Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting
In this episode of Tart Words, Suzanne Fox and Linda Hengerer are discussing Mary Stewart’s book Nine Coaches Waiting and how she and develops her characters and uses genre.
It was first published in 1958 by Hodder & Stoughton and is now available in ebook editions.
Description from Amazon:
A thrilling, twisty tale of a dangerous romance set in the heart of mid-century Savoy, from the author of Madam, Will You Talk.
Linda Martin understands what is to be lonely: her parents died when she was young, and she was raised in an orphanage. When she is hired as a governess to the orphaned young Philippe, Comte de Valmy, Linda finds a kindred spirit in the lonely little boy.
But Philippe is the heir to a vast estate in Savoy, and his dangerously handsome uncle may be willing to kill to ensure that Philippe never inherits it . . .
Takeaways for writers:
In Nine Coaches Waiting, Linda Martin hides her early childhood in France and that she’s bi-lingual. She feels certain her being hired as governess to the young Comte de Valmy hinges on her lack of family and knowledge of French.
The characters are developed for best effect, and Mary Stewart uses Leon de Valmy’s being wheelchair-bound to elicit sympathy for him. As the story develops, the reader’s sympathies shift as we see that he will do anything to keep the chateau, including murder his nine-year-old nephew, Philippe.
Philippe is lonely; his Uncle Hippolyte, his guardian and with whom he was living, is off on a dig. Philippe is living with his Uncle Leon and his wife Heloise and has no children around to play with. His new governess, Linda Martin, is also an orphan. She understands how bereft Philippe feels, first by losing his parents and then by Hippolyte’s absence for work. Raoul de Valmy, Leon’s son, is an orphan in spirit although not in actual fact; his English mother died when he was a child, but his father is still alive. These three bond together through their shared experience of loneliness.
Mary Stewart uses genre to enhance the reader’s experience. The isolation of the Chateau de Valmy, Linda Martin’s lack of friends or family, and the gothic feel of the story contribute to the story’s moody feel.
Exercises for writers:
Characters – In Nine Coaches Waiting, we first see Leon as the victim of an accident, but as the story progresses we see him as a determined man who won’t let circumstances stop him from getting what he wants, at any cost.
Do your characters go through a transformational arc that is internal – they realize something about themselves, or external – the reader sees the character in a different way at the end of the story than they did at the beginning? How do you develop your characters to change the reader’s perception?
Genre – Nine Coaches Waiting has a gothic feel, and Linda Martin is alone. She does strike up an acquaintance with an Englishman who is working in the area and with a visiting French fashion designer who speaks English.
How can you use reader’s expectations of your genre to set up and payoff story arcs?
tvtropes.org is a terrific resource for writers who want to see many genre-related tropes, and what the expectations for those tropes are. Put your own spin on the bare bones of a trope.