Onwards and Upwards (and Sideways)

Ironically, given how much I make my characters do it in the Boiling Seas books, I’ve only taken up climbing relatively recently. I’ve dabbled frequently – I was a Scout once, I grew up in the countryside surrounded by trees, and every family holiday seemed to take us to beaches with convenient bits of low cliff. One particular trip saw me and two of my cousins climb all the way around a section of headland from one beach to another, with no adult supervision, over wet rocks, in flip-flops. I’m fairly sure we had to fully jump from one bit of cliff to another at least once. Somehow we managed not to die.

Here is little(r) me climbing in apparently 2007.

But now I’m bouldering (i.e. no ropes, because they are expensive) on a regular basis. London sadly being lacking in actual rock faces, my usual haunt is an indoor wall, but it’s built into an old theatre and so fits a surprising amount of vertical space. I’ve been going for about 6 months now. I’m not good yet. But I’m getting better. And so I’m starting to appreciate exactly what goes into climbing in a way that I didn’t before. I know better how it feels to reach for that next hold, how satisfying it is to solve the puzzle of a tricky route. I know which bits hurt afterwards. I have felt the physical caesura as I lose my grip, in the instant before I fall.

So when it eventually comes to writing Boiling Seas 3, which will inevitably feature plenty more scaling of walls and stealing of things, I should know what I’m talking about a bit better, which will hopefully translate into me writing about it better. And that got me thinking about what other real-world things I do or have experience of that I try and write into my stories. Initially, it doesn’t seem like there’s much. Despite my most fervent wishes to the contrary I am not a master swordsman, marksman or thief (though I continue to dabble with the notion of learning lockpicking).

But I do climb. And I do research. All those passages where Tal and Max are poring over maps, deciphering ancient texts and languages – that I know how to do. I can handle history. Which of course helps with places and worldbuilding, too: the nebulous Arcadian Empire from the Boiling Seas is of course essentially ancient Rome with some other bits thrown in. (If in doubt, pseudo-Latin is your friend.)

And though I’ve never been to the Boiling Seas, there are real experiences in those books that I’ve given to my characters. I don’t want to spoil anything, but in Nightingale’s Sword there is a section where Max has to do a Postman’s Walk, which is a high-ropes course obstacle where you do this:

Not me, unfortunately (from Camp Fire) – lots of old high-ropes photos but none of this.

I love high-ropes. But when I was a kid, I hated the Postman’s Walk. Even now I find it hard to do. There are no poles, no dangling bits to hold onto to keep your balance – it’s just you and those two wires, a long way off the ground. And so in Nighingale’s Sword, Tal (who is the character I would like to be) has no problem with it, and Max (whose temperament I am much closer to in reality) also absolutely hates it. I know how it feels to be up there. Everything Max experiences in that moment, I’ve been through.

Back on artefacts and places, in Super Secret Project, which has something approaching a more real-world setting, I’ve been liberally scattering the narrative with places and objects I’m familiar with, everything from old castles to old workplaces. It’s the latter that are the most satisfying, because the odds are on none of my readers ever having visited said places or having the faintest clue that they’re based in real life – but for me, and the one or two people who have, it’ll be one hell of an unexpected easter egg.

I’ve digressed a little. But the point, I suppose, is that the old adage of ‘write what you know’ can be taken in many different ways. I’ve never been a medieval soldier, but I’ve walked on plenty of castle walls. I’ve never debated ancient philosophy but I’ve read the words of those who have. And while I’ve never climbed the cliffs of an abandoned observatory, I have climbed. And who knows? Maybe, some day, I really will.