Chat with writer Mary Gentle - June 27th, 2000
Original transcript kindly provided by John Freeman, former VZSciFi project manager who appears in this chat as Mr. Templeton.
The following excerpt is from the VZSciFi website regarding this community chat.
This is a screenshot of the community chat, but sadly it was in a really low resolution so some upscaling has been applied. Apologies for the bad quality of the image.
VZSciFi Live Creator Event Transcript: Author Mary Gentle Part One Tuesday 27 June, 7.00am VZT (PST) 3.00pm GMT, Space City Conference Centre Please note: this has been edited slightly for spelling, with repetitions removed, and to add additional information where appropriate. Special thanks to Mary for going over it again for us! The event was moderated by Caretaker Cuz
Caretaker Cuz: Today, we're delighted to have author Mary Gentle with us, creator of several acclaimed novels including her latest, Ash: A Secret History.
Caretaker Cuz: This is a moderated event. To ask a question, please ESP me your question and I will relay the question to Mary and the group.
Caretaker Cuz: I have a few questions here to kick us off... Mary, what made you become a writer?
Mary Gentle: Start with the easy ones, why don't you? ;)
Caretaker Cuz: LOL yup
Mary Gentle: Um... I always wanted to do it, ever since I was in school.
Caretaker Cuz: What was your first sale, and how long did it take to break into the market?
Mary Gentle: My first book was a young adult book, a Hawk in Silver. I sold that when I was 18, but I'd been sending things out since I was 16... novels, and a few short stories.
Linsue: Wow so young…
Mary Gentle: Yes, I feel much older now!
Caretaker Cuz: Was it hard to be taken seriously as a young writer?
Mary Gentle: Yes and it is hard, to be taken seriously in young adult or SF to start, but it gets easier as you go on.
Caretaker Cuz: What one piece of advice do you have for budding writers?
Mary Gentle: You mean, apart from don't do it because I don't need the competition? :)
Caretaker Cuz: LOL
Mary Gentle: Write it, finish it, send it out... and don't give up!
Caretaker Cuz: It's hard to sell it if you don't send it out
Mary Gentle: Yes, and it's even harder staring at a blank screen sometimes.
Poof: Have you ever had any trouble with editors or others censoring your work, or trying to?
Mary Gentle: Yes... The earliest was in Golden Witchbreed. For some reason, the American editor did not want any fat people in it…
Poof: omg. That's a new one!
Mary Gentle: -- and then the latest is Ash... the American cover of the first book... [The publishers] wouldn't put her scars on her face... But [Victor Gollancz] would on the UK version.
[Editor's note: Ash is being serialised over four books for the US market by Avon Eos, who I think are now HarperCollins Eos after the recent buy-out. A Secret History and Carthage Ascendant are already out; The Wild Machines follows in August, and Lost Burgundy in December, 2000.]
Caretaker Cuz: They had something against scars? Odd.
Linsue: <shaking head>
Mary Gentle: Yes, Sales and Marketing reckoned it would put people off buying the book.
Caretaker Cuz: Ahh... They don't give readers enough credit.
Mary Gentle: No. UK sales are going fine, so maybe they were wrong. You have to get through the publishing industry to get to the readers. I mean that publishers are affected by what they think people want -- and they judge by reviews; library reports; their own fears of what might be controversial. Readers are individual, each one knows what they want, and often it's something a publisher would be nervous about.
Mary Gentle: Fortunately, novels still have a much more liberal approach than, say, broadcast entertainment, so some 'challenging' stuff can be got out for the people who will like it. I guess 'cos if they don't like it, they don't have to read it!
Caretaker Cuz: Do you have a preference for short stories or novels?
Mary Gentle: I prefer novels, I have done few short stories; some stories appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. The novels come easier -- even long ones like Ash!
Linsue: Do the publishers try to influence the content of the book as well as it's presentation?
Mary Gentle: Sometimes they do... Ash was sold on a very short synopsis (one page!)... so they didn't know what was going to be in it... and by the time they found out, it was too late :)
Caretaker Cuz: haha
Linsue: LOL
Beverley: LOL
Caretaker Cuz: So they weren't pleased by parts of your story?
Mary Gentle: Lemme think... there are some dark and violent parts of Ash: A Secret History that they liked when they saw what I wrote, but they might have objected in synopsis. For example, one thing is the way it is portrayed as a translation of a medieval manuscript and it is translated into genuine modern English, so they used genuine bad language! I can't repeat any of it here, don't want to be thrown off!
Linsue: hehe
Caretaker Cuz: lol
Mary Gentle: The combat scenes are pretty realistic and bloody... Nothing is sanitised.
Caretaker Cuz: Good.
Mary Gentle: -- And there is a sex scene, without giving too much away.
Linsue: Something for everyone LOL
Mary Gentle: Yes, a long book, there is something for everyone... except for those with a nervous disposition. :)
Beverley: LOL
Linsue: Can't wait to get my hands on it!
Mary Gentle: Good, it was worth coming!
Caretaker Cuz: I'm adding it to my list too (not just for that sex scene either)
Caretaker Cuz: Can you tell us more about the origins of Ash?
Mary Gentle: It's got a lot of origins... it took five years to write. Part of it is wanting to do the fantasy medieval world they way it should have been, and partly wanting to explode some of the myths about women in combat. Because we tend to think of that as a fantasy thing, like Xena.
Mary Gentle: If you look in history there is a general opinion is that women didn't take part in combat, in any historical period, whereas, as soon as you actually look into history, every time you turn over a rock there's another woman in combat! All the women in Ash are based on women in similar roles in actual history.
The librarian: There was a story in Interzone some time ago featuring Ash - where does this fit in with the eventual novel?
Mary Gentle: Which Interzone story? Do you mean A Road to Jerusalem?
The librarian: That's right -- or do I disremember?
Mary Gentle: OK -- that was my first attempt at doing an alternate history
Mary Gentle: Burgundy, but that has essentially late 20th century warfare in it... But I suppose that in some ways, the story is a try out for Ash. The heroine is a soldier, although she's not Ash herself; she lives in the early 21st century. Ash is set back in 1476 and not in that alternate 21st century, when the history of Europe was at a cusp point.
The librarian: Could you please explain Renaissance Hermeticism? (Editor's note: an aspect of the Ash story)
Mary Gentle: I'd love to! No wonder they kept the Corpus Hermeticum secret for so many years! I used it as a background for the White Crow short stories and novels Which look like fantasy, but are science fiction -- it's just that the science is Hermetic science...
Mary Gentle: It's an animate universe, in which everything is connected to everything else and it is possible to aspire to the status of a demiurge [In the dualistic Gnostic theology, the creator of the material world, which is evil by nature. Hence it was identified by the early Christian Gnostic heretics with Yahweh]. That appeals to me, because a demiurge is kind of creator.
The librarian: Like a writer?
Mary Gentle: Yes.
[Editor's note: The Gnostic Society library describes the Hermetic tradition as representing a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The central texts of the tradition, the Corpus Hermeticum were lost to the West in classical times. Their rediscovery and translation during the late-fifteenth century by the Renaissance court of Cosimo de Medici, provided a seminal force in the development of Renaissance thought and culture. The complete Corpus Hermeticum is comprised of 18 tracts. For two detailed online resources about alchemy, try: An Alchemy Resource; or J.R. Ritman Library: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, the Library of Hermetic Philosophy in Amsterdam.]
Caretaker Cuz: You clearly take research seriously, has it ever proven more fun than writing the books?
Mary Gentle: There are two main kinds of research I did for Ash... One was a Masters degree in War Studies. That was interesting, but kind of heavy.
Mary Gentle: The other main area was joining societies that did historical re-enactment and fantasy live roleplay...
Caretaker Cuz: Such as the Society for Creative Anachronism?
[Editor's Note: The many UK societies are less organised than the SCA, and tend to play out their favourite authors, rather than an ideal of the medieval period.]
Mary Gentle: So I got to learn sword fighting, and how to wear and make armour.
Beverley: That's a lot of research
Mary Gentle: Some of it was like the SCA, and some of it is more like living history... and it is fun and I don't plan to give it up now I have finished the book!
Caretaker Cuz: This question may be redundant, but other than the writing itself, what has been your biggest thrill while writing/researching for a book?
Mary Gentle: Oh... that was probably some flying lessons I took for researching a different story with helicopters in. For Ash, it was probably being second in command of a rubber sword battle with 1500 people on either side! That's a lot of rubber!
The librarian: Sounds surreal
Mary Gentle: It feels surreal
Linsue: -- and a lot of fun!
Mary Gentle: Wonderful fun...
The librarian: One of the wonderful things about Ash is the way there are different explanations about just what is going on. Could you say more?
Mary Gentle: OK... Ash starts off and you think you are reading a collection of historical documents. There are some odd things in them, which the 'editor' puts down to legends. Not long after that, he starts finding evidence in our world for those legends being true.
Mary Gentle: The reader then has versions of history, and a complicated puzzle about which one is real... and the end of the book answers that! (No spoilers!)
Linsue: <smiles>
VaBelle: (darn)
Caretaker Cuz: So we should not read the last chapter first? How long is it?
The librarian: Well, it's not short -- 1120 pages, but it reads shorter!
Linsue: I hear it will keep me busy for a few days LOL
Caretaker Cuz: Sounds like a rainy weekend project.
Mary Gentle: Just a little -- don't plan to do anything else and do be careful when you lift it!
Caretaker Cuz: Are you taking a breather now or are you busy on your next project?
Mary Gentle: I'm at synopsis stage of my next one, which I won't say too much about except that it is a scene I have had in my head for a long time... a thug, and a disguised woman, walking along a beach in France in the early 1600s, and they find a shipwrecked man washed up -- he's a Japanese samurai. It's sort of Shogun meets The Three Musketeers!
Linsue: Another 1120 pages?
VaBelle: Do you feel you're looking at another five-year project?
The librarian: Don't -- I can't take the suspense!
Mary Gentle: No, this one is a lot shorter... and I'm hoping it will be finished in a year…
The librarian: Phew
Mary Gentle: -- But I could make it longer if you like :)
The librarian: :-(
Mary Gentle: With Ash, I was trying to make it shorter, but the plot took over...
Caretaker Cuz: She was possessed!
VaBelle: Not always a bad thing
Caretaker Cuz: Would you ever like to see Ash in motion pictures?
Mary Gentle: Yes I would love to see Ash in a film, because I see it very clearly in my mind when I write. But I expect they would get the armour wrong and have her played by somebody sweet and cute.
Caretaker Cuz: Nooo… that would suck!
Mary Gentle: Yes, I would see maybe... the woman in The Fifth Element, the heroine in it, what was her name? She just did Joan of Arc?
Caretaker Cuz: I am clueless
VaBelle: If you hadn't asked…
Beverley: I know this, just can't remember it
Mary Gentle: Prize if you get it before the end of the talk!
Linsue: The red head?
Mary Gentle: Yes, I like redheads
VaBelle: With good reason
Mary Gentle: Yes kinda: I am a born again redhead.
Linsue: [The actress is] Milena Yokowich I think?
Mary Gentle: Yes!
Caretaker Cuz: Was it Milla Jovovich?
Caretaker Cuz: lol -- oops
Mary Gentle: Sorry, Linsue beat you
Linsue: Thanks
Caretaker Cuz: I was typing and not looking
Linsue: LOL
Beverley: I was rummaging through my papers in the office.
Linsue: You need a daughter like mine!
Mary Gentle: Oh well, anyone who commissions the film can have a better reward! The budget is about $100m…
Caretaker Cuz: That's out of my price range
The librarian: You'd need lots of special effects! Have you finished forever with Valentine White Crow (Rats & Gargoyles etc.)
Mary Gentle: Yes, I probably have... There probably would have been a long book about them, but I was in a traffic accident so I ended up training myself to write differently in shorter bursts and I ended up doing Grunts, instead, which is a black comedy.
Linsue: Do you find yourself walking around making notes at strange times when you get ideas or do you work to a pretty strict schedule?
Mary Gentle: I carry a small notebook at all times, because I will get a piece of conversation or the solution to a plot problem but otherwise I am pretty disciplined, at the desk every day, probably 4 hours typing every day and the rest planning.
Caretaker Cuz: More disciplined than me…
VaBelle: How much of the typing you do is final -- and stays in the writing?
Mary Gentle: I did two drafts for Ash and because it is on screen, I revise as I go on anyway so probably about 50 per cent of that first draft is in the second...
Mary Gentle: Regarding discipline, it didn't come naturally to me, I had to learn it because I realised I wouldn't get anywhere as a writer if I didn't.
Mary Gentle: So I counted every day's word output, so I would know if I was working fast enough. That's actually much easier on a typewriter than a PC, because you fiddle with things on a PC screen.
Caretaker Cuz: A deleted word on a PC doesn't count as having been typed!
VaBelle: I'm afraid I'd be constantly rethinking myself...
Mary Gentle: That's the way I think of it when I do it -- I am constantly re-thinking myself!
This is a screenshot of the community chat, but sadly it was in a really low resolution so some upscaling has been applied. Apologies for the bad quality of the image.