SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT
Share your writing success stories. If you subscribe to Writing Magazine and would like to feature here, email Tina Jackson, tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk
Rooting for the baddy
‘Have you ever noticed that the “baddies” in books, plays and films are often more interesting characters than the “goodies”?’ writes subscriber David
Lawrence-Young.
‘Bearing this in mind, I set out to write my biographical novel, King John – Two-Time Loser. This is the 18th historical novel I’ve written and the eighth to be published by Ravenswood Publishing, USA and edited by WM’s Gary Dalkin. ‘As a kid learning history, I was always told that King John was a bad king and probably the worst one ever to sit on the throne of England. The only redeeming feature of his reign was to seal (he never actually signed) the Magna Carta, and that was only because his noble barons forced him to. Rubbish! While carrying out the research for my book I found out that the knights had not done so out of altruistic or patriotic reasons. All they were thinking about was how to increase their own power and to pay fewer taxes. ‘I also discovered that much of what we were told about this allegedly Bad King was based on the contemporary Church chronicles. These were slanted heavily against him since he had seriously annoyed the Church by appointing his own man to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury and not the bishop that they had wanted.
‘In addition, in the C0did so.
The fact that Richard almost bankrupted England to pay for this foreign venture was not taken into account by the ecclesiastic authorities. And neither was the fact that Richard spent only six months of his ten-year reign actually living in England. ‘All in all, apart from learning about England’s supposedly Bad King John, I had a great time writing this novel.’
One dream at a time
‘When I won my first writing competition I was so excited I ran all the way home,’ writes subscriber Brendan O’Brien. ‘I was eight years old. The fun fair was in town and we had to write an essay on it. I won a book of ten tickets for the rides. ‘So writing was in my blood from a very young age. And I dreamed of being a writer. I wanted to be a writer – but somehow life got in the way.
‘It was only when I got married and the children came along that I made any serious attempt to write Dark September, an alternative history WW2 thriller set in Wales. I always wrote in longhand but I hated typing it. When my agent demanded major changes I spent another year rewriting it. But she still wanted changes. It became too much. I parked it in a drawer for a few years.