High Living for Heroines

Last week I visited the magnificent Kenwood House, built in the 1760s by Robert Adam for the Earl of Mansfield. Whilst there, it struck me that what novelists need is not an in depth knowledge of a stately home’s architectural highlights but a record of some of the everyday objects which a heroine might come across.  

Kenwood House. The Orangery is on the left. In summer, the orange trees in tubs are moved outside.

Step forward Rosa Forbes, twenty-three, thin, badly-dressed and a bit prim, but with hidden possibilities, given the chance. Rosa’s widowed father thinks of nothing but hunting (in winter) and gambling (the rest of the year), he scarcely notices Rosa. When he dies, the estate is sold to pay off his debts and Rosa, in desperation, writes to her unknown great-aunt for help. Two weeks later, Rosa finds herself at the magnificent Manderville Court with only one shabby valise to her name.

Ceiling plaster work in the entrance hall

Rosa is entranced by the roundel and early the following morning she sneaks down and lies on the floor to admire it better. To her embarrassment, Lord Ludovic comes in unexpectedly and nearly trips over her.

'For Heaven's sake, Miss Forbes! What on earth are you doing down there?'

It is not a good start.

Mercury, the messenger god. What message does he have for Rosa?

As if being caught lying on the floor wasn't bad enough, she then catches sight of a plaster statue of a nude Greek god standing in a nonchalant way in an alcove – he has nothing on except for a fig leaf – and, ludicrously, a hat. She doesn’t know where to look. Lord L. is amused by her confusion, she can see. She flees.

Jet combs

Two new guests arrive, the supremely poised - and wealthy - Honourable Constantia Pomeroy, and her alarming mother. Rosa learns from her great-aunt that an engagement between Lord Ludovic and Miss Pomeroy is imminent.

They deserve each other, thinks Rosa.

'Really, Miss Forbes,' sniffs Miss Pomeroy, the first evening after her arrival, 'why are you peering so closely at that mantelpiece? I thought for a moment that you were a housemaid dusting it!'  She titters.

The Library alcove

There's one room Rosa really loves - the Library. She forgets to be shocked by the ceiling panel of Hercules choosing between Glory and the Passions. All she can do is breathe, ‘Oh!’ Those colours! The pale blue and pink set off the dark red and gold of the books so well. She walks around, entranced

The Library steps

Nobody’s there, so, greatly daring, she climbs the library steps and finds The History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. Mama once told her that it was very shocking - no lady should be seen reading it. Gingerly, she takes Volume I off the shelf and tucks it under her arm; she would jolly well read it, she vowed, but nobody would see her doing so. A day or so later, she is back at the top of the ladder. Tom Jones is terrific and she can’t wait to read Volume II. The ladder is standing in shadow when she hears laughter and footsteps. Lord Ludovic comes in with another house guest, the asinine Sir Godfrey, he of the braying laugh. 'Who on earth is Miss Forbes, Manderville? Zounds! I took her for a scullery maid until Miss Pomeroy told me she is actually a guest!'

Rosa grabbed Volume II of Tom Jones, more than half-inclined to hurl it at him. Then, reluctantly, she lowered her hand. That way lay disgrace. They hadn’t noticed her so far but when they turned round…

Library mantelpiece, looking glass and bust of Homer.

She glances across at the gold framed looking-glass in the alcove with the bust of Homer beside it, and, to her horror, sees Lord Ludovic looking straight at her. As their eyes meet, he winks and a tiny jerk of his head indicates that she escapes. He touches Sir Godfrey on the arm and points to the deer in the park.

The staircase

Lord Ludovic isn't all bad, thought Rosa, tip-toeing down the steps as fast as she could and fleeing back to her room, stumbling on the treads of the elegant cantilevered staircase. She finds her great-aunt’s lady’s maid in her bedroom with a couple of lengths of silk over her arm. ‘My Lady suggests that these would make you a couple of evening gowns,’ she spreads them over the bed.

‘But I’m hopeless at sewing!’ exclaims Rosa, sliding Tom Jones stealthily under the pillow.

‘And I am good at it!’ The lady’s maid smiles. ‘It would be no trouble.’

Chandelier

Then there’s the Drawing-room, where the ladies sit after dinner and wait for the gentlemen to finish their port and salacious stories before joining them. Rosa loves the way the chandelier's cut crystals sparkle in the candlelight. 

The chaise longue is covered in expensive damask and gilding

The chaise longue is obviously top of the range but it’s not comfortable. Rosa keeps feeling she’ll either slide off, or spill her coffee. Worse, the turquoise clashes with her new hyacinth blue silk evening gown. She overhears Sir Godfrey whispering behind Miss Pomeroy’s fan, and they both look in her direction.

Rosa lifts her chin defiantly. 

The pianoforte

There is a pianoforte in the corner. Rosa used to have piano and singing lessons every week. After her mother died, when Rosa was fifteen, that stopped and her father refused to have the piano re-tuned, so she could no longer even practice.

The next morning, Rosa sneaks into the Drawing-room and discovers some music inside the hinged piano stool. It doesn't look too difficult. She finds a couple of country songs she knows, takes a deep breath, sits down, runs her fingers lightly over the keys and begins to sing.

A voice behind her, a rich baritone, joins in ….

And that’s just Chapter I.

Elizabeth Hawksley

Elizabeth Hawksley: Writing Tips # 11

Recipe: how to write that scene you’ve been putting off for ages.

Every now and then I come up against what I call the Scene of Doom. It’s a long and complicated scene which, for some reason, I’m simply dreading writing. You’d be amazed how clean and sparkling the house becomes, how the buttons I’ve failed to sew on for months are suddenly done, how tidy my study desk looks.

 

Elizabeth Hawksley

The worst example was in The Belvedere Tower. It was my ninth Elizabeth Hawksley novel and, by that time, I was much more confident about my writing. The Scene of Doom was at the end of my penultimate chapter when the important Poaching strand came to a head – if only I could write it.

 

The Belvedere Tower

This is the poaching strand situation:
My hero, Daniel, a wealthy northern businessman, has bought a run-down estate in Surrey. His gamekeeper, Uzzell, an outwardly respectable man, is secretly in cahoots with a London gang (comprising the vicious Gold Teeth and his side-kick, Moley) and selling the estate’s game on the black market. Uzzell pins the blame for the scarcity of game on the blacksmith Sam Wright, and his two sons, Phineas and Barty. Daniel has discovered the truth but he knows that Uzzell must be caught red-handed if he’s to be charged successfully.

 

A Victorian Poacher: James Hawker’s Journal

The Scene of Doom:

     1.  Place: the charcoal burner’s hut in a wood near the London Road where Uzzell  

          stores the game. Daniel and Sam hide nearby: they will deal with Uzzell. Phineas

          and Barty hide on the other side of the road to await the cart: they’ll disable the cart

          by unharnessing the horse. I hadn’t a clue how to deal with Gold Teeth and Moley.

2.      Gold Teeth and Moley arrive and Barty unhitches the cart. 

3.      Uzzell and Gold Teeth quarrel over money – Uzzell has a gun. The transfer of game
        to the cart goes ahead. Phineas coshes Moley and ties him up.

4.      Nelly, Uzzell’s fragile wife, has premonitions of disaster and sets out towards the hut.

5.      Gold Teeth realizes Moley is missing and that the cart is uncoupled. He yells.

6.      Uzzell flees into the woods and gets out his gun.

7.      Nelly lurches towards the hut.

8.      Daniel and Sam struggle with Uzzell and overpower him. The gun goes off.

9.      Gold Teeth fights Phineas and Barty. He’s captured but Barty is badly hurt.

10.    Nelly has been shot and is dying. Sam drives his sons back to the smithy, plus the
        prisoners – who will go in his cellar. Daniel stays with Mrs Uzzell.

11.    The dying Mrs Uzzell tells of a strongbox underneath the flags in her cottage. She
        dies. Loose ends are tied up.

Facing writing all this felt like climbing Everest. I didn’t even have it in order in my head. All I knew was that Daniel needed to come good and realize, finally, who was to be trusted, and he had to get involved with the fighting – he gets off with cuts and bruises and a cracked rib, but he’s shown his mettle. From now on, the villagers are on his side. For other reasons, I needed Barty to be badly hurt – but to recover.

And I was longing to write the love scene in the final chapter.

 

Horse’s harness from Self-Sufficiency by John and Sally Seymour

In desperation, I decided to write whichever scene looked easiest – which was the Mrs Uzzell leaving her cottage scene, followed by the London gang’s arrival where Barty unhitches the cart (thanks to the above picture). It was a bit like putting together a jigsaw; inevitably, the scenes had to be juggled around. Gradually, everything linked up and Everest shrank to a climbable hill.

In the last chapter, Daniel gets together with my heroine Cassandra, and the other plot strands are sorted satisfactorily. And I was able to send off the completed typescript.

 

The Gamekeeper at Home and The Amateur Poacher by Richard Jefferies

So, my advice boils down to this. Don’t be frightened of writing a scene out of sync. If it helps to unblock you, that’s all that matters. Yes, you may have to do a lot of tweaking and cutting and pasting, but at least you’ll get the scene done.

I hope it works for you.

Photographs:

Elizabeth Hawksley by Sally Greenhill

All other photographs by Elizabeth Hawksley

Elizabeth Hawksley

Writing tips #9 - beginnings

Here’s the 9^th of our posts on writing tips. Today I’m talking about beginnings. The beginning of your book is very important because it needs to grab your readers’ attention. If nothing much happens for the first ten pages, your reader will lose interest and put the book down. So here are some suggestions for making the start of your book compelling.

1) Start with a life changing event.

Perhaps the heroine is about to become a governess or a housekeeper, or perhaps one of the heroine's relatives has arranged a marriage for her, or perhaps she decides to marry so that she can provide for herself and her family. All of these situations have drama and interest built into them because neither the heroine, nor the reader, knows how she is going to react to her new circumstances and this provides the reader with a reason for continuing.

In romantic fiction, it’s very important to delve into the characters’ feelings, and as life changing events involve deep and perhaps contradictory feelings, you will have plenty to explore. This will allow you, and your reader, to get to know your heroine.

Or you could open with your hero. Giving him a life-changing event will allow the reader to get to know him and important aspects of his character will be revealed by his reactions to difficult situations.

2) Start with some action.

Perhaps the heroine stumbles across a dead body, or perhaps she is running away from something and in doing so she bumps into the hero. A dramatic scene will give you plenty of opportunities to create tension between your hero and heroine. Will they trust each other? If so, why? Will they suspect each other? How will this affect their relationship?

3) Start with a dilemma

Perhaps the heroine has to decide whether to accept a proposal from a man she doesn't love, as she is poor and cannot support herself. Perhaps she has to decide whether or not to accept a job, or whether to sell her family home. Any dilemma will allow you to delve into the heroine’s personality, involving her hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, and this will allow your reader to empathise with her.

4) An important characteristic is revealed

Perhaps the hero or heroine does something rash that will have serious consequences for them, and bring them into conflict with their romantic counterpart

5) An unusual but important activity is revealed

Georgette Heyer uses this to brilliant effect in Faro’s Daughter, where the heroine owns a genteel gaming house. Heyer gives good, strong reasons for the unusual situation and her research is impeccable, so that all the details are accurate. The unusual situation forms an important part of the book as the gaming house sets up the main conflicts of the plot. If you’re going to use a similarly unusual opening, then it needs to form an important part of the story, but if used well it can be very compelling.

Writing Tips #7

Today we're looking at characters again. Your characters are the most important part of your book because they are the way into the book for your reader. This handy checklist will help you to create satisfying characters.

Make sure your characters learn something by the end of the book.

Make sure the reader is rooting for them.

Make sure they have something at stake in the book - a new business they want to succeed, a character trait they want to overcome, an ambition they want to achieve etc.

Make sure they have pasts and futures, talking or thinking about hopes, fears, dreams. Make sure they do things throughout the book to help them achieve their goals.

Make sure thehero and heroine are likeable. This doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but the reader has to care about them. Make sure they have have flaws, but make them understandable flaws and also basically likeable flaws. Self pity isn't a likeable flaw, for example. Rashness is.

Make sure they react in believable ways.

Make sure you would like your hero and heroine in real life.

Make sure they try to solve their problems rather than just moaning.

Make sure we see them in a range of situations so we see a range of emotions.

Make sure they're not Too Stupid To Live. A heroine who takes her cheating boyfriend back time after time is too stupid to live, for example.

Make sure you don't have too many minor characters and make sure you don't let them run away with the book.

Make sure your hero and heroine are together in most scenes and have meaningful interactions that engage their emotions.

Amanda Grange

Writing Tips #4: Thinking is Writing Too

Welcome to the fourth post in our series of writing tips. Today, Elizabeth Bailey offers us her top tips.

Writing is not always about sitting at the keyboard and bashing out words. You have to let ideas pop up. When they do, they need to germinate before they will start frothing enough for you to churn out a story.

A writer called Burton Rascoe once said, “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.” How true!

Beginning writers generally operate on the basis that “work” is done when they’re actually sitting down and doing it. With writing, this is asking for a miracle and a horribly blank mind. No writer begins a story without having some idea of what it’s about.

Stories on the go have a tendency to jump around in the writer’s head when they least expect it: in the bath, in a car or train, on a walk, even while watching TV or a movie. Also, annoyingly, in bed when you're trying to sleep - ideas can start leaping about and going places. If this happens, let it run - it's all good stuff.

This is what thinking time is, and it’s all part of the writing process. It’s thinking without having to sit and decide to think. It’s that imaginative spark that is set free so it can run without effort. And it won’t happen if it’s forced at the keyboard.

So it’s worthwhile letting your imagination have free rein at any time it starts to generate ideas. In the bath, when I am relaxed, is one of my favourite times for developing stories. I can sometimes be heard talking out loud, as the characters, working out some tricky plot point.

Other people may also spark ideas, but I’d suggest sticking with a fellow writer if you want to bounce ideas off someone. They understand. Non-writers are liable to suggest outrageous plot points that don’t fit your story, or try to persuade you to incorporate elements from their lives that they feel would make a fantastic bestseller. The key thing here is that any offers of plot points need to spark the ideas in your own head, otherwise the story won’t buzz for you.

Here’s the thing, though. Memory is a wayward customer, so I would encourage you to jot down the general points, or make a digital note somewhere as soon as you can once the thinking time starts paying off. I've lost more plot points by not writing them down than I care to remember – because I can’t remember them.

I have filled several small notebooks with ideas, and occasionally I browse through them. Anything used is crossed out, so I can’t use it again. But I’ll jot names, plot points, characters, germs of an idea – anything, just so I’ve got it there when I need it. Because when I haven’t done this, I’ve always come to regret it.

Usually when the plot starts rolling like this, it hasn't got much to do with the bit of the story that’s currently being written (or even another story altogether). That doesn't matter. The important thing is to get it written down somewhere and let it sit there, because it will be growing in your writer’s head without you realising it.

When you get back to writing the story, you will find the plot points you’ve thought about start to get built into the story without any real effort on your part. You might not even have to look at the notes.

And if they don’t get used, they may well be picked up for another story later on. Ideas are never wasted.

One of my heroines is a writer who has trouble controlling her wayward imagination:

An Angel's Touch

Outspoken Verity Lambourn berates the mentor of two lost children, having no idea that the lame young man with the vibrant black eyes is the widowed Henry, Marquis of Salmesbury. When she knocks him flying in Tunbridge Wells, Verity realises she has not been able to get him out of her mind.

Tumbling towards a promising future, Verity must confront the shadows of Henry’s tragic past. Matters come to a head when the children are kidnapped, but it takes a threat to Henry himself to test the strength of Verity’s love and the truth of a gypsy’s prophecy.




Elizabeth Bailey

Writing Tips #1 - Point of View

Here is the first in our series of writing tips, by Fenella J Miller.

Authors often find managing point of view the most difficult thing when writing their debut novel. First of all they must decide if they're going to write in the first person, third person, deep third or as a narrator. I will explain what each of these terms mean.

First person is when you are writing solely from the main character's viewpoint and no other. "I ran my fingers through my hair in the vain hope that it would make me look more casual and less buttoned up."  This is writing in the first person.

"John ran his fingers through his hair in the vain hope it would make him look more casual and less buttoned up."  This is writing from John's view point and writing in the third person.

Nowadays writers tend to use what's called "deep third" which is taking the reader inside the character's head without actually being in the first person. Here is an example. "Gillian caught her foot against a chair leg sending an arc of hot coffee into her face. Not the ideal way to start an important meeting. What the hell was wrong with her today?"

Another way to describe writing as a narrator is to say writing as a 'fly on the wall'. Jane Austen used this method – it distances the reader from the characters as you are looking in at them and not participating in the action. "A pretty girl came into the conference room carrying a brimming mug off coffee. When she caught a foot against a chair leg the coffee shot into her face causing her much embarrassment."

I hope this has given you a reasonable understanding of what is available to a writer. Obviously if you're writing in the first person then you don't have to worry about multi-viewpoints and thus avoid the dreaded 'head hopping'. I prefer to write from both the hero and heroine's point of view, but I never change viewpoint in the middle of a paragraph but at the end of the scene, always indicating this with an asterisk.

In a long book, such as the historical saga, the author might well write from several points of view and, if handled correctly, this adds to the texture and depth of the story. However, the rule is always to indicate when you change viewpoint and never do it in mid sentence or mid paragraph. That said, there are several very well-known writers who joyously bound from head to head and break all the rules and their readers still buy their books in the thousands. I would advise a debut author to stick to the accepted rules until they are sufficiently experienced to start breaking them with impunity.

As to how many points of view you should have in your book that usually depends on the length and the genre. I've never had more than four viewpoints, but that doesn't mean a complex book of several hundred pages couldn't work really well with more. Another way of handling different viewpoints is by writing the book in parts – one from each protagonist. I've also seen this done with each part being written in the first person or one in the first person and the other in third. In the end it's down to you, the writer, to decide what suits your writing style best.

Fenella J Miller

Creative Writing Weekend

I’ve just returned from the Winter Writers and Artists’ Workshop Weekend in Fishguard where I’ve been taking the Novel course, one of five on offer. My work began a couple of weeks ago, when my prospective students’ first chapters and synopses arrived. I read them, noted what they hoped to get out of the course, wrote a brief report for each typescript and decided which workshops would be best.

I arrive at the Fishguard Bay Hotel on Friday afternoon and meet my twelve students for the first time. My job at this point is to introduce myself and make sure that they all know each other – more of a social exercise, really. I’d already had a worried email from a student concerned about being a beginner, so I need to reassure anyone who looks apprehensive.

I also tell them what the course will be covering: plot, first chapter, character, description, dialogue and half a session each on the synopsis and the letter to an agent. It’s an extremely intensive weekend. There are two one hour sessions on Saturday morning, two more in the afternoon and the final two sessions follow on Sunday morning. There’s a half hour tea/coffee and biscuits break at 10.30 am and another half hour break at 3.30 pm for more tea/coffee and biscuits. And we need them!

The lunch break is from 12.30 to 2.30 and I try to snatch a brief walk to recharge my batteries. The location is beautiful, overlooking Fishguard Bay with hills opposite and behind. There are Bronze Age burial cairns up on the moors (very much my thing) and, at this time of year, the birds are in nest-building mood – I can hear a woodpecker drilling in the woods behind the hotel. A half hour walk and some deep breaths of fresh sea air is wonderfully restorative. Then back to the next session.

The concentration is almost palpable and we all work hard. There are a number of five minute exercises to do and read out; there’s plenty of discussion and questions; and I try to make sure that everybody is involved and feels encouraged. Fortunately, my students are all great and there are no members of the ‘awkward squad’ to be reined in.

You can tell if a group is working well together – they are supportive of each other and their comments are positive rather than negative. There’s a real buzz in the air and the conversation continues after the sessions have finished.

The Fishguard Bay Hotel is an excellent venue: the food is good – they do a delicious cooked breakfast, (their poached eggs are cooked to perfection), a two course lunch plus tea/coffee and a two course evening meal. The staff are all friendly and helpful. Anne and Gerry Hobbs, who run the weekend course, are very welcoming and always on hand to make sure it’s all running smoothly.

I have been invited to return next year. I’m looking forward to it.

Elizabeth Hawksley