#RomanticFridayWriters - We Love Lovers - fan fiction challenge - Wuthering Heights - Heathcliff, the Byronic Hero, and Cathy

Fan fiction (alternatively referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or simply fic) is a broadly-defined term for stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator.      Wikipedia

This month's RomanticFridayWriters challenge is writing fan fiction. As it is Valentine's month, Donna Hole and I named the challenge - We Love Lovers. Not all entries may reflect lovers past or present, but I've always been fascinated by Scarlett and Rhett, Elizabeth and Darcy, Heathcliff and Cathy...thus, my entry...a monologue...an additional scene from Wuthering Heights with a twist.

Heathcliff is one of the Byronic Heroes. You can read my post comparing him to Edward from Twilight here if you're interested. I did a series on these brooding heroes in the past. Here is an excerpt from one of my posts:

We all love him or hate him – he’s the tall, dark brooding hero. The Byronic hero, based on the fictional characters of author Lord Byron, is a mysterious man, intelligent, sophisticated, educated, magnetic, charismatic, socially and sexually dominant while at the same time being detached from human society. We suffer his moods accompanied by his bouts of temper. His past is often troubled and he is riddled with self-destructive secrets. 

Lord Byron himself, according to his lover Lady Caroline Lamb, was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ Recent examples of this type include Batman, Dr Gregory House from the television series House, MD, and the late actor James Dean. 

The Byronic hero is sometimes called an anti-hero because of his negative qualities. Gilbert and Gubar compare him to a bewitching monster like Milton’s Satan – “He is in most ways the incarnation of worldly male sexuality, fierce, powerful, experienced, simultaneously brutal and seductive, devilish enough to overwhelm the body and yet enough a fallen angel to charm the soul.” 

DISCLAIMER: "Mt story 'Who is the Ghost Now?' is a work of fan fiction using characters from Wuthering Heights, the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë. The story below is a work of my imagination and I do not claim ownership of the story or the characters. I will not profit financially from this work. Thank you Emily Bronte for your contribution to the world of literature."

Who’s the Ghost Now?

Can you hear the wind blowing in from the mountain peaks? Can you see the grey glint of snow in the faraway clouds? Can you feel the ice crunching under your feet? 

No! Your thoughts are elsewhere!

You are so infatuated with Edgar Linton you’ve forgotten everything else!

You never invited me to your special day! Why? Were you afraid I’d create a scene?

Cathy! How could you do this? You love me, I know you love me! At least you used to love me. When did that change?

I never saw this betrayal coming.

We’ve loved each other since we were children, ever since your father adopted me and treated me as part of the family after your mother died. Everyone treated me with kindness except your nasty brother Hindley. How he loved to torment me, just because I was different. And just because I was so much stronger, more useful to father than he was. But I was never good enough to be his brother—father should have left me in the gutter to rot and Hindley would have been happy.

But Cathy, my darling, how could you desert me? How could you give yourself to another man? I could bear it if he was worthy of you, but he’s not! I could forgive a little flirtation while I was away overseas bettering myself, but marriage! Cathy! We were meant for each other! It is you and I who should be marrying today!

Old Ellen caught me at the door last night. A whiff of me anyway as I passed through. Gave her a shock I'm telling you, ha ha.  Couldn't resist revealing myself to her--even asked her for the key to the roof. She was unhappy to oblige.

I can be so-o-oo persuasive.

Now I have you in my sights. I see you and that loathsome crowd you hang around with. I hate how they touch you…how they fawn over you.

Enjoy their company while you can.

You, my Cathy, are a vision in white, pure as the driven snow. But we know better, don’t we? We have our secrets! Only you and I know what went on when we spread our cloaks on that carpet of soft spring flowers in the woodlands.

No one need ever know!

You’re leaving the house for the chapel. Look at those pathetic followers bowing and scraping to your every whim.  I’ll ignore how they press against you, brushing snow from your white cape and your beautiful hair. I want to kill them all!

My Cathy!

Do you love me?

Do you remember our days, carefree and wild, running on the moors like lambs in the springtime? How soft the grasses were as we collapsed in a heap of tangled arms and legs. How sweet the flowers were as I crushed you to myself, covering you with my cloak. How tender your body felt, as I caressed you through the soft stuff of your gown. Oh Cathy! You did love me! Why couldn’t you wait?

I was penniless, a nobody. Well, I made my fortune, just like you wanted. I’ve come back for you, but too late!  Was that dirty, ragged, black-haired gypsy not enough for you? Did you need the handsome, rich Mr Edgar Linton after all?

Cathy, you never loved me. To you I was just a wild child, someone to tame. After that visit to the Linton’s, you changed. You wanted the refined life, a life of silk frocks and fancy dinners -- not the life you’d have with Heathcliff, your savage!

Don’t leave me Cathy! 

Did I scream out loud? 

I see you turn towards my window.

I see the fright in your eyes.

Have you seen a ghost, Cathy?

Did you not think I’d return to claim you?

I see your confusion.

What a sight I must be. Some demented ghoul looking down on the wedding party. Someone who could tear you all apart in a moment.

But I will bide my time.

Don’t think marrying Linton is the end of our story, Cathy.

I’ll be back to claim what is rightfully mine. You’re part of me. We’ll never be parted. Never!

You love me, not Edgar Linton!

I hope you enjoyed  my monologue. 

Full Critique Acceptable
WORDS: 705

If you want to read/post fan fiction on the net, here is a link...

For other entries to this challenge, click on the names in my right-hand sidebar or click on the RFW link.

Insecure Writers Support Group - Creating a Sense of Place

It's the first Wednesday of the month - that means I've been in Fiji for a month (gulp - where did the time go?) and also time for the post for Insecure Writer's Support Group. Click on the badge above to go to lots more posts.

Today is also the Bombshell Launch Party for blogger Madeleine Maddock's ebook, Ultimate Sacrifice. I'll be doing an interview with Madeleine on Monday 6th August. For the full schedule, go here. Good luck Maddy!

Available at Amazon.com   Amazon. UK  Amazon FR     Amazon de

Today let's talk about creating a perfect story (I wish.) But at least we can try to get all the elements we need...

Stories we write are anchored in a specific time and place. That doesn't mean shutting your eyes and jabbing a pin on a map and deciding you'll set your story in the Arctic Circle. No, your story is an entity, and as well as having that story idea, those characters already popping up demanding to be included, you have to have your story and your characters set in the right place.

Think about some of our favourites...can you imagine Wuthering Heights anywhere else but on the wild gothic moors of Charlotte Bronte's 19th Century Yorkshire? Could Oliver Twist be set anywhere else but Dickensian London? Thinking modern now - can you separate Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum from her Trenton, New Jersey roots? What about Alexander McQueen's lady detectives? Don't they just work in Botswana?

Now your mind is racing along and you'll be thinking of your favourite stories - yes, their sense of place is all-embracing. It encompasses not only the physical, but the socio-economic, the cultural, the physical, the language, the politics, the weather, the mood of the place. (And if you're writing fantasy and you're creating a whole world, you need to think about all these things too. If your world boasts triple sun, you've got to know how that affects the people, the seasons, how the shadows are cast.)

"Place...makes the characters real...themselves...[Place] never really stops informing us...it is astir, alive, changing, reflecting, like the mind of man himself." Eudora Welty.

Travelling helps to find that perfect merging of place, characters, plot. As we travel we see the unique, the ridiculous, the different, the quixotic...we see stories everywhere, at least I do.

While cruising the Fiji Islands (sorry, lovely image isn't it?) I came across this unique sight - Fijian locals serenading arriving travellers to their island, Mana Island. Amongst the melody-makers here's this white guy, terribly-bad sun-scorched skin. What's he doing here in this incompatible climate? He looks happy, joyous even. Great story. I've got to write it...And why don't the Fijians wear hats in the boiling hot sun? (Generally it's a cultural thing - insulting to the Chief. Once you could have been cannabilised for just wearing a hat or touching the Chief's head.) I'll tell you, I got quite a headache walking around a Village with no hat on...

• What about you? Do you think place in your stories is terribly important?
• If you write fantasy or sci-fi, do you spend ages world building, getting it right?
• Do you enjoy stories with a great sense of overall place, where it all comes together?

#RomanticFridayWriters challenge - My story, 'Heathcliff's Anguish.'

As I struggled with this challenge, a male POV of  'She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, She Loves Me,' Heathcliff started snarling into my ear in the sleepless early hours of the morning. Who better to ponder love? Did Cathy love him? Did she not? For those of you familiar with Wuthering Heights, forgive me for the slight tweaking of plot. To those who haven't read this classic, go find it!


Let's listen to the moody, broody Heathcliff's monologue. 

Can you hear how the wind blows in from the mountains? Can you see the grey glint of snow in the clouds? Can you feel the dry leaves rustling? No! Your thoughts are elsewhere!

Cathy! How could you do this? You love me, I know you love me! We’ve loved each other since we were children. How could you desert me now? How could you give yourself to another man, if man indeed he is.

I see you now as I watch from my cold glass window. I see you and that loathsome crowd as you leave the house for the chapel. I’ll ignore their simpering ways. I’ll ignore how they press against you, touching your white cape and your beautiful hair. My eyes are for you alone.


My Cathy!

Do you love me?

I remember our days, carefree and wild, running on the moors like lambs in the springtime. How soft the grasses were as we collapsed in a heap of tangled arms and legs. How sweet the flowers were as I crushed you to myself, covering you with my cloak. How tender your body felt, as I caressed you through your soft gown. Oh Cathy! You did love me! Why couldn’t you wait?

I was penniless, a nobody. Well, I’ve made my fortune. I’ve come back for you, but too late!  Was that dirty, ragged, black-haired gypsy not enough for you? Did you need the handsome, rich Mr Edgar Linton after all?

Cathy, you never loved me. To you I was just a wild child, someone to tame. After that visit to the Linton’s, you changed. You wanted the refined life, a life of silk frocks and fancy dinners. Not the life you’d have with Heathcliff, your savage!

Don’t leave me Cathy!

Did I scream out loud? I see you turn towards my window. I see the fright in your eyes. Have you seen a ghost Cathy? Did you not think I’d return to claim you? I see your confusion. What a sight I must be. Some demented ghoul looking down on the wedding party. Someone who could tear you all apart in a moment. But I will bide my time.

Don’t think marrying Linton is the end of our story, Cathy.

I’ll be back to claim what is rightfully mine. You’re part of me. We’ll never be parted. Never!

You love me, not Edgar Linton!

©DeniseCovey2011

I hope you enjoyed my story. 398 words. Please click here or on the Romantic Friday Writers badge on the top right of my sidebar to access more!

BTW, just read a great post on What Publishing will look like in 2021. Go here to read it. Do!

Byronic Hero Series, Part 4 - Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights compared to Edward Cullen and Twilight.

The Byronic Hero

For those of you who are visiting my posts for the first time, I have been finding parallels between the recent blockbuster series Twilight and checking out how clever author Stephenie Meyer has drawn from the classics - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights in particular. The Twilight hero, Edward, (sorry Team Jacob) shares many of the attributes of the Byronic Hero (read my first post of the series below if you want the background.)

Darcy's Byronic Hero has an overbearing ego, Rochester exhibits moody paternalism, but Heathcliff from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, is exotic and savage, in contrast to the civility of Imperial Britain. Nelly describes Heathcliff after he returns from making his fortune: "...half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire..." His innate wildness has not been subdued.

Heathcliff's wildness sometimes manifests as brutality. He becomes monstrously cruel, killing a lapdog, and taunting Linton and Catherine. Edward Cullen's "monstrosity" is his vampirism, against which he fights a daily battle. Edward never exhibits the unrestrained cruelty of Heathcliff, but he does admit "a typical bout of rebellious adolescence" where he hunted and killed humans." (Twilight, 342.) Even though Edward has become a "vegetarian" vampire, the reader knows he possesses the barbarous power to kill James, Victoria, or anyone who would hurt Bella.

Wuthering Heights is the only one of Bella's novels mentioned in each of the Twilight Saga's four books, with one exception, New Moon. This is a little odd, since the plot of New Moon closely mirrors Wuthering Heights more so than any of the other books. Like Wuthering Heights, New Moon begins with Edward and Bella's carefree happiness, the English moors replaced with meadows outside Forks. Edward abandons Bella in New Moon, which emotionally destroys her and she begins to recklessly act out. She takes to riding motorbikes and cliff-diving. But despite all this, she still rushes to his vampire's deathbed (in Volterra) driven by love. When Edward returnds to Bella he says: "As if there were any way that I could exist without needing you!" (New Moon, 510.) Bella sees her situation in Eclipse as similar to the plot of Wuthering Heights when she is torn between Jacob and Edward, just as Cathy is torn between Edgar and Heathcliff.

Edward himself identifies with Heathcliff during Eclipse. He denigrates Heathcliff at first, calling Heathcliff and Cathy "ghastly people who ruin each other's lives." He later changes his mind. "The more time I spend with you, the more human emotions seem comprehensible to me. I...can sympathise with Heathcliff in ways I didn't think possible before." (Eclipse, 28,265.)

Heathcliff is likened to a vampire by Nelly when he roams the moors alone at night. When Edward re-reads Bella's copy of Wuthering Heights, he leaves the book open where it shows Heathcliff describing his rival Edgar Linton in almost vampiric terms "Had he been in my place...though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him...I never would have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. The moment  her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drank his blood!" Edward, however, says he sympathises with Heathcliff, perhaps becuase he is overcoming his Byronic savagery by trying to become more human.

The flip side of the Byronic hero's savagery is his passionate attachment to his love. As children, Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable, appearing to share even the same soul as they run wild over the moors. Their perfect happiness is ruined when Cathy convalesces at Thrushcross Grange and falls under the influence of the Lintons, determining to marry Edgar Linton, while at the same time saying: "I am Heathcliff-he's always, always in my mind-not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself-but as my own being." It is not until Cathy is dying that Heathcliff reveals the depth of his ardor. He rushes to Cathy's sick room, "he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy" Nelly says. "Be with me always-take any form-drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life...without my soul!" Edward quotes this final line of Heathcliff's, after Bella's quotes Cathy's lament to him: "If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger." (Eclipse, 611.)


I hope you have enjoyed this series, and whether you agree or disagree with the parallels I've found, I hope you've found the posts enjoyable and thought more deeply about the classics and maybe are inpired to read Twilight if you haven't yet succumed. I recommend Twilight and History by Nancy Reagin if you'd like to read more.

Have you read any books that you can't help seeing parallels with well-known classics? Tell me about it...