The Old Nichol and a Dirty Old Man

Posted on 12/06/2022 by Jack Marsh

How Research and Detail Improve your Novel

A notorious slum and a dirty old man have led me to write a new book, ‘Speaking in Silence.’ To follow the progress of this novel, the fifth in the Larkspur Mystery series, tune into my Wednesday WIP blog, but to know how research and detail improve your novel, read on.

The Old Nichol was an infamous slum area of Bethnal Green in East London, and I’ll get onto that part of my research later. First, though, I want to tell you what inspired me to write ‘Speaking in Silence’, and it starts with a man on a train.

One night in April 1891

On the night of April 20th 1891, a young man by the name of Christopher Richmond was travelling by train from Horsham in Sussex to East Croydon in Surrey. He was followed into an empty compartment by a man called Charles Fyffe, later described in the newspapers as ‘elderly.’ This man, it seems, had a penchant for young lads. Christopher was 16, worked for the railway as a goods clerk, and had a disability. During the first part of the journey, Christpher said, the man carried out various acts of indecent assault upon him. The precise details are not mentioned in the newspapers of the time, as they considered these things not palatable for the Victorian reader, but despite Christopher’s objects, Fyffe continued his advances even after the pair changed trains at Three Bridges. When they reached East Croydon, Christopher made a complaint to the authorities, and Fyffe was arrested. The young man did the right thing, and was prepared to testify in court, which he later did. You’d think that would have been the end of the matter.

Far from it.

Here’s an extract from a newspaper I found in the British Newspaper Archive, dated 29^th April 1891.

Mr C.A. Fyffe, the accepted Liberal candidate for East Wilts, who was summoned to Croydon Police Court yesterday, charged with a serious assault in a railway carriage between Horsham and Croydon, on Monday week, did not appear.

Who was willing to appear, however, was a heap of character witnesses prepared to speak to the high literary and social character of the accused, viz., the Dean of Westminster, Professor Jowett, Sir Horace Davey, Sir George Grove, Mr Benson, London Stipendiary Magistrate, Mr Robinson, editor of the Daily News, and others…

A little more research made it clear to me that there was more to this case than a well-to-do older man pulling out the big guns to save his reputation, and more reading uncovered a few more facts. Fyffe had worked for a newspaper. When arrested, he gave a false name to the police (three times), and later, tried to kill himself.

Right, I thought, this is a case that needs looking into.

I spent some time in the online newspaper archive, and looked around elsewhere for mentions of this case. I found a very detailed presentation of it on Rictor Norton’s wonderful website where he lists incidents such as this as reported in the newspapers of the time, and he’d found more information than I could track down. I have taken inspiration for other stories from this site (the idea for ‘Guardians of the Poor’ came from here), and I suggest anyone writing gay fiction set in the 19^th century bookmarks his site as essential reading. Click the link in the citation to lose yourself in historical fact.

Rictor Norton (Ed.), “Prosecution and Suicide of Eminent Historian, 1891”,

Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 10 September 2021 http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1891fyff.htm

If you head there and read the full reports, you will get all the details of the case, but what attracted me to this story was my own outrage. More facts come out as you read the history, and it becomes very clear that Fyffe pulled in the ‘old boy’ network to protect himself. You can, in my opinion, see the bias in newspaper reports, such as one that came out in the Western Chronicle which uses phrases such as Mr. Fyffe was made the subject of a terrible charge by a lad… Unnerved at his frightful position… a moment of the direst confusion… the deep sympathy of his political friends and foes are with him… No-one who knows him believes him for one moment to be guilty.

There is no such sympathy towards young Christopher, whose testimony was called into question. Why didn’t he get out of the carriage at the next stop? (His disability meant it would have taken time, and he might have missed the train.) Why didn’t he report it before East Croydon as there were several stops along the way? (Because East Croydon was his final destination, and to report it elsewhere would have meant he didn’t get home that night.) Maybe he was complicit or tried to blackmail Fyffe? Christopher swore he was not and did not. From his testimony, he sounds like a very upright young man, after all, he was in a decent clerical job at the age of sixteen.

Outrageous newspaper bias in favour of a man who wrote for the Daily News, I decided. I would have written a strongly worded letter to the Western Chronicle had I not been 131 years too late.

The intrigue continues…

It turned out that the ‘elderly’ Mr Fyffe was 42 (another report puts him at 45, either way, hardly ‘elderly’), and the reason he didn’t appear at the first hearing was because he’d tried to cut his own throat. Later, when he was able to appear, he was brought in on a stretcher. (Drama queen?) His old cronies testified to his good character, and when the case came before the grand jury to decide if it should go to trial, even the judge said something like, ‘Well, we know this kind of thing goes on…’ as if it were nothing.

In charging the grand jury, Mr. Justice Mathew said that what first struck one about the case was that the acts were improbable, seeing that the charge was made against a man of mature years. [Croydon Advertiser and East Surrey Reporter. 18 July 1891]

Not only were the newspaper reports biased in favour of Fyffe, so was the Justice. It was improbable that a respected, mature man, standing to be elected as an MP might fancy a lone 16-year-old trapped in a railway carriage by his disability at night and try and touch him up…? Improbable my arse.

In the end, the case never went to trial. Not only was Christopher pilloried in the press and his good name called into question (he was counter-accused of being complicit by asking for ‘a present’ in return for sex, an allegation he denied) but he never got his justice, and that’s what’s at the heart of ‘Speaking in Silence.’

There’s a lot more to this case, and for my novel, I have used it as inspiration, mixing in some facts, but bending the truth in places for dramatic and fictional effect. If you were wondering, Christopher had lost a foot (not sure how, possibly an accident on the railways as his father worked for the company and they lived in railway dwellings in Brighton). Living away from home in a decent job aged only 16, he presented a very reasonable case in court, but because Fyffe know all those important people and was (later) an MP, an Oxford Fellow and an author, the chances were clearly weighted on the side of the villain.

You are Allowed to Fictionalise Facts

To be honest, reading the case makes my blood boil. Happily, though, I found out that Christopher eventually married, and emigrated to Australia, where he may well still have descendants. As for Fyffe… He died the following year ‘from the effects of his self-inflicted wounds.’ We may celebrate at that, but it still left Christopher with no justice.

For ‘Speaking in Silence’, I have moved the incident back a few years, so it forms part of the backstory of my mainly silent character, Edward Hyde (the Christopher Richmond of the story). It was, I thought, about time we found out about him and his constant companion, Henry Hope. Henry and Edward are 18 and 20 respectively and have a genius for science. How, I wondered, is that going to be useful in getting justice for Edward? That is one of the mysteries the reader will, I hope, enjoy as the story progresses.

The other part of the novel is the backstory of Edward and Henry, and for that, I turned to a copy of ‘The Blackest Streets’ by renowned author, Sarah Wise.

The Old Nichol

Even if you have never lived in London, or even England, you may well have heard the nursery rhyme, ‘Oranges and Lemons.’ This rhyme was first published in the ‘Pretty Song Book’ by Tommy Thumb in 1744, and it seems to have appeared simply as what it is: a rhyme that lists several London churches. One theory is that the song was written to help strangers find their way around the city, but whatever it was created for, it mentions Shoreditch.

When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch

The bells in question are those of Saint Leonard’s church, a grade one listed building built in 1740, and a good friend of mine used to live right next door. As I only lived a mile away up the Kingsland Road, and as Julian’s flat was on the way to our regular drinking haunts around Shoreditch and Old Street, I was forever in the area. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was visiting the part of London once known as the Old Nichol, one of the worst slums in the city up until it was demolished and replaced by the Boundary Estate in 1900.

If you look on Google maps and search for Shoreditch or St Leonard’s church, you’ll see the A10 road running south to meet with Commercial Street, and to the east of the church, Arnold Circus, making a wheel-like pattern on the map. That was just about the centre of the Old Nichol, and some of the original roads still exist, namely Old Nichol Street to the south of Arnold Circus, and Boundary Street which runs parallel to the A10. You can find a map of the Old Nichol as it was in 1889 at Horrible Hackney, also there is a plan of the Boundary Estate in 1890. Shoreditch is on the western edge of the imagined ‘Greychurch’ of my Clearwater novels, and on the eastern side of it, I have Limedock (Limehouse). ‘Greychurch’ is a location for several Clearwater stories, and now, part of the backstory of Henry Hope and Edward Hyde. You were wondering when they were going to come back in, weren’t you?

First-Hand Accounts

Henry and Edward lived for a while in a room in the Old Nichol, and when I first started thinking about how that would have been, I turned to my usual resources for first-hand research. In this case, VictorianLondon.org and a copy of Low-Life Deeps, by James Greenwood, 1881 [first published 1875] – Curiosities of “Alley” Life. Those of you who were paying attention a couple of years ago when I was writing ‘Banyak & Fecks’ might remember James Greenwood. He was, allegedly, one of the first investigative reporters, and spent a night in the casual ward of the Lambeth workhouse to experience and report on what casual paupers had to endure. I used that piece of writing to inform a scene in ‘Banyak & Fecks’ and Greenwood and other sources to inform the workhouse scenes in ‘Guardians of the Poor.’ Here, Greenwood writes a report of his findings after a visit to Devonshire Place, one of the worst courts in the heart of the Old Nichol.

There was but one bedstead in the room — a mite of a place; I measured it with my walking stick and found that it was three and a half one way and four sticks the other, and yet it was made to accommodate mother, father, and eight children.

… a tiny room above and below, with broken floors and blackened walls and ceilings so shattered that every step overhead causes the rotten plaster to crumble and fall…

Reading a first-hand account is probably the best place to start your historical fiction writing. Your job is to help a reader imagine where your characters are, as well as who they are and what they do, and with a little research, you can add facts into your story that will help it ‘pop.’ Such facts come from people like James Greenwood and Sarah Wise, and the book I mentioned, ‘The Blackest Streets.’

That book is deeply researched and so well written I’ve found it a bit un-put-down-able, and I’ve learnt much from it. Not only about Poor Laws and government boards, the rather useless legal framework in place to force landlords to repair homes, and the work of officials and charitable bodies in helping the poor, but also a great deal about the people my characters would have lived among. Not everyone was a ragged, starving pauper withering away on a death bed and devoid of hope, as today’s films might have us believe (although there were plenty of unfortunates like that, of course). What comes from reading reminiscences of the place is the ‘get on with it and make do’ attitude of many residents. The way neighbours looked after each other (when they weren’t beating up each other or their families), the ‘honour among thieves’ mentality if you like, and the way the criminal gangs worked, and the police kept a distant eye.

The book explains the housing conditions, and in one section, describes how, in some dwellings, the lavatory was in the back ‘yard.’ To get to it, the residents had to descend to the windowless cellar, and bent double beneath the ground floor floorboards, walk through the cellar to the back door. This they would do as quietly as they could so as not to disturb the family who lived in the cellar.

It’s that kind of detail that I like to put into my novels: real and detailed, and in this case, almost unthinkable. This kind of research pays off, and these kinds of details really bring your story to life.

As I work my way through ‘Speaking in Silence’, I find myself putting in such things as the factual times of trains my characters take. For this, I refer to my railways’ guru who sends me the times and changes necessary for a fictional character to get from A to B on March 22^nd 1891, as taken from the timetables of the day. Or, as another example, I find a character standing on Blackfriars Bridge contemplating how far away the railway bridge is, and how high above the Thames he is standing. The old railway bridge isn’t there anymore, just its pillars, but the road bridge was roughly 14 meters above river level.

Research Leads to Detail

Research leads to detail, and detail leads to a more fulfilling read for your reader. It also leads to the author doing a lot of reading and learning a lot of facts along the way. As a final example: Did you know that when someone talks in their sleep, they are giving you a somniloquy, or, I suppose, somniloquising? Well, you do now, and you never know when that snippet will come in handy.

Sources:

The British Newspaper Archive
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/

Rictor Norton, “Prosecution and Suicide of Eminent Historian, 1891”,

Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 10 September 2021 http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1891fyff.htm

Horrid Hackney

https://horridhackney.com/f/the-appalling-victorian-slums-of-the-old-nichol-shoreditch

Victorian London org

https://www.victorianlondon.org/publications4/low-11.htm

Work In Progress 3.06

Posted on 08/06/2022 by Jack Marsh

Speaking in Silence

The WIP news this week is that I am up to 55,000 words and chapter fifteen of the Larkspur Mysteries book five, Speaking in Silence. On our train journey from London to Cornwall, we have reached somewhere around Bath or Bristol, and that’s appropriate because it means I’ve just met the villain of the piece coming the other way. Chapters 14 and 15 are set on a train journey from Cornwall to Devizes, in Wiltshire, and in the story, the train has recently left the city of Bath.

You know when you get halfway through a draft and suddenly think to yourself, ‘Something’s not right’? Well, I had that twice during the last week, so some of my workload has been fixing a couple of things, or rather, fixing one, and thinking about how to fix the second.

In the first instance, I’d left what they call a plot hole and needed to go back and fill it in. This meant adding an extra chapter so that what a character did next would make sense.

In the second instance, I realised I have started the story from too many points of view. Simply put, it opens with the villain, cuts to Silas’ POV, then to Frank’s, then back to Silas’, and then there’s a backstory section from Henry and Edward’s points of view. The story was originally to be about Frank and his involvement with someone else’s story, but now I am further in, I realise it’s not about Frank at all. So, the earlier scenes that are from his POV need to be from someone else’s, Henry in this case, and so they need rewriting.

Hey ho! That’s how it goes. Now, having told you this, I am going to get on with chapter 16 and move the story into its second half.

What’s On Your First Page?

Posted on 04/06/2022 by Jack Marsh

The importance of the first few lines

In showbiz, they say, ‘It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.’ When writing a novel, I say, it’s how you start and finish.

While standing in the bookshop or browsing through Amazon, many people will pick up a book and look at the cover first. If the cover and title grab them, they will then read the back blurb. If that intrigues them, they will read the first line, and if that appeals, they may read the first page. After your cover, title and blurb, your first page is the most important part of your book, so today’s blog is about what a first page should do. You can expand that to the first couple of pages or the first chapter, but really, what the first page should do is grab the reader and drag them into the story.

Opening Lines

Before we get into an examination of what’s on your first page, I wanted to have a look at some opening sentences, just to make a point:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)

And the point is, it’s not only the first chapter or page which should engage, the very first line should too. When I wrote the first line of The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge, I wanted to sum up the entire story, set the background and inspire the reader to look forward. This is what I came up with:

John Hamilton was refusing a job at Everest base camp when he caught sight of the youth who would change his life.

Barrenmoor Ridge is about a mountaineer coming to terms with the death of his lover while rescuing a younger man from a mountain and falling back in love. The first page opens halfway through a scene, as all good scenes should, they say. Having just written that, I thought I’d examine some of my other opening lines to see whether I followed my own advice.

Andrej waited until the darkest hour before he untied his wrists with his teeth, and freed his feet from the knots.
[Banyak & Fecks]

Jasper Blackwood’s life changed beyond recognition on the morning of 27th July 1889.
[Home from Nowhere]

Liam Dent was wondering if the time was right to come out to his best friend when the man who would nearly kill them stepped on his foot.
[The Students of Barrenmoor Ridge.]

You can see, there’s something of a formula, but not always. The opening for ‘Other People’s Dreams’, my first novel, is an advertisement:

Do you want to live out my dream?

One yacht, a thousand islands and all the time in the world.

36-year-old guy with the money and the fantasy seeks four fit, young, gay lads to crew his boat in the Greek islands. (No experience necessary)

You must be trustworthy, attractive, loyal, adventurous, uninhibited and free from June through to September with no ties.

All expenses and living allowance paid in return.

Certain strings attached.

Write with photo to Jake, Box No. 2006

The first sentence in your novel is as important as all the others, but is usually the first one someone will read before deciding whether to buy a book. Grab ’em from the start and hold ’em until the end. But before they even reach the end of chapter one, they need to get past the first page…

Meanwhile, on the First Page

One Stop For Writers (OSFW) released a guide, ‘How to Craft a Winning First Page’ (see the image), and I am using that as a guide while I examine the openings of two of my novels. The details of each section are on the image, but below, I’m comparing what OSFA suggests against what I did. Bear in mind, I hadn’t read this advice or any like it when I wrote the two novels I’m going to look at, The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge (2018), and Deviant Desire (2019).

The notes on the image expand the OSFW advice, but in summary, it suggests five things a first page should do:

Start in the right spot – begin just before a major event in the main character’s life
Show – basically, don’t start with too much backstory (plenty of time for that later)
Tighten up – don’t be wordy, don’t drag it out (plenty of time for that later too)
Raise a question – create intrigue
Build empathy – make the reader like the MC

How do my two examples compare?

The Mentor of Barrenmoor Ridge

Here’s the opening line:

John Hamilton was refusing a job at Everest base camp when he caught sight of the youth who would change his life.

Start in the right spot. Catching sight of the impact character (Gary) is the catalyst for the love story that follows. We also enter the story halfway through a discussion. That’s a common trick used by Shakespeare among many others. Other good ways to open are on a journey in progress, with an argument, with a bang, or right in the middle of some action. When I wrote Banyak & Fecks, I originally started with Andrej (Fecks) standing over the ruins of his burnt-out home and remembering his childhood. That section is still in the first chapter, but it was too slow for an opening. Now we start with him escaping from a camp, stealing back his knife, and running from certain death. A little more grabbing than a character feeling sorry for himself.

But I digress…

Show. I.e., trimming down the backstory. My Barrenmoor Ridge first page contains lines such as, ‘You were talking about another base camp season,’ he said, showing us that John has worked at Everest base camp before, he’s got something to do with mountaineering, and a discussion has happened before we arrived. Showing, not telling, is something that confuses many aspiring authors, and it can be a hard one to get your head around. I tell plot and action all the time, because sometimes you have to, but I always aim to show things like emotion and feeling. Rather than saying ‘he felt sad’, or ‘John was angry,’ show John crying or kicking over a chair and shouting. The reader will imagine more and thus, be drawn further into the story and character. In Barrenmoor Ridge, John is distracted and not concentrating, and he’s shaking because of something or someone he’s just seen.

Tighten up. There are two paragraphs on my first page that tell us where we are, what’s going on, and give us some atmosphere. We are in the climbers’ café in Inglestone, where cigarette smoke hung in the clammy air mixed with the blue fog of over-fried food. That’s enough to set the scene. We don’t need too many other details of the café beyond the tablecloths and plastic bottles of sauce.

Raise a question. Hopefully, the opening line, John’s trembling hand and a couple of other things raise questions. Who did he just see? Why is he trembling? Why is he refusing a job? How will his life change?

Build empathy. In the opening scene/page, John is doing what most of us have done: meeting with someone in a café and having breakfast. It’s what in screenwriting terms they call ‘the normal world.’ However, the second character tells him, ‘Not just any season,’ she said. ‘Possibly your last. You’re not getting any younger.’ So, we now know he’s getting on a bit, it’s a special opportunity, and he’s done it before. Over the page, we learn that John is getting over the death of his lover, so hopefully, that builds more empathy.

Having just reread that opening, I know I could have done better for a variety of reasons, but, in my defence, it was only my second novel as Jackson, and I was still building my style. A year later, I wrote what was to be a standalone novel based around the Jack the Ripper murders (although in an area of London called ‘Greychurch’ where the Ripper was killing rent boys). Deviant Desire then became the first in an ongoing series of Victorian mysteries, but that wasn’t my original intention. Had it been, I probably would have begun the story in exactly the same way.

Deviant Desire

Opens with:

Silas Hawkins was searching for coins in an East End gutter when a man four miles distant and ten years older sealed his fate.

Can you see the similarities between that and Barrenmoor? Yeah, well, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Start in the right spot. That opening line tells us that the catalyst is on its way; Silas’ life is about to change because of what someone else is doing off stage. The first paragraph goes on to say that even if Silas knew what was to become of him, he wouldn’t have been bothered, because Silas wasn’t the kind of youth to shy from a challenge, not even one that might threaten his life. (Ooh, something dangerous is coming…)

Show. This is about cutting out too much backstory, remember? Well, there isn’t any on the first page, but there is plenty in later chapters. Although this opening is ‘wordy’ in that it is descriptive, that is to set the atmosphere of an October night in London’s East End in 1888. You can’t write about the Ripper and not have atmosphere. Thus, I get a bit Dickensian while making the reader want to know more about Silas’ past:

“In these times, hunger was a keener motivator than sense. It drove need, need drove experience, and in the four years since he had turned his first trick, experience had prepared him for the dangers of life.”

There is some backstory there, four years since he had turned his first trick, but I didn’t really go into detail about those four years until nine books later when I wrote the prequel, Banyak & Fecks, and the story in which those four years come back to haunt Silas, Negative Exposure.

Tighten up. I refer you to the section above about atmosphere. However, the story starts with a bold statement that tells us something major is about to happen to this man who is searching through rubbish leftover at a market hoping to find food. He’s hungry, cold, and he ‘turns tricks.’ We also learn a bit about his character while reading what I hope is suitable and descriptive prose.

Raise a question. As with Barrenmoor, the questions arise from the opening sentence. Who is Silas Hawkins? Why is he searching for coins? Who is the man four miles distant? Why should he change someone’s life? Is the ‘ten years older’ relevant? Will we get an older/younger romance? Later on the page, we learn he’s been turning tricks and we might wonder why, how, and will we get to know more about that?

Build empathy. If you don’t feel sorry for a gamin (street urchin) rooting through trash so he can live, shivering, prostituting himself even during the time of the Ripper and generally not having a pleasant life, then you need to work on your empathy skills. Joking aside, it’s the writer’s job to make the reader feel empathy. Hence, phrases on this page such as Every night on the grimy, gaslit streets was dangerous, and every unlit customer a potential killer, but the threat of starvation gnawed harder than the fear of violence.

A Few Last Words About the First Words

There is a practise in the film script writing world to do with how you introduce a character and how you say goodbye to them. It’s a case of first impressions count, but so do last ones, and the same applies to novel writing. I’m not necessarily talking about the main character here; the rule applies to all characters and to the novel itself. How you meet an entire story is as important as how you meet the MC and others, but so is how you leave it.

Take from the attached advice from One Stop For Writers what you will, but I am going to end with an ending.

In Deviant Desire, we meet Silas on that grimy street, and we leave him 300 pages and one adventure later somewhere entirely different. As for the story, it starts thus:

Silas Hawkins was searching for coins in an East End gutter when a man four miles distant and ten years older sealed his fate.

By the time I got to the end, I decided it was to be an ongoing series, thus, it ends with a different character whose name I have omitted so as not to spoil the story for you.

Revenge was not something [he] thought he would ever contemplate, but he found the idea of it suited him and, as he ordered an ale, he turned his mind to a variety of ways it might be exacted.

Continued in part two, Twisted Tracks

Remember, it’s about how you start and how you finish. It’s about how you introduce your reader to your story, how they leave the story and how the story leaves them. The mark of good storytelling comes when a reader finishes a book wanting to know what happens next to the people in it. This means they have connected with the characters and their world and don’t want the journey to end. The mark of a good first page is to do the same in reverse: to make your reader want to take the journey in the first place.

You can join me on my writer’s journey by tuning into my regular Wednesday work in progress blog. Currently, we’re journeying through Speaking In Silence, the Larkspur Mysteries book five.

Work In Progress 3.05

Posted on 01/06/2022 by Jack Marsh

Speaking In Silence

We are now well on the way to Devizes in Wiltshire. In fact, we will be there at any moment. I am comparing the journey of Speaking In Silence to a train ride from London to Bodmin and looking at my old map of the GWR lines, I’d say Devizes was about a third of the way there or 35,000 words in first draft terms. When we reach Bodmin (estimated time of arrival, 100,000 words), we will have to make the return journey via the second and following drafts, but that’s for much later.

Devizes is also appropriate because that is where my villain lives or lived in real life. At least, he was a member of parliament for the area back in 1891 when the story is set. When I say ‘in real life’, I am basing my character on a newspaper article and on a character from it, but because of what he does in the story, I must point out that the real man didn’t do this in real life. He might have done what he was accused of in the newspapers of the time, but the case was never tried, so who can say?

Research this week has seen me looking up chemical reactions, reading first-hand accounts of London’s East End in the 19^th century, and the etiquette of a country house Friday-to-Monday, what we now call a weekend. The word ‘weekend’ only came into use just before 1920, so it’s another of those words I can’t use, like ‘okay’, ‘teenager’ or, to a certain extent, ‘adolescent.’ ‘Homosexual’ is another one I shouldn’t use (common usage after 1900, only specialised medical use a few years before), and when my books are filled with homosexual adolescents recounting their okay teenage years at the weekend… Well, I revert to the thesaurus on a regular basis. Meanwhile, Jenine has been researching letters patent and advancement of titles, the process of lobbying for someone to receive an earldom and how that happens. Poor thing.

It’s been a busy journey so far, and we nearly had a derailment around Newbury when I found myself stuck. I had planned an ending, but as the characters started telling me their story, I realised the ending was wrong. I had to think up another direction, and we almost jumped the tracks. Now, though, we’re back on them, and the destination is the same, only with a slight detour. As usual, I can’t tell you too much, but I can say that what the near derailment has done, is force me to write characters as knowing what is going on in the story while not being able to tell the reader. You see, in this book, it’s all about what’s not being said that’s important, and yet an awful lot is said. Hence, Speaking In Silence.

The journey continues…

Character Interview with Tadhg Byrne

Posted on 28/05/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Tadhg Byrne, the main character from Beck Grey’s latest release, Embrace Me. Just like Joe Tanner, my MC from The Larkspur Mysteries, Tadhg is deaf. I am hoping that he will share how he feels about his deafness and how this language barrier may affect his relationships.

Before I put Tadhg in the spotlight I asked Beck for a little background info…

We first meet Tadhg Byrne on the day he leaves his abusive ex. He’s living and working in Los Angeles, where he went to college and studied architecture. He made a name for himself in the field and outwardly everything looked wonderful, but his ex was controlling and tried to cut him off from family and friends. Tadhg finally has the courage to leave and go back home to his family in Seattle.

The story really picks up when Tadhg starts his new job at an architectural firm in Seattle. We meet him again a few months after he’s back in Seattle, on his first day of work at his new job. He stops at a small café to get coffee and pastries for himself and his interpreter, Kaino. But Kaino is allergic to coconut oil, so Tadhg needs to ask about the ingredients in the food. However, he’s deaf, doesn’t have his phone, and no one working in the café knows ASL, American Sign Language.

As he’s struggling to communicate with the workers in the café, Quinn MacDougall interrupts to offer assistance. He knows some ASL and attempts to help facilitate communication. There is a strong attraction between Tadhg and Quinn, but neither attempts to get or give phone numbers for a future meet up. Luckily for them both, they find out that they now work for the same firm.

What is your full name?

Tadhg Donovan Byrne

Where and when were you born?

I was March 8th, 1986 in Seattle, Washington

What three words would others probably use to describe you?

Deaf with a capital D. Tenacious. Driven.

So that our readers can picture you better, what colour are your eyes?

Quinn would say they’re crystal blue, but I just say blue.

Do you have any physical traits that stand out such as scars, birthmarks or tattoos?

I’d say my most obvious physical trait that everyone notices is my deafness. I was born hearing, but when I was five I contracted meningitis and had a fever that was high enough and long enough to damage my auditory nerves. My mom, who is absolutely amazing, immediately enrolled us in a family ASL class at the local community college. She and I went twice a week for a few hours a session, and she hired a private tutor to come two other nights a week. She dove right in.

I do also have a tattoo of a Celtic dragon on my upper right arm. They symbolize wisdom and power.

It’s a reminder that I’m smart and strong enough to do what needs to be done, but it’s also what I should strive for. It’s both a reminder and a manifestation.

Do you mind telling us a little about how it is to be deaf/non speaking. Do you see it as a disability?

It’s my life. I don’t know any other way to be. I don’t remember much about when I could hear. I was born hearing, but when I was five, I contracted meningitis and had a fever that was high enough and long enough to damage my auditory nerves.
And no, it’s not a disability. Hearing is just something I can’t do. Like some people can’t roll their tongue, or other people are colorblind and can’t see certain colors.

A more sensitive question maybe, but have you been bullied because of it?

I think everyone experienced some form of bullying at some point in their lives. But I had friends in kindergarten who stayed my friends after I became deaf. I wanted to stay in my mainstream school with my friends through sixth grade, but the school was smaller and I knew all the teachers and students. It got a lot harder in middle school, and that’s when I convinced my mom to send me to a Deaf School. It was amazing and really helped me learn about what it means to be Deaf and to reach my full potential as a person.

You have already mentioned your mother a couple of times, she sounds like a real rock in your life. Tell us a little more about her.

She is called Mia (nee Dennehy) Byrne. She’s 58 years old and was born in Galway, Ireland. My mom is a force of nature. She’s the strongest person I know and we’re very close. She studied to be a nurse before I was born, and after she married and then divorced my stepfather, Bryan McCarthy, she went back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner. Now she works in a cardiac care unit for a highly prestigious medical group in Seattle and is frequently after Blake, my stepbrother, to stop pushing himself so much. We get together and have movie nights or go to dinner frequently.

And how about the rest of your immediate family?

My father was James Byrne. If he’s still alive, he’s 69 years old. He was born in Limerick, Ireland, but moved to Galway as a young man, which is where he met my mom. My parents were married in Ireland and moved to the USA before I was born. They divorced when I was five after I lost my hearing due to a severe case of meningitis. My mom learned ASL with me, but my father refused. When they divorced, he moved back to Ireland and we haven’t had contact with him since.
Then came my stepfather, Bryan McCarthy. He was born in Tacoma, Washington. He was a very jovial, generous man, but he drank a lot and had a wandering eye. He and my mom met in the hospital when he was admitted for tests for liver issues. They started dating and got married when I was six, had several good years together, and then amicably divorced. She got a huge settlement out of it, kept the house, Bryan remarried, and I got to keep my brother Blake. I got the best part of that deal. While she was married to Bryan, I was lucky enough to have a stellar education, both in and out of the Deaf community, an amazing place to live, vacations and nice clothes and so many other things.
I also have a stepbrother: Blake McCarthy 46 years old, Born July 29, 1974, in Seattle,
Washington.

It sounds like your childhood was a bit up and down…

It was pretty normal until I was five and lost my hearing. Then things were pretty bad for a few years, financially and emotionally. Mom and I had a lot to deal with. But then my mom got remarried and things got a lot better. That’s when I gained a step-brother, who is still one of my very best friends.

So who has had the most influence on you and how did they become your role model?

Besides my mom, who is an incredible woman and the strongest person I know, I’d have to say my step-brother Blake. We’re incredibly close, even though there’s a twelve-year age gap between us. I met him when our parents got married. Blake was 18, and I was 6. We were 20 and 8 when they divorced. Blake stayed in touch with me and my mom, and saw us frequently. He is my biggest supporter, but also the first one to tell me when I’m out of line about something. He always has my back, no matter what. And I’ll always be there for him, too.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

First, I wanted to be a dinosaur, but then Blake told me that wasn’t a viable career path, so I decided that I’d sell ice cream. Oh, the dreams of a six-year-old. When I got older, I wanted to be an artist and quickly realized I loved drawing geometric shapes and things that followed set patterns. When I was at school, one of the dorms was being renovated and I got my first look at blueprints. I was about fourteen. One of the teachers saw my interest and helped facilitate conversations with the workers and the architect on the project. I was hooked ever since.
Now Architecture is my passion.

When did you have your first kiss, and who with?

I was sixteen, and it was with Jake Zemanski. He was in my class and I thought he was sweet and cute. We’d been dancing around each other for months because I wasn’t completely sure he was into me. Probably because he wasn’t sure either. As a gay, Deaf teen at a boarding school, there weren’t many other out guys and Jake was still trying to figure himself out. Was he bi? Was he gay? Did he just like me? I knew pretty early on that I was gay.
Anyway, we were in the rec room playing foosball and everyone else was outside, or watching a movie or something. This was my first crush that wasn’t a celebrity, and I was in knots over him. At some point, we stopped pretending we were interested in foosball. He came over to my side of the table and stuck the ball in my goal and said he won. I asked him what the prize was, and he said a kiss.
Who was I to argue? It was actually really sweet, and soft, and pretty perfect if I’m honest. Not all awkward and too wet, like some ‌stories my friends have told me about their first kisses. I guess I got lucky.

Let’s chat about your relationships with others. Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?

No. I believe there are the right people for the place you are in life right then. And if they care, and if you are truly compatible, then you will grow together as people and in your relationship.
And that will make it last.

What do you look for in a potential lover?

Acceptance. Understanding. Empathy. Kindness. Someone with a loving heart who can express themselves but who can also communicate well.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Integrity.

How important is it to you that your partner is also deaf or at least can communicate in ASL?

Very. I am a Deaf man. It’s who I am, and I am unapologetic about that. People ask me if I’m sad I lost my hearing, or if I wish I could hear. My answer is absolutely no. I don’t want to hear. I don’t need to hear to have a full life. What am I missing because I can’t hear? Music? I love music and play it all the time. The sound of laughter? I don’t need to hear the actual sound to enjoy laughing, or the joy of seeing someone else laugh.
My partner needs to understand and embrace that. They need to want to and be able to be a part of that. My language is ASL, so my partner needs to know my language. I can’t learn to hear, so they have to learn to communicate with me in my language.
In any relationship, there is always compromise. Whose turn it is to do the dishes or whether you paint the living room beige or teal are typical couple compromises and are necessary for a stable, loving relationship. But you can’t compromise who you are, and who I am is a Deaf man.
The person I’m with needs to understand and accept that, just like I’ll have to understand and accept things about them, too.

What is your greatest regret so far, why?

Getting involved with my ex, Aston, and letting him control me, and isolate me from my friends and family for so long. He made me doubt myself, my ability to make decisions for myself. It was such an abusive relationship, and I didn’t see it until way after I should have. I’m still working on trusting my decisions, but every day I grow more confident. Quinn and Blake have a lot to do with that. Their faith in me gives me faith in myself.

What is your biggest secret?

I don’t really have secrets. Not anymore. My abusive relationship with Aston was a secret for years. I was so ashamed that I let it happen that I couldn’t tell anyone or ask for help. My best friend Tyler and my step-brother Blake figured it out on their own and got me out of there.

Who is the most important person in your life, why?

I have four important people in my life, all for different reasons, but none more or less
important than any of the others. My mom, my step-brother Blake, my partner Quinn, and my best friend, Tyler. They’ve all been there for me when things were bleak, and I love them all fiercely.

Do you like yourself?

I do. I like and love myself. And I’m learning to forgive myself for mistakes I’ve made. I’m a work in progress.

It sounds like you are in a positive place, so where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Married to Quinn, the man of my dreams, working at our own successful architectural firm.
Maybe having a dog and talking about adopting kids. Happy. That’s where I see myself in five years. Very happy.

And now a few fun questions, what is your favorite color?

Gray. I know! People say that’s boring, but I love the contrast against white, and it’s a pretty bold color in its way.

What is your most treasured possession?

My family, and my culture.

Do you like to read?

I love to read. I read a lot of different things, depending on my mood. I’ll read biographies of famous architects, or Deaf pioneers. I’ll read books about architecture. I’ll read classic science fiction.

My brother Blake is a publisher for Hibernian Press, Gary Atkinson’s publishing company. Gary is one of my favorite authors. I get all of his books from Blake. They’re very similar to Tom Clancy’s books, only with more emotion and better sex scenes.

What makes you laugh?

Quinn, because he’s always doing or saying something funny.

What do you have in your pocket?

My phone and my wallet.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Clothing. I love quality clothing. Quinn thinks I’m a clotheshorse, and I suppose I am. I can’t help it. I love the way quality clothing feels on, and how it makes me feel wearing it. Like I can take on anything and succeed.

And the final question I like to ask everyone, who would you like to invite to your fantasy dinner party?

Four people:

Frank Lloyd Wright, a world-famous architect, because his designs inspire me and I’d love to discuss his use of space and place and incorporating nature into his work.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, another famous architect. Along with Frank Lloyd Wright, he’s one of the pioneers of modernist architecture. I’d love to pick his brain.

Kitty O’Neil, “the fastest woman in the world”. She was a stunt woman and a race driver, setting 22 different speed records on land and water in her lifetime. Oh, and she happened to also be deaf.

Vinton Gray Cerf, who is a huge advocate for accessibility, was on the board of trustees for Gallaudet University, is an advocate for net neutrality, and is recognized as one of “the fathers of the Internet”. He’s also hard of hearing.

That sounds like a dynamic guest list!

Thank you so much Tadhg for taking the time to pop in and answer our readers’ questions. Thank you for being so honest and open with your answers, especially sharing how you have turned past challenges into a positive outlook for the future, great inspiration for us all. I wish you all the luck in the world with your new romance, Quinn is very lucky to have found you!

Blurb

Tadhg: After a nasty breakup with my manipulative ex, I returned home to Seattle to lick my wounds. I’m done with relationships. From now on I’m focusing on my career.There are just a few issues with that.

1. It’s not that easy for a Deaf man to succeed in a Hearing world, even with the right degree and experience.
2. Quinn MacDougall. He’s my co-worker. He’s also incredibly talented, driven, and distractingly handsome.
3. He’s hearing. And that’s the biggest problem of all. How can someone who isn’t Deaf ever truly understand and accept me?
Embrace Me is a 95,000-word contemporary MM romance about language barriers, loving but demanding families, crappy bosses, and sexy guys in speedos. It contains no cheating, and a guaranteed Happily Ever After.
You can connect with Author Beck Grey here.

Work In Progress 3.04

Posted on 25/05/2022 by Jack Marsh

Speaking In Silence

On this train journey from London to Cornwall, which is how I am measuring my progress on Speaking In Silence, we have now reached Reading. That, in my writing world, represents chapter six, and about 20,000 words. The journey was running smoothly until we had engine trouble early last week at Slough.

For the previous few days, I’d been having trouble with my left eye; seeing things floating around in it that I couldn’t wash out. Thinking I should do something about this, I popped down to see our local doctor, who, after an examination, recommended I saw an ophthalmologist. We don’t have one of them here on the island, so, I called my health insurance people, and they agreed to arrange a consultation with one on Rhodes. The agent rang back me late on Tuesday evening to say I had an appointment for 10.15 the next day. Luckily, at this time of year, there is a daily boat leaving at 7.45, so I caught that on Wednesday and was in the ophthalmologist’s chair at the appointed time. After nearly two hours of all kinds of tests, and with my pupils fully dilated for the next six hours, she rang the optical centre down the road, and they told me to come straight on over.

During the time the drops were expanding my pupils to the size of a bushbaby’s eyes, I’d popped out to buy sunglasses to wear over my usual specs, and boy, did I need them as I fumbled my way up the road, across the crossing and down another road, blundering into the medical centre a few minutes later. Another quick consultation with a second specialist and I was in his operating chair within ten minutes of arriving. (You have to love Greece for its abundance of specialists who charge very reasonable rates.) The diagnosis was a tear on my retina, and that’s a tear as in rip, not a tear as in drip. Ten minutes and 150 laser shots later, I was done. Yes, it was painful; like someone sticking a needle in your eye followed by a punch inside your head, though not on every shot, so when you thought it was over and the shots weren’t hurting, you’d get another stab. Afterwards, the doc told me, ‘You can’t jog,’ to which I replied, ‘You’re right, I can’t,’ and I am not to lift weights or bend over or violently shake my head for a month, but I am, at least, repaired.

Anyhow, that kept me from working and caused another hiatus in my journey, but I re-joined the train last Thursday, and have been chugging along ever since.

If you’re wondering why the train references, it’s because the pivotal story point of Speaking In Silence happened on a train journey from Brighton to Croydon in 1891. I am basing my character’s story on a true event from that year, though setting the backstory in 1887 for convenience. The story isn’t all about trains, though they will come into it, it’s about friendship. For those readers hankering for another love story, you might have to hanker a little longer, as this next book will be about friend-love, rather than erotic love.

And on that note, I should sway my way up-carriage and find Edward, the character who is currently telling his friends what happened to him when he was 16, and why a visit to the Larkspur Academy by a group of prominent MPs should have given him cause to run away. I’ll check in with you at the next stop next Wednesday, when, eyes, lasers and bushbabies willing, I will have progressed the story further.

A newly commissioned drawing of one of my favourite characters, get to know him better here

Work In Progress 3.02

Posted on 11/05/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

Work In Progress 3.02

Week two of the creation of ‘Speaking in Silence’ and I’m afraid I will have to be rather silent on the subject. I said in my last WIP blog that I intended ‘beginning on the book proper in a couple of weeks.’ I still do, and the couple of weeks has now become one week. I intend to start on it on Sunday. Meanwhile, I have been reading about railways, investigating a few other matters I need to know, and inventing scenes in my head.

So, the WIP news this week is that there isn’t any WIP news this week, but I’m looking forward to knuckling down again in a few days. Summer is fast approaching, and that means I’ll be up at my usual summer morning time of 4.30-ish, at the desk by five if not sooner, and will have all morning and, when it’s not too hot, all afternoon to dedicate to the next Larkspur adventure. I’ll be keeping you informed as I progress through it.

The Author’s Bible

Posted on 07/05/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

Or, in my case, two bibles, and we’re not talking religious texts. We’re talking about notebooks. Today, I thought I’d take you through my author’s bible. In other words, how I keep track of characters, places, descriptions and facts when writing a long and ongoing series. The photos show my two main notebooks, with brief explanations as to what you are looking at.

In the Beginning…

I have a chest in which I keep my original notes. I started this collection about two years BC (that’s Before Clearwater), and the papers are now yellowing, and the writing is fading. I used to make notes about the stories I was writing on pieces of scrap A4 paper, usually the backs of drafts I’d had printed, and among them is a list of most commonly mistyped words. I use that to check the full manuscript when I reach the end of a draft; words like form and from, for example. But these notes are not my author’s bible, that is a leather-bound, blank page notebook Neil bought me for Christmas 2018, and just after I’d written ‘Curious Moonlight’, I decided to start keeping my story thoughts in it. The first few pages concern a Gormenghast type story I was thinking of writing, and the only thing not now crossed out is a list of names: Anthem, the choirmaster, Pook, a serving boy, Tripp, a footman, and Archie with no job, but whose name means ‘genuine and bold.’

The beginning. As you can see, the Clearwater Series started in January 2019, and the first book was originally titled Deviant Lamplight, then Deviant Devotion and finally, Deviant Desire because the other two ideas were, frankly, terrible.

And therein lies the beginning of the Clearwater Mysteries. ‘A brethren of seven…’ was among my first notes, and I carried that idea over to the Clearwater crew: Archer, Silas, Fecker, James, Thomas… Well, a brethren of five that later becomes seven with Jasper and Billy, and then eight with Mrs Norwood, and so on until I now have a cast of thousands.

So, with 11 Clearwater books and, now, four Larkspur novels, how do I keep track of the details, and why?

Why is Easy

If you read a book and the character has blue eyes in chapter one, but brown eyes in chapter ten… If Larkspur Hall was in Bodmin one moment, and near Bodmin the next, or if Silas’ mother came from Dublin in one book and somewhere else in another… You see where I am going with this? It’s easy, as an author, to think I’ll remember that, and not write things down. Later, say two or three full novels later, you think, Ah yes, I remember I had to remember that, but what was it…? And then, you spend half a day searching your copy of the novel you thought the fact was in, only not to find it, and end up rewriting your section to avoid having to mention the important fact.

Keeping concise but accurate notes about the world you are inventing is safer all-round, even though you think, It’s my world, I won’t forget that.

You will.

How is Another Matter

Every author has their own way of keeping a record, notes, the author’s bible, as it’s commonly known. Some hire people to do it for them, to read the entire series and make notes on everything. Some people do this because they are fans, others, to earn money. I do it as I go, but I don’t do it in any structured way, by which I mean, my bible doesn’t have an index. I do, though, know roughly where to find things, and failing that, I flick through the pages.

Once I knew Deviant Desire was going to lead to a second book, I decided to use my new leather notebook to keep my facts, and started with Archer.

Archer’s notes updated over time.

These two pages contain the basics about my main character. His full name, titles, date of birth and other unchangeable facts like where and when he went to school and his physical description. Over the page, we have a double-page spread about Silas, including the date he and Archer met, and how old he is. Then comes Andrej (Fecker), Thomas, ‘East End and other characters’, minor characters not seen, other locations, a glossary, the list of murders, places and dates (from Deviant Desire), and a page of random notes.

After a blank page comes the name Sam Wright… Crossed out and replaced by Jim… Crossed out and finally replaced by James Joseph Wright, messenger, 25 years old (born Jan 10^th 1863), started at post office aged 14, not 100% attractive (sorry, Jimmy), Fecker’s nickname for him Tato (daddy), and ‘James writes with a pen (book 9).’

Moving through the book, I find lists of dates as to when things happened, who works at the house next door, a page listing servants’ wages in 1888, and a rough plan of the ground floor of Clearwater House.

Clearwater House. My first attempt at a layout to help me picture how to get from one room to another, to improve consistency.

As you might have gathered by now, I keep the notes according to the book I am writing at the time. I stop now and then, usually after completing a book, to add to the previous pages and make other notes and lists about the world, not about the stories; that’s a separate matter. For the Clearwater series, I kept story notes in a separate notebook, jotting down ideas and points to answer, clues to solve and how, and story details, then later, I put the pertinent ones in the bible. If I filled the pages of the leather book with story notes, there would be so many things crossed out, it would make the book messy and even harder to read than it is.

Moving on, we next find a page outlining the characters’ skills, because, at that time, I was comparing them to superheroes – not in the stories, but in my head. So Archer was Iron Man and skilled in combat, money, and status. James (Captain America), communications, fitness, strength. Fecker (Thor), strength, loyalty, transport. Thomas (J.A.R.V.I.S.), Logic, cool head, planning… And so on.

For ‘Twisted Tracks’, I drew a map of the railway route I’d invented. Book three’s notes include a page of villains, and who was dead by then, and book four outlines who was on the board of the Clearwater Foundation. Also in the Fallen Splendour section are notes such as ‘Silas wears Curzon cologne’, and ‘Fanny… crossed out, Sarah… crossed out… Mrs Norwood, 40s, James’ old schoolteacher.’

Book five is set at Larkspur Hall, and as that was the first time we’d been there in detail, there’s a list of servants, places on the estate, ‘A patchwork of a property,’ ‘Ruined church from Dissolution’, and ‘abbey given in 1538,’ which is a worry as I am sure I’ve said it was another date in another book.

You see, even though you keep notes, you don’t always use them. I know I once messed up on the address of Clearwater House saying, in one book, it was in Bucks Avenue and then in another that it was in Bucks Row. (Bucks Row was a site of a Jack the Ripper murder.) I was able to go back and change that later, but I am sure there are other minor inconsistencies caused by ‘I remember that, no need to look it up.’

Occasionally, I paste things into the bible, such as this note, written on the back of receipt.

Romanian. Gabriel’s translation and some of my notes about pronunciation.

I was sitting at our local café one day and was joined by a Romanian friend. That was handy because I was writing ‘Bitter Bloodline’, which features a Romanian villain, and although I’d used Google translate, I wanted to be sure the most important sentence in the book was correct. Gabriel, my Romanian mate, wrote it down for me, and then I told him we were talking about Transylvania in 1889. He rewrote it, because the language would have been slightly different, and that’s what that note is all about.

What Else Should Be in the Bible?

I don’t want to bore you with details of every page of my book, but apart from those things mentioned above, it also contains pages titled:

Height, Hair & Build (brief character references)

Skills (again, but with more characters)

Archers’ family tree by three generations

Notes about Larkspur Hall

A calendar of character’s birthdays (Harvey, a minor character, June 2^nd, Jasper Blackwood, 1^st August, Silas, 21^st October, etc.) These minor facts are useful to know and use because they add depth to stories, even if it’s only a mention.

A calendar of years of birth. Archer 1859, Thomas 1861, Fecker, probably 1865 but no-one really knows.

A rough map of the area around Clearwater House

Extended family tree for The Clearwater Inheritance

Who’s Who at Larkspur Hall, March 1890

The guest list for Archer’s 31^st birthday party

Ages. Character’s ages through the years and some other major events. This makes it so much easier to remember how old people are. If you look closely, you’ll see that Fecker started renting in 1883 when he was 16, though he may have been older, and James started at the post office (PO) in 1877. You never know when such trivia will come in useful.

And so on and so on until we hit a page on which I have (badly) drawn three standing stones and the title The Larkspur Mysteries, June 2021, and underlined it in red as if it were school homework.

Two Bibles

I’m now a two-bible household. I keep the leather notebook going, and still add to previous pages, while using up more to give the same basic details of the new characters from the Larkspur Mysteries. However, when I started this second series, I decided to use a large, lined book that a friend had made for me. The cover is decorated with the titles of the books from the Clearwater Mysteries, but I am using the book as a bible/notebook for the Larkspur Series.

Big book.
Notes on the viscountcy of Larkspur from 1541 to the present day (1891), for ‘Seeing Through Shadows.’

That’s one example of how I am creating the Larkspur bible alongside the Clearwater bible. I’m not repeating facts from the first to the second, but I am adding facts from the second to relevant places in the first. I’m also using it to outline the stories, track the timeline, create character arcs, and make story notes. The Clearwater bible remains my go-to place for the basics, but now, using the larger Larkspur book, I can keep all my story notes in one, lovely to write on, set of pages and not the old trunk.

Revelations

I hope you found the above interesting. If I have a final point to make about why authors should keep a bible, it’s this:

When you create a fictional world, you are the Creator. You are omnipotent and expected to know all, see all, and care for all you have created. Unless you really are the Creator, it’s unlikely you will store every fabulous fact in your memory, so if in doubt, write it down.

Notebooks yet to be used, except for the green one which I used when writing the Saddling series as James Collins.

As for me, I have plenty more notebooks waiting to be filled…

Work In Progress 2.5

Posted on 23/02/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

Dusk in the woods

Here’s an update on Larkspur Four (still untitled). I am now up to just over 42,000 words and approaching the halfway mark. It’s clear this isn’t going to be a nail-biter like ‘Agents’ or some of the other Clearwater books. It’s more of a slowly evolving mystery of things and people that go bump in the night. ‘Things’, because our new character is investigating the sighting of a ghost from the past which is threatening Larkspur Hall, and ‘people’, because he has met someone at Academy House who has started to stir his heartstrings. Therefore, book four will be a gradually unfolding mystery with plenty of history (real and imagined), a budding love story, and a twist that I hope no-one sees coming.

If ‘book four’ has a background theme, it is one of perceptions. Among it all, I have expanded an idea I used in ‘The Clearwater Inheritance.’ People have commented on my use of an owl in that book; there’s a scene where an owl flies over the estate at night and we get to see into the Hall and what’s going on without being inside or in a character’s point of view. I have used the same device twice so far in book four, but not just with the owl.

I’ll leave you with a short extract from draft one — and remember, this is only a rough draft. (A fox is looking down on the ruined abbey at night.)

Head down, ears up, whiskers out, it stalked and scrutinised, climbing higher to the edge of its realm, until it reached the last of the day and sat in the sanctity of night, listening to the empty moor behind, surveying all below and fearing none above. Not even the up-lit white of the circling owl, its competitor and nightly companion, vigilant, silent and deadly.

Beneath, its equal, the fox crouched low and watched a spectral shape of lighter against darker appear from lower down. It spread around a figure hastening towards its hunting ground, the marred masonry of man, and the fox’s hackles rose in defiance of the intrusion. Forehead furrowed, a growl in its throat, it readied its voice, but no sound came.

As deftly as it had darted, the light died among the shifts and shapes of flint and granite, until the last speck of trespass had melted into the earth, and there was nothing left of the night but the owl high above, and the fox contemplating the business of its nightly hunt.

On Friday you can catch another preview on fellow author, Ofelia Grand’s website. I will be her guest blogger, hope to see you there!

For now it’s time for another cup of tea and back to my boys, have a good day, Jack

Work In Progress 2.4

Posted on 16/02/2022 by Jenine Woodhall

The Larkspur Mysteries book four

So, where am I?… Oh yes, the still untitled Larkspur book four. It’s still called ‘Chester Cadman’ as a working title, because that’s the name of the new main character. All I can tell you about him is that he comes with a few surprises. I could tell you a lot more, as I am getting to know him quite well, but I don’t want to spoil anything for you. I am currently at chapter 10 and 37,776 words of a rough, first draft.

I’ve had to double-check the layout of Larkspur Hall and the grounds, look up the history of Larkspur Abbey, and invent a few stories from the past. This has involved delving beyond my newspaper archive right back to 1541 and the dissolution of the monasteries (1536 to 1541).

The present day is January 1891, as the country suffers a very cold winter, and the location for book four is Cornwall. So far, it looks like it’s all going to take place on the Larkspur Estate and at Academy House as well as inside the main Hall, out in the grounds and further afield to one of the farms on Bodmin Moor. There is an old mystery to solve, so in a way, this book is going to be like a cold case solved by a new character. For a change, Tom Payne has more of the protagonist role than Lord Clearwater, Frank Andino plays a major part, and I am setting up other characters, threads and mysteries for the future.

Here’s a brief extract from a book found in the Larkspur library:

An Account of Strange Events Witnessed and Reported at Larkspur Hall

Compiled from Documents, Diaries and Other Sources

by Hedrek Nancarrow, Librarian, 1878

There are many tales of the nocturnal visitant to the Larkspur Estate, some handed down through generations by word of mouth, others documented by Hall staff and the family, and some from testimony given, in later years, to the police. Earlier, there are others given to the village bailiff, the incumbent vicar or rector, and previous notable men of Larkspur village. Below, I present a selection of such reports in the order of their date, and from this, several things will be noted…  

Thus, I conclude the origins of the story. Suffice to say, in 1540, a tryst between the monk, Madroc, and an unnamed serving girl gave rise to the dismissal of both, and that, in turn led to the formation of a ghost believed to be the spirit of the murdered girl, which was, in fact, an invention to keep out the unwanted. During the civil war and estate troubles of the mid-1600s, the tale passed into lore, and did not rear its spectral head again until much later.