The Sister

I grew up in a family of four daughters, and so I feel that I know a great deal about female relationships. However, the relationship in my novel, or more accurately, a certain disturbed characted in my novel has thrown me for a loop. As happens sometimes when you are writing, you become distracted by a character, feel like you are neglecting them, their story, or some part of their make-up. It is imperative to get this character right, suddenly so important, that you almost want to abandon the project for the fear of tangling the entire story because of this one difficult character.
Her name is Elizabeth, but from childhood she has been called Bitsy. She is a tangled mess of highs and lows, following doctor's directions to be shut away from her family during her lows, leaving so much of her responsibilities on her sister's shoulders that she no longer functions as a wife or mother. Not that all women of her place in society had to deal with what we think of us motherly duties today, but she had even less than that. And so when I first began writing of Bitsy, I could see she had emotionally, spiritually, and mentally (yes, it was considered harmful for an overwrought female to read or think -- too strenous) shrunk. Her body was lax, full, rarely clothed in anything but morning gowns and robes unless going out to accompany her husband on hotel business at the balls during the summer season on her "good" days.
Perhaps I struggle with Bitsy because, (unintentionally, of course)I relate. I have been shut away with depression and had my share of "good days" and "bad days". Those who know me know of my history of chronic migraine-tension headaches, hospital stays, medications, numerous doctors and clinics, etc. Without realizing it, I have been writing a character of whom I can truly say, "yes, I understand" but I have held her away from me, because I don't want to remember all of that ... So I suppose in this area of the novel I need to be courageous and say, "I've lived some of this research" and use the parts of my life that apply to tell Bitsy's story. Silly to realize I've been trying to figure out what was wrong with all my research before this, it wasn't the research that was wrong, but my unwillingness to honestly deal with it.

Gone?

For part of my research I have begun and finished Margaret Mitchell's Pullitzer prize-winning novel, Gone With the Wind. Some might question why I would consider this research. It is, after all, set much earlier than my novel, in a different area of the Southeast, and absorbed historically with the Civil War issues that my novel is only touching on. Why do I consider it worthwhile research? The attitudes portrayed in the novel are rather telling of the gentility of the South. As Mitchell asserted, the era was over, gone with the wind once Dixie lost her war. But the attitudes towards the genders, predjudices, and societal expectations were not. I learned a great deal about how and why women were viewed the way they were at the time. I don't know which side of the war I would have personally supported had I lived in that era, or what prejudices I would have sported. But it has helped me better understand why ladies did not go out without proper escorts, and various other protocol. It will certainly help to make sure that my novel covers these bases.