Killing My Darlings--The Execution of Anne Boleyn

On May 19, 1536 at 9 a.m., Anne Boleyn was executed on the Tower Green by an expert swordsman imported from Calais in France.

The events leading up to this are complicated and far too numerous to go into here, but please check out the Anne Boleyn Files if you want to know more.  Today, I just want to talk about Anne.  And writing.

Miniature of Anne Boleyn, attributed to John Hoskins,
In the Collection of Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry 

Stephen King, in his book On Writing, talks about "killing your darlings".  This is the excision of characters/scenes/sentences/chapters that don't contribute to the forward motion of the story.  No matter how much you love them.  It's hard to kill your darlings.  That waiter who steals the single scene he's in, the lush description of a setting you never use, a chapter full of clever repartee that really has nothing to do with the plot.  But none of it is ever wasted.  If nothing else, you can blog about it later.

But what about actually killing off your beloved characters.  Or worse, knowing they are going to die?

I had a very difficult time writing TARNISH.  Especially the final few chapters.  Because--surprise surprise--Anne Boleyn chooses to pursue a relationship with King Henry rather than the man she loves.  Every single revision, I would get to those scenes and slow down. Stutter to a halt.  Rant and rail and rage.  And then make her do it anyway.  There's no getting around history.

You'd think I would have learned a lesson.  Unfortunately not.  My third book in the series covers the time period from 1533 through 1536, thus encompassing all of Anne's time as queen--and her execution.  The book is not about Anne.  She is not the narrator.  But still, every time I came to that fateful day in 1536, I slowed down.  Stuttered to a halt.  Ranted and railed and raged.

You see, over the course of writing TARNISH, I fell in love with Anne Boleyn.  With her cleverness and drive, her unique way of seeing the world and her desire to be part of changing it.  She was an amazing woman.  Truly, historically.  It's possible she was ambitious and manipulative.  It's possible that she could be ruthless.  But that doesn't mean I have to believe it or she wasn't an amazing person and a powerful influence on life in the 16th Century.

One of the reasons I love writing historical fiction is because I get to dive deep into the psychology and motivation of these incredible people.

And one of the reasons I struggle with it is because I already know the outcome.

For today, let's just say Rest in Peace, Anne.  You deserve it.

GILT Paperback!

GILT is now available in paperback, with a fabulous new design!  I love this cover, all silky and embossed.  What do you think?

If you want a chance to win a copy, check out my Top Ten Favorite YA Historical Reads on Read My Breath Away.

OR

Visit the very first Tudor Tuesdays tour stop at Emilie's Book World.

You can order the paperback of GILT here.

Tudor Tuesdays!

It's time again for Tudor Tuesdays--a blog series leading up to the publication of my book, hosted by Kathy Coe at A Glass of Wine.  Every Tuesday for the next six weeks, various bloggers will be posting excerpts from TARNISH and a little insight into how and why I wrote the scene.  We kick off today with a giveaway of the paperback of GILT, published today (!!) and will finish on June 18, with a giveaway of TARNISH.

Below is the full schedule:


May 7th - Emilie @ Emilie's Book World **Paperback of Gilt kick off**
May 14th - Katie @ BlookGirl
May 21st - Rachel @ Beauty and the Bookshelf
May 28th - Kathy @ A Glass of Wine
June 4th - Kelly @ Belle of the Literati
June 11th - Jessica @ Read My Breath Away

Thank you, Kathy, for your superior organizational skills and unflagging enthusiasm, and thanks to all the fabulous bloggers who are making this possible!

Two Months 'Til TARNISH Teaser

Thanks goodness for Jessica Spotswood, author of the brilliant BORN WICKED and upcoming STAR CURSED.  Our second books release on the same day, and I just noticed that Jess is celebrating today on her blog.  She's giving away some fabulous books (including her own!), so go check it out.

I've been in manic deadline mode, so I barely know what year it is, much less the date.  But when I saw Jessica's post, I had to do a little celebrating myself.  So I'm going to share with you a few behind-the-scenes snippets about TARNISH.

• My Anne Boleyn doesn't have a sixth finger.  She isn't a poisoner.  She doesn't sleep with her brother.  But she isn't boring.
• There is some love geometry.  Not exactly a triangle.  More like a...pentagon.  Fun stuff.
• It was especially fun to write Henry VIII as a charming, sexy younger man--more like Jonathan Rhys Meyers than Ray Winstone.
• Though all of my characters are based on actual people, my interpretation of them is influenced by people I've known or see around me.  Including ex-boyfriends, Benedict Cumberbatch and my husband.
• My playlist for this book included songs by No Doubt, Mumford and Sons, Of Monsters and Men, Coldplay, the Spin Doctors, KT Tunstall and the Dave Matthews Band.
• I was terrified to write about Anne Boleyn.  But when the voice grabbed me on a long car journey, I couldn't say no.  I'm definitely a fangirl now.

And just because I feel like it, here's a little hint of that voice.  If you want to see more, check out the Tudor Tuesdays Blog Tour that will be run by A Glass of Wine beginning May 7 (the date of the GILT paperback release!) 

“Well, if it isn’t George’s little sister.”

The duchess jerks her gaze to find the speaker at the table of gamblers who have been slapping down cards and groats and boasts and bets at the far end of the room. And I whisper a blessing before I turn as well.

George looks how I feel, surprise glimmering for an instant on his face and then vanishing behind welcome. His hair is expertly tousled, his inky velvet doublet smooth and clean, his soft hands no indication of the dirt he gets into. He sits with Henry Norris, who appears to be paying more attention to my bustline than to the conversation around him. James Butler, my future spouse, is next to him, glowering, his hair thick and coarse over his beetling eyebrows. And at the far end of the table sits the speaker, dressed in green like a modern-day Robin Hood, his gold curls sporting a hint of red at the temples—the Kentishman from the king’s disguising.

He leaps from behind the table to approach me, moving with the hidden strength and lissome grace of a cat. I get the feeling this man will always land on his feet.

“Haven’t seen you since I broke my toe climbing the courtyard wall at Hever.”

I swallow a knot of vanity, and it sticks in my throat. Because he has seen me. He just doesn’t remember.

Or perhaps I just made no impression.

He stops and crosses his arms. Leans back and appraises me with his devastatingly blue eyes. He is still several strides from me, so we face each other like players on a stage, our audience all around us.

I glance at my brother, who expects my silence, and then back at this Robin Hood, who expects my response. He expects me to know him.

“Forgive me, sir. But I do not recognize you.”

He laughs.

“Thomas Wyatt.”

I do know him, or of him. His exploits are infamous in the maids’ chambers. Word is, he’s incomparable in bed. And he’s shared many. He’s a poet. An athlete. A miscreant.

“Your neighbor, from your days in Kent? We used to play naked in the fountain at my father’s castle at Allington. Without our parents’ knowledge, of course.”

He winks at me.

The other men laugh, and I hear a rustle of skirts and whispers from the duchess’s confederacy. I twitch a glance at George, who is glaring at me as if this man’s innuendos are somehow my fault. Wyatt smiles like a gambler who has laid down a hand full of hearts. I can’t let him get the better of me. I can’t let this man win.

“It’s no wonder that I don’t remember you, Master Wyatt, for we must have been much smaller.” I pause, blink once, and then open my eyes into blank innocence. “Though for all I know, some things might still be quite small.”

Best. Conference. Ever.

This weekend was my local region SCBWI's annual conference.  They call it Spring Spirit, and it really is a wonderful way to get that bright, new inspiration into my writing.

Spring Spirit 2008 was the first writing conference I ever attended.  The amazing Kirby Larson gave the keynote address.  She made me want to leap up out of my seat and dance.  She made me want to run home and write my heart out.  And I did.

This year, our keynote speaker was supposed to be the fabulous Richard Peck.  But due to an unfortunate series of events, he couldn't make it.  I received a phone call from our amazing regional advisor, Patricia Newman.  It went like this.  "Hello, Katy?  This is Patti.  I have a problem."  She then asked me if I could fill in for Richard Peck (!!) during one of the novel track breakout sessions.  I'd recently talked to groups of seventh graders about historical fiction and how to put the real into a story.  So I expanded my presentation and found myself in the main conference hall at 11:20 on Saturday morning, facing a microphone and about fifty writers.

I'm a little afraid of microphones.  I'd never given this presentation before.  I couldn't decide if I was starving or needing to throw up.  But I gave my presentation (even getting a few laughs in the right places!) and then got to go to lunch (turns out I was hungry.)

It was then that I met a fan.  A real fan.  A woman who was raised on Tudor history.  Who had recently decided she wanted to write for kids.  Who said she loved my book.  Who was delighted that Richard Peck hadn't made it because it meant she got to meet me.

My friends love my book.  My family loves my book.  My editor loves my book.  But I've never had a complete stranger approach me in person to tell me how deeply my characters touched her.  It meant the world and more.  She is my hero, in more ways than one.

This experience taught me two things:

Do it.  Even when you're afraid.  Amazing things can come of it.

And:

Tell others how much you love their work.  Online.  In person.  I've just started learning to do this.  I used to think, "They know how good they are!" but sometimes we all need to hear it.  Mine came at just the right time.  So again, I have to remind myself: don't be afraid.  Amazing things can come of it.  It means the world.

Witness Steubenville

I hardly know where to begin.  I'm not normally political on my blog.  I write about history and writing and other writers.  But every once in a while, something occurs that I just can't keep quiet about.  For a while I thought I should.  "It's not my business," I said to myself.

But it is my business.  In my first book, GILT, my narrator, Kitty Tylney witnesses a rape.  And does nothing.  She's afraid--for her safety, for her position, for her life.  She has reasons.  To her, they seem like good reasons.  And she continues to allow things to happen without acting.  Until her own inaction comes back to haunt her.

The idea came to me after a case in a California high school where students witnessed a rape and did nothing.  I wanted to explore the psychology of a young person who experienced that and suffered the consequences.  Near the end of the book, Kitty has an argument with a young man named Edmund, who also witnessed (perhaps even abetted) the rape.

"I did nothing wrong!" Edmund tells her.  After all, he didn't rape the girl.  (He didn't hold her down.  He didn't post pictures on Facebook or take a video.)

"No, Edmund," Kitty replies. "You did nothing.  And that's not the same thing."

Everything about the Steubenville case makes me wonder what we've learned in the past four hundred years.  In 1539, Henry VIII pardoned Thomas Culpepper for raping an unknown girl.  Because Culpepper had a "promising future" at court.  There were other men present at the scene of the crime.  They are not named in the historical record.  They did not face prosecution.  They did not suffer consequences. (You might say that karma eventually got Culpepper and the king, when Henry had Culpepper beheaded for committing adultery with the queen, but that's another story altogether.)

What kind of world have we created where a girl can be sexually assaulted and it becomes entertainment?  First via text and YouTube and then via media that turn the case into a global morality tale--about social networking.  Outcry should not be about how young people display their entire lives for everyone to see.

Outcry should be about two young men who took advantage of a girl who could not say no.  (incapacitation through alcohol is no different from incapacitation by force.  Culpepper had his friends hold his victim down.  The Steubenville boys had their friends take pictures).

Outcry should be about what our children learn.  It's not OK to take advantage of someone who can't defend herself.  It's not OK to excuse yourself from your actions because "she was drunk" or because you have a "promising future".  It's not OK to take or process or pass around or publish photographs of humiliating, violent actions.  Ever.

Outcry should be that rape is illegal.  It is morally reprehensible.  It is emotionally corrupt.

It is wrong.

And it's not OK just to let it happen.  To watch, to witness and not take action.  Because sometimes doing nothing is still doing something wrong.

Winners!

Congratulations to the winners of the UK celebration giveaway!  Thank you to everyone for entering, and for telling me all the reasons you love British history.  I love that so many people share my passion for it!

The winners are:

The ARC of TARNISH goes to Kelly Grabowski!

The UK paperback and English treats go to Rachael Hanson!

And the final UK paperback goes to Petra @SafariPoet!

Congratulations and thank you all!