With only a week to go until the release of Avarice of Empire in ebook and paperback on 6th March, I thought I’d share a recent interview with my publisher about the story and my approach to research and writing. The following Q&A first appeared on Brindle Book’s website and is replicated here with their kind permission.
Let’s start with your book. How would you sum up what it’s about?
First and last, Avarice of Empire is the true story of the life of a nineteenth-century British cavalry officer called Charles Agnew, what drove him to seek adventure in India, and how he came to meet an untimely end ‘by the hand of assassin’. More than that, though, it’s also about the fortitude of Victorian women, class division and colonial prejudice, early photography and the embryonic intelligence service, a revolution in global communications, and how an Irishman discovered what would become India’s largest gold mine.
So historical fiction, but still a true story?
That’s right, yes. It’s biographical in spirit and detail, and tells a story about real people and events with as much historical accuracy as possible. However, that ‘as possible’ is an important caveat. A true story can only ever be as true as an author’s interpretation of the available historical evidence allows it to be. Creative leaps of imagination are necessary to fill in the gaps. That’s the case with non-fiction biography and history as well. Whether you’re talking about things that happened this morning or millennia ago, it’s impossible to know everything about a given situation from every perspective or what motivated someone to make a particular decision.
What inspired you to write about Charles Agnew in the first place?
I’d always wanted to write a novel — it’s a pretty common ambition, I’m sure. I toyed with various ideas over the years, but none of them ever quite worked. Then on a chance visit to Canterbury Cathedral on a rainy Sunday in May 2015, I noticed a memorial to a cavalry officer who’d been killed “by the hand of an assassin” in Egypt in 1873. I was intrigued by that unique turn of phrase, just as countless other people must have been during the past century and a half. I wanted to know who Charles Agnew was, what he’d been doing in Egypt, why he was killed and by whom? When I began researching the answers to those questions, I knew immediately it was a story I needed to tell.
How did you approach the research?
About a year after finishing Avarice of Empire I began studying towards a Masters in Imperial and Global History at the University of Exeter. As you might expect, that’s given me all sorts of insights into how to conduct historical research with academic rigour. However, when I was researching the book I was just figuring things out for myself as I went along — learning on the job, so to speak. I thoroughly enjoy the research process, especially the privilege of examining things like letters, scrap books, and photograph albums that the people I’m writing about actually held in their hands. A great deal of archive material has been digitised in recent years, which makes the research task easier in all sorts of ways, but there’s no substitute for visiting an archive or a story location in person. Among many other places, my research included visits to the 16th Lancers’ regimental museum near Newark, the Stoke-on-Trent City Archives, and a certain public house in Tilbury.
What was the most interesting thing you found out about Charles Agnew?
Without giving anything specific away, it was fascinating to discover the multi-dimensional and often unpredictable nature of his character.
Does the story have an underlying message or moral?
You can safely assume it isn’t a nostalgic celebration of imperial colonialism. I hope that much is obvious from the title alone. Beyond that — and this is something that emerged from the history without me contriving it — the expression of human qualities such as courage, resilience, and compassion, cuts across boundaries of race, class, gender, and faith.
How did you approach writing about other cultures?
With great care, particularly to avoid falling into the traps of stereotyping and cliche. Thorough research is crucial. I invited a number of people (from Ireland and India, for example) to act as sensitivity readers, and found their feedback incredibly helpful.
Did you feel a sense of responsibility towards the people you were writing about, perhaps especially those who may have living descendants?
That’s a great question and, yes, I very much did. It’s something I touch on in the Historical Note at the end of the book. My self-imposed rule from the beginning was a kind of respectful realism: I would always be guided by the available documentary evidence, and I wouldn’t knowingly misrepresent anyone, but neither would I pretend that prevailing social and cultural attitudes had no influence. People are complicated creatures after all, and it’s those complications that make a story interesting.
What were the differences between writing real versus fictional characters?
I’ve never counted how many real people feature in the book (lots), but there are only six fictional named characters. They served the very specific purpose of broadening the story and helping to connect its different aspects, and of course I could do whatever I liked with them without breaking my own rules. Fictional characters require much less research than real ones, although I found that the more detailed I made their backstories, the easier it was to bring them to life on the page. The actual writing is really no different at all. In fact, as the story developed the fictional characters became as ‘real’ to me as the real ones.
What kind of reader do you think will enjoy Avarice of Empire?
I’d certainly like to imagine that it will appeal to anyone who already knows they have a taste for historical fiction, or failing that at least a general interest in nineteenth-century life. The story inevitably features a degree of military history, although perhaps not in a way that might typically appeal to enthusiasts. Based on feedback received from test readers, in terms of factors like age, genre preference, and existing knowledge of the period, I’m delighted that the book seems to appeal to a much wider audience than I’d expected.
If you had to be one of the characters in the story, which one would you choose?
That’s quite a tough one! I suppose it would have to be Morgan Farrell.
Whether historical or otherwise, which authors of fiction have been most influential on your writing?
I’m drawn to crafted storytelling with complex plot interconnections and memorable characters, and the more sweeping in scope the better. With that in mind, the three authors I’d say have had the most influence on my writing aspirations are Bernard Cornwell, Hilary Mantel, and Ken Follett. There’s a long list of others I admire and enjoy as well though, of course, from Robert Louis Stevenson, R.M. Ballantyne and Arthur Conan Doyle, whom I read over and over as a child, to the likes of George Orwell, William Golding, Sebastian Faulks, R.F. Kuang, Anthony Doerr, Percival Everett, Tan Twan Eng, Elif Shafak, Kazuo Ishiguro, Douglas Stuart, and Simon Mawer.
What do you think is the most important quality and/or skill for a writer of historical fiction?
Without a doubt, the most important quality is empathy — for both characters and readers. The most important skill is harder to pinpoint, because so many are crucial. I’m going to dodge the question slightly and say that the skill I’ve probably found most useful is being able to ‘be in the scene’. In other words, visualising what a scene looks/sounds/smells like from the perspective of an invisible observer standing next to, behind, in front of, or far away from the other characters.
Can you tell us a bit about your writing process?
I discovered a while back that listening to classical music (headphones rather than ‘in the room’) really helps with maintaining focus and lubricating the wheels of creativity. Personally, I write better in the morning and edit better in the afternoon. I’m also someone who continually edits as they write rather than rough drafting and editing later (although there’s plenty of editing later as well.) I don’t set myself word count targets per day. Some days the words come easy, some days they don’t. My preference is always for quality over quantity. Once I find my way into a new chapter or new scene, the rest usually emerges readily enough.
What advice would you give to new writers?
I’m quite certain I’m nowhere near qualified enough to give anyone advice about writing, except perhaps to recommend ignoring advice on social media and just write what you’ll enjoy reading. That said, you can’t go far wrong with George Orwell’s six rules of writing and Stephen King’s prohibition of adverbs (other than in dialogue.)
After Avarice of Empire, what’s next?
The story will continue.
