Autumn Settings

A quick update this week, as I’m in the midst of packing for a trip to New York, where I will be seeing good friends and fellow History Hoydens Lauren Willig and Leslie Carroll, catching up with my editor and agent, seeing Lise Lindstrom (the daughter of good friends) in her Met debut as Turandot, and doing Merola Opera Program activities. I haven’t been to New York in a few years, and I’m very excited (while at the moment I’m trying to get through the long to do list I always seem to have before leaving on any trip, however brief).

The beautiful fall scenery on my mini-break to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland last week, got me to thinking about autumn as a setting for books. The book I’m working on now is set in November, as is Secrets of a Lady. I realized autumn may be my favorite season to write about. There are such rich descriptive possibilities–the colorful leaves, the rose gold autumn sunlight, harvest moonlight, skies turning gray with oncoming winter. There’s an array of weather to play with, from sunny days to rainstorms to early snow flurries. Autumn sees the start of regular fires in fireplaces (great descriptive possibilities). There’s the thematic bittersweetness of gilded autumn days with the promise of winter creeping into the air. And at the same time, the holiday season and a new year round the corner. I think the shorter days and chillier weather and oncoming winter making autumn a particularly good setting for suspense stories.

Do you have favorite seasons to read or write about? Do you find the season a book is set in influences the story?

I just posted an October addition to the Fraser Correspondence, a reply from Raoul to Mélanie.

 

Autumn Getaways, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, & Inspiration

Those who read this blog regularly will have heard me burble on about the fabulous season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and in particularly about the wonderful productions of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man and the world premiere Equivocation by Bill Cain. Because of the way the schedule worked, The Music Man and Equivocation often played on the same day. After I returned from my July trip to OSF in Ashland with my friend Penny, I decided I’d make a trip back in the fall to see both plays again (or rather for the third time, since I’d seen them first in the spring). I bought tickets, made plans to see the matinee of The Music Man and have dinner with my friend Elaine who lives in Ashland, booked the hotel. Of course by the time the trip rolled around I was busy and stressed. I knew I’d have fun, but I didn’t realize quite how beneficial the brief break would be for my writing.

I always do some of my best plot-thinking in the car. On the drive up I worked through one plot issue that had been bothering me. There was snow beside the road going over the pass into Ashland. The fall leaves were gorgeous as I drove into town, the air crisp with a hint of winter when I got out of the car. Stress melted away with the change of scene. I went to Elaine’s house for a fabulous dinner. It was great to have a leisurely evening to talk. I’ve known Elaine since I was a child (she worked with my parents for many years), but this is the first time I learned that she too loves The Scarlet Pimpernel. I showed her my SP blog posts and the online sites where you can download all the novels.

Both plays were wonderful. I think the productions had grown each richer, and I found myself noticing small details I’d missed the previous times. Elaine and I discussed the new nuances we’d noticed in The Music Man over dinner at the wonderful Chateaulin. Equivocation in particular was an inspiration for my current book, as it deals with power, monarchs, politics, and searching for the truth amid layers of intrigue. I didn’t try to write while I was on the trip, but over a latte and a fabulous portobello mushroom vegetarian eggs benedict at the Ashland Bistro Café the next day, I made notes for my book, inspired by the plays I’d just seen, particularly the tension between sovereigns and the politicians behind the throne. New ideas and connections sprang to mind.

I drove out of Ashland under a gray, drizzling sky, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. I put Broadway musicals on the CD player and returned to pondering Act III of my book. Pieces I’d been struggling with fell into place with delightful ease. Not only was getting away good for me, it was creatively energizing. I returned home happy to get back to work.

Do you find getting away for a couple of days clears your thoughts for writing or other projects? Writers, where do you do your best writing thinking? What feeds your inspiration?

Be sure to check out Mélanie writing to Isobel Lydgate about the Peace Festival at the Congress of Vienna in the latest Fraser Correspondence addition.

 

More on the writing process

I had a great writing date this Friday with my friend and fellow author Veronica Wolff (who writes fabulous, Scottish-set historical romances). We met up in a Border’s café, chatted for a bit and then opened up our laptops and settled in to work over coffee. After a couple of hours, we adjourned to lunch (and treated ourselves to a glass of wine), talked a bit more, and went back to work. By the time we left the restaurant, Veronica had typed “The End” to her current work in progress (she had been working on the epilogue) and I’d written over 2000 words, which for me is amazing. (In general I consider 1000 words a decent day (and I have plenty of 500 or less days), and 1500 excellent.) V and I agreed we definitely have to do this more often–we got a lot done and managed to have fun at the same time.

All of which prompted me to think about the writing process. I think I’m more efficient than I was when I first started writing, because I spend less time staring at the screen. For me, so much of the hard part is getting the words down. As I’ve mentioned before I write my scenes in layers now. The first draft tends to be mostly dialogue, with snippets of action and introspection and bits of setting description. If I’m stuck getting from point A to point B (I used to spend ages staring at the computer screen trying to figure out how to get a character in or out of a door or how to have characters make introductions), I put **** or xyz and jump ahead. Once I have a rough framework down, I go back and flesh out the scene, layering in setting details, physical actions, inner thoughts. Later I’ll do more revising. I usually do an edit when I get to the end of each “Act” of my book and then 2 or 3 revisions after I have a draft (and that’s all before my editor sees it ).I think of it like rehearsing a play. You start with a read through, then have blocking rehearsals, and perhaps have sessions of table work where you talk through subtext and motivations. Often all this happens on a taped outline in a rehearsal space with rehearsal props long before the set is finished.

On Friday I was doing a first version of a scene which I’d thought through on my drive to meet Veronica. Part of the reason I was so productive, I think. But I think another part was that being in a different setting helped me focus in. And writing with a good friend provided motivation (have to keep typing away because she is), while at the same time offering the reward of someone to talk to when when we took a break.

Another technique I’ve found lately that helps me focus is to write with movies playing. Yes, I know, it seems it would be just the opposite. But somehow having a movie or tv series on that relates to the era or theme of my book helps me lose myself in the world of my book (of course it’s better if it’s movie/series I know well, so I’m not too distracted). I’ve always written with music playing. This takes it one step further. I don’t always write that way, but I’ve been finding it very effective, particularly when I write in the evening. I curl up with my laptop and tea and escape into my story.

I’d love to hear about other writer’s writing process. Do you have writing dates with friends? Do you find a change of venue (such as writing in a café) makes you more productive? Do you ever write with music or a movie playing? Do you write in layers or do you try to get the scene down perfectly the first time? Non-writers, do you have any questions about the writing process? Does knowing the process behind the books you read interest you?

Speaking of writing, I’ve just posted a Fraser Correspondence letter Charles writes to David about the brewing crisis over Poland and Saxony at the Congress of Vienna.

 

The Scarlet Pimpernel & Inspiration

Last Wednesday, I blogged on History Hoydens about a favorite topic–The Scarlet Pimpernel. In the lively discussion that followed we debated the merits of various film adaptations and the musical and talked about TSP’s influence on our own work. I was delighted and not surprised to find that several of my fellow Hoydens (as well as others who posted) are TSP fans and that the Pimpernel books have influenced their own writing. I said, “I’m fascinated by how many of us are drawn to The Scarlet Pimpernel stories and particularly how many of us found inspiration from them for our own writing. What do you think it is that so resonates about this story? The masks and deceptions? The adventure and daring escapes? The story of two people desperately in love who fear that they don’t really know/can’t trust the object of their affections? To those of you inspired by the story, which piece of it inspired your own writing?”

The main answer was Percy as a hero. Mary Blayney said, “Tracy for me it’s Percy — a true hero who wants no credit and, in fact, presents himself as a fop. A true leader of men.”

Leslie Carroll added, “Yes, I think that the lasting allure is that Percy is a man who fights with his wits as well as his sword; that he is a gentleman through and through and not a neanderthal, that he has a huge amount of integrity and ethics, passion and patriotism, that he is willing to risk all to save just one life, if need be, that Marguerite has her own profession and life before she met Percy, that she is devoted to and looks out for her brother Armand, that although Percy and Marguerite are first drawn to each other sexually and jump into marriage that they have to really earn the relationship by building trust in each other and that neither realizes how much they have until they have nearly lost it.”

Percy is undoubtedly a fabulous hero who has helped inspire countless other characters (including, I believe, Lord Peter Wimsey and Francis Crawford of Lymond). There’s something so compassionate and intriguing about a hero whose goal is saving people rather than “winning.” But I think what has me coming back to The Scarlet Pimpernel and the sequels and adaptations goes to the last part of Leslie’s comment. I love adventure and intrigue, masks and disguises, but for me a lot of the fascination is that this is a story about a married couple, who both have past experiences, rather the story of young lovers. (I remember as a child seeing the Leslie Howard/Merle Oberon movie–Suzanne appears in the movie before Marguerite, and I was surprised and intrigued that the heroine turned out not be the sweet ingenue but the glamorous, mysterious married woman.) The romantic conflict in The Scarlet Pimpernel centers not on the initial heady rush of falling in love but on issues of trust that come after. On the false impression one can have of one’s beloved in the initial rush of falling in love and the difficulties that false impression can create in building a last relationship.

I didn’t consciously think about it at the time, but I think my very first inspiration for the book that ultimately became Secrets of a Lady was watching the wonderful Anthony Andrews/Jane Seymour adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel. During the wedding scene, when Percy first suspects Marguerite can’t be trusted, I thought “it would be interesting if she *really* was working against him…”

I know a lot of people who read visit my site are TSP fans and a lot of you are writers. What draws you to the stories? Which elements in them have inspired your own writing and how? And if you don’t particularly like TSP, I’d love to hear about the reasons for that too. If you’ve never read the books or seen any of the adaptations, I definitely recommend giving them a try!

Speaking of intrigue and deception and betraying one’s spouse, this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is another coded letter Mélanie writes to Raoul from the Congress of Vienna, about Tsar Alexander paying a surprise call at the British Embassy.

 

Rivals & Brothers

San Francisco Opera’s fall season opened with a fabulous production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore. I was lucky enough to see it three times (the final dress rehearsal, a simulcast at ATT ballpark, and the closing performance). The production updated the setting from medieval Spain to the Peninsular War, which of course I loved. The Goya-inspired setting fit well with a story of war, divided families, and one atrocity leading to another.

At the heart of Trovatore’s tangled, over-the-top plot are two brothers, separated at birth, now unknown to each other fighting for opposite sides and rivals for the love of the same woman. Watching the opera, I found myself thinking about brothers in literature. As I write this, I’m watching The Man in the Iron Mask, yet another take on brothers separated at birth who become rivals. Sibling relationships are fascinating, but in British historical stories the laws of inheritance make the rivalry between brothers particularly intense. Among the aristocracy the eldest son inherits the title and estates, while younger sons may at best receive a secondary property of their mother’s and in many cases have to make their own way in the world as soldiers, ministers, or barristers. In As You Like It, Orlando is living as a servant on the dubious charity of his elder brother Oliver who has inherited all the family lands and fortune.

Questions of legitimacy can further complicate this rivalry. In King Lear, the Duke of Gloucester’s illegitimate son Edmund sets out to destroy his legitimate brother Edgar, driven by the pent up jealousy of watching his brother be heir to their father’s lands and title due to the fact that Edgar’s mother was married to the duke while Edmund was born on the wrong side of the blanket.

The issues grow even more tangled when an acknowledged son and heir may actually be illegitimate. The rivalry between Lymond and Richard runs through Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles (including one of the best literary sword fights I’ve ever read in The Game of Kings). At the heart of that rivalry is competition for parental affection and the family estates, and the question of who is who’s son, who deserves what, who is loved best. What makes rivalry between brothers particularly interesting, is that it tends to be mixed, as in Lymond and Richard’s case, with strong love that goes back to the cradle.

I think I had Lymond and Richard in mind when I created Charles and Edgar in Secrets of a Lady. I know I was thinking of Edmund and Edgar, because I deliberately named my Edgar after the legitimate brother from Lear. I decided quite early on in the plotting process, over lattes with my friend Penny, that Charles was illegitimate, that Edgar knew this and Charles didn’t, and that part of Edgar’s motivation stemmed from feeling that everything Charles had inherited should rightfully be his. I also knew I wanted the bond between the brothers to be strong, so that Edgar’s betrayal would be a particularly intense blow to Charles (poor Charles gets betrayed a great deal).

Beneath a Silent Moon features another pair of brothers in Quen and Val. There’s a rivalry between them that their father has encouraged. Charles tells Mel about the boys trying to scale the Old Tower at Dunmykel when they were children. But I found as I wrote the book that, despite the fact that much of Val’s behavior is appalling, the relationship between the two brothers was more complex and had more affection in it than I had at first envisioned. Quen and Val’s relationship is also clouded by questions of legitimacy as the story progresses. I think that one of the reasons I write about legitimacy and illegitimacy in so many books is that so much of the social order among British aristocrats was build on birth. So that questions about legitimacy can strike at the very foundations of that world (foundations which Edgar, in particular, takes very seriously).

In Beneath a Silent Moon, the reader doesn’t see Val react to the revelations about Quen’s birth, but in the letters I wrote for the new edition, Quen writes to Aspasia that Val said their father “wouldn’t do violence to himself–Talbots have too strong a sense of self-preservation, as we both should know. I pointed out that I’m apparently not a Talbot, as I had explained to him before we left Scotland. Val shot me one of his looks and said I’d been raised as one, I couldn’t escape the legacy.” Val handles the revelation of his elder brother’s illegitimacy better than Edgar. But then, for all his faults, I think Val has more ambiguity tolerance than Edgar.

Do you like stories about brothers? What are some favorites? Writers, do you enjoy writing about brothers as rivals?

In honor of the National Equity March, this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is a love letter from Simon to David.

 

Meditations on The Marriage of Figaro

As anyone who reads my blogs knows, I love opera and get a lot of inspiration from it for my writing. But much of the opera cannon was written after the era in which my books are set. So it’s a particular treat for me to see an opera that’s old enough I can reference it in my books. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro is one of my favorite operas. In fact I have a sequence set at a performance of it in the book I’m currently working on. The opera houses of Mozart’s day were much smaller than most of today’s major U.S. opera houses. So it was a particular treat for me recently to see a production of The Marriage of Figaro close up in an intimate venue.

The production by the B.A.C.H. (Bay Area Classical Harmonies) had a fresh, vibrant feel, thanks to an enthusiastic young cast. It was directed by Eugenia Arsenis, an alumna of the Merola Opera Program. Last week I had the chance to sit down with Jenny and talk about creating the world of Figaro, Susanna, Count Almaviva, the Countess (Rosina), Cherubino, and the other memorable characters in the piece. Jenny talked about the theatricality of opera and said that as a director she tries to focus on characters and their interactions. She explained that she used small details to underline the personalities of the characters. Such as the wedding veil Susanna is trying on in the opening scene that weaves through the story. In this production, on a spare black box set with sumptuous costumes, this attention to detail did a wonderful job of grounding the story. A single chair which Cherubino hid behind and around defined the Countess’s boudoir and brought wonderful comedy to one of the opera’s key scenes.

One of the delights of live theater is that one can observe the whole scene, instead of focusing on close-ups of the central characters. The cast in this production were a lot of fun to watch as everyone in the ensemble reacted to the intricate unfolding plot. The characters in Figaro, as Jenny pointed out, are an intelligent group. Even the Countess, who in the end forgives her chronically philandering husband (in sublimely beautiful music), does so with her eyes open. “It’s her decision to forgive him,” Jenny said. I once heard a master coach comment that in a successful production of Figaro, the audience doesn’t laugh when the Count says “Contessa, perdono,” because, though one has little faith in the future, in the moment he truly believes it. In this production, no one laughed.

The Marriage of Figaro is based on the second in a trilogy of plays by Beaumarchais (about thirty years later, Rossini turned the first play in the trilogy into his opera The Barber of Seville). The Beaumarchais plays were quite socially radical in pre-Revolution France, featuring an aristocrat who abuses his power and a valet who is both smarter and more honorable than his master. The social satire is toned down somewhat in Mozart’s opera but still there. Naturally, the opera and the plays would appeal to Charles and Mélanie. Mozart’s opera and the Beaumarchais trilogy play an important role in the Charles and Mélanie books. Mélanie’s middle name is Suzanne after Figaro’s sweetheart (Suzanne in the plays, Susanna in the opera). Colin names his stuffed bear Figaro. Charles remembers reading the Beaumarchais plays with Raoul as a boy. In Secrets of a Lady Charles thinks how he knows the precise chord in “Dove Sono”, the Countess’s aria in the opera in which she mourns the lost happy days early in her marriage (which seemed particularly appropriate for Mel, though the circumstances of the marriage are very different).

I emerged from this Figaro production inspired to write and actually found that I had a solved a plot problem. Writers, do you get inspirations from seeing plays/operas written in the era in which you write? Readers, do you like scenes set at the opera/theater? Does it enrich your reading experience to see performances of plays/operas you’ve read about in historical novels?

Be sure to check out this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition. It’s more Mélanie and Raoul’s coded exchange, this time his response to her letter from last week.

 

Action Scenes

Last week I blogged about writing sex scenes. As I mentioned, I write them much less often and more sparingly now that my books are suspense driven. The scenes I’m more likely to struggle with are action scenes.

Good actions scenes can combine plot, setting, character, and, in an historical novel, historical background. Dorothy Dunnett writes brilliant action scenes, such as the sword fight between Lymond and Richard in The Game of Kings, the race over the roofs in Lyons in Queens Play, Lymond and Philippa’s escape through the fog-shrouded streets in Checkmate, the opening sequence with the barge in Niccolò Rising. The settings come vividly to life, characters are revealed, relationships change (very notably in the case of the scene with Lymond and Philippa), the plot advances.

I love good action scenes, but they don’t come easily to me as a writer. Perhaps because of my theater background, I’ve always had an easier time with dialogue. When it comes to action scenes, I have to map out the scene were carefully in advance. If they take place in a real setting, such as the chase through Covent Garden Market in Beneath a Silent Moon or a scene I just wrote at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, that means looking at reading up on the setting, looking at pictures (period engraving and paintings and drawings if possible), sketching out a map of the setting, making lists of descriptive detail I want to weave in, and then “blocking” the action. In the midst of all this choreography I have to remind myself to think about what’s going on with the characters, how the scene changes things for them, what it reveals, how it moves the plot forward. Inevitably my first draft of the scene does about a tenth of what I want it to accomplish. But once I have the basic action down, I can begin to layer in details of character and plot and setting.

What are some favorite action scenes of yours? What do you think makes them work? Writers, do you enjoy writing them? What are the challenges?

I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter from Mélanie to Raoul with more about the intrigues at the Congress of Vienna, particularly the love affairs of the Duchess of Sagan.

 

Writing about sex

In the most recent of her always interesting posts on History Hoydens, my friend Pam Rosenthal talked about writing a seduction scene. Which got me to thinking about writing love scenes. Or to be more accurate, sex scenes, as there are certainly love scenes that don’t involve sex, except as subtext.

When I first began co-writing Regency romances with my mom, under the name Anthea Malcolm, my friends teased me that our books started very chaste and slowly got more explicit. In our first book, The Widow’s Gambit, the characters barely embraced. In the second, The Courting of Philippa, there were more detailed kisses. In the third, Frivolous Pretence, which focused on an estranged married couple, there was an actual sex scene, though it faded to black. Our fifth book, A Touch of Scandal, had ex-lovers who resumed an illicit affair. Sex scenes were part of the story. I told my mom she had to write them. Our sixth book, An Improper Proposal, was a marriage of convenience story. My mom said, “You have to write one of the sex scenes this time.” I wrote my first draft of the scene on a day when my mom was out shopping. And (this is true, thought it sounds so funny now), I turned down the screen on my computer, so I couldn’t look at the words as I typed them. When my mom got home that night, I said, “Okay, I wrote the scene. Go look at it and tell me what you think. But I don’t want to be there when you read it.”

Oddly enough, after that first scene I stopped being embarrassed about writing sex scenes. I got to find them quite a fun challenge, especially trying to make each one true to those particular characters and that stage in their relationship. But when I wrote Secrets of a Lady, it was quite obvious to me that after the opening interrupted sex scene, Charles and Mélanie were too focused on finding the Carevalo Ring and getting their son back to be stop to have sex. On top of the fact that their relationship is so strained that Charles finds it difficult even to look Mel in the face let alone make love to her. In fact one of the reasons I had Mélanie be attacked fairly early in the story is to break through some of the distance between them so that Charles at least touches her. If you examine the book, their physical contact slowly increased through their desperate adventures in search of the ring and Colin.

In Beneath a Silent Moon, (which thematically is in many ways all about sex), Charles and Mélanie do make love fairly early in the story. When I wrote the scene, I automatically faded to black without thinking about it. I did the same with a later sex scene in the book. I’ve come full circle, in a way, from from being embarrassed to write sex scenes to enjoying writing them to liking the mystery of not showing everything. Of hinting at exactly who does what and how and what it means to them but leaving a great deal up to the reader’s imagination.

How do you feel about sex scenes in the books you read? What makes them work or not? How detailed do you like them to be? Writers, how do you approach writing sex scenes? Do you enjoy writing them or find them a chore? How much detail do you go into? Has your approach to them changed through the years or with the type of books you write?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is Mélanie’s reply to Isobel Lydgate’s letter from a few weeks ago about David and Simon.

 

David, Simon, & Inheritance

I had another blog topic in mind for today, but I came home (from a fabulous San Francisco Opera “Opera in the Park” concert) to an interesting question from Anne K on the Fraser Correspondence page about David and Simon. I had fun posting a long answer, and then I realized I wasn’t sure how many people would see Anne’s question and my answer, because I wasn’t sure how many people check out the comments on the Fraser Correspondence page. So I thought I would turn both into this week’s blog. Which ties in nicely with this week’s Fraser Correspondence letter, Charles’s reply to David’s recent letter about the difficult family dinner he attended and the pressure his father is putting on him to marry and produce an heir.

Anne said, “egarding David and Simon (two of my favorite characters), I ma surprised that Simon is accepted into David’s family’s home. It would seem to me that David’s father would eventually wage war against Simon as a way to get David to “take his responsibilities as a future earl seriously”. Maybe he (David’s father) is a more complicated and interesting person…

For David, really, his concern should be lessened, if he would appoint Belle’s son as his heir. Besides, wouldn’t that be the way the lineage would work, if David outlived his father and died himself childless? Alternatively, he could adopt a some foundling and name him/her as the heir/heiress. If he really needed some good publicity about it, the mother could claim him as a father — in her dying breath. Simon does know an actress or two. Too much a Winter’s Tale?”

Her questions rather a number of interesting issues relating both the British inheritance laws and the dynamics of the Mallinson/Carfax family. Here’s my reply to Anne with a few edits and embellishments:

I’m glad you like Simon and David. I’m very fond of them both and enjoy writing them and exploring the dynamics of their relationship. David’s father, Lord Carfax, is an interesting character. He features prominently in The Mask of Night. He actually started out much more as a stereotype of a bluff English gentleman and got much more interesting and complex in subsequent drafts (I changed a reference to Carfax in the new edition of Beneath a Silent Moon to fit with his evolving character). Carfax was Charles’s spymaster, and I think in many ways Charles is the son he’d have liked to have, or at least that’s what David thinks (though Charles and Carfax clash frequently too).

Simon and David officially are friends who share rooms, as many single young men did. David’s family go along with that story and therefore sometimes include Simon at family events. I think Lord and Lady Carfax are wise enough to know that pushing this point would push David away. And they hope this is a phase that David will grow out of. But I think you’re right, as time goes by, Carfax is likely to try to drive a wedge between David and Simon. I actually have some thoughts for how this will play out in subsequent books, which will have repercussions on Charles and Mélanie.

Because the Carfax title and estates go through the male line (as most British peerages do), Isobel’s son wouldn’t be the heir after David. Since David is the only son, the next in line would be his father’s younger brother, if he had one. As Carfax doesn’t have younger brothers, the title would then go to the descendants of Carfax’s father’s younger brother. So a second cousin of David’s. David could adopt an heir for his personal possessions but not for the title and the entailed property. Even if he claimed a foundling as an illegitimate son that wouldn’t help, as illegitimate children couldn’t inherit titles or entailed property. The Carfax title and estates are in a sense a trust that David holds to pass onto the next generation. Part of his duty, as he sees it, is to raise up and groom an heir to pass them along to. And of course, the current Carfax would like the title and estates to go to his direct descendants (actually Isobel is probably Carfax’s favorite child, but the Carfax title isn’t one of the rare ones that can pass through the female line).

So the conflict David faces between his love for Simon and what he sees as his duty as the future Lord Carfax is a complex one. As is the conflict between his liberal principles (something he and Charles share) and his deeply ingrained sense of what it means to be a future earl.

Any thoughts on where you think the tensions in the Mallinson/Carfax family are headed? Historical writers, do you enjoy dealing with inheritance issues and how they influence your characters? Any favorite books in which the intricacies of inheritance and entails drive the story?

 

“Soul Mates” & the Mental Click

The follow up discussion to my post last week on “Bad Boy” Heroes got me to thinking that in general I don’t like stories where bad boy heroes are reformed by heroines who (in Stephanie’s apt description) are “pure as the driven snow.” A fascinating post by Pam Rosenthal on her blog and and the follow-up discussion got me thinking more along the same lines. Pam was writing about children in romance representing innocence, but the discussion touched on the redemptive arc often found in romantic fiction. I like redemptive arcs, but I much prefer it if the character redeems him or herself, rather than being magically healed by innocence and true love.

So in general I prefer “bad boys” or “bad girls” paired with a lover with some worldly wisdom. But execution can make me love all sorts of stories. Georgette Heyer’s Venetia is one my favorite love stories, despite the fact that it follows a trope I don’t generally care for–jaded, cynical rake tries to seduce and then falls in love with beautiful, sheltered, romantically untouched girl. Of course it helps that Venetia is five-and-twenty and hardly an innocent in her understanding of people whatever her life experience. I think the reason the story works so well for me is that one has a deep sense that Venetia and Dameral are “soul mates” despite their vastly differing life experiences. They share a sense of the absurd, as Stephanie pointed out. They share a love of literature, a disregard for society’s conventions, and a certain innate kindness. There’s a wonderful intimacy between them that’s only partly physical, though interestingly the intellectual intimacy makes the passion between them that much more palpable and intense. Their minds work in a similar way. Reading about them, you can sense that “click” that occurs between two people whose minds are in sync (which, to me, is as romantic as the rush of physical attraction).

That sort of connection combined with sexual attraction is a powerful combination. I like to think that Charles and Mélanie have that sort of mental click in the way their minds work, which is what gives me hope for them despite their differing backgrounds and to some extent differing goals. At least that’s how it is in my head–how well I’ve portrayed it is a different question .

A few other fictional couples who to me fit this definition of “soul mates” – Russell & Holmes, Mulder & Scully, Ingold and Gil in the Darwath books and Antryg and Joanna in the Windrose Chronicles (both by Barbara Hambly), Susan and James in Brust & Bull’s Freedom & Necessity, Beatrice & Benedick, Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane.

How do you define “soul mates” in fiction? Do you like to read or write about characters with this sort of mental intimacy? Other favorite examples to suggest?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is a letter from Raoul to Mélanie. Speaking of two other people with a mental connection which I don’t think will ever completely go away…