Mr Rochester - Ultimate Bad Boy!...by Sheila Claydon

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In my last three books (the Mapleby Memories trilogy) my heroines all travelled back in time, and in Many a Moon, the final book, the hero did as well. It took a lot of research to get the historical facts right and stepping into the past and finding a way to link it to the present was taxing at times. Writing them was also a lot of fun. Now, however, I'm in the middle of a real journey into the past courtesy of the writer Charlotte Bronte, and what an eye-opener it is proving to be.

I last read Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte's first published novel (1847) when I was 15. It was one of the set pieces to be studied for what were then known as O'Levels in the UK. Exams, that if passed, enabled pupils to continue to study at a higher level. I loved it and because I loved it, I ended up in trouble. Instead of reading at the class speed, which meant working through the book chapter by chapter twice weekly, I went ahead and finished it without listening to my teacher's explanations. Nor can I remember a single word of what she said when I was forced back into concentrating on my lessons.  I never forgot the story of Jane Eyre, though. And I passed the exam!

Now I am reading it again because  my eldest granddaughter gave me a copy for Christmas with the words, 'this is a bit of a random present because I'm sure you will have read it before, but because you like books I thought you'd like this one.'  

She was right. It is an illustrated hardback copy of the second edition of Jane Eyre. She illustrated the original herself and my book, although a pale copy, still has pages edged with gold leaf, and there is an attached green silk bookmark. It is altogether splendid to look at and very heavy. And on the first page is Charlotte Bronte's dedication to non other than the writer William Thackeray. Using her nom-de-plume of Currer Bell, she says:

             'Finally, I have alluded to Mr Thackeray, because to him-if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger-I have dedicated this second edition of "Jane Eyre"' - 

    December 21st 1847

The language is, of course, much more flowery than words we would use today, and she often uses a dozen words where one or two would suffice.  She also makes a great use of semi-colons in places where modern writers would mostly use full stops and some actual words are used slightly differently too, but oh my goodness, apart from that it could easily be a Books We Love romance.  

Jane Eyre is an orphan who has overcome a difficult childhood and made her own way in the world. How she achieves this, becoming so close to a modern day feisty heroine with a mind of her own, is almost laughable. Her morals and ethics are inevitably those of the nineteenth century but she makes the reader very aware that, although she has no intention of flouting them, at times she considers them a burden.

Then there is Mr Rochester. Rich. Entitled. Charismatic. The ultimate bad boy hero! He also has much to overcome but for many years he travels, socialises and generally indulges himself in an attempt to forget his problems. Then he meets Jane. She has been employed as governess for his charge, Adele, an young orphan he has rescued from a dalliance he once had in France. It is then that the reader begins to see his softer side. It is clear that little Adele loves him, and soon Jane, much against her will, begins to love him too. 

Their courtship is very different from modern day romances, with Jane deliberately keeping Mr Rochester at arm's length, apparently for his own good as well as her own peace of mind. She also frequently challenges him, disagreeing with some of his attitudes. Only previously used to women looking for a husband within the upper reaches of society, not to someone who has to work for a living, he is both intrigued and enchanted by her spikiness. Persuading her to marry him, he deliberately overlooks the fact that he already has a wife of many years, albeit one who is insane (the actual word used to describe her in the book) and kept locked away. 

Charlotte Bronte's description of her heartbreak when she discovers this, while flowery and at times very long-winded, has the same passion as that of any modern day romance. Mr Rochester's explanation does too. But while he expects Jane to stay with him, she, true to the morals of the day  as well as her own peace of mind, determines to leave him forever. Of course there is eventually a happy ending, although it isn't as problem free as modern happy endings. Nevertheless, in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte proves herself to be one of the earliest, and for its time, erotic, romantic fiction writers.

There are others of course. Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote about love amongst the British landed gentry at the end of the eighteenth century, but always from a critical viewpoint, commenting upon the need for women to make a good marriage in order to be financially secure. Charlotte Bronte is different. Her story is one of real passion. She undoubtedly wrote from the heart, weaving parts of her own life into the story. It is known she spent some time in a boarding school and also worked as a teacher and then a governess, all things that feature in the story. It is also known that she corresponded with a married man, thought to be the love of her life. Known too is the fact that she suffered a thwarted romance. She eventually married, aged 38, but sadly died soon after, probably from pregnancy complications. 

What is especially noteworthy, however, is that she  wrote from a first-person female perspective, a style so innovative that it drew a harsh response from some critics despite being universally loved by readers. Jane Eyre has variously been considered coarse, vulgar, improper, and a  masterpiece. It has never been out of print. 

And despite (to the modern ear) the sometimes overblown descriptions of both her surroundings and the conversations she has, mainly with Mr Rochester, but with other characters in the story too, you can really hear her speaking across the centuries. She might have written Jane Eyre in 1847 but her voice talks directly to the reader and it is the voice of a modern woman. It is also the voice of a woman in love.

The Silver Screen and Me...by Sheila Claydon

 

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For a variety of reasons I haven't been able to concentrate on writing recently, which means I've lost the habit of putting words on a page every day. So in an attempt to reactivate the creative juices I have been looking at my backlist and, because I frequently use places I've visited as the setting for a story, remembering what prompted me to write each particular book. It's been an enjoyable journey. So has the game I started playing, which was trying to decide which one could best be adapted into a film for the silver screen!

Pie in the sky I know, but fun nevertheless.

Out of all my books Miss Locatelli won. It has all the ingredients. A family business and a family mystery. A burglary. A far too sexy 'bad boy turned good' Italian hero. A quirky heroine with a prodigious talent and a temper to match. Some fabulous and some less than fabulous clothes! Jewellery. A large Italian family. Mouth-watering Italian food. Settings in London, England and Florence, Italy. And, of course, the ubiquitous misunderstandings that keep the reader turning the pages of a romantic fiction novel until the very end.

Then there is the intoxicating thought of all those long distance drone shots of the wonderful Italian countryside as well as the close ups of life in Florence with my characters walking across the The Ponte Vecchio or staring up at the iconic Duomo.  Equally intoxicating is the imagined bird's eye view of the River Thames in London, the Houses of Parliament, the parks, the interior of one of the city's famous hotels. If only!

I'm quite sure actually having my book turned into a film would be far less exciting than imagining it. For a start I would lose control and have to watch as producers and directors decided to alter parts of my story. None of the actors would look the same as my imagined characters either. The settings would be different from the ones I had imagined, probably the clothes too. They might even leave out my favourite scene or, horror of horrors, change the ending! It happens.

While J K Rowling, whose Harry Potter books were such best sellers long before they were filmed, was able to influence filming, most writers cannot. One writer, when interviewed, said that when she sold her book to a production company she had to accept that the story was no longer hers and just enjoy spending the money instead. And that is another problem. Mostly writers make very little money despite their book being the heart of the film. And then there are all those other books, the ones that despite being sold  never actually make it to the silver screen.

Still, imaging how my book might be adapted has been good fun, and trying to decide which particular scene I would most like to see filmed was too, although in the case of Miss Locatelli  I'm still working on it. It's been a good mental exercise and who knows, it might just prompt me to start putting words on paper again.

Try it with one of your own books if you are a writer. And if you're not, then try imagining filming your favourite novel or, better still, your favourite book from Books We Love. 

Valentine memories by Sheila Claydon

At the end of my last post I promised to introduce you to Lady Sippington. Unfortunately she has proved to be a little shy and has begged me to keep her secret for a while longer. She will feature on the Books We Love blog eventually, however. Today, instead, I'll talk about something else and what better on 14 February than Valentine's Day because this year it is a very special day for me.

On 14 Feb 1965 my husband and I had our very first date, so Valentine's Day 2015 is the fiftieth anniversary of the first time we went out together. Now although I write contemporary romantic fiction I can't pretend that we are the most romantic couple. Valentine days have passed without us remembering. We've even managed to forget our wedding anniversary on more than one occasion, but I can still remember that first date as if it were yesterday.

I wore a Mary Quant little black dress (if you are as old as me you might remember her...very sixties) and a Mary Quant hairstyle of sharp bob and geometric fringe, and probably too much make-up. I really thought I was something. Fortunately my husband-to-be thought so too.  Also, somewhat shamefully, I was wearing a corsage of orchids that had been sent to me by someone else, but let's gloss over that.

My date, an older man by four years who actually owned a car, took me to a nightclub...my first. I don't suppose it was much more than a couple of smoke filled rooms and a bar that served little more than beer and soft drinks, but to me it felt like the most sophisticated date ever. I remember shuffling around a dance floor that was so crowded that actual dancing was impossible. Shortly before midnight, like Cinderella, it was time for him to take me home, but not before we enjoyed the ultimate in high cuisine...the bacon and egg sandwich with brown sauce which was the house speciality!

It didn't quite end there, however, because on the way home it started to snow. Of course we didn't think of the danger of driving in slippery conditions because at that age we were immortal, nor did we worry that the forty minute journey took almost two hours, but my mother did! She was waiting up for me and I can still 'see' the expression on her face when I opened the door. To say she was displeased is an understatement, especially as I was on a first date with someone she didn't know and he had delivered me home late.

Fortunately she wasn't someone to  hold a grudge and they eventually became firm friends. And in the words of Jane Eyre...reader...I married him...almost a year to the day after that first date. We have travelled a mile or two since then and are well past our sell by date now...but we still remember.

What about you?  What memories does Valentine's Day stir, and what about your first date with your partner? Do you still remember it?

Happy Valentine's Day.

First dates feature in quite a few of my books. You can find many of them at  http://bookswelove.net/# and all of them are available at http://amzn.to/ZSyLpf.  In Saving Katy Gray, Book 3 of my When Paths Meet trilogy, Katy's first date is not at all what she expected.

What makes a writer?

What makes a writer? There must be a thousand answers to that but in my case it’s because other people fascinate me, and on my recent journey to Russia that fascination got the better of me despite the glory of my surroundings.

The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg is almost beyond description. The 3 million people who visit each year cannot begin to view even a fraction of the millions of artifacts on display or stored in its ten buildings, seven of which are monuments of 18th and 19th-century Russian culture, so when I was taken to the banks of the River Neva to admire one of the most iconic views of the city, I should have been concentrating.  Instead something else caught my eye.

Sitting close together on the edge of the cobbled walkway were a young couple. Next to them were discarded takeaway coffee cups. She was holding a camera. Why was I more interested in two strangers than in the magnificent view opening up before me? Why did I stop looking in the direction of the tour guide’s pointing finger, and what made my ears deaf to the history all around me?

The answer is simple. I am a writer. So while my companions listened to the guide’s potted history of the city and how, once upon a time, it had been a great trading port, I was more fascinated by the couple in front of me who appeared to be completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

Why were they here? It was eight thirty in the morning, which explained the coffee but nothing else, so while everyone else in my tour group learned about the construction of The Great Hermitage (1771-87), the Russian Revolution (1917), and how more than a million items were evacuated from the museum to the Urals during World War II, I began to create a story about the here and now.

Were they illicit lovers who were stealing a few moments together on their way to their respective jobs, or were they new lovers who couldn’t bear the thought of having to spend a whole day apart? On the other hand, maybe the camera was the clue and they were just tourists like us who had set out to enjoy the view and been sidetracked.

I was intrigued by their body language too. The woman was slightly hunched against the early morning chill, one hand in her pocket, so had it all started when he’d put his arm around her to keep her warm? Was that her clever ploy? Was this their first kiss? Or maybe they were they saying goodbye, knowing they wouldn’t see one another again for a long time, if ever. No! They looked too happy for that. One thing was for sure, they were in love…hopelessly and ecstatically... and for a Romantic fiction  writer like me it was a joy to see.

I’ll never know their story of course, and nor should I. I will use that short glimpse into their lives though. One day, in one of my books, there will be a young couple sitting beside a river and they will be so locked into their own world that they will be completely oblivious to the people passing by. She might even be wearing a green coat…but the story will be mine. Whether The Great Hermitage will also feature remains to be seen!

Visit my website at sheilaclaydon.com where I often use things I have learned on my travels and where readers are promised a ticket to romance when they read one of my books.

WRITING THE MEDIEVAL SERIES - by Vijaya Schartz

This book is available in kindle format HERE. Give it a thumbs up if you feel like it.

Historical series are a challenge to write... always. How much history, how much fiction, how much emotion compared to action and battle scenes? How many love scenes if it's a romance...

It all depends on the specific genre. If you are writing true history with a gritty feel, if you know your audience, and they are all about the historical details, by all means give them a chuckful of them. If the focus of the story is romance or legends, however, or if it's a young adult story, other factors should be at the forefront at all times. Also consider the age and level of education of the reader. Will you have to explain every medieval word you use? Will they need a lexicon at the end of the book? You don't want them to be checking the dictionary at every page.

If that's the case, you may be in trouble. Because if you use fewer historical words and make sure they are illustrated in context, you should not need to explain anything.

When I started this series a few years back, after a decade of research and travels to Europe, I didn't really know how to define it, since it is based in authentic legends. It really didn't fit any mold. It was history, fantasy, legends, romantic, full of action... but with adult subjects. Publishers were interested, they liked the writing, but they didn't know what to do with it. But with the rejections came interesting comments. Once a NY agent told me there was a dichotomy between the modern narrative and the formal dialogue. So I had to unify the entire work. I simplified the dialogue, and formalized the narrative, so that the difference wouldn't jar the reader.

Finally, after many rewrites, I found the right tone for dialogue and narrative, the right amount of old words, just to give it the right flavor (historical fans like them). And I am proud to announce that Books We Love Ltd just releasee this first novel in the Curse of the Lost Isle series... PRINCESS OF BRETAGNE (here again I am taking a chance with a French word in the title, but it's all about taking chances).

You can find the book in kindle format HERE. Give it a thumbs up like if you feel like it.

Good luck in your own writing endeavors.

Vijaya Schartz
Swords, Medieval knights, Romance with a Kick
http://www.vijayaschartz.com/