(In general I advise against the use of prefaces in fiction. Some readers skip them, and in doing so, miss essential information. I have found that the essential material of prefaces can almost always be skillfully developed in the story itself.)

writing dialogue for an earlier era involves invention, not just research and mimicry. Fowles, in commenting on his own work1 reinforces the point that dialogue is a semblance of speech rather than an attempt to duplicate it:

planting means preparing the ground for something that comes later, usually to make the later action credible.

Experiencing a character’s embarrassment involves the reader.

In devising a love story, search for the root conflicts based on character and upbringing, but also ferret out surface conflict by asking yourself if you have depicted your adult lovers at a moment of crisis. If not, can you add a crisis that will increase the tension of the relationship? Does the woman want something reasonable that is refused by

An opponent is trapped in a closed environment:

Characters caught in a crucible won’t declare a truce and quit. They’re in it till the end. The key to the crucible is that the motivation of the characters to continue opposing each other is greater than their motivation to run away. Or they can’t run away because they are in a prison cell, a lifeboat, an army, or a family.

Certain words frequently constitute flab and can be eliminated: “however,” “almost,” “entire,” “successive,” “respective,” “perhaps,” “always,” “there is.”

Or something is happening and the reader wants it to stop, now. And it doesn’t.