Debbie's World of Books My book reviews, tv show recaps & random rants

I am so excited to have Marsha Altman guest posting here at Debbie’s World of Books today.  Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books and I was so excited when I found her two sequels.  Please join me in welcoming Marsha!

Here latest book The Plight of the Darcy Brothers will be out next month.

And without further ado let’s meet Marsha…

I’m Marsha Altman, and I’ve written The Plight of the Darcy Brothers, a sequel to The Darcys and the Bingleys, which is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. If you have not read the first book, you can pick up the second without a ton of difficulty, but I don’t particularly know why you would do that in a series. And it is a series; book 3 (Mr. Darcy’s Great Escape) is due out in Feb 2010.

I was asked to speak on how I come up with ideas. I’d like to quote Stephen King:

“We are writers, and we never ask one another where we get our ideas; we know we don’t know.” (On Writing, p xiv)

This I think does the best job of summing it up. I read a lot, so that may be part of it, as someone once asked me if I came up with these ideas so unrelated to my life (I write historical fiction and science fiction) because I draw from what I read, and to some extent that’s true, but there’s also these things called copyright violations and that’s not the only reason, but certainly one reason my book isn’t about abstinent vampires and their high school girlfriends. When I was younger (9-10) I borrowed more directly from what I was reading, which is why I wrote a long book that was basically set in the Redwall universe but with all the names changed. By age 12 I had gotten a little more creative and just blatantly branched out into the seaQuest universe, only to be informed by Amblin Entertainment that (a) they were not interested in publishing anymore seaQuest novels and (b) they were not interested in publishing a novel finished by a 13-year-old girl (they didn’t say it but my writing was pretty terrible). Well, I tried.

So then, somehow, I wandered into Pride and Prejudice fan fiction in grad school, for two reasons. First, I was really bored and unchallenged in my writing program. Second, the 2005 P&P movie had just come out, and seeing it inspired me to reread the book and watch the old miniseries again. Some people have said my first book was a sequel to the miniseries, not the novel, which I think is very funny, because it is obviously some hideous mixture of the miniseries and the movie.

(1)       In the movie, Bingley has red hair. In the miniseries, he has blond hair. In my book, he has red hair.

(2)       In the movie, Caroline Bingley is shorter than her brother. In the miniseries, she’s taller than her brother. In my book, she’s taller than her brother.

(3)       Also I read the actual book, so there.

I will not hesitate to call it fan fiction. I was once at a major English Austen pilgrimage site’s gift shop (I won’t say where) and I pointed to a wall of Pride and Prejudice sequels, specifically rewrites from Darcy’s perspective, and said, “Oh, you have Pride and Prejudice fanfic!”

The owner then got very insulted, and insisted rather vehemently, “It’s not fan fiction! It’s paraliterature!”

Before this moment I had never heard the word paraliterature, mostly because it isn’t a real word, but I decided to agree with him because he was very angry at the implication that they were stocking fan fiction in their gift shop. This was a serious Austen site and the domain of serious Austen fans. Never mind the “Mr. Darcy” bookmarks, thank you cards, and notepads where Darcy exclusively looks like an oil painting of Colin Firth.

Whatever. It’s fan fiction. Fiction written by fans of the original work. I wanted to continue the story and write some new situations so I did. The work is public domain so I can do that. As to what situations I wrote, that’s mostly a matter of what I thought would be most interesting to do with the characters, sometimes without violating any cardinal fan fiction rules (never break Darcy and Elizabeth up once they’re married for too long) and sometimes by violating as many of them as possible (characters travel beyond England and France, new characters are introduced, lots and lots of swordfights, and people saying bigoted but totally Period-appropriate stuff). Whatever comes out in the end, I hope it’s not boring.

What do people want to see in fan fiction that they don’t see or haven’t seen enough of?

About the Author

Marsha Altman is a historian specializing in Rabbinic literature in late antiquity, and an author. She is also an expert on Jane Austen sequels, having read nearly every single one that’s been written, whether published or unpublished. She has worked in the publishing industry with a literary agency and is writing a series continuing the story of the Darcys and the Bingleys. She lives in New York.

Thank you again Marsha for the wonderful post!

Giveaway Info:

For those that have not had a chance to read The Darcys and the Bingley’s Danielle at Sourcebooks is offering a wonderful giveaway!  One lucky winner will win a set of both The Darcys and the Bingley’s as well as the sequel, The Plight of the Darcy Brothers.

The Rules:

1. Open to US and Canada residents only.

2. To enter leave a comment.

3. +1 entry leave separate comment answering Marsha’s question: What do people want to see in fan fiction that they don’t see or haven’t seen enough of?

4. Leave a separate comment if you add me to your blogroll, subscribe in Google Reader or email

5. Post about the giveaway on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and leave the link in a separate comment.

6. I will use a random number generator to choose the winner

7. Giveaway is open until August 13.