Volume 6, Issue 1 – January, 2003
Lynn Kurland: Magic from the Mundane
From a heroine marked by smallpox to a hero so intimidating prospective brides will do anything — including faking their own deaths — to avoid the honor of his proposal, Lynn Kurland takes great pleasure in tweaking the cliches of medieval romance. Starting from the idea that people from distant times don’t differ from us all that much, she delights in plunging “regular people” into extraordinary circumstances, including time travel and intimate encounters of the spectral kind.
A self-confessed fan of epic fantasy, Kurland nevertheless grounds her stories in careful research, vividly capturing the sensory experience of living in other times and conditions. Shortly after the release of From This Moment On, Crescent Blues asked Kurland the secrets of combining magic and the mundane.
Crescent Blues: What prompted you to try a more realistic take on the plot device of a lovely young woman disguised as a knight?
Lynn Kurland: Well, Colin [the hero of From This Moment On] needed a bride and I needed a situation that a woman desperate enough to avoid marriage with him would have found herself in. I’m honestly not sure how realistic it is — the Middle Ages were notorious for their lack of privacy, so maintaining her disguise might have been more difficult than fiction allows, but factor in Colin’s reputation and there you have it.
Do you consciously seek out atypical situations and heroines, such as smallpox survivor Lianna of Grasleigh, the heroine of “To Kiss in the Shadows” from the anthology Tapestry?
My theory on heroines is — take a normal girl and put her in extraordinary circumstances and see what happens. I try to avoid perfect women — probably because I’m not one and I want to read about someone I can relate to.
What are the keys to writing against the stereotypes of medieval romance?
Remember that your characters are regular people — despite their era. I try to keep in mind that the people I’m writing about have the same concerns I have today: keeping food on the table, keeping clothes on my back, keeping my family safe. Add to that a cold, unwashed environment with meat of indeterminate ages smothered in sauces to hide the taste and you have medieval times.
Colin of Berkhamshire isn’t your run of the mill romance hero either. What inspired you to write a romance story around him?
I grew very fond of him in This is All I Ask and I had many requests for a book about him. It gave me a chance to look at life from his perspective for a few months.
Did you always view him as a sympathetic character?
Always. Gruff, but very tender under that crust.
When you began writing about the De Piaget’s and MacLeods, did you realize the genealogy would grow so involved?
Involved, yes; intertwined, no. I originally kept them all straight on a genealogy program (I’d still do that if I were better organized), and I used to joke that after I died, people would go through my stuff and be incredibly impressed that I’d researched my family tree back to the Middle Ages and found ancestors not only in England and in Scotland as well!
How many more septs and branches of the family tree do you see from your writing desk?
Until the art department tells me they can’t fit anymore on those two back pages! Seriously, I think I’ll keep going, maybe introduce a few branches of other families as time goes on, and keep at it until I run out of interesting people to tell stories about.
What do you find most satisfying about time-travel romance?
I absolutely love the whole fish out of water idea. It gives me a great chance to imagine what it would be like for myself as a modern person to go back in time and experience all those things you only get to read about in historical texts. Fascinating stuff.
The magic portrayed in your stories is very down-to-earth and, for the most part, friendly. How does this compare with your own view of traditional healing and so-called “occult” arts?
I’m absolutely not into the occult and none of the magic in my books should in any way be viewed as anything relating to anything occult. I’m a big fantasy fan, though, and for me, in my books, the magical element is just that — fantasy.
As far as traditional healing goes, I think we’ve lost a great deal of knowledge about the wonderful weeds around us that could cure a whole host of ills in a very simple way. I haven’t really gotten into that too much in my writing — it’s my own little soapbox and I think I would probably (and my editor would no doubt agree with this!) get too carried away with the whole herb thing and neglect the story.
What’s your method for researching the medieval elements of your stories?
The public library! At least it was at the start. I have tons of research books I’ve collected over the years, but I still am a big library fan. I’ve found some amazingly obscure tidbits by just poking around in dusty stacks for something completely unrelated.
Do you ever model your characters on acquaintances or public personalities?
Well, now that would be telling, wouldn’t it! There are bits and pieces of friends, family and former boyfriends, of course, in many of my characters, but it would be just too darn complicated to spills the beans on who’s who.
But I’ll tell you this much — the way Alex Smith eats (with grunts and pointing to things he needs) is so much like my husband that I honestly wondered, during one of our initial dates, if I could marry a man who didn’t do anything during dinner but eat.
What influence does popular culture (e.g., movies, television series, the History Channel, fads, etc.) have on your work, if any?
Not much. I try not to date my stuff by putting too many current events in it. (Of course, there is the ever-present desire for chocolate and visits to the mini-mart, but I think that’s timeless…)
Would you like to branch out into other periods or types of romance?
At this point, I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing. I can tell you that I won’t ever be writing Regency, Glitz or women in jeopardy books. I’m open to other things, but it will, in the end, depend on what the characters call for.
What about other genres, such as fantasy or mystery?
Both, definitely! Like I said, I’m a huge fantasy fan and I would love to stick my whole hand in that pie.
What inspired you to sit down and write your first novel?
I was first and foremost a reader. I read tons of fantasy and it never had enough romance in it for me. To be quite honest, it was a particularly bad romance novel that made me think that perhaps I might just have the courage to try my hand at it. I think many people find themselves in that boat and I say, go for it! Not everything that’s published (be it fiction, or music, or other media) is the best that’s out there. I think everyone has a story in them, and some people have several! If you think you can do it better than what you’ve just read, you just might be right and it’s that competitive fire that keeps you going when it might be easier to give up.
What keeps you writing?
Readers, readers, readers! If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to pack it in, well, I could go out and get myself something really tasty at the mini-mart. What keeps me going are the wonderful letters and emails I’ve gotten, especially from teenagers who are looking for a love story they can enjoy.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Yes, I pull out the computer, put my backside in a chair and make myself work even when I don’t feel like it. I don’t have much patience for a muse, especially with two small children. That inspiration better be there on my schedule — which might be getting to write longhand for thirty seconds at a time in between rounds of Disney monopoly or games of peek-a-boo.
Would you care to tantalize our readers with any tidbits about your current projects?
I never talk about things in progress, which I know drives some people crazy. (My husband knows better than to ask by now!) It ruins the magic for me to talk about it and somehow it always sounds kind of silly to me when I try to explain what I’m doing. I guess I’m better at putting words on paper than I am trying to tell the story out loud.
I can tell you that next fall Berkley is going to publish Patrick MacLeod’s story. I’m really excited about it (and I can talk about it a little since it’s finished). He was, for me, an interesting character to get to know given that he’d been in the future so much longer than any of the other time-traveling MacLeods.
Anything you’d like to add?
Just an enormous “Thank You” to everyone who has shelled out her (or his!) hard-earned money for my books. I am continually amazed by the loyal fans my little books have found and by the incredibly touching and supportive emails I’ve gotten. I feel like if somehow I’ve managed to make a difference in someone’s life in some small way, then it’s been worth whatever it took to get that particular book out the door.
Click here to learn more about Lynn Kurland.
Click here to read Jen Foote’s review of Lynn Kurland’s My Heart Stood Still.
Jean Marie Ward
In addition to editing Crescent Blues, Jean Marie Ward writes for a number of Web-based and print magazines, including Science Fiction Weekly. She is the author of Illumina: the Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Paper Tiger) and several short stories, including “Most Dead Bodies in a Confined Space” in Strange Pleasures 2 (Prime Books). Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Teri Smith, was published by Samhain Publishing in 2007.