Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Historical vs. "Historical"

I wasn't as productive with the book tonight as I would have liked. I spent far too much time playing around on Wikipedia, abandoning my recent tactic of putting [CHECK] after any dubious or uncertain historical fact while writing the first draft. This tactic is a good one, since it encourages me to stay out of the interweb and away from doing a 'quick' lookup that leads into a three-hour journey down a variety of rabbit-holes. But I was debating whether to give Ferguson a fan, since the most over-the-top dandies seem to have some sort of ridiculous affectation, and that led to a lot of reading up on fashion websites.

The problem is that there is real history, in terms of contemporary accounts, well-researched nonfiction, etc. And then there is 'romance history' -- the world that Regency romance has built up over several decades, with 'rules' and 'facts' that are now accepted as the gold standard by most readers, but that just aren't very historically accurate. For instance, the waltz -- it wasn't danced at all in the early Regency, was still seen as very risque during the mid-Regency, and only came into wider acceptance in 1815 or 1816 (or later, depending on your source). But every Regency romance has the hero and heroine waltzing with each other, because the other dances of the time were more group-style (think country line-dancing, only without the boots, plaid, and awful music), and group dances where the hero and heroine are only together for bits and pieces aren't conducive to flirty conversations.

So now I have a dilemma on my hands. Do I write a romance that is as grounded in fact as possible, even if that means doing away with conventions that are accepted (and even expected) by most readers? Or do I ignore some of this and accept that these romances aren't historically accurate anyway, and just write stories that are fun and engaging? What do you prefer to read?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe that most readers will come to expect the industry standard, therefore don't be a radical be a bestseller...and mimic what is "in" and do it well!

Sara Ramsey said...

@Anonymous: Hopefully I'll do more than just 'mimic,' but I agree with you :)