Readers of historical romance choose it over contemporary romance for a variety of reasons: because it takes them away to a time and place when life was different…because it teaches them about their heritage or past…because it brings history alive. Whatever their reason, they want a certain amount of history in their books. But how can an author provide it without either boring them silly or turning the book into a costume drama with no sense of history or place? Here are my suggestions:

Dialogue

• Use terms with a historical flavor. For example, have your medieval heroine call the hero a "scurrilous beast" rather than a "bastard." Some reference sources for authentic expletives, colloquialisms, etc., include:
  
  
  • Plays and novels from the period
  • Diaries from the period
  • Histories of slang. My favorites are Richard Spears' Slang and Euphemism and Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, an actual dictionary from the Regency period, also available online.
  • Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary give the date when a word was first used in a particular context and sometimes the country it's native to. Use terminology or slang correct for the period and setting. No one in Restoration England would call a doctor a "sawbones," for example.
• Use authentic dialogue with care, however. Don't use anything too peculiar or unfamiliar unless it's important to the story. Think of historical words as seasoning that mustn't overpower the dish. For example, "He uses sparkish words" meant "He uses the latest slang" in the late 17th century, but that wouldn't easily be clear from context, so avoid it. "He's a coxcomb," however, could easily be made clear from the context.
• Balance the need for authentic language with the need for clarity. This simply takes practice.
• Even in narrative, avoid obvious modern idioms. "Ian decided to blow off his appointment with his friend," won't work in a historical.
• Vary the dialogue to distinguish characters. Even little things work. In The Forbidden Lord, the coachman and butler call Jordan "milord," while Emily uses "my lord." I could also have had one of them use "m'lord." They sound the same, but look different to the eye. Jordan always calls Emily by the endearment "darling" while Lady Dundee always calls Emily "my dear." Jordan uses the curse word "deuced," but Ian generally says, "bloody hell." Both are very English-sounding curses. Lord Nesfield never uses contractions. Or your character can speak in short sentences or be ungrammatical or use a lot of foreign phrases, etc.

Historical Detail

• Research your setting in sources of info about everyday life:
  
  
  • Plays, novels, and diaries from the period will give you ideas. Don’t overlook academic analyses. I used an academic book on Welsh convict women extensively for The Pirate Lord.
  • Any social history (not regular histories that focus on political events). Look in the library under Social History.
  • The series of books called Every One a Witness (excerpts from documents of the period on every subject)
  • Books on specific subjects such as Food in History, The English House, etc.
  • Internet sites. Be careful, however, because not all sites are equal. Make sure the site is reliable and document its facts.
• Use specifics. Instead of "he drank from her cup," say "he drank from her goblet" (or "wooden bowl" or "chalice"—each depicts a different setting and period).
• Don't overwhelm the reader. Integrate the bits of setting fully into the scene.You can reveal a lot simply by using specific details. No one wants to read whole paragraphs explaining how life was lived (we call them "information dumps"). We read fiction for the drama—the history should be part of the drama. Even in situations where you have to give a chunk of info, make the narrative drive forward be the most important aspect of the scene.
• Writing good historical romance means balancing between historical accuracy and good romantic fantasy. For example, do you really want historical accuracy if it means describing the hero as stinking all the time (they wore no deodorant then and didn't bathe as often as we did)?
• Include unsavory details of the period if you want, but remember that you risk ruining the fantasy for your reader if the period is too real.

Point of View

• Consider a character's station in life, his or her wealth, physical environment, and family background as well as the novel's time period when developing point of view.
• Keep your characters' mores as historically accurate as you can, but do remember you're writing a fantasy. We want the flavor of the period, not the actual period, or we'd be reading Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte and Fanny Burney for our historical romance instead of Judith McNaught and Mary Balogh and Julia Quinn.
• Remember that the past isn't as clearcut as we like to think. A successful female doctor in the Regency might be hard to swallow, but a female who wants to be a doctor isn't as much of a stretch. There were women who actually dressed as men in earlier periods precisely so they could be doctors.

Some No-No's

• Long descriptions of historical events without the commenting presence of a major character.
• Major characters so true to their times that we can't relate, such as completely subservient heroines or heroes who think women are brainless
• Dialogue so cluttered with "thees" and "thous" and "dosts" that it slows the pace (although a few authors can pull this off).
• Information dumps—lengthy explanations of life in a particular period (e.g. three pages describing house-cleaning in medieval times) that don't further plot, character, or conflict.
• Historical personages so interesting and dynamic they outshine the hero and heroine.
• Conflicts between the hero and heroine in which the historical clash is the only clash, i.e. he's a Yankee and she's a Southerner. Personal conflicts are more effective because readers don't relate to those political issues the same way our characters do. Readers tend to evaluate characters in modern terms.

© 2005 Sabrina Jeffries