Diana talks to SJA Turney

Author’s interview – 2017. Diana talks to a rotund numpty J (His words, not mine!) 

Hi, Mr S J A Turney. This sounds a bit formal. May I call you Simon? OK.
First things first I am sure there is a question that you have always longed to be asked. Now is the chance. Ask your own question and answer it!

Coming back to this ...

If your latest book, Invasion – A Tale of the Empire,

was adapted into a TV show or a film, who would you like to play the lead role?

Well, now, there are 4 lead characters, with a good share of screen time, so let me see… No. I’ve thought about this for at least half an hour now, and the problem is that I am completely out of touch with the acting generation. I still picture people like Alan Rickman and Gary Oldman when people say things like this. I can’t remember the name of a single actor under 50 at this exact time. Maybe I should have a poll on social media and see what everyone thinks? Or maybe I should try not to be so out of date that I still crave a wooden telly that runs on string, cogs and elastic bands.

What made you choose this genre?

Fantasy is my guilty pleasure. A chance to escape the bonds of the historical narrative and play around with the way the world works. But even then, my fantasy is heavily influenced by history because that’s true of most aspects of my life, from décor to holiday destinations. ‘Invasion’ is tightly linked to the Roman Invasion of Britain, as any even passing student of the era will quickly recognise. But essentially, yes, it is because I love to make stuff up. And in fantasy you can make stuff up more than in any other genre! It’s like a giant box of mental lego.

How do you get ideas for plots and characters?

I am at the mercy of the gremlins in my head. I have at least a book idea a week. And a shower, a walk, a long drive, anything that gives me pause for thought means at least one new idea will pop into my head, be it a character, a situation or a plot. And places? Well, sometimes I go in search of locations and experience them, photograph them, walk then, smell them and so on in order to truly communicate them. Other times I will just be travelling and be struck by how much a place needs to be used in a book. The upshot is: I really don’t know. I don’t plan it. Inspiration hits me like a DAF truck every 10 minutes. It can be quite wearing, and I occasionally get distressed by the realisation that in my life I will only have time to write a tenth of the stories I want to tell.

If, as a one off, (and you could guarantee publication!)  you could write anything you wanted, is there another genre you would love to work with and do you already have a budding plot line in mind?

I keep toying with a horror novel, which, given my reputation for battle and scenes of violence might not be a huge step, but that is pie in the sky, I think. There are too many people too much better at it than me. What I would really love to do is write humour like my heroes Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. And I’ve tried on odd occasions, but it’s really hard. I can pepper my work with humour, but to anchor a whole book on it? Who can be funny so consistently? One day, perhaps I’ll do it. I still plan to write the story of my grandfather, too, which would be full of howlers. Being shot down repeatedly by his own side in the war. Catching flies with Polish pilots. Walking into windows. Endless one-liners. He was a character.

Was becoming a writer a conscious decision or something that you drifted into (or even something so compelling that it could not be denied?) How old were you when you first started to write seriously.

I wrote (badly, I’m sure) as a kid. And I used to love writing stories at school and was always deemed ‘more creative than academic’. In 6^th form and higher education, I gained a level of notoriety with tutors for twisting the meanings of essay titles so that I could write what I wanted to. I was a master at it. And at Uni I started writing short stories. Never shown them to anyone as far as I can remember, and since they were written on a 20mb Amstrad and saved to a 5.25” floppy disk, they’re now  long gone. I remember one was about the crew of a Klingon Warbird, which labels me a geek more than anything, I suppose. But I started writing properly partially as an experiment and partially through boredom. I wanted to know if Caesar’s De Bello Gallico could be made more accessible, and decided to try turning it into a novel. Marius’ Mules was born from that and has been far more successful than I ever hoped. At the time I ran a computer network for an Insurance company. I spent one day a week working like a fruitcake, running around and firefighting problems, and the other 4 days waiting for another issue to arise. I filled in my free time by writing, so I was rather lucky, really. It became a full time career in 2012 following redundancy, which rather forced my hand.

Marmite? Love it or hate it?

Ooh, I’m a hater. Can’t even eat Twiglets. ‘Orrible. Tastes like monkey rectum. (At least, I have that on good authority from a marmoset.) (Laughing. Loudly!!)

Do you have any rituals and routines when writing? Your favourite cup for example or ‘that’ piece of music...?

Too many to mention. Coffee on tap ‘til lunchtime, then maybe a beer during the afternoon. Used to be always my Picasso Don Quixote mug until it broke! L Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here or Insomnium’s Winter’s Gate are currently my listens of choice, but it varies from time to time. There is always a soundtrack, though. There has to be, or in the quiet my brain works too hard and I start to accidentally multitask. You have no idea the problems that causes. I have two screens on my PC and they have to have the appropriate windows on each one. Everything on my desk needs to be in the right place. I am one for routine and ritual, you see.

I promise I won’t tell them the answer to this, but when you are writing, who is more important, your family or your characters?

Ah, simple. Always the family. I’m a family man foremost. Our family are very tight-knit. My wife’s family have lived in the same village since her grandparents moved here, and mine came before the first war. Three generations all in the same village and two more in the churchyard. Because family is continuity, and continuity is history. It all ties in. My kids, I hope, will grow up wanting to continue on in the village and maintain those same values. Hmm. Might have gone off point a little there, but you get the idea.

Other than writing full time, what would be your dream job?

I had a friend who was given by a university the task of cataloguing ancient remains in Turkey. The lake of envy I found was so deep I almost drowned in it. If I could support the family by travelling around the world and cataloguing ancient sites, I would even drop the writing! Travel is one of my greatest loves. Always with home to anchor me at the end of trips, mind…

Coffee or tea? Red or white?

Usually for me it’s coffee. I love a good coffee. Preferably half a dozen. Cortados, or Americanos or Turkish, I don’t mind. I drink coffee every day. Unless I’m ill or dehydrated in which case for some reason my body craves tea instead and I switch. But only on rare occasions. And I like both red and white. I started with red, since we used to caravan round Europe when I was a teenager. I remember the plastic bottles of French red for 3.5 francs from the supermarkets close to the caravan sites. And still better than a £5 bottle in the UK. I switched solely to white for about a decade when for some reason red started to give me awful headaches, but that has also changed over time and I’m having a bit of a red renaissance again now.

How much of your work is planned before you start? Do you have a full draft or let it find its way?

I begin with an idea, then stretch it out to a one page outline. Then that gets chopped into parts and chapters. Then I expand that out so that I have a full chapter plan with details of what I’m writing in each chapter. Sometimes the plans can be almost 10k words on their own! But then, without a detailed careful plan, I’d have nothing from which to deviate when I get wild, mad epiphanies mid-draft!

If you had free choice over the font your book is printed in, what font/fonts would you choose?

I am arial, 10 point McBoring. I like to write my drafts in that. Partially because I find it the easiest and most relaxing to read, and also because I know the rough word-count of a page in that font, and now many words in an average line. I can judge things at a glance. But really with the printed word? I just read it as it comes. Different publishers like different things. As long as it’s legible and neat, it suits me.

Imagine that you could get hold of any original source document. What would it be?

God’s diary. No… err… the dedication page of the Bible. ‘To my wife Joan…’ In truth there are too many. I would love to read a number of lost texts. I’m not sure whether it counts, but I would ove to see an intact copy of the Forma Urbis – the giant marble map of Severan Rome that now only exists in a thousand broken fragments. That probably tops my list. And I’m waiting to read the early Roman documents found in London recently. Once, when my grandfather had his printing shop in Ripon, a local noble family brought in a document for copying in the 80s and I got to hold that, which is a high point for me, as it was signed by one of my heroes: Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Have any of your characters ever shocked you and gone off on their own adventure leaving you scratching your head??? If so how did you cope with that!?

Happens all the time. All. The. Time. I have careful character arcs, but then the characters develop all that irritating personality as they grow and suddenly they have to do more to fit their new persona. Only once did it ever change a tale significantly. Usually I can weave it back in. Sometimes, when it happens and I’m left baffled, I take a day out and go walking until the answer strikes me. But it always does in the end. Once I killed off a character far earlier than intended because he just damn well wouldn’t behave…

How much research do you do and do you ever go on research trips?

I tend to write in my comfort zone (Roman/Byzantine) and so I’m confident enough with my knowledge that I don’t do a lot of preparatory research. A little reading on events and personalities and so on. But once I’m writing half of every day is research. Because it’s only when you need to add a bitter fruit that you need to check precisely what fruits were available in Gaul in 50BC. And it’s only when your character needs to find a priest that you wonder ‘what did priests do all day when there wasn’t a festival on?’ Locations, though, I like to experience. I believe the very best descriptive in books can only come from experience. If you’ve worn the armour and you’ve climbed the hill fort, then you stand a better chance of communicating the experience of that to the reader. A location isn’t just terrain. It’s temperature. Smell. Feel. So I try to visit anywhere I intend to write about and soak it up.

Fiction authors have to contend with real characters invading our stories. Are there any ‘real’ characters you have been tempted to prematurely kill off or ignore because you just don’t like them or they spoil the plot?

Hmm. Not sure there. Clodius Pulcher was irritating in Marius’ Mules, but I knew he had a fun end to come, so I relished that. Actually, Commius. A Gallic leader, whose last screen time I completely ignored, because it really did not fit in with the flow of the series. He was pootling around on the edge of things and outside normal campaigning time and I couldn’t work out how best to tell his tale, so I didn’t. Ya, boo, sucks to you, Commius. J Actually, with my Ottoman Cycle, when I came to the fourth and final book and had the circle to close and all the loose ends to tie up a number of real characters irritated me by either being in the way or not being there to use.

Are you prepared to go away from the known facts for the sake of the story and if so how do you get around this?

I do. But I go away from then rather than against them. I refuse to get history wrong for the sake of a plot. But I will add to it. I did it in Marius’ Mules IX by throwing in an entire fictional campaign in the Pyrenees because I had a gap in the timeline to fill, and some backstory to tie in. It was too good an opportunity. But while there was a whole lot of fictional stuff in there it was all based at root on historical reality. Because once you start playing with that you’re no longer writing historical fiction. You’re writing fantasy. And there is a place for that – see point 2!

Do you find that the lines between fact and fiction sometimes become blurred?

Have you been peeking at my notes for my talk at Alderney Literary Festival? Because I touch rather heavily on that there. There is blurring by nature to my mind, because only half at best of our knowledge of the past comes from actual evidence (archaeology). The rest is either the opinion of ancient writers, who could so easily have been mistaken or making it all up, and from using logic to fill in gaps in the historical record. Half of history is fiction. Look at the Trojan War for example. So, most definitely they are blurred lines. J

Have you ever totally hated or fallen in love with one of your characters?

Once or twice, yes. If you can’t hate your villain, then there’s a good chance no one else will. If you can’t love your hero will anyone else? My own emotions are a yardstick for whether I’ve succeeded with a character. I still have to wipe away a tear when I read the epilogue to Interregnum, and it’s been over a decade since I wrote that, and I’ve read it many times. My new villain in Marius’ Mules X is an interesting one, though. In no way black and white. I think I like him. It is, of course, fine to be bored with a hero but love the bad guy. Otherwise I’d never have made it through Dexter.

What do you enjoy reading for pleasure?

I read a lot of Historical Fiction, some fantasy, a lot of non-fiction, and some humour. But what I’ve recently got rather a taste for is 20^th century murder mysteries and thrillers. Michael Ridpath’s Traitor’s Gate was the best book I read all that year (2 years ago). And last year I read Luke McCallin’s Inspector Reinhardt whodunnits.

What drink would you recommend drinking whilst reading your latest book?

I would never presume… But if I were to, I think a light, dry red. It’s a fantasy novel, but as I noted fairly heavily influenced by Rome, so red wine is the most appropriate. You probably wouldn’t want to mix it with water, though like the Romans did.

Last but not least... favourite author?

An easy one for me. Always Guy Gavriel Kay. An author who cut his teeth on the original fantasy by helping Christopher Tolkien gather together his father’s notes and turning them into the Silmarillion. I read his first solo book when it came out in ’84, and have been a devoted fan ever since. He writes fantasy that is so closely identified with historical eras and locations that they are fictional reflections of our own reality, and he does it with such passion and power that he has yet to write a work that does not move me to my core.

Thank you Simon. I really enjoyed this!

(He's not that rotund, is he???)

Simon Turney is an author of Roman and medieval historical fiction, gritty historical fantasy and rollicking Roman children's books.

He lives with his family and extended menagerie of pets in rural North Yorkshire. A born and bred Yorkshireman with a love of the country, he divides his time between staring at a computer screen while surrounded by the natural glory of the Yorkshire Dales and charging around the world wherever he can find the breathtaking remains of the classical era.

Since leaving school and University, Simon has tried a great number of careers, including car sales, insurance, software engineering, computer network management, civil service and even painting and decorating sales. He has lived in four counties but never strayed far from his beloved Yorkshire.

While struck with ennui at the corporate world in 2003 Simon, a lover of Roman history, decided to combine writing and history with a new look at Caesar's diaries. Marius' Mules was followed two years later by Interregnum - an attempt to create a new fantasy world with a flavour of Rome. Since then, the success and popularity of both has spawned sequels to each work. Simon's portfolio has expanded over the years to include a series set in the medieval era (The Ottoman Cycle), a series of Roman thrillers (Praetorian), and most recently a new series of Roman novels for children.

As well as his website at http://www.sjaturney.co.uk, Simon maintains a website detailing the Roman sites he visits at http://www.roman-sites.com, and a blog at http://sjat.wordpress.com He can be found on Twitter as @SJATurney and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SJATurney/ (His comments make me laugh on FB every day!)             © Diana Milne January 2017 © S.J.A. Turney 2017

Louise Reviews: Tizzie

Tizzie by P.D.R. Lindsay

Review by Louise E. Rule.

Please see below for information about the FREE COPY you could win!

I have a great interest in book covers, and what goes into the making of a great cover. The cover design for Tizzie, by Dawn Keur, gives abstract clues about what lies within, and I like that conundrum. For example, the countryside to the left, the quintessential Yorkshire landscape, and the staircase to the right. What could that staircase mean? Keur's cover design is such that it filled me with a need to look inside. It is only after one starts to read the book, however, that the clues on the cover gradually reveal themselves.

This is a book which demonstrates the stark contrast between the life of the single woman and the married woman in the 19^th century. P.D.R. Lindsay’s story is written in retrospect, first beginning in the summer of 1897, then regressing to January of 1887. The story takes place during 1887, with each chapter being headed as a season and a month, which gives a palpable sense of progress through the farming year. Our eponymous character, more to the point, our heroine, works on the family’s farm in Yorkshire, inherited by her brother, Jack Cawthra, and his wife, Maggie. The work is hard, and Tizzie is expected to do so much more than her fair share of the work, which includes not only milking the cows, and making the cheese and butter for the family, but also making and selling butter and cheese on market days.

Tizzie’s niece, Agnes, who is ten years of age, is set to follow in her aunt’s footsteps if her father and mother have anything to do with it. Tizzie is determined not to let this happen. Agnes is treated badly by all except her aunt, so she cleaves to her as her only companion and comfort. Agnes’ brothers are given every advantage, as was often the way in the 19^th century, but Agnes, who is a bright scholar and has dreams of becoming a teacher, is destined to be a drudge for her eldest brother when he takes a farm of his own. This is where this riveting story really begins, as Lindsay cleverly reveals, little by little, the story of Tizzie. Lindsay begins her story in media res, hooking the reader immediately into Tizzie’s world.

Tizzie leant against the kitchen range, ears straining. Were that Jack stirring? By, she hoped her brother wouldn’t catch her still inside. He wouldn’t half carry on.

Straight away Lindsay has made the reader aware that there is a history of friction between Tizzie and her brother, and that he has her life mapped out for her. For me, her life equates to familial slavery, as each member of the family treats Tizzie with such disdain, and as Lindsay takes us through the following events, page by page, it is evident that Tizzie feels this too.

The parlour clock struck six. The cows waited, and Jack’d be clattering down stairs, champing to get some milk into cans and off on the milk train to Leeds. Best move now she were warmed up. Tizzie bent to place her hands as close as she could to the fire door. At least she’d take warm fingers out to start with. Footsteps boomed overhead. Jack, already in a bate by the weight of that tread. Best keep out of his way, or he’d start her day with name calling, older brother insults, Skinny Lizzie, or Twiggy Tizzie, them being the most polite, and go on to ranting about sisters who didn't do their duty or their proper share. Not the best way to start a day’s toil being on the rough end of a Cawthra temper storm. She grabbed her woollen hat, gloves, and scarf, flung her heavy work shawl over her homespun jacket and slid quickly out of the back door.

This short extract is very revealing. The bullying brother, the cold weather, the hard work, and clothes that were homemade, by cloth woven by themselves, painting vividly the divide between the farming community and the local gentry. The book is narrated throughout in the Yorkshire dialect, but not so heavily as to be unreadable. At times I was unsure if it was Tizzie narrating the story, or was it her thoughts. I even considered that it was the person relating the past events, but there are many moments of which that person would not have been aware. Eventually, therefore, I decided it was a way of keeping the story firmly set within the bounds of Yorkshire, especially as there were many dialectal words used throughout, not only in the narration, but, of course, in the speech of the characters.

The characters are well formed. I could imagine them clearly in my mind’s eye: how they looked, how they dressed, how their voices sounded, and their mannerisms. These traits Lindsay has cleverly woven into the story without the descriptions being obvious and intrusive, rendering a gentle assimilation of the characters into the readers psyche, if you will.

I love language, and dialectal language particularly. I did find that I had to look up some of the dialectal words as their meanings were not evident to me. This was easily done with the help of a good dictionary. For example, Hagman Heigh was easy enough, Hogmanay, but shippon and lanthorns I had to look up. They mean cattle shed, and lanthorns is an archaic spelling for lanterns. Two more words, which I found completely baffling, were thole and snecked. Thole is archaic Scottish and means ensure without complaint, and snecked means latch on a door or window – (opened or closed). I read them out loud and loved how they sounded. Using language in this way adds layers to a story that would otherwise have been missing, and the story lacking because of it. It also adds authenticity to the characters.

I quickly began to have a great admiration for Tizzie, not only in she as a person, but in what she is able to achieve throughout her working day. Then there is her unequivocal love for Agnes, the daughter that she would never have, and here we are quickly brought to understand that Agnes is her driving force, a driving force which carries the story forward.

Although the story starts slowly at first, it gradually builds into an ever increasing battle of dilemmas, taking the reader on such a ride, that the bucolic scene of milking cows and the quintessential dairy maid ideal, with buckets of milk hanging around her neck on a yoke, are quickly dashed. The harsh and often brutal reality of life on a farm in the late 19^th century, entwined with the habitual cruelty that Tizzie and her niece, Agnes, have to endure is heart-breaking. Will Tizzie and Agnes ever have a better life to enjoy? Will brother Jack and sister-in-law Maggie ever appreciate all the hard work that Tizzie does? Or will their lives just get harsher? There are so many questions needing answers as the story progresses.

In conclusion, I would have to say that Lindsay’s unique style of prose has the subtlety of being able to manipulate the reader into the belief that they themselves could actually help Tizzie and Agnes. Whether it is the continued use of the Yorkshire dialect, or whether it is the undeniable investment the reader gives to the characters, I am not sure. What I would say is this: whichever it is, or maybe it’s both, Lindsay succeeds in such a way that on finishing the book I was surprised to find that I was, in fact, still in the twenty-first century, and not back in the nineteenth century, so wrapped up was I in the story.

If you would like a chance to win a FREE COPY of Tizzie, simply comment below OR at this review's Facebook thread, located here.

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About P.D.R. Lindsay (from her Amazon biography)

P.D.R. Lindsay

Born in Ireland, brought up in Yorkshire, educated in England, Canada and New Zealand, writer P.D.R. Lindsay is also Mrs. Salmon, Ms. Lindsay-Salmon, and even for eight years in Japan, Professor Lindsay-Salmon.

So many facets to my life have made for a lively and interesting existence. Certainly all those different roles and the places around the world where I have lived filled my head with stories. Stories I can now tell. 

Home is beautiful Otago Province in New Zealand. A place of peace and space, most conducive to writing. 

My stories are mainly contemporary, but my novels are historical, because what I want to write about is clearer seen at a distance. Readers would not sympathise with a modern hero or heroine in the situations I put them in, but seen at a distance my main characters are more understandable. The people of 17th century England, 19th century England or New Zealand or India have much to say to us today. 

P.D.R. Lindsay can be found on Twitter and her website.

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Louise E. Rule is author of Future Confronted.