runaway bride

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Where does the story start–WIP Wednesday

Sometimes, the start comes first. Sometimes, I write my way towards it. Sometimes, I have to go back and tack one on when the book is nearly done. How about you? Do you have a work-in-progress beginning to share? My excerpt is from the story I’m putting in next week’s newsletter. It’s called The Abduction of Lydia Fernhill, and is not exactly a romance.  (If you don’t get my newsletter, subscribe now for this and other exclusive stories.

In the village of Pluffington-on-Memmerbeck, the old folks still remember Lydia Fernhill’s wedding. How could they forget when the little ones still beg for the story? There they are, all wide eyed, when night draws in and the fire sinks low, and bedtime beckons. “Please, Granny (or Gaffer, as the case may be), tell us the story of the stolen bride?”

And Granny (or, as it might be, Gaffer) will tell what they witnessed with their own eyes, though how much the story was shaped by each onlooker, and how much it has grown with time, who can tell?

Certainly, it differs from house to house. So much so that Peggy Whitlow has not spoken to Maggie Cutler in ten years since they came to hair-pulling and scratching when they were only nine over whether the white rider was an angel or the elf king. And many a promising pugilist has got his start in a dusty lane defending the honour of Miss Lydia from the accusation that she planned the whole thing.

Still, every child in the village knows the essence of the tale. The bride, plain, pale-faced and drooping. The groom with his face set like stone. The bride’s uncle chivvying them up the aisle. Then the north transept doors crashing open (some say exploding, but if so, someone did a good job of repair, for there they are today for any child to see, ancient oak, worn by time).

The storytellers agree on the troop of riders. Did they trot or gallop or merely walk in through the great doors?

They were beautiful, all make that clear, and the man (or angel or devil or elf-king) at their head was the loveliest of all. Dressed in white, crowned in gold, with long flowing locks. Jewels glittering from rings and brooches and even the cuffs of his boots. A long cloak (or perhaps wings) streaming behind him.

The old folks are in unison again on the bride’s reaction. “She came alive,” says Granny Smithers. “Straightened. Smiled with such joy that she looked beautiful for the first time in her life, poor lady.”

The rider, without stopping, stretched out his hand and Miss Lydia reached up and took it, put her foot on his in the stirrup, and was riding into the south transept before the groom had picked up his dropped jaw.

Some say he stood there, frozen. Some that he tried to drag her down and was shouldered aside by the following riders. However it might have been, the southern doors opened as mysteriously as those to the north, and closed behind the riders. “With a loud bang, and open they would not, not for all the trying in the world.”

Somehow, all the doors of the church had been closed and jammed. By the time someone had thought to put Gaffer Parslow, who at the time had been a skinny lad of ten, out the vestry window, so he could run around and remove the branch that had been shoved through the handles of the nearest doors, the riders were long gone.

Which proves, say some, that the invaders were human. Surely supernatural beings would have used magic, not branches. Others scoff, and point to the fact that Miss Lydia Fernhill had disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again. But whether to heaven or hell or to the land of Fairie, none of them can tell.

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First impressions on WIP Wednesday

I’m just finishing the short story to go out with my next newsletter, so I thought I’d choose something from that for my WIP Wednesday.

Give me an excerpt that tells me what one of your characters thought about another the first time they met.

My story is called A Gentleman Honours His Debts, and starts when the Earl of Bridgethorne takes passage on the ship where his bride has been hiding since she ran away a week after their marriage. This excerpt is a bit of backstory.

Leticia Fanshaw was one of three wallflowers Dickon danced with that first evening at the Bellowes house party. He’d almost passed her by; her discomfort when they were introduced rousing his pity but dousing any potential interest. This year, unlike the previous five, he had a stronger motive than the pleasures of the dance for his exercises on the dance floor. This year, he was in the market for a bride.

Not that he intended for any of Society’s matchmakers to know that, and fortunately his reputation helped keep his new motives secret. All the haut ton knew the Earl of Bridgethorne enjoyed dancing, and his skill made even the most awkward of partners look graceful. And he was kind, dancing with at least three of four of the least popular maidens at every event, as well as matrons, widows, and the more popular debutantes. Never more than one dance with each partner at any one event, a restriction that limited speculation about his marital intentions, and made courtship slightly harder now those intentions had changed.

Still, five years of conversation while standing out in line dances had given Dickon some definite views about the kind of bride he wanted. Not too proud, or too absorbed in her own beauty, which disqualified most of those to whom his fellows were drawn. Not foolish or inane or passionately fixated on an interest he did not share. He would have to converse with his wife, at least occasionally. Indeed, he hoped that, if he chose well, they might become friends. And, while he did not require physical perfection, he would, of course, have to be sufficiently attracted to the lady to do his duty by his title and estate, since an heir was the whole purpose of the exercise.

Five years of conversation had convinced him that the gem he sought was probably hidden among the wallflowers. Not an antidote, or a shy nervous creature afraid of men. But a woman whose intelligence and character had frightened off the fools who fell in love with the transitory sparkle of Society’s annual stars.

So when Miss Fanshaw blushed, stammered, and dropped her fan, he almost made his bow and his excuses, touching his hostess on her arm in the prearranged signal to present him to the next group. But was that fear in the look the young lady shot sideways to the aunt and uncle who were sponsoring her? And surely he imagined the menace in her uncle’s responding glare?

“If you would excuse us, Lord Bridgethorne and I…”

Dickon ruthlessly interrupted Lady Bellowes. How she would roast him later! “May I have the honour of a dance, Miss Fanshaw.”

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Starting on WIP Wednesday

Where is the beginning? Lewis Carroll had his king advise “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you get to the end, then stop.” As a storyteller, Carroll knew what hard advice that is to follow, for a story, a chapter, or even a letter.

Where to begin? I’ve heard advice to start anywhere, and find the beginning later. I’ve even started, I thought, way too early and written my way to the beginning. But for the most part, I can’t really get going on a story till the start feels right. 

Show me the start of your story or one of your chapters. I’m showing you the beginning of a story I’m writing for my newsletter subscribers. It’ll go out with the newsletter in July.

Dickon watched his wife clambering around the rigging, torn between demanding that she descend to the safety of the deck, and continuing to enjoy the sight from the shadows of the accessway.

It weighted the scales that, if she knew he was aboard, he’d lose the advantage of surprise and possible also his wife.  He needed to keep his identity secret until they were far enough from land that she couldn’t run again.

If he was to save his marriage—and, after talking to the enquiry agent, he half thought it might be desirable—he must first talk to his runaway bride.

She swung with confidence from rope to rope, her form masked but not obscured by the shapeless canvas trousers and smock she wore. Surely no one on the ship thought the Captain’s second mate was a man? 

She’d put on weight in the six months since he last saw her, and lost the haunted, harried look that had set his teeth on edge. Until he learned the reason for it on the night he tried to bed her, five days into their marriage. The night before she ran away.