I decided to read “Mother of Wolves” by Zoe Brooks this month. It is the story about how Lupa becomes Queen of her tribe at a time when there are only Kings. I reviewed “Mother of Wolves” last week. This week, Zoe Brooks has agreed to answer a few questions about writing “Mother of Wolves”.
DarrkeThoughts:
You had some really interesting plot twists in Mother of Wolves. The first one that had me laughing out loud was when she marries one of the men she’s sworn to kill, and then plays the perfect little wife to him. Where do you get ideas like that? Do you have any tips for other writers who struggle with plotting and what should come next in their story?
Zoe Brooks:
First you have to understand what is your genre and what sort of plot you are using. The novel is an adventure story and a revenge story. It is not so much “will she, won’t she?” as “how will she?” which is the plot driver. Most of the best plot twists come from setting problems. Problem: How does Lupa, a lone woman and a gypsy too, get close enough to the Captain of the Guards to kill him and get away with it? Answer: She uses the fact that she is a woman (a weakness in that world) to deceive him. But the plot twist does more than that. You laughed out loud at Lupa playing the loving wife, but as Bessie says, how could she marry someone who has murdered the man she loved? Most women couldn’t, but Lupa can. It shows a rather chilling ability to subsume her emotions for the sake of gaining revenge, which sets up the crisis over Jo later in the book, where we no longer want Lupa to succeed. The resolution of that plot twist sets up the events of the last part.
Plotting is a series of such interlinked problems. As a writer you need to know where you are going. It’s like a game of chess, each plot twist should move the story forwards, often as here not just to the next step but setting up others. A twist which solves a problem now can cause a problem later. Sometimes the twist is a feint, but it still sets up others.
I was taught plotting by a story editor from the film industry. I use the book equivalents of cutting away from one scene to another, of taking elements in and out of focus, of motifs, of change of point of view, for example in shifting the reader’s interest and sympathy from Lupa to Jo.
DarrkeThoughts:
I thought your characters were a little flat in “Mother of Wolves”. You mentioned somewhere that Lupa was originally a character in a children’s book that you didn’t finish. Do you think that had an impact on how you presented the characters here? Would they have been more complex if they didn’t start out as an idea for kids?
Zoe Brooks:
No impact at all. In the children’s book she is an old woman and a queen (and a minor character). The question that drove me to write this book is how did she get to the position of a feared/loved leader in a man’s world. Unlike you Americans, we Brits have had a number of formidable women national leaders, the last one being Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, and I can tell you they were extraordinary women. They are not like you or me. In your review you say Lupa’s too clever, too confident, doesn’t have inner turmoil. That’s what it takes for a woman to do what Lupa does. She has to have a huge level of self-belief, be very intelligent, ruthless, single-minded, and able to charm her followers. Maybe that makes her less empathetic for normal people like you or me, but it’s true to character. Nevertheless I enjoyed exploring what made Lupa that way; the roots are there in her childhood, and what incident and motivation (her husband’s murder) might start the process which leads to her rise.
I used three other characters to contrast with and illuminate Lupa: Jo’s fiancee Bessie, another strong woman but in a more “feminine” role and the only person to defeat Lupa; the young girl Dama, in whom Lupa sees a image of her young self; and Uncle, her husband’s murderer and another leader. Uncle’s a tyrant – he murders to gain power and try to stay there. He murders a poor pedlar whose only crime is unwittingly to bring bad news. You are right to say Uncle has no redeeming features, but then is that wrong? Did Saddam Hussein? Lupa too is ruthless and capable of murder, but we accept that up to a point. What makes her case different from his? That’s what the second half of the book is about.
I’m not surprised you liked Jo’s character: with the point of view shift you were meant to. What has surprised me is how other readers have been taken with other characters – my husband really likes the old Brock for example and my story editor loved Bessie and Tern. So maybe those characters are not quite as flat as you think.
DarrkeThoughts:
Just a note of clarification, I did like your characters… Lupa, Jo, Bessie, Tern, Brock, and Sus and Dama too. I felt that they were flat because there did not seem to be a lot of conflict in their story lines. I think that complexity makes characters more interesting – and so keeps the reader turning pages. And even Saddam Hussein must have had some redeeming quality. Perhaps he was a charismatic speaker like Hitler – or he may have truly believed in some “higher goal” that made his other actions seem okay at least in his own mind. I think successful women (and men) often suffer from the sacrifices that they have to make for their success. Seeing the suffering makes them more interesting, and sometimes more likable as well, but I consider those two different goals.
DarrkeThoughts:
Was Lupa’s need for such total revenge part of her as a person – or more the culture she belonged to?
Zoe Brooks:
Both. But it is more that she made a promise to her husband at his graveside and it is both the importance of keeping her word and to whom she made the promise. She is only able to let Jo go because there was another oath made at the same time, which cancels the oath of vengeance out. This of course was another one of those plot puzzles I was talking about. I really painted myself into a corner with that problem! I’d come with the idea of revenge as a driving force of Lupa’s early actions, but then wanted to question whether revenge is always right and what it does to the person pursuing it. As Brock says, Lupa’s pursuit of Jo makes her the same as Uncle. But she makes the right choice in the end. It’s that choice that redeems her and actually it saves her people in the last part of the book. Interestingly her choice is influenced by her being a mother. In her pursuit of revenge she leaves her sons, who have just lost their father. It’s true in killing Uncle she is also protecting them, but until then, as Tern says, her sons are her weakness and they are therefore in mortal danger. Because of her choice and what follows she is never able to go back to being a full mother to her boys. It’s a choice many successful women make.
DarrkeThoughts:
You wrote a blog post about the persecution of the Gypsies, and mentioned that they were targeted by Hitler along with the Jews. What is life like for Gypsies today? Are they still a target for persecution?
Zoe Brooks:
Over the last decade life for the Gypsies has got worse across Europe with the rise of far-right groups and anti-gypsy prejudice rife among the wider community, which in turn is played on by some politicians. Over recent years there appears to have been a rise in physical attacks on gypsies (beatings, arson and murder). It’s the old story of minority communities suffering as scapegoats at a time of economic crisis.
DarrkeThoughts:
There were times when I was reading that I found myself thinking of the migrant workers in the US that come up from Mexico and other South American countries to work the fields. Politically, there is a lot of hate thrown around for “illegal immigrants” in my country, and also plenty of harassment by law enforcement and others toward those they think look like they might be “immigrants.” Do you have any ideas about how to stop this kind of racial persecution?
Zoe Brooks:
I’m glad the book had that effect on you. Prior to becoming a writer I worked in community development, which included tackling this sort of prejudice. The best way is for people to get to know individuals from the minority community – it is easy to make generalisations about people when you don’t know them. We used a cross-community carnival and other projects. We fed the press interesting positive stories again about individuals from the minority – e.g. a story about a refugee from Africa who had lost his family and home but was doing wonderful work in his new
homeland.
It’s also important to recognise the genuine grievances that lie under the prejudice. If people feel threatened by newcomers who are competing with them for rare jobs, then the best answer is to create jobs.
DarrkeThoughts:
Do you have any plans to write more about Lupa or any of the others from “Mother of Wolves”?
Zoe Brooks:
Lupa and Bessie will reappear as old women in the final novel in the Girl in the Glass trilogy. I’m really looking forward to drawing Bessie’s character in more detail. In Mother of Wolves, I have deliberately made her somewhat enigmatic. This is because the book, although written in the third person, is predominantly written from Lupa’s point of view. Lupa tries to understand Bessie and comes to respect her, but the women are very different and so Lupa fails. In the next book Bessie will be seen from the point of view of another character who has similarities with Bessie. Maybe one day I’ll get round to writing a story with Bessie as central character. My husband says that she is the character most like me, so maybe I won’t and keep her mystery.
DarrkeThoughts:
I’m glad to hear that. I enjoyed the preview of “Girl in the Glass” at the end of “Mother of Wolves”. Now I have one more reason to read that series soon.
