And a quarter cup of frustration...

Frustration.

That's a word with which most of us are very familiar. Frustration is a natural part of life. We don't always get things our way and often times it can seem that, to quote Anne Shirley quoting someone else: "'The stars in their courses plot against me.'" Frustration in real life can be horribly annoying. It can be something as small as a trip to the DMV where everyone and their brother smells of cigarettes and can't remember their middle name, to something as big as a coworker purposely framing you as the genius behind the office arguments. Okay. I haven't been the victim of the latter form of frustration, but you will probably understand the sensation.Writers always talk about adding conflict, adding tension, adding lots of negatives to a scene to make it dance. In a dreary sort of way, the more negative elements you pour on your characters, the more positive the effect. Some authors take this advice and go all out with illegitimate births, jealous half-brothers, more and more villains, twists of fate, etc. That works for many authors and I think that it is an excellent maxim to add some of those elements (and preferably many others) to your plot. What you don't always need to drag out a long-absent brother or an abbot who knows your character's dubious background to ratchet up a scene. There are subtle ways to make your character miserable. Can you guess the simplest, easiest way to add realistic conflict?

Frustrate your character.

Life hands us seemingly coincidental incidents that pile up in in our favor or against it. Play out this concept in your characters' lives and see how well it works. In the current chapter of Anon, Sir, Anon, Vivi is in a certain social setting, wanting to use this chance to observe and ask questions of the locals. If I let this scene be, it would probably fall out as a sort of dull triumph for Vivi. She'd probably get her information and move on to the next dull triumph and so on and so forth, amen. But you can't do that and expect to win friends and influence people. In the same vein, I didn't need to bring in the villain to stir the pot. He is better left till called for via the dictates of the decided plot. What I did, was construct the setting so that the room was over-crowded, noisy, and confusing, giving Vivi a silent migraine. This has nothing to do with any villain, conflict between other characters, or anything of that nature. It is very simply a natural, very frustrating occurrence. (Believe me. I get a silent migraine every time I try to go contra-dancing.) The migraine debilitates Vivi by cruelly lifting away her capacity to think, digest information, or otherwise use this very good chance to work on the murder case. A frustration. A natural one. This is the same technique filmmakers use when they add rain to a scene. There are two reasons for rain in scene: one; it frustrates the characters further, or two; it makes the mood romantic...somehow...(picturing dripping wet Mr. Darcy hair and wondering where the attraction lies). A natural frustration is going to cause your reader to, in Stephen King's words, "prickle with recognition". Why? Because your reader might not have a snarky, murderous half-brother but he probably has dealt with the hiccups in a professional interview, a distraction in a moment of concentration, locked his keys out of his car (which would foil a getaway in a genius and simple way), or experienced some other small (or major) frustration.

Make real life work for you. Most of you are coming up on two centuries (or at least a century and a half) of life experience. Some of you have lots more. Surely you could draw up a lengthy list of naturally-occurring frustrations to add to tension in your plot.

Vivi’s eyes flickered over every face one by one but there were too many people. Far too many.  A hundred grinning mouths became two hundred, two hundred smiling eyes became four-hundred. All five of her senses protested against the overload. The living heat, noise, and colors swirled in a twist of confusion. A vague, disquieting sensation of falling asleep and rising above the rest of the room filled the front of her head, and she struggled to make it back to the shore of reality. Fresh air. She wanted it as a thirsty man craves drink. She moved toward the now dark square of the doorway, flickers of alarm shooting through her chest at the idea that something might impede her freedom, or that she might stumble head-long into the crowd before she made it to the salvation of the outdoors.

-Anon, Sir, Anon

"Sink Me! He's been taking lessons--the cravat's a picture."

It has often been expounded upon that when one writes Fantasy, one must have a proper setting for it, complete with history, culture, customs, clothing, etc. Herein I've attempted to show you a bit of Scarlettania's Fashion, with a touch of Gildnoir as the case may be.

How Cecily longed for the touch of silk, brilliant as a butterfly’s wing, or brocade, or ermine. But most of all she longed to feel the feather-light brush of gossamine—the fabric of princesses—spun from dewy spiders’ webs.  How many, many times had she slipped her gossamine gown over her head, feeling its airy beauty and yet never stopping to think how precious a thing it was?

 Gossamine is a fabric I concocted in my imagination. It was intentionally a spin-off of the word "gossamer" and yes, it was intentional to make it a rather fairy-tale-sounding material. After all, we can't expect Mr. Macefield to be too too original, can we? ;) Gossamine would feel very very light, but it would have a pattern over it. Something like a mixture of organza, satin, and damask. :)

I have not yet shown Cecily Woodruff (or Lady Cecelia, if you will) in her own country, but I think that on her eighteenth birthday she will wear a gown much like this:

In stark contrast:

“Treason, is it?” Diccon’s breath caught in his throat as sudden rage surged through him. “Is it not what you are making war to commit yourself? To take a foreign woman as your wife just because she is beautiful and catches your eye?”

Fitz-Hughes’ smile dropped off his face like an autumn leaf before a blast of cold wind.  He smoothed the dark mail of his armored sleeve, stroking discordant jingles from it. “I believe that question is the fifth demerit you’ve earned today, boy. Watch your tongue a bit more carefully—you are trying my patience.”

Randolph Fitz-Hughes' Gildnoir-ian fashion is dark and brooding with here and there an unexpected splash of gaudy gold or yellow. It follows the pattern of his Clan-cum-Kingdom--wild, untamed, sophisticated, opulent. It's a queer hash, you know.

Not all of the clothing of Scarlettania is rich and brilliant though. There are some in the kingdom who do not wear gossamine, contrary to popular belief.

She thought she had better make amends quickly—it would never to do have the inhabitants of a strange castle vexed with you when you had no more of an idea of how to get out of the castle—if it came to that—than a beetle has of getting out of a match-box maze.

“I like your dress,” Adelaide said, feeling shy all at once and vexed because of it.

Dear-Heart gave a short laugh and brushed an even shorter finger across the fabric. “This, miss? Why, it’s nothin’ but flax an’ that bein’ such as has seen better days.”

Dear-Heart, Agnes, and the other women of the working class wear picturesque gowns of simple fabrics: cotton, linen, (or as Dear-Heart says it, "flax") and other materials. The gowns follow the classic "peasant" style of full, light, short sleeves, and a higher waist-line. Warm earth-tones are favored, as well as dusty-rose, deep red, navy, and other deep colors. :)

As for the court-gentlemen of Scarlettania, as well as for Bertram and Darby when the arrive, there is a definite late colonial- early Regency feel to the clothing. Waist-coats are very much "in," as are knee-breeches--at least for the younger boys. Scarlettania is not a fighting country, therefore only the very few knights wear armor. The city men wear fine, embroidered waistcoats, soft, well-tailored jackets, and breeches. The grown men wear cravats, of course, and knee-boots.

Darby glanced down at his embroidered vest, and soft jacket. He had been much delighted over the great golden dragon slithering across his chest in elaborate stitchery—it continued all across the back and around the other side. It wasn’t the sort of dragon he’d seen in Chinese paintings—it reminded him of a snake and a nightmare combined into something infinitely thrilling. And in its head were two emeralds for eyes; these made do for buttons.

His pants he was less pleased with—they were tight and buckled under his knees with bright brass fastenings—he had decided when he put them on that they looked just like the ones George Washington was in the habit of wearing—no wonder he went around chopping down cherry-trees; the pants were enough to make any fellow cross.

So that's that! How about you? What are the styles in your country? :) ~Rachel