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BEHIND THE NOVELS

How do I write my books? At the very start, I am 'called' by the possible subject. It's hard to explain but it's a little like the first stages of falling in love. You know how you pay just a little more attention to the person, you are just a little bit more aware of his or her presence, you feel a little different when he or she is in a room? That's what it's like when my historical characters begin to stir. I become aware of them; suddenly every article or TV ad or interview seems to touch on them in some way. When that happens, do I feel excited, even a bit possessive? That's the real test.

From the first tickling of interest until I commit myself to the subject, there's a long fallow time. C.S. Forester, who created Horatio Hornblower, compared it to submerging a log into a bog (the bog of your unconscious), lowering it and only hauling it out every once in awhile to see if anything is growing on it. Only after a long time of submerging can you know if your imagination is going to grow anything on that particular log.

Even if there's moss on the log, still I ask other people how that topic strikes them---if everyone shrugs then I know it appeals only to me, but if people's eyes light up, then I know I am being invited to travel down that road.

Now all this time I have been reading and thinking about the possible new subject, indulging in a sort of clandestine time-travel affair of the mind with him or her. When we are finally ready to announce our engagement, I present the new project to the world and go about openly with him/her.

I try to divide the time I am allotted to write the book into equal parts of research and writing. The temptation is to keep on and on researching---there is always one more book to read---and so run out of time for the creative part, which after all is the most important aspect. If a book fails in its creative mission, then it doesn't matter how much research anyone has done, no one will relate to it.

Because I like both phases of the project, both the research and the writing, I tend to want to keep doing whatever it is I am doing and not switch. So I have to keep a strict timetable and be schoolmarmish with myself.

My research methods are old-fashioned and low-tech. I enjoy hunting on the internet for facts and doing searches to see what comes up in relation to my character, but I still rely primarily on printed material for my sources. I try to own all the books I will need, so I can always have them at hand at home, and also to make notes in them. I copy pertinent references onto 4"x 6" cards and keep them in a file box. I also have chronological spiral notebooks with one page for each month of a subject's life, as well as space to enter events taking place in the larger world. I have no research assistant; I do it all myself.

After mastering as much of the material as I possibly can, I then go to the places where the subjects have lived. I try to walk in their footsteps as much as I possibly can. Sometimes their haunts have been preserved as historic heritage sites but other times the sites have vanished or been turned into something else entirely. I try to go to the places in different seasons so I can better understand what it was like to live there. Scotland is very different in February than in June! Once I am there I buy all the onsite booklets, which often contain facts not available elsewhere, and I take lots of slides. Later I will use these slides to reconstruct a site, because no matter how observant I try to be, it's impossible to take in and retain all the details. I don't use videos because the moving image is less helpful in checking for details than a still photograph. But I will buy onsite videos if they are available, because they can help. I also take a notebook so I can record what the site 'feels' like.

It's possible to go to the sites first and do the reading afterward, but I believe you see more if you have trained yourself as to what to look for.

Now on to the writing itself! I do not work with outlines as such because my subjects already have a known storyline to their lives. (We all know Mary Queen of Scots gets executed.) Instead I work in scenes: 'we need a scene where Mary Magdalene first realizes the idol harbors a demon': 'we need a scene that shows Cleopatra's iron will, even as a child.' Then I make flow charts for the scenes. Sometimes one scene morphs into two. I am usually sketching 5-10 scenes ahead, but of course these follow the broad outline of the character's life. I always write in sequence, because that way references and plot ideas can grow as I go along.

I try to write the first draft very quickly, to keep moving forward and sketch out the story and action, rather than revising each section before moving on. I find that by the time I reach the end the revisions I will make are quite different from the ones I would have made in the beginning. Too much revision makes the project seem stale to me.

I always try to write one entire scene at a time. You may have noticed that most of my scenes tend to be about 5 pages long---that's because that's my natural day's output! I don't agree with Hemingway's rule that you should break off in the middle of a scene because it makes it easier to start the next day. I find if I do that I can never recapture the mood of the original scene. But each writer has his or her own method of working.

One personal tag: I try to have a tortoise in each book.