10 Saturday Oct 2015
Posted in History, Scribbling, Stories
Just to show you the gorgeous cover of History Will Be Kind, the first anthology by Copperfield Press.
Isn’t it lovely? This is a black-and-white version to suit Scribblings, but click on the image to see the even more beautiful sepia-tinted original…
History Will Be Kind will be released on 17 November – and my story Gentleman in Velvet will be in it.
28 Tuesday Jul 2015
Posted in Scribbling
Oh, news! Great news.
The wonderful Copperfield Review, the award-winning literary journal for writers and readers of historical fiction, is celebrating its fifteenth birthday next October – and will do so, amongst other things, by publishing its first anthology.
Well, I’m enormously proud and happy to announce that my Elizabethan short story, Gentleman in Velvet, will be in the anthology. Fifteen stories were chosen from over three hundred submissions, so I’ll say it again: I’m very proud and honoured that my story was chosen…
Here is a very small preview of Gentleman in Velvet:
I’m in my father’s workshop when the servant brings the velvet. I’m being told off for fighting – for at eight I’m an unruly child. But the arrival of the fabric cuts short the homily, and we – myself and two apprentice boys – flock around the best-lighted, the master’s workbench as my father unfurls the two, three ells of velvet.
It ripples like water – a deep burgundy that turns crimson in the slanting light of afternoon, and black in the heart of its smooth folds. It gives off a clean, warm, rich smell amidst the foulness of pitch and tanned leather. It seems the greatest pity to cut it into a pair of slippers… When I reach out to touch it, it is a rap on the knuckles, and off with me upstairs, in disgrace, for mother and sisters to deal with until supper.
I can’t wait – and I’ll let you know along the way. Meanwhile, imagine me dancing little happy dances…
11 Saturday Apr 2015
It strikes me that this particular piece of K-wisdom is a near-perfect motto for this blog…
And it’s not unlikely I’ll adopt it as such.
Incidentally, it goes very well with Kipling’s two books of “history” stories, and his other occasional foray into historical fiction. There are not many – just enough to make me wish he had written more.
Also, this would make a nice answer to the unavoidable question of Why Historical Fiction…
Were you ever asked? And what did you say?
28 Saturday Feb 2015
Posted in History
A Writer of History is author M.K. Tod’s blog, devoted to the reading, writing and researching of historical fiction.
Amongst other things, M.K. takes well-thought surveys to investigate the inner workings of the genre. It is, in many ways, an illuminating reading. Continue reading
10 Saturday Jan 2015
Posted in Scribbling
We have all been told countless times how vital it it to write a good beginning. A beginning is no red carpet, no invitation card… A good beginning grabs the reader by the troath, drags them in, and never lets go until they are properly hooked, and in for the duration…
Yes, we’ve heard it all.
How do you do that, though? By setting the scene, the mood, the voice. By showing the right amount of action, by introducing your characters just so – and, when you are writing historical fiction, by establishing the time period as an interesting place to visit.
Marie Savage wrote this interesting article on the subject, as a guest post for The Bookbinder’s Daughter blog. Check it out – and, while you are there, have a look at this very nice book-blog with an eye for great historical fiction.
20 Saturday Sep 2014
Posted in Books, History, Scribbling
I confess, I haven’t read Nicola Griffith’s Hild. But I most certainly will, after finding (in Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s blog Work In Progress) this excellent article about the research and thought process that went into crafting the novel’s language.
I greatly admire Ms. Griffith’s vivid depiction of her approach to… not so much recreating period language, as rendering its feel – and its social and psychological implications as well.
So much so that Hild’s time period may not be my favourite, but I just have to read a book written this way.
I’ll let you know.
11 Thursday Sep 2014
Posted in Scribbling
Indeed, why don’t I?
Through the years, I have published three historical novels – slightly unconventional ones, perhaps, but still. And I’ve had six plays staged, five of which are set at some point in the past.
And at every launch, at every book signing, at every performance, some well-meaning soul turns out with The Question: why don’t I write something contemporary? And the funny thing is, they usually mean it as a compliment.
As though writing historicals were some sort of second best, ‘prentice work I’ll have to outgrow, sooner or later. Oh, what a lovely book/play. You are ready now, dear girl. You can go on to write something serious…
And nine times out of ten, it is perfectly pointless to say that I am writing what I want to write, thank you very much. Or that it’s not that I cannot write present-day – it’s just that I don’t like it all that much.
After all, I write historicals for a reason. Several reasons, actually: the difficult task of really grasping past events, a fascination with the things we don’t know anymore, the way legends, clichés and literature grow layer after layer, the pull of century-old lies, the constant tension between period-ness and interpretation… All of which, you’ll agree, is better explored by writing historical fiction.
So, it seems to me that I know what I am doing – and why I do it – but no. Let it be publicly known that I write historicals, and someone is bound to ask: why, why, oh why, don’t I write something contemporary?
Well, maybe because I don’t care to? Because I don’t feel I have much to say or tell in a contemporary setting? Because I’m better at other things?
And I’m not saying I’ll never do it. Apart from the fact that writers have been known to change their minds, I’m never averse to dabbling with genres outside my own, trying something different. Stepping (cautiously) out of my comfort zone… So, who can tell what the future will hold?
Meanwhile, though, nothing contemporary, thank you – and no sugar.
06 Saturday Sep 2014
Posted in History
Tags
Aculeo & Amunet, Davide Mana, Historical fiction, Karavansara, Lindybeige, Schola gladiatoria, Skallagrim
This is from Karavansara, my friend Davide Mana’s great blog of pulp and historical adventure, with an Asian slant. It’s not for nothing that Davide subtitled the thing “East of Constantinople, West of Shangai.”
While doing research for his wonderful Aculeo and Amunet stories (check them out, if you’ve never read them), he stumbled across some great video resources about ancient weaponry, and collected a few in this post.
When you are writing historical fiction (or historical adventure), you never have enough of this sort of things – because it’s damnably easy to mess up… And of course, a novel is a novel, and not a treatise on ancient hoplology – but it’s so much better if, while providing great characters engaged in interesting action and meaningful stories, you also get your swords right, isn’t it?
21 Thursday Aug 2014
Posted in History, Scribbling
It’s not as if I’d never seen it before, but now I have stumbled across it twice in a month, and always about Verona. Medieval Verona – or rather Romeo and Juliet’s Verona, which means rather generic Middle Ages, but Middle Ages nonetheless.
So, when in a novel I read about Benvolio and Mercutio strolling through Via Mazzini, I very nearly choked on my tea – because Giuseppe Mazzini happens to be a XIXth father of Italian Unification, very unlikely to have had a street named after him at any point of the Middle Ages. And then I am fairly sure that Ponte della Vittoria, that is to say Victory Bridge, must have had some other name before WW1. And there were more like these: clearly the author did her research on a modern map of Verona, never bothering to check her street names…
And yesterday, while googling shakespearean images, I found this Czech boardgame set “in Prince Escalus’ Verona”… nice idea – except, the first thing I notice in the illustration of the board was a street named Viale Pascoli. Not only Viale , that is “Avenue”, is most definitely not a Medieval street type designation, but Giovanni Pascoli is, again, a XIXth Century poet. And next to poor Pascoli were other modern-sounding odonyms… Again, the game designer clearly relied on a modern map of Verona.
What can I say? It makes me unhappy. No matter how I am enjoyng the novel – or the game – an anacronistic odonym, just like any other anacronism , will jettison me out of the story. All the more because it is really not all that hard to get yourself a map of Medieval Verona – or, at the very least, to check street names on Wikipedia to find out whether there could be such a place in your chosen epoch…
The past is a foreign place, remember? They do things differently. The past in a foreign place is doubly foreign – and call me peevish if you like, but when you choose to set your story twice abroad, in time and place, there is no way around it, but to be doubly careful, doubly accurate, and double-double check your maps, streets, poets and avenues.
26 Saturday Jul 2014
Kate Taylor of The Globe and Mail did this lovely double interview with historical novelists Philippa Gregory and Wayne Johnston, about… well, about how hard it is to make people understand the nature, purpose and rules of historical fiction.
Why, why, why, oh why is it that we have to spend so much time rebutting angry accusations of sloppiness, laziness, too much imagination, too little imagination – or pointing out that it is, you know, a novel? And this is not about historical accuracy, mind, but about the fictional characters and bits we all weave into the historical context…
But do read the interview – tellingly titled Truth and Lies: I’m not sure it really answers the question Why, but it certainly gives fodder for thought.
Scribblings 