Ruth Frances Long, Author of The Book of Gold, on Inspiration, Research and Historical Fantasy . . .
Once upon a time I fell in love with a book. Not an uncommon occurrence. We’ve all done it at one point or another. It’s something of an occupational hazard as both a librarian and a writer. My problem was, this book wasn’t a new paperback or a bestseller, or a literary masterpiece. It was a 16th century polyglot bible with a turbulent and surprising history.
However, while I wanted to write the story behind the Plantin Polyglot, I had a major problem. I am not a historian. I find it hard to write anything where there isn’t an element of magic, if not full on unicorns bursting out of the walls.
So it was clear to me that I was going to have to do something different with it, but I had no idea what or how.
I was speaking about this on a panel at Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction convention in 2022, when we were asked what had we found in the course of our research that we wanted to put into a book but had not yet found the right story for, and I told the story of this remarkable book, a multi-volume Bible in five different languages, with associated volumes of maps, commentaries and background material, assembled in the late 1500s by the remarkable Benito Arias Montano and printed by Christophe Plantin. At the time Plantin had found himself in hot water when his printing presses were used to print Calvinist pamphlets. He promised Philip II of Spain he would create the most wonderful bible ever seen, and Philip sent Montano to oversee it. It took years. It’s a story of shipwrecks, and rioting, of bribery and corruption, of a paper shortage and near-bankruptcy, but it’s also the story of a life-long friendship. A portrait of Montano hung in the Plantin home for centuries to come, and still hangs with the family portraits in the museum the house eventually became.
But at the time I had no idea how to write this story, I admitted. I went home, went to bed that night, and woke up the next morning with a revelation. I might not be able to write history, but I could certainly break it. And the story would hinge around a heist. This wasn’t the story about creating a book. It was about stealing one.
Research is one of those things that is a sheer delight to me, but I have to know what to research first, what areas are important to the story and why. If I just try to research an entire period, or even a specific place, I will lose myself forever in a rabbit hole of wonderful stories and facts, most of which will not be of any help at all. True, all of this does lay the ground work, and can add layers of meaning, but it is far too easy to waste your time.
Knowing the story, or at least an idea of the story first, is of immense help. With all worldbuilding, we don’t need to put everything on the page. The same is true of the research for that world. So, I tend to do multiple layers of research.
The first is general, based on the time and the place, the setting and its history. In this case, it was sixteenth century Antwerp, the home of Plantin and the location of his revolutionary printshop. I read everything I could lay hands on, and visited the city, did a tour of the sewers, and spent a lot of time the Plantin-Moretus museum (fangirling). I looked at the wider culture of the time, and the more general European history of the Hapsburgs and the religious conflicts of the time.
But with any book, there comes a time when you have to stop researching and start writing. Otherwise you will never start at all. So once I had a grasp of the world I wanted to create, and the differences I wanted in my alternate world of Amberes, I set the research aside and started writing.
The second round of research happens both while I write. When I come across something I need more detail on, which is important to the story or the setting, I take a break from writing and look it up. If I’m at a point where I don’t want to take a break, because the writing is going well or something like that, I make a note and carry on, and come back to it later. I do a lot of this research online, so I always end up with countless tabs open on my browser.
I also research things while I edit, going back over the text to find things that aren’t clear or need more elaboration, folding facts in with the fiction and bringing the world to life, making it feel like a living breathing place, full of life and history.
Not all the research needs to go in there. Sometimes it’s only a little hint of something. I even ended up researching when pencils were invented (1560, handily enough). The world needs to feel rounded, but ultimately we only need to see what our characters see and know what they know. The Book of Gold is very much the book of my heart, right from its very inception and even now, as publication day approaches. I hope you’ll enjoy the world of Amberes, and fall in love with Lyta and her crew as much as I did.
(c) Ruth Frances Long
The Book of Gold is coming out on the 28th November from Hodderscape. Sam Blake will be launching it in The Gutter Bookshop at 6.30pm. All welcome.
About The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long:
A desperate thief. A magical book. And a heist for the ages.
There’s only one thing notorious thief Lyta loves more than a big score; her little brother, Kit. But when Kit is arrested for producing seditious pamphlets, he stands to lose not only his printing press, but possibly his life.
In exchange for her brother’s freedom, Lyta strikes a daring bargain with the king -she will steal the infamous Book of Gold, a mysterious manuscript reputed to be hiding vast magical power within.
It’s just the kind of challenge Lyta relishes, but she didn’t bargain for a secretive scholar, her brother’s interference, or the return of handsome and brooding Captain Sylvian Chant, once her lover and partner in crime, now an incorruptible royal bodyguard . . .
Order your copy of The Book of Gold by Ruth Frances Long online here.
