Welcome Jodi, now for the interrogation - evil cackle.
1. What were the beginnings of St Mary’s
Chronicles for you and how did you build the world?
Actually,
this is quite a difficult one to answer because there wasn’t a specific moment
of blinding revelation, when I thought I would invent an organisation, call it
St Mary’s and then write about it. I had a lot of vague ideas swirling around
in my head, not going anywhere in particular. Max was very shadowy. She was
always a redhead and might or might not be tall. Leon hardly existed. The
identity of Mrs Partridge was not clear. Markham didn’t yet exist – and so on.
I do
remember the moment I decided to put pen to paper. I was painting a wall at the
time. I put down my brush and went down the road to the local Co-op, bought a
recycled notebook and three pens, and started the next day.
My
thinking was greatly influenced by my previous job – Facilities Manager for the
Library Service in North Yorkshire – a position which consisted mainly of
somehow, anyhow, and against all odds – MAKING THINGS WORK. I sat down and
thought about St Mary’s and how it would function. There would be historians,
obviously, but also a security section to keep them safe, a kitchen to feed
them, R&D to blow things up, and admin team to pay them all, housekeeping
and caretaking to keep things working – and so on.
Obviously,
they’d have to be located out in the middle of nowhere, not just because of all
the explosions, but there was the security aspect as well. An old house would
be ideal and the county of Rushford already existed from another earlier (and
so far undeveloped) idea.
And
then there was the actual mechanics of the job. How would they travel? I had a
bit of a think about pods. What were the rules? What could they do and what
couldn’t they do? What would be the dangers? What would they do with the
information afterwards? To whom did they answer? And so on. And on. And on.
Gradually,
a picture began to emerge. I actually sat down and wrote out an organisational
chart and a list of responsibilities, a list of personnel, and a training and
exam schedule, blu-tacked it to the wall in front of me and made a start.
2. Your
cast of characters is large, not to mention them running up and down the
timeline. How do you keep track of them all?
Another
tricky one! Originally, there was only going to be one book - Just One Damned Thing After Another.
With all the ignorance of inexperience, I allowed characters to spring up like
Japanese Knotweed because they were all going to die horribly in the last
chapter.
However,
as the book progressed, I thought I might have enough material for a second
book and so some of them were reprieved. Leon, for example. Kalinda was
originally going to be Max’s partner in crime, but I liked Peterson. Especially
after he peed on her, so Kal became less important. I try to make even the
minor characters interesting and I let little snippets of information drop
every now and then. For instance, in Book 5, while breaking into an older
version of St Mary’s, Markham lets slip that he has a criminal past. Mrs Mack
is Welsh and had previously been some kind of urban guerrilla. Professor Rapson
and Dr Dowson started arguing the moment my back was turned and haven’t stopped
since. Incidentally, I have absolutely no idea where Markham came from. Once
he’d run into that horse’s bottom there was just no holding him.
And
yes, they do die, some of them, because it seemed to me that if you have a
central core of characters who are frequently in trouble but always escape, it
lessens the tension somewhat. I wanted readers to feel the threat and know that
any of them could die at any moment. And share the sense of loss when that
happens. And in real life, violence and death do suddenly erupt out of nowhere
and I wanted to convey this sense of never being completely safe.
I keep
on top of things by keeping the groups small. I start with whoever is selected
for this particular assignment and their interactions with others before and
after their return. I try to ensure everyone gets at least one mention during
the book.
3. Do you plan or go with the flow? If the
latter, have you ever written yourself into a corner ad how did you get out of
it?
Yes, I
do plan – but fairly loosely. The only thing that is fairly fixed is the ending
because I like to know what I’m writing towards. Characters appear and are
discarded. Or developed, depending on how things are going at the time. Scenes
happen, are deleted, moved somewhere else, or kept for a future book.
I don’t
start at the beginning of a book – I start in the middle, because when I am
stuck, I can move either forwards or backwards in the story and then come back
to the problem later. Which has often resolved itself by then. I choose a scene
that is dramatic, or tragic, or meaty in some way and dive right in. Once I
have that under my belt, it sets the tone for the whole book. I write the
ending fairly early on in the process and the beginning is usually written near
the end.
So yes,
I do plan – and go with the flow as well. Sorry if that’s not particularly
helpful. I have learned to scribble dialogue, scenes, ideas as they occur to
me, because if I carry on neatly with what I’m doing, thinking I’ll make a note
of it all later – sadly, by then, I’ve forgotten it all.
And
yes, I have written myself into a corner. I did it in Book 4, when a scene
written in Book 1 really came back to haunt me. I was in head-banging mode for
a couple of weeks until I had an inspiration, lost 20,000 words and took the
book in a whole new direction. It was, I think, a better book than originally
envisaged. So I would say to anyone – if that happens, don’t despair. It’s your
book’s way of telling you there’s a better way to go.
4. Which is your favourite scene in all the
books?
Aaaghhh!
Another difficult question! I have several favourite scenes for several
different reasons.
The
scene in A Second Chance when Max
unexpectedly meets a younger Leon and so very nearly plunges everything into
chaos by running away with him, is one of my favourites because it wrote so
easily. The words just fell out of my pen. I saw it all so clearly in my head
and it hardly needed editing at all. An example of how wonderful writing can be
when everything goes right.
The
dodos in A Symphony of Echoes were
fun to write. That’s one of my favourites, too.
I
enjoyed writing all of Roman Holiday.
After the slightly darker A Trail Through
Time it was lovely to do something so light-hearted.
My very
favourite – so far – are the scenes at Troy. It’s so easy when reading about
historical events, especially when they occurred several thousand years ago, to
view them with detachment. Troy fell. What a shame. But these were people’s
lives and they were completely shattered, probably in the space of a single
day. Imagine seeing your male relatives slaughtered and the surviving members
of your family divided up amongst your conquerors, all of them being shipped
off to live as slaves in a foreign land for the rest of their lives and knowing
you’ll never see your children or your home again.
I know
that as historians, they’re supposed to know what is going to happen, but I
still try to portray the shock they must experience when watching events
actually unfold, especially after they’d lived amongst the people of Troy for
so long.
At the
other end of the spectrum, the bit in A
Trail Through Time where Helen confronts Leon about his surgical abilities came
spinning out of the blue and was a huge giggle to write.
5. What is my approach to comedy?
Ah, the
most difficult question of all, which you snuck in at the end, just as I was
beginning to relax!
Sometimes
an idea or a phrase occurs to me and I write a scene around it. For example, in
Just One Damned Thing After Another
it was, ‘We hit a tree.’ I sat and thought about why they would hit a tree. How
would I lead up to it? What would happen afterwards? And after that? So I ended
up writing a whole scene with Max and Leon having to travel to Thirsk. In a
car. So they could hit a tree. So they could have head-banging sex afterwards.
So everyone at St Mary’s could collect the money they’d been betting on whether
they ever would get together or not. All that just so they could hit a tree!
Sometimes,
I want a contrast. I tried to do this in the last scene of A Second Chance, when Max and Leon are finally reunited, only to
have a massive falling out because he mistakes her for Izzie Barclay and she
thumps him with a blue plastic dustpan. It would have been so easy to have them
just falling into each other’s arms but this is St Mary’s, after all, and
nothing ever goes according to plan.
And
there are different types of comedy as well. The one-liner. The odd pun. An old
joke I hope I’ve reworked to give a fresh approach – the inch joke, for
example, at the end of A Trail Through Time. And the big set pieces – when they
paint themselves blue and lose a monolith, or blow up the lake and are attacked
by swans. They’re all of them such fun to write!
Thank you for sharing your story with us today.
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