Character Development

Probably the single most important thing to develop in any story once the landscape is done are the characters.  I'm loving it, though at times I feel as though my characters are taking on a different life than what I had planned for them.  What I mean to say is that the way I originally imagined my character, even how I originally started to write them, isn't the way they are turning out to be.  I imagined my heroine to be very strong and knowledgeable about things a young lady oughtn't .  There is a certain conflict I'm feeling because while I want her to be strong and able, I also want her to be challenged by the hero intellectually and physically.  I've recently written a few chapters where I feel they have morphed into something quite different and I don't know if I should go with it or backtrack and write the passages again.  Perhaps the answer is to just get through the first draft and work from that.  


Thinking of this though a question begs to be answered.  How strong is too strong when it comes to female heroines?  I mean, don't we read these things for the fantasy of being saved by love and strength of one's true partner?  Doesn't that mean that one is stronger than the other, that one (usually the heroine) is to be saved by the other?  At what point does it become unattractive for this position to be occupied by the fairer sex?  


I for one am for strong female characters but there must be a balance.  Joss Whedon  is a perfect example of a writer who does just this.  His female leads are chronically strong; almost to the complete alienation of those around them.  Usually they are petite girl/women who are ultra feminine but kick ass (literally).  Check out Buffy The Vampire Slayer if you don't believe me.  But he's also about character development and more importantly how his complicated characters survive the jungle of human relationships.  This is the dance all fiction writers must learn and I find that I am on that page now.  


I hope I figure it all out and until then...wish me happy writing.  

Going forward

So I've finally been able to write the villain scene. It took me a while to find his voice and I'm still figuring things out but I've written several pages so far.  I've also furthered my lovers acquaintance and they are on their way to being partners and future lovers.  I hate to say it, but I procrastinated way too long on this.  I stopped looking at a blank screen and picked up a pen and just wrote.  Editing came easily and then before I knew it I was done.  I'm going to get through this first draft if it kills me.  I believe so much in this book and I know I can get published with it.  When that day comes I will be so proud, I think it will be my ultimate achievement outside of having children.  


Writing the villain.  Like most of my characters I didn't want him to be someone I'd figured out.  There are wells and oceans of depth in a good villain so there lies the challenge. I wanted him to be scary, really scary.  Sadistic even.  I think I've achieved some of that along with a healthy dose of madness.  


Another part I'm developing is the relationship between my two main characters. Yes, the passion and desire is already there.  But then, as a writer, I need to build more substantial parts of their relationship that can truly bind them.  Can they laugh together?  Can they trust each other and why?  Can they be themselves with one another?  All of these things I need to find a way to manifest as I go along.  Hot smoldering looks and passionate interludes can only take you so far.  I know as a reader I enjoy the cute moments as much if not more than the passion filled moments of a book.  The times when characters are laughing and getting emotionally close are just as important as physical closeness.  SO, right now that's the challenge.  I know I will of course tweak as I go along and the second draft will no doubt further put things into place, but for now it's a road untraveled.  


Happy reading!

Major Long Overdue Update

  Sorry, sorry, sorry!  I have been beyond lax in my efforts to record this journey of writing my first novel.  What can I say, my day job has been sucking the life out of me.  I know someone can relate.   
  
  Okay so where to start.... I'm almost to the half way point of my book which considering my schedule is a miracle.  I had hoped to have a first draft done by the New Year but that's looking very unlikely at this point.  Still I'm pleased with my work thus far.  I spent several weeks rewriting my characters "cute/meet" and I' must say it's added a dimension that wasn't there in the beginning.  I find I tend to get bogged down in the details of scenery and character development and run right past the passion and heat us readers of Romance live for.  Suffice it to say the HEAT is on baby!  
  
  As you may have read I am huge Amanda Quick fan.  She's inspired me to include a level of suspense in my novel to go along with my characters romantic struggles.  After doing extensive research on the city of San Francisco it wasn't hard to come up with this aspect of my book.  Murder, human trafficking, booze and drugs were rampant in 19th Century San Francisco.  Plenty of material to create a world of intrigue and the characters of the times!  A wonderful example is Mrs. Lillie Hithcock-Coit.  

  A character of the first order in a time when ladies were to be demure and proper at all times, she whooped and rallied for the old Volunteer Firemen of Knickerbocker Engine No. 5.  She was nationally known as the heroine of the 'hooks and ladders'.  She rode horses astride, shaved her head to accommodate the many wigs she was known to wear and she caroused in the saloons dressed in masculine attire.  Gasp!  Quite a liberated eccentric and the citizens of San Francisco loved her for it. 


  At this point in my novel I'm entering dark passages.  The villain is based on a real life serial killer during the late 19th century.  Beautiful and well liked in the community he was above suspicion when young girls started to disappear never to return.  Writing this type of character has been a challenge I wasn't expecting.  A lot of his attributes were chosen for me so my hesitation during the passages has been quite a hurdle.  To create an atmosphere my reader can feel as dangerous has me a little stumped.  Like most serial killers my villain is quite smart as well as quite mad.  I don't want the reader to know what is coming but I do want them to know something is coming.  I want them to be just as caught off guard as the characters.  So, that's the challenge at this point.  


Promise to write again soon!  Happy reading.

My Girl is BACK!

A life long fan of Amanda Quick, I will always be.  She is a brilliant writer with her own distinctive brand of wit and style that has truly set her apart from her contemporaries.  That being said, for a while now I've felt that her books, while retaining compelling story lines and equally compelling characters, have come up short in the passion department.  "Mistress" was the last time I felt the full power of her talent as a historical romance writer. Until now.  

To those first discovering Miss Quick, "The Perfect Poison" is a revelation.  For a long time fan such as myself, it is a welcome return to all of the elements a writer of her talent brings to her books.  It took me a day to read "The Perfect Poison" and I loved every line, page and chapter of it.  

Lucinda Bromley is a gifted psychical botanist with a strong talent for detecting poisons.  A fact, through a series of tragic events involving the death of her father and fiance by poison, that has garnered her the notorious moniker, Lucrezia Bromley by the London sensation press.  Caleb Jones is an impossibly complicated man whose own very powerful psychical abilities allow him to see the connective tissue in seemingly disconnected events.  He is, of course, considered highly eccentric and rumors of madness haunt him. 

Independent and fiercely private, they come together when Lucinda hires Caleb to investigate the disappearance of a rare fern she'd had in her conservatory.  Most recently traces of the fern were found on the body of a victim in the form of a deadly almost undetectable poison.

It just so happens the missing fern and Caleb's own private inquiries into the disappearance of a certain brilliant psychical scientist coincide.  Together Caleb and Lucinda burn in this electrifying journey and uncover the truth of their pasts in the search for...the perfect poison.

Delightful is a word I think best describes this book.  So delightful in fact that I've finally ventured into reading books under Quick's other pen name, Jayne Ann Krentz.  With dazzling foresight, Quick has bridged the gap between her historical romances and her contemporary romance fictions under the Arcane Society banner.  Events that take place in books under Quick ripple through time and generations of Jones's in to the future.  It took me long enough but, I'm hooked.

In her next installment, "The Burning Lamp", I look forward to immersing myself in Quick's unique and delicate balance of intrigue, wit and above all, passion.  Happy reading!      

  

LOST...still.

Normally, I wouldn't do this but since I've sunk a good portion of my life into this show I feel I must at least give it full contemplation in this,  my forum.  Lest I also mention I find the entire series to be steeped in romantic idealism be it religion, ethics, or in the relational struggles of its characters...it's only fitting.

I picked up the series toward the end of the second season and started to seriously watch it by the third.  As if the current economic climate weren't enough, investing in a show that leaves you in a constant state of anxiety can be akin to self-flagellation for the truly devote viewer.  Never-the-less I continued to watch.  Some episodes gave me relief in storyline closures, but more often than not my intrigued was only heightened and yes, it angered me by posing even more questions than when I started.  That was the brilliance of the show and perhaps, after last nights series finale, also its Achilles heel.

A close friend of mine said after the finale that he didn't think the producer's knew the difference between ambiguous and vague.  The first being open to very solid and plausible interpretations, and the other a hodgepodge of dubious conclusions that will never fully satisfy, if at all.  In light of the way I felt when Jack closed his eye for the final time and we faded to white, I'd have to agree. Questions were posed in the beginning with the promise to have at least most of them answered, certainly the big ones should have been (vagueness not withstanding).  

Theories have run rampant about what the final hours of these intriguing characters really meant.  Were they dead the entire time?  Did all of the things we'd seen actually happen or was it just a part of some purgatory they were all sharing?  Were there others?  Was Jacob real?  The smoke monster?  1974?  In one prospective not answering definitively those questions has made the finale a resounding success.  As much if not more people are talking about the show than when it first aired six years ago.  Whichever theory one chooses to believe, hopefully one or a combination of a them will grant them closure the finale surely failed to give.

To those who believe a completely satisfying ending to a highly successful show is near impossible I'd have to site the following shows:

"The Cosby Show"

"Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

"Dawson's Creek" (Not a fan but the last episode was pretty good)

"The Office" - British Version

"Sex and The City"

"Good Times"

"The Wonder Years"

"Road to Avonlea" (My 1980's Disney channel watchers know about this show)

"Twin Peaks" (widely accepted as one of the top finale's ever)

To be fair with the exception of "Twin Peaks" and perhaps "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", the audience wasn't expected to suspend their disbelief quite as much.  

Not surprisingly I got into LOST because I was intrigued by the characters.  The obstacles they each faced were absolutely secondary to how they responded to them.  I relished in Sayid's almost Rambo like detachment of murder and survival.  The high stakes love triangle between Jack, Kate and Sawyer spoke to the romantic in me.  Of all the romantic story lines in the show, and there were many, it was Desmond and Penny's indomitable will to be together that was the least tangible; which is probably why I loved it so.  The lengths to which Desmond went to in order to be with Penny, his unpredictability in that endeavor and his judicious use of the word "Brother" made him a front runner for best character of all man times. 

But it was Jack whom I wanted nothing more than for him to find what he was looking for.  If he could find it, "it" being the reason he was brought to the island, than for me the show would've been a success.  Jack's character represented human flaws we all have.  Our frailty, our inner strength, the desire to love and be loved, the need to please and the daily struggle we face when the choices to lead on or follow in faith are presented.  

Back in Grad school, when the show first started, my TV Writing professor said the writer's of Lost had no idea where the show was going, they'd just been writing week by week without any future agenda.  Up until last night I wasn't sure if that particular rumor had any legs.  Now I find that either the inability of most viewers to explain what the finale meant is a confirmation of this rumor, or the writer's are genius's for generating such massive confusion.  DVD sales will undoubtedly be through the roof come August 2010.  Fans will need re-watch the show in the slim hopes of coming to a definitive answer.  

So at least to this I say, bravo creators of LOST.  You gave us all a fantastic ride on the bridge to no where.    

  

    

SAN FRANCISCO: The Barbary Coast

As I've mentioned before, my novel takes place in 19th century San Francisco, at the height of the cities most notorious times.  Since then a lot has changed, but strong are the echo's of this great western American cities past.  Before conducting my research like many people I associated San Francisco soley with the 49er's.  No, not the NFL football team but the original gold rushers of the 1840's.  More than I could have dreamed my research uncovered so much more about this culture clashed city.  The most notorious area of San Francisco, and a key background element in my novel, is encompassed by what was formerly known as The Barbary Coast.  Roughly nine blocks bound by Montgomery street, Washington street, Stockton street and Broadway, the Barbary coast became most synonymous with vile liquer, vulger women, lude establishments, bawdy entertainments and Shanghiing.   

Around 1860 the area which was an outgrowth of what had been known as Sydney-Town became The Barbary Coast.  Named after the North African Coast (Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Egypt) - the name Barbary was derived from the Berbers.  Berbers are indigenous North African peoples west of the Nile Valley.   

The gold brought men by the hundreds from all over- Asia, Europe, Australia, South America and Eastern United States!  Arriving off ships in search of the "mother lode", they headed straight to the mines, often returning  to the city broke or with little gold to show for their efforts.  At the end of the 1840's the cities population was a stagering 20-25,000 with only about 300 residents being women; two-thirds of the female population were prostitutes.  Yes, the city was ripe for degradation.  Hungry for female companionship and entertainment, sailors, miners and sojourners kept saloons, gambling halls, opium dens and houses of ill-repute thriving.  By the 1850's and 60's, crime was rampant along the Barbary Coast.  If a fellow weren't careful he may find himself drugged or clubbed only to wake up broke, and aboard a ship bound for some faraway port.  This was known as Shanghiing, sailors were particularly vulnerable to this type of forced recruitment.

Crime in the streets and corruption in governement offices plagued the city.  The 1906 earthquake and subsequent fires, which destroyed most of the establishments along the Barbary Coast, ushered in a new San Francisco.  Some establishments were quickly rebuilt, but by this time anti-vice campaigns had begun to gain steam.  Led by the San Francisco Examiner anti-vice campaigns and the Red Light Abatement Act of 1914 passed.  The days of pimps, prostitutes, and coarse entertainment were numbered.  In 1917 the police blockaded the Barbary Coast, and evicted the resident prostitues.  It was over.  The 21st century would soon usher in to the city a new age of liberal idealism, art, music, and iconic literature.  Ironically, today San Francisco's Financial District resides on the graveyard of what was formerly known as The Barbary Coast.   

What I hope to express in my subsequent blogs to follow, are little vingettes of the people who thrived here amongst the violence and degradation.  There were so many memorable characters and events that helped to shape this uproarious neighborhood in San Francisco; certainly many will make their way into my novel.  This city has had a decidedly volitile history and out of the ashes it's been reborn time and again.  It is my hope to keep alive some of its most celebrated character's, and more importantly...for my readers to fall in love with them as I have.                

The Magic Number

So, I'm still pretty early into my book, getting ready to close out the first act of the novel and I find myself thinking about the possible sequels.  I know that's putting the horse before the cart but I can't seem to help myself.  I was looking over some neighborhoods in the San Francisco recently, which is where my story takes place, and I discovered an Island that might be perfect setting for one of my side characters in "Fall of the Raven".  

I have to stop and really think about how I write these possible future leading ladies as I want to preserve continuity of character.  It seems the more research I do, the more ideas seem to flow until my mind is racing with possiblities at two o'clock in the morning.  I have to be more careful not to let myself get bogged down.  I need move forward with my novel, keeping ideas in mind however, but not be consumed by them.  Has anyone else had this experience?  What has worked for you?  

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled at what my research is uncovering but I want to be on chapter twenty already instead of chapter 8.  I have a theory though.  I think once I reach chapter 10 this train will be a non-stop from then on.  Still, I must...keep....writing.  Yes, 10 is my magic number.