Kate Mosse:  Questions about Labyrinth

LITERATI MAGAZINE: The nature of the project as a written and virtual process (Orange labyrinth) is a fascinating one. What were your aims with the project and how closely have these have been met now that the book is completed?

KATE MOSSE:  Our website – www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk – was set up as a creative writing and reading website by me and my husband, who is the Education Director and Editor of the site.  It forms both the basis for our creative writing teaching – in institutions, schools and universities – and for our online communication with fellow writers and readers.

I used the research material I had gathered during the process of planning, researching and writing my latest novel, Labyrinth, as the source material for the site. I had a wealth of material I was happy to share, even though I did not publish any of my own text online at all.

The key aim of the site was to share the process of writing a novel – rather than the text itself – as a way of illuminating the nature of fiction writer and the work of one individual author.

The site will continue to grow, especially as I am now in the early stages of researching my next novel, Sepulchre.  The same process of publishing my research and writing honestly about my experiences as a novelist will continue.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: What prompted you to install this as an online project? What were your ideas about it?

KATE MOSSE:  A historical novel needs research, days and weeks of research. However fascinating, the stuff you discover cannot be a part of your book, except in the background, in the back of your mind. In fact, a good author of contemporary fiction has reams of back story that never finds a place on the pages that the readers finally hold in their hands. I remember seeing J K Rowling holding up a notebook in which she says is the entire history of the Death Eaters - imagined sequences of events that never appear in the Harry Potter books, save in flashes of memory in the pensieve. With my husband, Greg - who has more of an ICT background than I have - I discussed the possibility of releasing the research on a CD with the book. But we decided that the interesting part of the process for the writer - and therefore, hopefully, for the reader - was to see the shifting tectonic plates of the creation, submerged continents heaving up to the surface, others drowned under new ideas. So I decided to make available not just the research, but also the process of writing, editing and selling a novel. From that, it was obvious that the internet was the appropriate medium - like a self-archiving magazine.

LITERATI MAGZINE: How, if at all, have aspects of the creative process deepened or evolved for you during this journey, by having shared it so openly online over the last couple of years.

KATE MOSSE:  In truth, it hasn’t changed my process very much in itself.   I have been simply sharing how I worked.  It has sometimes been difficult, however, to be honest!   An author doesn’t always want to admit when a scene is going badly or if a wonderful plot idea turns out not to work in practice, so I had to be strict with myself in my weekly Home Page Diary and write honestly about all my experiences.  However, it has also been very rewarding – when things were going well – to be able to share this with a community of online writers and readers:  for example, when the first copy of the Italian version of Labyrinth arrived from Piemme, I was happy to be able to write about my excitement at holding the finished copy in my hands!

LITERATI MAGAZINE: What new insights has this process given you in respect of writing a book, especially an historical novel?

KATE MOSSE:  The process of sharing my working process and methodology online is really an extension of the sort of work most novelists do already at literary festivals and in bookshop readings.  Most novelists are asked, not only about their books themselves, but also about the process of writing – how do you work?  where do you work?  what time of day do you write?  and so on.  Writing about my experiences with Labyrinth is much the same as talking about them, it’s just that the audience is not in the room with me!

LITERATI MAGAZINE: On the website you have engaged readers and writers in a remarkably unique way: has the creative response exceeded your expectations and how do you think this sort of exchange can alter the reader/writer relationship for you with future books you may write?

KATE MOSSE:  One of the exciting – but also frustrating – things about working online is that you, as the author, do not necessarily know how people are reacting to your work or, indeed, how many people are involved with the process!   However, what most surprised us, I think, was the high number of page hits we got when we first launched the site – approx 1 million hits per year – given it is a site that does not sell anything or promote anything!   It proved, as we had hoped, that the internet could be used creatively and without their always being a financial aspect to successful sites.   Also, we learnt from early research, that the average amount of time people spend within the www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk website was 20 minutes, which is a very long time in online terms!

As a novelist, so far I do not know how the website will or will not change my relationships with readers.   I think we’ll have to wait a little longer to see, since the book has only been out in the UK for a month, for a week in Germany, and is about to come out in various other countries over the course of the next 10 months.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: To say your notes and discussions on the website make interesting and fascinating reading all on its own makes it sound so terribly superficial, but you have created a remarkable online document. Do you think other writers might begin sprouting emulated projects such as this?

KATE MOSSE:  Most novelists do have websites, through which they communicate with their readers, answer questions, given information about forthcoming projects and so forth.  The difference with www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk is that the core of our site is teaching and sharing creative writing experiences with other authors, rather than as a more traditional promotional website.  It makes sense for us in the context of the courses we run and the creative writing initiatives we are involved with, but this might not be the case for other authors who are not also teachers.  I think each novelist must create a site that makes sense for his or her work.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: How much time did this project take away from your broadcasting career?

KATE MOSSE:  All of the different work I do –broadcasting, the website, creative writing teaching, the Orange Prize and writing – all complement one another.  I enjoy the variety and being involved in all areas of publishing – from promoting other people’s work (Orange Prize), reviewing and publicising (BBC 4’s Saturday Review and, from October 2005, presenting Open Book), teaching – and this stimulate and provides rich inspiration for my own writing.  It’s all just a question of planning!

LITERATI MAGAZINE: Labyrinth will be launched in Italy in September. In how many other European countries will you be launching the book?

KATE MOSSE:  So far, my agents have sold rights to Labyrinth to 20 other countries – which includes Greece, France, Spain, Russia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Portugal – and this is ongoing.   Labyrinth was published in Germany in August and will come out in the USA March 2006.   It is very exciting, as a novelist, to be published in so many different countries.  I learn a great deal about my own writing from the sorts of questions journalists in different countries ask about the book.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: At this point could you elaborate a little on the story of Labyrinth and how the idea for the book first evolved?

KATE MOSSE:  We first bought a tiny house in the shadow of the medieval city walls of Carcassonne, in south west France, sixteen years ago.  From the moment I stepped off the plan for the first time, I fell completely in love with the place – the landscape, the mountains, the quality of light, the medieval history and, most especially, the tragic story of the Cathars – 13^th century Christian heretics, who thrived in southwestern France and indeed Italy – but were wiped out by the Inquisition.

I had in my mind, at the same, the idea for a different sort of Grail story – one not based on the familiar Christian myths, but instead reaching back in time to Ancient Egypt in 2000 BC.  Slowly, I realised that my love affair with medieval France and the novel I was sketching in my head, were one and the same piece of work.

We spent several months every year in Carcassonne, where much of Labyrinth was written.   If you like, it is my love letter to the region!

LITERATI MAGAZINE: Having written both fiction and non-fiction, do you have a genre preference?

KATE MOSSE:  My first two books were non fiction, but they were ‘narrative’ nonfiction – by which I mean, the people and the stories take centre stage.  From that point of view, I feel that I am always working as a novelist, either with ‘real’ facts or with imaginary ones.   My next project is another novel.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: When you go book hunting, what constitutes a good read?

KATE MOSSE:  A book that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end; a book where you feel bereft when you have read the last page; a book that stays with you; a book that you wish you had written!

LITERATI MAGAZINE: What comes across clearly when browsing the Labyrinth website, is you love of the art and process of writing. How much of this today do you think is compromised in the minds of aspirant writers by the industry’s pressure on having to find the next big name, the next season’s blockbuster seller?

KATE MOSSE:  It is essential that writers think of nothing but the work itself.   No author, while they are actually writing a novel, should concern themselves with marketing, promotion, what the trade is looking for, pleasing an editor!   Issues of blockbusters and selling are the business of the publishing industry, not the author.  An author must be true to themselves, to the integrity of their own work, and write what they want to write.  Only when a book is finished do issues of how, where and when the book is going to come out start to be important.  

LITERATI MAGAZINE: Labyrinth is essentially a 13^th century grail novel: Was the choice of two heroines in the story a choice you made at the very beginning when you began conceiving the story of the book, or did they evolve within the story itself?

KATE MOSSE:  I had always intended to have two different time periods and two different, although connected, heroines at the heart of each of the interwoven stories.  I wanted to write historical fiction, but also I wanted the freedom and flexibility of having a 21^st century female voice as well.  Alaïs and Alice took shape in my mind simultaneously, although I wasn’t always sure of how I was going to bring their stories together.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: Could you explain something of your approach within the novel to the two themes of tolerance and heresy?

KATE MOSSE:  The Cathars were Christians, but denounced by the Catholic Church and Pope Innocent III – as heretics.  They were dualists, which means they believed that although God ruled Heaven, the Earth itself actually belonged to the Devil – Rex Mundi.  They saw everything in terms of equal and opposing principles, light versus dark, good versus evil, and so on.  They had female priests, were vegetarian, and believed in reincarnation.  As such, they have more in common with Buddhist or Quaker thought, than medieval Catholicism.  It is easy to see, with historical retrospect, why the established Church was so frightened of their influence.

Catharism flourished in south west France because it was, my medieval standards, a surprisingly tolerant society.  For example, daughters had the same rights of inheritance as sons; there were schools of Arab and Jewish learning; many of the Consuls in cities were Jews; there was, within the parameters of the society, a willingness to treat all people as citizens, regardless of faith.  As a novelist, it is important not to romanticize the past, nor to manipulate for one’s own ends.  At the same time, it was an attractive setting for a novel with strong and active female characters at the centre of it.   I wanted the women to hold the story – both the good characters and the bad – and that action, rather than romance, should be the defining characteristic.

LITERATI MAGAZINE: The sense of the past permeates into the present as the present intermingles with memory and recollections, in a very physical sense in the book, how much of this stems from your own emotional and psychological ties to the Carcassonne.

KATE MOSSE:  A great deal.  There is a strong spirit of place in Carcassonne and I am always aware - as I climb the great mountain of Montségur or go up into the medieval city – which I can see from our garden – in the early morning light – of the past that lies behind the present.  I find it easy to imagine all those who have stood on the rocky crests of the Pyrenees looking out before me.  It is for me a magical place where the very rocks, the rivers, the mountains, the hills, even the colour of the Midi sky, tell their own stories – it’s just a matter of listening hard enough!