Glynn Young

Writing: Is It Themes or Is It Story?

March 23, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

In 2013, a study by three researchers at the University of Toronto suggested that people who read literary fiction are more comfortable with ambiguity, tend to avoid snap judgments and can deal better with disorder and uncertainty. Publishing in the Creativity Research Journal, the researchers found that reading fiction may help people open their minds. (You don’t have to read the entire study; a short and succinct article in Salon translates the study from the original Academic-ese.)

Business executives don’t read novels to help them make decisions. But perhaps they should read novels to help them understand the culture around them. They might make better decisions as a result.

I spent a career writing non-fiction – speeches, articles, reports, studies, and essays. And I read the business stuff I had to read – The Wall Street Journal and a multitude of business and trade publications. But I also read a considerable amount of fiction and poetry, and the understanding followed was reflected in my career work. I don’t think I could have written a lot of what I did without having read Charles Dickens, for example, or The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (as bad a novel as it was, it changed the laws governing food production).

Reading fiction and poetry also leads me to ask myself questions, like “What are you trying to say in your own fiction?”

I have three published novels and a fourth is in the works. I would be kidding myself and everyone else if I claimed to have had specific themes in mind when I started writing. What I had was the story at hand, a story that kept insisting it be told. I wasn’t thinking of grand ideas or themes; I was completely focused on telling a story, a story that often seemed to have a life of its own and characters who did things I didn’t plan on them doing.

In On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, Charity Craig (co-author with Ann Kroeker) says this: “We have something to say that can come only from us. Though we often find ourselves, our lives, in the pages of others, what’s missing? Where is the story, the perspective, the hope that only I can express? I can look and look for it, but I’ll never find it until I sit down and write.”

I can reread those three novels now, and I can see the themes and ideas. But they were not, and are not, intentional. But they’re there, and I didn’t really know what they were until I sat down to write:

There is nobility in the world. There are people who know, and who live, what it means to serve.

It is possible to act honorably, no matter what trials or disasters one faces.

There is evil in the world, but it will not overcome the good.

The best way to teach people about God is to live as God would have you live.

Forgiveness is a gift, a gift to give and a gift to receive.

If I had been determined to write a novel with any of themes as my purpose, I likely would have written a very bad novel.

Photograph by Luke Stackpoole via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dancing King Stories: The Buckingham Palace Library

March 19, 2018 By Glynn Young 3 Comments

Several short scenes in Dancing King are set in what’s called the Buckingham Palace Library. Michael Kent-Hughes meets here with Josh Gittings , the man who becomes his chief of staff, the Monday after the family’s arrival in London. He tells Gittings that the volumes in the room are dusty, and he wished he had an inventory of what was in the room. Michael conducts interviews here, most notably the one with Geoffrey Venneman, one of the chief villains of the novel. Michael is using the library as a quasi-office until his own office is remodeled.

I should mention here that there is no official “royal library” in Buckingham Palace. I invented the room for the novel.

At the rear of the ground level of the palace, there is the Bow Room, a large room that arcs on the terrace side. On the official tour, you walk through this room to exit to turn in your tour head sets and find the refreshment tent. The Bow Room is officially a kind of waiting room for guests, until they’re conducted to meet with the monarch. There are rooms on either side of the Bow Room, which were originally designed to be the library. From early on, though, Victoria and Albert, the first to occupy the palace, used the two rooms and the Bow Room for other purposes.

There was a King’s Library, created by the king who reigned during the American Revolution, George III. When he came to the throne, there was nothing one could really call a library, and so he created and built one. The King’s Library, as it was called, was housed at Buckingham House, the predecessor to the palace. The library had four rooms, the largest of which was the Octagonal Library. George III also kept collections at Kew Gardens and Windsor Castle, mostly of subjects he was personally interested in and personal papers.

King's Library Gallery — The King’s Library Gallery at the British Museum

In 1823, George IV presented most of the collection of the King’s Library to the nation. For more than a century, this was housed at the British Museum near Russell Square in London, until the new British Library opened in 1997, where it is now stored. The collections at Kew and Windsor, however, were retained by the monarch.

Today, Queen Elizabeth has the Royal Archives and Royal Library at Windsor Castle. If you ever wondered what went on inside the large round turret-like building on the castle grounds, guess no more – it houses the Royal Archives, while the library is another part of the castle.

Royal Archives Windsor Castle — Where the Royal Archives are stored at Windsor Castle

While most of the royal papers, books, and archival information is at Windsor, other royal locations contain small parts of the overall collection. These include an art reference library at York House in St. James Palace, a small reference collection and materials on Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Queen Victoria’s literature collection at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, collections at Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle, and a set of Parliamentary records at the Palace of Westminster (Parliament).

In a future book in the Dancing Priest series, Michael will receive an audit and assessment of all of the royal collections and libraries and, with the help of his staff, determine what to do with them.

Top photograph: the Octagonal Library at Buckingham House.

Dancing King Stories: The Green Drawing Room

March 12, 2018 By Glynn Young 4 Comments

Before there was a Buckingham Palace, there was a Buckingham House, built by the Duke of Buckingham in the early 18^th century. George III bought it in 1761 as a residence for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and it became known as the Queen’s House. The royal family spent considerable and increasing time there, and it came to be known as the family’s London residence. The Green Drawing Room, known by that name today (or simply the “Green Room”), was originally the Duchess of Buckingham’s saloon, and was the largest room on the first floor (what Americans call the second floor) of the house.

Over the centuries, the room has been remade a number of times. For Queen Charlotte, large wall drawings were brought from Hampton Court Palace and the ceiling was painted. Later, the drawings were replaced, and the ceiling plastered. Doorways have been added and chimney mantles replaced. In the 1830s, green silk was used to decorate the walls.

Green Drawing Room Dancing King — The Green Drawing Room in Buckingham Palace.

When he was completely redesigning Buckingham House to turn it into the royal palace, John Nash kept the house structure and then added two wings. Eventually, a fourth wing was added, making the familiar “square around the central courtyard” design that’s known today.

The last time the Green Drawing was redecorated was 1949. It is one of the official state rooms that’s included on the public tour of the palace. Its walls are decorated with green and gold silk wallpaper (replaced every 30 years) and highlighted by white and gold plasterwork. The doorway at one end leads directly to the Throne Room; the Green Drawing Room, in fact, serves as an anteroom for the Throne Room.

In Dancing King, Michael Kent-Hughes agrees to meet with protestors, and the place selected for the meeting is the Green Drawing Room. To reach the room, the four representing the protestors would enter the building on the lower level, walk up the palace stairs, and then arrive at the Green Room. A table and chairs have been placed in the room for the meeting. Michael is waiting and introduces himself as he shakes their hands.

Once all are seated, what the protestors would have seen would be Michael with the doors open to the Throne Room behind him – a reminder of his position. He meets them as petitioners, and he firmly rejects their demands. One demand he finds particularly problematic and objectionable – and that is that he change the coronation oath to style himself “defender of the faiths.”

Palace Floor Plan Dancing King — The Green Drawing Room is marked by the letter G and the Throne Room by the letter F.

I had an original source for that demand – Charles, the Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne. Almost 20 years ago, Charles made a public comment about seeing himself as a “defender of the faiths,” to acknowledge all of the religions in Britain. The comment caused something of an uproar, and we can only imagine what the Queen herself, a devout Christian, thought (and said, privately). He’s tempered that sentiment somewhat in the intervening years, and now leans toward “defender of faith” or the traditional “defender of the faith.”

Michael explains to the protestors what acceding to this demand would mean – that they would be acknowledging him as the head of all religions in Britain, including Islam, and their clergy would serve at his pleasure. They’re horrified – that isn’t what they thought their demand was about.

This scene, like the one that immediately follows outside the palace, begins a theme that actually surprised me when I realized what was happening. Both scenes were written toward the end of the manuscript process and were not part of the older manuscripts written more than a decade ago.

The theme is the limits of constitutional and representative government, and what happens when that kind of government begins to falter. That theme was never part of the “original intent” of these stories, but the seeds of it can be found in A Light Shining and the sprouts in Dancing King.

Top photograph: Looking through the Green Drawing Room to the Throne Room.

Writing Who You Are

March 9, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

The spoken word has much to do with how I write fiction.

My professional career in corporate communications spanned some 40 years. For most of that time, I was either a corporate speechwriter or not very far away from speechwriting. Even when I was serving as a spokesman for a crisis (a plant explosion, a train derailment, government actions upending a product and its market, to mention a few), I would usually have an executive speech assignment waiting on my desk.

It’s perhaps the toughest job in corporate communications (or any other kind of communications). You’re writing for another person. To do your job well, you have to write like that person speaks. That means you have to listen more than you talk. You must understand what’s on the audience’s mind. And you’re constantly moving across communication media – from the words you’re writing to the words an executive is speaking to the words the audience is hearing.

Speechwriting is also rather anonymous. Someone else takes credit for your work. That is, unless the speech doesn’t go well. Then you get the full credit (blame).

Most people in communications hate speechwriting.

I didn’t mind the anonymity. I did mind being at the CEO’s beck-and-call on nights and weekends. I liked the largely solitary work. I didn’t like the politics surrounding the CEO’s speeches. One CEO I worked for was so sensitive that he had one hard and fast rule: no one in the company could see his speech drafts unless they came and asked him face-to-face for permission.

Speechwriting taught me to write with a voice, and that the best speeches were the ones that expressed emotion in the right way and in the right places. It taught me that the most critical part of the job was not the writing but the listening. I learned to listen, and listen hard.

I had also been around the speechwriting life long enough to know that it is very rare for a speechwriter to write effectively for both the CEO and his or her successor. You have to know when it’s time to do something else.

The stakes can be high. I wrote hundreds if not thousands of speeches, but I wrote three speeches that changed a company and changed an industry.

Speeches and speechwriting play a critical role in my third novel, Dancing King. It’s no coincidence that the communications guy writing the speeches for the main character also handles his crisis communications. The speechwriter moves back and forth between the roles. The defining conflict between the hero and his antagonists is a speech, one that sums up what the hero is about and the change he’s calling for.

That’s what they call “writing what you know.” It’s also “writing who you know.”

In On Being a Writer: 12 Simple Habits for a Writing Life That Lasts, Ann Kroeker (co-author with Charity Craig) says that “writing is more than what I do or coach. I discover who I am.” It teaches you about how you think, how you react, what you believe is important, what cannot be compromised, and what is superfluous. Writing is about the word; for Christian writers, it’s about the word and the Word, the logos.

That word – logos – means “word,” but it also means “spoken word,” what we call speech. It’s the oldest form of creativity we know, there from the creation.

Photograph by Bogomil Mihaylov via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Dancing King Stories: Buckingham Palace

March 5, 2018 By Glynn Young 2 Comments

It’s likely the most recognizable royal residence in the world.

The site of Buckingham Palace in London has been a royal residence since 1761, when George III bought Buckingham House for his wife, Queen Caroline. It was architect John Nash who transformed the building into more of what we know today, creating a three-winged building with the Marble Arch in front of it (the arch was later moved to Hyde Park). Victoria was the first monarch to live in the palace, moving in in 1837, and it was during her early reign that a fourth wing was added, especially to provide more bedrooms and a nursery. The fourth wing created the quadrangle design.

The palace has experienced some significant changes over the years. In 1911, the forecourt was added (where the changing of the Guard takes place) as part of the plan for the Victoria Memorial statue. The gates and railings were also added at this time. In 1913, the palace was refaced – the stone was deteriorating because of air pollution. During World War II, a German plane flew right up The Mall and bombed part of the palace – in the area where the Queen’s Art Gallery and the palace gift shop are today on Buckingham Gate.

Today, the palace has 775 rooms, including 19 State Rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, and 78 bathrooms.

In 2018, the palace’s state rooms are open for public touring from July 21 to September 30, roughly corresponding to when the Queen is staying at Balmoral in Scotland and Windsor Castle.

I’ve taken the tour of the State Rooms twice, in 2012 and 2015. I bought our tickets online once we were in London and chose the day and time (tickets are timed). The tour entrance is on Buckingham Gate, and friendly (and usually caped) attendants guide you where you need to go. The tour starts with a security check, and then you walk through a part of the interior courtyard to the main interior entrance. You’re given a headset and tape in the language of choice, and you follow it through the tour.

The tour ends at the ground level on the terrace facing the back lawn and gardens. There is a refreshment tent where you can buy tea, coffee, water, and soft drinks, as well as cakes and other sweets. (We were ready for a piece of sponge cake and tea by the end of the tour.) There’s a restroom pavilion nearby, and then a large gift shop (one last opportunity for tourists to spend). To exit the grounds, you follow the graveled walk and exit on to Grosvenor Place, a busy street on the west side of the palace complex. Walk north to Hyde Park, west to Knightsbridge, or south toward Victoria Station.

A considerable portion of Dancing King is set in Buckingham Palace, including two crucial and related scenes, one in the Green Room (one of the State Rooms), where Michael Kent-Hughes will meet with protestors, and the other by the Victoria Memorial in front of the palace.

Michael and his wife Sarah find the palace generally sound (Michael’s childhood friend Tommy McFarland, will lead a team of architects and building experts to determine the condition of the various royal properties). A number of internal systems – heating, kitchen appliances, and basic systems – will need to be replaced or repaired. The chief gardener, Richard Brightwell, will be directed to begin a major renovation of the gardens. The art gallery will be renovated and plans made for an exhibition. The staff will begin planning to reopen the palace for summer tours.

Michael and Sarah, overwhelmed by the size of the palace and trying to figure out how to call it “home,” will have a space on the upper floor of one of the wings renovated for the entire family, resembling their home in San Francisco.

The desire for their own “home” within the palace is an indication of how different this royal family is from all of its predecessors. Michael was not raised in class privilege; Iris and Ian McLaren worked as a garden designer and horse veterinarian, respectively. He attended regular schools in Edinburgh rather than a school like Harrow or Eton. He has no “old boys” relationship with the aristocracy, and no military background like so many royals before him. Where his friendships in Britain will develop will be more with professional and business people.

And what most sets him off from his predecessors is that no previous monarch was first a priest.

Top photograph: Buckingham Palace, September 2017. Middle photograph: the rear of the palace, with the tented refreshment area. Bottom photograph: the gates on the right side of the palace; it is through these gates that Michael walks to join the crowds in front.

Talking with Megan Willome about “Dancing King”

March 2, 2018 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Writer Megan Willome and I had a long conversation about Dancing King, writing, fiction, characters, the use of emotion, crowd scenes, and even bicycles in London. She had read all three books in the Dancing Priest series.

“The stories haunt you, and not in a scary way. They serve as almost an alternate history: What if the Athens Olympics unfolded like that? What if England had a king on the throne instead of a queen? Like any good alternate history, it has enough true details to make it seem real. So real that I find myself thinking The Violence from book 2, A Light Shining, was as real as The Troubles.”

You can read her discussion and our conversation at Megan’s blog.

Footer

Meet the Man