Romance secrets

Ovingham

In lots of romance stories, two characters meet – no, sorry, they more often collide – and claim they dislike each other, while as writers we expect our readers to understand that love is simmering just below the surface. Is this premise truly believable or should we dismiss it as absolute tosh?

Always in the romance genre there are problems as to why the two couldn’t possibly be thought of as lovers. He’s too proud, she’s too prejudiced. Rhett Butler is no certainly gentleman, while Scarlett is your true ladylike southern belle. (Put in your own names and see if they match what I’m about to say.) What happens as the story progresses? We find that Scarlett has it in her to cheat, lie and steal in a way that makes Rhett look positively gentlemanly. Darcy proves he has the guts to see his faults and change his ways, while Lizzie recognizes with dismay how hasty and ill-judged her speedy character assessments were - not only of him, but also of Whickham.

Are they really the disparate characters first presented to the reader, or are they much closer to each other in tastes, habits and thought? I think Darcy and Lizzie are alike in many ways. In fact, Darcy and Elizabeth admit as much, and the film Gone with the Wind demonstrates how similar Rhett and Scarlett are in their courage and desperate will to survive and keep their dependents alive.

Perhaps this is the true secret of the romance genre - that couples should share values and traits, however deeply they are hidden or obscured by initial impressions.

They’d have to have something to share, or their lives would be hell. Wouldn’t they?

A thin veneer

Emotions are always going to remain the same no matter which period novelists write about. I've read this statement many times, and agree with the premise. But then little niggles creep out of the woodwork and I begin to wonder if it is true.

The life experiences of historical characters are so very different to ours. Surely they would make some difference to a character's psyche?

When writing about characters in the sixteenth century, I have to remind myself that religion was important to them in a way it is not to me. (But I don't want to write about religion, so I avoid it as much as possible. Still, I can't say it isn't there in clear and present form.) In that century, arguably more than any other, Christians were prepared to die rather than give lip service to a religion in which they did not believe.

It is difficult to get into focus how short a life expectancy was then. While we can confidently expect to live to be 70 or even 80, they could expect 45, and some historians say as little as 35.

In that sort of life scale, marriage at 12 and 13 seems a tad more reasonable than it does to us today. Wait until 21, and most of your life had already gone. Childbirth was deemed to be easier when the mother’s bones were flexible, and perhaps practice proved them correct, given the state of medicine and hygiene back then.

Even among royalty, where conditions would be so much better than average for the time, many children did not survive the first year of life. The King of Scotland and Mary of Guise watched two sons die within a very short space of time of each other, and could do nothing to prevent it.

There is so much today that we rely on without stopping to give thanks – medical help, education, welfare state, 24/7 news, clean water supply and wonderful transport links not only in this country but around the world.

What if glasses and contacts were unavailable? If dentistry consisted of nothing more than pulling rotten teeth with pliers and a stiff whisky? That painkillers did not exist except in herbal form? Hygiene almost non-existent, no piped running water, certainly no hot water unless you boiled it on an open fire…I can't help but feel that given such a life style, our emotions would be quite a bit different.

The pic shows a fox, admittedly blurry because he was half a mile away, spotted on out country walk on Wednesday.

Who are you?

Then there’s character, the peculiar mix of human traits that makes up each and every one of us. Not just our physical appearance –‘thick black hair fell across his brow’- but if he bites his nails, talks in a pompous style, flaunts a lace-edged handkerchief when addressed suddenly. Does he really like women, or despise them? Was his childhood kind or hideous? Does he work? If so, what at? Is he RC or CoE? Does he care about either? How does he spend his money, where does he live, does he eat sparingly or greedily? Even when we’ve got all this down pat, we slowly realise it’s no more than a mask for the creature inside. How long does it take to be real friends with someone? Days? Weeks? Years? Look at a best friend. Are they honest, or will they cheat on paying bus fares? Do they argue carefully, or noisily, flaring up when anyone disagrees with their point of view? Are they arrogant about those with little talent? Can you answer such questions? Do you really know this person? True character, we’re always told, is revealed through choices made under pressure. McKee thinks there’s a key to character, and calls it desire. What does the character want? Then comes motivation. Is the protagonist prepared to do something about it, or let it go begging? Lots can be learned from other characters, who see a different side of your protagonist. Gossip may be just that, or it may enlighten in a way that surprises. Often we want something desperately without knowing why we want it, or even if we should have it. But it is a key to the character, for as long as the desire for that particular object lasts.

Writers and readers

Do writers read books? I read fewer these days. Or rather, I finish fewer books. Returning six items to the library last week, I read only two cover to cover.

The other four didn’t hold my interest, and the reasons they didn’t were varied. Too much unneeded information, too little story; too gruesome; too boring; too little/too much character description; an unrealistic storyline plus downright inaccuracies. If this sounds far too critical, let me add that the things that turn me off a story may be just the thing to capture and hold your interest. Who knows?

Gabaldon’s novels are always long, and Echo in the Bone was no exception. The 1000+ paperback kept me entertained all through the Christmas break. I skim-read the bits on the American War of Independence, because not knowing the *real* characters and being geographically challenged as to where things were happening made that part of the story a blur for me, but the story about the fictional characters was endlessly interesting. I grew curious about how old Clare is at this stage of the story*, and looked for the first novel Cross Stitch (now called Outlander in the US) in order to check it out.

Checked the library, no result; passed a charity shop and popped in on impulse and immediately found myself in a discussion of How Could Clare Sleep with Lord Grey after Jamie’s Death, and hadn’t that ruined the whole series for me? Well, no, it didn’t. Who knows what we’ll do in deepest grief? I find Gabaldon’s character psychology so true and occasionally so deep that it makes me think hard about what she’s saying. I never noticed this in her earlier novels, and now I wonder if that was because the younger me didn’t see it, or the younger Gabaldon did not write such pieces.

* At the youngest, early fifties. At the oldest, approaching seventy. Unless, of course, going through the stones keeps you miraculously young, like HRT.