Hello Simon, welcome to BrandEducation and The RV Book Fair! You were born in England and moved to Canada in 1990. How have your experiences in both countries influenced your writing?
I studied history both at school and at university, gaining my BA (Honours) degree in that subject. I had a variety of different jobs both in the UK and in Canada before I was able to make use of my love of the subject with my earliest novels. I visited castles, churches, cathedrals and many other historical sites over my years in the UK and places inspired by these often found their way into my stories. My most recent books have been influenced by my time in Canada. For example, An Untimely Death involves the lead character traveling back in time to experience Canadian soldiers liberating the Netherlands near the end of World War II. My lead characters in the recently published The Order of Excalibur novels are teenage Canadian wizards whose mother also had magical powers that she was able to refine with the help of the local Indigenous community, before traveling to England with their father when he takes up his teaching post at Cambridge University just prior to World War II.
It wasn’t just history though. When I was growing up, I loved superhero comic books and still have my collection. My love of comic books inspired my fourth novel, The Emerald Curse, and to some degree The Sphere of Septimus, in which the characters journey into a fantasy universe. The map that appears at the beginning of the novel was in my head for years before I had an idea of what I was going to do with it.
In your historical fantasy series, such as The Stone of the Sphere, you intertwine real historical events with imaginative storytelling. How do you balance accuracy with creative liberty when depicting historical settings and characters?
A lot of research is needed when writing historical fiction and fantasy, and as you say, things still need to be accurate. For The Alchemist’s Portrait, I conducted research into many aspects of all the historical periods Matthew travels to including clothing, lifestyle, scientific knowledge, weapons, and the events of the time. I also studied the art of seventeenth century Amsterdam, including paintings such as The Laughing Cavalier.
In The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, Jack’s adventure takes place in late medieval England, and I needed to do extensive research into this turbulent era, as well as into the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. I studied everyday life in the late Middle Ages, what people wore, ate or drank, and maps of medieval England and the city of London. The novel features Richard III, Edward V, and other historic characters, so it was important to research their activities regarding when they appear in the story. For example, if Richard III is shown entering a room at the Tower of London on a certain date in 1483 it was vital to know that he was in the area at that time and not out of the country or in a different part of England.
In The Heretic’s Tomb, although I ensured that I was describing the Black Death correctly, I also needed to research medical treatments that would have been available in the mid-fourteenth century. This was important since Lady Isabella is a physician and any treatments she employs when conducting her medical work had to be in keeping with her era.
In Flashback, Max journeys back into someone else’s life with the help of a psychic. Although he only travels back twenty years, research was still required about the mid-1990s. This may not seem that long ago and yet the world was very different back then, particularly in terms of technology and the way in which the online world is now such a big part of our daily lives. In 1995 everyone didn’t have a mobile phone, no one was texting, there was no social media, and the internet was nowhere near as developed as it is today. Today a character might search for information on a website or on their phone but in the mid-1990s they’d use a phone book. Even though the time period in Flashback is relatively recent, research was just as important.
I engaged in lots of research for The Stone of the Seer books. I needed to study life in seventeenth century London, the political and religious beliefs of the time, witchfinders, and the trial and execution of Charles I. The trial itself was well recorded, and I was able to ensure that the words spoken by both the king and his accusers were accurate. There were also many witnesses to the execution, so I was able to include established facts about that aspect as well.
In An Untimely Death, the story, main characters, and some of the settings are fictional but are based on true events that took place in World War II. I did lots of research into the latter stages of the conflict, the Canadian soldiers and their battles to liberate the Netherlands, the connections between the Dutch Royal Family and Canada, the beginnings of the Canadian Tulip Festival after the war, and the links between Canada and the Netherlands that still exist today.
You’ve authored numerous novels and guides. What inspired you to start writing for young readers, and how do you decide on the themes and genres for your books?
I signed up for a correspondence course that was all about writing for children and young adults and the organization had a newsletter that I received every month. In one of them there was an article about Harry Potter, which I found very interesting but thought little about. I then saw the early novels in my local bookstore and bought the first one. I was impressed and felt that although I wasn’t interested in writing about wizards and wizard schools, this was the age range that I wanted to write for. I bought the other early novels but then had to wait patiently for the others as they were written and eventually published. My own stories were always going to be about science fiction, fantasy, parallel universes, alternate realities, the paranormal, time travel, and history.
4.Your books often feature intricate plots and dynamic characters. Could you share your process for developing compelling narratives that captivate young audiences?
The original idea for the Shadowzone series was about someone capturing mysterious images on a video camera of a person that no one else could see. It was around the time that a local hospital was about to be demolished. I imagined that my character was filming the event and captured the image of the person stepping seemingly unharmed from the rubble as the building came down.
For a while, that’s all I had, and it was one of those ideas that I was never sure would come to anything. It was early in my writing career, and I put it aside and worked on other stories, but I’d periodically add another element to the story about the camera and the mysterious individual. At one point, I decided that the person that the boy caught on film wasn’t a ghost but from another dimension or perhaps a parallel universe and they were attempting to contact him for some reason. I then began to add details of this other Earth and the reasons for the connection to our world, and it went from there. Before the recent pandemic, I developed the idea of a deadly virus, which was a good fit with the type of government running the other Earth. Once that was all in place, I was able to get to work.
I usually try and get readers engaged in the story right at the start so that they’ll want to keep reading. I also often have cliffhanger endings to chapters so that they’ll once again want to keep reading. The last thing you want to do is give them a chance to put the book down. I also employ flashback sequences or go back and forth between scenes featuring different characters. This can be important sometimes if I need to get some information to the reader but don’t want to risk it slowing down the action too much if it’s done as dialogue, for example.
With the rise of digital media, how have you adapted your approach to writing and engaging with readers?
I’m very much involved in the digital world these days, with all my writing classes at the University of Calgary taking place online. All my novels are available as ebooks as well as print books. Future Imperfect and Flashback are also available as audiobooks. I’m sure that all my future novels will be available in print and electronic format, but despite that, during the writing process I still often work with pen and paper, if only to get away from the computer for a while and have a change of scene. It can also help if I’m stuck on a particular part of the story and I’m sometimes pleasantly surprised at how much I get achieved in a couple of hours at my local coffee shop.
The Order of Excalibur: Reich Britannia presents an alternate history where Germany occupies Britain during World War II. What inspired you to explore this “what if” scenario, and how does it influence the characters and events in the story?
I have a few favourite historical eras, and this is one of them. I’ve often wondered what it might have been like if Germany had succeeded in conquering the UK in 1940 and was also aware of how the Nazis were interested in the paranormal. It seemed to be a good fit with how teenage Canadian wizards might have been recruited by the British Resistance to help them in their struggle. My interest in history certainly inspired the story. I was also influenced by my interest in British folklore, such as King Arthur and Merlin, but also by my interest in Indigenous folklore in my part of Canada, so that I could have Nick and Ginny, the teenage wizards in the story, inherit magical powers from their mother, who was able to refine these as she was growing up.
In addition, I know about the different times in history when Britain has been in danger, such as during the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Napoleon in 1805, and in 1940. All these eras were a great fit with the mysterious Order of Excalibur being involved in saving the country from its enemies.
To learn more about Simone Rose, visit: https://simon-rose.com/ and https://www.relatable-media.com/relatable-voice-online