The Burden of Experience

I answered “why romance” a few years ago on my blog — why read romance, why write romance. But I don’t think I ever got into why historical romance or even why set during the Regency specifically.

I recently joined RWA (Romance Writers of America) and two chapters: my local in-person chapter here in San Diego and an online special interest one, The Beau Monde (a play on the French phrase for society — the Beautiful World).

I’m mostly lurking on the Beau Monde mailing list. I feel like a debutante testing the waters at the first ball of her first Season. Everyone there is so knowledgeable and has strong opinions about what a Regency set historical should look and read like. I’m sure I do too, but I’m doing the email equivalent of smiling and nodding right now.

One of my friends has recently started reading more historical romances. She’s working her way through a lot of my favorite authors, but today she threw me for a loop with a couple of questions about why she was always seeing the same places mentioned.

You’ll see it in contemporaries as well, especially ones set in large well-known cities like New York. I mean, could you have a novel set there without mentioning some of the more prominent landmarks like Central Park, Times Square or even the ubiquitous food carts? The things she asked about were the Regency equivalents. It’s funny what I take for granted as commonplace terms and landmarks after reading historical romances for close to 30 years. And I just realized my friend’s birthday the other day marked about the same number of years.

Man, I feel old now.

I think I’ll wait a bit longer before asking any questions on the Beau Monde list, lest I make them feel the burden of their experience as well. =)