Remarkable Poldark

The new version of Poldark aired on Sunday night. Facebook is full of people's reactions, mostly in favour of the new version, but with a minority who insist the older version was better.
 I have to admit I can barely remember the original version, though I know I admired Robin Ellis. I spent a lot of holidays in Cornwall and the scenery was a draw. The costumes were romantic, too. I was never certain about Rees as Demelza. Entertaining she undoubtedly was but she never looked like a heroine to me. Too small, always dwarfed by that silly floppy cap she used to wear. In the new version, I'm still not happy with Demelza. This girl is too big - oh, I know, I'm never happy! - but really, she is almost taller than Ross. If they stood side by side, she probably would be. She also looks like a mature woman from her first scenes - and yet Ross calls her a child. In the book she was thirteen. I once sent a story to an American publisher and was told they wouldn't take it because the heroine was too young at fourteen for the sexier aspects of the story. So far, Demelza's age hasn't been mentioned in the tv production, but she looks about eighteen. Yet Ross thinks she's a child. Credibility gap?

I love Aidan Turner in most things, and think he is fine in this. I like his sudden irritation with Elizabeth when she says he must forget her as she will marry Francis, then asks if they can be friends. He turns on her with a roar of pain and fury. But I keep looking at that scar - surely they could have done it with more skill? His costume changes are interesting - he has finery for weddings, but often wears faded coats and shirts and neck ties that look as if they've been worn for days on end - and probably have! Costumes have improved so much these days. Demelza, on the other hand, never gets out of her brother's rags during the entire first episode! She and Elizabeth soldered together might make one nicely rounded woman. Both actresses are stick thin.

I wondered if they would keep Jud's way of speaking -  "tisn't fair, tisn't right, tisn't decent. tisn't nice" - and they have! Prudie did so very well to run all the way to the big house while Carne battered Ross into the floor. She should enter for the Olympics - Ross needed a horse to get home from Trenwith to Nampara on his first night home. Prudie got there before the fighting finished. A truly remarkable athlete in spite of her size.

Poldarks revived

Outlander will arrive on our television screens at some point, but may be a while before it reaches the UK. The likelihood is that I shall see and  enjoy the re-make of the Poldark series before then. I loved the books, written in the 40s and 50s - and eagerly devoured the original seven. I don't think I followed up on the remaining five which were about descendants rather than the original characters. I adored the original tv series 1975-77, and so did many others. The series was hugely popular.

Still, that has to be balanced against the fact that when the series was shown, there were only three ( 3! ) television channels. That made life very much simpler and the ratings very much higher than they are today. Television audiences were a little more naive, too. Production values today - well, the techniques at least, are so much better than they were in the seventies. I'm really looking forward to the costumes and the locations. Let's just pray that the gremlins that haunted Bodmin Moor during the last production in Cornwall - Jamaica Inn - have been well and truly exorcised. If the BBC ruins Poldark, they may well be exorcised!

 I've collected together some links to the cast, the locations and general gossip about the series. I shall very likely dip into them from time to time, and you may wish to as well. I'm putting one of my favourite pictures of Aidan Turner up here in his costume as Ross Poldark. I don't know if there are any Poldarks in Cornwall, but if Winstan Graham dreamed up the name, I applaud him for selecting a wonderful name for a hero.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2596581/The-curse-Poldark-Stars-new-version-beware-The-originals-hit-tragedy-never-fame-again.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/poldark

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Poldark-2015/483979435006691

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-04-23/poldark-crew-to-remake-an-18th-century-gloucestershire-house-for-new-bbc-period-drama

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=poldark+remake&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=abzsU5aKL6qI7Aa_oYG4Bw&sqi=2&ved=0CGkQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=708

Enjoy the links!

It's Goodbye to Mitchell

My favourite series of the moment has lost it's major character. Sob. I know a woman of my age shouldn't get so hooked, but when actors of such calibre get together with a script that is full of odd quirky humour in the middle of high drama, what's to stop me? Certainly not the fact that the BBC aimed this series at the 18-34 age group.
I'm talking about Being Human. The final segment of series three played at the weekend, and Mitchell is leaving. In fact, Mitchell is dead. It's Aidan Turner who is leaving to join Peter Jackson in the next Tolkien film.

Revelation and AT

I have discovered C J Sansom, and I'm loving his work. Somehow I assume the writer is male, though I have not checked.

I grabbed Revelation because it is set in 1543, the exact year in which I am working in my (as yet titleless) wip, and would have read it for that alone but it has become a fascinating read. A hunchback lawyer on the trail of a serial killer and a background of religious fanaticism. I am aware three or four titles from this author have been on the bookshop shelves for some time now, but the covers gave me the impression that they would be heavy, slow and slanted towards religion - not my usual fare!

However, my expectations were so very wrong. The story is lightly conveyed in modern dialogue so easy to read that it slides by without effort. The detail comes in the workings of the court and officials, the backgrounds, the lives lived by those who suffered under the dissolution of the monasteries - detail, yes, but in a way that fascinates rather than bores. 600 plus pages are whizzing by.

It makes me realise all over again how important covers are in attracting a reader to a book. I've seen a rough copy of my cover for TILL THE DAY GO DOWN and I like it ~ a sumptously gowned lady of the correct period, if a tad more richly attired than the heroine's status would have allowed. So difficult to get it exactly right without spending a fortune with graphic artists and design studios.

My latest work is going well, if slowly. I tend to write dialogue and then go back and build up the scene around it. Seems to work for me. I think I may have got some happenings out of sequence by a day or two, but then - it may well have happened like that.

Today we live in such a world of immediate and global announcements that we don't think how confusing it must have been back in the days of handwritten letters delivered by a man on a horse or a man on foot and then relayed by mouth to those who could not read for themselves. News would have taken days to filter down except in case of war, when it would be announced from the market cross or similar. I wonder if the gossip was more accurate then, or did the Chinese whispers effect have a hand in things then, too?

Protagonists

One character takes over a story and sends the intended protagonist reeling. Is there a name for this? I don't know, but I suspect it is happening in my latest wip.

My intention was a male protagonist but I find a female keeps taking up the pages in a most demanding way.

She needs to be kept in check. Or I need to bring them together, perhaps, in a more meaningful way.

I'm thinking my male lead looks something like Aidan Turner in the BBC's "Being Human." (I watched the first episode and the last and thoroughly enjoyed them, but chose not to watch the intervening ones.

Strange decision, but there you go. The ghost (female) was a bit of a drag, forever bemoaning her fate. The werewolf was a sweet character deeply troubled by his present predicament - well, changing into a werewolf every full moon could make anyone a tad hysterical. The vampire, our beautiful AT, swore off blood. They all wanted to be human. Now why didn't I watch the middle episodes?

Possibly because there wasn't a great deal of storyline in episode one. The situation was great, but the action didn't quite match the promise of the premise. Something I must watch out for in the new wip. The main character must lead, must be proactive, must have something to do, a goal to strive for from page one. Publishers and agents pass over heroines who simply react to situations forced upon them. So, with that in mind, I must go do some work on my wip...

Show Don't Tell

We all hear the phrase Show Don't Tell and grind our teeth a bit, don't we? Well, Nathan Bransford has some good advice on this old theme and I've taken the liberty of jotting some of it down here so I can find it again easily.

(And as a reward for doing my homework, I rewarded myself with a picture of Aidan Turner courtesy of the BBC's "Being Human." How about him for the hero of your next novel?)

Anyway, back to Nathan and his good advice: "in general: universal emotions should not be "told." "

Instead, he advises that we should show how the character is reacting to their feelings. Being told that a character is "angry" is not very interesting - we're reading the book, we know his dog just got kicked, of course he's angry! It's redundant to be told that the character is "angry." More interesting is how the character reacts to seeing his dog kicked. Does he hold it in and tap his foot slowly? Does he explode? Does he clench his fists? Even if it's a first person narrative and the character knows he's "angry," it's more interesting for the character to describe how he's feeling or what he's thinking rather than saying, "I was so angry!" This also applies to:- Descriptions - It's not interesting to merely hear that someone is "pretty" - what characteristics make them pretty? Characterizing relationships - Not interesting to only hear that two people are "close". How are they close? What do they do together?

Yes, I've read similar stuff before today, more than once. But it never hurts to recap and remind oneself that this is the way to go. Eventually, I hope it will become second nature.