes at the foundation of the stories we hear and the stories we tell, yet they still give of themselves, endless and fresh, and we still benefit from them. The cauldron is never empty, and we can partake of as much as we like.

So what about you all? Where did the power of storytelling first find you, and how has it helped you to become the writer, or reader, or person that you are today?

~Susan/Sarah

Heroes' names

Riffing on from the hero posts, I'd like to talk about names. I'm giving a talk on names at the Romance Writers of America conference in Atlanta, you see.

(Anyone in the area, we have a huge booksale and signing in aid of literacy on the Wednesday. So that's Wednesday, July 26th 5:30-8:30 p.m. in the Atlanta Marriott Marquis hotel. Click here for a list of authors. There's no entry fee, but try to come early as the most popular books run out, and often the authors leave when they have no more books to sell.)

So among other things my talk is about the effect of names on the author, the reader, and the character themselves. I remember one book, though I can't remember which, where the hero wasn't shaping up. He was dull, even wimpy. He was one of my continuing characters so I couldn't actually change his name, but I did it as a temporary move. I gave him a really over-the-top hero name like Jake Savage, and in a while he became stronger and more assertive. (Bear in mind that I don't pre-plot my books but basically let the characters do their thing, so their character is important.)

So what names of heroes do you remember as being particularly strong, sexy, appealing, whatever?

What are some of the first names you think are good for heroes? I'm not mainstream on this. For example, I like the name Sebastian and many people seem to think it weak. I haven't used it yet, but not for that reason. It's just never been the name of one of my characters. Other reasonable names I've not used are John, Michael, and William.

I tend to go for common or at least reasonable names and use nicknames if I want more variety, but I loaded all my Mallorens with Anglo-Saxon names because I was just out of Anglo-Saxon immersion for the writing of Lord of My Heart. On such whims are burdens made: Cynric, Arcenbryght, Elfled, Brand, Hilda, and of course, Beowulf. I had to come up with a reason, so I gave their father an obsession with Anglo-Saxon history, but really, with hindsight, I must have been crazy.

But aren't we all? Writing fiction is the epitome of insanity.

The pics are from an early chess set found in Orkney.

I won't be here next Wednesday, and I doubt I'll be able to blog from the conference. But I'm sure those of us going will have lots to say when we return.

Cheers,

Jo :)

Perfect Heroes?

From Pat Rice:

Merry asked a great question in response to Loretta’s post:  what makes a character memorable?

      I have a lamentable memory for names and titles, but I can recall great characters all day long.  I might not remember his name, but I remember the hero of a romance who appeared to be lazily lying about in a hammock drinking beer and rotting away, when he was actually sharply analyzing his life and what had happened to him and how to correct it.  And proceeded to do so, with a great deal of humor. That hero made me laugh and cry.

          As I mentioned in my earlier comment, there is Laura Kinsale’s hero from FLOWERS IN THE STORM, who suffers a stroke, transforming his tremendous arrogance and genius to incoherence. He’s reduced to accepting aid from a heroine he would never have noticed in his prior life, and when she helped him get his life back, he didn’t return to his previous arrogance but realized she was more important than all the things he had previously loved.  That one seared my heart.

         But I think—for me—what makes a character most memorable is the immensity of the flaw he must overcome.  The larger the flaw, and the more he/she has to suffer to overcome it, the more I admire them. Think of Rochester’s tremendous pride and how he was brought down and suffered.

        So apparently I don’t need righteous things like honor or nobility to enjoy a character—I like flaws.  Figures.  But beneath the flaws, the character needs a strength and nobility of character to overcome the flaw, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.  I just have difficulty buying into perfect heroes.  I think perfect heroes need to have suffered to have learned to make the choices that make them noble.

                       Since I seem to be on a hero kick, how do you like your heroes?  Besides hot, I mean.   Do you want them perfect?  Wounded?  Flawed?  Do they have to be beautiful? How about nerdy?

Stolen Magic winner

From Mary Jo:

And the winner of the Stolen Magic giveaway is JAPotts47!  Congratulations. I'll send the book along when I have an address.

mjp

A Tale of Two Dolls

From Susan/Miranda:

With an eye to Mary Jo’s continuing retrograde, I’m going seriously low-tech this week. I’m going to talk about dolls.

I’m writing this in Williamsburg, Virginia, where I’m visiting for week (and where the current weather is much like an aquarium on the cosmic back burner). If we’re searching for one of the ways to inspire the next generation with a love of the history and fiction and the two combined, then we should look no further than Miss Felicity Merriman. If you have a daughter/niece/granddaughter/neighbor girl or were yourself born after 1990, then likely you need no further introduction to this 18-inch historical powerhouse with green eyes, red hair, and cheerfully unceasing smile.

But if you’ve somehow escaped, (or only know boys), here’s a quickie bio: Felicity Merriman was the first doll of the American Girls Collection, introduced by the Pleasant Company fifteen years ago. A “spunky, sprightly nine-year-old girl” who lived in colonial Williamsburg, Felicity is not only a doll, but the heroine of her own historical fiction series.

Personally, I find the books grimly earnest in their pursuit of both Amusement & Education, but then I’m not seven-to-eleven years old, the targeted market. And wow, does that age group love Felicity. She’s sold thousands and thousands of dolls and books, and she’s launched a good many trips to Colonial Williamsburg, too, judging by how many dolls are clutched in the sweaty grasps of little girls trudging along Duke of Gloucester Street. (CW sells the books, but not the dolls, nor their clothes or other paraphernalia). These girls experience Williamsburg not only for themselves, but through their dolls’ eyes, too, as a kind of informed historic familiar that’s propped up on the seat in hired carriage rides so she can “see” along with the rest of the family.

Felicity also paved the way for a whole clan of other historical American Girls dolls and books of the past. Others include an African American girl who escaped slavery to live in Philadelphia and a Hispanic American girl living in the 19th century southwest.

They’re a pretty cool bunch, these American Girl dolls. They’re plucky, the way Nancy Drew used to be plucky. They have great hair. They have adventures. They make good choices, and bad ones. They have friends who happen to be boys, but no boyfriends. They have mastered the art of being in the right place at the right time, too, so they always get to meet famous, important historical people, and, in Felicity’s case, be smack-dab in the middle of starting the whole American revolution.

In fact, except for having no boyfriends (which is perfectly O.K. for nine-year-olds), they’re suspiciously like a lot of our heroines. Clearly the future readers of historicals could be in a lot worse hands than the dimpled plastic fingers of Felicity and her friends.

All of which made me think of another doll, one with far less responsibility and marketing savvy than Felicity. For my sixth Christmas, my grandmother sent me a small doll that I called the “Princess Doll”. She never had any other name, just the Princess Doll. Thanks to my grandmother’s love for me and her prowess with a sewing machine, the Princess Doll had a whole wardrobe of ball gowns, tiny crowns made of silver rick-rack and rhinestones and glass pearls, even a black velvet cloak trimmed with a scrap of mink.

Dressed to kill like all good royalty, the Princess Doll was put through an endless string of adventures, rescues, and near-misses. She didn’t live in any specific era, only Some Other Time that wasn’t 1960s New Jersey. The Princess Doll made daring climbs up mountainous sofas. She led breathtaking missions to pilfer cookies from the kitchen. She even rescued lesser stuffed animals from that Grendal-like monster of all monsters, the family cat. Her courage and resourcefulness were matched by her constant glamour. She was only limited by the rich outlandishness of my own imagination.

Which, come to think of it, is a lot like my heroines, too.

I think that the storytelling impulse is something we’re all born with, long before books and reading enter the picture. We all want to explain things that happen in our lives, or understand them, or escape them, and stories remain the best way anyone has discovered for doing this. Whether we whisper stories to dolls, or read them to children, or exchange them in a blog on the internet, the real power of storytelling itself never changes.

So now I ask you: what fed your imagination as a child? Did you play with teddy bears or dolls or toy soldiers, or (I did this, too) make your own corps du ballet in the peat moss from pansy blossoms?

Knock Wood

Edith here. Happy Sunday!
Mary Jo's last blog on the Mercury in Retrograde situation gave me much to think on.

I'm not sure about Astrology, and I took a course in it too. I don't believe in much that isn't factual.

But see, the thing is, I don't exactly disbelieve, either.

Now I know why I haven't been able to get a good start on my new book this week, as I'd planned. A book I was excited about too. I couldn't get two good coherent words strung together. Turns out Mercury in retrograde was to blame, and I'm a Gemini, after all. It's my ruling planet.

What a relief to find that out. Now, that's something I can believe in. It is, after all, an ancient science.

I also believe in ghosts, because I've encountered them. And I believe in wishes coming true, because I've had it happen.

I'm not superstituous, though.

Still, why take chances? I have these little rituals to ward off bad stuff, things my Mother taught me.

Like tugging on my left earlobe when a funeral procession goes by...

Knocking on wood, of course, when something good is mentioned...

Making a wish on the first star...

Looking at the full moon over your left shoulder and making a wish...

Wishing on the first bite of a fresh fruit when it comes into season...

Kissing bread before you throw it away...

(Wishing and eating, and wishing you were eating, was obviously very important to my ancestors.)

I mean, what harm does it do? (Unless you become obsessive, like the TV character Monk.) What is a superstition anyway, but something that hasn't yet been scientifically proven?

So. Do you have any interesting superstitions?

I could always use a few more, because, after all, who knows?

Couldn't hurt.

Memorable characters

        From Loretta:
      
      Since LORD PERFECT came out, I’ve noticed an interesting and highly gratifying tendency in the emails readers send me.  The most FAQ is, “Are Peregrine and Olivia going to have their own story?”
      This makes me happy because it indicates that I’ve not only created some memorable characters, but actual readers are ready to pay actual money to read an actual whole book all about these characters.  For those of you who have not paid actual money to read LORD PERFECT:  Peregrine and Olivia are the young persons who cause so much trouble for His Perfectionship and The Most Notorious Woman in England. 
      Funny thing is, my favorite character in the Carsington brothers series is Marigold the heroic mongoose of MR. IMPOSSIBLE.  But I just don’t see her carrying a book of her own.
      This matter of characters got me thinking about the discussion that’s gone on this week regarding history and how much of it readers want.
      Like the other Wenches, I do a great deal of research.  I love doing it.  But only a small fraction of my impressive learning appears in the book.  For me, historical detail has to be doing something, not just sitting there like a stage set.  One of the main ways I use it is to reveal character.  The way a character responds to her culture, her environment, tells us something about her.  Daphne of MR. IMPOSSIBLE has claustrophobia.  Imagine what it would be like for her to crawl through the dark, narrow passages of a pyramid.  What would make her do the thing she most fears?  And what does her doing it tell us about her character?  (By the way, for a hilarious spoof of this book, check out the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels' Thumbnail Theater.)
      I realized that in my own reading, what distinguishes memorable characters from others is the way they confront, fight, conform, or succumb to the world about them.  The clearer that world is to me, the clearer the character is.  Some characters’ ways of responding to their world have affected me so strongly that I’ve used them as starting points for my own books.
      Today, in the interests of not sounding like a broken record, I’ll skip Dickens.
      How about Becky Sharp of VANITY FAIR?  But how about that aggravating Amelia?  How many times did I want to shake her and say, “Wake up and smell the coffee?”  Whenever I create a clear-eyed heroine who won’t take crap from the hero--or any other man--I’m reacting to characters like Amelia.  At the same time, I’m giving the Becky Sharps of the world credit for surviving in a time and culture that doesn’t approve of uppity, ambitious women, and rejoices in their downfall.
      What about Dorothea in MIDDLEMARCH, trapped in the circumstances of birth, limited education, and the narrow choices available to women?  Her stupid marriage made me so crazy that I gave the same stupid marriage to my heroine of MR. IMPOSSIBLE--but I changed the heroine.  I made her smarter and braver than poor Dorothea with her “jewel box education.”  And I gave her a much better second chance at love, I think, than Dorothea’s.
      Do we notice a theme here?  Bad choices in the husband department?
      However, if I were true, true, true to the research, I couldn't let all of my heroines live happily ever after in an enlightened, monogamous relationship.  The double standard was still going strong.  Any other standard was, to all intents and purposes, unheard of.  And women were viewed by men as lesser beings.  They still are, in all too many places.
      But I’m writing romances, not historical novels.  For a dose of what to do with history in another genre, I will turn to George MacDonald Fraser’s dirty, rotten scoundrel Harry Flashman of the FLASHMAN series.  These stories practically define politically incorrect.  But I love them.  I love Harry Flashman.  Part of his charm is that he knows what he is and admits it.  And somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought, “Could I ever turn a Harry Flashman kind of guy into a hero?”  Hmmmm.  Fraser uses history in every possible way:  to reveal character, to skewer hypocrisy and stupidity and folly, to enlighten, to shock...oh, let me count the ways.

Then there's Jack Aubrey, Stephen Maturin, and Diana Villiers in the Patrick O'Brian series.

Lindsey Davis’s Roman era private eye Marcus Didius Falco--one of the top historical mystery series, in my opinion, though there are lots and lots of excellent ones.
     I have other favorite characters, too, though not all fit into the historical detail-gives-them-dimension thesis.  Some memorable characters are simply brilliant inventions, part of the unique world the author’s created--and I envy those authors.
      DEATH and the Luggage in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. 
      P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves.  And Bertie Wooster.
      There are more, of course, but why should I hog the blog?
      
      What do you think makes a memorable character?  What makes a make-believe person stick in your mind long after you’ve finished the book?  If you had to make a Top Ten list, which characters would be on it?

Writers and Retrogrades

From Mary Jo:

Jo’s Wednesday post got eaten by Typepad for much of the day, Susan King delayed her Thursday post to give Jo’s post more top-of-the-column time after it was recovered—so in that spirit, I’ll post this later on Friday than I usually post.  Since I can’t think of anything to say on historical romances and accuracy that hasn’t already been said beautifully, I’m going for something completely different: Mercury Retrograde.

Some people believe in astrology, some don’t.   But even those who don’t will often believe in Mercury retrograde.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a planet is considered retrograde when it is on the opposite side of the sun from Earth.  Since the planet is moving “backwards” in respect to Earth, its motion is called retrograde, and the energies associated with that planet don’t flow freely.  (I don't really have any good retrograde pictures, but I thought those flamingos looked pretty retrograde.)

Mercury is the planet in our system that is closest to the sun and which moves the fastest, so it becomes retrograde three times a year for about three weeks each time. What does that mean for those of us here on earth?  Chaos and confusion!  Mercury rules everyday life, business, and communications.  This means a lot of things can go wrong. As our intrepid site manager and resident dominatrix, Sherrie Holmes, says, “It’s liked global PMS. Duck!” 

Internet lists explode into flame wars, people miscommunicate about times or dates, one person shows up late for a meeting while another schedules two events for the same time.  Contracts arranged under a retrograde need to be checked extra carefully.  I once had a retrograde book contract that had to go back to the publisher several times because of errors—and when it came to me for what should have been the last time, it turned out that the year was wrong and no one had noticed!  I also suspect that Mercury retrograde would be prominent in the history of Boston’s Big Dig, which has a been a disaster of extended time, costs, and problems, and is now manifesting a new set of disasters. 

It’s not great to buy a car on a retrograde if you can avoid it—the only vehicular lemon I ever bought turned out to be a retrograde car.  (A whited sepulcher of a Datsun wagon.)  And if you go to settlement on a house, double check everything—there might well be mistakes on fees and interest rates.  (More than the usual number of mistakes, that is!)

But even though retrogrades are usually regarded with the same enthusiasm as a patch of poison ivy, they can have their good points.  They are often good for REsearch and REvisions and REestructuring and REthinking.  In fact, I’m doing that last now because I realized that my current story needed something added.  Maybe if an author delivers a book on a retrograde, it will be REprinted or REissued.  (Okay, it may need REvisions, too, but most books do no matter when you send them in!)  It can also be good for REsolving problems that manifested under an earlier retrograde. 

Delays are often associated with retrogrades, and justly so, but even more, a retrograde means REscheduling.  About ten days ago, a friend of mine ordered a popular new hybrid car, and was told they’d have it in no later than the end of September.  Then the dealership swapped with another dealer and she had received it in a week.  This was a REscheduling that worked for her, and very nice the car is, too.  <g> 

It is, frankly, very convenient to blame screw-ups on Mercury retrograde, especially if one is an absent-minded author on deadline.  Like everything in life, a retrograde has pluses and minuses.  Some things are just meant to be done the hard way, and often we end up having to do them on retrogrades.  My philosophy on a retrograde is to lie low, not be uptight about small stuff, and triple check everything that’s critical.  The retrograde doesn’t really cause the problems—it’s more a symbol of the energy involved, and it's hard to fight Mother Nature.

There is one positive use of a retrograde, though I haven’t tried it myself.  I’m told it’s a good time to break up with a boyfriend if you want him to come back later. <g> 

In the miscellaneous category: Happy Bastille Day!  My late sweet Pandora Cat, the tabby with thumbs who lasted till age 20 ½, was born on Bastille Day.

And lastly, in the spirit of the retrograde, in last week’s blog about the paperback publication of Stolen Magic, I was so busy talking about the book that I forgot to give a copy away.  So—contest!  Anyone who is signed up for the Wench newsletter by midnight EDT on Saturday, July 15th, is eligible to get a free signed copy of Stolen Magic.

That’s all for now, folks—and may the retrograde be kind to you and your electronics.

Mary Jo

It’s in the details... or is it?

Susan/Sarah here with a few thoughts for Thursday (and a little trip back to Art History 101) ...

I’ll pick up on the discussion of historical accuracy, though it's not easy to add much to the fantastic insights made by T’Other Susan and Pat, and all the interesting comments that followed. And Jo sparked a great discussion about reading, which I hope will continue though Mercury in retrograde glitched us into sharing Thursday. We don't mind.  :)

As a historical writer, I’m a very careful researcher (okay, sometimes obsessive, I love chasing down some obscure bit of historical information)--what else could I be, after years of graduate school in art history and medieval studies. We drilled at dawn on methodology; I could write proper footnotes half-asleep (and did), I knew the essential references by heart, knew my way around every university library, mine and other campuses, and I had a reserve shelf and stack pass at the Library of Congress (yo, how cool is that!). I could read and research in German, French, and old English, and stand on my head while doing so. And in the week before my PhD oral exams (which I passed after a long night of No Sleep, due to a little guy with an ear infection), I dreamed about flipping through stacks of index cards at lightning speed, each one containing paintings, facts, sources, and some sort of weird hologram. <g>

All this to say, I can research the heck out of anything historical, so I'm in my element when it comes to the research phase writing historical fiction. It’s a feast of info and details... most of which never finds its way into the stories. Because accuracy of detail isn't nearly enough. What you leave out is as important as what you include.

Accuracy is an essential lynch pin in historical fiction, absolutely--and imagination, a sense of perspective, and just plain common sense are just as essential. Total accuracy is best suited to non-fiction, where there’s room for dumping a plethora of facts. Even then, it's dry and incomplete without interpretation and insight.

When writing historical fiction, sometimes we can find there's too much of one element and not enough of the other; accurate period detail and the needs of the story have to be in balance. When that point of harmony is found, it all comes together for writer, reader, and that most important of entities, The Story.

Historical fiction writers are, in a sense, teaching what life was like in the past, whether it’s the medieval era, or the Roman, or closer to our own time in Georgian, Regency, and so on. So there’s a certain obligation to represent a historical period accurately...but it’s not always necessary.

The writer creates an illusion through words and word pictures, and the reader uses that info and imagery to create an inner world while reading the book. It's an interactive medium.  And for that interaction to succeed, there have to be common areas where the historical characters and the modern reader can intersect.  For fiction, this is often in the realm of emotional content, especially in romance...and it's easy to block that connection with overabundance of detail and, well, just a tad too much accuracy.

There has to be some wiggle room for the modern person to connect with the artwork -- or with the story. Authors have an obligation, to "make that connection to humanity" (as the writer Avi once said) -- to make the past accessible to the people of the present.

Sometimes that means finding unique ways to show, rather than tell. Sometimes it means knowing when to take a light hand with the details, and let the story–-the artsy part of your creation–-take precedence.

We aren’t historians, we're writers, and creativity is a big factor. Connecting with readers is another big factor. Historical writers have to know their subjects inside and out–-readers sense it if the writer doesn’t have firm control of the material. But hitting the readers over the head with a ton of period detail, as interesting as it is, can slow down or obscure the story.

How many medieval romances will portray the hero in bed as unwashed and smelly, hair greasy, breath smelling of garlic for his health, and jauntily attired in nothing but a little red cap that’s probably nipping with fleas? That's the accurate version. So authors make judicious choices, retaining the flavor of the time period without the absolute facts. That's where authenticity trumps accuracy.

After all, the story’s the thing. Accessibility is the other thing, seems to me.

Here’s a fun example of accuracy vs. authenticity:

Jan van Eyck, Self-Portrait, 1433, London, NGA

Here, Jan van Eyck paints himself (or so it's thought) with unerring, unforgiving detail and photographic precision. He would have used a polished convex mirror and, at times, a brush with but one or two hairs to create such extraordinarily fine manipulation of the paint. This is undoubtedly an accurate portrayal of the man's appearance. Yet beyond the keen gaze, we learn almost nothing of the man beyond his minutely defined physical shell. He shows us what he looks like, but keeps us at a distance for the rest, fascinating us with a dazzle of detail. This is unfailing accuracy, detached, factual, precise. To some extent that detail obscures the emotional layers of the subject, which are not wholly apparent to the viewer.

For a detail of the face, go to http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG222

Now for another example:

Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1659, Washington DC, NGA

Here's Rembrandt in his later years–-still successful but now on the downside of his success. In his earlier self-portraits, he is fascinated with detail, with costume variety, textures of steel armor, fur, feathers, velvet, lace, and the precise map of his face. Now he lets go of all that accuracy and looks beyond it, truly looks at himself, and shows his flaws to us. He even sacrifices facial detail, yet gives us far more of the subject. The portrait is deeply expressive in its brushwork, it's imprecise, fast and fluid, resulting in a portrayal that's introspective, raw in its honesty, and in its way as unerringly honest as the Van Eyck portrait. But it's not accurate in its artistic detail.

Here's a close view of the face.

I'm not saying one is better than the other -- not at all -- what I think this comparison demonstrates (and visual info can be faster to take in that written info, so I chose artwork for the example) is the different impact that a greater proportion of accurate detail, vs. a greater proportion of emotional content, can have -- and I think this applies, as well, to writing.

Happy Thursday, wherever ye be!

Susan/Sarah

Young readers of historical romance.

Jo here, again, thanks to Gina. Many blessings be upon you!

And thanks to Susan Kind for allowing me part of Thursday to repeat this.

I said I'd blog about this, and here I go in true blog style, because I'm not sure I have anything coherent to say, but the subject does interest me for many reasons.

I was a young reader of historical romance. I began with The Scarlet Pimpernel when I was about 10, I think. The thinking is about the age, not the book, though I had been reading some historical novels, mostly about real people before that, and Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, which of course contain a lot of romances and they were the ones I read and reread.

I was in England, of course, where romances flourished back then, including historical romance. I soon discovered Heyer, definitely historical romance. Let's forget the distinction between trad regency and historical romance that sprang up. I had no concept of such a thing then, or when I wrote my first complete romance novel in 1977, which is why what became An Arranged Marriage was and is a bit unusual (!) for a regency romance.

An addition, as I found it. The '60s cover of one of Heyer's books.

Someone should research when the division occurred between regency and historical romance, because by the mid eighties it was firm in North America, with the idea that "regency" meant no sex and
historicals meant sex, graphic or not.

Anyway, I outread the children's library at a young age and was given an adult library card, which admitted me to many delights, including a whole wall of Mills and Boon romances. Not historical, but very enjoyable, thank you, much to my mother's dismay. Yup, to her they weren't "real books."

I digress, as always.

But I'm trying to think about my attitude to historical romance -- always my favorite reading -- and what appealed to me as a young person at school, at university, and afterward.

I think mate-choosing has to appeal to young people strongly. We are animals beneath the sophistication, so as soon as we enter puberty, a large part of our mind is occupied with the important business of
finding a mate and reproducing our genes. We may not do it, as many haven't through the ages -- very wise of so many women to enter convents in the middle ages, in my opinion, though it's equally
interesting that more men did than women. I'm not quite sure how that works out -- but biologically it's the only thing of true importance.

Perhaps, if there is a decline in interest in romance novels in young women across the board these days, it reflects the fact that they're more busily engaged in the activity, after a manner of speaking, than my generation were. Except that the swinging sixties didn't do much to change my interest in historical romance. That's a picture of me as a romance reader at university, complete with phallic images. That's my art work BTW, but not an example I'm proud of. I never was into abstract.

I think this is getting too long, and I may add to it later. But what do you think?

Are young people really reading less. I was an avid reader but most of my friends weren't even then. Are there really fewer avid readers?

Is historical romance less appealing to today's young readers? I get quite a bit of e-mail from young readers.

Is it perhaps because the protagonists, especially the heroines, in historical romance are often older? I still write quite young ones. Imogen in Dark Champion was 16. Claire in Lord of Midnight, 18. Jancy in The Rogue's Return is 18, and Mara in To Rescue A Rogue is 19. Thea, in my MIP, is the advanced age of 20.

Apart from a couple of older women younger men stories, I don't think I've written a heroine older than 24 and most of my heroes aren't much older than that.

Or is it that the stories have become a bit internal, with not enough action and derring-do. And I include most sex scenes as internal (no puns, please. I'm British!) as despite the many delights being experienced, it is not action in the plot sense.

Many thoughts, no coherence.

Jo
PS. Adding as I repost this, I might not have enjoyed romances so much as a young teen if I hadn't been able to find plenty of adult romances, by which I mean they weren't written for young readers, with subtle sexuality. Where are those books now? I don't think YA books hit the spot.

Glitch, and New Sidebar Items

From Sherrie:

Once more, with feeling.  Hi, Wenchlings!  As you probably know by now, TypePad was down for about 8 hours today, and during that time it ate Jo's and my most recent posts.  Fortunately, my post gave it indigestion and TypePad burped it back up, so I'm reposting it.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, Jo's post was masticated into oblivion and is slowly digesting deep in the machine's bowels.  The only thing  left of her delightful commentary is the faint whiff of a British accent and the rumble of words and punctuation bumping against each other as they pass through the digestive system.   Woe and woe!

Here's my post, once more:

I'm here in my capacity as site manager, wearing fishnet stockings, thigh-high stiletto boots, tight little red dress, and carrying my WHIP!  (Slash!  Crack!)  (ouch-ouch-ouch!)  Thanks to my buddy Robert A. Moffat, who is a member of my critique group and a great photographer and talented artist, I now have a signature cartoon to go with my posts!  The fact that Bob has shaved years from my age and pounds from my body has endeared him to me for life.  The only tight little red thing I can get into nowadays is my flannel nightie, and it looks awful with my stiletto boots. 

You're probably wondering if this post has a purpose.  I'm wondering the same thing.  In the meantime, check out the additions to our sidebars.

The Wenches have been playing with statistics behind the scenes, adding up all their books published and how many years they've been published.  We thought it would be fun to share these stats with you.  The information is in the left sidebar, at the bottom.  But before you scroll down, why not take a wild guess and see how close you come to getting it right?  It's not a contest or anything--just a mental exercise to get your synapses firing.

We've also added a list of our favorite blog sites in the sidebar at the right (scroll to the bottom).  In a few days we'll be adding yet another sidebar item:  favorite websites.  Stay tuned for further developments.  In the meantime, I just found a pair of tight little red bobby socks to go with my tight little red nightie.  My, don't I look sexy!  Good thing it's not Christmas.  Santa Clause would have an apoplexy.

Sherrie

Younger readers

I posted today, then Typepad went down and took my words of wisdom with it! Unfortunately, I'm too busy now to try to recreate it and the day's nearly over on the east coast.

If it seems relevant, I'll have another stab at the subject next week.

Jo :)

Historical wallpaper

From Patricia Rice:

Susan/Miranda started a thread I’d like to comment on, and I’m posting it here to keep the thread going. (and I'm playing with images, forgive me!)

When I first started reading historical romance, I was awed by the immense amount of details in books written by Anita Mills or Roberta Gellis or any number of other amazing writers.  I soaked in the historical ambiance like a dry sponge--which I was.  I used to research history for the fun of it, so soaking it up through fiction was thrilling.  But I was fairly uneducated in a great deal of history. If there were any anachronisms in the books I was reading, I didn't know it.  I read for story, for romance, for wonderful characters. I was quite happy with romances that didn't have much history.  The history was just a fun bonus.

When I first started writing historical romance, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of research required.  So I began that book in the rural area where I lived, figuring the local library would at least carry local history.  I had limited resources, and this was before the days of the internet or big bookstores.  I suppose my historical research was doomed from the start.  I had too many things I wanted to read about, too little time, and too little access.

All of which leads up to my saying that I don’t mind “historical-lite” as long as it’s done well.  I do mind contemporary characters in costumes.  I do mind egregious errors in fact.  I’m not thrilled with 250 pages of sex and drool, because I want story and characterization. “Romance” isn’t just about sex, it’s about relationships—how the characters deal with the realities of their lives and families and make the romance work. But if an author can give me those qualities I want, I don’t need to know how a mill wheel turns. 

But I believe our “littlest wenchling” is correct. Today’s younger readers haven’t had the same access to those older historicals, and in most cases, they haven’t had history taught to them in schools. They don’t know the terms “viscount” or the rules of engagement.  So, as writers, we have to decide if we want to write the detailed history we love—and explain it—or simply use history as wallpaper.  I’m sure there is some combination in between that we can achieve, but it’s a delicate balance.

Mostly, I believe historical romance needs to reflect a different time and place than the one we live in, a time when strange things can happen, a place where the wonderful and horrible might occur.  We want surprise, fantasy, horror—in other words, we want our emotions engaged.  If our minds are engaged as well, that’s a bonus.

Does this mean that in the near future, we need to start separating true “historicals” from our “fantasy” romances?  Or is there some manner in which publishers can indicate which type of book it is so the purists can have what they want, and the romance readers can indulge without a qualm? Do we, as writers, owe it to our readers to separate the two, or are we allowed to muddy the waters?

How Much History Makes (or Breaks) a Historical?

From Susan/Miranda:

Earlier this week, Jo announced the launch of a new Yahoogroups list whose admirable purpose is to bring attention to a wide range of historical romances, books that readers might enjoy but otherwise overlook. The list is aptly named HistoricalDelights. For the writers and readers on this list, history IS a delight.

But some of the comments that followed this announcement made me wonder exactly how much history is necessary these days to qualify a book as “historical.” Some readers defined the differences between “lite” and “traditional” historicals, making their choice based on their mood. Some want as complete a time-travel experience as possible, and labled the more frothy books as “wall-bangers.” For other readers, the emphasis is always on entertainment first, and hang the anachronisms.

This dilemna is, of course, not a new one. Any writer who sets a book in a time period other than her or his own faces the same challenge. A large part of history has always been remembering what’s been forgotten, and a historical writer must decide exactly how much of the past to incorporate without overwhelming the love story. Even the most assiduous academic historian can’t entirely put aside the perspective of his own time, and recreate the past without coloring it through the present.

When historical romance made its splashy appearance in publishing in the late 1970s, historical accuracy was not what most readers sought. (Steve! Ginny!) In those sprawling sagas, heros and heroines always wore silk (how else would you identify them as the hero and heroine?). All pirates had huge, four-poster beds aboard their ships, and every highwayman could jump on and off his stallion (!!) with gymnastic ease, then ride the same snorting beast for days at a time without rest, food, or water.

Yet as readers grew more discerning and competition among writers increased, the historial research became more accurate, too. There was more concern for recreating long-ago speech, dress, and manners (though the majority of historical romance heroines mysteriously continue to avoid having periods, the lucky creatures.) Some writers even included footnotes and bibliographies at the end of their historical romances The writers on this blog all work hard to “get it right”, as you can tell by the eagerness with which we swap titles of out-of-print books and exotic web-sites.

But the glory-days of 500 page historical romances are gone. Most historicals today hover around 100,000 words and often less. Publishers say that readers want faster reads, more love scenes, less history, and besides, paper costs too much. Regencies, one of the bastions of historically detailed romantic fiction, are nearly extinct. The current hot trend is for titles taken from current top-forty songs, and dialogue that sounds more appropriate to “The OC” than Almacks.

So now I’ll ask you, readers and fellow writers: how much history is too little, too much, or just right? Do you notice historical errors, or does history make you feel like you’re back in grade school history class, and chick lit in costume more to your taste? Are you one of those heading off in dismay to Phillipa Gregory and your library of old favorites, or do you think 21st century puns have their place on 18th century lips?

Mea Culpa!

(And I'm guilty too.)
I and many of my cohorts (me and many of my cohorts?) have been grousing of late about the absence of dedicated readers and the susequent falling number of books sold.
Confession coming:
I am one of those deliquent readers.

See, I just realized I spend a lot of time on ye olde computer; I watch TV way more than is good for me (especially during baseball season), I have to see all the new movies coming out, and now that it's summer I spend more time out of doors, where the sounds of birdsong and falling water falling induce sleep rather than reading....

In short: I read less.

But reading is wonderful! Think of the magic: you look at a line of symbols, which form words in your head, which then form scenes and soon you're watching your own private movie or TV show.

Reading means the ability to think in symbols. No other creature on the planet can do that. (...except for cats, which I suspect are sneaky readers. Dogs prefer the comics.)
Most animals think in images.

I foresee a future of humans who think in pictures.

Yipes.

...and yet, and yet.... I'm as guilty as any of this generation's absent readers.

It isn't the quality of the books, well, not so much. Nor the topics. It's my lack of time. But I had oddles of time before I started googling.

Are you experiencing the same thing?
If not, why not?

best,
Edith, fast becoming one of the illiterati

How to De-Sag the Middle

      From Loretta:
      
      Some while ago, in the comments to somebody’s post (those of you still in firm possession of your long and short-term memory might recall, but I am not, and don’t), the question of sagging middles came up.  Regarding plots, not human waistlines--a topic too deeply tragic for me to attempt.
      
      Plot issues I can deal with...to an extent.  But as you read this--if you continue to read it--please bear in mind that I speak only for myself.  Every writer has his or her own approach, or maybe several approaches.
      
      A while back I talked about Dickens.  One of the many amazing things about his writing is the plotting.  As he swiftly matured as a writer, his plotting grew as complex and elegant as a spider’s web.  It is amazing enough that he could manage all those threads and the hundreds of characters--but to realize he did this in monthly installments makes me dizzy.
      
      Though I know he didn’t simply sit down and start writing--sailing “into the mist” as some writers do--but had a fairly complex concept of the book as a whole, I cannot at the moment put my hand on anything proving that he wrote a detailed outline, in advance, of the whole book.  Yet he did plan ahead and keep track of things as he went along.  Most of my editions of his works offer appendices containing his plan for each month’s installment and careful notes about what happens to whom and when and why.  Even so, it’s amazing how he could keep track of everything, let alone weave all the parts together.
      
      He--like so many of those authors of the great sprawling novels of the 19thC--has no sagging middles.  (Note:  Those who find 19th C English novels slow and boring will agree, for to them the whole book sags.) I think this has not simply to do with plotting and planning but with the variety and individuality of the characters, the author’s understanding of those characters, and his or her ability to keep them true to themselves.
      
      My stories are absurdly simple things by comparison:  a handful of characters, with the focus almost unrelentingly on hero and heroine, and maybe one subplot.
      
      I wrote my first three books with no outline.  Contract negotiations required me to produce one for the fourth.  After that, there was no turning back.  It was, I found, much easier to write a book when I had some clue in advance what was going to happen.
      
      Some of my outlines are more detailed than others, depending on how many details my imagination can produce so early in the game, before I’ve spent enough time with the characters to understand them.  Nonetheless, the beginning, middle, and end is in the outline.  The major turning points of the story are there.  And the resolution is there.  It’s my security blanket.
      
      Most of the time, the little turning points aren’t there.  Most of the time, my outline’s notions of how the characters will react to this or that bears no resemblance to how they actually do react once I’m writing the story.  This is fine, because in a great many cases--not always, but in the majority--my original view of the characters tends to be vague, flat, and even clichéd.  They’re like little stick figures.  As I get to know them, and hear their voices, they get little faces and bodies and expressions and gestures and quirks and prejudices, etc.  They become three-dimensional, in other words.
      
      What they do, then, will depend not on the outline but on who they’ve turned out to be.  I may know they’re headed for one of those major turning points, but I can’t drag them along my route, no matter how brilliant it appeared when I planned it, unless it suits their natures.  And it may even turn out that the major turning point is going to be something altogether different.  OK, fine.  For one thing, this guarantees that I won't get bored.  For another, as long as they’re true to themselves, I think they’ll take care of the plot, and keep the middle as taut as the beginning and end.
      
      This is not the only answer to sagging middles.
      
      One could, of course, put all the smoochy scenes there.