Techniques and Tidbits to help in writing
By Diane Perkins (who also writes as Diane Gaston for Mills & Boon)
For all authors research is essential, but this is especially true for historical authors. The idea of doing research frightened me at first, but now it is one of the things I love about writing in the regency period. I love the challenge of bringing a time period alive through words.
Though I aspire to make my books as accurate as possible in regency detail, I am sure I make mistakes. When I began to write Regency Historicals, I also began buying books about the regency period, including some antique books: 1810 to 1820 of the Annual Register, an almanac style of book; and (my real coup) the entire 1815 edition of La Belle Assemblee, a ladies magazine. I could get lost in all these books, but early on I received a great bit of advice from Mary Jo Putney, who said to just research what you need as you go along. So that is what I do! Of course that means pulling out book after book and scattering them around me until I find some obscure detail, like whether they had mausoleums in the regency period.
Another pitfall for historical authors are anachronisms, those pesky words and phrases that didn't exist in regency times. Regency heroines don't suffer from ego-trips, for example, but they might experience a megrim (migraine). I found an 1815 dictionary on ebay and if I find the word in there, I'm sure it existed for my characters.
If all else fails I turn to a group of experts who are always willing to share what they know. The Beau Monde is Romance Writers of America chapter for regency writers and its members are never at a loss to answer an historical question.
I also wanted my characters to sound as if they really live in regency times. To develop what we writers would call a "regency voice," I immersed myself in audiotapes. I listened to all of Jane Austen's works and as many as my library provided of Georgette Heyer. Heyer did not live in regency times, but from the 30's to the 60's she wrote the novels that spawned the whole Regency genre. Heyer was a master with language.
I also listened to other historical writers writing about the same time time period, including Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series. The voice of William Gaminara made me fall in love with Sharpe even more than Sean Bean's TV character. This listening helped me absorb the rhythms as well as the words of regency language. But only the readers can tell me if I've succeeded in giving them an escape into England in the early 1800's when Austen and Byron and Wellington and Beau Brummell lived. Have I, readers?
Tell Diane if she's succeeded by sending her an email at dperkinsmail@aol.com