Technical Topic -- Historical Romance versus Historical Fiction

Someone asked elsewhere, "I write historical fiction. But I love a good love story. And so I set out to write a story where the love story played a prominent role  . . .  I've read about a "formula" that most romances adhere to; I know that I haven't stuck to it."

Is this book a Historical Romance?

Well . . . it might be.  Then again, it might not.  A 'love story' isn't enough to put you on the Romance shelves.

What it is --
There are many more titles on the shelf that call themselves 'Historical Romance' than there are titles in the 'Historical Fiction' section. Maybe it looks like it would be easier to go the Romance genre route.

But, not so much.  The many Romances are not really germane to a book stuck in the no-man's land between Historical Fiction and Historical Romance.  They're lighter reads.  History is a backdrop in these books, not a main player. Getting a dense and accurate Historical Romance published is probably about as difficult as getting published in Historical Fiction.

What you cannot do is get a book published as Historical Romance if that is not what the book actually is. The agents and editors are really canny about this. They know.

To qualify as Romance -- (I'm talking via my direct link to Infallible Knowledge here) --

(a) At least half the manuscript should be the male and female protagonists in the same scene, face to face.

(b) Another quarter or so, if you can't put the two protagonists face to face, should be scenes directly related to the MMC (Male Main Character) or FMC (Female Main Character.)

(c) The POV should be either MMC or FMC, (unless it's Omniscient Narrator,) for more than 90% of the writing.  You will see that this means almost every scene has one of the two protagonists in it.

(d) Here we come to the big one:

The central problem of the story -- the stuff that sends everybody into action -- is solved when the MMC and FMC finally get together at the end.

That is -- the central problem is not the Queen's Pearl being misplaced or Princess Elizabeth dodging the ax long enough to inherit. The central problem is that Thomas and Anne can't get married because their grandparents are feuding.
You know what problem is central to the story because most important actions the MMC and FMC undertake are motivated by that. We see them act in ways that will get them married rather than merely recover the Missing Pearls.

(e) In a Historical Romance, the FMC should have considerable 'agency'. She does stuff, and important later events happen in response to her action.

(f) The ending should be upbeat. There is a plausible HEA for the MMC and FMC. Everybody walks away smiling, except the villain.

(g) Nobody kills a puppy. This means the MMC's friend does not die lengthily on stage. Nobody the reader cares about dies.

(h) As a minor note, the word count is going to be under 120K.  Better and more salable if it's under 100K.

(i) Roberta Gellis did this.  Georgette Heyer got away with this once or twice.  But a brand new Historical Romance author probably can't.

Do not write about history.

By this I mean, be as accurate as you want, but do not have the narrator or any character tell us 'Why Henry VIII had money in the treasury when he inherited' or 'Why the 1814 Battle of Paris was a good deal more important that the Battle of Waterloo'. No consecutive 300 words should convey historical information.

If the readers of dense, accurate, well-researched Historical Romances want to read Historical Fiction, they know the way to those shelves. When they pick up your Historical Romance they do not want to read Historical Fiction.

Technical Topic -- Just a minithought on Show and Tell

Mostly, I hate to use the terms 'show' and 'tell' because I find them confusing.

I'd rather talk about basically the same concepts by calling them 'Here&Now' and 'Being Elsewhere'.

When the POV character is immersed in the sensory components of the scene or is involved in on-going action or is speaking dialog that deals with what's right there underfoot in the scene -- that's being in the Here&Now.

When the POV character is talking or thinking about stuff that's not going on at the moment in front of him, he's gone Elsewhere.  The character does this when he's adding backstory or infodumping or describing what happened last week or to his cousin who lives in Altoona or thinking about what he might do in the future and stufflikethatthere.

John picks up the toast and bites into it, tasting jelly -- Here-and-Now
John burns his mouth on the hot coffee -- H&N
John remembers his mother made good coffee -- Elsewhere
John hits Maurice over the head with a hammer -- H&N
John sees Maurice fall down dead -- H&N
Three hours later John describes the murder to Mary -- E
John thinks about the morality of murder while driving home -- E
John is afraid he's going to get arrested and hides under the sink -- H&N
John buys bleach to clean up the murder scene - H&N
John and Thomas plan to bury the body --E
John and Thomas bury the body -- H&N 

In general, I try to stay in the Here and Now of the scene, because that's where the story is happening.

It's all very Zen, y'know.  If I stay with the POV character and he's immersed in what's going on around him, the reader gets to move through the scene and watch it unroll, event by event.  Everything is solid, sensory, relevant to this fictive instant, logically successive in time, each emotion related to the next action, showing motivation that forms minute by minute.  The reader is caught in a stream of events that pulls him along.

Whenever I take the reader Elsewhere, I relegate the experiences to second hand.  I pull the reader out onto the bank to show him birches and willowtrees.  They may be interesting, but they are static.  He's plucked out of the story.  No longer dragged along by it.

Somewhat, this is the difference between information and story action.
I get all philosophical here and ask myself about the nature of fiction.
The fictive experience does not lie in the knowledge of events.  It's being part of the events.

That said --  there is a place for just plain laying down information.  You have to do it.
But don't mistake conveying information with putting the character inside the ongoing story, which is your main objective.

A Black Hawk Excerpt

At Romcon.  An excerpt (where they're about to make love.)   Here.

At Jeannie Lin's blog.  A fellow author's take on Black Hawk -- always interesting what other authors see --  Here.
You should click on 'books' up at the top and go see her covers.  Some of the loveliest in the business.

At the Debutante Ball.  An interview.  That's here.

Visiting the excellent writers at Risky Regencies.  Here.    There's an excerpt there and some discussion of cats, birds and dogs arising out of why the book is titled Black Hawk.



Where to Buy  Black Hawk


Oh.  I should mention that you can buy Black Hawk, (and it is on special sale in both sites,)  at:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble


Some Interviews with Me and Some Comments on Black Hawk

At Booktopia.  Nine interesting questions about the writing life.  Here.  

At History Hoydens.  An interview where  I talk about the problems of plotting Black Hawk.  There is no corner of that blog that is not interesting.  Here.

At Romance Dish -- you will find just the most flattering and wonderful review here .  That is four wonder folks --Gannon Carr, Buffie Johnson, PJ Ausdenmore, and Andrea Williamson who support Romance genre in all its forms.

Melanie and I, at Bookworm 2 Bookworm, do an interview, talking about the age of the hero and heroine, talking about  writing in general and plugging Black Hawk. That's here.   Bookworm has also posted such a lovely review of Black Hawk.   Here.


Reader I created him has another interview with me.  And it is so thoroughly another interesting place you should be visiting just on general principles anyhow.   That's here.



And I got an excerpt right here  (or Rat Cheer as we say in the South):


His chin was shadowed with a need to shave. She had known a boy three years ago. She did not really know this young man.

I do not know how to ask. Everything I can say is ugly. I do not want this to be ugly.

She gave her attention to pouring hot water onto the tea leaves. Rain drummed on the roof. Since they were not talking, since they were not looking at each other, it seemed very loud. He said, “As soon as you drink that, you should leave. It’s getting worse out there.”

I must do this now, before I lose my courage. “I am hoping to spend the night.”  She chose words carefully, to clarify matters beyond any possibility of misunderstanding. “It is my wish to spend the night with you, in your bed.”

Hawker was silent. He would be this self- possessed if tribesmen of the Afghan plains burst through the door and attacked him with scimitars. The refusal to be ruffled was one of his least endearing traits.


Time stretched, very empty of comment, while she swirled the teapot gently and he was inscrutable.  Finally, he took the oil lamp from the end of the mantel and busied himself adjusting the wick, lighting it with a paper spill from the fire. “The hell you say.”



Buying Black Hawk Overseas

Black Hawk is available as an English language book in Germany at amazon.de, here.   They don’t seem to sell the kindle version in Germany.  In the Netherlands, one can order the paperback here , in theory, but possibly not in practice.    The book is available on kindle at amazon.uk here but won't be out in paperback till January 19th. (Thank you, Ute, for the information.)


Book Depository has it here for free delivery worldwide.

Little blurb for Black Hawk

Black Hawk

Joanna here, talking about my new book, Black Hawk.

This is Adrian's story.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm relieved the boy finally has his happy ending.
We've met Hawker as a secondary character in the other books.  He's Hawker, or Adrian Hawker, or sometimes Sir Adrian Hawkhurst, depending who he's pretending to be and who he wants to impress.  He is deadly and sarcastic and maybe a bit too fond of sticking knives into people.  Naturally he has the making of a Romance hero.   
 
Two of the most dangerous spies of the Napoleonic War — on opposite sides, natch — fall in love.  Think Montague and Capulet.  Think Yankees and Red Sox.  Think Hannibal and Scipio Africanus.  Think about the owl and the hawk, two birds that  might share the sky for a while, but can't live together.

hawk is cc attrib velosteve

. . .  The rest is here at Word Wenches.

Best Historical Romance -- Romantic Times Nominees

Romantic Times reviews such wonderful books every year.  Some books, they nominate for awards. See here.

I think of the RT nominees as the 2011 tack-down-and-buys.  Every one is a book of merit. It's like a Who's Who of Excellent Romance Writers.


The reason you're seeing this list is the name at the bottom is I'm among the nominees for Best Historical Romance of the Year. 
*cough*


RT NOMINEES FOR BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE



NEVER A GENTLEMAN Eileen Dreyer, FOREVER, (April 2011) 

TAKEN BY THE PRINCE, Christina Dodd, SIGNET SELECT, (April 2011) 

AN AFFAIR WITHOUT END, Candace Camp, POCKET STAR, (April 2011)

 NOWHERE NEAR RESPECTABLE, Mary Jo Putney, ZEBRA, (May 2011) 

ELEVEN SCANDALS TO START TO WIN A DUKE'S HEART, Sarah MacLean, AVON, (May 2011) 
WHEN PASSION RULES, Johanna Lindsey, GALLERY, (June 2011)

BY HIS MAJESTY'S GRACE, Jennifer Blake, MIRA, (August 2011) 

UNCLAIMED, Courtney Milan, HQN, (October 2011) BOND OF PASSION, Bertrice Small, NAL, (October 2011)
 LADY SOPHIE'S CHRISTMAS WISH , Grace Burrowes, SOURCEBOOKS, (October 2011) 

THE NORSE KING'S DAUGHTER Sandra Hill, AVON, (October 2011) 

THE BLACK HAWK Joanna Bourne, BERKLEY SENSATION, (November 2011)

ONLY ONE CAN WIN

Giving Away Black Hawk (and here's an excerpt)

I've bumped this up to the top again.

Technical Topics -- Setting

Whether our story takes place in the trackless jungle, on the third moon of Jupiter, or aboard a fishing boat off Haiti, it's always there. Setting. The, 'where the devil are we?'

Setting gives the characters something to stand on. It keeps everybody from floating around in a formless white void.

Good setting is the polar opposite of that void. It has physical dimensions the characters can waltz around in. It's full of color, smell, sound and texture. It has a certain underlying reality, which is why it helps to know something about the place you're describing.

Good setting changes while we're looking at it and it changes one scene to the next. We go inside, if we've just spent time outdoors. Quiet after frenetic. Safe after danger. Bright after dark. Crowded after solitude. Shiny and mechanical after pastel and pastoral.

Good setting is a stuffed-full-of-possibility place that's interesting even after your characters walk off the set. A pair of boots left by the door says somebody will go out to milk the cows in a bit. A cleaning rag, stuffed hastily in a pocket, tells us the woman who answers the door has been dusting. The bicycle leaning outside a shop says someone has stopped in to buy milk. Good scene ties us to the wider fictive world. It holds the loose ends of of unrelated stories. It has a before and after that continue when the scene is done.

All this drama, color, and contrast keeps the reader from nodding off in the middle of Chapter Six, which is one of those writerly goals we have.

For the rest of this posting, go to 'The Other Side of the Story,:  Here. 

Giving Away Black Hawk (What I'm doing here . . .)

This is soooo overtaken by events.  Just read right on through.

Welsh Law and 'The Comrades'

We're here today with Lynne Sears Williams, well known to all of us over at the Books and Writers Forum.



JB:  Hi Lynne.  Glad you're able to be here today.  Your book, The Comrades, is set in Wales in the Ninth Century.  I understand you did a lot of research into Welsh law in that period, especially law relating to women Can you give us a quick overview of what was gong on in European law?

LSW: Many countries in the 9th Century had codified law to some extent.  The Anglo-Saxons in England had a lock on the feudal system, and decided the inheritance of a deceased man went to the eldest son. No money or property passed into the hands of a daughter; illegitimate children were ignored.

Wales took a different view, which focused on people in terms of status. Essentially, it was a caste system with a Celtic flare.

JB:  Give me some examples of how Welsh law dealt with the status of women.  Marriage law, for instance.

LSW:  Marriages were usually made for dynastic reasons, to form alliances and women never married a person of higher status. When codified in the 10th Century, "The Laws of Women" took up considerable space in the book.

The daughter of a king was worth 24 pieces of gold and brought a dowry that might include livestock, pots, pans, or jewelry.

JB:  What about divorce?

LSW: Divorce was permitted, though the Church, fostered by Irish priests, deplored it.

One factor could initiate the process. If a groom discovered on the wedding night that his wife was not a maiden, he could leave, with a certain weapon fully erect. Once he located witnesses to show his 'disappointment' they all had to go check the bridal sheets. No blood, no bride, no marriage. Divorce was instantaneous.

There were many categories for divorce; if one person changed his or her mind the next day, if a partner turned out to be infertile or wait seven years and divide everything.

A song in our century once asked, "What's love got to do with it?" The answer in Wales: "Nothing!"

JB:  Can you give us something of the flavor of the law in Wales in the Ninth Century?  What are some specifics that would feel odd to us today?

LSW:  Law prescribed everything possible. The seating arrangement in the Great Hall included specific people who would sit with the King, including the priest. He would sing the Pater Noster before meals. The falconer and the bard had places of honor.

The law stated that if the queen desired to hear more music, the bard would play quietly, just for her.

'Claim-time' occurred once a year when people who'd been arguing needed to settle the affair or have the king step in. The only capital offence was theft; in a land where controlled order was needed, to steal was anathema.

JB:  So you could say law dealt mainly with property.

LSW:  Every man, woman and child had a specific 'price' that would be considered by the King if a person was harmed. 'Honor price' entered the stage and could never be ignored. 

Land law, surety, how to treat a person not born in Wales were logistically calculated as were dogs, tamed or wild.  Then to the truly different: all of the king's possessions had a specific price, including his cat, who was worth a sheep and a lamb if killed or stolen.

Curiouser and curiouser, Alice might say.

Not in 9th Century Wales, my dear. Go on and chase your rabbit; we are busy looking for the King's Cat. It's missing.
Again.

JB: Heh heh.  Tell me a little bit about your book.


LSW:  In The Comrades, Evan, king of Powys, returns from a wedding to find a village ransacked, with women and children dead. Neighboring Gwynedd has broken the peace, crossing the mountain to pillage and murder. The dead babes tear his heart, and Evan vows to break the heart of Gwynedd.

Gwynedd's most guarded treasure is a pampered princess. In a bloody raid, Evan's comrades return to Powys with Gwynedd's heart.

Evan knows holding the princess will be dangerous and her safe-keeping may mean the difference between the lasting peace he desires and a bloody war. He's prepared for her to be kept safe but unprepared for the girl's intelligence, compassion and damnably kissable mouth.

"Evan took in the vision of a scarlet gown, which barely disguised the shapely form and a river of black curls that caressed to girl's waist.  Oh, Lord. He wished he had ordered sackcloth."

Morleyna's secret gift of Sight reveals a cruel betrayal that sends Evan on a mystical journey where he discovers his only chance for redemption rests in the hands of his captive.

Her brothers will arrive to claim their sapphire-eyed sister. Will her kinsmen, bent on revenge, destroy Evan and his comrades? Or will destruction come from Morleyna who may be the reincarnation of someone whose beauty captivated a nation?

JB:  Lynne's book is available from Amazon and as an e-book kindle, Nook, and iTunes.  And here's the lovely book trailer.

Hands. Just because.

I have a scene in the back of my mind that I really want to sit down and write.  I will, as soon as I get some mental space.

I'm about to introduce the character of Pax -- Camille and Pax -- to each other.  I want Camille to notice Pax's hands.  So I'm thinking about hands in general.  You are about to reap some of that.

Some gems and some heroines

Jess, Maggie, Annique and Justine. 
Four heroines.
Four gems.

Which gem goes with which heroine?

Can you match 'em up?

Find out over at The Romance Dish, and get a chance at a copy of The Black Hawk.

Diamond and pearl are Smithsonian.  Ruby attrib JOBAfunky. Amber attrib ericskiff. 

Giving Away Black Hawk. (Where I'm doing this . . .)

I've bumped the giveaway post up a bit, just so it stays on top.  I'll do this as long as I'm blogging around the town and giving away books.

Technical Topic -- You're Out of Order

Someone asks, more or less,

"When it comes to publishing a series, can I start somewhere in the middle and fill in the blanks as I go?"


Well, of course you can.
People do weirder things than that every day of the week.

You can start anywhere in the timeline and slip the next book in before or after, as you please.  This is what I do.
I'm headed into planning the sixth book, the PAX STORY, and it'll hit about midway through the series, timewise. 

If I were giving advice, I'd say:


-- Every story should be standalone.

This doesn't just mean each story has a full story arc and that you've shovelled in the needed backstory.

It means your twelve-year-old minor character doesn't telegraph what he's going to be at twenty.

You suppress foreknowledge.  Even though you know a character will die six years after the close of the book, you don't write her as 'doomed'.   In this book, she's not.

And you try not to pull characters in from other books just to say hello.  Continuing characters appear if they earn a place in the plot.  If not, they wander off to live their lives outside the book.


Certainly, leave Easter Eggs for your insiders.  That's part of the fun. But these references have to be invisible to the novice reader.








--  Be stingy with backstory

Well, one is always stingy with backstory. 

But in a discontinuous series it's especially wise to avoid handing out all the particulars of, 'what has gone before'.  You may want to write something cool ten years in the past.  Something that hasn't occurred to you yet.

Give yourself room to maneuver.  The more you've tacked down the past, the more you limit what you can do there. 


-- Every book is trapped in its own moment of time.

We deal with this all the time when writing historicals.

We know the French Revolution turned out badly. Folks in 1789 didn't. They had high hopes.  When we write what characters thought and did, we can't let our knowledge of future events creep in.



-- Imagine the entire lifetime of the characters.

When you write your fifty-year-old man, try to image him as a twenty-year-old and a twelve-year-old.  You may someday need him in that capacity.  You want to make him a useful character, doing interesting things at all ages of his life.

I find it easier to imagine forward than to imagine back, as it were.  Easier to see the old man who grows from the young dude than pulling the young dude out of that old man.




-- Leave big empty patches in everybody's life.

When we write chronologically, we're free to build any future.  ("Always in motion is the Future.")  We are so powerful and unconstrained. 

When we set a story in our fictional world's 'what has been', the action must be consistent with and lead to what comes later. Our feet are all tangled up.

Some of it we can avoid somewhat.
I mentioned above that we don't get specific with backstory.  Being vague about our character's past is particularly important.   We try not to just randomly predetermine our character's life left, right, and center.

So we might be specific about stuff that won't affect anybody's action but coy when we assign life events that do constrain.  We'd say, 'he was promoted to lieutenant in 1809,' rather than 'he fought at the battle of Corunna'.  That way we don't sit down to write a scene set in Paris in 1809 and suddenly notice, (by way of those charts we're keeping -- see below,) that somebody we need is off fighting in Spain.

And we leave some years in the chronology just as empty as we can.  We don't say what anybody's doing.  Those years are vacant lots where we can build something.


And, finally:

-- Keep records

From the first chapter you set down in electrons, make notes.  Make charts, year by year and even month by month over the whole period covered by your books.

What's going on in the world?  Where is everybody?  What have they got themselves up to?

If you don't write this down, you are not only going to get stuff wrong and feel like an idiot, when somebody points it out to you,
you're going to get cross-eyed with looking things up when you have three or four books out.

The Dragon and the Pearl and an interview with Jeannie Lin

Joanna here, with Jeannie Lin, author of Butterfly Swords, (Harlequin Historical, 0373296142, buy it here,) winner of RWA's 2009 Gold Heart Award.  Lin was also a break-out favorite in my personal 'exciting heroines I wish I could write,' category.  

Now she's back with her newest book, The Dragon and the Pearl, (Harlequin Historical, 0373296622, you can buy it here.)

I like me some strong heroine and I like me exotic locales and strong, protective heroes.  That was Butterfly Swords.  I'm expecting the same three-for-three in The Dragon and the Pearl. 

On to the promised interview . . .

Me:  What sort of books influenced you when you were a growing up? 

Jeannie: I was highly influenced by adventure stories: King Arthur's tales, Greek myths, fantasy adventures (former D&D geek here), and martial arts movies. I always had a thing for larger than life heroes and heroines and ultra-dramatic scenarios (we might even say melodrama). 

 

Me: I also love me some ultra dramatic.  Nobody's going to be surprised to hear that.  What draws you to this period in history?  With me and the Napoleonic era, it's the clothes.  *g*  You?

Jeannie: Oh, I do have to admit the clothes were a part. 

I used to watch these gorgeous Tang Dynasty costume dramas (think Curse of the Golden Flower with Chow Yun Fat for a more recent reference). They featured Empress Wu and her irrepressible daughter Princess Taiping. It was an elegant, glorious, treacherous and bloody time and these little clever women emerged as the biggest badasses of them all in a court full of powerful men. I loved it.

Me:   What do you consider the Historical Romance canon?

Jeannie: Actually I feel super unqualified to answer this as I'm not well read in the canon and feel I must catch up! The historical romance police will take away my card when they learn I've only read Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm and Judith Ivory's Beast this year. Woodiwiss' The Flame and the Flower is on my TBR. Similarly The Rake by Mary Jo Putney is also TBR'ed. 

Every time I read one of these "canon" books I'm blown away and think people who look down on historical romance "back then" weren't reading the right books. Can I lump Gone with the Wind in there? (I have read that one!) My foundation was Johanna Lindsey, Amanda Quick, Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas.

I'd really love recommendations on this front.

Me:  I like your choices of canon, and agree with them.  My own favs, in fact.  Let's talk about The Dragon and the Pearl.  How is your new heroine, Ling Suyin, alike, and different from, Ai Li, the heroine of Butterfly Swords?

Jeannie:  Both of the women are empowered, but I think of Ling Suyin as experienced in wielding her power whereas Ai Li was learning and earning her independence. Because of this, Ai Li was more willing to take risks and make mistakes whereas Suyin is more strategic and cautious. 

Ai Li was so darn nice! I know everyone thought she was all kickass and such, but at her heart she was a really good girl and always trying to do the right thing. The swords fooled everyone--even as a swordswoman she practiced all the time. Ling Suyin is not as honorable. She's a survivor. 

Me:  Random questions here.  What was the hardest scene to cut from Dragon?   

Jeannie:  This is a thought-provoking question.  Almost two-thirds of the book remained completely intact through all edits whereas the ending was tweaked quite a bit. There was an assassination attempt on Suyin's life where she was saved by a secondary character, the cripple named Jun. In the end, it wasn't needed for the central story, but I so loved the nod to so many martial arts elements in the scene (remember Jeannie, you're writing a romance...not a kung-fu flick). 

Me: I admire your strength.  I hate to cut good scenes.  I just hope you'll post it on your blog as an out take some day.  More random question.  Did your characters have any surprises for you while you were writing?  Anything you didn't foresee?

Jeannie: Oh...how do I do this without spoilers?

I knew Li Tao and Suyin before the story started because they had been featured in the previous book. Ling Suyin remains as the only character that appears in all three of my first books as they were originally written (Book #1 precedes Butterfly Swords and its fate is still in the air). 

What I didn't know is their past and I felt it was so important to who they were now. I see my scenes unfold like a movie and so though I sense the characters' secrets when I imagine the present scenes--because movies always do that, you know? Mysterious looks, close-ups, hidden innuendos--I had to learn who they were to know what it all meant. 

This is my only book that uses flashbacks which I normally don't favor, but I couldn't see Li Tao sitting down and ever revealing his past to anyone in a conversation, not even to the woman he loves. The same thing for Suyin. It seems like the trend in romance today is that when you love someone, you reveal all your dirty laundry to them. I don't think that's true-to-life and it wasn't true to the culture of background of these characters. 

There were also a few turns at the end with Suyin's character that I hadn't anticipated and that I had no personal experience with...darn spoilers.

Me:  Flashbacks are the very devil, aren't they?  *g*  What are you working on right now?

Jeannie:  Right now I'm going back to the series with a star-crossed love story about Shen Tai Yang (Ai Li's 3rd brother) and a daughter of the Gao family (Gao is the enemy warlord in The Dragon and the Pearl). 

It's a Romeo and Juliet tale if Romeo and Juliet had to consider fighting to the death. I've finished several projects that are now in the Harlequin queue that didn't have swords and warlords and focused more on the high culture of the Tang Dynasty, so that's why I'm going back to the melodrama.

Me: Thank you so much for stopping by, Jeannie.

So.  Here's a recommended read.  And if you haven't latched onto Butterfly Swords, I recommend it as well.(See the wiki here for a discussion of butterfly swords, which is interesting in its own right.)

I love both of her covers too.  Just saying.

Grappling with Hoops of Steel

Which refers to Polonius' speech, in case you were wondering . . .

Joanna here, talkin g about the history of hoop chasing and the many misconceptions we nourish about this.
 
Right off, let me explain how chasing or bowling or driving or rolling or trundling a hoop came about.

Bright young lad's father

About seven minutes after the invention of the wheel, some bright young lad standing in the back of the cave noticed you could roll the thing and chase after it.  It probably took a half hour's experimentation to discover you could roll it even better by knocking at it with a short stick.  You could make it go fast or slow, turn, even spin backwards.  A new human activity — part sport, part contest, part art, part meditation — was born. 
It proved amazingly popular.  There's something in the human race that wants to chase a rolling object.  We're like golden labs. 

I want to claim Classical sources for my subject.  And, indeed, the Classical Greeks were great hoop trundlers.  

The rest of the post is at Word Wenches Here.

I'll be giving away an early copy of Black Hawk.  I'm hoping I get my copies before they start selling them in the store.  But, in any case, It's free.

Technical Topic -- How do we find our setting?

Someone asks, more or less --

I want to write a scene about the first kiss. I  want the setting to be special but anything I'm coming up with is a bit cliched.

What do I do?




I am reminded of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter on the bridge in Oxford, and later, 'kissing madly in a punt'.
There are romantic settings that are just exactly . . .  right. 

But if you can't find just the right place,
and you're saying to yourself -- 'Wouldn't it be romantic if they kissed at the top of the Eiffel Tower?' --
and taking the characters to France,
you could approach 'first-kiss setting' the way you would any other setting.


This leads me to my newly composed, handy-dandy

Guidelines for Good Setting --

. . . which is just my own take on this so feel free to come up with something entirely additional and contradictory.

1) Good setting lets the characters perform useful plot action.


Sometimes, we got busy protagonists.  They do not have leisure to wander off into a new setting just to lock lips.
When our hero and heroine do the Big Moment of mouth to mouth, they are simultaneously stealing a car or baking a poisoned cake or escaping from jail.

If the plot action is just speeding along and the next important plot point is they confront Uncle Ned about his gambling addiction --  then set that kiss when they're leaning against the slot machines on the grand arcade. 

One way to find the setting is to keep the protagonists moving forward through the action. 

Guideline: Where the action is, there shall your Setting be.


2) Good Setting is interesting.

Not the MacDonalds.  The cowboy bar down the street.
Not the laundromat.  The morgue. 

Guideline:  Good setting is interesting in-and-of itself.
 

3)  Good setting is vividly and knowledgeably described.

Unless you know what heathery hills look, feel and smell like, you probably do not want to set scenes in the gloaming on heathery hills because you will be vague and, quite often, wrong.
Many a fictional lass has laid herself down in the gorse and heather.  To which I say, 'Ouch.' 

If you want to write about a bar fight, fer Pete's sake go sit in some bars.

If you want to write about anything, take the time to look at it.  Really look.


4) Good setting reveals character.

Where possible, you put your people in scenery that matters to them or is somehow characteristic of them.

Not a stretch of anonymous beach.  A beach where they are waiting for a drug shipment.  The stretch of beach where she lost her virginity ten years ago.  The rocky cove in front of his grandmother's house.

My books open with the protagonist imprisoned in a house she knew as a child; crouched in the burned-out shell of her family home; walking mean streets she used to run as a young girl; collapsing at the threshold of her lover's headquarters.

Not random scenery.  Scenery that resonates with the POV character/protagonist.  That means something to her.

Guideline: Build character with every part of the story.  
This includes setting.


5) Good setting contrasts with the settings before and after it.

Go inside if they've just spent time outdoors.  Go quiet if they've been somewhere frenetic. Safe after danger.  Bright after dark. Crowded after solitude.  Shiny and mechanical after pastel and pastoral.

Guideline: Contrast keeps the reader from falling asleep.  

This is why we do not make a whole meal of yellow food.


6)  Good setting builds mood.

You pick the setting to display the exact type of kiss you need.

The rocking, icy-cold deck of a motorboat as they flee the Drug Lords is going to deliver a different mood for kissing than the slithery peace of the reptile cages at the zoo.

Guideline:  Mood is the grease that slides the action forward.
Apply liberally.




7.  Good Setting tells story

All by themselves, the settings and the order in which they're placed, tell your story.  Where your people are conveys meaning, symbols, impressions, emotion.

Cavern phot attrib espritdesel 

The underground cavern of Forbidden Rose is not merely a convenient place to set the action.  It calls up the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, (with a more fortunate ending.)  It's a symbol of rebirth.  The passage from the womb.  When I put my folks in that setting, the caverns themselves do a lot of the talking.

When Jess walks away from her hotel and her office, into the maze of dirty streets near the docks . . . she's not just moving geographically.  The setting tells the story of the longer journey she's making -- back to her past.   The setting is a sign of her commitment to leave safety and undertake a dangerous enterprise.

Guideline:  Use setting to show what's really going on.