Current Project: Untitled Intrigue
Status: Synopsis
A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) I wrote a book about a young woman raised by her aunt. The aunt was an artist and one of some repute. The heroine was also artistic and so the aunt was a mentor as well. They were very close.
The aunt didn't have insurance and so when she got sick, it became necessary to sell many of the paintings she'd collected. At the time of her death, there wasn't much left except a stack of bills the for which the niece was responsible. The only way she could pay them off was to sell the house she and the aunt had spent the last twenty years inhabiting. Of course this was distressing, but the heroine knew her life had changed and there were was no way to go back.
The book begins as the agent is showing the house to a boorish, wealthy couple. They enter the dining room and in the heroine's eyes, that room is the piece de resistance of her aunt's home. Here the aunt had made innumerable sketches until they covered the walls with color and movement, capturing her very spirit. The buying couple discuss wallpaper options (or is it they discuss how they could use this room to impress their friends that they now own the house of a celebrated artist? I can't recall and to tell you the truth, even sitting here now I can't decide which would be worse for the niece...) When they get to the studio, they agree it would make the perfect space for the flat screen T.V. They buy the house.
Because I hate a story stopped before the end, I will add that the niece accepts a commission to paint a portrait of a famous romance novelist. The commission was intended for her aunt, and she knows this, she just doesn't have any place else to go. She meets a flamboyant woman who confuses her character's exploits with real life and the writer's two nephews. Hint: there's a happy ending.
Back to that room. That room has haunted me for years. I can see it. It's really more of a nook. Thick walls, a deep sill on a window that opens to a garden. Insects buzzing outside as the aunt sits at the table, charcoal pencil in hand, latte steaming nearby, inspiration hitting as her pencil darts over the smooth gesso walls. At night, dim light and the heroine sitting there across from her aunt, her gaze going from the woman in front of her to the people cavorting on the walls, a face here, a hand there, a glimpse of the sea...
You know, it's hard to remember that room never existed. Readers were shocked the niece lost the house and that in the end, she didn't buy it back. That she let go of something so magical. But the heroine knew what the heroine's creator has a hard time remembering -- a wall is a wall. A painting is a painting. A room, no matter how special, is still in the end, a room.
Tell me about a space you created that lives still in your mind or heart. It might be a place that barely got a nod in the final book but blossomed for you in a way this little breakfast nook blossomed for me. That had deeper meaning, perhaps, than that which was obvious; a place, maybe, that helped define a character in a subtle, subliminal way.
And still lives on.
13 comments:
Wow, Alice that's a great story about a story.
I've been digging into my stories and I can't think of a place or a room that still haunts me. I have a character that has yet to be in a published book. She was the heroine in the second romance I wrote. She is with me and needs her book to be rewritten. My CP still remembers her and the character is the reason a full was requested by an editor way back. But it was before I knew anything about GMC and the hero was just there being everything she needed at the time.
Her backstory and her growth were powerful. Her character is the essence I would like people to see when they look at me.
I guess not having a place/setting hang with me but a character stay alive in my head is pretty much normal since my stories are so character driven.
Great post, Alice!
Paty -- This character was very real for me, as well. The room is just there as an indication of the depth of her loss and ultimately, as a reflection of her priorities and her fortitude. The room served the character.
I hope you do find a book for your heroine. Anyone who stays around for years deserves a chance to come out of the closet and play!
Really, it surprises me you can't think of a room or a building. Writing westerns, you create whole worlds for your characters and I know you must have walked through them, that you had to be in that jail with your Marshall in Petticoats heroine, etc.... And I still recall the ranch house of a certain rancher who was loosing his shirt while his rooms were filled with valuable antiques! Or that train ...
I guess you could say the house full of antiques showed Brock's character. He didn't see them as antiques. They were the furniture he grew up around and were functional. He didn't put a value on them other than they worked and didn't need replaced.
Letha in Gambling on an Angel lived with her younger sister above a small room where they did mending and laundry. The living quarters had one small room with a potbellied stove, small table, and two chairs. The other room had two small beds and pegs on the wall to hang clothing. To the hero it was meager- to Letha it was freedom, a clean place to sleep without sharing a bed with her sister, and more respectable than she'd been in years.
Paty, I can totally see Letha's room. One man's hovel is another's palace, right?
This post inspires me to dig deeper into the physical spaces in my books.
In my first MS, the hero's kitchen was the most vivid space to me. His relationship to his daughter was a central part of the story, and I think the kitchen symbolized that to me.
Very visual post, Alice.
I think setting is so important in a novel. There are reasons we put our characters in one room in a house vs. another. There was a reason the heroine in my Stolen Fury started out in a dark, dank cave where she's immediately lost and searching for something she isn't entirely sure truly exists...aside from the adventure aspect that cave gave way to.
As to your question about places I've written that live in my mind...in my first paranormal that releases next spring, the heroine runs a bookstore, which she inherited from her grandmother. That store is very vivid in my mind - I can see the rows and rows of books, smell the paper and ink. I can visualize where the door is with its brass handle and the 'open' sign that clinks against the glass whenever anyone goes in or out. I know how many steps it takes to cross the carpeted floor and stand in front of the banged-up mahogany counter and I can hear the ching of the old-time register the heroine still uses because it reminds her of her grandmother. The bookstore is the last remaining link the heroine has to her grandmother. She loves the escapism the books provide. The memories that overwhelm her when she stands in the store make her feel like she belongs, even though she doesn't really. And even though the store is going under financially and running it isn't what she feels she sould be doing with her life, she can't seem to let it go. (So, naturally, the hero made her let it go. Via a fire. Which he started.)
There's only one real scene in the book in that store, but yeah. It's very alive in my head.
Very powerful, Alice! Perhaps I need to grow as much as your heroine, because I would want to see her be able to save that room with the memories of her aunt. :)
A space that has stayed with me is the Victorian house that I introduced in SONGS OF THE HEART. This house belonged to the heroine's grandmother and the heroine remodeled much of this house as her grandmother wanted to do but could not afford during her lifetime. The house was also the setting for part of the connected two books that followed SONGS. So the house was also a continuing element in those stories.
Very vivid images, you guys! Alice, I felt like I could see those walls with all the sketches, and Elisabeth, I want to visit that bookstore (before it burns down)!
What does it say about me that the places that stand out in my mind from my writing are places where bad things happen? o.0
Debbie, I think it says that you're a mystery/suspense writer at heart! I never have a good sense of the abodes of most suspense characters. Ye though I worship at the Alter of Brockmann and Brennan, I couldn't descripe a single heroine's apartment. However, what the suspense writers seem to excel at is creatign that sense of place where the action is--a burning building, deserted street, a forest.
Eli -- I love the bookstore, that's absolutely wonderful. But since I haven't read that book, I have to say that as I wrote this and thought of all of you, I thought of your cave. I honestly don't remember the details because of all the action that followed except for the FEELING, of the dankness of that cave.
Now I am looking forward to the paranormal!
Wavy -- I love kitchens. Is there anywhere on the earth that means more to a family than a kitchen? I think all readers respond to it on a visceral level -- it truly is the one room where our hearts lurk.
Genene, notice how many of our heroines are bound not only by the physical but the emotional bounds of a space formerly occupied by a beloved family member?
I'm looking forward to experiencing this wonderful house in "Feathers On The Floor."
Debbie, I agree with Wavy. It says you are a suspense/ mystery writer. One of the scenes I just wrote for Agent Daddy and that stays with me now takes place in a Xmas tree farm. I can't say that all I imagined for the scene is on paper, but every time I drive pass a slightly overgrown stand of evergreen trees, I am right back there on that farm -- and nothing good happened there!
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