Wednesday 22 January 2014

The Birth of a Novel


It was pure co-incidence that the Braveheart movie was broadcast on television at the same time I was reading Marc Morris’s book, A Great and Terrible King, a fascinating account of the life of King Edward the First. The two histories just didn’t go together and I became keen to dig deeper into other accounts of what actually happened in that era.  

I was aware that the film had been widely condemned in the press for its inaccuracies, but I wasn’t at first aware just how deeply those inaccuracies went. I borrowed and bought other non-fiction books, and I gathered academic papers from the internet. The journey towards discovery led me along avenues I found illuminating. I was captivated by events which I found more interesting than those portrayed in the film. Why were others not aware of the real story? Why hadn’t I learned more of the detail of that period of history when I was at school? I had, I decided, missed out by not making these discoveries earlier in my life.

In time I became keen to share my discoveries with others, but the information was already out there for others to read if they chose. It was there in books sitting idly on library shelves, and in well-written papers that few people read. How could I share my enthusiasm for this period of history in a different way? That was when I decided to write a novel set in the thirteenth century. The public at large will not usually go to the trouble of reading academic studies, but they would read a novel if I made it interesting enough. Wasn’t that how Bernard Cornwell gave us all a more detailed insight into the Peninsula War?

Thus was born The Poisoned Cup.

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