Guest Post ~ Researching The Doctor's Daughter, by Vanessa Matthews

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

It’s 1927, women have the right to vote and morals are slackening, but 23 year old Marta Rosenblit is not a typical woman of her time. She has little connection with her elder sisters, her mother has been detained in an asylum since Marta was born and she has spent her life being shaped as her father Arnold’s protégé. She is lost, unsure of who she is

and who she wants to be. 

RESEARCHING A NOVEL

‘An ounce of fact is worth a pound of controversy.’ Arthur Schomburg, Historian, Writer & Activist

There are lots of different ways to write your way through history, but if you are working on fiction it can be tempting to throw caution to the wind and ditch historical accuracy in favour of a heap of artistic license so that your plot can move along in the way you want it to. Does it really matter if my femme fatale is wearing nylons pre 1940? 

Who cares if I shift the date of that war by a year or two so I don’t have to weave in details of a battle that will detract from the mystery? Readers do!  A little historical accuracy goes a long way when creating a believable story that feels authentic to its setting. Research is as important for fiction as it is for non-fiction. So, by now you might be wondering how I tackled the twenties in my own novel.

Let me start with a little confession. I didn’t intend to write a historical novel. I just sat down and started to write a story that intrigued me, featuring characters that appealed to me. I didn’t plan to set it in 1927, but that became my chosen year. The Doctor’s Daughter travels through Vienna, Budapest and London. Did I know that’s where it would take me when I started? Not at all!

I know that is not the way all writers approach their work, but I can only talk about my own journey from first paragraph through to final draft. I may not have started with much of a plan, but once I got going I most certainly wanted to ensure that I did everything I could to keep the reader in my historical world. One outdated slang word or use of a modern medicine and I knew I would pop the bubble and my readers would tumble right out of the pages.

What I lacked in the planning, I made up for in the writing, reading, redrafting and rereading later. For the locations, I spent hours researching the cities my characters passed through. I tried to ensure that any landmarks, important buildings and street names existed, or were at least based on similar ones. It wouldn’t do at all to mention a library or a hotel that had been built in the last 50 years! The flora and fauna too, the food and even the dining habits of people at that time. All vital if I were to create authentic scenes.

As for the timing, I had to consider the literature, communication methods, education system, transport, clothing, social context and so much more. It would have been easy to ramble through a bunch of roaring twenties clichés, but my story is very much driven by character. Marta, Elise, Leopold and Arnold are living in the late 1920s, but they are also human beings affected by their experiences and bearing flaws that still resonate in people’s lives today. 

Whilst there is a sprinkling of speakeasy culture, The Doctor’s Daughter is no Gatsby. My characters are imaginings of real people with hopes and dreams, doubts and fears, highs and lows. They can be both warm and austere. They cry, they suffer, they hurt and get hurt, they have compulsions and dark secrets. They are the best of people and the worst of people.

It took almost as long to research as it did to write it, and I hope the reader’s experience will be richer for it. Thanks so much Tony for inviting me to write this post for you, I could talk about writing for hours so it’s nice to be able to share at least some of my thoughts with your audience.

Vanessa Matthews 

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About the Author 

Vanessa Matthews has been writing since her teens and has had feature articles printed in the national media. In 2012 she started a 30-day writing and blogging challenge during which she won two poetry contests. Vanessa lives in Cornwall, England with her husband and four children. Find out more at Vanessa's website and find her on Twitter @VanessaMatthews.

Guest Post ~ the inspiration behind Roman Mask, by Thomas M. D. Brooke

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Rome AD 9: Augustus Caesar rules Imperial Rome at the height of its power, as the Roman Empire stretches across the known world. Cassius, son of one of her most powerful families, is the personification of Rome's imperial strength: wealthy, popular, a war hero with a decorated military career - none of Rome's fashionable parties are complete without him - except, he hides a secret.

Turning a negative into a positive – the inspiration behind writing Roman Mask

It was an October night, and I was returning home from a night out with a few friends in my local pub in London, when something happened that changed my life dramatically.  The nights were closing in, so it was already dark by the time I left the pub, but I was in a good mood.   I’d recently returned from a trip to Pompeii , so I’d been telling everyone of my excitement at walking through the Roman streets, marvelling at the murals and depictions on the well preserved houses, and laughing about the seedier aspects of the ancient city – the brothels and street graffiti that had also survived the great volcanic eruption of AD 79.

It was probably because I was so preoccupied with these thoughts, that I didn’t see the guy who came out of an alcove and wrapped an arm around my neck.  My first thought was, ‘Am I being mugged?  Who’s going to mug me??’ – I’m a big guy, over six foot tall and I keep myself in pretty good shape, so I’d always thought the chance of this happening in London were pretty remote.  But I was wrong. When the second guy came out from behind a car, then the third from behind a bush I knew I was in trouble.  This was no ordinary street robbery; these guys were out for blood, and the three of them surrounded me and between them punched, kicked, and smashed me to the ground, beating me to an inch of my life.

Afterwards, as I tried to hobble home – one of them had crushed my foot, to prevent me from getting up – another passer-by saw me covered in blood and called an ambulance.  I was lucky, I got to live another day.  And within a few weeks, my bruises healed, and I began to walk without a limp, all physical signs of my encounter disappeared.  But that was just the start of my nightmare.

I was completely unprepared for the mental-trauma that such an incident inflicts on you.  That winter was torture for me.  After any night out, I was terrified to go home; I found I was scared of the dark, constantly thinking that people would jump out of the shadows at me.  I’d never previously been a heavy drinker, but over that winter I found I needed to drink a lot just to give me the courage to walk home.  I could have called a taxi, but then people would wonder why I was taking a cab for such a small journey – this became another all-encompassing fear:  that others would find out about my terror. This might seem irrational, but at the time, that fear was almost as great as being mugged again.

Those first six months were very difficult, but then as the nights started getting lighter, an idea came to me.  After visiting Pompeii I’d been searching for a character to be a lead in a novel set in ancient Rome – someone who fully embraced the entirety of Rome, its seedier aspects as much as its magnificence.  Why not put my experiences to good use, rather than having it a weight bearing me down, let it be something that produces something positive. 

At the time, the news on the television was full of stories of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress and it made me think how soldiers dealt with such issues in the ancient world.  My experiences had shown me the power that traumatic events can play on the mind, and I quite simply didn’t believe anyone who claimed that in the ancient world such a thing was not a concern because life was different back then.   The human mind was biologically exactly the same then as it is now, and just as fallible to conditions we now diagnose and understand the importance of.

So I came up with the character Cassius, a great soldier, but someone who’d been affected by a terrible battle a few years before in the forests of Germany.   I knew from my own experiences how easy it was to fall into a trap of blaming yourself for your own perceived weakness, and I knew how living a lie to hide that same weakness became a part of life.

I then started my novel in Rome so I could show Cassius being seduced by the many vices of that city – something that is all too easy to do under such circumstances.  I then returned Cassius to the forests of Germany where he learns to understand and come to terms with his fears, just as I did whilst writing my novel.

I’m now pleased that fateful night in October happened.  It was a terrible experience, but it gave me something so much more – I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Thomas M. D. Brooke

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About the Author

Thomas M. D. Brooke lives in London where he works in the exciting, and sometimes crazy, fashion world.  He is also a committed writer and he spends as much time as he can in his beloved Northumbrian hills, where up until recently could be seen walking with his black Labrador Fergus, who sadly passed in January 2015.  Fergus was a constant companion to the writing of the novel and prevented many writers’ tantrums. Roman Mask is Thomas Brooke’s second novel, although this will be the first available for sale. As well as writing novels, he also writes a blog on both historical and fantasy genre novels.  For more information please visit www.thomasmdbrooke.com and you can follow Thomas on Twitter
@ThomasMD_Brooke.

Guest Post ~ Writing Sword of the Gladiatrix, by Faith L. Justice

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

      

 Two women. Two swords. One victor. An action-packed tale that exposes the brutal underside of Imperial Rome, Sword of the Gladiatrix brings to life unforgettable characters and exotic settings. From the far edges of the Empire, two women come to battle on the hot sands of the arena in Nero's Rome: Afra, scout and beast master to the Queen of Kush; and Cinnia, warrior-bard and companion to Queen Boudica of the British Iceni. Enslaved, forced to fight for their lives and the Romans' pleasure; they seek to replace lost friendship, love, and family in each other's arms. But the Roman arena offers only two futures: the Gate of Life for the victors or the Gate of Death for the losers.

Writing Sword of the Gladiatrix:

An Exercise in Frustration and Creative Breakthrough

By Faith L. Justice

First up: thanks to Tony for inviting me to guest post on The Writing Desk. Writing Sword of the Gladiatrix was a challenge and I appreciate the opportunity to share my journey. Second: you have to know a little about me to understand why this book was so difficult (at first) to write. I’m not a “must write or die” kind of person. I’ve been perfectly happy with a number of day jobs that paid quite well, thank you, and didn’t need to take on the mantel of starving artist. What I do have is a drive to share my passionate love of history through stories. Most people hate history, and rightly so, given how it’s taught in public schools: dull facts, lists of dates, wars and pestilence, and the stories of elites (mostly white men). I want to make history accessible to anyone who enjoys a good story and spotlight some little known people along the way.

I write fact-based historicals primarily set in the late Roman Empire. Selene of Alexandria features Hypatia, a famous (in her time) woman mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher as a major supporting character. Twilight Empress (coming out later this year) tells the story of Galla Placidia, who rules the Western Roman Empire just before its fall. A companion book Dawn Empress (out next year) deals with her niece Pulcheria who rules in the Roman East and sets the stage for the Byzantine Empire. These three books were relatively easy to write. History dictated events and plot points. I created the personalities and motivations of historical people who would do what we know they did. As a bonus, I got to do what I love: study the culture, religion, dress, laws, food—all the everyday details that make history come alive and transport readers to a different time and place. All of this went into a detailed outline which allowed me to write quickly and easily.

Sword of the Gladiatrix was a different beast. Set in the first century AD and featuring fictional characters—Afra and Cinnia, two women gladiators—I had to create my characters and plot from scratch. I knew what my ending would be and had my first scene, but the vast middle taunted me with its infinite possibilities. I had to write “into the dark” (some call this “pantsing”) without an outline. I wrote and rewrote the first several chapters a dozen times experimenting with point of view, starting the story in different places and times, adding and taking out subplots and supporting characters. I couldn’t get past a certain point. I had too many choices. Every time I opened the files my creative mind shut down. I tried several tricks to break writer’s block, but none of them worked. I finally shelved the project, thinking I didn’t have the chops to write this story.

But the characters haunted me. They wanted me to tell their story: two women from the far ends of the Roman Empire fighting loss and finding love in this strange land and culture. Finally, I had my mental breakthrough. Afra and Cinnia, although fictional, were rooted in a time and place just as my historical characters were. I hit the research books. What was happening during this time? The Boudican uprising in Britain. A scientific expedition to Kush. Women introduced into gladiator games. An earthquake! Plenty of juicy history to fuel my plot while developing my characters. It clicked. I put together a sketchy timeline and I finished the book in just a couple of months.

Writing Sword of the Gladiatrix was initially a frustrating slog, but it stretched me as a writer. I learned how to take skills I already had and use them in a new and satisfying way. I’m no longer intimidated by “writing into the dark” and look forward to writing the sequel.

Copyright © Faith L. Justice, June 2015

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About the Author

Faith L. Justice writes award-winning novels, short stories, and articles in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has appeared in Salon.com, Writer’s Digest, The Copperfield Review, the Circles in the Hair anthology, and many more. She is a frequent contributor to Strange Horizons, Associate Editor for Space and Time Magazine, and co-founded a writer’s workshop many more years ago than she likes to admit. For fun, she digs in the dirt—her garden and various archaeological sites. For more information visit Faith L. Justice's website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Historical Fiction Spotlight: The Queen's Gambit, by Elizabeth Fremantle

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Meet the woman who survived Henry VIII in Elizabeth Fremantle's first novel, Queen's Gambit...

My name is Katherine Parr.  I'm 31 years old and already twice widowed.

I'm in love with a man I can't have, and am about to wed a man no-one would want - for my husband-to-be is none other than Henry VIII, who has already beheaded two wives, cast aside two more, and watched one die in childbirth.

What will become of me once I'm wearing his ring and become Queen of England?

They say that the sharpest blades are sheathed in the softest pouches.

Only time will tell what I am really made of...

For fans of Hilary Mantel, Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir, Elizabeth Fremantle's first novel, Queen's Gambit, is a riveting account of the Tudor queen who married four men and outlived three of them - including Henry VIII.

Rich in atmosphere and period detail, and told through the eyes of Katherine and her young maid Dot, it tells the story of two very different women during a terrifying and turbulent time. If you loved Wolf Hall, The Other Boleyn Girl or the BBC drama series The Tudors, then Elizabeth Fremantle's Queen's Gambit is the book for you.

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About the Author

Elizabeth Fremantle lives in London. She holds a first in English from Birkbeck where she also studied for an MA in Creative Writing. She has contributed to titles such as Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal and Elle and spent some time in Paris working at French Vogue. Her fascination with early modern culture and writing led to her debut novel Queen's Gambit the first of a Tudor trilogy, the second of which is Sisters of Treason. The third in the trilogy, Watch The Lady will be featured on this blog shortly. See Elizabeth's website for more information about her novels at elizabethfremantle.com and find her on Twitter @LizFremantle.

Book Launch ~ Virtues of War (The Astral Saga) by Bennett R. Coles

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Virtues of War offers a glimpse of humanity’s possible future, of our expansion into space and the cultural and emotional baggage that we will take with us. Within an action-packed, high-tech setting with cutting edge science and fantastic worldscapes, this sci fi novel explores the effects of physical and psychological warfare and the ways in which realistic, human characters react to them. Unlike many military sci fi novels, Virtues of War is a story of the personal, rather than the technical.

Lieutenant Katja Emmes is a platoon commander who was transferred last-minute to be the leader of the 10-trooper strike team carried aboard the fast-attack craft Rapier. Although fully trained, she has never led troops in real operations before, and she is haunted by the shadow of her war-hero father.

Sublieutenant Jack Mallory is fresh out of pilot school, reluctantly doing his duty in the mysterious world of extra-dimensional warfare while pining for the glamour of a fighter pilot position in the space fleet. Day-dreaming his way through life, Jack is in for a rude awakening.

Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane is poised for promotion, and he knows that this six-month deployment in command of Rapier is the single, best chance to secure his rise to stardom within the Astral Force. He has already learned that performance alone isn’t enough and actively dabbles in the subtle politics of his professional world, but he will learn that there are far more dangerous foes than the ones he can see.

Set far enough in the future to present a society that has evolved and splintered from our own, Virtues of War is a sci fi novel that reveals the traits common in any age, and ultimately looks at the heart of what makes us human.

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About the Author

Bennett R. Coles is a Canadian author who served 15 years as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy. Throughout his career he undertook a variety of roles such as bridge officer, boarding party officer, warfare officer and navigator. He served several years in staff positions before  retiring from active duty in 2005 to pursue a business career. He makes his home in Victoria, Canada, with his wife and two sons. Always wanting to give back to the publishing industry, he has found himself heading up the maverick publishing company Promontory Press, dedicated to giving talented new authors the shot at the traditional market they deserve. Find out more at his website www.bennettrcoles.com and follow him on Twitter @BennettColes.

Special Guest Post ~ Anatomy of a Page-Turner, by Barbara Kyle

"I couldn't put it down!" Authors love to hear readers say those words. We live to hear them. So do our publishers. But what, exactly, is this mysterious literary essence that hooks a reader? What holds them so hard, they simply must keep reading, often long into the night? To emerging writers who want to break in, and published authors who want to produce a break-out book, I offer this one-word answer. Emotion.

Sound simplistic? After all, you work hard on the many complex facets of our craft. You slave to hone your story structure, and distill theme, and chisel out perfectly sculpted sentences . Certainly, as writers, we must all do this work of craft. But structure and style are not ends in themselves. They're merely tools to produce the result we want: a meaningful emotional experience for the reader.

When characters in a story move your reader to pity or laughter or loathing or dread or just the simple warmth of fellow-feeling, that's what makes them keep turning pages. They crave to know: What's going to happen to these people? They care. The fine details of craft drift past the reader like mist unless the hand of emotion reaches out to snag them and hold them.

Here's what famed mystery author Raymond Chandler had to say on the subject: My theory was that readers just thought that they cared about nothing but the action; that really although they didn’t know it, they cared very little about the action. The thing they really cared about, and that I care about, was the creation of emotion."

The wise writer learns to use this knowledge to best effect. When I mentor writers, I use the word "manipulate." Good writing means you're manipulating your reader. It's not a trick. It's anything but shallow. It is, instead, a bonding with humanity's deepest consciousness. What moves us, imprints us. The evoking of emotion is what turns the writer's craft into art. Here are three powerful ways to do it:

1. Conflict. A main character who has no problems, no challenges to overcome, is a boring character and is living in a non-story. Conflict does not mean combat. It simply means what problems does this person face in trying to achieve their goal, be it a Maeve Binchy heroine launching her catering business in the face of her mother-in-law's disapproval (Scarlet Feather) or a Robert Harris colonel seeking justice against a cabal of generals (An Officer and a Spy). Conflict for your character is the most powerful tool you have to evoke emotion in your reader. Conflict makes us care.

2. Close Relationships. Ever notice how many compelling stories are family stories? War and Peace. The Grapes of Wrath. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Godfather. The Goldfinch. Readers live in families, too, so they instinctively empathize with the intense currents of familial relationships, be they supportive or toxic. Buffet your characters in these shifting currents. Your readers will feel it on a deeply visceral level.

3. Choice. No matter what a character says or how they conduct themselves, the only way they truly reveal themselves is by making choices under pressure. Choice under pressure reveals a person's real nature.  The quiet, meek guy nobody notices who goes off to war and reveals the courage that saves his platoon. The loser, druggie kid living on the streets who gets pregnant and reveals herself to be a loving and competent mother. The rich, comfortable CEO who has everything, then reveals his tortured self by embezzling from his company. Extreme choice bares the soul. Force your characters to bare their souls.

When a reader says of your characters, "Oh, I felt so sorry for him" or "Bitch! I hated her!" or "That was so freaky it gave me chills" or "I had tears in my eyes" you know you've done your job. You've produced a page-turner. 

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About the Author

Barbara Kyle is the author of ten novels with over 450,000 copies sold in seven countries. Her latest book is The Traitor's Daughter. Her master classes and manuscript evaluations have launched many writers to published success. Barbara's "Crafting the Page-Turner" Writers' Symposium on 17-18 October 2015 will bring in top industry professionals to give workshops, seminars, and pitch sessions. For more information and to register see www.BarbaraKyle.com. You can find barbara on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @BKyleAuthor.

Book Launch - Thomas Grey & The Lost City, by J C Gruit @jcgruit

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Beneath the old house something stirred. Agitated and restless, awaiting his master’s return. Stale smells of rotting fish and decaying seaweed permeated up through the cold, damp walls of the ancient sea caves, as wisps of early morning sea mist wove their way through the dark rocks, grasping like fingers at any surface they touched. Back and forth, back and forth. The creature paced uneasily.

Wrenched from the comfort of his average life, Thomas has to leave behind everything that is familiar when his family inherit Foxwood Hall, and he makes the move from Dorchester to Cornwall. 

However, Foxwood Hall is not all it appears to be. The house has a life of its own, and is waiting to reveal its hidden secrets. As secret passages and curious artefacts are uncovered, something else is disturbed. Frightening, unwanted visitors begin to creep from their hiding places during the night, wreaking havoc as they go. Behind locked doors rooms have a life of their own, and with a mysterious arrival, Thomas knows his life will never be the same again. 

As discoveries are made, and strong bonds of friendship forged, Thomas's family embark on a quest to Tibet to finish a hunt started by his Uncle. Myths and legends unfold in the mountains of Tibet as the unlikely adventurers head underground, where an almighty shock awaits them. Can the group be saved by an even more unlikely rescuer? Enter the trail to find out ...