Lupa – the woman leader, lessons from history

Lupa, the central character of Mother of Wolves, was originally a minor character in a children’s book I wrote (and abandonned). However she had made such an impression on one of my beta-readers that he suggested I write a book about her. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it a good idea, but the book was definitely not a book for children.

In a previous post I wrote about how I was inspired by three Czech 18th century folk paintings of the persecution of the Roma to write Mother of Wolves. As those of you who have read Girl in the Glass will know, I am interested in women overcoming prejudice and discrimination. As a historian I am also fascinated by great women leaders: women who, despite living and ruling in a male-dominated society, commanded the love and/or respect of their people. I first came to the attention of my mentor and junior school poetry teacher with a poem about Boudicea at the age of 8. My first major piece of writing (at 13) was a verse-play about Joan of Arc. Of all my historical heroines Elizabeth I is perhaps the most influential on the character of Lupa.

The book allowed me to explore what makes a successful female leader and what might trigger such a leader to step forward. In Lupa’s case the trigger is the betrayal and murder of her husband and the need to protect her children, but once on the road Lupa becomes the leader her people need in the face of the threat of genocide.

So what are the traits that Lupa shares with historic women leaders? Like Boudica Lupa is spurred into action by a desire for revenge, like Elizabeth I she has a genuine love of her people, like Joan of Arc she has self belief. Like Boudica she pulls together disparate tribes, like Joan of Arc she leads her troops into battle, and like Elizabeth I she surrounds herself with good counsellors. She is both charming and ruthless.

When I was younger some people suggested that as an up-and-coming poet I should study English Literature at university, instead I studied history. I have never regretted it.

Lessons of history - suppression of the women healers Part 2

The main character of my trilogy (Girl in the Glass, Love of Shadows, Fear of Falling) is a woman healer. My books are fantasy/magic realism, nevertheless I am by training a historian and the lessons of history inform my writing and themes, so I began to research the story of the women healers.

Having destroyed the educated women healers (see previous post) by the end of the 14th century the authorities turned their attentions to the lower class women healers. As with the educated women healers the wise-women were faced with an alliance between the church and the new university educated (and therefore male) medical profession. The alliance’s motives were financial self-interest, misogyny and social control.

The majority of the population had no access to any form of medicine other than that provided by the local wise-woman. Even if they had, the medicine taught in universities was closer to magic than the empirical approach of the wise-woman. But whether the wise-women were healing their patients was not a consideration, the very act of healing was a crime and that crime was witchcraft. As one English witch-hunter said:

For this must always be remembered, as a conclusion, that by witches we understand not only those which kill and torment, but all Diviners Charmers, Jugglers, all Wizards, commonly called wise men and wise women…and in the same number we reckon all good Witches, which do no hurt but good, which do not spoil and destroy, but save and deliver…It were a thousand times better for the land if all Witches, but especially the blessing Witch, might suffer death.

The witch-hunts were not a case of mass hysteria, but organised state persecution. At the heart of it was the book Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which guided the witch-hunters. At the beginning of the hunt a notice was posted in the village commanding that if anyone knew or suspected a witch they should report her to the authorities, failure to do so was itself a punishable. If this resulted in the identification of a witch, she would be tortured to reveal more witches in the community. That torture is detailed in Malleus Maleficarum . The “witch” was stripped and shaved of all her body hair, and inspected for signs of the devil such as moles and marks, although not having such signs was simply seen as an indication that the witch had hidden them. Beatings, thumb screws and the rack, bone-crushing boots, and starvation followed. Soon other “witches” would be identified and so on. On continental Europe these witch-hunts resulted in many thousand executions usually by burning. At Toulouse 400 were killed in one day, 1000 died in one year in the Como area, whilst in 1585 two villages in the Bishopric of Trier were left with only on female inhabitant each. 

Women healers were not alone (there were also some male healers although they make up approximately on 15% of the numbers killed), it is hard to credit now but midwives were also under attack:  
Midwives cause the greatest damage. Either killing children or sacrilegiously offering them to devils. . . . The greatest injury to the Faith are done by midwives, and this is made clearer than daylight itself in the confessions of some of those who are afterwards burned.

The witch-hunts lasted from the 14th to the 17th century. By the time they finished possibly over a million women had died, much of the knowledge that had been acquired by generations of women healers had been lost and women’s roles in healing had been so denigrated that women had to fight even to be nurses.  

Notes From A Storyeditor - Where to start

This is the first in my series of notes about what I learned from my friend and professional story editor Hannah Kodicek. This was first published on the Indie Exchange website. 

The starting point for any story-making is the relationship with the audience. Although we writers may be sitting alone in front of our computer in a garret somewhere, the story exists only in that relationship, otherwise you’re not telling anything.

We start by understanding what we all have in common (audience and writer):

• Curiosity – this is inherent to human nature, it’s the reason we do so many things, one being picking up a book.
• The need to find context – what is it like, how does it fit with what I know/feel, how does it feel like to be someone else
• Need for pattern – again part of our nature, we will look for patterns and order even if they are not there, and there are a load of patterns which we will expect in stories
• Need for balance (equilibrium) – we feel disturbed if things aren’t fair, we want to put it right.
• And conversely the need to upset equilibrium – the need for the unknown, the thrill of risk.
• The need to think ahead causally – this is an extension of our need for pattern,
• But there is also the thrill of the unknown.
• Common cultural context – myths, history, fairytales, belief-systems etc.
• Archetypes – which Hannah described as “deep subconscious forces shared by all” and which are the subjects of numerous books
• The need to relate to others, which for me is the most important.

These commonalities are what we as writers build our stories on, for example every story starts with an imbalance which propels the story forward. We may play with them e.g. encouraging the reader to detect a pattern that isn’t there and so think ahead incorrectly. But the single most important thing is to access people’s emotions. Everything we write will stir some sort of emotional response in the reader. They will be gratified if their curiosity is satisfied or they feel they see a pattern or context. They will be thrilled and scared when we take them to somewhere unknown. But they will be dissatisfied if we promise and do not deliver.

Which brings me to us the writers. There are a number of questions we need to ask ourselves as we approach a story:

• Why am I telling this story? – Why me? Why now? Why do I care? (If you don’t the reader certainly won’t).
• How does the story fit with or challenge the context familiar to my reader?
• What is the emotional key to the story? What touches me most deeply? How will it resonate with the reader?
• What will I and the reader take from the story?
• What tools do I have to do the job?

These then are the fundamentals from which all storytelling flows and I always go back to them when I am working on a story. I find them particularly useful when I am working on the second draft.