Genre Identity

Well, this is new. My next novel (only in its infancy stage) is facing an identity crisis.

Ok, perhaps “crisis” is a bit of an overstatement. It’s more of a genre wavering, I suppose.

Historical Romance or Women’s Fiction?

While one can be a subset of the other, there is still a world of difference between the two in the creation phase.

In Historical Romance the relationship, the romance, must remain the star.

In Women’s Fiction, the female lead may take and hold center stage. This does not mean that she must keep the spotlight all to herself. She can share it, absolutely. But it is her story, not the relationship’s which gets top-billing.

The question is… Do I have the guts to allow my new novel to lean towards Women’s Fiction instead of Historical Romance?

The answer is… I don’t have a clue.

I’ll keep you updated.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Slow Going

Slushing through a slowly melting icefield in nothing but knickers and flip-flops has got to be more enjoyable than editing an historical romance.

Seriously.

I’ve reached the point in The Hushing Days (the behemoth juggernaut that is my 18^th novel) in which “enjoyment in the writing process” is just a faint memory.

I hate that.

Really, it just makes me sick.

The end is in sight, but in only flip-flops and knickers the going is slow and leaves me in shivers.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Assumptions

Assumptions. I’m going to break my freaking big toe on one of them before this is through.

*pauses: gathers thoughts, breath and whatnots; carries on with a teensy bit less spite*

Assumptions are tricky bastards. Let me illustrate.

Strangers assume that if you are dressed spiffily, answer pleasantly, smile appropriately and converse smartly that you are without staggering mental hiccups (i.e. anxiety, panic, OCD, etc). This is all well and good… except when they do inevitably find out the truth they are certain you are either exaggerating to gain pity or outright lying to gain some kind of mythical leverage.

These kind of assumptions have been tripping me up for decades. As a result, I’ve learned to loathe them and to try to avoid them at every turn.

A prologue to a historical romance, however, is all assumption. A writer must guess what a reader already knows. Very few readers of the genre are there for a historical treatise on the time period. The author must assume at least some basic knowledge on the era is known… but the tricky part is knowing how much. Give the reader too much credit and you lose them before Chapter One. Give the reader too little credit and you bore them to tears and still lose them before Chapter One.

*sighs*

Assumptions. I am crap at managing them. Just saying.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

The Authoritative Voice?

*clears throat and begins in a most professorly manner…*

When writing Historical Romance you must not only sound as if an historian is perched upon your shoulder whispering factual sundries into your ear. You must sound as if your muse has wed the dear fellow and bore a child together.

However…

When your muse is a dog who has been neutered longer than you, and when no worth-his-salt historian could, would or should suffer your company for longer than a day, problems arise in this treatise.

In this case, stumbling blind through the process is your only option. Do so in an authoritative voice and a wary eye to the exits and you should be fine.

Should.

I’ll let you know if by the luck of the literary gods I ever survive myself.

Thank you and good day.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Selective Ignorance -or- Crowbars and Tampons

Selective ignorance.

I’m terrible at it.

Once I learn something, it’s ridiculously hard and rather painful to ever get it out of my head again. (Think a crowbar trying to budge a three bedroom Brownstone.)

Yeah, a useful trait in academia. Not so nifty in historical romance.

As I continue to wrestle my way through writing the Six Brothers project (100k historical mainstreamer, if you recall), I’m finding myself having to shove a lot of facts into the “Forget you ever knew that” closet.

All romance authors participate in some level of selective ignorance (i.e. bathroom breaks post sex, post-coital sheet messes, etc.). However, in historical romance there are literally tomes of stuff you’ve either just got to leave out or lie your butt off about.

Fine and dandy, I suppose, for a regular minded soul. Not so peachy for a perfectionist riding an OCD high.

So if I turn up missing one day, check the “Forget you ever knew that” closet. I’ll be hiding out there with the heroine’s tampons.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe