Allie Pleiter on time travel

This weekend, you read all about my "contemporary romance" fictional self--the one who inhabits Gordon Falls, Illinois and hangs out with fire fighters.  Well, Doctor Who has company in his spiffy blue TARDIS because I get to time travel in my fictional form.  Today, you can meet my "historical romance" self--the one who inhabits South Carolina in World War One and nineteenth century Nebraska and hangs out with war heroes and prairie sheriffs.

I adore writing both.  I try to write at least one historical a year--sometimes two--along with my contemporary series.  The variety energizes me, shakes things up just enough to keep the creative juices flowing.

If you aspire to literary time travel like I do, here's three tips I've learned for flipping back and forth through the centuries.

1) Collect the verbs
Every era has splendid verbs that belong only to that time period.  No one "coshes" anyone over the head in 2010, but no one "ditches" a date in 1845.  Nouns are useful, but I find it's the verbs that really make a text sing.

2) Get the rhythm in your ears
While I find I can't read historicals while I write them (I'm too impressionable and then my voice starts to veer unnaturally toward whomever I am reading), I find it useful to watch movies set in that time period or listen to audiobooks.  It helps me get the sound of the language firmly fixed in my head.  The same is true for a contemporary--what movie sounds like my character?  Which audiobooks have the same sense of place I'm shooting for in my current work?

3) Music
This is a bit harder for historicals, but I often wade through on-line music services to find a soundtrack for my books.  It's instant atmosphere, and can take me to another place in my head no matter where my body happens to be.

Sure, I'd love a TARDIS--or any other time travel device that would allow me to dress up in a 19th century ball gown and still make it home for my daily latte.  But until The Doctor shows up at my door, I'll have to make do with the technology I've got.

Family Lessons Interview

How exciting to have Holly Sanders, the heroine from Family Lessons written by Allie Pleiter, an April 2013 release from Love Inspired Historical Romance .

1.   Holly, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

That’s just it--I’m not interesting at all.  I’m as uninteresting as they come, I tell you.  Oh, I suppose I’m a good teacher, and that’s worth something in these parts, but Evans Grove is filled with good people who merit much more attention that I.

2.   What do you do for fun?

I love to read every book I can get my hands on.  It’s been much harder to find a free hour since the flood damaged so many homes and shops in our town.  Everyone’s been working so hard to try to rebuild--reading feels like a luxury I can’t afford right now.

3.   What do you put off doing because you dread it?

While I do indeed dread it, I can’t put off starting up school again.  There will be empty seats from the children taken by the flood.  It’s such a sorrowful thing, I can’t bear to think about it--despite how much I love to teach.

4.   What are you afraid of most in life?

I’m afraid that I’ll never amount to anything, never make a true difference in someone’s life.  I’d have to say that having a gun pointed in my back during a train robbery is the most frightening thing that’s ever happened to me.

5.   What do you want out of life?

I want to matter to someone, to be dear to their heart.  I’ve almost given up hope of that someone being Mason Wright.

6.   What is the most important thing to you?

The children are everything to me.  I want them to grow up smart and strong and full of hope.  The flood has taken so much from them.  I want them to feel like life still has joys in store for them.

7.   If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I wish that I was pretty.  Not beautiful--I don’t need that--just less plain than I am now.

8.   Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I have a cat named Dickens.  He’s wonderful company and very clever.

9.  Can you tell us a little interesting tidbit about the time period you live in?

The orphan trains were run by social agencies back east to give impoverished children a better life.  It seems so harsh to ship them all the way out here to new families, but I’ve heard that many of them find wonderful homes.  It’s my hope that the orphans who were stranded here in Evans Grove get such loving new homes.

Allie Pleiter on using a details...

As writers, we try to capture the little things, the details that make our character come alive.  Sometimes they come to us out of the depths of our imagination, sometime from keen observation, or sometimes from something we know well.

I needed a great teacher skill for Holly Sanders in Family Lessons.  I needed some essential trick to catch Mason Wright’s eye, to wake him up to Holly’s talents as a teacher.  I didn’t have to look far--I went to the best teachers around me.  My children are far out of elementary school, so I went through my world to see what Sunday school teachers--many of whom are friends of mine--did that I found impressive.

Holly’s “clap once if you can hear me,” trick to focus the children’s attention in a crisis is a ploy used by my friend Angie.  She’s an awesome teacher--devoted and creative--and kids love her.  Her personality is nothing like Holly’s, but that doesn’t matter.  This is a detail, not a broad stroke.

Mason’s mouth-wide-open reaction to how well her strategy works is a favorite moment of the book for me.  I remember being astonished the first time I saw my friend Angie use the “clap once if you can hear me.”  I couldn’t believe it worked so well in a room full of rowdy second graders!  It was great fun to get to give her talents a literary nod.

What about you?  What great teachers do you remember from your early school days as either a student or a parent?