Word Wenches

The Stolen Bride

Hi, here's Jo with yet another reissue of my early trad regencies.

It's fun having these come out every four months, but four months seems to pass awfully quickly! The great news is that the trade paperback format is working so well that my publisher is moving on to reissue my regency historicals that way, so early next year Forbidden Magic will be out that way, and after that, Dragon's Bride.

Cover Talk

Dragon's Bride had a modern bride on the cover, so my first note to the art department was, "No modern bride, please!" (You can click on any picture in a Wench blog to see a bigger version.)

I do get cover consultation, which is great, but things don't always work out quite right. Perhaps it's something about The Stolen Bride. Way back when, on the Avon paperback, "extremely handsome blond guy" got me Patrick Swayze! 

This time I get a sort of surfer dude. The Avon cover did a better job of Sophie -- "Minx with short russet curls" -- but in both cases they clearly couldn't believe I meant short hair.

So welcome to Surfer Dude and Neat-as-a-pin Thoughtful Lady.

 
Now you might think the loose shirt look is wrong, too, but in fact, no. Randal's a fashionable type, but he's also a rule breaker, and in the country he's much more casual. In addition, this story turns into a wild adventure where he rescues Sophie from extreme danger, so some irregularity of dress is forgivable.

Traditional Regencies in the twenty-first century.

The feedback I'm getting is that the readers accustomed to my more recent books, the historicals, are enjoying the change of pace of the sweet Regencies. At the same time, they wouldn't want to read sweet books all the time. Do you agree with that?

I've been reading through the page proofs of each reissue, revisiting the books after a long time away, and I, too, find a charm in books that involve a courtship circumscribed by the characters being in the midst of society and family and mostly wishing to stay there -- ie, not break too many rules.

Adventures in Writing.

The Stanforth Secrets was my only who-dunnit. The Stolen Bride is my only novel with two equal love stories. I was still young and malleable then.

I did the mystery at one editor's strong suggestion, and did the dual-romance book because her successor thought Randal and Sophie's story couldn't carry a novel because it had begun in Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed. I'm not sure if that was true or not, but I would have had trouble making the other love story into a novel. Petite ex-governess Beth Hawley and large Corinthian Sir Marium Fletcher have a sweet love story, but it's fairly straightforward. A novella, perhaps?

A writer's life is never as straightforward as it seems!

Ah, I remember I did another dual-romance, in the medieval The Shattered Rose. That was my own idea and I included Raoul and Aline because Galeran and Jehanne's story seemed very dark. A lot of readers felt Raoul and Aline should have had their own book, but again their story was a straightforward love story that couldn't carry a historical romance.

It could, perhaps, have fit a shorter book, one about 60,000 words, which is about the same length as most traditional Regencies way back when. Does the genre need more short historical romances? Not necessarily "sweet" -- ie without explicit sex, but with fairly uncomplicated stories.

Not that I can claim that The Stolen Bride is an uncomplicated story!

The storyline.

As you'll remember, in Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed we meet Sophie, Lord Wraybourne's sister, and gorgeous rake Lord Randal Ashby, Wraybourne's friend and neighbour. Sophie has adored Randal for years, and now she's in London for a season, she's set her sights on him. He's fending her off as best he can, but she's not an easily deterred young lady. However, she has no intention of forcing his hand. That comes about during the climactic drama of the novel. Compromised, they engage to marry.

The Stolen Bride opens months later, two weeks before the wedding with family and friends gathering at Stenby Castle, Wraybourne's seat, and Tyne Towers, Randal's father's home. Lady Wraybourne has begged her old governess, Beth Hawley, to come to help with the complexities, especially the odd behaviour of Sophie. Beth soon uncovers that Sophie is worrying that she's trapped her adored Randal, because he's still doing his best to avoid her. She's trying to raise the courage to set him free.

Here's a little snippet seen through Beth's eyes during her first dinner at Stenby.

Sophie was about to respond to this sibling taunt,but Randal turned her head and laid a finger on her lips. “Behave yourself,” he said with a smile.

“Behave yourself, behave yourself!” Sophie hissed.“That’s all you ever say to me these days.”

Silence fell and the whole table turned to listen.

Randal looked at her, unperturbed. “Do you know that the hippopotamus bleeds itself?”

“What?” Sophie gaped.

“If it has overindulged on grass,” said Randal, lounging back in his chair, “or fish, or whatever a hippopotamus eats, it pierces itself with a sharp reed. When it has bled enough, it patches itself with mud. Read it somewhere. May I help you to more carrots, Sophie?”

“You’re mad,” said Sophie, rather flushed. “What has all that to do with anything?”

“I said something to you other than ‘behave yourself.” He kissed a finger and
brushed it lightly over her lips.

“Randal, behave yourself,” said the duchess firmly, causing a general laugh as everyone picked up their conversations.

Beth however viewed the lovers with concern. She understood Jane’s uneasiness. Something was certainly not right in that quarter.

Then there's the odd woman Jane Wraybourne has housed when she was found on the road, having lost her memory. She seems to be feeding Sophie's doubts.

There's a longer, different excerpt here.

Next In Line

And last of these trads is RITA winning Emiy and the Dark Angel. You'll meet the hero, Piers Verderan, in The Stolen Bride, and in the excerpt you can find by clicking on the link above.

Verderan, is one of my true rakes, but like Randal, mostly reformed before their book. For some reason, reforming rakes doesn't thrill me as a story line. Perhaps I think they should get their act together on their own. I think I worry that my poor heroine might end up as a prop for the rest of their lives.

Do you share that concern, or do you like to see them embroiled in the struggle to change their ways?

Anyway, the Dark Angel is reformed rather than tamed. I like that. :)

Returning to covers, I really like the cover to EATDA The characters look right as does the setting. The book takes place during hunting season in the Melton Mowbray area.

Now it's your turn, and I'll send a copy of The Stolen Bride to a randomly picked comment on the various subjects raised above. And I wish you a better June than ours is shaping up to be. Here in Whitby, it's gray and chilly. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Jo

Dabbling In Art History, Regency Style

Cara/Andrea here,

This weekend officially kicks off summer, a season which lights a bright glow of anticipation for long, lazy afternoons sharing a hammock or a beach blanket with a good book. (If you are like me, your TBR pile is reaching frightening heights!)

And speaking of books . . . I've a new one, To Surrender To A Rogue,  hitting the shelves in a few days. It's the second in my "Circle of Sin" trilogy, which revolves around a a close-knit group of female scholars who each have a dark secret that comes back to haunt them. This was a really fun series for me—it was both challenging and exhilarating to create three heroines who are incredibly confident intellectually, but incredibly vulnerable emotionally. They are brilliant, brainy scientists (Don't ask me why I chose that field. Maybe it was because in fiction I could make up for my less-than-stellar achievements in real life math and science classes!) And while the first book featured Ciara, the chemistry expert, this current release stars Alessandra, whose specialty is archeology—a subject which is far firmer ground for me.

But actually I am digressing . . . for while I do plan on blogging about Alessandra's interest in antiquities, and why the city of Bath makes a perfect setting for the book, today I'm going to talk about the hero's special interest, which is also a subject near and dear to my heart. Jack is a distinguished military man—and he's also an accomplished watercolor artist. So he, like the ladies, is a contrast of hard and soft edges.

 My background is in art, and having dabbled in watercolor color painting, I was especially excited about exploring its history during the Regency era. So twirl your sable brushes to  fine point, add a wash of pigment to your cold pressed paper and let's sketch in a quick outline of the early nineteenth century art scene in Great Britain!

The country has an incredibly rich heritage in watercolor painting, and, as is true in so many other fields, the Regency was a time of great energy and evolution as artists began to look at their world in a whole new way. In previous centuries, watercolorists were considered more as draftsmen than true artists, and often worked with surveyors and mapmakers. Their work was considered utilitarian,  more a record of topographical information—how a town or a countryside or cathedral looked—than a creative work.

That began to change as techniques loosened and became more expressive. The traditional style was known as the "stained glass" method, in which ink outlines were carefully colored in with washes of pigment. But watercolors, as opposed to oil paints, are by their very nature spontaneous. They dry very quickly, so an artist must work fast. yet, they are also transparent, so one can build color, change tones, add details, slowly building an organic image  of luminous beauty.

The change in attitude actually began in 1760 when watercolor artists were first allowed to exhibit their painting in the annual public art exhibitions. The Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768,  also recognized the medium, but for the most part, its practitioners were treated like second class citizens. So in 1804, a group of artists banded together and made a bold move, establishing the Society for Painters in Water-Colours. By proclaiming their own special status and organizing their own exhibitions, they in effect through down a gauntlet to the rest of the art world—and won recognition with both their peers and the paying public.

The shows were, according to Great British Watercolors, by Matthew Hargraves, "critical, popular and financial successes." Indeed, William Marshall Craig gave a series of lectures at the Royal Institution in London in which he categorically claimed that watercolors were far superior to oil painting. The debate was a heated one throughout the first few decades, with noted periodicals  such as Rudolph Ackermann's monthly Repository of Arts featuring a series of essays on the subject in 1812. Of course no consensus was reached—the important point was that watercolorists had succeeded in establishing themselves as a serious players in the art world.

You may all recognize the name of J.M.W. Turner, who is perhaps the most famous watercolorist of his era. His innovative, impressionist style—which still appears incredible modern—helped revolutionize painting as a whole, but there were also equally talented artists who are less well-known, especially to an American audience. Here are just a few of the notable names:

Alexander Cozens (who was really a Georgian, but I'm taking artistic license) taught for years at Eton. In addition to producing hauntingly beautiful works of his own, rendered in an austere, monochromatic palette, he shaped the artistic tastes a whole generation of English aristocrats . Two of his pupils, Sir George Beaumont and William Beckford, are recognized as two of the greatest collectors and connoisseurs of their age.

Thomas Girtin trained with Turner at Munro's Academy and while his work appears more traditional than that of Turner, his exploration of texture, shadow and color established him as a leading practitioner of the medium. Unfortunately an early death, at age 27, cut short a brilliant career.

David Roberts was one of the leading "travel" artists, a genre which appealed greatly to a Regency audience who were in love with exotic places. His works were most of the East, which seemed to have a special allure to his viewers.

While the majority of watercolorists were landscape artists, Thomas Rowlandson was a luminary of figurative art. A famous satirical printmaker as well as a painter, Rowlandson captured scenes of daily life with a eye for every boisterous, bawdy detail. 

I hope you have enjoyed this oh-so brief peek at the fabulously rich and diverse world of British watercolors. My fictional hero Jack (who is a mix of Girtin and Roberts) feels honored to stand—figuratively speaking of course—alongside such impressive and imaginative men. You can lean a little more about actual paintingtechnique in the scenes with his drawing master . . .Jack does pay attention to detail . . . that is, when he isn't distracted by Alessandra.

What about you? Do you have a favorite artist?  And do you have a preference for either watercolors or oil paintings? Or does the medium matter at all to you? I'll be giving away a signed copy of my new book to one lucky reader, who will be chosen at random from all those who leave a comment here between now and Monday.

Happy Holiday weekend, everyone! And special thanks to all the men and women who have served our country throughout history.

To POV or Not to POV?

What a great anniversary blog we had on Monday & Tuesday (we thank you!), so it's a bit of a challenge following that one ... so I thought I'd simply bring up an interesting and perpetual topic in historical fiction -- that of POV or point of view -- and I'd love to know what you all think about the many variations in historical fiction.

Limited third person: In my historical romances (here's a closeup of the gorgeous cover for my Sarah Gabriel, THE HIGHLAND GROOM), generally I avoid head hopping within one scene (mostly because I am the one who gets easily confused, haha) -- I find it's too easy as the writer to lose control of the scene and dilute its potential. And I like to keep things simple: I write His and Hers POVs, one per scene, sometimes one per chapter. It helps to focus a story that has two main protagonists, and it helps intensify character definition and development. A limited third person, with an intimate sort of spin, can add immediacy to the story. And we get to see each of the two main characters from two distinct angles -- either in their head or from the other's perspective.

I'll rarely add even a third POV for a villain, as I like concentrating the story energy on the H & H -- the essence of romance being two! 

Choosing who owns that scene, or that emotion, or that incident, is the challenge with any POV, even first -- generally the scene should be owned by the character who stands the most to gain or lose at that moment in the story (or the one who's most engaged at the time in moving the plot forward). Sometimes we writers don't know who that is until we're in the thick of writing -- many times I've entirely revised a scene from the other character's perspective, and found it works way better. I don't always know until I get there -- no matter how much planning I do beforehand (hence, at times, not a lot!).

For LADY MACBETH, I ventured into first person territory and in the early writing stages, I was a little nervous, having never taken on that sort of thing -- but I quickly found that I love it. Having written third/hero and heroine, for so long, here was a character who could let it all hang out, and at times she did. The character can jump off the page and become real ... but the writer has to make judicious choices about how far to take that "I, I, I" that can move or dominate every page. Sometimes we don't WANT to know every single thing this person is thinking and doing. As readers, we don't want the character to nag or drone or bore us. We want that character to be continually unfolding before our eyes.

First person is a great tool for getting into character as well as story -- and the reader has to do some of the work in figuring out who this person is, which can invest a reader more deeply in a story. The writer shouldn't have to tell the reader what this person is about. Sometimes the thoughts and actions presented are actually indicating the opposite of what is happening -- a first person character is not always omniscient, and the role of the reader then adds the depth. That, along with the refreshing voice of a character who can truly speak up, is one reason I love writing first person. AND I love the way first person neatly limits a story and keeps it from spreading out all over the place. This is so handy in books that are limited in word count by the publishers' decision. In the case of LADY MACBETH, the story could have been huge--but seen from her perspective and experience only, there were natural boundaries that helped to focus the plot and story.

I also bracketed the story, prologue and later, with present tense first person, which I found very liberating to write, and really barreled the story along when needed -- though I haven't tried it for an entire book, I'd love to sometime. It's challenging and very interesting, though sometimes seems to defy its own logic.

For QUEEN HEREAFTER (coming in December 2010!) I used a mix of first and third. The book features three main characters: Queen Margaret of Scotland, a Celtic harper named Eva, and Eva's kinswoman, Lady Gruadh, aka Lady Macbeth (it's partly a sequel!). Each one is initially seen in first person POV - so they get their direct say and establish their personalities and dilemmas right up front -- and the story resumes in a close or limited third person, so that we know only what they're thinking, observing, doing. I wanted to capture the intimacy of first person, while keeping most of the story in third person perspective to keep the tone at an intimate level, while panning out the camera into longer shots as needed. Queen Margaret was a very complex lady, with idiosyncracies and layers of piety and fiestiness. If she were to be seen in first person POV entirely, we would never get past her own subjectivity (and constant prayer), so her story really needed the perspective of another character such as Eva or Lady Macbeth, who have sometimes very different points of view on things than saintly Queen Margaret.

So there you go, in a nutshell, the primary points of view that I've tried. What I'd love to know from you all -- what do you enjoy most in POV -- the third, the first, the present, the past tense ... the omniscient overview, the zoomed-in close-up? 

Do you sometimes not notice POV at all?  Do you like the comfort and wider perspective of third, or does first person attract you, intrigue you ... or simply drive you bats?

Susan

We're Four!

  Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us! Happy fourth birthday to the Wenches, happy birthday to us!

Hi, this is Jo, compiling our special anniversary blog with four helpers. Each of the Wenches has answered the question, "Why historicals?" We hope you'll enjoy the posts, and then answer the question in your own way.

There's a special anniversary gift, of course -- a mini-shopping spree at a great internet bookstore called The Book Depository. What's particularly great about this one? It ships free world wide. We do have Wench readers all around the world, and this way the prize is of use to any of you. To fit with our 4th anniversary, the prize is $40 US, which translates into about 28 British pounds. Why do I mention that? Because the main Book Depository site is in the UK, though there is one in the US. American readers might find books at the British site not readily available in the States.

Click here to visit them now.

What do you have to do to win? The details are at the end.

Now on the the Wenches' answers to the question, "Why historicals?"

Susan King: For me, reading fairy tales and then historical fiction as a kid went hand in hand, and then years spent studying history at a graduate level heightened my fascination for history. So writing historicals, when I began writing fiction, seemed like a natural choice.

Something that greatly appeals to me in historicals is the way a good historical can have a rich world-building aspect -- we can totally immerse, through that story, in a different time and place and discover new things that don't exist in our own world. And a good historical, for me, always has a hint (or more!) of that fairy tale essence, of romance and adventure in a far away time and place -- and yet characters, settings, situations and events might be actual. 

As fiction writers, we're part of a long, long tradition of storytellers and bards who told tales by the fireside--and those old stories were often historicals!

Anne Gracie: Why historicals? I blame Georgette Heyer. She caught me young (11  years old) and I was hooked for life. The book was These Old Shades,  and it plunged me into an exciting new world and swept me way on the  adventures of Léon, bought for a few coins for the mysterious purposes  of His Grace of Avon, turned into Léonie and taught to be a girl  again, and then— well, you need to read it. I'm not sure I even  noticed it was a historical -- for me, the characters and the story were what counted, and the historical setting was just their world, as  Mowgli lived in his world and Anne of Green Gables hers.

I don't understand people who love paranormals but say they don't like  historicals because of "all that history" -- as if a historical novel  is some kind of history textbook. And I don't understand those who 
only want to read about men and women of their own nationality, time  and country. Sure, it's fun, but I love to escape to other places, other worlds, other times.

I read all kinds of fiction; fantasy, adventure, mystery, sci-fi and  historicals of all kinds  but when it came to writing a romance, Heyer  had entwined the Regency era and romance firmly in my mind. I love  everything about the Regency era;  high society —glamor, intrigue and  frivolity, the dark undertow of poverty, the tragedy and heroism of  war, the huge changes wrought by the industrial revolution, the growth  of the British Empire and more. It's such a rich and varied garden to  browse in.

It's perfect for me, because I love to explore the people  who fall through the cracks of change -- heroines cast adrift by  circumstance, heroes who've returned changed by war, or who are the  product of broken or dysfunctional families. And speaking of  historical heroes... sigh... what's not to love about larger-than- life, unreconstructed men, raised (they think) to rule? 

When I started writing romance, I connected with a small bunch of  would-be writers who seemed to know everything --all the publishers,  the agents, the rules of writing etc. To my dismay they said, "Don't 
you know the historical is dead? All the historical authors are leaving. If you want to get published, you'll have to write  contemporary." But I loved my Regency-era story so I persevered with  it, and to my surprise and delight I sold it. Apparently the publisher  didn't know the Historical Was Dead — and I wasn't going to tell them.  That was ten years ago, but last year I met a very talented new writer  who told me worriedly that she'd just been told the Historical was  Dead and she ought to be writing paranormals... Heh heh. 

As far as I'm concerned, as long as people write fabulous and original  stories, the historical will never die. It's a constantly evolving  subgenre and every year wonderful new writers emerge who take a rich,  well mined vein of history and create something fresh, bright and new-minted from it. And congratulations to the Original Wenches who've done much to ensure the historical will never die.

Cara Elliott: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . . "

My love affair with the genre started when I was a child. I remember the wonderment of reading of T.H. White's The Once And Future King, a book on King Arthur childhood and his schooling with Merlin (shades of Harry Potter) It was sheer magic! Then it was on to swashbuckling adventure like The Three Musketeers, Ivanhoe, and Horatio Hornblower. And as I got a little older, Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. The list could, of course, go on ad infinitum, but I shall simply say that I was an avid reader long before I was a writer.

When I read, like to be transported into a different world, and a historical setting adds that additional layer of "fantasy" -- and I mean that in every good sense of the word!   I want to savor the sights and sounds and texture of the imagination . . . and somehow, having the story take place in another era helps me slide out of the mundane confines of my daily routine and into that special place.   If I learn a little something about a facet of real history, be it painting or smuggling or what a Regency phaeton and postboy look like, well, that only adds to the enjoyment. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good contemporary story, too. But there is an element of romance to windswept castles and candlelit ballrooms, aswirl in silks and satins, that make my heart go pitter-patter.

Now, why do I write historicals? For exactly the same reasons. Leaving the present for the past seems to let my mind to explore stories and characters with more freedom. Maybe it's because even with all the research we do-the studying of fashion and furnishings, the walking through historic houses and gardens, the tasting of orgeat and spotted dick-we have to create what life felt like, smelled like and sounded like in our own heads.

Every so often, a big debate arises in publishing circles on whether historicals are dead. Dead? Ha! A look in any bookstore will show that they are clearly alive and thriving. And I believe that won't change because they have an appeal that is truly timeless.

Pat Rice: I was one of those irritating children who always asked Why? Of course, at that age, my concerns were more of the nature of Why do I have to wear dresses and not pants like the boys? But I quickly branched out to Why did the Greeks and Romans have so many gods and Why are they rioting in Alabama and after being ignored enough, I eventually learned to look up the answers. That's when I learned that you can't understand today or tomorrow unless you understand yesterday. The old adage that history is doomed to repeat itself until we learn from it is painfully true, so I set out to learn from our ancestors.

With that kind of fascination with history, writing historical romance was a given. It's the people and cultures and society of prior periods that interest me more than battles and dates. Romance allows me to explore the past through the eyes of my characters, play with the same issues we have today” Does he love me? How will I feed my children?” and show how society changes from the perspective of my characters. 

And besides writing about history, I get to write about my other passion ”how love changes everything." All is good!  Happy Anniversary, Wenches!

Mary Jo Putney. Why  historicals?  Why oxygen?  I seem to have needed both my whole  life
 Maybe it's genetic.  My father was a history buff, with a particular interest in the American  Civil War.  As a boy, he heard  stories from his grandfather, who served with the Union  at Gettysburg.  As kids, we regularly visited places  like Fort  Ticonderoga (shown below.) I  was the only of my father's offspring who was happy to read the historical  novels he offered, so I cut my teeth on Bruce Lancaster and Kenneth Roberts.  (Georgette Heyer, Norah  Lofts, and Dorothy Dunnett came later.)  

  As a  reader, I love being taken to other worlds, which covers both historical novels  and my lifelong love of science fiction and fantasy.  Of course, I read just about everything,  but a good historical novel was a particular delight.  Our tastes shape our lives, so it's not  surprising that I ended up with a degree in 18th century British  Literature, nor that I engineered an opportunity to live in Oxford, England for  two years. There it is, in misty grandeur. Click on the picture to enlarge.

  With  all that background, it's hardly surprising that when I mastered word processing  and decided to see if I could write a novel, what came out was a traditional  Regency romance, a la Georgette Heyer.  I loved the language, the settings, the happy endings.  Since I also loved stories with action and adventure, it  wasn't long until I moved into historical romance, where we can write  magnificently over the top characters in a way that's very difficult with contemporary settings.  

History also makes it possible to explore interesting  issues right at the source, whether it's  Waterloo or abolition.  And it gives us an excuse to read  fascinating history and visit even more fascinating places.  And deduct part of the costs, even.  <g> 

I  mean, is this a great job or what?!!! 

Nicola Cornick. Nicola is enjoying a well-deserved holiday.

If she gets back in time to contribute, it will be added then.

 

And now here's me, Jo Beverley. After all the excellent pieces above, I could just say, "Hear, hear!" I too had a father who was very interested in history -- in this case, English history. His particular hero was Hereward the Wake, leading of the English resistance after the Norman Conquest. That's why he appeared in my first historical romance, Lord of My Heart.

I loved historical fiction from my earliest reading days. After all, most fairytales are historical, aren't they? I adored the traditional costumes for Cinderella, which could be why I now write Georgians. I, too, plunged into adult historical romance at about 11, first with The Scarlet Pimpernel, and then with Georgette Heyer. I, too, studied history at university simply because I loved it.

The whole "historicals are dead" seemed an error to me at the time, so I ignored it, which has worked out very well. Why did it seem wrong? I could see that my books were doing just fine, and the readers I had contact with were as enthusiastic about the books as ever. In addition, however, people have always been hungry for tales of yore, be they of love, adventure, myths, or monsters. I don't think that will ever change.

The favourite periods might change, or the most popular story elements, but fiction set in the past, especially love stories set in the past, will die round about the time the sun does.

Talking about periods, I have no interest in historical fiction set in the recent past because that's too close for the magic of "other times" to work. Anyone else feel like that? I think I can't find the magic in a time inhabited by anyone I've known, and one of my grandmothers was born in 1860. Yes, I do remember her, and a scary remnant of the Victorian era she was too. She probably explains my aversion to that period. So it's back to Regency and earlier for me.

Now it's your turn.

Share your thoughts on "Why historicals?" Why you read them, why you think others read them, and if you're a writer, why you write them. Could historical romance ever die?

On Thursday, May 27th, the Wenches will choose the most interesting comment posts, and we'll be very liberal about it, and then one will be randomly picked to win our prize.

Have fun,

The Word Wenches

It's Our Anniversary!

It's the big 4! The Word Wenches are celebrating their fourth anniversary with a special blog and a nice prize for one lucky commenter. Read on to get all the details.

On Monday, the seven Wenches will be sharing their thoughts on "Why Historicals?" Why do we read them, why do we write them, and what's the eternal appeal? Then it'll be time for everyone else to share their thoughts.

On Wednesday, one commenter will be random picked to win a special anniversary prize -- the equivalent to $40. (Just think how sweet the prize will be if we make it to our tenth!)

Why equivalent? Because the winner will get to choose books from a British on-line company called The Book Depository. Don't worry about the postage costs. They ship free to just about anywhere in the world. Isn't that neat? This means our special prize will be equally attractive to our Wench followers, all around the world.

At the moment, $40 US is almost 28 pounds, so that's the amount the winner will have to spend at the Book Depository. You could pop over now and begin your dream list. http://www.bookdepository.co.uk

Joanna Bourne, Honorary Word Wench

Joanna, thank you for your wonderful visit with the Word Wenches. In keeping with our traditions, we'd like to induct you into the hallowed halls of Wenchdom as an Honorary Word Wench.   
 

This not only means your name is added to the list on the sidebar of  our blog, but also gives you the right to put H.W.W. after your name —- mysterious, yet impressive.

   

As well, we like to lavish on our guests a thank-you gift of e-stupendousness (ie fabulous but virtual) and so here, for pleasure, research and inspiration is Monet's house and gardens in Giverny, France.   
 

Only an hour or so from Paris, and close to research sources, you have carte blanche to stay in this house as often and as long as you like, fully catered for with the finest French chef and full housekeeping — no vacuum cleaners will sing to you here. Instead you'll hear only birdsong and the buzzing of bees and dragonflies as you wander among the flowers, or peacefully contemplate the lily pond with the Japanese bridge.
We hope this will inspire you to write more fabulous  stories.  

Thank you. 

 

 

SAFE PASSAGE: Everyday heroines

by Mary Jo

Mary Burchell was one of Mills & Boon’s famous early writers.  Her first novel for M&B was published in 1936, and she went on to write over 125 novels, most of them romances, (but also a few Westerns under a different pseudonym.)  The last was published in 1985, a year before her death at age 82.

I used to comb yard sales and used bookstores for her out of print books on behalf of my mother, who loved the older HMB writers.  And she loved Mary Burchell most of all because many of the stories involved music. 

The name Mary Burchell was actually a pseudonym for Ida Cook—an everyday name for a woman who was both a successful writer and a true heroine.  Born in far Northern England (Sunderland), Ida Cook came from a modest, civil service oriented family—her father worked for the Customs and Excise service. 

Ida and her older sister, Louise, came of age during WWI, when an entire generation of young men was devastated on the killing fields of France and Belgium.  That was probably why the sisters never married.  They lived together their whole lives and were best friends as well as sisters.

Did either of them ever fall in love?  Ida wrote love stories, after all!  If she was disappointed in love, it didn’t show up in her memoir, Safe Passage.  Originally titled We Followed Our Stars and published in 1950, the book tells how Ida and Louise grew up, worked, fell in love with opera—and risked their lives to help Jews escape from Nazi Germany.

Their love of opera was actually the direct path to their rescue work.  Both Ida and Louise had modest civil service jobs, but the world changed one day in 1923 when Louise heard a lecture on music at work.  Ravished by the music that was played, she saved the enormous sum of 23 pounds (two or three months’ salary) to buy a gramophone and ten recordings.  In no time at all, Louise and Ida were intoxicated lovers of vocal music. 

Remember the scene in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere told Julia Roberts that a true, deep connection with opera was something you were either born with or not?  The next scene showed Julia weeping at the performance.  I wasn’t born with that connection—but Ida and Louis were.

The sisters skipped lunches in order to buy tickets to hear a London concert by Amelita Galli-Curci, one of the great stars of the day.  Soon the voice lovers became opera lovers, and since Galli-Curci sang opera only in New York, Ida and Louise decided to sail to New York. 

It took two years for them to save the money, and the hundred pounds needed was close to half of Ida’s salary for those two years.  The gracious Amelita Galli-Curci said that if they made it to New York, she’d see that they got tickets to all of her performances. 

So for two years the sisters saved—they found that a brown bread bun for lunch was more filling than a white bun.  No proper lunches for them!  Not when they had a dream. 

When they arrived in New York, newspaper articles were written about them.  Not only were they minor celebrities, but they wore their homemade evening gowns, heard magnificent music, and were personal guests of Galli-Curci and her husband.  (Galli-Curci on the right.  Ida is the seated sister above.)

That was the beginning of happy years when they listened to as much opera as they could find and made friends of opera stars who appreciated their intelligence and passion for the music.  They also made friends with other opera lovers who, like them, could only afford cheap gallery seats, but who had passion and a deep knowledge of the music. 

Among the opera stars Ida and Louise befriended were conductor Clemens Krauss and his Romanian wife, soprano Viorica Ursuleac.  The musicians asked the Cook sisters to “look after” a Jewish friend who wanted to leave Austria for England.  It was the beginning of Ida and Louise’s quiet crusade to help Jews escape.

In the 1930s, European Jews had great difficult moving to England.  They had to prove they had the money to support themselves, yet currency restrictions prevented them from moving their money out of Germany and Austria. 

This is where Ida and Louise came in.  Encouraged by Krauss and his wife, they took on the roles of obsessed opera lovers (which they were) who made trip after trip to the Continent to see special productions.  Sometimes Krauss deliberately staged an opera in a city they needed to visit.

And when they came home, they smuggled valuables back to England so the Jewish owners could later follow.  Often they flew to Cologne on a Friday evening, got on the night train to Munich, attended an opera Saturday night, and stayed in the fancy hotels used by high Nazi officials to prove how innocent they were.

On Sunday they would return home by train and boat through Holland so they wouldn’t meet the same customs officials.  It was a punishing schedule, especially for Louise, who still worked in her office job.

They carried over labels from English furriers, stitched them into luxurious German furs, and wore the coats back to England as if they were the real owners.  They also brought back jewels.  Once Ida wore a big splashy jeweled brooch that represented someone’s entire wealth, and she surrounded it with tacky Woolworth beads. 

Ida also found English people who would guarantee a certain amount of money in support of a particular refugees. Some of these sponsors had little themselves, but they were willing to share what they had to save lives.  Some of them even offered places in their own homes.  (Ida was very shy, but when she stood up to talk about refugess, she was persuasive!)

Ida personally guaranteed over half her income to support refugees. Though her writing earned her a good living, she stretched her funds to the limit and went into debt.  She’d bought a small flat in London that she used to house refugees in need. 

When the war came and the Blitz began destroying London, there were no more trips to the Continent.  The Cook family exemplified the indomitable Londoners, doing their jobs and war work. 

When Ida and Louise finally persuaded her parents to evacuate to friends in the north, the elder Cooks left London at 10:00 am, and three hours later the Cook family home was blown up.  But the family cat, Prince Igor, survived, so all was well. 

During the Blitz, Ida volunteered as a night watcher in a bomb shelter in Bermondsey.  From her, I learned that musicians and other entertainers performed in the London underground shelters.  Some had given up safe, lucrative work in America to come home to England to share their talents and help maintain morale.  “London can take it” indeed!

Safe Passage  is full of such wonderful stories, but rather than repeat them all, I suggest you read the book if it's the kind of tale you fancy. 

In 1965, Israel named Ida and Louise Cook as Righteous Gentiles for their rescue work, and in 2010, the British government posthumously named them British Heroes of the Holocaust.  Mary Burchell gave pleasure to millions of readers over many, many years, and her books are still read.  But even she couldn’t hold a candle to the real Ida and Louise.

What 'everyday heroes and heroines' do you know and admire?  Do you think you could have this kind of courage?  I have my doubts about myself, but I know that some of you could do better!

Mary Jo. who likes the above picture of the sisters from the British edition of Safe Passage

Meet Joanna Bourne

Anne here, with a very special guest, Joanna Bourne.  Joanna burst onto the historical romance scene in 2008, first with THE SPYMASTER'S LADY, followed by MY LORD AND SPYMASTER. Since then her reputation and sales have grown through the best kind of publicity — word of mouth.   

 Joanna writes big, meaty, page-turning, action-filled, historical romances. She's a wordsmith as well as a storyteller, and her research is excellent. As well as rave reviews, Joanna's books have garnered a swag of awards, including the prestigious RITA for MY LORD and SPYMASTER. The third book in the series, THE FORBIDDEN ROSE , comes out in June, and I, for one, can't wait. Joanna, welcome to the WordWenches. 

I'm always interested in how a vague idea crystallizes into a story. My head is always full of story possibilities, but usually there's something — an image, a piece of music, a snatch of conversation, something I've read when I think, Yes! That's a story. Did anything in particular spark a story for you?

 Jo:  In my next book — Forbidden Rose — the protagonist, Maggie, is a folklorist.  They didn't actually use that word yet, but that's what she was.  She'd go around the countryside of Normandy, visiting peasant cottages, collecting old folk tales and writing them down, sending them off to scholars around Europe.

It's not a part of the story, but it's part of what she IS. 

Maggie thinks in the imagery of folklore and classical myth.  So when I was writing her, I thought that way too.  I'd be reading along in the history of the city of Paris and I'd 'see' it in . . .  I guess you'd say, I'd see Paris in mythic or folkstory terms.   

Then one day I came across a little known aspect of Paris and it sent me thinking about the labyrinth of the Minotaur and Orpheus following Eurydice into Hades and . . . well . . .  the whole idea of Hades in general.  And that gave me one of the central actions of the story.   

I'll admit I'm one more writer who's dipped back into the old myths for inspiration.

Anne: Your books are set in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and Regency England. Traditionally, Revolutionary France has been a no-no setting for romance publishers, reputed to be the kiss of death for books, but you've proven that a myth, and readers have loved the fresh, vivid  and exciting world you portray. Why did you choose this setting?

Jo: Y'know, there are times and places where ideas put on the boxing gloves and square off.   Just about everything we know and believe about freedom and human rights was being thrashed out in this two or three decades.  How exciting is that?

I love the British—French struggle because BOTH sides were right and both sides were wrong.  A splendid complexity.      

 Anne: The characters in your books really spring to life on the page, especially your protagonists, Annique and Grey, Jess and Sebastian. In fact I told an author friend I was interviewing you and she said, "Ask her what Annique and Grey are doing at the moment." Do your characters spring fully formed from the head of Joanna, or do they slowly emerge in the writing?

Jo: The characters are very much an organic growth.  I don't know what to expect of them.  We're awkward at first.  But after a while we're chatting along like great friends.  A few month into the work and I begin to 'hear' my people when I'm writing.  It's cool for all of us.  

You can tell your friend that Annique and Grey went under cover in the south of France for a bit.  There was a spot of trouble, but they made it through just fine.

Anne: Your portrayal of spying in Napoleonic times is wonderful, as is your picture of the criminal underworld in My Lord and Spymaster. Could you tell us about some of the research do you do?

Jo: I do love research.  There's about a dozen core books in the field.  Mayhew's Characters, Thieves' Kitchen or The Regency Underworld by Low, and Sparrow's Secret Service are good.  But what I know about spying and the criminal underworld I really learned from the Scarlet Pimpernel and Kim and Oliver Twist.  

Anne: I was interested to discover you do a lot of writing in coffee houses (very eighteenth century of you.) What's the appeal of writing in such places for you?  

Jo: Home is both too quiet and too noisy for me to work.  I keep hearing the floors whispering, "Wash me.  Waaaaaassssh me."  And the vacuum cleaner rattles in the closet like a piece of angry pepperoni.

So I escape to the coffee shop where the electrical appliances don't have expectations of me and the people provide just enough stimulation that I have to concentrate on the computer, which keeps me focussed.

And yes, I do feel very eighteenth century.

Anne: THE FORBIDDEN ROSE  is about Maggie and Doyle, who are secondary characters in the previous two books. It's already garnering some wonderful reviews, including a top pick from Romantic Times. Tell us a little about it.

Jo: The French Revolution.  In Paris, secrets, spies and conspiracies are thick on the ground.  That's William Doyle's duty — to plunge into the thick of that and bring the secrets back to England.  In city and countryside, ordinary people thumb their noses at authority and risk their lives, snatching men and women from the guillotine, smuggling them out of France.  That's Maggie's job.  That's the group she leads.  

With so much at stake, it's not easy to fall in love.  Maggie's story is finding love and fighting tooth and nail to keep it.  Doyle's story is meeting THE woman and holding onto her.  And staying alive.  They have to do that too.

Anne: Could we have a short extract please?

    She wanted this. It would be so easy, so natural, to take this pleasure. To let her body answer his. There was no one on earth to stop her.
     Except herself. Except herself.
     She said, “I wish . . .” I wish I could lie with you. I am afraid and alone and I would be comforted by you. She picked one drop out of the sea of what she wished and put it into words. “I wish I were the miller’s daughter and you were the farmer’s son and we could play foolish games in the stable loft. I wish you were someone I could . . .”             
      “Be foolish with.”
      “Yes.” She sighed. “But I am not the miller’s daughter. I have never owned such simplicity. I do not live one minute without calculation.”
       “Pretend I’m someone you can kiss.” His lips came down softly over hers. Holding back, brushing lightly. Hinting. The taste, the possibility, was enough to hold her while he retraced the path up her backbone and slipped the calluses and strength of his hand under her wet braid and enclosed the nape of her neck.
       He muttered, “We’re both going to stop calculating for a minute.”

(Read another extract here)   
 Anne: Gorgeous extract, thanks. I can't wait to read the whole book. So, what's next for Jo Bourne?  Can we expect Adrian's story or are we still waiting for him or his heroine to grow up?

I'm working on Adrian's story right now.  We meet his lady — Justine — in FORBIDDEN ROSE.

Anne: Excellent, I know a lot of people who are eager to read Adrian's story. Joanna, thanks so much for joining us on Word Wenches.

I'm sure our readers have some questions for you as well. And here's Joanna's question for readers. She'll be giving a copy of her new book, FORBIDDEN ROSE, to some lucky commenter.

Joanna says: I always feel as though there's a dynamic between the adventure or suspense elements in a story and the softer, more romantic story of love.  And in Historical Romance, there's a sense of history as well.  I see these almost as three separate strands woven together.
What do you like to see, as a reader?  More concentration on the love story?  Something close to Historical Fiction with a love story at the center?  Or are you more interested in the drama, danger and suspense that drives the plot onward?

Money

Hi, here's Jo, with on of Charlie's baby pictures, talking money.

Georgian money.

Last Friday the Wenches talked about our writing process, which is a complex medley. Getting words down is crucial, but it's not the bulk of the work. Thinking is extremely important, as is reading of all sorts and, of course, research. I've been trying to pin down the right amount per month for a lady to be reduced to true poverty, and it's not easy. In the process I've dug into various sources, and I thought I'd share this one.

What wages did servants get?

These figures are from The Domestic Servant in the 18th Century, by J Jean Hecht, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956. This is a fabulous book that gives a real insight into the Georgian world and the structure of the lives of both servants and employers, including the great estates which had people like the Land Steward.

The Land Steward would be responsible for the estate, including the home farm, which provided food for the house. He could be responsible for other estates as well. He would usually have his own home, but provided by the employer. However, most of the servants below would get room and board and many would get clothing, especially if they wore livery.

The book gives a range taken from actual examples. I've picked one figure that seems to me to be typical, but of course a lot depended on the size of the place and the duties involved. There was plenty of room for haggling, for in the eighteenth century, especially in London, servants had a very clear idea of their requirements and rights.

The figures following are pounds per annum

Land Steward 200
House Steward 100
Clerk of the kitchen, 100
Clerk of the stables 50(The clerks were left over from the middle ages and became rare in the 18th century.)
Man cook 30
Confectioner 50
Valet 14
Butler 20 (The butler later took over the house steward role.)
Gardener 25
Coachman 20
Footman 8
Groom 10
Footboy 2
Lady's maid 10
Housekeeper 12
Cook 8
Housemaid 6
Maid of all work 6
Laundry maid 7
Scullery maid 6  

To the right is a shilling of the period.

Wages were generally lower in the country than in London, but as some servants in larger establishments were taken to London with the family, in that situation the differences would be smaller.

For more pictures of coins of the period click here. Note the divisions of the guineas -- this is a quarter guinea -- showing how much they were worth, day to day. 

Board Wages.

You might have read in a book about the servants in a house being on board wages because the employer wasn't in residence. This meant that their wage was increased, but they had to find all their food themselves. The rationale was that they wouldn't be living high at the employer's expense. The servants might pool the money to buy food to cook, but mostly it meant eating out in a chop house or tavern, or buying from street vendors such as piemen. Board wages varied between 5-10s, which I have to assume is per week. So that was the amount seen as necessary for a person to live for a week on bought food.

Sometimes staff were employed "on constant board wages", again to try to prevent them living well at the employer's expense.

Board wages could be liberating for the servants. They had to be given time and liberty to go out for food, and if they were canny in how they spent it, they could end up with extra money in their pockets. For this reason, many in the employing classes saw constant board wages as undermining social order.

Tea Money.
By the mid eighteenth century, tea had become central to decent life in England, and the servants demanded their tea. Some servants included daily tea in their contracts, and many employers gave money in lieu. It usually came to about a guinea a year.

The Perks of the Job.

Perks are, of course, perquisites, including vails, or tips.

For example, the butler was entitled to candle ends and bottles, the cook to dripping, bones, extra fat etc which would be sold. We have to remember that fat was crucial for people working hard in all weathers. (Side issue I heard on the radio recently. During WWII, Britain bought in a law mandating a high sugar level in soft drinks as the easiest way to get necessary calories into children during rationing. It was only repealed in 1996!)

Footmen were entitled to his livery, and to card money -- that was money for the cards used in an evening of play.  The going rate was 1 shilling for one pack, 18d for two, and the coins were generally slipped under the candlestick on the table. There was a bit of sense to this as the cards of the period were much flimsier than cards today. They were literally card, much like the thickness of a business card, and soon were mangled. That made it easy for the quick of eye and wit to tell what cards an opponent held, even without marking, which was also easy. Therefore, people preferred to at least start the night with a fresh pack, and I assume (though it wasn't stated in the book) that the footmen provided them. Even so, they'll have made a profit and doubtless sold on the used packs to poorer people.

(This picture is from this site which is about a film called The Highwayman. I hope it's not based on the poem, and thus ending badly. Oh dear. I quote from the site. "Synopsis:    In 18th century England, a young farmer finds his world falling apart as he discovers a tangle of past lies and betrayals when his father dies. He is evicted from the farm he thought was his and turned away from the woman he loves. First in desperation, then for revenge, he becomes the highway robber of the poem and fulfills its horrific conclusion." Sounds like Braveheart in wigs!

The sloppy fitting livery in the picture was probably true of many footman of the time, though often they were turned out splendidly to reflect their master's glory. Especially the running footman, but that's a subject for another blog. However, they generally powdered their hair rather than using ill-fitting, flossy wigs.

There are interesting stills from the film here.)

Upper servants received cast off clothing, either to wear or sell. (In a couple of my books I've had characters go to a "rag shop", or used clothing shop, when in need of instant clothing. We all know they're not going to get something new at the snap of the fingers. This was a considerable perk. The Duke of Kingston's valet complained "During the sixteen years that I served the duke, I had but two lots of clothes given me, the first amounting to fifty, the second to near ninety." We can see that the amounts are many times his annual wage, so no wonder he was miffed.

On to vails, or tips, from the word avail, or benefit.  In a quiet household, a footman would expect higher wages because he wouldn't have much in the way of vails from guests. The amount to be expected might be specified in advertisements for servants.

Vails were not voluntary but, rather like tips in many situations today, expected. Not paying them in the first half of the eighteenth century would result in rotten service if the guest returned, and sometimes assault. They were paid by visiting guests upon departure,  The higher servants lined up to receive them and then usually (again as with most restaurants today) part was shared with other staff. In some households, the total was given to the employer who then distributed it according to rank.

The amount in proportion to wages varied by household, but it was not uncommon for vails to equal the wages, that is double the stated amount of wages per annum.

Employers increasingly disliked vails because they made their guests uncomfortable, especially foreign ones who didn't understand the system. Accepting an invitation to dine was generally more expensive than eating in  a tavern. Even Queen Caroline complained of the expense of visiting her friends in London. There's a story of a nobleman encountering an acquaintance in the park and chiding him for not accepting any of his many invitations. The other gentleman apologized, but said he couldn't afford it. The nobleman completely understood.

In 1759 employers in Scotland gradually resolved not to allow vails and passed laws to ban them.

it took longer in England, but spread county by county until the nobility and gentry met at Almack's in 1764 "unanimously resolved neither to give nor allow any vails to servants." Servants fought back with rudeness, poor service, and by leaving to go to places whece vails were still allowed. Some went as far as damaging the property of guests, and Sir Francis Dashwood was threatened with death. In 1764 servants rioted at Ranelagh, but most employers and guests held firm and by 1767 the practice seems to have gone in most places. I haven't yet found out if wages went as a consequence, but I'd think so.

(As a writerly note, this was all going on during my Malloren books, and is the sort of furore that would be fun to include in a book, but the system would have to be set up and explained before the action and drama could really make sense, and that could clog up the book unless it was a core issue. And it never has been.)

There's plenty more in the book, and I strongly recommend trying to find a copy, or getting it through your library on inter-library load. I remember my thrill when I found a copy of my own a while back in a bookstore in Brighton.

Do you have any 18th century financial details to toss into this pot?

There's an interesting page here about the servants' world. The site is about Jane Austen, but this article goes well back into the eighteenth century. This site also linked to an interesting list of servants at Emo Court in Ireland.  Click here.

Do you like these sorts of details? 

Do you like to have a lot about servants in a historical romance?

I only include servants when they have a particular part to play because I'm in the heads of my characters, who are mostly so accustomed to servants that they don't pay them much attention unless there's a lack.Or if there's something in particular. For example, in my MIP the hero notices the way the lower servants treat him differently because he's changed from scapegrace younger son to earl. It's part of the huge changes in his life. At the same time, we see how little he knows about the inner workings of the place that's been his home all his younger life. Taken for granted, as we take our service-filled world today.

When we go into a building, we don't think about the people who were there earlier to clean it -- unless it's dirty. When we take something off a store shelf, we don't think about who put it there -- unless the shelves are badly stocked. When we take public transportation, how much time do we spend considering the private life and concerns of the driver.

For this reason, as a reader I get twitchy about upper class characters who are much engaged with the servant world unless it's clearly motivated. Do you?

If we look at the past from the lower angle, a poor person might hardly have anyone outside their family and friends do anything for them.They'd grow, make, mend, cook and clean everything from scratch, and of course, nothing would be wasted. Do you think we appreciate these sorts of things as we time travel into the past in historical fiction?

Check out my recent and upcoming books here.

Cheers,

Jo

Ask A Wench: Our Writing Processes

Anne here, hosting Ask a Wench for this month. The question today is an oldie and comes from Keira Soleore, who wins a book. Would it be possible for you to blog about your writing processes and your daily schedules? .... A few days ago, I finished reading "Write Away" by Elizabeth George. She is a proponent of detailed outlines. In her book, she describes in great depth how her process works for her.

Before the discussion opens, I'd like to clarify a small point — obviously we all plot, otherwise our books would make no sense. So when writers say they don't plot, they mean they don't plan the story in advance, before they start writing it.

Mary Jo says:  Given that Elizabeth George writes mysteries, and particularly   intricate ones at that, I can see where a very detailed outline would work for her.  But process is HIGHLY variable, and part of developing into a Real Writer is figuring out what works for oneself.

I'm a moderate by nature, so it's probably not a surprise that I fall in the middle, process wise.  I don't do detailed outlines, and I certainly don't dive in and head mapless into the wild blue yonder.  Instead, I write a synopsis of maybe eight pages that delineates the main characters and the setting and sketches in the basic plot line and conflicts.  It's rather like a skeleton, and as I write I put the flesh on.  The flesh is maybe 90% of the whole—but it's shaped to that original synopsis, which seldom changes much after I send it off to the editor for approval.

I should mention here that I am that most despised of creatures—someone who writes synopses easily.  I may gnaw on an idea for weeks, months, and occasionally years, but when it ripens, I can sit down and write the synopsis in a couple of hours.  And if I can write the synopsis, I know I can write the book.  The actual writing—now there's another challenge!

Cara/Andrea writes: Oh no, this question has me cowering under my desk, making little whimpering noises. I'm a huge fan of Elizabeth George and the Inspector Lynley novels, and to have her routine held as example is . . . intimidating, to say the least. Especially as I'm not sure I could draft a detailed plot chart for my books for all the chocolate in Switzerland.

 I am, if you haven't guessed it by now, a complete seat-of-the pantser. I come up with a (I hope) brilliant flash of inspiration for a story, and the beginning is totally clear in my head.  For maybe 20 pages. Then . . .

Well, then is where the characters start to run with the idea.  I know, I know, that sound so lame on my part. I've tried other ways. Each time I start a new book, I vow that I am going to paper my wall with charts and diagrams that will magically lead me from start to finish with nary a stop in between. I feel that I'm a slow writer, and this will, I tell myself, make me faster. More efficient.

Ha! Sheets of paper get covered with squiggles and notes. Arrows bend around corners, point to the heavens . . . and prove absolutely useless. I end up staring at gobbledy-gook.

So how does a book happen? I make up for my lack of advanced preparation by being very disciplines about sitting down each day and writing, even when I'm not quite sure where I'm going. It's a leap of faith, and at this point, I know myself well enough that I don't wake up in a cold sweat over it. As for inspiration, it strikes at the oddest times.   
Case in point — the other day it was cloudless and warm. I had been working all day and decided I needed some fresh and exercise, so went down to the golf course, threw my bag on my back and went out to walk nine holes. It was nearing sunset, and the light over Long Island Sound was ethereal. A flock of gulls landed on a nearby green, brilliant bits of white against the emerald grass. A loon was fishing in the lagoon, and as I followed the narrow dirt path through the pale gold fescue, a pair of curlews were hopping through the broken sea shells, picking up stray bits of chaff. (Where is my golf ball you might ask? Umm, sometimes I forget to watch exactly where it's landed. But that's not the point.)

As I started up the fairway, daydreaming as usual, the line of dialogue that I had been looking for all day suddenly bounced into my head. From there, the whole scene, and the villain's motivation, became clear. And then, all at once, the second half of the book started to jell. When I got home, I sat down and madly wrote up a stream-of-consciousness rush of notes that would only make sense to me. That's my storyboard, and it's become easy to add in the details.

 From Nicola:  I have to write detailed outlines for my HQN books and I do find this very difficult because at that stage in my process I have only the vaguest idea of how my story will develop. The outline is useful for helping me to start to get to know my characters and identify the themes and the central conflict in the book but I know that all the other details will probably change and develop in the course of the writing. I'd be worried if they did not because I can't get the depth I need in an outline or even at a first pass. Fortunately my editor understands this and so doesn't ask any awkward questions when the final book sometimes bears very little resemblance to the original outline! I'm a seat of the pants writer and sometimes I wish I could write in a more planned and organised fashion but the process simply doesn't work like that for me. Similarly some days I can write all day and others I feel as though I am dragging words out of treacle and so I have to stop and go out for a walk with the dog to refresh myself and try to re-find my inspiration. I do try to write a minimum number of words per day, however, so I'm not completely disorganised! One thing I have learned is that there is no right or wrong process. If it works for you then that's fine!"

 From Jo: My writing routine is to get to work after breakfast and work through at least until lunch directly on writing. What this means depends on the stage and behavior of the MIP. It might be straight writing -- getting it down -- or reading through and rewriting. Or, all too often, chucking out and doing that bit again.

My creative flow doesn't usually work well later in the day, though it has been known. I can do some editing, but I'm more likely to use later time for research and noodling with story ideas.

I don't pre-plot. It doesn't work for me. Anyone who wants to know more about that can read a speech I gave long ago. 

My advice to everyone is a) experiment and see what works best for you, and b) don't let anyone, ever, any time tell you one way is right and another is wrong.

 Anne here, finishing up: I call myself an organic writer. Plotting a book before I start writing it doesn't work for me. Like Mary Jo, I have no trouble writing synopses — I can come up with what looks like a ripping yarn without too much trouble. However if I then try to follow it I get bored, feeling a bit like I'm painting by numbers. It's only when I'm inside the story and in a character's mind that the exciting possibilities start to unfold and for me part of the joy of writing is when unexpected things happen.

I sometimes liken my process to archaeology — it's as if the characters and their story are there, buried in some dim recess of my brain, and I'm unearthing them. Messy but the possibilities are exciting.

I often have an idea of where the book is going, for instance toward a big dramatic scene, but there are lots of different possible routes, and the first one I come up with isn't always the best, but simply the most obvious. 

As for my schedule, I try to write every day, turning up for the work, but I'm not a fast writer. First thing in the morning and late at night are my two best times for working. In the afternoon I'm hopeless, so that's when I take the dog for a walk, and do shopping and things like that. 

When I begin a book I write slowly, and the closer I get to the end the faster I get. I keep a daily word count. A lot of the time I write straight onto the computer, but I'll often write a first draft of a scene by hand, often a scene that's yet to come in the book. On the computer I write chronologically, in the notebooks I jump around from scene to scene and even book to book, as the muse strikes. I keep a notepad and pen by the bed, too, as frequently a scene will come to me during that dreamy half-consciousness between sleeping and waking, and I'll write it down — not simply taking notes, but writing whole pages of dialogue, sometimes. If I don't write it down, I forget it. Here's a link to a scene that's almost unchanged from the way I wrote it in the notebook one dawn, many years ago.

So, as everyone has said, there's no correct way to write. Our brains are all different and our muses sing to different music. Only the result matters.  What about you? How you approach big creative tasks? With a detailed plan? Or do you tend to fly by the seat of your pants? 

Talking Regency Scandal with Louise Allen!

Nicola here. Today it’s my very great pleasure to welcome Louise Allen to the Word Wenches. Louise is one of Mills & Boon/Harlequin Historicals star Regency authors and a long time friend and colleague of mine. Louise has been described as "one of the most gifted writers in historical romance" and her books as "sheer reading delight" and I won't argue with that! Her heroes are to die for and her books are on my autobuy list. Next month Louise launches Harlequin's fabulous new Regency continuity series Regency Silk and Scandal with The Lord and the Wayward Lady.

NC: Louise, welcome to the Word Wenches! Please could you start by telling us a bit about yourself?

 

LA: Well, first of all thank you very much for the invitation to Word Wenches, it is an honour to be here! I’m a Regency enthusiast who has the great good fortune to be able to write about the period – I’m working on my thirty-eighth story for Harlequin Mills & Boon, and all but two have been set in the early 19thc. When I’m not writing I am trying to escape to North Norfolk where I hope my husband and I will move later this year; walking around London with an 1809 guidebook; plotting the next holiday or adding to my collection of Regency ephemera which I justify as essential for research.

 

The Pleasures and challenges of writing series

 

NC: Your Regency collections are the source of much envy in this household and I completely accept that this is essential research! We'll talk about research and sources in a little while; first though, let's discuss Regency Silk and Scandal! Your new book, The Lord and the Wayward Lady, launches this exciting new Harlequin Regency continuity series. Could you give us a little taster of the book – and of the new series?

 

LA: It is an eight book continuity with six authors, and I had the challenge of writing the first and the seventh story. A twenty-year old scandal and tragedy lies at the heart of the series and the now-adult children of the original protagonists find themselves entangled with a mysterious and shadowy figure, apparently bent on vengeance. Who he is, what he wants, is a mystery, but his presence weaves though the eight books and acts as a catalyst for the love stories of our heroes and heroines.

 

The Lord and the Wayward Lady introduces the Carlow family. Lord Narborough, was a key player in the original tragedy and his sons Marcus and Hal are the heroes of my two books, his daughters Honoria and Verity are the heroines of two others in the series and their companion, Diana, also has her own book. When Lord Narborough receives a sinister and alarming object Marcus has the deepest suspicions of the woman who delivered it – the apparently innocent and impoverished milliner, Nel Latham. Nel is not what she seems and Marcus, determined not to trust her, has a hard time keeping his emotions out of the equation as things become increasingly dangerous – and passionate.

NC: I'm sure I'm not alone in loving series with intertwined characters and I can't wait to get my hands on the first book and meet the Carlows! What is special about the Regency Silk and Scandal series other than that it has such a stellar line up of contributing authors?)

LA: I am blushing modestly in some great company, believe me! The really special thing, we all agreed, was that we were given a completely free hand to come up with both the overarching plot and the individual stories that hang off that. We were given aspects that the editors would like included – scandal, a range of social backgrounds for the protagonists and so forth - but we were allowed a wonderful, and scary, free hand - subject to editorial approval, of course. Our first suggestion was turned down because it was too similar to a contemporary continuity that was rather further along, but our second proposal was accepted and off we went!

NC: I imagine that having a free hand to devise the series was wonderful freedom but possibly tricky to control in practical terms! What was it like to work on a series with so many other authors? What were the aspects that you enjoyed the most? And the challenges?

 

LA: There were only two challenges. Firstly most of us had never met any of the others, or knew them only by reputation and from brief encounters at conferences and secondly we were hundreds (thousands!) of miles apart. Three of us are widely spaced in the UK, three even more widely separated in the US. Emails (going on 3,000 now) and a Yahoo group were the answer.

 

But the aspect that was so special was how quickly we bonded and became friends. Despite the pressure and the unfamiliarity of working in this way, there wasn't a single cross word. Everyone developed their own role in the process and found their characters with apparent ease. The spirit of co-operation and ownership of the whole project was even more vital because of how tightly the books interweave. We were all using each other's characters in our own books to a greater or lesser extent and, as we were writing simultaneously, we had to rely on each other constantly for advice. As an example - I wanted to use one of Annie Burrows minor characters in a small, but vital, role in my second book - The Officer and the Proper Lady. And I needed to put him in the middle of the Battle of Waterloo. How badly could I injure him? Annie was generous in lending him - and all his details - but I was very firmly reminded that he was her heroine's favourite step-brother and she wanted him back safe and sound!

 

NC: Which character did you have the most fun creating and why?

 

LA: I enjoy them all while I’m writing them, but I think the one I found most interesting recently was Hal Carlow, the hero of The Lord & the Proper Lady, the seventh of the continuity. Hal is a major in the 11^th Light Dragoons – a paragon of a soldier but a completely irresponsible and hard-living rakehell with the most shocking reputation. I loved getting inside his head and seeing what happens to a man like that when he comes up against a virtuous young lady. Behave himself? Hardly. Marriage? Run a mile. And then along comes the Battle of Waterloo and his proper young lady proves she is as courageously unconventional as he is - which leaves him with a most uncomfortable dilemma!

 

NC: I must admit that having seen a sneak preview of the cover of Hal's book, I fell in love with him straight away! That is one sexy uniform he's half-wearing! Anyway, (clearing throat), your previous series, Those Scandalous Ravenhursts, was an absolute delight to me as a reader as well as so being so hot that at several points in the reading I had to fan myself with damp rhubarb leaves to calm myself down! You do seem to be drawn to series as you also have a new book out in the UK in June, Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress, the first in your Shelley Sisters series. Can you tell us a little about the background to this book? What was the inspiration for the series?

 

LA: I wanted to explore what would happen to young women who fell into sin by the standards of the time – which were pretty unforgiving of feminine “weakness”. The three Shelley sisters are brought up in the stifling atmosphere of a vicarage dominated by a dourly repressive father. They want to escape, and in doing so find themselves social outcasts – Meg elopes and it all goes horribly wrong, stranding her in the middle of the war-torn Peninsula;  Bella believes she has fallen in love – and is left pregnant and alone and Celina runs away to her mysterious aunt only to find she is the Madam of a high class brothel. It was interesting to see what would happen with three “sinful” heroines and three, apparently respectable, heroes - who aren’t so respectable, as it turns out! In the process all three sisters are transformed and Meg, whose story comes first, changes from dreamy romantic into a strong foil for the dark, wounded hero.

 

The Lure of the Regency Genre

 

NC: If you could describe your writing with a word or phrase, what would it be?

 

LA: Scandalously witty Regency romance is what I have on my website  - and that's what I hope to achieve every time.

 

NC: You're certainly hitting the mark!  Why the Regency genre?  What was the draw for you?

 

LA: I love the period because it seems to be on the cusp of the modern world, with all the glamour and squalor of the Georgian period merging into an age of massive change in politics, arts, technology – every aspect of life was in transition. And I do love the style of the long Regency. My period is the one where waists were high, roughly 1795-1822. I try hard not to think about the my heroes having to grow massive side whiskers and my heroines encumbered with vast skirts as they enter the Victorian period.

 

NC: I'm not too disturbed by the vast skirts but I have to admit that massive side whiskers don't really work for me in a hero. Why do you think that the Regency genre is so popular with readers?

 

LA: For the reasons I love it – and the fact that it has been made so accessible by classic TV series and authors such as Austen and Heyer. It is exciting, glamorous, different enough from our age to intrigue and close enough to be tantalisingly familiar.

 

NC: One of your other hats is as the UK Romantic Novelists' Association New Writers' Scheme Co-ordinator and as such you have a lot of experience of the market. What do you believe are the most important ingredients in a historical romance novel?

 

LA: A really strong dynamic between hero and heroine is key, I think. They need to be people with interesting internal lives as well as existing in an appealing historical milieu. Accurate historical detail is important to me as are humour and adventure, and I enjoy novels that explore the less familiar aspects of a period.

 

NC: And now for that Regency ephemera... Which aspect of your research do you enjoy the most?

 

LA: Visiting places and seeing objects. Book research is interesting and can be fascinating, but there is nothing to beat standing on the wide sloping floor of Berry Bros and Rudge in St James’s Street and knowing Byron stood on those very boards before being weighed on their famous scales; or standing in the steamy heat of a Calcutta cemetery reading the epitaphs of the men, women and children who made up the British settlement there in the 18^th and 19^th centuries; or holding the boot bill from Hoby’s to the man who captured Napoleon’s carriage after Waterloo.

 

NC: What resources did you find most helpful for this period? Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?

 

LA: There are so many sources! To name a few that I wouldn’t be without: Original newspapers and magazine; the London Topographical Society’s wonderful London A-Z series (Regency London lives on my desk); the Cunnington’s series of books on costume and the treasure trove that is the London Library.

 

My advice to aspiring authors would be – find your characters first then immerse yourself in their world so it will become alive for you and the reader. But keep 99% of your research in your head so the characters still stand out from their background.

 

NC: Louise, thank you very much for coming to chat with the Wenches!

 

Louise's website is here and you can find out more about the Regency Silk and Scandal series and her other wonderful books. I also recommend checking out her Et Cetera page where there are always some fascinating snippets of research.

 

Now, over to you! If you have questions for Louise, or comments on reading - or writing - series, don't hold back! Louise is very generously offering a copy of her new release Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress plus a copy of the anthology Wicked Regency Nights to one commenter. Here is her question:  Do you prefer the world of High Society – the ton and the drawing room - or do you prefer grittier backgrod glimpses into the world below stairs, on the streets and in the countryside? 

Horsing Around With Research

Cara/Andrea here. I’m currently immersed in a new WIP that includes creating some senior military officers within the inner sanctum of Whitehall in 1812. Luckily I love research, for much as I enjoy giving my imagination free rein, it’s probably not a Good Idea to indulge in flights of fancy here. It’s artistic license to insert a make-believe duke into the ranks of the nobility . . . It’s asking for trouble from the High Sticklers to insert a mythical regiment into the British Army.

And why go to all the trouble when the actual facts make such great history! When I was in London last fall, I did some boots-on-the-ground poking around at the impressive building that served as a military command center during the Napoleonic Wars. Situated at right angles to the Admiralty, overlooking a massive parade ground that used to be a jousting field, the Horse Guards building still houses the top brass and, well, horses—which shouldn’t come as any surprise.

Curious about the perfectly polished soldiers who mount guard there everyday, I decided I needed to know a little bit about the history of the Horse Guards. So saddle up and let’s take a quick gallop through the illustrious history of the Household Cavalry . . .

Traditionally, the term “Household” refers to a country’s most elite units, as they were one ones used to guard a monarch and his household. The British Household Cavalry is made up of two units—the Blues and Royals (The Royal Horse Guards, known as the Blues, and the Royal Dragoons, known as the Royals were joined together in 1969) and the Life Guards.

The Royal Horse Guards were founded in 1650 on the orders of Oliver Cromwell. The regiment was commanded by the Earl of Oxford during the reign of King Charles II and as the color of its uniform was blue at the time, it was nicknamed "the Oxford Blues", later shortened to the "Blues." In 1750 the regiment became the Royal Horse Guards Blue. The Colonel-In-Chief is the Queen, and both Prince William and Prince Harry joined as cornets.

The Life Guards is made up of four different troops of horse guards raised by Charles II around the time of his restoration. In 1788, they were streamlined into two regiments called  1st Life Guards and 2nd Life Guards, and in 1815 they were part of The Household Brigade at the Battle of Waterloo.

Today, the Life Guards, which can be recognized by their red coats and white plumes,  work in tandem with the Blues and Royals to form the Household Cavalry. One half is a modern armoured reconnaissance unit and the other half performs the ceremonial duties. Though they serve together, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals maintain their regimental identity, with distinct uniforms and traditions, and their own colonel.

There is a wonderful little museum on the Horse Guards located in the back of the main building, which include the original stables where one can watch the horses being saddled for the daily guard duties on their home turf. The exhibits feature vintage weapons, uniforms and memorabilia from the various campaigns throughout the regiment’s storied history, including battle flags and sabers from Waterloo. It’s well worth a visit if you are strolling down Whitehall Street.

I love learning the background and lore of people and places. Perhaps I’m a little odd, but it gives me great pleasure now to see a picture of some ceremonial event in London and be able to say, “Oh, that’s the Blues and Royals on parade—they fought at Waterloo.” How about you? Do you like knowing the history of something, be it a car design or a Coke bottle?

(1) Guest Louise Allen, (2) Winner

Happy Mother's Day to our readers in the US!

GUEST LOUISE ALLEN

On Wednesday, May 12, Nicola's guest will be prolific Regency author Louise Allen.  Louise lives in a Bedfordshire village with her husband and has a cottage in North Norfolk, so she's perfectly suited for writing Regency romances.  (She says her husband is her inspiration for her heroes)

WINNER

We have yet another winner!  Pearl Graham, you have won a book from guest Miranda Neville.  Please contact Sherrie with your mailing address and we'll forward it to Miranda.  Congratulations, Pearl!

Charlotte and Victoria: A Tale of Two Princesses

by Mary Jo

This past weekend I watched the DVD of Young Victoria, the recent movie that covers the early years of Queen Victoria.  A friend of mine called the movie “set design porn <g>,” and it certainly is a gorgeous production.  It’s also reasonably accurate historically in how it depicts Victoria’s youth and her courtship with Albert.

Since I’m currently researching the life of Princess Charlotte for my WIP, the movie got me to thinking about the haunting similarities and differences between these two royal princess. 

Their lives span three centuries.  Charlotte was born in 1796, while Victoria died in 1901. I tend to think of them as belonging to very different eras, yet they were first cousins.  They didn’t look much alike—Charlotte was tall and robust and outgoing, while Victoria was very petite, barely five feet tall, and retiring in nature. 

And Victoria would never have been born if not for Charlotte’s tragic early death.

The Prince Regent

Regular readers of Regency set romances know the outlines of Princess Charlotte’s life.  Her father, George, the Prince of Wales, was the extravagant and undisciplined eldest son of George III.  The Prince was so volatile and emotional that if he were female, he’d have been accused of permanent PMS.  Our Regency period was named for the years 1811-1820, when he ruled during his father’s madness.  From 1820-1830, he ruled as George IV in his own right. 

The Prince and his brothers were all profoundly marriage averse.  They much preferred mistresses and illegal marriages that were not approved by the king.  Children of such unions could not inherit titles and ranks.  This is in stark contrast to George III and his wife, who had a loving and faithful marriage, and fifteen (!) children, nine of them sons.

With no legitimate grandchildren in sight, at age 32 Prince of Wales was coerced into marriage in return for Parliament paying off his massive debts.  The bride chosen was his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick, a smallish German state. 

In the 18th and 19th century, there were many marriages between English and Germanic royals, partly because you tend to go with people you know, and the English House of Hanover was itself rooted in the German state of Hanover. 

Even more important, it was necessary for English royals to marry Protestants of royal rank,  That generally meant Northern Europeans, and the largest number of such royals were from Germanic states.

So George married his cousin Caroline, and loathed her so much it’s amazing that even one child was conceived.  They fought for years, he tried to divorce her, and banned her from his coronation. 

The Princess Charlotte Augusta

The casualty in all this was their daughter Charlotte.  She had her own household from infancy, where she was ignored by her father, and her mother was allowed only limited access.  Her father had her raised under smothering restrictions.  She was the heiress to the United Kingdom, yet she was ill-educated, rather wild, and considered awkward and even gauche in her manners when she was young.

Yet even though Charlotte felt unloved and insecure, she retained a basic strength of character and a generosity of spirit.  She loved animals and riding.  She had the will power to break an unwanted betrothal to the Prince of Orange, since it would have meant she had to live in Holland half of each year. (This is why two reigning monarchs should never marry!) 

In 1816, Charlotte married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, and it seems to have been a happy marriage.  He was a sober but handsome young man who wished to guide her to better understanding and behavior.  Sadly, Charlotte died of complications after childbirth in 1817.  Her son was still born, and the distraught doctor who had botched the handling of her pregnancy committed suicide three months later.  (It’s known as the triple obstetrical tragedy, since three lives were lost.)

The Princess Victoria

In many ways, the short unhappy life of Princess Charlotte seems like a sketch for the more successful life of her cousin Victoria.  After Charlotte’s death, the Prince Regent’s brothers went into a mad scramble to marry approved wives so they could produce a legitimate heir to the throne.  In the process, long-term partners and children were tossed aside. 

The second brother of the family, the Duke of York, predeceased his brother, who was by now George VI.  The third brother became William the IV.  Called the Sailor King because he’d served in the navy, William was soberer and less wild than his older brothers, but his happy marriage to Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen produced no surviving children.

The fathering-the-heir sweepstakes were won by the fourth brother, the Duke of Kent, who married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield—sister to the widowed Prince Leopold, who suggested the match to the Duke of Kent.  A widow, Princess Victoria had proven her fertility, and she gave birth to Princess Alexandrina Victoria, who was nicknamed Dreena as a girl, but who took the name Victoria when she inherited the throne.

Victoria was raised with appalling strictness—she wasn’t even permitted to go up and down stairs unless she was holding the hand of an adult.  Her father died when she was an infant, and Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, was determined that the young princess would be raised as a moral and modest young lady. 

This was not a bad goal, given that the sons of George III had behaved so badly that the monarchy had become massively unpopular, and this was an age of revolutions.  But in practice, the “Kensington System” of raising the little princess was perilously close to child abuse. 

The Duchess and John Conroy, controller of her household and quite possibly her lover, tried to bully Victoria into signing an agreement that would have made her subject to her mother’s regency until Victoria reached the age of 25, though 18 was the age at which she could inherit the throne directly.  The movie shows this happening when Victoria was lying on a sickbed, but even then, she had the strength of character to resist their coercion.

The elderly King William loathed the Duchess, and he managed to stay alive until a few weeks after Victoria’s eighteenth birthday in 1837.  When he died, a petite, isolated teenager became titular ruler of a large proportion of the world’s surface. 

Yet here the stories of Charlotte and Victoria diverge—and the family relationships become complicated.  One of Victoria’s principal advisors in the early years of her reign was her Uncle Leopold, who had become the King of the Belgians.  Recall that he was the brother of Victoria’s mother—AND the widower of Princess Charlotte.

Moreover—and this the movie shows beautifully—Leopold cultivated his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, as a potential consort for Victoria.  They were almost exactly the same age, with Albert a few months younger. 

It took several years for Victoria to feel ready for marriage—she inherited the throne at eighteen, and married at age twenty-one—but when the time came, she chose Albert, and they lived—well, not quite happily ever after, but for twenty-one happy years.

Like his Uncle Leopold and Charlotte, Albert became a guide and support to his royal wife.  He was socially liberal and interested in technology, and he was virtually a co-ruler with Victoria.  He also established the principle that the royal family should be above politics, since Britain was a constitutional monarchy. 

Victoria was so proper and formal in her public demeanor that “Victorian” has come to mean prudish, yet she and her husband had a passionate marriage.  Nine children do not happen by accident!  I read in a biography of Victoria that she and her husband had rather erotic art hanging on the walls of their private rooms of Osborne House, their retreat on the Isle of Wight.

Albert died at age 42 of what was diagnosed as typhoid fever, possibly aggravated by bad medical treatment, as in the case of Princess Charlotte.  The moral here is that being rich and famous and having the best possible medical treatment could kill you in past centuries.  (I’ve read that both Charles II and George Washington might have died because of too much of the wrong kind of treatment.) 

Victoria retreated into seclusion and became known as the Widow of Windsor, wearing black the rest of her life.  But she was always very conscientious about her responsibilities, and she was called the “grandmother of Europe” because her children made so many royal marriages. 

In an ironic twist, Victoria seems to have had spontaneous mutation for the blood clotting disorder haemophila, with her son Leopold a hemophiliac and the disorder being passed through two of her daughters into the royal houses of Russia, Germany, and Spain. 

Being a fanciful sort, I like to speculate that perhaps the spirit of Charlotte returned in Victoria so that this time things would work out right.  What kind of queen would Charlotte have made if she had survived?  Perhaps a good one, especially with the support of her sober, reliable husband.  But we’ll never know.

We do know that her cousin Victoria restored dignity and respect to the British throne.  In fact, England has done rather well with queens regnant, from the magnificent Elizabeth I to today’s Elizabeth II.  Both of those princesses inherited the throne at the age of 25, and did quite a good job with it.

Have you seen Young Victoria?  What do you think of these two princesses, in their similarities and differences?  Would you like to have grown up as a princess?  Romantic that I am, when Charlotte shows up in my next historical, I intend to see that she’s treated right. <G>

Mary Jo

Writing Character

Pat here:

One of the great difficulties and controversies of writing fictional characters is whether to “write what you know” or expand a book’s universe by writing characters of different cultures and ethnicities— or finding some happy medium.

Obviously, when I write about characters who live in Regency England, I’m not precisely writing what I know—unless years of research and reading count as knowledge. My Magic and Mystic characters with their psychic and paranormal abilities are hardly in any known universe, except to the extent of knowing what it’s like to be a fish out of water and researching psychic powers.

By those standards—research and experience—I suppose I can “know” people of different cultures and ethnicities. So I might introduce a Chinese or African character into my Regency story and wrap them in appropriate attire and give them a historically correct background, but I have not spent decades studying Chinese or African culture, history, or literature, and don’t feel the familiarity I do with my make-believe Jane Austenish characters.

Since characters are my story, more so than plot, I need to know them from the inside out. I need to know how they felt as children growing up, what foods they like, how they feel about their hair, how they react to fear or joy. Because my parents were both orphans and I grew up in a small family, my characters will often be the products of small families. That’s what I know best, and it works well with my historical characters where death and distance so often truncated relationships. I might imagine what it was like to grow up in a large family in a village where I’m related to everyone, but I would not be comfortable plunking my heroine down there unless I could quickly move her out.

So trying to imagine someone who came from a hot, dry desert country where everyone dresses in grass skirts and transferring them to chilly, damp Regency England…  Fascinating fish out of water story but not one I would be comfortable writing. It would be difficult enough trying to fit a person of different color into an essentially white bread world, to have that world constantly reacting to their physical differences, without trying to get inside that character’s head.  It would be wonderful to read a book about such a character, but for me, the complications would exceed the limits of historical romance.

This leaves open the question of whether contemporary romance with culturally or ethnically different characters can be written by an author not of that race or culture. Americans are Americans, after all. We grew up with the same TV programs, in the same schools. But I’m old enough to remember the immense cultural divide between nationalities and religions and race as recently as the sixties. Even if my heroine is thirty, wouldn’t she be affected by the influence of parents and grandparents who thought in more judgmental, less educated old ways?  I can still remember trying to figure out if I was a Mick or a Polack when I was a little kid and deciding I was a Pat. I can’t bring that kind of information to the table with a character labeled with worse slurs, although I’d like to.

What do you think? Should authors stick to what they know or attempt to stretch their imaginations based on what we’ve read and observed? Can we really “know” what it’s like to be a different race or culture? Or can we just say romance is romance and who cares how well the character is drawn as long as the story works? What do you bring to a story when you read about characters of a different background than your own?

May Day

 It's May! Anne here. I know we're a couple of days past Mayday, but I thought it might be interesting to blog about it.

The first day of May has a long history as a special day of celebration. In pre-Christian Rome, it was celebrated as the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and fertility, and still in many countries, the underlying theme of most May festivals is fertility.

In England, it's a traditional first-day-of-summer holiday -- stop reading and wave to the English enjoying their long weekend right now. Traditionally maidens danced around the maypole, weaving a pattern with the ribbons they held, and men leapt about with bells on their knees, performing Morris dances and such. Some beauteous village maiden was also crowned Queen of the May. Remnants of these traditions still survive today and revivals are taking place on some regions.  

Remember the old nursery songs about going a'maying? Chamber's Book of Days (1869) described it thus:

In the sixteenth century it was still customary for the middle and humbler classes to go forth at an early hour of the morning, in order to gather flowers and hawthorn branches, which they brought home about sunrise, with accompaniments of horn and tabor, and all possible signs of; joy and merriment. With these spoils they would decorate every door and window in the village. By a natural transition of ideas, they gave to the hawthorn bloom the name of the May; they called this ceremony 'the bringing home the May;' they spoke of the expedition to the woods as 'going a-Maying.' The fairest maid of the village was crowned with flowers, as the 'Queen of the May;' the lads and lasses met, danced and sang together, with a freedom which we would fain think of as bespeaking comparative innocence as well as simplicity.

The good Mr. Chambers also had this to say about non-English customs, which made me chuckle:

Among the barbarous Celtic populations of Europe, there was a heathen festival on the same day, but it does not seem to have been connected with flowers.

And thus they are dismissed. LOL

 

 In Celtic nations, May is the time of the pagan festival of Beltane, sometimes celebrated on the 1st, though it varies. The festival of Beltane features bonfires to symbolize purification and to welcome in summer in the hope of a good harvest. There also some rituals to ensure health and protect people from harm, especially other worldly harm.

Many of these rituals still take place today. In Edinburgh, for instance, the Beltane Fire Festival is an annual event that was revived in 1988, and has grown in popularity since. As well as the bonfires and traditional rituals, it's also an arts and music festival. I don't know whether it's my Scottish blood, but I do  love a good bonfire.  

Another traditional ritual still practiced by some in Edinburgh is to climb to Arthur's Seat at dawn on the first of May to wash your face in the morning dew. In ancient times, druids gathered this dew before dawn on May Day. To the druids, it was the most sacred of all water forms and Beltane morning dew was believed to hold special virtue, assuring any who were sprinkled with it of health and well being -- and, of course, beauty, which made the ritual popular with young women and girls.

 The French have a lovely tradition for May 1st. On that day in 1561, Charles IX of France was given some sweet-scented lily-of-the-valley as a lucky charm. Obviously a bit of a charmer himself, he decided to present the ladies of his court with lily-of-the-valley as well. The practice survived even the Revolution, and to this day it's a custom in France to give a sprig of lily-of-the-valley -- and selling it is even free of tax. The tradition is for the lady receiving the flower to give a kiss in return. No wonder the tradition has lasted. 

Flowers are also the gift of choice in Hawaii, where May Day is Lei Day. The day might have been invented by journalist in the 1920's but it's a lovely idea, and celebrates native Hawaiian culture, so what's not to love?  

For many people around the world MayDay has quite another meaning -- it's Labour Day, and celebrates workers' achievements, particularly the fight for the eight hour day. That was achieved first in Australia and the first Eight Hour Procession was first held in Melbourne in May, 1856. They marched behind a banner declaring "Eight Hours Labour, Eight Hours Rest, Eight Hours Recreation" and whenever I go into the city I pass this memorial, which commemorates it. 

So what does May Day mean to you? A holiday? An occasion to be celebrated? Just another day? And what May Day tradition would you like to adopt? Me, I want a bonfire and some lily-of-the-valley, please. So, what did you do on May Day?

(1) Jo Beverley, (2) Winner

JO BEVERLEY:

Romantic Times magazine has a new Web site and they're celebrating with a number of author blogs. If you're a fan of Georgian and Regency romances, check out Jo Beverley's blog about her favorite heroes from her books: http://is.gd/bIWLb  More good news:  The Secret Duke has been on the NY Times bestseller list for two weeks . . . and holding.

BOOK WINNER:

We have another winner!  This week, Donna Kenney won a copy of Never Less Than a Lady from Mary Jo Putney.  Congratulations, Donna.