Well, the one thing that's going to get Jack into deep trouble is the fact he's not hiding his contempt for someone who outranks him quite as well as he thinks he is. Which will lead to that officer having no compunction whatsoever about screwing him over when he has an opportunity to advance his own interests by doing so. But still, Jack isn't the one with the big flaw here--letting frustration with incompetence show is pretty minor compared to blackmail and threatened murder.

Beverly, it sounds like I have the opposite problem--I'm not a visual thinker, and the only things in my stories I see clearly are the characters themselves. I have to work very hard to imagine things like room furnishings or anything more specific to scenery than "hilly" or "wooded."

I'm entirely too wordy. When I'm actually, you know, writing. I drown readers in detail.

I was trying to practice a spare style. I think I did it entirely too well.

Bev, Deena suggested a few points - I want to do them up in the morning (won't take more than a minute or two) and I'll send then. And thanks, love.

I like spare that's also sensual - I'm a sensualist in pretty much everything, including writing, but sensual to me doesn't necessarily mean detailed. I like using descriptions like freight trains: ten words should imply fifty, if I'm doing my job.

Susan, rather than making Jack faulty, why not make the fault be that he can't see the good in someone he holds in contempt?

I'm a sensualist in pretty much everything, including writing, but sensual to me doesn't necessarily mean detailed. I like using descriptions like freight trains: ten words should imply fifty, if I'm doing my job. (italics mine for emphasis).

Yessss! What I love about your work, and go over with a would-be writer's magnifying glass and a wistful trace of envy. "How does she do that!"

why not make the fault be that he can't see the good in someone he holds in contempt?

I dunno. I can't have too much good in this guy, because he needs to be the villain of the piece to keep the plot moving. However, hopefully at least some of my readers will pick up on the fact that the villain is weak and desperate rather than mustache-twirling evil, and that even so he probably wouldn't have tried to solve his problems by blackmailing Anna and Jack if they hadn't both snubbed him earlier in the story.

But it's early days yet. I've only just now finished Chapter Two. Maybe Jack will reveal enough flaws to avoid Marty-Stu-ishness as I go along.

My characters are too civilized. Bet you a million dollars nobody says that about me.

However, hopefully at least some of my readers will pick up on the fact that the villain is weak and desperate rather than mustache-twirling evil, and that even so he probably wouldn't have tried to solve his problems by blackmailing Anna and Jack if they hadn't both snubbed him earlier in the story.

Susan, that seems to make it even easier .' Weak and desperate' is far more interesting than "mustache-twirling", as we all know; and if the tragedy (conflict, whatever word you'd like here) is that they've brought this situation on themselves by small human foibles, and are now looping it and caught in it, then you're really getting into the full banquet of Austen.

Well, by eschewing Mortal Enemies and spy subplots, I'm already deeply in Austenish territory, at least for a Peninsular War romance--the war matters, of course, but the character conflicts are all about money, class differences, and sex.

Yeah. Real bad guys stopped tying people to railroad tracks...I'm guessing it's a union thing.

Susan, yup - but I was thinking more about the way in which those particular human foibles are handled. Always remembering, of course, that I love "Persuasion" above all else in the Austen canon.