I get a lot of emails from readers asking how I choose stories and characters. I also get quite a few asking for stories for certain characters or suggesting plots or partners. All of these letters made me think about something that I just took for granted. They made this “go with the flow” writer analyze how she does her thing. I couldn’t answer those readers’ emails without picking through the process a little.
I wish the result of this analysis had been a clear and simple answer. It would have been nice to end up with a chart that I could use when I get stuck. Instead I had to acknowledge that there is no process at all.
The truth is that I am a very intuitive writer. Since I always thought of myself as very analytical person, this surprises me. Evidently I put aside that Madeline when I sit down to write, and instead I trust my gut more than my head.
On some other pages of this website I have described how sometimes I just know that a character will star in a later book. I love when that happens. I get high on that crystal clear moment when a secondary character walks on the scene and takes form so vividly that I am totally won over. It is all I can do not to stop writing the work in progress and start another book right away.
This happened with David in By Arrangement. It happened with Julian Hampton whose book is The Romantic. In my current series, it has happened with several characters, which is one reason I am enjoying this series so much. The eldest Rothwell brother, Christian—oh, yes, he needs a book and will get one. What I found interesting was that as I wrote The Rules of Seduction, two women arrived who also had this effect on me. Normally in the past it has always been men.
One was Phaedra Blair, the unconventional friend of Alexia. I began writing a scene and “snap”—there she was—Unusual. A bit mouthy, um, I mean outspoken. Totally at ease with who and what she was. Completely indifferent to anyone’s opinion of her. She was in many ways the direct opposite of so many woman of her historical period, who spent their waking hours worrying about social acceptance and conforming in behavior, appearance and aspirations.
Of course I needed to learn more about her. The only way to do that thoroughly was to write her book. Lessons of Desire is that book. (Release date: September 25, 2007)
She deepened for me as the book took form. The layers and nuances, the insecurities and questions, the sorrows and hurts—they became clear as she spoke in my head. Not so indifferent after all. Aware, very aware, of what she has given up in choosing to be who she is.
As she matches wits and wills with Elliot Rothwell, youngest of the brothers in this series, she has to question the person she has chosen to become. That engenders other questions. What is love worth? Does compromise destroy a belief? Can one love without also needing to possess? What do we owe our lovers, in terms of surrendering our pure freedom and giving them parts of ourselves?
Elliot ponders these questions too. Elliot, with his more traditional views, knows that falling in love changes everything. A celebrated historian and charming man about town, Elliot is no fusty, monkish scholar. He is as confident as Phaedra is, and as independent, as smart and as self-aware.
Desire crackles between these two from the moment they meet, fueled in part by their frank acknowledgment of how much they want each other. Lessons wait within that desire, about themselves as individuals and as a couple, and about the ways that deep passion contains the seeds of deep love.
Lessons of Desire is very much the story of these two characters’ journey toward love. It also has an intrigue and a mystery, as the lessons of their parents’s desires also affect their understanding of their own. There is action and humor too. I hope that you will give it a look.
Madeline
I am a new writer again. I became one about a year ago. That was when I made the decision to start the Rothwell series. It would be totally new, with no connections to any characters or events I had written about before.
As I sat down to build that world in The Rules of Seduction, something peculiar happened. Starting the book reawoke in me the feelings that I had when I began my first novel ever. The excitement, the fear, the sense of flying into the mist—it was all there again, creating a little internal buzz. I literally held my breath while I typed the first words of the first chapter.
The book found its rhythm after a few chapters. The characters emerged and found their voices. The flutters in my heart calmed and I forged ahead. I finished the book and turned to the next story in the series, Lessons of Desire.
Now the new world was not so new. I had mapped out its shape and main roads. The characters were familiar. However, while I mentally sought the place to begin my story, the same thing happened.
Once more my heart fluttered. The feeling that I was about to embark on something daring and audacious simmered in me yet again. I had thought it happened with Rules because it was the beginning of a series, but here I was experiencing it with the second book too.
I am now writing the first chapters of the third book in the series and once again it is happening.
The sensation is seductive. So seductive that I can understand if writers who experience it hesitate pushing beyond the beginning of a story. There is something to be said for those deadlines! They keep us from dwelling too long in the heady creative stimulation that comes with starting a new work.
Eventually, of course, it literally becomes work. My heart may be palpitating now, but eventually I will get frustrated and think the creative well is dry. I have never had a book write itself and all of them hit snags. Finishing the journey can be arduous. But, oh my, what a thrill it is at the beginning with all the choices still to be made. For a month I get to be a new writer, alive with that glorious buzz.
It is also during this period, after a book is finished and while the new one is just beginning that I come out of my cave and notice things, such as the need to update my website. You will find some new entries here under my History Page and my Author page. I have finally uploaded some photographs of places I have been visiting, and they are accessible off the Author button (go to the Off Topic Stuff dropdown).
Lessons of Desire will be published in October 2007. Readers of Rules have already met the main characters, Elliot Rothwell and the very unconventional Phaedra Blair. I expect the copyedits any day, and once they are done I will post an excerpt and an introductory page for it, so stop by again soon!
And for all the readers who have been writing to me and wondering—yes, Christian will get his own book!
Madeline
Well, the house renovations and addition mentioned in my last posting are all done. My new office is a joy. It has big windows, French doors separating it from the family room, and a long counter desk where I can spread out research books and generally make a mess. I put lots of rolling low file cabinets underneath it, where I can stuff the mess if company comes. The walls are a deep sea blue. I felt very daring in choosing the color, but with the white trim it looks refreshing.
Am I more productive in this new space? More organized, the way I dreamed? See the reference to “mess” above. I am a stacker, not a filer. Those cool file cabinets are all but empty. I drooled over the television shows displaying decorating tips with a place for everything, but within a couple of months my natural inclinations ruined the plan. So I am facing those stacks again.
Despite the months of chaos in the house I finished last winter’s book (almost on time!). It comes out October 31 and is titled The Rules of Seduction. I am starting a new series with this book. That was exciting enough to push the environmental disruptions out of mind.
The Rules of Seduction is the story of Alexia Welbourne, an impoverished woman hanging onto her gentlewoman status by her fingertips. When Hayden Rothwell ruins the finances of the relatives on whom she depends, she has few options for her future. She reluctantly accepts Hayden’s offer that she become a companion to his aunt, which makes her now dependent on the very man who destroyed the fortunes of her dear cousins. Their continued proximity allows their unexpected but powerful attraction to grow despite the conflict that stands between them. An impulsive seduction, a marriage of obligation, an intrigue that weaves present with past and old promises with new ones— The Rules of Seduction offers mystery, desire, deep emotions and clever humor.
At the core of the plot is the concept of honor. From the second chapter honor causes the hero to do certain things and forbids him to do others. Debts of honor from the past also influence his actions and affect his emotions.
It can be hard to communicate in a novel what was meant by honor in the old days. The importance of a man’s honor was just a given, so braided into life that he would never question the rules about it. A man took his honor very seriously in the early nineteenth century, when The Rules of Seduction is set. It was worth a duel to protect his good name or that of his family. Calling a man a liar, a cheat, or a scoundrel all but invited being called out. A man’s word of honor was sacred too, and breaking an oath unacceptable. So honor was not something that one pulled out of a hat at one’s convenience but set aside if it got in the way.
In The Rules of Seduction, Hayden Rothwell gives his word of honor to a man but later that promise interferes in his life. At the time he gave his word he never expected it to be a problem. Actually, it was in his interest to give his word, since he was embarking on a plan that required silence on the matter he promised to keep a secret. That plan itself also turned on his beliefs about his honor. He could never envision that within months he would be gritting his teeth over having to remain silent.
Should he have given in and broken his word? Readers will wish he could. Some will think he should. Some may even be annoyed he does not. However, unlike us, Hayden does not live in an age when words like “honor” have lost their meaning. Instead it is a core concept of his historical age.
This is what writing an historical novel is all about. The clothes and food and social customs are colorful, the detailing can create indelible images in our minds, but the core beliefs of a society need to be respected in a story (or the deviations explained). I think that using those beliefs and expectations as plot devices and as tools for character development tie a story to its time and place even more than the descriptions do.
If you have visited before, you may have noticed that my web site now has a new look. Thanks go to Cissy at Writerspace, who once again translated my vision into a better reality than I saw in my mind. Things have been reorganized too, and the links to the cut scenes and the series explanations made more prominent. There have been some updates in the History section, and various things like photographs and recipes are being added under the Off Topic link. That is where I plan to put material that is not directly related to my writing and my books. I hope the navigation is easier for my visitors and readers. We are still tweaking and adding pages, but we are getting there.
In the meantime, I hope you like the changes, and that you give The Rules of Seduction a try and meet Hayden Rothwell and the estimable, indomitable Alexia Welbourne.
