Y is for...? by Annie Burrows

On the first Friday of every month, Novelista Annie Burrows has been sharing a very personal view of what it is like to be a writer. And is dealing with themes in alphabetical order. This month, she's reached Y which is for...

OK, I have to confess that I resorted to going through the dictionary to find a word that began with Y, round which to write this month's blog. I could have cheated, and gone with "Why" which would have given me a lot of leeway. But I didn't want to do that.

Anyway, there aren't that many words in the dictionary beginning with Y, so I knew it wouldn't take me long to read through them.

Thankfully, it took only a few seconds to discover this little gem: Yesteryear which is a poetical or archaic form for "a time in the past". Which seemed appropriate, as that is where I set my stories.

I've always had a fascination for yesteryear. It started when I was a little girl, with family trips to various stately homes. When we got home, my sister and I would dress up as ladies of the manor, and romp round the garden on imaginary horses - or, if it was wet, we'd draw plans of our ideal stately home, complete with dungeons, secret passages, and of course, massive libraries.

I started reading historical romances at school, although I didn't know it then. I thought I was studying Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy. I still thought I was studying English literature at University, without realizing that reading all those stories, written in the past, had given me a love of reading about people from the past. After I left university, I didn't want to keep on studying great literature, but I did still find myself gravitating towards stories set in the past.

At first, I devoured books by writers such as Norah Lofts. I absolutely loved the way she took us into the lives of relatively ordinary people and brought an era to life. And then carried that story to the next generation.

Then I discovered Georgette Heyer, and learned that historical stories didn't need to be dark and melodramatic, they could be amusing romps.

And then, much later, when I was doing a writing course and I began to research the market, I discovered the "Masquerade" line produced by Mills & Boon. And I fell in love with historical romance - as a reader and as a writer. These were the kind of stories that were already forming in my imagination - where simple country misses won the heart of an apparently cold, aloof, brooding aristocrat. Or survived kidnap by pirates, or ran away from evil guardians disguised as boys, and generally discovered they were far stronger and braver than they'd been given credit for.

So I began to write stories set primarily in the Regency era. Why Regency? Because there was an established market for that type of story, and because I thought I knew most about that era, having read so many others set in that time. Stories, I feel, should provide an escape from real life. And the Regency is a great place for many of us to escape to, since it is far enough away from Nowadays to feel suitably exotic, but familiar enough so that we don't feel all adrift when we get there.

The only trouble is, once I began to write Regency romance, in earnest, I began to discover just how little I knew. When I sent my first heroine on a journey to find her long-lost brother in Spain, for example, I had no idea what route she might take, or how she'd get back to England once he died, either. I didn't know a thing about troop movements in the Peninsula, or how wounded soldiers were looked after, or what happened to their effects once they'd died. What was worse, it was extremely difficult to find out. I would go to the library for a book on a specific topic, and read lots and lots of them without finding out the one thing I wanted to learn. (Although I picked up a lot of other interesting facts instead). The only way round it, at that time, was to plough on, and hope for the best. Anything I didn't know, I skirted round, but even so, I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes.

Fortunately, Nowadays, I have access to the internet. If I want to know how long it would take to travel by stagecoach from Yorkshire to London, I can probably find out within a matter of minutes. And what coaching inns my characters would be likely to have changed their horses, too.

Annie's latest book is a sort of road trip, through a section of fictional Regency countryside, since she is still wary of sending any of her heroes to a coaching inn in a real town which didn't exist in Real Life. However, the heroine does discover she can survive no matter what the villains try to do, and impresses the hero with not only her bravery and ingenuity, but also her singing voice.

You can find it at Amazon, and Mills & Boon

Annie's A - Z of writing...C is for Characters by Annie Burrows

Each month, Novelista Annie Burrows shares insights into her writing life.  In a sort of alphabetical order.  This month the letter C, which is for...Characters.

Not long ago I joined a reading group.  Quite a literary one.  I was hoping to stretch my mind a little, by reading more challenging books than I'd normally choose.  But what I've gained from attending has been so much more.  Discussing books with others has reminded me what readers are looking for in a book.

Time and time again, it hasn't been the cleverness of the prose, or originality of the plots, or evocative descriptive passages that have sparked off the most heated discussions.  No - it's been the likeability of the characters.  No matter how well written a book, if we don't find something about the main characters to like, we won't give the book a high mark.  But we think of the whole book with fondness if we connect with the main characters.

 

This is one of the reasons Jane Austen's books have prompted so many people to write sequels, or spin-offs.  Her characters are so well-drawn that they not only come to life on the page, but often take on a life of their own.  A lot of us want to know what happens after Lizzie and Mr Darcy get married, and will gladly read books, or watch films where they go on expeditions to Egypt, solve murders, or even fight zombies.

Oh, I want to create characters like that!  Characters that step right off the page and take on a life of their own.  Long ago, I realized that I don't have a gift for writing descriptive passages, or thinking up cleverly twisty plots with a surprise at the end.  but anyway, I would rather my readers empathize so deeply with my heroines that they will laugh with them, weep with them, and fall a little bit in love with the heroes who stride manfully into their life and make their hearts flutter.

So I spend ages reading books on psychology, problem pages in the backs of women's magazines (because aren't a lot of the problems in them caused by partners?) and life stories of people who lived during the Regency era, to learn how they would have treated the problems life threw at them.

I also read other writer's tips on how to create characters that will come to life in a reader's imagination.  Just this week, I've discovered fellow Harlequin writer Annie West's website, on which she gives some very useful advice about creating heroes.  All of which could apply to Mr Darcy.

Annie's next book, "Lord Havelock's List" comes out in September2014 .  The hero is sadly nothing like Mr Darcy, but Annie hopes you will fall a little bit in love with him anyway.