Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

>22

If Henry had succeeded in compromising her, her options would have
been severely limited. 

If there had not been a Darcy, standing by in the wings, I think she
would have felt a duty to marry Henry, to protect her sisters if for
no other reason. And she would have been a countess eventually, a
very wealthy and influential woman, who could have done a lot of
good. 

She was very fortunate in that Darcy was undoubtedly willing to
marry her notwithstanding anything Henry did. I think Darcy would
have married her even if Henry *raped* her. That's the kind of
steadfast, loyal guy he is.

Let's talk about Darcy for a minute. You're right -- he's pretty
opaque to us in P&P. We learn a little bit about him from his
friends, his cousin, his sister, and of course he shows us the kind
of guy he is at the end when he rescues the ruined Lydia. Darcy is a
mensch. But he's reserved and even a little shy. He is slow to
trust, because he has been the object of so many people who wanted
access to his wealth, his home, his reputation. But deep inside he
is a very good man, entirely worthy of Elizabeth.

He's opaque in P&P largely because Jane refused to write any scenes
between men alone. She felt she had no real idea how men spoke to
each other when no women were present, so she did not portray it. As
a result we see only the public side of Darcy for the vast majority
of the book. The private Darcy shows up only at the end, just in
time for the second proposal.
  

    
By the way, if you'd like to read some more of my thoughts on Darcy
and carnality, I wrote this some time ago, adapted from an answer I
wrote on Quora:

https://medium.com/@Imeldathehon/the-lust-of-fitzwilliam-darcy-6cc86c0eca21
  

    
Yo, Steph! Is it kosher to refer to your real name out in the social
media world, while mentioning this convo?
  

    
So Jane fell afoul of a kind of reverse Bechdel Test?  I had no
idea. 
  

    
I was surprised by how quickly and how completely Elizabeth's
attitude toward Darcy changed as people told her more about him.
What was her mixture of feelings toward him before she heard these
things? More generally, how did she make sense of her feelings
toward her suitors? How much did she share with her confidants?
  

    
>28

hey Angie, my real name is hardly a secret, I would say use your
(excellent) judgment.

>29 

yes! It was a restriction she imposed on herself.

>30

She disliked him thoroughly. On the occasion of their first
encounter (they did not actually meet that evening), Darcy's friend
Bingley tried to get Darcy to dance at a local assembly near
Elizabeth's home. Darcy refused because he disliked dancing and
didn't know anyone local. Bingley pushed him and he snapped, taking
one glance at Elizabeth and responding, "She is tolerable; but not
handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give
consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men." And she
heard him. She repeated the story to all of her friends in the
neighborhood and reinforced in herself a belief that he was proud
and arrogant and thought himself better than everyone around him.
The story cemented her neighbors' opinion along the same lines.

Austen tells us that he got a good look at her within a few days and
quickly changed his opinion, but she didn't know that. Charlotte
figured out early on that Darcy was interested in Elizabeth, because
he was always looking at her, but when Charlotte mentioned it to
Elizabeth the latter pooh-poohed it, saying he must have been
finding fault with her. This is a real blind spot for Elizabeth but
how else would a woman react when a man said that about her in
public, loud enough for her to overhear him?

She really had no idea.
  

    
I do like the very gradual way her animosity was diluted by Darcy
applying, apology after apology, the best tenets of Sorrywatch. And
there's a clear sense that she is welcoming this shift. She seems to
like Darcy and like being in his company, if only he weren't such a
meddling arrogant boor. 


I have another question. In the second half the book much is made of
the architecture of the the upstairs of a house. People hide, and,
in one notable instance, someone is imprisoned in a room.  How much
research did you need to do to flesh out the architecture in our
(readers') minds. And how important was it for you to visualize the
spaces when you were writing? 
  

    
I knew about linen airing cupboards because of the Mitford sisters!
Jessica (and Debo, too, I think) wrote about hiding in the linen
cupboard when she was young, at the family homes at Asthall Manor or
Swinbrook Cottage, I forget which. The Mitfords' houses had to be at
least as old as the Hunsford parsonage would have been, so I just
took that idea and ran with it. 

Even in the US many houses have linen closets. The one in my
parents' house was big but filled with shelves, and would have been
tricky to hide in for anyone more than four years old.

It was a convenient exaggeration for me to make Charlotte's linen
airing cupboard big enough for the events of THE COLONEL'S BROTHER
that involved it. In the Harry Potter universe I guess you'd call it
my Room of Requirement.

I constructed a kind of mental map of the closet, with shelves to
the side, an open area in the middle and back, where the drying rack
would stand (and where a person hiding might stand). I didn't do a
lot of research into the laundry habits of early 19th century
England, but having read LONGBOURN and other works that touched on
the lives of servants during that period. I felt I had enough
information to fake it.
  

    
I should add that the idea of a linen closet having a lock is
entirely unsupported by any of my reading or research. But I needed
it to have a lock, and so it did.
  

    
Indeed. In my mental map of linen cupboards, they probably don't
have locks and I have to confess there doors probably would not have
stood up to the rampages of a young healthy Viscount.

But I went along with it.
  

    
<vard> in this world of the WELL, you are <vard> and many of those
dropping in will know you as the once-supreme doyen of <weird.> You
are also widely renowned for administering stinging punishments to
those who commit self-abuse with the English language (“A pun is the
lowest form of humor—when you don't think of it first.” - Oscar
Levant)

How on earth are you to introduce them [Hi, everyone! <waving>] to
your alter ego, the JAFFenesque Stephanie Vale?
  

    
I think you have already done a fine job making the introduction,
<paulbel>!

My friends know I have a lot of interests and passions. They don't
have to share my affection for the Baltimore Orioles, Baltimore
Ravens, professional tennis, Star Wars, sheep, Rocky Horror,
sneakers, or most of the other things I love. So it is with Austen
and Austenesque / JAFF.

There's an argument to be made that embarking on a career of writing
JAFF is at least as worthy of <weird> as anything else I've ever
done. To me it is just a fun outlet for my creative impulses. I have
no particular expectations of great success. I want to feel
comfortable in the quality of my work but it's not like I am going
to get rich from doing this.
  

    
WHAAAT? No?  What happened to all that money I paid Kindle for your
book?

OK, so not rich, but you now have the adulation of your fellow
JAFFers. Don't you? You say that you sort of workshopped this with
people in that community. Has anything changed for you now that
you've actually published a book in the genre?  
  

    
HAHAHAHAHA

Adulation? Hell no.

Maybe a little respect.

The JAFF community contains a lot of writers who have published six
or ten or more Austenesque books. If I get to the point where I have
a half dozen Austenesque books and a bunch of readers who are primed
to preorder every new release from Stephanie Vale, *that* will be my
idea of success. (Maybe not adulation even then, but...)

We have our next JAFF reader-writer Zoom this Saturday. I do feel I
have crossed over from the reader category to the writer category,
and when I get another book out, that will cement my crossover
status.
  

    
I heard on the grapevine that you've had to abort actually
travelling to a  JAFF live and in person event (in Chicago?) where
you could have paraded around as a published auteur. My sympathies.

But what is next Miss Vale? You have already said that you intend to
drop no hints about the three books that are currently "in
development." It's my sworn duty to try to wring some of this
information out of you regardless.

Here's one fairly baldfaced attempt: you have pointed out that Miss
Austen died before she could properly edit Emma (for one). IF you
were to take on the Emma world somewhat as you have Elizabeth's, how
would you approach it? What would have made Emma better?
  

    

The two books that were published by her brother after her death
were PERSUASION and NORTHANGER ABBEY. She did finish her revisions
on EMMA.

NORTHANGER ABBEY is such a strange book. I think I'd need to read
more Gothics before I felt qualified to take a whack at a NA
variation. (And there's a near-zero chance I will read more
Gothics.)

PERSUASION has some potential. It's well known that the ending we
all know (including Captain Wentworth's beautiful letter) was a late
revision by Jane herself. I might take a whack at PERSUASION. There
are a few possibilities I can think of.

As for EMMA, I can think of one or two things. But why should I tell
you? %^>

Part of my challenge in writing JAFF, and I probably shouldn't admit
this, is that I lack patience with the rituals and mores of Regency
courtship. I wouldn't be a very successful romance novelist for this
reason. I enjoyed giving Darcy the labors of Hercules in terms of
digging himself out of the hole he had created, but once he and
Elizabeth had reached their understanding, Henry was the only thing
that kept the story interesting for me, and once Henry was removed
as an obstacle, I felt I had very little left to write about, so I
wrapped it up.

One or two of my online reviews complained about this -- they said
the ending felt "rushed." I would not say it was rushed; I would
just say that in my own mind there was not much left to write about
(beyond the obligatory visit from Lady Catherine of course -- I
could never leave that part out!).

So I need to work on that if I am going to have wider acceptance as
a JAFF author. My fundamental problem is that I love Jane primarily
as a satirist, and while I accept and embrace the fact that she is
writing marriage stories, the marriage plots aren't my favorite
things about any of her books. In this I believe I am fundamentally
wired differently than most of the people who read JAFF.
  

    
The people I know who are deep into Regency romances are really into
the romance part, much more than I am myself. But pure romance is
central for an awful lot of those readers.
  

    
You can demur, <vard> but the way you orchestrated that kiss was
choice. 
  

    
>42

That's exactly right, as far as I can tell. And I have tried to read
Regency romances; I took a whack at Georgette Heyer but was never
able to get into her. So that's a challenge for me. Austen gives me
something to chew on, and Heyer doesn't. Or hasn't. I will try again
at some point.

(It took me repeated attempts spanning decades to get into Isaac
Asimov's FOUNDATION series, and now I love those stories. So there's
hope, I think.)
  

    
>43

Thank you, <paulbel>, you're very kind to say so.

Give the people what they want!

 
  

    
So, that scene is one of my favourites in the book (look at me,
dog-earing "the good parts"!)

What are YOUR favorite parts of your baby, Vard?
  

    

I have favorite bits, mostly. Bits are smaller than parts. Turns of
phrase or visuals that I'm still patting myself on the back about.

The way I describe Caroline Bingley finding out that Darcy had come
to visit Charles.

The way Darcy pushes back at Bingley when he insists that Darcy must
accompany him on a critically important social call.

The way Anne uses the implements of womanhood to protect Elizabeth
from danger. 
 
The way Lady Catherine talks about not giving Mr. Collins too many
cookies.

Elizabeth's rejoinder to the colonel when he describes his and
Darcy's guardianship of Georgiana.

And the way Mr. Collins reacts when he discovers that the viscount
is a temporary inmate of the parsonage.
  

    
OK, that is now a quiz for those who have read the book. It also
skillfully avoids spoilers for those who are still awaiting their
copy.

Do you have favourites among your fellow JAFF authors, Vard? And if
so do they tend to emphasize the satirical side of Jane or are there
some who do the Regency romance stuff well in your experience?
  

    
I do have favorites. I have favorite authors and favorite books. And
even in subgenres I don't usually get into, there are individual
books I really like a lot.

And I know I'm going to forget/leave a few people out, so I
apologize in advance to any JAFF author who may be seeing this, and
who knows I love their work. And I'm only going to list one book by
each author.

Specific books:

THE MADNESS OF MR. DARCY, by Alexa Adams
MR. DARCY CAME TO DINNER, by Jack Caldwell
PRIDE AND PROPOSALS, by Victoria Kincaid
SEASONS OF WAITING, by Christina Morland
A MATTER OF HONOR, by Abigail Reynolds
THE UNTHINKABLE TRIANGLE, by Joana Starnes
WRITERLY AMBITIONS, by Timothy Underwood

Of all of those books, the one I most wish I had written is SEASONS
OF WAITING. It is a sweeping account of the lives of the characters
we know (and in some cases their children), spanning 25 years or so.
Just fantastic, a great story, beautifully told. If I thought I had
a book like that in me, I'd be very pleased.

I need to make a point of calling out the books of Victoria Kincaid,
though. Not just because she is a valued friend, but because she is
so good at weaving humor into her stories. Some stories are very
serious and require less humor than others; others are lighthearted
from beginning to end. In terms of pure enjoyment, she has probably
given me more than any other JAFF author. And her modern adaptations
are almost the only ones I can bear to read (they're hilarious). I
don't get into many modern adaptations, but Victoria has written a
couple of good ones, and her PRESIDENT DARCY, in particular, is
very, very funny.

And for those interested in sexually explicit JAFF, I think my
favorites are 

PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND PLEASURE, by Georgette Brown
MISTRESS: A PRIDE AND PREJUDICE VARIATION, WITH PARTS NOT SUITABLE
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT REACHED THEIR MAJORITY, by Sophie Turner

Both of these have excellent stories in addition to the smutty
parts.

Anyone who liked THE COLONEL'S BROTHER would probably love any of
the books I've listed.
  

    
Thanks, Vard. Is  Victoria Kincaid her name name? It's an even
better author name for JAFFish things than Stephanie Vale.

And Sophie Turner - perfect for smutty JAFF in my "I sometimes get
paid to name things" persona.

OK, I'm going to wait a certain amount of time for others to ask a
question of Miss Vale.