Writing From The Inside

Good Morning. I'm almost finished with the final book in my Reluctant Grooms series. WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST. I've been working steadily on this story since Thanksgiving. In it, I examine Lady Olivia's life and why she does the things she does. It has been an intricate journey filled with twists and turns and and angst and depression, grief, heartache, love, loss, and agonizing pain.

One of my best friends, (a mom at school) whom I speak with nearly every day on the phone, wondered where I'd been. She never calls me because she knows I'm writing, so she waits for me to call her. It was three weeks before I picked up the phone.

"What the hell have you been doing? I thought I had done something to piss you off," she said, when I finally called her last Monday.

"No, I've just been writing." We chatted about the book. She's actually my sounding board for plot twists. When I described certain elements of it to her she thought I was a genius. "Brilliant." is what she said. But then she said, "I saw you in car line yesterday. You look awful. Are you okay?"

For the last five weeks, I have been working 14 hours days at the computer. I have sorely neglected my "real life" because Lady Olivia has pretty much dragged me through the ringer. I've cried during every chapter, sometimes nearly every scene. It wasn't something I planned to do, believe me. Making my readers cry with my words is one thing. Making me sob like a little baby is another.

Lady Olivia has always been in the background of all my stories. As other characters say, "She likes to have her hand in all the pies of the aristocracy." From matchmaking and charity work to Parliament and political intrigue, Lady Olivia is a diverse character.

However, she never had her own Point of View in any of the stories. She was always there, giving advice, and scheming to make everything turn out in her favor, but always through the eyes of another person. Until LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING.

I set her up in UNDOING to take a fall. I don't know why. I thought it was good reading. In THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE, I allow her to fall even further. Yet, once I finished that book, I realized I hadn't done enough. She needed to hit rock bottom.

It hasn't been easy, let me tell you. I cried nearly every day. I've had more than a few sleepless nights pondering over chapters. I suppose I can honestly say I am "suffering" for my art. And here's the kicker. Just as I was almost finished, on the last chapter I might add, I came down with a nasty sinus infection and bronchitis. I tried to write through it, but I had to take a few days off. Lying in bed forced me to examine what I had written and why.

You see, Olivia and I are almost the same age. (I'll be 53, she just turned 56.) She's led a charmed life. So did I for a very long time. And then mine fell apart. I lost everything, (IRA's, my savings, my home, my job, my fiance) all within a couple of months. I hit rock bottom and had to climb out of the mess circumstances had thrown me into. I don't know why, but I wanted Olivia to go through exactly the same thing. I'm thinking that I had never dealt with the nightmare that was my life back then and this was my own personal catharsis.

It wasn't easy putting myself through the emotional roller coaster again. But I dug in and remembered how I felt during that time -- angry, unbelieving, sad, depressed, gob-smacked, furious it had happened, wondering when it would end, how I would ever get out of it.

As a writer, we have to dig deep into our own emotional highs and lows so our characters will be able to SHOW that to our readers. As writers we need to get it from the INSIDE. Granted, it takes courage to be able to look at our past selves and examine where we were, how we felt, and then go through it all over again. And I can tell you, that's why I got sick. Within those six months when I lost my "life" I was also really sick (the beginning of my current health situation I deal with now). Hence, my illness for the last week. History is repeating itself.

Truthfully though, I think this is the best book I've ever written. WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST is the perfect title (thank you Jane Austen) because Olivia has nothing. She's hit bottom and at the end of chapter ten she has lost EVERYTHING, much the same way I did. What else is the poor woman to do? I make her suffer endlessly, because I did. It took me a long time to get from that point in my life to where I am today.

However, in the book, Olivia has a champion -- ME-- who makes it all better by the end of the book. Why? Because I'm a sucker for a happily ever after. I can't tell you what happens, but let's just say she gets what she needs. As have I.

Tell me -- How far do you go for your characters? Do you "suffer" for your art? Do you write from the inside?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2015

Killing Barthomolew Wood

Now in the writing world there is the phrase, "Kill your Darlings." Now for some, this means don't be afraid to put your characters through hell and back. Sometimes this means we have to actually kill them off.

In one of my books, THE CAPTAIN'S LADY, I am going to have to kill off one of my characters. Barthomolew Wood. He's the heroine's (Amanda) husband. And in Regency romance, the heroine is typically not married, and  if she is, she's certainly not supposed to want her husband to die.

However, Barthomolew Wood is an evil man. He's lied, beaten her, kidnapped their daughter, left her penniless and alone in Boston, sold slaves, beaten them, and is just a nasty piece of work.

I can honestly say it's going to be fun when I get to off his sleazy hide.

Now, the problem I'm having is, do I allow Richard (the hero of this story), a man of honor and integrity, a former Captain in the Royal Navy, do the deed?

This causes all kinds of repercussions for me. Although I think the readers won't care, (and might actually be thrilled this toad of a man is dead and Richard did the right thing) however, Amanda may care a great deal. Barthomolew is the father of her child, despicable cad that he is. He does love his daughter, and has given her everything money can buy. He's treated her well (despite the fact he took her away from her mother) and has shown great affection to her.

How is a mother supposed to tell her daughter that her new love interest has killed her father? See where I'm going with this. The daughter only knows her father to be a loving and generous man. If Richard kills him, the child will never love him no matter what.

Now I also know this is all very heavy and deep, and may not even be something any of you think about for your characters. But every action has an equal reaction. What if Richard's killing of Barthomolew does have a negative reaction from my readers? How many will I let down?

And unfortunately Barthomolew does indeed need to die in order for Richard and Amanda to be together. I can't just let them get divorced, I've already played that card.

Tell me -- Do you really think through the actions of your characters before writing a major scene like this? Do you delve into their psyche or just write how you want the story to go?

Finding A Character

Good Morning Everyone. If you were here on Friday, you read the beginning of a story I "found" at the beach. Today I would like to show you just exactly HOW I found it. And if you haven't read it yet, (and if you want, no pressure) go now and take a gander. I'll wait.

Okay. Are you back? Good.

Now, most of you who have been reading me for awhile know that I call my daughter, The Monster Child. What you may not know about my Darling Monster is that she can make friends with anyone. Including inanimate objects.

On vacation at the beach, she made friends with any child under 4 feet tall. The second week we were there, she made friends with one child in particular, Sophie.

Sophie was beautiful, with huge blue eyes, very petite, and with a gor-ge-ous man, (who wore no wedding ring) as her companion. I watched carefully as Monster and she built a sand castle, and then played in the water. I warned Monster about going out too far in the surf because Sophie was smaller than her. The man, her dad, watched them, and me, all morning. Under the guise of my sunglasses, cowboy hat, and long sleeved shirt, I watched him right back.

(The first week there I gave my body to the Sun Gods. I ulitmately paid for that in sun poisoning. Even with SPF 85.)

That first day with Sophie, I waited for "the wife" to appear. She did not. The second day, Gorgeous Man and Sophie appeared with friends, several other children, and assorted adults. I assumed that one of these friends was G-man's brother (I mean, you could tell, they looked alike). However, no woman who would seem to be his wife or any kind of significant other. Gorgeous Man engaged with them, but sat to the side, watching Sophie and my Monster play. I went down to the kids on several occasions but he did not. However, I knew he watched me.

For the remainder of the week, while our kids played together, we played "undercover staring". You know, he looked my way, I looked away, I looked his way, he looked away. I felt like I was in my 20's again. Like I said, he was GOR-GE-OUS. Tall, 50-ish, sooo tan, Marine type haircut, and Paul Newman eyes. Very, may I repeat, very drool worthy.

On our next to last day at the beach, my mother came down and sat under the umbrella with me. However, she was blocking my view of Gorgeous Man so I moved my chair and faced away from the water and more toward the sand. Of course, she made a point to ask why I wasn't watching the Monster. So I nodded to Gorgeous Man and said, "I have something else I want to stare at for awhile."

Oh. My. God. You should have heard the lecture I got. I won't bore you with the haranguing, but even at almost fifty years old, why can mothers make you feel like you're ten years old again. Suffice it to say, she thought I was out of my mind for wasting my time staring at a man I would never meet.

I tried to explain to her the point wasn't in meeting him, the point was in memorizing him. To which she stared at me open-mouthed like I had sprung horns and breathed fire.

I'm a romance writer. I write about men and women and situations and circumstances that relate to love, the finding it, the losing it and everything in between. I also don't get out much back home, so seeing a real honest to God, bona fide hunk-and-a-half on the beach wearing nothing but a pair of orange surf shorts... well, yeah, I'm gonna stare at him. Especially as he was my age. (If he'd been 30, I'd have passed. I'm not a Cougar.)

That night, somehow the topic of G-man came up at dinner and Mary, (my mother's friend with whom we stayed) asked me if I'd introduced myself. I said no. She asked why not. And I said, "I don't want to meet him. I just want to look at him." Again, why not. To which I replied, "Because if I speak to him and he's a toad, then everything I've thought about him all week will be for naught. I've built him up to be something he's probably not and meeting him would only crush the fantasy."

The next day on the beach, (our last day on the beach) I had several opportunities to actually speak with Gorgeous Man. Several opportunities, my friends. And I did not take one of them.

Now, back home, I wonder if I did the right thing. I think I missed an opportunity, an important opportunity for my writing. But then again, did I?

In not speaking to him, I had a character already in my mind. I made up a whole backstory about who he was, why he was without wife, his background, his job, his compulsion for packing every single thing he might need for a few hours on the beach, even his family. Did I do him justice as a "character"? I don't know. Only you can be the judge of that.

Tell me -- If you had found an opportunity like that, would you have taken the time to speak to him? Or would you, like me, just stare and make stuff up? Do you take your characters from whole cloth, or do you piece them together to make them fit?