Missing Scenes

Lauren Willig has a very fun contest going on over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. You can vote on a sexy cover for the inimitable Turnip Fitzhugh, and if there’s sufficient acclaim, Lauren will write a love scene between Turnip Fitzhugh and Arabella which did not appear in the wonderful Mischief of the Mistletoe.

It’s a great idea, born about because two different reviewers regretted the lack of a love scene between Turnip and Arabella. It got me to think about “missing scenes” – scenes which don’t take place between the pages of a book which I’ve always wanted to read. For instance:

Darcy and Elizabeth’s engagement conversation. Some authors fade to black for love scenes. Jane Austen does it for the final romantic resolution between her heroes and heroines. In many ways it’s a wonderful literary technique, leaving so much tantalizingly to the imagination. And yet I would so like to know what they actually said and did…

Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane after “Placetne, magistra? / Placet.” and the final embrace at Oxford in Gaudy Night. Busman’s Honeymoon reveals that they spent the rest of the night in a punt madly kissing, but I would so have liked to see that scene dramatized.

Percy and Marguerite’s meeting and their wedding (not to mention their wedding night, I can never be certain if they ever actually made love or not), not to mention Percy learning of Marguerite’s denunciation of St. Cyr. Basically all the complicated back story of The Scarlet Pimpernel. (If you’re a Pimpernel fan be sure to check out the great discussion of the 1982 film and other adaptations at Dear Author).

Lymond seeing Kuzum again at the end of the Lymond Chronicles, how he dealt with him, what kind of relationship they had.

Sophy and Charles on the carriage ride back to London at the end of The Grand Sophy, not to mention the scene with Sir Horace and Lady Ombersley when they reached Berkeley Square.

Are there any “missing scenes” from the Charles & Mélanie/Malcolm & Suzanne books you wish I’d dramatize? From other favorite books?

I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter in which Aline writes to Gisèle about Charles/Malcolm’s arrest.

 

Pride and Prejudice 1940

This weekend I rewatched the movie that began my fascination with the Regency era – the 1940 Pride and Prejudice with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier as Elizabeth and Darcy and a wonderful screenplay by Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin, directed by Robert Z. Leonard. I’m aware of the irony that the movie that set me on the path to writing Regency-set books is set in the 1830s, but the movie sent me to the novel and then to other Austen novels and to Georgette Heyer and Bernard Cornwell and Regency and Napoleonic history books and ultimately to creating my own stories.

I love a number of adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, but in many ways this one remains my favorite. I’ve sometimes wondered if it seems to true to the mood and tone of the book to me because I saw it (at the age of six) before I read the book. But I’m currently in the midst of rereading Pride and Prejudice and watching the movie this time I was struck by how well it captures the spare, dry irony of the book, the keen wit, and the understated emotion.

I also think the film does a brilliant job of taking the book and telling it in cinematic terms. There’s the opening sequence in which Mrs. Bennet and her daughters and Lady Lucas and Charlotte learn about Bingley’s and Darcy’s arrival in Meryton, and the two women have their coachmen race each other home, so their husbands can be the first to call on Mr. Bingley. A wonderful way of demonstrating cinematically that “it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.”

There’s the archery contest between Darcy and Elizabeth that captures, also in cinematic terms, the tensions in their relationship and their growing attraction. There’s the lovely, heart-melting scene (which my fellow History Hoyden Leslie Carroll and I have discussed) in which Darcy tells Elizabeth the story of Wickham and Georgiana, a scene that is essentially Darcy’s letter, turned into a dialogue between two people.

Another of my fellow Hoydens, Isobel Carr, brought up the fact that the movie softens Lady Catherine. “In the Olivier/Garson P&P I was always very bothered by the transformation of Lady Catherine into a benevolent do-gooder who’s promoting the match between Lizzie and Darcy. It changes the story too much for me. It removes one of Darcy’s major moments of character growth.” This always bothered my mom (who loved the movie) as well. The changes to Lady Catherine bother me, too. I actually like the scene between Darcy and Lady Catherine after Lady Catherine speaks with Elizabeth (Darcy is so wonderfully exuberant), but I agree the arc of the story is better with Lady Catherine not changing. But it’s not enough to ruin (or even damage) the movie for me.

Then there are the performances, a series of finely etched portraits. Very much including Olivier as Darcy. He’s so wonderfully aristocratic (with so much emotion smoldering beneath). And yet if you watch the way he moves, his arms are always held close to his sides, as though he’s hemmed in by his role. He and Greer Garson have great chemistry. Edmund Gwenn captures Mr. Bennet’s dry wit, Mary Boland has Mrs. Bennet’s giddiness and determination, Melville Cooper is an hysterical Mr. Collins, Maureen O’Sullivan is a sweet but not cloying Jane…

Just writing this makes me want to watch the movie again. What are some of your favorite novel-to-film adaptations? If you like the Regency/Napoleonic era, what book or movie or other source introduced you to it?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence letter is another update on pre-Waterloo Brussels from Mélanie to Raoul.

 

Historical Fiction and FIction Written in Historical Eras

I spent this afternoon at a fabulous matinee of Werther at San Francisco Opera. The production, directed by Francisco Negrin and conducted by Emmanuel Villaume, brought out the layers and ambiguities in the story and made me like the opera more than I had on previous viewings (though I still think the opera lacks the irony in the novel). Watching the opera, I was reminded that the Goethe novel it’s based on (The Sorrows of Young Werther) was wildly popular among young people in the late 18th century. A lot of young readers apparently took its tale of star-crossed love seriously, though the book can be read as commenting on the dangers of wallowing in romanticism. It’s a book most of my characters probably would have read as teens. I haven’t referenced it in my books, but I think I will in the future. It’s interesting to contemplate who would have been caught up in the romance of the story and who would have seen the ironies (Charles, I’m sure, would have seen the ironies; Gisèle might have been caught up in the romance).

I recently saw another opera that I have referenced in my books, The Marriage of Figaro. A sequence in Vienna Waltz takes place at a performance of the opera. And Mélanie’s middle name (and the name of her Vienna Waltz alter ego) is Suzanne after the Beaumarchais play upon which the opera is based (Susanna in the opera). The Beaumarchais trilogy, with its sharp critique of class structure, was a favorite of both Mélanie’s father and of Raoul. Colin’s stuffed bear is named Figaro, presumably because his parents have told him the story. When I originally wrote Daughter of the Game, I struggled to find the piece of music with a precise chord that Charles knows always brings tears to Mélanie’s eyes. After the book was published, the Merola Opera Program performed The Marriage of Figaro, and I realized that of course the piece of music that would have that affect on Mel should be the Countess’s aria “Dove Sono”, in which she asks where the happy moments of her marriage have gone. I was able to make the change in the text when the book was reissued as Secrets of a Lady.

I’ve also, as I’ve mentioned, been rereading Pride and Prejudice on my ipad. I’ve written Fraser Correspondence letters in which Mel, Charles, and Simon talk about Pride and Prejudice (with Mel and Simon comparing both Charles and David to Darcy). It’s fun to reread it thinking about how my characters would react to the story.

Does reading historical fiction drive you to seek out novels or plays written in the same era? What’s it like going from an historical novel to a novel or play actually written in the era? Writers, do you read novels and plays written in the era about which you’re writing?

This week’s Fraser Correspondence addition is Mel’s reply to Simon’s letter from last week.

 

Notes from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival – April 2010

As you may have seen from my updates on Twitter and Facebook, I just got back from a wonderful few days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with my writer friend Penny Williamson. OSF is a wonderful theater company, but this year’s crop of plays (we’ll be back in July to see the rest of the 75th anniversary season) was overall one of the best in my memory.

We began with Ruined, a powerful play by the brilliant Lynn Nottage about women struggling to survive and living with the consequences of rape during the brutal war in the Congo. A painful play to watch at times, it had an amazingly hopeful ending, the sort of ending that takes one by surprise and yet in retrospect fits the story perfectly. The production, directed by Liesl Tommy, was riveting and heart-rending.

That evening we saw Hamlet, directed by OSF Artistic Director Bill Rauch with the amazing Dan Donohue in the title role. I find new things in Hamlet whenever I see it. This production beautifully captured Hamlet’s youth (I’ve never seen the character played as so young and it really worked). His character arc of growing up over the course of the play was fascinating and paralleled the character arcs of Ophelia (Susannah Flood) and Laertes (David DeSantos). All the performances were sharply detailed and nuanced and the production also wonderfully brought out the surprising amount of humor in the play.

The next day we saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which I think is my favorite Tennessee Williams play (I love the fact that Maggie is so tough and not a victim as many of Williams’s heroines are). Director Christopher Liam Moore brilliantly brought out the raw emotions in the play. Maggie (Stephanie Beatriz) was tough and a fighter but also palpably desperate. Brick (Danforth Comins) had a look of bleak torment in his eyes. His confrontation with Maggie at the end of Act I brought tears to my eyes.

That evening provided a contrast to the first three very intense plays with the enchanting musical She Loves Me. She Loves Me has a beautiful score and a lovely story (it’s based on the Hungarian play Parfumerie that was also the basis for The Shop Around the Corner and You’ve Got Mail). This production was a sheer delight from the opening ensemble of the various characters arriving for work at the parfumerie to the delightfully romantic resolution between the central couple (Mark Bedard and Liza McCormick). The ensemble cast captured the various characters wonderfully and the production was staged (by director Rebecca Taichman) with wonderful wit.

We rounded out the trip with a delightful adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (adapted by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan) directed by former OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel. The familiar characters came to vivid life. OSF is such a strong rep company that the cast was uniformly strong, down to the smallest roles.

I find good theater so exhilarating Penny and I talked about the plays over brunches and dinners and after theater drinks. As always, we found many wonderful parallels between them. Maggie’s desperation for financial security through her marriage and the Bennet sisters’ need to find husbands, the feuding lovers who need to get past their first impressions in both She Loves Me and Pride and Prejudice. And as always I got wonderful ideas for my own writing, from a specific Hamlet quote I want to work into Vienna Waltz to ways of enriching my characters’ back story.

Have you seen any exciting theater lately? Writers, do you get inspiration from theater or movies?

Be sure to check out this week’s Fraser Correspondence additions, a letter from Aline Dacre-Hammond to Gisèle Fraser just after she arrives to stay with Charles and Mélanie in Vienna.

 

More Notes from New York – Writers & Their Characters

Lauren & Tracy

In last week’s blog about my trip to New York, I mentioned the wonderful Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library. I got chills looking at Austen’s letters, trying to decipher the words, noting that her handwriting was neater in the manuscript pages of Lady Susan than in the letters to her family, seeing first-hand the the crossed lines (turning the letter and writing crosswise to get the maximum use out of expensive paper) one reads about in Austen and other 19th centuries writers.

The exhibit contained research gems such as a board game from 1809 called Journey Round the Metropolis: An Amusing and Instructive Game with pictures of London sights and an 1811 book called Ellen or the Naughty Girl Reclaimed with instructional stories for children illustrated by cut out figures. I think a rather prosy relative will present the book to Jessica in one of my future novels. Jessica will enjoy playing with the cut outs but wrinkle her nose at the text.

The exhibit also included a print of a portrait Austen said was Jane Bennet Bingley. I’ve always loved the letter of Austen’s in which she talks about attending an exhibition and finding a portrait of Mrs. Bingley. She adds that she looked for a portrait of Mrs. Darcy but didn’t find one, which she puts that down to Mr. Darcy not wanting to let go of any portraits of her. What I love about this letter, as I told Lauren Willig, is that it shows Austen imagined her characters having a life outside the pages of her novels.

Which is just what Lauren and I were doing throughout my visit (including at a wonderful brunch at the Atlantic Grill in the picture above). Talking about our characters, their pasts, their interconnections, events we envisioned for them in the future. Questioning each other about spoilers for future books (fortunately neither of us minds knowing spoilers) and how various characters’ paths might cross. Of course we both write series, which lend themselves to this sort of speculation, but I’ve always loved continuing the stories of books I read in my head after I turn the last page. I think it’s one reason that the books I write have always been interconnected.

I love the idea of Austen looking for her characters among the paintings at an exhibition. Much as today we look for our characters while watching a movie or turning the pages of a magazine. Such as when I watched the recent adaptation of Little Dorrit and thought Matthew MacFadyen would make a wonderful Charles. Or thinking how like Mélanie Eva Green was in Casino Royale.

Do you find yourself discovering characters (your own or other writers) in movies or paintings or photographs? Writers, do you think about your characters ongoing lives after the story ends or between books in a series? Readers, do you do the same with books you read?

I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter from Lord Carfax (David’s father and Charles’s spymaster) to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh.

 

Literary Entertainments

A slightly later post this weekend, because I spent most of yesterday getting ready for and then attending the Merola Opera Program’s Spring Benefit (you can see a cell phone snapshot of me and my friend Michelle, Merola’s Director of Membership and Marketing, here). In the midst of a long, fun day of setting up auction items, scrambling into my evening dress, greeting friends and bidding on auction items, and then listening to a wonderful concert and dancing into the morning, I found myself thinking about parties and balls in novels. A number of memorable ones spring to mind, beginning with the assembly ball in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Pride and Prejudice has a number of ball and party scenes, including the memorable the Netherfield ball. When the A&E adaptation first aired, my friend Penny commented on how often the characters went to parties. She said she could imagine Jane Austen as a writer thinking “how am I going to get these characters together? I have to have another party scene.”

In an era when characters can’t make cell phone calls or send texts and emails or tweets and where it’s difficult for unmarried men and women to interact unchaperoned, balls, receptions, and other social occasions provide rich opportunities for the characters to interact. There’s the chance for private conversation during a dance (Darcy and Elizabeth at the Netherfield ball) and the opportunity for one character to observe another (Darcy makes a disastrous impression on Lizzy at the assembly ball and the Netherfield ball confirms Darcy’s negatives of the entire Bennet family). The chance to advance multiple story lines in one scene (both the Darcy/Elizabeth and Jane/Bingley relationships move forward in these various party scenes). A ball can be the occasion of an unexpected meeting (Marianne encountering Willoughby and his wife in Sense and Sensibility). It can be spun-sugar covering for scenes of intrigue and drama (the Grenville ball in The Scarlet Pimpernel).

One of the more dramatic real historical entertainments is the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels at which Wellington learned that Napoleon had stolen a march on him. Soldiers left the dance floor to join their regiments. The duchess’s ball has been brought to vivid life in a number of novels–by Thackery in Vanity Fair, by Georgette Heyer in An Infamous Army, by Bernard Cornwell in Waterloo. I had the fun of writing about it myself in Shores of Desire (what could be a better setting for drama? all the characters together as they receive news that will change all their lives in myriad ways). I’d love to use the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in a Charles & Mélanie book some day, either in flashback or in another prequel.

Balls and parties an also be a way for a writer to introduce the reader to an array of characters and to their world. Edith Wharton does this brilliantly in the opening The Age of Innocence. You get a sense of the world of the Archers and Wellands in a way you wouldn’t in small scenes and the ripples in that world caused by Ellen’s return from the Continent come through vividly.

Secrets of a Lady opens with Charles and Mel returning from a ball, but after that has no scenes set at social gathering. I deliberately wanted to pull Charles and Mélanie out of the jewel box world represented by the Esterhazy ball they’ve attended before the book opens. Beneath a Silent Moon, on the other hand, opens with the Glenister House ball. Inspired by a number of memorable book openings (notably the one from The Age of Innocence) I wanted to set up the various characters and the world of the Glenister House set. And I wanted to show the difficulties both Charles and Mel are having adjusting to London society and the strain that that’s putting on their marriage.

Do you have some favorite scenes from balls or other parties in books? Writers, do you like writing scenes set at parties? What are some of the challenging of writing scenes in which one has to juggle a number of characters and plotlines?

In keeping with the theme, in this week’s Fraser Correspondence addition, Mélanie gives Gisèle (newly married and in Scotland) an account of a ball Lady Frances has given.

 

The challenge of opening lines

Rifle fire peppered the air. Charles Fraser came awake with a jerk and tightened his grip on his wife. Mélanie froze in his arms, then sat bolt upright in bed. Another hale of bullets. One rifle. No, not a rifle. Rapping. On the oak door panels.

That’s currently the opening paragraph of Charles & Mélanie Book #4. It will very likely change during subsequent drafts, but working on a new book has me thinking about the crucial opening sentences of a novel. They can be daunting to an author–so daunting that I tend to force myself to get something down and not stare at the computer screen too long in writing a first draft. There’s so much one wants to accomplish in those sentences–establish character, setting, mood, theme–above all, draw the reader into the story.

Here are some opening paragraphs that have drawn me in:

“Lymond is back.”
It was known soon after the Sea-Catte reached Scotland from Campvere with an illicit cargo and a man she should not have carried.

From The Game of Kings, the first book of the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett. Right away, the opening establishes a world of intrigue and adventure. You know you’re in Scotland and while the exact era may not be clear, the word choices (It was known, should not have carried) strike a note that isn’t modern. Above all, the opening sentences establish Lymond as a mysterious, fascinating person one wants to know more about. Which one could say is the core of the entire series.

The butler, recognizing her ladyship’s only surviving brother at a glance, as he afterwards informed his less percipient subordinates, favored Sir Horace with a low bow, and took it upon himself to say that my lady, although not at home to less nearly connected persons, would be happy to see him. Sir Horace, unimpressed by this condescension, handed his caped greatcoat to one of the footmen, his hat and cane to the other, tossed his gloves onto the marble-topped table, and said that he had no doubt of that, and how was Dassett keeping these days?

From The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer. A much quieter opening, but I remember being completely drawn in by it at the age of ten. The detail sets up the Regency world beautifully. Actions characterize both Dassett and Sir Horace. And the arrival of a family member who has, by implication, not been to visit in some time, sets up that the ordinary world is about to change.

The play–for which Briony has designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crêpe paper–was written in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch. When the preparations were complete, she had nothing to do but contemplate her finished draft and wait for the appearance of her cousins from the distant north.

From Atonement by Ian McEwan. We’re pulled immediately in the world of the young Briony. Her youth and emotional intensity (both of which are key to the story which is to unfold) come through and the wonderfully specific details (folding screen, red crêpe paper) begin to establish the world of the English country house in which the book opens. Again, there’s the sense of a world about to change with the arrival of outsiders. Most important, the book begins with a writer absorbed in creation, setting up the theme of the book.

The worst thing about knowing that Gary Fairchild had been dead for month was seeing him every day at work.

From The Silicon Mage, the second book in the Windrose Chronicles, by Barbara Hambly. We know at once that we’re in a fantasy world, and yet at the same time a world grounded in reality (every day at work). We get a touch of Joanna (the heroine)’s tenacious sense of humor even in dire straits. And we want to read on to see what on earth is going on :-).

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered to be the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The driving force of the book, summed up with economical irony in the first sentence. Austen doesn’t begin with specific characters, it’s more a wide-angle shot, which sets up the world and the social pressures against which the story will play out, and also establishes the dry, ironic tone of the book. But though there aren’t specific characters, there’s the plot premise–wealthy single man (men) settle in a new neighborhood and every local family sees the prospect of husbands for their daughters.

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defence, I must say it was an engrossing book and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. In my seven weeks of peripatetic reading among the sheep (which tended to move out of my way) and the gorse bushes (to which I had painfully developed an instinctive awareness) I had never before stepped on a person.

From The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first Mary Russell novel, by Laurie R. King. It totally sucked me into the world of the book the first time I read it. There’s a surprising amount of setting detail (Sussex Downs, 1915, war year, sheep, gorse bushes) but all couched in Russell’s distinctive voice so you don’t feel you’re being inundated with information. Russell comes through as a vivid character, and the promise of learning about what happened when she nearly stepped on Sherlock Holmes keeps the reader turning the pages.

Thursday, June 18
The best remedy for a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth. After being acquitted of murdering her lover, Harriet Vane found all three specifics abundantly at her disposal. And although Lord Peter Wimsey, with a touching faith in tradition, persisted day in and day out in presenting the bosom for her approval, she showed no inclination to recline upon it.

From Have his Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers. Not first person, but the dry tone fits with Harriet’s pov and frames a surprising amount of back story. Harriet’s lover’s murder, her trial, and acquittal, and her present state of mind. As well as the current state of her relationship with Peter, which sets up their conflict in the book. And there’s perhaps a hint that Harriet is protesting too much which also foreshadows the future.

What draws you into a book? Any particularly effective openings to recommend? Writers, how do you approach the opening sentences of a new book? Do you craft them endlessly or dash off something and find you stick with it? Do you consciously consider where to start and why or is it instinctive?

Be sure to check out the new addition to the Fraser Correspondence. It’s a letter from Quen to Aspasia’s sister Cressida.

 

Sisters & Brothers

I had a fun afternoon today seeing a matinee of The Other Boleyn Girl with a friend. I’ve loved Tudor & Elizabethan history every since I watched The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R on tv as a young child (closely followed by a family trip to Britain where we visited Hampton Court, the Tower of London, and so many other locations that featured in both series). I love watching different dramatizations of the era, getting different takes on familiar events, discussing (as my friend and I did over a lunch) what was historically accurate, what was changed, what’s open to interpretation.

 

The Complications of Friendship

In the comments to last week’s post (and thanks, everyone, for the great discussion!), Cate mentioned that while she had come to have more of an affinity with Mélanie on rereads, “I’m still not sure I would trust her as a friend, but I probably wouldn’t have a choice. I’d find her too interesting not to spend time with her, if she would deign to allow me.”

My first reaction was to be surprised and think “that’s interesting, I’d certainly trust Mélanie as a friend.” Then I re-examined it, because truth to tell it’s a question I’d never really considered. Would I trust her? Probably, because she’s very charming, and I suspect I’d never know what was going on in her head or what she really up to :-). Would I be wise to trust her? More difficult to answer. Mélanie’s very loyal. But as Cate said “She’s loyal, but she, like everyone, has a hierarchy of loyalties and she’s not likely to be changed.” And she can be quite ruthless when she makes up her mind what she needs to do.

 

The Importance of Having a Fortune

“Becoming Jane” opended in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, and my friend jim (who helped design my website) and I went to the first matinee. I had mixed feelings–gorgeous period atmosphere and some great acting, but I have a hard time believing the woman who could dissect characters with such keenness and compassion was as self-absorbed as Jane struck me in the movie (I found myself most sympathetic to her rejected suitor, Mr. Wisley). But one thing I did think the movie captured well was the way marriage and money were inextricably bound together. This is a theme I confess I quite missed in Austen’s novels when I first read them (in fairness, I was under ten at the time) and which I notice more and more rereading them now.