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I've mentioned before that one of the most fun parts of writing my novels is discovering that bits of descriptive background that I included just for scene-setting turn out to include people or events that later turn out to be just what I need for the plot. It isn't always easy to pinpoint just how that happens, but today I had one of those "discoveries" with a very rapid development from seed to flower. So I thought it might be fun to blog it while it's still fresh.
Jeanne (one of the romantic protagonists in Book 2) is one of several guests that Margerit (one of the protagonists of Book 1) invited to her box for the debut of a new opera. While musing on the hodge-podge of fellow guests -- leftover social debts being paid off -- Jeanne compares the company to the opera itself: "He was known for his historic tragedies but tragedy had become far less popular than farce. His attempts to join the two made for an odd assortment." And I got to speculating offhand on what a composer would do if he found his work out of step with the taste of the day but hadn't the talent to change his direction. Well, in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer: plagiarize! And there came into my mind an amateur composer: a middle-class widow of straitened circumstances who had more talent than she realized and had shown a few pieces to a famous local composer to ask his advice and opinion. And without entirely meaning to, he finds himself using her work as his own and stringing her along. He'd like to see more compositions; she has some little talent and he'll see what he can do for her. By the time she realizes how he's been using her work, she can hardly claim it as her own -- no one would believe her. But she's also been supplementing her small income by taking in selected lodgers, including ... well, but that would be letting too much out of the bag. Book 3 is still very unformed and I wouldn't want to fix anything too solidly yet. But I think I just may have found the second romantic protagonist for Book 3.
Jeanne (one of the romantic protagonists in Book 2) is one of several guests that Margerit (one of the protagonists of Book 1) invited to her box for the debut of a new opera. While musing on the hodge-podge of fellow guests -- leftover social debts being paid off -- Jeanne compares the company to the opera itself: "He was known for his historic tragedies but tragedy had become far less popular than farce. His attempts to join the two made for an odd assortment." And I got to speculating offhand on what a composer would do if he found his work out of step with the taste of the day but hadn't the talent to change his direction. Well, in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer: plagiarize! And there came into my mind an amateur composer: a middle-class widow of straitened circumstances who had more talent than she realized and had shown a few pieces to a famous local composer to ask his advice and opinion. And without entirely meaning to, he finds himself using her work as his own and stringing her along. He'd like to see more compositions; she has some little talent and he'll see what he can do for her. By the time she realizes how he's been using her work, she can hardly claim it as her own -- no one would believe her. But she's also been supplementing her small income by taking in selected lodgers, including ... well, but that would be letting too much out of the bag. Book 3 is still very unformed and I wouldn't want to fix anything too solidly yet. But I think I just may have found the second romantic protagonist for Book 3.
