I tried working on an outline for my idea today and it was just not coming together. I had scrapped the previous one I had begun and had started over this morning. By the afternoon, I was on page 2 of the outline and I was thinking, "I can't take any more of this." For one thing, I was getting derailed by details that I wasn't planning of thinking about until November.
So I asked myself, exactly when is my story taking place? So after reading some history on the French Revolution and fiddling around with moon phases (on the surface, the two don't go together, but trust me, it was just the thing to get me back on track), I penned a time line with a list of the major events I wanted to hit on. Finally, something I can work with!
When I first came up with my idea, I did not intend for the historical elements to play such a large role in the story. Mostly it was there to justify a main character's obsession with fashion. But the more I looked into the characters' backgrounds and motivations, I became convinced that I had to use more historical information.
The story takes place on an imaginary tidal island (modeled after Mt. St. Michel) on the coast of Normandy in the late autumn of 1796, at the tail end of the Revolution when the Directoire is in charge of the French government. One of my main characters is on enforced sabbatical due to her health and the backlash of her last controversial play in Paris. The other main character is an agent working for an anonymous member of the Five Hundred (the legislative branch of the French government). Some of the minor characters are part of a cabal planning to overthrow the Directoire and to instill Napoleon as their general. The villain is a royalist, seeking to restore the monarchy to France. The hapless victims are die-hard followers of the Enlightenment.
All that stuff is background. I don't plan to dwell on the political conflicts of late 18th century France, but they do provide the motivation which drives the characters in certain directions.
Now all I'm contemplating is whether or not I want to include the shriveled heart of Louis XVII and some rather devious and Frankenstien-ish machinations.
