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Category: Writing

Posts in which we talk about the writing craft and process

In the Regency, but not wholly of the Regency

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Like Carolyn and Diane, I’ve been following with interest the discussion on the state of historical romances in general and Regencies in particular that’s been prominent on the romance blogosphere since Jane at Dear Author’s provocatively titled post, We Should Let the Historical Genre Die.

I’m never sure where I fit in during discussions of the State of the Regency, because I never can decide just how much of a Regency writer I am. Back when the Golden Heart and Ritas had two separate categories for Regencies and other historicals, I used to angst endlessly about where to enter my books. What if I entered them in Regency and got marked down for not having enough ballrooms and dukes? Or what if I entered them in historical, only to have some judge see the “1811” dateline at the top of the first chapter and think, “Hey! This is a Regency. I’m sick of Regencies. If I wanted to judge one, I would’ve signed up for that category.”

In the end, I entered The Sergeant’s Lady as a historical and its prequel, A Marriage of Inconvenience, as a Regency. Why? Well, The Sergeant’s Lady is set almost entirely in Spain during the Peninsular War with, as the title makes clear, a common sergeant as a hero. Despite its 1811-12 setting and British protagonists, it just doesn’t feel Regency. A Marriage of Inconvenience, on the other hand, is a house party story set in Gloucestershire, with a wealthy viscount for a hero and a poor relation cousin of a baronet for a heroine. Regency tropes everywhere you look.

My third book, An Infamous Marriage, is maybe a half-Regency. The hero and heroine are of the gentry rather than the nobility, and though they move in exalted circles in Brussels in the run-up to Waterloo because of the hero’s rank as a major-general, that’s not what their story is about. And my fourth book, A Dream Defiant, despite its 1813 setting is another non-Regency–it takes place in Spain in the aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria, the hero is a black soldier (the son of Virginian slaves who ran away to the British army and freedom during the American Revolution) and the heroine is another soldier’s widow, an ordinary village girl whose ambition in life is to take over her home village’s posting inn and make it famous for serving the best meals on the Great North Road.

I don’t want the Regency to die because I have such an insatiable passion for the opening 15 years or so of the 19th century. I mean, what would I do with all my research books if i couldn’t base my novels upon their contents?

Susanna's Shelf

But when I write my Regencies (or Regencies in year only, as the case may be), I’m trying my best to ground them in a specific place and time–and that’s what I’d like to see more of in the genre as a whole. I know a lot of writers and readers love historicals for the “Once Upon a Time” feeling, and the last thing I want to do is deny anyone the pleasure of the stories they like best. But for myself I don’t want once upon a time. I want 1812 at the Battle of Salamanca, or Seattle in the 1850’s, or Philadelphia in 1776. And I don’t want the only alternatives to Regency to be Victorian, Western, and Medieval. I want Colonial American historicals. I want more stories set on the West Coast, like Bonnie Dee’s lovely Captive Bride. I want a Civil War romance from the Union side. Given the role of women at the time it’d be tricky to pull off, but I’d love to see an ancient Greek romance set sometime around the Greco-Persian wars. And so many more. I want more history–in my Regencies and across the genre.

What about you? What unexplored corners of the Regency world would you like to see more of? And what other periods of history strike your fancy?

Posted in Reading, Regency, Risky Regencies, Writing | Tagged , | 22 Replies

Sick of the Regency?

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Edmund_Blair_Leighton_-_AdieuLast week on my Diane’s Blog, I mentioned the discussion on Dear Author titled  We Should Let The Historical Genre Die.

At the end of the blog Jane says:

I’m not going to launch a historical romance campaign.  I think I’m actively looking for the historical romance genre to die.  For Regency dukes to molder into dust.  For dashing  earls to be crushed.  Only then can the genre reinvent itself.  I don’t want to save the historical romance genre. I want it to die and from the ashes, maybe then, a new and fresh historical voices will arise unconstrained by both reader, editor and agent expectations.

Of the 122 comments, several remarked about being tired of Regency and blaming the “demise” of the Historical Romance on the fact that the vast majority are Regency. One commenter said:

I have tried writing Regency but, as you pointed out, there are no original plots and the readership for this period is so knowledgeable I wouldn’t dare get the slightest flick of a fan out of place!

Edmund_Blair_Leighton_-_CourtshipNo original plots? (and I try so hard….)

Other commenters complained about what we’ve discussed here many times, the “wallpaper” historical, one that puts the characters in costume but has them acting in 21st century ways. Can’t disagree with that personally, although I know some readers prefer this sort of Regency.

The discussion apparently began with a blog on All About Romance, asking Where Have All The Historical Romances Gone? with some of the same points made, especially in the comments.

Evangaline Holland joined the debate in her blog post, The Trouble With Historical Romance. In the comments she remarked that other romance genres ebb and flow with changing tastes and audiences, but she cited this parenthetical example:

(look at how quickly Harlequin’s contemporary romance lines shift and morph based on audience response, whereas Harlequin Historical–once in danger of being axed completely–shifts at a comparatively glacial pace).

I must remark that saying this about Harlequin Historical is a misconception. HH has never given up Westerns, even when other publishers did, and they’ve experimented with lots of different time periods and settings: Jeannie Linn’s Chinese historicals, Ancient Rome, Vikings, Irish Medevials, Amanda’s Elizabethans and more.

Suffice to say that I found all these discussions about historical romance very interesting. The various opinions about Regency Historical Romance was often daunting and discouraging–I also thought they were at least partially true.

380px-Vincent_van_Gogh_-_Weeping_Woman_(F1069)That little anxious mini-me who lives inside my brain was wailing, “What’s the use!” Her chin was on the floor and she was halfway to believing that nobody liked Regencies anymore.

Until my dh and I went to Old Town Coffee Tea & Spice in Alexandria with a friend. We were there a long time, picking out lots of loose tea, so we were getting pretty chummy with the salesclerk, a woman in her 50s, I’d guess.

My dh asked her, “Do you read romance novels?” (I was as surprised as she was at the question. My dh is not usually my publicist!)

She responded, “Yes.” She paused for a few seconds. “But I only read Regencies.”

Next time we go, I’m bringing her a book!

So what do you think?
Do you think the Historical Romance genre should die so it can be resurrected into something better?
Do you think Regency plots are over done? If so, which ones?
Do you think the problem with Historicals is there is not enough diversity of time periods? If so, what time periods and settings would you like to see more of?

Posted in Reading, Regency, Writing | 31 Replies

Lessons from the Lake

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Last week, I blogged about going on a writers’ retreat with friends. We rented a house in the Finger Lakes and piled in with our usual supplies: plenty of wine, coffee and chocolate. We worked, we hiked, we drank wine, we talked and we laughed.

Does it sound idyllic? In many ways it was, but this time I also tackled the biggest challenge I’ve ever brought to a retreat: to finish the book I had to take several years’ break from due to my husband’s stroke and whose ending was still giving me fits.

So my inner writing demons were out in full force, telling me I’d never figure out all the plot snarls. I’ve learned to treat those demons like old friends. I don’t fight them; I just tell them to sit down and relax while I work.

It also helps to switch methods. When I couldn’t write scenes, I brainstormed in a composition notebook, using my favorite blue Pilot G2 gel pen. I went for frequent walks or paced the deck overlooking the lake. Once in a while, I played the piano. After each break, I went back to the story and each time, like a gift, answers came.

So the retreat ended up being like having a beautifully decorated and perfectly equipped delivery room for a difficult birth. With my writing friends as doulas!

Anyway, I’m so glad the story is finally coming together.
Thanks for your support, Riskies and friends!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

P.S. I’m running the following giveaway at Goodreads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Incorrigible Lady Catherine by Elena Greene

The Incorrigible Lady Catherine

by Elena Greene

Giveaway ends May 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Posted in Writing | Tagged , | 4 Replies

At the lake

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I’m writing from a house on Cayuga Lake, where I’m on a writers’ retreat with some friends. Here’s a picture of this morning’s sunrise.

I can’t say enough about how wonderful these retreats have been for me. Given that I’m a stroke caregiver and a mother of teenagers, having great stretches of time to write is a luxury I hardly know what to do with!

Which actually presents something of a challenge. There’s a part of me that says pedal to the metal, make sure you write X pages, X thousand words, etc… Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with having goals, but too much pressure can make me choke.

So I take these retreats as something akin to a romantic getaway with my muse. A leisurely approach works best. A while back, I spoke to composer Carlos Sanchez Gutierrez, who composed Ex Machina a piece first performed by my local orchestra, the Binghamton Philharmonic. I asked him how he dealt with creative blocks. He replied that when he’s blocked, he takes a nap.

So although my goal is to finish the balloonist story, I’m resolved to mix work and relaxation as needed, trusting that will actually help to make it happen.

Wish me luck!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Posted in Writing | Tagged , | 2 Replies

To Google or Not to Google….

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In Sunday’s Washington Post there was an article about Google’s effort to digitize all the books in the Stanford University Library…and their dream to digitize all the books in the world.

Here is the article “Search Me? Google Wants to Digitize Every Book. Publishers Say Read the Fine Print First” August 13, 2006
(you may have to register with The Washington Post to read it)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/12/AR2006081200886.html?sub=AR

In a nutshell, Google will digitize Stanford’s collection and provide what they consider “fair use” of the material. They will provide the ability to search the text of the books, but will only show “snippets” of the work, what they feel fits the “fair use” stipulations of copyright law. I won’t go into the complicated details, but suffice to say that the Author’s Guild and several publishers have filed suit against Google.

I’m ambivalent.

As an author, it makes a frisson of trepidation crawl up my spine, like discovering someone stealing my book without paying for it. Google argues against this, but the gist of the lawsuits have to do with using material without renumeration for the publisher or author, who create the book in the first place.

As a researcher, however, my response is, “Wow!” Imagine all that information at my fingertips! Imagine me being able to enter “Castle Inn Brighton 1816” (a setting of my next Warner book, Desire In His Eyes, aka Blake’s story, now in the revision stage). It would take me hours in a library, days perhaps, to search out such information. Wouldn’t it be great if I could have it at my fingertips?

Then I think of out-of-print books, like The Regency Companion by Sharon Laudermilk and Teresa L Hamlin. I am lucky enough to have obtained a copy of this regency research classic years ago by bidding $40 on ebay on a Thanksgiving evening, but now ABEbooks.com lists this book as going for a low of $224.50 and a high of $595.00. Obviously this puts the book out of reach for 99.9% of regency writers and readers, but wouldn’t it be great if everyone had access to its information?

Well, what would be great is if Laudermilk and Hamlin would just authorize a re-release of the book. I’d happily buy another copy! If it were a searchable e-book copy, like Dee Hendrickson’s Regency Reference Book, I’d like it even better.

I empathize with the fact that Laudermilk and Hamlin didn’t get one penny of the money I spent on their book, and would not get a penny of that $595, if anyone chose to spend such an amount. If I think of this being multiplied a brazillion amount of times for every author—-shudder! There goes that frisson again.

What do you, dear readers and friends, think of Google’s plan? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged | 5 Replies