Harmony: Somebody remembered to pick me up the sweetest unicorn. Guess someone was feeling guilty for standing me up in tenth grade. Brad: What? Had to get her something. She sired me. Peaches: Sire-whipped.

'Beneath You'


The Great Write Way  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


Susan W. - Sep 28, 2004 7:59:47 am PDT #6858 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

OK, I think I've solved my problem. Not entirely happy with the outcome, but I think it'll work:

Those of you who followed a question I posted on Natter and Bitches about what might make a 19th century woman logically conclude she was infertile may remember I moved Lucy from 1810 to 1809 to make the 1811-12 setting of Anna be two years after Anna's marriage to Lucy's cavalry officer cousin Sebastian. At the start of Lucy, Sebastian is away from his regiment recuperating a leg wound that's left him temporarily unable to sit a horse. When I moved the setting to 1809, I thought it would work perfectly to have him wounded on the retreat to Corunna, since all the troops involved were evacuated back to England anyway, returning (so I thought) a few months later. All I'd have to do is make him not well enough to rejoin his regiment right away.

Except I remembered after already starting my rewrite that I really needed to do due diligence and make sure the regiment I'd picked for him was more or less where I needed it throughout both books and the two years in between. That's when I discovered that, best as I could piece together from brief online regimental histories and lists of battle honours, the cavalry regiments that were at Corunna, unlike the infantry, didn't return to the Peninsula until 1812 or 1813. Cue writerly angst. I didn't want to make Sebastian an infantry officer, though I could if I had to. And I really didn't want to invent a fictional regiment, because it just seems kinda sloppy to put Jack in a real one and not do the same for Sebastian.

So. After squinting at the list of battle honours for awhile, I noticed the 16th Light Dragoons were absolutely everywhere I needed them to be BUT Corunna. Poking around Google eventually revealed they arrived on the Peninsula in April 1809 and stayed for the duration. Problem is, Lucy opens in May 1809. My current idea is that Sebastian sustained some kind of accident (broken leg?) or illness around February March 1809 that left him in no shape to depart with the rest of his regiment. It changes him from "romantic wounded veteran" to "prickly and somewhat embarrassed at being absent from his unit at such a time," but I think my plot will still work. Right?


deborah grabien - Sep 28, 2004 8:24:01 am PDT #6859 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Actually, considering Sebastian's personality, I think it works even better. Let go the reins and tossed off his horse, perhaps, in front of superior officers, with a cracked tibia, or something?


Susan W. - Sep 28, 2004 8:33:45 am PDT #6860 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

Hmm. I don't want Sebastian to actually be an incompetent rider or anything, but I'm also not sure I want to give him a straightforward good rider fall like I gave James in the first chapter by having Ghost get spooked (pun intended) and refuse a fence. Maybe there's a new horse who's a bit of a brute, and Sebastian thinks he can be the one to tame him and gets thrown in the process?


deborah grabien - Sep 28, 2004 8:39:11 am PDT #6861 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Yes, exactly. Not incompetence: overreaching. That's where I was going with it.


Susan W. - Sep 28, 2004 8:50:12 am PDT #6862 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

And if he's afraid he's embarrassed himself in the eyes of his fellow officers, it'll make him all the more eager to court a superior officer's pretty, rich cousin. I like this.


erikaj - Sep 28, 2004 9:00:28 am PDT #6863 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

How do you decide who to kill?(Because, ok, it's noir. Somebody's ticket's getting punched. ) But I can't decide if it should be Mysterious Rich Hottie Client's Sister or if someone should die in the quest to protect MRHCS and she's in more of a "Can they save her before it's too late?" kind of deal. Most of my fiction doesn't go in for killing...except with sharp words.


deborah grabien - Sep 28, 2004 9:12:03 am PDT #6864 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

erika, it depends. How annoying is the sister, how vital is she to the continued happiness of the hottie brother?


Susan W. - Sep 28, 2004 9:19:55 am PDT #6865 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

Hmm. In my work I mostly kill people just to streamline the plot and get them out of the way (and, boy, is it easy to do in the late 18th and early 19th centuries--French bullets and consumption and childbed fever, oh my!). But I think you want to go for the most important person dying that you can make the rest of the story work without. IOW, kill the sister if you can, IMO.


erikaj - Sep 28, 2004 11:25:42 am PDT #6866 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

I could, defintely...there are still many ways to take a person out in this century.


Susan W. - Sep 28, 2004 11:27:41 am PDT #6867 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

Yep. The beauty of the past for a death-minded writer is it's just so easy to kill people young without necessarily resorting to violence.