[AU fic snippet] The Summer-Book [SB/VM] PG

[a-chromatic.livejournal.com]

Hey, everybody.

I've been tossing around an idea for a Regency England AU fic for a few days now, and have just started scribbling something down. But before I go further, I wanted to collect some opinions on the style. I've tried to copy some of the 18th/19th century diction (thank you, Fielding and Austen) in order to convey some of the atmosphere, but I'm not sure how it's working out, and if it's too stodgy and unreadable, I'll just rewrite it. Right now, the major modification to has been using given names for men, instead of the typical address by surname, or "Mr. So and so." It was just too weird, writing "Bean" constantly.

Any/all thoughts on the subject are appreciated.

Title The Summer-Book
By: Isern
Pairing: You know full well ;)
Rating/Warnings: PG, pretty mild stuff. So far.
Archive: Let's wait to see if this gets off the ground.
Disclaimers: Fic reality is not Earth reality. This never happened.
Advertisements: Regency England AU, mysterious! and landed-gentry!Sean, haunted abbeys (so far)

Reader, so that you may fully comprehend the portrait of such a man, allow me to sketch it for you...

Comments

[dalehead.livejournal.com]

Great so far! But may I make a suggestion, if you really wanna do a bit of research (and in my opinion if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well, hence my mammoth read of First World War stuff for a fic I've started) you could take a gander at some of Georgette Heyer's historical romances. Before you squick, she is acknowledged as a writer who researched her stuff very carefully and there you'll find lots of slang, bits of etiquette and apart from all that a rollicking good read. Sometimes the first couple of chapters seem to be hard work but then they take off and you're flying! Frederica, Venetia, Cotlillion are light and An Infamous Army, set around Waterloo is positively heartbreaking. If you've seen Sharpe's Waterloo, is really weird to see the same events, ie the Duchess of Richmond's Ball through another writer's eyes. Sorry I've gone on a bit but you did ask!

[a-chromatic.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the rec! Unfortunately, my university library doesn't have any of her stuff (stupid crappy library anyway), and neither does our pathetic excuse for a Barnes & Noble. However, there are a few used bookshops I can haunt :)

And if all else fails, my English degree will magically transport everything I needed to know about Regency literature into my brain. (Actually, I do have most of Austen's work, and an inordinate amount of Gothic literature, but I've found most of my research has been taking me in the direction of 18th/19th-century attitudes toward homosexuality. Eek. This is getting serious.)

[dalehead.livejournal.com]

Depending on how much of a hurry you're in, I can probably scare up a couple for you - they're always in second hand book shops and charity shops here. Mind you, www.abebooks.com are worth a look as well. If you get stuck and aren't in a desperate rush, leave me a note on my lj and we'll work something out.

[schiannath.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

I particularly enjoyed this, and thought it walked the line between Classical and Romanticist fiction very nicely. The general pacing and sentence structure reminds me very much of Austen's work, and some of the gently mocking commentary on the villagers is very reminiscent of Austen's parody of the Romanticist novel and conventions in Northanger Abbey.

There were a couple of places where the 'period' feel faltered a little, but on the whole it was so engaging that I barely noticed it.

Thankyou and please continue!

(Hope this was helpful!)

[a-chromatic.livejournal.com]

The general pacing and sentence structure reminds me very much of Austen's work, and some of the gently mocking commentary on the villagers is very reminiscent of Austen's parody of the Romanticist novel and conventions in Northanger Abbey.

Thank you! Austen has definitely been my model in this, and the opening does owe a lot to Northanger Abbey's satire on the Gothic genre (mostly because I just finished reading it a week or so ago *g*)

(Hope this was helpful!)

It was! Thank you very much. The challenge, though, will be keeping the style consistent for however long this is going to be :/