From Dyslexia to Writing Success: Guest Post by Henry Vyner-Brooks

Henry Vyner-Brooks is the author of The Heretic. '...A first class historical novel. This book is set at the time of the Reformation in the reign of King Henry VIII. It is actually difficult to classify as it has a little of everything - murder mystery, political intrigue, adolescent coming-of age, religion, high adventure, romance, medieval history. And it does each genre lightly and with a deft hand. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a long novel but a pleasure to pick up each time...' ~ Top Ranked Amazon Review

I am happy to welcome Henry to my blog today to discuss his journey to becoming a successful writer.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Dyslexic

I have a impish chuckle when reviewers write things like: 'Vyner-Brooks is a careful historian' or 'THE HERETIC is a serious historical novel'. Truth is; I'm no trained historian and no writer by nature either. I'm dyslexic, and couldn't read until I was 12! My high school English teacher wrote to my father asking for me to be removed from his class. “His essays are unmarkable."  (My Dad pointed out that 'unmarkable' was not correct English either, and I had to stick it out.) 

I came to writing in my mid-thirties after ten years as a landscape architect and property developer. I was diagnosed with cancer - time was shaking me by the hand. On the day of my surgery I started writing a novel for my sons, expressing the deep things that I might never get to show them. And so grew my teen novels; THE WILL HOUSTON MYSTERIES, and so also did my family; a daughter and four sons. We live in house I built in the Lakeland mountains, complete with a field, a forest, a river, some chickens and goats... oh, and we home educate.

That meant I got an education too; I started to read history and philosophy, science, theology - I got hungry! I cultivated friendships with intellectuals; I read more stuff; I wrote academic papers on economics and education; I even spoke at Universities in the UK and abroad.... WHAT WAS HAPPENING? What had happened to a discouraged dyslexic kid? Who was this other guy; spouting big words and thinking big thoughts? I suppose that truth is I am both those people, the boy and the man. And I stubbornly cling to the belief that God is able to use even our inglorious pasts, our pain and failures, to make something beautiful - and useful  too.  I want my work to accessible at one level to struggling people, but also intense enough to stimulate and challenge clever people. It is a hard line to walk, but I learn to balance as I go.

GENRE SWAP: Enid Blyton to Hilary Mantel anyone?
The medieval writers never wrote novels, and would have seen our desire for novelty as beggarly, a sign of cultural decay. Writers like Langland, Gower and Marie de France deployed their considerable talent in retelling the worthy stories and merry jests of old. This in essence is what the history-lover comes to see too. It is what I, the teen-fiction writer came to see. There are stories out there, ones that haven't been told. Ones that need to be.

It was in 2010 that I first became aware of the mystery of St Benet's Abbey; the only monastery never dissolved by Henry VIII – think of it, the only one! It is situated on what sometimes becomes an island, linked to the mainland only by a causeway; all alone on the marshes. If a writer wanted possibilities for a location, here it was. We took a large yellow boat on the Norfolk Broads and enjoyed a magical week there one spring. And then while visiting nearby St Helen's church I heard about an artistic monk from the St Benets, Pacificus, who came daily in his coracle and with a  little dog to restore what is now the finest Rood screen in England. BAM. That had me, right there! I was hooked. I checked about thinking there would already be a novel about this place. To my amazement I found nothing.

Someone ought to do something, I thought. Maybe I should do it? But you write young adult fiction! So what?

THE HERETIC marked a genre shift and with it came the responsibility to write truthfully and authentically about both the era, and the people who lived in it. I was used to research (my teen fiction isn't exactly Enid Blyton) but even so, it took nearly three years to produce THE HERETIC, about six times longer than the other books I'd written. That takes serious dedication for everyone involved; writer, publisher, editors etc. I was very blessed to be assigned the author/editor Penelope Wilcock by the publisher; such a privilege to have someone with such experience calling you out to up your game.

WARNING: Intentional Reading Alert

The book is long and complex, reading the reviews has helped me understand that. Even though I have young people, multiple romance, murder, mystery, intrigue, adventure, it came up time and again in the reviews; this is a novel for people who enjoy history and not just a good story with historical window dressing. Yes, you can read it as a whodunit, romance and political thriller, that's fine at one level. But if you want to come to grips with the subtexts about philosophy, religion, power, freedom of conscience, then you are simply expected to know stuff already. I got this from Mantel's Wolf Hall. No laborious parentheticals telling you who Erasmus is! Of course, if some detail is instrumental to the plot then it must be explained; that is the writer/reader pact. But so much of our lives and environments are made up of textures and details that we do not understand, but nevertheless accept as real. I want to write a physical and intellectual world for my readers that is not necessarily explained for them, and yet if they wanted to reach out to examine a detail (say, Google some Latin comment, or reference a clothing detail) then they would find a real world waiting behind each line, each door. 

Some readers allowed this approach to call them up a gear, but not all. And I don't blame the latter. Some readers need to relax and be entertained, that is valid. Their lives are tough enough without having to wade through a book that must be read 'intentionally'. But then again there are others who want that different level, and that is where I feel comfortable and gifted to write. I think there is an emerging market here. The runaway success of Wolf Hall proved it. Some people did want serious historical fiction; meaty, dense, deep, nuanced.

I don't think my first offering is all that, or on a par with Mantel's work, but I do think it is something to aim at for writers who want to do justice to the worthy and not-so-worthy stories that made our world. I am currently engaged on a prequel to THE HERETIC called ABSOLUTION, which deals with the rise of empiricism and rationalism in the High Renaissance Courts of Italy. It is dark, dense, juicy,and complex; with loads of real characters; the Borgias, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, poets, popes, philosophers, rogues. Sometimes I wonder how people will get on with it. I fret about it. But then I hear again, the voice of those medieval writers, 'your job is not to pander to novelty, or to play to the worse angels of our nature but to tell the worthy story faithfully and well.'

And quite frankly, that is a high enough calling for a dyslexic kid who couldn't read until he was twelve!

You can get your copy of The Heretic on Amazon US or Amazon UK. Connect with Henry on his website for more information on his writing and published works.

Guest Post: A Glimpse at Regency Era Law by Regina Jeffers

For my latest cozy mystery, part of the action is a trial set in 1816. Many of the tenets of court law we now accept as commonplace were not part of the court system during the Regency Period. For example, the defendant would be expected to argue his own case. A barrister could provide the defendant advice on points of law, but the proof of innocence rested purely on the defendant’s shoulders. Neither were witnesses for the defendant “required” to attend the trial’s proceedings. Needless to say, a writ of error could send the outcome of the case to a court of appeals, especially in the case of a wealthier defendant, who could afford the expense. 

In The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin, Fitzwilliam Darcy’s cousin, Major General Fitzwilliam  (Colonel Fitzwilliam in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) is accused of a series of crimes of which he has no memory for he is suffering from what we would now call “PTSD.” (There was no official name for the stress of war at the time.)

Old Bailey Trial

Darcy must use every bit of cunning he possesses to prove his cousin innocent for it would be a great victory for the “unwashed masses” to convict the second son of an earl for the crimes. All of London is set against the major general. If Darcy does not know success at the trial, then his only hope would be a writ of error. But how does a writ of error become a point of appellation in the British legal system? And what role would the House of Lords play in this process? For those of us in the States, many facets of the English legal system is as foreign as the statute of limitations in juvenile cases. So, let us explore some of the differences.

“The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an accused the right to representation by counsel in serious criminal prosecutions. The responsibility for appointing counsel in federal criminal proceedings for those unable to bear the cost of representation has historically rested in the federal judiciary. Before the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act in 1964 (CJA), there was no authority to compensate appointed counsel for their services or litigation expenses, and federal judges depended on the professional obligation of lawyers to provide pro bono publico representation to defendants unable to retain counsel.“ (United States Courts Services and Forms) http://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/defender-services

However, for many centuries in England, the law permitted appeals to the House of Lords. The HOL also served as the final Court of Appeals for Scotland and Ireland. The Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 continued the appellate jurisdiction of the House, as well as to provide the suitor a statutory right of appeal to the House of Lords. The 3rd Section of that Act says an appeal from any order or judgment of her Majesty’s Court of Appeal in England lies to the House of Lords.

In Ireland, the Irish Judicature Act of 1877 gives the right of appeal to the House of Lords in all decisions, judgments, decrees or orders from the Irish Court of Appeal that were previously appealable to the House of Lords or to the Privy Council. The right of appeal by way of writ of error from the decision of the Queen’s Bench Division of the Irish High Court of Justice is also preserved in this Irish Judicature Act.

The Scots made no alteration in the right of appeal. The Appellate Jurisdiction Act of 1876 provided Scotland the right of appeal to the House of Lords from any order or judgment of any court of Scotland from which error or an appeal lay to the House of Lords by common law or by statue at the time of passing the act.

An appeal of a civil case in the English courts must be sent up by the Supreme Court of Judicature in England (Her Majesty’s Court of Appeal).The only judicial proceedings by which matters of a criminal nature could formerly be brought before the House of Lords was by writ of error.

A writ of error is the only means a judicial proceeding in a criminal matter may be brought before the House of Lords. From ancient times, a writ of error could be brought in England at common law, both in civil and criminal proceedings from inferior Courts of Record to the Court of Queen’s Bench and from thence direct to the House of Lords. Numerous statutes define the means by which a writ of error was brought to the attention of the House of Lords. The writ must first come before the judges or barons of the other two courts in the Exchequer Chamber before coming to the House of Lords.

Time limitations for a writ of error in a civil case originally was set at twenty years. The Common Law Procedure Act of 1852 abolished writs of error in civil cases, but they remained in criminal cases. Such was true until the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875. The acts abolished writs of error in bills of exception and proceedings in civil cases, but nothing in the acts affect the practice and procedure in criminal proceedings.

_________________

For more information on the legal system, I would recommend Charles Marsh Denison and Charles Henderson Scott’s The Practice & Procedure of the House of Lords in English, Scotch & Irish Appeal Cases Under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876.

__________________

New from Regina Jeffers

The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery from Pegasus Books

Fitzwilliam Darcy is enjoying his marital bliss. His wife, the former Elizabeth Bennet, presented him two sons and a world of contentment. All is well until “aggravation” rears its head when Darcy receives a note of urgency from his sister Georgiana.

In truth, Darcy never fully approved of Georgiana’s joining with their cousin, Major General Edward Fitzwilliam, for Darcy assumed the major general held Georgiana at arm’s length, dooming Darcy’s sister to a life of unhappiness.

Dutifully, Darcy and Elizabeth rush to Georgiana’s side when the major general leaves his wife and daughter behind, with no word of his whereabouts and no hopes of Edward’s return. Forced to seek his cousin in the slews of London’s underbelly, at length, Darcy discovers the major general and returns Fitzwilliam to his family.

Even so, the Darcys’ troubles are far from over. During the major general’s absence from home, witnesses note Fitzwilliam’s presence in the area of two horrific murders. When Edward Fitzwilliam is arrested for the crimes, Darcy must discover the real culprit before the authorities hanged his cousin and the Fitzwilliam name knew a lifetime of shame.

The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery is available for purchase on Kindle or Nook and in paperback through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.    

Meet the Author

Regina Jeffers is an award-winning author of cozy mysteries, Austenesque sequels and retellings, and Regency era romances. A teacher for thirty-nine years, Jeffers often serves as a consultant for Language Arts and Media Literacy programs. With multiple degrees, Regina has been a Time Warner Star Teacher, Columbus (OH) Teacher of the Year, and a Martha Holden Jennings Scholar. With 7 new releases in 2015, Jeffers is considered one of publishing’s most prolific authors.

Connect with the Author

Regina Jeffers’ Website  www.rjeffers.com

Every Woman Dreams   reginajeffers.wordpress.com

Austen Authors     austenauthors.net