One of the things I enjoyed during the Month of Letters Challenge was sending letters from Jane. One of them has arrived and the recipient posted a photo online. As you can see, I sometimes had a good deal of fun as in this case where Jane included a costume sketch. That is written with an actual quill.
This particular drawing is of a real dress which Jane might indeed have seen at a party in Binché, where she is writing the letter from. I have a calendar that I used to keep track of the plot and how it fit into the historical world events.
For these letters, I was having Jane write “in real time” which means that the day of the month is the same, but she’s in 1815. That means she’s smack in the middle of events in Glamour in Glass
What I found fascinating about the exercise was the process of thinking about Jane’s life outside the confines of plot. For instance, Jane wrote this letter on February 20th. I have plot events on February 6th and February 28th.
What does she do in between?
I often talk about how important it is to give your characters a life outside the plot. The exercise of writing letters for Jane really drives that home. I might start doing this for other characters.
But perhaps not with a quill pen.
I love reading about the Month of Letters challenge, and especially about the experience of writing from a character’s viewpoint. Fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I love reading about the Month of Letters challenge, and especially about the experience of writing from a character’s viewpoint. Fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I love reading about the Month of Letters challenge, and especially about the experience of writing from a character’s viewpoint. Fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I love reading about the Month of Letters challenge, and especially about the experience of writing from a character’s viewpoint. Fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I love reading about the Month of Letters challenge, and especially about the experience of writing from a character’s viewpoint. Fascinating stuff. Thank you!
I loved my letter – thank you so much! The sketch is so lovely too. It would be really interesting to have Melody or Vincent answer letters sometime since their tones will be so different from Jane’s. I also really like the idea of interspersing these letters in with the story so that you’ve filled in the timeline even if it’s not in the book.
I thought about offering letters from Vincent, but I wasn’t confident that I could manage his handwriting.
How wonderful! I gave my little update on my challenge this morning and mentioned you in my post. I hope you get a chance to stop by and visit! My life is forever changed! ? Thank you!
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