From Star Well to Leadville

[rolanni]

After my brief, satisfying fling with Mr. Villiers, I picked up another book from the closest TBR pile -- an historical mystery hight Silver Lies, by Ann Parker; a first novel. It was reasonably reviewed by PW, and won a prize -- I'm thinking a Willa, but I may have that wrong. Anyhow, I was having a harder and harder time with it, and finally gave it up. And then, as is my not entirely pleasant habit, sat around trying to figure out what bothered me so much.

The story takes place in Leadville, a silver town high above Denver, circa 1880. The viewpoint character is Inez...Something, who owns a saloon. One of Inez' customers is murdered in the alley behind the saloon of a frigid Saturday night and not discovered until next morning. Clearly, Inez is about to Have Some Trouble.

I had no objection to the story as it was unfolding per se -- OK, I got aggravated with Inez for tampering with evidence, but I could have let that go if there had been Other Forces at Work. I did think that the work of getting all the characters on stage was a thought laborious, but, hey, first novel: stage-setting is hard.

No, what distressed me so much that I couldn't continue wasn't the world-building, or the story-so-far, it was the Actual Writing. Not that the sentences, taken on a sentence-by-sentence basis were badly written, or confusing. For the most part, they were clear and unambiguous; perfectly unexceptional sentences. On, as I say, the sentence level.

So, you're wondering, what was wrong, then, with the writing. I'm getting there.

...the problem with the writing is that it clashed with the scenery. The sentences, unexceptional as they were, were built of the wrong words. Words that tended to put distance between the character and the world they supposedly lived in. Details that they may have noticed, but expressed in terms...too modern for story-time. At one point, Our Viewpoint is walking down the street to church and describes the crowd as being "99% male." She's been living there awhile, she's probably beyond noticing the disparity between men and women particularly. But, even if she was noticing this Fact of Her Life anew, as we sometimes do, I doubt she would have expressed it as written. She might have pushed her way through a bearded and smelly crowd of men on their way to the saloons, the while trying to keep her skirts clean and her hat on her head. The author -- I had the eerie and not-altogether-happy feeling that the author had been afraid to get too close to her world; that she didn't want to get story-stuff all over her hands.

Mr. Panshin on the other hand, bathed in his world. The sentences are not only amusing of themselves, but every one of them serves the story, the tone, the character, the world-building. Perhaps I wouldn't have been so hard on Ms. Parker's effort if I hadn't just come from Villiers' table.

In all, a pity about Silver Lies. I have with me today Uncommon Arangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939, which will, I hope, go better.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You should try the book SANDMAN SLIM by Richard Kadrey. It didn't surprise me too much, but just enough.

~Lizah C

[saruby.livejournal.com]

Ah, the importance of voice. What a great lesson for aspiring writers. As a teacher this is one of the hardest things to teach, perhaps because it involves a level of experience and willingness to lose oneself in the writing that few children have. As a reader I know that I return again and again to those authors who demonstrate good command of voice and character development (which may also be a function of voice).

period fiction

[(Anonymous)]

I doubt that you were oversensitized. I have found, in general, that younger writers have absolutely no concept of the fact that the world was once Very Different. 99% indeed. No one even thought in those terms before the lies that are statistics started being used to manipulate the masses. And, just as I gave no thought to having no good career options open to me as a girl, women in those days gave no thought to their place (or non-) in society. With a few rare and excoriated exceptions.

And, speaking as a Coloradan, most authors have NO clue about the history or even current geography, society, or history. We are "picturesque". Gah. Once read a romance in which someone drove from Cortez to Boulder in 4 hours. I guess the map did not indicate a large (read-Rockies) mountain range in between. My disgust was overwhelming.
Ditto with horrible fakes of Heyer Regency novels.
May your arm improve!
Nanette

Re: period fiction

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

We here in Maine have the same problem with being picturesque and often annoyingly misrepresented in fiction. The scope of things is hard for people who don't live here to understand -- the miles of what city dwellers might call "nothing," the "town" mindset (which makes me, a transplant, Absolutely Crazy), the weather for pity's sake.

Regarding the fact that the world was once Very Different; fiction of course has to play to the audience. And today's audience won't swallow a true-to-life woman of the times who was following society's Plan for her.

A few years ago, eluki bes shahar, writing as Rosemary Edghill, wrote four, Regency romances (Turkish Delight, Two of a Kind, The Ill-Bred Bride, and Fleeting Fancy). They were quite good, and I recommend you read them if you can find them. That said...

The Ill-Bred Bride concerns a marriage of economy -- i.e. the nobleman needs money and agrees to marry the daughter of a wealthy merchant, obviously his social inferior, in order to take control of her considerable dowry. He then proceeds to dispose of the property she brought to the marriage as if it were his own, without taking advice from, nor even informing his wife -- even unto selling the house she grew up in.

When I was talking the book over with eluki, I mentioned that I would never (as the heroine eventually did) have forgiven the hero, and would have taught my children to hate him. A very modern approach, you see.

eluki's answer was that the husband had done nothing that wasn't perfectly within in his rights; that society, and custom, supported him, and so, naturally, did his wife, after an initial impulse to strangle him.

Fiction is a tightrope walk. . .

Re: period fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I definitely see your point, and eluki's. But I tend to agree with you, even in that society I suspect I could have held a grudge:)

Thank you so much for the new titles. I love Edghill/eluki's books, and did not know of these. I often drift down the tides of time and forget to go searching for old familiar authors, who have, in the meantime, created new delights. And I am on a tear of re-reading some favorite Heyer, so I am in the mood.

[elbales]

Yes... when I see the word "okay" in a story set in, say Medieval Europe or Victorian England, I stop reading. Because please.

Story goofs that ruin things.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a similar problem with some TV series shows. My favorite TV series has portrayed many episodes set closely around our nation's capital, which was initially swampland. But some episodes have inserted impossible scenery into the plot. Virtually all of 'Tidewater Virginia' is nearly as flat as the lower peninsula of Florida! Yet they have car accidents very close around DC that spill a car 30 to 50 ft down a natural but very VERY steep slope. You just CAN'T have such natural heavily wooded slopes so close to the beaches at Quantico Marine Base, as in one episode! Or most roads in the gently rolling flatlands of VA. The closest decent hills (never mind even ancient and well worn-down mountains) to downtown Washington DC are a good hour's drive away. Or more. Scenery in a story is one thing. But not if totally unrelated to the story's real world setting.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

"I had the eerie and not-altogether-happy feeling that the author had been afraid to get too close to her world; that she didn't want to get story-stuff all over her hands."

I love that. As a writer I delight in "story stuff" all over my hands - and I understand this comment of yours so well on so many levels.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I suspect this may be a failure of imagination as well as a disinclination to get messy story stuff over the author's hands. She couldn't show what she couldn't "see," so she had to tell, probably in the same words that she read while researching.

[(Anonymous)]

I really loved this post. I always like to know not only what kind of books authors I like like themselves, but I always want to know what they think of the technical aspects of the writing itself. Too often writers just produce their own material, read other works for inspiration/relaxation/whatever, but never explore the reasons that it works or doesn't work for others' edification.

"The writing clashed with the scenery." Love that line.

And, yes, I know exactly what you mean, about the author not wanting to get too close to her world. It makes you wonder why she started writing it in the first place, then, huh?

[(Anonymous)]

Even authors who should know better can make those kind of goofs.

An often misused term in medieval or sword fantasy is "fire" as an order to launch projectile weapons from bows, catapults, ballesta, etc.

A favored fantasy author, described the results of a mass launch of arrows by an archer formation "fired" against a mis-identified target, and couldn't resist use of the phrase "friendly fire isn't".

A friend recommended a particular author of Napoleonic nautical fiction, but that author lost me as a reader in his first chapter by 1) introducing his hero as an arrogant army officer transferred unwillingly to serve with the Royal Marines who wanted nothing more than to get back ashore (Odd, but could be accepted depending on future developments); 2) have the hero disregard all advice and orders from peers and seniors; 3) when ordered to take certain actions in the midst of a naval combat, he felt free to challenge the Captain to a duel, and 4) had said Captain do nothing but to backaway from our heel, saying "We'll discuss this later."

Brom

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my yes.

There are many many examples but the one that drives me crazy, Merlin TV show aside, is how some authors deal with royalty in their stories. In particular the speech patterns, having the nobility hang out with peasants or ask their loyal servant to call them by their first name, etc and so on.

I want to tie those authors to a chair and make them watch interviews with Prince Charles over and over.

Tricia

PS Fledgling turned up on Wednesday and has been read and most thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you very much.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I don't even try to read modern pastiches supposedly set long ago, for that reason. They never get the language quite right.

I did manage to digest Jill Paton Walsh's Wimsey pastiches, which luckily I read in the right order. Even so I barely got past, near the end of the WWII book, a desk cluttered with 'paperwork.'

word use pet peeves

[(Anonymous)]

The one I can't stomach is enthused, which I'm not certain is an acceptable written English word now, and certainly doesn't belong in a historical romance (or 20 of them). Although I got equally impatient with a forthcoming young adult novel in which the main character attempted to talk like she'd just stepped out a Jane Austen novel while living in present day New Jersey.

Kate the book-pusher

Re: word use pet peeves

[(Anonymous)]

You got me interested in the earliest uses of "enthused" as it wasn't a word that had ever troubled me before.

My trusty Oxford English Dictionary (online) describes "enthused" as originally American (US colloquialism/humorous) first appearing in print in 1827 as "enthuse". It is recorded in print many times since in American and British publications as "enthused", "enthusing" etc. There is no suggestion that the word is considered archaic. Possibly the term has been taken up in British English but has declined in American English.

I was intrigued to see that the Free Online Dictionary (American Heritage Dictionary) notes that the majority of members of the late 1960s Usage Panel seemed to object to "enthused" when put in a sentence, possibly as it was a back formation from enthusiasm. Even in 1997 the Panel majority disliked it.

However is it necessarily out of place in a C19th historical romance or even possibly a late C18th one? No doubt appearances in medieval-set dialogue should be frowned upon.

I often find myself caught on word variations that may be used by American writers but not by British writers eg coolth instead of cool or waked instead of woke. Local custom?

Cheers
Morag in London

[baobrien.livejournal.com]

It's also bad history and bad math. I have ancestors who lived in Leadville, so I immediately questioned the 99% male figure. Checking the 1880 census stats for Leadville, I find that the population was only 73% male (10,781 men - 4,039 women). This was very easily found in the government websites for that census...

There's a big difference between having one or 27 women in any crowd of 100 people. I suspect crowds of 100 were fairly rare at the time, too, since the whole population of Leadville in 1880 was only 14,820.

Anyway...