Word Wenches

More Scandalous: A Girl's Best Friend

From Loretta:

As has been mentioned on a previous occasion, Francesca Bonnard, the heroine of my new book, Your Scandalous Ways, is a..um..bad girl.   You know.  The two-letter “h” word that used to have a few more letters fore and aft.  She’s a very expensive bad girl.

People ask where we get our ideas.  Part of her personality was sparked by an article I read in the New Yorker some time ago.  It dealt, among other things, with a set of emeralds discovered at the bottom of the sea that were believed to belong to the Queen of Portugal, sometime in the 16th century.  Or the 15th century.  I don’t remember the date and haven’t yet unpacked my brand-new New Yorker CD-Rom, so I can’t check.  But I vividly remember the picture of the gigantic emeralds.  Wow.  So I not only gave them to my heroine but made emeralds an important part of the plot.  And then it turned out that all her jewelry was important, to both the plot and the character development.

We authors do take time, at least now and then, to let our readers know about what the characters are wearing.  Clothes tell us something about character as well as help us picture the historical setting.  In this story, though, the jewelry really mattered.

Here’s what James Cordier sees the first time he sees Francesca:
“A sapphire and diamond necklace adorned her long, velvety neck.  Matching drops hung at her shell-like ears."  I found the set of sapphires, along with most of Francesca’s jewelry in a wonderful volume, Jewellery:  The International Era 1789-1910, Volume I, 1789-1861.

 

As Marilyn Monroe informed us in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “these rocks don’t lose their shape”--unlike we frail humans.  Today a beautiful divorcee has men at her feet.  Tomorrow, if she isn’t careful, she could be in the gutter.  And the gutter is exactly where Francesca’s ex-husband would like her to be.  But she’s a survivor, and jewels are her IRA-- “saved against the rainy day that often came to harlots as age took its toll.''  They’re also advertising.  “Jewelry was a powerful form of financial security.  Better yet, unlike bank notes, it was security one might display to the world."

The jewels’ quality is a signal to men:  It symbolizes her exclusivity, i.e., if you have to ask how much, you can't afford her.

We usually see Francesca’s jewelry through the eyes of the hero.  Being, among other things, a talented jewel thief, James has a keenly noticing eye, and there are times when I wondered which made him hotter:  her gems or her body.  The combination does make him cranky, as when he tells her: 
       “You have a high opinion of yourself. But the king’s ransom in pearls you’re wearing is not proof that you are irresistible, only that some men are weaker than others.”
       Some man had been weak, indeed.  He shifted his gaze from her haughty countenance to the top and drop pearl earrings, then down to the two pearl necklaces circling her throat.  From the upper, shorter one dangled pear-shaped drops of graduated size, the largest at the center.  It pointed to the space between her breasts, whose rapid rise and fall told him she was not so indifferent as she pretended.  The low-cut gown, of silk the color of sea foam, reminded one of the pearls’ watery origins.  The pearl and diamond bracelets at her slim wrists glimmered against the butter-soft gloves.
       The jewels alone constituted a cruelly arousing sight for a man who was a thief at heart.  It was maddening that he couldn’t simply steal them and have done with her.”

I stole the pearls from the Empress Josephine.  The picture in the aforementioned book wouldn’t reproduce well even if it weren’t under copyright, but this picture shows similar pearls, although the lady is wearing only one strand.

I include a few more pictures of fine jewels, mostly belonging to the women in Napoleon’s circle. 

After all, it was in Paris that Francesca commenced her career as a Bad Girl.  Here are a pair of diamond earrings that belonged to Marie Antoinette, and which you can picture on Francesca's shell-shaped ears. 

I’m also including a picture of Pauline Bonaparte, not because of the jewels, but because of the red dress.  Francesca is aware that a red dress stands out nicely against a black gondola, and readers might want to keep this dress in mind (though it’s from a few years earlier than the  time of my story) when they read the book. 

For more of Francesca and James, you can stop here, at Romance B(u)y the Book, and read an excerpt.

More glimpses are coming, but I hope this preview of Francesca’s "rocks" gives you a sense of who she is and who James is and what went into creating these characters.

What other kinds of things do you like to know about a story?  Shall I talk about their clothes?  The palazzi?  Gondolas?  Offer glimpses of Venice in 1820?  What Byron was up to during his years there? 

There are more Scandalous blogs coming between now and the 27 May appearance of Your Scandalous Ways.  One or more of your comments will tell me what to feature next time, so feel free to indulge your curiosity! 

Thank you to Julia Quinn!

The Wenches thank Julia for visiting and answering the many questions. We'e happy to present her with a virtual gift suited to a lady of such talents -- a jeweled heart set with "diamonds of the first water."

The three winners of books from JulieQ are:
Moose in the Kitchen, Judy Dawe, and Keri Kaeding. Congratulations. Please e-mail [email protected] about this.

A Loving Tradition

Hi, Edith here!

There are four times of the year when editors from all media in the world, universe, multiverse and outlying dimensions, take a rest and go for the easy way. They assign stories to their most eager new reporters, sit back and let tradition roll on.

One of these times is coming up.

Scene: Newspaper/Magazine/TV/Internet/ Assignment Desk anywhere in the universe, multiverse and adjacent dimensions.

Editor (looks around blearily) “How’s the Holland kid doing?”
Underling: “Fine. Ready and set to go. Got an assignment for him?”
Editor: “Look at the calendar. He’s got two weeks. Tell him to dig up a local Romance writer and do an interview. Send a photographer with him.”
Underling: “What Romance Writer? We live here (in the desert, under the sea, in the lost continent of Atlantis, two miles south of the Bermuda Triangle, in Outer Space.)”
Editor (smiles) “There’s Always a Romance Writer nearby. You know, like they say that you’re only six feet from a spider at any time in your life? There are more romance writers than that. Have the kid dig one up. Get a new angle on it, maybe.”
Underling: “A new angle on a Romance Writer and Valentine’s Day?”
Editor (wearily): “Just tell him to get the interview, OK?”

So the eager reporter calls a local Romance Writer. After the LRW swoons, she/he picks him/herself up and goes into a tizzy! An interview, in the newspaper, magazine, TV Nightly News! This could be the Big Break!
Of course, it never occurs to said Romance Writer that:
1) It will only matter in sales if her/his book is coming out the same day
2) She/he may be made to look like an idiot
3) She/he, if in paper media, will definitely be lining a birdcage the day after the interview.

The Romance Writer dithers for days about what to wear. Then days more about what to say. How to explain that love is never trashy, that love is what makes the world go around, and how Romance is necessary for the beautification of the human soul?
This is, of course, a waste of time. There will be only two questions, with endless variations, asked.
1) How do you/your family feel about you writing such hot books?
2) How do you/your famiy feel about you writing about all that sex?

And of course, there is never a good answer, even if the LRW writes erotic Romance, because the reporter already has most of the piece written in his/her head.***

Do I sound cynical? Do I sound as if I have sometime in my past been ill used by media? Have I been made to look silly, and had my message misconstrued? This is entirely possible. And yet, and still, when the phone rings in a few days and someone asks me if I will consent to be interviewed for the local paper, I will go into a tizzy, wondering about what to wear, and worrying abut what to say. Because it may be the start of Something Big.

By the way – the three other occasions upon which locals are always called upon by editors are:
Local witches, for Halloween interviews, in which they dress in silly clothes and/or are made to look silly by the interview.
Poor local children, lost local puppies and local reunions for a nice, sob-worthy Christmas feature.
Local women who have had in excess of thirteen children, for a Mother’s Day interview.

****Maybe I am wrong about this. Maybe there is an intelligent sure-fire answer explaining Love and Romance. Can you think of an intelligent line for a LRW to use in an interview, one that can’t be misconstrued? An impartial judge will choose one respondent to receive a signed copy of my aptly named: THE CHOICE.

Will the Real Lady Macbeth Please Stand Up

Double double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble….
Shakespeare, Macbeth

Shakespeare gave those word to his three witches, but they could easily have come from the lips of his own Lady Macbeth. What does my version of Lady Macbeth have in common with the infamous, brilliant, scheming, murderous, ambitious Lady Macbeth?

Not a whole lot….and that’s just the point. Because I didn't want to write about Shakespeare’s villainess -- I wanted to create my own character, based on the actual young queen.

When I first considered writing the story of Lady Macbeth --a young woman who lived in 11th century Scotland as Queen of Scots beside King Macbeth -- I asked myself more than once if I was crazy to take on such an infamous, powerful character, the iconic creation of a literary genius. But as I researched and played with ideas, after a while it didn’t seem so intimidating—because the real queen, a young woman in a Celtic warrior society, would have been very, very different from Shakespeare’s power-mad, ambitious, cruel and wacked-out woman.

Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth was far more a product of England at the end of the Elizabethan age, and the beginning of the Jacobean Stuarts in the court of King James I of England. The basic point of the play—to oversimplify—was a political statement aimed at the audiences of 1603: here’s a Scottish king who was way badder and more evil than Good King James (even if Jamie did slobber a bit) – and look how bad Macbeth’s queen was! The English people of 1603 had lucked out! And of course, Lady Macbeth, that wildly brilliant and blood-crazed lady, was a fictional character that Shakespeare, as writer and creative genius, could sink his teeth into. If she didn’t sink her teeth into him first… She is a masterful psychological study in villainy and the consequences of misguided ambition and the basest urges of humankind.

Well there was no way I could approach that. But I never had to worry. My Lady Macbeth could be altogether different, as a product of early medieval, or Celtic, Scotland.

Right away a major hurdle was the amount of extant evidence regarding her: one line in a Latin document. Yikes! The historical evidence that a Queen “Gruoch,” wife of King Macbeth, existed comes from a single land grant written in Latin. Even her name is uncertain and possibly a phonetic rendering of the Gaelic original. The clues in those lines of text are intriguing, and the work of creating my own version of Lady Macbeth began there.

So little is known of Macbeth’s queen that historians have drawn conclusions about her based on events and circumstances of the time. A set of documents from the Priory of Saint Andrews—land charters of donations between 1040 and 1057--provide her name and her lineage: “Machbet filius Finlach...et Gruoch filia Bodhe, Rex et Regina Scottorum.” Her father and therefore the importance of her royal line are identified. Another clue is that she is accorded the title of Queen of Scots, full queen beside Macbeth, rather than consort.

One extant eleventh-century document. Not a lot to go on to build the story of an actual early medieval queen. Macbeth is mentioned in several contemporary documents, entries in annals written by Irish, Scottish, and Saxon monks. He is variously called Mac bethad mac Finlaech, Macbeth, Makbeth, Machbet, possibly even Magbjotr (in the Orkneyinga Saga), and “the king with the outlandish name,” as one contemporary Saxon source refers to him. Spelling was a freeform art early on….

The name “Gruoch” is a puzzle. It appears in one Latin document. No Gaelic, Saxon, or Norse female name matches it. Possibly it was a cleric’s phonetic attempt to record a Gaelic name. Historians have stuck with Gruoch, but I wanted my fictional queen to have a more palatable name. I came across a reference to Gruoch’s great-granddaughter, whose name was Gruaith or Gruadh—and that settled the matter for me. That could have been the queen’s own name, and “Gruadh” has a precedent as a female name in Irish myth. Pronounced “Groo-ath,” Gruadh seemed a better choice than Gruoch (besides, I kept typing “Grouch” – so it definitely had to go!). Considering the welfare of the reader, I further shortened her name to “Rue” as a nickname. Sorrow seemed to fit her.

There was not only the looming shadow of Shakespeare, there was also Dorothy Dunnett and Nigel Tranter, who both wrote stellar novels about Macbeth, and of course fictional creations of his queen. The further I got into my own writing, the less intimidated I felt. My Rue -– my Lady Macbeth -- was utterly different from the famous villainess, and from Dunnett's Norse lady and Tranter's medieval queen. My Rue was a teenager in a warrior society, a young woman bent on proving herself, defending her lineage, and continuing the strong and graceful Celtic traditions of her culture.
And as she grew as a character, she turned out to be hotheaded, spiteful, and even funny in moments--she was typically a teenager too, impulsive, sometimes arrogant, sometimes vulnerable; she gropes her way through situations and learns some pretty hard lessons as she matures.

I had the advantage of more historical information available than either Dunnett or Tranter, certainly more than Shakespeare, whose sources wrote fantastical accounts of Macbeth based on each other and on accounts corrupted by Malcolm Canmore and then elaborated. In the last twenty years, much new research has been done in the area of Celtic and medieval Scotland studies. I was fortunate to be able to consult with some of the best historians in that field, so that I could do my best to ensure that what I came up with was historically accurate and sound.

The research at first looked crazy difficult, but I’m a pig in mud when it comes to deep historical research. I love matching facts like puzzle pieces to come up with something new that hasn’t been noted before (such as the lady’s possible name). I loved the research, the writing, and the subject, and I came to love Gruadh and her story as I saw it.

One of the best things about writing this book was the freedom to explore a subject that fascinated and compelled me. And it was wonderful to stay up late in my jammies while the family slept and the world was quiet. . .which is without a doubt one of the greatest privileges of being a writer.

Anyway, I do hope you will all look for LADY MACBETH: A NOVEL by Susan Fraser King, and I dearly hope you will love it. The release date is Feb. 12, coming soon.... and it can be pre-ordered online... (nudge, wink!)

“Captivating…an epic tale written in high-voltage prose.” -– Publishers Weekly

“Readers will be drawn to this revised version of an ancient villainess. King manages to challenge all our preconceptions without turning the strongest female character in literature into a pantywaist. Her footwork on this fictional ground is sure and graceful.”   -- BookPage

~Susan Sarah

Last of the Red Hot Bad Boys

by Mary Jo

Romance novels have their share of bad boys--usually men who are exciting, a little wild, but capable of being redeemed into sexy monogamy.  When a man writes a bad boy hero, it's quite another matter.  Hence, Harry Flashman--hero, or perhaps anti-hero, of the Flashman historical novels by George MacDonald Fraser.  (Possibly a relative of our own Susan Fraser King?  Could be!)

GMF was clearly a rebellious schoolboy, because when he read Tom Brown’s School Days, that Victorian paean to virtuous boys becoming honorable gentleman, he couldn’t stand the goody-goody Tom Brown.  The only character he liked was Harry Flashman, the distinctly unvirtuous older boy who bullied Tom.  (By the way, this book, written by Thomas Hughes and based on his own school days at Rugby, was influential in creating the whole genre of British School Novels, running all the way down to Harry Potter.  Who was probably not named after Harry Flashman. <g>)

Flashman is a magnificent character creation.  The first book, named simply Flashman, came out in 1969.  I read it when I was a mere child, but I was fascinated by the humor, excitement, and history.  A villainous hero makes history very accessible.  As I read the earlier books, I wondered how a writer could make the stories so rich in detail.  GMF didn’t just mention real historical figures—he knew what they looked like, what their foibles were, and in some cases took real words from their mouths.

Now that I’m a historical novelist myself, I know now how MacDonald Fraser did it—tons of research, reading memoirs and histories until he was saturated with the time, people, and places he wrote about.  That’s the basic technique—but few writers have ever done it as well. 

In that first book, Flashman is tossed out of  Rugby at age 17 and joins the army, thereby setting himself up for a lifetime of adventures.  He is a indeed a coward, liar, cheat, and bully, but with a couple of talents that will serve him well: he’s a first class rider (useful for escaping from people who wanted to chop him into Flashy hash).  He’s dark in coloring and he has a real knack for languages, which will come in handy when he has to disguise himself as a Hindu sepoy or some such.  Plus, when he’s terrified, which is often, his face turns red as if he’s angry rather than getting pale.  This enables him to hide his fear pretty effectively.

He’s also a fine, handsome fellow with bushy sidewhiskers, very attractive to the ladies.  Which is good, considering what a relentless womanizer Harry is.  He's first class at detecting a rowdy gleam in female eyes, and this being a male fantasy, an amazing number of women lust for his hot, manly form. 

The books are structured as mock memoirs written by General Sir Harry Flashman, and not discovered until long after he has died at an advanced age, rich and ripe with honors.  Each book is presented as another packet of “the Flashman Papers,” edited by a somewhat prissy George MacDonald Fraser, complete with footnotes which point out where Flashy’s memory seems to have failed him.  On the whole, though, the old guy had a pretty good memory, and ruthless honesty about his own shortcomings. 

As he says himself, “This story will be completely truthful; I am breaking the habit of eighty years. Why shouldn't I?  When a man is as old as I am, and knows himself thoroughly for what he was and is, he doesn't care much. I'm not ashamed, you see; never was....So I can look at the picture above my desk, of the young officer in Cardigan's Hussars; tall, masterful, and roughly handsome as I was in those days....and say that it is the portrait of a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief....But I am concerned with facts, and since many of them are discreditable to me, you can rest assured they are true.”

Flashman turns up smack in the middle of any number of military engagements and terrifying cultures over a long span of the 19th century, including the Indian Mutiny, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the American Civil War, and he even survived Custer’s Last Stand.  Not to mention inspiring the “Eliza on the ice” episode in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Since India was such an important part of the British Empire, Flashy lands there again and again, invariably in trouble.  Each book covers multiple far-flung adventures and dangers, so Flashman at the Charge starts out in the Crimean War, then waltzes on through Russian and Central Asia.  The books can be read in any order, since they jump around in time, and in some cases, such as Flashman and the Indians, they cover related incidents widely separated by time.

So how does a devout coward end up in trouble so often?  Bad behavior that backfires, restless feet, and enormous vanity.  In the very first book, he wins a Victoria Cross, the British equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.  He doesn’t deserve it, of course, but from then on, the tabloids consider him a noble hero of the British Army, and he is very proud of that reputation.  So when he’s part of a council of war privately thinking, “Are these chaps CRAZY?”, out loud he’s goading on the war hawks to uphold his reputation so as a fire eater.  You can see how this can get a man into trouble. <g> 

Naturally, as a romance novelist, I’m interested in his relationships with women.  We’ll put aside the fact that he probably should have died of venereal disease before the age of forty—this is a male fantasy, after all. 

Despite his craven nature, he’s not stupid, and he learns as he goes along.  The only time he commits rape is in the first book, when he’s given a dancing girl for the night and she proves unwilling.  Not only does this prove disastrous since it turns out she’s the mistress of a dangerous man, but he also decides that it wasn’t that much fun, so in the future he sticks to willing women, of which there are no shortage.  (Over time, he does get more mellow in general.  But never fear--he can be counted on to do something dastardly whenever the reader is in danger of thinking too well of him.)

There are some women that are special to him, but what makes his romantic life fun is his marriage to the beauteous and dim Elspeth, a Scottish heiress.  He seduces her in the first book and is forced to marry her, but what makes this so satisfying is that she is probably as promiscuous as he is—but he never really knows for sure. 

Her beauty, sweetness, adoration (and father’s money) make her appealing, but it’s the uncertainty that drives him crazy, and provides Flashy with his just desserts.  In the book Flashman’s Lady, he rescues her from pirates and captivity on the brutal island of Madagascar, though he claims that that’s just instinct to protect one’s mate.  But I find it endearing that through all the outrageous adventures and rogering of Flashman’s life, he has a true love that he keeps coming home to—and she’s about as trustworthy as he is. <G>

I could talk about the Flashman books indefinitely, but there’s no substitute for reading them.  If you haven’t, give yourself a treat.  The website http://www.harryflashman.org/  has lots of information about the books and the character.  (The site’s motto is “Enlightening Educating Entertaining, And Damning your eyes!”)

George MacDonald Fraser served in the British Army during WWII and for a couple of years after, in Burma, so he knows the military.  Later he became a journalist and editor, and after his success as a novelist, spent some years in Hollywood as a scriptwriter, working on projects such as Royal Flash, based on his own second Flashman novel (GMF’s riff on The Prisoner of Zenda), The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers, et al.  He also wrote other novels, a memoir, a history of the Scottish reavers, and more. For a full bio, go to:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_MacDonald_Fraser   But it's Flashman who made him famous. 

In memory of George MacDonald Fraser:

Born April 2nd, 1925
Died January 2nd, 2008.

Hail and farewell, Flashy.

From Mary Jo, one of several Wenchly fans of Flashman

Julia Quinn

The Wenches are delighted to welcome bestselling author, Julia Quinn as guest.  Welcome, Julia.

Julia’s first novel, Splendid, was published in 1995 and has been followed by 15 novels and four novellas in twelve years. No slacker here, especially as much of Julia’s work has hit high on the bestselling lists. Last year Julia won a very overdue RITA award for best Long Historical Romance of 2006 for On The Way To The Wedding.

Her recent novels have all been centered on the Bridgerton family, who are particularly beloved. She also comes up with great titles. Her How to Marry A Marquis started a trend for such titles in historical romance, and others such as The Duke and I and The Viscount Who Loved Me are simply delicious, and so appropriate for the delicious stories within. 

Jo: In the past twelve years, have you had a yen to write in another period, or a different type of romance or fiction?

JQ: Not really. I have always considered myself amazingly fortunate that what I like to write (regency historicals) happens to be the most popular setting in historical romance. It’s a lucky writer who gets to keep the muse and the mortgage satisfied at the same time.

Jo: Is there a danger of getting bored? I've flitted around a bit.

JQ: Rather than vary the setting, I’ve begun to vary the writing process. Right now I’m just finishing up a two book set: The Lost Duke of Wyndham and Mr. Cavendish, I Presume.

Jo: More great titles! You have a gift for them.

JQ: Thanks. Each of these books has its own love story, but the external plots are very closely intertwined and there are many scenes that use main characters from different books. I didn’t want to write one book and then have the other be dependent upon it, so I wrote them both simultaneously. It was quite a challenge, but worth it for me as a writer. (And hopefully for readers, too!)

Jo: I'm sure it will be. I ended up doing something like that inadvertently a few years ago and it was a stimulating experience. Quite rewarding, too.

JQ:  The Bridgerton 2^nd Epilogues have been another terrific way for me to keep things fresh. It’s been really fun to work in such a short format. Plus, I get to use an entirely different story arc. Boy doesn’t have to meet girl, lose girl, or even get her back again, because I’ve already done all that!

Jo:What’s happening with those epilogues? Will they ever be available in print?

JQ: They will definitely be available in print someday. I’m hoping sooner rather than later. The e-books division of my publishing house has been thrilled with the sales, but the numbers are still quite small compared with my print sales, which leads me to believe that a lot of my readers haven’t heard about them or simply don’t want to read electronic books.

Jo: Do you have a partial or complete manuscript stashed away, waiting its time?

JQ: I did have a manuscript stashed away, but I took that out last year and rewrote it into The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever. It was, in its original incarnation, the third book I’d written. It was a fascinating process to tear it apart and put it back together again. I really didn’t think I’d do all that much work to it, but I ended up taking a good three months to rewrite it.

(Jo: That's a particularly strong cover, isn't it, everyone?)

JQ: This turned out to be another example of varying the process, too. I got to write without having to worry so much about the plot (since that was already mostly in place).

Nothing else tucked in my cabinets, though, except for a young adult romance I wrote when I was a young adult. It was a Sweet Dreams type of romance that I wrote during the summers when I was 14 and 15. Unfortunately there is no market now for that type of thing.

Jo: Any ideas about your future writing? Is there something you’re longing to do someday, you young thing?

JQ: Ha! Just had a birthday. Not feeling so young anymore...

Jo: Can you remember when, why and how you came up with the Bridgerton family?

JQ: Honestly, no.

Jo: The mysterious Lady Whistledown, purveyor of social tid-bits and scandals, was inspired. How did that come about?

JQ: Now this one I do recall. I was trying to avoid what’s known as an info-dump. I needed to get a whole mess of expository information across in The Duke and I, which was the first of the Bridgerton series. The opening scene had the heroine and her mother, and the last thing you ever want to do is to have two characters talking to each other about things they already know. So instead I plunked all of the information into a gossip column, and then showed the characters reacting to it.

Jo: You have a wonderful website , full of goodies for your readers. One page is about music that inspires you with each book. Can you tell us more about music and creativity for you?

JQ: I wish. I don’t really understand it myself, but some books just seem to want some music.

Jo:

What is your opinion of the historical romance market? Everyone has been saying for years that it’s dying, but strangely enough, it still seems pretty lively to me.

JQ: I’m with you, Jo. I’ve never thought we were dinosaurs. But I do think that historical romance has been holding steady at a time when other subgenres (paranormal, most notably) have been taking off. So we might look a little slow by comparison.

Jo:

Your upcoming book is The Lost Duke of Wyndham – another intriguing title. Can you tell us more about it? Click here for more.

JQ: Sure! As I mentioned above, it’s a part of a two-book set. The heroes are Thomas Cavendish, the Duke of Wyndham, and Jack Audley, who is recognized as his long-lost cousin. The big question is whether Jack’s birth was legitimate. If it is, then he is really the duke, not Thomas. So there is the mystery of which man will turn out to be the duke, but more importantly, how will each adjust to the changes in their lives. And, of course, they each get to fall in love.

Jo: That sounds like a great set up. Mystery plus internal and external conflicts built it.

I'm sure you're all bursting with praise for Julia's books, and all kinds of questions, so have at it! Julia is offering three signed copies of her novel Brighter Than The Sun, (another great title) as prizes here. Post a comment to this blog up to midnight pacific time tomorrow, Tuesday, and your name will be entered into a draw.

Jo
(I apologize for any problems with this blog. My internet connection has been on the booze, I think, and I thought I'd better get it on line in a brief moment of coherence!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wieners and Valentines and Julia Quinn

Now, there's a combination for you!  First, let's talk about Julia Quinn.  On Monday, 1/21, Julia will be Jo's guest here at the Word Wenches.  Please drop by early and often!  We promise a fun discussion (as always!) and a chance to view the world according to Julia Quinn.

Next on the agenda:  the wieners!  Once more, we are giving away autographed books left and right.  This time, we have two lucky winners chosen from those who left comments.

Valarie wins a copy of Pat's Mystic Guardian.

Ariana wins a book of her choice from Mary Jo.

Please send your mailing address to the appropriate Wench, or to Sherrie at [email protected], and your book will soon be winging its way to you.  Thanks for participating and leaving comments, ladies! 

And now, about Valentines.  We have some fun blogs coming up in February, a month traditionally reserved for All Things Romance.  But we aren't going to limit ourselves solely to Romance.  To whet your appetites, here's a little hint:  it may be controversial.  It may be scandalous.  It may come with an "adult content" warning.  It may . . . well, you'll just have to drop by and judge for yourselves.  The one thing we guarantee is that it WILL be interesting!

As February approaches, we'll fill you in on the details on what we  have planned for you.  In the meantime, one of the best ways to stay abreast of our goings on here is to sign up for our newsletter.  Just click the newsletter box in the right sidebar.

Keeping House

By Susan/Miranda

As we’ve discussed here many times before, most of the heroes and a good many of the heroines in historical romances are wealthy, or at least comfortably off.  Oh, there are the occasional governesses, poor relations, and fallen women sprinkled through the ranks of the heroines, but writers generally write what readers like to read, and that’s Characters Above the Middling Sort.

Not that I’m objecting.  If one is reading to escape modern life for the late 18th century, then it’s far more enjoyable to end up in a sunny drawing room in a grand country house than to a noisy spot beside a clattering water-powered loom in a textile factory.  Yet too often these affluent heroines (and their mothers and sisters) are depicted as frittering their days away: a little reading, a little music, a little riding, shopping, dressing, heading off to Almack’s, and, of course, a lot of doing whatever the hero is doing. 

In reality, most ladies of the time spent many hours each day in running their household.  A house was like a small business in itself, with the lady of the house (usually the wife, but depending on circumstances, an older daughter, spinster sister or widowed aunt) as the CEO, with duties that included bookkeeping, purchasing, personnel, and receiving.  Anyone who casually refers to the “idle rich” didn’t know these women, who could both micromanage the proper way to starch their husband’s shirts and oversee the large-scale social event that was a house-party at a country estate that would exhaust a score of modern professional wedding-planners.  They were caretakers of the secret family recopies for pewter polish as well as Christmas puddings, and were as adept at hiring a French governess as they were with coping with a pregnant housemaids.

All of which is an introduction to one of my favorite research books, a slender volume (why are volumes always slender, and not simply skinny books?) reprinted by the National Trust for Historic Places.  The Housekeeping Book of Susanna Whatman is a printed version of a handwritten guide kept by the wife of a wealthy paper-mill owner in the late 18th century.  The Whatmans weren’t aristocrats, but part of the newly-rising upper-middle-class. Their home, Turkey Court, was near Maidstone, in Kent, began as a sizable three-story brick house, and as Mr. Whatman prospered, gradually expanded to include a larger, more imposing estate and house that included the family’s paper mills (The estate still exists, with the house rented out for weddings and the mills refurbished as office space –– that’s it to the right.)  Their family had three children, and their staff included a governess, housekeeper, steward, butler, coachman, gardener, cook, six maids, and a half-dozen “odd men” (which referred not to their personalities, but to the diversity of their duties.)

Mrs. Whatman wasn’t writing her book for publication (like Hannah Glasse’s Servant’s Directory, or Housekeeper’s Companion, published first in 1760), but for her own use as a guide for her staff.  Mrs. Whatman knew how things should be properly done, having served as the head of her father’s equally large household after her mother’s death.  In her Housekeeping Book, she offers a fascinating glimpse at life in her house.

She expected her servants to be up early, and to bed late, having the rooms of the house ready and the fires set before the family came downstairs in the morning and yet remain awake to assist Mr. and Mrs. Whatman prepare for bed, however late that might be.  She expected them to be industrious, too.  The book outlines all the daily responsibilities for each servant, a staggering list.  Even the cook, the comparative queen of the staff, had far more to do than simply prepare food:

Cook must bake her bread in the mornings time enough for breakfast. She should bake Wednesdays and Saturdays, clean her Larder and Pantries Mondays and Fridays, and rise Tuesday to wash her own things. Thursday morning wipe her pewter . . . and iron her things instead of doing it in the evenings ...Cook should see that every saucepan, etc. is well cleaned within, but never scowered without, except the upper rim . . . [as she is also responsible for] filling the hog pails, washing up butter dishes and salad bowls, preserving the water in which meat is boiled, keeping all her places clean, managing her fire and her kitchen linens and keeping it mended.

The cook was also expected to oversee the lesser servants as Mrs. Whatman’s eyes in the kitchen:

Cook should see that heavy things are not set upon plates and dishes.  She may always call back a servant whom she sees do it, or if they leave bones or hard things such as spoons in a dish, and then put other dishes on it . . . . As it is very wrong to lay temptation unnecessarily in the way of anyone, the large joints [of meat] should never be left open to the inferior servants . . . .This duty of keeping away temptation is very necessary, as it would be difficult to detect depredations on a large joint, and a dishonest servant might contract a habit of doing injustice.

In other words, no snacking on leftovers.  But even with her own key to the wire safe with the roast joints, Cook still wasn’t the highest authority:

The Housekeeper ought always to be present, when the dinner is sent up.  Otherwise the Cook is apt to relax, and be longer dishing than is necessary.

Yet as strict as Mrs. Whatman was about duties, she was also (comparatively) indulgent to her servants.  They were permitted alternate Sundays off to attend church, given ale at their noon meals, and warm coverlets on their beds. “Broken victuals” (table scraps and leavings) didn’t wind up on the servants’ table, but were given to the deserving poor. The house had modern labor-saving devices such as a water-closet instead of chamber-pots, a mangle for pressing linen, and a range for cooking instead of an open hearth.  She even took care with choosing the calico for the maids’ gowns: “It is a finer one than I should have given them, but it is so pretty, that [I am sure they] will fall in love with it as I did.”

The furnishings of a great house were of considerable value, and Mrs. Whatman was ever-vigilant about preserving her husband’s assets.  There was a detailed daily schedule for opening and shutting each room’s Venetian blinds to prevent the sun from fading the furniture.  Carpets were turned over and swept every few days to clean them, rather than using water, which caused the dyes to run.  Mahogany pieces were rubbed, never waxed or polished, and special bellows were used to blow dust from intricate carvings.

Clearly Mr. Whatman’s library was his sanctum sanctorum.  The books were to be dusted “only as far as the wing of a goose would go,” and never taken out or disarranged.  Apparently with good reason, too, for there is a strained reference to a mislaid “philosophical index”, a casualty of an over-zealous maid: “I never saw her poor master so angry.”

We even learn how household bills were paid: “Mrs. Whatman pays all her house bills weekly, including the Butcher’s bills, and candles and flour when they are brought in.  But soap, wax candles, and grocery come down from London, and are paid by draft by Mr. Whatman.” Perhaps most telling of Mrs. Whatman’s thrifty housekeeping is that, while Mr. Whatman’s income was around £6,000 annually, the family’s expenses never exceeded £2,000 –– so certain a recipe for household happiness that Mr. Micawber himself would applaud.

Do you enjoy these more homely details of everyday life in novels?  Do you feel they add to the characters’ lives and stories, or would you rather read only about the more glamorous balls and dinners?

Atmospheric Beginnings

Wench Pat here:

  Ah beginnings! I may have mentioned before that I adore beginnings, so much so that I could easily spend a hundred pages writing an opening rather than dive into the conflict. I love world building. I’d happily build churches and businesses and cottages and castles and people them with the inhabitants of my imagination if anyone would buy books like that.  But for some odd reason, readers want characters to DO something, not just stand around engaging in witty banter and intelligent discourse inside my lovely crystal ball.

As I told Loretta, she may have writing gods, but I have writing imps who fill my brain with lots of lovely scenery, then disappear into the trees to laugh and giggle while I struggle to figure out which scene to

use where. Because I learn about story and character as I write, I usually dump tons of information into the opening that doesn’t need to be there. So once I’ve decided on an opening scene, I have to sit down and squeeze all my perambulations out of the verbiage until I reach the essence, then rebuild again to form the picture I want. 

But as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so does the idea of what is essential for an opening.  I adore writers who can write great opening lines like: “Hughes got it wrong, in one important detail.  You will have read, in TOM BROWN, how I was expelled from Rugby School for drunkenness, which is true enough, but when Hughes alleges that this was the result of my deliberately pouring beer on top of gin-punch, he is in error.  I knew better than to mix my drinks, even at seventeen." (George MacDonald Fraser, FLASHMAN)  Doesn’t that give you an immediate picture of Flashman?

Or how about an immediate picture of story:  “My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment....”( IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN by Sarah Dunant)  If you don’t keep reading after that line, you must know the book already!

Openings like those are an art form and convey the voice of the book in hopes of catching the attention of readers who appreciate that particular style.  I, on the other hand, am victim to a Uranian tendency to vary my openings to suit the story and characters without much thought to voice or style.  I’m a pragmatist, after all, and prefer to provide the reader with as much information as possible to to entice them with characters, situations, and settings. (After all, my world building tendencies have to have an outlet!)

I’ll give you a sneak peek at the opening of my July book, MYSTIC RIDER, as an example.  For the fun of it, see if you can tell which paragraphs (blue or red) are the final copy and which are early drafts.

A curl of smoke from Aelynn’s peak dimmed the quarter moon’s silver glow, creating a black sky for the stars to dance and spin across, speaking a language known only to the Ancients.

Smoke rising from the Mystic Isle’s highest peak dimmed the glow of the quarter moon, casting a foreboding shadow over the drooping leaves of the tropical jungle at the mountain’s foot.

Gripping his six-foot staff with practiced hands, Iason Olympus effortlessly swung the stout oak between both hands in faster and faster circles over his head, while gazing upward into the starlit bowl of the heavens. The tropical night was humid, and beads of moisture gradually formed upon his brow as the staff spun even faster.

Undeterred by the prophetic gloom, Ian Olympus gripped his six-foot-tall oak staff with both hands and adjusted his breathing until he reached the center where his soul resided. As the island of Aelynn’s only Sky Rider, he was attempting his visionary journey once more in an effort to subdue  the abnormal weather that was crippling his home and his people.  Previous efforts had failed, but perhaps this time…

The actual excerpt is on my website at www.patriciarice.com. You’ll find your answer there. 

Once you see which paragraphs will go into the book, can you see why I revised them?  Surprisingly, I actually used the same opening scene as I started with. The example above isn’t the very first draft since I  edit as I write, but it’s several edits and revisions from the final. 

You won’t hurt my feelings if you prefer one over the other because I wrote both the way I did for a purpose, but I’d like to hear opinions of why you prefer them.  I can tell you that I was trying to achieve atmosphere in first draft, and then edited to add facts and situation, probably not the smartest method of moving forward. But that scene was clearly in my head and I needed to get the feel, color, scents, and sound in place before I fretted over extraneous detail. <G>

I’ll send a copy of MYSTIC GUARDIAN, the first book of the Mystic series, to a random commenter.  (hmm, all my comments are random…) And if you’d like to hear more or discuss other facets of the writing life, stop by my daily journal at patriciarice.blogspot.com. I'm out of my office this week, so I have no writing life, but I'll be back shortly!
 

The End of the Beginnings

by Mary Jo

Almost all of the Wenches have blogged on beginnings by now, and we’re largely in agreement on the broad points:

--A beginning needs to grab readers.  Who among us hasn’t skimmed the first page of a possible purchase in the bookstore to see if we want to read this story?

--“Good beginnings” can vary greatly in tone and type.  Ideally, it suits the story while drawing readers in.

--And for us writer types, sometimes we know exactly where a story starts, and sometimes—NOT!  Starting a new book can open limitless vistas of possibility, or it can be a blank screen with a malevolently blinking cursor.  Or both at different times.

I’m lucky in that generally I know where the story starts because that’s how it comes to me.  That doesn’t mean the first pages won’t require fiddling to get Just Right.  But it’s not too often that I write more than one opening scene. 

Several of us Wenches were kicking around the Flashman books by George McDonald Fraser.  I’m going to be blogging about them on 1/23 (advert! <g>), and it was mentioned that his openings were always good.  So I pattered down to one of the walls of books in the basement and pulled out all my Flashmans.  And they were all great.  This from Flashman and the Redskins:

“I never did learn to speak Apache properly.  Mind you, it ain’t easy, mainly because the red brutes seldom stand still long enough—and if you’ve any sense, you don’t either, or you’re liable to find yourself studying their system of vowel pronunciation (which is unique, by the way) while hanging head-down over a slow fire or riding for dear life across the Jornada del Meurto with them howling at your heels and trying to stick lances in your liver.”

Doesn’t Flashman’s voice come through like blazing trumpets?  Woven in with historical detail and a foreshadowing of events that makes you want to keep reading?  I could quote all the Flashman beginnings with equal impact.

I’ve never thought of myself as particularly great at openings, so I was tickled when Nina P. mentioned in a comment that she really liked the opening of Dancing on the Wind:

“After the funerals he was sent back to school. What else could be done with a boy, even one who had just become the wealthiest child in Great Britain?”

For the record, this is in a prologue, not Chapter 1.  No matter, it’s what readers will see first.  Personally, I adore prologues.  I believe I even blogged on them once, so I won’t bore you beyond saying that to me, a prologue is a great, economical, real-time way to show vital information about what makes a character the way he is (it’s almost always a “he” for me. <g> )  Makes the character come alive quickly, should produce empathy, and saves flashbacks. 

Though I’m not in the Flashman class, I looked at several of my books to see what I thought of the openings years after the writing--what I thought worked, or not.  The Dancing on the Wind opening Nina mentioned looks pretty good.  Here’s the opening of Shattered Rainbows.

“She needed a husband, and she needed one fast.” 

This is grabby but misleading because the sentence is rather humorous and the book isn’t.  Fortunately, the second sentence reveals the heroine to be in near hysterics so balance is restored, but there is some dissonance there.

The only Western set story I ever wrote was a novella called, “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know,” and it starts with one of my better lines:

“He was going to be hanged on Tuesday.” 

I thought that sounded suitable gritty and Western, and it certainly fit the story. 

This is a particular favorite of mine, from Silk and Shadows:

“He called himself Peregrine, the wanderer, and he came to London for revenge.”

I don’t know if this was effective in a commercial sense because I’m told romance readers don’t like stories about revenge, but the book was absolutely about revenge and redemption, and the wanderer theme comes full circle in the last line of the book, so at least it was truth in advertising.

(Endings—now there’s a thought.  Maybe someday we should do a Wenchly cycle on endings.) 

I decided to look at more recent stories, and opened up Dragon Lovers to read the beginning of “The Dragon and the Dark Knight:”

“As a lad, Sir Kenrick of Rathbourne had thought that the life of a freelance knight would be a grand and glorious adventure.  It wasn’t.”

I think that works because of the contradictions built in.

Most recent of all is A Distant Magic:

“The two foreign gentlemen strolling through Valleta’s market square looked like they had pockets worth picking.”

As I look at all these openings, I’m seeing some common themes.  It’s good to have some emotion, preferably that draws us into a character.  Interesting actions implied.  Contradiction.  Even a little shock value, as in the last, which puts us into the point of a view of a young pickpocket, or the story about being hanged. 

Naturally, this got me to thinking about the WIP.  I’ve never before put material from an unfinished book out in public, but as Jo says, “It’s never too late to make a first impression until the book’s in print.”  Or at least, in production. 

So tell me what you think about the beginning of the current Regency historical, which has had some tweaking already:

“Late night visitors were never good news.  Lady Agnes Westerfield woke to banging on the door of her private wing of sprawling Westerfield Manor.  Hoping to stop the racket before it woke her students, she slid into her slippers and wrapped herself in a warm robe, then used her night candle to light her way down the stairs.  Soft, steady rain hissed against the windows, punctuated by three deep gongs from the hall clock. 
  Among the quiet hills of Kent, robbers were unlikely to knock on her front door, so she swung it open without qualms.  Her heart sank when she saw the three tall young men on her front steps. 
Randall, Kirkland, and Masterson had been part of her first class of students—her “lost lords” who needed special care and education.  There had been six boys in that class, and they had become closer than brothers.  One had been lost in the chaos of France, another was in Portugal.  Having three of the others show up with anguish in their eyes did not bode well.  “

So—does this draw you in?  Don’t be afraid to tell me it doesn’t!  There’s still time to change, which isn’t the case with the older books.

Personally I’ve always been rather fond of the atmospheric beginnings Edith mentioned, so I will admit freely that I once started a story with, “It was a dark and stormy night.”  It was done rather tongue in cheek, of course.  Can any of you say where I used this?  If so, you become eligible for a book giveaway drawing, either for that book, or another paperback of which I have sufficient copies.

Mary Jo, writing from Maryland where it is indeed a dark and stormy night…

And the Wieners Are . . .

We said we'd be giving away a lot of books this month, and by golly, here's the proof!  We've chosen 5 winners from those who left comments on our blog posts.  Congratulations to the following:

Janice wins a Loretta Chase book of her choice
Marissa wins a copy of Edith's The Cad
Santa wins an Advance Reading Copy of Susan Fraser King's Lady Macbeth
JOYE wins a copy of Susan Holloway Scott's Royal Harlot
Betty Breithaupt wins a copy of one of the following books by Jo:  Christmas Angel, Forbidden Magic, or Winter Fire

To claim your autographed book, please send your mailing address to the appropriate Wench, or to Sherrie at [email protected]. 

To the rest of you, please continue visiting us and leaving comments.  Who knows--you may very well be the next Word Wenches Wiener!  (Hint:  be sure to check in on Sundays when we post announcements, including book winners)

Und Now Ve Begin, Ya?

All the best first lines are taken.

"Call me Ishmael"

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

"In the beginning ."

And the ever popular, "Once upon a time."

I got a million of them, because there are a million and a half great and famous first lines. It makes it hard for any author when they're up against these classics. But if you tell a story it has to begin somewhere.
I used to start with weather. I like atmosphere. I'm not a thousand years old, but I remember that novels used to start by setting the stage. Misty moors, foggy city streets, murky alleys, chill winds whistling around the house, brilliantly sunny mornings with meadows for heroines to dance through, and rapturously starry nights for lovers to meet and smooch in.

But they (read: editors, readers, critics) don't want atmosphere anymore. And to tell the truth, most of the Great Firsts aren't about atmosphere. Of course, maybe the most famous one of all is.

"It was a dark and stormy night."

For some reason, a crackerjack opening like that isn't wanted anymore. Poor Snoopy. No, today's reader must be hooked from word one, and whatever weather is - its not a hook. So the author has a choice: start with what? A blank page filled with something that will entice: a lure, a bit of bait, a strange or familiar circumstance that will make the reader turn - the - page.

Rain won't do that.
So I changed. I began to start with characters, since they are the reason for the book. In fact, in looking back (which youre not supposed to do in a new year) nevertheless, I discovered my last trillion books or so start with a character in a time, place or situation that I hope will entice my readers to find out what Im going on about, and what's going to happen next.

Now after browsing through my books, I realize I have sometimes aced it with first paragraphs. I could positively slay you with those! But I promised first lines, and so I gird my loins and here we go:

"'I do,' she said, and only then wondered what she had done."
TO WED A STRANGER Avon Books

"Good Lord, but he was beautiful."
BRIDE ENCHANTED Avon Books

"Bedamned to all men, the young woman said angrily. "I'll marry and be done with them!"
HOW TO SEDUCE A BRIDE- Avon Books (OK - sue me, two lines.)

"Only one wedding guest was frowning"
THE CHANCE, Avon Books

"The fish and fowl had been brought in; now the company looked for red meat."
- Me writing as Edith Felber, QUEEN OF SHADOWS, NAL

Now I offer you a chance to win an oldish book. In fact, the very first book I ever wrote for AVON. If that's not hint enough, the first line is:

"She was enjoying herself until she saw the man watching her."

Got it? If you do, then tell us here, and a perfectly neutral arbitrator will choose one of you to get a signed copy of said book! Extra hint: it began a loosely linked series; several book titles starting with the third letter of the alphabet. And there was a top hat on the cover. 'Nuff said!

As for the new, 2007 book coming out? Thats in May. The 27th of May to be exact. (Please tattoo that somewhere upon your adorable person so you dont forget.)
And the first line of HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS is:

"'As you were saying?' the lady cooed to her gentleman caller when he paused for a moment."

None of this is exactly "Call Me Ishmael."

I know that. But I tried. Those lines were written to begin a story and tempt you to go on and read it.

Did I succeed?

Getting Started with Lady Macbeth

Staring at a blank page, whether it’s yellow lined paper or a white screen with a patiently blinking cursor, waiting for those first few sentences of a story to form…it’s one of the most fundamental challenges of writing. The process of beginning a book is unique each time...

I’ve had stories hit the ground running with an action scene so clear in my head that I couldn’t wait to put it on paper—like the chase and abduction scene in STEALING SOPHIE (w/a Sarah Gabriel); other books have started out as a few sentences that haunted me until I wrote them down:

Wild as blackberries she was, sweet and dark and unruly, and she would never be his. Lachlann knew it, had always known it. Yet he paused in his work and leaned in the doorway of the smithy to watch her. He allowed himself that much. (THE SWORD MAIDEN, w/a Susan King).

Still others have started out clumsy and clunky, with one deleted sentence after another, taking forever to form before finally moving. I won’t give you an example on that one, just trust me--and it’s more than one book. Thankfully no one ever seems to notice that but me.

When I began writing LADY MACBETH, my challenge was this: where the heck should I begin a story as big and complex as this might be?! The story covers decades, and my main character would have to change and mature through the span of many years. And the ending would be known to many readers, since Macbeth and his queen are historically documented persons.

Lady Macbeth would need to be very much a product of her place and time – not Shakespeare's place and time, but that of 11th century Scotland, where the real queen lived. She would be a young woman raised in a warrior society, accustomed to the equality common to the Celts, steeped in poetry, legends, and traditions; a woman to whom truth and honor were all, and in whom anger burned pretty brightly. I figured she would just go for it—no-holds-barred, no prancing around the truth. And a first-person narrative would allow her to be blunt, honest, and opinionated about…well, just about everything.

So I started the book at a point later in her life, as she looks back—it's a convention, yes, but a pattern that often works so long as it's a bit unpredictable. Lady Macbeth is not dictating her story, but pondering it—maybe she’ll let someone record it on parchment, and maybe she won’t—she’s still deciding. I framed the story in present tense, prologue and later chapters, with the body of the story in past tense. That way, we know just where we are with her--she's in media res, on the verge of an action that could be very dangerous. But first she'd better think it through ….

Scotland, 1058

Snowflakes dazzle against the evening sky and fall gentle around this stark tower. The false King of Scots expects us to trudge our ponies through that cold deep, so that I may tuck myself away in some Lowland monastery. Malcolm Canmore, he who murdered my husband and now calls himself king, would prefer I went even farther south into England, where they have priories just for women. There his allies would lock me away, as the Scots will not.

But my son is the true crowned King of Scots, and I am under the protection of his name, and the strength of my own. Had I agreed to marry Malcolm Canmore despite all, I would be honored now.    

Weeks ago, at the turn of the new year, he sent a messenger with a length of green silk, gold-embroidered, and pots of spices and perfumes, with a request for my hand in marriage.
If power of that sort was what I craved, the gifts and request would have intrigued me. But I am a Celt and value honor more, and prefer Scottish wool to Oriental silk. Coarse by comparison, our weavings have the honest strength and handsomeness of this land.

I wrote an answer with the very hand Malcolm wanted, though my Gaelic script is worse than my Latin. Only a few words were needed for a refusal. I sent the note and most of the gifts back, and kept the silk. My handmaid, Finella, likes it.

As for convents, I will send another message to the usurper Malcolm: the dowager Queen Gruadh, lately wife to King Macbeth whom you have slain, chooses to remain in her fortress.

A dare of sorts, and we shall see what he will do.

The winds howl—it is no wonder February is called the wolf-month—and we sit, my companions and I, before the fire basket absorbing warmth and brightness. Dermot, my household bard, plays a melody on his harp. Shivering, I draw my cloak about my shoulders. Though I have lived scarce forty years and still burn with life, the chill riding the air this night is keen....

To read the full prologue, go to www.susanfraserking.com .

BTW -- LADY MACBETH is featured in the February 2008 GLAMOUR MAGAZINE, just out in stores now, as one of their Buzz picks of the month, under "900 Years of Kick-Ass Women"... and I'm thrilled! The book will be released in bookstores on February 12 .... please watch for it!

I'd love to give away a copy of LADY MACBETH, but I don't have any hardcover copies yet!

So I'll offer the Advanced Reading Copy of LADY MACBETH to one of the commenters to this post.

Good luck -- and I wish all of you great beginnings in 2008!

Susan

Where to begin?

From Loretta

      Writing authorities advise us to begin, not at the beginning, but in medias res—in the midst of things.  Thus I--who read Victorian novels for pleasure and wallowed happily in stories whose first chapters were titled “In which I am born”—began Isabella, my first published novel, like this:

“Disappeared?” the earl repeated in a dangerously quiet voice.  “What the devil do you mean, ‘disappeared’?  Seven-year-old girls don’t just vanish.”

       Several books later, I began, not in medias res, but with a very long prologue in which the hero is conceived, born, and grows to manhood.  That book, Lord of Scoundrels, continues to be popular in spite of all that prologue.

I don’t break rules intentionally.  In fact, given my own reading preferences, I oughtn’t to start a book with a prologue.  But each book seems to have its own beginning, and the writing gods (I imagine them as Egyptian, since that’s one of the places where writing started) tell me what the beginning is going to be.  It’s a matter of staring into space until the first scene starts to play in my brain.  Like a movie. 

The rest of the book is another matter, another—and sometimes ugly & violent--process.  But the beginning comes from the writing gods. 
      

With rare exceptions (Lord of Scoundrels), this is all these deities offer me.  For all succeeding scenes and chapters they tend to hang around offering no help whatsoever & sometimes heckling.  They say things like, “You dork!” and “Delete! Delete!” and--as her brain said to Laurie Anderson-- “Why don’t you get a real job?”
 

Thanks to the cavalier attitude of my writing gods, there’s no making rules these days about how to begin or where to begin—beyond the obvious Start With Something Interesting.  Isabella started with a missing child.  Lord of Scoundrels started with a nobleman losing his entire family—wife & children—to one of the ghastly diseases that often killed whole families. 

But one of my favorites of my story beginnings is a very quiet one.  It’s just a man looking out of a window.

 Lord Perfect
CHAPTER 1
   
Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London, September 1821

He leant against the window frame, offering those within the exhibition hall a fine rear view of a long, well- proportioned frame, expensively garbed.  He seemed to have his arms folded and his attention upon the window, though the thick glass could show him no more than a blurred image of Piccadilly.
       It was clear in any case that the exhibition within--of the marvels Giovanni Belzoni had discovered in Egypt--had failed to hold his interest.
      The woman surreptitiously studying him decided he would make the perfect model of the bored aristocrat.
      Supremely assured.  Perfectly poised.  Immaculately dressed.  Tall.  Dark.
      He turned his head, presenting the expected patrician profile.
      It wasn’t what she expected.
      She couldn’t breathe.
            

(For more excerpts from Chapter 1, visit here.  The bearded fellow standing here is Giovanni Belzoni, the explorer who unearthed the marvels shown in the exhibition my hero seems so bored with.  If you'd like to see & learn more,  here's a good quality colored image of the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly--and here's the tomb Belzoni recreated in London.)

      
Sometimes people disappear, sometimes they die, sometimes they’re doing reckless and dangerous things (Mr Impossible, Your Scandalous Ways), and sometimes they just stand there.  There's no one way to begin.  There simply has to be something in the scene that makes me want to go on with the story.  Then I figure I’m on the right track, and that same “wanting to go on” will keep the reader turning pages.

  But I know that readers have likes and dislikes about beginnings.  Some hate prologues.  Some hate being flung into the middle of the story without any lead up. 

What about you?  What’s your favorite kind of beginning?  Or your least favorite?
      Your comment might win you a Loretta Chase book of your choice.
      

      
      
   
      

Calling Lesley Lanning!

Lesley Lanning, you're a wiener!  You've won an autographed Jo Beverley book.  Please send your mailing address to Jo at [email protected] or Sherrie at [email protected] so that we can get that book in the mail.  Congratulations, Lesley!

The Wenches give away books every month.  To be eligible, just leave a comment.  Winners are chosen randomly from commenters.  So if you leave a comment, be sure to check here on Sundays when we announce book winners. 

Another way to stay abreast of all the latest here at the Word Wenches is to sign up for FeedBlitz in the left sidebar at the bottom of the page.  Once you've signed up, Wench posts and announcements will be sent directly to your inbox via e-mail.  You can also sign up for the monthly Word Wenches newsletter by clicking the newsletter link in the right sidebar.

It's never too late...

Hi, here's Jo with a New Year's illustration to start of this blog. I'm not sure why it's a New Year's illustration, or what those two tykes are doing with the champagne, but then, we know the Victorians were weird. *G*

This blog about beginnings is a pretty easy one for me because I just talked about this in my Christmas newsletter, referring to last year's book, Lady Beware. As part of that, I put up the unused prologue that I wrote fairly late in the game as I struggled to find the right beginning for the book.

That's where the title up there comes from. It's a line I  always use when talking to writers about beginnings, a play on the old one about never getting a second chance to make a first impression. In writing a book It's never too late to make a first impression until the book's in print.

We all love to have a great beginning laid down. It's orderly and it makes us feel secure. It isn't necessary, however. As long as we know more or less what happens in the beginning  then we can, and should, leave that mess as placeholder and come back later. We may have to wait until we've finished the book to find -- or dig out of the salt mines -- the right beginning for that book.

Certainly there are some elegancies of beginnings, such as motifs that open and close a book, that we can only find when we reach the end. I did that with Devilish, where the book opens in darkness and danger, and ends with brightness and joy.

Sometimes beginnings do come fairly easily. The beginning of To Rescue A Rogue, with Mara scurrying through the nighttime streets of London seeking help was there from the beginning. One factor here was that while the hero, Lord Darius Debenham, has a lot of backstory, Lady Mara St. Bride doesn't. To start in the POV of the character with little backstory can be very useful.

In Lady Beware, I had a similar situation, in that Lord Darien's backstory was complicated but Lady Thea Debenham's wasn't. Therefore, it seemed idea to start out in Thea's POV and let her and the reader discover Darien.  Unfortunately, however, Thea was loaded with her brother Dare's backstory, which was crucial to her motivations, and Darien's motivation was tied into it, too.

As Susan said, in a romance it's very desirable to start with the hero and heroine. I know that; I just rarely manage it. I did start Lady Beware with the scene where Thea encounters a threatening man in the deserted corridors of her father's house during a ball. It was a very powerful scene, but coming without any preparation it disturbed. Darien seemed overly unpleasant, and Thea's reactions felt off.

I tried inserting necessary details into the scene in Thea's thoughts, but that slowed down a fast and dramatic scene. So in the end I moved back to the scene where Thea is changing her stained dress, which allowed reasonable thoughts of events plus dialogue with the maid.

You can read that opening, the published one, here .

In chapter two here, you can see a variant on my original opening.

So, what was the discarded opening? That was a prologue. Some people hate prologues. I don't, but I prefer not to use them. However, late in the writing of the book I felt that a prologue in Darien's POV of events some time before the ball would be an even better opening. It would, I thought, set up his character and motivations more strongly, and also introduce the antagonist early on, which is another very good thing.

It is, in my opinion, a very strong scene. I like it a lot, especially in showing the darker side of post-Waterloo England. In the end, however, I left it off and for one reason -- it set a very dark tone that wasn't in keeping with the book. There are dark elements in Lady Beware, to be sure, but anyone reading the prologue could expect a grim novel rooted in economic depression and political crises.

So that's what I put up over Christmas. The prologue.

I invited comments from my readers and they generally agreed that I made the right choice. What do you think?

With all best wishes for 2008, when I'll have two books out in April! It feels close, because I'm going over the page proofs for ALS now. In fact, you can read a little of the beginning of that if you'd like. That was one that came fairly easily. I knew what the opening scene was from the first -- just had no clue about the rest of the book!

The rake and the nun meet.

The other is my two-fer trad regency reissues -- The Fortune Hunter and Deirdre and Don Juan.

Jo :)

Happy Beginnings

With the holidays now past us, we Wenches decided we’d welcome in the new year in a new way, with a look at how we each begin a book.  There’s no right or wrong way, of course.  Not only does every writer have her own method, but every book and set of characters seems to suggest something different as well.  During our January blogs, we’ll each post the beginning to one of our favorite books, and explain how and why we chose to start the way we did.  We tend to talk more about history and characters than the craft of writing here at the Wenches, so here’s the chance to ask that question you’ve always wondered, from why we opened with the hero’s point of view, or how we chose the historical time period for the setting. We’ll be giving away copies of the featured books to a randomly chosen reply, so please post away.

And a happy, happy 2008 to you all!

Once Upon a First Page

By Susan/Miranda

I love beginning a new book.  Just like that first day of school, the first page is full of opportunity and promise.  On page one, every book’s a potential NYT best-seller.  What’s not to love about that?

But then the decision-making begins.  Choosing exactly when to begin a story can be more challenging than actually choosing the story itself.  The book I’m using as my example is Royal Harlot, my fictionalized biography of Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine.

When I write a romance, I know that the first chapter will most likely include the first meeting of the hero and the heroine.  Of course they’ll have had experiences and adventures before then, all the things that make them real to me and, I hope to readers, but the focus of the book must be the love they find for one another.

But writing about historical figures is different, and has its own special pitfalls.  The story’s already there; I can’t go changing this war or that king to suit my plot.  Instead I have to pick and choose the key events of the person’s life and times, and construct my conflicts and pacing based as much as I can on fact.  I especially have to avoid the thousand-page “cradle to grave” scenario: you know, “In Which I Am Born”, which worked very well for Victorian novelists, but would make today’s New York editors shriek with horror. 

So while Barbara had a fascinating back-story before her birth (her mother was a merchant heiress who, at fifteen, went against her father’s wishes to marry a young lord who’d fought a duel to impress her), followed by a tumultuous childhood (her royalist father was killed in the Civil War and her mother’s fortune was confiscated by Cromwell, while the infant Barbara was put out to live in the country after her mother married her dead husband’s cousin), I decided the most interesting part of Barbara’s story began after she came to London as a teenager. 

But a starry-eyed young heroine arriving in the big city is hardly an original way to begin a book, and besides, Barbara had a bit too much historical baggage to make her first appearance as an innocent ingénue.  In just about every other book, both fiction and nonfiction, Barbara is portrayed as a pretty unsavory woman, often an out-and-out villain: beautiful, seductive, and clever, but also greedy, grasping, immoral, and manipulative.  I couldn’t reform her, but I could tell her story in a way to explain why she was the way she was. 

I decided to begin with a nineteen-year-old Barbara, at the most important crossroad of her life.  (The starry-eyed ingenue now appears elsewhere in the book.)  She’s already realized she let herself be pushed into a loveless marriage.  Now, at her husband Roger’s insistence, she is about to risk her life to serve the exiled King Charles.  I wanted to show how her husband is more concerned about using her to gain favor with the king than for her own welfare.  I also hoped to earn some empathy for Barbara and her situation. 

However, Barbara is no ordinary neglected wife.  She's even more ambitious than Roger. I wanted to make it clear that she, too, is thinking of her own future outside of her marriage. Through her thoughts as she leaves her husband, I wanted to set up what would follow next: that she would meet the king and become his lover, and set the course for the rest of her notorious life.

In addition to establishing the story, I had to establish Barbara’s voice. Royal Harlot is written in first-person, as if Barbara is telling her own story.  I couldn't be the omniscient narrator explaining life in seventeenth-century England.  Everything had to be explained through Barbara's point of view.  From her first words, I wanted how she spoke to be as indicative of her character as what she was saying.  That’s why that first paragraph took me so long to get right, and why I kept coming back to it as I wrote the rest of the book.  Now you can decide if I succeeded.

I’ll be giving away a copy of Royal Harlot to a reader chosen from those who leave a comment or question.  Happy new year!

                    *   *   *
From Royal Harlot
Copyright 2007 by Susan Holloway Scott

February, 1660

    I was, I think, a gambler born. 
    I don’t mean a few pennies at whist or ombre, a piddling hand of pasteboard cards.  I speak of grander games, where the stakes are power, titles, great fortunes, even the heart of the King of England.  Mark you, I’m no coward.  I wouldn’t have survived so long if I were.  I know how to take my risks, and my vengeance, too, on those who dared to cross me.  But how I did parlay my beauty and wit to rise so high: that was the game I chose, the game that became my life.
    A gambler, yes.  Yet as I sat in the hired carriage not far from the beach and the sea, I was not half so sure of my courage.  I was only nineteen then, and I’d never yet strayed from England.  The moonless sky was black and wet as pitch, the sea below it clipped with whitecaps.  The little sloop that was to take me across to Holland bobbed and tugged at her moorings, her crew scrambling about her narrow deck with their heads bent against the wind and spray as they made their last preparations to sail.  It seemed a woeful vessel to trust with my life, as well with as the hopes of so many others.
    “There’s the signal, Barbara.”  Beside me in the carriage, my husband Roger pointed at the lantern held aloft by a sailor.  “You must go to them now.”
    “I know.”  I retied the ribbons of my hood beneath my chin, not because they’d come loose, but to give my anxious fingers some occupation.  “Though I wish the sailors could wait until dawn.”
    “Oh, yes, so all the Commonwealth’s navy can be sure to come and bid you a happy farewell.”  He sighed with exasperation.  “You knew this wouldn’t be a pleasure-boat when you agreed to go, Barbara.  It’s too late now for you to change your mind.”
    “I’ve not changed my mind, Roger,” I said, wishing he’d show a bit of concern for my welfare.  “I only hoped the weather were less fierce, that is all.”
    “It’s better this way.”  His pale face was serious in the carriage’s half-light.  “I’ve told you before that if you’re caught, no one will come to your rescue, especially if you’ve no time to destroy the letters.  You’re far safer on a night such as this.”
    I nodded, smoothing my hand along the front of my bodice with a flutter of excitement.  I was courting danger, no mistake.  Hidden between my whalebone stays and my smock were letters of great importance to the Royalist cause, letters of support and promises of money for King Charles in exile.  Sewn into my quilted petticoats were gold coins, too, destined for the royal pockets.  Not once in my short life had there been a king upon the empty English throne.  Cromwell and his sour-faced followers had seen to that with a long and hateful civil war, and hidden away all the country’s natural merriment beneath a grey pall of restrictive laws and false piety. 
    But now Cromwell was dead, and the government he’d created was falling in crumbling disarray.  There were more and more of us around the country working for the restoration of the monarchy.  Roger was thick in the middle of the plotting and planning, and well trusted by the Royalist leaders, which was why, as his wife, I’d been chosen as a courier.  Yet the old laws were still in place, and if I were captured and the papers I carried discovered, I’d be damned as a spy, and sent to the Tower until I was tried for treason.  If convicted, I’d be executed, for there was little mercy to be found among the Parliamentary judges for Royalists.
    “You’re the only one of us who could go, Barbara,” Roger continued.  “There’s no one else who could be spared from our work in London.”
    “You mean there was no one else who was willing to sail to Flanders and risk the smallpox.”  I’d had the disease the year before, one of the rare folk to survive, and with my face left clear and unpocked, too.  I could travel with impunity into any outbreak, such as the one now ravaging the city of Brussels. 
    “Your immunity is a consideration, of course,” Roger admitted.  “But that’s only part of the reason you are being sent, Barbara.  I shouldn’t have to remind you of how important His Majesty’s return is to my family’s fortunes.  I’ve personally given over a thousand pounds I could ill afford to support the king.”
    I’d grown vastly tired of hearing of this famous contribution, trotted out whenever Roger wished to puff his own importance.  “You wish such praise for your precious thousand pounds, while you think nothing that I’m to risk my life for the same cause.  A pretty balance, that.”
    His voice turned sharp, the way it often was when he criticized me.  “You’ve been quite willing to enjoy the benefits of being Mistress Palmer.  It’s high time you returned the favor to my father and me, and prove for once you can be an obedient wife.”
    I looked away at the spray-dappled glass, refusing to let him open this old quarrel again.  We’d so many of them between us for less than a year of marriage, most centered on what he perceived to be my excessive frivolity.  Yet I was no better nor worse than the others among our Royalist friends.  With so much unhappiness in our war-ravaged pasts and only uncertainty to our futures, we all took our pleasure wherever we found it, and gave no more thought when it was done.  Roger had known when we wed that he hadn’t been my first lover, any more than I had been his, and if he continued this harshness with me, I vowed he wouldn’t be my last, either.  Was it any wonder that I now lamented the grievous mistake I’d made, letting my mother push me from her house into such a marriage?
    As if to prove it, Roger’s lecture was continuing still.  “I expect you to present my family’s case to His Majesty, how much we’ve sacrificed by supporting him, and how we hope to be rewarded for our loyalty.  Be agreeable to the king, Barbara, and make good use of every minute you have in his company.”
    “But I will, Roger,” I said, and I meant it far more than my husband, so full of smug conceit, would realize.  Even in impoverished exile, Charles Stuart was reputed to be everything a monarch should: tall, virile, intelligent, and charming.  How could I not wish to break free of my husband’s overbearing shadow to meet such a man?
    “Obey me in this, Barbara,” Roger warned, his misguided idea of a farewell between husband and wife.  “I’ll hear of it if you don’t.”
    “Perhaps you’ll hear of it sooner if I do.” I opened the carriage door, my cloak whipping around me, driven as if from my own anticipation as by the wind.  “Good-bye, Roger. . . .”

    Click here for the entire prologue.