Help with my book, please?

Question

My story is set in the early Edwardian period. The question I wish to ask is, let's say the daughter of a clergyman becomes pregnant by some rake, she goes to her friend's house, which is located is a place far from societ, to give birth, and send the child away to another family, or something, in fear of being rebuked by society for her scandal. She wants to keep things secret. But then, the heroine's uncle finds out. What would he do? Would he, a religious man, allow the heroine to send the child away as a bastard. Or, would he tell her to take responsibility, marry the father, and give the child a name?

This leads to my second question. There are two men in the story: the rake, and the guy who really loves the heroine. If the good guy knew that the heroine had gotten pregnant by another man, do you think he would hate her-be disgusted of her and abandon her? Or if he continues to love her...would it be unrealistic? I want to be realistic, but I'm afraid that having the man

remaining in love with her would be rather....UNrealistic. Like in Tess of D'
uberville (sp?). The man immediately took a disliking to Tess once finding out she wasn't a virgin. ANd in every movie and book I read, men tend to react negatively to women who were not virgins. What do you think? Do you think there is hope of this section of the book being realistic if I make this guy remain in love with the heroine? For those who have been in love, is it possible?

Answer 1

Having read a lot of books, including a lot in the historical romance genre, I'd have to say anything goes. However - in relation to your question about what would be 'realistic' you have to remember that that's entirely dependent on the characters.

Regarding the actions of the uncle - if he's upper-class, propriety would require him to force the couple to marry or call out the rake who got her pregnant. (Preferably the first, if she's already pregnant, because killing the father in a duel really isn't going to solve a whole lot of problems.) But...are there reasons this won't work? A difference in power? Blackmail? Does the rake have some sort of alibi? If the rake is from a prominent upper-class family and the girl is from a lower class, might the rake's family just buy them off - offer enough to make it worthwhile? Or perhaps they need the money for some unrelated reason?

Depending on how you set up the characters and the back story, you can make any action acceptable or believable for /those/ characters. Which brings us to the other guy. Depending on how you write it, you're correct - he might resent the fact that the heroine has lost her virginity, etc., etc. But...what are the other circumstances?

You mentioned that she'd probably give up the baby - so she isn't trying to get married quickly and pass it off as someone else's (which would cause more resentment from lots of people). Why does he love her? How well does he know her? Is he the sort that would want to 'rescue' her? What happened with this rake to cause the pregnancy - did he get drunk and practically rape her? That would be a totally different situation than if she thought she was in love with him and 'gave herself' to him thinking they'd get married - then there'd be problems on the heroine's side. How does she feel about this guy who loves her? Are either one of them actively trying to 'win' the other? For that matter, you could have a completely convoluted storyline - he loved her from afar but knows he's sterile (for whatever reason) so he knew he could never marry her, but now he wants to claim her child so he can have an heir and doesn't care about the rest (fill in the rest of the story about the rake, the 'incident', etc.).

The point I'm trying to make here is decide what kind of ending you want - do you want two people to end up married (regardless of which two) or do you want them to all go their separate ways and just write a historical novel about the difficulties of pregnancy out of wedlock (or something else)? And, once you know that, start building up your characters. Who are they? Where do they come from? What has happened in their lives and how does that affect their thoughts/feelings/actions? What is their lifestyle like? Who are they related to and/or are they close to their families? When you picture the characters in your mind, what characteristics actually fit them? Build them up and then figure out how they're likely to react so you can decide on a direction for your story. You may find that the characters you imagine don't fit the ending you want and then you'll have to prioritize. But take the cue about 'realism' from your characters. Figure out who they are and stay true to that, because then it won't matter how your story turns out - it will seem believable because we'll know the characters and expect those reactions.

Hope that helps - good luck :)

Answer 2

OK, to answer your first question about the religious man--just because he's "religious" doesn't mean that he's a good man. I guess you can make him be whatever type of character you desire. You could have the stereotypical good guy be the bad one and the stereotypical bad guy be the good one...but then...is that obvious? And what about the heroine's struggle with how she feels about the baby? That will make a difference in all the above and what type of character does she have. Is she strong-willed and feisty or subservient?

I do think that if someone *really* loved someone else then the fact that she isn't a virgin would not be reason enough to forget those feelings. I recently read a book called "The Lady and the Unicorn" and there's a similar situation in this story...there's a blind girl who gets pregnant by a man that doesn't want to be with her but the man who does...to save her the humiliation and because he's so in love with her, tells her father that it is his baby. He risks having the father hate him and getting beat up all for the love of a woman. But if you want all the male characters in the story to be jerks...then have the uncle make the ultimate decision for the heroine's life/baby and have the guy not love her anymore. LOL I hope you don't do that though. :)

Good Luck.