Merry Farmer's Blog, page 31

To Trope or Not To Trope?

Okay, maybe this will end up being embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t know what the word “trope” meant in terms of fiction-writing for a very long time. In fact, it wasn’t until I started hanging out with writers and going to conferences and taking classes that the meaning came clear to me. It’s embarrassing […]

19th Century Telephones – Can You Hear Me Now? Good!

One of the most fun historical details that I’ve included in my Montana Romance series is the use of telephones in the late 1890s. I don’t know if my readers were surprised when Eric Quinlan makes a telephone call to Benton Chase one morning in around May of 1896. I’m not sure if anyone thought […]

2013 Book #26 – Seduction in Silk, by Jo Beverley

The biggest thing that struck me about Seduction in Silk, by Jo Beverley was that there was no plot. Okay, well, that’s not exactly true. The internal plot (relationship plot) is definitely there. And it’s good too! I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for the marriage of convenience trope. I’ve used it myself several times. To […]

Battling Author Envy

(today’s post is cross-posted from the Seduced by History blog) Friends, today I’d like to talk to you about something not related to history, but rather related to the experience we all have of writing romantic stories about history. It’s not about research or about debates of historical accuracy or how much we should strive […]

Hotels in the Old West

The history of the American West is one of the most vibrant and dynamic periods that I’ve ever studied. You learn a lot in school about the taming of the frontier, the conflicts between the Native Americans and European Americans, gold, trains, wildlife, you name it. But in so many ways, it’s the time period […]

What My DNA Tells Me

Halifax, Nova Scotia. Yeah! That’s where I want to go. It’s got everything I’m looking for. It’s in Canada (and I love Canada – Tim Horton’s and Swiss Chalet!), it’s got something like 900 miles of rocky beach coastline, it’s much more affordable than where I live now, and the weather is warmer than you […]

For Art’s Sake

So I’ve been thinking a lot about J.D. Salinger and the decades and decades of his life that he didn’t publish anything. According to the documentary Salinger that I saw over the weekend, he was still writing for all those years. We get to see some of those works before too long, but I bet […]

Salinger

Somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to make it all the way through my formative high school years without ever having to read The Catcher in the Rye. Amazing, I know! But that didn’t take away the experience of going to see the documentary “Salinger” on Saturday night. “Salinger” is an intimate, 2-hour portrait […]

The Curious Phenomenon of Three-Star Reviews

  There is a phenomenon out there in the book world so strange, so mystifying, that writers and readers alike look upon it and scratch their heads. Sometimes enlightening, sometimes confusing, this phenomenon defies logic. And yet, it’s always entertaining. I’m talking, of course, about 3-star reviews. Now, 4- and 5-star reviews are clearly awesome. […]

The Legacy of the Penny Dreadful

I know, I know. There are people out there who turn up their noses at genre fiction these days. Romance, Sci-Fi, Horror, and Mysteries, they’ve all come under attack from purist who think that high-minded literature is the way to go. I respectfully disagree. In fact, some of the most captivating and scintillating stories ever […]