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Inspirations for The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet: The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Inspirations for The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet: The Scarlet Pimpernel

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Inspirations for The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet: The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Being a teenager can be hard. That’s something Mary Bennet from Pride and Prejudice can attest to, and my experiences as a teenager definitely influenced the character of Mary in my novel The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet. Mary is a bit of an awkward teenage, and others are not always kind to her for it. In my novel, she is leaving her teenage years and entering adulthood, but she is still impacted by her teenage struggles.

For me, one of the hardest points in my teenage years was when, a few weeks before I turned thirteen, our family moved across the country, from Washington state to Connecticut. I was very much in denial, so much that I didn’t tell my friends at school that I was moving until a few days before winter break, when the move would take place. If I didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t happen, right? But happen it did.

I really struggled with the adjustment…I had moved, as the crow flies, 3986 miles, and left everything I’d known. I found it really strange to suddenly be at a school where the popular girl in your home room would make fun of you if your socks went above your ankle because apparently that was a major fashion faux paus.

But there was a shining light for my first few months in Connecticut: I went with my mom to see a stage production of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Before we’d moved, I’d been taking an online math class because the math class I needed didn’t fit into my schedule. This was 1999, and at that point, we didn’t even have internet at home, so I was doing all of it at school in the computer lab during my math period. And I was going at a fast pace—in a single semester, I was nearing the end of a two-semester math class. My mom saw how close I was and gave me a challenge: if I could finish the class before we moved, then we would do something really amazing in Connecticut.

I finished the math class, and in early 2000, my mom took me to see the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel in New Haven, Connecticut. The Scarlet Pimpernel had just left Broadway, and some of the original cast were members of the touring cast.

It was life-changing.

I loved the story, the music, and the characters, especially the Scarlet Pimpernel and Marguerite. I loved the mask that the Scarlet Pimpernel wears for the world—no one would ever suspect that the frivolous, clothing-obsessed Sir Percy Blakeney was the enemy wanted by the guillotine. In one of the songs, the British upper class is speculating on the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Sir Percy keeps joking, “The fellow’s me!” and the irony is that it really is him and no one believes him.

The Scarlet Pimpernel music book

My well-loved copy of the vocal music from the musical.

We bought the CD and the vocal music, and for years, my favorite song was “The Riddle”:

You turn and someone betrays you.
Betray him first, and the game’s reversed.
For we all are caught in the middle
Of one long treacherous riddle.
Can I trust you? Should you trust me, too?

I loved this sense of the risk of having a secret identity, the inherent risk of being discovered, and the constant inability to know who you could trust. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the sense that you are changed by participating in this sort of game, which makes it harder to find and recognize the truth.

Fast-forward to a few years ago. When I was developing the character of Miss Mary Bennet for my book, I kept The Scarlet Pimpernel in mind. (Not just the musical, but also the brilliant 1982 movie. Confession: I’ve never actually read the book The Scarlet Pimpernel.) I wanted Mary to be like the Scarlet Pimpernel, for no one would ever suspect that she could do great things. No one would ever suspect that she was sneaking around, gathering clues and solving mysteries.

A number of other works inspired me as I wrote my novel (most notably, Jane Austen), but one of my favorite inspirations for Miss Mary Bennet is The Scarlet Pimpernel.

The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet by Katherine Cowley - coming April 22, 2021

The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet will be released worldwide on April 22, 2021. I am so excited to share the story with everyone!

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Virtual Book Launch: "The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet" With Local Author Katherine Cowley. Tuesday, April 27th, 7:00-8:00 p.m. EDT. Registration Required.

Events: April 2021 and Book Club Visits

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I mentioned these upcoming events in my newsletter, but I wanted to do a quick blog post about them.

First, my April events, which are all virtual.

Virtual Book Launch: "The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet" With Local Author Katherine Cowley. Tuesday, April 27th, 7:00-8:00 p.m. EDT. Registration Required.

Virtual Launch Party Hosted by the Portage Public Library: April 27th at 7 p.m. EDT.

I would love to see you at the virtual launch party for The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet! You need to RSVP to the event in advance so the library can email you the Zoom link.

Virtual SCBWI Michigan Conference: April 23rd-25th

I will be giving a presentation on the final day of this writing conference, which is focused on writing your story from start to finish. You don’t need to be in Michigan or a member of SCBWI to attend.

Ongoing Events

Katherine Crashes Your Book Group

I want to crash your book group. I’m serious.

I’m a member of two book groups, so theoretically, that would be enough book groups for me. But it’s not.

If your book group reads The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, then I would love to crash your book group with a video call for the last fifteen minutes of your discussion. I will answer questions and provide insights into the book. If this is something you’re interested in, send me an email at kathy@katherinecowley.com.

Keep Up-to-Date on Upcoming Events

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on my upcoming events, sign up for my newsletter. I’ll also keep events updated on the events page of my website.

Book Katherine for an Event

For writing workshops, school visits, or any other event, please send me an email at kathy@katherinecowley.com.

Introduction to Jane Austen Writing Lessons

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you wish to write well, you should learn from the very best writers.

In other words, you should read Jane Austen.

I do not find this to be a great sacrifice.

Elizabeth Bennet Reading from 2005 Pride and Prejudice

Elizabeth Bennet in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen Writing Lessons

I am a writing teacher by profession and a long-time Janeite. Jane Austen Writing Lessons is my attempt to combine these two interests by creating a series of writing lessons based on the books of Jane Austen.

What will these lessons look like?

Each writing lesson will focus on a principle of creative writing. I will address how to use this principle, examine how Jane Austen uses the principle in one of her works, and then provide writing exercises that apply the principle. While the examples draw from the writings of Jane Austen and other Austen-inspired works, the principles can be applied to writing in any genre, and the writing exercises provide the opportunity to apply these principles in a variety of ways.

The first ten lessons address big picture principles for writing. After that, sets of lessons will go into depth on specific topics, like dialogue.

The Benefits of Writing Exercises

Musicians practice scales to teach their fingers to move in certain patterns. The coach of a sports team runs drills to prepare the players for different things that might happen on the field or on the court.

Writing exercises fulfill the same purpose: they are a chance to exercise or practice a principle in order to internalize it and be prepared to use it appropriately in your writing.

In my years of teaching writing, I have found that learning about a principle is rarely enough. Writers learn the principles best when they practice them, and writing exercises are an easy, contained way to do this.

Who Am I?

I have an MA in Rhetoric and Composition and focused my studies on the teaching of writing. I have taught writing classes at Mesa Community College and Brigham Young University, and I currently teach writing at Western Michigan University.

My debut novel, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet, will be released in April 2021 by Tule Publishing. I also have over a dozen published short stories and novellas.

Visit the Jane Austen Writing Lessons homepage to view all of the writing lessons index.

The Mary Bennet Draft from COVID-19

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I recently got a three-book deal for the trilogy which begins with The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet. Which means I sold one completed book, one partially completed book, and one book that exists entirely in my imagination.

The partially completed book is currently known as Mary Bennet Book 2. Clever, I know. Fortuitously, I had accidentally written a first draft of book 2 while I was writing the first draft of book 1. When I got to the end of the draft, I realized it had two sets of characters, two completely different locations, two mysteries, two internal characters arcs… I had written two books, which I proceeded to chop in half. (Accidentally writing a draft is highly recommend, because you get two drafts for the price of one.)

So fast-forward to January 2020, when we were all naive and thought this year would be a lot more pleasant than it has turned out to be. My agent was sending out my first book to publishing houses, but she had the descriptions for books 2 and 3 on hand in case any of the publishers were interested in the whole series. This provided great motivation for me to make progress on book 2.

I opened the file for book 2. I already knew it was missing a few main characters that needed to be a part of the book, but as I looked at it, I realized that it had no plot. I mean, things happened, including two awesome spying-at-ball scenes, an explosion, mistaken identities, a conspiracy, etc. etc. etc. But still, there was no plot, no overarching mystery strong enough to hold all these cool scenes and ideas and subplots together.

And so I began the lengthy process of outlining, researching, plotting, deleting, and writing.

January. February. March. April. May. June. Goals I set for myself came and went. My kids were sent home from school. My part-time job (teaching first-year writing at WMU) went from in-person to online. Michigan had weeks where we had hundreds of COVID-19 deaths every single day. I struggled with anxiety about life, the universe, and everything. And still I put what I could into this book, even when it wasn’t much. I woke up at 6 a.m. almost every day of the year so I could sneak in some writing before the kids woke up, and I wrote during their afternoon movie time. It felt like I was building a mountain, one tiny spoonful of dirt at a time. But it added up.

I don’t think I’ve ever deleted quite so much in a draft. There was a full chapter I deleted and a number of other scenes, but most of the deletions came from deleted paragraphs and sentences.

206 hours is also the most time I have ever spent on a draft. Previously, the longest draft had taken 110 hours. (The first draft of Mary Bennet 1 took 140 hours, but as I mentioned before, it was actually the first draft of 2 books.)

COVID-19 definitely made this draft harder to write, but honestly, it was a challenging draft even in January and February. I can attribute this to three factors:

  1. I have become a better writer

    As I revised the first Mary Bennet book, I learned a lot about plot and character and the mystery genre. Which meant that I had a whole new bunch of tools and lenses to take to this book–which meant that I could see how far it was from what it could become, and knew a lot of what it would take to get there. In my case, becoming a better writer has not made me a faster writer.

  2. I was doing complicated/challenging things

    In Mary Bennet 2, I’m doing some complicated things structurally, and I have a large cast of characters. I have a number of chapters where I have 10 important characters in play and am interweaving the plot and three or four subplots at the same time. This is insane, I do not recommend it, and it challenged me as a writer. Also, these scenes are some of the best in the book.

  3. It took an eternity to figure out the ending

    I am an outliner, but I still figure out a lot of things about what works and what doesn’t through the process of writing. I outlined before the first draft, and I outlined before the second draft, but for the life of me, I could not figure out the ending. (I knew who the villain was and a few key components that needed to be in there, but nothing else.) And I spent months thinking about the ending as I revised the other chapters and added new material. In a very uncharacteristic move for me (proud outliner that I am) I did not actually figure out the ending until it was time to write it.

Now that draft two of Mary Bennet Book 2 is done, I’ve sent it off to several critique partners. Then it will be another round of edits (theoretically less painful) and then another before I turn it in to the publisher.

Meanwhile, I should be getting feedback from my editor soon on the first book, The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet. I’m really excited to edit it and get it ready for its release in April 2021.