Working on a novel over a period of many months often takes
me so far away from the initial source of the ‘inspiration’, that it is hard to
identify the starting point. However, a little thought and back-tracking about
each novel, brings me to the conclusion that my first ideas often arise from
random encounters with historical non-fiction.
More than ten years ago, having decided I wanted to write an
historical novel, I visited Colchester Central library and poked about in the History
shelves. I have little idea why I came away with an armful of books on the Spanish
Armada, but I plunged in, discovering the complex political background to the
conflict, the strategy of the English navy, and the factors leading to its
victory. This was all very interesting, but the idea for a novel that I might
be capable of writing, only started evolving when I read about the escape of
the defeated Spanish fleet up the east
coast of Britain and the fate of one ship in particular, El Gran Grifon, which was wrecked on Fair Isle.
Now here was a good situation (for a novel, not for the 200
unfortunate castaways, nor the impoverished islanders, of course). According to
the sources, the Spaniards climbed from their broken ship on to the island
where they were marooned for several weeks. Few details of what happened were
documented, though various myths exist, so here was fertile ground for
invention and imaginative re-construction. Plot and character ideas started
flowing: What happened when the foreign soldiers and sailors landed? How did
the islanders greet them? Who were the islanders and how did they live? What
fears and tensions might have grown between the two alien communities? What friendships? What of the privations they
would suffer on such a tiny island?
These and many other questions drove me to more focused
research, about 16th century peasant life on a Scottish island, the
history of Fair Isle itself, knitting, Spanish galleons, ships’ crews, etc etc
etc. During this reading, I was madly scribbling notes about my principal
characters and soon a version of the romantic historical novel The Salvaged Heart began to take shape. The central premise and the themes took some
time to emerge clearly and the actual writing, with many wrong turnings, re-writes
and substantial changes was both fun and a challenge.
Several of my other novels have sprung from a similarly ‘random’
approach. However, no selection is ever
entirely random; choice is based on a range of conscious and unconscious
factors such as prior interests, personal experiences, awareness of one’s ignorance,
a striking book cover, favoured historical periods. For my next novel, I didn’t have to read far
in The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur
Herman before discovering my inspiration: an account of the hanging of Thomas
Aikenhead, a 19 year old student of Edinburgh University in 1697, for
blasphemy. Little is known about his background, though his ‘atheism’ is well documented.
The religious conflict and the economic depression in Scotland at the period
provided a powerful context, as characters in the form of family, enemies and
associates of Thomas Aikenhead started emerging from my head. The Darien Disaster by John Prebble, an account
of events nearly contemporary to the execution, provided the second large plot
element in the novel The Bookbinder’s
Daughter.
Frequently, reviews of non-fiction titles spark an interest,
which I pick up and explore. Reading historical material, as an inspiration for
fictional writing is also for me a thoroughly enjoyable way of filling up some
of the huge gulfs in my knowledge of history. Mostly, however, it is the smaller, often
incomplete or barely documented human stories that give me the essence of plot
and character, for the type or fiction I write, rather than the large sweep of
events social and political, national and international, though the characters’
own troubles and conflicts can be set within these wider contexts.
I have other sources of inspiration too, but those are for
another time!
I’d be interested to hear where other writers
find theirs
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