Actress
turned author Lara Parker explains the trials and tribulations
of charting Angelique's Descent for the HarperCollins
range of Dark Shadows novels...
I
was so immersed in the writing process that now it is over
I can't believe that I even did it. During the last two months
I worked sometimes 16 hour days. It was a totally new medium
for me, and I would never be so presumptuous to claim that
I have begun to master it. I'm sure I made most of the same
mistakes all beginning novelists make.
I
am pleased with parts of the book, but other stretches seem
too hurried, especially when my story connects with the television
show in the last hundred pages. The time period of the show
I chose to fictionalise had a great deal of plot structure
- many turns and reversals - and I couldn't cover it all adequately,
but I couldn't just stop either. I had to go from the time
Angelique arrived in Collinsport through to the curse. I hadn't
remembered how long and convoluted the plot was until I watched
the tapes again. However, HarperCollins had asked for 320-350
pages and I was already at 519, so I couldn't make it any
longer. So for me, the last section feels quite rushed.
I
did quite a lot of research on Martinique and the lives of
slaves on the sugar plantations in 1790. I also delved into
voodoo and learned a great deal about the Laos and spells.
I chose to make Angelique immortal and the reluctant servant
of the devil, so she is fighting her fate. In these ways,
the story is made richer and has an original slant which meshes
with the television show but does not just repeat it.
The
opening segment of Angelique being chosen as the living goddess
is actually based on something I saw in Nepal. They have a
little girl there in Kathmandu who sits at the second-storey
window of a brick house and stares down on the square. She
looked very lonely and unhappy when I saw here. Her eyes were
circled in Kohl and she wore many bracelets. I was told that
she was chosen in a gruelling test of composure, very much
like the one in my book. I moved the locale to Martinique
and changed the religion to voodoo rather than the original
Hindu.
Those
are just some of my thoughts. I am thrilled to have been able
to do this and I hope the book does well enough for me to
be asked to write another novel.
Lara
Parker's second Dark Shadows novel, provisionally
titled Revenge of the Vampire, is due for publication
in 2005. To order Angelique's Descent from Amazon.com,
click
here.
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