Learning from Fan Fiction: Tie the Relationship to the World

My Georgette Heyer fan fiction is based on a premise that shows up in other M/M historical romance--namely, that in this Regency England, M/M relationships are accepted. The very funny and Restoration comedy-like novels by J.A. Rock and Lisa Henry present this premise up-front:

In 1783, the Marriage Act Amendment was introduced in England to allow marriages between same-sex couples. This was done to strengthen the law of primogeniture and to encourage childless unions in younger sons and daughters of the peerage, as an excess of lesser heirs might prove burdensome to a thinly spread inheritance. 

In newly written stories that start with such a premise, the romances justify themselves. However, in fan fiction, the writer should try to capture the original feel or plot of the stories. 

Heyer wrote romances with Restoration comedy twists and turns. Her books are far less acerbic than Restoration comedies but just as reliant on disguises and witty villains and chase scenes and mistaken motivations and so on.

I discovered that simply replacing female characters with male resulted in exceptionally bland summaries (not that I minded, since summaries are always good practice...but bland). In order to make the fan fiction work, I needed to tie the new male characters to the world's rules. 

In my Regency England, men can marry each other but if they do, they must either designate an heir from among living relatives or arrange for a doyenne to produce an heir. Some estates still require heirs based on a bloodline but many estates do not. On the latter estates, an adopted heir has all the legal power and rights of an heir by blood. Male debutantes (referred to as marriage mart lads) still have more freedoms than their female counterparts but are more closely supervised than other men.

From The Foundling

With world rules in mind, when I married Gervase from The Quiet Gentleman off to Drew Morville with Martin as their heir, I used the circumstances to pay-off Martin's supposed motive in the possible murder attempt. In The Foundling, when I brought Gideon and Gilly together, I used the relationship to create consternation in Gilly's uncle, who doesn't want anyone to imagine that he is trying to promote his own son, Gideon, to the estate. And I gave Aaron from Arabella (which novel would have to be renamed) an additional motive in his attempt to bamboozle Mr. Beaumaris. He is not only exasperated at Mr. Beaumaris's coolly superior air but frustrated at being designated a "marriage mart lad" in the first place. 

It was an interesting lesson in pay-offs. If a story requires twists and turns, those twists and turns need to arise out of the world's expectations. If, for instance, social standing and parental approval are not part of a world's culture, nobody needs to run off to Gretna Green. Part A needs to be in place for Part B to work. 

It was also a good reminder that characters need something more than luuuv or despair to get by. Deciding that one's environment is entirely corrupt and worthless might be an interesting epiphany (it isn't really) but it is an epiphany that is entirely useless plot-wise. Characters need a stake in their world, a reason to change circumstances or themselves.