Things like subtext, theme and style were not things we thought about at all. We just bopped along through the story, trying to figure out a plot as we went. But we did love and respect the genre, which I think is the essential first step to being able to write it. It's hard to develop a style, an author's voice. It's something we had to reinvent when we moved from Regency romance to The Windflower , and reinvent again when we moved to contemporaries.
Style has to suit the characters, the era, the story, the subtext.
You can use it like a paint brush- broad strokes, delicate ones. With every new story, we have to approach the craft of writing anew. Dell, I found. Then I looked up Dell's phone number and when I got through, asked for the editorial department. The switchboard put me through to this chatty young guy who seemed content to chew the fat with me, even though he was a general fiction editor, and didn't work on Regencies at all.