Author Interview 003: Tom Kane - Exploring Historical Fiction and Literary Influences

My mother always wanted to be a writer but never had the time or the technology (a typewriter) to put down her ideas into a book. She loved reading and enjoyed films, so it was natural for me to become an extension of her desires. So, at an early age, mostly to please my mother, I started writing stories and she encouraged me all the way.

I don't try to emulate the writing style with the exception of Asimov's simple style of explaining complicated ideas. With Doctor Who, it was created as a vehicle to teach history, and that is such a wonderful concept. And to be honest, science fiction allows you to expand a story into infinity. I have one novel almost completed, but my historical novels have got in the way of me writing and publishing science fiction stories. But I'm working on it.

If I see an opening for a little humour in the scene, I can't resist but to write it as I see it. It's like a little movie scene that pops into my head. I sometimes wonder if there's a higher intelligence at work in most writers' heads, and that has just played out a silly scene in my head of writers being manipulated like puppets on a string. It's the Monty Python wannabe in me.

In my career, I have seen and experienced a lot of new technology, like the personal computer, coming to the fore and people often struggling to grasp these new working realities. I took to all my career paths like a duck to water and I think it was technology that paved my way to becoming a novelist. I went from paper, to computer seamlessly and the wannabe author in me embraced the IT age.

The theme is the struggle of the individual to overcome adversity, to rise above that which is trying to suppress the individual, be it another human, circumstances or mental health issues as with the Magda/Maggie character. The titles came from a book I was reading about the Carpathia, one of the resue ships in the Titanic tradegy. It occured to me that maybe there could have been an instance of someone who survived, but wasn't rescued. How would it have been for them if they saw the last ship leave and all around them was broken ice and debris, how brittle was there demise. And I had my title.

It was a magical moment. Sheer delight mixed with a feeling of achievement, my own version of climbing Mount Everest. I have to admit I cried when I finished writing it and had a tearful moment when the proof arrived. I'll bet a few indie authors have had similar experiences.

I will be publishing another trilogy starting in the spring, with Walking Away from Midnight. Like The Brittle Sea, it started out life as a standalone as now has two sisters, Midnight's Child and Midnight's Secret. Again historical fiction, all three are set during World War II in France. I won't give the game away but there are excerpts of the first book to read on my website, here.

If you mention Charles Dickens to most English speaking people, the obvious comes to mind, A Christmas Carol. But my favourite is A Tale of Two Cities. I love the period in which Dickens found himself and as a writer there were rich pickings on the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Oddly enough, one of my favourite writers is not English, and that's Bill Bryson, an American. His books are both entertaining, funny and educational. Not an easy mixture to achieve, but Bryson does it with style.

I have to admit, I have only ever read Dickens in historical fiction and as I mentioned in an earlier answer, A Tale of Two Cities is a fabulous novel. If I have followed anyone, it's Charles Dickens and his influence has been monumental in my approach to writing in that genre. And it really is pure luck that led me to writing historical fiction. As for technique, I just sit down at my laptop and let it flow. Once I'm in the zone, anything can happen and often does in the world I'm creating.