Authors Electric

 In my previous post here I reported on my new writing plan for 2023, but I must confess I've already driven a coach and horses through it. The desolate wastes of January seemed to stretch so far ahead that I couldn't restrict myself to working on only one novel at a time, but I didn't entirely expect to end the month having written 12,000 words of the novel I was halfway with as well as 15,000 of the one I didn't intend to start until February. And there's more... What I had planned to do was to spend most of January finishing the historical novel I was in the middle of, while occasionally getting out my plotting notebook to draft a plot for a new mystery novel in one of my existing series. I'm not quite sure where it all went wrong, but I think that as usual I got bored with plotting and decided I wouldn't know where the story was going until I made a start on writing it. I am already well aware that this is a high-risk strategy and often results in a lot ...

Someone recently reminded me that I had contributed a series of blog posts on the topic ‘Historical Novels: How much research is too much?’ to an online event, the Edinburgh ebook festival, seven years ago. As I’ve written a few historical novels since then, among other things, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the questions I asked some writers of historical fiction as part of my preparation to write the blog posts, and to find out whether my own answers might have changed in the mean-time. My grandmother in Edwardian dress The idea for the topic of too much research sprang from my attempt, much more than seven years ago, to write an epic novel of the English Civil War. I say ‘attempt’ not because I didn’t finish the thing, but because I felt it was overloaded with research to the extent that the end result was probably more or less unreadable. Certainly I came up against all the questions listed below, and have encountered them again over the years. Incidentally one of the...

Sunday lunch — someone I know (in real as well as virtual form) posted a photo of her daughter under this heading (or hashtag) a few weeks back. Reminded me of when our daughter was that age and stage: long hair, beautiful smile… and preteen angst in spades! Yesterday, someone I (hardly and virtually) know, responded to my describing my novels as “contemporary”, and then proposing that maybe, since today’s kids (such as that daughter above, at Sunday lunch) are taught the 1980s and 1990s as “history”, I maybe qualify as writing “historical” fiction. This fellow writer even indicated that I would need to do plenty of research! Time flies (and as my great aunt, born in 1876, used to say with a smile, you can’t, they fly too fast! in true Victorian and Edwardian humour style). Sunday lunch — for an example of 1980s living: first, off to the (organic) butcher’s to buy the joint on Saturday. Then on Sunday morning, prepare the veg and the batter, put joint into hot oven, disappear t...

Prologues - why not jump right in?  Prologues in fiction are popular with writers, though less so with readers, and I am of that very ilk. There’s nothing more likely to raise my hackles when I pick up a book than a few pages headed Prologue ,  Before, Then , or In the Beginning . And regardless of the fact I have read many good books with prologues, there’s always the suspicion that here comes something not strictly necessary, something holding up the story we’re about to step into. So why take the risk of putting your reader off on page 1? Let’s think about the nature of the conventional prologue. First of all why is it there?   1)      To create atmosphere and suspense – my mystery takes a few chapters to set things up,  let’s flag up what's coming or get a bit of creepiness/excitement in at the start. 2)      Because it’s in a different timeline – if the reader is going to understand the plot t...

Norah Lofts I'm enjoying the book I'm reading on my kindle.      No surprises there. A complaint I've heard all my life and still hear often (especially from my partner) is that I'm 'always reading, ' always 'got my nose in a book.'      Although it's hard to put your nose in a kindle. I have found that when you read in bed and doze, the falling Kindle strikes your nose a far more destructive blow than a paper book. Wakes you up. This hasn't stopped me, though. The book I'm reading and thoroughly enjoying at the moment (despite the risk to my nose) is The Town House by Norah Lofts. I've just finished her similar Bless This House . Bless This House was first published in 1954, before I was born. The Town House , first published in 1959, is the start of a trilogy, being followed by The House at Old Vine (1961) and The House at Sunset (1962). Bless This House by Norah Lofts      Bless This House is almost like ...

The audience at Novel Nights in Bristol A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to read at Novel Nights , a regular event in Bristol where local writers get the chance to air their work in progress.  I’ve been a fan of these evenings for quite some time and have followed them over two changes of venue.  Since guest speakers have been added to the programme, there’s the bonus of  picking the brains of a writing or publishing expert. And the cosy vibe encourages serious questions rather than the celebrity worship of high profile literary events.  In January, the guest was Celia Brayfield and the theme historical fiction, the module Celia leads on the Bath Spa M.A. As the guest is last to take the floor on these occasions, it gives writers (if they're anything like me!) the chance to recover from the anxietyof reading to an audience and take in the words of wisdom. So here are Celia's edicts for writing Historical Fiction, at least as I recall them. ...

Montacute House aka Wolf Hall  The media love to feed off each other. Over the winter the Daily Telegraph ran a news item every Monday (yes news, not features!) relating to Downton Abbey,  and in the last few weeks I've notices something similar with the BBC's Wolf Hall , except for a small snag: viewing figures weren’t as brilliant as expected.  Still, even that became news of the non-news kind ( Wolf Hall fails to grip the nation ) and they hedged their bets by finding a photo of Mark Rylance for the front page. The Beeb of course cashes in with spin-off programmes and Rylance (surprise!) popped up right on cue on Desert Island Discs . Do I mind?  Not in the least, because fickle creature that I am, I’d rather watch or listen to Mark Rylance than the sadly overexposed High Bonneville any day. Oh what a circus. The media have me down to a T. But it’s still worth thinking about Wolf Hall on TV and its impact or lack of. For me the books do require pa...

The Amber Heart on Kindle - Polish & Christmassy When I was wondering whether to do a Christmas 'special offer' on one of my books and also wondering which one to choose, I found myself trying to decide between a couple of suitable books. But really, when it came down to choices, it was a no-brainer. It had to be the Amber Heart . Even the cover seems kind of Christmassy and in my heart, when I think about this book, I think about Poland at Christmas. It is a big doorstop of a book but then it's a big story. Epic. Romantic. Heart rending. When one of my previous agents sent it out, she relayed a letter from an acquisitions editor who said that she had stayed up all night reading it and weeping. They didn't acquire it though. Poland was a non starter as a setting. Now if it had been Russia ... No point at all in telling them that Eastern European borders have been so fluid and so deadly, in consequence, that this novel, set firmly in that part of mid-ninete...

The Death Game has finally made it. It’s now published as a Kindle ebook. However, the road to publication for this novel has been far from smooth. This was actually the first crime novel I ever wrote. Prior to this I’d written a historical saga which is now published as A Salt Splashed Cradle . I’d also written a lot of historical articles, many of them published in the US magazine The Highlander, as well as various UK magazines. So, I reckoned I was a historical writer. The Death Game went the rounds and met the usual thanks, but no thanks response. Although Penguin did seriously consider it, but at the last minute they decided they didn’t like it 110%. Now I’m no mathematician, but I did wonder how a writer could ever manage to reach that additional 10%. Nothing daunted I continued to submit and was over the moon when a new publisher ran a competition for the best unpublished crime fiction in the world – notice I said world – and I was one of the twenty winners. ...

Cover image, courtesy of Glasgow Museums I wrote this piece for a local (Glasgow) writers’ newsletter, but since I know a great many people who enjoy reading and writing historical fiction, including bloggers and visitors to Authors Electric, it seems worth while reblogging here, with a few tweaks and additions, especially since I’ve just agreed to tackle historical fiction for this year’s eBook festival. I’ve always written a mixture of historical and contemporary fiction and plays. My first degree, from Edinburgh University, was in Mediaeval Studies and then I went on to do a Masters in something called Folk Life Studies, essentially a form of social history. I still love research of all kinds and that can be a curse as well as a blessing for an author. You have to know when to stop. But you also have to know when you need to know more and you have to learn to ‘give yourself permission’ to fictionalise something that may well be an unwieldy collection of miscellaneous facts spi...

Cover by Claire MacLean Because this novel is going to be part of the Authors Electric grand Christmas Sale, I've been looking back over various things I've written about it over the years, and wondering why it's still so dear to my heart. It wasn't me who called it a Polish 'Gone With The Wind' though. I wouldn't dare. That was my agent at the time. She loved it. She couldn't sell it. The first draft was written more years ago than I care to remember. I'd had a novel bought by the Bodley Head and published by Random House. This was back in the days of the big takeovers and I fell victim to one of them, but really, I was a Bodley Head kind of a writer. For my next novel, I had been crafting this big Polish historical saga, or a version of it. I had cut my teeth with a couple of radio plays and some poems and stories. I had done a lot of research. These characters were in my head, itching to tell their tale. We had high hopes. A string of acq...