Edifice Obsessions

Pat here:
Mary Jo tells me I have a strong Cancer rising, which means I’m a house person, and the planets could be onto something there. I have renovated, restored, and improved over half a dozen houses in my checkered career, and that’s just the real ones, not the ones I create in my books.

Whenever I start a book, I have to know where my characters live so I can picture how they react to different settings. In the book I’m currently revising, when I bring my poor bankrupt earl  reluctantly home, I provided him with a edifice of impressive proportions, right down to the architects:  It was a beautiful Palladian home, built from the ground up based on plans from Colen Campbell and influenced by Inigo Jones’s designs. The first earl’s wife had a love of grace and order, and more taste than dowry. For a century, no expense had been spared. Robert Adam had added his touch to ceilings and fireplaces throughout the great rooms. Capability Brown had designed the grounds.

And of course, he hasn’t a penny to keep up any of it.  I think I rather imagined it as a smaller version of Castle Howard, a mansion that, once seen, sticks firmly in mind. But my fictional estate has been sadly neglected for decades, and my hero has just learned to enjoy the cozy comfort of my heroine's modest three-story brick “cottage” surrounded by neatly trimmed yews and ivy, of a sort to be seen all over England. I dearly wanted to spend more time with this couple just to see how they deal with the house disparities! (Here's a lovely manor in Oxfordshire, the area in which my heroine lives: www.manorfarm-wantage.co.uk/ That's the picture on the right.)

But alas, once I marry off the protagonists, I must let them wander off on their own, only occasionally stopping by to visit in subsequent books.  It’s like giving up a house of my own, moving on to the next. Which I’m wickedly devising as we speak, an overgrown bungalow in Chelsea with an aviary is forming on the pages...

As readers, do you pay much attention to the houses our characters inhabit? Do you picture yourselves in the gloomy towers or domed foyers? Or is it all just irritating information to be skimmed over until you get to the juicy parts?

Comments

[Maggie Robinson/Margaret Rowe]

I was a Realtor for 8 years, and have lived in too many houses to count. One might say I'm house-obsessed too.My bulletin board has houses clipped from English magazines and downloaded from the Internet that I
I use for inspiration---I find generally that houses are almost an additional character in my books.

I do pay attention when I read, because the surroundings tell a great deal about a character or family.But if I ever visit, I promise not to inspect your closets. :)

[theo]

I love having the house/homestead/domain included in the story when it's a part of the story. When it has a direct bearing on the story. I cannot stand to have the description of a house 'tossed in' as filler. "Oh, gee, I haven't mentioned at all what the place looks like. Let me throw in a gratuitous paragraph or two about it...here!"

No, thanks. The house should be as much of a character as the H/hn, et al, or leave its tedious descriptions out.

Victoria Holt had a marvelous way of incorporating her character's houses into her stories. There are one or two other authors I can name as well ;) *points finger at Pat*

[Linda Banche]

I think descriptions of houses adds atmosphere to the story. People put their imprint on their houses, so reading about the house is reading about the character.

In real life, I'm not a house nut. I like where I am and I'll leave it the way it is.

[Patricia Rice]

Ahh, Maggie, I knew we were soul mates. As a Realtor, how did you resist buying every cool house you saw?
Thank you, Theo, (see me bowing modestly)but I agree. Houses, landscape, all ought to be part of the story or characters. I'm glad someone is reading those passages!

Not everyone can be a crabby Cancer, Linda. "G" We all have our obsessions. I guess what I should have asked was--what is your obsession?

[maryjoputney]

I want to stay in the B&B! The internet makes it possible to drool over beautiful places all over the world.

So I'm sort of a house slut--but I do like my present place just fine, and have no desire to move, so I just try to stay in Really Cool Places when I travel.

[kay]

One of my favorite things to collect, and believe me I have many blueprints. I love blueprints! When I was young, I used to draw illustrated stories and before each story, I would always make up a blueprint.

As far as reading about descriptions of homes in a romance book; if they are part of the story or establish some kind of atmosphere, then, yes I enjoy them.

[Janice]

I like to know about the house, but, if I'm honest, I've never gotten a good idea of the looks of a house from an author's description. Little details of a room, or an object in a room, I can visualize, but not the whole house or the floor plan. I would like to know, though; I appreciate those older books that used to have things like interior drawings or maps on the flyleaves. I am interested and I do read those parts. One reason I like Carla Kelly so much is that she makes me feel that her characters' surroundings are real & concrete; it's probably the tiny details she puts in.

When I read a historical novel, I want to feel 'swept away' to a different era, and the details help (as long as it's not just an info dump). Wallpaper historicals don't work well for me.

[Sue]

I do love the decription of a house/ mansion, it gives me a reference point for the characters. I actually stopped reading a Stephanie Laurens short story when the hero was in an English seaside cottage with an American style "porch"! she'd even thrown in the porch swing! As a Brit it was too ridiculous so I couldn't believe the rest. However Mary Jo, Nicola, Edith, Jo and Anne are on my bookshelves because they get the description just right! (I haven't read the other wenches yet but they are in my book pile as I write).

[Patricia Rice]

Blueprints, cool! I've sat down and drawn out the layout of a house so I can have my characters running through it in proper order, not that I imagine anyone notices. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could go back to those old engravings that illustrated the classics? I'm hoping once e-books and readers are cheap, that we can do even better than that.
Details--must attempt to remember smaller details. I'm very bad at that. I'm a big picture person and want to see the sweeping lawn, not the dandelion. Pat, knocking head with heel of hand, ordering brain to remember...

[lyn s]

I love houses and architecture. They can almost be a character: they add so much to a story. One thing I would love to find is a Regency Townhouse in London to tour. I would love to actually feel how big the space is. It is why I also like to wander battlefieds (Normandy, Agincourt, Waterloo and Arnheim are next on our list).
I point houses out so much that my daughter (16yrs) has set a moritorium. I can only point out houses to her that are exploding.

[Patricia Rice]

LOL, Lyn! My kids were that way with churches when we toured Europe. I'll ask about townhouses for touring, but you have to keep in mind that like today's houses, they came in wide varieties. I have a book, THE PERIOD HOUSE, Style, Detail, and Decoration by Lawrence and Chris that is a wonderful compendium of floor plans and details, but it's not the same as stepping inside one, admittedly.

Battlefields--that's another matter. I feel ghosts. Our Civil War battlefields cured me of ever visiting more.

[Anne]

It drives me batty, but this is how my brain works. I have two or three houses from my past that always turn into whatever house is described in a novel. I just add details, like if it's shabby or extra large or whatever. I am really tired of those same settings, but I am so not a spacial person that I can't follow even detailed descriptions of houses. That's not to say they shouldn't be there! They are necessary. I just have to expand my horizons and visit more English manor houses and mansions. :)
Obsession? Historical romance. :)

[Cara Elliott/Andrea Pickens]

Pat, I love to read rich details about the houses, gardens, andlandscapes of the stories I read. I'm a visual person, so I want to "see" the textures and colors and play of light. All of that, as well as charater, is what pulls me into the author's world.

[Elizabeth]

I enjoy the house and the garden descriptions. It helps that although I was raised in Missouri, and now live in Connecticut, I spent a year and a half in England, in the Cotswolds.