Research Material

No matter how fantastic your stories are, you will still need to do some research for them. There are always aspects you need to look into. The good thing about that is that today, with the internet, we all have all the information we need on our fingertips. There’s nothing you can’t find out about with a Google search and a bit of time to go through the hits.

 

That’s not the only place to find new information, though. Non-fiction books are still a thing. Recently, I bought a couple of books on the topics of herbs and their uses (for Jane’s dive into natural poisons, but also for my two alchemists Isadora and Gabrielle), mythology and monsters (because you never know when you need some), and inventions (for fun and use).

There are quite some non-fiction books which are written very well and are a lot of fun to read (I mentioned “Monster, She Wrote” recently). Sometimes, as with “The Jane Austen Handbook”, a non-fiction book I read can lead to new story ideas (it helped me with figuring out the story details for “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall”). It’s a good idea to leave your comfort zone once in a while, both when it comes to fiction and when it comes to non-fiction, so reading books on new topics is never a bad idea.

 

Why am I mentioning reading non-fiction for fun, though? Certainly, if you need to do research, you need to get information quickly, so the internet is the way to go, right? Yes, certainly.

When I’m looking for information to write a story - or a blog post -, I prefer the internet, too. I usually start out with Wikipedia, see what links turn up on that page, and dig my way deeper - or I use Google and see what kinds of hits come up. Most of the time, that quickly gives me the depth of information I need.

Yet, I’m also a voracious reader and I don’t only read fiction. I read a lot of fiction, but every now and then, younger me, who was at university for a while and always liked non-fiction, too, demands that we read something else for a change. That’s when older me is glad that a lot of non-fiction out there is very readable by now.

 

You need research, because there will always be something which you need for a story, but don’t know enough about. There will always also be some readers who know a lot about that thing, so if you just ‘wing it’, they’ll be annoyed. Much better to research things, at least to a certain degree, and make sure your portrayal is okay.

I have three books by a medic about injuries and what they mean for the people who get them, which helps tremendously with portraying them better in my books (since Jane and some other characters have a tendency to get into dangerous situations).

I have a few books on police procedure and forensics which can be very useful when I need to dip into criminal things or just need information on poisons or the stages of physical death. I also have a stack of books on writing - some of which are more, some less useful, but they all have helped me out in the beginning. In addition, I also make notes of writing advice in a notebook. I know myself - if I look it up on the internet when I need to, I’ll spend far too much time with it instead of writing, as I should.

Depending on what you write, it can be useful to have a few reference books at home, so you have access to them whenever needed. Don’t forget that the internet connection can be broken - even if it’s normally excellent. A book on your shelf is available whenever it’s needed. It doesn’t hurt to check for updates every now and then, but on the whole, a reference book on most topics can serve you well for a long time.

 

Another good resource are people. There’s specialists on most topics you might want to use in your stories, so there’s always the possibility to ask them. When I need information on the military, for instance, my father is one of my first resources to go to, since he was a career soldier for a while.

Another way people can be a resource is as beta readers. Those are people you give your manuscript to once you’re more or less happy with it, they read it, and give you feedback. Depending on what they think, you might want to rework a chapter or two or make changes to the plot.

In some cases, even sensitivity readers can be an option, especially when you try to picture the lives of a specific group of people you’re not part of. In this case, it can be very useful to have people from that group read your manuscript and give you feedback - or asking people from that group, as mentioned above, before you leave the plotting stage.

In general, it can help to get feedback with parts of your story before you write it down - it’s much easier to change the plot than to revise part of the story after you’ve already written it all down. Sometimes, that can’t be avoided, but every way it can be avoided should be used.

 

Reading non-fiction books for fun can lead to new stories, too. As mentioned, I bought “The Jane Austen Handbook” mostly for fun - I’m not even a Jane Austen fan, but I like history and the book threw light on the regular life of landed gentry at Jane Austen’s time. While reading it (and “Monster, She Wrote”), the information was moved around in my head and I came up with a classic Gothic romance tale - what I will write down and eventually publish under the title “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall”.

It’s not the first time this happened to me, either. Decades of reading history books and other books on different kinds of non-fictional topics has left me with a wild mixture of information in my brain. That often comes together with ideas for new stories and makes them better. “Revenge of the Devil Monks”, a novella in the second “Theoretical Necromancy” volume, doesn’t just owe its existence to my love for the “Blind Dead” movies, but also to a two-part non-fiction book about zombie movies over the ages. In general, both Gabrielle and Isadora owe part of their skills to my love for zombie stories and the many times I’ve read books on horror, starting a long time ago with Stephen King’s “Dance Macabre”.

 

Do your research, that’s the most important part. Consider doing research before you need it, too, you never know what might come of it. Facts can be fun and non-fiction can be interesting to read. Remember that there’s always someone among the audience who knows a lot about a topic you use in your story, so make sure they’re not too annoyed with you. You don’t have to be a specialist on everything, but don’t try to just ‘wing it’, either.

Release Schedule - Update

Since I will release my next book on Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to update my release schedule and introduce you to the books for this year and the next.

 

End of February 2021 (Sunday 28th), I will release “The Lives and Times of Isadora Goode”, which is set in a world of superheroes and supervillains and introduces my second necromancer, Isadora Goode. She’ll have her hands full with her own family in “Birth of a Necromancer,” deal with powerful vampires in “Dracula’s Tomb,” and have to save her nemesis’ damsel in “Damsel Disaster.”

In May 2021, I will release “Grey Eminence,” the third volume of the Black Knight Agency. Steven and Jane learn that they are not easily replaceable in the underworld in this one.

In August 2021, “Ignition Rites” will follow. It’s the eighth Knight Agency novel in which Jane will have to deal with a strange cult after she has almost been sacrificed by being burned alive.

And, finally, in November 2021, I will top off the year in releases with “Flatmates & Spies” volume 1. Jamie Moriarty and Sherringford Holmes will have to deal with three missions for the secret service in this one, regaining “The Cannon Plans,” unmasking “The Chess Master,” and foiling the plan of “The Scarlet Madam.”

 

I also have finished plotting all releases for 2022, as it were, and am already in the planning phase for 2023.

In February 2022, Gabrielle Munson will return in the second volume of “Theoretical Necromancy.” She’ll be living through the “Return of the Devil Monks,” encounter blood magic in “The Cursed Paintings,” and deal with a con-man in “The Suitor.”

In May 2022, the stand-alone novel “The Fourth Reich” will present a possible future in which the Nazis managed to gain control of a big chunk of Europe on the second try, but have to deal with their own creations turning against them.

In August 2022, Isadora Goode will return in the second set of stories under the heading of “The Necromancer’s Notebook.” She’ll have to deal with suspicions against her brother’s damsel in “No Honour Among Villains,” dip into her alchemical knowledge in “The Medusa Serum,” and face off against a powerful dead necromancer in “The Lich’s Lair.”

In November 2022, I’ll release another stand-alone novel with “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall,” which will do its best to emulate a nice gothic romance novel with ghosts, old ruins, and two couples coming together.

 

I have already plotted two books for 2023. The first is “Killer Investigation,” in which a hitman will be pushed into the role of investigator when someone else starts killing the people around his target. “Who is the Phantom?” is my take on a villain like Fantomas, but with a twist. Yet, neither of those is anywhere near written, only fully plotted. Other possible projects for 2023 include “Creatures United,” which is my take on the Dark Universe (since all but the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which I’ll replace with a mythical being from the Amazon, are public domain), a new volume of John Stanton, and perhaps, a first volume of D.I. Colin Rook.

 

There are other stories in my head, but they are nowhere near plotted or ripe for plotting. Yet, I have a lot of stuff that is ready or will definitely be ready in time, so the releases above are going to come this year and next. Afterwards, who knows?

Exposition Dumps

 “Okay, so there was this war back when the world was young and the dragons almost destroyed all humans, but then the Leviathan rose from the waters and spewed water all across the lands and the fires were put out, so the dragons were angry and went at him, but the Leviathan just ate them and returned to his bed in the deepest depths of the ocean, and that is why we celebrate this day every year.”

This is very much an exposition dump - all information which seems necessary for the story is just dropped on you in this big pile and you have to deal with it. And, as you might guess, that’s not great. (Btw, I made this up, this is not a story I’ve read somewhere, neither is it one I’ve written.)

 

Exposition dumps are more common in speculative fiction, because there are things in fantasy or science-fiction stories which need explanation. There is a new world with new beings, new cultures, and new landscapes. There is technology we have no experience with. All of this needs explanation to a degree - the exposition dump provides that. Yet, it is not the optimal way for several reasons, nor are there no other stories which dump information on the audience without a warning.

First of all, if you dump all information in one place - often a preface of some sort or the first chapter or scene -, this means half of that will probably be forgotten by the time it is necessary while approaching the climax most of the story later. People will still be confused because they have forgotten half of what you told them in the beginning. Instead of dropping all information then, try to put it in when it becomes necessary. Give information when it becomes relevant and the audience can make use of it right away.

In addition, many people don’t like those dumps when they’re reading. The dump is, by its very nature, not really connected to the plot. In my example above, that day would just be the time the story starts and, perhaps, eventually a dragon or even the Leviathan might turn up. While parts of the plot might hinge on specific things you have created for your world, explaining the full history of the continent on which it takes place is usually not necessary - you need to have background information as the writer, but not all of it has to make it into the story.

Exposition dumps usually don’t fit too well with the rest of the story, either. Depending on the tone of it, the way you frame the dump, it can work (for example the first chapter of “The Fall of the House of Cabal” has a recap of what happened in the other four novels - in case people have forgotten or are starting with the fifth book - and it works, because it’s the same tone as the rest of the book, even if it’s a fourth-wall breach). In most cases, though, it doesn’t work out. Why are the characters suddenly discussing the history of the world, for instance? Why do we suddenly get a monologue of four pages about that big battle which happened at this spot five hundred years ago? It usually rips people from the actual story.

 

How can you put in information for the reader, then?

First of all, in small doses. There’s no reason not to add small pieces of information when they are needed. Have people talk about a specific ritual and its background as they prepare for it. Hint at the common past of two characters as they meet through the way they interact - old friends have different interactions, even if they haven’t seen each other in years, than complete strangers. People are good at filling holes in a narrative, they will assume there’s more when something is just hinted at. Most of the time, you won’t need more.

Don’t uncover the background of a character all at once, even if it’s a cool background and you’re rearing to tell it. Let it bleed into the character’s thoughts and actions, let details get into conversations or become part of the plot. There’s no reason for a character to tell another one all about their life two minutes after meeting them. We don’t do that in real life, either (well, most of us don’t). It’s also more fun to learn about them bit by bit.

For most stories, the ancient history of the world has no impact at all. If your characters are after a MacGuffin that was created when the world was young, it might be important to speak about that part of the history, but in most cases, the ancient past has little influence on what’s happening. You have to accept that while you know it, the audience never might.

 

When it comes to giving information, remember that every scene you write must have one of two types of content: give information or advance the plot. Ideally, a scene even does both, it gives us information we need and it advances the plot.

Remember, too, that the audience will not know immediately which parts of the information you give are important and they might choose not to remember the parts which are really needed when you dump everything at once. That will then lead to them scratching their heads (metaphorically or otherwise) when an important scene is relying on that information and they don’t know what’s going on.

For one thing, don’t disclose information until it’s needed in the story. When a MacGuffin is important, have people speak about the reason as they plan their expedition to find it. That’s a good way to explain why that thing is important. When a character’s background plays a role, disclose it as the story progresses and in combination with things which happen.

The character meets an old friend they haven’t seen since the end of the war. The character searches their place for their old sword, but finds it still damaged, since they decided never to take it up again after that one fight. The character is called by an old nickname they don’t like any longer by a passersby who remembers them from their past life. All of this can be used to establish that the character was a dangerous and feared fighter in their youth, but has left it behind a long time ago. Now, according to plot, an old enemy has resurfaced and is coming for them. By using all those small details where and when they become important, it’s far more likely that the audience will remember them. They’re not dumped all at once, so there’s no choosing what looks important and what doesn’t, they’re given as they become relevant for the story.

 

Sometimes, exposition dumps are hard to avoid. There are situations where it might be necessary for one character to take on the mantle of lecturer and tell the rest of them why it is important to find that MacGuffin or why they have to repair that generator, stat. That can include an exposition dump. It already helps, though, if you have them give that lecture when it becomes relevant. Don’t dump it at the beginning and expect people to keep it all in mind. Ideally, don’t dump exposition at all, but work it into several different scenes as an extra.

My Fair Lady and Pygmalion

 In the 1964 musical movie “My Fair Lady”, based on a stage musical from 1956, based on a stage play from 1913, female lead Eliza Doolittle returns to Professor Henry Higgins in the end and a ‘happily ever after’ is suggested. In the original stage musical, though, this did not happen and Eliza decided that she didn’t need to stay with a man who didn’t care about her, her worries, her wants, or her needs.

 

Both versions make it pretty clear that Higgins deserves to be left behind. He’s egoistical, arrogant, and misogynist, looking down on women and especially on women who have a heavy lower-class accent, such as Eliza. Eliza, on the other hand, does see the use of bettering herself - even if her original dream is not to dance at the embassy ball, but to find work in a flower shop instead of selling her flowers on the streets. It’s both a simple and, with some proper phonetic training to do away with her Cockney accent, an attainable dream.

Higgins treats Eliza badly, despite her making all the effort. It’s clear he, despite all his knowledge of phonetics, can’t understand how hard it is to unlearn an accent one has spoken for all of one’s life. He also sees all of her eventual success (she can pass for a duchess at the embassy ball) as his doing and his alone, as if Eliza hadn’t had anything to do with it.

It’s no wonder that, under these circumstances, Eliza doesn’t want to stay with him. They have an argument and she leaves his house. Yet, Eliza is in a difficult state - she no longer fits with her past, can’t just return to the streets where she lived. Her father (due to Higgins’ meddling) has changed his life, too. She isn’t satisfied with her other suitor’s actions (all talk, no action). When she ends up with Higgins’ mother, the two women quickly agree upon how Higgins did her wrong - there is, simply speaking, also no reason for Eliza to return to Higgins, no matter how his opinion of her has changed.

Yet, the movie was a movie and people tend to expect a certain outcome, so the return of Eliza was added to the story and a happy end (more for Higgins than for her) was created.

In its original version - Eliza leaving Higgins for good -, the musical makes much more sense, given how Higgins treats her.

 

The story of Pygmalion, which was used as the title for the original stage play, has a man who despises women fall in love with an ivory statue he’s created, wishing for her to be real. His prayer is answered by Aphrodite, who makes the statue come to life for him, so he can live with her.

In the original stage play, the statue is replaced by a beggar girl whom a king wants to take as his wife and thus educates to make her fit the position (as Higgins does with Eliza, if for other reasons). The story is then shifted to Edwardian England in “My Fair Lady” in 1956, with the woman becoming a lowest-class flower-seller and the man becoming a renown professor of phonetics. The general manners still feature in the education, but making Eliza speak ‘like a duchess’ (aka without discernible accent) takes the top spot.

While the original Pygmalion got to keep the woman he created (and isn’t training a woman to take the position as your wife very much like ‘creating’ someone, too?), this is not the case with Higgins - and for good reason. Pygmalion (both in the myth and in the stage play) created his significant other out of love, wanted to be with her, have her by his side. Higgins created ‘Duchess’ Eliza to prove he could. He cared none for her feelings, her future, or whatever damage he might do to her prospects with his actions. He wanted to prove that he was right and that was all which counted (hence his shameless ‘look how well I did’ song after the ball). Therefore, it makes sense that he, unlike Pygmalion, wouldn’t stay with his creation. She became uninteresting to him the moment he reached his goal.

That Higgins then realizes that he has grown used to her (perhaps even loves her), is his problem, not hers. He’s made his position clear, Eliza takes the hint, and goes to find out what to do with the rest of her life (Kim Newman’s “Angels of Music” suggests that her training was so perfect that she could emulate everyone afterwards, becoming a perfect spy, but that’s not canon). It’s a much more satisfying end, teaching him a lesson as well, than the one from the movie.

 

What lesson does it teach to the audience, though? Well, that Higgins is a jerk, clearly. It also teaches the women something, though, especially in the original musical - that if you are with a jerk and you realize he doesn’t care about you, unless it’s how you relate to him, drop that guy and find someone else, even if it’s hard. Men can learn not to be like Higgins - or they might lose what they took for granted. Unfortunately, the movie version erases these lessons, instead teaching women to accept that their husband/boyfriend is a jerk and live with it and men that it’s fine to treat your wife/girlfriend badly. The first pair of lessons is good, the second is not.

 

I think we need a new version of this story on screen - a new movie version of “My Fair Lady”, no matter whether as a musical (that might not fly, right after “Cats”) or as a regular movie. This time, though, it needs to end the right way - the way the stage musical ended. Eliza must walk away from the abusive jerk who promised her a better life, but doesn’t care about her future, once he’s proven his point. If that leaves him missing her and longing for her, all the better - that’s the lesson he has to learn.

This way of ending the story of Pygmalion, not with him getting the ‘perfect’ wife, but with the woman walking away from him because he didn’t care about her wants and needs, can be a strong message and can potentially create strong character arcs for a story, both for a female and for a male protagonist.

 

If you want to write a relationship story and you don’t have a ‘happily ever after’ in mind, consider “My Fair Lady” and consider showing that training a woman to be your perfect wife can backfire hard on a man. It might make for an interesting and challenging story to write and something more unusual to read.

Introducing Solar Pons

 Imagine a young man writing to his favourite author, asking for more stories of his favourite character, only to learn that there won’t be more of them. Imagine the same young man writing to his favourite author, asking to be allowed to write more stories himself and be denied. Imagine, again, that young man, deciding to write stories like those of his favourite author and creating a new version of his favourite character. That young man was August Derleth (who is usually more connected to H. P. Lovecraft than to Arthur Conan Doyle) and the new version of his favourite character (Sherlock Holmes) is Solar Pons.

 

This review is mainly based on the first collection of Solar Pons stories (“In Re: Sherlock Holmes”). The full series spans ten books which also include pastiches by other authors and a few Sherlock Holmes stories Derleth wrote later on. I will probably return to Solar Pons at some point and do another review, but I wanted to talk a little about him already.

 

Solar Pons is not just a copycat, not just the same character by another name. Derleth worked off the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ template, no doubt, but he didn’t just copy Holmes. For one, he changed the setting. Sherlock Holmes went into retirement in 1903 (according to the canon) and moved to Sussex to keep bees. The first Solar Pons story, in which Pons and his chronicler Dr. Parker meet, is set in 1919. The latest stories about Pons are set in 1939, so his work life as a detective, as covered by Parker, spans the time between the two World Wars. In addition, several literary detectives exist within the canon of Solar Pons, including Sherlock Holmes himself, who is long gone by then.

Pons himself is often referred to as ‘the Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’ (which is where he lives). There are a lot of parallels - Pons has a landlady/housekeeper, he has a contact at Scotland Yard, he even has his own Moriarty (who, fitting for the time, is a German spymaster), and he has a brother who is in an important position in the government.

There are also parts where things are different. The Occult is something which never features in a serious way in a Sherlock Holmes story (they were written before Doyle himself became a spiritualist) - he’s fully on the rational side, at least in the original canon. Derleth has put some supernatural elements in here and there. Most of the stories don’t have any suggestions of ghosts or monsters, but there are suggestions that sometimes the answer is not completely rooted in the rational.

 

It’s also interesting to see how much the later setting changes things. Pons has a telephone at his disposal and there’s cars around. Technology which makes things go a little faster and means he can have some answers in a few minutes, not in hours or days (as might be the case with telegrams).

There’s much less of Pons really dressing up, either (unless you count the ‘old-fashioned’ Inverness coat and hunting cap that make him look like the Great Detective). He’s not going around in disguise as much as Holmes (who, clearly, missed his calling as an actor).

On the other hand, Derleth lays out the hints a little more clearly than Doyle did, making it a little easier for the reader to come to the same conclusion as the detective. If you pay attention, you will be able to realize how things have been done well before Parker - who reports everything, but sometimes seems at a loss when it comes to connecting the pieces.

 

I did enjoy reading the stories even more because, as mentioned, it’s a little easier to solve them alongside Pons. It’s more thrilling to read the story when you know you can figure it out and you will be right there with Pons when all is resolved, knowing how they ‘did it’. Some of the stories also have an interesting solution, such as a moveable floor (something not possible in Sherlock Holmes’ time) or the ability to hang oneself with the help of a winch mechanic. The stories give me the satisfaction of having solved them and that’s something not all of Doyle’s stories do - not before Sherlock Holmes is ready to unveil everything.

That is, at first glance, due to Watson not having all information at his disposal beforehand, but Pons has his own ‘Watson’ and Parker relays all information he has to the reader, which is enough to solve the case. I’m not quite sure whether Doyle wanted for the audience to be able to solve the case alongside Sherlock Holmes in the first place, which might explain why Watson doesn’t relay everything. Derleth clearly wanted to give all information to the reader, to make it a fair game for them, and so he made sure that Parker didn’t always make the connection, but always had the necessary information to give to the reader.

 

Solar Pons is, in addition, a more rounded character. Sherlock Holmes is highly specialized (it’s what prompts Watson to write at one point that Holmes doesn’t care whether the earth orbits the sun or the other way around) and he doesn’t have time for things not relating to his work, unless it’s his violin and his love of music and art. It’s not really a surprise he’s into cocaine when he needs stimulus - his life doesn’t provide much of it outside of work, so if interesting work is scarce, he needs a dose of seven-per-cent stimulation.

Solar Pons has more hobbies and interests outside of the field of crime (and has written monographs on them as well). He might not be quite as good with music (Parker describes him as ‘scratching on the violin’), but he certainly has less need of drugs to keep himself stimulated.

The different society they live in also has an influence on things. Between the wars, society had changed greatly from the later Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes. Women are more self-sufficient and more confident, seeking out help from Pons with less worries than decades earlier with Holmes. The social class of the clients is also much more varied, ranging from the government (even without Pons’ brother in the mix) to lowly clerks and their amulets.

The changes are refreshing, giving Pons more personality and making him his own character. He might mirror Sherlock Holmes in many aspects, but he’s not just a copy, which is good for the stories.

 

I personally have very much enjoyed my version of the first book so far and am deep into the second (the new editions follow the original Mycroft&Moran ones, not the later ‘edited’ ones out in the 1960s/1970s).

There’s just enough of a difference for Pons to be his own person while at the same time not enough of a difference to make it feel like a completely different franchise. If you like Sherlock Holmes, you will enjoy the Solar Pons stories, too. If you’re not into Sherlock Holmes, Pons will probably not convince you to like him now.

 

In the end, we owe Arthur Conan Doyle for not wanting to write more stories about Sherlock Holmes - had he done so, August Derleth wouldn’t have had a reason to do so instead and Solar Pons would never have been born. If you like Sherlock Holmes, you might want to take a look at Solar Pons as well - the stories are worth it and there is a good edition out there, too.