Authors Electric

In this post, International Writers' Collective teacher Karen Kao talks about what historical fiction is, the importance of research and how to weave actual historical events and figures into your story as well as the nitty-gritty of description, dialogue, and setting in a historical context. I hate history. I’ve no head for dates or names. And yet, my debut novel, The Dancing Girl and the Turtle , is a work of historical fiction. It is one of a planned quartet of interlocking novels set in Shanghai. My inspiration comes from my father’s stories of growing up in Shanghai. Of the uncle who gambled away his fortune to feed his opium addiction. Of the aunt who became a dance hall hostess to send herself to school. Maybe you, too, have an illicit bit of family history you’d love to share. Or, you’re obsessed with a particular historical time and place whose story is screaming to be told. In that case, you can use all the craft elements we teach at the International Writers...

Once again , I go into a novel I wrote aeons ago with the honourable intention of editing. One glaring error of judgement jumps out at me - the quoting of the lyric of an actual song, which if published, would cost me an arm and a leg in legal fees, so I need to take that out, and just convey its feeling without the actual words. And then, as always, I go blank, because at the time, I was writing in a drug-like state, on a high with words - no problem writing them down except a physical one with speed, hand with pen or pencil on paper, then pounding them out on an electric typewriter, errors manually corrected if, indeed, they were even noticed, because I was unstoppable. That was then, and this is now. After three decades of being rejected, then published - a lot, then going out of print, then experimenting with ebooks etc etc, I'm no longer unstoppable, and that old enchantment has long since faded to reveal a very harsh reality. There's a very interesting discussion goi...

Greetings from one plague-ridden country to the rest of the plague-ridden world (and did I, in any of my dystopian fantasies, imagine I would be, in the Spring of 2020, writing a sentence like that for real? Did any of us?) It seems that there may be a vaccine by September or October, but I'm sure you don't want anything to do with nasty Big Pharma, so here are some alternative suggestions. They are very old, so obviously must be valid. The gentlest one is drinking vinegar - cheap and simple, although it might attack your tooth enamel, and give you serious indigestion, but you have to be prepared to suffer in order to be cured. Rotting teeth were trendy once - maybe that might return? After that, though, my prescription might get a little more expensive. You could try arsenic or mercury. These might be difficult to find at your local pharmacy, but I have access to the Dark Web, and I know of a nice Russian gentleman, ex-KGB, who might provide, but at a price.  Chopped sn...

‘Buy me!’ yelled the cover. ‘This book is for you.’ One of my all-time favourite covers  - and books  What is it about a book cover that makes you want to read the book? Like much of advertising – for, of course, that’s at least partly what cover design is about – the process is shrouded in mystery to many of us mere authors. You can often see which bits of you a particular cover is getting to – part of it is genre and sub-genre information but I think there’s more to it than that. Those new(ish) style moleskin-like covers have the feel of ‘quality product’ about them, perhaps with the attendant ‘you’re worth it’ and ‘you deserve it’ connotations which, even though we can see what’s happening, are hard to resist. Some book covers have tactile appeal – ‘Stroke me!’ – and of course, once you’ve checked to see if anyone’s looking and then run your finger across the front cover and received the thrill, it’s difficult not to take a respectful peep inside or at lea...

I am currently working on an historical novel set in England in the mid sixth century. I have written historical novels before - sort of. My Warriors series: Warriors of Alavna, Warriors of Camlann, Warriors of Ethandun’ and the stand alone ‘Wolfblood,’ were all set between the first and ninth centuries. I have always done my research  but, as these books have always included fantastical elements, my brain has allowed me a little wriggle room with the facts. I still angsted over the kind of sword that would have been available to my protagonists but permitted magic, and metamorphosis and, yep, I admit it, I’ve made a lot of things up.  This time it is different. This is history not fantasy and I am in dire need of magic. This England is  a muddled kind of period, or at least I’m muddled about it.     It has been enormously helpful to hear Hilary Mantel reflect on the writing of history in her Reith Lectures. They are brilliant if you haven’t caugh...

Every week or so, my friend and I exchange books using ‘the red envelope’. She lives a hundred miles away, so we post the precious envelope with its precious cargo, back and forth. Usually there’s no message with the book. It’s enough to know that the other has chosen the title with the other in mind.  She’s my reading buddy! The first book my friend sent me was ‘H for Hawk’, which she was reading with her book club. She had enjoyed it and thought I, with my passion for raptors, would enjoy too. I did, to a certain extent, though I thought the writing was a little overblown, the writer succumbing to that tendency some people have to romanticise our relationships with these amazing birds. ( Yes, I do this too, but you can have too much of the oohs and aahs!) Fab choice though.   In return, I sent her ‘Beyond Black’ by Hilary Mantel, one of my favourite writers. Have you read it?  It’s a hilarious, yet poignant tale about a genuine medium and her relati...

Being the world’s slowest reader, I finally got to grips with Wolf Hall because of the television version, and because having already read Beyond Black I knew the lady is a writer of genius. It’s a measure of how wonderful I find it that after only ten days I‘m on page 313, which is nearly half way through. I thought the TV version was fantastic, too. Almost every scene, up to and including the execution, was mind-blowing. (I didn’t bother with a spoiler alert there, because if anyone doesn’t know who got the chop it might make them read the book. Sorry. I’m being silly.) Sitting in me lonely writer’s bed this morning, though – reluctant to give up and get up halfway through a chapter – I fell to wondering what was the motor for this exhaustive, off-centre, and truly rather frightening revivification of English history. Coupled with an interview or two I’d heard earlier (thank you, World Service), I realized it might be an investigation of what the West is going to ‘do’ about t...