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Monthly Archives: June 2008

Tortured or trite?

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Last week, Janet likened the prevalence of PTSD heroes in historical romance to war profiteering. I have to agree. But her words scare me too, because I’m writing a war-scarred though not classic PTSD hero myself and always worry that I will not do him justice. I feel it’s important to respect history and the real people who suffered through similar events. I hope that respect comes through in my work.

But what makes the difference between Artificially Injected Angst and the real thing?

Looking at both our current projects and our backlist, many of us Riskies have written military heroes. We’re also writing or have written stories about emotional and/or physical abuse, addiction, loss of close loved ones, and other issues that we may or may not have experienced personally. I’ve always been suspicious of the adage “Write what you know”. I’ve since heard “Write what you love” or “Write what you care about” and that’s what we do.

I think that makes all the difference. If a writer cares about an issue enough to make it a central theme in a story, she ought to do the necessary immersion. If she’s content with Wikipedia level research or less, it shows. (I put down a romance when I realized, just a few pages in, that the author thought the British were fighting the Portuguese in the Peninsula, not the French.) This is why we Riskies and friends regularly break our research book budgets or become good friends with librarians.

I also think it is AIA when a tortured hero (or heroine, though they seem less common) is defined by his issues. As a reader, I want to know what makes the character different from others with similar problems. Is he naturally an introvert or an extrovert? Impulsive or cautious? What are his strengths and passions? Most importantly, how does he deal with the problem? People don’t all react the same way and that’s exactly why yet another story about a scarred military hero or any other flavor of tortured character can still be interesting.

What do you think makes the difference between the tortured and the merely trite?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

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“Other Way, Mr. Collins!”

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It has occurred to me that if I were to write a Regency dance scene, I could draw on certain experiences I’ve had doing English country dance to flesh it out.

I don’t mean the basics — I mean the little things…

And as I’m not planning on writing a dance scene anytime soon, I thought I’d share the ideas…because ideas like company.

Here are a few things that I think a Regency woman might not care for in a partner, or indeed in any of the many people she will dance with during a country dance:

1) Unpleasant hands. Now, I know that gloves would change things a lot — but I still think that over the course of a long ball, a Regency dancer might still end up with hands that are so hot, cold, or damp that they’re not so pleasant to hold, even for a moment.

2) Men who mess up the steps. And of course everyone will mess up the steps sometime or other — but if a Regency lady has her foot stepped on (especially by a man) or is crashed into with force by someone (particularly a large man), I think it would still extremely unpleasant.

3) Men who mess up the steps, and then insist that she was wrong. This is, quite literally, adding insult to injury. And I suspect it happened quite a bit more in Regency times than now.

4) Men who cannot take hints. Or commands. Sometimes the woman knows what the man’s next move is, and he does not. And he knows that he does not. So if he has no idea where he should be going, why would he be so reluctant to advance toward the lady holding out her hand to him? Or to move where she is so politely pointing, waving, nudging, looking, or telling him? Could it be that he thinks that if he doesn’t know a thing, no one else can? Or is it just that no female can? Or is he just one of those single-minded men who are so busy trying to remember a thing, that they cannot notice anything else?

5) Other Way, Mister Collins! The ladies in the Firth/Ehle Pride and Prejudice say this, repeatedly. And yes, some men (and women) just can never learn a certain step. Even the fiftieth time. Even if they’ve just crashed into their partner forty-nine times. (It reminds me of the bee in Bee Movie: “Maybe it’ll work this time! Or this time! This time! This time!”) I think the emotion this particular behavior produces, however, (assuming there is no physical pain), is more likely to be astonishment than annoyance.

6) Couples (or singles) who leave a dance in the middle. From the middle. A country dance is a complex organism, and if a couple that is not at the bottom of the set gets bored and leaves, chaos inevitably ensues. It’s rather like pulling on a loose thread in your sweater — the entire thing quickly turns to mush. But some folks just don’t care. (I suspect they’re those More Important Than You people — you know, the ones who cut in front of you in line, who smoke where they’re not allowed, who talk on their phones during movies.)

Well, those are the things that occur to me. How about you? If you’ve done any English Country Dance (or other ballroom dance), do you have anything to add to the list?

And remember: next Tuesday, be sure to come by to discuss (or learn about) the 1980 BBC PRIDE AND PREJUDICE! (The one with David Rintoul and Elizabeth Garvie.)

Cara
Cara King, who can shaw-side or sharp-side or do a sheepskin hey

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Diane Progress Report

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So many of you have been sooooo kind to be thinking of my struggle to finish this book and wishing me well.

I’m not done yet…..and I’m not certain why it has been so hard. I’ve been working and working and unable to produce more than about 10 pages a day and sometimes I have to rewrite those. (and, of course, I’ve had to get my hair cut and other essential errands, like clothes shopping….)

My editor says I have until the end of the month but I really have until Thursday because I’m going out of town on Friday!

I figure you all wonder what this book is about. Well, it’s about this stuff:

Battle of Badajoz


Royal Academy of Art, Somerset House


Drury Lane Theatre


Cleopatra Portrait


Corn Bill riots


Waterloo

I know none of this makes sense…

How about you? Give us a progress report on your manuscripts or any goal or project you are working on.

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Dress For Success

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In researching my latest hero, a Sharpe-based soldier, I’ve been delving into Scott Hughes Myerly‘s British Military Spectacle. I highly recommend the book; every page has some essential, interesting nugget of information, even if you’re not writing a battle-scarred hero, as I am.

In reading it, I’ve been alternately horrified and impressed at how the British Army used dress to control its soldiers.

As Janet pointed out yesterday, many British soldiers were boys or men who had no choice (“Prison/deportation or the Army?” is just as obvious as Eddie Izzard‘s “Cake or death?”) or were coerced to join.

To keep their soldiers–some of whom were blackguards, to say the least–in line, their superior officers demanded perfection in appearance. Keeping the men busy cleaning their kits kept them away from alcohol, which was one of the Army’s biggest problems (Sharpe mentions this frequently, always trying to destroy whatever alcohol is within his men’s vicinity). Myerly says, “The ideal of perfection was central to the art of nineteenth-century military management, especially in connection with martial display.”

Myerly then goes on to say that “Officers were sometimes obsessed with presenting a correct and pleasing appearance, which often resulted in the total neglect of other significant considerations, even if these were vital to the army’s success.”

Wow. To prove the point, Myerly discusses the headgear required, sometimes two feet high, made of material that was ridiculously hot in the summer, got drenched in the rain, and blew off whenever there was a strong wind.

On one dress occasion in 1829, Wellington, in full military regalia, was blown off his horse by a gust of wind. In 1842, Queen Victoria demanded that a 73 year-old Wellington wear all the proper military gear, which made him trip and fall.

The stocks soldiers wore around the neck had to fit tightly, and were sometimes made too tight so as to make the blood go into the soldier’s face and make him look hale and hearty, even if he hadn’t been eating properly.


Soldiers had to wear uniforms sometimes designed by people who had no idea what a battlefield was like (King George IV, I’m looking at you). The uniforms were impractical, binding, difficult to maintain and expensive. But they looked good, and that was all that mattered.

As Billy Crystal‘s Fernando Lamas character says, “It is better to look good than to feel good.”

It’s clear, from history, that this kind of restrictive insistence on proper attire worked to keep the Army intact and submissive. Of course it chafes at our notions of freedoms as well.

How about you? Have you ever had to wear a uniform? Follow a dress code? Did it make you feel more official? Did you hate it? Did you like not having to worry about choosing what to wear?

Megan

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Corners of a foreign field

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Today I’m talking about the ordinary soldiers, the kids who signed up for the king’s shilling out of patriotism, were fooled by unscrupulous recruiters, or because they had so few options. And they were kids–for the most part under twenty. Here’s a typical story of how a Waterloo veteran came to join the army a few years after his father was deported to Australia for sheep-stealing, when he found himself the head of the family at age fifteen.

One in four soldiers died that June day in 1815. Waterloo was an unusual battle because it was the bloodiest so far in British history; it was also unusual in that all survivors, of whatever rank, were awarded a medal.

There were no war memorials with the names of the fallen, however humble, erected in villages or town squares, although this memorial, composed of the battlefield dirt itself, was raised at the site in Belgium. Locals claim it’s haunted and full of bones, and they may be right. Ordinary soldiers didn’t count; as far as war reports went, they were anonymous, only numbers. Their corpses were raided by war profiteers for teeth–for years after, false teeth were known as “Wellington teeth.”

It’s heartbreaking to think of the families waiting and as time passed, realizing that their son, brother, or father had been killed. They might not even be lucky enough to receive a letter, such as this one from Private Charles Stanley to a friend in Nottinghamshire, describing the everyday life of a soldier. Almost certainly, they’d never know the circumstances of their loved one’s death.

We have one gud thing Cheap that is Tobaco and Everrything a-Cordnley Tobaco is 4d Per 1b Gin is 1s 8d Per Galland that is 2 1/2 Per Quart and Everrything In Perposion hour alounse Per Day is One Pound of Beef a Pound and half of Bred half a Pint o Gin But the worst of all we dont get it Regeler and If we dont get it the Day it is due we Luse it wish It is ofton the Case…I hope you never will think Of Being a Soldier I Asure you it is a Verry Ruf Consarn…



You can read more of his letter at militaryheritage.com. Private Stanley was one of the many who didn’t come home.

Here’s an excerpt from the brilliant movie History Boys, where a poem about a young soldier who dies far from home, Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy, is discussed.

And here’s the poem:

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined–just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew–
Fresh from his Wessex home–
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally.

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