From March through May, 2009, the novelist Lisa Graff interviewed me by email regarding my Elzabathan novel Peril on the Sea.

I am pleased to feature the interview here. 

Lisa: I have long been afraid of writing historical fiction, because it seems like so much work and there are so many details to get wrong! But you pull it off with a seamless flair. Do you have any tips for authors wanting to dip their toes in historical waters? And how on earth do you do your research?

MC The essential principle in writing a novel is: live in the world of your characters. When my characters take a drink, I taste that sleeping potion, or that bitter medicine, or that honeyed wine--I almost absolutely experience the flavor as I write.

When Sherwin nearly drowns at the beginning of the novel, I know how he feels, struggling to survive. And I feel the chill in his body, and his wonderment at being alive. This is why I stress that I don’t write for an audience. I write through my characters and their experiences.

It is like being alive many times over--an intensely rewarding and deeply challenging experience.

As for research: I have been interested in the high seas, and knights and sword fighting since I was a child. When I embark on a book like The King's Arrow or Peril on the Sea it is more a question of what to leave out rather than what to put in.

Lisa: What parallels do you see between the long-ago setting of Peril on the Sea and the world we currently inhabit, particularly in regard to the wars we’re fighting? Did you specifically set out to create these allusions, or did that all arrive more organically?

MC  I am concerned that some people today feel empowered to kill human beings in the name of religion. This was a problem during the Crusades, it was a problem during the Elizabethan era, and the problem continues.

This was not a motivating force behind my writing--my love for my characters and my zest for adventure were foremost. Even so, this issue was often on my mind.

Lisa: You also write contemporary fiction. How are the processes different for each type of project, and what are the unique challenges of each?

MC  Try thinking of historical fiction as stories about a future that you can visit. You can look at tailors' books of clothing, and practice fencing and read love letters from the absent era. As though the future endowed us with artifacts!

Similarly, think of a contemporary novel as being about the very near future--the events have not yet happened, but can. In this way, all writing is about an imaginative future--one with secrets that you can discover.

Lisa: Sometimes male authors write clunky female characters but Katharine was spot on. How do you get yourself into the mindset of a girl, especially one living back in time?

MC  I love to pour my awareness into vessels of various shapes--young. old, historical, contemporary, male and female. People are shockingly different from each other, and sometimes my compassion falters, but that is all in the adventure of writing.

For me, one of the most challenging characters in Peril on the Sea was the salty, crusty mariner Giles Tryce. His manner and voice struck me as so crotchety and foreign that I could not perceive him. And then one day he began to amble and talk, almost exactly as though a drawing took on animation, and walked right off the page.

By the time Tryce suffers his violent misfortune, I felt that I knew him well, and I hoped--and continue to hope--that he fully recovers from his injuries.

Lisa:  So do you think of writing characters who are very dissimilar to you in the same way you think about writing about places you’ve never been to—that it’s all a matter of a writer’s imagination? Do you think there are any stories a particular writer could never write, based on his experience, or lack thereof?

MC  We live in an era when people are all working hard to sound like everybody else, and use the same speech patterns and the same vocabulary in text messages, email and conversation.

But the fact is that people are very dissimilar from each other--we try to be alike, and we almost succeed.  But our inner self, our real, true voice, is very often unique.

This means that a writer has to have faith in his talent and his compassion, and go ahead and take up any subject that seems alive.  

Lisa: My favorite character was probably Captain Fletcher, the pirate with the deep-set morals. Where did he come from? Is he based on a real historical figure?

MC  That is a question best put to the good captain himself. Why did he allow me to write about him? In fact, many of the Elizabethan pirates were contradictory scoundrels.

Sir Francis Drake would not allow swearing on his ship, and he had a reputation for being even-handed with his prisoners, but he was little more than a terrorist where the Spanish were concerned. Drake’s attack on Cadiz--which I depict in Ship of Fire--and his piracy during the battle against the Armada won the disapproval of many of his countrymen.

This is not say that Drake or Fletcher were hypocrites--they were beyond such a simple designation. They were killers, with heartfelt scruples about their own morality. Don’t we know people who believe in God and yet champion war? Fletcher is a fictional creation, and Drake was a real person, but they are both complex, sometimes ruinously contradictory people, like many of us.

Lisa:  You wrote this book before the recent headlines made pirates more of a reality in our everyday lives. Did these events make you look at your characters in a new light at all?

MC  The people that remind me most of the pirates in Peril on the Sea are the hired security forces in Iraq, and the politicians who tacitly or explicitly allowed them to have so much power.

Another piratical group would have to be some of our recent financial masterminds.  The way harm has been done to civilians in the name of security, and the way damage has been  done to our economy in the name of profit, is little different from the zealous and energetic misbehavior of the Elizabethan sea captains.

Remember that the key element of Elizabethan piracy was that the government not only forgave the crimes--the crown profited.  Many people made money off the privateers. 

Similarly, a lot of us have thrived, until recently, in an economy puffed up and made counterfeit by greedy schemers.  When I look at myself, at my fellow humans, and at my government, I wonder if we aren’t all, in some way, just a little bit those men and women who used to make money off the proceeds of pirates.

Lisa:  Which character do you most identify with and why?

MC  All of my characters must come right out of me, being made of my breath and my blood. So I don’t pick favorites, at least not in public.

But the strange and most dynamic aspect about characters is that they seem more alive than I do, and more insistent in being heard than I would ever be. And they do escape my control--I have to let them. Captain Fletcher and Katharine began to develop a dangerous and guarded relationship right under my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to caution Katharine or to warn off the formidable captain. The captain realizes that one of the threats he must defend Katharine against is his own passion.

Lisa:  This is a historical novel but it's also an adventure story, a coming of age tale and a romance. What kind of book did you originally set out to write (maybe one or all of these) and how did it change as the process went on?

MC  Writing for me is a quest--an extended act of discovery. Because this particular novel follows a genuine, violent ten day period of bloodshed and stormy weather, I was freed to depict actual events--I didn’t have to make up this sweeping calamity. It really happened.

But as to the creation of the novel, and the hopes and fears of my characters--I had faith in them, and I knew that they would tell their stories through me if I let them.

Lisa: You have written a lot of books that have been very well received. What advice do you have for newbie writers like myself?

MC  Seek a mentor as dangerous and as demanding as Captain Fletcher.

To encourage Sherwin to write the story of the captain’s life, he advises: You keep on with me, and mark me as I speak. I’ll inspire your powers.

Let fascinating characters find a place in your life, and listen to what they have to say.

Lisa: If you could have any profession other that writer, what would it be?

MC  Maybe you could let me try to be a hawk, or a cat, or a horse. In some safe way, so I wouldn’t fall out of the sky or run into anything. I wish I could see through the eyes of my favorite animals.

Megan D. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania asks:

Where did you come up with the names for all the ships?

This is a wonderful era to visit--everything the Elizabethans touched seemed to flower into poetry. 

The harbors of the era bristled with ships named things like the Bull, the Dainty, and the Delight.  Not to mention the Foresight and the Fancy.  Add a few well-known names like the Golden Hinde and the Mayflower, and you have to wonder why we have such dull names for ships in our own era.

This rich invention extended even to practical items like door knockers and the arms of chairs.  The Elizabethan designers were apparently unhappy unless everything from fireplace pokers to sword hilts were decorated with fanciful lions or eagles, griffins or whales.

How long did it take you to write Peril on the Sea?

Because this novel was rooted in my love of the ocean, my respect for friendship, and my keen interest in ships and adventure, there is no starting point for the creation of this novel.  In a way, I bid this novel farewell into the hands of readers only conditionally.  In deep personal sense, I never began this novel, and I never ended it.