I'm quite confident that, if I start this blog with "remember the scythe?", most people reading it are going to immediately know where I'm pointing you to! That's right: Poldark. Now, I know that the series with Aidan Turner and his famous scythe was actually a remake of an earlier programme, but let's just focus on this more recent iteration of Winston Graham's novels about the eponymous Cornish hero. One of the things which is so wonderful about Poldark as a series - not only onscreen but even more so in the novels - is that it covers such a vast period of time. Because of the time in which it is set, there are huge local and global changes taking place around the characters and, when you have been invested in them for so long, you can really experience the upheaval alongside them. This is something I attempted with (what I hope) was a reasonable degree of success in my Early Story of the Rite trilogy. If it ever actually appears on bookshelves, it won...
I'm delighted to be welcoming Judith for her second series of blogs. This one is about drawing inspiration from film and television, and it begins with that thought all writers can't help but consider: who would be perfect for my character..? In this series of blogs, I am hoping to look at some historical fiction films and tv series which have inspired different stories – either my own or a guest blogger. The first thing I should say is that I don’t consider myself a historical fiction writer: that is something which belongs to Virginia in our household. The research she conducts is meticulous and marries historical fiction with, well, historical fact. By contrast, I look for gaps in history and just attempt to plug them, sucking in little details here and there to make them seem as plausible as possible. Plausibility is an important consideration for me because I write magical realism. One of the key challenges of this genre is that age old consideration for all scientists an...