Historical fiction – F.C. MALBY

Writing Process Blog Tour

I have been invited by author Rebecca Bradley to answer some questions about my current writing as part of a writing process blog tour. You can read her answers on her blog.

So here are my responses to the following questions:

What are you currently working on?

I am working on the ending of my second novel. The first was historical fiction, and set in 1980s/1990s Prague. It was a fictional take on the impact of the fall of communism on the lives of the Czech people, and the ensuing changes. This one is entirely different. It’s a thriller, set in Vienna, and was inspired by a trip to an auction house in the city during the annual Long Night of Museums over a year ago, which you can read about here and here. I stood next to a Canaletto painting, which was said to be expected to fetch ten million euros at auction. So many thoughts surfaced, from who would pay that much for one work of art and where would it end up, to imagine if I just lifted it and walked away with a painting. Crazy, I know, but such is the imagination of a writer! And from there, a whole story began to unravel. Researching art theft has been fascinating and I particularly enjoyed reading insights from the founder of the FBI Art Crime Team, Robert Wittman. His memoir, Priceless, is really worth a read. In it, he discusses how he went undercover to rescue some of the world’s most valuable stolen art treasures, and he highlights the need for greater expertise in the area of the theft of cultural property. Several of my short stories have been published online and won various competitions, so I am also polishing a collection for publication.

How does your work differ from others of its genre?

I read a lot of literary fiction and I really dislike all the genre segregation and the debates surrounding what makes good writing. In my view good writing is good writing regardless of its genre. Does the genre categorisation make literary fiction genreless? Nobody seems to agree. I don’t believe that any one type of writing is better than another. I’m happy about the rise of the short fiction form and hope that all forms and genres can be equally celebrated. My current novel is written in the first person, present tense, which many would say is tough and risky, but I think it works and it has certainly held my attention for long enough to continue with the story. It helps the reader to get inside the mind (and fears) of the protagonist, which would be difficult from another perspective. It increases the tension. It is also set in Europe, and in a city I know well enough to include the minute details and the feel of the place.

Why do you write what you do?

Well, you’ve seen the variety – historical fiction, thrillers, short stories – and it probably reflects a highly varied taste in reading, but as far as the current work is concerned I find thrillers really intriguing in terms of what makes them work, especially psychological thrillers. I have been hooked by many great writers over the years and in a way they have fed into what I am currently writing. I also read a lot of short stories and am passionate about writing short fiction. You’ll find several on my website if you are interested.

How does your writing process work?

It always starts with an idea, which is followed by several vivid scenes. Once I can link them together I can start to plot and plan the story. I do quiet a lot of research, despite the fact that I write fiction, and I draft and re-draft, often adding in new scenes or scrapping parts which don’t quite work. You have to be unafraid of being ruthless. Readers will want to stop reading at points where you don’t edit properly. With the first book I cut out an entire family (who really had no place in the story) and several chapters. I once read that if you take every other word out of a text, the story still makes sense. Try it. It will show you how many unnecessary words can be used which could have been cut. Maybe I should reread this post! I work at an empty table with a strong coffee and some water. I don’t always feel hungry when I write, especially when I get caught up in the flow of the story. I take breaks to move around but I try to keep set time for writing and to treat it seriously. I guard my writing time and often snatch evenings to write when I can.

I’ll now pass the baton on to Fiona Melrose, Michelle Flatley, Colette McBeth and Jon Rance.

#bookaday Best Book Bargain: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I picked up The Book Thief soon after it was published and it was on offer. This is one of those books that draws you in and never quite releases you after you have finished reading. It had a great impact on me at the time, partly because it is a story of loss, but mostly due to the narration and the uncertainty of the fate of the protagonist. It’s a story about books, loss, danger, change, and the healing power of books. I’m sure I will go back and read it again and I’m even more certain that I won’t see the film. The descriptions of the scenes have carved such strong impressions in my mind that I never want them to come undone. I’ll leave you to find out the plot if you haven’t yet read it, and with the incredible fact that it spent over 230 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. Says it all!

The Darker Side of Life: Reality and Fiction

I was planning to write a specific post for today until I read the news this morning. I was horrified by the graphic nature of the news that a baby had been flushed down a public and filthy toilet in China. Although this is not the first time it has happened, this seems particularly horrific because of the fact that the baby was alive and had sustained a fractured skull. The weakened cry as it was eventually cut free reduced me to tears. I won’t add a link as not everyone will want to watch, but the video and images are all over the news so you won’t need to look far to find it.

I don’t cry easily so it took me by surprise. I still feel a sense of grief over the complete abandonment of the mother. Although I know that life has elements of evil (look no further than the recent and brutal Woolwich killing), and that humans are fallible, and sometimes mentally ill or disturbed, or just desperate, but my response made me think hard about the difference between the darker side of life in reality and in fiction.

Take Me to the Castle, my debut, was a literary historical fiction novel, set within the framework of the politics of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. One of the earliest books, which totally gripped me was John Buchan‘s The Thirty Nine Steps. I was given it with a collection of other penguin books in my early teens and the suspenseful journey through Scotland’s wild moors of Richard Hannay, who is on the run from the police after finding a dead body in his flat, kept me turning the pages at breakneck speed. It inspired in me a love of suspense in a good story. I have recently read quite a few crime and literary crime fiction/psychological suspense novels, and I have pondered the difference between the world you inhabit in a book and the world that you wake up in every day.

With fiction there are usually rules and expectations with certain types of books. You look at the cover, the genre, the author and the blurb, and it gives you a hint of what to expect. If you read chick lit novels and do not like horror, you might avoid books with darker covers and bold print. If you enjoy sci-fi and do not like literary fiction, you might avoid the pastel covers with possibly a booker prize winning author’s name across the front. These are crude and basic descriptions but you can see what I’m getting it. Readers come to a book with expectations. They do not expect a gruesome death in a romance novel or a historical drama in a dystopian book. There are, of course, genre cross-overs and new authors breaking the rules and these are continuing to increase. Agents and editors use the term, ‘genre-bending’ to describe these books.

In fiction the darker side of a story is contained within a world with defined boundaries and, although you can become completely absorbed in that particular world, you emerge with the knowledge that the events are fictional and are not directly related to your life. With the exception of fiction novels set within the framework of specific times in history, a fiction novel is just that: FICTION. It’s effects are deep but are limited to the confines of the world the author has created.

In life, the reality of crime and the darker aspects of human nature have no boundaries. The news seems increasingly more shocking and gruesome, although much of this is down to the changing nature of journalism. It would seem that our world is growing increasingly colder and more dangerous, from the point of view of what we read in the press. My husband, however, who is a crime specialist in the field of research and policy, assures me that the world is becoming a statistically safer place. The global homicide rates are lower now than they have ever been. I won’t quote sources as that is his arena, but the issue of what I saw this morning reminds me that the darker side of life in reality does not hold the boundaries that we see in fiction and is often much harder to deal with.

The framework that exists within fiction (as a safety net for some readers) is not apparent in life and the shocking news that we read about often leaves us with deeper fears than the books that we choose to read.

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