Volume 5, Issue 2 – April ,2002
Lillian Stewart Carl: Unearthly Undoings
Footsteps march up and down an empty mansion’s stairs. Voices sweetly sing hosannas in a ruined and deserted abbey. A revolutionary era sword refuses to stay in its case no matter where you take it. Anxious apparitions impel the living to resolve the mysteries of their deaths. Ghostly grumblers try to impede those closing in on their darkest secrets.
If you think the above sounds interesting rather than scary, well, so does Lillian Stewart Carl. Popular author of such paranormal mysteries as Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, and Shadows in Scarlet, Carl flavors her books with more than just a pinch of unearthly undoings. Even though she claims she never had the pleasure of meeting any specters, she has found out that coincidence can catch up with the fiction one writes.
Crescent Blues: Your most recent book, Shadows in Scarlet, starts in Colonial Williamsburg. This is a new location for you — what made you choose Williamsburg, Va?
Lillian Stewart Carl: My other books set in the U.S. take place in areas I’ve lived, Ohio and Texas. I’ve never lived in Williamsburg (although I’m tempted), but it’s one of my husband’s and my favorite vacation destinations. Colonial Williamsburg is not only physically appealing, with the gardens, trees and historic buildings, the programs are excellent glimpses into the past and the people who work there are good-humored and intelligent. (Is this a plug for Colonial Williamsburg? It sure is.) My main historical interests lie in Great Britain in particular and Europe in general, but I find the colonial period in the U.S. interesting, too.
I originally read a book by Williamsburg archaeologist Ivor Noel Hume (who is as good a writer as he is a scientist) for background on a short story about an archaeologist who uncovers a skull in a stone circle in Scotland (“Upon This Shoal of Time”). Martin’s Hundred tells the story of excavations in the grounds of an eighteenth-century mansion, Carter’s Grove, where Noel Hume and his crew uncovered a 17th century settlement and several skeletons. (The mansion is now open to the public, and the archaeological museum alongside is superb.) Among the many stories surrounding Carter’s Grove is one about a British officer, Banastre Tarleton, riding his horse up the main staircase and supposedly breaking off his sword in the newel post. There is a bit of metal imbedded in the newel post, but judging by the marks around it, it was hammered in. However, Noel Hume did find an insignia from Tarleton’s unit on the grounds of Carter’s Grove.
Like most of what I read, these images nested in the back of my mind for years, and finally blossomed into the set-up of Shadows in Scarlet — the Revolutionary War era British skeleton found in the back yard of a mansion very like Carter’s Grove. Fortunately I had the chance to pump some Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists for information during a tour of their labs. Yes, if they found human remains they’d try to identify the body and return it to its family.
I’m tentatively planning to set another mystery at Colonial Williamsburg. So far, though, I’ve managed to do that only with a short story, a period piece where Thomas Jefferson solves a murder. (“A Mimicry of Mockingbirds”, in Presidential Pet Detectives in 2002)
The ghost in Shadows in Scarlet is more — er, active than any ghosts you’ve written before. Was James Grant based on a real ghost?
No. Although I’ve certainly heard ghost stories about — er, active ghosts over the years. In the Middle Ages James would’ve been considered an incubus, a sort of sexual demon. While that concept has pretty much fallen by the wayside, except in horror novels, there are plenty of similar stories.
Shadows in Scarlet ends in Scotland, a locale you’ve used in two other books. What is it about Scotland that keeps you sending protagonists there?
The chance to keep going back and do research! Seriously, I love the wry humor of the people, the scenery, and especially the lo-o-o-ng rich and colorful history, which leaches into the present in some very intriguing (if often delightfully incongruous) ways. One of my ongoing themes is the way the past lingers on into the present, and how people tend to change the past around to fit their own viewpoints. (Look at the way Amanda sees James in Shadows in Scarlet, for example.)
Then there’s the inspiration of Scottish music, part lament and part swagger. If you’re not familiar with Celtic folk/rock groups such as Battlefield Band, Seven Nations, Clandestine, or Juggernaut, you should be. Great stuff. It would raise the dead!
Crescent Blues has heard that the ghost in Shadows in Scarlet was based on Tom Cruise’s character in Interview with the Vampire. Any truth to this — and have you based any other characters on actors or movie characters?
He wasn’t based on Cruise’s character, no. What happened was that I watched the video of Interview with the Vampire while I was writing Shadows in Scarlet. Seeing Cruise, with his version of the devastating smile, playing an edgy character in 18th century clothes made me think of James. In other words, Cruise could play the part.
If I base a character on anyone at all, most of the time it’s a real person. And even then the character will take on a life of his or her own very quickly. I got the idea for Mark in Dust to Dust and Garden of Thorns from a young man who came to clean the carpets, but Mark is very much his own person. I will sometimes have actors in mind to play the part. For example, the character of Eric in Ashes to Ashes was almost deliberately written for an actor named Paul Darrow, who was Avon in the British science fiction series, Blake’s Seven. In my next book to be published, Time Enough to Die, the character of Howard Sweeney is played by Michael Caine, one of my favorite actors. Going all the way back to my very first novel, Sabazel, a very young Mel Gibson could play the warrior-king. And it occurred to me after I saw the splendid movie adaption of The Fellowship of the Ring that Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas, could also play the lithe young wizard in Wings of Power.
Most of my characters, though, seem to come from and exist in some strange parallel universe.
Arrrgh! That came out all wrong. I MEANT to say I heard that you used Tom Cruise’s BODY from Interview with the Vampire — not his character.
Tom Cruise could definitely play the part. Can’t you just see him in that red coat and plaid? Mmmm…
You’ve had some very interesting ghosts in your books — where do they come from? Are any based on actual ghosts?
Not directly. But I’ve been reading ghost stories all my life, so I’m sure I’ve picked up on various ghostly archetypes. I simply consider ghosts to be characters, with personalities and personal histories, who exist in a slightly different space-time continuum from the living characters. Sometimes they interact with the living characters; sometimes they’re like videotapes, playing over and over.
History is a psychic ghost haunting us all. We haven’t gotten here without having been there first.
I’ve got to ask — do you believe in ghosts? Ever seen one?
I take famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson’s attitude about the paranormal: all argument is against it, but all belief is for it. While I’ve never actually seen a ghost (thank goodness!) I’m easily spooked by dark, mysterious places. My family and I stayed in a 200-year-old house in Scotland (the original of the not haunted house the students stay in Dust to Dust) which was seriously weird. My older son’s bedroom had something wrong with it, or so he and I thought. My husband and younger son noticed nothing.
We also once stayed at an old hotel in England, where my older son had a small room of his own next to ours. For some reason the place already spooked me. Then, the next morning, we woke up and found a very large, very faint paw print on my son’s bedroom door that hadn’t been there the night before! Seven years later (I am not making this up) — seven years later I was reading a book titled Secret Britain and found a passage saying that that exact hotel was haunted by the ghost of a big black dog! And I will add that in English mythology black dogs are protectors of children. (Cue the Twilight Zone music.)
Your first books (Sabazel, The Winter King, Shadow Dancers, Wings of Power) are fantasy — all loosely based on history and mythology. What was your impetus to change from writing fantasy to paranormal mystery?
Simple. The first books were published at the bottom of a very long list by a very large publishing house and didn’t sell very well. (Even after The Winter King went into a second printing.) I couldn’t have sold a fifth novel in that series. Since I’d always loved books by Mary Stewart (no relation) and Barbara Michaels and other romantic suspense writers, I decided I’d pull out the stops and do one of those. And I was ready to do a contemporary novel, where I could use slang and telephones.
That the book I wrote turned out to be Ashes to Ashes, which I owe to yet another trip to Scotland, where we visited Craigievar Castle. I loved the place, small, personable, quirky. Plus the guidebook contained a very helpful floor plan. Craigievar became the model for my imaginary Dun Iain in Ohio. (This is the book which tells the story of Rebecca, a woman from Missouri, who goes to work in the castle. When we went back to Craigievar itself after the book was written, our guide was a woman named Rebecca from Oklahoma. I didn’t have the nerve to ask her if she, too, was having a rocky relationship with a handsome if moody young Scot.)
What drew you to take historical and mythological tales and “rewrite” them?
I’ve always loved history and mythology, and was a great fan of sword and sorcery when it was only a very small and disreputable offshoot of science fiction. The short story that grew into Sabazel (“The Borders of Sabazel”) was inspired by a line in a Smithsonian Magazine article about Alexander the Great, saying that he’d had an affair with an Amazon. I’d never heard that before, and the old imagination took off. Sabazel is, in a way, a marriage of convenience romance with gory battle scenes and some nasty bits of sorcery. The rest of the series went on from there, with the two middle books starring the son of the two protagonists of the first book and dealing with, well, the Mongol Horde, bull-dancers, haunted tombs, sexual politics, battles, volcanoes, magic — all sorts of cool stuff. The last, Wings of Power, follows another relative who gets himself into trouble and is exiled. When you get halfway through that one you realize I’m doing the story of the Trojan War set in India. Great fun.
Do you think you’ll ever go back to writing fantasy?
In a way I’m still doing fantasy, just contemporary fantasy. You have ghosts. You have magic (in Memory and Desire.) As for going back to heroic fantasy, I don’t know. After watching Fellowship of the Ring, I was reminded how much I love Tolkien and could feel that vestigial love for sword and sorcery stirring. But there are only so many hours in a day, and right now I’m committed to building up my mystery audience. (Not that I’ve ever written a straight novel-length mystery, it always has something extra.)
You’ve had quite a few short stories published. Which do you feel are harder to write — short stories or full-length novels?
Full-length novels. They’re, well, longer. They take a lot more time and planning. Of course, I’ve been putting so much research into the recent short stories that it seems like a waste to stop at 7,000 words. I compromise by writing short stories on topics that are relevant to my novels too. The story “Over the Sea from Skye” uses a lot of the research I did on Bonnie Prince Charlie’s 1745 rebellion, which also figures heavily in The Secret Portrait, the novel I just finished. This story will be in Alternate Generals III. My story in the first Alternate Generals, “The Test of Gold” (now on Fictionwise) is about a young Roman’s misadventures in Celtic Britain — some of the research for that showed up in Time Enough to Die.
Which short story did you enjoy writing most?
This is like asking me which of my sons I like the most… I don’t really remember how I was feeling when I did some of the earlier stories. I do remember that “The Rim of the Wheel” (Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Fictionwise) is based loosely on a trip I took to India. And I enjoyed the illustration that appeared with it. (I bought the original.) The Tibetan guy in that illustration inspired a character in The Winter King… Oh, yeah, that was an earlier question.
Of the recently published stories, I enjoyed “A Rose With All Its Thorns” (Past Lives, Present Tense and also Fictionwise). A rabid feminist historian buys the personality of Anne Boleyn (it’s wave-of-the-hand science fiction) and then trots off to a conference of Tudor historians at Anne’s Hever Castle. But of course Anne doesn’t cooperate. At one point our feminist thinks indignantly, “I paid good money to have my prejudices confirmed, damn it!” It’s painful to have one’s mind broadened.
Of the yet-to-be published ones, probably “A Dish of Poison” (Much Ado About Murder) a murder mystery based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. I enjoyed reading the play and interpolating the story into its crevices, a skill I learned many many years ago when I was writing science fiction fan fiction. I used the actors from the wonderful movie version of Twelfth Night — Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne, Toby Stephens — but set the story in 1815, right after Waterloo.
Least?
Hard to say. Some of the ones I had published many years ago may have caused me gray hairs but I’ve mercifully forgotten. “The Muse”, which was in Realms of Fantasy magazine this winter (it’s now on Fictionwise) was one I started and stopped and started again several times over several years. On one level it’s a ghost story set on the island of Skye (yes, Skye again). On another it’s an allegory of creativity and sexuality.
Then there’s one I already mentioned, “Over the Sea from Skye”, which is alternate history. Supposedly, Bonnie Prince Charlie wins his revolt and it’s his enemy, the Duke of Cumberland, who turns up on Skye asking Flora MacDonald for help. I had to do some heavy-duty digging into the Seven Years War, obscure German battles and the like, to come up with a viable how-this-changed-history scenario. The story ends in 1775, with Samuel Johnson (yep, a favorite historical character) commenting on how eloquently Thomas Jefferson (ditto), Franklin, and friends are asking for closer ties with Britain.
Like most cross-genre books, paranormal mysteries sometimes suffer at the hands of marketing and bookstore staff who don’t seem to know how to “classify” them. Do you think there’s a solution to this dilemma?
Some editors are saying that I’m carving out my own market niche, with the implication that when I’ve done it, to get back to them. (Gee, thanks!) My own editor, bless him, says that what I’m doing is transcending the market, and to keep writing what I have to write and the market will eventually follow. This is one reason they’re publishing me in hardcover now, because apparently it’s a little easier to cross genres in hardcover.
There are a lot of writers in the same situation I’m in. I think the only solution is for readers to keep on reading and talking about the cross-genre books they enjoy, and eventually the buzz will reach the marketing departments at the major publishing houses.
But I do have sympathy for the poor booksellers, trying to decide where to slot a cross-genre book! While it would be nice if they would put, say, Shadows in Scarlet into the mystery section, the romance section and the fantasy section, they can’t do that. There’s too much competition for those slots.
We understand you’re working on a new book. Want to tell our readers more about it?
The one I’m just starting is the sequel to The Secret Portrait, titled The Murder Hole. This is a series, with the same protagonist, an inquisitive and intrepid American journalist living in (surprise!) Scotland. An academic scandal back in the U.S. makes her decide to leave her job and her marriage and join forces with an old friend who publishes a magazine in Edinburgh. Now she has a license to go around poking into attics both literal and metaphorical, with sometimes startling results. Plus, she meets a certain police detective in The Secret Portrait…. Well, as she says, the last thing she need is a man to complicate the life she’s gone to such lengths to simplify.
Yeah, right.
Michael and Rebecca from Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust are secondary ongoing characters in this series. In The Murder Hole, they have a baby girl!
Your books are being published by several different publishers — Wildside Press, Fictionwise, iUniverse. What led to your decision to go with smaller (though very excellent) press and electronic publishing?
Simple economic necessity. No one can buy my work if it’s not available.
The eight books from iUniverse are reprints of my first seven novels (blessings upon the Author’s Guild for setting up the Backinprint program for out-of-print books) and one collection of previously published short stories. Fictionwise.com offers downloadable electronic versions of those same books and stories, plus some more recent stories, at prices way below the print versions for those who have no problem reading off a screen of some sort.
My more recent novels are coming out from Wildside because Wildside is willing to take a chance on cross-genre books written by a smallish (but soon to be much bigger, right?) name. The editor there remembered my very first fantasy novels and so was open to just about anything I sent him. Wildside was recently mentioned by The Washington Post as among the best of the small presses, I’m delighted to say.
How have your readers responded to your books being available electronically?
I’m utterly astounded and gratified to report that I’ve been among Fictionwise’s best-selling authors! I intend to get used to this, of course. Whether these are the people who’ve been familiar with my work all along or people who’ve just now discovered it, I have no idea, but I suspect I’m picking up some new readers through Fictionwise — and am delighted to welcome them to the fold.
When did you begin writing?
About the time I began breathing, I think, although I suppose I had to get old enough to actually hold a pencil. I honestly do not remember ever not being able to read. I always wrote, poems, stories, plays. I didn’t actually start finishing anything until somewhat later in life, I’ll confess.
I started writing with intent to sell when my sons were still small and I was teaching part time. I was laid up in the hospital, going stir-crazy, and my wonderful husband brought me a tablet and some pencils. I started writing a fan story and, well, it all got away from me.
Who influenced your writing most?
I have to mention my high school English teacher, Ellis D. Lutz (Upper Arlington High School, Upper Arlington, Ohio), who was not only very complimentary about my work for his class but who would honestly and fairly critique anything I wrote outside of class. There’s also my good friend Lois McMaster Bujold. We first met when we were in junior high school and immediately recognized each other as kindred spirits. We’d write together, we’d write for each other…. And I can testify that even as a teenager she could write rings around us lesser mortals. Check out her newest novel, The Curse of Chalion. Wonderful, creative, thoughtful, high-quality fantasy.
As for authors I enjoyed when I was young — my goodness, there are so many. I read everything from Dante to Dumas to Michener to Steinbeck to Heinlein and Bradbury. Tolkien is my all time favorite — I still wonder at the luminosity of his (now classic) prose. C.S.Forester and his Hornblower were also favorites. Shirley Jackson’s quirkey horror novels. And certainly Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters, Daphne du Maurier — I read Rebecca in one sitting. (And yes, the Rebecca in Ashes to Ashes is named after the book. Memory and Desire is my own attempt at a novel in which one of the main characters never appears.) Nowadays when I want to read some excellent prose I’ll read one of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels or something by P.D.James. For a laugh, it’s Bill Bryson — he has an amazing way with words.
You’ve alluded to writing fan fiction more than once. What shows inspired you?
My first fan fic was Star Trek — the original Star Trek. Lois and I put out one of the very first Star Trek fan ‘zines, way back in our teens. This bewildered the guys in our SF group. No one had ever heard of an all-fiction ‘zine before or even of writing fiction around a (gasp!) TV show! Somebody at the Philadelphia Worldcon last year actually had a copy of that ‘zine. Wow.
Way back before I turned pro (i.e., sold anything), I wrote Battlestar Galactica fan fic for different ‘zines. Great practice at putting a story together. I also did one Star Wars story, inspired by Return of the Jedi. My favorite fan fic is a Blake’s Seven story. I’m quite proud of that one. I’ve also played around with ideas for Dr. Who stories, for example, but I just don’t have the time to indulge in that sort of thing any more. Well, except for the Shakespearean story, for which I was actually paid!
What advice would you give new writers — especially those wanting to write cross-genre fiction?
If you have to write, if you have no other choice but to write, then go for it. You’ll need perspiration, persistence and patience. Keep on writing, keep on honing your work, keep on sending it out. As for cross-genre fiction, keep your fingers crossed that it will eventually reach critical mass. There’s a real balancing act between writing what your heart tells you to write and writing what your head tells you will sell. And for heaven’s sakes, steer clear of the publishing, editing and agenting scams that are proliferating like weeds!
Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Soapbox and white space free of charge, of course.
No soapboxes, thanks — I’ll just default to some BSP [Brazen Self-Promotion] here.
My next novel will be published in October. It’s titled Time Enough to Die, and closer to a straightforward mystery than any of my other contemporary novels (well, except for The Secret Portrait series). But you don’t think I’d actually write a book without a relationship and some supernatural touches, do you? We’re still working on the cover copy, but here’s an early draft:
Matilda Gray, an American parapsychologist, knows that looking too closely into the illegal antiquities trade can be dangerous. But she earns her living looking not only at, but into, the relics of history. Gareth March, a Scotland Yard detective, knows that solving the murder of a woman who reported the theft of several Romano-British antiquities will earn him a promotion. But he has to work with Matilda, even though he knows that parapsychology is rubbish. Ashley Walraven, an American student, knows that participating in the excavation of a Roman fort will earn her academic brownie points. But when she meets a local youth suspected of murder, the experience she gains isn’t academic. The professor in charge of the dig believes he’s God’s gift to archaeology. The belligerent owner of a nearby horse farm, his mousy wife and an elegant antiquities dealer stop at nothing to achieve their own — far from mutual — ambitions. The dealer’s punk assistant plays a mean wild card. And the original inhabitants of the Roman fort aren’t exactly resting in peace. By the time Matilda and Gareth find themselves racing against time to prevent another murder, they’ve come to agree on one thing: The risk of death makes life all the sweeter. There’s always time enough to die.
Thanks for giving me the chance to hold forth!
Teri Smith
Raising hell for fifty years from Alaska to the Azores and all points in between, Teri Smith was an Air Force brat who never stopped traveling. She was also a mother, a grandmother (of ten!), a help desk wizard, a financial assistant, acquisitions editor for Samhain Publishing and, most importantly, the Queen Nag of the Known Universe. A multi-published short story writer, her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Jean Marie Ward, was published in 2007. Contrary to common belief, she never stopped living.