"Izzy" by Moira McAlister - historical fiction and "taking liberties"!

 

I've worked with a few writers in the past two years who have written novels based on real people in their family tree. So how many "liberties" can you take - or do you have to leap off into fiction in order to make the story zing? Moira has written a novel that is even more fascinating when you know it's based on a real woman.

What inspired you to write this book? How did you go about doing all of your research?

There are two distinct parts to the writing of this book.  Izzy is historical fiction based on facts that I discovered while researching the life and deeds of my great, great grandfather, which I published as a website in 2015 Dr Barry Cotter: the first doctor in Melbourne (drbarrycotter.com) His was an interesting life, full of action and adventure and very well documented through the Historical Records of Victoria, numerous newspaper articles, shipping and appointment lists, official correspondence, references in histories of the time and private records of various types, including an obscure, pantomime style production called ‘A Satirical Manuscript’, held in the State Library of Victoria.

 I spent five years collecting and sifting through these pieces of evidence and finally felt I was able to write his story.   I chose to present it as a website for a number of reasons.  Firstly, and most importantly, because a website is easily edited and I have been able to change or add information as it comes to light.  Secondly, it would be freely available to family members and others who are interested. Thirdly, one advantage of the website is that I was able to link ‘research pages’ to each chapter of the story, so that all my sources and references are easily accessible, but not cluttering the main body of the work. And lastly, I was able to add links to interesting people, places and events if the reader cared to follow up on anything in particular. The end result, to me, is a vibrant, full account of Dr Cotter’s life, almost like a living thing, because it keeps growing and changing over the six years since I first published it. 

But back to Izzy.  Like most women of the 19^th century, Dr Barry Cotter’s wife, Inez, left very little evidence of her life. She appears as an ‘add on’ in various accounts, is mentioned on shipping lists with him, in their marriage certificate of course, in the birth records of their four children, in a few newspaper reports and PROV holds two letters that she wrote. These entries are all fairly routine and dull, but there were also several very tantalizing facts that I found which pointed to a woman whom I could not ignore and I knew that if I was going to write about her, it would have to be fiction.  The facts were like lampposts on a dark road, illuminating just a small space around them.  I could see the next lamppost in the distance but needed to employ plausible and well researched, but fictitious, characters and actions, to get there. This is the image that sustained me throughout the writing. 

Any funny or weird stories?

In the course of my research, I became familiar with the original plan of the Melbourne grid; that iconic plan of straight streets and square blocks, that so defines Melbourne.  It was used as the basis for the first land sales in Melbourne on June 1^st, 1837.  I knew that Dr Barry Cotter had purchased Block 11 Section 12, the south west corner of Bourke and Swanston Street (Oh! If only he had kept it!). His name was printed on the original document along with others who bought the 100 blocks on offer that day.  On first seeing this document, you can imagine my surprise, to find, on the same piece of paper, the name Lachlan Macalister, a kinsman of my husband’s family, a man whose life I had also researched.  That the two of them were present at the same place, at the same time made me think that they probably met.  I guess they would never have thought that their two families would be joined in later years.   

I enjoyed writing that scene in Izzy, not only because of the improbability of it, but also because both men were typical of the purchasers on the day.  Cotter was keen to make Melbourne his home and grew rich on land deals in the growing town.  Macalister was a sheep farmer ready to expand into this new region, a hard businessman, known for his lack of tolerance for the Indigenous people. His blocks in Flinders Street were for warehouses to store wool for export. 

How difficult was it to write about someone who was a family member? At what point did you decide to write a novel rather than a biography? Why?

The most freeing action I took in writing this novel was to change her name from Inez to Izzy.  Perhaps it was because of the amount of research I had done, and my determination to tell Dr Barry Cotter’s story as fact, that I felt bound by her Inez-ness. Once I began to think of her as Izzy, suddenly all sorts of possibilities opened up for me to explore and the work took on a different life, a life of its own, just touching base with the facts at certain points in the story.  By writing drbarrycotter.com as a narrative non-fiction, I felt that I had covered all the biographical details of both Barry and Inez that were available.  I wanted though, to tell her story.  Although so much of the work is fiction, I feel that it is plausible fiction.  

The research I did for Izzy was not so much about her, as I had already gathered as much as possible beforehand.  The research for the novel was about the world she lived in – broad aspects like the places, times, events, people, the role of women, class differences, social mores etc and the specifics such as child care practices, particular inventions, medicinal treatments, common foods, ship board life, fashion and dozens of other details that I felt had to be ‘right’ to maintain the authenticity of the story.

What do you think you have learned along the way that you would pass on to others treading the same path?

Family history is always a matter of conjecture and often of heated discussion. My experience showed me that you can do it in two ways – either as a documented, well-researched biography or narrative non-fiction, which will stand the scrutiny of anyone who cares to inspect it.  Or, declare that it is fiction and use the facts to anchor it, but not bog it down.  Change people’s names to free yourself from being enslaved to the facts of time, place, action and events.

You decided to self-publish the book, but did you consider sending it to commercial publishers or agents first? If so, what happened? What has the process been like?

Yes, I did approach traditional publishers and the answer is – nothing happened. I came close to a contract four or five times, but in the end, after a roller-coaster of hopes dashed, it all came to naught. Once I made the decision to self-publish, the whole process changed.  It became a joy!  I went with a small self-publishing company, IndieMosh, which is situated in the Blue Mountains. The communication skills, professionalism, expertise and experience of this company made the process a dream come true.   

I was in charge at every step, from the cover to the internal layout, to the font, from the page colour to the headings.  Every detail was discussed.  And when the final proof was ready, after many delays on my part and much patience on their part, they did all the technical aspects such as uploading to Ingram, helped with author pages on Amazon, Smashwords and the IndieMosh website, organized royalties and dozens of other technical and specific tasks that I had no idea about. 

What have been the most challenging things – and the most enjoyable?

Challenging?  Probably the editing.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I have always been a confident writer, sure in my understanding of grammar, certain in spelling, at ease with punctuation. I was educated at a time when these skills were important and have taught them myself in primary school for many years.  So, I was shocked to see the number of mistakes which the final professional proof read found.  I cannot stress enough the importance of having other eyes read your work – lots of other eyes -manuscript readers and professional editors will assess your work in terms of readability, structure, flow, plot points, character development, language etc.  They will also see the typos, misspellings and missing words which you glaze over but which are so glaringly obvious to the reader.  

Enjoyable? The satisfaction of having done what I set out to do.  Telling this story as fiction gave me the freedom to explore the motivation behind the actions which are recorded as fact.  Shipping lists, marriage certificates and census records only tell so much.  For example, our 21^st century mentality tells us that a marriage certificate meant a couple were in love. However, in early Melbourne (1835- 1837) men outnumbered women by 20 to 1, so there were many reasons for people to marry – security and respectability for women, housekeeping and companionship for men. Love was not always the prompt to marriage.  The motivation for the action is the ‘human’ part, the ‘universal’, those hundreds of feelings and emotions that prompt action and defy race, culture, distance and time. These universals are a powerful way for a writer to connect with a reader. People are always people and the way they relate to each other is the basis of all literature.

I'm sure Moira would love any Canberrans to hop along to the launch - RSVP as below.

 

"Ten Thousand Aftershocks" by Michelle Tom - Review

 

Many years ago, I went to a museum that had an earthquake simulation exhibit, where you stood on a platform and hit a switch and the platform moved around like it would in an earthquake. It was pretty scary, and I’ve never forgotten it. So the idea of a memoir that takes in both family upheaval and the experience of living through the earthquakes in Christchurch was intriguing. An obvious correlation, you might think.

But Michelle Tom’s memoir goes much deeper than this. I first knew of Michelle’s estrangement from her mother through a Facebook connection, and then I read a portion of the book that was awarded a prize and published. I thought I knew what the book would be about, but it is so much more than just a “telling of a story”.

Firstly, there is the fragmented nature of the memories, as it moves between childhood and adult years over and over – dating each segment is helpful, but also the descriptions and her ability to clearly “situate the reader” means it’s never confusing. It’s also not a misery memoir. Among the sections about violence and abuse are stories of fun times, growing strength and resilience, and finally the ability to stand back and “see” and understand, and then move on. Something that many people never achieve.

Having fully engaged with Michelle’s descriptions of growing up, of the damage and the denied need and then the damaging consequences for her and her siblings, getting to the big earthquake and their experiences of its devastation comes as a shock. How she and her husband and family endured the after effects is a story in itself. I cannot imagine having to continue living in a house beset by aftershocks where liquefaction happened constantly around them (with accompanying sewage from broken pipes) and finally surged inside.

Michelle may not realise herself how much her strength and sheer guts shines through this memoir. It’s probably the element that made me marvel most at the stories she relates. It also led me to think deeply about my own family, our stories and experiences, as well as those of close friends. It’s also a great book to read in this time of Covid and lockdowns, simply to show how we can survive and keep living and hoping, and that a new life is possible.

Achieving close point of view in third person

 

 The other day I was the guest in a Q&A session sponsored by the Melbourne City of Literature and Writers Victoria. The topic was self editing - to be clearer, how do you learn how to edit your own work? I put my hand up to do this session because I have now been working as an editor for two years, after doing it part-time while teaching writing and editing for many years. So I have seen many manuscripts of all shapes and sizes over that time.

From this session came many questions from the audience, including:

• What are the most common issues you see in manuscripts?
• How do you approach editing your own novel? Where do you start?
• What does a professional editor do for you?
• Is it better to focus on having some beta readers?

I will answer these questions more in future posts, but one of the issues I discussed was that of point of view - how much writers struggle with it and how often they aren't aware of what is going wrong.

Mostly what I see is distance. You might assume that writing in first person makes everything immediate and "real", but point of view is more than just using I or he/she. It's about engaging the reader by helping them to feel like they are right inside that character, being part of their experience.

Of course, not every novelist wants to do this. It depends on the novel. But like most readers, I do want to care about what happens to this person, understand where they're coming from, what is pushing them through the story towards "something", even if they aren't entirely sure themselves what that is. All the same, the reader needs to know and to want them to achieve it.

Someone once said to me, "Every character wants to be happy. But every character has a different belief of what will make them happy." Therein lies the story. 

There are a number of things you need to have on the page so your character comes alive and the reader can't help but follow them through the story. "Un-put-downable" is what we hope for! One of those things is their thoughts. If we don't know what they are thinking, how can we understand what makes them do what they do? How they feel about it? What their response is? I wonder if some writers shy away from thoughts because they seem too obvious. 

If you are using deep point of view well, thoughts will be direct and won't even need "she thought" or "she wondered". So rather than:

I hate the way he laughs and spits all over the table, she thought.

We can go further into her mood and feelings and reactions with a direct thought, using her own voice.

God, he's gross. Who laughs and spits all over the table at the same time? I want to shove a serviette in his horrible mouth.

Direct thoughts can provide an extra layer of voice - a character uses one voice to speak to others, and another (their own revealing voice) in their heads. Direct thoughts also help to disguise the writer's voice which can sometimes be too intrusive and sound nothing like the character, using words their character never would. (And you don't need italics for direct thoughts either - I have done this here for clarity, but I only use italics if I want to emphasise.)

We are told to "show" emotions, not tell them, and again, deep point of view makes this easier. You can get inside the character's physical sensations more easily, again in their own voice. Rather than:

John felt the anger rise up inside him like a red wave.

You can try something like this:

John's skin burned and then the rage erupted, rising out of his guts like hot, fast lava, scorching his throat on its way out.

Your character John might describe that feeling of rage differently - he's your character. If you know him deeply enough, then it becomes easier to imagine how it would feel to him.

Deep point of view also is about knee jerk reactions, or slow burning reactions, impulsive words, impulsive actions. Who is your character when they lose control? Who are they when they plan and carry out devastating deeds? Where does that come from? Why?

Answer those questions and you are on your way to deepening your point of view.

 Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash

Celebrant sleuthing with Hazel Edwards!

 

Hazel Edwards and I both found we were writing crime fiction for adult readers several years ago, after a very long time writing books for children. I decided to ask Hazel about her Celebrant Sleuth series.

Where did the idea come for a celebrant sleuth?

Like many others, my family is spread across generations and cultures.  And friends are re-committing , divorcing or blending. So I’ve seen celebrants in action at weddings , name-days and funerals. And I found specialists in clients: by age, culture and types of ceremonies. Plus most celebrants are very personable. I wanted a versatile occupation for my series sleuth  which would enable access to different settings and cultures in each mystery and adapt well from book to screen. But I wanted my sleuth to be a quiet activist, not just a device.

 Then, on a literary panel about gender including our ‘f2m the boy within’ YA novel, I met an extremely articulate and thoughtful asexual in her early thirties, who challenged me to write about her gender circumstances. She was NOT a celebrant.  She was a park ranger. But the idea of juxtaposing a romantic personality in a longterm relationship within the character of a celebrant who had a job involving romance interested me.  ‘I prefer ice cream to sex’ was one of her very quotable comments to me, as she explained the differences between being asexual  ( feeling no sexual attraction to any gender) and being a ‘romantic’ desiring and giving affection  which is different from being aromantic. 

She became one of my ‘expert’ readers.  Along with the 25-plus celebrants I interviewed. And the multiple florists who really are psychologists. I toyed with qualifying as a celebrant, but instead interviewed trainer Sally Cant who was an ethical but rich source of anecdotes on lost rings, in-laws and not allowing unlimited speaking at a funeral. Rituals with heightened emotions were perfect for historic grievances, mysteries and crimes and some humour. Things always go wrong. Apt for a series.

Another challenge was limited fictional time.  The mystery or crime needed to occur within the event or in the preliminary family meetings.

Motives mattered. Eulogies were mini-life stories. But some ‘facts’ were total works of fiction masking murderous motives of ‘getting back’ at someone. Others were romanticised. Writing them was a means of control which was occasionally allocated to the celebrant as a compromise. Lots of potential for characterisation and interpretation. Wills mattered, but so did previous relationships and unexpected children.

And since I’m an episodic writer who works best in short formats, the discipline of one mystery per chapter was viable. But I found having to plot the concentrated mystery equivalent of a book each time was a challenge. I plotted between 6 and 8 am when my brain was clear. Researching , interviewing and editing, I did other times of the day. 

What makes a celebrant perfect as a detective?

Good celebrants have compassion, are articulate and often come from other occupations which required public speaking. Need to be observant and quick on sizing up personalities and handling potential disputes and flare ups. Perfect for sleuthing. 

To make Quinn memorable, I  played with first person viewpoint. Quinn introduces herself. ‘I buried my father, married my sister and sorted the missing will.’ 

How do you plot, and deal with all the clues and red herrings?

Each of my chapters in ‘Celebrant Sleuth; I Do or Die’  is a self-contained mystery but there are permanent characters from the regional township, including Bea, Quinn’s caterer sister. Food is important for rituals.  The extra mini sequel used the Ghan for a railside wedding in the outback stop of the real Marla township. Our script focussed only on this  Agatha Christie role-play of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ style as it had more filmic potential. And a Ghan shaped wedding cake.

Having a co-writer is the  BEST way to craft a complex plot and justify red herrings and distractors.  Geoffrey Wright  (Australian film director and screenwriter, who gained cult success with the 1992 film Romper Stomper) intensified the plot. We were commissioned for the ABC Fresh Start development fund to co-script the screen adaptation. Now temporarily on hold due to lack of ABC funding.

“Wed Then Dead on the Ghan’ was inspired by my original mini sequel to the first book with the celebrant sleuth, Quinn,  But deeper motivation  and pacing were vital for characters and my original plot needed to be ‘grittier’ and more sophisticated. Geoffrey included topical mining, indigenous art theft  and corporate research and political motivation beyond my original kindergarten version. He stressed the need for complex timing. Who was where, when? And more sub plots. Apart from learning to use Final Draft formatting program for scripts, Geoffrey had me checking whether the train cabin doors opened outwards or inwards as relevant to who saw or audio-recorded what and when. 

Technical details mattered. We checked drone usage in outback. Police jurisdictions across outback , whether Sth Australian or NT, and the seasonal Ghan timetable which is known by locals to the minute. Participation observation research is vital  and I’d travelled on the Ghan several times. So I knew about opal dealers carrying valuable minerals in plastic Safeway shopping bags. And that mobile phone reception was limited. Staff use radio. Then we had to check railway procedures for passenger death reporting and whether suspicious or not. Would a helicopter come out? Could we bypass Alice Springs tourist  excursions , which we needed for the timing of discovering the second death and go straight to Darwin police? Detail. Detail. Detail. 

We re-worked the clues between us, and placed and checked the red herrings. Vital to have two minds checking. 

Celebrant Sleuth is set in a small country town – what does this setting provide that a city setting doesn’t?

A country town enabled me to concentrate events and allow characters to meet in different roles, without it seeming coincidental. I lived in a country general store as a teenager, so that was research, in hindsight.

My sleuth, Quinn, is in a long-term relationship with Art who runs the community media. So I needed her to be able to ‘bump into’ other regular characters in their neighbourhood, apart from her work performing ceremonies for marriages, funerals and naming days. My time-limited crime had to occur within Quinn’s bookings. 

The mysteries are episodic, with celebrant Quinn solving problems in the football hall of fame, retirement village chapel and inter-relationships of florist ,caterer and media  in the country township during an economic downturn. Millionaire retirement village owner, eighty-something Flora is feisty and falls for a younger man. I had to create a whole township of intersecting roles and streets.

Belatedly I drew a map.  And then the same-sex marriage legislation occurred and one story had to change from a commitment service to a wedding.

Marriages and funerals are settings of heightened emotion but also likely to have outsiders visiting.Then there was the option of a celebrant being invited expenses-paid to a specific tourist location for a wedding. That happens. Hot air balloons. Heritage parks. 

And the iconic ‘Ghan’ train with an Agatha Christie mystery theme onboard, plus the wedding was pulling together diverse suspects and motives. This was issued as a stand alone e -book with a view to pitching the sample print copies for screen. It worked.

You have had great reviews, people calling it “witty” and “funny” – it seems well and truly time for crime fiction that makes us laugh – how do you tackle writing comedy? What do you have to keep in mind?

Scripting is different from writing fiction as there is more emphasis on pacing and action. Less introspection. I’ve never considered myself a writer of slapstick or stand up. Often I’ve taken an absurd situation and the humour comes from juxtaposing expectations. I prefer wit and playing with words rather than slapstick or action farce. So having to adapt aspects of ‘Celebrant Sleuth’  to audio and then for screen meant adding more content, stronger character motivation and sub plots, but there was the bonus of visuals like the Ghan and the outback and expressions on faces. Plus music and sound effects. There’s nothing quite like the mystique of train noises. 

Quinn has a sense of the absurd, indicated by her wry Quinn’s Laws of Relativity such as:  

'Theory of Soul Mates: The number of times the word soul-mate is used in public is in reverse proportion to the number of months the relationship will last.'

So the humour depends upon ironic comment, often by Quinn. The blurb suggests this too. 

Quinn, a celebrant with style and a few obsessions but a good heart, solves quirky problems, mysteries and the occasional murder at weddings, funerals and naming ceremonies in her country town. 

Ex-actor with a great voice who writes eulogies to die for! Not forgetting a few quotable ‘Quinn’s Laws of Relativity’. A romantic, but asexual, Quinn lives with her long-term partner Art who runs community Channel Zero. 

The workstyle of a celebrant is never routine. Fake I.D. Fraud. Fights, even to the death, over wills and inheritance ... Mislaid rings. Lost bride. Food poisoning. Clients of varied ages and cultures are well looked after. Even vintage millionairess Flora with the much younger lover who might be a con-artist. 

Quinn solves most problems but not always in the expected way.  

And I’ve got the start of my next celebrant sleuth mystery in the series,  ‘Questions remain unanswered….  ‘  No title yet but it will be sub titled Celebrant Sleuth series. 

https://www.hazeledwards.com/celebrant-sleuth.html  for details.

Thanks, Hazel - the background to crime fiction is always as fascinating as the stories!

 Photo by Say_Heidi

Long-term Sisters-in-Crime member & cultural risk-taker, Hazel Edwards has diverse genres amongst her 200 published books. She is best known for the ‘There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake’ series which toured as a musical. ‘f2m: the boy within’ her co-written YA coming of age novel about trans youth was a first. ‘Hijabi Girl'  will be performed by Larrikin Puppeteers post-Covid. In 2013, Hazel was awarded an OAM for Literature. www.hazeledwards.com