Interview with Elizabeth Chadwick.

When, earlier this year, we were looking for someone to write a piece for us in connection with our Richard III Week, I was pointed in the direction of best-selling historical novelist Elizabeth Chadwick by a mutual friend.  Elizabeth said that it was a little out of her period, but in turn introduced us to Dr Gillian Polack, who subsequently produced a splendidly rabble-rousing piece.

Never ones to let a good contact go to waste however, we took the opportunity of asking Elizabeth if she would agree to being interviewed at some point.  She said ‘Yes’,  and this is the result …

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VL:  A very warm welcome to Vulpes Libris, Elizabeth. I know a lot of people have been waiting for this interview with considerable interest, so we’d better not keep them cooling their heels any longer (or they might start throwing things).  You started writing when you were quite young, but had to wait until 1989 – and The Wild Hunt – to get a publishing deal.  That bespeaks enormous tenacity and self-belief.  Did you keep at it because you were determined to be published, or simply because you loved writing?

EC: Thank you for the welcome Moira.  I’m delighted to be here.

To answer your first question:  Both the determination to be published and a love of writing were involved but it was mostly the second.  Writing must be a passion to an author – something as vital as breathing.  I would agree with the tenacity although I’m not sure about the self belief.  Writing – or story telling at least – has been a part of me since first memory, so it’s not something I can detach and give up.  Yes, I was determined to be published, but even if it hadn’t happened I would still be writing and would now have about 25 unpublished manuscripts on my shelves instead of eight.

VL:  Did you write stories, and/or keep a diary as a child?

EC: No, but I talked to myself.  As mentioned in the former question I told myself stories from earliest memory before I could read or write.  My first solid memory of telling myself tales is from a time when I was between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years old. I know it was at this point in my life because we moved to Scotland not long after that memory, and I clearly recall my surroundings.   I’d been put to bed but it was summer time and there was a long, light evening outside.  My dad was making me a wardrobe to go in my bedroom and I could hear him whistling and woodworking in another room.  Unable to sleep, not allowed to get up,  I took out the cotton handkerchief I had under my pillow.  Each corner had a printed design of fairies on it and I remember sitting up in bed and making up a story about them.  It was kind of a fairy soap opera with a beginning, middle and a chapter end – to be continued next day.  I entertained myself in this manner throughout my childhood, usually kicking off from a visual inspiration and then changing direction.   I’ve said in other interviews that  the way it worked was rather like Mary Poppins and the children jumping into Bert’s chalk pavement art and going off to have an adventure deeper into the picture.  I would take illustrated books and have adventures beyond the illustrations.  Or I would watch a TV programme and make up new stories around the characters – a bit like verbal fan fiction.  I became the characters too and went into their mindset.  Gender and species were no object.  The Lone Ranger was a favourite.  So was Silver.  I particularly loved being Champion The Wonderhorse and whinnying and prancing round the back garden.   I hero-worshipped Troy Tempest from Stingray, and fancied him too.  It brings a whole new meaning to the word stiff upper lip!

VL:  Did you ever consider any career OTHER than that of a writer?

EC: I worked in shops but such jobs were always to earn money in order to live.  From the age of 15 when I first began writing things down, I knew I wanted to be an author for a living.  Of course, such a career notion was partly in the dream world.  There were no creative writing degree courses back then and no support of any kind for writers.  If I had taken Latin at school and not been discouraged by a certain teacher who thought she was being realistic, I might have gone to university to do a degree in English or Medieval history.  I was told there was no point in applying for journalism as it was over-subscribed and I wouldn’t get the required grades at A level.  As it happened I did get the grades but by then I was engaged in a management trainee programme for a large department store and I’d met my future husband and didn’t want to move anyway.  My dream job other than this one is still connected with history.  I’d love to be an archaeologist!

VL:  Some 20 novels down the line, do you still enjoy writing as much as you did at the beginning?

EC: Very much so, but perhaps in a different way.  At the outset I was rushing to get the story told, often in slightly self-indulgent splats,  whereas now I enjoy the editing and crafting.  I suppose it’s down to maturity.  I’ve learned to be objective.  To stand back and look at what I’m building and to better see where to change the language or structure.  Where to cut and where to add.  I enjoy having improved tools of the trade at my fingertips I guess.  I love every aspect of writing, that’s a given, but I slightly more enjoy editing the written word than gazing at a blank page these days!

VL:  Most of your novels are set in the Mediaeval period, and display a detailed knowledge of it … when and why did your fascination with it start?

EC: Blame the children’s TV series Desert Crusader, dubbed from the French programme Thibaud ou Les Croisades.  I fell in love with the actor Andre Lawrence and embarked on my first full length novel about an imaginary lookalike.  Here’s an article on my blog about the programme that started it all and began my love of the Middle Ages.

Of course when I embarked on my crusading novel aged 15, I had no knowledge of the medieval period or the Holy Land at that time.  So it was off to the library to begin researching everything.  My mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Most fifteen year old girls might be expected to express an interest in clothes and makeup.  In my case I was desperate to have Sir Steven Runciman’s History of the Crusades volumes I and II.  Then came Ewart Oakeshott’s Archaeology of Weaspons, various books on food and clothing, and medieval lifestyle in general.  I wanted my book to feel as real as possible and that meant detailed study of the period.  I was far more conscientious about studying history for my novel than I was about my A level work!  The more I researched the more fascinated I became and the more I wanted to write about the period, so each element fed the other in a never ending circle.  The more research one undertakes, the deeper understanding one has of the period – it becomes instinctive to an extent – and the more world building one does to underpin the tale, the easier it becomes for readers to engage and believe they are in inside the era being portrayed.  To this end I also re-enact with early medieval society Regia Anglorum. and my local branch of the same the Conroi de Vey.   I am far left wearing the brown dress.  This helps to bring the reference books to life and give me a 3D experience that I hope translates to the novels. It’s one thing to see a picture of a medieval cooking pot in a book or behind glass in a museum, it’s quite another to use an exact replica of the article over an open fire.  It’s that feel of now and of reality that I try to bring to my novels.

VL:  The three novels I reviewed earlier this week … A Place Beyond Courage, The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion … are all based on real people.  William Marshal and his family and forebears.  Is it more challenging to write about people who really existed than to create them yourself?  Or is it just a different sort of challenge?

EC: It is more challenging to write about real people because you have to fit the story of their lives into the conventions of a novel and sometimes working out a beginning, middle and end that satisfies both historical integrity and the expectations of the reader is an enormous headache.  But it can be done.  That is down to the skill of the writer.  I get so annoyed when people say that if they want the history they’ll read a text book and that story is all in a novel.  Yes, I can understand that point of view and yes, story is extremely important.  I would never downgrade that importance.  The point that makes me steam is that historical accuracy and story don’t go hand in hand.  If you’re a good enough writer then you’ll be able to do both.  I would never ever move a historical event just so that it fitted my story better.  I’d work the story round the event.  Actually, although I’ve said it can be a headache, it can also be tremendously satisfying fun, working out a storyline that doesn’t meddle with the historical integrity.  I suppose that integrity is the better word than accuracy.  No author writing today can ever get everything right.  What one should have is a respect for the past and the will to make an effort to portray it without too much anachronism.  That word integrity fits the bill.  Writing about invented characters allows an author the leeway to play God.  One has to think up scenarios and situations, but then one has to do the same with characters who really lived simply because we  don’t know what they were doing every minute of every day.

VL:  Which do you find more interesting?

EC: Definitely the real characters these days, but that has been a progression.  At one time I didn’t have the confidence or temerity to attempt to tell their life stories.  It was easier playing God.  Then I wrote Lords of the White Castle, having been inspired by the 13^th century half-biography half-made up story of the Shropshire outlaw Fulke FitzWaryn.  Having dipped my toe in the water with this hybrid, I found it not as scary as I’d thought and realised that I was probably ready to start swimming in more complex waters.  I had been waiting for some time for someone to write a novel about the Marshals, but no one had.  So when my contract came up for renewal, I suggested William Marshal as my next subject and my publishers said yes. The rest is history – pun intended!

VL:  My first contact with William Marshal was many years ago in the splendid and ancient folk song ‘Queen Eleanor’s Confession’, which makes some scurrilous and totally unfounded accusations about his relationship with Eleanor of Aquitaine.  Most recently, when I moved to Cumbria, I came across him again at Cartmel Priory … how did you first make his acquaintance, and what moved you to write the story of his life?

EC: You can’t write about the twelfth and thirteenth century and not come across William Marshal.  Although little is known about him  outside of academia and specialist interests, he is one of  England’s great heroes and his name crops up time and again if you study the Angevin period.  William Marshal is such an important figure within that period that it’s criminal he doesn’t get a mention in the school curriculum.  I had often thought that someone should write a novel about his life, but then, rather like Peter Jackson with Lord of the Rings, I realised that perhaps that someone was going to have to be me.  I didn’t quite realise at that point how much the Marshal family were going to walk into my life and take it over though!

As you’ll know from reading the novels, William began his life as the fourth son of a royal official with modest lands and rose in the service of the Angevin kings to eventually become regent of England.  He was a jouster par excellence and a consummate courtier.  He travelled throughout Europe and the Middle East before settling down with heiress Isabelle de Clare and begetting ten children – five boys and five girls – William believed in balance.   You are right about the scurrilousness of the ditty about him and Queen Eleanor.  He was accused in his lifetime of having an affair with his overlord’s wife – but she was Marguerite the Young Queen.  Eleanor was her mother in law.  Nothing was ever proven and I don’t believe for one minute that William would have been so mad as to jeopardise his career and his life over a fling with the wife of the heir to the throne.  Cartmel Priory was founded by William on his return from the Holy Land.  I  believe he underwent a spiritual crisis there and Cartmel was founded out of that renewal and commitment of his faith.

VL:  Does your approach to starting a new novel differ depending on whether the characters are real or invented?

EC: Not at all.  I always write a very detailed synopsis, a character study, a selling blurb and a one-liner shout statement.  Obviously if the characters are real, I will need to read up on their life stories and decide which parts to highlight, and also I need to get to know the basics.  For both types of novel I need to research the background details of what was going on in the country at the time and who was doing what to whom.

VL: Do you have a personal favourite among your novels?

EC: Not so long ago  I would have said no.  I love them all, each one having its unique traits.  The Wild Hunt was my first published novel and won a Betty Trask award, The Champion was my first RNA major award listing.  Lords of the White Castle was my first attempt at biographical fiction.  The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion  took that biographical element further and ran with it.  However, I have to say that having encountered John Marshal and having formed a very close bond with him via the Akashic Record,  A Place Beyond Courage is my favourite.  Usually I can say I detach from my characters and move on, but whatever else I write, John is with me for the rest of my life.

VL:  I know that you wrote the novelization of First Knight … but has anyone expressed an interest in filming your own original novels?

EC: I wish!  It is so difficult and the chances of striking it lucky are about the same as finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.  Historicals are expensive to film and there’s the matter of selling it to the public.  I’m love to see The Angevins knock The Tudors off the pedestal on TV.  They’d be just as juicy and far more fun – and not done to death (yawn).  If it’s not Tudors then it’s Regency – perhaps with a dash of the Romans.  Anyone would think the Middle Ages never existed other than the Templars (another yawn) and yet there is so much to tap into.

VL:  Just theoretically… who would you like to see playing William Marshal?

EC: Personally I think Ioan Gruffydd would be a good call.  Alison, my Akashic consultant who has seen William in the flesh so to speak says that he has a look of Christopher Eccleston.

John Marshal apparently looked like supermodel Damien Van Zyl (or he did before his accident).  I guess I can live with that!

VL:  I know the paperback of A Place Beyond Courage is due out on October 16^th … what else do you have in the pipeline?

EC: The new hardcover The Time of Singing is out now and has been selling very well.  It’s the story of Roger Bigod,  Earl of Norfolk, his marriage to Henry II’s mistress Ida de Tosney and the problems they face both of a political and emotional nature.   Roger’s father had rebelled against the king and the family had been deprived of lands and power as a result.  Roger had to strive to restore the Bigod fortunes but King Henry was not disposed to be particularly generous.  Ida was in the position of being Henry’s mistress, which gave her a form of power, but she was not content with the situation and strove to change her life for the better.  But in doing so… well you’ll see.   Roger Bigod’s  eldest son, Hugh,  married William Marshal’s eldest daughter Mahelt, and that’s what I’m working on at the moment.

VL:  The covers of your books are always absolutely glorious … who designs them and how much say – if any – do you have in them?

EC: They are rather beautiful aren’t they?  They are created by Larry Rostant and worked on at LittleBrown by in house designer Rachael Ludbrock.  Larry’s website is here:  http://www.rostant.com/

The costumes are never spot on accurate for the period but are more of an artist’s impression.  I  had a reader write to me to say that the covers had inspired her to do a costume degree at university.  Other authors have also told me that they’ve tried to talk their publishers into letting them have a ‘Rostant’ job on their novels. I have a consultation say, but the final word is with my publisher.  Sometimes everything comes together immediately.  On other occasions we have to have a few attempts before we get something we can all live with.  A Place Beyond Courage is a case in point.  The first draft that I was shown,  I hated.  The dress was one that had been used in a previous shot; there was a reused window in the shot and the hero looked like a stalker with none of the finesse, polish and dangerousness of John Marshal.  There was a reshoot.  I adored one of the covers that had the hero and heroine arm in arm with the heroine looking out at the reader with a powerful expression on her face.  Publishers disagreed.  Too downmarket apparently.  However, among the shots was the one that now graces the cover of the paperback.  Except the woman’s sleeve was a dull shade of beige-green.  The publisher’s art department gave it a turquoise tint and it suddenly looked terrific.  Then we got a call from Sainsbury’s.  They wanted to buy the book for their shelves but they wanted a few changes.  So the heroine got to have her hair plaited, she got a sparkly border to her gown, a ring on her finger and some embroidery on her undergown cuff.  I love it, but it took some working on! What you see on Tuesday’s review listing is the hardcover version and not the full on bling of the paperback. With the new hardcover for The Time of Singing, we’ve gone for showing the heroine’s full head as the headless look is beginning to pale.  However she is looking down at her sewing, so is still leaving the reader to make up his or her own mind because there’s no eye contact.  I suggested as a starting point that Edmund Blair Leighton’s painting Stitching the Standard be used and this was done.  I’m really pleased with this one. The colour again is fabulous.

VL:  Let’s talk about sex for a minute, because there’s quite a lot of it in the Marshal books… You write it superbly well – it’s remarkably graphic without being remotely tacky.  How do you DO that?  Is it just something you found you had a natural talent for, or have you learned as you’ve gone along?

EC: Oh dear!  I laughed at your comment. I don’t see my novels as being all that hot.  On the American rating front they’re only rated one above sweet!  However, I do treat love-making in the books as part of life’s rich tapestry and I prefer to leave the bedroom door at least a little open.   As far as I’m concerned, sex shouldn’t be in the book just for the sake of the sex.  It should help to inform the reader about the personalities and the relationships of the people involved.  With A Place Beyond Courage for example,  I found via my research that John Marshal was in charge of the royal prostitutes and that he was a man with a high sex drive, so I wrote him as he was.  With the new hardcover, The Time of Singing, Roger Bigod is a somewhat different kettle of fish and  shy around women.  He has his moments, but not as many as John because the character doesn’t call for it.  As to how one writes ‘graphic’ without being ‘tacky.’  It’s something I seem to be able to do without having to learn.  I say this because when I was first accepted for publication, almost 20 years ago now,   I was invited to meet my agent and editor in London and go to lunch with them.  My new editor made the comment  ‘I adore your love scenes.  They are erotic without being pornographic.’  My husband, who was with me, chipped in with the comment ‘Yes, well I’m the research assistant!’  I told him that he has a reputation to live up to now – or else one he will never live down!   Seriously, I think it boils down to my above comment about sex being part of who the character is, or contributing to the story line rather than just being a gratuitous bonk along the way.   I also think that love-making when shown in a novel should engage all of the senses.  There’s a lot of similarity between a well written, descriptive cookery book (think Nigella Lawson for example) and a well written sex scene.

VL:  While I was doing my pre-interview homework, I was a little startled to discover that you use the Akashic records as a research tool.  A lot of people have probably never heard of them … perhaps you’d like to explain?

EC: Not to go into tons of technical detail that I don’t properly understand myself because I don’t have the gift, but it’s a belief that every moment leaves a vibrational imprint on the ether and if you have the particular psychic software to tune into those past vibrations, then you can see/hear/touch/taste/smell what went before.  You can feel the emotions.  It’s like watching a movie, except with all the senses involved.  I use the skills of Akashic consultant Alison King as one braid of my numerous strands of research.  I will give her a name and a time and sometimes a place, and she will tune in to that person and experience what they were experiencing at that point in their lives.  There are a  lot more subtleties at work than this, but that’s the basic story.  Alison will relay to me what comes through and I have a digital recorder on the go and take copious notes.  I use these notes in conjunction with the rest of my research to help flesh out the characters and the events in my novels.  I send my notes out to a medieval historian with a particular interest in the culture of the 12^th and 13^th C  and to an archaeologist for comments and corroboration.  I have been told that what is coming through is medieval mindset.  What cannot be corroborated through the conventional historical record nevertheless always gels with the mores of the period so I am happy to use this resource and I feel that it adds tremendously to the integrity of the novels.  Were I a historian dealing in hard fact I wouldn’t be able to admit to using this resource (I actually know a couple of professional historians who do use these alternative records on the sly but would never ever say so in public because it would mean the end of their careers) but since I’m  a novelist and not bound by such considerations,  it’s an invaluable resource.  I have getting on for 250,000 words of notes now and it’s building into a detailed archive of 12^th century life.  For the curious, there’s a glimpse of a session here in my blog archive:

http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.com/2006/04/remote-control.html

VL:  Finally, we always ask our guests to name their five favourite books, and give reasons.  Off you go then … the floor is yours.

EC: Before I begin I would have to say that these are five of my favourite books at random and not THE five favourite books.  Titles will fluctuate with time and mood.

Not in order:

Hanta Yo by Ruth Beebee Hill.  This is a wonderful book about Native American culture on the even of the coming of the White Man.  The author translated the work into the Lakotah language and then back into English to get the correct idioms.

It’s a profoundly moving ‘deep’ book that makes you think.  It also allowed me to let go of the lingering dreams from childhood about writing a  Native American novel.  This one sets the bench mark.

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett.  There are historical novelists and then there is Dorothy Dunnett.  She is in a class of her own.  This is the first of a six part series about Renaissance man Francis Crawford of Lymond.  Each book stands on its own, but forms part of  an epic jigsaw puzzle and you are better reading them in sequence.  Dunnett’s historical research and her command of language are second to none.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  Missionary work in the 1960’s Belgian Congo.  Doesn’t sound promising does it?  But once I started this I was gripped.  Again it’s down to the author’s superb use of language and the characterisation which makes her people walk off the page and get inside your head.

The Shining By Stephen King.  I have always loved Stephen King’s novels. I believe he is a classic in the making and The Shining is a superb example of his craft.  I usually read it at least every couple of years and it never loses its impact.  I am generally able to stay well detached from whatever I read, but I was literally scared to turn the pages in places with this one.  Now that’s gripping authorship!

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.  This is one I come back to again and again.  It’s one of those ‘Curl up on a dark winter’s night and lose yourself’ sort of books.  There are times, I admit, when the book does seem like an epic ordeal, but in a way it’s also part and parcel of its glory.  It’s not for the faint-hearted.  But the world building that underpins its core, and the re-working of Anglo Saxon and medieval lore, is glorious.  When I first read it I thought the poetry was too much of a faff to read and rather twee.  But re-reads have shown me that this isn’t actually the case and that patience is rewarded.  As I grow and mature, so the book grows and matures with me.  It’s a fine story that can be read on many levels.

VL:  Diverse choices!  Thank you very much indeed.  It’s been fascinating chatting to you.

EC: Thank you for the opportunity you’ve given me to talk about myself!  I’ve enjoyed it and got a great deal out of it because your questions have often made me pause and think and analyse.  I’ve even remembered my inner fairy!

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You can find Moira’s review of The Marshal Trilogy HERE.