Ask the Author: B.K. Duncan
Answered Questions (10)
B.K. Duncan
Hi, Christine.
Thank you so much for your congratulations. I'm so thrilled an proud that readers have voted me into the final of The People's Book Prize. It is a truly democratic prize in that it is voted for exclusively by the public and I will be one of the finalists in both the fiction category and for the Beryl Bainbridge First Time Author Award.
Since I received the good news I've been hard at work finishing the second book in the May Keaps series -- Found Drowned -- which will be published to coincide with the Awards Ceremony on May 27th 2016 (if you want to see me in the flesh, it'll be televised on SKY). You had the correct dates for the opening of the polls for the final, 15th to 27th May, and anyone can register between now and then to have the opportunity to vote. People can also leave a comment on Foul Trade (fiction section: page 2: click on the cover with the map) to let others know what they thought of the book and to encourage votes to be cast my way. The webpage link is here: www.peoplesbookprize.com
Thanks again for your kind words. Knowing that readers have enjoyed what I've written gives me such immense pleasure and the satisfaction of a job well done comes from being told my work has been appreciated.
Best wishes
BK
Thank you so much for your congratulations. I'm so thrilled an proud that readers have voted me into the final of The People's Book Prize. It is a truly democratic prize in that it is voted for exclusively by the public and I will be one of the finalists in both the fiction category and for the Beryl Bainbridge First Time Author Award.
Since I received the good news I've been hard at work finishing the second book in the May Keaps series -- Found Drowned -- which will be published to coincide with the Awards Ceremony on May 27th 2016 (if you want to see me in the flesh, it'll be televised on SKY). You had the correct dates for the opening of the polls for the final, 15th to 27th May, and anyone can register between now and then to have the opportunity to vote. People can also leave a comment on Foul Trade (fiction section: page 2: click on the cover with the map) to let others know what they thought of the book and to encourage votes to be cast my way. The webpage link is here: www.peoplesbookprize.com
Thanks again for your kind words. Knowing that readers have enjoyed what I've written gives me such immense pleasure and the satisfaction of a job well done comes from being told my work has been appreciated.
Best wishes
BK
B.K. Duncan
Hi, Christine.
I'm so glad you are enjoying the audiobook of Foul Trade. I haven't listened to my own copy yet; I'm a little nervous in case my words don't live up to the voice of a professional actor. I do read my work aloud though in the final editing stages -- sometimes to myself, and sometimes to a close friend for feedback. It's very difficult to proofread your own work because you know what you meant to have written and see the words that ought to be there even when they aren't, but reading them out makes me concentrate on each one and I pick up a lot of mistakes and omissions that way. When I first started writing novels I used to record myself reading and then play it back; it was a little like having my work on the radio and helped me get some objectivity on the story. But I don't do that any more. Partially time pressures, but also because I'm a more accomplished self-editor these days.
Magna, who produced the audiobook, chose the actor and from your feedback they obviously did a very good job. Annie Aldington has said that she is Martina Cole's favourite reader, so I'm in good company.
I would love it if my books were made into either radio or television programmes. I suspect the latter would be more problematic because although I based my locations on thorough historical research (all the streets of Poplar and Limehouse were exactly where I said they were according to the 1916 Ordnance Survey maps) the docklands area of London was bombed heavily in the London Blitz, and has been extensively redeveloped over the past 30 years. But they can recreate Victorian Whitechapel for stories featuring Jack the Ripper so perhaps with the magic of television and computer imagery they can bring back the East End Map Keaps would recognise. Wouldn't it be fabulous if they could have some three-masted schooners sailing into West India Dock as well?
I'm so glad you are enjoying the audiobook of Foul Trade. I haven't listened to my own copy yet; I'm a little nervous in case my words don't live up to the voice of a professional actor. I do read my work aloud though in the final editing stages -- sometimes to myself, and sometimes to a close friend for feedback. It's very difficult to proofread your own work because you know what you meant to have written and see the words that ought to be there even when they aren't, but reading them out makes me concentrate on each one and I pick up a lot of mistakes and omissions that way. When I first started writing novels I used to record myself reading and then play it back; it was a little like having my work on the radio and helped me get some objectivity on the story. But I don't do that any more. Partially time pressures, but also because I'm a more accomplished self-editor these days.
Magna, who produced the audiobook, chose the actor and from your feedback they obviously did a very good job. Annie Aldington has said that she is Martina Cole's favourite reader, so I'm in good company.
I would love it if my books were made into either radio or television programmes. I suspect the latter would be more problematic because although I based my locations on thorough historical research (all the streets of Poplar and Limehouse were exactly where I said they were according to the 1916 Ordnance Survey maps) the docklands area of London was bombed heavily in the London Blitz, and has been extensively redeveloped over the past 30 years. But they can recreate Victorian Whitechapel for stories featuring Jack the Ripper so perhaps with the magic of television and computer imagery they can bring back the East End Map Keaps would recognise. Wouldn't it be fabulous if they could have some three-masted schooners sailing into West India Dock as well?
B.K. Duncan
Thank you for such a variety of questions, Lesley, all about my favourite subject. I read books the old-fashioned way. I guess because they are my stock-in-trade, have childhood memories of hours spent in libraries, and feel I already spend too much of my time in front of an electronic screen. Plus, I love the smell of books. Particularly pre-owned ones. There is something about picking up a battered hardback in a second-hand bookshop or charity shop or from a market stall and wondering who read it before me; where it has been until it got in my hands; what did the other owners find in its foxed pages? One of my cherished ones has a history all of its own; a 1951 first edition by Harold Dearden had been in the Derby Mechanics’ Institution Library and stuck on the title page is this notice:
‘The attention of borrowers is directed to the following Extract from Clause 171, Derby Corporation Act, 1901:- “No person shall return to any Lending Library any book which has been to his knowledge exposed to infection from any infectious disease, but shall at once give notice that it has been exposed to infection to the Medical Officer of Health or to the Inspector of Nuisances, who shall cause the same to be disinfected and then returned to the Librarian. If any person offends against this enactment he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings.”.”’
Doesn’t that make you want to write a story? Particularly given the title of the book: ‘Aspects of Murder’.
I don’t collect books as such (although my groaning shelves of thousands would give lie to that) and acquire them for reading rather than any monetary or rarity value, but I will hunt down a scare book on a subject I’m researching or to add to a particular author’s works. I have everything Robertson Davies published. My latest quest is to read all of J.B. Priestley’s vast output – novels, plays, essays, radio broadcasts, criticism, social history, writing wisdom – and as I’ll want to go back to some of them again and again I feel I have to own them. Call it obsessing rather than collecting.
Favourite modern authors is a tricky one because I go through phases of obsession (see above) and it will also change depending on what I am writing myself in terms of genre or theme. I also have a problem determining what constitutes ‘modern’; my books are set in the Great War and the 1920s and so I read a lot of the authors of that time to get a flavour of the tone and language: right now J.B. Priestley feels modern to me! But I’ll plump for a couple because you’ve asked me to . . . Andrew Taylor, Sarah Waters, Annie Proulx, A. S. Byatt . . . You see, I can’t restrict myself at all when it comes to books!
‘The attention of borrowers is directed to the following Extract from Clause 171, Derby Corporation Act, 1901:- “No person shall return to any Lending Library any book which has been to his knowledge exposed to infection from any infectious disease, but shall at once give notice that it has been exposed to infection to the Medical Officer of Health or to the Inspector of Nuisances, who shall cause the same to be disinfected and then returned to the Librarian. If any person offends against this enactment he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings.”.”’
Doesn’t that make you want to write a story? Particularly given the title of the book: ‘Aspects of Murder’.
I don’t collect books as such (although my groaning shelves of thousands would give lie to that) and acquire them for reading rather than any monetary or rarity value, but I will hunt down a scare book on a subject I’m researching or to add to a particular author’s works. I have everything Robertson Davies published. My latest quest is to read all of J.B. Priestley’s vast output – novels, plays, essays, radio broadcasts, criticism, social history, writing wisdom – and as I’ll want to go back to some of them again and again I feel I have to own them. Call it obsessing rather than collecting.
Favourite modern authors is a tricky one because I go through phases of obsession (see above) and it will also change depending on what I am writing myself in terms of genre or theme. I also have a problem determining what constitutes ‘modern’; my books are set in the Great War and the 1920s and so I read a lot of the authors of that time to get a flavour of the tone and language: right now J.B. Priestley feels modern to me! But I’ll plump for a couple because you’ve asked me to . . . Andrew Taylor, Sarah Waters, Annie Proulx, A. S. Byatt . . . You see, I can’t restrict myself at all when it comes to books!
B.K. Duncan
My protagonists are always themselves and never me – it’s like having a best friend who you are close to and know very well but can never fully predict. Where I do call on my own experiences is when it comes to emotional reactions. I can’t possibly know how anybody else really feels when they are in love, betrayed, hurt, angry, hopeful or disappointed, so I have to give characters my own reactions because they are the only ones I know from the inside. But they will differ with each character’s personality, just as they change within me depending on circumstances, age, and with the coolness of hindsight (sometimes: often they are painfully current!).
As with a best friend, I learn more about my characters from us spending time together. Before I start a novel I do everything I can to dig under the skin to find out what makes my character tick – and with the protagonist, this can take files of detailed work. Every aspect I can think of that would make them who they are. There my knowledge of psychology comes into play with the sorts of things that mould each of us into the unique person we are (background, family, relationships, hopes, fears, strengths, flaws, moral compass etc) and it’s these areas that inform the attitudes I can assign to each character. And, as I write historical fiction, each must be appropriate to the time in which they would’ve lived. I also go off-piste a little and scour books on star signs, enneagrams, transactional analysis or motivational theory to make sure I am imbuing my characters with qualities I don’t possess and wouldn’t automatically think of (being house-proud or excessively fatalistic, for example) which helps check:
a) they are all not like me;
b) are different from each other;
c) have the potential to clash personalities and for misunderstandings (always great for plot complications).
But it is in the writing of the story that I discover who they truly are and this, as you suggest, does change the plot as I realise they wouldn’t react in the way I had sketched out for them or have extra depths I can use to my advantage. The first draft (and often the next ones) is always about getting the story down. It is in the rewriting that is comes alive. When the characters begin to live and breathe. So, a structured approach, some insight into what makes people who they are, and a fair degree of alchemy arising from the writing process are what ties the story to the characters and the blends the characters into the story. Then who knows where it might lead?
As with a best friend, I learn more about my characters from us spending time together. Before I start a novel I do everything I can to dig under the skin to find out what makes my character tick – and with the protagonist, this can take files of detailed work. Every aspect I can think of that would make them who they are. There my knowledge of psychology comes into play with the sorts of things that mould each of us into the unique person we are (background, family, relationships, hopes, fears, strengths, flaws, moral compass etc) and it’s these areas that inform the attitudes I can assign to each character. And, as I write historical fiction, each must be appropriate to the time in which they would’ve lived. I also go off-piste a little and scour books on star signs, enneagrams, transactional analysis or motivational theory to make sure I am imbuing my characters with qualities I don’t possess and wouldn’t automatically think of (being house-proud or excessively fatalistic, for example) which helps check:
a) they are all not like me;
b) are different from each other;
c) have the potential to clash personalities and for misunderstandings (always great for plot complications).
But it is in the writing of the story that I discover who they truly are and this, as you suggest, does change the plot as I realise they wouldn’t react in the way I had sketched out for them or have extra depths I can use to my advantage. The first draft (and often the next ones) is always about getting the story down. It is in the rewriting that is comes alive. When the characters begin to live and breathe. So, a structured approach, some insight into what makes people who they are, and a fair degree of alchemy arising from the writing process are what ties the story to the characters and the blends the characters into the story. Then who knows where it might lead?
B.K. Duncan
Two wonderful questions in one – thank you. I’ll start with the genre part first as there I can trace the path of conscious decision making; analysing motivations is never as clear-cut.
For many years I wrote novels that received rave rejection from agents and publishers, except all contained the kiss of death: I was falling between genres. When I finally sat up and took notice I realised that I was writing books with lots of action; plenty of character development; and interwoven themes explored in challenging settings. But a weakness in narrative drive because plot had always been led by the fusion of the other components of fiction. So I decided to focus my attention on stories where plot formed the spine. Crime novels, in other words. There had always been dastardly goings-on in my books and all I needed (or so I thought) was to study the conventions of the genre and harden things up a little. Only it wasn’t that easy and it took me a novel or two to get it right. Well, I hope I have with Foul Trade.
My motivation to write is to make sense of this thing called life. To examine the human condition. And to do so by immersing myself in the topics that interest and excite me; creating stories that fire my imagination and allow me scope to learn things I’d never have the excuse to spend time on otherwise. I love language; the poetry of words; the fusion of memories and experience; pulling the strings of characters who can involve themselves in things I can only ever dream of. I suppose, if you add all that together, I write to discover the essence of who I am and to express that in ways I can share with others – friends and strangers alike. Not matter what a writer explores, they are always, in the end, exploring themselves.
For many years I wrote novels that received rave rejection from agents and publishers, except all contained the kiss of death: I was falling between genres. When I finally sat up and took notice I realised that I was writing books with lots of action; plenty of character development; and interwoven themes explored in challenging settings. But a weakness in narrative drive because plot had always been led by the fusion of the other components of fiction. So I decided to focus my attention on stories where plot formed the spine. Crime novels, in other words. There had always been dastardly goings-on in my books and all I needed (or so I thought) was to study the conventions of the genre and harden things up a little. Only it wasn’t that easy and it took me a novel or two to get it right. Well, I hope I have with Foul Trade.
My motivation to write is to make sense of this thing called life. To examine the human condition. And to do so by immersing myself in the topics that interest and excite me; creating stories that fire my imagination and allow me scope to learn things I’d never have the excuse to spend time on otherwise. I love language; the poetry of words; the fusion of memories and experience; pulling the strings of characters who can involve themselves in things I can only ever dream of. I suppose, if you add all that together, I write to discover the essence of who I am and to express that in ways I can share with others – friends and strangers alike. Not matter what a writer explores, they are always, in the end, exploring themselves.
B.K. Duncan
Thanks for your question; it’s one very popular with my creative writing students and, whichever answer I give, leaves someone feeling they are taking the wrong approach. Although the bottom-line is that each of us knows the way we work best and the only thing that really matters is if it works or not. So this is a personal response and not to be taken as cast-iron advice . . . I’m not a huge fan of word count as either a motivator or benchmark of achievement. It can act as a spur when you don’t have a lot of spare time in which to sit down and write (I am a full time author and see it as my job to be at my desk every day) but an over-emphasis on word count can lure writers into believing that quantity is more important than quality. It isn’t: both are crucial.
I measure progress by ‘chunking’ my work into scenes or chapters, writing at each session until I have moved the story on to a natural stopping point. Often that comes when the action changes or a new character enters into the fray and I need to revisit my planning or notes in order to change focus. My hope is always to achieve my goal of reaching a new section before I run out of energy or ideas. Except sometimes that is impossible and it’s then I put on my research hat and do a different form of work on the book; the change of pace acting as good as a rest and re-firing my cylinders again.
But, in the end, it doesn’t matter how you progress with your writing. Only that you do!
I measure progress by ‘chunking’ my work into scenes or chapters, writing at each session until I have moved the story on to a natural stopping point. Often that comes when the action changes or a new character enters into the fray and I need to revisit my planning or notes in order to change focus. My hope is always to achieve my goal of reaching a new section before I run out of energy or ideas. Except sometimes that is impossible and it’s then I put on my research hat and do a different form of work on the book; the change of pace acting as good as a rest and re-firing my cylinders again.
But, in the end, it doesn’t matter how you progress with your writing. Only that you do!
B.K. Duncan
Lesley, thank you so much for saying my research is meticulous – for a writer of historical fiction that ranks up there with winning an Oscar! I have done my very best to bring to life my slice of 1920 by using every method of research at my disposal. The Internet was a blessing as well as a curse. I found all sorts of sites that gave me material I couldn't have come across in any other way: oral histories documented by family members intent on preserving the past; leads for books by authors I’d never even heard of; out of print (and copyright) works on Project Gutenberg; in-depth research on the East End compiled by historical societies; newspaper reports of coroners’ inquests, and notable trials; forensic and medical issues and knowledge from The Lancet. The danger was always that I wouldn't know when to stop. But stories won’t write themselves and I had to draw the line somewhere or I’d still be researching today.
The old-fashioned way of soaking it all up included visiting museums (particularly the wonderful London Museum of Docklands – the poem in Foul Trade came directly from the samples of imported wood in the East India Docks’ Customs cabinets); watching films and CDs; dipping into my bound copies of The War Illustrated accounts of the 1914-18 conflict as it happened; constantly consulting the 1919 OS maps of Poplar and Limehouse, and studying the terrain and towns around the 1918 Front Line. But first and foremost, my research source of choice will always be books. I'm a writer, and the printed word is my world. I hope with all my heart that through Foul Trade and Faith’s Reward I have done justice to everything I have read by preserving and passing on, in turn, a little of the past -- albeit one peopled by my imaginings.
The old-fashioned way of soaking it all up included visiting museums (particularly the wonderful London Museum of Docklands – the poem in Foul Trade came directly from the samples of imported wood in the East India Docks’ Customs cabinets); watching films and CDs; dipping into my bound copies of The War Illustrated accounts of the 1914-18 conflict as it happened; constantly consulting the 1919 OS maps of Poplar and Limehouse, and studying the terrain and towns around the 1918 Front Line. But first and foremost, my research source of choice will always be books. I'm a writer, and the printed word is my world. I hope with all my heart that through Foul Trade and Faith’s Reward I have done justice to everything I have read by preserving and passing on, in turn, a little of the past -- albeit one peopled by my imaginings.
B.K. Duncan
I've always loved and frequently re-read Fitzgerald but his style, use of language, and treatment of subject matter would be entirely alien to, and inappropriate for, the atmosphere I was trying to create in Foul Trade. A few years ago I wrote Dance of Millions, a book about rum-racketeers on Cuba in 1923, and then I did immerse myself in Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Dreiser and other American writers. Horses for courses really. It's not about adopting another author's voice but trying to see their worlds through their eyes. The writers adding an interpretation of their social climate to their fiction that helps get a feel for what was important to the real people of the day.
Yes, poor May; she can only ever dream of being the original owner of a pair of lilac dance shows, can't she? Class was a huge issue. Always was in Britain, and I suspect always will be (although we disguise it so much better now and settle for making sly distinctions between people who shop in Tesco and those who glide the aisles of Waitrose). Whatever you see on TV costume dramas, the only leveller of the Great War was that everyone was damaged by it in some way -- even those rich enough to escape to one of the few untouched areas of the world might still have lost someone dear in the conflict. Gulfs widened in fact. Many of the already wealthy amassed more through making and selling arms whilst the poor continued to get poorer; the mass employment that resulted in the General Strike of 1926 started in the early 20s.
Would May's life had been easier if she'd lived in the US? As I created her, probably. But as I'd then have wanted to explore different manifestations of social oppression I would undoubtedly have made her black and subject to the racial segregation of the Jim Crow laws. Fiction is fashioned in the crucible of conflict and adversity, just as that's often what we need to bring the best out of ourselves. Or perhaps I'm just perverse and want to punish the characters who inhabit my head and keep me up at nights. . .
Yes, poor May; she can only ever dream of being the original owner of a pair of lilac dance shows, can't she? Class was a huge issue. Always was in Britain, and I suspect always will be (although we disguise it so much better now and settle for making sly distinctions between people who shop in Tesco and those who glide the aisles of Waitrose). Whatever you see on TV costume dramas, the only leveller of the Great War was that everyone was damaged by it in some way -- even those rich enough to escape to one of the few untouched areas of the world might still have lost someone dear in the conflict. Gulfs widened in fact. Many of the already wealthy amassed more through making and selling arms whilst the poor continued to get poorer; the mass employment that resulted in the General Strike of 1926 started in the early 20s.
Would May's life had been easier if she'd lived in the US? As I created her, probably. But as I'd then have wanted to explore different manifestations of social oppression I would undoubtedly have made her black and subject to the racial segregation of the Jim Crow laws. Fiction is fashioned in the crucible of conflict and adversity, just as that's often what we need to bring the best out of ourselves. Or perhaps I'm just perverse and want to punish the characters who inhabit my head and keep me up at nights. . .
B.K. Duncan
Great question: mainly because I don't have a cut-and-dried answer to hand. But I’ll explore as I go . . .
I've always been entranced by 1920’s architecture, culture, films, music, modes of transport, Art Deco ceramics, clothes, and bright, brash advertising ephemera. But would I have appreciated it in the same way if I’d lived with it day by day? It takes the distance of time to engender nostalgia – witness the recent explosion of love for all things from the 70s and 80s, much of which we thought horrendous at the time.
If I was transported back to 1920 I’d want to be rich rather than poor; healthy so that I wasn't subjected to pre National Health Service medical care; independent and educated – which, given the social limitations of the age, probably means I’d want to be a man. Only that, of course, brings in the reality of the Great War. Surviving it would have damaged me in some way physically, psychological or emotionally. And here we get to the nub of the issue. There’s a huge part of me that would like to know how I would have coped. What it must've been like to face a future that had been irrevocably altered by a cataclysmic event, the ramifications of which we, with our current sensibilities, can’t possibly comprehend. Because although there are wars and conflicts going on in the world as I write this, the prevalence of rolling news and front-line reportage influences our responses to them even as they happen. Instead of information, Britain in 1920 was flooded with a sort of collective amnesia which distanced individuals from each other and their experiences, and worked to deny on-going suffering. Wilfred Owen wrote his poems of remembrance to awaken his contemporaries. And, 100 years on, they pierce me something shockingly close to envy. Because I’ll never be able to test myself against whether I’d have been brave enough to be a lone voice shouting the truth. So I have to do the next best thing and honour the people who did do so in my fiction.
So, on balance . . . no . . . and . . . yes.
I did warn you it would be complicated!
Great question: mainly because I don't have a cut-and-dried answer to hand. But I’ll explore as I go . . .
I've always been entranced by 1920’s architecture, culture, films, music, modes of transport, Art Deco ceramics, clothes, and bright, brash advertising ephemera. But would I have appreciated it in the same way if I’d lived with it day by day? It takes the distance of time to engender nostalgia – witness the recent explosion of love for all things from the 70s and 80s, much of which we thought horrendous at the time.
If I was transported back to 1920 I’d want to be rich rather than poor; healthy so that I wasn't subjected to pre National Health Service medical care; independent and educated – which, given the social limitations of the age, probably means I’d want to be a man. Only that, of course, brings in the reality of the Great War. Surviving it would have damaged me in some way physically, psychological or emotionally. And here we get to the nub of the issue. There’s a huge part of me that would like to know how I would have coped. What it must've been like to face a future that had been irrevocably altered by a cataclysmic event, the ramifications of which we, with our current sensibilities, can’t possibly comprehend. Because although there are wars and conflicts going on in the world as I write this, the prevalence of rolling news and front-line reportage influences our responses to them even as they happen. Instead of information, Britain in 1920 was flooded with a sort of collective amnesia which distanced individuals from each other and their experiences, and worked to deny on-going suffering. Wilfred Owen wrote his poems of remembrance to awaken his contemporaries. And, 100 years on, they pierce me something shockingly close to envy. Because I’ll never be able to test myself against whether I’d have been brave enough to be a lone voice shouting the truth. So I have to do the next best thing and honour the people who did do so in my fiction.
So, on balance . . . no . . . and . . . yes.
I did warn you it would be complicated!
B.K. Duncan
Hi, Christine.
I suppose I was influenced by all sorts of things in a hundred subconscious ways that I’ll never be aware of – my mood at the time; a snatch of dialogue from a story I was reading; an image on television; the authors I've loved over the decades . . . But writing isn't all alchemy and I positively sought out things I wanted to give Foul Trade a distinctive tone and voice. I read a lot of the literature around at the time – the journalistic accounts of George R Sims, the stories (and pseudo-reportage) of Thomas Burke and his contemporaries, and the novels of the day. From these I soaked-up atmosphere and texture to help ground the setting and characters. For example I gave May a moth-eaten green felt hat after reading The Green Hat by Michael Arlen; the Japanese tattoo parlour and the Scandinavian fish shop came from Limehouse Tales; the sound, smell and feel of the docks I borrowed from the impressions of those who wrote about walking unfamiliar East End streets.
As to May . . . she, too, developed as a character as I went along. It was crucial I didn't have her engaged in anything another young woman of her time and social position wouldn't have done so I turned to oral histories, memoires, and diaries to steer me in the right direction. But much more difficult was trying to get into her head to give her the attitudes, awareness, and knowledge of the day. It took me a lot of time and research and I hope I got it right. As to her character, she has to be based (as all characters in fiction are) largely of the sensibilities of the author. How I imagine I might have felt and reacted in her circumstances and situations.
For reading suggestions I've stretched your time period to include the immediate aftermath of the Great War as it’s impossible to understand the 1920s without getting a feel of what went before. So . . .
Sarah Waters, Jacqueline Winspear, Rennie Airth, Charles Todd, Nicola Upson, Gillian Linscott.
You can also get a good take on the 1920s from authors who were looking back to write about their immediate past: F. Tennyson Jesse, Josephine Tey, J.B. Priestly, George Orwell, Edith Wharton, Winifred Holtby, Frederick Manning, Robert Graves.
I hope you find this answer useful. Do come back if you’d like to know more. I could talk on topics like this all day!
I suppose I was influenced by all sorts of things in a hundred subconscious ways that I’ll never be aware of – my mood at the time; a snatch of dialogue from a story I was reading; an image on television; the authors I've loved over the decades . . . But writing isn't all alchemy and I positively sought out things I wanted to give Foul Trade a distinctive tone and voice. I read a lot of the literature around at the time – the journalistic accounts of George R Sims, the stories (and pseudo-reportage) of Thomas Burke and his contemporaries, and the novels of the day. From these I soaked-up atmosphere and texture to help ground the setting and characters. For example I gave May a moth-eaten green felt hat after reading The Green Hat by Michael Arlen; the Japanese tattoo parlour and the Scandinavian fish shop came from Limehouse Tales; the sound, smell and feel of the docks I borrowed from the impressions of those who wrote about walking unfamiliar East End streets.
As to May . . . she, too, developed as a character as I went along. It was crucial I didn't have her engaged in anything another young woman of her time and social position wouldn't have done so I turned to oral histories, memoires, and diaries to steer me in the right direction. But much more difficult was trying to get into her head to give her the attitudes, awareness, and knowledge of the day. It took me a lot of time and research and I hope I got it right. As to her character, she has to be based (as all characters in fiction are) largely of the sensibilities of the author. How I imagine I might have felt and reacted in her circumstances and situations.
For reading suggestions I've stretched your time period to include the immediate aftermath of the Great War as it’s impossible to understand the 1920s without getting a feel of what went before. So . . .
Sarah Waters, Jacqueline Winspear, Rennie Airth, Charles Todd, Nicola Upson, Gillian Linscott.
You can also get a good take on the 1920s from authors who were looking back to write about their immediate past: F. Tennyson Jesse, Josephine Tey, J.B. Priestly, George Orwell, Edith Wharton, Winifred Holtby, Frederick Manning, Robert Graves.
I hope you find this answer useful. Do come back if you’d like to know more. I could talk on topics like this all day!
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