Chilling out to the maxxxxxxxxx

[erastes]

I'm on leave now until next Tuesday and I've been spending a lot of time in the bath and reading.  About 2 and a half hours today. Yes. You heard. If I had a hot tub, I'd never come out.

zehavit_lamasu and Anne Brooke - Gaywyck and Dangerous Man arrived today!  I'm so book gluttonous at the moment, I've started them both...

Well, I've read three books in the last four days, and all gay historical stories written by men, and they've made me think.  Because all three of them (Firelands and Frontiers by Michael Jensen, and Master of Seacliff by Max Pierce) are 1. Very well written and 2. Romances.

They are more sentimental in parts than most of what I've been reading from women writers, and the sex is so soft as to be non-existent. 

I know that this is rather judgemental of me to be surprised at this, but these books are the first gay historicals written by men I've knowingly read, other than James Lear's wonderful "The Back Passage" and if I'd been asked to guess the gender I would have said "female" for all three.  The only thing that might have made me pause was the obvious want of the writers to get the historical details right.

Now - before I beat myself up with my own assumptions I'll just talk about a theory of mine regarding historical fiction.  I've belonged in my time to a few historical novelists groups, particularly of the critique type and I've noticed that IN MY EXPERIENCE (underlining that this is purely *MY* experience) that men seem to get the detail right, or attempt to more than women.  I'm not saying for one second that there's not 10000's of women writers out there who are getting it right, and striving to do so, but this is what I found, with unpublished novelists in critique groups.

My theory is therefore, that women read a lot of historical romances.  Let's be frank - there are a lot of historical romances that don't bother to get the nitty gritty right, and do little more than put characters in period costume but have them still hold the modern mind set of today.  So people read these books and they think "I could do as well as this" and then they perpetuate the myth, they copy the Heyerisms  and each time it gets a little more exaggerated until it's a parody of the time involved.

I used to see this is fan fiction.  Faction, or Fanon - is where something almost becomes canon because it's written about so often, the lines between what's real and what's homage becomes blurred.  For example, In Harry Potter fanon Lucius abuses Draco, whether physically or mentally or sexually.  Remus and Sirius are a couple and so on.

So a lot of women writing historical fiction are only writing carbon copies - riffs if you like - of other historical fiction they've read and loved.  Regency being the most popular of this maligned genre, for example.

However, my theory goes on  - MEN read O'Brien (Jack Aubrey) Forester (Hornblower) Cornwell (Sharpe etc) and see just how paintstaking their research is and they think "Cripes - if I'm going to write this, I'd better work hard to get as good as this)

Yes yes yes - I know this is generalising but I still think this holds a lot of water.

I'll be doing reviews of the three books I've mentioned in a while, but they are all highly recommended. My filthy mind would have liked some hot sex, but I can't have it all, all the time. I'll have to go and seek out some women writers!!!

*G*

Oh and I finished Eragon too. Not awful. Can't see what everyone hates about it. I've read worse. A lot worse. Stupid ending (yeah blah blah sequel bleakwell) and the derivative names from Scandanavia and bizzarely Japan drove me bonkers, but readable.  I hate Eragon and I REALLY REALLY want Saphira to die more than I can say....

Comments

Historical fiction and fantasy

[ter369.livejournal.com]

Let's be frank - there are a lot of historical romances that don't bother to get the nitty gritty right, and do little more than put characters in period costume but have them still hold the modern mind set of today.

It's true. I always think of this as Decorating A Love Story. Sometimes its Viking horned cups, other times it's a pelisse and slippers soft enough to dance at Almack's.

Fantasy writers do the same thing. Paolini decorated his Star Wars story with dragon-fu. Butcher's Harry Dresden series is a wizard-for-hire draped with the the sadsack gumshoe trope, who pulls spells (the readers have never heard of before) out of his pocket to save his ass.

Paranormal romance and urban fantasy have the same problem. This is a huge sub-genre now, and just from reading blurbs and back covers I can see how the writers decorate their "this couple must be together" with sex magic, werewolf compulsions, and vampire soul mates.

I find it just as silly when the heroine of a romantic suspense novel is at the top of her career at age twenty-two and she's an investigative journalist.

Research can apply to every genre, including literary fiction as a genre. I think the market demands more of the thing that already sold well, so writers craft that based on calls for submissions. I'd like a buck for every time I pitched my novel with werewolves and was asked, "Is is like Laurell K. Hamilton's books?"

Sometimes publishing is like Watergate: "Follow the money."

Re: Historical fiction and fantasy

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Argh! Viking horns! *smites hollywood*

And yes, some writers think (and I include Heyer in this too, as her characters (in the ONE book I've read so far, so I am not balanced) seem more 1960's than 1820's to me) that just describing some clothes or some bad roads is enough to entrench you in the era. I'm not saying I'm any better at all, I hope you realise, (I have my characters shagging in Newgate for god's sake!!) , but I just get annoyed when it's more 2005 than 1805...

I feel your pain about the Laurell Hamilton. I would not have been kind. "no - much better, actually, if that's ok!"

Re: Historical fiction and fantasy

[ter369.livejournal.com]

(and I include Heyer in this too, as her characters (in the ONE book I've read so far, so I am not balanced) seem more 1960's than 1820's to me)

Just for reference, I've read all of Heyer's Georgian and Regency novels.

The 1960s aspect you found may be that Heyer (writing in the 1920s-1960s) only alludes to sexuality going on in the Regency society, where source commentary reminds me how bawdy life was then. That tiny slice of the population looking to make a match at Almack's or at a house party was just ... a tiny slice of life at that time. The 1980s revival of Regency Romance (the Silhouette line, for example) introduces sex on the page and the reasons young women were sheltered. Regency romance is essentially a courtship novel, which works far better for me than the contemporary romances where couples take months to get together (in order to have a full-length novel).

Heyer was writing Regency stories in the tradition of Jeffrey Farnol. Like Austen, she probably didn't set out to write romance, though that became the identifying structure of her works later on. I think they're both writing social comedies, which usually has a marriage or a reconciliation at the end to signify the world is in balance (for the moment).

I was surfing for some info and wound up at All About Romance, which happened to have lead stories comparing/contrasting Austen and Heyer. I think it was a series of articles, though this was around 1999, so I don't recall. What I do remember is that the writer did not mention that Austen wrote contemporary stories about the world around her, or at least of her time, while Heyer was writing over a century later. I commented on this to the writer, who replied this didn't relate to reading the novels as romances.

Um, yes, it does. Austen was observing, or using what was related to her about contemporaries' actions. Heyer was reconstructing the period, from research or the literary tradition of how novels showed that period. This is a huge difference. So if the AAR writer didn't think that's important, then I'm not surprised at the standards in historical research. If readers buy it, the same stuff will sell again.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

So people read these books and they think "I could do as well as this" and then they perpetuate the myth, they copy the Heyerisms and each time it gets a little more exaggerated until it's a parody of the time involved.

Exactly my beef with mainstream historical romance writers. Every time you assume someone else was right, an angel loses its wings in a hideous flaming-sword accident. Argh.

Yes yes yes - I know this is generalising but I still think this holds a lot of water.

If there weren't ample room for the generalisation, I'd be pissed -- but there is so much room!

Oh and I finished Eragon too. Not awful. Can't see what everyone hates about it.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm a little cheesed off that a subpar book got that much publicity -- and why? Because he knew a guy, or rather, his parents did. Derivation happens all the time. I grind my teeth when derivation is lauded as originality and held up as the latest standard for young writers. It makes the rest of us young-ish writers a) look bad and b) want to hide our ages.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh I agree, very much, about Eragon. It should have been in the remainder bin with the rest of the books of the genre written by someone that no-one knows, but I have to say he (and his mummy) did do a lot of marketing - book signings for 2 years, I believe? I know that he was lucky in the first place when his parents published - but wouldn't I love to have parents in the same posish!! It is subpar though, I've read worse, but I should have said that I've read a lot better - books that no-one has ever heard of too.

Life sucks!!!

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Well, I've always applied the belief that there are a thousand experts out there just waiting for me to fuck up so I can pounce. That applies to fanfic, but even more to historical fiction (even if I am an untried n00b). I research to proof stuff against me most of all, because I read or watch historical based books or movies with a comment pen mentally at least by my side.

Sure, it's onerous finding out that the windows were made of Mica and then having to google like mad just so as you can find out what summer early morning sun looked like through the mica windows of a palace - but it's fun, too. Sure, it's a kick yourself up the arse moment when you realise the people of whom you are writing did not have fireplaces in their bedrooms, because of extensive use of timber in construction, and that X's son was not named after his bisexual lover, but simply happened to have the same saint's day, but I love that stuff. The writing's marvellous fun but the research is wonderful and particularly sweet when you show some of the product to someone you met online who also knows the period in question and they love what you do - it's the research that made it possible.

Now, if I could only find a really good account of the siege of Polotsk... At present, I suspect my description is a load of Polotsks...

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely - I made what I thought was "one" mistake in STandish, and now I find I've made at least two. One person was polite about it, one person was wanky. I think that as a historical novelist, we have to steel ourselves for wank, no matter what.

You are doing something I can't even envisage, and I am in awe. Can't wait for your bok.

But I also am in awe of the writers, (and so recent) who didn't have the internet. Although I try and check lots of sources, I always have this sense of "no net" when I research on line. My mother wrote a saga and did all her research in libraries, and I think OMG - How did you DO this? I - although being too old - am similar to the MTV generation, I haVE a question in my head and I can now have it answered NOW. I can't imagine having to do it in a library.

And yes, I know what you mean about the research, it's so bloody wonderful at times. And yes, getting the nod from a fellow "historian" is worth all the hassle. But it's also that research that I've spent that makes me wince when I find other writers who either ignore the importance of it, or who never bothered to find out about it in the first place.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

I - although being too old - am similar to the MTV generation, I haVE a question in my head and I can now have it answered NOW. I can't imagine having to do it in a library.

I'm currently writing historical fiction and finding all sorts of source material available through universities (find someone with access, or use Google Scholar to get going). I'm buying, for example, 1901 editions of memoirs through half.com (a division of eBay) and Amazon. I won't get the info tonight, but then I can't read the whole book tonight either.

I just found a spy's memoir and I'm thrilled. I have to read it in transaltion because the English version is all I could find for sale online. But I found his name, and that the memoir existed, through reading a biography; I found that bio because its author is a romance writer who wanted to write non-fiction about a subject she found in her research for fiction. So I'm still using the Net, but it's leading me to hard copy resources.

The problem with research online is that the first ten Google returns become major sources for writers, so books still sound similar, whether the authors are borrowing from fiction they read or the easy to reach references online. The stories are still worthwhile. It just depends on the weight you want in fiction, historical or paranormal, etc.

[zehavit-lamasu.livejournal.com]

Glad the book arrived safely. :) Master of Seacliff is in my to read pile - the amazon recomendation engine insisted I should buy it after I purchased The Back Passage and The Phoenix so I hope it is as good as those two. The Michael Jensen books are on my wish list but I think they will be going in the shopping basket next time I shop... at the moment I need more time to read.

THANK YOU!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

What I will be writing about is how different historical fiction is (and also how similar in some ways) The Phoenix is more similiar to Seacliff - Standish and Gaywyck are also very similiar. What interests me is the way that we assume that gay me will write gay sex as gay porn, but can be more romantic and "fade out" than any het woman.

Jensens are good, but the sex in both are almost invisible, but the stories are well done, and the historical detail is excellent.

I really appreciate your knowlege, could you email me at some point regardng a reviewer post on an website I have yet to launch?

Re: THANK YOU!

[zehavit-lamasu.livejournal.com]

I used to use Mel Keegan as an example of a gay man who writes beautiful romance into his action adventures... and then it turned out HE is most likely a SHE and my argument crumbled around my ears >_<. I am, as always, taking this argument from the yaoi fandom point of view in which the general view is that men can't write romance and can only do souless action or pure porn. I could never subscribe to this view since the history of the novel shows many male writers who produced beautiful love stories (Far From the Maddening Crowd was so influential for me - I am often blamed by family members for marrying James because he is so much like Gabriel Oaks).

I can't see, logically , how gay men should differ in approaching love stories to straigt men. But I could never really support my argument until now - it is lovely to know examples do exist. I will be buying the Jensen books very soon.

Sent you an email this morning. I hope I can help.