Where does inspiration come from? Such an intriguing thought to start the New Year with! Thanks for joining me today to read about the things, big and small, that inspire me in my writing.
Every happy hour spent daydreaming or typing is of course owed to the wonderful lady who keeps giving us so much joy two hundred years on. Her works are the major source of inspiration: a scene, a dialogue, a rather secretive character, a path not followed which tempts the imagination towards a tantalising what if…?
In my case, once the main idea of a new ‘what if…?’ had started to take shape, all sorts of little things come to add to it: the TV adaptations I love or a country house I visited or a great landscape or a deeply moving song.
Some scenes in From This Day Forward and The Unthinkable Triangle were inspired by music: an aria performed at Basildon Park and a very poignant piece played on the harp at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath. Other scenes from The Unthinkable Triangle sprang from an inscription on the bench where I often go to write, from a lovely gift of a scented candle, from glimpses of garden follies, orangeries, woodland walks and the houses we know as Pemberley. And if the garden folly seemed to be from a different era but I loved the setting, there’s always the good old cut & paste: take one garden folly from the south of England, enlarge it, flip the image, paste it in the northern location and hey presto, here’s a garden folly, perfect for secret assignations.
Beautiful Cornwall had inspired much of The Falmouth Connection: paths through dark woods seemingly fraught with danger; a Great Hall with its display of ornamented shields and blades that might come in handy in an impromptu duel; romantic beaches that might have formed the backdrop for Mr Darcy’s proposals or an overgrown garden where our favourite characters might have come across each other and exchanged a few confusing words and a fair number of feverish kisses.
Scenes in Miss Darcy’s Companion were inspired by a great house decorated for Christmas, a Regency game I saw my friends play, an exquisite music room and a poignant aria about sentiments that could not be openly expressed, but would be discerned in sparkling eyes if one were to look closely.
Left: Osterley Park at Christmas; Top right: The Game of Graces; Bottom right: The music room at Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
Scenes in The Subsequent Proposal and The Second Chance were inspired by a rose that changes colour as it opens, a watercolour painted by my husband’s grandfather and the feeling that Jane Austen’s characters seem so real that I can almost believe they lived and breathed and moved through the Regency salons – in which case the Miss Bennets, the Miss Dashwoods and Miss Anne Elliot might have crossed paths with Mr Darcy and his sister.
Mr Bennet’s Dutiful Daughter came to be because I really wanted to write an early-marriage scenario where both Elizabeth and Mr Darcy are vulnerable and exposed in their different ways. She – because the risk of losing her father’s protection compels her to marry without love for her family’s sake. He – because he comes to the marriage with no post-Hunsford epiphany and thinking himself loved, only to see his world collapse and his illusions shattered when he discovers she had given herself to him out of nothing more than duty.
The Darcy Legacy, was inspired by the wish that Mr Darcy did not have to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and instead have a father figure to guide him along. As it happens, he gets to have two. And there’s always a certain dashing cousin who never minces his words.
As for my current WIPs, they take turns in prodding me and asking to be written. The one that pokes & prods most insistently was inspired by dark clouds threatening to bring a pretty heavy storm.
So here I am, back to my old habits of raining trouble on Mr Darcy in more ways than one 😉. I’m still in several minds about the title and it’s a long way till The End, but this is how it starts:
(Prologue)
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
“Steady on, lad,” Darcy muttered, wishing he were atop one of his own trusted mounts instead of his uncle’s skittish thoroughbred who bridled and snorted, unsettled by the fog. Not fog, as such, but low-lying clouds descending from the hilltops into the steep valley.
Darcy tightened the reins. They felt slick in his grasp, dampened like everything else by the fine spray blowing in the air, part mist, part light drizzle. He could see very little of the road ahead. Still, the stone walls that bordered it were of some assistance in the matter. Yet the stallion seemed of a different mind about the road, or the tightened reins, or both. He tossed up his head again and stamped a forehoof in protest.
“There, now,” Darcy sought to soothe him.
Diffuse light flickered in the grey skies, followed by the steady rumble of a distant roll of thunder. Darcy grimaced. So, he would have his promised wet ride after all.
Rain caught up with him sooner than expected. What had begun as a gentle patter turned swiftly into a downpour. Lightning flashed again and again, and the rumble of thunder grew increasingly louder. Bowing his head into the slanting rain and into the wind that threatened to make away with his hat, Darcy felt compelled to own that the innkeeper might have had the right of it: he would have been wiser to take lodgings with the old fellow for the night.
No sooner had he negotiated the sharp bend in the road than the brightest fork of lightning split the skies, startling both horse and rider. With a high-pitched neigh of terror, the stallion shied and reared up, fell back on his fours shuddering uncontrollably, bucked, then reared up again. The rider’s fast reflexes were not enough to keep him in the saddle. The wet reins slipped from his grasp and he was thrown off for the first time in upwards of eleven years. He caught the top of the stone wall as he fell, hit the ground with a groan, then remained motionless and silent. The stallion still snorted and shook, pounding his hooves, then gave yet another shrill neigh and, of his own accord, made an about-turn to clatter apace uphill along the track, back towards the country inn and the remembered sights and scents he had long come to associate with comfort and safety. Mercilessly whipped by the cold deluge that kept falling from the skies, the stallion galloped as fast as his feet would carry him – further and further away from the dark valley, from the dreaded spot where the hair-raising flash had struck, and from the dreadfully unnerving inert shape that lay prostrate in the pouring rain.
(Copyright © 2019 by Joana Starnes).
PS. Please let me assure you that no beloved fictional characters have been severely harmed in this scene, and assistance is coming soon enough. Even as we speak, the search party is lumbering down the hill.
Thanks for reading and have a great 2019!
Joana Starnes 
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