Historical Romance or Historical Novel?

Contemplating sending my wip QUEEN'S COURIER off to agents, I have been thinking about how to introduce it. There is a range of books set in a historical period that are easily recognised and acknowledged by all, but it is the section in the middle where things blend.

On the far left we have category romance, where the romance is the only thing the author and the reader, presumably, is interested in. Category romance specifically does not want sub-plots and sub-characters running off and doing interesting things, taking interest away from the hero and heroine. The author must focus on the couple in question. These days, interest does not stop at the bedroom door. More and more blow-by-blow encounters are detailed inside the bedroom - or the equivalent.

The other extreme is of course the literary end. These books are often three and four times longer and detail all sorts of other things beside the central romance - if there is one. C J Sansom manages to write almost 450 pages without a central romance featuring at all and I love his books. Cornwell's Sharpe has a few stabs at romance but there is so much more about daring-do, war and skullduggery. Writers like Forester, Clements, Winston Graham, Mitchell and Gabaldon set their characters in a particular time period and then weave them into the history.  Writers like Parris and Clements centre on a murder mystery.

This where the lines blur. Readers will put authors  in differing places on the line. Some will say Gabaldon is literary because she has great swathes about the American War of Independence in her Outlander series. So did Mitchell in Gone with the Wind, but in both those books, the central theme is the love affair between Claire and Jamie, and Scarlett and Rhett. We could be very analytical about it and put every title on a sliding scale of romance v literary-ness, but who has the time? Certainly not me! It is a task for each reader according to their personal taste, should they chose to do it.

The other thing that affects the argument is the male-female reading bias. In general terms, though not everyone fits into these divisions, men like action, and women like romance. Men like tighter writing, women want feelings explained. Men's reviews still  seem to have more kudos than those written by women. Men, of course, review the Sansom, Forester, Cornwell "serious" type of historical novel. Perhaps they write better reviews? I don't think I've seen this type of historical novel reviewed by a woman, but they must be, surely? If not, they ought to be.

Perhaps Byron had the answer when he said "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart; it is a woman's whole existence." Follow that through and you have an answer to the basic question, though you may not like it.

As it happens I've got the rights back for a book I placed with MuseItUp Publising and have begun editing it prior to publishing on Kindle. I always thought it was priced a little too high with Muse,and that it would sell better if I "Kindled" it. I began last night, and right away I can see the difference in style - Reluctance, soon to be known as THE GYBFORD AFFAIR, is definitely historical romance. THE QUEEN'S COURIER is more about the times and how they affect people's lives. So, I have my answer.

Historical romance versus historical novels

Nicola Cornick has recently written an interesting blog piece about historical romance versus historical novels.
(http://nicolacornick.co.uk/blog/2015/03/when-is-historical-romance-not-historical-romance/)

Her lovely blog stimulated me to sort out my views on the subject.
I think both extreme ends of the range of books set in a historical period are easily recognised and acknowledged by all, but it is the section in the middle where controversy rages.

On the far left we have category romance, where the romance is the only thing the author and the reader, presumably, is interested in. Category romance specifically does not want sub-plots and sub-characters running off and doing interesting things, taking interest away from the hero and heroine. The author must focus on the couple in question. These days, interest does not stop at the bedroom door. More and more blow-by-blow encounters are detailed inside the bedroom - or the equivalent. It must be an age thing, but four and five pages of these encounters often have me skipping over them. But I digress. My taste in sex scenes may be a little less graphic, but that isn't what the post is about.

The other extreme is of course the literary end. These books are often three and four times longer and detail all sorts of other things beside the central romance - if there is one. C J Sansom manages to write almost 450 pages without a central romance featuring at all and I love his books. Cornwell's Sharpe has a few stabs at romance but there is so much more about daring-do, war and skullduggery. Writers like Forester, Clements, Winston Graham, Mitchell, Gabaldon and Parrish follow a similar pattern as we head towards the more middle of the range works.

This where the lines blur. Readers will put authors  in differing places on the line. Some will say Gabaldon is literary because she has great swathes about the American War of Independence in her Outlander series. So did Mitchell in Gone with the Wind, but in both those books, the central theme is the love affair between Claire and Jamie, and Scarlett and Rhett. We could be very analytical about it and put every title on a sliding scale of romance v literary-ness, but who has the time? Certainly not me! It is a task for each reader according to their personal taste, should they chose to do it.

The other thing that affects the argument is the male-female reading bias. In general terms, though not everyone fits into these divisions, men like action, women like romance. Men like tighter writing, women want feelings explained. Men's reviews still  seem to have more kudos than those written by women. Men, of course, review the Sansom, Forester, Cornwell "serious" type of historical novel. Perhaps they write better reviews? I don't think I've seen this type of historical novel reviewed by a woman, but they must, surely? If not, they ought to.

PS ~ Perhaps Byron had the answer when he said "Man's love is of man's life a part; it is a woman's whole existence." Follow that through and you have an answer to the basic question, though you may not like it.

50 Shades v Outlander

Interesting to compare the reception of  two different shows that share a major component. The first is 50 Shades of Grey, and the second is Outlander. The major component, if you haven't guessed, is sex. The first few episodes of Outlander aired recently, and the next few are scheduled to begin soon. 50 Shades went on general release yesterday.

I think I'm right in claiming that the E L James has sold 100 million copies in the 50 Shades trilogy and Gabaldon 20 million over seven or eight books. Even if the figures are slightly different, it is easy to see which is the most popular. Why then all the brickbats and bashing for 50 Shades and fewer complaints about Outlander?

The biggest complaint about 50 Shades is that it offers and even recommends abuse of women. I don't think this is true. I read the first book and the heroine actually signs a contract to say that she is a willing participant in the relationship which leads her into the pleasures of bondage. At any time she can withdraw, but chooses to stay. The complainers say this leads men of a different type to try and do the same without the willing consent of their partners. We night as well say that crime stories lead people to loot, steal, rob and commit murder, They complain that Grey is a handsome billionaire who makes everything seem romantic. Well, naturally; this is fiction, after all. It wouldn't work if he was a tramp and lived in a dustbin.

Outlander on the other hand, has a story about a modern women stranded in 1745. More imaginative, but even more outlandish, you might say, than the set up of 50 Shades. Claire, the heroine, sees and filters everything through the eyes of someone used to the life of a 1940s woman, It is possible that Claire is more independent than women actually were in the 1940s despite their necessary work during the war years. Claire, I often feel, is as modern and independent as the author, born in 1952 and 39 when she published the first Outlander novel.

There is a good deal of sex in the novels. Claire is threatened with rape so many times in the first few episodes of the Starz production that I lost count, but I think they were present in the book too. It is so long since I read the first one that my memory of it is hazy on certain points..Then comes her relationship with Jamie. The film episode where they marry is devoted to their lovemaking to the exclusion of almost everything else. The difference is, in this production/story, Jamie is a virgin and Claire is the one with sexual experience. I remember thinking how great that Gabaldon had turned the usual man-in-charge-thing on its head in the novel, and cheered. I also noted how many women worked on the Starz production team alongside Gabaldon. I think what we have on film  is a woman's perception of making love.

That is also what we have with Anastasia in 50 Shades. We share her perceptions, not his. The only difference is that in 50 Shades, he is the controller and she the novice, In Outlander, Claire is in control or at least an equal partner in the later novels. And I think that is what makes the difference, why so many women complain about 50 Shades.

Gabaldon and Jamie's charm

My attention has turned to Gabaldon's Written in My Own Heart's Blood now. It was published in 2014 but the waiting list was long at my library and I don't care for the these later novels enough to pay the high price they demand. So I waited, and lo! patience is rewarded.

I remembered that Jamie was thought to be dead at the end of the last book, and that Claire had married Lord John. Then the news came through that Jamie wasn't dead and the book ended. Well, this one starts by trying to kid people that Jamie is still dead. I'm 85 pages in, and Jamie and Claire still haven't re-united. Now some people might argue that this is artful suspense; others might claim this is sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of the author. Keep 'em in suspenders as long as you can!

There will hundreds of fans out there who have no problem with the complex relationships that pepper the series. After so long away, I'm having a hard time fixing who everyone is. The members of the family Fraser aren't so bad; it's the hangers on like Dottie and Rachel who give me problems. Plus which there are new characters no reader will ever have met before. And I see we're still fixed in the American war in 1778. Duh. (I wonder why Americans  like English history so much? I have absolutely no feeling for the American wars of Independence and I assume that unless there are English forebears involved, Americans would feel the same way about English history. But out of the 240 million or whatever the US population is now, only a small percentage will have English roots.)

Gabaldon writes with such detail. Every thought, every wriggle of an eyebrow is recorded. No wonder each book reaches 800 plus pages. Growing bored with it last night I flicked ahead to see what else might be in store and noted two gruesome operations and a time shift section. There are also places where Jamie tells Claire very prettily how much he loves her, and I suspect this is where Jamie's charm lies. Every woman dreams her man will say these things to her!

On the other hand, the writing has a strange page-turning quality I find hard to define. It isn't literary, like Mantel., and not lyrical like Chadwick. Nor is it attention grabbing like Gregory. It is chatty in style, almost as if she were speaking direct to the reader. There is wit in the dialogue, beauty in the description, sound common sense and philosophy mixed. There is also the banal and the commonplace and it does go on at great length, At times I long for the story to move forward. Why haven't Claire and Jamie met yet? I might skip ahead.....

Outlander - first thoughts

Anyone who has read the Gabaldon novels will no doubt be eagerly awaiting the tv series. 16 episodes for the first novel as far as I'm aware, which should be more than enough time. The critics seems to like it -
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5980011/outlander-review-starz-diana-gabaldon-ron-moore - and from the snippets I've seen, it looks engaging. The pic above is from the website listed and from the Starz press-kit.

One thing puzzles me. Claire's narration is done in a lovely English voice, and the  dialogue is also English. But part-way though the section I saw, she suddenly breaks into American swearing. Jesus H Roosevelt Christ may be Gabaldon's choice of swearword for Claire, but I doubt it would ever be on the lips of a typical English of 1945. Same for "godamm." It just isn't English. So then I got to thinking was the character Claire English or not? 

It's a long time since I read the novels for the first time, but I did re-read Crosstitch (re-named Outlander now) not so very long ago. Somewhere along the line, Claire has metamorphosed into being American in my mind. It isn't something I've ever thought about until now, but there must be something in Gabaldon's depiction of Claire that has drip-fed my understanding that she isn't English, but American.

Which in turn is interesting for all writers. Can we really put ourselves in the skin of another character, particularly when they are from a different country? No matter how hard we try to get it right, something might give us away. Some little thing like curse words, for example.