Kristian Mercer

Signings in Seattle: Pamela Aidan

One of the things I like best about living in Seattle is that it's full of people like me - people who love books. I see readers on the bus (my morning commute is very quiet), at the gym, and - of course - in the coffeeshops.

No wonder USA Today named Seattle as America's most literate city for the second year in a row. Whoo-hoo!

And that means that lots and lots of authors make Seattle one of their book tour stops. You can find book signings in just about any genre - and that definitely includes romance.

Last night my good friend Lacey Kaye and I went to hear Pamela Aidan talk about These Three Remain, the last novel in her Fitzwilliam Darcy trilogy. The reading itself was hysterical - imagine, if you can, a scene where Darcy's drunk enough to start a quarrel in a pub - but what I most enjoyed was the discussion of craft.

The opening question was typical for these types of events, with a member of the audience wondering how Ms. Aidan developed such an authentic, period-perfect voice. The author's response? If you're a fan of the Regency romance, you've probably already guessed- read a lot of Jane Austen, with steady supplements of Georgette Heyer.

Question number two involved research. Ms. Aidan didn't reveal her sources - oh, how I wish she would have let one or two titles drop - but she did note that she included biographies and general social histories among her reference books.

And then it got more interesting. Someone asked, "What's your writing routine?" Ms. Aidan revealed that she doesn't hold herself to a specific number of pages per day, nor does she work from a structured plot. Instead, she prefers to sit down in the darkness of early morning, with a cup of tea and some Enya for inspiration, and let the words come to her.

Now, that all sounded very romantic - idyllic, even - but Ms. Aidan went on to say that she definitely writes with a method. In fact, for those of us pantsers, I'd say that her technique is something to consider emulating.

She constantly questions her characters. Why would you, Mr. Darcy (or Justin, or whomever your hero might be), make such a decision? What would happen if you made that decision? And - perhaps still more important - what will happen after that?

I have to confess, this was a revelation to me. One of those whack-yourself-on-the-forehead discoveries, when you say, "Of course! That makes perfect sense!"

I don't have to be a plotter - insert huge sigh of relief here - but I do need my characters' motivations, and my story, to make sense. And in order to accomplish that, I need to know them. I need to know how they think, how they react - how they live - if I'm to help them work towards a satisfactory ending.

Oh, that wonderful a-ha moment. That's the best thing about book signings - I always learn something new.

In addition to receiving my autographed book, of course!