Interview with Sandra Gulland, Bestselling Author of THE GAME OF HOPE

In which we talk about research, the 17th century, the 16th century, falconry, the Napoleonic era, research, beta readers, the Internet—and what we failed in primary school. Sandra Gulland is her usual lovely, generous self in this conversation, which was so much fun!

Transcript

Susanne 0:27

I'm here today with Sandra. Gulland one of my absolute favorite. Historical novelist. She is the bestselling author of the Josephine trilogy, and she seems to flip, back and forth between the Napoleonic era and the 17th century, two of my favorite places to hang out in as it happens. But anyways, so Sandra, how are you doing?

Sandra 0:53

I'm fine. And I should let you know that I've jumped. I keep going back and time. I'm now in 16th century. I think I think to do that, you know, I'll one era will lead me back in time to another. And who knows how far this will go?

Susanne 1:12

Yes, so fascinating. but you started, the first books that were published were the Josephine trilogy.

Sandra 1:20

what

Susanne 1:20

led you to that?

Sandra 1:22

I read, I was a sponsoring editor for a book publisher, and I thought. it would be great to have a series of young adult biographies, for kids. And so I went to the library and I said, I better read a young adult biography. So I got one out and it was about Josephine. And, that's how it goes. I went, no, that was a life.

Susanne 1:51

Yeah.

Sandra 1:53

And, that became my fascination with Josephine. And I knew at the time that. I would write about her, but I also knew I'd have to learn how to write and that I had a lot of research to do so for at least a decade, I was carrying, I had this box of books on Josephine and, I always say it was on my someday. So finally when I decided, okay, I'm I better? I. I wrote a novel, a contemporary mystery about an eccentric old woman in a small village who, thinks that she's the reincarnation of Josephine.

Susanne 2:42

So

Sandra 2:42

this is how it goes, isn't it? Yeah. And actually, no, she. It's also a mystery. Cause she, she discovers this chapter that she thinks is Josephine row. It's just nuts. And, I went to Jane Urquhart. Who's a wonderful Canadian author and was writer in residence in Ottawa, which is about two hours from us. And I sent it to her with a one word covering letter saying help, And she said, she said, what really comes to life? is this tiny excerpt of the, of a diary of Josephine. Just write that,

Susanne 3:24

just write that

Sandra 3:26

I love the 400 pages you've written and just like that, but she was right. And I just, I had never, I didn't have the nerve to do it until she pushed me in that direction. and so that's what I did.

Susanne 3:44

and the world is so glad that happened,

Sandra 3:48

And I started off thinking, no, it's one book. And when I got to about 500 pages and Napoleon hadn't even showed up, okay, this might be more so then I thought it was two volumes series. And by that time I had an agent in trusted. And, and a publisher who said, no, she didn't like to volume things. It had to be one big book, which I couldn't cope with. Cause it would be a thousand words long or pages long. And that night I was discouraged. Okay. This is going nowhere. And that night it came to me that there was a little story in the middle of Josephine's life. And I just said, pulled it out. And I said, okay, that's the middle story? It's a trilogy. So I pitched that to the publisher HarperCollins and my editor and, they said, sure. So I hadn't read, I hadn't written, I've only written the first part. And that was really rough. So all of a sudden, I was panicked. I had to write the rest of it. Yeah. So you know how it else

Susanne 5:08

it goes.

Sandra 5:09

It's crazy. Anyway, it was wonderful. Yeah. It took me over 10 years.

Susanne 5:17

Wow. Yeah, well, it shows, the depth of your research and, the meticulous nature of

5:23

it

Sandra 5:24

is

Susanne 5:24

amazing, but more than that, and if something that I noticed, cause I just finished reading, The shadow queen, which we'll get to in a second, but is how it never weighs down your narrative. That's always, it's always just so seamless. And so delicately sketched in that you're sitting there thinking, wait, is this all meet up? Or is it real? And then, you find out later that, Oh no, it's real. And not because it's unbelievable because it just flows so well as a story,

Sandra 5:57

which is a really too much,

Susanne 5:59

it's a really tough thing to do as a historical novelist.

Sandra 6:04

I find, I know in most writers do, I just do endless drafts and, and when I start getting impatient, Out. It goes so half of what I write tossed. so I like to think that. Sharpens it up a bit, but anyway, thank you so much. Those were very kind words. I got shivers. I like to keep

Susanne 6:32

that's the best kind of shivers, but,

Sandra 6:34

but

Susanne 6:35

so you're re you work really hard on your drafts. Obviously it takes you a long time to get everything together. do you have. Beta readers. Do you, how do you do that?

Sandra 6:45

I am a big believer in, better first and. And hiring freelance editors, because I had been an editor in my previous life. And so I was a big believer in the editing process and I didn't feel that any of my editors were tough enough with me. also one of the most. Rewarding editorial jobs I had for a long time was as editor of a series of books that were written, for school, they were a series of novels written for reluctant readers. a teenage boy might be reading at a grade three level. And so this would have to be probably the first novel that this. This kid ever succeeded in reading and enjoying. So these books were like bootcamp fiction. You just had to really make fiction work. yeah. Anyway, so I pulled together a, some high school kids locally. And whenever a manuscript came in, I would have it photocopied and distributed to them. And then when we sit down and this would be after school and over popcorn and pop, argue about the book. So it, I never was able to predict. How the kids would like a story ever, never stain always shocked me. and I would record the discussion and send it to the author. and no matter what I said, what the kids had to say about. what was working and what wasn't working in a book really carried a lot of weight. So I w I wanted that for myself when I. With looking for better readers for myself. And so the best, better readers, I was able to find more book clubs who are willing to read a close to final draft of the novel, every court, their discussion. And these would have to be people I didn't know, otherwise be to

Susanne 9:13

yeah, they would. Yeah. They'd feel like they had to say nice things, right? Yeah.

Sandra 9:17

And and then I would get the tape recording. This is back in the days when we had this, it was tape. Yeah. And I would play it and I would cry and I go to bed sick. Cause this would be very close to final.

Susanne 9:33

Yeah.

Sandra 9:33

And then I'd wake up in the morning. I'd say, okay. It's time to get to work. I nice. And then I pull out the manuscript and I would read it. And then I would say, no wonder, they're having trouble with that chapter or no wonder, and I go, and then whole chapters would get tossed out and new ones written and wow.

Susanne 9:54

That's a fabulous idea. I, if I had easy access to book clubs, I would just steal it from you. Oh, cool.

Sandra 10:03

do it. I think I can. Wonderful. I was lucky enough to have people in my publishing houses who were willing to find or help find right through, but yeah. And non on for my latest two. my last one and the one I'll be working on now, which are young adult, young adults, don't have book clubs as a rule. So I assembled my own group from all over. and now we can do it zoom. We can have a zoom talk. but that was very helpful too. It was, there's nothing like it.

Susanne 10:44

Yeah, I know.

Sandra 10:45

I know. Do I believe in better readers? You bet.

Susanne 10:50

yeah. Yes. I'm humbled by, but, yeah, it is hard because. There's you know, people who read things, aren't always willing to be that honest because they are worried about hurting the feelings of somebody there's.

Sandra 11:12

yeah.

Susanne 11:14

There's actually an online service, which hooks people up with writers and it's called and it's escaping me because my brain is a sieve at the moment. But, I've done some reading, beta reading for them, and what they do is they get you pay and they give you, they get you three readers and it's nothing, you don't make a lot of money on it. It's some small amount of money to read depending on the length, but I wanted to do it because. I always learn something when I read people's manuscripts and an, I will always be scrupulously honest about things because I don't think it helps the writer at all to let them get away with something.

Sandra 11:55

no, absolutely. Yeah. The thing is with, getting. Feedback. Oh, in one year, my publisher set up, the manuscript to be better read by, the sales, people from across Canada in a big chain, four chains. So that was interesting. but I find that. Individually. If it's in a group, you can pick up, people are sharing laughter or sharing rooms and stuff like that. but individually, some readers might say, Oh, this should happen. Or it would be like this. And it's rare that the suggestion itself is a good one. Unless it's a professional who's tends to be spot on. but it's always important to say, there's a reason that they're making, you have to look at why they're having trouble with that and what they're looking for in their suggestion, what the cause of

Susanne 12:59

yeah. Yeah. France is of course that someone who's reading it, who isn't an editor.

Sandra 13:05

Wants to solve the problem for the,

Susanne 13:08

as opposed to just point it out. And, an editor knows enough to just, pointed out. so that's really fascinating stuff to hear. I always love to dig into how well, how writers approach there. Work,

Sandra 13:22

one reason I enjoy your podcast. I love it too.

Susanne 13:27

Yeah,

Sandra 13:28

it's just bolts. Let's get it.

13:30

Yeah,

Susanne 13:31

absolutely. Absolutely. So let's talk about,

Sandra 13:34

Let's

Susanne 13:34

talk, let's talk the 17th century a little bit.

Sandra 13:38

you've written two books that take

Susanne 13:39

place in the seventh 17th century. The first was about Louise de LA Valliere, who is a fascinating character. And I just read the second one, which is, The shadow queen. And I knew, and knowing who the shadow queen was, I went into it thinking, Oh, this is going to be all about a Madonna Monta spa. And then I was just

Sandra 14:03

completely

Susanne 14:04

delighted and completely hooked on this character who is. A satellite, one of her sort of satellite people and that view. And in fact, I was just, I just had a wonderful conversation with Meg Conneely yesterday on, she's Australian, but she was in Sydney. she actually made the point that she loves to

Sandra 14:25

do that

Susanne 14:25

because you can see now things about a historical character that are so different. If you are looking through the eyes. Yeah. Someone,

Sandra 14:35

who's who

Susanne 14:36

interacts with them as opposed to being in, in their actual shoes.

Sandra 14:42

Right.

Susanne 14:43

Yes. Anyway. so that's what you did with this marvelous character. Claude days, RIA.

Sandra 14:49

Yeah. CLO that,

Susanne 14:51

yeah, she was really an incredible character. And for me, of

Sandra 14:56

course, The

Susanne 14:58

really wonderful part was all the theater history, being a person who likes the arts and, tends to put all my work around, having something to do with the arts if I possibly can. So tell me a little bit about how you did that research. If you can remember it, cause I'm fascinated.

Sandra 15:17

I just. I did. I just loved, I loved getting into the theater. who doesn't. and so in Paris, I was able to locate, the locations, the proximate locations of the theaters. And on my first trip there, I posted something on my blog. I'm saying I can't find the theater of the marae. I know it's here somewhere. There's no sign, there's nothing, you know? Um, and then a message through my blog post. can I help? And this man was the foremost expert on a theater of this period.

Susanne 16:04

Oh my gosh.

Sandra 16:08

Yeah. So basically he, it was like a masterclass. Yeah, as he was able to say, read this, read this, read this, and which of course is delicious to get a good list of books and then have discussions and stuff like that. He was fantastic. He's Australian, a Brit in Australia. And, um, we met once in Paris, but basically it was all, uh, intense. Just happened upon the perfect person. I, I find that, a lot of people, what they need to they're their vest. They don't say anything, but I thought if you put out the problems you're having, you make it known people come to you. Yeah. And I'm just having that right now. And in, cause I'm researching falconry and now. 16th century wall. Can I was emailing, people in the UK and are trying to find the answers to blah, blah, blah. And, And I happened upon a guy who's the foremost expert on 16th century. Faulconer in the UK. So yeah. it was again like a masterclass, And, so

Susanne 17:29

yeah, there are people like to share their knowledge.

Sandra 17:33

Yes. Yeah, they were extremely generous. And so part of writing any book is happening in upon those people who can really help you, bring it to life

Susanne 17:47

either the people well or the resources sometimes.

Sandra 17:50

And often those, the perfect resources are in the footnotes of other books. I find. But yeah. Anyway.

Susanne 17:59

Yeah. Yeah. What's interesting too, is I tell people when I'm talking about writing historical fiction, I say Wikipedia is fine because you go and you look at all the footnotes and there you can find the sources you actually need to use.

Sandra 18:13

That's right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah.

Susanne 18:18

so you, Went back to the Napoleonic era for game of hope, another fabulous. I mean, as you know, I w I myself delved into the boarding school that was, do you want to talk about that a little bit about how that came about?

Sandra 18:37

the game of hope, that was a situation where a publisher. Actually made me an offer. I couldn't refuse. for a number of reasons. this was penguin came to me and said they actually sent, I was in Mexico at the time and my publishers in Toronto, and they sent her this big box with a big ribbon and inside were chocolates in this scrolled up offer

Susanne 19:05

how nice

Sandra 19:07

that's been going. This doesn't happen every day, at all. the offer was for me to write two young adult novels and one would be about her toes Josephine's daughter. And the other one would be a subject of my choosing. And so I had been away from the Napoleonic world for a decade, I think. Yeah. and worse. I had sold my Napoleonic library to a, I used books dealer. Cause I needed to have room for all my books on, the core to the sun King and stuff like that. but I did have my key books. I kept the ones that I had marked up so much. No one would want them. and ones I just couldn't bear to part with. I decided I spent about two months looking at Horton's his story to see if, cause I have to be really caught up in this, in a book subject to do it.

Susanne 20:08

Yeah, me too.

Sandra 20:09

And. Absolutely. it takes years, you have to be passionate. And so it took me, I had to think about it carefully. And, I saw that there was a really good story in her or in her teen years. And I didn't want anyone else. I wanted to be the one to write that story. I'll tell you something a little bizarre. One of the things I did is I consulted with this, Chandler I go to, Oh, maybe every four years,

Susanne 20:44

five years.

Sandra 20:46

And, she's the real deal, I think, anyway, she said a number of things to me that are irrefutable. This is all kind of playful, but I said, I want you to call Hortense and I watch, I want to see what she has to say about this project. And according to this, Chandler she's the, what Hortense had to say about was, well it's about time.

Susanne 21:11

Oh no. How funny?

Sandra 21:15

Anyway, that's all in, yeah. Standard Scholastic approach. But anyway, it was very much,

Susanne 21:23

it's not that's. All right. I'm going to be taking a workshop about tarot for fiction writers.

Sandra 21:30

I could argue, are you taking it from Chris?

Susanne 21:33

Yes. Yes, I am.

Sandra 21:34

I guess I love that interview and I was tempted, myself to explore that. Cause I think that would be very interesting.

Susanne 21:43

Yeah. Yeah. Really interesting. I'm very excited to do

Sandra 21:45

that. The different ways to get into a book and you. Do you do everything possible in

Susanne 21:51

mind? Yeah. And for me, you know, when I'm stuck, I just go back and start researching again. you just go and look for stuff. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Sandra 22:01

And then the lights start going off and all that. Yeah.

Susanne 22:04

Yeah. It was interesting because I don't know if you follow Erin Davies, who's a. Sort of super reviewer on for historical fiction on Facebook. she, you need to look her up. She's really great. And, I actually interviewed her for my post cast, but, she posted a question, four questions about historical novels. that she wanted people to talk about. And one was authors historical note. Yes or no. And I was like, yes, you have to have one because it's just so important to discover where all the history came from and how it became this creative work,

Sandra 22:43

Absolutely. I, right now I'm really very much. Into, the Elizabethan era. if I'm not researching falconry, I'm researching the early life of queen Elizabeth.

Susanne 22:57

The first.

Sandra 22:59

I'm just totally blown away with it. So I've been listening to the, the biographical novels series by Alison Weir.

Susanne 23:09

All right. Yeah.

Sandra 23:11

And. I love at the end where she goes into quite a bit of detail of, the, his, her, the reason that she chose to take this in this interpretation or that, or what the evidence is to support this and that. Fantastic. yeah, I guess now I am, I'm in touch with someone. In that roundabout way, where you've you get the kind of help you need with someone who's a medieval kind of specialists in falconry, in Canada. And so he gave me, some books to get, and I got one that is just perfect. Cause I've got quite a library, but this one gives me the details of data. how to make gloves, how do, how to do all those things.

Susanne 24:05

Can you share the title of that with me

Sandra 24:10

and Hawking by Phillip Glazier?

24:17

I

Susanne 24:17

think I've heard of it, but I will look it up. I don't think I got it. I was limited to it for a while to what I could get out of my local library, which is a wonderful library, but they don't have a huge collection,

Sandra 24:27

Oh no. This patterns from how to make things and the right type of leather and, yeah,

Susanne 24:35

yeah.

Sandra 24:35

all the little details that most. To cover because either it's a something everybody thinks everybody knows.

Susanne 24:46

Yeah. Yeah. Like transportation and then, it's so funny. Cause I was, you know what I loved, I absolutely loved in your historical note for, the shadow queen, how you, when you explained the value of the coins, the money. Cause that's something I always struggle with. You say, okay, this, she spent 60 Louie door. What the hell does that mean? and that's always a difficult one to dairy.

Sandra 25:13

Yeah. and the further back in time, the harder it is just, yes. everybody's changing everything, you might on a border from a place that has been completely different calendar. Yeah. Easter is not the same day.

Susanne 25:31

And then there's of course the French revolution where everything got changed with the calendar,

Sandra 25:38

because in Canada, we're still, haven't completely converted to, metric. And that's been what, 40 years or something?

Susanne 25:47

Yeah. they're not even trying here in the United States, which is just bizarre,

Sandra 25:51

Yeah. But anyway, having been in a country where you could see what it takes to convert how long it takes to convert to another way and in the French revolution where everything changed. Everything, the calendar, the metric, the way scales that are how they didn't go crazy. I don't know. Yeah.

Susanne 26:14

Yeah. Although I suppose life on its pace was sufficiently slower. So maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know that's difficult to a thing that I struggle with sometimes is that, People want to read books that have a really fast pace generally speaking, or that keep you turning the pages, which of course the ideal, no matter what is going on, but. That some sort of creates a little fictional thing because it doesn't really comport with how life actually was in those days.

Sandra 26:49

That's true.

Susanne 26:50

Yeah. So how do you deal with this balance between what the demands of fiction demands of readers today and the actual things that happened in the history?

Sandra 27:02

That's a very good question. Number one, it has to appeal to the readers. that's the number one thing. and then, but to stay as true to, that time travel business as possible, that's it, you have to jump, you have to, it's a push pull. And you can jump. Yes.

Susanne 27:30

I know. Making time pass. Very important thing to be able to do.

Sandra 27:36

Jump ahead. Yeah. And I always says I'm writing, um, revision and revision and revision. I always keep. A note on what I will have to mention in the author's note about what changes I'm making or I'll, and I'll make it notes to myself and the drafts where I'll say, if I stay with this, I'm going to have to explain. Why it's actually, but I've changed it, and stuff like that for whatever reason. But mainly the big problem is that there were a hundred more people in everybody's lives all the time.

Susanne 28:16

Yes. And what's really, I've gotten around that by making a lot of times by making my main characters, as opposed to

Sandra 28:25

having, which

Susanne 28:26

if you make a fictional main character, you have a lot more latitude with, who is around them. and honestly, when I was reading, the shadow queen, I thought you must have made her up because how could that possibly be a real character? And then when I read the author's note, I was like,

Sandra 28:44

Oh my God, no.

Susanne 28:47

And also I remembered that whole affair of the poisons, which is. Big huge scandal thing from, I think Judith Merkel Riley wrote about that

Sandra 28:56

one. Yes. Yeah,

Susanne 28:58

yeah. exactly. And, it's just, you just can't, those are the things that are almost too crazy

Sandra 29:08

to be true. I know. Yeah. It's I know what you mean.

Susanne 29:14

Yeah. And yet, you get to a point when in a book and you say, yeah, come on. That didn't really happen.

Sandra 29:22

Sometimes you have to tone it down. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's just too hard to take,

Susanne 29:30

So are, is there anything like you want to talk about or anything that sort of any topic that anything you might say to a, an inspiring historical novelist or something like that?

Sandra 29:42

what I would say to an aspiring historical novelist is be prepared for it to take time, because historical novels, I think. Take more time than other novels, in my opinion. To persevere and just, um, you have to, you you have to love the research and you have to be disciplined about. Not letting their research over, take you over, which I'm not very successful at. I'm afraid. Yeah. because it can be, uh, I mean, I'm such a slow writer. It's crazy. It takes me. Forever to get a book out. Yeah. so persevere it's, so it's such a rewarding field. it's just wonderful and read, read a lot of historical fiction and study historical fiction and what works and what doesn't. And, yeah, I guess the only thing, one thing that I really liked to hear. in your interviews and in other, any other author interviews is how on earth do people organize their research? And I always, for myself, I always feel like. Maybe, because it takes me five years to write a book. And then by the time I'm ready to start another one, all the technology has changed. All the software has changed. The whole library systems have changed. it's all online now and, Oh, there's so much available.

Susanne 31:26

That is that is really a boon for historical

Sandra 31:29

plastic, but it's. Also can be overwhelming in a way. You're helped by, taking a very thin slice of a success. Yeah.

Susanne 31:42

you have to discipline yourself to still do that,

Sandra 31:45

Yeah. Discipline. I failed discipline.

Susanne 31:49

I failed self

Sandra 31:50

control in grade three. Oh, dear. Oh, no, my problem ever since, Oh

Susanne 32:03

dear. I hit my sort of early primary school thing was that I was very smart, but I was. Too much of a dreamer. Ah, I was, I daydreamed too much. And that had to be stopped.

Sandra 32:16

You know why they didn't see the novelist in your,

Susanne 32:22

I didn't either until I was way older.

Sandra 32:27

Yeah.

Susanne 32:27

So yeah. it does.

Sandra 32:31

It often enough, it strikes me as what a strange thing to be doing, delving into history and, telling these wonderful stories. We're lucky.

Susanne 32:44

Oh, very lucky. Oh, absolutely. And and the thing is too.

Sandra 32:48

what

Susanne 32:48

I have said too. Aspiring historical novel is basically find the story, but don't beat yourself up. If you have to change some things you had, that's what the author's note is for.

Sandra 33:02

Exactly.

Susanne 33:03

Cause the story comes first.

Sandra 33:06

The story absolutely comes first. If you don't help the reader. Yeah. You don't have a book. Exactly.

Susanne 33:14

So you're working now in, in Elizabethan, England.

Sandra 33:19

Yeah.

Susanne 33:21

Something to do with Falcons. I cannot wait. I know I'm going to have to, I know I'm going to have

Sandra 33:27

to, it's about two people. It's about the young and it's the first time I've. Had to it, didn't start this way. It's evolved this way right now. It's the story of the young queen Elizabeth and, the spoken or a young woman from, Kent near Cambridge. And it was started with this interest as something just a little mentioned on a Sunday historical website or something about this, the name of this woman who. from Canterbury, who became queen Elizabeth's master Faulconer, which is highly unlikely. Yeah. And there's, very little evidence of this, but, I'm going with it. I'm going to, I'm just intrigued by the possibility that there was a germ of truth in this and that, although it's highly unlikely that she was the master falconer, she could very well have been a Faulconer for the queen. That's what I'm doing. These stories. Yeah.

Susanne 34:34

All right. It's awesome. I, yeah,

Sandra 34:37

it's huge challenge. but all novels are

Susanne 34:40

well, well this has been so much fun. I'm

Sandra 34:47

likable. Good. Good.

Susanne 34:49

and, when this novel is done and is out in the world, we are hopefully before then actually we'll have another conversation. yeah. But, I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me. What's

Sandra 35:03

delightful to see you and talk.

Susanne 35:06

It's great to see you too. It's been too long,

Sandra 35:10

too long.

Susanne 35:11

Yeah, but isn't that one of the weird kind of benefits of this whole bizarre episode, that's, we're all on lockdown, we're all on whatever, but suddenly there's zoom and we can actually get together and see each other people I haven't seen for years,

Sandra 35:27

No, I think it's fantastic. And also these festivals that I would never be able to go to cause I was always a million miles away and now I can. Connect with them online.

Susanne 35:40

Exactly.

Sandra 35:41

And I think that's going to be a permanent change. Everything's going to be a hybrid of

Susanne 35:49

in

Sandra 35:49

person and online.

Susanne 35:51

Connection is so important then that's one of the reasons I started this podcast actually. All right. anyway, thank you so much.

Sandra 36:00

Thank you. Thank you.