Well, I say ‘our girls’, but really, we are having to share them both with the rest of the world – both are being published overseas in ever-increasing degrees. Paula Morris’ latest book for teens, Ruined, is part of a three-book deal with Scholastic, and Rachael King’s earlier work The Sound of Butterflies has now been translated into eight languages (we counted them).
A full room, a great chair (Dorothy Vinicombe), and a very engaged audience meant the hour flew by, and I took so many notes I don’t even know where to begin. Rachael has promised to chat with us back in Christchurch next week, but in the meantime, here are a few of the questions asked, and their respective answers.
What are the perils and pleasures of writing historical fiction?
Rachael: The pleasure comes in letting your imagination run away with your choice of character (you can choose someone as far removed from yourself as you like – Magpie Hall features as one of its main characters a 19th century heavily tattoo-ed English male taxidermist), but then you do need to ground them in some sort of reality. And this is the perilous bit, she says: “When you’re reading my book, I don’t want you to be thinking about me and my research. If you are, I’ve failed in my job.”
Paula: Once you’ve started a story, your research can lead you much more deeply into that story, if you let it: “One thing leads to another.” And if sometimes the research reveals facts that don’t fit with your plot, you must either choose to change your story, or to ‘ignore’ those facts.
Exactly, comments Rachael: “If this is fiction, I should be able to make things up, otherwise it’s not fiction.”
Tell us about how you developed some of the other characters in your books.
For both writers, this turned into an exploration of ‘object as character’. For Rachael: In Magpie Hall, Henry’s cabinet of curiosities was pivotal enough, and had so much impact on those around it, that it really did attain ‘character status’; and for Paula, the same could be said of Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans, the setting for much of the action in Ruined. In fact, Paula’s editor felt so much ‘love’ was going into the cemetery descriptions, she was asked to stop, already!
And finally, a question about how connections with new books can inspire revisiting of older classics. For example, the Twilight series has awakened a huge surge of interest in Wuthering Heights, just as Bridget Jones’ Diary introduced a whole new set of readers to Austen. The question then became:
Team Austen or Team Bronte?
RK: Has always been Team Bronte, and although she hated Austen as a student, now fully loves P&P.
PM: Both Team Austen and Team Bronte, always.
Rachael did comment, however, that for her Wuthering Heights has always been a novel not of great love, but of great revenge, a statement fully supported by Paula, who added, “Yes, and a sadistic one at that”.
Other highlights of the session included a detailed description of how to skin a tiger (Rachael), an illuminating discussion of tattoos in high society (Churchill’s mother apparently had one!), and a brief mention of Paula’s earlier career as ghost writer, featuring “trashy shopping and kissing novels set in San Tropez”.
A great session, great authors, and great books – go find them and read them both. Now.
Christchurch City Libraries Blog 
I agree – Dorothy Vinicombe was such a good chair. She asked a lot of thoughtful questions, really on to it. The chemistry between Rachael and Paula was wonderful: when Paula mentioned that she used to ghost write teen fiction in her free time, Rachael jibed, ” ‘In your free time’. Oh, go away.”
Absolutely! One of the things I enjoyed most about this session was the banter, and the social vibe – I couldn’t squeeze much about tattoos in above, but basically Paula was talking about how incredibly interesting they are as a topic, and Rachael shot back with, “No, it’s mine, you can’t have it!”
Thanks Bronwyn – Paula and I had a great time. And of course, as is usual with these things, i thought of what I should have said long after it was over.
When we were talking about Bronte vs Austen I should have mentioned that of course Magpie Hall borrows heavily from Austen’s Northanger Abbey, not just by using the name of the house as its title, but in the fact that both novels are about young women who are immersed in too many gothic novels and they start to colour everything they see and make them see sinister things everywhere. It was deliberate homage to Austen in that respect, just as there are also many to Bronte.
We writers are so much more articulate about these things in the quiet of our own studies than under the bright lights on the spot!
Well, I thought you were incredibly articulate, and I also cannot say enough how much I adored this book. I’ve always been a sucker for a good gothic read, and I loved every inch of the atmospheric and mysterious Magpie Hall.