The Jewel of Derwentwater – behind the book
By C S Dalton
So why the hell did I choose to write a dual timeline, time travelling adventure mystery as my first novel? Well, to be honest, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. My characters just kept nagging. And waking me up at three am. And whispering tantalising anecdotes in my ear whilst cooking breakfast.
Sadly whilst I don’t have the benefit of a time travel enabling oak tree, a lot of my characters did exist and they wanted their stories told. So when Anna, the wife of a Jacobite traitor beheaded on Tower Hill, wanted me to tell the story of how she caught her husband’s severed head, well how could I say no? Or Millican, the cave dwelling eccentric who pioneered mountain guiding in the Lakes? I couldn’t exactly refuse. Plus he is my namesake – another Dalton. And Heinrich, an embittered German copper miner in 1569 living on Derwent Isle, mining copper at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I. Well Heinrich I suppose is a representation of those miners rather than one actual person but it’s not like I could leave his story out, is it?
and Sam, the main protagonist, yeah, me, mostly, except, no I’m not having an affair with a married local doctor.
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This is a lovely insight into the world of your novel.
It’s a good policy to let the characters talk; you discover things you never knew that way.
Thanks for your kind comment Rachel. To be honest, I thought this was going to stay in my author profile rather than end up at the top of the colony page 🤦♀️ so forgive me whilst I work out where everything is.
Great characters! I’d love to read more about Heinrich… how the heck did a German copper miner end up on an island in the middle of a lake in the lake district in England in 1569? I don’t just want to read his story… I want to be there with… Read more »
If I eventually pluck up the courage to put up some chapters in the lab, you can find out more. Or if you’re feeling flush you can rent the island from the National Trust. A snip at £40k a year.
This just shows the thanks we get for creating our characters. Once they know they actually exit, they waste no time in hassling and nagging us to hurry up and tell the world all about them. And they do it at the most inopportune moments with no regard for our… Read more »
And sometimes they do the weirdest things, don’t they!
Yes, they do. Despite us thinking they’re going to do something completely different.