RNA – 60th Anniversary – Scottish Chapter

Romantic Novelists’ Association, Scottish Chapter

Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th February, the Scottish Chapter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association is hosting an event on Facebook to mark our contribution to the year long celebrations of this wonderful organisation.

The event is here

I warmly invite you to pop over and read the book extracts and a few wee personal details of their authors. I think you’ll find many of us began our publishing careers after submitting work through the unique New Writers’ Scheme of the RNA.

My Mariah’s Marriage was the fifth book I wrote in that scheme. Courting the Countess is my most recent e-published novel and there’s also Daisy’s Dilemma..

Mariah’s Marriage, Daisy’s Dilemma and Courting the Countess are also available in Ulverscroft, Linford Romance Library, editions.

Anne

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Round Robin love, sex and relationships

The topic for this month’s round robin is an opinion on love, sex, and relationships in books. What seems acceptable? Is it necessary in a story? And what goes too far?

 

 

 

 

 

For a variety of reasons, I’m not included in the official list of contributors this month. I have been reading some of the posts and I discovered I wanted to say something – hence these quick few words.

Jane Austen is one of my favourite authors and so is Georgette Heyer. Neither writer majors on sex. They both write about relationships and about love – quite often familial love/loyalty. It would, however, be a great mistake to suggest the sex isn’t there.

One of the sexiest moments in television adaptations has to be the one where Captain Wentworth assists Anne Elliot into his brother-in-law’s open carriage. The pressure of his hand in the small of her back and the reactionary embarrassment from both him and her are moving beyond words.

Who needs a biology lesson?

I don’t think my books make it into the ‘sweet’ romance category, but they contain little to make anyone blush. Mariah Fox might develop a sever dose of hayfever, though, when her would-be husband fills her house with summer blooms as part of his campaign to win her hand. Like many a Heyer heroine, Mariah’s sparring battle with Tobias conceals a blossoming romance that leads to Mariah’s Marriage.

I hope you’ve all been enjoying my City of Discoveries, the Anniversary serial commissioned to mark the 150th anniversary of The People’s Friend magazine. Instalment 7 is out on Wednesday.

That’s it, folks,

Anne

 

 

Margaret Fieland Skye Taylor
Victoria Chatham
Beverley Bateman
A.J. Maguire
Marci Baun
Dr. Bob Rich
Diane Bator

 

Round Robin – Beware – Danger – Violence

This month Rhobin asks – How do you handle or use violence or any type of danger in your stories?

While the Regency is attractive in so very many ways, it was a time of huge inequality, injustice, hunger and, yes, violence. The absence of an established and regulated system of investigation, apprehension and conviction had a massive impact on how people led their lives. Duelling was almost on the way out as a re-dress for ‘insults’, but not quite gone and many families were bereft as today’s are by the rising tide of youth with knives. In addition, the head of the family, almost always a man, held sway. This had the effect you could predict. There were good ones and bad ones. There were some who cared passionately, but gave rise to the origins of the patriarchal society that feminism needed to kick against. There were some, Mr Bennet we’re looking at you, who didn’t care at all.

Justice was hit or miss and to our modern sensibilities brutal and cruel. What civilised society hangs children for stealing food? What civilised society hangs anyone for stealing food? Why are its citizens starving in the first place?

One of the underlying themes of my first novel, Mariah’s Marriage, was domestic violence. The villain, short of ready cash and feeling ‘entitled’, is frustrated in his attempt to win a rich bride and takes his rage out on his sister. She covers up for him in classic fashion, but our clever and courageous heroine works him out. She then faces another battle – How do you make a decent man who would never perpetrate such violence, understand it happens?

In Bella’s Betrothal, the heroine finds herself in enormous danger but she isn’t immediately able to work out who the greater villain is. Is it the man who has invaded her room at the inn? Is it, as he claims, another who wants to trade on her damaged reputation to justify trapping her into unwanted sex? Although written, I hope, with humour and warmth, the threat is real.

 

So how do I ‘use’ danger and violence in my fiction? Well, I hope responsibly, without either the need or the wish to glamourize either. They are a part of the fabric of our human experience and as such they have a place.

 

The Castle Rock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To read what my fellow round robiners think about this hugely important topic go here:

Judith Kopek

Dr. Bob Rich

Victoria Chatham

Connie Vines

A.J. Maguire 

Marci Baun  

Skye Taylor

Fiona McGier

Anne de Gruchy

Rhobin L Courtright 

 

Round Robin – Viewpoint

This month’s Round Robin question is about Viewpoint. How do we as writers tell the story, show the characters’ emotions and switch between them?

My normal mode is 3rd person character. That means, I am in one head at a time, but as the author. I don’t find 1st person easy to write. I enjoy reading author omniscient, but haven’t found it attractive enough to tempt me. I’ve never written anything in 2nd person where you might have used 1st, but are allowing a bit of outside observation and comment.

Generally, my novels will employ two central viewpoints. They will normally be the hero and the heroine. I enjoy pitting an attractive couple against one another and I like to see the same problem from two perspectives.

So, in Mariah’s Marriage, Mariah is determined to save Arabella from her brother’s violence, but Tobias is equally determined that doing so would put Mariah herself in danger.

London Girl

It’s a conflict of opinion. We, the reader, see Mariah enlist the help of her maid to outwit the considerable obstacles Tobias has placed in the way of her leaving the house. Eventually, we understand why Tobias has acted the way he has and, tension mounting, we’re in his head as the drama unfolds.

I think that’s why I find 1st person difficult. There just seems to be so much more needed by way of comment when that single voice has to keep filling us in. Things like ‘Of course, I didn’t know at the time, but Tobias thought I was dead.’ – are well enough, and often skilfully handled, but I prefer to be in Tobias’s head while he’s doing that thinking; while he’s doing that sufferring.

Maybe it’s because I used to write plays…

The serial I wrote for People’s Friend in 2016, A Traveller’s Life, had several voices. I enjoyed that a lot. It was liberating to leave the (self-) imposed discipline of two voices and allow one or two more to take centre stage. Again, the dramatist in me loved hearing what all these people thought. However, it’s not unbridled by any means. People’s Friend like their serials presented in ‘chapters’ so each one had a central Viewpoint. I was not head-hopping.

So, here’s the divide – what is head-hopping and why do some editors permit it?

Head-hopping is where the author allows everybody and his auntie to have their say – in one chapter, sometimes – I’ve seen it done – even in the same paragraph.

Personally, I find that way of writing too confusing for words. I want to know who I’m rooting for and whose story is the one being told. The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott is a modern tour de force and some of it tells the same story over. However, Scott uses different books to do this and that’s not a luxury offered to all.

I have a short historical story in a new anthology by Capital Writers, Capital Stories. It’s available for your kindle and a wee snip at 99p/$1.37.

There are other opinions on this fundamental writing skill and you’ll find some of them here:

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1ag
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Anne de Gruchy https://annedegruchy.co.uk/category/blog/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

Round Robin

Hullo again and welcome to June’s Round Robin which is about Characters. Robin, who sets up these posts, calls it a basic topic. It is a basic topic – but one might also refer to it as fundamental.

You can have the most wonderful plot in the history of fiction writing, but if you have to frogmarch your characters through it – it will not work.

In the beginning

So how do I go about developing them? I listen to their conversations. I used to write plays and for that I would put two characters in a room and listen in. Gradually, gradually, I begin to hear what they think needs saying. Fiction of course needs much more narrative and the conversations have to be embellished by surroundings. A pauper woman in Shoreditch is going to have different things to say about there being no food in the house, from a Duchess in Wiltshire.

Fiction writing also lacks a play producer, so it’s up to the writer to dress the characters. Perhaps that leads on to what the Duchess thinks about her dressmaker and the pauper about the rag-and-bone man.

I do spend time on it, but it is time during the writing process. I may know that my theme demands a type of heroine and a type of hero. As I explore what I want to tease out of the theme, I’m listening to the characters.

…and into maturity

What inspires the process of creating a character? Well, getting the next action or twist right, is very important. When I was writing Mariah’s Marriage, Mariah’s response to the countess’s revelation that Toby wanted to marry her, wasn’t the response I’d thought to type. As I typed, the girl’s reaction crystallised and when I read it over, I realised that the character had spoken and I needed to re-think that part of the plot and what happened next. An altogether satisfactory place to arrive at.

The other participants are listed below and despite having a teen at hand to consult, I’ve no idea why they’re appearing in miniature font. Comments on that or on how you create characters will be most welcome,

Anne

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea/view/541/characters_that_capture_your_heart_

A.J. Maguire https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/all-about-character-june-round-robin/

Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca/2017/06/where-do-your-characters-come-from.html

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/character-process-round-robin-june-2017/ 

Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/2017/06/developing-characters-for-your-fiction.html

Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/captains-log/how-do-you-round-up-the-usual-suspects-a-round-robin-on-characters

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/2017/06/may-2017-round-robin-blog-fest.html

Dr. Bob Rich https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/where-do-my-characters-come-from/

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/2017/06/character-development.html

Anne Stenhouse https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/round-robin/

Marie Laval http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/round-robin-importance-of-researching.html

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/blog/round-robin-for-june

Connie Vines  http://mizging.blogspot.com/2017/06/developing-characters-in-your-stories.html 

Round Robin – Description – How Much is Too Much – Too Little?

 

Description I remember a writing lesson exercise at primary school. The task was to describe the living room of our house. It was a huge joy when the teacher said of my piece that he would be able to walk into that room and not bump into anything because my description was so careful, he knew where everything was.

     So, is that degree of detail appropriate for the kind of historical fiction I write now?

I don’t think so. I prefer to give the reader a few clues and allow them to visualise countryside, room, people, animals, in their mind’s eye. I like to think that a clue will conjure a world.

     If it’s pouring rain, the reader will see the water from a phrase like, ‘She came up out of the underground into a mass of folk hurrying on their way beneath a jostling canopy of umbrellas.’

     On the other hand, if the sun is blazing, I might use, ‘She shielded her eyes beneath an outstretched palm. It was hard to tell whether the heat was more shocking than the expanse of flesh on view. She knew her mother was right when she said Brits don’t dress well in summertime.’

     I want to include enough to let the reader know the bits of information it is important they do not get wrong. I want them to see the difference between a young lady and her maid, a crossing-sweeper and an Eton school-boy – and so on. One of my favourite passages from one of my own books is this from Mariah’s Marriage:

“Of course Tilly would be interested in the earl’s tailored wool coat with his spotless waistcoat and carefully tied neck cloth. The men who normally visited here wore ill-fitting garments which were often stained with food. Not only that, but the earl had a clean-shaven face and the hair of his head was trimmed into a neat style that allowed his strong bones to be seen easily. Seen and admired, she thought.”

I think this little snippet of description not only tells us what Tobias looks like, but how overwhelmed Tilly is and, indeed, how Mariah, too, is succumbing.

London Girl

     Our topic also asked whether I skimmed description when reading a book. Oh dear, yes I do. I am most likely to skim scene-setting description. It’s very unfair of me and maybe I should try harder, but honestly, I want to know the characters are in a dental surgery or a fast-food outlet, but I don’t need to know what colour the paintwork is. Unless, of course, that’s relevant to the plot.

So, if description interests you, then read on among my Round Robien friends below. I think you’ll enjoy…

 

Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Dr. Bob Rich  https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/description
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

MOTHERS, MOTHERS, MOTHERS

 

BELLA’S BETROTHAL an entertaining romance with humour and a touch of thematic mystery.

Bella’s Betrothal, set in Edinburgh 1826, has two mothers offering opposing views of that position. Bella’s actual mama is a distant and critical woman who does everything in her power to diminish her talented and engaging daughter. Why would she do that? Obviously, it’s a plot device, but it happens in life and many women will sadly recognise the relationship.  Hatty, to whom Bella flees for succour is red haired and feisty like her niece. She’s also the kind of mother we all long for: supportive, encouraging and loving without being suffocating.

Mariah’s Marriage a roller-coaster read with razor sharp dialogue.

Mariah’s Marriage, set in London, 1822 has a motherless heroine who wonders wistfully if her life would have been different had her mama survived. But she’s made a very good job of growing up with only one parent and when confronted by the Earl of Mellon’s mama, Lady Constanzia, has mixed feelings about the relationship. The earl, finds his mama exasperating, loving and a great excuse for trapping Mariah into marriage. Will he, though, get the high-spirited girl as far as the altar?

Daisy’s Dilemma a brilliant exploration of what it was to be a lady in the 1800s

Daisy’s Dilemma,  set in London 1822 and later brings us more of the story of Lady Constanzia and another of her children, the talented and stifled, Lady Daisy. How does a girl behave when her duty is clear, but her head and her heart are at war? Can her mama help resolve her difficulties? Once more, Anne Stenhouse juxtaposes two mothers in Lady Constanzia and her sister-in-law, the monstrous Lady Beatrice. Whose will prevails?

Bad Boys – Forever Attractive: Bad Girls – Forever Reviled?

 

With Valentine’s Day falling tomorrow, Rhobin has asked us to consider why we think Bad Boys are so popular as heroes and Bad girls are so often reviled.

I loved the question because it’s one I’ve thought about a great deal over many, many years. In fact I wrote my long essay on the subject of the Anti-hero in Fiction for my Sixth Year Studies certificate.

Possibly because I knew how much the head of English disliked the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming, but possibly not.

Skipping over that tiny teenage rebellion – what is the attraction of the Bad Boy?

Well, sometimes they are, like this chap, just very attractive. That gorgeous plumage is unlikely to hide a heart of gold – more likely a cast-iron pump going full belt to protect what’s his. But he is good to look at.

Devil Baby, Melbourne Festival 2011

Sometimes, it’s the challenge. The idea that you’re the one for whom he’ll change. Really? He might be fun to flirt with, but he’s no long term bet.

He’s charming, arrogant, devil-may-care and a huge liability. He’s The Saint, aka Roger Moore, he’s James Bond, aka Sean Connery, he’s Antony Di Nozo, aka Michael Weatherly – and he’d be Hell to live with.

As one doesn’t have to, the imagination is free to put him on that pedestal.

Real villains have a place in my fiction. Mariah’s Marriage has Sir Lucas Wellwood. Sir Lucas is a domestic tyrant and a man at the start of the road to becoming a serial killer. Of course, that was not a recognised state of mind in 1822, so Mariah might be forgiven for getting it so right and so wrong.

Bad Girls This frock

Copy Lady Macbeth costume

is a replica of an original stage costume for Lady Macbeth. The young designer made it with false nails. The original was made with beetles’ casings. Both are masterpieces.

Lady Macbeth, however, was something else. Power-crazed, she drove her husband, by preying on his already susceptible frame of mind, to commit murder. There’s no forgiveness for her. She’s not, perhaps, the epitome of the ‘Bad Girl’ Rhobin is asking us about. I remember scenes from a Margaret Lockwood film – possibly banned in some places because the necklines were too low? Called the Wicked Lady, the film allowed its heroine to transgress everything until comeuppance called. Like Bond, The Saint and Di Nozzo, she is attractive to the opposite sex and gets a lot of good lines.

A more contemporary Bad Girl might be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and various TV senior female police officers. Do we revile them? Maybe we’re coming at last to respect their quiet strength, although they very rarely get the guy. Fluff and pink trimmed slippers and negligées might, just might, be slipping into history.

One thing that’s an essential truth of fiction is this: The reader does not want to read about their own slightly grey existence; the reader wants romance, fantasy and being taken out of the ordinary. So while much might be misleading, it’s great fun to be attracted and reviled: and reality is never far away.

We have a shorter than usual list of participants this month, but I’m sure you’ll find much of interest in the posts. Begin with Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/ and move through.

We all love to hear from you, so please share your views on Bad Boys and Girls.

 

 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

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Round Robin – Project the Projects

Thought I’d welcome everyone in this month with a plate of my favourite goodies. With or without the iconic Scottish lion standard a box of said goodies was a highlight among my Christmas presents in 2015. The culprit knows who he is!

So that’s in the way of another 2016 goal entirely – get the weight back into the “I am a size ? comfortably, and not just when I breathe in.”

But we are meant to be discussing the one or two writing projects I’d like to accomplish this year and what obstacles to them I might encounter.

I’ve written, short fiction and non-fiction. I’ve written plays. I’ve written professional letters and reports. I’ve written minutes…I think you’re getting the picture.

I enjoy writing and re-reading my novels, but there are one or two ambitions I didn’t realise in the shorts’ world – and that’s my project for 2016. I want to be published by Woman’s Weekly. For those of you in Canada and the US, this is a weekly woman’s magazine which still features two short stories and a serial each week. There is an Australian version, too. I’ve tried before, but not managed. That being said, when they had a letters’ page, I was a regular, so strictly speaking I have been in W’s W, but not in the format I covet.

So, what am I doing to anticipate any obstacles I might encounter? In the first place, I’ve signed up for one of their workshops in Glasgow in early March. Got the ticket. Sussed the travelling. Sharpened the pencils.

One thing coming up next month is the publication of my first novel, Mariah’s Marriage, in large print by Ulverscroft for their Linford Romance line. That is certainly the realisation of a long term goal. Do ask at your library, please. It’s going to be such a pleasure to hold my book in my hand. I can feel the excitement as I think about it.

 

Amazon Author’s Page MARIAH’S MARRIAGE BELLA’S BETROTHAL DAISY’S DILEMMA

Interested in how we writers go about organising our year, then pop across to the lovely Hollie Glover Hollie Glover http://www.hollieglover.co.uk and any of the others listed below.

 

Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.com/2016/01/23/writers-to-do-list-for-the-new-year/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-Bm
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Hollie Glover http://www.hollieglover.co.uk
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

Galloping Into Fiction

Okay so the elephants aren’t galloping and you were expecting a horse. Fiction’s like that. Today’s round robin topic is about how we use animals in our writing. Topic: Have you used pets or other animals in your stories? What function do they perform in the story? Do they need to have a function? Can they be a character?

Horses were the main means of transport in Georgian and Regency times (after shanks’s pony – ie your own two feet). As such they were highly prized and highly valued. It’s possibly not too strong to say a man looked after his horses as well or better than most of his staff. but I write from the woman’s pov with a bit of him included so how did she see her horse?

Mariah Fox in Mariah’s Marriage doesn’t ride, but she is very impressed by Toby’s vehicle when he arrives to take her driving. It’s also the case that Mariah’s opening scene is with an animal – she’s nearly up-ended by a charging pig. I loved that image and chose it because we in the West have lost sight of the close integration of animals and humans in earlier and growing cultures. The fine chap below was wandering the streets of Bikaner in Rajasthan. He doesn’t ‘belong’ to anyone. the cows, however, because they give milk, are ear-tagged and there are urban dairies where they are milked. There were also many pigs, but they moved a little fast for my photographic skills, so I haven’t got a photo. BELLA’S BETROTHAL contains a heroine of a different stamp. Brought up in an aristocratic, rather than intellectual, household, Bella has her own horse, Ruby. And it’s the missing of Ruby that eventually pushes her into behaviour that rouses her hero’s ire and potentially endangers her life. How many secrets and troubles did Bella pour into her horse’s listening ear? Life was circumscribed for aristocratic ladies and activities like riding were the things that allowed those of an active mind and disposition to retain a hold on sanity. How many of the women portrayed idle and ill on day-beds were neither? They were just bored and it was killing them. The hero in my work in progress is a dog and horse man. He’s waiting for news from home of how many pups his bitches have bred. Why give him this angle? Shows his caring side, I think. My Round robin companions are writing on this subject today and you may want to drop along and see what they’re saying. Start with Robin herself, here: Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/ and try a few others.

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/

Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/

Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/

Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/

Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com

Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/

Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/

Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

skye Taylor http://skye-writer.com/blogging_at_the_beach

So, do you enjoy reading about animals in fiction? does it endear a character to you if they’re kind to the horses?

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