Hello and a Summary

[xslash-foreverx.livejournal.com]

Hi there!! My name is Courtney, and this is my first post here. Quick About me: I'm a 21 year old History major and a senior in college.

I just wanted to maybe put up a summary of story I'd like to maybe start putting together.

It's called 'In Pursuit of Liberty'.

The story follows a nineteen-year old girl and patriot named Johanna Meyer during the winter of 1777-78 during the British occupation of Philadelphia. While her father and four younger brothers flee to their country farm, she decides to remain in the city to protect the house and their horse selling business. However, she has an ulterior motive: spying. She knows that her home will be an attractive place to house British officers if she can convince them she is a Loyalist. Once she does so, she starts to plan out her intelligence gathering. She is exceptionally bright, able to memorize things easily, so she decides to use that to her advantage. If she has no information on her, she cannot be captured as a spy.

She figures out everything ahead of time: what rooms will be used, what servants can be trusted, and her path to Washington's winter camp at Valley Forge. She does not count on the affections of one of the British officers, Captain Jasper Stoddard. He is tall, ginger, and good-looking, but she is loyal to her country and her fiancee, Solomon Stroud. Stoddard is hotheaded and easily jealous, already looking at Johanna as if she was his. He even tells her of his own fiancee in England.

Fortunately, he is not very bright at first and smitten with her, making it easy for her to manipulate him into giving information, although his temper and easy morals frighten her some.

Any thoughts? I'm really hoping to not make her a Mary Sue...

Comments

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

Hi Courtney!

What genre is this going to be? I'm guessing Historical Romance?

If we're talking realistic historical fiction the first thing that stands out to me is that no young woman would be left on her own in those days. (She wouldn't have been left alone with her fiance either.) Not ever. Women did not enjoy the freedom that we enjoy today.
Secondly, she would totally be thought a whore and/or get raped if she was on her own and opened a boarding house for soldiers.

If you're talking alt-Earth or fantasy genre, that's different, you can make up your own social customs. If you want to go with the historical fiction you may want to think about how she could have the adventures while still fitting in her era.

I have to confess that it is one of my personal pet peeves to find completely modern females and attitudes in non-time travel type historical fiction. Bending the rules a bit is one thing but completely disregarding them is something else. YMMV :-)

[xslash-foreverx.livejournal.com]

Firstly, this is still clearly a work in progress and will be further researched once I get the time. Being a senior college student, I have plenty of research and work to do already.

I have her fiancee with the Congress that at that time fled to York, so the fiancee is really just there in name a lot of the time, but that also requires a bit more info, as I need to see if the members of congress had secretaries.

She would not be totally alone, as there would be servants there, but I'm now wondering if it would be better for me to leave one of the brothers with her, (There's one that's seventeen.) If you actually look back at the American Revolution, women had to be left alone a lot due to their husbands and sons, even fathers going to join the war as a member of the Continental Army or their local militia. (Even Loyalists joined their own militias.)

I'm open for any ideas that would help!