Kate Furnivall on her Research Process
I am a fanatical note-taker! My problem is that I love doing the research too much. Once I get started, I can’t stop. I burrow through musty books in reading rooms and am captivated. I make hundreds of pages of notes, most of which I will never use, but they fill my head with the time and place I intend to write about. For The Child of the Ruins I had to be so familiar with the Berlin of 1948 that I could move with ease through the world I was going to create for Anna and Ingrid.
I devour everything I can lay my hands on that will expand my knowledge of the period, some fiction but mainly non-fiction. I adore memoirs. They are a rich vein of information because they provide the kind of intimate details that no historian would bother to record. These personal accounts – especially those written by women because they tend to include invaluable domestic details – are wonderful for helping me build the daily life of my characters. I get excited about discovering facts about a whole new subject – like the repairing of bicycles, the structure of aircraft undercarriages, the secrets of tightrope walking, the history of penicillin production or the dangers of landing planes in a never-ending stream at Tempelhof. My characters’ passion for these subjects in the book is a reflection of my own. The temptation is to include too much research material, but I always keep in the forefront of my mind that the characters and plot have to come first.
I thank the Internet, Amazon and Google Books from the bottom of my heart. They give me access to facts and accounts that it would otherwise take me a lifetime to track down. Whatever the subject – in previous books it’s been the flying snakes of Malaya, the placement of guns in Singapore or even how to pilot a Tiger Moth biplane – there is always someone out there who has written about it. I have found experts to be extraordinarily generous in their willingness to share their time and knowledge. I thank them all.
Then comes the most exciting part. I pack my case, my suncream/woolly gloves, my maps and my guidebooks, and off I shoot to whatever part of the world I will be writing about. Nothing can replace actual feet on the ground, getting my hands dirty and breathing in the secrets that rise on the air. Sharing a glass or two with locals and listening to the whispers – and sometimes threats – of the buildings. All sorts of unexpected new storylines leap into life and get me racing down weird and wonderful rabbit-holes. In Berlin I went up the elegant 368m television tower, the Fernsehturm, had lunch in the revolving restaurant at the top and looked down on the whole of Berlin spread out below me. It was thrilling and gave me a sense of what the pilots would have seen as they flew into Tempelhof airport with their life-giving cargo during the Berlin Airlift.
And this is where finding old film footage and old photographs is invaluable. Often a photograph, curling at the edges, will tell me more than any number of books. And when I stood in the Airlift Museum in Berlin watching a crackling old black & white newsreel of night-workers unloading filthy sacks of coal at Tempelhof airport, I knew I’d found the place where Anna and Ingrid would meet for the first time. In the dark.
One of the problems of living with research notes for months on end is that the facts and places become so fixed in my own mind that it is easy to forget how much the reader does – or doesn’t – know about the period. I don’t want to overload the narrative with facts but neither do I want to assume too much prior knowledge. It is a fine line to walk and one which I am contemplating again with eyes narrowed as I launch into my next book.
Excuse me now. Time to burrow into 1933 Paris. Now where’s my Eurostar ticket …..?
FRIENDSHIP and BALLS by Kate Furnivall
Phew! It’s over. Wimbledon tennis championship has packed itself away for another year and what a corker it was. Only a few hours since the last ball was struck and I am already suffering acute withdrawal pains. I might have to drink gin for breakfast. But let’s not go there!
All the strawberries and champagne have been consumed, great chunks of Centre Court have been scuffed to Saharan dust, the flying ants have had their five minutes of fame And young Carlos Alcaraz has sauntered into the history books and toppled the defending champion. It was two weeks of heaven. An oasis of white.
But what impresses me most about the last fortnight is the sheer gut-clenching courage of these brilliant tennis players. They are willing to lay their heart out there on the hallowed courts of SW19 in front of millions of people, so that we get to see what they are made of. We look right into their eyes. There is nowhere to hide. We see in glorious technicolour their fear, their pride, their grit, their anger and frustration. Their sheer bloody-mindedness. Their tears. Their joy. We get to judge them as people because we’ve seen their guts spilled on the grass. Mano a mano. And it struck me that it is the same with authors. We are judged. We are dissected. We think that we can hide behind our stories. But we can’t. Our blood and guts are spilled on the page for all to see.
Which is why when we meet people who have read our books, there is an interesting mismatch. It’s extraordinary really. To us they are strangers. To them we are old friends who have spent many a night curled up in bed with them! In my early days of writing, when approached after I’d given talks or done book signings, I used to think, ‘But I don’t know you well enough to be hugged and kissed and told your intimate life history.’ Not that I minded. In fact I loved the instant connection. But initially I was surprised by it.
Yes, yes, I know! I was such a dimwit. I had no idea what I – via my stories – meant to these kind and supportive lovely readers. We had bonded in secret over my characters’ intense emotions and been on perilous journeys together in the privacy of our shared mind-space. Of course we were friends. And now I am the first to open my arms to them with gratitude. How lucky I am to have so many readers of my books, and I appreciate every single one of you.
I am always thrilled to do a launch of my new book, hopping up and down with excitement like a demented two-year-old at the prospect of meeting my readers. I love to talk with them, exchange thoughts and listen to their fascinating stories. I was hugely touched last time when one – the delightful Clare – travelled all the way up from Cornwall just to get my new book signed in person and to exchange a few words (well yes, we did stretch to a coffee in Lily’s Cafe too). And then there’s Facebook and Twitter where I have met so many other wonderful and supportive readers. Their encouraging posts mean the world to me when the blank page glares at me each morning. Even if it’s just a dig in the ribs telling me to pull my finger out and get a bloody move on with the next one – a sentiment my ever-patient editor would heartily endorse, I’m sure.
So thank you to my readers. Seriously. You are why I do this writing craziness. Why I sit down each morning and start banging my head against the desk. Like the Wicked Queen in Snow White I strive to create the magic rosy apple that will tempt you – okay, I admit I even add a touch of poison sometimes to distress or scare you. Beware!
So what I want to say to you is this:- you give my days their purpose. I spend my weeks, months and even years trying to conjure up that magic to keep you on board for the journey. My next book is CHILD OF THE RUINS and I hope you will come and take a bite out of it.
Q & A with Kate Furnivall
What is the best thing about writing for a living? And the worst?
Writing is an inexplicably strange obsession. It is without doubt a combination of agony and ecstasy, because every page is an intense mixture of both. I’m tempted to say that writing The End on the last page is the best thing. The sense of relief is enormous, but it also brings with it a huge feeling of emptiness – like mourning the loss of a much-loved friend. I hate saying goodbye to a book and its characters. They have become a part of me.
So instead I am going to say that the best thing is being given the opportunity to live so many different lives at an intense level. Most people only have their own life, but an author can be a plantation owner one day, a circus performer or a criminal the next, a child or an adult, a woman or a man – an amazing array of personas to take on and learn from. Every day is a revelation and a thrill as you delve deeper.
The worst thing? That’s easy: deadlines. For some unaccountable reason that baffles authors, publishers want to know when you’re going to finish a book. They breathe down your neck, very gently of course, but it’s always there, that reproachful breath, as your deadline looms closer. But there are times when the words refuse to flow and we all have to learn how to negotiate those rocky heart-grinding patches to finally reach The End.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
No. Unlike many of my writer friends who were penning stories when they were knee-high to a bee, I had no burning desire to become an author when I was young, though I was always an avid reader. Despite studying English at university, I came to writing late, and frankly I was astounded to find how much I adored it. And even more astounded at how many readers became passionate about my stories. That’s one of the joys of social media and a website – instant reader feedback. It means everything to feel that strong sense of connection with my readers. I value it highly.
I might never have got round to writing at all if it weren’t that my husband was a crime novelist – Neville Steed. So the process of constructing a book was already demystified for me and I knew how to set about beginning a story. Getting to the end is, of course, a whole different matter! Now, I am totally hooked and would no more consider not writing than I would not breathing.
What is your writing day like?
I begin early. When I’m in the middle of a book I don’t sleep well, and often lie awake from 5 a.m., full of adrenaline, planning my next scenes and writing a first draft of them in my head. Around 7 a.m. I seize a pen from beside the bed and start putting it all down on paper before it vanishes. At that point I just grunt at my husband and the cat, reluctant to let anything disturb the early flow of words. Only after I have been brought a cup of tea in bed and have set down my night’s imaginings on the page with a sense of release, do I become vaguely human and sociable.
Words are so elusive. They are powerful and yet strangely fragile. They can vanish from your head altogether when confronted by a blank page or screen, but once I have got over the early morning hump, they seem to behave better. I can then venture downstairs to my study where domestic distractions like cats, faulty washing machines, crosswords and emails etc lie temptingly in wait – though my friends know not to telephone me in the morning. In theory I am then ‘in the zone’. Not that it always works out like that. Some days the words stick together like mud.
I dose myself with ginger tea all day – just because the act of making myself a drink allows my mind a brief respite from its labours and gives my legs a reason for activity. Around 4 p.m. I go for a brisk walk down to the beach or a tramp through the woods to shift any logjam in my head. This vaguely assuages my conscience for all the hours I’ve spent staring out of the window at the wood pigeons splashing around in the birdbath. I used to play a lot of tennis, but a calamitous bike accident a few years back and a titanium insert put an end to that.
In the evening I deal with the day’s emails and phone calls. I can enjoy a glass of wine with my husband, and pick up whichever book I’m reading at the time, often another research book, so I have my trusty notebook alongside me. I enjoy catching up with friends if my brain has not turned to total mush after its day’s exertions or I’ll watch some drivel on television. But I find it hard to switch off. My characters have a habit of keeping up a non-stop chatter inside my head.
Which book do you wish you had written and why?
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Brilliant, devastating and so funny.
What are you working on at the moment?
A new book. Always a new book. This one is set in Paris. 1933. This was the year of France’s worst-ever train crash, a terrible tragedy with over 200 people killed. The book is a taut and complex story in which the crash impacts the lives of a Parisian brother and sister and blows wide open the tangled web they weave. A Paris thriller, but also think Egypt, and think strong and surprising love stories that change lives.
If you have any queries or comments about my work, you can contact me via my publisher, Simon & Schuster UK, or, to reach me directly, why not send me an email using the contact form below or best of all, post a note on my Facebook Author Page or my blog!