NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Monday, April 8, 2013

Why I Didn't Write The Hunchback Of Notre Dame



We recently watched Les Miserables, and at the conclusion I received the pivotal question, "You're an author, why didn't you write this book?"

"Mmmm, yes. Always an observation to make one feel confident in their skills."

Aside from the fact that I'm not French, I did not write Les Miserables because it was not a genre of choice for me. It wasn't Romantic Suspense. At the time he penned Les Mis, Victor Hugo had already become quite political. I'm not one for bringing politics into my writing. Perhaps politics will exist as part of the plot, but never as a personal stand.

But, lets jump back thirty years earlier, when a young, more romantic Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Is this something I would have written? Well, it was pretty violent. When I was a child I accidentally saw a movie on TV with a hanging taking place.  To this day, I can't watch anything like that. I have to close my eyes.  I can take blood, gore, etc. ... but not that.  So no, I wouldn't have written Hunchback because it had a hanging in it. I also would not have written the book because I always root against Notre Dame in football. And lastly, as Quasimodo once said, "always stick to your hunches." So I listened to him and wrote ENDLESS NIGHT instead, which is equally a literary masterpiece. :)

So I ask the gifted group of authors here, "Why didn't YOU write the Hunchback of Notre Dame?"


Maureen
www.maureenamiller.com

12 comments:

Wendy Soliman said...

Oh no, I couldn't do the hunchback. Glad you didn't either because Endless Night is a damned sight better and much more fun to read.

Maureen A. Miller said...

Thanks, Wendy. If I ran a bell tower, time would cease because I couldn't handle all the noise. :)

CathyP said...

Didn't I read somewhere that Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice were considered the pulp fiction of the day for authors now considered masters?

Not that we write pulp fiction, although Pulp Fiction is another cult classic.

Just sayin'

Anne Marie Becker said...

I don't believe the Hunchback is quite my style. There are, however, movies or books (usually movies) that make me slap my forehead with a "Why didn't I think of that first?!" But then, there's not enough time in the day to write all of those lovely stories, so I'm glad others are doing it. Gives me time to focus on my stuff. ;)

Maureen A. Miller said...

@Cathy - Good point! Some day 200 years from now, someone may unearth my novels and consider them classics! :)

@Anne Marie - We like your stuff! :)

Toni Anderson said...

Vic beat me to it :)
Maureen, always write what you love, and what I love :)
I often see something I wish I'd written, but remind myself I can't do everything :) Plus many people write stuff better than I so I get to enjoy their gifts instead :)

Elise Warner said...

I really would like to see your take on The Hunchback, Maureen. Perhaps when you have a spare moment?

Marcelle Dubé said...

I like my stories to end well, and having Quasimodo die... I'm sorry, that's not ending well.

Don't get me wrong. My H&H can go through hell, but they have to come out at the other end.

None of this hanging stuff.

Maureen A. Miller said...

@Toni - That pesky Vic!

@Elise - Very depressing, needless to say. It's been quite some time since I picked up that book. Some of the classics I've read multiple times because it seems with each passing decade I can draw more from it.

@Marcelle - Thank you! I'm afraid of ropes. I get antsy in nautical-themed restaurants because of all the ropes. :)

Shelley Munro said...

Because I write what I want to read :)

Maureen A. Miller said...

Amen, Shelley! :)

Jean Harrington said...

Of course we're writing classics--what people of our time want to read. Submitted by Mother Harrington

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