The Power of Story Structure, Part 2 ~ Barbara Kyle

This post is an abridged excerpt from Barbara Kyle's upcoming book Page-Turner. Read the first post here.

The Hook

As writers, our first goal is to create in the reader a desire to read on. We do that by crafting a hook. A hook is a novel's first sentence or paragraph, and it functions as a promise, an unspoken assurance that excitement lies ahead.

Examples of Hooks
 
The opening sentence of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is: “Call me Ishmael.” It's famous, and for good reason. First, it’s an imperative sentence—a command—so it establishes an extraordinarily confident voice. Second, it gives a name, which conjures up a real, flesh-and-blood person. Third, that particular name, Ishmael, resonates with the Biblical character of the same name, establishing a portentous theme. Powerful stuff in just three words.

Jane Austen’s much-loved novel Pride and Prejudice begins with: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” No one reading that sentence can withhold a small, wry smile. Which was precisely Austen's intent. She is telling you two things. First, this story is going to have a foundation of gentle humor. Second, it's going to be about love and marriage: it's a romance.

Hook Techniques

Here are some of the most effective ways to wield this essential tool of craft.

1. Name a character. As noted above with "Call me Ishmael," names have power, because they conjure up a living, breathing person.

2. Raise a question in the reader's mind. Toni Morrison starts her novel Paradise with these six, arresting words: "They shoot the white girl first." Instantly, the reader's mind lurches to ask: Who are "they"? Who's the girl? Why have they shot her?

3. Plunge straight into the plot.  Paul Auster's City of Glass begins with: "It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not."

4. Foreshadow an intriguing element of plot. Here's the opening sentence of Dick Francis's mystery Straight: "I inherited my brother's desk, his business, his gadgets, his enemies, his horses and his mistress. I inherited my brother's life, and it nearly killed me."

5. Show a character’s personality quirk. The opening of Vladimir Nabokov's ground-breaking Lolita tosses a small bombshell of Humbert Humbert's quirkiness: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

6. Show a character’s attitude. In J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, the cockiness of teenage narrator Holden Caulfield is on full-frontal display in the first sentence: "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

7. Render a mysterious or suspenseful event. George Orwell's novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four starts with: "It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen."

8. Start at the story's climax. Donna Tartt uses this technique to open her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Goldfinch. Theo Decker is hiding out in an Amsterdam hotel room, where, he says: "I'd been shut up for more than a week, afraid to telephone anybody or go out..." With Theo's crisis established, the author then loops back to the chronological start of his story years earlier.

Use any of these techniques and you'll have your reader intrigued, maybe even slightly on edge. In other words, happily hooked.

All my best,

Barbara Kyle

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About the Author

Barbara Kyle is the author of seven acclaimed historical novels – the Thornleigh Saga series – all published internationally, and of contemporary thrillers, three under pen-name Stephen Kyle, including Beyond Recall, a Literary Guild Selection. Her latest novel is The Traitor’s Daughter. Over 500,000 copies of her books have been sold in seven countries. Barbara has taught writers at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies and is a popular guest presenter at writers conferences. Before becoming an author Barbara enjoyed a twenty-year acting career in television, film, and stage productions in Canada and the U.S. Barbara’s workshops, Master Classes, and manuscript evaluations have launched many writers to published success, including bestselling mystery author Robert Rotenberg, historical novelists Ann Birch, Tom Taylor, and Barbara Wade Rose, debut novelist Marissa Campbell, thriller writer Carrie Rubin, and Steven T. Wax for his award-winning memoir. For more information visit www.BarbaraKyle.com and find her on Facebook and Twitter @BKyleAuthor.

Book Launch Guest Post ~ Patriarch Run: A Novel by Benjamin Dancer

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

Nine years ago, Jack Erikson was deployed to China to protect the United States from a cyberattack. Now, suffering from a drug-induced amnesia, he is unable to recognize his own son. What Jack knows for sure is that an elite group of operators is determined to kill him. What he does not yet remember is that he controls a cyber-weapon powerful enough to return human civilization to the Stone Age. If Jack lives long enough to piece together his mission and his identity, he will be forced to choose between the fate of humankind and that of his own family.  

Many people are surprised to learn that the fiction in Patriarch Run is premised on an under-reported, existential threat to our civilization. Over the course of the last 100 years, our society has unwittingly evolved to become absolutely dependent on a vulnerable critical infrastructure. As Jack learns in the story, 100 years ago you didn't need electricity to feed the population. That’s because the "pre-electrical" carrying capacity of the planet was less than 2 billion people. Our vulnerable infrastructure has increased the planet's carrying capacity to 7.5 billion.

The bad guy in my story intends to commit mass murder on a scale never seen before in human history by using a sophisticated cyberattack to take down the power grid. I wish that vulnerability were fiction. But it’s not. You can actually kill a lot of people this way.

Lest that be dismissed as fear mongering, I’ve included a brief video from Ted Koppel, a respected journalist, about the subject below:

In the video, Ted Koppel reports that a devastating cyberattack on America’s power grid is not only possible but likely and that the United States is shockingly unprepared.

In addition to a cyberattack, there are several mechanisms of destruction that could bring down the power grid and trigger an apocalyptic scenario like the one outlined in Patriarch Run, including an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, physical sabotage, and a coronal mass ejection. That last event is naturally occurring and does not require any human malice or intent. As a matter of fact, on a timeline as large as the sun's, such events are routine.

I’ve included a brief NASA video below to show what a coronal mass ejection looks like:

 

I carefully researched the vulnerability of our critical infrastructure and depicted that vulnerability with great realism in my story. Then I had some of the leading experts in the country check the accuracy of my work. You can find a few of their endorsements here.  disabled in your browser.

In a worst-case scenario, the events outlined above have the potential to destroy the power gird permanently. As was explained to Jack in my book, if that worst-case were to be actualized somehow, the gird couldn't be fixed. Not ever.

How can that be?

The critical hardware that would be damaged in such an event cannot be easily replaced. For example, the 2,000 large transformers of our power grid are handmade and take years to manufacture when our infrastructure is working perfectly. Society would collapse long before all the replacement transformers could be manufactured.

Without the use of widespread, reliable electricity, we could not grow, process, and transport enough food to feed the population. We could not distribute clean drinking water to our cities or provide sanitation or healthcare. There would be no commerce as we have come to know it. Such a collapse would probably result in widespread starvation, the reintroduction of diseases vanquished by modern sanitation, unprecedented social unrest, and a skyrocketing mortality rate.

I know that sounds bad. That’s because it is. If you want to learn more about how vulnerable we are, you can read my story Patriarch Run. You could also check out some of the other videos I’ve posted at BenjaminDancer.com. I’d recommend that you start with the National Geographic documentary, which is based on a book by Dr. Peter Pry (Dr. Pry endorsed my novel for its realistic depiction of this threat). There are videos from other credible sources, as well: NASA and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

I’m really sorry to be the bearer of so much bad news.

Benjamin Dancer 

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About the Author

Benjamin Dancer also writes about parenting, education, sustainability and national security. He works as an Advisor at a Colorado high school where he has made a career out of mentoring young people as they come of age. His work with adolescents has informed his stories, which are typically themed around fatherhood and coming-of-age. Find out more at his website www.benjamindancer.com and find him on Twitter @BenjaminDancer1. 

Special Guest Interview About 'Notebook' with Andrew Brown, CEO of Indent Labs

One of the great things about using Twitter as a writer are the new ideas you pick up from people you meet there.  A recent example is my discovery of the new Open Source Notebook - a ‘digital notebook’ which grows and collaborates with you as you create magnificent universes — and everything within them.

Notebook is on a free promotion throughout October aimed at helping writers with the courage to tackle NaNoWriMo. I soon found myself creating a ‘Tudor universe’, complete with castles – a king (Henry Tudor) and a queen. One you’ve created your ‘universe’ the application is designed to track every aspect of its characters, locations, and items. An AI (Artificial Intelligence) writing assistant prompts with questions about your content, helping you dive deeper than ever into your world.

Intrigued, I contacted Andrew Brown, CEO of Indent Labs, to find out more about how Notebook came to be developed.

Hi Andrew and thanks for taking the time to visit my blog.

Thanks for connecting on Twitter. I'm glad you had a chance to give Notebook a quick play and I hope it made a good first impression.

Yes – I found it surprisingly intuitive and easy to use.

Wonderful! We’ve been working hard to make sure Notebook is in a polished, stable state that allows authors to detail and track their characters, locations, and items. It scales with your ideas (meaning you'll never have another "full" notebook) and can actually politely ask questions to keep you fleshing out your ideas even when you're not in the creative mindset to sit down and create things.

I found the ‘prompts’ useful, although I did wonder about the AI behind them?

There's the beginnings of a very basic AI on the backend right now that, for example, can see you have a character named Alice without a hometown listed, and asks you one question at a time from the sidebar of any page (e.g. "Where was Alice born?"). If you answer, it saves your response back to Alice's notebook page and categorizes it for you.

My ‘universe’ is fairly simple so far but is developing fast. What happens when I try to reflect the complexity of the world I’m writing about?

We've also worked hard to make sure Notebook remains relevant to what you're writing about even if you have multiple universes of ideas in the same notebook. By sticking your characters, locations, and items (basically: people, places, and things) in "universes", you can easily do things like scope your notebook only to the universe you're currently writing in (from the universe dropdown in the top-left), effectively filtering out all other content that obviously isn't relevant right now.

I liked the way you can easily establish the relationships between characters.

Yes, you can also link content together semantically! If you create a page for Alice's best friend Bob, you can actually link Bob as Alice's best friend (and vice-versa), meaning whenever you are looking up anything about Alice, any ideas related to her are only a click away (in other words, clicking on Bob's name from Alice's page will take you directly to Bob's page). This is actually really important for the AI improvements that are coming.

What would you say to writers who worry a little about being able to access their information in Notebook in the future?

Of course! There's also a slew of benefits to Notebook inherent to it being digital: their ideas are available from any device, completely private (unless they mark pages public and share them with others for feedback), backed up, and always available, indefinitely, for free. 

What plans do you have for further development of Notebook?

There's a handful of other usability features getting ready to release in the new few weeks, but the biggest benefit authors can expect in the future is an improved AI. The same system that can realize, "Hey, Alice doesn't have a hometown set. I should ask Tony what it is and store it for him" will soon also be able to recognize relationships and ask stimulating questions and writing prompts like, "How did Alice meet Bob?" or "What does Bob not like about Alice?"

In addition to an improved AI, there's also features in the works to actually use the content in your notebook as you write, for example letting you hover over character names in your manuscript to instantly pull up relevant information about them, so you never have to dig out your notebook (or break your writing flow and jump back to an earlier chapter) to look up even the small facts about your characters.

I'm excited to launch Notebook out of private beta this week, but I'm even more excited for what's to come. I'm always happy to answer questions and field comments as well. This is what I love doing! 

Thanks again for the connection, I wish you the best,

Andrew Brown

CEO, Indent Labs

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About the Author

Andrew Brown is the founder of Indent Labs, LLC, a startup focused on blending creativity with artificial intelligence to create smarter writing software. Currently travelling the world with just a laptop and a suitcase, Andrew is preparing for his eighth year participating in National Novel Writing Month (and third published novel—hopefully!). His poetry and short fiction are available at www.drusepth.net and you can follow him on Twitter at @IndentLabs. 

Special Launch Promotion

To celebrate the launch of Notebook.ai, anyone who signs up for an account during October 2016 with promo code NANOPREP will have their $19.99 completely waived and enjoy a full account — free for life.

After October, new notebooks will cost $19.99 each, but authors on the fence will be able to try out Notebook.ai for free with our free Ethereal plan. Ethereal notebooks can be upgraded at any time, with no loss of ideas.

For more information click HERE

Special Guest Post ~ Big Topic Terrors, by Sarah Gristwood, Author of Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

An ambitious young woman, debarred by her sex from ascending the throne, nonetheless rules her country and turns her court into an academy where girls are taught how to rule. A mother tells her daughter to face death rather than give up the sceptre that is her right to wield…

Talk about fools rushing in. Sixteen protagonists, five countries, and the history of more than a century? Angels would be so afraid to tread, they’d trip over their wings as they ran the other way.

But it’s easy, and perhaps cheap, to play this for laughs, because the truth is, Game of Queens is a book about which I care quite desperately. And that, at this stage - a few days before publication - is what’s so scary.

It’s a bit unfortunate for a writer, but I’ve always loathed seeing my own work in print. In my days as a journalist I’d cross the street to avoid a newsagent displaying a paper whose front page trailed one of my stories. I was always aware how much better it could have been - how much I could have got wrong. That fear is a lot worse today. 

In Game of Queens - about the chains of women and power running through the sixteenth century - I’m scampering over deals and decades, giving only a few pages to reigns and reformations, each one of which has been the subject of a dozen other people’s PhD. Perhaps it is a journalist’s take on history. But that only makes it more important that I should do it properly. Because if I hadn’t done this book someone else would have had to - the more so, since the experiences of these women are being echoed today.   

The sixteenth century saw an explosion of female rule across Europe - not only in England and Scotland, where a ruling queen sat on the throne, but in the Netherlands, France and Spain, where female regents controlled great swathes of the continent on behalf of their male relatives. But if the sixteenth century showed what women could do, it also showed how vulnerable they could be. Anne Boleyn executed for adultery she almost certainly did not commit; Catherine de Medici getting most of the blame for the Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Day. 

Be very careful in all your dealings, a manual of advice for powerful women warned, ‘because you can be blamed even for something very slight’. ‘Had I been crested not cloven, my lords, you would not have treated me thus’, Elizabeth I told her courtiers, angrily. 

Hillary Clinton’s health? Debate about women leaders has always centred on their bodies. Even Elizabeth I’s famous speech at Tilbury admitted that she had ‘the body of a weak and feeble woman’, before boasting that she had nonetheless ‘the heart and stomach of a king’. Men, and a powerful woman’s relationship to them, was a question then and is still today. Fear of a husband’s takeover was what kept Queen Elizabeth unmarried, and there could be eyebrows raised over the likelihood of Bill Clinton’s confining himself to a backseat role. 
     
Women have long been seen as naturally more pacific than men, and sometimes that works to their advantage. As when, in 1529, Margaret of Austria and Louise of Savoy negotiated the Ladies’ Peace; as, perhaps, when a President Hillary Clinton might negotiate with Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde, or Theresa May. But one slur often levelled is that women may therefore fail in times of war: yes, Trump (like George Bush with Geraldine Ferraro before him) has tried to diminish Clinton that way. 

Before the first debate, Clinton was advised not to interrupt or talk over Trump too much, because voters don’t like such behaviour in a woman. He interrupted her repeatedly. Guess what?  - the question of how to combine femininity with authority has never gone away. 

Maybe that’s why launching this book seems so scary. OK, that may just be the highfalutin’ theory. Maybe it is just about me. The fact this is the first time I’ve ever brought out one book without knowing what project comes next , or that it’s been a while since last I published anything in quite this way. 

But this time there’s no taking refuge in the safely past - no saying, at the end of the day, ‘it’s only a story’. I do believe we need to know our past to take charge of our present - that the rise, and fall, of powerful women in the past have lessons for today. And maybe, just maybe, that is why I care so much. Because, in however infinitesimal a way, this book is trying to add its voice to the chorus of those who are still making - rather than merely recounting - history. 

Sarah Gristwood 

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About the Author

Sarah Gristwood  is a best-selling Tudor biographer, former film journalist, and commentator on royal affairs. After leaving Oxford, Sarah began work as a journalist, writing at first about the theatre as well as general features on everything from gun control to Giorgio Armani. But increasingly she found herself specialising in film interviews – Johnny Depp and Robert De Niro; Martin Scorsese and Paul McCartney. She has appeared in most of the UK’s leading newspapers – The Times, the Guardian, The Telegraph (Daily and Sunday) – and magazines from Cosmopolitan to Country Living and Sight and Sound to The New Statesman. Turning to history she wrote two bestselling Tudor biographies, Arbella: England’s Lost Queen and Elizabeth and Leicester. Sarah was one of the team providing Radio 4’s live coverage of the royal wedding; and has since spoken on the Queen’s Jubilee, the royal baby, and other royal stories for Sky News, Woman’s Hour, Radio 5 Live, and CBC. Shortlisted for both the Marsh Biography Award and the Ben Pimlott Prize for Political Writing, she is a Fellow of the RSA, and an Honororary Patron of Historic Royal Palaces. She and her husband, the film critic Derek Malcolm, live in London and Kent. Find out more at Sarah's webiste 

sarahgristwood.com and find her on Twitter @sarahgristwood. 

Book Launch Guest Post ~ Writing Conquest: Daughter of the Last King, by Tracey Warr

New on Amazon UK and Amazon US

1093. The three sons of William the Conqueror Robert Duke of Normandy, William II King of England and Count Henry fight with each other for control of the Anglo-Norman kingdom created by their father s conquest. Meanwhile, Nest ferch Rhys, the daughter of the last independent Welsh king, is captured during the Norman assault of her lands. Raised with her captors, the powerful Montgommery family, Nest is educated to be the wife of Arnulf of Montgommery, in spite of her pre-existing betrothal to a Welsh prince. Who will Nest marry and can the Welsh rebels oust the Normans? 'Daughter of the Last King' is the first in the Conquest Trilogy.

This is the first book in a trilogy about Nest ferch Rhys. Nest’s father was king of the Welsh kingdom of Deheubarth (roughly covering modern-day Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire) and he was killed by the Normans in 1093. Nest was taken as a child by the Norman aggressors after the slaying of her father and two of her brothers. 

She had a series of marriages to the Norman steward of Pembroke Castle, then the Norman constable of Cardigan, and then probably also to the Flemish sheriff of Pembroke. She was the mistress of King Henry I (son of William the Conqueror) and was kidnapped from her first Norman husband by the Welsh prince Owain ap Cadwgan. It was a colourful life to say the least. Nest has been dubbed the Welsh Helen of Troy. Her sister-in-law Gwenllian ferch Gruffudd, daughter of the king of Gwynedd, died leading Welsh troops into battle against the Normans at Kidwelly Castle.

I was inspired to start writing it when I was living near Narberth, commuting weekly by train to my teaching job in Oxford. The trainline took me back and forth past the spectacular triple river estuary at Carmarthen Bay and Llansteffan castle. I spent time staying in Llansteffan, walking along the cliffs, writing notes. 

I imagined Nest writing the story of her life and stuffing it into a stony hiding place in Llansteffan castle where it might be discovered centuries later, long after the constant to and fro between Welsh and Normans as they each won and then lost  the castle. I was irritated by some male historians rather flippant references to Nest, as if her complex sexual career were simply caused by her extreme beauty or down to her own lascivious nature. I wanted to imagine what happened to her from her point of view. 

Who was she? Was she simply a symbolic pawn for both Normans and Welsh? Simply a victim? How much agency did she have in the events of her life? Then as the story developed I tried to also bring in the perspectives of some of the Norman characters as Nest moves between Cardiff Castle, Westminster, Woodstock, Abingdon and back to Pembroke Castle, Carew, Llansteffan, Cilgerran and Cardigan.

Tracey Warr

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About the Author

Tracey Warr was born in London, lived for several years in Pembrokeshire, Wales and currently divides her time between the UK and France. She studied English Literature at Oxford University and holds a PhD in Art History. She worked as an art curator and university lecturer in art history and theory before starting to write fiction six years ago. She undertook an MA in Creative Writing at University of Wales Trinity St Davids in Carmarthen. Her first historical novel Almodis (Impress, 2011) was set in early medieval France and Spain. It was shortlisted for the Impress Prize, presented in the Rome Film Festival Book Initiative and won a Santander Research Award. Her second novel The Viking Hostage (Impress, 2014) topped the Amazon Australia Kindle bestseller lists last year. She was awarded a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary for work on her trilogy about Princess Nest and King Henry I, set in 12^th century Wales and England. She also received an Author’s Foundation Award from the Society of Authors last year for a biography she is working on about three French noblewomen, three sisters, who held power in 11^th century Toulouse, Carcassonne, Barcelona and the Pyrenees. Tracey reviews books for Historical Novels Review, Times Higher Education and New Welsh Review. Her most recent publication on contemporary art is Remote Performances in Nature and Architecture (Routledge, 2015). She is a tutor for residential writing courses in France with A Chapter Away (www.achapteraway.com). Find our more at http://traceywarrwriting.com and find Tracey on Twitter at @TraceyWarr1 

Available for Pre-Order: The Actors’ Crucible: Port Talbot and the Making of Burton, Hopkins, Sheen and All the Others

Pre-Order Now on Amazon UK and Amazon US

The town of Port Talbot has long been seen (quite literally) as synonymous with the steel industry. Yet it also has another claim to fame as the actors' capital of Wales. It has produced a remarkable number of actors since the inter-war years. Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen head the glittering cast but there are many others including early stars such as Ronald Lewis and Ivor Emmanuel, more recent figures like Rob Brydon and Di Botcher as well as a cluster of exciting young actors starting to make their names in the West End and on the big and small screen.

This book suggests explanations for this phenomenon. Its author is a historical biographer who hails from Port Talbot and has done extensive research including numerous interviews. It explores the provision of educational and cultural facilities for young people over the years and demonstrates a commitment to drama that is deeply embedded in the town's history. 

It tells in some depth the stories of the super-stars but in a novel way, focusing on how they emerged and on those who nurtured their talent, presenting the actors as part of a tradition that was set in motion even before Richard Burton began to make his mark. It surveys the careers of fifty actors from Port Talbot and it considers what its most famous stars have put back into their community, culminating in the spectacular three-day event of Easter 2011 when Michael Sheen resurrected Port Talbot's pride and hopes through the immersive theatrical experience of The Passion.

Written at a time of mixed fortunes for actors when funding for training is threatened yet opportunities for theatre and film work are expanding within Wales, this book puts centre-stage a town, its actors and those who guide them and so offers a new kind of cultural history. Such an approach also raises wider questions about the importance of the arts and of drama in particular to the wellbeing of communities.

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About the Author

Angela V. John is a Pembrokeshire-based historian and biographer. She was, for many years, Professor of History at the University of Greenwich and is currently an Honorary Professor at Swansea University. Although her earlier books were aimed at an academic audience, she now writes for a wider readership and enjoys speaking at all sorts of events. Forthcoming talks in the next few months include speaking to groups in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion and at Penarth Literature Festival as well as The Tropic cinema in Key West, Florida. She is currently working on her twelfth book, a volume of essays about a bunch of feisty Welsh women of the 19c and 20c. For more information see www.angelavjohn.com and her publisher www.parthianbooks.com

How to be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life, by Ruth Goodman

Available on Amazon UK and Amazon US

The real Wolf Hall - a time traveller's guide to daily life in Tudor England 

The Tudor era encompasses some of the greatest changes in our history. But while we know about the historical dramas of the times - most notably in the court of Henry VIII - what was life really like for a commoner like you or me? 

To answer this question, the renowned "method historian" and historical advisor to the BBC Ruth Goodman has slept, washed and cooked as the Tudors did - so you don't have to! She is your expert guide to this fascinating era, drawing on years of practical historical study to show how our ancestors coped with everyday life, from how they slept to how they courted. 

Using a vast range of sources, she takes you back to the time when soot was used as toothpaste and the "upper crust" of bread was served to the wealthier members of the house. Exploring how the Tudors learnt, danced and even sat and stood according to the latest fashion, she reveals what it all felt, smelt and tasted like, from morning until night. 

'Ruth is the queen of living history, long may she reign!' 

- Lucy Worsley

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About the Author

Ruth Goodman is an historian who specialises in the everyday life of the past. She has written and presented numerous acclaimed BBC television series and is a regular presenter on the One Show. As well as her television work, Ruth offers advisory services, lectures and holds practical workshops around the country. As a social historian she works with a whole range of people, institutions and museums such as The Weald and Downland, The Globe Theatre, Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust, the National Trust and the heritage and drama departments of several universities. She is the author of How to be a Victorian, and has co-authored three other books, including Tudor Monastery Farm. Ruth lives with her family in Buckinghamshire UK.