I did read, possibly on a school's literature site, that Nick says he's not judgmental and then judges people, doesn't rake over the past and then tells this story, and Jordan breaks up with him because he's just as dishonest as everyone else. I guess only F Scott Fitzgerald knows the whole truth.
Chapter 2 in the now 5 part introduction. Thinking about the floor plan it was logical for Bill to be in this room. I have written Chapter 3 which is called "Supper", Chapter 4 is "Dream" and Chapter 5 is "The Interview" in which staff finally make an impression. Chapter 2 – The Arrival Just beyond High Wycombe on the main road from London to Oxford, Nicholas Smith, the driver of the carriage, turned right towards some woods. “Did you have a good journey out here, sir?” Nicholas enquired by way of making conversation. “Perfectly fine” William Wood replied “But I was not expecting such luxury.” “Ah well, James, the chauffer, is waiting on a call from The Honourable Percival in case he needs picking up from Oxford. Just around the corner now … there you go, Cocksworth Hall.” It was still a few hundred yards away but Bill was a little disappointed that instead of being some baroque monstrosity it looked just like an ordinary mundane everyday palace, except for a shining central dome. Nicholas stopped the horses, stepped down and spoke into some device. An equally smartly dressed man appeared from the gatehouse and let the vehicle into the grounds. Nicholas acknowledged him and proceeded towards the house. The Earl’s seat, which was most of the width of the garden, had 2 wings extending forwards. Bill’s eyes were drawn to the scrubland forming the only gap in the wood from which a horse was galloping towards them. As it and its rider passed close, his jaw dropped. “Wha … wha … wha” was all he could manage. “Oh that’s Lady Angelica, sir” as the view of bouncing breasts was replaced by bouncing buttocks, “Somewhat of a free spirit.” “And that’s normal, Nicholas?” Bill inadvertently stressed the last syllable “I mean I barely noticed.” “Good one, sir. The Countess said you had a way with words.” as they pulled up to the house. A footman approached them and informed Bill that the family had just retired to change for dinner so he would escort him to his room. “I suppose you were thinking all us servants would be there to greet you, but we only do that for the knobs” the footman said as he led Bill up the highly decorated staircase. “Not sure why you’ve got this room.” Bill was sure staff were not supposed to be this impertinent but he let it lie. “I’m John by the way, the more productive part of Dick and Balls.” He opened the door to what appeared to be a cupboard and then a second door to a magnificent bedroom. “I’ll be back with your bags in a minute … sir.” The journalist made his way past the immaculately turned out double bed to a window where he could see a very large pond the entire width of the house in front of yet more trees. John returned and Bill decided to tip him. The footman seemed temporarily confused, but took the money anyway. “Thank you, sir. Someone will come and collect you for dinner. I shall inform the Earl of your arrival. And that door is to your bathroom.” “Thank you, John. You may go.” “I was going already, sir.” and he shut the doors behind him. After the journey, Bill felt he really needed a bath so he undressed quickly. An image of Lady Angelica Godiva flashed through his head and he could not help but rise. He opened the door and very quickly closed it. There had been a woman, naked, bending over the taps. He had no idea who. He thought about the layout of the room and decided it must be a shared bathroom, but why had they put him next to a woman? Is this what the footman meant about the suitability of the room? Had she seen him? In a mirror, perhaps? Had she seen his erection? He sat down on the chair, visibly shaking. Is this what he had to handle? The image of the bather’s behind was imprinted on Bill’s mind. Long dark hair seemed to point at her the arse crack and the Thing below. Being a doctor’s son he grew up knowing about anatomy, but the truth was the only times he had seen ones in the flesh were on autopsy benches, which he would rather forget about, and on an assignment investigating a high class brothel, when he had asked the girl to cover up. Nice girls tended not to show him theirs when he courted. He was 26, and he liked women a lot, but he was still a virgin. While he was still reflecting, there was a knock at the bathroom door and a woman shouted from the other side “Please accept for my apology for earlier. Nobody told me there was someone next door. I have finished in here so, if you want to take care of yourself, be my guest. I’m Ada.” “Bill.” “See you at supper.” Taking care of himself seemed like a good idea until he remembered Ada could walk in at any time, so he simply bathed. There was a shower, but he had no idea how to operate it. It was something to look forward to tonight.
Coincidentally (not for research!) went to the local stately home today. My family were intrigued when I paced around the outside. This was not at all like Cockshoots Hall being largely Tudor and a bit higgledy-piggledy and in a much more picturesque setting, but it was not even the seat of a Barony, just the occasional knight. Even this, being 50 yards by 30 yards (assuming my stride is slightly less than a yard) with stables and a gatehouse, was an impressive size. Also don't ask me where the plumbing goes in Cockshoots Hall. There's obviously roof space for the shower, except for the Earl and Countess, so maybe no shower for them, and also there's a little gap between the corridors and the rooms which can reach into the bathrooms but when it goes after is a mystery to me. I assume nobody else will care about that. There's probably roof access from the outside, although I'd like to think there are metal staircases up too the outside of the dome. It is possible an original house burnt down leaving only the chapel intact and was rebuilt in the 19th century to a functional design and then the current occupants added the dome and showers. Now I know I'm overthinking this!
Writing Chapter 4, I was excited. All shall be revealed soon. And here's a scene from Chapter 5 as Madeleine makes notes. I had this idea that Madeleine was seated so you could see underneath the table that she was not wearing any bloomers, but this picture being close to what I had imagined influenced me so that I changed my thoughts to match it.
Is this OK as an introduction? Introduction This is not a spoof but a story inspired by “Downton Abbey”. The similarities are: · it is set in a Great House, although not as grand; · the owner is a member of the English nobility; · several children have not yet flown the nest; · the time is the early part of the 20th century; · it is about the staff as well as the aristocrats. The differences are: · the family and associates are somewhat libertarian and libertine; · the staff behave in a way which would not be tolerated anywhere else; · sex is everywhere. The second big influence was the Bloomsbury Group. in particular Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Bell She and husband Clive Bell had a very open marriage and many partners of either sex. The maid Sarah, played by Oscar nominee Pauline Collins in "Upstairs Downstairs"(a UK TV series from the 1970s), who posed nude and had strongly implied sexual relations with both genders is just the kind of servant to be employed at Cockshoots Hall. This would be before the 5 threads about Bill Wood's arrival at Cockshoots Hall, after which I shall post all the details of the character and house life as well as a story guide with suggestions.
Would a nod to the Bloomsbury group or other relevant influences be in order as part of the introduction?
Thanks, yes. I've amended it. I suppose Sarah opened up the possibilities as to what servants got up to in single sex quarters. Sebastian from "Brideshead Revisited" was the model for Percy and Elfin from "Cold Comfort Farm" partly inspired Angelica, but I don't want to over reference. The plot device of having a journalist observer visit your world is well trodden one.
Zingiber, you mentioned problems with the link and thanks for the feedback. Yes I had noticed that it periodically fails. It seems to make no sense. When I saw this picture I at first thought of the Countess, but then what if Edmonia had dyed her hair blonde? I have given neither them a predilection for spanking and even though the Countess is well preserved (Flora might just have a hand in this) I thought the woman in the picture looked a bit too young. However the model is so stunning (the hair, the breasts) it had to be Countess, but maybe aged 35. Following your (Zingiber's) example in "Lucy's Portion" I am working on suggesting various storylines but if people go straight to the couplings, that is fine as far as I am concerned. My intention was to write this just as a setup for other writers to play with, but obviously it feels very tempting to turn this into a full story. With a TV series they just could not cope with 40 characters (9 family and associates, 29 servants, the journalist, 1 new servant), but here there is far more scope. Everyone is interesting, particularly in this house otherwise they would not be there! Regarding the new servant (who will appear in Chapter 5): it seemed to me that with some of the outdoor staff needing a meal as well, they would have a small dining area somewhere in the stable/garage annex, and given there are only 3 involved with the cooking (scullery and between maids fetch and carry) and 3 groups to cook for, I thought the kitchen was where the most pressure was, especially as it might free up Eliza a bit for other duties ... the senior staff should be pleased about that. Because of this particular person's farming background, she is also going to look after a couple of goats brought in to provide milk, which should bring her into contact with some of the outside staff during the day as well as at the evening meal. Now to think about the house servants' sleeping arrangements ...
Here's some feedback on your writing as promised. Please keep in mind that I'm no writing expert, so feel free to take my comments and suggestions with a truck load of salt. The first thing I noticed overall was formatting. I know you use Word, and unfortunately, copying and pasting from word to chyoo seems to kill formatting. For example, all your dialogue here: Chapter 1 - The Countess, has been mashed together in a single block without any lines of separation, making it harder to read. I suggest reformatting your Word document into single spaced and removing the automatic spacing after paragraphs. Just manually add an additional carriage return after each paragraph. This makes transferring your work easier when you want to post it. The second issue I think you need to pay attention to is how your write your dialogue, this is something I struggle with as well. For example: Lady Edmonia, she hated the title but was not above using it to get a better seat, was the Countess’s middle child and quite a character. Few women turn up to an interview in a double breasted leather jacket and jodhpurs. Even fewer have blue hair and matching make-up. The referenced article had been about the next stage for the suffragettes, once they had the vote. “I was impressed with her. She is a remarkably intelligent and assured woman.” “And she was impressed with you. In fact she was very excited. She is an unusual girl.” “Unconventional maybe, but all the more intriguing because of it.” “Are you really surprised? You have researched our family, I assume.” Your prose feels like third person omniscient, so describing Edmonia's views about her title and jumping straight into speaking made me think that it was the countess leading off the the block of speech after musing on her daughter. A descriptive lead in or lead out about who is speaking the first line is needed here, I think. “Lady …” She put a finger to her bee-stung lips. “Darcey, not that I am not extremely flattered but, why did you want to see me? I do not review books or write about Society.” I had to read this twice before I understood who was speaking, since the reference to putting a finger to her lips initially had me thinking it was the countess talking at the time. Putting in a reference to Bill would help. “Lady …” Bill paused as The Countess put a finger to her bee-stung lips, “Darcey, not that I am not extremely flattered but, why did you want to see me? I do not review books or write about Society.” In general, the dialogue could use a few more descriptive identifiers for who is speaking at the time. I find that the most common usage of straight switching dialogue like you have used in your first chapter is to help speed up the pace of speech into a quick back and forth. The feel of the discussion here feels more casual and slow paced so adding descriptive text, like he said and she said, would help emphasize this. The countess' speech read very much as a noble that was trying to sound more common and casual, but who occasionally forgot herself and slipped into her usual way of speaking. If that was your intention, good job! I also think that you may want to be more aware of your tenses and your word choice when associated with them. They were what is known as High Bohemians; liberals and libertines, well off, and/or talented, enough to behave how they wanted without materially affecting their lives. Probably should be written as: They were known as High Bohemians; London, 1921, just coming out of the post war malaise but not quite into the full roar of the flapper’s decade, and Bill Wood entered the Ritz Hotel for the first time. Starts off as present tense and then switches to past at the end. Perhaps: London in 1921, was just coming out of the post war malaise, but not quite into the full roar of the flapper's decade. I'd actually argue that the bit about Bill's entrance should be a separate sentence. There are also a few awkward bits where you could trim out a few redundant bits of description like: Noel Coward was entertaining, loudly, in the main dining room. The place was packed with famous people he would have loved to interview, but today he was being led to a private dining room to meet with a little known author whose novels might be described as difficult. He was no critic, but fiction without a discernible plot was certainly an intellectual exercise. Perhaps: ...in the main dining room. It was filled with the famous, any one of which he would have loved to interview, but today he was being led to a private room... Other than that I suspect that your biggest challenge with writing this story will be keeping the in-period feel. So far, I'd say it's a job well done.
I'm really grateful for your input I imagine you are looking at the paragraph beginning "Delighted ...". Part of the problem is that I often use a lot of dialogue so if I separated it out, it would make the text even longer, but I grant you this bit looks particularly clunky. If someone else is speaking the dialogue I tend to put it on a new line but I'm probably not consistent being rather arbitrary about where I use a line break - it probably depends on how far I am into the paragraph. You have hit upon one of my biggest problems. I am struggling to transfer from seeing it from Bill's point of view to treating Bill as a character. Having a character like Bill as the observer is fine - we follow him - but things need describing that arer outside his knowledge.Hence the problem wth Edmonia. I deliberately tried to turn omniscient at this point but it does feel I start of by saying Edmonia doesn't like her title (but she could have directly told Bill so it's his view of her, but she's unlikely to have volunteered the extra information of the context she does use it in) and then the omniscient part called almost have been Bill's opinion. However I know that's not your point, more the juxtaposing of the omniscient and the dialogue. Short of using italics it's not easy to make the jump. Narratively I had to say something about Edmonia and if I can avoid the "he said ... she said" part even using different verbs I will. Usually it should be obvious who is speaking and to whom. "I was impressed her ..." can only be Bill talking to the Countess. However I shall look into this as there are probably examples all of my writing. I know what you mean about the "bee-stung" part. I did wonder whether it was misleading but from what I said above you have probably guessed what my defence of that is. That was my intention. Some of the nobles find it easier than others to have a conversation without remembering who they are. It is particularly awkward in that first conversation with somebody else. At certain times they have to act who they are rather than who they claim they want to be. They are still trying to run a Great House simply because the tradition seeps through them and people expect them to speak and behave in a certain way. "They were what are known as High Bohemians" - present tense because its what the would be called now rather than at the time. I could say "London, 1921, was just coming out of the post war malaise but had not yet heard the full roar of the flapper's decade, when Bill ..." - it's almost as though I had a silent was because I wanted the sentence to be punchier. The mention of Noel Coward, who was a regular at the Ritz, is very evocative for any period piece. No other figure can really convey the sense of Englishness and decadence that he can, so mentioning him does a lot of work for me. I am not sure he would have wanted to interview all of them ... but again I am trapped in the Bill POV. "Everywhere he looked there were famous people, several of whom he would have loved to have interviewed. Instead ..." I think the main challenge is probably the dialogue, which is almost impossible to keep authentic. In fact there is a certain user friendliness to it in avoiding dialect. In particular, while people say things that only they would say, I struggle to give a character an individual style of speech. Thanks very much for your criticism (everything you wrote was valild) and for your nice comment at the end. Some of my failings I was kind of aware of. You have pointed out some grammatical errors but as an ex software engineer I am aware people do not see there own mistakes not matter how often they look at them. I shall keep what you have said in mind. Unfortunately I have already written the first 5 chapters so you might spot similar failings - which I hope to eliminate later. In fact I have implemented some of your suggestions into the live version.
I think that in the case of dialogue, making it easy for the reader to comprehend outweighs making the section look longer. But either way, you probably should pick a consistent formatting so that the reader can at least get used to how you do things. Switching mid-scene from omniscient to limited is probably always going to be awkward. You might be better off just sticking to one in each scene or setting and only use omniscient in a whole scene when you really need to reveal information that is unknown to the character's in it. I suspect that you don't want to go full on omniscient since it creates so much distance between the reader and the characters. The other alternatives I can think of are either switching limited perspectives from character to character depending on the scene or writing with a broad limited perspective that includes one or two more of the other immediate characters. Including the Countess in the limited perspective along with Bill would for instance would help smooth the transition when talking her daughter as you would be revealing passing thoughts and knowledge that she had. Personally, I think it might be more interesting to keep the narrower focus and allow the audience to discover things along with the characters, but I'm terribly biased as a single character third person perspective is my favourite since it allows a lot of unknowns in what is actually happening. In terms of the knowledge of who Noel Coward is, I actually think you could safely say that Bill should know who the man is. As a reporter and as someone who did research before his meeting with the countess, I think he would have hit upon the man as being a fixture of the Ritz and someone that he would know through gossip and general reputation if he is that prominent. You could just throw in a line about how he discovered the information, since at this point we don't quite know that Bill is a newspaper columnist/reporter. Just a throw away, "Confirming the gossip and the man's reputation, there in the centre of the room stood Noel Coward...." It might help in the future, if you pause and carefully think about if any of the information you might want to reveal in an omniscient view could actually be known by the in POV character. As long as there's a reasonable and logical explanation, it shouldn't jar the readers out of the story. In this respect, I think making Bill a reporter/columnist is a great choice, since readers would expect him to have a lot of general knowledge about the world around him and would still allow you to portray him as being a bit out of his depth when he finally settles into the Hall, as I think you want to do. The fact that you already said that he wasn't a society writer also allows you to setup situations where he may have some preconceived notions about the 'nobles', gleaned from coworkers. You can then surprise him with how biased or completely wrong that knowledge is. Well, the only suggestion I could make here is maybe to take advantage of the distinct differences in accent between various regions and classes that can be found in the UK. I know that the gentry all probably speak with a similar diction and tone, but the servants and Bill himself could be easily made more distinct this way. For example, if you think you can pull it off, maybe inject a more common manner of speaking or an accent into the driver or footman that only peeks out when muttering an aside that they didn't intend Bill to hear. Maybe you can do something with “I was going already, sir.” and he shut the doors behind him. Making it: "Of course, sir," John said before he shut the doors, cutting off a barely whipspered, "...pillo--" Accents are hard, so the other way to do it would probably be to reserve sets of words to only be used regularly in spoken dialogue by certain individuals or certain classes of individuals. Hope this helps.
So far I've written 1st person and 3rd person omniscient so while the observer character is a good idea I need more practice at it. The good thing is that this is only 5 chapters to try and introduce a feel. Bill is a device to start the story, this is not his story. In fact he observes rather than opines, which is just as well because if he stops to think too much his mind might be blown. Admittedly he was a little shocked about what he found but they'll explain it and he'll get over it soon. Rather than writing a social commentary, he'll probably be more inspired to write a shocking novel. As far as Bill's views on the nobles, he already knows Cockshoots Hall would provide a very peculiar example of their life, so he does not know what to expect. Not sure I understand the Noel Coward point. Whether Bill knows who he is or not is irrelevant, Noel provides colour. I am showing the Ritz is a happening place. The fact that this is Bill's first visit is meant to indicate that this assignment is a little different for him. Without an invite, he would probably find it hard to get in and might not be aware of its clientele. The famous people he might recognise are politicians, philosophers or industrialists, so maybe he is surprised to see some of there. He interviewed Edmonia, probably because she authored a political pamphlet or someone tipped him off that she had interesting views. There's no need to say any of this. If Darcey wants to meet somebody in London, this is the perfect venue. Accents: there are the aristos, Northerners (like Bill), Celts, Londoners and locals - I might hear them in their dialect as I write but I'm not going to put the effort in to making them sound authentic. Can't really have Nicholas "How's tha sen?". In a normal house the aristos wouldn't even hear most of the servant's speak and certainly not in the manner Bill (as a guest he automatically becomes a pseudo aristo) heard John. In fact John is giving a message to Bill by the way that he speaks to him although, if the butler overheard, John would probably get reprimanded because there are limits. I think your idea of personal words is a good one.
Sorry, I guess I wasn't being clear. The point about how Bill likely knows about the man, means that you can provide colour to the scene through observations about Bill and his thoughts about it. It can be something that Bill observes and through the narrator's own observations of Bill, it can be made known to the reader. So instead of the narrator outright stating and making known things like the history of a place; if there was a history buff character, the information could be channeled through him. There may be other bits of information about a scene, in your future chapters, which you could reveal through a character's thoughts and words without putting it purely the hands of a more distant view of an omniscient observer. You said earlier that you're struggling in treating Bill as a character and not the main POV. Since the omniscient observer has access to Bill's thoughts and words, using this access might help you in the transition. It would allow you to treat some information as character knowledge, and write it as observed character knowledge. This way you'll have less true outside character-in-scene knowledge to grapple with in the omniscient observer view. As a bonus, in some cases, revealing knowledge in this way may add to the definition and unique personality of a character. As for not wanting to actually write in the accents, I don't blame you. With modern spell checkers, I'd imagine it being a nightmare. However, I do have some further thoughts on accents... If you want a cheap and dirty way to inject accents without actually writing them out, you could just use descriptors like 'nasally' or just describe them as speaking as, 'said in Northern accent'. It might help readers who know what it sounds like to imagine it, and for those who have no idea, it may be enough for them to know that the character is different.
Thanks for the explanation. It might be an exercise for me to write the story in 2 different ways so I can try to master the differences. Reading through Chapters 3-5 it really is nearly all through Bill's eyes anyway. I suppose it's a bit like in 'Hard Times' by Dickens (I did that at school and Uni!) for which he tended to concentrate on one character at a time, possibly over one chapter, possibly over 3 (as I think that was the size of each magazine submission which he often rushed to finish) but as I remember it was not just their perspective, but also other people's perception of them.
I was hoping it would have an entry there because there are so many stories to come out of this. What is the protocol for moving? Do I PM Friedman? Glad you liked the Edmonia story, Zingiber Obviously she can't hide this from her mother and Ada, but do the rest of the family know? One of the features of this house is that it is difficult to do things in secret. There are many spyholes in the house. For Chapter 5, I was trying to work out how looking through the eyes of a picture actually worked and gave up. I love my shared bathrooms; all the 16 guest bedroom have shared bathrooms as well, although those just contain a bath (maybe a shower) but no toilet. There are 2 toilets at the end of each wing and an ordinary linen cupboard. There must also be a toilet among the family rooms as well as the full bathroom opposite the Earl's study (mainly used by the artists and models). Anybody know a good tool to do a floor plan? There used to be a time when I could write an Office-like suite of programs and now I can barely use them. I've even worked out the servant's sleeping arrangements. One room has 4 maids in it! I may have made a rod for my back with the marble floor comment. I had this idea of the mid 19th century build having a sub floor, so maybe the main corridor is wooden.
Patzo, in response to your kind feedback, Hephzibah sees movement in the house from the annex, uses the binoculars to see the identity of the night visitor, and immediately leaves her room. Being about an 80m walk, probably bare footed, it would take her some time to get to the linen cupboard but she is there to see most of the action. I suppose it might be hard to visualise without the floor plan which I am currently making. I do mention how dark it is, which brings in the question of how much Hephzibah can see? I guess she has dark adapted eyesight It is a very rare opportunity for the housekeeper to see one of the aristo women naked.close up, as she tends not to enter rooms when occupied. The chamber maids see much more, and of course she insists they tell her the details. Bill found early on that it's difficult to resist these Foskett women.
Ah, that makes sense then. I can see how it works out now. I imagine distance isn't a major concern for her, she's probably sprinting to get a look at Edmonia's body! And Bill's being a polite houseguest. He couldn't possibly refuse such warm hospitality one of his hostesses without looking like a boor!
Here's my attempt at the upstairs. To give an idea of scale the wings are 50 feet across. The dimensions of the wings and annex are 25% bigger than initially described. I'll try and fill in exactly who is where later. The rooms at the end wings are for the guests' personal servants if they bring any. I had the intention to make the shared bathrooms of the guest rooms really small enhancing the chance of embarrassment. The Fosketts hate having to be on their best behaviour with guests. You may wonder why I have gone into so much detail but this is really the world for the story. One titbit, the sunken bath in the middle of the Earl and Countess's semi-shared (sometimes it's separated) bathroom they call 'TOP' (The Orgy Pool).
