Word Wenches

Hold That Wine!

Due to a possible scheduling conflict, Jo's 5/14 guest, Bibiana Behrendt, may be moved to another day.  The operative word here is "may."  Bibiana is an expert on classy wines and spirits, and we're really looking forward to her visit with us. Here’s the link to her book on cognac.

So stay tuned, folks.  If we can't get the schedule squared away by Wednesday, we'll bring Bibiana in at a later date. 

Aristocratic Titles

  Finally!  The contemporary proposals are sitting on various desks in New York City. Our wenchly brainstorming session has been processed, resulting in reams of ideas.  Outlines for the next two historicals are slowly developing.  And I can research again!!

Currently, I’m buried under books on Bermuda for a new idea that’s been niggling at the back of my mind.  I can see right now that I’m going to wish I’d actually been to Bermuda to pull this off.  Maybe, if miracles happen, we’ll find time in the fall.

But in the meantime, after a long time away from the proper world of Regency England, I’m dipping my toe in again, if only for the opening chapters.  And to my dismay, I’ve forgotten many of the tangled complications of titled aristocracy.  Did you know that in 1812, there were only seventeen dukes in England?  And most of them were probably crusty old fellows moldering away in their clubs and country homes and nowhere near as dashing as we make them out to be. (photo of 12th duke of Norfolk)

There were only a dozen marquesses (and just spelling that is one of the reasons I prefer not to use that title, unless I’m feeling masochistic), although during the Regency, the title was still marquis.  Which looks even worse in today’s dialogues, sort of sounding like a Regency theater with flashing candlebra, maybe.

Fortunately, there were 94 earls, and earl is a good Anglo-saxon title that sounds as nice on the modern ear as duke. If I’m pulling titles out of a hat, I tend to choose earl because it’s easy. And the heroine gets to be a countess, which I like even better.  But in the case of my current project, the new earl is dead.  And his brother before him. And the earl before that.  Messy situation.  Anyway, I want a distant cousin to inherit the title.  But any old cousin won’t do.  According to my research, he has to be the eldest surviving male of a direct descendant of the title, or some such rot.  So I have to draw a blamed family tree to figure out where I can find this guy.  And then I started wondering if this gormless heir might have been called viscount before the last earl sank to the bottom of the sea…  And I gave up for the day.

What I want to know is…who made up these rules? And for pity’s sake, why?   It must have been  headache-inducing memorizing everyone’s titles and ancestors just so guests knew in what order they should go into a society dinner!  No wonder they frowned on divorce and ostracized the scandalous.  Who would know where to place them at the dinner table? (link to etiquette book)

It’s bad enough that people try to figure out their position on the human family tree by condemning other races to the bottom and walking over their neighbors to clamber to the top, but why on earth go out of the way to create an artificial hierarchy? 

Apparently, I’m not done with revolution. I see an American historical coming on.

What is it in human nature that makes us want to know we’re better than the next guy, if only because our father was born three minutes earlier? Or our ancestors arrived on a Norman war ship instead of an Irish potato boat?  Can I join the committee that makes these rules?

The First Time

Years ago, Kathe Robin, the doyenne of Romantic Times reviewers, mentioned to me that the consummation scene in a historical romance was very important to her.  The words stuck with me as I thought about why that was true, for true it certainly was.

Before I continue in this vein, I want to emphasize that I don’t think a romance has to have explicit sex to be a great romance.  Some of my favorite romances never go beyond a kiss or a held hand, yet they pulse with yearning and emotion and romance.  An example of those is Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson, which I just finished reading for the fifth or tenth time since it came out in 1985.  (The occasion of this reread was the delightful knowledge that the book is now available in e-format at Fictionswise http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook66571.htm  for a mere $5.99.)

To return to my meditations on the importance of a consummation scene: a romance is a dance of emotions and psychology as the characters clash, connect, and ultimately commit.  Physical attraction is obviously part of the equation, but more than that, it’s one of the elements of the developing relationship. 

(A quote from Lady Elizabeth’s Comet, since it shows that physical attraction existed even in traditional Regencies: 

“How came I to feel so strongly? I had not loved Clanross when I poured laudanum down his throat. My feeling for Clanross was not an overnight flower. It had been growing for some time. When was it planted?
It happened, I reflected, after he started walking the grounds and bathing in the lake and began to feel better and look less wan and sleepless. It is a dreadful thing for a woman of intellect to admit so physical a criterion for love. I wanted to evade the fact but there it was. I was a mere animal after all, drawn by a bright eye and a healthy complexion.”

Sexual intimacy is about many things, including pleasure, power, and vulnerability.  All of those play into the psychology of the developing relationship.

Since a great romance is about two unique characters whom we come to care about deeply, it makes sense that their sexual relationship is equally unique and reflects their individual natures.  Looking at someone and thinking, “Hot, hot, hot!” is all very well, but it’s only one step—and not always the most important one. 

Historically, society was much more aware of the potentially destructive power of sex.  Procreation was essential to the race, but it carried the risks of death and disease.  Smart women didn’t indulge in sex lightly.  Men who wanted to be sure that their heirs were really of their blood wanted faithful wives. 

So a historical heroine is not likely to allow sexual intercourse unless she’s safely married, or in the grip of overwhelming emotion.  In a truly intense situation, she might weighs the pros and cons and decide to risk going ahead despite the consequences.  Or, occasionally, she’s so innocent that she doesn’t quite understand what’s going on.

A marvelous example of this last is in Laura Kinsale’s The Shadow and the Star.  The heroine is a suffocatingly innocent Victorian miss, raised by little old ladies.  Leda Etoile has absolutely no idea of the mechanics of sex, but she does find handsome Samuel very attractive.  In some ways, Samuel Gerard is as innocent as she—except that as a child, he was the victim of vile abuse, and has Huge Issues. 

The story can be read as a treatise on the value of sex education classes, but it is also one of the most power, passionate, heartbreaking consummation scenes I’ve ever read.  (Nor is this the only brilliant First Time scene Kinsale has written.  Her characterization, sensuality, and wordsmithery are superb.) 

Sometimes my characters are married when they first come together.  With luck, it’s a marriage of convenience.  <G>  This is an enduringly popular plot set-up because it takes two people who may be near strangers and throws them together into the same bed, so they must negotiate an acceptable personal relationship.  (The Bargain is a classic MOC.)

I’ve had several of books when the characters are operating under powerful emotions and decide consequences be damned.  In Thunder and Roses, for example, the hero is devastated because he blames himself for a mine collapse that killed a close friend.  So the heroine decides to distract and heal him in the most compelling way she knows.  My heroines are often lower in the class structure than my heroes, and that changes the dynamics some, but even so, sex is never done lightly. 
                                                                                                   
I thought back to some of the more unusual “first time” scenes in my own stories.  In The WIld Child, the heroine, Meriel, is considered mad and she has certainly lived in a way that makes her immune to social strictures, so she sets out to seduce the hero.  Poor Dominic is an honorable man and has several extremely powerful reasons to resist her charms, so he fights his attraction, and Meriel, every inch of the way.

I quite like honorable heroes who don’t necessarily fall into bed easily.  Honorable men also care about consequences, including the risks of intimacy to women they care about.  In The Bartered Bride, the hero and heroine have their First Time under circumstances that offend his very soul.               

I also have a fondness for ‘lost love regained stories, where a couple come together again after long separation.  The combination of love, lust, anger, and fear make for an intense relationship as they try to resolve what separated them in the past.  This intensity makes their intimacy fraught with emotional landmines.  In Silk and Secrets, the hero and heroine married too young, and have been separated for a dozen years for reasons so painful that Juliet can’t even speak them aloud.  He is on the verge of execution before they come together, not wanting to waste what precious hours are left.  Since this is a romance, naturally they survive—and have to deal with the consequences of passionate intensity in a relationship that is as conflicted as it was before. 

Two of my three contemporaries feature reunion scenarios (I told you I liked this set-up).  In The Burning Point, there are huge trust issues that must be resolved.  In The Spiral Path, the protagonists are in the process of getting a divorce when the heroine, who wants desperately to direct a movie from her own script, persuades her soon to be ex-husband to star in it so she can get the necessary financing.  The movie bores into the white hot centers of their troubled souls, and the stress is so great that soon they are sleeping together while saying that it hasn’t officially happened because neither of them can bear to deal with the consequences. 

A friend said that the wedding night in my Veils of Silk was the most different she’d ever seen, since the hero is impotent and their whole marriage of convenience is based on this fact.  And that’s just the beginning of the complications!  For me, these First Time scenes are very complicated to write because they take place on multiple levels of emotion, psychology, and physical reaction.  How does she feel?  How does he feel?  Are there still conflicts and emotional barriers between them?  Will one or both pull back emotionally afterward?  Are their levels of commitment different? 

And then there is writing the actual physical details.  I’m not into extremely clinical, so I try to write scenes that are emotionally engaging and clear enough so that readers will know what’s happening.  Too euphemistic can get silly, too purple and my fellow Wenches my revoke my Wenchly license <g>, and too pornographic will turn off a lot of readers.  (The illustration at the left is one of the most graphic I ever had, since the hero is basically wearing nothing but the heroine.

Not surprisingly, I usually spend days writing and rewriting a consummation scene, layering in emotion and details and trying to make the result worthy of the characters. 

And then there’s the bad-sex scene.  One doesn’t see this often in romances, but it happens.  (Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation comes to mind.)  More often, of course, we give our characters great sex.  Why should we make our fantasies as clumsy and awkward as real life? <G>

So what are your favorite consummation scenes?  Which struck you deeply?  Did some go sailing into the wall?  (No titles or authors, please.  We’re a very polite blog.) 

What do you think goes into making a great love scene, especially a First Time?  I'd love to hear--

Mary Jo

What's Not In A Name?

Edith here.

I just finished revisions on a new book! Yes! It's out next December: HIS CONVENIENT BRIDE, Avon books.

It's a good un'!!

And my very next book  - out this very May 27th - is: HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS!

I has such fun with that.

But I'm now working on a new proposal. 
That means I have to come up with a whole batch of new names. 
Naming characters in a book is just as hard as naming babies, and just as chancy.

I've recently been gifted with two new grandsons.
Hugo on the east coast, and Sebastian on the west coast.
Their parents agonized over what names to give them, and did not consult me.  Or if they did, then they ignored whatever I said, which I forget now anyway. 
Hugo and Sebastian.
But you'd  think they'd listen to a person who has written over 30 books, wouldn't you?
So some of the names I proposed were way too historical.  So what?
Wouldn't you want a son named Attila?  You could nick-name him "Hun." 
sigh. 
Nobody listens to mothers anymore.

But the point is that I am mother to all my characters, from dashing dukes to evil villains, though villains can be named most anything... except perhaps for Snidely McWhiplash, or something give-away like that.

The hero of my new book: HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS is Simon Atwood, Lord Granger.  And our heroine is Jane Chatham.  The villain is.... you'll have to see for yourself!

Now I have to name all new characters.  Add to that the fact that I hate to re-use names, and what you have is a problem. 

I have six "Name your Baby" books sitting on my desk even as I write this.  I firmly believe that a name helps shape the character, in fiction and in life.

For example, if I'd been named "Elizabeth" as my mother told me I might have been, I'm convinced I'd have had more fun.  I could have been "Liz" or Lizzie" or "Liza."   Then I would have been able to sing torch songs while sitting on pianos, or have been a madcap, dancing in the Plaza fountain at Midnight with a slew of adoring, handsome playboys cheering me on.  What a life I would have led!

Edith writes books.  She doesn't even dance in the shower.  Even her dog doesn't cheer her on.

So I name my characters carefully.

A hero named "Oscar"?  Or "Lester"?  Or "Bruce"???  Not to mention "Alan" or "Barry"?

Perfectly nice names in real life, but not names to dream about in a literary heart breaker.  Especially a Historical one.

"Hugo" or "Sebastian"?  Too creepy to write love scenes with the hero bearing your grandson's name!  Besides, I already used them, long before the babies arrived.

Charles Dickens was the king of names.  He kept a notebook in which he jotted down names which struck him as odd or unusual.  He was a master.  Think "Ebenezer Scrooge."  The very name for a miser.  It leaves the lips in a sneer when you say it.  Brilliant! 

Contemporary writers have an easier time, I think.  And though I'm not comparing myself to him, Dickens was, after all, a contemporary writer.

Historical heroes and heroines have to sound like they fit in their era.  I was shocked - I tell you shocked!  when I discovered that the Great Georgette Heyer had a character named "Tiffany"!  Who'd a thunk it?  My editor would have me committed if I tried to slip a "Tiffany" into a novel set in the Regency era.  But Georgette done it!

Rhett and Scarlett were perfect names.  And who was the weakling?  "Ashley."  Works.  But only for that one book because the characters are so indelible.  And I don't take names from other books.

Take inspiration from the movies? 
Our current heroes have good names, but not thrilling ones.  There's Johnny (as in Depp) and Robert (as in Downey, Jr.) and Jude (as in Law).... Wait  That's a great name!  But "Sir Jude"?  uh uh.
It would be hard to write about lord Viggo too, wouldn't it?

Old movies?  I can't have Historical heroes with the same names of once adored hunky movie heroes such as: Rudolf (as in Valentino) and Tyrone (as in Power) and Farley (as in Granger - though "Lord Granger" is neat for a hero's title, as in HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS.  Too bad that Lord Farley and Sir Tyrone wouldn't work.)   

Names in Historical novels come in trends, just as names do in real life.  Recently, masculine names in Historical Romances and films and TV were all: "Rock" and "Wolf" and "Spike"...  hard names to show this guy is one tough testosterone filled character. 

But the trend is slowing.  I guess all the best name got used up, leaving nothing but "Sledge" and "Hammer" and "Philip's Screwdriver" yet to be used.
(Oops!  Forgot "Mike Hammer!"  There goes another one.) 
Some hard guy names are still thriving in real life.  I note with interest that there's an adorable toddler in my grandson's nursery school named "Stone."   

Still, times they are a'changing.

It's different for females, even in this era of "spirited women" and "feisty" heroines.  They don't have to have names to show they're not pushovers anymore.   Sweet "Mary" and shy "Violet" can kick butt with the best of them. That's the whole point of feminism.

So now, here I sit, looking for plausible heroes with great macho, but not stupido, names.

Got any suggestions?

****THE WINNER OF THE AUTOGRAPHED Edith Layton book is: liz !

That's what the impartial judge picked. That name really must have something gonig for it!

Please contact me at elaytonfel [at] aol.com with a good snail mail addy and it will be posted ASAP. :)

A Makeover for Lady M

Susan Sarah here ... we've discussed covers before at Word Wenches, and I'd like to revisit the wonderful world of cover art, with a twist -- not to look at lots of lovely, lovely covers (and we Wenches have been collectively VERY fortunate in terms of cover karma!) -- but this time to toss around some ideas and to hear what you all think about cover art for mainstream historicals, rather than romance covers for now.

The trade paperback edition of LADY MACBETH will be out next spring, and the publisher is whipping up fresh back cover copy and choosing clips from the reviews and quotes for the book ... and they're discussing cover art. Instead of a "Mini-Me" version of the hardcover jacket art, the trade paper edition may get a whole new cover. They haven't decided about that yet, but the possibility seems strong. And they've asked me for ideas and input, so I've been thinking about it ....

  I have ideas and images to suggest to the art dept., but I'd love to hear what readers think. LADY MACBETH is a mainstream historical, falling within the range of fictionalized biography; these novels are primarily female-centric historical fiction, focusing on actual historical women. What sort of covers work best for these books? And in particular, what would suit the historical Lady Macbeth?

I am a sucker for a beautiful cover, whether original cover art or a fine art reproduction. I drool over color, design, composition, motif and theme, and I've sometimes purchased a book on the strength of a gorgeous or at least successful and fascinating cover. And I love the fine art covers often seen on mainstream female-centric historical fiction. The art historian in me (with thousands of artworks somehow still catalogued and computerized in my brain) loves wandering through bookstores looking at the virtual galleries of cover art displayed on front tables and racks.

Wenches Susan/Miranda and Edith have had gorgeous portrait and fine art covers for their mainstream novels (see sidebar), and Mary Jo has also had gorgeous covers for her hardcover fantasy historical romances. Susan/MIranda is lucky enough to have actual portraits of the main characters of her novels--not everyone has the advantage of cover art by Sir Peter Lely!

From the first, the art for LADY MACBETH posed a dilemma for the art department, with that early the 11th century setting. No contemporary portraits existed, and 11th century art, while beautiful in its own right, looks downright academic on a juicy novel, without the impact of a Waterhouse or a Rossetti, let alone a vibrant Lely portrait. So the landscape art for the hardcover jacket of LADY MACBETH was a wonderful solution -- evocative, exciting, and very striking. 

If we're not going to see the golden tones of the Lady Macbeth castle cover, what then? What sort of image might evoke my 11th century Lady Macbeth, and be marketable, interesting, striking cover art? Would a fine art image of a lovely, poignant or compelling anonymous woman, probably done in the 19th century, be right for this book? Some art depts. love to portray women with heads partly or completely missing (this especially suits some Tudors), but I don't think that's the look for Lady Macbeth. Considering the time period of my book, we could see a swatch of the Bayeux Tapestry, or a manuscript illumination. Or another Scottishy landscape or castle. Not sure those work either for the trade edition.

Secretly I long for a lush, painterly, romantic and gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite image, though that may not happen -- some publishers think that trend is winding down, and they're searching for new looks. ::sigh:: All the Waterhouses were taken by the time my book came out.

Have so many beautiful fine art images appeared on bookcovers by now that the fresh, breathtaking impact (though individually and indisputably gorgeous) is diluted? We see repetitions in fine art covers, no question. Partly this is due to the finite number of available and suitable images, and art departments looking at the same sources -- and the permissions of museums and collections can be expensive and may come with conditions that limit and influence what shows up on a cover.

What cover styles do you prefer for hardcover and trade historical female-centric fiction? (whew, that's a mouthful). Are you a fan of fine art portrayals of women for historical books, or are you over them and attracted by something more unexpected? Does a fine art cover signal to you what sort of read it is, and is that a good thing, or a tired thing?  Do you like landscape covers for their power to evoke a time and place, or do you find them a little distancing, and prefer the immediacy of a human image?

And the art dept. would love to know, and I would too -- what sorts of covers capture your interest as a reader looking for a good historical novel, and does it influence you to buy the book? Thanks for any and all suggestions!

Susan Sarah

Pub crawling, or sort of....

Hi, here's Jo, late for her day. No real excuse except forgetting what day of the week is what.

Things are still going well for A Lady's Secret. It'll be #10 on the NYT this Sunday, and it's also on the Publishers Weekly list for the third week. We threw a party last weekend chez Beverley, and someone sent a balloon, as exhibited by the Cabbage Patch Kids and other toys. (Also duly admiring the list in the paper, and Billy dazzled by reflected glory!)*G*

I've been having fun researching Doncaster for my next book. The main action starts in Sheffield, but before I knew it, they were off to Doncaster about which I know nothing other than that It's a racing town. (Growing up in England in a family that listens to the radio a lot, the young mind accumulates strange things. There's the daily weather report for the fishing trade, talking about places like Dogger Bank, and there's the regular reports from horse racing, including places like Thirsk (which was one setting in Secrets of the Night) and Doncaster.)

Doncaster was actually the setting for the first modern horse race, in England at least -- the Doncaster Cup, and then later for the much more famous St Leger.
All about the St Leger That was started by Major General St Legerwhose career is typical of the period of the Malloren novels, and the Marquess of Rockingham, who both surely knew Rothgar and the Countess of Arradale.

There's one of Rockingham's horses of the time.

Below, we have Rockingham in his peerage robes. Does it bother you or turn you on to think of Rothgar in a similar get up for a state event? Even the baddest-boy peer hero had to wear such outfits. I sometimes amuse myself with that image.*G* There are more period portraits here. Check out, too, the portrait of the Montague sisters, and the explanation of the bared shoulder. Portraits are so fascinating.

My wandering research trail thus led me to Rotherham, particularly connected to St. Leger the person, and a nice site with historical links. History of Rotheram which included a couple of enclosure acts in the early 1760s and some details of weekly wages in a variety of industries at the time.The wages page.

I wasn't so much interested in the lace making in Bedford or even the potteries in Rotheram, but the plating and cutlery in Sheffield was nice, even though the detailsl will probably not make it into Christian's book. How does Major Lord Grandiston end up in Sheffield and Doncaster? Thereby hangs a tale, to be called The Secret Wedding, but unavailable until next year, even to me, as I'm only about half way through.

Men earned 14s 6d, women 4s, and girls 3s The only reason I can see off the top of my head for there being no boys' wages there is that they were all apprentices, who wouldn't be paid in a regular manner. Such figures give context to the expenditures of the more highly born, but only to an extent, as there was a huge divide. A traveler might spend at least half of that man's weekly wage to stay one night at an inn if he has a carriage and horses.

But come to think of it, the price of a good hotel room today -- say $200? -- could be half  the weekly income of someone on the poverty line. Those 14/6 men, however, were prosperous skilled workers.

If you don't know, s is a shilling, and there were 20 to a pound. d is a penny (from the  Roman dinari, they say) and there were 12 to a shilling. And there were halfpennies and  farthings back then, too. (Farthing was a quarter of a penny.) Arithmetical problems about the price of apples were lots of fun when I was a child.

The same page also shows the price of mutton as a reference for the value of the wages, and it seems to have been about 2s a stone, I assume for the undressed carcass. (A stone is 14 lbs). Never know when it comes in useful!

In addition, I wanted to find out about the inns and pubs in Doncaster. First I found a good website about the modern state of affairs. Which now will not let me access it. I'll post the link later. That led me to fire off a query to the Doncaster Local Studies Library about which inns existed in 1764, which came through brilliantly, and then with maps from the period!

But, but, looking at the list I see this:

Black Bull - opened 1760, rebuilt 1920. Nice, as that's one I had down to mention.

AND: The Black Swan - opened 1730, no record of landlord in 1764, 1st landlord
mentioned John Webster in 1775

Those of you who've read A Lady's Secret will know that an inn called The Black Swan has some minor significance, even though that one is far away in the south.

It's the sort of detail that makes the writer's heart take a turn, for both good and bad reasons. It could be a gift, or a major disturbance in the storyline. If this was Ithorne's boo, I couldn't ignore an inn called The Black Swan if it was anywhere in his range. With Christian, I think I can. It would be a distraction. So it's a nice turn of the heart -- a little nod to alternate reality.

And it sent me looking for Black Swan Inns anywhere in the UK that were open in 1764.
I found this one. Can you find more?

Thank you, internet!

Jo

Your palazzo or mine?

From Loretta:      

In response to readers who encouraged me to discuss the settings and other background material of Your Scandalous Ways, today we're taking a house tour.

“Ah, Venice,” James said as he took in the view--such as it was--in front of and behind him.  The buildings and gondolas were merely darker shapes in the grey haze.  “A fine place, indeed, but for the damp.”

       I don’t know about the rest of you but I didn’t, really, know all that much about Venice before I embarked on Your Scandalous Ways.  Casino Royale inspired my British agent hero.  "Hmm,” I said to myself.  “What would 007 be like in the early 19th century?”  The film inspired my setting, too.  Those climactic scenes in Venice awakened my curiousity.
      I did not realize, for one thing, that Venice was built on a bunch of islands in a marshy lagoon.
       Originally, it was where people from the mainland fled when the barbarians attacked in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D.  It was a safe haven because the lagoon was very dangerous and tricky to navigate.  After a while, they quit going back to the mainland and started building.  How they built is the miracle of Venice.

       “All this, on top of water,” Sedgewick said, shaking his head as he looked about him.  “What sort of people is it, I wonder, goes and builds a city on stilts on a swampy lot of islands?”
       “Italians,” said James.  “There’s a reason they once ruled the world, and a reason Venice once ruled the seas.  You must at least give credit for a marvel of engineering.”

       Here's a view of the Grand Canal and some of the case (houses) or palazzi (palaces). You’ll find “ca” and “palazzo” used interchangeably.  Until the fall of the Republic (i.e., when Venice surrendered to Napoleon in 1797), only the Ducal Palace (that building to the right in the painting above this one) could be a palazzo.  All other houses, no matter how grand, were simply houses, case.  Afterward, the restriction went away.  And so the same house might be a “ca” in one book and a "palazzo" in another.
       These magnificent structures were indeed built on stilts packed close together.  From my Eyewitness Travel Guide to Venice & the Veneto:  “Pinewood piles were driven...25 feet...into the ground....They rested on the solid caranto (compressed clay) layer at the bottom of the lagoon.”  On top of these were laid layers of brick and stone.  The foundations were of Istrian marble, which resists damp.  This book has some wonderful cutaway illustrations that are well worth a thousand words.  But one need only look at the buildings and consider how much labor was involved--not to mention ingenuity--to appreciate the accomplishment.

     They followed Zeggio up a staircase to the piano nobile, and found themselves in a vast central hall.  This portego, as the Venetians called it, ran from one end of the house to the other.
      It was clearly designed for show.  The line of magnificent chandeliers down the center of the ceiling and rows of immense candelabra standing on tables along the wall--all dripping the famously magnificent glass work of Murano--would, when fully lit, have made a dazzling display of the gilt, the plaster ornamenting the walls, the sculpture, the paintings.

Here for your delectation are lots of pictures of Venetian palazzi.
       Getting pictures of the exteriors was easy.  Finding interiors was another matter--and for Your Scandalous Ways, it does matter, since many of the scenes are...um..intimate. Happily one of the Wench readers suggested Venetian Palazzi (ISBN 3-8228-7050-1--that's the English edition), which offers the proverbial visual feast. Copyright prevents my sharing those images with you, but there is some material online.
       Here's one of the many internet sites I perused in the course of my research.  This "Ceremonial Stair" in the Ca' Rezzonico is a fine example of the magnificent interiors.  This site provides a floor plan of the Ca’ Rezzonico, too.
       Virtually all Venetian palazzi have the same basic layout.  A great hall runs from the side of the house facing the canal to the side facing land, usually overlooking a courtyard.  The hall on the ground floor is the andron.  The one on the main public floor or piano nobile, is called the portego.  Rooms extend from either side of these central halls.  Some buildings have interior staircases and some have exterior ones.  Sometimes the building was extended to surround the courtyard.  Side rooms open into other side rooms.  But if you keep in mind that big central hall running from the front to the back of the house, and doors leading into rooms on both sides, you’ve got the general picture.
       This shows the floor plan of the Ca’ Mocenigo, where Lord Byron lived, and the picture is of the poet at his leisure in his humble abode.      
       You can picture my hero James Cordier in a room like this, though he’s more likely to be gazing out of a window at Francesca’s palazzo across the canal than lounging on a sofa.

That brings us to the end of today's tour.  Did you learn stuff?  Was it fun?  Want more?  About places in the book?  About other stuff--gondolas, Byron, characters, writing it, researching it...?  Ask, and some of ye shall receive.

And the Wiener is ... Elizabeth Kerri Mahon!

Drum roll, please!  We have a wiener:  Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, you have won an Advanced Readers Copy of The King's Favorite by Susan Holloway Scott!  Please contact Susan/Miranda or Sherrie Holmes with your mailing address and we'll get that in the mail to you.  Congratulations, Elizabeth!

Don't run away, now, folks!  Check out the next post, below.  It's chock full of announcements!

Wenches Rock!

Where to start?  Lots of good news on the Wench front.

Pat - Mystic Guardian
Pat's book cover is a finalist in the Cover Cafe annual book cover contest. The covers aren't up yet, but they plan to have the contest up and running by early May, so you should be able to view the finalists then. 

Jo - A Lady's Secret
Jo's book has moved up on the New York Times bestseller list and is now #10! Way to go, Jo! You better lay in a big supply of champagne. 

Loretta - Your Scandalous Ways
Loretta's book received a great review over at Publishers Weekly.  Well done, Loretta!

Mary Jo and Pat - Pioneers of Romance
Both Mary Jo and Pat attended the Romantic Times convention in Pittsburgh April 16-20 and each came away with a lovely award ("a big chunk of glass" according to Mary Jo!)  for being pioneers of romance.

Sneak Previews
Be sure to stop by on Sundays when we post announcements!  And just to give you a sneak preview, in May Jo will be interviewing a wines and spirits expert, which we'll announce in more detail next month.  In addition, Susan/Miranda will be doing a two-part interview of Loretta the end of May in connection with the release of Your Scandalous Ways. In June we're bringing back costume historian Kalen Hughes to talk about Georgian dress.

Book Reminder
Wenches have books coming out in the next few months.  In May, Mary Jo's A Distant Magic will be reprinted.  In June, two Wenches have books out:  Edith - His Dark and Dangerous Ways, and Loretta - Your Scandalous Ways. In July, two more Wenches have books out:  Pat - Mystic Rider, and Susan Holloway Scott - The King's Favorite.

So, we have some busy months coming up, and we don't want you to miss the fun.  Drop in early and often!

What's So Funny?

By Susan/Miranda

When Wench Pat recently asked the eternal question of “What Do We Really Want?”, one of the popular replies was a call for more humor.  I can understand this.  Who doesn’t want to laugh?  Yet a truly funny book is truly hard to find, and historical-funny is even more rare.

And boy, is it ever hard to write!

The hero’s best friend is killed at Waterloo, and it’s terribly tragic and sad, and everyone knows to feel that way.  The long-suffering couple finally weds, and readers share their joy.  Those are easy.  But humor is infinitely more subjective.  A scene that strikes one reader as uproariously funny seems irritatingly foolish to another.  Readers boards are filled with examples of this.  Either you get the joke, or you don’t, or maybe the joke wasn’t really there in the first place, anyway.

Historical humor is even more challenging, because much of what was rip-snorting good fun in the past –– ridiculing the handicapped, huge fake penises, anything with priests and nuns –– doesn’t exactly fly in polite company now.

Wit and wordplay hold up better on the printed page than broad slapstick, but even then there are plenty of pitfalls amongst the pratfalls.  Much humor is topical, or at least of its moment, and when the moment is past, so is the humor.  Anyone who’s labored through Shakespeare’s comedies understands this, though, to be fair, an Elizabethan audience would be left scratching their heads over an episode of Seinfeld.

Writing a funny historical character was my biggest challenge in The King’s Favorite, a historical novel set in Restoration London.  By all contemporary reports, Nell Gwyn (my real-life heroine) was uproariously funny, a class-clown personality that couldn’t resist making people laugh.  Born in a brothel, she had no education beyond “street smarts”, yet through the gift of quick wit, rose from selling oranges in the theatre to become a leading lady and, eventually, a royal mistress. As an actress, she was hugely popular playing “low” comedy: she was always cast as the sly servant with the best one-liners, the comedienne who knew how to get the most out of the earthy, physical humor of the time. 

The King adored her, in large part because she’d dare to do and say things to him in the guise of a joke that no one else at court could risk, not without a quick trip to the Tower.  Humor can be subversive that way, and Nell knew the power her wit gave her.  To many men, a funny woman is a dangerous woman.  She’s unpredictable, she has opinions, and she’s often quick to deflate male pride and vanities.  But other men find a funny woman a sexy woman, and Nell’s house was always filled with her many male side-kicks, including the Earl of Rochester and the Duke of Buckingham, who were both always ready to participate in her elaborate pranks and skits.

To Nell’s good fortune, Charles was also secure enough himself to relish a witty mistress. (Remember, this is the first English monarch to realize that women on the stage were not a sign of moral civilization's end, and finally permit actresses to play the roles written for women.) Though the official post of court jester was gone by 1670, Nell held it unofficially, and whenever things were grim and gloomy about the palace, the king would always turn to her to cheer him.  Even after he moved on to other mistresses, Nelly remained his friend and jester until his death.  Her audience from the theatre never forgot her, either.  Long after she "retired" from the stage to the palace, she was still cheered wherever she went, and when she died, her mourners filled not only the church, but the streets as well.

But how to write a funny heroine? One of Nell’s most famous roles was Mirida in a play called All Mistaken, or The Mad Couple, by James Howard. The humor comes from her suitor Pinguister’s enormous girth, and his inability to do much of anything with Mirida because of his obesity.  If the actor rolling around the stage in the “fat suit” as he tries to catch Mirida wasn’t enough, there’s also the scene where Pinguister is given an enema and a laxative, then locked in a vault with other hapless suitors, and with predictable results.  Oh, the hilarity! Oh, the [adolescent-boys-lavatory] wit!  Oh, how am I supposed to write THAT into a scene!

Of course, not all Restoration wit is like this –- much of it was, and remains, laugh-out-loud clever word-play –– but an awful lot hasn’t aged very well.  Or, as Wench Loretta noted when we were discussing this blog, “They drank a lot back then, didn’t they?”  Fortunately, there are a great many other examples of Nell's one-liners and general jesting that hold up better over time, and that I was able to incorporate into her character.  Virtuous heroines, sentimental heroines, noble, true-hearted heroines –– they're easy.  But a funny heroine's a real rarity, and I know how lucky I am to have found Nell Gwyn.

But what do you think of humor in historical fiction?  Do you enjoy funny characters or situations, or do you find the risk not worth the punchlines?  What’s your favorite historical with humor?

The jury’s still out on whether or not I was able to capture the fun and wit of Nell Gwyn until The King’s Favorite is released in July –– except for one of you lucky folk out there.  I’ll give away an Advanced Reader’s Copy of The King’s Favorite to a reader who posts to this blog before Saturday night.