Finding The Words With Anya Richards & Giveaway!

Please welcome author Anya Richards! She came with multiple giveaways!

Multi-published author Anya Richards lives with her husband, youngest kid, a mutt, and two cats that plot world domination one food bowl at a time. The humans support her writing while the animals see her preoccupation as a goad.

Insatiably curious and irreverent, Anya loves history, music, the sea and a good rum punch. To learn more drop by Anya’s website or follow her on Twitter @AnyaRwrites.

Over to Anya now...

Finding the Words

I love writing historical romances and erotic romances. It’s an exercise in stretching my imagination and gives me the chance to indulge in an orgy of research to find the one obscure fact that gives the plot a sense of immediacy or just a little twist. With both history and sewing being passions of mine, it gives me another excuse to investigate eras long gone, delving into the fashions and mores of the time, reading books written in the timeframe (if possible), investigating the way people thought and behaved.

And yet…

Sometimes, oh sometimes the words are what trip me up. Or sometimes I have to make a considered choice whether to use an appropriate word or go for one that the reader will understand. The English language is filled with archaic words and turns of phrase—expressions no longer in use but that would have been understood, for example, in Victorian times, when my new novella Bellissima is set. And then there are words that didn’t exist back then but now are shorthand in our modern language for a specific thing or emotion or action.

There are lots and lots and lots of those.

So when writing stories set in a time long gone, sometimes the author is faced with the decision of going for authenticity vs. understandability. Or sometimes even whether a word will squick a reader out, and therefore shouldn’t be used. The one I came across when writing this story was that, in the mid-1800s, the forerunner to the indoor toilet was called the ‘close stool’ or ‘night stool’. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but neither of those sound particularly attractive to me. On top of which, if I’d used either expression I would then have to find some unobtrusive way to explain what exactly the object was, since the character whose point of view I was in wouldn’t give it a second thought. It was, in this particular context, simply another piece of furniture in a room.

So I made the decision, in this case, to use the word ‘commode’, which actually wouldn’t be used for a few decades after Bellissima takes place, to describe that particular object. Will I be called out on it? Probably. But that’s a chance I’m willing to take. For me, using that particular piece of shorthand is worth it, so as not to possibly pull a reader out of the story by over-explaining, making them go “Ugh!”, or sending them away from the story to Google the phrase.

Writing historicals is like writing in any other sub-genre of romance. You want to get it right, whether it’s the proper name for a piece of cowboy paraphernalia, the appropriate way for a waiter to serve at an ambassadorial function, or the right way to describe a play on the football field. Of course it’s easier if you’ve lived or worked on a ranch, move in ambassadorial circles, or played football. If not, it’s research, research, research. And even with lots of research, sometimes you can’t fool a real cowboy or girl, an ambassador’s daughter (or a food server), or a true football aficionado.

For historical authors it’s all about research, but there will, in my case anyway, always be people out there who know more than I do or are sticklers for complete authenticity, irrespective. Sometimes the wrong word seems oh, so right at the time, whether for flow, expediency or atmosphere. All I can do is hope they’ll forgive me any faux pas and enjoy the story anyway. After all, that’s the hope of all fiction writers, that their audience will get a little pleasure from their words…

Anya Richards latest release is...

Bellisima

Jane Rollins is anything but plain, but to keep her position as housekeeper to a wealthy family, she is content to hide her beauty behind a dull façade. This deception has become second-nature to her—until dance master Sergio Fontini waltzes into her life. 

While the other inhabitants of the house see him as a foreigner and beneath their notice, Jane sees strength, barely leashed power, and an aura of iron control—an irresistible, arousing combination.

Sergio sees through Jane’s disguise to the woman beneath, and the desires in her veiled gaze call to him like the utterly irresistible strains of a beautiful symphony. The circumstances couldn’t be worse, for seducing her will endanger both their livelihoods. 

Yet there are lessons he cannot resist teaching her, steps of a dance that crescendos to her final surrender…

Product Warnings

A deliciously seductive Italian unmasks a supposedly respectable Victorian woman and leads her into a lust-filled pas de deux.

Read Reviews

Buy Links

Samhain

Bellissima on Amazon Kindle

Enter this giveaway to WIN!

a Rafflecopter giveaway