What are the rules in historical?

Hi Creative Dreamer - My gut feel is - it's not historical. It may have a historical setting, but from what you said, it doesn't have the elements that would move it into the historical arena (real people from history, real events that happened, real places). I also wouldn't call it alternative historical.

You say it's too long for romance. Proportionally, how does the fantasy part of it stack up to the entire work? That may be your best bet. Puma

I think perhaps...

what you have is a fantasy romance which you will have to trim a little to the market demands.

That there is definitely fantasy.

Irrespective of all else, a real king would never marry a tevern maid. Love had no place in the royal marriages of old. It was all about politics.

A king might have women he fancied as mistresses.

Yes...

...I'm afraid you have the wenches muddled. Posh girl has to be his wife. Tavern girl has to be his mistress. Unless you find a fantasy premise, such as they select the queen much the same way the Dali Lama is selected.

In any case, you are most certainly fantasy. Guy Gavriel Kay, Richard Pinto and "Kushiel's Dart" lady have all turned out fantasy stories with little or no magic.

I would say it's a historical fantasy romance. LOL

I'd vote for fantasy as well. Fantasy doesn't have to have magic, just plot elements that are unlikely in the world as we know it.

I think most alternate histories are usually shelved with fantasy as well.

Alternate history is technically SF if there are no fantasy elements. Basically if it's logically extrapolated from the real world, it's SF, whereas if there are elements that can't be explained scientifically*, it's fantasy. On the other hand, alternate history that's set in a past where the principal changes are political rather than technological might well get published under a fantasy imprint, on the grounds that it will appeal more to fantasy readers than SF ones. Or it might be published as mainstream, like Robert Harris's "Fatherland"...

* you can usually get away with a few non-scientific phenomena that have become standard SF tropes, like telepathy and other psi powers. Ghosts and similar supernatural phenomena, on the other hand, would be pushing it into fantasy, I think.

Oh and people, please see my sig. We're all writers here. I'm sure we all strive for better English.

Of course, if the king is the hero, and the mistress is the heroine, and the king is cheating on his wife - that might cause problems for the romance aspect. An editor rejected a manuscript of mine because the hero was married (but separated) when he and the heroine first hooked up. Even though the hero and his wife divorced, it still made the hero look dishonest - not a good quality for a hero to have.

And there could be a problem with the HEA - can't have one unless you bump off the wife. Of course, that could be done, but it would have to be done carefully.

Of course, that's only if you wanted to label it as xyz genre romance.

Re genre, there's always 'fantasy of manners', if you have a low/no-magic world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_of_manners

Willowmound said:

Oh and people, please see my sig. We're all writers here. I'm sure we all strive for better English.

Click to expand...

If you mean 'alternate history' should be 'alternative history', you're right, grammatically speaking. However SF seems to have opted for the former, in order to distinguish itself from the academic sort:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_history

And I say this as someone who regularly shouts inwardly at supermarket signs "That's '10 items or fewer'!"

To distinguish itself you say? Never thought of that. Still, it's no excuse.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but I'll fight to the end, darnit! Why have one word that already has one meaning (to 'take turns') take on the meaning of another, already existing word?

It makes no sense. And it is purely the result of stupid people using the wrong word and no one telling them off.

'Alternate''s alternative meaning (i.e. 'alternative') has already entrered the dictionaries.

Maybe in a thousand years' time we'll all just use the word 'grunt' to mean anything and everything.

Redfox said:

Re genre, there's always 'fantasy of manners', if you have a low/no-magic world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_of_manners



If you mean 'alternate history' should be 'alternative history', you're right, grammatically speaking. However SF seems to have opted for the former, in order to distinguish itself from the academic sort:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_history

And I say this as someone who regularly shouts inwardly at supermarket signs "That's '10 items or fewer'!"

Click to expand...

Oh it should say '20 items or fewer' um at least at Walmart.

>>It is approx 150,000 words which is way too many for most romance readers to digest and the plot is a bit to dark I believe.<<<<

(Deep Breath.)
(Let me set aside the assumption Romance readers would find a big loooong book with lots and lots of words in it just too confusing for their fuzzy wee heads. ...OK.)

Getting on to your question.

What you have is not a Historical Novel.
The Historical Novel people are pretty strict about using settings that actually existed and following storylines that would have been historically possible.

Is it a Romance?

Probably not a 'Historical Romance.'
Historical Romance people are not always as strict about accuracy as the Historical Novels folks, but there's a certain minimum authenticy required.

Luckily, there's always wiggleroom in the Romance genre.
There's a place for fantasy about long-ago-far-away kingdoms that never existed. It gets sold and shelved as 'Romance', and if somebody wants to slap a more exact name on it they call it Historical Fantasy Romance or Fantasy Romance or some such.

So. You could sell the fantasy and quasi-historical costume and setting as a Romance.
But only if it is written as a Romance.
.
.
A Romance requies four basics:

1 -- an engaging pair of protagonists

2 -- a story that is fueled by the relationship between the protagonists.
....... That is, while lots of stuff can happen, the action is driven by the growth of the relationship.
....... Pair-bonding is the focus of the story.
.... ... The story is 'about' the crisis and conflict in the relationship.

3 -- HEA. Happily ever after. The story ends with a permanent relationshp and an upbeat note.

4 -- 'Nobody kills the puppy'. No gratuitous horror, dwelt upon for the sake of shock. There are lines of loss and sadness you can't cross.
.
.
If your work has these four elements under control, you can market it as a Romance.
.
.


Now. As to a 150,000-word debut novel.

It is tough to sell 150,000 words in any genre
because 150,000 words is expensive to print. Publishers are reluctant to commit that sort of investment for an unknown writer. You're more likely to get away with it in Fantasy than elsewhere, I think.

.
.
.
Couple of sad truths come to mind.

Sad truth number one -- you probably have to cut 20% to get an agent to look at it seriously.
.
Sad truth number two -- you probably have to choose Fantasy or Romance and consciously slant your story in one direction or the other.
.
.
Sad Truth three -- your story needs to be believable. The plot you outline above may have problems with that.

Even Fantasy genre needs a logical foundation. The story must exist within a believable universe, with a social structure that is both self-consistent and humanly plausible.

Keep your tavern maid and king if that's what you want to write about. Give us some reason, logical within your created universe, why the king married her.

She's a powerful enchantress.
She's the last, lost descendent of the Old Regime.
It was fortold in a prophesy.
The first bride of the King always gets carried off by the castle ghost so they pick somebody expendable.
He made a stupid vow that went haywire.
She blackmailed him into it.
etc.
.
.

What you are proposing right now -- your king and barmaid -- would seem to be the modern equivalent of

Thomas Chatterton III (of the Boston Chattertons,) Yale undergrad, Summa, Harvard Medical School Class of 1994, condo in Boston, summer house in the Hamptons, small flat in Paris, fluent in four languages, Chief of Surgery Mass General
marries
LaTivol Washington, black junkie whore, pregnant by her pimp.

Yes. It could happen. Yes, you could write their story.
But you'd have to first make the reader believe they got married. That has to make sense before you can go onward.

Jo, that's a hell of post. It gives a concise overview of the requirements of multiple genres which I wasn't sure about. Thank you.

I know I'm (a) late with this comment and (b) off the main topic of the thread but I'd just like to say "Thanks!" to Willowmound for the post on the dreadful (and prevalent) misuse of the word 'alternate' when the correct word is 'alternative'. Please, folks, don't let's allow the language to get dumbed down any further than it already has (alas). . . I've given you a rep point, willow - better late than never

And as I opened that particular can of worms...

Sorry. "Alternate" is how I've often seen it mentioned. I've never paid much attention as the genre doesn't appeal to me but you're right, it should be "alternative."

I'm against dumbing-down the language as well.