Shauna Roberts on Mesopotamia and Doing Lots (and Lots) of Research

During my inglorious days in Academia, I nearly went to graduate school in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Thus, I was especially excited when today's guest, Shauna Roberts, offered to discuss how she researched her novels about ancient Mesopotamia.

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Five Reasons I Over-research…

and Over-research…and Over-research

by Shauna Roberts

1. I love research! Although the “butt in chair, fingers on keyboard” part of writing a novel is fun, I prefer research. Whether the subject is ancient cosmetics, the aurochs (the ancestor of modern cattle), or the climate of the Near East after the last Ice Age, research topics often turn into obsessions.

2. I usually take the less-traveled road. For example, my historical novel Like Mayflies in the Stream (Hadley Rille Books, 2009) and my forthcoming historical romance Claimed by the Enemy (Nicobar Press, June 2014) both have what some consider an obscure setting: ancient Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq and Syria). The two books take place in different cities and more than 400 years apart, so I had to do a lot of new research for the second book.

3. Sources often contain mistakes, overgeneralizations, and differences of opinion. Everyone knows by now not to use Wikipedia as a sole source. But it’s not unique in its problems. I worked as a medical and science writer and editor for twenty-five years, and one of the first things I learned was not to trust any source by itself, even when the source was the scientist or company I was writing about.

Writing with confidence about an ancient civilization requires the author to:

• read narrow, specific articles in scholarly journals and then extrapolate to other cities, other decades, other age groups, or the opposite sex

• read popular books and textbooks and then separate wild generalizations about, say, diet or religious practices from generalizations that did hold true for centuries or millennia

• look at art with as few preconceptions as possible and research what you think you see. For example, the equines pulling chariots in Mesopotamian art before 2000 B.C. look like horses, but aren’t. What are they? Scholars disagree.

• take the prejudices of the authors’ time into account. For example, the 1920s field reports of the excavations of the city of Ur describe the finds accurately. But the scholars’ interpretations are clearly influenced by, for example, their literal belief in the Biblical flood story (Mesopotamia actually suffered several extraordinary floods, not just one) and their assumption that women never ruled cities (wrong). 

4. Original sources are often in foreign languages. The scholarly literature on ancient Mesopotamia is often in German or French and partly relies on documents in the ancient Mesopotamia languages of Sumerian and Akkadian. I can read French and German, but not expertly, so I do extra research to verify facts from articles in those languages.

Two summers ago, I took a correspondence course in Sumerian. (Really!) Now I can compare the transcriptions of original texts against authors’ modern translations and judge for myself how reliable each might be.

5. Over-research makes it easier to avoid info dumps. Historical novelists often love their research so much they want to include every last bit in their book. After all, we’ve already generously shared with friends every detail of fabric dyes or furniture construction or cooking techniques of our time period, and readers are just friends that we haven’t met yet.

Over-research curbs that tendency because it leads to finding conflicting interpretations and contradictory evidence. One is acutely aware that few “facts” are 100% certain. For example, I read in the past week that chemical analyses of the bones of ancient Egyptians suggest they were vegetarians. In contrast, ancient art and common sense suggest Egyptians ate a lot of fish. (Glad I’m not writing a novel set in ancient Egypt right now!)

As a reader, I want a novel to provide an accurate understanding of life in a particular era, but I also want a strong plot and characters with understandable motivations. Let’s face it: It’s hard to understand the motivations of people in 1950, let alone those of people in 1950 B.C.E. Authors must modernize characters at least a little—enough that readers don’t see them as alien and incomprehensible.

As a writer, I try to provide the reading experience I desire for myself by writing a story deeply grounded in the time and place but not mired in details (which could be wrong) or explanations (which jerk the reader out of the story).

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Learn more about Shauna Roberts on her website.

Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

You can buy Like Mayflies in a Stream on Amazon and B&N.

Claimed by the Enemy will be available this summer. 

Pauline Montagna Expands the Meaning of "Write What You Know"

How can there be any imagination in fiction if we just write what we know? Today's guest, Pauline Montagna, has a very interesting perspective on this eternal question. She explains how that realization helped her write her historical novel, The Slave.

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Write What You Know

by Pauline Montagna

The usual advice to a new writer is ‘Write what you know’. It’s also generally expected that a writer’s first novel will be autobiographical. My first novel ‘The Slave’ is set in Medieval Italy, and although I have visited Italy several times, I have never lived there, and certainly not in the fourteenth century. Neither does my heroine’s story in any way reflect the trajectory of my own life. Yet, on reflection, both of these old saws apply.

Although I was born in Australia, all my grandparents and my mother were born in Italy and I grew up with a strong Italian identity. My mother was born in Basilicata, in a remote village on a hilltop far from the sea. My father’s people came from the island of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany. We lived with my maternal grandparents, and I grew up hearing stories from their village, speaking an obscure Italian dialect, watching my grandmother making pasta and special festive treats unique to her village, listening to my grandfather rehashing Italian politics from before he left Italy in 1938.

But being an Italian isn’t just about the food. It’s about family, community and culture. My place in the family defined my life. My friends were my extended family. My social life took place in our Italian community. My daily life – what I ate, how I dressed, who I mixed with, where I went to school, my interests – were all informed by my Italian culture albeit transposed to another country, and sometimes in the spirit of rebellion rather than compliance.

My Italian identity shaped who I am, and not only as a person, but as a woman. As an Italian girl, I was discouraged from being self-serving, emotionally demanding or sexually adventurous. But by example I also learnt that an Italian woman could be practical, strong, confident and intellectually independent.

As I reflect on what biographical elements went into creating my heroine, it was not the narrative of my individual life, but its context which created her family, her upbringing and their effects on her character.

My heroine’s early life is divided between the city state in which her father is a successful businessman and later a town councillor, and the village in which her parents were born and which they visit regularly. The culture of that village – its inter-relationships, religious festivals, food, dance, games and clothing – is derived from my mother’s village. The culture of the city derives from my father’s Tuscan heritage, though here I applied what I studied at university rather than what I learned at home.

With my Italian background, it should come as no surprise that I leaped at the opportunity to study Italian history at university, getting there early on enrolment day to ensure my place in the only two units of Italian history on offer, ‘Medieval Italian City States’ and ‘Florence and the Renaissance’. It was with great wonder and some pride that I learned that it was in Medieval Italy, in the city states of its northern provinces, that the modern world was born, that in fact the Renaissance didn’t materialise out of a few coincidences sometime in the fifteenth century, but grew out of the culture of independent, progressive, mercantile cities that began to emerge from the Dark Ages as early as the eleventh century.

This period, when Italy was ahead of the world and not the political and economic basket case I grew up knowing captured my imagination. So when I came to embark on my first novel, despite some trepidation, it was this period I would write about. Except for minor details, I didn’t need to do extensive research in dusty libraries as it was already all there at my fingertips. I just needed to get it down on paper. 

The Slave

Aurelia Rubbini, the only child of a rich merchant in fourteenth century Italy, has been raised to be a dutiful daughter, wife and mother, but she longs for something more than the restricted life intended for her. Then one day, her father brings home from a buying trip an Asian slave boy, Batu, who will reshape Aurelia’s destiny.

Aurelia and Batu are inexorably drawn to each other, but their relationship is forbidden as Aurelia is destined for an arranged marriage to further her father’s political ambitions. When Aurelia marries Lorenzo de Graziano, a nobleman with a dangerous reputation, Batu insists on going with her for her protection. But Batu’s presence arouses violent passions that Aurelia, in her innocence, can never understand.

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Learn more about Pauline Montagna on her website. Join her mailing list by May 31 to get your own free complimentary ebook copy of ‘The Slave.’

You can purchase The Slave on Amazon US, Amazon UK, and elsewhere.

Tracy S. Morris talks about writing humor in MEDIEVAL MISFITS

There are all kinds of reasons a writer might shy away from trying to be funny. Humor can easily fall flat. Taste in humor changes over time and by region. Maybe the biggest challenge to a would-be writer of comedy is gathering the self-confidence to deliver the goods. Tracy S. Morris, author of Medieval Misfits: Renaissance Rejects, offers some guidance and perspective. 

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Humor is Tough!

by Tracy S. Morris

Remember in the early 90’s there was a Barbie doll that talked?  Mostly she complained about how math was tough? (You don’t? Then get off my lawn you young whippersnapper!)  Some days I think that Barbie knew nothing.  Math is easy compared to writing comedy.

Case in point: If you were paying attention to the news recently, you probably saw something about the brouhaha surrounding Stephen Colbert and #CancelColbert.  If not, let me explain to you as if you lived your life at the bottom of a well.  Stephen Colbert is an actor with a show in which he pretends to be a conservative news anchor.  His show lampoons, among other things, pop culture, pundits and conservative news anchors.

Things for Colbert were pretty much rainbows and puppies and Peabody awards until someone at Comedy Central tweeted out one of his punch lines without context on twitter.  As a result, hashtag activists protested by tweeting out #cancelcolbert. Even after Colbert explained the context of the joke, some people still didn’t find it funny.

Which just goes to show that humor is highly subjective.  What one person finds funny, another person will be horrified at.

When I was younger, I listened to a radio show called Dr. Demento.  Most of the songs were hilarious.  But there was one song that just made me sad.  It was called Dead Puppies Aren’t Much Fun.  To me, this song wasn’t any fun.  Similar songs always at least rated a chuckle or two.  Like the one about poisoning pigeons in the park.  But not songs about dead puppies.  Why?  Maybe because pigeons are funny, and puppies are cute?  Perhaps life experience, empathy and age all play a factor.

Looney Tunes, particularly the older ones, don’t always hold up well either.  If you put on a collection of older Looney Tunes, you may read a disclaimer that states that the shows are products of their times.  This is boilerplate legalese that basically means: people in the 30’s 40’s and 50’s didn’t get offended at the same things you do.  If you find Speedy Gonzales offensive, don’t watch!

Racial stereotypes aren’t the only area where Looney Tunes don’t always age well.  The old WB cartoons have always been liberally peppered with pop culture references.  This was fine for the time.  But nowadays even some adults who find them on Youtube may not recognize Frank Sinatra. 

So as a humor writer, how do I write something that has a broad appeal to the largest number of readers?  Mostly, I just write what I find funny and hope that my audience shares my sense of humor.  There is room in the world for all types of humor, from people who appreciate Buster Keeton to those who like Bevis and Butthead.  And maybe even a few who think Barbie is funny, too. 

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Heh heh. I remember Dr. Demento...

You can learn more about Tracy S. Morris on her website.

You can purchase Medieval Misfits on Amazon and directly from the publisher, Yard Dog Press.

Regina Jeffers on Balancing Fact and Fiction in Historical Novels

Pehaps the biggest challenge of writing historical fiction is balancing fact and invention. Today's guest, author of the REALM series of historical novels, discusses this issue.

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In addition to correct dialect, dress, and the character’s period names, historical fiction depends heavily upon historical facts. Most authors who write historical fiction are history junkies. Yet, there must be a steadiness

between writing a good story and getting the historical details correct. It is a balancing act to share one character’s foibles and flaws, as well as the qualities about him, which we admire. For me, I like to add another element: to mix in “modern” issues the reader might not expect in an historical novel.

A Touch of Honor is the seventh book in my highly popular “Realm” series. The Realm is a fictional covert group working under the auspices of the Home Office during the Napoleonic War. Each of the members of the Realm has left the service and has returned home to claim titles and land and, hopefully, love. However, a Baloch warlord, who believes one of them has stolen a fist-sized emerald he wants, returned to his land is pursuing them.

For “modern” issues, the characters have met a variety of concerns. In The Scandal of Lady Eleanor, Lady Eleanor Fowler knows a deviant parent, who has placed her in a tenuous abusive situation. In A Touch of Mercy, we see how far a family will go to marry off their daughter to a man of wealth and consequence. In A Touch of Love, cultural assimilation in Regency London is part of the plot. In A Touch of Honor, the reader encounters the idea of “eating disorders” in a time when women were corseted into their dresses, as well as dependency on laudanum, a tincture of opium administered to babies and adults alike during the Regency and Victorian periods.

Into these story lines, I have mixed the history of the time. The reader will discover something of the glass cones, a 19^th century structured used in the glass manufacturing process, in A Touch of Cashémere. The Peterloo Massacre plays a part in both A Touch of Love and His: Two Regency Novellas. Lord Sidmouth’s search for sedition in post Napoleonic London becomes part of several plot lines. The reader has met such real-life characters as John Loudon McAdam, who developed the road system, which changed the face of England, as well as Sir Walter Scott as a close friend of one of the characters. One can also find the Pentrich Rising as the backdrop for A Touch of Love. The list is lengthy and diverse.

Book Blurb:

For two years, BARON JOHN SWENTON has thought of little else other than making Satiné Aldridge his wife; so when he discovers her reputation in tatters, Swenton acts honorably: He puts forward a marriage of convenience that will save her from ruination and provide him the one woman he believes will bring joy to his life. However, the moment he utters his proposal, Swenton’s instincts scream he has made a mistake: Unfortunately, a man of honor makes the best of even the most terrible of situations.

SATINE ALDRIDGE has fallen for a man she can never possess and has accepted a man she finds only mildly tolerable. What will she do to extricate herself from Baron Swenton’s life and claim the elusive Prince Henrí? Obviously, more than anyone would ever expect.

ISOLDE NEVILLE has been hired to serve as Satiné Aldridge’s companion, but her loyalty rests purely with the lady’s husband. With regret, she watches the baron struggle against the impossible situation in which Miss Aldridge has placed him, while her heart desires to claim the man as her own. Yet, Isolde is as honorable as the baron. She means to see him happy, even if that requires her to aid him in his quest to earn Miss Satiné’s affections.

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Learn more about Regina Jeffers on her website and on her blog.  

Purchase A Touch of Honor at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Diane Scott Lewis on the History and Magic of Cornwall in RING OF STONE

Research can be a wondrous labyrinth, leading to unexpected places. That's what happened to today's guest, historical novelist Diane Scott Lewis. 

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The Cornish say there’s magic in a ring of stone. Reading Daphne du Maurier’s non-fiction Vanishing Cornwall for research on an earlier novel, I came across the haunting picture of a stone shaped like a ring perched on a windswept coastline. I decided I had to write a story around such a formation. For my novel, Ring of Stone, this wind and rain-ravaged phenomenon plays a vital part in the lives of the Gwynn sisters, and others in the remote village of Lankyp.

Cornwall is steeped in myths and magic and the more I researched—before the days of the internet—the more legends I wanted to include in my story. I traveled to Cornwall and walked the stormy northern coast, but also pored over numerous books at the Library of Congress.

I tossed in a practical young woman, Rose Gwynn from America, and placed her in the difficult   position of wanting to practice as a doctor in a time when females were forbidden—in 1796. She’s journeyed here with her family, to the land of her ancestors, for her father’s career. Rose discounts anything supernatural and humors his tales of an ancient curse. However, her beliefs will soon be tested and twisted in a strange direction.

Rose’s arrival in the village will distress the local physician, Dr. Nelson, to whom she pleads to for assistance. Unbeknownst to her, stoic, young Nelson hides a ruinous secret and cannot allow anyone close. Rose’s beautiful sister will attract a nearby earl, who may or may not harbor evil inclinations. A tavern wench named Catern knows the ugly truth about the earl but her humiliation has kept her from revealing the painful details, though she seethes with revenge.

These three people, Rose, Dr. Nelson, Catern, will come together in ways none of them expected to help or hinder and change all their lives forever. The stone ring will have an explosive moment—or is it the characters’ imaginations?—to help one woman discover love, and save another lady’s life.

A Cornish wise-woman or “Charmer” also plays a prominent role in the story, teaching Rose to see her past as her and her sister’s future. The elderly charmer warns that someone who has barged into an ancient land should never disregard the old ways.

I tried to fit the supernatural aspect, as much as I could, into a scenario that might have happened as I’ve written it—perhaps. I enjoyed writing this story and I hope readers will enjoy the journey into mythical Cornwall.

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Learn more about Diane Scott Lewis on her website.

Ring of Stone will be featured at a cheaper price on Amazon Countdown. March 24th for Amazon US. March 25th for Amazon UK.

Purchase Ring of Stone on Amazon US and Amazon UK.

AJ Sikes on Noir in GODS OF CHICAGO

"Noir" is one of those terms that most of us understand vaguely, as a feeling we get when we read or see a darkly shadowed work showcasing the urban underbelly. But what is noir to an author who writes it? Please welcome AJ Sikes, who explains how he approached this genre in his new novel, Gods of Chicago. 

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Thank you, Anne, for hosting me today.

Gods of Chicago is a noir urban fantasy set in an alternate history 1929. Like all genres, noir has a set of tropes and characters who need to appear on the page for a particular story to fit readers’ expectations. In their introduction to The Best American Noir of the Century, James Ellroy and Otto Penzler famously (perhaps infamously) describe the genre in such a way that reading noir becomes tantamount to donning an executioner’s hood. There are no winners in noir fiction, they say. The late Roger Ebert had as much to say about filmic interpretations. My tough luck that I wanted to write a story that wouldn’t match any of these admittedly well-informed opinions.

It’s important to me that stories lead somewhere. Not necessarily to the fabled land of sequels and movie deals, but at least to a place that doesn’t leave ashes on the tongue. Noir storytelling involves scenes and events that are intentionally disturbing, but such instances don’t have to be the point of a story in order for it to be considered noir. A tale can be disturbing and still succeed at entertaining, possibly even evoking a sense of hope.

I wrote Gods of Chicago to tell a story that aims to entertain and disturb in equal measure. Bad things happen to good people. Innocence is treated with derision if it’s acknowledged at all. In that sense, the book does fit with Ebert’s description of film noir as “A [story] which at no time misleads you into thinking there is going to be a happy ending.” The storyscape is what you’d expect as well. Dark alleys, dim skies, back doors and hidden entrances, grimy city streets, and the lowest people on the social ladder kept well away from the upper crust. The people you meet have all seen enough to know there isn’t much reason to hope things will get better. But they still try. Whereas Ellroy, Penzler, and Ebert are convinced nobody but nobody thinks they’ll really win in noir, the characters in Gods of Chicago aren’t beaten yet, and they’re going to keep proving that to you long after the gun smoke clears.

Yes, everyone in the book is making a play and has a stake in the game, but that’s true of any character in any genre - perhaps no more so than in real life, where we all face obstacles to success and achievement on a daily basis. Fiction magnifies our little struggles for us, and that’s part of the joy of reading (and writing) for me. It’s enlivening to see characters faced with peril and doom only to overcome and triumph, to some extent, at the end. With Gods of Chicago, I aimed to capture the fatalism and futility that Ellroy and Penzler point up as hallmarks of the genre, but I also set out to dispel the myth that ‘all is lost’ in noir fiction. The skies and streets may be black with portent, but somewhere out there is a hint of light flickering, maybe even showing the way out.

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Gods of Chicago is available now as a Kindle ebook and Paperback.

Learn more about AJ Sikes on his website. Follow him on Twitter: @SikesAaron

Janet Lane Walters on how a string of short stories can build whole worlds

I've written novels, novellas, novelettes, chapter books, short stories, flash fiction, and drabbles. Still, I've never done what today's guest, Janet Lane Walters, has accomplished: she's written a unified series of short stories about related worlds. I'll have to try that! But first, welcome to The Amber Chronicles.

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Writing Short Pieces - Amber Chronicles

by Janet Lane Walters 

I began writing short stories until the day an editor told me what I'd written sounded like a synopsis for a novel. Back to the drawing board and I was off on writing novels. Then I joined a group of writers called Jewels of the Quill as Dame Amber and was asked to participate in their anthologies. Thus the world called Amber was born. The stories weren't written in chronological order and ranged in length from 2500 words to 15,000 words. Four of the stories in Amber Chronicles were published in the anthologies and numbers 5 and 6 were written after I received the rights back to the books and decided to write a beginning to the story and tie all the stories together.

 

The main character is a witch called Emme who must learn what it means to give and receive love. She wants to marry a crown prince and when she constantly fights with her sisters is send to another world where she must learn her lessons. Emme starts out as more of a villain than a heroine but I knew she had to be redeemed. Writing the first story was difficult since she needed to be mean yet be able to learn what she must. Though the shortest story in the collection, this took the longest to write. But as a writer I loved Emme and wanted others to love her as well. Her story became The Amber Orb and she sets a curse on the first of the princes to turn her down. He is taken into the amber orb.

 

Stephen enters the orb and is transported to a land where a dragon is terrifying the inhabitants. The Amber Dragon tells the story of an enchanted princess transformed into a five foot, fat amber dragon. She has lessons to learn and she needs a prince to rescue her.  This was a fun story to write and was a bit of my take on The Princess and the Frog fairy tale we all know and remember. The story was a fun one to write and made me chuckle a time or two. Hopefully the readers will react in similar ways.

 

Having failed once, Emme tries again. This time the prince is Rafel who refuses to accept her offer and give her his love. He is transported to a world with an aging king who has a niece he raised from birth and another who suddenly appeared and who is everything the first niece isn't. Here Rapunzel came to mind and The Amber Tower was born. This time Rafel is the prisoner in the tower and he is faced with a choice to wed either of the princesses. Marriage is not a state he wishes. There were times while writing this story that I struggled but as well as Rapunzel, I had one of those Aha moments and added a bit of The Lady or the Tiger to the story.

 

Emme doesn't give up. She tries for Ivor and he refuses. He enters the orb and arrives in a world where a princess is in The Amber Cage. Ivor loves music and in the world he not inhabits, people sing rather than speak. He faces tests and has two rivals for the hand of the princess. The ending came to me from a record my father used to play a warp sound but I won't give what happened away.

 

In despair Emme decides to grow up with the next prince, Hugh. She now begins to learn the lesson she was sent to learn and the story ends with a reverse of the other stories. Odd thing was this was the first of the stories I wrote and I think I was a bit influenced by Anna Karenina, a story I read at a very young age and thought the ending was dumb. What always interests me in writing is how something from childhood enters a story in different ways. This story was titled Woman Cast In Amber.

 

The final story features Kristen the prince who fell in love with the woman cast in amber and how he wants to rescue her. Since this was the last story in the group, there had to be an ending and Emme had to prove she had learned the lesson. Started this story several times. I believe there were at least three versions before I found the right mix.

 

All in all, these stories were fun to write. Starting near the end of a series of related stories and going to the beginning of the events may not be how this should be done. I enjoyed writing each of the stories and bits of myself entered the three worlds of the Amber Chronicles.

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Learn more about Janet Lane Walters on her website and her blog.

You can buy The Amber Chronicles on Amazon.