Wednesday 30 September 2020

Now, about that pair of visitors...

Meet Nell and Sophie, the Outcasts, but don't expect to like them


 In my post on The Third Brother, a couple of weeks back, I mentioned that 1818 is the year Joachim is in charge of running the family estate and his burning ambition is to prove he can manage everything perfectly.

What Joachim doesn't expect is the upheaval caused by his mother's visitors - two sisters who bring a coach-load of problems with them. For a start, their actual coach arrives many hours late in Toulouse, where Joachim and his friend Bertrand have come to meet them and escort them on the last part of the journey into the Pyrenees to the family home.

 Not only has Joachim lost a day he can ill afford to spare, the two girls immediately make a bad impression. One is a beauty but attention-seeking and a desperate flirt. The other is all buttoned-up, sullen and dressed from head to foot in grey.

At the inn where they stop, Bertrand has already made up his mind about them. He tells Joachim:

My friend, I don’t envy you being saddled with that pair for months. I couldn’t put up with either of them for a week, even.’ He perched on the windowsill and raked his fingers through his mop of curly brown hair.

Joachim poured water into the basin and dipped his head in it. He splashed water over his neck and shoulders, emerged with a sigh of relief and groped for a towel. ‘Aren’t you being a bit hasty? Only yesterday you said you were planning to marry one of them to restore your family fortunes.’

Bertrand stretched, moving his neck from side to side until it creaked. ‘Yes, well, that’s before we’d set eyes on them - and ears. All that shouting in the coach! Now, I assure you, even if they were as rich as Croesus, I’m not interested.'

Sophie [the flirt] goes on to scandalise the whole household within 24 hours of arriving, while Nell remains a grey shadow, locked in her unresponsive gloom. Privately, Joachim thinks it's no wonder their father and his new wife cast these two horrors out. Only now they are going to be an extra problem for his mother and that will really annoy him. And when Joachim's temper is roused, things can get very uncomfortable. 



Wednesday 23 September 2020

Do your characters argue with you?

 

Are you in control of your story?


 

In The Hobbit, Tolkien observed that "things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway." 

In other words, if there is no conflict, there is no story. So the characters can expect to have problems which get ever more difficult, they must face their fears and see their ambitions endlessly thwarted. No wonder they sometimes shut off and refuse to act as the author wishes.

Writers all experience the phenomenon of a character taking over the story and dictating what he or she will do and most certainly will not do. It takes time, a lot of thought and some bargaining between author and characters, to get things moving again. The revised plot rings truer and is more satisfying for all concerned. 

So an argument with the characters is a sign that they are ready to walk off the page; and as every writer knows, that is the best thing that can happen in any story. 


[ Photo of my workbook for The Rake's Challenge. There are four rakes in that tale, 

two of them brothers. ]

The Rake's Challenge



Thursday 10 September 2020

The Rake and His Honour On Free Offer




THE RAKE AND HIS HONOUR


Set during a time of tension and uncertainty as Napoleon's fanatical spies attempt to keep him in power and prevent the return of King Louis XVIII. 


This intriguing Regency romance from Beth Elliott tells of the power of love in turbulent times 
Revolving hearts


Read for #FREE for a limited time only, here: https://l8r.it/kDBO