A. The plots for my
Romantic Historical Fact Fiction novels arise from historical non-fiction.
Before I finished
Tuesday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Four, the
basic plot for Wednesday’s Child occupied my mind while doing housework, shopping
and gardening.
Before I wrote
Sunday’s Child I read a book about to write in which the author advised
novelists to plot their novels in detail. I spent hours outlining the plot in
each chapter. The method didn’t work for me because I follow the characters’
lead in my novels. I like them to surprise me and take unexpected routes which
add twists to the tale.
Q. Which comes first - characters or plot for
you?
I jot down a mere
sentence or two about the plot which my characters might reject.
Until I have chosen
names for the main characters, which are appropriate for the era in which my
novel takes place, and filled in detailed character profiles I can’t write the
first line. I fill in the names of their great grandparents, grandparents,
parents and other relatives. I enter their likes and dislikes, their
idiosyncrasies and much more. When I write the first line paragraph I know them
almost as well as I know members of my family.
Q. What are you working on now? Is this a book in a
current series or something totally new?
A. I am working
on Thursday’s Child, Book Five.
Each stand-alone novel in the series is linked by a
character or characters from previous novels, but it is unnecessary to read
them in sequence.
Q. Do you have
some kind of object or place that figures in most of your books? I use gems a
lot, hospitals and caves.
A. In each of my eight published novels set in the
reign of Edward II of England, Queen Anne Stuart’s reign 1702 – 1714 and my
early nineteenth-century Regency novels I focus on something applicable to the
era. For example, the events in Monday’s Child take place during the 100 days
between Napoleon Bonaparte’s escape from Elba and the Battle of Waterloo.
Q. Do you write every day or just when the spirit
hits?
A. If I waited for my spirit to hit
it would take me years to write a novel. I have so many other interests which
try to lure me away from my work in progress and other ‘writerly’ matters.
To complete a novel, I apply strict
self-discipline. Although this routine is not, as the saying goes, set in
concrete, with short breaks, I write from 6 a. m to 10 a.m, for an hour after
lunch and from four or five p.m. until eight p.m.
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