Monthly Archives: March 2013

Feminist romance–is this news?

Updated on March 22, 2013 by Elena Greene

Overall, I enjoyed this recent article in the Atlantic: Beyond Bodice Rippers: How Romance Novels Came to Embrace Feminism. But is this really news?

The article quotes Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels: “Bodice-rippers are typically set in the past, and the hero is a great deal older, more brutal, and more rapetastic than the heroine.”

I never did read any books like this when they were coming out in the 70s and early 80s, but I’ve read some recent reviews of such. Here’s one that had my eyes rolling back in my head. Feel free to indulge your morbid curiosity if you wish: Purity’s Passion by Janette Seymour, a Review by Redheaded Girl.

As a child, I read my mother’s Regency romance novels. I only started reading longer, sexier historical romances when I followed authors like Mary Jo Putney, Jo Beverley and Loretta Chase as they moved to writing longer books. Except for being set in the past, there’s no resemblance between their historical romances and the description above. The romances I like have heroes and heroines who worked through their conflicts emerging as equals, despite a historical backdrop where gender roles were more rigidly defined.

So maybe I missed something but it seems to me that the romance genre has been moving away from the abusive hero/submissive heroine setup for decades and it isn’t a “new generation” of writers who are inventing this.

I’m woefully ill-read—life has done that to me—so I haven’t read most of the books mentioned. Did I miss another shift? The article implies that the new feminist romances subvert the stereotype. Does this mean heroines can now be as selfish and abusive as the heroes used to be? Actually, I doubt it, knowing some of these authors.

So help me out. Is something really changing in the genre or is it a continuation of the shift to strong heroines and more equal relationships that began decades ago? And did you ever read of those Bad Old Bodice Rippers? If so, what did you think?

Elena

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged bodice rippers, feminist romance, Heroes, heroines, Old Skool Romance | 2 Replies

Happy birthday, Bach

Updated on March 20, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on this day in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany but by the Regency period, his music was mostly considered hopelessly old-fashioned and pedantic, except by scholars and professional musicians. Even the music of his highly successful son Johann Christian Bach, former music teacher to Queen Charlotte, had died in poverty in 1782 in London, was out of favor with popular taste. It wasn’t until 1829, after a century of silence, that the St. Matthew Passion was revived and performed by the young Felix Mendelssohn. There’s a fascinating account of how it came about here.

There is so much material available on Bach online–here are just a couple of places you can search: jsbach.org and baroquemusic.org. There are many, many recordings of his music, ranging from brilliant to poor, and, as happens with a great artist, some just plain wacko. His music ranges from the gorgeously tuneful to the highly cerebral. If you can, search out a performance, preferably one that’s HIP (historically informed performance). If you’re in the Washington DC area, there’s a performance of the great B Minor Mass on April 28.

Occasionally when you read about Bach you find glimpses of the human being behind the legend. Here’s Bach complaining about his income (which he did quite a lot):

My present post brings in about 700 thalers, and when there are a few more funerals than ordinairement, the perquisites (tips) increase proportionately; but when the air is wholesome, on the contrary, they diminish, this last year my ordinaire perquisites for burials declined by more than 100 thalers.

He lived in an era when musicians were regarded as servants, often required to wear livery. He was able to give his sons the university education he lacked, ensuring that they would be further up the social scale, and indeed two of them served in royal courts–JC in London and CPE (Carl Philipp Emmanuel) in Sweden and Germany. He never left Germany and although he expressed the wish to meet Handel, the meeting never took place.

He was a geek who was interested in taking apart and reworking pipe organs, and there’s some evidence that he knew of the new pianos in production toward the end of his life. Certainly his sons JC and CPE were proponents of this new instrument.

But it’s the way he worked that I find fascinating–the reworking, rewriting, rearranging that he did all his life. His output was astonishing. About 250 of his Cantatas remain–he turned out a cantata a week at one period of his life. Originally there were twice that many. He wrote possibly five large scale works based on the gospels, and only those based on Matthew and John survive.

So happy birthday, Bach, and thanks.

Do you like Bach? What’s your favorite music?

Posted in Music | 2 Replies

Where to Begin?

Updated on March 18, 2013 by diane

I’m at that exciting scary time of starting a new book. The possibilities are endless. That is the exciting part AND the scary part. I need a way to focus, to narrow it down.

So, I’m thinking of those popular Romance and Regency themes.

I’ve written several marriage of convenience plots (The Mysterious Miss M, The Wagering Widow, Scandalizing the Ton), forbidden love (Innocence and Impropriety, Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady, Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Lady, Born to Scandal), and road stories (The Vanishing Viscountess, The Liberation of Miss Finch). I’ve done a reforming the rake plot (A Reputable Rake), love at first sight (Innocence and Impropriety,Valiant Soldier, Beautiful Enemy) and reunion stories (A Twelfth Night Tale, A Not So Respectable Gentleman?).

Here’s a great list of Classic Romance Plots, by the way.

I could categorize the next book, A Reputation for Notoriety, but it doesn’t fit neatly into one category. It has elements of a few – forbidden love, opposites attract, boss/employee…and another that would be a spoiler!

My challenge for this to-be-written book is to take one of these classic romance plots, twist it in some interesting way, and devise a story that hopefully readers will love.

Do story ideas come easily to you? What are your favorite romance plots? Are there any Regency plots that you want to see? Any that you think have been overdone?

Posted in Writing | 7 Replies

Mary Bacon’s World

Updated on March 15, 2013 by Myretta

I’ve been reading Mary Bacon’s World by Ruth Facer, a detailed look at the life of a farmer’s wife in 18th century Hampshire, taken from her personal ledger, which contained much more than financial entries. It’s a personal journal in which she has recorded many aspects of her life; truly an historians dream of source material.

Like those of many women of her generation, her journal includes things like recipes and the minutiae of farm life, all of which are interesting to anyone writing about the period. For example, when she and her new husband moved to their home at Aylesfield Farm, she meticulously recorded the expenses for needed repairs, including holdfasts (probably some sort of clamp or staple), brushes, Linseed oil, nayls (and also nails). In total they spent £43 15s. Quite a lot to get the farm in order, not mention chips, 5 cord of Grub wood (roots or branches lying on the ground). This was, probably for heating. She also includes a furniture inventory which indicates a level of prosperity for the new couple.

A farmer’s wife in her yard with chickens

Her ledger also includes a detailed picture of the life of a farmer’s wife, including stock, the weather, the care of animals, and cures for people living in or around the farm.

Mary seemed to rely on Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and English Physician for caring for her livestock. For example, to cure a bovine urinary tract infection:

Take a handfull of Hot Dung, half a pint of Rennet half a pint of Brine and a handful of mustard Seed Bruised Simmer it together and Give it to the Cow and let her Stand two hours without meat If one Drink fails Stop one Day & Give her another in the morning.

Sort of makes you glad you’re not her cow. She has equally interesting cures for human ailment, including piles, constipation, dental problems, and epilepsy.

Mary’s kitchen inventory gives a good picture of how she cooked and her ledger contains recipes, many copied from Hannah Glasse’s First Catch Your Hare, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, but also some of her own and those from her friends.

From the ledger, we also learn a lot about Mary’s reading material, including Almanacs, chapbooks, and newspapers. Among the things she copied out in her journal was a table of information about the West Indies (including, the length and breadth of each island, it’s principal towns and which country owned it) , in which she was apparently interested.

Her ledger includes her extensive book list. This includes, as well as Culpeper’s Herbal, many religious books, The Universal Parish Officer (containing the laws in force pertaining to parish business), The Gentleman’s Jocky & approved farrier, and a history of England.

I could go on. There is an incredible amount of useful material in this book, if you’re interested in the life of an intelligent and fairly prosperous farmer’s wife during the late 18th and early 19th century. I highly recommend it.

Posted in Regency, Research | 4 Replies

When families give advice

Updated on March 14, 2013 by susanna

“Mom?” asked Miss Fraser, age 8. “How’s the writing going?”

“Pretty good,” I replied. “Rose had some ideas for putting more conflict in my Christmas novella, so I’m working on fitting those into the story.”

“What do you mean, conflict?”

“You know–all the bad things and problems that make a book interesting, that the characters have to work through to get to the happy ending.”

“Oh.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I have a good idea. You could put an earthquake in the story.”

“Well, that would be exciting, only the story is set in England, and they almost never have earthquakes there.”

Miss Fraser shrugged and gave me a look that said, Do I have to do EVERYTHING for you? “Then put in something they DO have.”

I then tried to explain about internal conflict and all the baggage my hero and heroine have left over from when they last met five years before, but her eyes started to glaze over. Miss Fraser thinks my stories sadly lacking in wizards, Greek gods, and clans of warrior cats going on quests.

A few days later I got into a conversation with my husband about how sometimes problems are easier to solve than you think. I had a character in my aforementioned Christmas novella whose existence was critical to my other characters’ lives, so I couldn’t just write him out altogether. But he had nothing interesting to do within the few days of my plot, and having him around was pulling focus off the characters who DID matter.

At first I was stumped, but then I came up with a simple solution: I changed my atmospheric Christmas Eve snow flurries to a wind-driven storm that accumulated thickly, and I made my extraneous character’s wife heavily pregnant instead of halfway through her second trimester. Voila! Now Harry the Necessary but Uninteresting wouldn’t dare venture on the roads and risk having his firstborn delivered in a carriage mired in a snowdrift, and all was right with my fictional world.

Mr. Fraser wasn’t so easily satisfied. “What are you going to do when some reader comes after you with an almanac proving it didn’t snow that Christmas Eve?”

I shrugged.

“You don’t CARE, do you?” he asked, eyebrows climbing in indignation. (I should note here that Mr. Fraser is a bit of a weather geek. As a child his dream career was meteorologist.)

“Look, I’m all about historical accuracy–to a point. I wouldn’t write Waterloo without the big rainstorm the day before, since it had a huge impact on the outcome of the battle, or forget that 1816 was the Year Without a Summer. But looking up the exact weather of every single day is several levels of obsessiveness beyond where I’m willing to go. Besides, this is a CHRISTMAS STORY. A white Christmas is a TROPE. It snows in England NOW. No one is going to have trouble believing in a Christmas snowstorm in 1810–especially given that the more of a weather geek they are, the more likely they are to know about the Little Ice Age and how much colder it was back then.”

“But what if 1810-11 was the warmest winter on record? What if it’s the year everyone talked about the daffodils blooming in January and all the young rakehells swimming naked in the Thames on Christmas morning?”

“Hmph. Unlikely.”

“Hmph. Where is your story set, exactly?”

“Kent.”

Mr. Fraser opened a new browser tab for Google and searched for weather in Kent in 1810. When nothing much came up, he searched on London and found a bit of data, but nothing that specifically remarked on Christmas. Peering over his shoulder, I spotted a reference to the Thames freezing over in January 1811. “Ha!” said I. “I stand by my story.”

“But what if it was a sudden cold snap?”

“I don’t CARE. A white Christmas is a TROPE.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse of living a writer’s life in House Fraser. Does your family give you helpful advice whether you ask for it or not? And where do you draw the line between accuracy and obsessiveness?

Posted in Frivolity, Research, Writing | Tagged Christmas, Susanna Fraser, writing | 4 Replies