Is it possible to learn about history through fiction? Or should historical facts only be acquired via proper, serious non-fiction books which have footnotes and sepia photographs and extensive bibliographies? Christchurch City Libraries Blog has a thoughtful post about the issue, inspired partly by The FitzOsbornes in Exile. The blogger notes that I have sneakily inserted quite a few historical facts into the novel:
Broccoli! It's good for you! Even though it isn't quite as delicious as chocolate!“A bit like parents who sneak broccoli into chocolate cake, the Montmaray books are full of historical detail, actual real stuff that happened. I am learning, not only about things like the War of the Stray Dog, but also the Spanish Civil War, British court etiquette, and the often murky political allegiances of upper-class English people between the wars.”
This is all quite true. I confess. I love broccoli, in both its literal and metaphorical forms. The FitzOsbornes in Exile is stuffed so full of broccoli that it’s only thanks to my wonderful editors that the whole thing doesn’t taste and look exactly like vegetable terrine. I’m struggling through the same issue at the moment, as I edit The FitzOsbornes at War, the final Montmaray novel. It is a very, very long manuscript, which I’d like to make a bit shorter, and it would be logical to remove some of the information about wartime events outside England. The problem is that I find all that background information absolutely fascinating. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not writing a textbook about the Second World War, but a story, and that if the factual information does not have a direct bearing on my fictional characters, then it doesn’t belong in the novel. It doesn’t matter if I spent an entire fortnight researching a particular event – if those historical facts can’t be blended in smoothly, they have no place in my chocolate cake (admittedly, a cake made of very bittersweet, dark chocolate). As New Zealand author Rachael Kingpoints out,
“When you’re reading my book, I don’t want you to be thinking about me and my research. If you are, I’ve failed in my job.”
And apparently she knows how to skin a tiger, so I think we should all pay careful attention to what she has to say.
Thank you to all those readers who let us know about some of their favourite books. Congratulations to Hermina, Freya, Lindy, Maddy and Cassy, who each won a signed copy of The FitzOsbornes in Exile. To those who missed out this time, don’t despair – I’ll give away some more books later this year.
I’m officially on holiday this fortnight, and I think I’ve lost the ability to construct proper paragraphs. However, here are some things I noticed, but was too busy to post about, during the past month or so:
Kate Beaton put up some new Julius Caesar comics on her website. Here’s Part One. Part Two involves Cassius glaring actual daggers at Caesar, and the introduction of the truly awesome Dogs of War (even if one of them looks more like a Bunny-Rabbit of War).
Montmaray has also popped up on NationStates. It used to be The Kingdom of Montmaray, but is currently The Incorporated States of Montmaray and is ruled over by a “corrupt dictatorship”. Its “national animal is the Blue Heeler, which frolics freely in the nation’s many lush forests” and “an increasing percentage of the population’s youth have homosexual parents”. (I had nothing to do with this, I swear.)
Two authors, Katie Crouch and Grady Hendrix, have also published an article about their experiences writing YA fiction. Apparently, writing for teenagers means throwing aside all the rules for good writing, because:
“. . . readers in Y.A. don’t care about rumination. They don’t want you to pore over your sentences trying to find the perfect turn of phrase . . . In Y.A. you write two or three drafts of a chapter, not eight.”
Oh, really? But the funniest bit was:
“The average length of time you get to write a Y.A. book is six months. Compared with ‘literary’ fiction, that’s warp speed.”
SIX MONTHS? I spent longer than that just doing the research for my last book. Gosh, I wish someone had told me earlier that I didn’t need to put any thought or care into my YA novels. Think of all the time and energy I would have saved myself. Also, apparently ‘YA fiction’ and ‘literary fiction’ are mutually exclusive categories. Has anyone told M. T. Anderson, Margo Lanagan or Sonya Hartnett this?
I’ll be back soon (as soon as I’ve remembered how to write in paragraphs) to post a rant and a rave about some books I’ve recently read. In the meantime, don’t forget my book give-away is still on.
Montmaray Book Three has been handed over to my publishers, so to celebrate, I’m giving away five signed copies of Montmaray Book Two. Yes, that’s the lovely North American hardcover edition of The FitzOsbornes in Exile, with the glamorous girl on the cover. This particular giveaway is just for Australians and New Zealanders, because they are special. (Actually, if you’re from elsewhere in the world, but have an Australian or New Zealand postal address, you can enter, too.) All you need to do is leave a comment below, telling us the title of a book you’ve recently enjoyed.
Here are the conditions of entry:
1. You can mention any kind of book you’ve enjoyed – young adult, children’s, fiction, non-fiction. You don’t have to say why you enjoyed it, but you can if you’d like. There are no wrong answers! 2. Make sure the e-mail address you enter on the comment form is a valid one, so I can contact you if you win (no one will be able to see your e-mail except me). Please don’t include your real residential or postal address anywhere in the comment. 3. The five winners will be chosen at random, unless there are five or fewer comments – in which case, it won’t be random and ALL will have prizes. 4. Entries close on the 31st of July, 2011. The winners will be e-mailed then, and I will send off the winners’ books as soon as possible after that. 5. Remember, Kangaroos and Kiwis only for this giveaway.
In the small hours of this morning, I e-mailed the manuscript of the third Montmaray book to my publisher.
The author wonders how many exclamation marks to add after writing, 'The End'The final book in the trilogy. The end of The Montmaray Journals. Farewell to the FitzOsbornes, who’ve been hanging out in my head for the past seven years. If I weren’t so sleep-deprived, I might actually feel a bit sad about this.
There’s quite a lot of work to do before the book appears on bookshelves – some of it to be done by me, much of it by the talented, hard-working people at Random House. Structural editing, copy-editing, fact-checking, type-setting, proof-reading, designing an appealing cover, making sure the real people in the book who are still alive aren’t going to sue me for defamation of character . . . But at some point next year, the book will be released in Australia, all things going well. Here’s what I can tell you about it:
It follows the fortunes of the FitzOsbornes throughout the Second World War and beyond.
It contains dashing young men in uniform, brave young women in uniform, spies, diplomats, secret agents, scary bombing raids, fiery plane crashes, funerals, weddings, heartbreak, despair, courage, determination and a hopeful ending. And also, kissing.
If the first book was Sophie’s coming-of-age and the second was Veronica’s, then this one is Toby’s.
The novel is ridiculously long, although I’m hoping my brilliant editors will provide some suggestions for trimming it, because otherwise, the hardcover edition is going to weigh a tonne and a half.
The novel may or may not be called The FitzOsbornes at War.
Any of this might change between now and the (still unknown) publication date, of course.
To celebrate finishing this manuscript (and also because I’ve had three boxes of books cluttering up my flat for weeks, but have been too busy to find somewhere to put them), I’m giving away some copies of The FitzOsbornes in Exile. See here for details.
