It gives me great pleasure to welcome Carolyn Hughes onto the website today. Carolyn writes historical novels. Her series of Meonbridge Chronicles are set in a fictional English village in the years immediately after the Black Death ravaged England (not to mention Asia and Europe between 1346 and 1353).
Alex: welcome Carolyn. Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Carolyn: Hello, I’m Carolyn and I write historical fiction. (Sounds like a meeting for Writers Anonymous!) I’ve been writing all my adult life, but have come to publication only relatively recently when I am, alas, quite old…
I was born in London, but have lived most of my life in Hampshire. After a first degree in Classics and English, I became a computer programmer, in those days a very new profession. It was fun for a few years, but I left to become a school careers officer in Dorset. But it was when I discovered technical authoring that I knew I’d found my vocation. I spent the rest of my career writing and editing all sorts of material, some fascinating, some dull, for a wide variety of clients, including an international hotel group, medical instrument manufacturers and the Government.
Having written creatively as a child, I continued writing through my 20s and 30s, drafting bits of novels and short stories. But I never thought of publishing any of them – I simply enjoyed the writing process. It was only in my middle age, and after our children had flown the nest, that I began even to imagine that maybe I might like to “be an author”.
By then, I’d written one and a half contemporary women’s novels, as well as short stories, but my writing was rather ad hoc, and my tentative attempts to approach agents met only with rejection.
I took a few short writing courses at local colleges but then, thinking a Masters degree in Creative Writing might give my writing more substance, I enrolled at Portsmouth University. It worked! I wrote the historical novel that eventually became the first in my Meonbridge Chronicles series, Fortune’s Wheel, set in 14th century Hampshire.
And it was then that I said to myself, “I’m going to do this!”. I did want to be an author and I was going to achieve it one way or another. And now, of course, I have…
However, I enjoyed being back at university so much that, after the MA, I read for a PhD at the University of Southampton, and the result was another historical novel set in the 14th century, The Nature of Things (as yet unpublished, but I’m working on it…). By then, the historical fiction bug had bitten me, and I realised there were more stories to tell about the world I’d created for Fortune’s Wheel, and the MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES series was born. I’ve now written four Chronicles: Fortune’s Wheel, A Woman’s Lot, De Bohun’s Destiny, and Children’s Fate. I am currently writing the fifth book in the series.
I am, by the way, self-published, under my own imprint, Riverdown Books.
Alex: welcome Carolyn. Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Carolyn: Hello, I’m Carolyn and I write historical fiction. (Sounds like a meeting for Writers Anonymous!) I’ve been writing all my adult life, but have come to publication only relatively recently when I am, alas, quite old…
I was born in London, but have lived most of my life in Hampshire. After a first degree in Classics and English, I became a computer programmer, in those days a very new profession. It was fun for a few years, but I left to become a school careers officer in Dorset. But it was when I discovered technical authoring that I knew I’d found my vocation. I spent the rest of my career writing and editing all sorts of material, some fascinating, some dull, for a wide variety of clients, including an international hotel group, medical instrument manufacturers and the Government.
Having written creatively as a child, I continued writing through my 20s and 30s, drafting bits of novels and short stories. But I never thought of publishing any of them – I simply enjoyed the writing process. It was only in my middle age, and after our children had flown the nest, that I began even to imagine that maybe I might like to “be an author”.
By then, I’d written one and a half contemporary women’s novels, as well as short stories, but my writing was rather ad hoc, and my tentative attempts to approach agents met only with rejection.
I took a few short writing courses at local colleges but then, thinking a Masters degree in Creative Writing might give my writing more substance, I enrolled at Portsmouth University. It worked! I wrote the historical novel that eventually became the first in my Meonbridge Chronicles series, Fortune’s Wheel, set in 14th century Hampshire.
And it was then that I said to myself, “I’m going to do this!”. I did want to be an author and I was going to achieve it one way or another. And now, of course, I have…
However, I enjoyed being back at university so much that, after the MA, I read for a PhD at the University of Southampton, and the result was another historical novel set in the 14th century, The Nature of Things (as yet unpublished, but I’m working on it…). By then, the historical fiction bug had bitten me, and I realised there were more stories to tell about the world I’d created for Fortune’s Wheel, and the MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES series was born. I’ve now written four Chronicles: Fortune’s Wheel, A Woman’s Lot, De Bohun’s Destiny, and Children’s Fate. I am currently writing the fifth book in the series.
I am, by the way, self-published, under my own imprint, Riverdown Books.
Alex: How would you describe your writing, and are there particular themes that you like to explore?
Carolyn: I knew when I started writing Fortune’s Wheel that I wanted to write about the lives of “ordinary people”. Many historical novels are about kings and queens, nobles and knights, and the “ordinary” folk take rather a back seat. Whereas I was – and am – much more interested in exploring the lives of 14th century peasants and artisans. Having said that, I am happy to include the gentry, and indeed the third MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLE is mostly about the lives of Meonbridge’s leading family. In truth, I wanted to write about a community as a whole, with its range of people, from the lord and lady of the manor down to the poorest peasant, and all the ranks of folk between.
Why did I want to do this? I suppose because I felt that ordinary people of the past are essentially unknown and invisible: they have no “voice”. Chroniclers didn’t write about these sorts of people, but rather about the lives and exploits of those who were in charge. Ordinary lives were not much recorded, although you can learn a surprising amount about them from entries in, for example, manorial court records. But, there, they are often just names, and do not reveal to us their characters or motivations. I felt that, by writing a novel about them, I could somehow explore their lives and give them the opportunity to “tell” their stories.
Initially, I wanted my principal characters to be women. For I had read that, at this point in history, there was a shift in the opportunities available for women, which some historians have referred to as a “Golden Age” that lasted into the 15th century (though others do dispute the cogency of this).
Fortune’s Wheel is set in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, in 1349. After the unimaginable (even in our pandemic times) devastation wrought by the plague, society began to change, as feudal lords lost their former power in the face of resistance from their tenants, who weren’t willing any longer to be confined to a single manor or to be paid lower wages than they could obtain elsewhere. This is partly the story of Fortune’s Wheel. But it seemed that women’s lot changed as well. When so many people had died in the plague, I felt it was likely that everyone, including women, would have had to turn their hand to whatever needed to be done. Women might well have seen opportunities to break out of the old mould and take on new occupations, and perhaps to be a little more independent of their menfolk. This possibility of significant change for women seemed a perfect focus for my stories.
I didn’t want to write only about the women, but I wanted them to be predominant in all the CHRONICLES. Central to the story in A Woman’s Lot, the second book, is the somewhat “misogynistic” attitude held by mediaeval men – or some of them at least. And this view of women’s powerlessness continues into De Bohun’s Destiny, though there the women, or some of them, do in the end prevail. In Children’s Fate, women are shown as both powerful and powerless, depending on their station in life. Men still largely prevail, though even they are, once more, overcome by forces beyond their control.
Of course misogynistic attitudes towards women are hardly without parallels in our own time, but I’m not attempting to draw comparisons. I want to tell stories about the 14th century, and I try to make all my characters, men and women, as “authentic”-seeming as possible. The stories aren’t about women’s rights and liberation – they are not “feminists”! – but about people, including women, making the best of opportunities within the context of the society they live in.
Carolyn: I knew when I started writing Fortune’s Wheel that I wanted to write about the lives of “ordinary people”. Many historical novels are about kings and queens, nobles and knights, and the “ordinary” folk take rather a back seat. Whereas I was – and am – much more interested in exploring the lives of 14th century peasants and artisans. Having said that, I am happy to include the gentry, and indeed the third MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLE is mostly about the lives of Meonbridge’s leading family. In truth, I wanted to write about a community as a whole, with its range of people, from the lord and lady of the manor down to the poorest peasant, and all the ranks of folk between.
Why did I want to do this? I suppose because I felt that ordinary people of the past are essentially unknown and invisible: they have no “voice”. Chroniclers didn’t write about these sorts of people, but rather about the lives and exploits of those who were in charge. Ordinary lives were not much recorded, although you can learn a surprising amount about them from entries in, for example, manorial court records. But, there, they are often just names, and do not reveal to us their characters or motivations. I felt that, by writing a novel about them, I could somehow explore their lives and give them the opportunity to “tell” their stories.
Initially, I wanted my principal characters to be women. For I had read that, at this point in history, there was a shift in the opportunities available for women, which some historians have referred to as a “Golden Age” that lasted into the 15th century (though others do dispute the cogency of this).
Fortune’s Wheel is set in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death, in 1349. After the unimaginable (even in our pandemic times) devastation wrought by the plague, society began to change, as feudal lords lost their former power in the face of resistance from their tenants, who weren’t willing any longer to be confined to a single manor or to be paid lower wages than they could obtain elsewhere. This is partly the story of Fortune’s Wheel. But it seemed that women’s lot changed as well. When so many people had died in the plague, I felt it was likely that everyone, including women, would have had to turn their hand to whatever needed to be done. Women might well have seen opportunities to break out of the old mould and take on new occupations, and perhaps to be a little more independent of their menfolk. This possibility of significant change for women seemed a perfect focus for my stories.
I didn’t want to write only about the women, but I wanted them to be predominant in all the CHRONICLES. Central to the story in A Woman’s Lot, the second book, is the somewhat “misogynistic” attitude held by mediaeval men – or some of them at least. And this view of women’s powerlessness continues into De Bohun’s Destiny, though there the women, or some of them, do in the end prevail. In Children’s Fate, women are shown as both powerful and powerless, depending on their station in life. Men still largely prevail, though even they are, once more, overcome by forces beyond their control.
Of course misogynistic attitudes towards women are hardly without parallels in our own time, but I’m not attempting to draw comparisons. I want to tell stories about the 14th century, and I try to make all my characters, men and women, as “authentic”-seeming as possible. The stories aren’t about women’s rights and liberation – they are not “feminists”! – but about people, including women, making the best of opportunities within the context of the society they live in.
Alex: Are you a writer that plans a detailed synopsis or do you set out with a vague idea and let the story unfold as you write?
Carolyn: I’m basically a “planner” and not a “pantster”, or rather a bit of both. I couldn’t write a book without having some idea of its structure and broad content. Once I have a broad concept for a novel, I write an outline of the whole story, a summary of each chapter, sometimes down to scene level, depending on how much I already “know”. The book’s ending is usually fairly vague at this stage, but I will have some idea of what will happen.
At the same time as the “plotting”, because my stories are very much character-focused, I have to clarify in my mind the motivations, anxieties and transformations of my characters. Of course, when you write in series, by the time you’re on to book 5, as I am now, you know your characters quite well. However, the whole point of a story arc is to have your central characters change or develop in some way as a result of the events you put them through, so it’s important to revisit your understanding of “who they are”.
The third thing I have to do is research any story threads I don’t know enough about. Because my current WIP is the fifth set in a “world” I’m already familiar with, I don’t have to research everything from scratch. But, with each new book, there’s always something new to learn. This need for new discovery was partly why I decided to write historical fiction in the first place, when I realised I could learn more about the medieval world – which I love doing – and then share something of what I’d learned through writing novels. I thought it might be fun, and it is!
Anyway, once I feel I sufficiently understand the characters and have a storyline with a reasonably workable structure (and I’ve also done “enough” research), I start writing the first draft. As I write, I follow the outline, but not at all slavishly. Nothing is set in stone. I expect change. The plan is just a framework, which I expand and round out with description, character interactions and dialogue as I write.
Carolyn: I’m basically a “planner” and not a “pantster”, or rather a bit of both. I couldn’t write a book without having some idea of its structure and broad content. Once I have a broad concept for a novel, I write an outline of the whole story, a summary of each chapter, sometimes down to scene level, depending on how much I already “know”. The book’s ending is usually fairly vague at this stage, but I will have some idea of what will happen.
At the same time as the “plotting”, because my stories are very much character-focused, I have to clarify in my mind the motivations, anxieties and transformations of my characters. Of course, when you write in series, by the time you’re on to book 5, as I am now, you know your characters quite well. However, the whole point of a story arc is to have your central characters change or develop in some way as a result of the events you put them through, so it’s important to revisit your understanding of “who they are”.
The third thing I have to do is research any story threads I don’t know enough about. Because my current WIP is the fifth set in a “world” I’m already familiar with, I don’t have to research everything from scratch. But, with each new book, there’s always something new to learn. This need for new discovery was partly why I decided to write historical fiction in the first place, when I realised I could learn more about the medieval world – which I love doing – and then share something of what I’d learned through writing novels. I thought it might be fun, and it is!
Anyway, once I feel I sufficiently understand the characters and have a storyline with a reasonably workable structure (and I’ve also done “enough” research), I start writing the first draft. As I write, I follow the outline, but not at all slavishly. Nothing is set in stone. I expect change. The plan is just a framework, which I expand and round out with description, character interactions and dialogue as I write.
Alex: Tell us about your latest novel.
Carolyn: My most recently published book is Children’s Fate, the fourth in my series of MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES. Like the first three, it is a work of fiction: the characters come entirely from my imagination. The principal location, Meonbridge, is a fictitious village and manor, but imagined as lying alongside the real River Meon in Hampshire, as a number of existing Meon Valley villages do, and it is loosely modelled on one or two of them.
The stories follow the lives of a few of Meonbridge’s inhabitants. The characters “take it in turns” to feature in each story, and occasionally characters from outside Meonbridge get a look in too. In Children’s Fate, a Meonbridge family fled to Winchester at the end of A Woman’s Lot, and now we are finding out what happened to them. Here is the blurb:
How can a mother just stand by when her daughter is being cozened into sin?
It’s 1360, eleven years since the Black Death devastated all of England, and six years since Emma Ward fled Meonbridge with her children, to find a more prosperous life in Winchester. Long satisfied that she’d made the right decision, Emma is now terrified that she was wrong. For she’s convinced her daughter Bea is in grave danger, exploited by her scheming and immoral mistress.
Bea herself is confused: fearful and ashamed of her sudden descent into sin, yet excited by her wealthy and attentive client.
When Emma resolves to rescue Bea from ruin and tricks her into returning to Meonbridge, Bea doesn’t suspect her mother’s motives. She is happy to renew her former friendships but, yearning for her rich lover, she soon absconds back to the city. Yet, only months later, plague is stalking Winchester again and, in terror, Bea flees once more to Meonbridge.
But, this time, she finds herself unwelcome, and fear, hostility and hatred threaten…
Although the story of Children’s Fate is almost entirely fictional, it is underpinned by “history”, events that really happened when and as they appear in the novel. The principal “event”, upon which the latter part of the novel hinges, is the arrival of another outbreak of the plague in England, in the spring and summer of 1361. This occurrence of the disease was thought of as the “Children’s Plague”, because a disproportionately large number of the victims were children. The reason for this is not clear, though one explanation might be that, as the children weren’t born at the time of the previous outbreak (what we call the “Black Death”, in 1348-9), they didn’t have the immunity their parents might have acquired having lived through it and survived.
This was a somewhat tricky book to write. For various purely “authorly” reasons, I was already grappling a bit with the storyline I’d created. I wasn’t quite sure that it was working, even though I really liked it… But then COVID-19 came into our lives and my writing world turned upside down… Well, no, that’s an exaggeration. But it was definitely disturbed… I wasn’t of course the only writer to suffer such disturbance during those difficult months, but my particular distraction was caused by what I was writing about, the Black Death… plague… pandemic! In truth, it was rather unsettling to be writing about a pandemic, when our world was in the midst of one, but it gave me food for thought, comparing the two events.
Carolyn: My most recently published book is Children’s Fate, the fourth in my series of MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES. Like the first three, it is a work of fiction: the characters come entirely from my imagination. The principal location, Meonbridge, is a fictitious village and manor, but imagined as lying alongside the real River Meon in Hampshire, as a number of existing Meon Valley villages do, and it is loosely modelled on one or two of them.
The stories follow the lives of a few of Meonbridge’s inhabitants. The characters “take it in turns” to feature in each story, and occasionally characters from outside Meonbridge get a look in too. In Children’s Fate, a Meonbridge family fled to Winchester at the end of A Woman’s Lot, and now we are finding out what happened to them. Here is the blurb:
How can a mother just stand by when her daughter is being cozened into sin?
It’s 1360, eleven years since the Black Death devastated all of England, and six years since Emma Ward fled Meonbridge with her children, to find a more prosperous life in Winchester. Long satisfied that she’d made the right decision, Emma is now terrified that she was wrong. For she’s convinced her daughter Bea is in grave danger, exploited by her scheming and immoral mistress.
Bea herself is confused: fearful and ashamed of her sudden descent into sin, yet excited by her wealthy and attentive client.
When Emma resolves to rescue Bea from ruin and tricks her into returning to Meonbridge, Bea doesn’t suspect her mother’s motives. She is happy to renew her former friendships but, yearning for her rich lover, she soon absconds back to the city. Yet, only months later, plague is stalking Winchester again and, in terror, Bea flees once more to Meonbridge.
But, this time, she finds herself unwelcome, and fear, hostility and hatred threaten…
Although the story of Children’s Fate is almost entirely fictional, it is underpinned by “history”, events that really happened when and as they appear in the novel. The principal “event”, upon which the latter part of the novel hinges, is the arrival of another outbreak of the plague in England, in the spring and summer of 1361. This occurrence of the disease was thought of as the “Children’s Plague”, because a disproportionately large number of the victims were children. The reason for this is not clear, though one explanation might be that, as the children weren’t born at the time of the previous outbreak (what we call the “Black Death”, in 1348-9), they didn’t have the immunity their parents might have acquired having lived through it and survived.
This was a somewhat tricky book to write. For various purely “authorly” reasons, I was already grappling a bit with the storyline I’d created. I wasn’t quite sure that it was working, even though I really liked it… But then COVID-19 came into our lives and my writing world turned upside down… Well, no, that’s an exaggeration. But it was definitely disturbed… I wasn’t of course the only writer to suffer such disturbance during those difficult months, but my particular distraction was caused by what I was writing about, the Black Death… plague… pandemic! In truth, it was rather unsettling to be writing about a pandemic, when our world was in the midst of one, but it gave me food for thought, comparing the two events.
Alex: What was the first book you read?
Carolyn: Well, Janet and John probably, books that were the staple of my school reading but then went entirely out of fashion, probably for lots of good reasons. Otherwise, to be honest, I don’t really remember… I recall Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, being a favourite – I’ve still got the very book I had then! – but how young I was when I first read it, I really couldn’t say.
However, I might mention a book that perhaps influenced the future writer in me… This Land of Kings 1066-1399 – and I still have this one too – is a children’s history book, published in the ’50s, with bright illustrations. It was a school prize – I was nine – attained for “Progress”! As it covers the Middle Ages, I wonder if, long ago as it was, it somehow sowed the seed for the MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES?
Alex: How much research do you do and what does it usually entail?
Carolyn: I’m always really pleased when readers tell me, through reviews or direct messages, that they find my books historically authentic, because it’s important to me that I convey the flavour of the times through my writing in a way that feels natural. With historical novels, a lot of research is required to find that “authenticity”, but what actually ends up in the book doesn’t have to be much… Indeed it shouldn’t be much, just enough to give a “flavour”. I do occasionally read historical novels where the writer has simply shared a little too much of the research, and I think this can spoil the illusion.
Researching the physical details, such as houses, clothes, food, tools, so that the picture you paint in your novel is vivid and historically authentic, is relatively easy. Clearly, the practical, day-to-day lives of people who lived 700 years ago were very different from ours, and it’s important to try to portray those everyday practicalities so that readers can, in a sense, see themselves in their antecedents’ shoes, even if only a little bit.
It is also not too difficult to discover something of the social and political history of the time, so that the context for your story has a ring of truth. And, yes, living in the area and being able to see the surroundings, as I do, help me to get a feel for the “Meonbridge” environment.
But what is more difficult – and this applies to all historical fiction, I think – is to depict a reasonably convincing mediaeval “thought-world”. Yet, it is this that can give a novel depth, and a feeling that the characters are “real” mediaeval people. For, although people who lived so long ago were undoubtedly like us in many ways – they fell in love, adored their children, had aspirations, enjoyed a joke and suffered the pain of loss, to name just a very few of the many similarities – they were surely also unlike us, also in very many ways…
Trying to portray, with any degree of authenticity, the way they thought – how they understood the world and the way it works, the part religion played in their lives, their belief in magic and superstition, their attitudes towards sexuality and gender, their sensibilities and mindsets in general – can be tricky. But my job is to draw characters with whom readers can associate but who do seem, not alien, but truly “of their time”.
So how do I do my research? Well, I do have lots of books! They’re on all sorts of subjects: medieval daily life, the lives of women, food, gardens, clothing, social history and economics, language, science and medicine, travel… I revisit many of these books time and time again, to refresh my memory or check a detail. But, as well as books, I do use the Internet. Some people, including historical novelists, write useful blogs about historical life. Of course you do have to be a bit wary of anything you read on the Internet, but generally I feel that I can judge whether or not something “makes sense”, and I avoid using anything that seems vaguely unlikely. Mostly these people have done their research as carefully as I do and it seems a shame not to take advantage of their sharing generosity! I do also find videos helpful, where people “re-enact” how things were done in the Middle Ages.
Alex: Do you ever base your characters on people you have encountered in real life?
Carolyn: No, not consciously, though I’m sure that traits I’ve subconsciously observed do sometimes find their way into my characters…
Alex: Which was the last book you read that blew you away?
Carolyn: I do enjoy lots of books, though there are also lots I DON’T enjoy! Perhaps I’m getting pickier in my old age. Anyway, one that sticks in my mind, though I read it a while ago, is At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier. It’s a strange book in some ways, with some rather odd characters. But I loved discovering the world of mid-19th century mid-west and gold-rush America. I found the book fascinating and evocative, as well as rather dark and grim. Some reviewers didn’t like the wealth of tree detail (!), but I adore trees and enjoyed hugely reading about the cultivation of Ohio apple trees and Californian sequoias. Recommended!
Alex: How do you market your books?
Carolyn: Social media, book tours, advertising… I don’t “love” social media, and I’m not that great at keeping up with it, but I do post on Facebook from time to time, and I belong to Facebook groups where I can share both my books and those of other writers. I also “do” Twitter in a somewhat lacklustre way… I belong to a couple of “retweet” groups of historical novelists in which we share each other’s books and news, and occasionally I run sequences of promotional tweets. At the launch of each book I've had a book tour, run by a tour expert, which ensures your book is actively promoted by bloggers for a week or so, and generates some good reviews. But my main marketing is advertising, mostly on Facebook, which seems to work quite well, and I’ve dipped my toe several times into Amazon advertising, so far with less success, but I keep working at it!
Alex: What are your interests aside from writing? And what do you do to unwind?
Carolyn: Reading! Although I do read historical fiction, and I also enjoy psychological thrillers, I think some of my favourite reads are British crime novels, such as those by Anne Cleeves, M.W. Craven, Elly Griffiths and Angela Marsons. I also enjoy watching British crime on TV… Morse/Lewis/Endeavour, Vera, Line of Duty, Unforgotten, that sort of thing…
I love gardens and plants, and enjoy gardening, though less so than I used to due to aching joints!
As for unwinding, well, a gin and tonic can do the trick, though only at weekends! But I don’t think I do consciously unwind… Though I will confess that, if I’m being really idle – that is, I’m not writing / editing / blogging etc, or being a domestic goddess, or taking some exercise, or even simply reading – you might find me tackling a crossword or some other puzzle in the newspaper, or doing a jigsaw on my iPad! I do love puzzles of all kinds, and they can help me to relax just a little bit…
Alex: Which authors do you particularly admire and why?
Carolyn: It’s really hard for me to choose, but I’ll mention two.
First, the late Helen Dunmore. All her books are wonderful, but a favourite is a book she wrote many years ago, The Siege. This story of the siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) is harrowing and deeply moving. Dunmore draws her (ordinary) characters so well that it is easy to empathise deeply with them, so that when they are put into devastatingly appalling situations, when the struggle to find anything at all to eat drives them to extraordinary lengths, well, to be honest I was in pieces… And I would be again, if I read it now… Brilliant writing.
However, I do generally say that my favourite author is (also, late) William Trevor, because he was such a master of depicting the subtleties of human interactions. He was absolutely brilliant at short-story writing, although I love his novels too. His characters are typically eccentrics or people living at the margins of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. His stories have real atmosphere, superb dialogue, and are disturbing, affecting and amusing. The keenness of his eye and ear brought to life some ordinary and yet extraordinary characters. A master!
Alex: Carolyn, it's been fascinating to hear the details about the Meonbridge Chronicles and your careful and measured approach to recreating the lives of ordinary people as far back as the 14th century - not to mention the enormous challenge of getting into the heads of these individuals. Thank you so much for sharing this with our readers, and giving such thoughtful and detailed answers to my questions. I'm now going to have to get well and truly stuck into The Meonbridge Chronicles!
Carolyn: You are most welcome. I've enjoyed the opportunity. So thank you, too, Alex.
Carolyn: Well, Janet and John probably, books that were the staple of my school reading but then went entirely out of fashion, probably for lots of good reasons. Otherwise, to be honest, I don’t really remember… I recall Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, being a favourite – I’ve still got the very book I had then! – but how young I was when I first read it, I really couldn’t say.
However, I might mention a book that perhaps influenced the future writer in me… This Land of Kings 1066-1399 – and I still have this one too – is a children’s history book, published in the ’50s, with bright illustrations. It was a school prize – I was nine – attained for “Progress”! As it covers the Middle Ages, I wonder if, long ago as it was, it somehow sowed the seed for the MEONBRIDGE CHRONICLES?
Alex: How much research do you do and what does it usually entail?
Carolyn: I’m always really pleased when readers tell me, through reviews or direct messages, that they find my books historically authentic, because it’s important to me that I convey the flavour of the times through my writing in a way that feels natural. With historical novels, a lot of research is required to find that “authenticity”, but what actually ends up in the book doesn’t have to be much… Indeed it shouldn’t be much, just enough to give a “flavour”. I do occasionally read historical novels where the writer has simply shared a little too much of the research, and I think this can spoil the illusion.
Researching the physical details, such as houses, clothes, food, tools, so that the picture you paint in your novel is vivid and historically authentic, is relatively easy. Clearly, the practical, day-to-day lives of people who lived 700 years ago were very different from ours, and it’s important to try to portray those everyday practicalities so that readers can, in a sense, see themselves in their antecedents’ shoes, even if only a little bit.
It is also not too difficult to discover something of the social and political history of the time, so that the context for your story has a ring of truth. And, yes, living in the area and being able to see the surroundings, as I do, help me to get a feel for the “Meonbridge” environment.
But what is more difficult – and this applies to all historical fiction, I think – is to depict a reasonably convincing mediaeval “thought-world”. Yet, it is this that can give a novel depth, and a feeling that the characters are “real” mediaeval people. For, although people who lived so long ago were undoubtedly like us in many ways – they fell in love, adored their children, had aspirations, enjoyed a joke and suffered the pain of loss, to name just a very few of the many similarities – they were surely also unlike us, also in very many ways…
Trying to portray, with any degree of authenticity, the way they thought – how they understood the world and the way it works, the part religion played in their lives, their belief in magic and superstition, their attitudes towards sexuality and gender, their sensibilities and mindsets in general – can be tricky. But my job is to draw characters with whom readers can associate but who do seem, not alien, but truly “of their time”.
So how do I do my research? Well, I do have lots of books! They’re on all sorts of subjects: medieval daily life, the lives of women, food, gardens, clothing, social history and economics, language, science and medicine, travel… I revisit many of these books time and time again, to refresh my memory or check a detail. But, as well as books, I do use the Internet. Some people, including historical novelists, write useful blogs about historical life. Of course you do have to be a bit wary of anything you read on the Internet, but generally I feel that I can judge whether or not something “makes sense”, and I avoid using anything that seems vaguely unlikely. Mostly these people have done their research as carefully as I do and it seems a shame not to take advantage of their sharing generosity! I do also find videos helpful, where people “re-enact” how things were done in the Middle Ages.
Alex: Do you ever base your characters on people you have encountered in real life?
Carolyn: No, not consciously, though I’m sure that traits I’ve subconsciously observed do sometimes find their way into my characters…
Alex: Which was the last book you read that blew you away?
Carolyn: I do enjoy lots of books, though there are also lots I DON’T enjoy! Perhaps I’m getting pickier in my old age. Anyway, one that sticks in my mind, though I read it a while ago, is At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier. It’s a strange book in some ways, with some rather odd characters. But I loved discovering the world of mid-19th century mid-west and gold-rush America. I found the book fascinating and evocative, as well as rather dark and grim. Some reviewers didn’t like the wealth of tree detail (!), but I adore trees and enjoyed hugely reading about the cultivation of Ohio apple trees and Californian sequoias. Recommended!
Alex: How do you market your books?
Carolyn: Social media, book tours, advertising… I don’t “love” social media, and I’m not that great at keeping up with it, but I do post on Facebook from time to time, and I belong to Facebook groups where I can share both my books and those of other writers. I also “do” Twitter in a somewhat lacklustre way… I belong to a couple of “retweet” groups of historical novelists in which we share each other’s books and news, and occasionally I run sequences of promotional tweets. At the launch of each book I've had a book tour, run by a tour expert, which ensures your book is actively promoted by bloggers for a week or so, and generates some good reviews. But my main marketing is advertising, mostly on Facebook, which seems to work quite well, and I’ve dipped my toe several times into Amazon advertising, so far with less success, but I keep working at it!
Alex: What are your interests aside from writing? And what do you do to unwind?
Carolyn: Reading! Although I do read historical fiction, and I also enjoy psychological thrillers, I think some of my favourite reads are British crime novels, such as those by Anne Cleeves, M.W. Craven, Elly Griffiths and Angela Marsons. I also enjoy watching British crime on TV… Morse/Lewis/Endeavour, Vera, Line of Duty, Unforgotten, that sort of thing…
I love gardens and plants, and enjoy gardening, though less so than I used to due to aching joints!
As for unwinding, well, a gin and tonic can do the trick, though only at weekends! But I don’t think I do consciously unwind… Though I will confess that, if I’m being really idle – that is, I’m not writing / editing / blogging etc, or being a domestic goddess, or taking some exercise, or even simply reading – you might find me tackling a crossword or some other puzzle in the newspaper, or doing a jigsaw on my iPad! I do love puzzles of all kinds, and they can help me to relax just a little bit…
Alex: Which authors do you particularly admire and why?
Carolyn: It’s really hard for me to choose, but I’ll mention two.
First, the late Helen Dunmore. All her books are wonderful, but a favourite is a book she wrote many years ago, The Siege. This story of the siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) is harrowing and deeply moving. Dunmore draws her (ordinary) characters so well that it is easy to empathise deeply with them, so that when they are put into devastatingly appalling situations, when the struggle to find anything at all to eat drives them to extraordinary lengths, well, to be honest I was in pieces… And I would be again, if I read it now… Brilliant writing.
However, I do generally say that my favourite author is (also, late) William Trevor, because he was such a master of depicting the subtleties of human interactions. He was absolutely brilliant at short-story writing, although I love his novels too. His characters are typically eccentrics or people living at the margins of society: children, the elderly, single middle-aged men and women, or the unhappily married. His stories have real atmosphere, superb dialogue, and are disturbing, affecting and amusing. The keenness of his eye and ear brought to life some ordinary and yet extraordinary characters. A master!
Alex: Carolyn, it's been fascinating to hear the details about the Meonbridge Chronicles and your careful and measured approach to recreating the lives of ordinary people as far back as the 14th century - not to mention the enormous challenge of getting into the heads of these individuals. Thank you so much for sharing this with our readers, and giving such thoughtful and detailed answers to my questions. I'm now going to have to get well and truly stuck into The Meonbridge Chronicles!
Carolyn: You are most welcome. I've enjoyed the opportunity. So thank you, too, Alex.
