Today I’m chatting with Lorraine Heath, bestselling author of more than 70 books over 25 years in writing romance. We talk about her titles in historical romance, contemporary and paranormal YA, how publishing has changed a little over the years, and of course we discuss her newest book, Beyond Scandal and Desire.
We talk about writing as a craft and process, too: you’ll learn what advice Ms. Heath would give her writer self when she started out, and what advice she’d give to a writer just starting now. Other topics include:
Her British and Texan heritage, and how she reconciled to very different cultures in her writing (can you guess which book series was inspired by her mom and dad?)
Her use of intricate plot lines amid very familiar tropes in new settings
What she loves about historical romance
Which of her covers are among her favorites, and how cover art has changed over the course of her career
And the importance of list making on the part of her characters, and how she has her characters show their own evolution and growth.
She also reveals some of her personal auto-buy authors, and shares some recommendations for research books for historical romance writers. I found this conversation very thoughtful and inspiring, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
❤ Read the transcript ❤
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Here are the books we discuss in this podcast:
You can find Lorraine Heath on her website, LorraineHeath.com.
We also mentioned:
- A Cosmopolitan article going behind the scenes on how a cover is made
- Jessie’s love letter to Texas Destiny
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This Episode's Music
Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater. Thanks, Sassy!
We’ve been playing tracks from the Peatbog Fairies’ live album, Live @ 25, and it is seriously fun.
This is The Humours of Ardnamurchan by the Peatbog Faeries.
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Podcast Sponsor
This week’s episode is brought to you by Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller.
RWA Golden Heart Finalist and debut author Renee Ann Miller spins a ravishing tale of Regency London filled with the infamous lords and unrepentant rogues whose bad behavior makes for good gossip among the ton. But these sexy scoundrels have stories and secrets no one knows. And it takes a special, womanly touch to reveal the true hearts behind their devilish disguises. Never Dare a Wicked Earl pits a reckless earl convalescing from a gunshot wound from a jealous ex-mistress against his determined, plucky nurse with one scandalous wager.
Known as a brazen philanderer, Hayden Milton, Earl of Westfield, is almost done in by a vengeful mistress who aims a gun at a rather essential part of his anatomy—but ends up wounding his thigh instead. Recuperating in his London townhouse, Hayden is confronted by his new medical attendant. Sophia Camden intrigues him, for behind her starched uniform is an enticing beauty better suited for bedding than dispensing salves and changing bandages.
Unshaken by his arrogance, not to mention impropriety, Sophia offers Hayden a dare: allow her ten days to prove her competency. If she resigns in exasperation like her two predecessors, she will be beholden to this wicked seducer. As a battle of wills begins, Sophia finds herself distracted by the earl’s muscular physique . . . and discovers that the man within longs only for a second chance to love.
Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller is available everywhere books are sold and at Kensingtonbooks.com
Transcript
❤ Click to view the transcript ❤
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, February 23, 2018
[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello, happy Friday, and welcome to episode number 287 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me today is Lorraine Heath. I was really excited to record this interview. We talk about her career writing seventy books over twenty-five years in writing romance. We talk about her titles in historical romance, contemporary, and paranormal YA; how publishing has changed just a little over the years; and of course we talk about her newest book, Beyond Scandal and Desire. We also discuss writing as a craft and process, so if you’re into writing or want to know more about the behind-the-scenes of creating romance novels, this interview should really make you very happy. Ms. Heath shares her advice for writers just starting out and also what advice she would give her writer self back when she first started out. We talk about her British and Texan heritage and how she reconciled two very different cultures in her writing, her use of intricate plotlines and familiar tropes in new settings, what she loves about historical romance, which of her covers are her favorites, and also some of her personal auto-buy authors. I thought this was a really lovely and very thoughtful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it. The parts about writing advice really spoke to me, even though I don’t write romance fiction as a rule. I found this very inspiring, and I hope you do too!
This episode is brought to you by Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller. RWA Golden Heart finalist and debut author Renee Ann Miller spins a ravishing tale of Regency London filled with the infamous lords and unrepentant rogues whose bad behavior makes for good gossip, but these sexy scoundrels have stories and secrets that no one knows, and it takes a special touch to reveal the true hearts behind their devilish disguises. Never Dare a Wicked Earl pits a reckless earl convalescing from a gunshot wound from a jealous ex-mistress against his determined, plucky nurse with one scandalous wager. Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller is available everywhere books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. And thank you to Kensington for sponsoring the podcast this month!
Each episode gets a transcript. Each transcript is hand-done by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! This week’s transcript is being brought to you by Elizabeth Bright’s Lady Gone Wicked. Nicholas Eastwood is finally about to get everything he ever wanted. As a reward for his service to the Crown, he’s been offered the title of marquess. All he has to do is stay scandal-free until the papers are signed. There’s just one problem: His ex-lover, presumed dead, is remarkably alive. Adelaide Bursnell is determined to right her wrongs. She will be a dutiful daughter and a loving sister, and most importantly, she will marry before her scandal catches up to her. Nicholas was once her ruin, but now he is determined to be her salvation. If he can find her a suitable husband, their shared past can stay buried. But old temptations prove impossible to resist, and scandals can never stay secret for long. Lady Gone Wicked is available at all online book retailers, and you can learn more at elizabethbrightauthor.com.
I have compliments. It is so much fun to do these. I love them so much! Okay.
To Jane B.: Your creative talent seems limitless, and you are as entertaining as bubble wrap in a ball pit.
And to Anna S.: When you are determined to do something, people around you know to stand back and keep watching from impending excellence.
Now if you’re wondering what’s that about and you’d like to find out, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. The Patreon community helps keep the podcast going, helps me commission transcriptions for older episodes, many of which are going up right now, and the Patreon rewards are at several levels. For as little as one dollar a month you make a massive difference in the podcast, and at certain levels there are handcrafted, heartfelt compliments, which are really fun. So if you would have a look, I would very much appreciate it!
And I would like to thank some of the Patreon folks personally, so to Jenny and Rebecca, Roxanne, Elizabeth, another Elizabeth, and Kelly, thank you for being part of the podcast Patreon community.
Are there other ways you can support the show? Of course there are! I bet you know what they are, too, right? ‘Cause if you listen to podcasts, you’ve probably heard someone say this: you can leave a review, you can tell a friend, you can subscribe, you can listen, because that alone is pretty incredible. Thank you for hanging out with me each week, and thank you for being part of the show.
The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the show as to who this is and where you can buy it.
And at the end of the show I will also have news about what’s coming up on Smart Bitches this week and the terrible, horrible, end-of-the-show dad joke, which I have been informed many of you enjoy. I will also have links to some of the articles we discuss and all of the books that are mentioned in this episode, and you can find that in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast!
But now, without any additional delay, on with the podcast. I hope you enjoy this interview.
[music]
Lorraine Heath: I’m Lorraine Heath, and I write historical romance for Avon books.
Sarah: And you also write contemporary and paranormal and YA, is that right?
Lorraine: I write, I’ve, I’ve had two contemporary novels out, but it’s been several years. I write contemporary and paranormal for Young Adults.
Sarah: That’s quite an achievement, and I’ve, I did some research? I had to do the math, like, I do the math? You’ve written over seventy books. That’s an astonishing achievement! Do you sort of look back on the number of books that you’ve written and just think, whoa!?
Lorraine: I do. It’s –
[Laughter]
Lorraine: Yeah, every now and then. You’d think you would always remember how many books you’ve written, and every now and then I do have to look back and count them up to see, and it is, I do get surprised.
Sarah: I, I had to recount on Wikipedia tapping the screen with my finger, ‘cause I kept losing my place, ‘cause there are so many! That’s a, that’s a, first of all, that’s incredible. Congratulations! Do you have the experience that’s common to some writers that I’ve spoken to where they start a new book and they think, all right, I know I’ve done this before; how do I do this?
Lorraine: Yes. Yes, I, I, every time I start a book, I wonder how I ever wrote a book.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: It’s, it’s, it’s just kind of, even, even after all the books that I’ve written, every time I start a new book it just seems to be a challenge and I think, this is the book where I’m going to realize I really don’t know anything about writing. I’m running out of ideas. And –
Sarah: And then –
Lorraine: But then when you get to the end, it’s, it’s just always a surprise, and it, it seems like it was easier than it was, but it’s always a challenge to write a book.
Sarah: It is always a challenge. Now I know that you have a new book out, Beyond Scandal and Desire, and I know that this is the worst question to ask a writer, but would you please tell me about this book?
Lorraine: Okay, this is the first book in the Sins for All Seasons series, and my hero is the illegitimate son of a duke. He knows who his father is, and his father won’t recognize him, and so he decides that he’s going to get revenge by ruining the duke’s legitimate heir, and the duke has a ward, Lady Aslyn Hastings, and he decides to make his revenge complete, he’s going to ruin her as well, and so that’s what he sets out to do, and along the way he discovers that maybe ruining her isn’t what he really wants to do.
Sarah: As usual, hero plans never work out as planned. If a reader is new to you or new to this series, it’s the first book in a series, so it’s the perfect place to start. What does the heroine think of all this?
Lorraine: The, the heroine has been very protected. Her parents died when she was young, and the, the duke and duchess who raised her, the duchess is, is very, she seems to be a very frightened woman. She doesn’t go out, she stays in the house, and so she’s raised Aslyn to, to, to fear what happens beyond the residence kind of a thing, and so Aslyn has had a very protected life, and she’s at a point in her life where she’s looking to rebel. She, she wants to know, she wants more from life than just staying at home and doing her needlepoint, and when she meets Mick – Mick Trewlove is the hero – she’s fascinated by him, because he’s big and he’s bold, he’s a very successful businessman, and as their paths cross, he challenges her to, to reach beyond what she knows, to do some daring things, and so she’s, she finds herself growing whenever she’s around him, becoming more herself and, and growing into herself, and so she finds herself more intrigued with him than with the man that she is supposed to marry.
Sarah: And it sounds, from what you’re saying, like she’s also learning from him to do what is best for her and not care so much what other people might think.
Lorraine: She is. She’s also, she’s learning that she’s been raised with certain expectations, and she behaves based upon what people expect of her, and that what she needs to do is do what is right for her and, and break beyond what’s expected of her.
Sarah: I think that’s a pretty universal concept for a lot of young women and wo-, actually, I think, at, at any age, to break past doing what you know you are expected to do and what you’re being told to do. That seems like it would resonate with a lot of readers. Do you agree?
Lorraine: I hope so. I’m, I’m always fascinated by how, how sometimes we act based upon what is expected of us, and –
Sarah: Absolutely.
Lorraine: – and sometimes that’s not what’s best for us, so – I hope it will resonate with readers.
Sarah: Now I also know that you have been published for twenty-five years with Avon specifically, yes?
Lorraine: Yes.
Sarah: That is really incredible, and it’s, it’s really interesting how absolutely nothing has changed at all in publishing isn’t it?
Lorraine: Oh, it is, it is.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: Absolutely!
Sarah: If you could go back to your writer self twenty, twenty-five years ago, what would you tell her?
Lorraine: Oh, I would tell her to, to be open to all the challenges that are presented to her. There’s a couple of times in my career where I had an opportunity, and I didn’t think that I was up to the task, and so I decided not to take that opportunity, and now I feel like I would tell her, take every opportunity that comes your way, because you never know where something is going to lead. And, and the opportunities that I turned down was I had a, like, I had an opportunity to be part of an anthology early in my career, and I just, I didn’t think I would be able to work in the time to write the novella, and so –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: – so I, I turned down the offer to, to write, to be part, included in that anthology, and in hindsight, you know, it, it would, it was a good opportunity to, to get my stories into the hands of other readers, the readers who, you know, read anthologies and discover other authors that way, so, so there’s just a few things like that that came along that I would just encourage myself to, to take every opportunity and to find a way to make it work.
Sarah: And it also sounds as if, similar to the heroine in Beyond Scandal and Desire, that you would advise to take risks and try new things and try different things.
Lorraine: Exactly, and sometimes, you know, it, it’s scary and you want to stay in your comfort zone, but I, I think it is a good thing to move beyond your comfort zone, and I think I would do that a little, I would advise my younger self to do that a little bit more.
Sarah: If you were, if your writer self right now went back to talk to your writer self twenty-five years ago, would your, would yourself twenty-five years ago believe you if you explained what was going to happen? Here’s how many books you’re going to publish, and here are how many books you’re going to write, and this is what’s going to happen; do you think you would have believed it?
Lorraine: I, I think I probably, I, I probably would have, because I like to dream big?
Sarah: That’s a very good skill in a writer!
Lorraine: Yes. I know – my, my husband is an accountant, and when I first started writing he would, he, he’s pretty much a realist, and, and he would tell me, you know, that the odds of getting published aren’t in your favor; a lot of people want to get published. And I just, I was never discouraged, and, and he wasn’t trying to discourage me; he was just trying to save me from disappointment, but I –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: – I always felt like, you know, it’s, the odds may be against me, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t try, and so –
Sarah: Yes.
Lorraine: – I just, I’ve just always been a believer that if there’s something you want to do, you should apply yourself to it, and you do the best that you can, and hopefully you’ll achieve whatever it is that you’re hoping to achieve, but a lot of it is just the journey and, and making that happen.
Sarah: What advice would you have for a writer who’s starting right now?
Lorraine: Well, that’s a hard one.
Sarah: It is a hard one, ‘cause publishing will be different, like, tomorrow, or in a couple of hours.
Lorraine: Right, it will be, and, you know, I, I always advise writers to write what you enjoy reading and to write your first draft the way that you think it would be written. I know a lot of times people have advice on what you should do with your book and how you might want to try and make it marketable, but I, I feel like a first draft should really be the way that you feel like the book should be told, and then if an editor has suggestions for how it, you know, can be revised to make it better or to make it more marketable, you know, that’s a different thing completely, but I don’t think we should start out trying to guess what an editor is looking for, that we should just write it the way that we think it should be written. And I would also encourage new writers to take things that are told to them with a grain of salt, because everyone has different experiences in publishing. I was actually, gave a workshop to my chapter on Saturday, and I was talk-, the workshop was on publishing and, and different aspects of traditional publishing, and some of the people in the room would share their experiences, and it was, it was interesting to see that we all have different experiences in publishing, and, which is one of the challenges in trying to help someone navigate the, the world of publishing, just because everyone’s experiences are different, and so you just need to take everything you’re told with a grain of salt.
Sarah: So it sounds as if – [laughs] – everyone is going to have a different experience, and everyone will have a different lesson that they learned from the experience of publishing.
Lorraine: Exactly. And that was one of the things I really emphasized on Saturday, that what I was sharing was what I had experienced in publishing, and like I said, some of the things that, that people were sharing surprised me, and so I’m always, even though I’ve been in the industry now for twenty-five years, I still learn things every, every year. Every time I get together with writers at, at conferences and things, I always learn things that I didn’t know or things that I’ve not experienced that they have, and so things are always constantly changing, but in addition, it’s just, there’s just so many various aspects to publishing that I don’t know if we can ever know everything about it.
Sarah: And there’s never just one path to publishing; there’s never just one way that it happens now. There’s many different ways.
Lorraine: Exactly, and yeah, from, from the beginning, you know, it’s not a ladder.
Sarah: No.
Lorraine: Not a ladder; it’s more of a serpentine path, and everyone’s path is different. You’re going to have highs and lows. I mean, some authors reinvent themselves, authors change genres, authors try different things, and so it’s, we just always to have be open to opportunities and to what, to, to what comes before us. We need to try and stay informed; I think that’s a good thing about going to conferences and meeting with other authors and talking. I learn a lot more over a glass of wine than attending a lot of workshops, so.
Sarah: Isn’t that the truth?
Lorraine: Yes! Writing is such an isolated thing that, you know, when you’re sitting at your computer you’re alone, you’re writing, and so I think it’s a good thing to, to try and stay in touch with people and to, you know, not isolate yourself too much so that you can be aware of different changes in the industry.
Sarah: And a, a glass of wine reveals many, many, many things.
Lorraine: Oh, it does!
[Laughter]
Lorraine: Especially that second and third glass.
Sarah: Oh, absolutely! The second and third glass is when all the truth comes out. So I read in your bio that you are both Texan and British through your parents, and those are two very different cultures, which I can imagine is a, is a challenge to reconcile some-, sometimes. Is that the case? Is that something that you noticed growing up?
Lorraine: I did notice it growing up. My mom was very, my mom was British, and my dad was Texan, and my mom was very much about tradition, about maintaining a sense of tradition. A lot of the things that we did at Christmas was based on things that she’d done in England, you know, like doing the crackers, those little things that you pop apart, and she would always make her, her British dishes, her – well, everything is escaping my mind right now, but anyway, she would make her mincemeat pies and her trifle, and, and Christmas, at Christmas particularly, there, we had a lot of British traditions. And the, and my mom would often talk about the challenges that she had when she came to the States, trying to fit in. She would tell us one story where she went to a five-and-ten store, and she was asking them where she would find the rubbers, and so they took her back to the pharmacy –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: – to the condom section, and what she was really looking for was erasers, and so she was just really embarrassed by that, and so she –
Sarah: Oh, no!
Lorraine: Yes, and so she, she tried very much to fit in as a Texan.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: She tried to lose her accent, and she, she wanted to just fit in, and it was interesting, because several years later her sister immigrated to Texas, and her sister was very determined to keep her accent. She, she really wanted people to know, you know, I’m British –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: -so it would be interesting, but my mother’s accent always came out whenever she got mad.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: And that was how we would know; when she really sounded British, that was how we knew we’d done something wrong. And my, my dad would, would talk, didn’t talk quite as much about his life as my mom did, but he, he grew up picking cotton, and I remember one time we were on a trip and we passed a cotton field, and he pulled off to the side and went and plucked a boll of cotton and made us all feel how it scratched your palm and how hard the seeds were in there, and he says, you know, I would do that for hours, just picking, picking until your, your hands would bleed, and, and so it was just, it was very different. They had different lives, and they would just, they would share those aspects of their life with us. So I grew up very much aware of a difference in hardscrabble life in Texas and growing up in a small town outside of London, and my mom grew up during the war, so she was always sharing with us different war stories of – she grew up in Watford, which had a, a munitions factory, so they were bombed a lot.
Sarah: Oof!
Lorraine: Yeah, so, so we grew up with a lot of stories about World War II, very much aware of the impact war has on the civilians. So I just have always been interested in the two different aspects of my heritage, and of course in school we would, you know, study Texas and Texas history, and so when I went to college I would, I started taking British history classes just to kind of round out my education.
Sarah: One thing that, that struck me while doing some research for this interview is that British culture is very introverted, and American culture, and especially Texas culture, is very extraverted, so you almost have two oppositional instincts in the same household, to be very expressive and to be very in-, introverted and less outwardly expressive. Is that, was that the case with your parents as well? Were they, were they products of that culture?
Lorraine: They, they were, and I think I tend to be extremely reserved and quiet. A, a lot of that is my mom’s upbringing. You know, you, you don’t interrupt people when they’re talking and different things like that, so there is some aspects to me, I think, that reflect the, the British side of my upbringing. My dad was, yeah, he was very bold, kind of scary, actually, at some, sometimes, ‘cause he was tall, and he was big, and he had a big voice, and so it was very different, and that’s one of the things in my books I’ll have often have, bring American characters to England, and I’ll try and portray how different they are, how the American ladies were, were much bolder than the British ladies. They weren’t used to having chaperones, and they were used to, you know, kind of doing what they wanted to do, and, and so I, I try and show in my books the differences between the two cultures, the way that British are much more reserved and – there’s, there’s proper behavior. They, they place a lot of emphasis on what is proper behavior, whereas the American girls are a little bit more rebellious, and so that’s –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: – always fun to work with, with characters from two different cultures.
Sarah: Cultural conflicts are some of my favorites to read about, no question. Now did I read correctly that your parents were the inspiration for the Rogues in Texas series? The, A Rogue in Texas, Never Love a Cowboy, and Never Marry a Cowboy? Do I have that right?
Lorraine: Yes. And, and, well, part of that is just because I was very much aware of how difficult it was for my mom when she moved over here, and so I brought three second sons of English lords to Texas, and that’s where I first started trying to show the differences and the challenges of when, a, a fish-out-of-water kind of thing, because when they got here, the women were very different than the women that they were accustomed to, and the life was very different, so, so, so, yes, they, they, my parents were kind of the inspiration for that series, just because I knew their stories of how different it was when my mom moved here.
Sarah: Now I do know you have some very intricate plotlines – [laughs] – and a fan of your work who was writing with, writing to me while I was researching said, you know, I start a Lorraine Heath book and I think, I can’t read about a woman falling in love with her dead husband’s twin brother who’s masquerading as the dead husband because he got killed by a wild animal; that’s just impossible, and then, of course, it is the greatest book ever.
[Laughter]
Sarah: What inspires you go to all in on some very familiar and tricky romance tropes and conflicts?
Lorraine: I enjoy the challenge of it. I like taking something that at first blush you would think can’t be done, and I like trying to do it in a way that does make it an enjoyable read for the reader and makes it understandable for the char-, understandable, the motivations understandable to the characters. I have a degree in psychology –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: – and it’s helped me with my character development, and I like the challenge of taking something and working with the characters in such a way that their motivations can make whatever it is that they’re doing understandable. So it’s just, it’s a, a challenge that I enjoy undertaking and trying to make them believable and understandable and to make char-, readers empathize with the characters.
Sarah: So motivation is a, is a major part of your writing process.
Lorraine: Yes. I feel like if you can, if you can write the characters in a way that readers can understand what it is that is motivating them, and if that motivation is strong enough –
Sarah: Mm-hmm?
Lorraine: – that, that you can do just about anything – [laughs] – in a romance novel. I’m sure there’s some things that, that you really can’t explain away, but I think the key is, is making sure that you give the readers enough insight into the characters that they can relate to them.
Sarah: I know this is a very involved question diving deep into the idea of craft and character development, but what are some ways that you’ve used to demonstrate character motivation so that it works? I mean, it’s not, it’s not enough to just say, well, I’m having a character say, well, I’m doing this because of this, and I’m doing this because of that. How do you develop motivation, what are some of the tools that you use?
Lorraine: What I try to do is to show the characters doing something that reflects what they truly are to the reader. So an example that I can think of is, in one of my earlier works, Parting Gifts, the hero comes across as very hard, very determined. He’s – and the, and the heroine is, is, he and the heroine are always butting heads, and he could be coming across as unlikable, but what I do is I will have scenes, I had scenes with him interacting with his nieces and nephews, and they’re very heartwarming scenes so that the reader can see that he does have the ability to love. He can love, and even though he’s not showing that aspect of himself to the heroine, I feel like, I felt like it was important that the reader see that there is this aspect of him, and so when I’m writing characters, particularly those that aren’t really reflecting their true self to the, the hero or heroine, I try and have scenes that show them doing something that can make them likeable to the reader. I have to have a, whether I do it on paper or I just do it for myself, when I get to the point where a character acknowledges, like if the heroine acknowledges that she has fallen in love with the hero or the hero acknowledges that he’s fallen in love with the heroine, I have to have a list in my head, or sometimes I’ll have them in the book lay out the reasons they fell in love with this person, but they’re, I have to see moments in the book that I can say, here are the things that they did that made them fall in love with them. It’s not enough just for the heroine to be able to say, I love you; I have to see in the book all the different things he did that made her come to love him, or all the different things that she did, and if I don’t think I have enough scenes where it’s believable that she would love this person or he would love her, then I go in and I put more scenes or expand the scenes that are there, because I want the reader to know these are the things that made this person fall in love.
Sarah: So it’s not just what the character says or represents but also what they unintentionally reveal about themselves during the course of the story.
Lorraine: Exactly, yes. I want the reader to see them actually doing things that demonstrate what their character truly is. Like, As an Earl Desires, I had an extremely cold heroine, she was very cold, and I had a scene where she purchased a bunch of toys and took them to an orphanage, and I showed how much joy it brought her doing that.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: So while the reader was seeing that she was very cold to the hero, the reader also saw that there was a warm side to her, and so then the question becomes, if there is this side to her, why is she not showing it? And so then you’ve got to get into her backstory of what happened in her life that made her feel like she has to protect her heart so that the reader then begins to understand, okay, she’s being cold because she’s trying to protect herself. Then the reader –
Sarah: Right.
Lorraine: – starts to wonder, what is she protecting herself from? And so you can just kind of weave in little things to intrigue the reader to discover why are these people really acting the way that they are?
Sarah: Which also then, if I’m understanding correctly, presents an opportunity in, in a very specific location in their personality and in their lives to change. It gives you the sort of pivot point of when, of how that character is going to evolve during the course of the story. Is that right?
Lorraine: Yes. Yes. Because we always want our characters to grow and –
Sarah: Yes.
Lorraine: By showing things rather than just telling the reader, but by showing things and showing their evolve, evolving character, showing them starting to become more, more of what their true self is and revealing what their true self is. I also, I, I feel like laughter is an important part of our lives?
Sarah: Oh, yes, please!
Lorraine: And so usually there is, I will always have a scene where either the hero makes the heroine laugh, although usually it’s, my hero who’s not the one doing the laughing, and so I will have a moment where the, the heroine makes the hero laugh, and that’s usually the moment that he really begins to look at her differently, because she sparked something in him that had been dormant for a while. And so I, I just feel like it’s, it’s, humor, to me, is an important part of, of life and of, of storytell-, of storytelling, and I tend to write stories with a lot of emotion, and sometimes they get kind of dark, and I, I like to have a lighter moment, a moment where they do laugh together, ‘cause I think that’s a bonding experience.
Sarah: I very much agree. I think two characters who can laugh together have, are demonstrating a level of affinity or connection that isn’t really possible to explain in words. If something makes you and another person laugh, you already know that you have something very essential about yourselves in common? It’s, it’s an almost for-, it’s, it’s a form of intimacy, really, to find the same things funny and amusing.
Lorraine: I agree.
Sarah: Now you, as we’ve talked about, you have written contemporary, historical, paranormal, YA; you’ve written under several different names; you’ve written Westerns; you’ve written books set in various places; you’ve written dystopias. Do you have a favorite of your different books? Is there a favorite of each series that you’ve written? Do you have some that you just look back and go, I just, oh, I just love that book?
Lorraine: It’s going to sound corny. I mean, usually the book that I’m writing at the time is my favorite?
Sarah: Not corny at all!
Lorraine: And part of that is because whatever book I’m writing at the time, I’m writing something that I need at that time. I found that when I look back over my books, I might not realize at the time that I’m writing it, but when I look back, I can generally figure out what was going on in my life at the time I wrote that book, and I can see it reflected. In hindsight, I can see it reflected in the book, whatever I was dealing with at the time. For example, when I wrote Parting Gifts, I had a character who was dying, and while I didn’t realize it when I was writing it at the time, when I look in retrospect, there was a person in my life who was dealing with what one of the characters was dealing with, and I, it, for me, writing is kind of a catharsis –
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: – so I tend to pour myself into the story, and it’s often something that I’m dealing with. But I will say that my first love is historical romance. I enjoy writing contemporaries and Young Adult. They’re kind, for me, they’re kind of like just refreshing the palate, but my first love is historical romance, and if I could only pick one thing to write, I would write historical romance.
Sarah: What are some of the things that you love about writing historical romance?
Lorraine: I’ve always loved history, for one thing, and I, I just, it, there’s such a tapestry of settings and different aspects to what’s happened in the past that I find it fun and challenging just to, to go back into that world, and it’s kind of an escape for me, I guess, from modern, modern times.
Sarah: Do you also find that there are more boundaries between your characters in historical settings, that the simple logistics of getting two people together requires a lot more intricacy?
Lorraine: I think so. The characters are naturally going to want to stay apart because of society and because of beliefs at the time, and so you, you kind of had your, have your built-in sexual tension, because you are striving to make them break the boundaries that they’ve been grown up with, and so, so, yeah, that, that could be another aspect of it.
Sarah: There’s certainly boundaries and tension in, in historical settings sort of built in. When you’re, when you’re writing, whether you’re writing historical or, or YA, do you laugh and/or cry when you’re writing the scenes that are deeply emotional?
Lorraine: I do.
[Laughter]
Sarah: I think it’s a sign that the emotion is genuine, and I’m always fascinated to hear writers talk about how the things that they’re writing also affect them emotionally, sometimes even on the third or fourth or, you know, if you’re in copy edits, the tenth reread, it still gets to you! That’s, that’s, I think that’s really powerful! Is it a pretty consistent thing that you do laugh or cry at your writing?
Lorraine: It is. I have to keep a box of Kleenex by my, on my desk where I work at home.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: And I actually, I always take a bit of satisfaction, particularly when I get to a part that makes me cry, because I’m hoping that whatever about it that’s making me cry, that I’ve managed to put that on the page so that it will touch readers as well. Sometimes I, I worry that, you know, maybe it’s just because these characters are special to me that when I get to a particular point I cry, but I do hope that I have managed to make the reader feel whatever it is that I’m feeling at the time.
Sarah: I noticed in a Q and A in Cosmopolitan magazine a couple years ago, it was all about how covers get made. I, I love how when people who are in journalism outside the genre take a look at the, take a look at the genre, they always get to the covers, and sometimes they just stop right there. And I get it! They’re really interesting, but – [laughs] – there’s a lot of coverage of covers. You mentioned in this article that The Earl Takes All is one of your favorite covers, with the dark purple and black dress, almost mourning, and it’s from the back, and the woman is, the model is looking out a window holding a rose. Is that still one of your favorites? It is a stunning cover.
Lorraine: It is a stunning cover. You know, it is one of my favorites, but I, I have been so fortunate with all of my covers. The cover for When a Duke Loves a Woman, which comes out next, is this beautiful, beautiful purple, and so it would be difficult for me now to, to pick a favorite cover because –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: – they kind of rotate through. I just, I’ve been very fortunate. I have some really beautiful covers.
Sarah: It’s very interesting to look at all of the different books you’ve published and see just how in your career alone, how much the art and the style has changed. The Rogues in Texas series, they all have, like, a single flower trailing a ribbon or a garland behind them, and then as you move forward you get into the somewhat undressed heroine, and then there’s some open shirts on gentlemen, and now there’s these beautiful jewel-toned dresses on, on all of these covers. Do you ever look at the change in the way that romance is packaged and think, oh! Oh, this is, this is interesting. I like this. Do you notice that evolution as well?
Lorraine: I have noticed that evolution, and, you know, the, the thing is, anytime I get a cover, I, I always think, you know, oh, this is the best cover, and then I’ll get the next one, and I’m like, oh!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Lorraine: This, this one is! This is the best cover! And so it’s just, it’s been interesting to watch the evolution and to see the way that the, the covers have changed, and, and it’s int-, it’s interesting too. I, I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know how readers feel about them, if, if some of the changes are motivated by reader responses to covers or if the art department is, you know, try-, just trying something new, but it just always seems like whatever the cover is, it’s, that’s the perfect time at that time.
Sarah: I love the idea of you opening a new cover email and going, oh, nope, this one is the best. I was wrong! This is it; this is perfect! [Laughs] You’ve had an amazing collection of different characters and different parts of nobility. Is there a particular level of nobility that you like writing about, or are you just sort of interested in all of the class tensions within historical settings?
Lorraine: I’m kind of interested in all of the class settings, and for some reason, it’s not necessarily that I choose a particular title for the character; it’s just that the character comes to me, and it just seems appropriate, whatever title he comes to me with. Like, he may come to me, and I’ll know, okay, he’s an earl, or he’s a duke.
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: So, and I’m not really sure what the difference – I mean, why they come to me in particularly different ranks, so I don’t necessarily have a favorite.
Sarah: [Laughs] It would be hard to pick a favorite, like it’s hard to pick a favorite of your books. Now I always ask this question: do you have any books that you are reading or have read that you would like to recommend to people?
Lorraine: Oh, I do! I just read an advanced copy of Julie Anne Long’s The First Time at Firelight Falls.
Sarah: Ooh! Did you like it?
Lorraine: Oh, I loved it. I will never look at an elementary school principal the same again.
[Laughter]
Lorraine: Yes, she, I loved her hero in that book. I love the heroine too. I’m really enjoying this series, her, her contemporary series. I’ve also recently read Loretta Chase’s A Duke in Shining Armor, which I just adored, but I adore everything Loretta Chase does; she’s an auto-buy for me. So those are two books that I recommend.
Sarah: – have a lot of research books that you keep around?
Lorraine: If a person is writing, I recommend Life in Victorian England, and one of the things that I like about it is that it takes the impoverished part of England, the middle class, and then the nobility, and each chapter, like, it’ll talk about clothing, and it’ll talk about how the impoverished dressed, how the middle class dressed, and how the nobility dressed, and when it comes, there’s a chapter on weddings, and it talks about how their weddings differed. And so it’s a, a really good book if you’re wanting to get the full social scope of the different aspects of Britain at the time.
Another book that I really like is To Marry an English Lord –
Sarah: Oh!
Lorraine: – which goes through the period of time when the American heiresses began going to Britain to marry English lords, and so it explains why they went to Britain and, at that, and why the lords were so willing to marry American heiresses. It’s a real fascinating read, and it too gives you insight into, it gives you insight into the differences between Americans and British, and so if you’re looking for those differences it’s a, it’s a really good book. But it also is good at pointing out the various aspects of British life that, if we’re not really familiar with it, it highlights how different life is from Americans, and so it makes it – so it’s a good research book if you’re trying to put information in a historical about British life, ‘cause it points out things that are different from the way they are over here.
I also read, like, biographies, like The Glitter and the Gold is, the Duchess of Marlborough was an American heiress?
Sarah: Mm-hmm.
Lorraine: And that’s her biography, and she points out a lot of the differences between her, the life she had in America and then the life she had in Britain, and she was not at all happy living in Britain, because, as, as you pointed out earlier, it was, it was very rigid and controlling and unemotional, and so, so it’s, so it’s a good book if you’re looking, if you’re writing in the Victorian era. It’s a good book to read.
[music]
Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I want to thank Lorraine Heath for chatting with me, and I hope that you found her writing advice as inspiring as I did.
If you have ideas or suggestions or questions or you want to ask me something, if you’d like some recommendations, please feel free to email us at [email protected]. You can record a voice memo, you can email it to me, you can just write all the things you want to say, but I would love to hear from you because you are some fabulous people.
This episode was brought to you by Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller. RWA Golden Heart finalist and debut author Renee Ann Miller spins a ravishing tale of Regency London filled with infamous lords and unrepentant rogues whose bad behavior makes for good gossip. But these sexy scoundrels have stories and secrets that no one knows, and it takes a special touch to reveal the true hearts behind their devilish disguises. Never Dare a Wicked Earl pits a reckless earl convalescing from a gunshot wound from a jealous ex-mistress against his determined, plucky nurse with one scandalous wager. Never Dare a Wicked Earl by Renee Ann Miller is available everywhere books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. And thanks to Kensington for sponsoring this month’s episodes!
Each episode gets a transcript which is handcrafted by garlicknitter. Thank you, garlicknitter! [You’re welcome! – gk] This week’s transcript is being brought to you by Elizabeth Bright’s Lady Gone Wicked. Nicholas Eastwood is about to get everything he has ever wanted. As a reward for his service to the Crown, he has been offered the title of marquess. All he has to do is stay scandal-free until the papers are signed. There is just one problem: his ex-lover, presumed dead, is remarkably alive. Adelaide Bursnell is determined to right her wrongs. She will be a dutiful daughter and a loving sister, and most importantly, she will marry before her scandal catches up to her. Nicholas was once her ruin; now he is determined to be her salvation. If he can find her a suitable husband, their shared past can stay buried. But old temptations prove impossible to resist, and scandal can never stay secret for long. Lady Gone Wicked is available at all online book retailers, and you can learn more at elizabethbrightauthor.com.
If you are listening, thank you for that. I am very honored to hear from different people who love the podcast and listen each week, and I know you guys are working out or dyeing wool or walking the dog or cleaning the house or, as I recently discovered, carving wax for jewelry design – how rad is that? I really appreciate that you hang out with us. If you would like to help the show, there are very, very easy ways to do that. One, you can leave a review however or wherever you listen to podcasts, whichever app or program you use. You could tell a friend, you can subscribe, and if you like, you can have a look at our podcast Patreon, which helps keep the show going, helps me commission transcripts for episodes going back to 2008 and 2011 – can you believe the show’s being going that long? I am astonished! It’s almost ten years old. Although there was kind of a break in the middle there, because we stopped and then picked up again at 2011, but still, that’s a really long time.
If you would like to have a look at our Patreon: patreon.com/SmartBitches. Pledges make a deeply, deeply appreciated difference, and I want to thank some of the Patreon folks personally, so to Brandi and Mari, LH, Julia, Laura, and C, thank you for being part of the podcast Patreon community.
The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the show who this is, as to who this is, but – no, I’m already done. It is the end of the show. God, I don’t even know what time it is right now! This is really embarrassing. Okay. Auto-pilot: it’s a powerful thing. Shall we try that again? This is the Peatbog Faeries, this is their album Live @ 25, and this is the “Humours of Ardnamurchan,” and it’s pretty rad. If you like it, you can find the album at Amazon and iTunes, and you can find out more at peatbogfaeries.com.
Coming up on the site this week is some cool stuff. First, on Sunday, 8 p.m. Eastern time, we will have our movie discussion of Broadcast News, which if, if you haven’t watched this movie, it is both an amazing ‘80s time capsule and also really quite remarkably relevant to today as well. We will have a discussion at 8 p.m. Eastern on the website at smartbitchestrashybooks.com, and this week we have Cover Snark, a Bachelor recap, a new Soggy Bottoms, which is where Amanda attempts to recreate all the technical bakes from The Great British Bake Off, and we have a very special cover reveal for Susanna Kearsley’s next book, which comes out this summer. I hope that you will take a peek and hang out with us at Smart Bitches too.
And of course, time for the end joke. Are you ready?
What do you call the greatest dad joke of all time?
Give up? You want to know the answer? What do you call the greatest dad joke of all time?
A grandfather joke.
Woohoo! Thank – [laughs] – oh, they never fail to, fail to crack me up. Thank you to weirdbacon on Reddit for posting that, because it completely made my day!
And on behalf of Lorraine Heath and myself and Orville, who is sprawled across my desk while I do the show, thank you for being part of the podcast; thank you for hanging out with us. We wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next week.
[pretty rad music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Transcript Sponsor
This week’s transcript is being brought to you by Elizabeth Bright’s Lady Gone Wicked.
Nicholas Eastwood is finally about to get everything he ever wanted. As a reward for his service to the Crown, he has been offered the title of marquess. All he has to do is stay scandal-free until the papers are signed. There’s just one problem: His ex-lover, presumed dead, is remarkably alive.
Adelaide Bursnell is determined to right her wrongs. She will be a dutiful daughter and loving sister. Most importantly, she must marry before her scandal catches up to her. Nicholas was once her ruin, but now he is determined to be her salvation. If he can find her a suitable husband, their shared past can stay buried.
But old temptations prove impossible to resist and scandal can never stay secret for long…
Lady Gone Wicked is available at all online book retailers. Learn more at http://elizabethbrightauthor.com/.
I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast – so much so that I thought that it had only ran 10 minutes when I realized it was coming to a close!
Such insightful tips and candid honesty are rarely heard by authors in their interviews usually (IMHO) – but Lorraine Heath was simply inspiring!
It was also encouraging to hear from a person that has a similar background (parents half British/half mid-Atlantic here) and I could totally relate to her contrasted upbringing.
SBTB’s podcast’s are always fun, intelligent, and empowering, therefore thank you for an especially close-to-my-heart piece!
@Elle: thank you so much! I am really pleased you enjoyed it and that it resonated with you. Thank you.
Thanks for the great interview. I’ve read so many of Lorraine Heath’s books, but never knew the story behind the Texas stories.
Thank you for this lovely and interesting interview with Ms. Heath. She gave some truly valuable writing advice!