a brief history of montmaray by michelle cooper

I transferred everything to a big folder, each section bearing a label saying something like 'Spanish Civil War - International Brigades' or 'Nazi - Ahnenerbe - Otto Rahn'. Eventually it settled in the Bay of Biscay, halfway between France and Spain, conveniently close to Portugal (I had just given the narrator a pet Portuguese water dog).Ībout six months into this process, I looked at my haphazard piles of maps, photocopies and hand-written notes, and figured I really ought to get organised. The island itself slid up and down the Atlantic Ocean as I learned more about Otto's travels. I decided that Otto had also visited my newly-invented island of Montmaray. His expeditions had taken him from Italy to Iceland. For instance, when I Googled Himmler, I came across Otto Rahn, a Berlin historian whose search for the Holy Grail was funded by the Nazis. Freshly-discovered historical facts inspired new directions for the plot, which required further research.

I drew a map of the island, a sketch of the castle and a family tree. My teenage narrator acquired a set of eccentric relatives, a crumbling island kingdom and a complex family history.

I also watched numerous BBC costume dramas and a documentary about Heinrich Himmler's obsession with the occult. My local library and the big bookstores in the city yielded several biographies and memoirs of the Mitford sisters, first-hand accounts of the Spanish Civil War and social histories of inter-war England, as well as novels by Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Mary Wesley. Luckily, 'research' just meant 'lying on the sofa reading lots of books about a fascinating period of history'. It soon became apparent that the girl was a princess who lived in the 1930s, which meant I would have to do some research if I wanted to turn her into a novel.

What was an aeroplane doing there? For that matter, where was she? Who was she? And what was she writing in her diary? I decided I had to find out more. An aeroplane appeared on the horizon and she peered at it curiously. My mind's eye was suddenly filled with the image of a teenage girl, perched on a castle wall and scribbling in her diary. A Brief History of Montmaray began one day when I was very hard at 'work' - that is, I was staring out the window of my inner-city flat, wondering what it would be like to live in a castle. One of the benefits of being a writer is that many enjoyable activities - daydreaming, for instance - can be classified as 'work'. The article was first published in Viewpoint, Volume 16 (4), 2008 Hard at work on A Brief History of Montmaray The following article discusses the process of researching, planning and writing A Brief History of Montmaray.

A brief history of montmaray by michelle cooper