The Ingredients of Historical Fiction: Saturday Links

My apologies right off the bat. This first article in my Saturday Links is a little lurid, but it was oh-so-funny to read this decades' old article about writing a historical bodice ripper.

We settled on ''The Barbarian Princess'' and I began constructing a plot. I use the word loosely because not even Aristotle could get a plot out of the fifth century. Besides, I didn't really need one; like the typical sweet savage entry, my novel was a sadomasochistic daisy chain of incidents based on the popular wisdom of the antifeminist hour: ''When in doubt, rape.'' (read more)

Historical fiction author Barbara Kyle had an interview this week over at Mary Tod's blog. I was especially inspired by her writing process which enables her to put out one book a year--it looks like a game plan that would be beneficial for me to imitate in the future.

I spend about three months developing an outline, a detailed document that is eventually about twenty pages and covers just what happens. Research is concurrent with building this outline. For me, the outline is crucial: it’s where all the heavy lifting of creation gets done, the development of the characters and plot. When I teach writers I call this process Storylining, because as writers we can never forget that we’re telling a story. Once I have an outline I spend about seven months writing the first draft, then about two months on the second draft, leaving the last couple of weeks for a polish draft. (read more)

Sam Thomas had a very interesting article about how he transferred from a tenure-track professor at a large university to a secondary teacher at a prep school. The latter provided more of a sense of community and a feeling that what he was doing was really making an impact on his students.

Because my ninth-graders have the basics down, I have the luxury of working with them on more difficult questions: What is the best use of historical evidence? How should they structure their arguments to be more convincing? And I do that knowing that with three or four more years of training, they will arrive at college far better prepared then many of their peers. I go to work knowing that I am making a difference in my students' lives, and that is no small thing. (read more)

And what about the academic research that he kind of misses? He gets to use it in his historical fiction writing. Sam Thomas' first historical thriller, The Midwife's Tale, just came out this month.

One benefit on being a little late to finish this Saturday Links post is that I get to include articles hot off the weekend press. Stephanie Cowell posted a marvelous article today discussing her initial trepidation about fictionalizing history and concern about creating dialogue to put in the mouths of real historical figures--and then sharing her realization that that's the point of writing in this genre.

“But what is historical fiction?” people also ask and I reply, “It’s fiction based on history.” More, it is a dramatic piece and must tell an interesting, hopefully gripping story. To do that it must have a plot and dramatic highlights; it must not be repetitive or meander. Real lives do both. You must trim and shape real life into fictional form. (read more)

Spiritual Matters in Movies and Books: Saturday Links

Last year I wrote a post about the difficulties, but importance, of writing religion in the alien past. This week I came across two articles that reminded me of this same topic.

Stephanie Cowell discussed the subject on English Historical Fiction Authors:

It is difficult to write about spiritual matters. They are the most intimate of our feelings and more difficult to express in words than physics, which is most deeply expressed in mathematics. And words are all we have as novelists. Yet a good historical novel can transplant a reader to spiritual places and feelings which a theological book can seldom do. Novels can be a gate to “thing that are unseen.” (read more)

In an application of this idea, Medieval Reader rebuked the movie Brave for including paganism but not Christianity in an obviously medieval setting.

The glaring anachronisms, like castles and ‘cakes’ were forgivable, but the worst aspect, and that which I found most objectionable was the total exclusion of Christianity whilst giving prominence to pagan beliefs and ideas.... Whilst Brave, with its panoramic highland scenes and folk music is clearly intended to celebrate Scottish culture, the seemingly intentional ignoring of the religious ideology which had such a profound effect on that culture is, I believe a travesty of the highest order. Whether secularists like it or not, Christianity left an indelible legacy on the history and cultural heritage of the British isles.... (read more)

Saturday Links

I've been a little schizophrenic about historical eras recently. It's bound to happen when you're two-thirds of the way through writing two different books, each set in a different historical era. Middle Ages vs. British Regency, pieces of plate armor vs. high-waisted ball gowns, Crusader castles vs. country manors.

The articles I found interesting this week draw from both eras. E. M. Powell answered some questions about her work in progress--a sequel to her book The Fifth Knight about my college crush, Thomas Becket. Currently, The Fifth Knight is being released in serial format--I'm waiting till the whole things comes out in one volume before I get it.





Another article that caught my attention was a comparison between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Rochester. I'm always been a big Austen fan, and although I enjoy the story of Jane Eyre, I confess Charlotte Bronte's hero has never held much appeal for me. This post helped me to understand why I felt that way.

Mr. Darcy smolders with repressed feelings; Mr. Rochester, by contrast, never seems to hold anything back. Early conversations with Jane Eyre are full of disclosures that seem highly inappropriate, like the history of his mistresses. This would definitely set off alarm bells in a Jane Austen novel; Jane Eyre takes the sordid revelations with an odd calm. 

It’s really hard (though well worth the effort) to imagine Mr. Darcy dressing up as female gypsy to deceive his own houseguests — definitely the craziest moment in a novel bursting with them. 

But Mr. Rochester crosses a line, does something that Mr. Darcy would never do, when he seeks to marry Jane Eyre deceptively. Whatever his justifications, this is clearly not acceptable, something Jane Eyre realizes too. Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, at the moment when the chips are down (when Mr. Wickham, whom he hates, elopes with Lydia Bennet) acts with remarkable decision and unselfishness, putting himself to a great deal of trouble on the remote chance that this might eventually cause Elizabeth to change her mind and marry him. He uses his wealth and power for good, something Mr. Rochester cannot really claim.

I already shared the previous link on my author page on Facebook, and a reader directed me to a fabulous comic "Dude Watchin' with the Brontes." (Warning: some coarse language) If you've ever read the Bronte sisters' books, you will die laughing....

Queen of Scots and the End of the World: Saturday Links

Today's Saturday Links both come from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, a site with daily historical essays written by historical novelists. If you love English history, then you NEED to follow this blog regularly. I learn new things every day from one of the forty-or-so novelists who post there.

Barbara Kyle had an excellent post on Mary, Queen of Scots. I loved that it mentioned her half-brother James, Earl of Moray--the hero of a short story I wrote a while back and hopefully the hero of a novel I will write someday in the future.

Nancy Bilyeau posted Friday about the day the world ended...in 1881. She talked about the legendary sixteenth century Mother Shipton on whose prophecies this spurious prediction was based. I guess the Tudors and the Mayans have something in common after all--being wrong.

Books I am EXCITED for: Saturday Links

I don't have much time for writing up today's Saturday Links post, so I'll make it short and sweet.

Sam Thomas writes about the evolution of the book cover for his upcoming release The Midwife's Tale. Interesting stuff to see how the cover artists played around with the idea before reaching the finished result.

Nancy Bilyeau gives an exclusive cover reveal for her upcoming release The Chalice, sequel to her fabulous Tudor thriller The Crown. This is a book cover I really like, and I'm sure I'll like the book itself just as much, if not more.

Philippa Jane Keyworth's Regency romance The Widow's Redeemer releases today. A penniless young widow with an indomitable spirit.... A wealthy viscount with an unsavory reputation.... See the sparks fly and watch love ignite in this story "filled with all kinds of delectable angst and drama." InD'Tale Magazine)

Using Primary Sources and Joining the Correct Critique Group: Saturday Links

I've been up at the hospital all week with my son (fourth visit in six months), which means not as much computer time as at home. When he's awake, my laptop must be used for watching Shaun the Sheep, and when he's sleeping, I should be sleeping too--since we'll be woken up every couple hours for vital signs, antibiotics, or blood draws. Despite the dearth of Internet browsing, there were still a few articles that caught my eye this week.

One was Kim Rendfeld's post asking, "What if long ago letters were part of high school history classes?" Primary sources are a subject near and dear to my heart. When I taught history for junior high and high school, we read a couple primary source excerpts a week, and many of their books for the class were primary sources (Joinville's history of the Crusades, William Bradford's Plymouth Plantation, the Diary of Anne Frank).

Primary sources can bring a period to life in a way that memorizing names and dates cannot, but they are also especially important for teaching the concept of inescapable bias. By reading contradictory primary sources, students can learn that how you decide to tell a story and what facts you decide to include, will paint an entirely different picture than someone else recording the same event. For the history student, reading and evaluating primary sources has the same importance as performing lab experiments does for the science student.

Another post that caught my eye was Teralyn Rose Pilgrim's article on critique groups. They work best, she says, when they're in your own genre. She relates her experience of working with writers--good ones--who happened to have no background in history or historical fiction. They wanted her to add lots of explanatory text which ended up bogging down her story instead of helping it.

I tend to agree with Teralyn on this one--it's hard to get a good critique from someone who's not familiar with historical fiction. It's a bit like getting a critique on a cookbook from someone who doesn't cook.

Which reminds me, I need to get on the ball and submit my membership to the Historical Novel Society. They're kicking around the idea of starting a Pacific Northwest chapter, and if that happens, I'd love to be involved in the meetings.

Paying through the Nose for a Worthless History Degree: Saturday Links

One article that really jumped out at me this week was a piece in The Atlantic--"Should Science Majors Pay Less for College Than Art Majors?" Apparently, an education task force in Florida thinks they should. They are putting together a proposal "that would allow the state's public universities to start charging undergraduates different tuition rates depending on their major." What is the deciding factor for which majors will cost less?

Students would get discounts for studying topics thought to be in high demand among Florida employers. Those would likely include science, technology, engineering, and math (aka, the STEM fields), among others.  

But Art History? Gender Studies? Classics? Sorry, but the fates are cruel. Unless a university could show that local companies were clamoring to hire humanities students, those undergrads would have to pay more for their diploma. 

Since education at state colleges is subsidized by tax dollars, the members of this task force argue it is only right to use the money wisely by encouraging students into fields which will help the economy.

Ensuring that taxpayers get the biggest bang for their buck is an admirable goal. So is encouraging students to think ahead about their careers. The question is whether staggering tuition among majors will actually accomplish either. 

To believe that it will, you have to accept two notions: First, you need to take it on faith that the government is capable of divining which majors are going to be the most marketable year after year. Second, you need to believe that there are a large number of talented undergrads who could hack it in these subjects, but are choosing easier majors instead. 

I would say that besides these two problematic notions, there's a third notion you have to accept--the notion that a college education is solely about being efficiently slotted into the workforce. If your nine to five job is the only thing college is for, then yes, let's make students pay through the nose for a worthless history degree. They're not going to do anything with it--other than understand the past and make analogies to the future, know where ideas come from and what they can lead to, appreciate a variety of cultures without the provincialism of someone who can only see the present. But, of course, none of those things are "marketable skills", or at least, so says an education task force in Florida....

Deep Details and Ungentlemanly Gentlemen: Saturday Links

M.m. Bennetts had a lovely post this week called "The Depth is in the Detail," where she examines how important it is to see historical characters as human and not just as a collection of facts and dates.

...there are so many histories and works/or of historical fiction or romance where the authors seem to have no clue as to the humanity of those about whom they’re writing. 

They’re not human, they’re not people–these figures who people the pages–they’re names or titles with a set of posh clothes.  Which makes them a named clothes’ horse–not a person. These characters or historical figures are nothing more than cardboard cutouts–you can’t imagine them having a lie-in of a Sunday morning, or preferring sausage to streaky rashers with their cooked breakfast.  

For without some sense of character, of likes and dislikes, of what makes them smile or laugh, well, without that…I don’t know…history is reduced to this dry as late autumn leaves affair, with the life crushed out of it. Hence, it’s no wonder that today’s students perhaps think history is boring. (read more)

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Philippa Jane Keyworth gave a delightful parody of P&P's opening line to tell us that: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a lady of the 21st Century loves a Regency gentleman." She then introduced us to her own Regency gentleman, the Viscount Beauford, in an excerpt from her debut novel, The Widow's Redeemer, due out next month. Trouble is, he doesn't seem like much of a gentleman...at least from this excerpt.

Books took flight as though given life, their covers flapping like wings. A tall gentleman was knocked back into the doorway only just managing to maintain his balance. 

“Oh, I am so dreadfully sorry!” Bending down with no care for clean skirts, Letty retrieved as many books as possible—until her frantically scrambling hand brushed the hand of the gentleman in question. She flinched, her arm jolting away from the contact. 

“Lady, you are a curse!” (read more)

If this book looks interesting to you, you should know there's a giveaway for it running on Goodreads all this month. Enter for your chance to win one of two copies.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Widow's Redeemer

by Philippa Jane Keyworth

Giveaway ends November 30, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Past is Another Country: Saturday Links

The past is another country with its own customs and mores. But history isn’t lost to us. Good historical fiction is our passport to that far shore.... Writers hoping to craft convincing historical fiction need their own set of rules to help navigate this unfamiliar landscape and bring it to life for the contemporary reader.

This week Mary Sharratt has an article on Publishers Weekly with five writing tips for historical novelists. What's number one? Research comes before writing. Sharratt says:

I generally research for at least six months before beginning a new novel. But it doesn’t end there. For me, research remains ongoing, in parallel with my writing until I reach the final page proofs—just in case I’ve missed any tiny detail.

And with that said, I'm off to do a little research on the treatment of Jews during the First Crusade--that topic is figuring prominently in the current chapter of my WIP.

Click here if you'd like to read the rest of Mary Sharratt's writing tips. The other four tips are just as excellent as the one I shared, and may give you some food for thought if you're thinking of cooking up a historical novel of your own.

The Difficulties of 18th Century Dress: Saturday Links

Why is it that the clothing of bygone eras attracts so much interest? Perhaps it is a testament to the importance we place on our own wardrobes. Perhaps it is because we envy the more elaborate beauty of the past.

This week Two Nerdy History Girls shared some photos from a reenactor in Williamsburg, showing a young lady of the colonial era getting dressed for the day. It's remarkable how many layers of clothing a woman from this period had to put on, but as the post points out, someone used to doing it every day can don those layers pretty quickly. The most interesting part to me was that the front of the dress is pinned together using straight pins!

If getting dressed back then wasn't difficult enough, just think about what it would have been like to do the laundry for a household in this era! Maria Grace guest posted over on Kim Rendfeld's blog this week talking about all the steps needed to launder clothing in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Firewood might be gathered the day before, but if not, the laundress would need to move 150-200 pounds of wood to the laundry site to feed fires sufficient for a moderate estate’s laundry. That alone sounds like a day’s worth of effort, but for her it was only the beginning. Once wood was gathered and fires started, water had to be hauled to fill the copper boiler and additional wash and rinse basins.... (read more)

The Next Big Thing: Saturday Links

Normally, I use my Saturday posts to highlight interesting articles that I have read during the week. This week all of the items of interest have been authors talking about their WIP's. There's a meme going around called "The Next Big Thing" where you answer ten questions about your latest book and then tag several more people to answer questions about it. It's kind of like those e-mail chain letters that went around a lot when I was a teenager--only there's no threat that if you don't pass it along within three days then something terrible will happen to someone you love.

I was interested to find out that Sophie Perinot's next project is about Catherine de Medici's daughter Marguerite.

Both Marguerite and her mother Catherine de Medici are the stuff of legend—and legend hasn’t been very kind to either woman. I believe that this is largely the result of the political and dynastic struggles which consumed France during the Wars of Religion, generating slanderous publications about the Valois—including the notorious Divorce Satryique that painted Marguerite as a corrupt wanton and which eventually came to be accepted as historical truth—and assuring that they had many enemies. When the Valois dynasty ended (with Marguerite’s brothers/Catherine’s sons), there was no one to protect their legacy as history was being written. I was interested in giving readers a more fair and accurate view of Marguerite who was, in fact, not only one of the most beautiful women of the French Court but also one of the most intelligent.... (read more)

I was happy to hear more about Nancy Bilyeau's book The Chalice, the much-anticipated sequel to The Crown:

I very much wanted to write a sequel to "The Crown," but I was determined to raise the stakes. I wanted to try something darker and more epic, but also I wanted to make the second book more romantic.... Some of the real people who lived in the late 1530s pop up in The Chalice, including not one but two women who would marry Henry VIII. Joanna Stafford also comes face to face, at last, with...Thomas Cromwell. (read more)

I also enjoyed hearing about Debra Brown's inspiration for her WIP For the Skylark. I've been privileged to read part of an early draft of it, and interestingly enough, I enjoyed it even though the inspiration comes from Charles Dickens. (David Copperfield and Great Expectations were my nemeses during high school).

I was always so intrigued and in awe of Charles Dickens' character, Miss Havisham. I wanted to write a story about a reclusive woman like her. I had no idea what would happen in the story when I started, but within a page or so, her adult twins, Dante and Evangeline came into being. It turned out to be them I loved. They had been raised on an estate in isolation and have psychological consequences of that situation. The story took off.... (read more)

And then, as it turns out, I was tagged myself by the delightful Sandra Byrd, who shared more about her third novel dealing with Henry VIII's wives and their ladies-in-waiting.

When I set out to write the Ladies in Waiting Series, I already knew the three queens I liked best, and wanted to write about: Anne Boleyn, Kateryn Parr, and Elizabeth.  I just didn’t know from which Lady’s point of view I would tell Elizabeth’s story.  So when I stumbled upon Elin von Snakenborg, later Helena, Marchioness of Northampton, I knew I’d found my girl.... (read more)

So, now, after sharing all these lovely links, I get to answer the ten interview questions myself and let you decide whether my book is good enough to be "The Next Big Thing." Here I go....

1.) What is the title of your book?
Flower of the Desert

2.) Where did the idea come from for the book?
This is the second book in my First Crusade trilogy, The Chronicles of Tancred. The idea for the whole trilogy came from reading primary sources written by those who traveled on the First Crusade. I was originally planning to follow the Frankish members of the Crusade, but the character of Tancred--a young, impetuous marquis from southern Italy--jumped out at me and refused to be anything other than the hero of my tale.

3.) What genre does your book fall under?
Historical fiction.

4.) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
It's hard to think of someone tall enough to play my blond-haired, blue-eyed protagonist Tancred, but Ryan Gosling might fit the part in other ways. Ralph Fiennes could take the role of Count Raymond, the hero's nemesis in this book. And my two leading ladies? I think I'd have to stretch farther afield than the American actors that I know since one of them is Turkish and the other is Greek....

5.) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Tancred continues his crusading journey from Antioch to Jerusalem, overcoming Turkish strongholds and finding his own heart strongly overcome in this tale of love, loyalty, and lust for power.

6.) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It will be published by Madison Street Publishing.

7.) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? And read the intro.
I am a little over halfway done with the first draft...and it's been about a year so far. I'm hoping to finish it up in the next four months. Here's the first line: "The hole in the floor of the church grew deeper with each thrust of the soldiers’ spades." I hope that makes you wonder what they're digging up....

8.) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I've had a few readers compare my books to Sharon Kay Penman's, and the crusader history in this book is similar (though earlier) to the setting of her book Lionheart.

9.) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Tancred's passionate quest to retake Jerusalem for Christendom, coupled with the strange twist to his character following that conquest (I can't say anymore for fear of spoilers), inspired me to write a fictional account of his life to solve the enigma of his character. I wanted to know why Tancred did what he did. And since the historians don't tell us, I decided to write the reason.

10.) What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
The love triangle in the book is based on a 16th century epic poem called Jerusalem Delivered. In the poem, there are two Turkish princesses, one interested in Tancred and the other the object of his affections. In Flower of the Desert, I've changed one of them into a Byzantine girl tagging along with the Crusaders, but I've incorporated several other plot points from the poem. Alexandra or Erminia? By the end of this book, Tancred will have found the answer to that question.
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Well, the rules of this thing state that I'm supposed to tag five more people and pass it along. But, there's a slight problem--being tagged so late in the game, I've discovered that almost all the writers in the circles I frequent have already done their posts for The Next Big Thing. So, I'm going to break the rules and break the chain--which isn't too out of character since I never sent those chain letter e-mails through, even when I was a teenager.

Thanks for reading about my Next Big Thing, and do click on over to visit the links of some of my fellow HF authors. They're who I would have tagged if I hadn't been the last kid in gym class to get picked. :-)

What's Important for a Writer, and What's Important for a Man: Saturday Links

This week I read an inspiring guest post by Elizabeth Chadwick talking about how she came to be a published writer. It was especially interesting to me how she didn't care what job she had to work, because she knew that job wasn't her real vocation. It was just something to pay the bills so that she could write.

I left school at eighteen. I had thought about doing a degree in medieval history, but I needed Latin and I didn’t have it. I thought about doing English literature at university, or journalism, but I was put off by the teacher responsible for career advice. She told me there was no point in me applying to university in those subjects because I would need high grades, and I wasn’t good enough to get them. She said there was no point in me applying to do journalism because there was too much competition. So I took her word for it and didn’t apply. Instead I went to work in a department store as a management trainee. In the meantime, my exam results came through and my scores were of the right grades to have won me a university place. But like a train, my life had changed tracks. I had met my husband and I was working as a shop assistant. And really I didn’t care what I did, because I knew I was meant to be a writer. The job was just to earn a wage while I got on with the real business of working on my novel. In quite moments in the shop, I would write down ideas and stories on pieces of scrap paper and card. My heart wasn’t in the job because what I wanted to do was write.... (read more)

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Another guest post that caught my eye this week was by Sophie Perinot over at What Women Write. She starts with a question: "Military victories and territorial holdings remain history’s measure of male success. Should they be the only ones?" She then goes on to talk about how while women are often judged by their looks, men are judged by the size of their paycheck.

Traditional political and military history celebrates men who are effective rulers. The personal aspects of those men’s lives are either ignored or attached little value. I, however, came to writing with a background in women’s and social history. Those fields have a different view of what is important. I also came to my story as a woman or rather—since I was writing alternate first person present tense viewpoints—two women. The opportunity to look at each king through his wife’s eyes raised a pair of questions that (given that, generally, women now choose their own husbands) are even more relevant today than they were 700 years ago:

• Should the definition of “successful man” include competence as a husband, father and friend?

• Is it better to be married to a traditionally “successful man” who has little time for his family or to a good and loving man who is an epic failure?

As I got to know Louis of France and Henry of England intimately, my personal answer to the “Louis or Henry, who would I marry” question became clear.... (read more)

A Clever Question and the New Release I've Been Waiting For: Saturday Links

It's easy to think of the character in literature you would most want to be (Lizzy, from Pride and Prejudice, of course!), but what about the character you would most not? The New Yorker asked a clever question last week related to this topic, and the answers it elicited gave me a few chuckles, and perhaps even a chortle or two.

In last week’s contest, we asked for the worst jobs in literature. Not actual jobs, necessarily, but jobs implied by the text. Granted, the notion is a bit abstract, which is why we were pleased to find that readers took to it so naturally. An example? This, from @RBDeac: Rip van Winkle’s alarm clock. Or this, from @momattt: Hamlet’s motivation coach.... (read more)

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And speaking of characters randomly culled from classic literature, I am ridiculously brimming over with excitement that N.D. Wilson's next book in the YA Ashtown Burials series is going to be released next week. Tuesday, September 11, to be exact. It's called The Drowned Vault and it follows up The Dragon's Tooth which I read and reviewed in March of this year.

This week I read a pre-publication review of Wilson's upcoming release on Random Musings of a Bibliophile and felt giddy with excitement.

In The Drowned Vault Wilson takes the interestingly intricate world he built in The Dragon's Tooth and kicks it into high gear. Or even higher gear as the first book was pretty intense to begin with. The story is an action packed adventure from start to finish. There is a lot going on and a huge cast of characters to keep track of. In addition to the characters we  already know and love (or fear), a whole host of new ones are introduced including Gilgamesh and Arachne. Yes, THE Gilgamesh (as in Epic of) and THE Arachne (as in the myth). There is now not just one super creepy evil villain to deal with, but two. Not to mention the large group of people whose apathy and fear are causing trouble for the heroes. Then there are all the historical references too, which are great fun if you catch them. The genius of Wilson's writing is that he manages to write well developed characters while maintaining a plot that is in hyperdrive. Most writers can do one or the other. It is a rare talent that can do both.... (read more)

Horses and Horsemen in History: Saturday Links

I love it when historical novelists prove they're also historians! This week I ran into two delightful posts by novelists who want to get their history right.

Susanna Calkins over at A Bloody Good Read posed the question: "How long would it have taken to travel the fifty-plus mile trek from London to Oxford, by horse and carriage, in the mid seventeenth-century?" It's a crucial plot point in her WIP.

I needed the cart (wagon, really) to be able to carry two men and two women, along with two or three barrels or bags of miscellaneous supplies.  I needed the journey to take less than a day.   The wagon had to be decent, but more serviceable and sturdy, than luxurious. It had to be capable of traversing 50 or so miles of the muddy, unpaved London Road. Similarly, the horses had to be from a hearty stock, and affordable for hire by a journeyman. Not being an equestrian, a farrier, or a blacksmith (okay, let’s face it, I’m not even sure if I’ve ever even been on a horse), this has been a truly puzzling question.... (read more) 

Jonathan Hopkins guest posted over at One Ridiculous Author on another horsey topic--the 19th Century British Cavalry. As every Jane Austen lover knows, the regiment coming to Merryton means eligible men aplenty. But what kind of officers would have been in a regiment like that? Would they have even been gentlemen?

Most fictional cavalrymen are, or were, officers. After all, a lady needed to maintain a certain standard of living so it was no use becoming romantically involved with a private soldier. And since officers had to purchase their commissions, provide their own uniforms, horses and equipment, all on a level of pay which hardly covered daily subsistence, (a lieutenant received only £164 5s 0d a year before deductions and income tax) most needed private means of some sort: family money. 

So it’s somewhat surprising to find in real life the majority of officers were not members of the aristocracy at all but sons of wealthy farmers or industrialists, doctors and lawyers, even clergy – the moneyed middle class – who could afford to subsidise their offspring’s careers.... (read more)

Something to Laugh At: Saturday Links

My husband will tell you that I am violently opposed to watching videos on the Internet. My rationale for that is simple: it takes up too much time. I would far rather have the freedom of reading an article at my own pace. I can skim if it gets boring, comprehend it even when my children are being loud, and quote it with the simple function of cut and paste.

With all that said, I must confess that I did make an exception to my "No Internet Videos," rule this week. I watched the Smithsonian's tongue-in-cheek video "Five Common Historical Misconceptions Explained," and found that the amusement it gave me more than compensated for the time wasted.

Enjoy!

Husbandly Heroes, Medieval Monuments, and Regency Ramblings: Saturday Links

This week's Saturday Links take us on a trip from Ancient Rome to the Middle Ages to the Regency Era.

Kate Quinn is the author of Daughters of Rome and Mistress of Rome, two novels set in--you guessed it!--Ancient Rome. She is also the wife of a U.S. Navy Sailor. In a recent article in Baseguide, titled "My Military Romance," she confesses that her real life hubby might have more than a little influence on the hero in her latest novel:

That's funny,” my husband commented when he flipped through my rough-draft of the first few chapters. “Your hero is a lot like me.” 

Me: “No, he's not!” 

Husband: (raising an eyebrow) “So it’s a complete coincidence that both your husband and your fictional hero are tall, freckled, left-handed, short-tempered, adrenaline-junkie military men who snore like a chain-saw, can't sit still without one foot jittering, and have a habit of pissing off superiors?”  

BUSTED.... (read more)

In my own historical novels, I have never self-consciously tried to model a character off of someone I know. But I always wonder--how many similarities to my real life creep in subconsciously?


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A couple months ago the photography site Light Stalking put up "21 Amazing Images of Medieval Structures." The word amazing gets thrown around far too much, but in this case, the subjects really deserve that modifier. I would repost some of the pictures here to entice you to check out the rest, but there's been far too much broohaha lately about bloggers getting sued for using copyrighted images on their sites. So, click on over there and take a look for yourself. You won't be disappointed.

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The Regency period has been on mind a lot lately, especially since I've been busy editing a Regency romance soon to be released by Madison Street Publishing. This article by Natalie Garbett entitled "Blinded By the White, Colour and Dresses 1796-1815" is very insightful for those interested in reconstructing the Regency period in book and film. It is also an excellent example of how to do historical research on the subject of clothing.

Ms. Garbett begins with questioning the conventional perception of Regency dresses:

Why do we choose to make mostly white dresses when creating dresses from 1796--1815?  It seems an obvious question to answer……’we choose white because it was the fashion and is period correct’……and evidence from surviving dresses, paintings, fashion plates and documentation support this theory……or does it?

Her next step is to catalogue the Regency dresses found in three prominent museum collections. She notes that the great majority of them were white, but then presents three interesting hypotheses on why that might be the case:

Could the mordant in the dyes in this period be caustic and therefore cause coloured dresses to rot easily over time?... Were coloured silk dresses more likely to be reused or cut up for use in later periods?... Were white dresses more associated with special occasions rather than everyday wear and therefore more likely to be preserved for sentimental value?

Following these hypotheses she then presents a great deal of primary source material from fashion plates and journals that show colored dresses were far more common than the museum collections might lead one to believe. I'm so pleased to have found this article--it was a fascinating read.

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While we're on the subject of the Regency, it might interest you to know that Regency novelist D. W. Wilkin has compiled a Regency Lexicon to aid you in understanding those peculiar turns of phrase that Georgette Heyer so delighted in.

For instance, did you know that an "Act of Parliament" was "a military term for small beer, five pints of which, by an act of parliament, a landlord was formerly obliged to give to each soldier gratis"? No? Then perhaps you knew that a "juniper lecture" was "a round scolding bout," or that a "little clergyman" was "a young chimney-sweeper"? If not, head on over to the Lexicon and browse about for some Jane Austen period slang, most of which that good lady would have never included in one of her own novels.

Quality Queries and Small Press Praises: Saturday Links

For those writers hoping to travel the traditional publishing route, there's a step in between writing a novel and finding an agent that's a bit of a doozy. That step is called writing a query letter. Earlier this week Sam Thomas, whose book The Midwife's Tale is slated to be released in January of next year, shared his query letter over at A Bloody Good Read along with some paragraph-by-paragraph instructions on how to write a bloody good letter of your own.

What I’ve got below is an annotated and slightly edited version of my own cover letter. I’ll mention at the outset that as letters go, it was pretty effective: I received manuscript requests from over half the agents I queried. (I would venture to say that my letter is better than my novel. Ah, well.)....(read more) 

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As you probably know, I went the Indie route with my first book I Serve, and after learning the ropes of book production and marketing, my husband and I decided to start our own publishing company. Jessica Knauss had a guest post this week about the "Pros and Cons of Small Presses." I thought that her post was very valuable for new authors trying to decide whether to sign on with a small press. Many of her Pros were right on the money:

• Welcoming. Debut authors tend to get an unbiased reception. 

• Quick. A small staff can mean less bureaucracy and an easier decision process.... 

• Collaborative. It is likely that you, as the author, will have some say in the design of your book and its cover and possibly even release dates. 

• Creative. Small presses interested in their authors’ welfare and their own future will work with you to implement effective, low-cost marketing solutions and make the most of whatever resources are available.... (read more)

Her Cons were also insightful--no advances, a smaller level of distribution--but I was happy to see that one of them most emphatically does not apply at our company. Just because we're a small press does not mean that we offer authors a lower royalty than a big publisher would. At Madison Street Publishing our philosophy is author-centric, and we're committed to giving the lion's share of the profits to the one who actually created the book.

Show, Don't Tell--Or Not: Saturday Links

As a writer and an editor, I continually puzzle over the well-worn maxim "Show, don't tell." Where did the rule come from? What does it mean, exactly? And is it actually a good piece of advice for authors to follow? I read a couple posts recently on the topic--which led me to Google it and find some more information. Here are some of the detractors of the "Show, don't tell" rule:

Writer's Digest features a piece where thriller writer Lee Child's debunks the biggest writing myths:

Picture this: In a novel, a character wakes up and looks at himself in the mirror, noting his scars and other physical traits for the reader.  

“It is completely and utterly divorced from real life,” Child said.  

So why do writers do this? Child said it’s because they’ve been beaten down by the rule of Show, Don’t Tell. “They manufacture this entirely artificial thing.”

“We’re not story showers,” Child said. “We’re story tellers.”  

Child said there’s nothing wrong with simply saying the character was 6 feet tall, with scars.... (read more)

Shawn Lamb gives a feet on the ground example of when she "tells" instead of "showing" in her YA series Allon.

There. The entrance Tristine anticipated. Twenty-year-old Ellan the brown-haired, blue-eye beauty wearing her new red and gold gown like a strutting peacock, smiling like she owned the world. Well, at least Ellis.

This lays the foundation by suggesting a jealousy rivalry between the sisters that carries on with action and verbal exchanges throughout the story. Yes, I know, some will say Show Don’t Tell concerning the paragraph, to which I reply Pshaw!  I established the scene from Tristine’s POV, so it is natural to include the way she views Ellan’s entrance. I’m not suddenly going to switch to Ellan’s mannerisms for show. However, Ellan's subsequent actions, reactions and speech once she is involved in the scene supports Tristine’s assessment.... (read more)

And finally, with the help of Google, I came across this older blog post on The Recalcitrant Scrivener which very eloquently laid out what's right and what's wrong with this maxim. Essentially, this writer says that all writing is a form of telling.

Contrary to this approach I would cite Wayne C. Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction, first published in 1961. Here the author engages in a sustained critique of the “show, don’t tell” maxim. One of Booth’s main accomplishments is to demonstrate that there are a nearly infinite number of gradations between absolute telling and absolute showing, and that these can be used by fiction writers in a variety of ways. It’s worth noting that this is a work of criticism, not an off-the-shelf “how to” book.

My intention is to take Booth’s argument further. My claim is that the partisans of “show, don’t tell” suffer from a very specific conceptual confusion. The truth is that in an absolute, literal sense, narrative writing can only tell. 

The bullets whizzed by my ear. My guts fell to the floor. 

The shots narrowly missed Pearson. He felt his nerves tighten. 

Contrary to what certain people would tell you, both these sentences are forms of telling. The first is clearly more vivid, but it is nevertheless written as first-person narration, a manner of telling. If I were sitting next to you in a bar and said “The bullets whizzed by my ear…” I would be telling you something. I would have shown you nothing.... (read more)

Grammar Nazis: Saturday Links

As a former English teacher and a current editor for Madison Street Publishing, I find grammar more essential than some do. This week I ran across an article that was written a few years ago on the 50th anniversary of Strunk and White's Elements of Style. The title was inflammatory and the article was caustic beyond belief. Elements of Style was a book I had to buy for my college rhetoric class, so naturally I was wanted to hear whether "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" had any valid criticisms.

The gist of the article is given in the third paragraph:

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

The author goes on to explain that stylistic rules like "Avoid needless words" are pointless. People who know which words are needless don't need the rule, and people who don't know can't learn which ones from such a vague imperative. He argues that the authors of the book are grammar illiterates, using "examples" of the dreaded passive voice that aren't even passive constructions.

Many problems pointed out in this article are spot on--but throughout the whole thing, I still wanted to give the good, old Elements of Style the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps a kindlier approach would have lent the author more ethos. Perhaps a little more charity would have proved his point with readers.

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A slightly less caustic article appeared in the Harvard Business Review just this last week with the title, "I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why."

If you think an apostrophe was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, you will never work for me. If you think a semicolon is a regular colon with an identity crisis, I will not hire you. If you scatter commas into a sentence with all the discrimination of a shotgun, you might make it to the foyer before we politely escort you from the building. 

Some might call my approach to grammar extreme, but I prefer Lynne Truss's more cuddly phraseology: I am a grammar "stickler." And, like Truss — author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves — I have a "zero tolerance approach" to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid.... (read more)

This article makes the important point that people who pay attention to their grammar also pay attention to other things. Detail oriented writers are detail oriented workers.

Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing — like stocking shelves or labeling parts.

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And, for the few who haven't seen it already, here is a short video about a grammar Nazi searching for Jews amid double negatives, run-on sentences, and dangling participles.

Some Bad Reputations: Saturday Links

There are some characters in history at whom everyone loves to throw mud, and there are some characters who come out smelling far sweeter than they deserve. This week's Saturday links finds novelists trying to get to the truth of the matter as Elizabeth Chadwick sets out to clear Eleanor of Aquitaine's reputation, and M.m. Bennetts sets out to sully Napoleon's. One of the things I appreciate about both these authors is their dedication to historical research and their detailed use of primary sources.

Chadwick's post examines the charge of incest against Queen Eleanor.

One of the notorious players in Eleanor of Aquitaine's life story  is her paternal uncle Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch.  His notoriety is caused not least by the rumours of an affair between him and his niece when she visited him in his city during the second crusade....

Instead of gleefully accepting whatever scandals could be attached to Eleanor, Chadwick tries to get to the bottom of the matter and find out what really happened. She notes that the chroniclers commend Raymond of Antioch for "purity of conduct" and wonders if a man of such approved character could be guilty of incest. She examines John of Salisbury's account and offers an alternative explanation for what his ambiguous words could have referred to.

M.m. Bennetts' post examines the reputation of Napoleon and finds it far more whitewashed than it ought to be. It's a must read for those interested in the Napoleonic era and demonstrates how, with enough propaganda, even the blackest of crimes can be forgotten.

Time has a funny habit of softening the memory of things.  Of dulling the edges of pain, blurring the focus, and letting the unspeakable fall away, unmentioned and unlamented, to be replaced by a kinder, gentler, more palatable version of events and people past. 

Unless, of course, those events are constantly kept alive, in their full horror, and mankind is kept from relegating them to a place behind the forgetful cushion of time.  Like with the Holocaust or the Killing Fields of Rwanda or Cambodia… 

Two hundred years ago, Napoleon led his country and all of Europe to the verge of utter ruin and desolation.... (read more)