In Forbidden Rose, that passage through the darkness is Orpheus rescuing Eurydice. Scenery puts the characters in passing time.

' - it wouldn't let the reader absorb the emotion. If I just said - 'and then they spent a couple hours bumping around in the semi dark till they found. Rescue attempt is a long, perilous, uncertain, process. Underground journey in Forbidden Rose is meant to make clear that the Looking out over the Thames, the description of the Thames spaces out Likewise, when Jess and Sebastian have left Lazarus and sit

That emotional response wouldn't have time toįorm if I took fifty words to move her from the upstairs to outside the Really scared I put in description of what's on the walls and what theĭownstairs looks like so the reader can get a gut feeling of being When Justine is walking down the steps in the Coach House and she's Scenery is one of the things used as a pacing device. Two characters are talking, we layer in lots of stuff between theirĭialog and internal thoughts to make 'time' pass at the correct rate. I think we gotta use scenery in a dramatic sense. find your London to be almost a character in and ofĪs to making the city part of the story. They are skillful and expert in their various fields and they remain that way all the way through the story.A wonderful reader wrote, asking 'What sorts of resources do you use to make your cities-London and So, that meant that there was a real tension for me in reading – whereas, if it were only that Jess thought Bastian was Cinq, well that may have palled quickly. Because Josiah was a secondary character, I couldn’t be sure as a reader that Josiah wouldn’t actually turn out to be a traitor or even if he was innocent, nevertheless be convicted (and I’m not going to tell you here!). The real conflict was that Josiah might hang and Bastian would be a large part of the cause of it. And it wasn’t just that Bastian, from Jess’ POV, might be Cinq. I love that there is no “big misunderstanding” or anything that could be simply resolved keeping them apart. In spite of themselves they fall into love – come to think of it, this is one of the common themes I have found in Joanna Bourne’s books. They spend a large part of the book in close proximity (I dislike books where the hero/heroine are separated for much of it, movies too for that matter, never fear this does not happen here) but in terms of their deepening relationship, they are kept apart by a real and not at all trivial conflict. What I thought (aka, what worked for me and what didn’t): Bastian and Jess are, as I said above, instantly attracted to one another.

The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne