Hello! This is Laurie Bishop. Great cover, Cara!
I’ve been reading everyone else’s comments and trying to decide how I would qualify what makes a Regency risky. I find it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. But since I have to come up with something 😉 , to me a risky Regency is one in which the heroine, and/or the hero, do something extraordinary for their sex/time/station—or must act in an unexpected way to address their dilemma. Also, in addition to this, they must do or be in this way without violating the attitudes of the time.Hence the trickiness.Let us say that I want my heroine to be courageous and able to take command to save the family estate. She might come to the traumatic conclusion that she must ruin herself by becoming the mistress of Snidely Whiplash; and she can acknowledge this by having all of the appropriate thoughts and feelings about what she feels forced to do. But…she will not use language that a gently reared young lady does not use, and she will otherwise behave with all the decorum within her power that she has been raised to use. And she will not know something that a gently reared young lady does not know.
Of course, if she is not a gently reared young lady, we have a different bucket of peas. She will have the perspective of a farmer’s daughter, a soldier’s daughter, or what have you. And that can be quite different. Even middle class daughters were different than the daughters of the highest peers. In PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, the Bennett daughters walked to town alone. Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s daughter would never been allowed to do such a thing.
In my first Regency, THE BEST LAID PLANS, the heroine was a very independent-thinking American heiress who was not raised in high English society. She was therefore allowed to be a little outrageous—and was a ball to write!
Laurie
WHEN HORSES FLY Oct. 2005
LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE Jan. 2006
LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE Jan. 2006
Laurie, you make some good points about the balancing act Regency writers have to do — being true to the period, and yet creating characters that are interesting to read about (which, in fiction, usually means being unusual in some way, or doing something unexpected. After all, Elizabeth Bennett wasn’t the pattern card of sweetness and light that her sister Jane was, any more than Jo March was a typical 19th century girl!)
By the way, I’ve always wished they’d kept your original title for BEST LAID PLANS — which, if I remember correctly, was “Cat of My Heart” (is that right?) A much more intriguing title, in my humble opinion! 🙂
Cara
Laurie:
Excellent definition. As I will say when pressed (or drunk–right Elena and Amanda?), it is important to remember that what we are writing is fiction, because if our characters behaved abolutely, flawlessly true to their time period, our books would be absolutely, stultifyingly boring. And of course they are not. But completely anachronistic behavior drives me batty, too–just make the characters attempt to push and stretch the boundaries of their acceptable behavior, and I’ll be fine.
Laurie,
I like what you said about characters behaving in extraordinary ways “without violating the attitudes of the time.” The way I like to look at it are that there are consequences, at least the potential for them. It’s not as if people never broke the “rules” (not that we can always agree what those rules were). It’s just that if they were caught, they suffered the consequences. Even if not, they were usually aware of the risks they were taking.
One Regency-set historical I read had a heroine who broke off her engagement to the hero, repeatedly said she despised him and would never marry him, and repeatedly succumbed to his lovemaking (we’re talking bunnies here.) I was left with a universal question: why did she lower herself to sex with someone she supposedly despised? (OK, I know the answer to that one; she just didn’t know she loved him.) And then the Regency question: did she really want to bring a bastard into the world? Or was she just being coy about not wanting to marry him? Heat of the moment is one thing, but time after time after time, no thought of pregnancy ever occurred to either of them. I’m guessing it just wasn’t convenient to the plot; the heroine seemed pretty worldly, not the sort who hadn’t a clue how babies were made.
Can you tell I disliked this book?????
LOL! Bunnies, eh? I think I may have read the same book. 🙂
I do agree with Megan, and will express my agreement extra loudly after a margarita or two! In every time period there have been people who march to a different beat, who don’t “fit in” and couldn’t follow a rule if it bit them on the butt. That is why when people tell me “A woman in 1810 would never have done that!”, I just think “What? Never? No one?” When I was a kid, someone gave me this great book. Can’t remember the title, but it was all stories about women in history who did great things and followed their own destiny, often at huge personal expense. It was very inspiring, and I still sometimes think of those stories when I come up with my own characters. We don’t want to be totally anachronistic, of course–as was said earlier, no opening of Hallmark Stores in Covent Garden, or adopted sons from the gutter becoming duke, or anything like that. 🙂 I enjoy the stories of people being true to themselves contrasted to their constrictive environment, of that tug and conflict. Ladies sipping tea and doing their petit point in the drawing room are just, well, boring.
OK, now I’ve rambled on again. Please don’t kick me off the blog!!!
You haven’t rambled at all, Amanda, but have made a lot of good points!
I admit I like tea sipping myself — both in reality and to read. I like the characters who are witty — the characters in Oscar Wilde and Georgette Heyer and Saki and Sheridan etc who often observe and make snarky comments. 🙂 These, of course, are often secondary characters. (Though perhaps one day I will write my book where the hero is the snarky one!)
Of course, I also love the books where the heroines get out and do something!
I think perhaps what gives the teacup stories a bad reputation is that it’s a lot easier to say “Lord Mockem is such a wit” than to actually write exceedingly witty things for him to say. 🙂 Some authors can do it, but I wish those whose talents lie elsewhere wouldn’t come up with “witty” characters who aren’t . . .
(Good heavens! Now I’m being snarky. Now people will think I’m not nice! Quick, Cara, add smileys.)
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Cara
Cara, do please write the story where the hero is the snarky one. You could pull this off and make us love him, I’m sure of it!
Elena, now at risk of sounding like a nice person
http://www.elenagreene.com
Yup, there certainly were ladies who broke the rules…like Mary Wollstonecraft, who was referred to in rather nasty ways because of it by those who disapproved. It is so ironic that she died young in childbirth.
Of course, as authors, we can make the ending of a story to suit ourselves. 😉
Laurie