Jenni Fletcher joins us on the blog to talk about her new book, Cinderella’s Deal With The Colonel.
She also reveals more about the start of the writing process, and how a project she planned to be ‘a Cinderella meets Enemies-to-Lovers (with a hint of Mistaken Identity) meets Forced Proximity, Workplace romance’ morphed into something a little different…
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I’m pretty sure most writers like beginnings. I don’t have any research to back this up, but it makes sense. For the first few pages of a new story, everything is clear. You know (roughly) who your characters are and what issues they’re dealing with, you have an initiating incident, you’re still in control of the narrative and it’s all fun. You remember why you love writing! But then stuff happens, your characters start to flex their muscles and everything goes, maybe not wrong exactly, but… blurry. You lose focus. There are plot holes and inconsistencies that need fixing, as well as a saggy middle to avoid and a climax to build to, and then somehow, everything needs to be wrapped up neatly so it looks like you knew what you were doing the whole time. Which is why beginnings are fun and endings are a headachy nightmare.
So that’s my perspective. I love beginnings, which is why in Cinderella’s Deal With The Colonel, I decided to make the opening as loooooong as possible. I thought up an initiating incident – bankruptcy and the collapse of a building project – that would affect all of the characters, not just Theo and Abigail, my hero and heroine. That way, I figured I could keep things under control for at least half a dozen chapters and maybe by then I’d have figured out the rest of the plot anyway. And just so that A&T didn’t get any ideas about taking over their own story, I decided to give them as many problems as I could think of (which in retrospect seems a little overkill). I made them both utterly wretched and then brought them together so that I could keep an eye on them.
So far, so good. I felt quite smug all the way through the first six chapters. I was going for a Cinderella meets Enemies-to-Lovers (with a hint of Mistaken Identity) meets Forced Proximity, Workplace romance and I thought I had it all figured out. Obviously I was wrong.
For a start, my characters kept morphing. I blame the second series of SANDITON for this because it was on around the same time I started writing. I’m easily influenced by period dramas, but this one was such a brilliant ensemble piece that I kept switching allegiance between characters. First of all, Abigail and Theo looked like Charlotte and Colonel Maddox. Then, when a random plot twist turned Maddox into a baddie, they changed shape into Alison and Captain Fraser. And just when I thought they were settled, they would occasionally switch into Charlotte and Colbourne. It was so inconvenient and confusing!
It didn’t help that once I’d finally wrestled my main characters into shape, other ones took over. I love family dramas and Theo’s sister-in-law and nieces were too insistent to leave out. I also wanted to write some proper villains, so I couldn’t resist Abigail’s lying ex-fiancé and Theo’s horrible Marquess brother. Then one of Theo’s nieces somehow inveigled herself a Season, because a Regency story doesn’t feel quite right without a bit of waltzing, then there was a natural disaster which I didn’t see coming, and a whole sub-plot about Regency building projects which I had to wrap up in the most romantic way possible (FYI not easy). So basically, things got out of hand.
But in the end, I’m glad they did. Because although I really, really wish writing were easier, I’m not sure I’d trust a story where I knew entirely what I was doing. Human nature is complicated so characters need to be too. They can’t be controlled or told what to do so easily. Conflicts and motivations need to adapt and change, which means the plot needs to as well. It’s a nightmare, but it’s necessary. So maybe six chapters of knowing what I’m doing is the very best I can hope for, but next time, I’m still going for seven!
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Cinderella’s Deal With The Colonel by Jenni Fletcher
When a marquess’s scheme leads to the debt and demise of Abigail’s father she wants retribution! Only her plans of confronting the scoundrel go awry when his handsome younger brother Colonel Theodore Marshall offers her a job as his secretary. Theo’s deal helps Abigail rescue her family from financial ruin, but working so closely with him isn’t as easy as she expected. Especially when each encounter sparks with tension!
