(Originally published at Unusual Historicals blog)

What surprises me? The fact that there are so many people who don't know about the historicals we write!

Let's face it, there are a lot of people who like romances but wouldn't pick up an historical if it was the only romance left on the shelf. Why is that? Do they think the story isn't something they'd be interested in? Do they think the hero isn't realistic? The heroine is a bumbling airhead? Do they not like history?

Looking at this blog now, I wish I'd had the time to do a survey, but alas, that didn't happen. So on the one hand we have readers who will read only contemporaries. On the other we have the historical-only readers. Ignoring the Venn Diagram of those of us who'll read just about anything, there are a great many people who know nothing about history.

I'm not talking America fought in a Civil War sometime during the 1800s. I'm talking, "Of course I know who Napoleon is--I saw Bill And Ted!" This quote is from an actual conversation I had a couple days ago. This was during my explanation about an idea I had set during the Regency Era/Napoleonic Wars--the blank look prompted me to explain Napoleonic wars = Napoleon Bonaparte and whatnot. That's when I got the indignant reply.

Forget going into the more Unusual Historicals we excel at here--Ancient Egypt? Victorian Russia? The Roaring 20s? English Civil War? China during the Tang Dynasty? And all the other places we writers love. One thing at a time.

So is that it? The fact that people aren't interested in history? They don't want to read historical romances because they're afraid it's one giant history lesson? What's the difference between that and thinking all contemporary romances are one giant political essay?

This is only a guess and I'd love to hear what others think. If you read historicals, do you stay close to what you know? Or are you up for anything so long as the subject interests you? With luck, a couple contemporary readers will let us know why they don't read historcials too.

(Originally published at the UNbound blog)

All authors, all movie-makers, need in some way, shape, or form for their audiences to suspend disbelief. Whether it's Star Trek to believe we can beam someone across light years, or Wolverine where mutants exist, or Die Hard where one lone New York cop can do everything Bruce Willis did. The person telling the tale wants the audience to be invested in the lives of the characters.

Creating a universe where an audience won't say "Come on!" or "That'll never happen!" requires a delicate balance. We've all sat through movies or read books (or started them at least) where the moment something happens outside the believable, we stop watching or toss the book aside.

That moment is where the creative forces behind the project drop the ball.

I recently read a book, I won't name names, where the villain caught a teacup with his pinky, didn't spill a drop of tea, and handed it back to the heroine. Give me a break! An author has to know how far to push the limits with the audience. We'll readily accept vampires, witches, and mummies, but when you make the terrible mistake of having an ordinary guy catch a teacup midair like that, you've lost your audience.

In my Dark Desire of the Druids series, I ask my audience to accept that Magickers exist. Everyone knows about them, it's not a secret. There's even a department within the British government to deal with these Magickers called Witch Hunters.

Ordinarily, you might not accept there are true, real Witch Hunters in the world, but presented as fact within a universe, it could be made believable. You can't be tentative when creating a universe such as this. While dealing with magicks and so on, there's still that careful line between what people will generally accept as "Well, that's magick", and what they'll say as "That's ridiculous."

A skilled writer can create any universe from mice living in a viable community on the moon to cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

Most time the fault doesn't lie with the actual universe, but with the characters within that universe and their actions. The teacup really got under my skin, as you can see, lol, but you can't have your characters so perfect. Even Superman had issues! In the end, my non-expert advice on this is to take your extraordinary universe and have real personalities inhabit it. Flaws, complexities, annoyances, and all.