Saturday, February 02, 2008

BOM: The Writing and Research


Since this was my first adult novel and I really had no idea how to write a LONG story, I watched Gary Provost's Video Novel workshop tapes.  They give a fairly simple plot outline:  a character has a goal, and you toss in lots of complications before he/she comes to the place where he/she either gets or loses the goal, thus satisfying a need created in his/her backstory. 

With that to go on--and pretty much only that--I set out doing research into the medieval period.  One fascinating fact I discovered was that in those days people believed that twins were (or could have been) fathered by two different men.  (I have since learned that it is indeed possible).  So I thought, "A ha!  What if my protagonist has twins and this simply freaks her jealous husband out?" 

I also decided that this would be a classic revenge story:  a woman is wronged in her youth, and spends her entire life seeking revenge against the Lady who wronged her.  Toss in the crusades, a few kings and queens, and you have a plot.  

I wrote this book back in the early days of Christian fiction.  My publisher had not published any guidelines yet, and since I hadn't published any adult fiction before, I was sort of writing for the world at large.  So I created Afton, a poor villein on a lord's estate, gave her a true love, and married her off to an old, jealous, abusive husband.  Yes, it was "edgy" for those days; in fact, I think it'd be edgy now.  Medieval times were rough, and I only softened them a wee bit--for instance, the cruel husband at one point feeds Afton her pet kitten . . . in my research I discovered a cruel husband who actually fed his wife her lover's heart.  Ick.  Of course, my editor wasn't fond about the kitten, either . . . 

But that's a topic for later.  The editing. 

~~Angie

2 comments:

Kay Day said...

These sound really good. I love Medieval stuff.
And I haven't read any of your older books yet.

Kathy Cassel said...

Feeds her the kitten???? Ugh. Yuck. Gross. I'll pass on this book. Give me women stuck in the elevator any day.