Up Close and Personal (sorry for the coffee breath)

As those of you who follow me on twitter know, I learned a lot at 4th North American Historical Novel Society Conference in San Diego last month (see—I didn’t just spend my time drinking in the hotel lobby).  I even had a number of “ah ha” moments.

One of those happened early on, when a publishing industry insider said, “The author to reader connection is closer than it has ever been.”  Now admittedly this was a bit more of a “duh” moment than an “ah ha” moment as it was happening because if there is one thing a writer knows (even a newbie like me) it’s that in this era of social-media we are expected to network with our potential readers.  But knowing something being able to act on it effectively isn’t always the same thing.

What does it mean to “be accessible to our readers?”  How can we turn the monologue (I blog, I tweet, I facebook, therefore I am) into a dialogue?  How can I improve your experience—of this website and ultimately of my book?

It was while thinking about these questions that the “ah ha” bit happened (or more precisely while thinking about these questions and not coming up with any clever answers) —ask readers.  AH HA!!!

 So, what do you think?  What would you like to read about here in blog-land?  What do you like about this place and what needs some improving?  Do you follow me on twitter, and, if so, how would you whip @lit_gal into shape if you were given access to a whip?  What can I or should I be doing to improve your experience as a reader (of this blog and soon, I hope, of The Sister Queens)?

Give Me A Little Kiss – Sex and the Historical Novelist

There is nothing new about sex.  Birds do it, bees do it, and our ancestors most certainly did it (to butcher Cole Porter’s lyrics inexcusably).

What IS relatively new is the amount of sex appearing in “straight” historical fiction (I use this term to distinguish historical fiction from historical romance, not to imply that only heterosexual hanky-panky is included).  If memory serves, the historical novels of my youth did a lot of fading-to-black.  But somewhere between my decision to become a writer and my first book deal a shift occurred.  Today there are plenty of sex scenes in straight historicals—some of them quite explicit.  And sex seems to be a popular addition.  For example, a video recorded at this year’s Historical Novel Society Conference during a popular event called “Late-Night Sex Scene Readings” (the reading of a scene from Gillian Bagwell’s The Darling Strumpet) has received over 6,000 hits on youtube since June.

Opinions on this trend vary.  Here is mine: the inclusion of sex in historical novels is neither good nor bad in a vacuum.  It’s not the sexual content that determines whether a particular scene works—it’s whether that scene (sex or otherwise) has a REASON for being in the novel.  Tossing in an orgy (or even a kiss) into your work of historical fiction without a solid reason is a bad idea.  The scene will feel “added on,” and gratuitous sex is no more acceptable in a novel than gratuitous dialogue.

So what can intimate scenes sometimes do well?

Forward the plot.  Yep, just like any other sort of action a sex scene can move a novel’s plot forward.  For example, one of my manuscripts includes the seduction of a royal courier for the purpose of getting a letter into his satchel.  This letter is an important step on the path to the book’s central climax.  So the sex scene (in a stable and pretty exciting in its own right, I might add) is vital to the forward motion of the novel.

Flesh out (sorry, I just HAD to) relationships between characters and/or give us emotional insights into characters.  Sex, as we know from real life (or at least some of us know – no pressure on or disrespect to celibates reading this), is seldom merely a physical act.  It has emotional ramifications, and can be a language all its own.  So, a sex scene in a novel (whether vague or graphic) can be effectively used to give readers a sense of how characters relate to each other.  For example, in my debut novel, The Sister Queens, readers learn a tremendous amount about one of my female characters and her relationships with two separate men simply by the contrast between her sexual experiences with each.

Help set the story firmly in its historical period.  Sexual politics, mores, and practices change over time.  For example, in certain periods, a man’s dominion over his wife’s body was complete – there was no such thing as rape between a man and his wife.  Likewise, for hundreds of years sex (seduction, withholding of, etc) was one of the few tools available to a woman seeking power or influence.  While today we would surely condemn a man for taking his wife by force and likely censure a woman for using sex to get ahead, seeing either such event a depicted in a historical novel reminds readers of the realities of the past and of our characters’ lives.

Beyond raising large issues of this sort, the inclusion of period details pertaining to sex—the acceptable positions for intercourse, its prohibition on certain days, the forms of birth control that were or were not available—can help build the “historical world” of the novel just as the inclusion of other period details can.  In my novel frequent reference is made to payment of the “marriage debt,” and one of my female protagonists feels wronged when her husband spurns intercourse with her.  As a matter of history she was entitled to feel gypped because, under the doctrine of the medieval Church, a married man was obliged, under penalty of mortal sin, to give his wife sex as a preventative measure against temptation to sins like fornication and adultery.

Give the reader a thrill.  Yep, this one is legitimate too.  But wait, Sophie, you are thinking, “you wrote five paragraphs ago that gratuitous sex is not acceptable.”  Since when, dear writer, is giving the reader a bit of fun gratuitous?  Meeting the needs of the reader is our business.  We meet needs for escape.  We meet emotional needs.  We help readers wrestle with difficult questions in their lives.  For heaven’s sake why should meeting readers’ needs for a bit of titillation be off the table?  And why should meeting that need be solely the province of historical romance?  Plenty of contemporary novels—from thrillers to literary fiction—include sex.  I believe that writers working anywhere along the historical genre continuum should feel free to include intimate moments as well.

What do you think?  Would you prefer to see explicit sex kept for historical romances alone?  Can the inclusion of sex in a straight historical novels can be a positive addition?

 

Invention is the Midwife of Good Historical Fiction

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but invention is the midwife of good historical fiction.

Invention and creativity are good things. But in historical fiction we (writers) sometimes lose sight of that, and get bogged down in the minutiae of our period and the thousand little details in our characters’ lives.  I was recently reminded, with force, that readers come to authors of historical fiction for something more than a collection of facts.

I had the opportunity to hear Susan Vreeland, a master of the genre, speak at a recent Historical Novel Society Conference.  I thought Susan was going to do a presentation on her latest book.  But, when we were gathered before her in our neat little rows, she decided to tackle a larger issue – the role of invention in historical fiction.

“Don’t be tyrannized by fact.”  That’s how Susan opened her presentation.  And she is right of course.  Historical fiction is not academic history.  Does accuracy matter in historical novels?  You bet your farthingale it does but, “fictional art can show truth that goes deeper than a collection of fact; it can show us what it felt like to be a particular person at a particular time” (again, Susan V).  Besides, “as soon as something happens people start lying about it” (Cecelia Holland) so “truth” in history can legitimately be debated.

Susan pointed out that selection (and correspondingly, elimination) of facts is part of the process of writing compelling historical fiction.  Good authors know instinctively – whether they write historical fiction or another genre – that telling just the right bits is what gives a great story its focus.  Authors of historical novels must choose only those events from history that relate to the specific premise/themes of their particular novel.  It doesn’t matter how interesting an event is (or how pivotal it is in the life of a historical character), if that event doesn’t forward the plot of the book an author is writing, then it needs to be left out.  There were dozens of interesting events in the lives of my main characters, Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence, during the twenty-year period covered by The Sister Queens that did not make it into my novel because they were not germane to the “sisters” theme of my book. Continue reading Invention is the Midwife of Good Historical Fiction



 



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