Ooh La La!

Don’t think that romance novels are a new thing.

The first (known) examples were written during the English Renaissance by men to keep us chicky-poos in line, since we were beginning to learn how to read in noteworthy numbers.

So much for the age of enlightenment.

By the time 1740 came around, there had been some notable exceptions to that rule, but men were still having their wicked way with the genre, as evidenced by Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.

According to Wikipedia, Pamela “tells the story of a beautiful 15-year-old maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose country landowner master, Mr. B. makes unwanted advances towards her after the death of her mother. After attempting unsuccessfully to seduce and rape her, her virtue is eventually rewarded when he sincerely proposes an equitable marriage to her.”

By the way, she says yes.

Ugh!!! On so many levels, ugh!!!

I’d blame it on the times and the gender of the author except for two things:

1.      The “chicky-poos” just a few decades later were the kind of feisty I prefer in my friends today, which is demonstrated repeatedly in Joseph Plumb Martin’s autobiographical A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier. So much so, in fact, that it prompted modern-day editor Thomas Fleming to write that American women back then “were not the shy, fainting maidens that contemporary feminists like to imagine… The women of 1776 had imbibed quite a lot of the notions of equality that were widespread among their menfolk” (Martin, xiii), which sometimes showed in hysterically laudable ways.

a.       Seriously, these women rocked!

b.      Who knows though. Pamela was written in England by an Englishman. So maybe it was just American women who were so feisty.

2.      I once read a novel, presumably written in the 1990s, on the same basic subject as Pamela, though the heroine didn’t escape the bad guy’s “unwanted advances” and yet STILL ended up marrying the jerk of her own free will. It was supposed to be romantic. I, the reader, was supposed to be swooning over the supposedly happy union. Moreover, it was written by a woman.

Again, ugh!!! What the heck is wrong with people?

Fortunately, there’s no such nonsense in Designing America. Main-character Abigail Carpenter is way too smart for any such stupidity.

Cross that American woman, and she’ll just cross you back until you’re left marching down Hampton Road in Yorktown, Virginia, drunk, humiliated and thoroughly beaten.

A Lot Can Happen in Five Years and 10 Pages

I can’t remember the last time I had such a hard time editing an intro. But oh my word, Designing America is killing me!

In a strictly intellectual/creative sense, of course. I don’t mean to follow up last Wednesday’s thankfulness post by complaining about how difficult my life is. Let’s face it: If the worst thing I have to deal with is a challenging piece of fiction, then I’m doing pretty darn good.

I fully acknowledge that. I also fully acknowledge that there’s no good way to transition from how peachy I have it back to complaining, so I’m not going to bother.

Let’s just acknowledge that I’m being a whiny baby and move on…

The reason behind why I’m struggling so much with prettying up Designing America? It’s those dratted historical details I care so much about. Apparently the feeling isn’t reciprocal, since they seem bound and determined to make my editorial life a living nightmare.

I’ve already cut out entire paragraphs in the first 10 pages, even about details I really, really like. Yet there’s still so much backstory that needs to be addressed in order to set up the current tale.

After all, Maiden America took place at the very end of 1776, whereas its sequel happens five years later during the summer of 1781. A lot can happen in a five-year span and a lot did, both for the non-fiction America and the fictional Abigail Carpenter.

It’s not like I need to breakdown every single battle between the combatants and every conversation made about them. Otherwise, that would be a textbook, not a novel. Obviously.

Nonetheless, 1781 was an eventful year with a whole string of crazy coincidences and strange happenings that factored into the successful campaign at Yorktown, Virginia. So much so that my multiple sources repeatedly mentioned “providence” being at work.

These weren’t religious resources either. They were the kind of academic accounts that graduate students might refer to while compiling their doctoral theses. Yet these professionals were downright amazed at how many completely unpredictable pieces came together in just the right way and at just the right time to set up a game-changing victory.

All of which seems well worth mentioning.

So how do I tell it in a non-boring manner? That’s the $500 question I’m struggling with.

I’m sure I’ll come up with an answer.

Eventually.

Maybe right after I get a better attitude.