Worderella Writes

Book: The Grand Sophy

The Ombersley house is in a turmoil. Cousin Sophy Stanton-Lacy has been left by her father, Sir Horace, to find a husband…the problem is, Sophy cannot do any such thing until the house has been put to rights. After all, cousin Cecilia is in love with a foppish poet who has no concept of reality, cousin Charles is about to marry a prosy prig, and no one is doing anything about it! That is, not until Sophy walked through the door…

Read this book to see how an author can make a manipulative character the hero, keep the pacing fast, give each character definition, and write a snappy love story where the two main characters don’t fawn over one another (they actually argue the entire book).

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From the Notebook: Victorian Courting Customs

I thought I’d treat you all with a little bit of something something from my notes about courtships. I missed Valentine’s Day, but February is the month of love and hey, I am a romance writer, so here’s an excerpt from my research journal:

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Book: The Slightest Provocation

In the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, Mary Penley and Kit Stansell of the Regency feuding Penley and Stansell families elope, after nourishing a secret friendship from their early teens. Their first year of marriage is one long honeymoon night, if you get my drift, but when Kit is teased by his club friends for only lusting after his wife (how provincial!!), he dallies with an actress and catches a disease such that he can’t go to bed with Mary for a year. This doesn’t stop him from going to other actresses, however, and to get back at him, Mary allows Kit’s best friend to seduce her. Of course, Kit walks in on them, and that’s just the backstory.

When the book actually starts, Kit and Mary have been separated for nine years, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon is finally defeated, and Kit and Mary are returning to England, worried by rumors that there is an insurgency threatening their homeland.

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Official Rules for Writing Victorian Historical Novels

This is hilarious and something all Victorian novelists ought to read.

OFFICIAL RULES FOR WRITING VICTORIAN HISTORICAL NOVELS
by Sally Zigmond1. There’s always trouble up factory/mill/mine (always referred to as t’factory, t’mill or t’pit).

2. Britain was a smaller place then. It consisted only of The Industrial North (Yorkshire, Manchester and South Shields) and London (West End, sleazy and rich; East End, sleazy and poor, but full of loveable rogues).

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Why Historical Fiction?

In this session, Whitbread award-winning novelist Rose Tremain looks at the issues around writing and publishing historical fiction.

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