Getting to like you, getting to think you like…
Nevermind.
I’ve been getting a real kick out of researching my protagonist. One of the decisions that I made is that she no longer lives in the mid-west, and she didn’t go to college in Oklahoma (I had reasons for those decisions, but changing locations actually improved her character and back story). Instead, she’s been living in Nashville, had attended college there, and has just moved back to… well, it’s around Lititz, Pennsylvania (about 10 mins from me), but I haven’t decided whether it’s a fictional town, or to use what’s actually here.
I think what finally settled it to my husband that I’m serious about novel writing (since I’ve been talking about it for years, and have yet to produce a manuscript), was the day I asked him “Honey, when you turn right on Airport Road, you get to the airport and the movie theatre. Where does the road go when you turn left?”. To which he responded “I don’t know. Why?”. And I said, “Because that’s where my protagonist goes to church.”.
And then he asked what a protagonist is.
That was the beginning of the turn around in the way I thought of my WIP. I’ve had a number of other things that I know I have to research or make up, but I’ve already chosen her college, and her major and minor. I have to work on her former place of business, but I know what the business itself was.
What caught me up though, was when I was looking at her college’s website, trying to figure out what her major was. What would have prepared her for her future? What would have suited her personality? I finally decided on an English major (common major, appropriate to an avid reader, etc) and started looking at the courses available.
Holy cow. Now I want to go to college there! Some of those classes look great! One of the professors in particular seems exactly like the kind of prof Z would love. Looking at the staff pages, I can see her participating and classes, and how she’d respond to each prof differently. Of course, it’s all back story, but like Anti-Wife says, that’s how you get to know your character.
But then, I realized something.
I’ve never read the majority of books and/or authors that are required for this college’s major in English. Yikes! And I’ll never have the time to go through and read a few dozen heavy classics in time to throw in a half dozen lines referencing them. I could just look up quotes and try to find a thesis or two on a few of the authors, but I’ve got a better idea.
I’ll just ask you guys which books you’d most recommend. I’m focusing on historically focused books, or books written before 1901. Perhaps even websites that discuss various intelligentpeoplethings about the authors and the books (and themes, and hidden meanings, and…). For example: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Austen, historical romance something or other.
If you had to take a crash course to appear well read, well educated, and intelligent, what would you read? (I’m not starting yet- I’ve read enough to get me through the first draft, but I’d like to start planning for my rewrites).
Here are the courses that I’m looking at specifically:
ENG 3050—Satire (3)Readings in classical, neoclassical, and modern literature which emphasize reform and correction of individuals and societies, including works by Juvenal, Erasmus, Swift, Twain, Thurber.
ENG 3100—American Puritans and Romantics (3)A survey of the major authors and literary movements from the Colonial period up to the Civil War, including Edwards, Franklin, Irving, Cooper, Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman.
ENG 3200—American Realists and Moderns (3)A survey of American literature from the Civil War to the present, including works by Twain, Crane, London, Dreiser, Anderson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, O’Neill, Cather, Lewis, Updike.
ENG 3510—Medieval Literature (3)A study of the Anglo–Saxon and Medieval period to 1400, focusing on Celtic prose and poetry, Chaucer, Langland, and continental influences.
ENG 3520—Renaissance Literature (3)A study of the period 1400–1660, focusing on drama and poetry, including Spencer, Marlowe, the Metaphysicals, and Milton.
ENG 3580—Enlightenment Literature (3)A study of the period, 1660–1798, including Dryden, Pope, Swift, Hogarth, and Johnson.
ENG 3610—Romantic Literature (3)A study of the Romantic period, 1798–1832, including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats.
ENG 3620—Victorian Literature (3)A study of the prose and poetry of Victorian England, 1832–1901, including Dickens, Tennyson, Browning, Bronte, Arnold, Wilde.
ENG 3630—Modern British Literature (3)A detailed study of twentieth century British writers including Yeats, Woolf, Joyce, Lawrence, Shaw, Auden, Thomas, and Hughes.
I’m hoping for just one or two selections from each course. Given my time constraints, I’m preferring shorter or more obscure titles. I doubt if I’ll have time enough for even those, but it’ll give me a start.
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