For several years, Lincoln was my county town and, for centuries before that, it was the county town for many of my ancestors. So, today, for the #HistFicThursdays blog, I'm delighted to be hosting Rachel Elwiss Joyce with a guest post about her book Lady of Lincoln , as part of her Coffee Pot Book Club tour! Read on to find out more about the woman who inspired this book and where her place in history is secured forever. But first, let's meet the book... Blurb A true story. A forgotten heroine. In a time when women were told to stay silent, could she become the saviour her people need? 12th-century England. Nicola de la Haye wants to do her duty. But though she’s taught a female cannot lead alone, the young noblewoman bristles at the marriage her father has arranged to secure her inheritance. And when an unexpected death leaves her unguided, the impetuous girl shuns the king’s blessing and weds a handsome-but-landless knight. Harshly fined by...
I'm quite confident that, if I start this blog with "remember the scythe?", most people reading it are going to immediately know where I'm pointing you to!
That's right: Poldark. Now, I know that the series with Aidan Turner and his famous scythe was actually a remake of an earlier programme, but let's just focus on this more recent iteration of Winston Graham's novels about the eponymous Cornish hero.
One of the things which is so wonderful about Poldark as a series - not only onscreen but even more so in the novels - is that it covers such a vast period of time. Because of the time in which it is set, there are huge local and global changes taking place around the characters and, when you have been invested in them for so long, you can really experience the upheaval alongside them.
This is something I attempted with (what I hope) was a reasonable degree of success in my Early Story of the Rite trilogy. If it ever actually appears on bookshelves, it won't be called that, but it's still very much in the early stages. I love that one character appears in all three books: main character, supporting character, bit part*...
In Poldark, this is represented not only by his screen time (which decreases sneakily as the series progresses and we become involved in the stories of Morwenna, or Doctor Enys) but also by the subtle fading of that significant scar which stretches down his face. If there's one thing that Poldark reminds us as viewers, it's that scars fade but never fully disappear.
Poldark is a great opportunity to lose yourself in the story of one person and, even as we start to move away from Ross's story (there is only so much happily-ever-after that tv is willing to show us), there is still a sense of the ripple effect: everything we are seeing as part of the story results from either a decision Ross made or else something which happened to him.
So, it's a great one for watching to immerse yourself in characterisation: to notice how one character can impact on the lives of so many more. And this is something which I thoroughly enjoy developing as an author, and experiencing as both a reader and a viewer.
*this breakdown will never not make me think of the original lordoftherings.net, which convinced me that the cast list for every film was split into "The Fellowship, Supporting Cast, Bit Parts"
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