Women's History Month - guest post by Persia Woolley
RESEARCHING A LEGEND -- Persia Woolley
Persia Woolley became a journalist at the age of 35 and began eleven years of researching and writing her Guinevere Trilogy a decade later. The popularity of that work allowed her to become a fulltime author. The Guineveres were each Book of the Month Club choices in the US and have been translated into seven languages. Sourcebooks sought her out 20 years later and have now re-issued all three works both as bound volumes and as eBooks. She has just finished her manuscript of Ophelia's tale and her classic How to Write Historical Fiction will be launched in both audio book and eBook format later this year.
When I set out to do my own version of The Matter of Britain the first question was how you create a believable world from a myth which is so overlaid with fantasy and cultural differences? It didn't take much research for me to conclude that while social mores may change fairly rapidly, human nature evolves much more slowly and the reason our great legends survive is because they appeal to what is still basic to our make-up.
Since I was dealing with the Dark Ages in The Guinevere Trilogy, there was precious little available on my time period--I began working on it in December of 1980 and finished up the last fact check the day before the final volume went to press in autumn of 1991. My nascent library consisted of Morris's The Age of Arthur, several of Geoffrey Ashe's volumes, Dorothy Hartley's Lost Country Life plus both Bede (who was several centuries later) and Gildas (who, though a contemporary, never mentions Arthur by name).
I used this latter problem in my novels by making Gildas one of Gwen's potential suitors in Child of the Northern Spring. She turns him down because his eyes 'are set too close together'...i.e. he's too narrow-minded. And later, when the dream of a prospering realm is actually ripening, she notes Gildas's unwillingness to give Arthur credit and wonders if his nose is still out of joint because of the earlier rebuff. Hurt pride is, after all, a pretty basic feeling.
By the same token I realized in tracing the development of the myth that Gawain only began to be portrayed as negative, spiteful and downright dissolute after Lancelot was introduced by the French. For someone as hot-headed as Gawain right from the beginning (more than one scholar has noted that his earliest attributes indicate he may be been based on a Celtic sun god originally) jealousy and resentment of the Breton would be a natural reaction.
But in the end there's only so much research you can do through reading and cogitating, and my work benefited tremendously from my on site research. While the internet has revolutionized such efforts since then, there are wonderful little touches that you won't find on line. For instance, I began with a six week trip to Britain followed up by three more shorter forays. In each case I stayed in hostels, hiked all over Roman and Celtic ruins--if I could still see some semblance of them 1400 years later, she (Gwen) would have known them in far more fulsome form. I focused entirely on my research, carrying everything in my backpack and traveling almost entirely by bus; both the drivers and the other passengers were often wonderfully helpful in sharing information about their locales. (I was careful not to mention King Arthur as in those days the idea of looking for a real historical Arthur was limited to only a few crack-pots, as Geoffrey Ashe warned me.)
More than once bus drivers alerted me to unusual 'ancient' spots such as caves at the base of a footpath next to a small farm. "Seems like some early holy man lived there," led to my exploring them more fully and incorporating them in my work.
Later a casual remark of another driver noting that the old Roman Road that climbs the Cotswold escarpment was too steep for modern buses led to my hiring a taxi to take me down from the top of it only to turn around and drive back up. Though pricey, it was some of the best money I spent on that trip--not only was it a hair-raising experience, it led to my (and Guinevere) looking out over the plain around Gloucester with awe and wonder. It's a view so dramatic, so different from the soft green hills and cozy pastoral one thinks of for most of England it marked a change in Gwen's attitude toward both Arthur and the south.
It was also on a bus trip that I overheard an older couple behind me talking about the cider of their childhood. Never shy when in pursuit of material, I asked where they were from and learned it was Somerset and the brew they were remembering was 'scrumpy,' an ancient and very potent potion indeed. Taking my cue from that and Hartley's notes on horse hair sieves I dropped them into the second volume, Queen of the Summer Stars which is set in Somerset, traditionally part of Arthur's realm.
Incorporating such things as 'business' during dialogue not only helps to avoid the 'he said,' 'she said' syndrome, it also contributes to the sense of the world the reader is enjoying. You want to find ways to educate the reader about such cultural things without becoming didactic, and this sort of touch is an easy way to do it.
It was only when I was well into my Trilogy that the term 'euhemerist' came into my ken. While I am not the first author to go in search of the real people behind the story (Mary Renault comes immediately to mind), there are pure delights in approaching legends this way. Not only do you get to explore foreign realms, you'll likely find all sorts of overlooked bits and pieces that are applicable to today's world. For instance, no one had explored Gwen's reaction to being raped and/or rendered sterile when I began work on my books, though both aspects are part of the Arthurian canon. And certainly both are situations that modern women can relate to.
So if you've a desire to launch into the retelling of some antique tale, by all means have a go at it. Who knows, you may find it as much of a life-changer as I did, and with luck you'll leave the modern reader with a smile of appreciation too.
Persia Woolley became a journalist at the age of 35 and began eleven years of researching and writing her Guinevere Trilogy a decade later. The popularity of that work allowed her to become a fulltime author. The Guineveres were each Book of the Month Club choices in the US and have been translated into seven languages. Sourcebooks sought her out 20 years later and have now re-issued all three works both as bound volumes and as eBooks. She has just finished her manuscript of Ophelia's tale and her classic How to Write Historical Fiction will be launched in both audio book and eBook format later this year.
When I set out to do my own version of The Matter of Britain the first question was how you create a believable world from a myth which is so overlaid with fantasy and cultural differences? It didn't take much research for me to conclude that while social mores may change fairly rapidly, human nature evolves much more slowly and the reason our great legends survive is because they appeal to what is still basic to our make-up.
Since I was dealing with the Dark Ages in The Guinevere Trilogy, there was precious little available on my time period--I began working on it in December of 1980 and finished up the last fact check the day before the final volume went to press in autumn of 1991. My nascent library consisted of Morris's The Age of Arthur, several of Geoffrey Ashe's volumes, Dorothy Hartley's Lost Country Life plus both Bede (who was several centuries later) and Gildas (who, though a contemporary, never mentions Arthur by name).
I used this latter problem in my novels by making Gildas one of Gwen's potential suitors in Child of the Northern Spring. She turns him down because his eyes 'are set too close together'...i.e. he's too narrow-minded. And later, when the dream of a prospering realm is actually ripening, she notes Gildas's unwillingness to give Arthur credit and wonders if his nose is still out of joint because of the earlier rebuff. Hurt pride is, after all, a pretty basic feeling.
By the same token I realized in tracing the development of the myth that Gawain only began to be portrayed as negative, spiteful and downright dissolute after Lancelot was introduced by the French. For someone as hot-headed as Gawain right from the beginning (more than one scholar has noted that his earliest attributes indicate he may be been based on a Celtic sun god originally) jealousy and resentment of the Breton would be a natural reaction.
But in the end there's only so much research you can do through reading and cogitating, and my work benefited tremendously from my on site research. While the internet has revolutionized such efforts since then, there are wonderful little touches that you won't find on line. For instance, I began with a six week trip to Britain followed up by three more shorter forays. In each case I stayed in hostels, hiked all over Roman and Celtic ruins--if I could still see some semblance of them 1400 years later, she (Gwen) would have known them in far more fulsome form. I focused entirely on my research, carrying everything in my backpack and traveling almost entirely by bus; both the drivers and the other passengers were often wonderfully helpful in sharing information about their locales. (I was careful not to mention King Arthur as in those days the idea of looking for a real historical Arthur was limited to only a few crack-pots, as Geoffrey Ashe warned me.)
More than once bus drivers alerted me to unusual 'ancient' spots such as caves at the base of a footpath next to a small farm. "Seems like some early holy man lived there," led to my exploring them more fully and incorporating them in my work.
Later a casual remark of another driver noting that the old Roman Road that climbs the Cotswold escarpment was too steep for modern buses led to my hiring a taxi to take me down from the top of it only to turn around and drive back up. Though pricey, it was some of the best money I spent on that trip--not only was it a hair-raising experience, it led to my (and Guinevere) looking out over the plain around Gloucester with awe and wonder. It's a view so dramatic, so different from the soft green hills and cozy pastoral one thinks of for most of England it marked a change in Gwen's attitude toward both Arthur and the south.
It was also on a bus trip that I overheard an older couple behind me talking about the cider of their childhood. Never shy when in pursuit of material, I asked where they were from and learned it was Somerset and the brew they were remembering was 'scrumpy,' an ancient and very potent potion indeed. Taking my cue from that and Hartley's notes on horse hair sieves I dropped them into the second volume, Queen of the Summer Stars which is set in Somerset, traditionally part of Arthur's realm.
Incorporating such things as 'business' during dialogue not only helps to avoid the 'he said,' 'she said' syndrome, it also contributes to the sense of the world the reader is enjoying. You want to find ways to educate the reader about such cultural things without becoming didactic, and this sort of touch is an easy way to do it.
It was only when I was well into my Trilogy that the term 'euhemerist' came into my ken. While I am not the first author to go in search of the real people behind the story (Mary Renault comes immediately to mind), there are pure delights in approaching legends this way. Not only do you get to explore foreign realms, you'll likely find all sorts of overlooked bits and pieces that are applicable to today's world. For instance, no one had explored Gwen's reaction to being raped and/or rendered sterile when I began work on my books, though both aspects are part of the Arthurian canon. And certainly both are situations that modern women can relate to.
So if you've a desire to launch into the retelling of some antique tale, by all means have a go at it. Who knows, you may find it as much of a life-changer as I did, and with luck you'll leave the modern reader with a smile of appreciation too.