*WARNING: This blog is intended for a mature audience. Its contents may include adult situations, violence and sensitive issues that some people might find disturbing. Please read at your own discretion.

APoBE: Inspiration

Disclaimer

Okay, I'll fess up. I know very little of the stuff I'm writing about. There, I said it. That was a relief. Or probably not, since now you'll all know I'm a fraud. Well, perhaps I do know some things about the Victorian era, but for the most part I play by ear, relying too much on my own misconceptions and biases concerning those times.

I try not to obsess too much over the tiniest details, as my aim is to go for a certain "feel" of authenticity; it was never my intention to accurately portray the way they lived. I'm writing fiction, after all. Let's just say that A Pair of Brown Eyes takes place somewhere off the East coast of Canada in the neighbourhood of 1895.

But, hey, sometimes I actually do my homework, as you'll see below.



Literary inspiration
This section may contain some spoilers if you haven't read either my story or any of these (wonderful) books.

  • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë. A young woman--allegedly a widow--arrives at Wildfell Hall with her little son, and shocks the entire neighbourhood by her hermetic ways and strong opinions on alcohol and men.
  • Hard times, by Charles Dickens. A man marries her teenaged daughter off to a utilitarian bore some 30 years her senior.
  • Washington Square, by Henry James. A middle-aged physician despises his daughter, because he holds her responsible of her mother's death, who died during childbirth.
  • The Evil Genius: a Domestic Story, by Wilkie Collins. It shows a divorce case.
  • A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy. A very unfortunate coincidence, since I haven't even read the book. I don't really know how much more I might have unknowingly plagiarised from it, LOL. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Hardy; I'm sure your grave is a very comfortable place to be resting in, so please don't come from the dead to sue me. I promise to be more original with my next title".
  • The News. Not a literary reference at all, but sadly, a reference nonetheless.


Online resources
Many of these sites are rather old, therefore a little hard to read on newer browsers and screens, but they're very worth the extra effort.


2 comments:

  1. A Pair of Blue Eyes, is not really look your story. I just read some parts of the book because I wasn't that interested in it but I still read a few paragraphs here and there LOL. I do that. Basically the first two chapters and the last chapter.
    Anyway, by what I read and that the synopsis says, it's not at all so don't worry. ;)


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    1. Hehe, funny thing is, I probably knew the book existed, only I didn't remember it: Thomas Hardy is not my thing at all. I want to read it someday, though, out of... sheer curiosity, you know? ;-)

      Anyway, thanks for letting me know :-D.

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