• About
  • GCA and the need for funds
  • How to follow Ninevoices
  • Publications
  • Writings

ninevoices

~ Nine writers on reading and writing.

ninevoices

Tag Archives: London

More coronatime reading

23 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by ninevoices in Biography, Children's books, Comedy, Ed, Historical, Lockdown, Management, Memoir, Poetry, Romance, Thrillers

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

18th century, Alaska, Corona virus, Cotswolds, Czechia, Lake District, London, South Wales, Sussex, Zatopek

So, corona virus restrictions are being reimposed.  Less socialising, less going out of the house, maybe worse to come.  But the upside of all that is, you can top up your lockdown reading …   Your Books To Be Read pile might have shrunk in the past six months, but why not add to it now?  Why not choose something new, maybe something you wouldn’t normally touch?

Taking some books at, er, random – you can enjoy historical fiction, thrillers, comedy, romance, novels exploring relationships and the human heart; revel in the settings of London (in the 18th century and today), modern Czechia, Sussex, the Lake District, Alaska, South Wales, Devon and the Cotswolds.

Or you can read biography and moving memoir; and if you are a manager and your staff are all working from home, why not take advantage of their absence and bone up on management thinking?  And if you’re a parent or doting grandparent, get a lovely book for the little one.

Last, but not least, there’s poetry.  What better way to cope with today’s vicissitudes than settling down with some great poetry ‘the best words in the best order’, as I think someone said.

Happy reading!

 

 

 

Congrats to The Servant

14 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by ninevoices in Competition Win, Ed, Fiction, Historical, Maggie, Writing Historical Fiction

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

18th century, London, squalor

The Servant – the book we hope to be reading soon!  Many congratulations to ninevoice Maggie Richell Davies, who has won the Sharpe Books/Historical Writers’ Association Unpublished Award 2020.

The other eight ninevoices have heard this book progress (and change form) for some time now and we know how good it is.  We’re in 1765: and, to quote the HWA website, “Fourteen-year-old Hannah must go where she’s sent, despite her instincts screaming danger. Why does disgraced aristocrat William Chalke have a locked room in his house? What’s sold at the auctions taking place behind closed doors?”   The story evokes 18th century London and its squalor and brutality and also its redeeming features. 

It’s clear from the descriptions of the short- and longlisted novels how strong a field the judges had to choose from.  Our congratulations to all those authors in those lists!  See http://www.historiamag.com/hwa-sharpe-books-unpublished-novel-award-winner/

National Bookshop Day

05 Saturday Oct 2019

Posted by ninevoices in Maggie

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bookshops, Daunt's Bookshop, Libraries, London

Let’s all raise a glass in praise of our wonderful bookshops. Along with libraries, they are the best friends of all readers and writers.

My other half and I spent time (and a modest amount of money) in Daunt’s Bookshop in London yesterday. A magical place in Marylebone.20191005_150451-1.

It is tempting to save a pound or two by buying books from Amazon – though by the time you’ve added postage, the difference may not be great – but let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot by making book selling on the high street uneconomic. We don’t want to deny ourselves the thrill of one day seeing our own efforts on public display, do we?

 

Punctuation matters

26 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Punctuation

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Cycling, Fenchurch Street, London

Indeed they don’t.

Cheering up Man Flu – Londonopolis

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by ninevoices in Ed, Fiction, History, Reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christmas presents, Daphne du Maurier, East India Company, London, Londonopolis, Man Flu, Martin Latham, Rebecca, William II

I’m reading Londonopolis – A Curious History of London at the moment (thanks to my family for a great Christmas present). The author, Martin Latham, says, “You can read this book in any order, or leave it in the lavatory for the occasional reverie.” I can add another good use for it: silent entertainment for a case of Man Flu. It’s written in easy chunks (chronologically ordered), and so can be picked up and put down as fitfully as the suffering patient desires, with no loss of continuity.

It’s amusing and full of interesting oddities. It encouragingly takes on received historical wisdom: eg William Rufus was actually quite a good King (his Westminster Hall is a masterpiece), and the East India Company was in some respects better than the Raj that replaced it in India, and it had enlightened HR policies here at home (thieving employees would merely be publicly whipped through the street rather than be hanged or transported to the colonies). The illustrations are fun. While reading this the invalid won’t be plaintively and feebly calling to his devoted nurse for more lemon tea or more pillows or fewer pillows.

I was reading Daphne du Maurier’s excellent Rebecca (a 2016 Christmas present!), but felt that if I was already feeling sorry for myself that book’s atmosphere of tension and worry was hardly going to help. So Rebecca is on hold. Better something quirky that brings a smile.

There’s a fuller review of Londonopolis on the Turbulent London website, at https://turbulentlondon.com/2016/02/11/book-review-londonopolis-a-curious-history-of-london/.

Nasty germs apart, a Happy New Year to all ninevoices’ readers!

Historical novels – how much research?

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by ninevoices in Dialogue, Ed, Historical, Read Lately, Research

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anachronisms, Bohemia, Forsooth, Francis Spufford, Golden Hill, Lewis, London, New York City, Thirty Years War

Historical novels – how much research should you do, what lengths should you go to to get the details and the whole feel right?

I’ve been pondering this as I’ve just read Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, who manages to create what seemed an authentic picture of New York in 1746. How authentic it in fact is I can’t verify, short of doing the research myself. But it certainly worked for me: we learned about the city’s dimensions, architecture, weather, race relations, commerce, justice system, politics, religious observance, card games, Bonfire Night customs, and even its smells. I believed it.

To find all that out must have taken a very long time. But when to stop? Do you draw a line somewhere, and avoid venturing into unknown detail, or do you draw that line and just wing it, hoping that few of your readers will notice any errors in the areas you didn’t delve into? Can you get away with finding out what people ate and wore in your chosen period, and maybe what their houses looked like, and assume that that will so impress your average reader that they believe the rest?

Warning – I’ve recently seen an episode of ‘Lewis’ in which a fraudster who has forged an ancient Greek text is brought low because in it he mentions a constellation that was discovered only in the C17. There’s always an expert out there who will spot these lone errors …

One of the ninevoices has produced a novel set in C18 London. I know she’s done much research, and the detail seems convincing. If the rest of us think we’ve spotted an anachronism we’ve said so, but usually we’re wrong.

I once thought of stepping into these deep waters myself when I started a story set in Bohemia during the Thirty Years War in the C17. It didn’t get beyond the first chapter because my creative writing tutor told me it had too much exposition, too much scene-setting. She was probably right, but I started writing something else instead.

What about the dialogue? Options could include:

  • Having your characters speak in modern-day English, just avoiding obvious anachronisms like ‘Facebook’, ‘celeb’ or ‘infomercial’;
  • Ditto, but with your characters saying ‘Forsooth’, ‘Gadzooks’ and ‘By St Leonard!’ every now and then;
  • Immersing yourself in the literature of the time (more research – when are you actually going to get started?) and trying to replicate at least some of its rhythms and vocabulary?

‘Have at ye, Sirrah!’

Are there rights and wrongs in this field? Advice please.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013

Categories

  • 2017 Hysteria Writing Competition
  • Adventure
  • Agents
  • Alan Bennett
  • Amazon Self-Publishing Award
  • Art
  • audiobooks
  • Authors
  • Autobiography
    • Claire Tomalin
    • Stephen King
  • Barbara Pym
    • A Glass of Blessings
  • BBC1
  • Bestsellers
  • Biography
  • Book etiquette
  • Books for Christmas
  • Bookshops
  • Bridport Longlist Published
  • Cecily
  • challenge
  • Characters
  • Children's books
  • Christopher Fielding
  • Classics
  • clergy
  • Collaboration
  • Colm Tóibín
  • Comedy
  • Coming up
  • Competition
  • Competition Win
  • Competition Winners
  • Competitions to Enter
  • Crime
  • criticism
  • Dame Hilary Mantel, Reith Lectures 2017, Historical Fiction
  • Dialogue
  • Drama
  • eBooks
  • Elizabeth Gaskell
  • Exeter Novel Prize
  • Factual writing
  • Fame
  • feedback
  • Festivals
  • Film
  • Finding an Agent
  • Finishing that novel
  • Forty-six years
  • Fowey Festival Adult Short Story Competition. Daphne du Maurier
  • Genres
  • Getting down to it
  • Getting Published
  • Girls Gone By Publishers
  • Good Housekeeping Novel Competition
  • Grammar
  • Halloween Writing Competition
  • Heard lately
  • heroes
  • heroines
  • Historia
  • Historical
  • Historical Novels
    • book reviews
  • History
  • Homework
  • Horror
  • How to Write a Short Story
  • Humour
  • Hystyeria 6
  • Ideas
  • Imagery
  • Imagination and the Writer
  • Inspiration
  • Jane Austen
  • Jane Austen House Museum
  • L. M. Montgomery
  • Laptops and Coffin Lids
  • Location
  • Lockdown
  • Maggie
  • Management
  • manuscript services
  • Margaret Kirk
  • Marketing
  • McKitterick Prize
  • Memoir
  • Military
  • Mslexia
  • Mslexia Writer's Diary
  • Myslexia Magazine
  • Mystery
  • Mythology
  • Newly Published
  • Newly Published Author
  • News
    • Competitions
    • Obituary
  • Ninevoices
    • Anita
    • Christine
    • Ed
    • Elizabeth
    • Jane
    • Maggie
    • Sarah
    • Tanya
    • Valerie
  • Ninevoices' winning short story
  • Observations
    • Grammar
    • Words
  • On now
  • Orion Publishing
  • Our readers
  • Plot
  • PMRGCAuk
  • Poetry
  • Police Procedurals
  • Publish Your Book
  • Publishing
  • Punctuation
  • Puppy Dogs
  • radio
  • Read Lately
    • Articles
    • Books
  • Reading
  • rejection
  • religion
  • Research
  • reviews
  • RNA Learning Programme
  • Romance
  • Romantic Novelists' Association
  • Sarah Dawson
  • Satire
  • Science fiction
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Seen lately
  • Shadow Man
  • Short stories
  • Short Story Competition
  • Social Media
  • Spelling
  • Sport
  • Spotlight Adventures in Fiction
  • Structure
  • Style
  • submissions
  • Synopsis Writing
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Bridport
  • The Bridport, Lucy Cavendish, Bath, Yeovil, Winchester
  • The Daily Mail Crime Novel Competition
  • The Impostor Syndrome
  • The Jane Austen House Museum
  • The London Magazine Novel Competition, Henshaw Press, Writing Magazine, Writers' Forum
  • The Mirror & the Light
  • The Servant, Getting Published
  • The Times
  • Theatre
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Thrillers
  • Translation
  • Travelling hopefully
  • Uncategorized
  • Valerie
  • villains
  • Vocabulary
  • Volunteering
  • War
  • Websites
  • Westerns
  • Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing
  • Winning Competitions
  • Winning Writing Competitions
  • Wolf Hall
  • Words
  • Writercraft
  • Writerly emotions
  • Writers' Forum
  • Writers' groups
  • Writing
    • Column
    • Drama
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Stories
  • Writing Competitions to Enter
  • Writing conventions
  • Writing games
  • Writing Historical Fiction
  • Yeovil First Novel Competition

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • ninevoices
    • Join 3,915 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • ninevoices
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...