The Duke's Affair

Reflections

Dear All,

I've been thinking about this story that I've written and I've learnt some things from it which I thought I would put here for you to see too (in case it might help you in your attempts to write as well, and also so you might add your comments and let me know if you agree).

CHARACTERISATION:

I think this started off well, with Henry being obviously arrogant and mysogynistic. However, as the book went on I wanted to show him changing as he fell for Lauren, but I'm not sure I managed it as well as I could have done. Some of you have suggested that he came across as weak, and I think he did in parts, whereas if he really were that arrogant guy he started off as, then he might not have acted as he sometimes did in the story. In fact, if he had kept it up a bit longer, as he would have done in reality I imagine (what a contradiction!) then I might have created an entirely different story. This is an example of where I hadn't fully worked out how my characters thought and what made them tick. For instance, I should really have thought about how Henry would have reacted in each situation, rather than making/forcing him to act as I wanted, simply to keep the plot chugging forward in the direction I wanted. The writer has to let the characters' actions drive the plot, not the other way round, and I think I was a bit guilty of doing that...

The same goes for Lauren. A lot of you got really annoyed with her, and I really didn't want that at all. I wanted to create a strong female lead, who had a bit of spunk, and was smart. Clever, even. But she did some stupid things, that perhaps an intelligent girl wouldn't have done. For instance, siding with Lydia. Was her motivation really convincing enough? And to move in with Lydia? I'm not sure.

But the main problem with Lauren, was the fact that she didn't DO stuff. And by that I mean that she didn't take action. One part that really annoyed you guys was when she didn't call Henry and tell him she had the tape. I learnt a hard lesson here: readers want characters that DO and ACT and are brave and forceful, or at the very least whose motivations are completely understandable. So Lauren's reluctance to ACT made her someone that the reader found difficult to like.

As for Lydia, if I were a reader of my own story I would have wanted more solid reasoning as to why she was so against Henry. And a bit more background about her and Aurelia.

Aurelia I felt was quite a weak character, in that I simply used her the whole way through to shed light on Henry's character. And there has to be a very strong, even stronger than for Lydia, reasoning for why she would want to screw her brother over to such a great extent.

And as for Annabel - why was she just so damn rotten? Well, I'm not really sure because I never gave her the room to explain. Other than that she was so besotted with Henry that she couldn't' help herself.

I think my characters were probably the weak point of the story (if you think the weakest element lay elsewhere please do comment below - I really want to learn and I thank you all for reading my book and taking the time to think about it!). They needed to be more rounded, real, consistent and compelling. Really strong individuals with real backstory and comprehensive reasons for acting/reacting the way they did to absolutely everything in the story.

PLOT:

Now these problems were tied up with my characters because, as aforementioned, I wrestled my characters into my plot in parts, rather than let the characters and their decisions form the plot.

I also found that the ending wasn't quite as high-tension and as full of excitement as I had wanted it to be, and this is probably because I rushed it.

And then there's the pregnancy. Cliche? Yes, I guess so (but then so was the whole idea of a very rich man and a poor girl, and their incredible sexual attraction). When I started out I hadn't really intended Lauren to get pregnant, because it is slightly ridiculous. But then again, it does happen to some people when they aren't planning for it, despite all our modern means of contraception. And then there was the talk of abortion. This riled a lot of people's feathers! It is a controversial issue and Lauren's attitude towards it annoyed almost everyone. I wanted her to maintain that desire to be independent and strong, and I did that by making her think she wanted to get rid of the child. Whether or not that is really what a girl like Lauren would have done I'm not sure. But I really didn't want her to see it as an opportunity to cash in on Henry's money.

PACING:

Hmm. Well this is a hard one, but I think it was a little off because the pacing slowed down towards the end and I know a lot of you found that the last few chapters dragged, which wasn't at all what I wanted to do...the end should be speeding up, racing to an exciting climax!

PROMISES:

Now I've read in a lot of blogs and books-on-writing that the writer makes a promise to the reader whenever the reader starts reading that first page. A promise that the book will be worth reading, enjoyable, satisfying in that all the questions raised will be answered. And here I think I failed slightly - what happened with Aurelia in the end was a big one. And Tony. I tried to answer some of these with the epilogue, but that's not the most satisfying way of doing it. Aurelia and Henry deserved their own opportunity to resolve their differences, and I didn't give it to them.

VERBS:

This is something I would improve on with a rewrite I think (hope). I know I use some phrases repetitively. For instance, I often write of one character turning towards another, turning back, turning round etc. I've read that 'turn' is one of those weak verbs that we should avoid as writers. And this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as my work goes. No doubt there are huge amounts of soggy verbs in there that don't do much at all.

There are so many other things I could start on about here...description, dialogue etc etc, but for now I'll stop.

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Well, that's about all I can think of right now, but if you have time do let me know what you think too!

I have loved writing this here and hearing what you all thought about it, and about my skills as a writer - where I can improve etc.

I really want my next story to be even better than this one, and I think I can do it. With some hard work, tenacity, determination and all the other good bits.

Thanks again for all your support, your comments and for reading my work!

RJ :)