Risky Regencies

Vampyres

Updated on August 5, 2009 by carolyn

The last couple of days in the blogosphere there’s been some discussion about the origin of vampire novels. A lot of these little kerfluffles I don’t care much about, though I skim with amusement and a certain sense of horror through such Internet/writing tropes as Authors Behaving Badly and the like.

The vampire thing got me interested so I fired up Google Books and did some searching. The history is pretty much as you’d expect. Horace Walpole’s 1765 Castle Of Otranto is the first ghost story/supernatural story, though I would think that Mallory’s La Morte D’Arthur deserves a nod in that realm given all the supernatural elements. However, the latter isn’t a story about a ghost, and Castle of Otranto is.

I did not expect, therefore, to find any novels about vampires prior to 1765 and my somewhat cursory review of Google Books bears this out. There are, however, quite a lot of writings that mention vampires. I exclude, of course, discussions of vampire bats, botany and other vampire references that don’t refer to mythical (or are they?) blood suckers.

One fascinating finding was the sheer number of writings in French. My French is barely good enough to get a sense of the works, but essays and definitions abound.

There are any number of essays debunking the existence of vampires some of which are interesting in as much as the authors were not aware that a corpse shrinks a bit and therefore it can look as if fingernails, toes and hair have grown after death, when it’s really just corporeal shrinkage causing the effect. Attempts to explain this away can get your brain in a knot.

As an aside, the contextual ads that appear on the results page of such a search are tres amusant. Did you know you could meet local Vampire singles? Gauranteed Real Sexy Vampires!

As a warning, the old fashioned S that looks pretty much like an F comes into play in literary discussions of vampires. It’s a bit disconcerting at first to see phrases that are actually variants of the verb suck rendered with what looks like an F instead. Vampires: Blood Fuckers. Apparently I’m 12 at heart. Do you suppose anyone giggled uncontrollably back in 1712?

I say, George, let’s read Father’s essay on Vampires again.
Heheheheheh!

Noted vampire books:

The Nightcap by Louis-Sebastien Mercier 1784. This may be one huge boring essay but for the part about blood fucking, er, sucking vampires.

I was briefly thrilled to find a book about Charlemagne; Histoire de L’empereur. Alas, it’s an OCR error. The phrase l’empire has been mistaken for vampire. Imagine the thrill of find out someone thought Charlemagne was a vampire! I would have cracked out the French/English dictionary to translate that one.

Everybody’s favorite Regency bad boy, none other than Lord Byron himself had a bit to say about vampires. The Works of Lord Byron specifically, a non-fiction bit about Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness.

Robert Southey also got in on the vampire thing, in Thalaba the Destroyer

And, last, I think, but by no means least, John William Polidori wrote The Vampyre in 1819. Polidori, as you may know was Byron’s physician and one of the ones who rose to the now famous challenge Hey! Let’s write a novel! that produced Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1897. But that’s a whole other century (from the 1700’s) Edited to add: In case I type the numbers in the wrong order AGAIN, that’s Eighteen Ninty Seven!

So, who’s your favorite vampire? Charlemagne or Eric?

(Yes, that’s a joke. My love of Alexander Skarsgard as Eric on True Blood is well known in certain circles. I’m just widening the circle.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alexander Skarsgard, Google Books, Vampire, Vampyres | 17 Replies

What Does “Romantic” Mean To You?

Updated on August 4, 2009 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

So, for the past week or so I was stuck at home with a bad throat infection. I couldn’t talk (except on Twitter!), or eat anything but soup, pudding, and tea (I’m thinking about writing a diet book). Not much fun. But here is what I did get to do:

1) Turn in the Christmas novella!
2) Write an “Undone” short story! (which is getting turned in today, hopefully)
3) Played around with a new “French Revolution vampires” story idea (and if the hero just happens to be tall, blond, and runs a scandalous gambling club in the Palais-Royal, that is entirely a coincidence…)
4) Read some of the books I picked up at RWA
5) Watched movies. Lots of movies. (And North & South again. Nothing restores health like Mr. Thornton’s dark glowering…)

One of those movies was a Bollywood production called Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. I confess to a crazed love of Bollywood films, though sadly I haven’t seen very many, being limited to whatever is on Netflix. I also have to be in just the right mood, with lots of time (these are long movies) and plenty of palak paneer and chicken vindaloo take-away. I love the bright, beautiful costumes (even heroines who are meant to be very poor have sequined saris–and back-up dancers whenever she needs them), the glittery song and dance numbers (which happen at the most giddy random moments), and most of all the unabashed romanticism. These characters have big, wild, passionate emotions, which they express in a big way, with lots of tears, shouts, and music.

In this film, our heroine Nendini falls in love with the cute, nice, but sort of goofball-ish singer Semeer, who also falls in love with her. But her father sends Semeer away and makes her marry cute, nice, but sort of intense lawyer Vanraj (who can’t sing at all). She looks like she’s going to the scaffold all during the ultra-lavish wedding scene, but poor Vanraj doesn’t seem to notice. He later finds out that the reason his new wife wafts around the house like a sad ghost is because she still loves Semeer, who has gone off to Italy to pursue his singing career. Vanraj takes Nendini to Italy to find her first love. It takes a while (and an accident or two, plus at least 5 musical numbers), but eventually Nendini learns the True Meaning of Love, and there’s a big, tearful reunion on a starlit bridge. I admit–it was totally, totally great.

It can be hard to find an American film this open to raw emotion, not to mention big production numbers. On Sunday, to celebrate my return to the land of the living, some friends took me to see the movie 500 Days of Summer. I loved this movie, too. I’m not generally a fan of the so-called romantic comedy genre, but this one doesn’t really fall into that category. It was entirely unpredictable, told from the male POV (Tom is madly in love with Summer, who likes him but says she will never marry), non-chronological, and even had a black-and-white musical number! Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars and says, “Summer remains mysterious all through the film, perhaps because we persist with Tom in expecting her to cave in. When we realize she is not required to in this movie, because it’s not playing by the Hollywood rules, we perk up. Anything could happen. The kaleidoscopic time structure breaks the shackles of the three-act grid and thrashes about with the freedom of romantic confusion.” (Maybe it’s a lesson to us writers to not “play by the rules,” too).

Is it “romantic”? Well–yes, in it’s own crazy way. I guess I was thinking about all this today because it’s the birthday of Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792–July 8, 1822). You know, the guy who helped invent “Romantic” poetry and said, “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips” and “All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not ever.”

But what does “romance” mean to you?? What are some movies or books you find particularly romantic? And what’s your favorite Shelley poem?

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged Uncategorized | 13 Replies

Writing “The End”

Updated on August 3, 2009 by Diane Gaston

No, I’m not finished the book, the one that was overdue and the one I was going to finish before RWA. I gave it a good try but finally had to email my editor at midnight the day before going to RWA that I wasn’t going to make it. I also realized during the conference that I’d made a misstep in the plot so I had to go back and fix that. Then I received the copy edits for Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady (Dec 2009)…So I’m just now back to writing the last 50 pages of the book. With luck, I will turn it in on Friday.

I’ve been thinking about what makes for a satisfying ending of a book. In Romance, of course, it is the Happily-Ever-After. I guarantee that will be a part of my ending. I see the ending of the book as starting with the “Black Moment,” the moment in the plot when it seems like the hero and heroine will never wind up together. The end, of course, is when the hero and heroine are together and nothing can tear them apart again.

Besides this happy ending, what else is important?

1. The ending should tie up loose ends. Subplots need resolving. Story questions need to be answered. This doesn’t mean that everything works out fine. In real life not everything works our perfectly so I like to leave some things imperfect. I think that makes the ending more memorable.

2. The hero and heroine should bring about their own happy ending. This is not the time for the friend to solve their problems for them. The hero and heroine have to figure it out and take action.

3. The ending should not be rushed. It has to be developed at a pace consistent with the rest of the book. I think this is hard to do. At this point in the writing process, most of us just want it to be over.

4. The ending should be logical and foreshadowed. This is not the time for a Deus Ex Machina to show up, the person or event created by the author to pop up and solve the ending, even though there was no inkling of this at the beginning of the book. The reader should be able to look back and realize the elements for the happy ending were in the plot all along.

5. Not an essential, but something I like to strive for is a parallel to the beginning of the book. I like to try to recreate that first scene in the ending.

What do you think is essential for a good story ending? What mistakes have you seen made?

I have absolutely nothing new on my website, but there is still time to enter the new contest.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Plotting the ending, Romance Writing | 14 Replies

Riskies Interview Victoria Dahl

Updated on August 2, 2009 by megan

Today we welcome author Victoria Dahl to the Risky Regencies. Victoria’s new book, One Week As Lovers, is out this Tuesday. In addition to writing historicals, Victoria writes contemporaries; her newest, Start Me Up, has been out a month. You can find Victoria at VictoriaDahl.com or on Twitter, where is absolutely charming and hysterical. A random commenter will be chosen to win a copy of Victoria’s One Week As Lovers, which she talks about with us here.

Q. Tell us about the book:

Viscount Lancaster is a charming young gentleman who’s inherited a crumbling estate and must marry for money. When he finds his betrothed in the arms of another man, he’s faced with an ugly truth: he can’t back out of the marriage. Desperate for some breathing room, he escapes to a remote estate, only to discover that the childhood friend he’d thought dead is actually hiding out in his attic.

Cynthia Merrithorpe is trying to escape her own ugly future and doesn’t appreciate it when Lancaster returns to ruin all her plans. But she’s loved Lancaster her whole life, and it doesn’t take long for her hostility to turn to yearning. Without a cent between them, and with Lancaster’s dark secrets casting a shadow over his life, there’s no hope for a future together. But the lovers are determined to have just one week…

Also, there’s treasure-hunting! *G*

Q. How long did it take? Was this an easy or difficult book to write?

I was under a pretty strict deadline with this book, so it only took a few months to write. A few difficult, disheveled months. The story itself was an easy haul though. This is actually a complete re-writing of the first romance manuscript I ever completed. Of course, that story lacked three-dimensional characters and a plot, so I had to add those in. I literally read the first few chapters of that original manuscript, and then tossed it aside and started with page one again in the writing.

Q. Talk about your characters. What or who inspired them?

As I said, the original manuscript was strictly cardboard characters with no internal conflict. The only thing I wanted to keep of that story was the framework. When I wrote Viscount Lancaster into A RAKE’S GUIDE TO PLEASURE, I knew he was going to be the hero of ONE WEEK. He was handsome and charming and a very sweet fortune hunter… and I was starting to worry that I’d gone with a two-dimensional character again. He was… nice. Pleasant. I couldn’t figure out what made him tick. (Or twitch, as it were.)

Then toward the end of RAKE’S GUIDE, Lancaster is roused from his bed and walks onto the scene only half dressed. First of all, he was sexy as hell. Secondly, he had a huge scar around his neck. I gasped. I had no idea where that had come from. And at the end of RAKE’S GUIDE, I still had no idea. I thought maybe he was a spy. But he wouldn’t admit to anything.

In the months between writing these books, his story came to me, and it was heart-breaking.

Q. Did you run across anything new and unusual while researching this book?

I don’t think so. Hmm. I tend to use research and then purge it from my brain, so I’m hopeless with these kinds of questions. The external plot of ONE WEEK centers around a search for treasure, so I did have fun researching the smugglers’ caves common along the coastline of England.

Q. You write in two different genres; how does that make it harder or easier for you to write?

It actually makes it easier! I have a short attention span, so I enjoy jumping from one thing to another. I don’t think I’d be able to write so many books a year if they were all in one sub-genre. I find when I go from a contemporary to a historical, it’s a bit like cleansing the palate. Though I do find I have to scour my contemporaries for overly-formal speech.

Q. What is it about the period that interests you as a writer?

I write in the very early Victorian period, and I love the transitional feel of it. The strictest of the Victorian mores hasn’t become social law yet. There are still quite a few attitudes left over from the Regency period. Victoria is a young queen, and the feel of the country is very hopeful.

Q. What do you think is the greatest creative risk you’ve taken in this book? How do you feel about it?

Honestly, I was scared to death when I turned this book in. It’s like nothing I’ve written before. The characters are in love, really in love, which was a departure for me. Most of my stories are sexually-driven power struggles. Also, the book is very hero-centric. Cynthia is strong and stubborn, but she has never left her little shire. Lancaster is the one whose past drives the story. Lastly, the hero is damaged, maybe beyond repair. I was really concerned that it would be too much darkness for this otherwise light story, and I had a back-up past ready just in case. *g*

When my editor wrote to tell me how much he loved it, I was in shock. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Really, I thought he was mistaken. I feel like I held my breath until I got some amazing feedback from the ARCs I sent out. Now I’m squealing with excitement over this book!

Q. Is there anything you wanted to include in the book that you (or your CPs or editor) felt was too controversial and left out?

Ha! There are several instances in the book when the hero takes a blow to the head. Some of the injuries are deliberate, some accidental. My CP said her head was starting to hurt from the pounding he was taking, so I edited out a couple of the blows.

Q. What are you working on next?

I’m about to start a new historical series! It’s the same time period, only a different set of family and friends. I don’t have a title for the next book, but it will be out in August 2010. The book opens with the heroine caught in a (truly) compromising position with an unsavory character. She refuses to marry the scoundrel, but there are fears she could be pregnant, so a husband must be found. Enter the hero, a big, strapping man who happens to be the illegitimate son of a duke… and a French whore. He has a deep affection for naughty girls, so he’s instantly smitten. But he has to convince the heroine that her love for pretty, delicate men is misguided and what she really needs is a big brute of a man in her life.

Q. Is there anything else you would like readers to know about you or your books?

It’s been a busy year for me, so I’ll just mention a few of my other projects. In July, my second contemporary, START ME UP, hit the shelves. I also released my first erotic romance this year! THE WICKED WEST is available at all e-book retailers, including Kindle and e-Harlequin. And I’m excited to announce that my first paranormal romance will be out in September. It’s a Highland vampire novella in the anthology collection HIGHLAND BEAST with Hannah Howell! Whew.

Thanks so much for letting me visit!

Thank you, Victoria!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Victoria Dahl | 20 Replies

What (Not) To Wear, Part 2

Updated on July 31, 2009 by megan

What (Not!) To Wear, Part 2:

This Tuesday, Amanda shared some of her thoughts on Dressing For the RWA National Conference. Today I’d like to talk about some of what I saw a few weeks ago in Washington, DC. It was not pretty.

1. Monochrome outfits–head-to-toe (including hat!)–in the same color make you look like a weirdo, not interesting or creative or anything but ‘stay the hell away from me’ bad.

2. Mom jeans are not a good idea unless you plan on doing some gardening. Which I don’t believe was an option during National.

3. White shoes?!?

4. No, I don’t want to see your rack. Or any part of you that isn’t normally on view. Unless your day job is being wrapped around a pole. Thanks.

5. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN GET IT ON DOESN’T MEAN IT FITS.

5a. If your usual size seems snug, there is no shame in going up another size. No-one will know you’ve got on a size 12 instead of a 10. We will all, however, be grateful for your discretion.

6. Just because it DOES fit doesn’t mean it’s age-appropriate. Here’s a tip: If you’re over 21, don’t shop at Forever 21, Mandee’s or Hot Topic.

7. Wear comfy shoes. And if you don’t wear comfy shoes, don’t complain loudly about your pained feet. Honestly? We don’t care.