Elemancers, Sunderers and Order

Just because my hero, Luke Ballard, is an elemancer - a magician who performs his magic using the elements - does not mean that he is all powerful. What a boring story it would be if he was! No, Luke must work within set parameters, precisely in the way that sunderers, mortal enemies of elemancers, do not.

All magic must be grounded in logic. Empedocles, born in 490BC, was a Greek philosopher who, some claimed could control the weather, destroy evil and cure old age. He established the four ultimate elements, fire, water, earth and air. Each elemancer in my books has a special affinity with one of these elements and it affects the way he/she is able to perform their magic. The elements are eternally united in love (elemancy) and perpetually torn apart by strife (asunder).

Mix this with the basic tenets of Elizabethan World Order and Chain of Being - the hierarchy of the universe ordained by God and the fundamentals of elemancy are born. Elemancers work for the good of mankind through the grace of God, to maintain the balance necessary for the world to function properly and for man to function within the world. Sunderers on the other hand work solely for personal power and to cause chaos and disorder.

The order of the universe was a recurring theme in Renaissance literature and many of Shakespeare's plays deal with the results of men's activities creating imbalance. Thus when Northumberland says in Henry IV Pt 2 'Let Order Die', the 16th century audience would have at once understood the depth of his grief for his dead son and heir and the strength of his desire for revenge.

The magic that Luke uses to maintain the cosmic balance is of the cause and effect variety. His spells gather data, information that will help his investigations, but which will not provide the answers as to whodunnit. As a balance to this way of magic, sunderers coerce their victims through threats and dark magic to obey.

This continual fight for balance is only part of the conflict that Luke must work with and through. He is part of a society where heedless gossip can easily lead to a spell in the Tower or worse. One of his main attributes is an unfailing sense of justice, especially for the poor and oppressed who, frequently innocent, are used as handy scapegoats for the crimes of the nobility. Will Luke ever come to terms with his loyalty to the King and his determination that the guilty, be they never so high, must and will be made to answer for their crimes?

When reality pokes its head above the parapet

Wasn’t it George Orwell who said in that brilliant but depressing book “Coming Up For Air” something like ‘you remember it all so perfectly and you remember it all wrong’?

Well that’s me at the moment. Having a complete scene in my head of Luke and Grace creeping from Henry IX’s apartments round the corner to Queen Madeleine’s rooms to examine the scene of the first murder, I realise after a few hundred words that I’ve got the geography the wrong way round. It doesn’t help, of course, that the Tudor royal apartments are no longer there – curse you, William III. In a way, though, it shouldn’t matter that much. But in my head, it does.

I’m going through one of those horrible phases when I am desperate to get on with the book and my head is teeming with characters, only to go blank, fingers poised over keyboard when I get there. I’ve always maintained that the only way to get through something like this is to keep the fingers tapping on the keyboard until you find the rhythm again. Having mapped out the general plot, I now need to just let my imagination and the characters take me where they want to go, but my brain is so stuffed full of unimportant stuff like what I’m cooking for dinner tonight and why my golden retriever has suddenly become very disobedient, that my usually disciplined writer’s head has been replaced by Mrs Thinkaboutanythingbutthebook Head. It doesn’t help when I meet the almost embarrassed old chap on the dog walk who can never think of anything to say but ‘written any more books lately?’

I have discovered one fabulous thing, though. Whoever wrote the words ‘if music be the food of love, play on’ was dead right. I can write moving dialogues of heart-rending prose to Craig Armstrong’s film music, especially the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. So, whenever I need my character to emote, it’s just a matter of flicking a switch and letting the music send my pen scribbling. Eric Whitacre’s music is brilliant for this, too, except that I sometimes find myself actively listening as well, which, whilst brilliant for the soul, is death to word counts.

So, I’ve figured that what I need to do is find the right music and Luke will stir from his enforced halt on the walk to the Queen’s apartments and begin moving his investigation forward.

What is a holiday?

Most people view a holiday as a time to get away from the domestic chores and routine. So did I until last week when we took a bus trip to Germany. I was away from the computer, away from the distractions of the Internet and e-mail and spending quite a lot of the time sitting on a bus.

It turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to just let my imagination play with the possibilities of 'Treasons'. The rest of the bus soon grew used to me scrabbling in my bag for the Moleskine notebook - thank you Writers' Forum - grabbing a pen and scribbling furiously. Quite often ideas came at mealtimes. The short-sighted obese man squinting at his food would make a wonderful self-important court official. The bent elderly eccentric, cutting up his food into tiny bites, the self-important woman preening as she looked around to see if anyone had more diamonds on than her. Once my bus companions found out I write, they did the usual 'don't put me in it' and 'there are plenty of people here for you to pick on'. I did listen with interest to one lady, whose grandparents had fled from Russia about how the Russians broke the spirits of the troublemakers in their prisons. That, too, will appear in some form in 'Treasons'.

The best bit about the whole experience - apart from the hotel pool and seeing the Mohne Dam - was the fact that I had ample opportunity to sit with Paul, drinking Stella and finally putting the bones of the plot together. Now I've done that, I need to concentrate on my 'family' of characters. So, here I sit in the Word Shed, the usual gales of the third week of September howling outside, Rufus asleep on the floor and I travel back to 1551, Hampton Court and Luke's apothecary shop....