Keeping Your Reader in Your Historical Novel by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

Keeping Your Reader in Your Historical Story

As a historical writer it is important to make sure that you use the words of the period you have set your book in. For example if your story is set in the 1500s you could use the word hugger-mugger when talking about a sneaky person who is acting in a secretive way and elflocks to describe messy hair. Jargoyles meant that a person was puzzled about something in the 1600s while in the 1700s a person who was out of sorts was grumpish. In the 1800s people would have felt curglaff when they jumped into cold water and a man going for a post dinner walk while smoking his pipe was lunting. In the early 1900s a person who was drunk was referred to as being fuzzled.

Of course, it is important when using those words that the writer somehow explains what they mean such as, if a man said he was going for an after lunch lunt, the person he was talking to could reply. “I don’t have my pipe and tobacco with me today.” I feel that writers who use terminology from a different era or words or phrases from a different language without clarification are trying to impress the reader with their vocabulary and intellect. Speaking as a reader, for me what they are really doing is making me angry and interrupting the flow of the story. I am jolted out of the lives of the characters and into my life as I try to process the meaning of what was written.

As a writer you want the reader to be so caught up in the story that they don’t want to put the book down, you don’t want them to throw the book across the room because they don’t understand what has been said or done.

Another important aspect of writing historical novels or even novels set in past decades is to make sure that you do have the characters using devices that hadn’t been invented yet.

The ball point pen came into use in the 1940’s so you can’t have someone signing papers with it in the 1920s. The Charleston dance was introduced in a movie in 1923 and caught on after that, so a story set before that time could not have party-goers dancing it. While the computer was invented during World War II, it didn’t come into commercial use until the 1950/60s and personal use until the 1970/80s. Don’t have a person make a phone call before March 7, 1876, which is when Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone and don’t have someone send a text on a mobile phone in the 1970s.

It is important to do your research when writing a novel set in the past, no matter what the year.

More historical words:

In the 1590s beef-witted described something as being brainless or stupid.

In the 1640s callipygian described a beautifully shaped butt.

In the 1650s sluberdegullion meant an unkempt, drooling person.

In the 1950s two people making out in the back seat of a car were doing the back seat bingo.

 

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Ghosts and Haunted Houses by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bookswelove.net/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

As far as I know, I have never seen a ghost. However, I did live in a haunted house, although without my knowledge. When my husband and I and my brother and sister-in-law first moved to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island we bought a house that had been converted into a duplex. My sister-in-law told me that she was continually seeing a man coming and going from their side. I saw no one on our side.

I returned to Alberta to visit family and friends and was describing where our place was to a friend. She began asking questions about it and said that a friend of hers had lived in that house years earlier. She also asked me if I had seen the ghost who occasionally wandered through the house there. I said no, but my sister-in-law had.

She said that a man had died in that house and her friend had seen his ghost often while living there.

I’m not sure if the reason I did not encountered that ghost nor any others in my life is because I don’t believe in them or because I’ve been lucky. However, if a ghost is reading this, this is not an invitation to come to me and prove you are real.

I'd Like to Thank (Drum roll please)...by A.M.Westerling

I think we can all agree writing is a lonely occupation. Unless you have the luxury of an assistant you can dictate to, it’s all up to you, your keyboard and the characters in your head clamoring for their stories to be told. That’s how we all start, toiling away in secret until the day you finally screw up your courage and tell someone your passion to be a writer. Assuming the person you told isn’t rolling on the floor laughing their head off, there begins your support group.

For me, it was my family. They didn’t really understand why I would want to spend my evenings writing after a full day at work but they respected my desire and gave me the time to do it. I have two sons who shrugged and rolled their eyes a bit but they did impress the girls in their circle by divulging that their mother was a romance author. It must have worked because they both have sweeties now! Of course my husband is my number one supporter but not in the way you think – he’s not a reader and hasn’t read a single word I’ve written. Nope, he’s more interested in helping me with the marketing and research aspect. For example, this past summer, he drove me to Fernie, Cranbrook and Fort Steele in SE British Columbia so I could drop off in person copies of my latest book, Barkerville Beginnings, and information about the Canadian Historical Brides Collection. He’s driven me to Barkerville ( although that was before I knew I would write Barkerville Beginnings ). 

Here are a couple of pictures from our most recent trip to Barkerville.  That's me (left) standing on Main Street

He's also driven me to Fort St. James so I could do research for The Countess' Lucky Charm.

Here I am with my youngest son. The fort is situated on the shores of beautiful Stuart Lake in north central B.C.

Of course I have to thank my friends, particularly the Kananaskis girls, who believed in me, read my early attempts and encouraged me, came to my book signings so I wouldn't be sitting alone and brought champagne to our getaway weekends so we could celebrate in style!

Thank you also to Judith Pittman, for her faith in my ability and for all the great things she does for the authors at BWL Publishing.

However, my biggest thanks go to the Calgary Association of the Romance Writers of America. I can’t begin to say enough wonderful things about this group, their support, their enthusiasm, their understanding, their willingness to share their knowledge about this wacky business that is publishing. It’s a professional organization and gives validation to what I’m doing. I've made lifelong friends and hooked up with my dear critique partners. I attend workshops, monthly meetings and conferences learning about the craft and business of writing with people with the same mindset that I have. They get it. They get why I write. 

 You can find Barkerville Beginnings and the rest of my books on the BWL Publishing website. http://www.bookswelove.com/authors/westerling-m-romance-historical-canada

Writing My Novels by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

Writing My Novels

I have never worked with a solid outline or arc for my novels whether they be mystery, historical or young adult. And this is mainly because I find that my characters seldom end up the way I first pictured them and the plot never takes the route I thought it would. I do start the story with a character in his/her everyday life so the reader can get to know them then I put in the trigger that is out of the control of my main character or starts the mystery. This puts the main character on his/her quest for a solution.

I do have scenes pictured where characters are going to have a certain conversation or be at a certain place but unexpected conversations or character twists surface as I am writing the story. Some of these are surprises or mishaps or problems that get in the way of my character’s quest. I strive not to make these predictable nor so far out that they don’t make sense to the story. They should leave the reader with the thought that (s)he should have figured that would happen. I find that it is no fun to read a book where you can foresee where the story line is headed and what is going to happen before it does.

For the climax my character goes through the actions of resolving the problem or solving the mystery. This has to be fast paced and sometimes at a risk to the character. By this time the reader should be rooting for my main character and wanting him/her to succeed without injury. Hopefully, too, this is where the surprise comes in, where the reader goes. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming." or "I never thought it would be that person.”

 

I have even been surprised or saddened or happy by the ending of my novels and have said that. I believe that if my emotions are rocked by the ending, so, too, should the readers.