Across genres, we
accept the importance of bonds between brothers; I would argue that in
speculative fiction, at least, we give less weight to the loyalty and emotional
intimacy between sisters. This may be due to the domestic setting for sisterly
concerns. Brothers march off to war together, but sisters hold hands when one
is giving birth. If one or both is unmarried, sisters set up housekeeping
together, often living their entire lives under the same roof. Yet the
relationship between sisters opens many fascinating and challenging story
possibilities.
I’ve found that once
I step away from the models of male-bonding or male-female romantic love as the
only possibilities for central relationships, my stories get a lot more
interesting and also emotionally powerful. They don’t necessarily have to be
the sole or pivotal bonds in a story. Just as in real life, they form a
critical foundation for any social setting.
Thunderlord’s emotional heart is the relationship between
the two Rockraven sisters, Kyria and Alayna. This being Darkover, I also
included plenty of action and adventures — banshees and laran and bandits, oh my. Through all this — and a love story or
two — the sisters are so integral to the tale that at times I felt as if I were
channeling Elizabeth and Jane from Pride
and Prejudice (or Marianne and Elinor from Sense and Sensibility). Sisters are not always close, but when they
are, the relationships are complex, rich, and enduring. Lovers may come and go,
the saying goes, but sisterhood is forever.
I didn’t set out to
write “The Bennett Sisters on Darkover.” I began with a few pages of Marion’s
notes on a sequel to Stormqueen,
almost all of it backstory, and the title of the proposed book. I didn’t want
to repeat the general plot of Stormqueen
or its tragic ending, and I also wanted to experience whatever adventure the
story took me on through the eyes of fresh, new characters.
Although the
Rockraven family isn’t anything like the Bennetts, I kept finding similarities:
a noble but impoverished family, the pressure for one or both girls to secure
the family’s financial future by their marriages, their wistful longing to
marry for love, how the sisters are different but devoted to each other, and so
forth. There are no balls in the neighborhood, no mother with imaginary
illnesses scheming to “make a good marriage” for her daughters, no problem
about the inheritance of the estate, and certainly no Mr. Darcy to be
unpleasant to everyone. Practical Kyria deals with her family’s poverty by
donning her brother’s clothes and trapping animals for food. Romantic Alayna
dreams of love stories while understanding that such a happy ending means they
must be parted, most likely forever. Distances on Darkover are much greater
than in Regency England!
Kyria and Alayna
made their entrance in my first draft as fairly conventional characters: the tomboy
and the dreamer. I added Kyria – but not Alayna -- having inherited the
Rockraven storm-sense laran into the
mix, along with family legends of scandalous Great-Aunt Aliciane (who was Lord
Aldaran’s ill-fated mistress in Stormqueen) and “The Rockraven Curse.” Kyria
developed pretty much along the lines I’d initially set for her. When, for
instance, she leaps on the back of a banshee, armed only with a knife, that does
not present a radical departure from her character, as it would have been for
Alayna.
Alayna, initially
less interesting to me, nevertheless led me down some unexpected twists and
turns. She grew more in the course of her adventures, in part because she had a
longer distance to cover in terms of becoming her own person. She didn’t astonish
me when she moved from timidity to desperation to heroism. Her compassion and
her bravery in standing up for the people in her care did take me by
surprise. I had no idea of her inner strength, a strength that comes from depth
of heart instead of muscle and will-power.
By far the biggest revelations
came from the minor women characters, in particular Ellimira and Dimitra.
Ellimira, wife of the heir to the Rockraven estate and therefore chatelaine of
the house, began as a fairly standard scolding, demanding older kinswoman. Not
quite an evil stepmother (or, in this case, sister-in-law) but one laboring
under the responsibilities of making too little stretch too far while somehow
tending to her own children and husband. Yet when she bid Kyria and Alayna
farewell, she presented me with a moment of insight: she has not seen her own
family since her wedding, and if I knew nothing of whom she missed and what she
had left behind, it was because she was such a private person, she would never
volunteer that information and no one would ever think to ask, they were so
busy either scrambling to obey her orders or trying to escape her notice. She
never did tell me, but as this was not her story, I left her secrets for the
reader to guess. Perhaps she will, in between counting the holes in the linens
and nursing the baby who surely must have been born by now, suggest that I
write it.
Dimitra made her
entrance as the lady-in-waiting who takes Alayna under her wing upon her
arrival at Scathfell Castle: competent, motherly, a bit chatty. Very quickly,
it became apparent that she had a mind and agenda of her own. What was she up to with Dom Nevin? And why – money? a secret passion? rebellion against
Lord Scathfell? When Nevin’s scheme was unveiled, Dimitra became the catalyst
for Alayna’s kindness and sense of justice to overcome her timidity, and this
later returned in a much more powerful way when Dimitra fell ill. Although a
secondary character, Dimitra had a pretty remarkable story arc, moving from
motherly guide to traitor to dying woman to loyal accomplice.
I hope you enjoy reading
about these wonderful women characters as much as I did writing them. I lack
Jane Austen’s wit and keen social insight, but if you hanker to read about
women’s relationships and growth (along with adventure, thunderstorms, a
banshee attack, and a couple of love-never-did-run-smooth stories), I hope you’ll
check out Thunderlord.
No comments:
Post a Comment