building empathy

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First meeting on WIP Wednesday

 

This week, I’m thinking about first meetings. My Maximum Force story is percolating in my head, and I’m also planning the first meeting scenes in books 3 and 4 of Children of the Mountain King. As in Unkept Promises, the heroines of those two books met their heroes when they were still schoolgirls, and I haven’t decided whether the scenes will be in flashback, or just narrated as a memory. Max’s heroine, Serenity, is an adult, though — whatever the elders of her cult may think.

Today, I’m inviting authors to give me an excerpt with the first meeting between the hero and the heroine. Mine is from the first chapter of Unkept Promises. The first two chapters are set seven years before the rest of the book. Jules has been captured by smugglers and locked up in a cell.

The light came as a surprise, shining like a beacon from the other side of a barred opening set high up in one wall. Standing, Jules managed to reach the bars and pull himself up, to look through into another cell very much like his own. A man lay still, curled on a mess of rags and clothing. His eyes were shut, and he had not responded to the girl who crouched beside him. She was a skinny child, still boyish in shape, but Jules did not suppose that would discourage the smugglers from making use of her body or selling her to someone for that purpose. He made an instant vow to save her, whatever the cost.

The girl held the candle she had lit away in one hand to cast its light without dripping its wax, and brushed back the hair that fell over the man’s forehead. “Oh, Papa,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Miss,” Jules hissed. The girl startled back from her father. Her face, already pale, turned whiter as she faced the door, putting her body between herself and the unconscious man.

“I’m a prisoner,” Jules reassured her. “In the next cell.”

The girl held the candle high as she stood, peering towards the sound of his voice. He kept talking to guide her. “Lieutenant Julius Redepenning of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, at your service, Miss. I am going to get out of here, and I’m going to take you and your father with me.”

The face turned up to him was just leaving childhood behind, but the eyes shone with intelligence and her response indicated more maturity than he expected. “I hope you can, Lieutenant. But if your cell is as sturdy as mine, I beg leave to reserve judgement.” She sighed. “I am sorry for your predicament, but I will not deny I am glad to have company.”

“May I borrow the candle?” Jules asked. Her eyes widened in alarm and he rushed to add, “just for long enough to check my cell. They left me without light.” Without food or drink, either, but he would not tell her that. Perhaps the smugglers intended to supply him, and if they didn’t, he would not take the supply she needed for herself and her father.

She passed the candle up, her worry palpable, and he hoisted himself higher with one hand so he could stretch the other through the bars. “I will be careful, Miss, I promise.”

“Mia,” she said. “Euronyme Stirling, but formality seems out of place, here.”

He returned her smile. She was a brave little girl; he had to find a way out for her. “Call me Jules,” he offered, “as my friends do.”

He rested the candle—a stubby bit of wax with a rope wick—on the sill between the bars and dropped, shaking the ache out of the shoulder that had taken most of his weight. When he reached the candle down, Mia let out an involuntary whimper at the loss of light.

“I have it safe,” he said. “You shall have it back in a minute.”

“I do without it most of the time,” she replied. “It’s just—I have always known I could light it again.”

Most of the time? “How long have you been here?” Jules asked, keeping his voice light and casual against the lump in his throat at her gallantry.

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First impressions on WIP Wednesday

 

We try to make an emotional connection between our protagonists and our readers as soon as we can in the story. We also need to show the character flaws that make our protagonists interesting. Balancing these two, especially when the characters have personality aspects or life histories that are going to upset some readers, is crucial. So we try to show them doing something nice early on. I’ve just been reading a book where the hero is a drunken cad when he is 20, and frightens heroine, who is only 15. He goes on to turn his life around, and comes back to court her. Ella Quinn manages the empathy by starting the story before he got drunk, making the reasons for his state of mind clear. You could say the story has two sets of first impressions — those the protagonists make on the reader, and those they make on one another.

How about you? What first impression do your characters make? Pick an excerpt that shows the first appearance of the hero or heroine, or what one of them thinks about the other on first meeting.

Mine this week is a newly written passage from To Wed a Proper Lady, which comes immediately after the rescue of the little boy that has already been published as part of The Bluestocking and the Barbarian (you can read it here).

“Oh my,” Felicity said. Sophia had not even noticed her until she spoke. All of Sophia’s attention was on the rider. Oh my, indeed.

“So that is what all the gossip is about,” her sister added. “No wonder he has ruffled the feathers of the biddies and the sticklers. He looks very exotic, does he not? And yet, he speaks like one of us and has the most elegant manners.”

“We must be glad he was there, and in time to help,” Sophia said, struggling to keep her voice calm when the thud of her heart must be audible throughout the village. “Tommy might have been badly hurt.” She managed to drag her eyes away from the retreating horsemen. Undoubtedly, Lord Elfingham had forgotten her already. He did not look back.

She turned towards the Children’s Sanctuary. Felicity fell into step beside her, still talking.

“I must say, he was not at all what I expected. To hear Hythe, one would think him a wild barbarian, uncouth and fierce, without manners or education.”

Sophia repressed a snort with some difficulty. “Hythe has been listening to the wrong Haverford. Our Godmama knew Lord Sutton, his father, when he was only a third son, before he left England to seek his fortune. Aunt Eleanor says that Lord Sutton was married to a Persian princess, and his children were raised as royalty, as well as English ladies and gentlemen. They were, Aunt Eleanor says, given the finest education.”

“His Grace of Haverford has forbidden Her Grace and Lord Aldridge to attend any event at which they might meet Lord Sutton or any of his children. Is that because she and Lord Sutton were once acquainted?”

Sophia knew that look on Felicity’s face. With the least encouragement, she would be interrogating the dowagers and the old maiden aunts, and increasing the storm of scandal around Lord Sutton and his family even further.

“Hythe says that the Duke is incensed at the dilution of another duke’s blue blood.” Felicity gave a little skip at the horror of it all. Hythe did say that, but Sophia was sure Haverford’s virulent enmity was more personal than a distaste for miscegenation.

“Apparently, Haverford believes that English dukes should marry only English ladies of an appropriate rank,” Sophia replied. “Foreign princesses need not apply.”

“If, in fact, Sutton did marry the foreign princess.” The scandalous nature of the conversation was delighting Felicity.

Sophia looked back over her shoulder. The horsemen were visible in the distance, just cresting the hill beyond the village. One of them had stopped — his horse gleaming golden in the sun. It was foolish to think she could feel his intense gaze from this distance. She couldn’t even see his features. But she did see one hand raised in salute before he wheeled the horse to follow his companions.