Author Fiona McIntosh - from apprentice to authority
Photo Anne Stropin, 2010.jpg)
After publishing 20 books over four genres, Adelaide author Fiona McIntosh feels she now knows her craft so intimately she can write in any genre. She talks to Pamela Wilson about writing for different genres, knowing when your 'apprenticeship’ is complete and researching publishers.
If you can write in one genre, you can write in any, believes Fiona McIntosh.
“I don’t want to make it sound like it’s a very simple task, but it is not learning how to cut into someone’s brain,” she says.
“If you are (a storyteller) then the writing can be learned whether it’s a thriller, a children’s story, a great big romance.”
Fiona is one author who has learned how to pen a tale in many genres. Her latest book, Fields of Gold - a historical fiction saga - is quite a leap from her books in the fantasy, crime and children’s categories.
She believes that no matter what tale a writer is telling, the elements of story arc, pace, characterisation, voice, etc, are the same, but it is how well they understand the genre they are writing in.
According to Fiona, some of the vital elements of certain genres that a writer should understand include:
Historical fictionCompleting the writing apprenticeship
“I think it is accuracy and detail of the period. You have to get that right,” she says.
“If I can’t evoke a period properly I have lost my reader before they have begun. It is all about the research for the historical stuff.”
Crime
“It’s knowing how to lead your reader. It’s a sleight of hand... but the clues are all there. I know what great crime feels like when I am reading it."
Using Michael Robotham’s latest book, Bleed for Me, as an example of great crime, she says ‘it is seamless writing’.
“You really care about these characters. You are forgetting about concentrating for clues, you are just swept away with the characters.”
Fantasy
"It comes down to having a fantastic set of lead characters because they have to last for three books. Fantasy writers write three books to one story,” she says.
“They are doing heroic stuff... and achieving massive, against-the-odds human struggle. It is swashbuckling and swords and galloping into danger and those sorts of things I can’t do in historical fiction. In historical fiction, you have to make it feel a lot more real.”
If Fields of Gold is anything to go by, it would seem that Fiona certainly has a firm grasp of what makes a good historical fiction.
According to the king of sagas, Bryce Courtenay, Fields of Gold is a ‘blockbuster of a book that you won’t want to put down’.
From the first few pages of this tale of two men from different backgrounds who find themselves chasing a single dream in southern India, readers are drawn into an era when the world was a very different place. (Read a synopsis here.)
But Fiona admits that because of the intimately personal nature of this story, it was a long time in coming.
“The one book I always wanted to write was this one. But when I found the courage to write my first manuscript I knew in my heart I wasn’t ready to tackle this particular subject,” she says.
“It was very close my heart because it was going to be sort of plumbing the stories of my own family, but I just didn’t feel I had the right skills.”
Fiona had to complete what she terms her ‘apprenticeship’ and learn the authorship skills pacing, dialogue, tension, research, etc, before she could tackle Fields of Gold.
After writing 19 books in numerous genres, she was ready.
“There was no lack of faith in myself in actually writing a story. I was wondering where I was going to get all this information sourced from, but I wasn’t lacking in confidence for writing the story,” she says.
Finding the right publisher
Sourcing material for the story is not the only research she recommends when it comes to getting published.
She believes that while most new writers will send their manuscripts to numerous publishers in the hope that someone – anyone - will like their book, there is merit in investigating the choices available.
“When you are just setting out, me included, you’d pay a publisher to pay you. It’s a whole different mindset when you have established yourself. I run this as a business, so when I am going into a new genre... I think, ‘Who is my best business partner for this?’” she explains.
Researching the right publisher involves:
• Looking at how well a publisher promotes other writers.
• Talking to other writers about their experiences. (If you don’t know any published authors call your state writers’ centre and talk to them. See links to writers’ centres in the WriteSmart sidebar.)
• Ask yourself if you want a big publishing house or an independent publisher.
Possibly the main element to consider, though, is who else they publish.
“To me that is number one. Are they publishing my favourite writers... and how do I fit in amongst the stable of writers they publish?,” she says.
One thing is for certain for Fiona, though, she fits snugly into the career of a writer.
Fields of Gold
By Fiona McIntosh
Published by Penguin Australia
March 2010
For more information about Pamela Wilson or WriteSmart, log on to http://www.writesmart.com.au/
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