Science Fiction writer Simon Morden writes violent novels. Another War (2005), was shortlisted for a World Fantasy Award, and 2007 saw the publication of The Lost Art which has been shortlisted for the 2009 Catalyst Award for best teen fiction. He’s currently writing his next novel, ‘Equations of Life’, which he tells us is set in a future London packed with refugees, armoured nuns, Stalin-lookalikes, and seriously hard-core science. So how does he do it?

It’s easier than writing sex

The funny thing about writing violent scenes is that I find them so much easier and satisfying than writing sex scenes. But when I say funny, I mean it in an ironic, slightly disturbing and profoundly sad way. Why is it that I’m more at ease describing the moment of death, of desolation, of decreation, than I am a joyful coupling that holds the promise of new life?

It doesn’t reflect well on me, perhaps, but I’m not alone in this dichotomy. It’s not for nothing that there’s a Bad Sex award – given for crimes against literature – but no Bad Violence award.

It’s all in the drama

Much of the reason for this is that violent scenes are full of drama, intense emotion, and split-second critical choices. Capturing the essence of the scene is simply more straightforward than writing many other types of scene: it isn’t the problem of trying to capture every last detail, so much as deciding what to leave out since there is so much of it.

Random acts of aggression?

There is a problem, however. It could be argued that the modern world divorces us from violence and death. Most of us live in a society where rare acts of random aggression are the only times we encounter the squalid nature of the reality of knives, guns and fists, and death is often clinical and removed from the abrupt shock of trauma. It is important not to purvey an unrealistic, cartoon-style violence. People get hurt in fights, and it’s an unreasonable assumption that if a chair is used as a weapon, it’ll be the chair that breaks and not the victim’s skull.

Do your research

‘Keeping it real’ is your duty. Talk to the police – you might be able to go out on patrol with them – or with the staff at the casualty department at your local hospital. Veterans of our all-too-frequent wars aren’t likely to gloss over the facts, either. We have their memoirs, but also their memories. All I have to do is remember my father-in-law’s stories – a veteran of the Spanish Civil war, Dunkirk, Singapore, the Atlantic convoys and D-Day – if I want to be reminded of the reality of conflict.

When violence becomes pornography

It is true that violence in books is commonplace and often pornographic, simply present for the sake of being present: a filler, a convenient and familiar bridge for the plot to cross over on its way to the last page. It’s not a writing habit you should cultivate. But there will be other times where scenes which include violence are necessary parts of the story: they show the nature of the characters and move the plot forward in an entirely natural way, arising from decisions made and paths taken earlier on.

I have some rules of thumb I bear in mind when writing – flexible enough to withstand the impact of my imagination, and hopefully robust enough to keep me from pornography.

Violence needs to be a consequence of the plot

Raymond Chandler’s way of spicing up a plot was to walk a man with a gun into the room. But it was Chekov who nailed it with his rule regarding the gun over the mantelpiece: if you show it, you have to use it. Chekov knew that a plot device has to be shown before it comes into play – something called foreshadowing. So while entirely random acts of violence might happen to your characters, it will only appear so from their point of view: the act itself will have been planned by someone, somewhere, and there should be pointers to that in your story.

The act of violence needs to have consequences

That violence itself should have consequences for your character shouldn’t be something that needs stressing, but it’s often forgotten, often deliberately in order to serve an unrealistic plot. If your story is set somewhere with a functioning police force, violence will have legal sanctions (writers of soap operas, please take note). If it’s set in a more lawless environment, blood feuds and tribal or gang loyalties will play a part. Even in a war zone, there will be rules of engagement: a battle is not a free-for-all. And all this is aside from the medical, physical and emotional aftermath of conflict, which must be treated as seriously as the actual act itself.

It needs to be true to the characters

Your characters are allowed to be unskilled at physical combat, lousy shots, faint at the sight of blood and be generally terrified by the chaos of violence. They are also allowed to remember their training, take a deep breath and keep calm while all about them are losing their heads. That still leaves room for extraordinary bravery, appalling cowardice, gracious mercy and utter depravity – but what they bring to the fight is what they have inside already, regardless of what they take away.

Writing violence is easy to do, but it’s just as easy to get it wrong. I’d argue that getting it right shows a greater degree of maturity and mastery. Violence shouldn’t be used as a filler or as a spice – like everything in your story, it should be there because it ought to be.

Related posts:

1. Writing Fantasy Fiction
2. Creative Writing Course: Writing from a point of view
3. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction

Choosing a genre: so what kind of animal is it?

I worry a lot about genre. My first novel, Charity's Child, proved difficult to classify. I couldn’t even decide whether it was aimed at young adults or fully-fledged ones (happily, people across a wide age-range have told me they liked it). With my second novel, Low Tide, Lunan Bay, I decided to go for something easier to pigeonhole. It was going to be hen-lit … forty-somethings looking for love.

But I decided my heroine needed to lose ten years, which meant it was no longer (quite) hen-lit. What’s more, my third draft introduced a mystery element I hadn’t foreseen at all. Instead of finding true love second-time-around online and all being (eventually) rosy, Abbie, my heroine, meets an apparently wonderful man called Bill and then her eleven-year-old twin daughters start to cause concern. Could her new relationship somehow be responsible?

Adding a mystery

A mystery element was now present. I found myself writing about my own anxieties – how do you balance children with new love and who (online and offline) can you really trust? When things go wrong, how far are you prepared to go to protect yourself and your loved ones?

My publisher, Robert Hale, liked the story but asked me to shorten it. In the final version, the mystery element became more prominent. A reviewer said it “plunges the reader into unexpected thriller territory” (Kay Green, Circaidy Gregory Review, May 2009), which I rather like.

Crossing genre

One way to describe Low Tide, Lunan Bay is as a mix of two genres, romance and mystery/suspense. I’ve been asked whether this poses problems for marketing (which shelf does it go on in the bookshop?), but it seems not. Romantic suspense has become a well-established genre of its own – and goes back, when you think about it, quite a few years. Daphne du Maurier’s books have been classified that way, as have those of Mary Stewart. More recent authors of this mixed genre include Linda Howard and Nora Roberts.

Knowing the genre conventions

I’ve told you how I did it – now let me try and work out how it should be done. At the very least, try to get clear from the start what genre you intend to write. Don’t (as I did) change your mind halfway through. Study the conventions of your chosen genre. Romances have a hero and a heroine (if they are heterosexual romances, that is) and usually (though not always) a happy ending. Suspense novels contain mystery, probably a false trail or two, an element of danger and someone to solve things in the end.

How you weave these elements together is up to you, but they all need to be there in some form. The same applies to whatever genre (or genre-mix) you are writing. Be aware of the conventions so that, if you decide to break them, at least you’ll be doing it with your eyes open, fully aware of the risks. Remember, readers like (up to a point) to know what to expect.

Keeping an eye on the market

Keep a close eye on the market. Find out as much as you can about what’s selling, what publishers are looking for (though the trouble is, fashions change quickly and by the time you’ve written your book it may all be different). Find out all you can … but when you sit down to write, shove it all away to the back of your brain. It’ll still be there, subtly influencing what you do, but your imaginative, creative side will be in control, as it should be.

Writing the first draft

I write my first drafts with no clear end in sight, allowing my characters to take me where they will. I like John Braine’s advice from his wonderful book: Writing a Novel (Methuen 1974). All that matters about the first draft, he says, is to finish it. (Actually I think he attributes the advice to Hemingway, but whoever said it first, it’s kept me going on many a word-jammed morning.)

When the first draft is finished, I leave it for a while… then I read it through and extract from it the synopsis of my story. It’s not set in stone at this stage, but it will guide me as I start my next draft. I also find it useful to get hold of a diary or calendar for the year(s) in which year the novel is set. It’s a good way to keep track of Easter and other breaks, the progress of pregnancies and so on. If you leave such things too late, you’re in a mess.

The fun bit of your research is to read, read, read. Focus on your chosen genre but don’t restrict yourself to it. All sorts of unexpected influences can nourish your work. Good luck and have a thrilling time!

Related posts:

1. Writing love scenes that sizzle
2. Writing Fantasy Fiction
3. Legal thriller by name, but not by nature?

TCW: What exactly is Christian speculative fiction?

JG: Christian speculative fiction is a fancy way of saying “science fiction and fantasy written from a Christian worldview.” There are many popular genres in Christian fiction, just as there are in the wider publishing arena. But unlike in secular publishing, where fantasy and science fiction are extremely popular, Christian publishing has not always appreciated the kind of fiction I affectionately call the weird stuff.

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term to include the sub-genres of science fiction, fantasy, time travel, supernatural thriller, horror, alternate history, modern magic, urban fantasy, vampire/Goth, and other wonderfully weird kinds of fiction. And Christian speculative fiction is a term that designates all of those same genres when they arise from the Christian perspective. (Yes, there really are Christian vampire novels and Christian horror – we call them “chillers.”)

TCW: So what kind of market is there for this sort of fiction?

JG: It’s fairly easy to identify the demographic that loves regular Christian fiction. In North America, at least, it’s white, Evangelical women of child-bearing through empty nest ages. It’s the delightful ladies who populate our churches.

Understanding who they are goes a long way toward comprehending why speculative fiction often sells poorly when published by Christian publishers. These wonderful women love their prairie romances and Amish stories and cozy mysteries and mom-lit. They don’t especially appreciate stories about mutant alien vampires who will eat your brains. Go figure.

Likewise, defining the audience for Christian speculative fiction may sound fairly easy. For one thing, it’s simply not the audience I’ve just described. So we know where Christian speculative fiction readers aren’t, but it’s harder to find where they are.

TCW: Could you describe your typical Christian speculative fiction reader?

JG: I like to describe the core readership as Christians who love The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or Lost. Or even Christians who would go to a fantasy or comic book convention if given half a chance.

Such a definition gives us a quick idea of who we’re talking about. But where are those people? We know where they’re not, but where are they? There’s no Christian speculative fiction magazine. There’s no convention for it. There are no stores that cater specifically to them. Nor are they of a narrowly defined age, economic, or social status. They come in all ages, sizes, races, genders, and professions.

TCW:  Then how do you reach them?

JG:  The best way to find this group is to go online. Many of the core readership has self-identified and found each other in forums, blog alliances, and online e-zines. Here’s a starter list:

• Where The Map Ends
• The Lost Genre Guild
• Marcher Lord Press
• The Anomaly forums
• The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blogtour
• Raygun Revival
• Mindflights e-zine

This hits the hardcore fans. It doesn’t include the many other fans who would join these groups if they knew about them or had the time. These are the people who love Ted Dekker’s novels but didn’t realize anyone else had written books like his. Finding those folks is harder.

TCW:  So you’ve got a market and you’ve got a product – why isn’t anyone (or hardly anyone) publishing for them?

JG: Most Christian publishing companies have basically written off the niche audience I’m describing. These houses do a great job of reaching their primary reader – the ladies I talked about above – and they are most interested in continuing to reach them. They’re not motivated to explore new markets, especially ones as hard to locate as this one.

TCW: Where would you advise writers of this kind of fiction to go?

JG: It follows that writers of this kind of fiction do not find a ready welcome at Christian publishing companies. Most agents won’t even represent a novel if it’s in a speculative category. They know they won’t be able to place such a book with any mainstream Christian publishing company.

That’s disappointing for many authors – but it’s great news for me. I launched my own small indie publishing company, Marcher Lord Press, to publish the finest in Christian speculative fiction and get it to this underserved niche audience. So when these authors get turned away by the regular Christian publishers, they come to me – and I get to cherry pick the most wonderful Christian speculative novels you can imagine.

I should point out that there are some Christian speculative novels that do get published through mainstream Christian presses. There’s Frank Peretti and Jerry B. Jenkins (Left Behind) and Ted Dekker, and more. There are even some new Christian vampire novels just releasing. However, by and large, such things are considered long shots. And when you understand what I described about the core readership these publishers reach, you can see why they’d think so.

TCW: There are many unpublished Christian writers who are told their work is not ‘Christian’ enough. Can you comment on this?

JG: I know that some Christian novelists struggle with finding balance in their fiction. Sometimes they find themselves too Christian for secular publishers and too secular for Christian publishers. That’s a real dilemma.

We’re currently living in a publishing revolution. Soon there will be no dilemma. Marcher Lord Press is an example of a small, agile publisher that can operate with low overhead to successfully reach a niche audience. Other presses like mine will pop up soon, now that the Internet and other technology allows publishers to bypass the traditional brick-and-mortar bookstore model and sell directly to the consumer.

TCW: Does this mean you don’t apply the same ‘moral’ yardstick that mainstream CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) affiliated publishers use? (For more on this see Simon Morden’s essay  Sex, Death and Christian Fiction)

JG: In Christian publishing in North America, whatever standards are applied to fiction in general are applied to speculative fiction. Perhaps more so. Christian speculative fiction is on thin ice anyway, as far as traditional Christian publishers are concerned, so if a speculative novel contains even a modest amount of sex, violence, or foul language, it can become a convenient reason to simply say no to the whole project.

Violence usually gets a pass in Christian novels, even in mainstream Christian publishing. I have a friend who jokes about the body count in my own (Jefferson Scott) novels. It’s a strange kind of arrangement for these books: you can kill people left and right but can’t say a curse word.

So to be accurate, I should maybe say it this way:

1. Sex – almost none is allowed in CBA fiction
2. Profanity – almost none is allowed in CBA fiction
3. Violence – just about anything goes so long as it’s not gratuitous or too disturbing (for whoever is in charge of determining such things at any given house)

TCW: Do the same standards apply at Marcher Lord?

JG: My standards at MLP are not quite as strict as at mainstream CBA houses, but are more or less the same.

TCW: There is also a sense that only the ”right kind of Christian” gets published? What kind of Christian worldview is acceptable? Who becomes the arbiter of that?

JG: Most CBA houses are evangelical Protestant and reach an audience that is primarily evangelical Protestant, so that’s the determining factor there. These publishers are looking for Christian fiction that arises from the evangelical Protestant worldview and will be familiar to their readers.

That doesn’t mean that Christian fiction from these houses can’t talk about Catholics or Muslims or whatever else. And it doesn’t mean they don’t challenge readers to consider other viewpoints on the Christian spectrum. It just means that the thrust of the story and of the author need to be supportive of that evangelical Protestant tradition.

Note that these publishers aren’t saying that they’re judges of what Christian worldview is acceptable. They’re saying they reserve the right to publish novels they agree with and that their target audience will agree with.

TCW: Back to the new wave of Christian speculative fiction. What kinds of books might now get published?

JG: Books that don’t fit the traditional classifications, that’s what. This is great news for those authors of Christian horror, fantasy poetry, off-brand comic books, and more. It will also give rise to a certain lawlessness where you’ll be able to find any kind of depraved wackiness for sale, but that’s the nature of the Internet anyway, so I think we’ll be okay.

We’re seeing the dawning of the age of publishing in which authors can successfully find smaller and smaller niche audiences. And for fans and writers of Christian speculative fiction, that’s a very good thing.

TCW: Thanks for visiting The Crafty Writer, Jeff.

JG: Thanks for having me!

Related posts:

1. Christian fiction
2. Niche markets: Christian ‘chick lit’
3. Gay literature: separate genre or marketing niche?

Research is Like Underwear…

In 1541, if you came from London, you considered Yorkshire to be a barbarian land. Once you turned off the Great North Road, the journey to York was a ‘wretched track’. The woods contained boar and wildcat and the locals still shared thatched hovels with their cattle.

This is what we learn from the first few pages of CJ Sansom’s Sovereign. Interesting, but not gripping.

Now let me add that our hero, Matthew Shardlake, is exhausted. He’s just buried his father and discovered the family farm is in massive debt. He’s risking travelling at night because he’s afraid he will miss his deadline for a ‘strange mission’ he has been given by the Archbishop. Meanwhile, the man who’s supposed to protect him is complaining that they’re lost and in danger of being kidnapped.

Now would you want to read on? Sansom has woven the research into a background that reinforces the plight of his characters. Already, we’re in suspense. That’s one of the reasons the Shardlake books are bestsellers. That’s also why research is like underwear. It’s crucial to help form what appears on the surface, but…

…we don’t want to see it hanging out on display

Readers have to be given enough background knowledge to make sense of your story, and a certain amount of scene-setting is unavoidable. The tricky part is finding a way to do it without overwhelming readers who didn’t know before, or boring those who did.

Maps can be useful. Long explanations are rarely welcome. Having one character tell another what they should both already know isn’t credible. There are better ways.

Bernard Cornwell tackles this brilliantly at the start of Gallows Thief. Sir Henry Forrest, a respectable gentleman, is being given a tour of Newgate Prison by one of the turnkeys. As the turnkey takes pride in showing off the horrors of the place, we feel Sir Henry’s shock and disgust. We feel pity for the prisoners – and incidentally, we and Sir Henry learn a great deal of the history and layout of Newgate.

Finding your way into the world of the story

How do you get past the facts and into the imagination?

Surrounding yourself with photos is a great way to get ‘in the mood’. For years I didn’t have a room to write in, but a couple of cork boards covered in pictures came out from under the bed whenever there was a quiet moment.

Some people have a coin, a piece of old silk, or anything else tangible from the period they’re writing about.
Dressing up is fun. Wearing the sort of clothes your character might have worn may offer a whole new perspective, although you may want to warn your loved ones first.

Manda Scott ‘dreamed’ her bestselling ‘Boudica’ series. It’s not a shortcut, though – she also did plenty of solid research.

Finding your way into the scene

Sometimes it helps to think of a modern parallel to bring a situation alive. I found it hard to visualise my two bachelor medics sharing their lodgings until I realised that they weren’t living in a museum, they were living in the ancient equivalent of a student flat. (If you think this is unlikely, an acquaintance who helps to excavate a famous Roman fort assures me, “They were so messy! They just threw their rubbish everywhere!”)

So now you’re busily writing your novel. Here are a few of the questions and compromises you may come across:

Oh look! I’ve found out something interesting!

Sooner or later you may stumble across a fact so fascinating that it simply has to appear in your novel.
This is the time to take a deep breath and think carefully. If it really belongs there – great, in it goes. But does it? Does it move the story along, or are you having to fiddle with the plot to fit it in? Once you’ve spent time ramming it in, will you then have to waste more time editing it out again? Maybe it’s worth keeping for a more suitable occasion.

Then there’s the question of what everybody else believes is true about the past, even if it isn’t. I’m in a small minority of people who suspect that our ancestors weren’t much shorter than we are, and somewhere I have an article by a respectable bone specialist who thinks the same thing. However, one of the copy editor’s suggestions on the first book was that I shorten some of characters because they seemed inordinately huge.

He was right. A first novel probably wasn’t the place to show off that I’d read something interesting. Once you’re well established, however, that rule may change. Lindsey Davis has made something of a game of it – check out ‘historical errors’ and ‘deliberate insertions’ in the entertaining rants on her website.

Watch your language

No matter how you may love the middle ages, any urge to write your fourteenth-century dialogue in perfect Chaucerian English needs to be suppressed – at least if you ever hope to snare a mainstream publisher. You may know that a wang-tooth is a molar, but most readers won’t. Nor will they want to bother looking it up like I just have.

The challenge, if your characters would have spoken a fore-runner of English, is to make the dialogue sound authentic whilst making it comprehensible. It’s worth taking a look at your favourite authors and analysing how they do it.

Inappropriate similes may have to be kept under control, too. Ancient characters couldn’t ‘pocket’ money. Neither could they button their lips, or zip down to the Forum for the shopping.

Oh dear, that’s not very nice

Another balance to be struck is that between authenticity and modern sensitivities. An ancient Roman is not going to suggest abolishing the slave trade any more than a Victorian patriarch would tell his tired servants to put their feet up while he and the mistress do the laundry.

On the other hand, if your Roman hero regularly beats his slaves and your patriarch makes money out of sending small boys up chimneys, modern readers may not want to spend long in their company. Whatever you think of the less palatable views of our ancestors, it’s worth thinking about how you are going to present them.

Writers make things up

We’re writing fiction. We are allowed to invent.

Nobody knows the details of how a Roman Army hospital was run. (If you do, where were you when I needed you?) When it became obvious that some background was needed in my first book, I took what we already know about Roman army administration – i.e. there was lots of it, and they were very fond of lists – and invented something that suited the story.

Again, it’s a matter of personal judgement. Or perhaps something else is going on? Many writers have the bizarre experience of inventing something and then finding out afterwards that it’s true.

Almost the Last Word

Historical novelists frequently add an Author’s Note. This is a chance to point interested readers to places where they can find out more. It’s sometimes used to help separate fact from fiction, to explain the writer’s choices between competing theories of history, or to acknowledge where they’ve deliberately changed something. It’s also frequently the place where an anxious author says something along the lines of: Dear reader, I’ve done my best with the research, but please be gentle with me….

And mostly, thank goodness, they are.

Why we came here in the first place

We don’t read novels to learn facts, although we may pick up some in passing. We read novels for a chance to live in other people’s lives. I’ll finish with the mention of Rosemary Sutcliff, who was one of the great storytellers of her generation. When asked about the rare occasions when she had to decide between historical accuracy and a good story, she said she chose the story. Her Eagle of the Ninth series is still in print, and there are people who grew up to be historians or archaeologists today because they fell in love with the past through her books. That’s the best legacy any historical novelist can hope for.

Resources:

The Historical Novel Society – to find like-minded souls and read reviews of all the latest historical fiction.

Here’s the full interview with Rosemary Sutcliff.

Excellent advice from Bernard Cornwell on his website.

This post is copyright RS Downie, 2009. No reproduction of this material is permissible without the author’s permission.

Related posts:

1. Writing historical fiction 1 – creating your historical world
2. Writing historical fiction 2 – doing the research
3. Writing historical crime novels – interview with R.S. Downie

You can’t please all of the people…

Here’s a confession: the earliest edition of my first book contained a wrong Latin ending. I only found this out when it was firmly and very publicly corrected by a reviewer in a national newspaper. It was a small thing – just two letters – but as he said, it cast doubt on the rest of the research. He said nice things as well, and later chose the book as one of his top thrillers for Christmas, but at the time I barely noticed the positive points. I was mortified. I felt I’d let everyone down. I lay awake fantasising about recalling all the copies so I could set fire to them and then fling myself on the pyre.

So I’m hardly in a position to criticise the apocryphal author who put the words, ‘Hi honey, fix yourself a sandwich!’ into the mouth of Mary Queen of Scots. The point is, if you’re inaccurate enough to jolt a reader out of the story, then you’ve failed.

Nobody’s right all the time – and a surprising amount of knowledge is soon out of date – but a reader who has taken the trouble to pick up the book wants to enjoy it. I think we have a duty to try and get things as accurate as we can.

Is there a ‘right’ way to research a novel?

Firstly – a word of reassurance. ‘Research,’ in this context, just means ‘finding things out’. You do not need to be an academic: ordinary people can do it, albeit often more slowly than somebody who already knows where to go. Different writers work in different ways. Apparently some of them even hate doing research, but if you’re reading this, that’s unlikely to be your problem.

Some advise that you should write the story first and then do the research. Others suggest finding out the basics, then writing the first draft and going back to check the details later. This is something you’ll probably have to do anyway, since often what you need to know won’t be clear until you’re well into the story.

Personally I like to visit the location and read background material for several months whilst sketching out rough ideas. I then resolve to concentrate on writing, but am frequently sidetracked, because…

Research can be more fun than writing

I should know. I signed up for a brief archaeology evening course ten years ago and now spend a substantial part of every summer scrabbling around in mud with a trowel. It’s enormous fun and inspiring in that you do get a sense of the physical past, but it’s not the most efficient way to learn and does eat into the writing time.

Here are some better (and worse) ideas to try. Most of my experience is with the 2nd century, so if you have any more suggestions, please chip in.

Some Good Places to find things out:

• The location. Usually requires several visits, especially if it’s in a nice place.
• The library – the best books will have lists of further reading at the back, and libraries can get hold of almost anything for a small fee. Try the children’s reference section, too – children want to know sensible things, like what people ate.
• The internet (but see ‘not so good’ below). Check out your library website. Most public library tickets give access to swathes of online reference material for free, including…
• …old newspapers
• Archives – again, try the local reference library for sources.
• Museums, restored period homes etc.
• People who were there (if there are any left)
• Contemporary literature, paintings, recipes, music, dance – what were people enjoying at the time?
• Maps – old and new, because rivers change course, and coastlines shift …
• Specialist groups and local history societies
• Re-enactment – this can include both public events and private experiments with WOAD in the kitchen
• Ask an expert – more below.

And some not so good…

• Other novels
• Wikipedia – always cross-check! Links to sources are often useful, though.
• Memories of school - what you think you remember!
• The internet. Anyone can set up a website. Enthusiasm and confidence don’t always mean accuracy

Asking the experts

Some people – especially crime writers, it seems – are adept at finding specialists who can help them get their facts straight. Others of us research our unpublished novels without talking to anybody because we are too embarrassed. (Though I really thought I’d got that Latin ending confirmed…)

Armed with a publishing contract, I’ve since plucked up the courage to consult some experts and one or two others have got in touch. All have been both kind and helpful, but do bear in mind that some people receive a lot of requests. Guy de la Bedoyere makes some good points about this on his website – which, incidentally, is an excellent source of information on Roman Britain.

At the risk of stating the obvious, if you do find a helpful contact, do what homework you can beforehand. Having some background knowledge will help you to both focus your questions and understand the answers. If the person has written a book about their subject, it’s courteous to have read it beforehand – but don’t pretend you have if you haven’t. It shows. And finally – take notes, or write everything up straight afterwards.

The camera never forgets

A good camera is essential for those of us with the memory span of a gnat. It can also save a lot of time. Provided the staff don’t object, taking photos of those long information panels in museums means you can read them at your leisure on the computer.

Sooner or later, though, you have to put the research aside and write the story. In the last post in this series, we’ll be looking at how fact and fiction work together – and I’ll be explaining why research is like underwear.

This post is copyright RS Downie, 2009. No reproduction of this material is permissible without the author’s permission.

Related posts:

1. Writing historical fiction 1 – creating your historical world
2. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction
3. Writing historical crime novels – interview with R.S. Downie

Twenty years ago I knew nothing at all about historical fiction except that some of the novels I’d enjoyed had been set in the past. I’ve learned a great deal since then, mostly from other writers and sometimes from my own mistakes. I still have much to learn and frequently don’t practise what I preach – but if you too are fascinated by the past and want to set your story there, I hope you’ll find some useful pointers in this series of articles. If you have anything to add or questions to ask, feel free to post your comments below.

Historical fiction – where is it?

Despite there being a Historical Fiction Society, there’s no Historical Fiction section in my local library. Instead, Society members’ novels are nestling in amongst Romance, Action and Adventure, General Fiction, Crime, Fantasy and Horror. If there were such a shelf as ‘Literature’ – which there isn’t – there would be plenty there, too.

Setting your novel in the past doesn’t determine what kind of book it will be, nor who might want to read it. All the usual wise advice about novel-writing – which you can find elsewhere, some of it in The Crafty Writer Bookshop – will still apply. As ever, much can be learned from reading widely, including reading outside your own genre. There are, though, some points that will be particularly relevant to ‘historicals’, whatever kind of tale you are telling.

Know where you’re taking your reader

Screenwriting guru Robert McKee (author of Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting) tells his students that it’s essential to know the world of your story. This applies whatever you’re writing, but especially in a novel where you want to take a reader to a place that’s deliberately distant from your own.

What does your world smell like? Feel like? Taste of? Who’s in charge? How do people earn their living?

You may need to do less homework for a light romance than for a novel about the battle of Waterloo, but you will have to do some. (I’m not insulting romance writers here, but assuming romance readers are less likely to care about the finer points of weapon design.) Most of what you know may never appear on the page, but it will underpin whatever you choose to reveal to your readers. This has two benefits – firstly, the more you know, the wider and more original your choices will be.

Secondly – it will help to ‘ground’ your story on a convincing base. For example, if your characters are travelling on horseback, there will have to be arrangements in place to care for the horses. We don’t need to see this happen. We don’t even need to be told that it’s happening. But you can’t send characters galloping from Dover to Hadrian’s Wall in an afternoon. Oh, wait a minute – you can if you’re Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. But that was light entertainment, and unless you’ve got Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman up your sleeve, it’s best to stick to what’s possible.

The point is, the more confident you are about how things work in the world you’re creating for your readers, the more comfortably you and they will be able to move around in it.

If you don’t know, don’t fret

You can worry too much about all this. Someone – if anybody can remember who, please say so – once bemoaned the difficulty of getting his characters in and out of rooms if he didn’t know what the door handles were like. This is not a problem for me: I have pictures of Roman door handles. (Yes, it is sad.) But I’ve wasted inordinate amounts of time wondering whether to put sheets on ancient beds.

In retrospect, this was more about avoiding writing than doing it. If you wait until you know everything, you will never write the novel. If you’ve tried to find out and can’t, it’s best to move on. Often the answer – or an unexpected solution – will pop up when you’re not looking for it.

Leave space for the reader

To sum up, the writer needs to know enough, but not too much. Even in the ‘real’ world none of us takes the time to notice everything, and we’re telling stories here, not writing textbooks. Try sketching in some details and letting the reader’s imagination do the rest.

Here’s an example, chosen for practical reasons rather than literary ones (i.e. I own the copyright).

Ruso was still pondering the body in the mortuary as he walked out of the East Gate of the fort. He was barely aware of his progress until he was abruptly recalled to his surroundings by a shout of ‘Get up!’ from further along the street. A man with a large belly was glaring at a grimy figure lying across the pavement just past the fruit stall. A woman with a shopping-basket put down the pear she was examining and turned to see what was going on.

The man repeated the order to get up. The woman stared down at the figure and began to gabble in some British dialect. The only word Ruso could make out was, ‘water’.

‘Burn some feathers under her nose,’ suggested the stallholder, bending down to retrieve a couple of apples that had tumbled off the edge of his display.

Ruso veered into the street to avoid the commotion and narrowly missed a pile of animal droppings. He frowned. He must try to concentrate on what he was doing. He had come out for a walk because he was unable to sleep. Now he was walking, he was having trouble staying awake.
(Chapter 2, Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls, published in the USA as ‘Medicus’)

In this scene I used small details that might trigger the reader’s memories of familiar street markets. I then tried to put in other material that would distance the scene from a modern experience. The woman begins to ‘gabble in some British dialect’ which the lead character, who isn’t a local, can’t understand. There are animal droppings in the street. Somebody recommends a cure that, to us, sounds quite bizarre. I also hoped that the way the sick woman is treated would imply a harsher society than our own, and raise tension as the reader wonders what’s going to happen to her and whether the lead character (who we know by now is a medic) is going to do anything about it. Some writers would use far more period detail. The choice is yours.

In the next post I’ll be thinking some more about research. In the meantime, next time you pick up a novel, you might like to ask yourself how the writer has created their world and why you believe in it – or why you don’t.

This post is copyright RS Downie, 2009. No reproduction of this material is permissible without the author’s permission.

Related posts:

1. Writing historical fiction 2 – doing the research
2. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction
3. Writing historical crime novels – interview with R.S. Downie

TCW: You won the Fay Weldon section of the BBC’s End of Story competition in 2004. Would you say this was your major break?

RSD: It was a huge stroke of luck. It was what spurred me on to finish the book, although not in the way you might expect. The BBC were thinking about making a follow-up, so they interviewed the winners about their writing plans. Somewhat desperate, I blathered on about a Roman novel I’d started. ‘Great,’ they said as they packed the gear away, ‘We’ll come and see you in three or four months to find out how it’s going.’

What I hadn’t dared tell them was that in the long gap between sending off the competition entry and finding out the results, I’d decided to give up writing. The novel was hopelessly stuck – but if I didn’t do something with it before they came back, I’d have to admit how useless I was on national television. So I dredged it up and for the next three or four months, I wrote like crazy. By the time I realised the BBC had changed their minds and weren’t coming at all, I was three quarters of the way through.
 
TCW: So Ruso wasn’t written before you entered the comp?

RSD: Not really. I had completed a couple of other novels which weren’t very good. Some of the early ‘Ruso’ material was created for a Historical Novel Society competition to write the first three chapters of a historical romance. I didn’t have anything suitable, so I drew out two characters from the backstory of one of the failed novels. On reflection, they were always more interesting anyway.  The ‘start’ was printed in the magazine and I was a bit taken aback when people seemed to think it was worth finishing.
 
TCW: Did you have an agent at this time?

RSD: An agent got in touch when she read it and, bless her, she stuck with me over many unproductive years until I finally finished something saleable.

TCW: Would you advise writers to enter competitions? What are the benefits?

RSD: Definitely! Working to a deadline and a specific word count is a good discipline. The occasional win of either money or kudos helps to convince your family that you aren’t just hiding behind the computer to avoid the washing up. Even if you don’t win, the worst you usually get is a long silence. Very rarely do you hear the depressing thud of a rejected manuscript on the doormat.

TCW: Did Penguin approach you or did you approach them?

RSD: I’m a complete wimp and rarely approach anybody. No, the good folk at the agency did all the selling. The people who say you have to be brave and tough to be a writer obviously haven’t met me.
 
TCW: Was Ruso always going to be a series?

RSD: No! I couldn’t imagine getting one book finished and published, let alone several.
 
TCW: Why historical fiction?

RSD: I did History to A level but it  never occurred to me to base any fiction in that period (1815 to 1939). Oh, apart from one very bad Western. I don’t know where it is and with luck nobody will find it in a drawer after I’m dead.

I wasn’t grabbed by the past till much later, when we took the children to Hadrian’s Wall. The discovery that Roman soldiers weren’t allowed to marry, but they were allowed to have relationships with local women, sparked all sorts of questions for me. What happened to the women if the men were moved on? What about the children? My parents are of the generation that can remember the GI’s being here in the War, and there seemed to be lots of parallels.
 
TCW: Was your decision to do a Roman detective novel based on market awareness or was it simply something you wanted to do?

RSD: I wanted to do something set in Roman Britain, using the tension between the occupiers and occupied. To be honest, I had no clue at the time what would sell or what other people were writing.

Later on, of course, I discovered that Lindsey Davis had been writing a fabulous Roman detective for years (the Falco series) and there were several others. Then, having half-produced a love story, I was firmly told that my novel had to have a crime in it. I thought very hard about that one, partly because other people were doing it and partly because crime wasn’t something I would naturally have chosen to write about. However, it seems to have worked. Having a mystery to solve helps to ground the plot and curtail its tendencies to meander about.

TCW: How important would you say market awareness is to as yet unpublished writers?

RSD: I know you’re supposed to study the market, but I think it’s crucial to fall in love with your subject first, because it will be renting a room in your head for months or probably years to come. I’m lucky in that both the Romans and Crime seem to have had a long spell in the sun recently. I managed to miss the Gladiator boat completely, so I was very surprised when my own novel sold several years later.

Maybe you do have to be a bit clued in, though. I work in a library, so I have some idea of what’s being read, and I do love to wander round bookshops (whilst trying to restrain the urge to see if they’ve got Ruso). From this I conclude that you’d have trouble selling a Western right now – but if it was utterly brilliant, who knows?

TCW: The Ruso novels are historical crime fiction. How important is it to have an awareness of the appropriate genre conventions when writing?

RSD: You probably need to know them even if you don’t intend to adhere to them. I’ve suggested having the bad guy get away with it or the good guy commit the murder for a change, but so far this hasn’t met with resounding enthusiasm from editors and agents. On reflection, I can see why. I think if you want to do that sort of thing you have to be either very well established or you have to decide to call it ‘literary fiction’.
 
TCW: What would you say about the statement: ‘If history doesn’t serve the story, change the history’?

RSD: There’s not much known about Britain during the period in which I write, but I do try and construct the stories around the documents and the archaeology we have. I think I’d say be very, very careful. It worked for Gladiator, but for people who knew that the Emperor Commodus didn’t die that way, the end must have been seriously strange.

Besides, sometimes when a story doesn’t go the way you want it to, facing the problem head on means that a new and better idea will emerge to solve it. On the other hand, I think you do have to choose what to use and what to leave out. The truth is invariably complex, and rarely leads towards the sort of satisfying conclusion you want for the end of a novel.
 
TCW: I’ve read many historical novels that are weighed down by too much historical detail. How do you achieve a balance between plot and background?

RSD: Hm, so have I! Perhaps coming to Roman Britain from a position of total ignorance wasn’t entirely the disadvantage that it seemed. I try not to use words that I wouldn’t have understood when I started. I don’t want people to have to pause during a chase scene while they try and remember what a Praetorium is.

I guess I try to give a few details that offer a flavour of a background and set the reader’s imagination working, rather than going into lots of description, because it’s boring to read and frankly, it’s boring to write, too. But I never really know whether the balance is right. Something what seems fine when you write it can look terrible the next day.
 
TCW: By the end of the novel, it’s clear that you are making parallels between ancient and modern sex trafficking. As a writer, do you believe it’s appropriate to impose modern morality onto a historical period? Why or why not?

RSD: That would be like going to somewhere that has an exotic cuisine and insisting on eating your own tinned soup, wouldn’t it? Obviously there are plenty of things about the past that we find unacceptable (witch trials, bear-baiting, hanging a child for stealing a sheep, etc.), but that’s part of its fascination.

I try not to put 21st Century views in the mouths of 2nd Century characters. But of course we all write from our own perspective and we don’t necessarily see the distortions we make. Fortunately not many people are offended by Romans who make racist remarks about the Ancient Greeks. I do slip in the occasional anachronistic joke, but I’m not sure if anybody notices. There’s a medic in the second book who’s heard that you can cure people’s problems just by talking to them – but as Ruso points out, that’s nonsense.

The sex trafficking thing interested me because there’s evidence that although abolishing slavery would have been unthinkable, the Romans were constantly tinkering with the system to make it more humane. One of the adaptations made by Hadrian (who was in power during the time I’m writing about) was to restrict the rights of an owner to sell a slave to a pimp or to a gladiator trainer unless they had been shown to deserve it. If Hadrian were around today he’d have no time for sex traffickers either.
 
TCW: How does this affect your characterisation and plotting?

RSD: I suspect most historical novelists reach some sort of compromise whereby the worst tendencies of the past tend to be displayed by minor characters while the hero looks good by comparison – less misogynist, racist, violent, cruel to animals or whatever.

My lead character is an Army doctor so he’s usually trying to stitch up the wounds rather than inflict them. If I’d given him the job of being the man who trains lions to eat Christians, I’d have had a worse problem. But of course he does have to face the ruthlessness of his age, and when violence erupts between the British and the Roman Army, both he and his British partner Tilla have to face up to the cruelties that their comrades are prepared to inflict. Both sides, of course, think they’re ‘right’, which provides for the sort of tension that writers love to play with.

TCW: How many more Ruso books will be in the series?

RSD: There are contracts in place for four. I’m currently proof-reading the third and writing the fourth. After that, it’s up to the publishers!

Well we’ve enjoyed having Ruth here so much that we’ve invited her to do a ‘how to’ series on writing historical fiction in April. So sign up to our RSS feed to keep informed. In the meantime, she’s offering Crafty readers an opportunity to buy a limited number of signed hardback copies of the first Ruso book at paperback prices.  Contact her via her website for further details.

Related posts:

1. Writing historical fiction 1 – creating your historical world
2. Writing historical fiction 2 – doing the research
3. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction

Image courtesy of ginieland

The difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy

Although these genre have much in common, the essential difference is that Science Fiction broadly deals with the ‘theoretically possible’ (although often improbable!) whereas Fantasy deals with the impossible (although that doesn’t mean everything in the story is impossible). Science Fiction takes the existing world to another dimension; Fantasy creates entirely new worlds and infuses them with a degree of familiarity. See for example Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ fantasy novels. The most recent, Wintersmith, won the British Bookseller’s Children’s Book of the Year (2007).

The difference between Fantasy and Magic Realism

Although some critics place them both in the same basket, strictly speaking, Magic Realism is a genre in which fantasy elements such as magic or the supernatural enter a realistic, natural world without the reader questioning their presence. Clay by David Almond is a good example of Magic Realism.

Fantasy as ‘crossover’

Long before Harry Potter, adults were secretly enjoying ‘children’s’ literature in the form of fantasy. The Lord of the Rings was originally categorised as a children’s book, as were Orwell’s Animal Farm and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, even though all three deal with very adult themes. It is really only from the late 1970s and early 80s that fantasy was given its own shelf in the adult section of the library. So is there still a dedicated children’s fantasy genre? I think so. Although it has much in common with adult fantasy (similar plot lines, conventions etc) there are things (common to all children’s writing) that set it apart, such as: child protagonists, age appropriate language, sanitised plot lines (no or limited sex and violence). In addition, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy suggests that what sets children’s fantasy apart is the theme of transformation. This is a fantastical metaphor for the age-old theme of ‘coming of age’ that is found in most children’s writing for the 10+ group. As Lisa Tuttle explains in her Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction:

It is the ability to experience either a transfer of self from place to place or through time, or a change in being (from poverty to riches or from beast to beauty). The latter process is particularly important as it allows the child to come to terms with its own change from child to adult.
(Tuttle, p119)

Common fantasy sub-genre in children’s writing

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy suggests six common sub-genre:

• Worlds in miniature (eg Mary Norton’s The Borrowers)
• Secret gardens and hidden worlds where children can temporarily escape from real life (eg The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis).
• Time fantasies where children travel to another era or encounter ghosts from the past. (eg Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet)
• Otherworlds (secondary worlds such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or Ursula Le Guin’s Earth Sea)
• Wish fulfilment (Mary Poppins, PL Travers)
• Animal Stories (eg Dick King-Smith’s The Sheep Pig aka Babe!)

General fantasy conventions:

The following are the main conventions you’ll need to be aware of when writing fantasy:

• The fantasy world
• Myths, legends and fairytales
• Magic
• Archetypes
• Landscape with meaning
• Maps
• Journeys
• Suspension of disbelief and internal logic

The fantasy world

Ever since The Lord of the Rings, the stock setting for most fantasy books is a pre-industrial one, with much in common with Earth’s Middle Ages. However, ‘futuristic’ fantasies are becoming more common as the stock setting has been done to death.

Myths, legends and fairytales

Elements of Celtic, Arthurian and Central and Northern European mythology are easily identifiable.

Modern fantasy has its roots in fairy tales, myths and legends – an imaginary past more than a real one. It is therefore less concerned with novelty and innovation than with old stories retold. Even the most inventive and original fantasy tends to look back to earlier epic tradition and what might be considered eternal truths.
(Tuttle, p22)

Magic

This is an almost essential element, as without it, ‘logical’ explanations would have to be found for fantastical events – that would make it Sci Fi, not Fantasy. Critics of Fantasy say that often the ‘magic’ reflects forms of occultic religion, unsuitable for children.

Archetypes

Fantasy is rich ground for Jungian psychologists: the wise old woman, the divine child, the young hero or heroine sent on a quest, helpful animals, a walled castle, the wasteland, the dying king, shape-shifting tricksters, dragons and unicorns. These archetypes have a pre-existing meaning for the reader, and are, to a degree, expected to appear in some form or another.

When they’re handled well, these familiar characters have the ring of truth about them, and seem both familiar and yet original; but if the author is lazy or unskilled they’ll come across as cartoons or clichés.
(Tuttle, p21)

Landscape with meaning

In fantasy, the landscape or ‘world’ that is created has equal importance with character and plot. However, resist the temptation to go overboard on description, and only include as much as is needed to further characterisation and plot.

Maps

Since Tolkien, these have become almost de rigeur in helping your reader to picture the world you have created.

Journeys

Much of fantasy fiction writing has a journey of discovery or ‘quest’ at its heart. We accompany the POV character on his / her journey, and this helps us to navigate through the new world.

Suspension of disbelief and internal logic

When writing fantasy you will expect your reader to suspend their disbelief as they enter your world and take it as you describe it. However, this doesn’t mean that anything goes. Every fantasy world has rules or laws that cannot and should not be broken. Characters need to act within the restraints of these laws. For example, dragons derive energy from the sun and can’t stay on the ground for long (‘Glint’, Ann Coburn, p26). As the creator of this world, you make up its rules, but you too must be subject to them.

A writing exercise:
Create your own fantasy world and write a story set in it. Ask yourself:

1. What is the name of your world?
2. What does it look like?
3. Who lives there?
4. Describe a typical child in your world.
5. Is the world at peace or at war?
6. If at war, who is the enemy?
7. If at peace, what threatens that peace?
8. Who rules your world?
9. What are the ’10 Commandments’ of your world?
10. What happens if someone breaks them?

Now write your story.

Related posts:

1. Science Fiction, fantasy and Faith
2. Writing Romantic Suspense – When Love Gets Mysterious
3. Writing historical fiction 3 – using fact in fiction