PUT OUT THE DAMN LIGHT

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Byron, corsets, England, etiquette, genre, history, manners, mystery, pet peeves, regency, Victorian, writing

Judi Lynn/Judith Post recently wrote a blog about ten steps to make your mystery better and started off with “kill somebody.” I can’t think of any opener to top that, so will just start off with the things I look for and try to incorporate in historical fiction to make it believable and immediate. Because that’s the point, isn’t it? To immerse the reader in a world that has been before.

Character/s

How often do we see the same man or woman over and over in a story and nothing changes but their eye and hair color? In reality, people don’t look the same, even when they look sort of the same. People are unique. So should characters be. It’s best if they possess the kind of personality you’re drawn to, but perhaps you prefer the challenge of finding a way to make a somewhat off-putting man or woman sympathetic to the reader. But an initial connection must be made from the get-go and that’s kind of difficult if they have the charisma of yesterday’s pancake.

The Four Es of Character Building

Entice, entrigue, engage, and excite. This doesn’t mean making them attractive. It means making them accessible. They should have traits and personalities similar to the human conditions that haven’t changed over the ages. We all have baggage. Give them reasons for reacting the way they do when “showing” their responses, instead of just “telling” or explaining them on the page. Lets’ just get over it. We’re products of our environments until we do something about it. Give your protags some emotional warts so you can show how they’ve grown (removed) them by the end of the book.

Mary Balogh’s more recent regency works are peopled by the challenged. Her characters have been blind, lame, deaf, suffering from disabling war wounds, including PTSD. The ubiquitous fiesty heroines and sardonic men have become tedious, which is why Balogh is considered the comemporary queen of historical regency. Her people have the problems, joys, and triumphs we understand and seek, or find lacking in our own lives. They have some amazing emotional warts to overcome.

The Three Cs

Complication, conflict, conclusion. You better have all of these nailed. Throw in some juicy subplots while you’re at it to pick up the pacing and tension. If dried up of ideas on how to inflict misery on your beloved protags, there’s always a nasty or annoying family member. We’ve all got one.

Situations

An opening incident that involves one or both of your main characters must suck us into the storyline, establish the time period, or atmosphere, and most importantly, get the reader invested in the primary charatcers.

More and more we’re seeing historical stories striving to tweak genre themes to fit into a niche market or category. In doing so, the story can become secondary to the magic of creating a period piece or just a dang good story. The deliciousness of sinking into the past can get lost from its primary goal by forcing conformity to a parameter. It’s vitally important to keep the time period immediate, to bring the reader into that world, become saturated by the surroundings. In other words, don’t lose sight of the magic of the site, the joy of being there.

Know your history

 OK, so I have a pet peeve about blatant incongruity, like women in corsets doing impossbile physical feats while wearing what should be more accurately called a torso vice made of whalebone or metal slats. It’s impossible to lounge, leap over small buildings, or mount a horse via stirrup without creating a puncture wound. Regency versions (stays) were not quite as viscious as the later, Victorian versions.

Incorporating the etiquette of the time period makes it real, the necessary realities. Calling cards were vital social accourtrement and came with a precise set of rules. A card corner turned down meant the card was delivered personally. It was the most convenient way for both parties to find out whether or not your company was welcomed, or more kindly told to get lost, when there is no reply to the card.

Men went up stairs before women for many reasons but most often to spare them the display of their ankles. Then there’s my always favorite, wait for it…clear vision in rooms where no candle or lamp is ever lit or extinguished.

Even though strict rules were ingrained, behaviors/actions considered not done often were during the regency where gossip had lethal results. A great deal was written about people like Lady Caroline Lamb (flagrant adultery), Brummell (viciously insulted his prince), Lord Byron (too raunchy to list), and Jane Austen (dared to write and evetually use her real name) to list a few. When the Victorian Age descended, the not done stuff still happened, it just got shoved underground.

So many rules, so little time.

If you would like to read Judi Lynn’s excellent advice, here is the link to her blog:

https://writingmusings.com/2018/05/22/10-steps-for-writing-a-mystery/

M.L Rigdon (aka Julia Donner)

Follow on Twitter @RigdonML

Website http://www.MLRigdon.com

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/julia-donner

https://www.facebook.com/Julia-Donner-697165363688218/timeline

 

 

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A Cover & Austen Reveal

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AUSTEN, Cover Reveal, regency, Scotland, writing

The brain is a curious hoarder. So many facts and impressions are tucked away in its curly crevices. It was my critique partner (Judy Post/Judi Lynn) who pointed out a recurring theme in my Regency Friendship Series—how women of all classes in the past had limited choices. That didn’t stop the brightest or most stubborn from finding ways around pesky barriers. Austen was one of them.

Historical writing requires constant fact-checking, not only for integrity’s sake, but more importantly for me, keeping it real for the reader. Readers of the regency genre are avid students of the time period. It’s not unusual for them to be acquainted with activities in Parliament for any given Season. An error can catapult a reader from the story. This means that it’s like hitting pay-dirt for this anglophile when a fine work on the time period comes along. I just found Lucy Worsley’s Jane Austen at Homeand feel like I’m living high on the hog (or more in line with the time period, in transports) as I read every delicious line.

Happily for me, there’s lots left of the book to relish, and what delights me most is the author’s learned opinion of what drove Austen. Jane, her sister and her mother lived separately from the brothers. This always confused me. Two brothers were wealthy through inheritances. One brother was stingy and another provided assistance, but it was Jane’s insistence on independence and her reasons for it that are illuminated in this book. As I read this intimate accounting of Austen’s life, so much about her emerges.

As writers, we need time alone to do the work. Concurrently, we must have support from either spouses, family or friends, especially friends who write. Jane came from a “middling” household where there wasn’t a great deal of money, and both her parents worked tirelessly to better the finances. Although she came from gentility and there were servants, the females were expected to pick up the slack around the house. The boys would be expected to spend their time with studies. It must have been a constant struggle for Jane to find time to write. There is also the hint of resentment, a vague sort of disappointment that makes one wonder if her brothers might have acted on this due to their lackluster writing attempts and Jane’s subtle brilliance.

The more I read Worsley’s book, the more my ideas about Austen become clearer, mainly because I’ve encountered her barriers. My first husband threw every kind of stumbling block in my way, but my late husband, John, was the opposite. When I sat down in front of the computer, no one was permitted to interrupt. Phone calls, anybody at the door, were put off. No disturbances allowed, a constant wall of protection and support with the exception of quietly setting a cup of coffee on the desk. He read everything and acted amazed and excited. He never boasted about me in public, knowing that would make me uncomfortable, but constantly talked me up to his/our children. Jane knew she would never have this from a spouse and she had marriage offers to decline. Most of her male contemporaries would not have allowed her to write and certainly not seek publication.

Regarding this cover reveal, A Laird’s Promise is about Caroline, who has all options, choices and dreams removed or placed out of reach. All she has is her pride and the determination to protect her fragile-hearted mother. And Alisdair, who must make a choice for the sake of the many, and does so knowing that it will break both their hearts.

The presale starts today, April 20, with the release date of May 01.

M.L Rigdon (aka Julia Donner)

Follow on Twitter @RigdonML

Blog: https://historyfanforever.wordpress.com/

Website http://www.MLRigdon.com

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/julia-donner

https://www.facebook.com/Julia-Donner-697165363688218/timeline

INFLUENCE

Tags

antiques, civil war, costumes, Galena, history, inspiration, pioneer, research, travel, writing

There are those who long for a fairy godmother. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a fey aunt, Marie Louise Duerrstein, and tagged after her in fascination with how her mind and imagination worked. It wasn’t until a few months before she could no longer speak clearly from a stroke that I realized that whenever she told me her ideas, I saw them exactly as she created them in her mind.

As a girl, it never occurred to me not to do what Aunt Marie said. There were some chores I didn’t like doing, but then there were the times when she told me to audition for a play. The thought of saying no or that I couldn’t do it never entered my head. I was her living mannequin for newspapers, magazines, and in first grade, a documentary I’d forgotten about until my sister, Sarah, saw it in a history class.

Aunt Marie put together parades and pageants, reenactments and Santa Claus Houses. She’d hand me a paint brush and tell me to paint a horse because she wasn’t good at that. She once told me to make an elephant after she erected its frame, which got stuffed with newspaper, covered in burlap, and painted gray. Later, she told me to make a much larger one for a Republican Party event.

She amassed her own museum, The Old General Store, what she called: A Step into the past. And it was, and so convincing Ingmar Bergman used it in his film, The Emigrants. Until becoming a curator, she made a living as a seamstress and selling bits of this and that of her artwork. She got artifacts for the museum with her wily sense of acquiring what she needed for nothing or next to nothing. Her motto was: Never pay for advertising. She didn’t, and yet her museum was known all over the world and in major magazines from National Geographic to Good Housekeeping.

Galena, Illinois was one of the first boomtowns of the West. In the 1820’s, Illinois was considered the edge of the world. By the 1840s, Galena’s Main Street was lined with four and five story brick and stone buildings (still intact) that survived spring floods from the Mississippi backing up the Galena River, filling the first floors with muddy water. Businesses moved merchandise to the top floors. And forgot about a lot of it. Aunt Marie didn’t. She knew the town’s history and went to store owners in the early 1950s. She said she’d clean out their attics if she could keep what she found. The items ended up in her museum, like-new boxes never opened, some from prior to the civil war.

When she opened her museum in 1957, she dressed me in a costume she’d sewn and in high- button shoes seventy years old. I worked in the museum, as did most of my family, after learning local history from Aunt Marie, who learned it directly from old timers. One was a woman in her nineties, who remembered sitting perched on her father’s shoulder to listen to Lincoln speaking from a Desoto Hotel balcony.

To this day, the 1800’s seem more comfortable to me than the present. Nine of my formative years had been spent surrounded by the past. That’s how it became easy to write in the time period. I know how to trim lamp wicks, fill them with kerosene, and clean the chimneys. I still use a coffee mill from that time. My home has antiques from her collection and the maternal side of my family. I know I will never taste anything as exquisite as the crispy lightness of a waffle made on the range with a waffle maker of cast iron. And that’s how I could write a story about a woman moving from Chicago in 1891 to a cabin in Colorado. So maybe there is something to the adage about writing about what you know.

Avenue to Heaven was released 11/01/17. It’s the first book in the Westward Bound series, stories about women who make new lives for themselves on the other side of the Mississippi, women of courage and determination. The ones who actually accomplished this are our past and our heritage.

https://www.amazon.com/Avenue-Heaven-Westward-Bound-Book-ebook/dp/B076HVGS98/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1509530295&sr=1-1&dpID=41zH8uAUeKL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

 

Below is one of the ”living mannequin” moments. I was twelve at the time and can’t remember what it was for, magazine or newspaper. The background is the museum and mannequins she made to “dress” the store.

 

And Aunt Marie as a stand-in for the movie Gaily, Gaily

 

M.L Rigdon (aka Julia Donner)

Follow on Twitter @RigdonML

Blog: https://historyfanforever.wordpress.com/

Website http://www.MLRigdon.com

https://partners.bookbub.com/authors/1163516/edit

 

WHO LET THE DRAGONS OUT

Tags

Atlanitis, dragons, fantasy, romane, writing, YA

 

So, I’m toiling away on the last bits of Canticle of Destruction, the third installment of the Songs of Atlanitis YA fantasy series. I put dragons in my first fantasy series (called them fflorin) and figured, what the heck, might as well put dragons in this series. I like ‘em. So do others. In they go. But of course, they have to be part of a historical twist within the story arc and coincide with the previous books. Check. Check.

Anyway, the last six months have thrown my goals off track due to involvement with a friend’s estate and collaborating with her writing. Won’t do that again. Doing so proved painfully illustrative and validated a set of rules my critique partner, Judy Post, aka Judi Lynn, and I have learned to our cost. Rule Two—which comes after the sacred Rule One of writing one’s tushie off every day—is never, EVER let up on promoting your own work. I did for the last months, spending more time elsewhere, but always managing to get some writing done. Still, I dismally failed at Rule Two: promote and advertise your work until you die. Or lie bleeding out on the floor.

The year started off great with a fabulous bounce from an ad on BookBub for the regency series written as Julia Donner. Yes, I do the no-no of writing under more than one name. Here comes the whine: I gotta do more than one genre!

Fortunately, and blessedly, as writers in this day and present industry construct, we no longer have to line up under the sign that says writers MUST follow a formulaic code of composition. Of course, that outdated rule must be observed if one is signed with a traditional publisher. (Shoulder shrug here.) That’s a given, but writers now have a wide range of choices. Whether we go with the traditional publishing path or not, we all have to promote ourselves. The days of book junketing is pretty much dead and gone, unless your agent has signed you for a million buck deal with a clause that clearly states the publisher will provide this. Ergo, Rule Two (hence known as the Eleventh Commandment) is not to be forgotten, never ignored. I did to my cost, my sales sagged, and now I’ve got to get back on board the advertising express.

At the end of the month, I hope to have that new YA fantasy up and live on Amazon and two (yes, count them, two) campaigns running. This means (insert dramatic groan) I have to scour pages and pages of advertising ideas. As writer and playwright friend, Rachel Roberts has expressed, it’s not easy to toot one’s own horn. Can’t agree more. I’ve endured  the disappointment of three declines from BookBub in the last months. Have to wait for a while to resubmit, but in the interim, look out Twitter, here I come.

Wrapping up, publicizing one’s work is wicked heart-wrenching—a hair-pulling, out- loud wailing, and lying-on-the-floor-heel-kicking endeavor. But it’s the only way to sell the books we’ve sweated blood and rained tears on the keyboard to bring to life. So bring on the dragons and burn up the procrastination tactics. Your work and what you have to say is worth it.

While we’re on the subject of horn-tooting, Judi Lynn’s latest installment of the delicious Mill Pond Romance series, Love on Tap, is now available for presale. Please take a looksee on Amazon, Face Book or her webpage:

Judi Lynn

http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

FRIENDS

Tags

friends, nostalgia, writing

 

Ten years ago, not many hours after my husband passed away, I heard a car pull up in front of the house. Still in wrapped in the numbness of shock, I saw through the front windows a woman hop out of a car, hurry up the walk, and bend to set something at the door. It took a while to get up and go look. The corner of a white envelope stuck out from under the welcome mat. Jane and Steve from church had left a message that they didn’t want to disturb me but wanted me to know they prayed for me, shared my pain, and hoped I would call if I needed anything. And so began one of the most poignant, remarkable, and horrible weeks of my life.

So often we hear or whine about how the world is rotting away, people are hardened, uncaring of others. It’s then that I remember the weeks after John died. My brother, Karl, immediately drove my mom from Illinois to Indiana to be with me. Only days after, my writing buddies brought food and themselves for a diner party that lifted my spirits and started to bring me back to life. Cards and phone calls poured in from my church. Flowers, more cards came, but that which lifted me most were the prayers. A choir member, Helen, a widow herself, told me that I would know when the prayers for me stopped. I woke up one day, almost a year later, and felt the absence of the cocoon of prayer that had buffered pain and loss, but by then, I was healed enough to make it on my own.

Then there are the friends of childhood, Connie especially. It’s hard to believe that it’s been over fifty years ago when our aunts introduced us. Instant friendship. I admired her bright, lively mind, musicality, and the kindness that pours out of her, her stubbornness to accomplish a task and do it well, her romantic heart. Mostly, I love the fact that I can tell her anything, everything, and know that as kind and sweet-natured as she is, she would stand stalwart at my back through any trial or problem.

The wonder is that Connie is not my only friend like that. There were theater friends who stood by me during my first horrific marriage. Coworkers over the years I’ve never forgotten and still hear from now and then. Linda, a new friend from my part-time job, didn’t hesitate when I called. She gave up her day off and took me to the ER for sciatica pain, sat with me, and took me home, constantly cheerful and patient. And in the last decade, I lucked-out and joined Summit City Scribes, a band of determined writers, finding more brothers and sisters, like Judy, my critique partner. I trust her judgment implicitly, admire her ethic, her clean writing style, and ability to plot with deadly accuracy. Imagine a tall, red-headed, dark-eyed warrior with a quick laugh and quicker mind. She is someone else I can say anything to and she will instantly and completely understand—more importantly, she will contradict or readily spout a differing opinion. How I love that about her.

It is because of the blessings of so many amazing people I can call friends that I started the regency series about friendship. I lost my dearest friend when John died but have so many others and know that in the future, there will be more.

A Rogue for Miss Prim, now available and 9th book in The Friendship series:

https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Miss-Prim-Friendship-ebook/dp/B01KJ3K27I/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1472763851&sr=1-10&keywords=julia+donner#nav-subnav

And check out Judi Lynn’s webpage and Mill Pond Romances

https://www.facebook.com/JudiLynnwrites

webpage: http://www.judithpostswritingmusings.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Are Those Dummies Stumbling Around in the Dark?

Tags

historical, nostalgia, pet peeves, writing

Many people over fifty look at their smart phones and wonder what to do with it besides make calls. I hand mine to my grandson and ask him to employ whatever voodoo is necessary to fix the problem. I’ve succumbed to the fact that there is a new gene that comes with being born in the last twenty years. It’s called the knowwhattodo-technowisegee-nome. Whatever it is, it’s nowhere to be found in my DNA strands.

On the other hand, this same age group came to me one day to ask what happened to the TV remote because they needed to change the channel right now. I remember staring at their stumped expressions, walking over to the TV set, and pressing a button on the side. They looked at their grandmother with awe. A miracle, and I stood amazed at how quickly time erases the simplest aspects of life.

One of the most difficult tasks of penning historical works is keeping one’s head in the time period. Impetuous lovers rush up unlit staircases, down halls then into black rooms with no thought of lighting. There were no light switches on walls prior to the late eighteen-nineties, and yet the hasty pair can see each other perfectly as they whip out of their clothes. To be fair to all genres, I’ve encountered this (what I call the Dark Room Stupidity Affect) in fantasy works, where the world building has laid out a primitive culture and yet there is perpetual lighting.

Perhaps I should have titled this post Bring on the Flaming Torches.

Some writers are so deep into visualizing the action in their minds that they set their scenes as if on a stage, where someone in the light booth has set the computer with cues. Instant let there be light.

Uh-no.

We all have our little peeves that make us shake our heads in disgust. The last time I threw a book across the room was when I read about a ball in the nineteenth century where a man cut-in on a dancing couple. First, I doubt kids today even know what it means to cut-in, but more importantly, the practice of interrupting a couple during a dance didn’t come about until the beginning of the twentieth century. Women carried dance cards, often with tasseled, little pencils attached. They looked like tiny booklets. Inside there were lines where a gentleman could write his name for a specific dance from a waltz to a schottische. Some women preferred to write the names down, and of course, the gentleman should have been previously introduced before signing up for the cotillion. The cards were saved as mementos, to sigh over the next day, following weeks and years.

Years ago, there were specific, well-accepted rules of courteous behavior when it came to social engagements, just as there are today. It’s rude to talk on your cell or scan messages when with others. At the very least, ask to be pardoned. Manners are slowly disappearing in current culture but were an ingrained fabric of life a century ago.

Don’t get me started on horses. I’m boggled at how teams, mounts, and rigs can appear and disappear, like vapor. For a drive in town, whether one had servants or not, horses hooves had to be cleaned before driving or riding, tack had to be selected, carried, harnessed or tacked. A horse should not be taken directly from standing in a stall without some sort of warming up, the horsie stretch-out. Sometimes carriages had to be rolled out of the carriage houses and barns to an open area for harnessing. Seasons and weather demanded changes. After the equipage came back, tack/harness had to be carefully cleaned and stored, equipages checked for damage and cleaned, the horses had to be walked if overheated, wiped down, cooled, then fed and watered. The easy way to get around in a western town was to use hired equipages. Most towns had a livery of some sort or someone who would provide the services, and yet, I’ve read of women, who wore corsets, hats, parasols, gloves that they wouldn’t want smudged, layers of clothes, hopping into a rig for a quick drive to somewhere. There were no quick trips, unless on horseback, on flat land, and at a full-out, hard gallop.

On the other hand, when it comes to authenticity, there are exceptions. When reading medieval, I don’t want to know exactly what it was like in the castle, where the air was thick of the stench of the midden or overfull jakes. In the dark ages, you could watch fleas jumping from one person to the next, share a haunch of food with the guy sitting next to you, who probably couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed his hands. OK, let’s not go there.

Next time: Hometown Ghost Stories or Yesteryear Urban Legend