When the End is in Sight the Longest Part of the Journey has Begun!

The Ministry of Social Biology

Eugenica, my alternative history novel, is nearing completion and it is proving a very frustrating period in the creative process. The last two chapters, there may actually be three but I am not clear on that yet, are proving very difficult to get into shape. There are various reasons for this and I suppose it is somewhat encouraging that I am able to understand them, otherwise I would be lost in a creative vortex.

All of the problems are of my own creation. The plot is not particularly convoluted but it does have several threads running through it and they need to be brought together to help form the closing scenes. I am not one who needs every question answered or every thread tied off, in fact there may well prove to be a sequel to Eugenica so I think that it is in everyone’s interest that the ending is somewhat open.

This approach is not one of the problems, avoiding the obvious or predictable is. One of my beta-readers suggested a certain cataclysmic event at the end of the story, it was one that I had already flagged up myself – only with the intent of avoiding it. Yes, the obvious incident would be full of danger, death, and destruction and possibly I could make it into a thrilling ride for the reader but I can guarantee that it is also the first thought of the said reader when they encounter the particular object that suggests this violent end in the opening passages. It is just too obvious!

What I actually want to do is something a little bit more subversive and I am working to that end on this particular part of the story. The conclusion itself is going to be pretty violent anyway with two characters who represent the opposite ends of what eugenics believes it can create coming to blows. They are both physically powerful men but also very different to one another. Their battle should give me plenty of exciting action to write about. I am actually looking forward to working on this episode as by its very nature it tips its hat to a form of fiction that I very much enjoyed in my formative years; high adventure!

Again I want to avoid the obvious or the predictable. There’s a tangle enmeshing three characters in particular and I believe that making that tangle even more complicated will make their relationships towards one another rather fascinating.

On top of this there’s the need to reread all my notes to implement the many observations that I’ve made during the rewrite so as to maintain the coherence of the story, the plot, the character’s, and the chronology. As I approach the end of the writing phase getting the manuscript to a state fit to publish seems still like a long way off!

I suppose the reason for this lies in the fact that I no longer have a single goal to aim for. Originally it was to write the story, which I did in quite a short space of time, for me anyway. After that I realised that I had work to do on individual characters, develop themes, establish a credible landscape to set the story in, work in new ideas, correct errors in various forms and a hundred other tasks that only seem to become apparent when you decide to take the writing of the story seriously.

As with my two previous novels, The War Wolf and For Rapture of Ravens, this can all prove very frustrating and yet at the same time there’s an increasing element of excitement. It is always exciting when a creative project nears completion and that is what I am reminding myself of; the book is nearly finished. The book is going to be finished. Despite everything else that has to be done before I reach that day there is one thing that I am sure of, Eugenica is going to be completed and there is nothing else that compares to that moment of satisfaction when you hold a copy of your completed work in your hands!

A Cordial Invitation

For the Thrill of it All

My next writing project is set in the 1930’s and I thought that it might be worthwhile reading a book from that period, not some literary masterpiece but something more popularist and so I happened on Edgar Wallace. In his time Wallace was a prolific writer with an estimated 50 million copies of his work in existence at one time, though sadly most of his books are now out of print. He specialised in thrillers and colonial adventures, the latter of a dubious character in the light of these more enlightened times. He should perhaps be famous for his largest creation, King Kong¸ he wrote 110 pages of the first draft of the screenplay before dying of a heart attack aged only 56!

The reason why I wanted to read someone like Edgar Wallace is because he wrote for the public and not for critical acclaim. He claimed himself to find no literary value in his own books but clearly he was able to represent a life that many English people of the period recognised and made it more exciting with the addition of murder and mystery. This is what I was looking for, the kind of thing that other authors of the time might not be so interested in.

I picked up ‘Green Rust’, a book that might be termed a ‘techno-thriller’ today. It concerns a not quite so mad genius who believes that he has discovered a means to raise Germany from the dust following the imposition of reparations imposed upon it by the allies after the end of World War I. His weapon is masterful, a bacteriological poison that will devastate the world’s wheat crops, and he has a network of agents ready to act in all the great arable areas of the globe. Only one man, the American agent Stanford Beale, has an inkling of the diabolical plans of Dr Van Heerden and sets out to stop him as the good doctor hatches his plans in an unsuspecting England.

The actual story does not concern me too much, although Wallace’s vision of a Germany rising from the dust was spot on and his prediction concerning the danger inherent in biological warfare is chilling, even more so for the times in which he wrote. I was more interested in how a popular author might represent the social customs and mores of the period in which he wrote. The differences are subtle but important I think. Class consciousness is far more prevalent than I expected but not in an overbearing fashion, as it is often represented in retrospective pieces on the early 20^th century. Etiquette also matters more, along with appropriate dress, occupation and residence.

I can’t say that reading ‘Green Rust’ led to me making and great discoveries in terms of how British society between the wars functioned but that was not my aim. By far the most important element is the ‘feel’ of the times. People spoke, acted, worked and relaxed a little differently. They lacked many of the material comforts that we take for granted and also seemed to aspire to a lot less. There is little reliance on technology simply because it has yet to make the inroads that enjoy. The telegraph is the email of the day, telephones are common but not as quick or as far reaching as you might expect. The same applies to cars and aeroplanes are still exotic toys of the future for the majority of the population.

These are the kind of elements that I am looking to capture. I believe that it is in the small detail of the ephemeral that adds realistic substance to the weave of a historical fiction text. It is difficult to say if reading Edgar Wallace will give me a true feel for the period but doing so takes me closer to my objective. If I have time then I will look to read some of his contemporaries work as well but I think that I have gained a useful insight into a period that is different to our own today in far more subtle ways.