Interviews

Writing is hard in any genre.  But historicals, in my opinion, are particularly difficult.  Let one anachronism fly, and you’ve broken your contract with the reader to immerse them into a world gone by.  They’ll question the accuracy of rest of the book.  They’ll never trust you again. 

There are no such worries with Anna Elliott’s astonishing debut novel TWILIGHT OF AVALON.  Set in Dark Ages post-Arthurian Britian, TWILIGHT is a historical retelling of the story of Trystan and Isolde through Isolde’s point of view.  In Elliott’s gifted hands, the result is authentic and lyrical ode to the women of Arthurian legend.  A touch of mysticism, never heavy, is woven through the story.  Elliott’s writer’s voice is deceptively simple, yet there is a definite poetry to her word choices.  In short, I adored everything about TWILIGHT, and I wait impatiently for the next installment in Isolde’s journey.

Please enjoy part one of our two part interview with Anna Elliott. 

Q: Tell us about your journey toward publication. There’s a bit of mysticism involved, isn’t there? What drew you to historicals, and in particular, the legend of Trystan and Isolde?

AE: It early spring of 2006, and I was four months pregnant with my little girl. I’d been writing and trying to get published for a few years, always coming close but never selling a book. I’d just weeks before been dropped by my first agent, who had decided to pursue another career–and that afternoon, I’d gotten my final-nail-in-the- coffin rejection on the book I’d been shopping around. I remember sitting at my computer and thinking that maybe my career as an author wasn’t ever going to be. I had my daughter to think about, after all.

But at the same time, I did have my daughter to think about, you know?

If you missed part one of my interview with Kristina Riggle, click HERE, then come back. Kristina, who blogs at The Debutante Ball, is already gathering rave reviews for her debut novel, Real Life & Liars. This from Publisher’s Weekly:

With ease and grace, Riggle walks the fine line between sentimentality and comedy, and she has a sure hand in creating fun, quirky characters.

And this from The Grand Rapids Press:

Kristina Riggle’s debut novel, “Real Life & Liars,” is bursting at the seams with believable people.

Notice a common element? Characters. Kristina knows how to build them like few other authors I’ve read.

“If I have to go down, fine. But I’m going down with both tits swinging,” says protagonist Mira Zelinsky, stubborn to the end about her breasts and just what’s going to happen to them.

See what I mean? Let’s talk character.

Interview with Kristina Riggle

Q: By interweaving chapters from different characters’ POVs throughout the course of the novel, you crafted a delicious suspense—leaving us hanging on the edge of something in one character’s story to create tension in someone else’s. Chapters were generally short. Was this purposeful on your part? Why go for the short chapter? What did it buy you?

KR: Thank you. That was a fun benefit of the differing points of view. The short chapters are a hangover from my day job of journalism. Some people don’t like it very much, but it’s the way I’m comfortable writing. So I can’t say it was a deliberate choice so much as the only way I know how to do it.

Q: The matriarch and patriarch of the Zelinsky family, Mira and Max, almost never argued, yet a big argument marked a turning point in their lives just days before their children arrived to celebrate their anniversary; the latter marks the start of the novel instead of the former. Did you ever consider beginning the book with the argument? What made you decide to hold off on revealing what was said until the end of the story?

KR: One reason the argument doesn’t emerge until the end is that at the beginning, I wasn’t sure myself why Mira was doing the things she was doing (sorry to be vague, trying not to write a spoiler here) as I wrote the first draft. So I thought it would be interesting to have the reader discover this important turning point gradually, just as I discovered it during the writing of her character. Mira drops hints here and there throughout the book about this fight.

Q: You said in your interview at the end of the book that you “needed a crisis to drive the story, and breast cancer is singularly terrifying to women.” Could the crisis have been anything else? How did you use breast cancer specifically to propel the story and enrich its themes? Why was it necessary for Mira to be terrified?

I’ll be honest with you–I wasn’t certain how I’d feel about Kristina Riggle’s debut novel, Real Life & Liars, because I knew the story involved the “C” word–and I don’t mean Chocolate. Cancer in a book is a hard thing for some to warm up to, especially when you’ve lost loved ones to the disease, as so many of us have. But Kristina’s novel isn’t so much about a woman coming to terms with her own mortality as realizing her tornadic impact on the world around her–and in a very short span of time following her diagnosis, after deciding not to treat her breast cancer.

I loved this book. Kristina is truly gifted, not wasting words, but using each to reveal character with a clever, smart and humorous delivery–and even the occasional Monty Python joke. A “cancer book,” humorous? Just wait until you meet the members of the Zelinsky family, each of whom needs to learn that the ideal in life–perfection–is as sterile as symmetry and not a reflection of the lumps and bumps of reality at all. The question of what they’ll choose to believe–real life or the liars–drives this fantastic novel.

Interview with Kristina Riggle

Q: How do you describe your novel to people who ask what it’s about?

KR: A family of screwed-up grown kids comes home for an anniversary party with their lives falling apart, and their mother has a secret which will change everything. It takes place over three days in Charlevoix, Michigan.

Q: One of the book’s lead characters has cancer, yet I don’t view this as “a cancer book.” Have you felt any resistance to your book, simply because it features a protagonist with a disease? How have you handled that?

KR: I worried about it, but so far it’s not been an issue. Most people seem to understand it’s an ensemble piece about family, foremost. Amazon does list it in the category of Breast Cancer Books, but it doesn’t seem to have turned people off. Reviewers seem aware of the possibility though, and I’ve read a few people saying, “Don’t be scared away from this book because of cancer…”

Q: How did this book evolve for you–from idea to sold manuscript to published novel? How long did it take? How many books, if any, are tucked in a drawer?

Kyra Davis‘s books could be viewed as quintessential beach reads: breezy, hilarious, fast paced.  Her protagonist Sophie Katz solves mysteries and puts up with a lot from her friends and family — and in her new adventure LUST, LOATHING AND A LITTLE LIP GLOSS — a ghost.

But it hasn’t been all mocha lattes and air kisses on the road to publication for Davis. It’s been a tough slog, and staying in the game takes plenty of hard work.  She found a way to set her books apart by delving into her bi-racial heritage, which provided endless inspiration for her novels.  Write what you know, goes the old adage, and Davis took it and ran with it.

Missed part one of our interview with Kyra?  Click HERE.

Please enjoy part two of our two-part interview with Kyra Davis.

Q. You joke that because of your bi-racial heritage, you consider yourself to be a one woman Benetton ad. How did your heritage inform your development as a fiction writer?

KD: Oooh, another tough question. I’ll be honest; I didn’t initially plan on giving Sophie my ethnicity. As I said earlier, the original reason I wrote the story was to provide me with a personal escape and making the protagonist look like me made the story a itsy bit closer to my reality and that wasn’t something I was going for. But when I did decide to try to publish it my friend and fellow author, Alina Adams suggested that being a biracial Jewish woman gave me a unique marketing angle IF I gave Sophie the same ethnicity.

Reading a Kyra Davis book is like drinking a lemon drop martini — you have in your hands a fun twist on a classic.  In Davis’ case, her current release Lust, Loathing and a Little Lipgloss, is a murder mystery packaged with a chick-lit sensibility and laugh-out-loud humor.  Pretty soon, you’ve downed the whole shaker, feeling buzzed and wanting more.

Davis has had more than her share of hard knocks in the industry, as her interview reveals.  But her cheeky writing voice and mind-bending plot twists have garnered her a wide readership, great reviews for her Sophie Katz mysteries, and most importantly, a wide footprint in two expanding market segments: women’s fiction and mysteries.  Her current release is the fourth in the series.

Davis, a native Cali girl, draws from her non-traditional upbringing to inform her novels.  Her mother, single at the time of her birth, and raised her with the help of Kyra’s maternal grandparents in Santa Cruz, California. Her mother’s side of the family is Jewish of Eastern European descent. Her father was African American and lived in Los Angeles. Her novels have an air of sophistication, tolerance and a feel for the absurd, which for me, as someone who is also from a household of mixed heritage, comes with the territory.

Quickly-paced, riddled with hilarious dialogue, and a protagonist who is both gutzy and vulnerable, Davis has crafted a page-turner.  She’s also wisely left questions unanswered and teased us with conflict, which bodes well for the next release in her series.

We’re pleased to present part one of our two-part series with Kyra Davis.

Q. Tell us about your journey to publication.

KD: It wasn’t a typical journey. I was in the middle of a divorce, I was learning to be a single parent to an active two year old boy with special needs and I was struggling financially. I needed an emotional escape and so I made up a little alternative universe in my head and just to make it more tangible I wrote it all down on paper: A story of a woman who has to fight for her survival and triumphs (with the help of her friends) all while making me laugh. I didn’t know I wanted to publish it until I was about fifty pages into it. When I was done I […]

This interview was conducted by fantasy author, and valued WU contributor, Juliet Marillier.

Celtic historical author Jules Watson has received glowing reviews for her recently published novel about Deirdre of Ireland, The Swan Maiden. In the concluding part of our interview, Jules talks about Celtic women, her approach to the mystical and the spiritual in her writing, and some of her influences.

Q. Your Deirdre is a strong and independent character. It can be a juggling act for writers of historical fiction – creating a female protagonist with whom the present day reader can identify, while keeping the character true to her time and culture. Was it difficult to give Deirdre her head and still keep things plausible historically?

JW. I’ve never found this difficult, because we have plenty of hints that Celtic women enjoyed more freedom than Romans and Greeks. They sometimes fought alongside men, ruled in their own right and lead armies (Boudicca), and became druids. The Irish Brehon laws, though later, enshrine for women rights over property, divorce, protection from rape, and the raising of children. The Celts had many powerful goddesses who ruled over war and death, and kingship relied upon the blessing of a goddess, not a god. Celtic society was definitely male-dominated, but if women fought and could have sex outside marriage, demand divorces, and own property they were no doubt respected and outspoken: a lot like women now, except for the swords part!

Readers like brave heroines who take their fate into their own hands, and it’s easier to write a Celtic woman like that than a woman from virtually any period thereafter, from Roman right up to the 19th century. When Deirdre escaped, she wasn’t faced with a network of towns, churches, priests, or lawmakers who would report a woman to the thought police for leaving her husband. Ireland was a land of little scattered farmsteads, based on the clan, not on the rule of feudal lords. And don’t forget, we don’t know much about women then — only that they were different from the women of the classical or later medieval world. So you can speculate, within reason.

My books always deal with the spiritual side of life, and it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that women were respected for their religious aspects as well as their child-bearing role. My heroines often have high-ranking positions because of these sacred aspects.

Q. Your central characters, Deirdre and Naisi, live their lives attuned to the spiritual world. You always show Deirdre as close to nature – she is often seen out of doors, and is uncomfortable when confined in any way. Deirdre experiences shamanic journeys while sharing the bodily form of a bird and has ecstatic visions that seem to make her almost an avatar of the pagan goddess. Naisi’s spirituality is tied up with honour, pride and brotherhood. How did you go about discovering, or re-inventing, the spiritual beliefs of the period and culture, and how conscious was your division of these into clear male and female paths?

This interview was conducted by fantasy author, and valued WU contributor, Juliet Marillier.

Jules Watson’s new novel, The Swan Maiden, has been described by Rosalind Miles as ‘mystic and poetical.’ Last week I spoke to Jules about bridging the genres of historical fiction, fantasy and romance. I started this week’s questions by asking her the planner vs pantser question.

Q. We at Writer Unboxed are always interested the way each writer approaches storytelling. Do you do detailed advance plotting or fly by the seat of the pants? Could you take us through your method?

JW. For my first book, pre-publishing deal, I wrote scenes as they came to me. Only later did a coherent story emerge. But once you sign a book deal you are suddenly on the treadmill of a book a year. I found that if I fly by the seat of my pants I invariably write too much and start wandering off on tangents. I could only do that again if I had no deadline, because all my books take a long time to write due to their relative size and the complexity of emotion I (try to) include. Or maybe I’m just slow! And I feel, see and smell it all so vividly, I want to go on and on. Also, my characters all have in-depth back stories in my mind, but I can’t include all that in every novel.

What I had to learn is that a novel is just a slice of the life of my characters at this particular time; a window opened on this bit. So the skill of a novelist is in carving this great mass of instinct, fact, musing, and imagination into a book that moves along at a nice clip and has a narrative that makes sense. Proceeding on pure instinct and continuing to write haphazardly has been a painful lesson for me, because my last two books were delayed by my tangent-wandering. I finally get that to do frequent books, I have to plan them better upfront, so that’s what I do now. It’s about reining myself in. However…I miss the freedom of the old way, and hope to do it again some time.

Q. The Swan Maiden has received glowing reviews on romance websites. A good romance writer needs to be able to create convincing sex scenes. How do you approach this part of the creative process? Immersed or detached? Tongue in cheek or deadly serious?

This interview was conducted by fantasy author, and valued WU contributor, Juliet Marillier.

Australian-born novelist Jules Watson established a reputation as an exciting new writer of Celtic historical fiction with her Dalriada Trilogy, set amidst the conflict between Picts, Romans and Gaels in what is now north-western Scotland. Her latest novel, The Swan Maiden, was published in February by Bantam Dell. It’s the first in a two part series, and is based on the traditional Irish story of Deirdre.

On her website, Jules tells us she has worked as a checkout chick, cocktail waitress, PA, mine worker, archaeologist, PR consultant, freelance writer and author. She also has a degree in archaeology, and this is reflected in her meticulous approach to the historical detail of her novels. Here’s a sample of what the critics say about The Swan Maiden:

“In this graceful retelling of the Irish legend of Deirdre of the Sorrows, the young woman whose birth laid a curse upon the kingdom of Ulster and its aging king, Conor, the author of The White Mare captures the sense of tragedy, nobility, and the acceptance of destiny that permeates Celtic myth. Watson’s characters have both a larger-than-life appeal and a commonality that emphasizes their human frailty as well as their dedication to life and love.” Library Journal

I was delighted when Jules Watson agreed to an interview for Writer Unboxed. I started with some questions about genre.

Q. Your first three books were closer to historical novels than fantasy, with a well-researched setting in northern Britain in the early historical period. The central character of the new book, The Swan Maiden, is Deirdre of Ireland, who seems more legendary than historical. Would you see the new books as closer to fantasy?

JW. Only in the sense they are based on myths, otherwise I see them as part of the same Celtic stream. The only “real” characters in my previous trilogy were Romans. My Scottish hero and heroine were fictional, their lives mostly drawn from archaeology — and this is true for the new Irish books as well. They are set in the same time period (100 BC – 100 AD), in a similar environment, using the same research. So I don’t see much difference. Also, myths usually have some basis in fact: an important event is repeated as a story around the hearth fire. Romans and Greeks may have written down their history, but it also passed through many incarnations — just like the oral legends of the Celts. So I have tried to imagine the genesis of the Deirdre story, get back to the “real” person.

Of course, all my books deal with the spiritual life of the ancient Celts: dreams, visions, prophecies, the touch of the gods. Some people view this as fantasy, though I see it as spirituality. From what we know of the Celts, the sacred was central to their lives: the seen and unseen, people and gods, the real world and Otherworld blended together seamlessly. So I have been trying to portray the world as I imagine it from their point of view, as well as exploring my own interests.

Q. In fact your novels span the […]

May is characterization month here at WU, and I think this interview with Brunonia Barry has been a perfect accompaniment. Have you noticed all of the great tips Brunonia has imparted? You can review part one of our conversation HERE and part two HERE.

In this final installation, Brunonia speaks of her experiments with method acting and characterization, writing with an unreliable narrator, what’s happening with the film version of The Lace Reader, what’s next for her and more. Enjoy!

Part 3: Interview with Brunonia Barry

TW: Is it true that you took a screenwriting class with the great Robert McKee?

BB: Bob had his normal classes, and I took one of those, and then he had workshops where he worked with 8-10 people generally. You had to submit a script or a work in progress, and he’d decide if he wanted to work with you. I was in one of his groups. Eventually, he was so busy that he decided to meet with one group that he wanted to develop—his development group. There were nine of us, and we met for a couple years. So I not only got to work on my script and story structure and work with him, but I got to work with a wonderful group of writers and read and comment on their works. It was a great experience, and it led me to getting jobs as a reader in Hollywood.

TW: How did this influence your work, if it did?

BB: I learned a lot about structure and a lot about character. Even though he analyzes structures that work, he delved into character quite a bit. What the character wants and what prevents the character from getting what he wants has to be supported by the structure. So a character doesn’t give the most dramatic action to achieve their goal in the first act, because then where will you have to go?

TW: So envisioning your arc before you start and starting in the right place.

BB: Yes, exactly. I usually start a story at its beginning, and then in the end realize I should’ve picked the story up more in the middle; the beginning becomes backstory. Bob had a way of teaching things. I happened to have had the first script I wrote optioned, so I went in that direction for a while, but I think the reason I never finished anything is that I needed to be a novelist. But I learned a lot studying a different genre, screenwriting, and story is story. And that’s what his book is titled, Story.

TW: I think his book can be used by novelists as well as screenwriters, don’t you?

BB: I think so. The character arcs and story structures are classic. I think the book could be very helpful for novelists.

TW: Speaking of the big screen, I read somewhere that you’d tried method acting to get more deeply into the skin of your characters. Can you explain the exercise and what happened?

BB: Yes, I tried to become the character and act as they would for a day or two, and in Towner’s case for about a week. You know, knowing what they know and walking around Salem with that knowledge. I could walk around […]

Brunonia Barry, author of the hit debut novel, The Lace Reader, has amazing stories to tell–and I’m not just referring to her fiction. If you missed part one of the transcript of our phone interview last week, you may want to check it out now, to hear all about the fantastical dream that inspired The Lace Reader. This week, she’ll speak about her success–as one piece of luck (like working with Hemingway’s last editor) lead to another, lead to a nearly unprecedented bidding war and book deal. We’ll also hear about some of the writerly trials she went through along the way, including the twists delivered to her by her muse, and her fear of tackling the male point of view.

For those unfamiliar with the premise of The Lace Reader, here’s a review by Publisher’s Weekly that’ll help you to better appreciate this part of the interview.

Starred Review. In Barry’s captivating debut, Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner’s suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan. Barry excels at capturing the feel of smalltown life, and balances action with close looks at the characters’ inner worlds. Her pacing and use of different perspectives show tremendous skill and will keep readers captivated all the way through.

Enjoy!

Part 2: Interview with Brunonia Barry

TW: What were the major turning points for you as you worked from concept to finished product?

BB: Well, one of them was moving to Salem. That gave me the idea to pursue the hero’s journey. Another was when the ending to my book changed.

TW: Let’s talk about that—the ending and how it evolved for you.

BB: It’s crazy. I’d been editing the draft as I went, in part so that I had polished pages to show my husband and writing group. I had all these extraneous things going on in my story, and I didn’t feel like they made sense to what I was writing. About two-thirds of the way through the draft, the ending I’d planned changed. I’d had it outlined, but it didn’t matter. I remember getting to the big surprise—a surprise to me as well—and yelling, “No!” My husband came running into my office to see what had happened. What a shock. I thought I knew the story I was writing, but Towner’s character had taken over. In retrospect I would say that I’d always been writing it so that the true ending would work—I just didn’t know it.

TW: How long did it take for you to accept that this was the true ending?

BB: I had to leave the story for about two weeks. I got up and walked away, and said, […]

Lynne Griffin is the author of Life Without Summer–a novel about the hit-and-run death of a child and how her mother copes with the aftermath, juxtaposed with the story of the mother’s therapist and her own loss-filled past and present. Though the storyline asks you to bear witness to the sometimes difficult journey of a grieving parent, it provides rich rewards through compelling storylines, characterizations and the journey of recovery. In particular, there is something rare in the way Lynne portrays emotions, revealing a sensitive novelist who has the ability to sink beneath the surface of the skin and deliver raw humanity to the page.

Though Life Without Summer is her debut novel, Lynne is also a nonfiction author and parenting expert. How has her nonfiction experience helped her to write a book about the psychology of parenting and loss? And why did she decide to write this book? We’re thrilled she took time out to answer these and other questions for us. Enjoy!

Q: Your novel, Life Without Summer, is a powerful drama about lost children and the ripple effect that loss has on family. Can you tell us what inspired this book? What has it meant to you to write it?

A: I’m no stranger to loss. My father died when I was fifteen, my mother when I was forty. Though I’ve never lost a child, I admit to being gripped by the fear it could happen to me. I wrote Life Without Summer as a way of coping with the fear of loss, the stabbing pain of it. Writing it gave me the chance to offer hope to others who may be afraid; and it was my attempt to comfort those who know loss intimately, as I do.

Tessa’s and Celia’s stories, though different in so many ways, highlight the aspects of grief that are universal. And while every person’s journey toward healing is deeply personal, I believe we’re all tied to each other in the collective experience of it. At some point everyone will make grief’s acquaintance.

I was working on another novel when the story came to me. I imagined two women struggling with different grief stories, each personal loss echoing the other’s. From the beginning, I knew the first and last lines, and how the two families would come to be forever connected. Writing this novel was deeply cathartic. To me it’s not a tragic one; I’ve always felt that it was a hopeful, redemptive story.

Q: You’re an authority on parenting—a regular on Boston’s Fox 25 news and the author of the book Negotiation Generation: Take Back Your Parental Authority without Punishment. How has your nonfiction background helped in writing this novel or in influencing it—if it has?