Benedict's Bride.

Benedict's Bride by Janet Woods (ebook)

Amber Rose Hartford’s grandfather made her dowry dependent on her marrying Viscount Costain. Though unaware of this condition, Benedict accepts it for more than one reason. He rescues Amber from her disreputable cousin Patrick, but before they can marry she is abducted. A large ransom is paid but Amber is not released. Benedict must rescue her again—and convince her of his honorable intentions. Historical Romance by Janet Woods; originally published by Belgrave House

Stripping Characters Bare

This is not about undressing them, though it is handy for historical authors to know what’s worn underneath the period woman’s skirt, Whether it be Amelia’s Bloomer's bloomers, Victorian divided drawers, the 1920s combinations, sexy wartime camiknickers or no knickers at all.

Men and woman have strapped themselves into various uncomfortable supports, bustles and shape-changing devices in an attempt to meet the fashion of the day, but prior to the Victorians, who also put pantalettes on the legs of a piano stool - wearing no underwear was more common than not. Hmmm . . . can you actually wear no underwear? I'll leave that one for you to ponder on. I wonder though, why were Victorian gentlemen so turned on by piano stool legs, that they had to be kept hidden from him?

So what is this blog about? It’s about investing emotion into characters, getting down to their bare essential and endowing them with characteristics that will appeal to readers.

What does does your heroine look like? Yes, you can use a character who is of average height, and has brown hair and blue eyes. Most readers are ordinary people, and can relate to the standard. So be careful to endow characters with a touch of the commonplace.

Remember that a person can change. Love will make the pheromones fly! The skin will glow, the eyes shine, the smile become more spontaneous. As always, the adage applies. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." In one sense that means that the eyes light up like a set of headlights, when one's beloved comes into view. But being desired, or desiring another, always makes a character look, appear and act more attractively.

All this can be shown to the reader as it happens, by putting yourself in the character's skin and using the senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing and taste. If the characters come with all the beauties and graces described up front and already installed, then how do you improve on it?

Body language can convey feeling instantly. A look over a shoulder, a gaze avoided, a smile exchanged or a squeeze of the hand, or just the way a glance slants . . . on a woman's breast, into her eyes or upon her lips can say a lot. So can the two finger salute when she says no!

In your own writing (and I still catch myself doing it too, but hey, that's what editing is for) how often do you start a sentence with: She had the feeling she was naked when he looked at her? She felt as if her heart was going to fly? She felt a smile creep across her mouth? This is wishy-washy and passive telling. It is much more active to put: His glance stripped her bare. Her heart flew from her chest. A smile crept across her mouth.

Emotionally . . . if you want a character readers can relate to, you have to have to give your characters a depth of feeling. What they say, do, feel or think should be reflected in your characters, thoughts and deeds, right from the very beginning.

Telling the reader a character is arrogant means nothing. Show the character being arrogant, then show him with a weakness, however small, to make him likeable. Perhaps he could acknowledge his own arrogance.

Be consistent with showing positives. Have your heroine do little kindnesses, and think kind thoughts. If she sees a beggar in the street let her give him a coin. If you have a spirited heroine, make sure her nature doesn't become shrewish in the cause to prove herself. There is a big difference between having a spirited heroine and a nasty one. Learn how to give and take. Use wit rather than spit!

I could go on and on with this subject, but I won't. I'll just go back to the Victorian piano stool. Its frills hide the solid support structure – the bare essentials of its creation. It didn't just arrive. It came from somewhere, and was once part of a tree.

So did your character. She arrives naked – a standard person without baggage or memory, waiting to be given an identity and brought to life. She has a zip down her back. Open it. Get inside and walk over to the mirror while you get used to your new skin. Now . . . begin your creation.

Start by giving her an identity, a past. She has family, a school, sport and profession. She has hopes and fears, feelings and ambition.

One last word. Be sensitive to your character's needs. Feel the emotion, walk in their skin. Go on then, it's not that hard. No wait . . . come back, you're naked! How about you put a few clothes on first . . .

Straw in the Wind/Single Titles Review

Review: Straw in the Wind – Janet Woods

"Acclaimed award-winning author Janet Woods continues the spellbinding story of the Honeyman, Chapman and Thornton families in Straw in the Wind, the dazzling stand-alone sequel to her previous release, Salting The Wound."
Serafina Finn has known plenty of heartache, tragedy and misery in her short life. Abandoned as a baby and raised in a gloomy orphanage, Serafina – or Sara, as she prefers to be called – is determined to rise above her abject start in life and to become an independent woman in charge of her own destiny. When she finds a job working as a housemaid at Finch Leighton’s house in Dorset, the plucky eighteen year old girl is determined to start this exciting new chapter in her life. But on her arrival, Sara is shocked when she realizes that rather than a housemaid, she is in fact going to be in charge of running the entire house!
Although stunned, Sara is not about to let this unexpected change in circumstance deter her from doing this job at the best of her abilities, so she sets about restoring this shambolic household, and in the process, manages to win the respect and admiration of her fellow servants who were initial doubtful as to whether a mere slip of a girl could possibly cope with the demands of running a household such like Leighton Manor. A popular girl both with the staff and with Mr. Leighton himself, pretty soon Sara realizes that this is the happiest she’s been in years. However, little does she know that another bewildering turn is just around the corner…
Eighteen years ago, Captain Erasmus Thornton had met and fallen in love with a married woman. Their love had borne a daughter whom he had always believed had died during her birth, but when startling evidence brings to light that the girl had lived, Erasmus becomes determined to track her down, so he hires intrepid private detective Adam Chapman to help him find his missing child.
Adam’s thorough investigation leads him to Sara and as he becomes more and more convinced that she is Captain Thornton’s missing daughter, he also finds himself falling head over heels in love with spirited Sara. But as Adam’s revelations about her parentage start to sink in, Sara cannot help but wonder whether Captain Thornton’s family will ever accept her…and whether her feelings for Adam will lead to disappointment – or the happiness which she has always craved.
Janet Woods’ outstanding storytelling prowess never fails to hold readers in thrall and Straw in the Wind is a novel that is sure to enthrall and delight readers everywhere. Ms. Woods’ gift for creating fascinating characters ensures that readers shall champion Sara, fall in love with Adam and find themselves taking the fascinating assortment of supporting characters to their hearts.
Straw in the Wind is an absorbing tale of family secrets, powerful passions and heart-wrenching choices that expertly combines heart-pounding romance with nail-biting intrigue and beguiling drama. Powerfully written, wonderfully vivid and engrossing from beginning to end, Straw in the Wind is another triumph for the inimitable Janet Woods!

Reviewer: Julie Bonello
Sensuality Rating: Sweet
Star Rating: 4.5 Stars

Motivated to kill

Early in my writing career I realized I was good at killing characters. In the novel I’m currently writing, I’m halfway through chapter six and have already killed two children, a woman, and several men . . . though I’m thinking of resurrecting the children and carrying their story through to the end.

Why bother to write in characters you’re going to kill off? It’s because there was a war going on in 1914 -18 and also an influenza pandemic. Millions of people died. As I’m writing in a specific historical period, to set a story then and ignore the tremendous loss of life at the time, would seriously undermine my credibility as a novelist writing in the historical arena.

To demonstrate how death affected a normal family in the past: in the photograph, which was taken about 1916. It’s a portrait of my grandfather and his family at the time. Missing is the eldest son, who had died from an illness not long before. The seaman at the back went down with his ship in the battle of Jutland, at the age of seventeen. The lady (my grandmother) was accidently killed when run over by a motorbike and sidecar in 1939. She was trying to cross a main road. By that time she was so crippled by arthritis she could only walk slowly. I never had time to get to know her. My grandfather and the sons on the left and right of the picture just survived into old age. So did the younger boy at the front, who is my father. So out of a family of seven, only four survived to live the proverbial three score years and ten.

The events of war and epidemic itself would have affected social history at the time. There would have been food shortages. Family members would have died, children orphaned. With such heavy losses of single men at the time, many more women would have remained single and childless. Quite simply, death can change the course of many characters’ lives, demolish a plot line and create another story. I like this concept because it works well in saga writing. Everything is fluid as several paths are opened for you.

Facts such as war and flu epidemics can be worked into stories as part of the plot, or simply arise by using them in a dialogue between characters, to add historical authority. To leave them both out in 1914-18 would be unthinkable, because it would rob the story of credibility.

Events like the above bring many changes. Apart from changes in family and fortune, there are also structural changes. War forced women into the workforce, doing the jobs that men used to do. Many of them liked earning their own money, and enjoyed the awareness of feeling that they were skilful and intelligent enough to work outside of the home, housewife and baby. Some resented going back to their former roles of nurturing, and rights for women took a new turn.
Whichever way you look at this, WW1 did bring a new maturity of thinking and awareness to woman.

The role of death in a book should serve a purpose. Death touches the emotions. It might simply be there to satisfy reader outrage. If it’s a villain being disposed of, then readers get closure in a way they probably wouldn’t in real life. One reader told me she was glad I made the villain suffer, and if he hadn’t been a fictional character she would have gone and danced on his grave. This made me realize that revenge is still alive and kicking, as long as somebody else swings the cudgel.

Death also brings change. It’s a turning point. There is nothing like a deathbed scene at the beginning of a book to suggest motivation, and to evoke tension between characters. Grandfather dies surrounded by six loving daughters with expectations. The sisters had always got on well together. Only one inherits!

Now . . . think of the passion that would churn up . . . the recriminations and accusations, the soul searching. To give the pot another stir the legatee could be a nun, who can only inherit if she gives up her vocation. A whole series of books could arise from killing off grandfather when the whys and wherefores are examined.

Disposing of children is riskier. In the past, bigger families were the norm, and it was expected that some children would be carried off by disease. In Victorian times a flourishing industry grew up around funerals, with its own set of protocols, since the Victorians wallowed in sentiment. Ordinary workers paid money into a funeral fund, so there would always be money to bury a family member – something that was common. My own mother came from a family of 11 children. She helped her mother lay out 3 of her younger siblings who had died before she was 14, and was obliged to take up employment as a maid in London.

You can foreshadow the death of a child by planting clues, so the reader expects it when it happens. In one book my victim was sickly all the way through, so when a childhood disease carried him off, it was expected. However, I’ve also killed off a child to end a dynasty, and simplify matters for the next book in the series. I made it a heartrending end because I felt guilty for doing it.

Killing animals? Approach this with caution. In one of my books I had a dog named Spot. Spot was stolen by an itinerant worker; who did bodily harm to a female character along with several of his companions (remember motivation?). The female character met a sticky end by jumping off a cliff in a fit of depression to end her suffering. Her loving husband avenged her by going after the men who did her wrong (5 of them, I recall!). He murders them all in cold blood and breaks the dog’s neck!

Gasp!

Well okay . . . he did break the dog’s neck – but only in the original draft. Every member of my critique group hated the dog being killed. I promised to rewrite the chapter and bring Spot back to life. And I did. I eventually left the dog on the doorstep of a farmer with several kids, and a wife with a generous, loving heart.

Funny thing was, my group didn’t mind the male protagonist carrying out five murders in cold blood. Why? Because it was properly motivated. It was retribution for an unspeakable act against an innocent. It served a purpose and they deserved it.

There was no motivation for killing the dog!

PAPER DOLL

PAPER DOLL by Janet Woods
Severn House UK
ISBN:9780727869708
October 28th 2010

In the early 1920s Julia Howard feels as though she’s the perfect daughter – the paper doll that was manufactured by her father in her image, and she longs to dispense with her innocence.
Wealthy, less than perfect businessman, Latham Miller has other plans for her. He wants a perfect wife. He sees Julia in that role and manipulates the situation to suit his plans. Julia marries him to please her father and lacks for nothing – as long as she does what she’s told.
But Julia is only human. Already acquainted with troubled war hero, Martin Lee-Trafford, the former attraction between them grows into a deep and abiding love. The inevitable happens, Julia gives birth to a son, and her paper doll image is torn apart.
Julia is then faced with a heart-wrenching decision. Can she leave with the man she loves, knowing she’ll have to abandon her beloved son – or should she stay?

Shining Through

I’ve just finished writing LADY LIGHTFINGERS – a novel partly set in the slum area of 1850s London. Parts of this book turned out to be stark and rather gruelling to write. There is nothing romantic about poverty, when each day must be endured in the battle to survive, and the future seems more of the same. My heroine is a resourceful, gutsy young woman who was able to survive her bad start to life, but grew up streetwise enough to avoid the traps that can beset the poverty stricken, to find happiness and shine through.

Writing stories that have a downbeat theme can be difficult if you don’t want to make your readers miserable and put them off side. There are several qualities a main character needs to stop her from being a sad sack.

The first is a strong sense of optimism, so she doesn’t wallow in a sea of self-pity every time something goes wrong. Secondly, a sense of humour is required. This can be ironic, wry or sarcastic, depending whether it’s being spoken or thought. A heroine should also be brave, and courageous enough to take risks when the chips are down. Even though it might go against the grain, she might decided to sell herself, or get away with crime, if the motivation is great enough. My heroine is tempted by both to help feed and shelter her family. I won’t say which one but the title might give you a clue!

One of the things I like most about saga writing is that the heroine usually rises above fairly humble beginnings, and through personal sacrifice, endures. If she doesn’t succeed in gaining wealth, at least she’ll emerge from her trials a stronger, wiser person – one enriched by personal satisfaction and happiness.

Janet Woods

A Fair Pretender

This is the third of my books to be e published by Belgrave House. It's available for download at $5.00.

A FAIR PRETENDER is the story of Graine Seaton, who impersonates her half-sister, Evelyn Adams, in an attempt to gain a fortune she feels she's entitled to.
After all, they do share the same father. With the fortune comes marriage to a man of letters. But Graine doesn't count of falling in love with his cousin, Saville Lamartine, and neither does she to expect to find herself helping the anti-slave movement, which was the very trade that her fortune was made from in the first place.