The month and next, I’m walking through my current WIP (work-in-progress), scene by scene, and then line by line and, ideally, word by word. The story is set in England in 1815, and I need to rein in my modern-English tendencies. “Felicitations” is OK (first used in 1628), but not “sugarcoat” (1858), though it is exactly right for the sentence it’s in. (and OK isn’t OK either—1839). And “on the dot” didn’t appear till 1909, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Why do this? Because it’s important to Regency readers (or a large percentage of them), and they’ll tell you when you’re wrong. Because it’s easy to check. Because I’m sure I’m making dozens (hundreds?) of other time-and-place errors I don’t even know I should be “looking up” (1936), and I’m trying to buy some forgiveness for those.
Of course I can’t write exactly as those in the Regency did and expect to sell. Jane Austen still holds appeal, but most modern readers want more plot, much more plain speaking and far more sex (or “sensuality”-1340) than Jane offered, or than Georgette Heyer did in the last century. They do want the flavor, though, and the great stories that could only be told at this sort of time, when mores were rapidly changing yet people who did not follow Society’s rules could still be “ruined” (1660).
I have completed two stories set in modern times, but my best story ideas so far are set in the way-back. My latest contemporary WIP deals with high finance, IPOs and venture capitalists, not the most heroic topics at the moment, so it’s going on the back burner. Meanwhile, I just came up with another story idea that could “go great guns” (1408) in the Regency. It’s too bad I preferred literature to history in college—it would have given me a real “leg up” (1837)—but at least I know how to create my own independent “study hall” (1891).
Writing meter: In past three weeks, 23 hours finishing contemporary revise (now shelved for a month); 10 hours on historical polishing (= one-fifth of the MS pages, but these were the most-polished ones already). Aiming to finish historical revise by the end of April.
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