Book Research

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” How Travel Inspires My Thriller Novels With J.F.Penn

May 16, 2020 By J.F. Penn

In this video, I explain how I get my story ideas from travel — from how I decide to go to a place, and where I go when I get there, as well as how some of my thrillers have evolved from different trips.

You can watch the video below or here on YouTube.

Hello from Bath in the Southwest of England. I'm Jo Frances Penn and I write thrillers as J.F.Penn. In this video, I'm going to talk about the number one question that I get asked and all authors get asked which is, “Where do you get your ideas from?”

There are a number of ways I get ideas, but probably my number one is traveling. And I wanted to record this video because as I record it in mid-May 2020 I'm in lockdown. Bath is a lovely place to be locked down, but still, I can't travel. So in this video, I'll be talking a bit about how I usually travel.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi: A World Off The Edge Of The Map

January 15, 2018 By J.F. Penn

My fascination with maps and cartography led me to research and write Map of Shadows, which features the Mapwalkers, who can travel through maps into the Borderlands, a world adjoining our own made from places we push off our maps, and creatures and people we write out of history.

When Sienna and the Mapwalker team need to travel over into the Borderlands to follow in the footsteps of the lost expedition before them, they travel through the Hereford Mappa Mundi.

Here's an excerpt from Map of Shadows chapter 9 when the team arrive at Hereford cathedral:

***

“Mappa Mundi means map of the world,” Mila explained, as they walked across the forecourt. “It dates to around 1300AD and gives a view of how the medieval monks understood the world back then.”

They entered the temperature-controlled room to find the Mappa Mundi lit with dim lights behind glass. Sienna walked closer to get a better look. It was truly incredible, a single piece of vellum illustrated by the hand of faith, with representations of myth and legend next to places that really existed. Perhaps this was the truth of maps. In part, they reflected the world as it actually was, and in part, they reflected the way the world could be, or as it was imagined. As Sienna looked at the Mappa Mundi, she began to understand why her father had gone on this quest.

mappa mundi hereford detail beasts — Detail of Mappa Mundi showing some of the beasts

At the very top, an enthroned Christ held his hands up to show the stigmata, the wounds of crucifixion. Next to him, believers rose from their graves and entered Heaven, while on the other side the damned were stripped, chained and dragged down to Hell where a great beast waited to devour them. Sienna shivered as she looked at the creature, imagining an Illustrator like Xander drawing it and calling it into existence. She looked over at his handsome profile. Was it possible that he and others like him could create something so terrible?

Sienna turned back to the map. An inaccessible circular island at the top of the world represented Eden, surrounded by a ring of fire and closed gates. A serpent waited while Eve held out her hand to accept the apple, ready to taste the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Sienna understood her temptation, her need to know, because that's just how she felt about the Borderlands right now.

There was a picture of Noah's Ark, the woven hull floating above a sea of red when God sent the great flood to wipe out the wickedness of humanity. The map showed a path through the Red Sea, the color still fresh after so many years, marking the wanderings of the Israelites from Egypt, out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

There were beasts on the map, a unicorn, a lynx slinking towards the southern coast of the Black Sea, a war elephant with a tower on its back, a strange parrot creature with a curled tail. There were strange-looking people too: a man with no head, only eyes on his chest holding a sword, another with one huge foot. There were troglodytes, cave dwellers in Africa, and men with heads of dogs.

“What is this map about?” Sienna asked. “It can't be real, surely?”

“A map is never truly real,” Mila said. “It's only one aspect of the reality of the creator. But we need to pay attention to the cities on the map. Maybe your father took the Force through one of those?”

mappa mundi labyrinth — Detail of Mappa Mundi showing the labyrinth

Hereford was marked by a tiny building on the River Wye, almost rubbed off by pilgrims touching it over the years. Jerusalem was right in the center of the map, with a circular wall and a castle city with eight towers, marking the place of crucifixion.

Rome was shown as a towering cathedral with text next to it: ‘Rome, head of the world, holds the bridle of the spherical earth.' Towers and pinnacles marked Paris, where the medieval University focused on philosophy and theology.

“The map is apparently a single piece of calfskin, but I think it's something different.” Xander bent as close as he could get without the alarms going off. The map was drawn on the flesh side of the skin, not the hair side, making the map undulate as one was naturally more taut than the other. “I think it's the skin of an animal from the Borderlands. There's a vibration from it as if it calls to go home. Maybe something wandered over back then, but it's certainly more than just calfskin from Earth-side.”

A labyrinth caught Sienna's eye, a circular maze, like the one in Crete with the Minotaur at the center. In the Middle Ages, many medieval cathedrals had labyrinths and pilgrims would walk around them looking for a way to the center, metaphorically searching for a way to God. She had visited Chartres Cathedral with her father years ago and they had walked the famous labyrinth together.

Mila pointed to a particular area of the map. “This is the camp of Alexander the Great. His conquest of the Persian Empire and domination of the known world was a popular theme, and there are several references on the map about Alexander. This restraining wall was built to save the world from the destructive force of the Sons of Cain.” She turned to Sienna. “Does anything here seem familiar?”

Sienna stared at the map, trying to see it with her father's eyes, trying to understand what he might have seen. He had traveled to many of the places portrayed but her eyes kept being drawn back to the labyrinth.

***

To read more of the Mapwalker adventures, check out Map of Shadows, available in ebook and print editions.

ARKANE Book Research In Israel With Thriller Author J.F.Penn

December 6, 2016 By J.F. Penn

Last month, I spent a couple of weeks traveling around Israel doing book research for End of Days, ARKANE #9. You can watch a video specifically of Jerusalem's Old City here. The video below is a montage from the whole trip. You can watch it below or here on YouTube and there are notes underneath.

Some highlights from Israel, November 2016

The video starts in Tel Aviv, in the old port of Jaffa, famous for Simon the Tanner's house, and the fabled port where Jonah left for Nineveh and was eaten by the whale. It was beautiful weather on the Mediterranean and I enjoyed working on the balcony in the warm!

We headed north to Galilee and visited Megiddo, the Biblical Armageddon, famous because 26 cities were built and destroyed there. A tunnel dug to a nearby cistern kept the inhabitants in fresh water when they were under siege, and the city's lives are vividly recorded in The Source by James Michener, probably the book that has influenced my writing the most.

churchofholysepulchre — Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem

After a quick visit to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, we went to the Church of Multiplication, which I loved for its translucent alabaster windows. Gorgeous!

Then on to Nazareth for the modern Church of the Annunciation, full of amazing modern art and wonderful architecture. I was thrilled to find a stained glass window of the brazen serpent on a rod [00:55] and the verse from John 3:14 in Latin, translated as “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” I use this verse in End of Days to reference a particular stained glass window in Salisbury Cathedral, so it was fantastic synchronicity to find it here.

We crossed over to the West Bank to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where we visited the cave where tradition holds that Mary gave birth. The church was under (much needed) restoration for the first time in 600 years but you could seek glimpses of the mosaics under the scaffolding. That night, I enjoyed some Cotes de Bethlehem red wine …

We headed out to the desert to visit Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Then up Masada, the ancient fort that eventually fell to the Romans, but not before the last remaining Jewish rebel committed suicide. Better to die than spend a life in captivity. Freedom before slavery. A place that still inspires many. You can still see the outlines of the huge Roman encampments below on the desert floor.

A quick dip in the super-buoyant Dead Sea (as featured in Gates of Hell!) and then onto Jerusalem. There are just a few pictures here, including a windy moment on the Mount of Olives looking towards the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the 4th century cistern of St Helena (which I use in End of Days), the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall. You can also join me for a more substantial video of a walk around the Old City of Jerusalem here.

Then the starkly beautiful Negev Desert. It was an amazing trip and much of it enriches End of Days and provides a backdrop to other books in the ARKANE series.

You can see all the pictures from the Israel trip here on Flickr.

Check out End of Days, available for pre-order now and coming in ebook, print and audiobook in Jan 2017.

A Walk Through The Old City Of Jerusalem With Thriller Author, J.F.Penn

November 21, 2016 By J.F. Penn

In November 2016, I did a book research tour of Israel for ARKANE #9, End of Days. As part of that trip, I visited the Old City of Jerusalem and some of the sites that I've used in previous ARKANE books, as well as those central to the End of Days plot.

You can watch the short video below [2 min 46], or here on YouTube, and there are some trip notes below the video.

The opening picture was taken on a very windy day just before a storm arrived on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a popular (and very expensive) place to have a grave as Jews believe that the Messiah will arrive here at the End Times.

joanna penn jerusalem — J.F.Penn at the Western Wall & Temple Mount

The video opens at the Damascus Gate and then we walk into the Arab Quarter through the souk (market). We left the street sounds in the video so you can hear the noise of the city, from Arab street vendors to the muezzin call, from text messages to the chant of Christian pilgrims and the tune of a saxophone.

You'll see Muslims and Jews in distinctive traditional clothes, as well as a group of Christians carrying a cross along the Via Dolorosa. I make some cameo appearances taking selfies in the narrow walkways 🙂

There's an Armenian pottery, a chapel at the 7th Station of the Cross, souvenir stalls in the bazaar and then we enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest places in the Christian world. Tradition holds that it was the place Jesus was crucified, then anointed and buried, and then where he rose again.

Stone of Anointing at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

You might see some Indian pilgrims rubbing money on the Stone of Anointing, some of the chapels within the church, and then we go upstairs onto the roof of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is where the Ethiopian Coptic church have their shrine and I actually like the open simplicity far more than the cluttered chapels below. This group of monks feature in Stone of Fire as my first visit there back in the 1990s made a huge impact on me.

We went down into the 4th-century cistern of Helena, the mother of Constantine, who was responsible for turning the Roman Empire to Christianity. There are a number of cisterns under Jerusalem, but most are prohibited for use because of the security risk. I use these cisterns as a key part of the plot in End of Days. You'll see by the size of my grin on the video how thrilled I was to be able to visit one 🙂

Then we walked on through the souk into the Jewish Quarter towards the Western Wall, the most sacred place for Jews. On top of it, you can see the Dome of the Rock, a sacred shrine for Muslims and closed on the day we visited so you just get a distant shot. People pray at the Wall and put prayers into the cracks.

At the Wall, there were a number of boys having their bar mitzvah. At 13, a boy is no longer considered a minor and should fulfil the commandment's of the Torah. The boy will read a passage from the Torah, carried in scrolls in the silver cases you can see. It's quite a celebration with sweets being thrown from the women's side of the wall.

You can see all the pictures from the Israel trip here on Flickr.

Check out End of Days, available for pre-order now and coming in ebook, print and audiobook in Jan 2017.

Behind The Scenes Of My Book Research For Gates of Hell In Granada, Spain

May 25, 2016 By J.F. Penn

On a recent trip to Granada, Spain, we visited the Alhambra which I use as a setting in Gates of Hell. In this short video, you can get a taste of the atmosphere at the Nasrid Palace along with some Spanish guitar music (which I love!). Below the video, I have included an excerpt from the scene. You can also see all my pictures from the trip here.

Excerpt from Gates of Hell. ARKANE thriller #6

The taxi sped through the city and Morgan gazed out at the streets, busy even at this late hour. Granada sat at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Morgan was thrilled to be back. Her father had brought her many years ago, a teenager keen on discovering more about her roots. Her name came from this area, and her ancestors had roamed these craggy mountains, only an hour from the ocean in the southeast corner of Spain. This was Andalucia; the word conjured its past, the soft fullness of the Arabic Al-Andalus, a melting pot of influences from ancient Greeks, Romans and Byzantines through to Muslims, Sephardic Jews and the Catholic Church that still dominated here.

Morgan thought for a moment of her sister, Faye, back home in England. A twin in blood, but so different in looks and personality. Faye's daughter, Gemma, looked like a Sierra, with darker skin and almost black hair, more like Morgan's child than her blonde sister's. Her own family was so mixed in origin that this multicultural area of Spain would always feel like home.

They rounded a corner and caught sight of the Alhambra, the fortress on the hill a forbidding welcome to new arrivals. The eleventh-century palace had been constructed by a Moorish emir, and even though the Reconquista of Spanish Christendom had taken the city, the Islamic architecture still remained.

They pulled up to the gates and bought tickets for the flamenco event, heading in through the wide entrance.
“Where's the dancing?” Morgan asked the ticket seller.
“In the Court of the Lions,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “The last set has just started, so you'll have to hurry.”

Morgan led Jake quickly through the terrace of the western-style palace towards the Moorish buildings beyond. The mournful sound of flamenco guitar floated on the balmy night air, and Morgan breathed in the scent of flowers from the extensive gardens. She could see across the valley to the narrow winding streets of Albaicín, where she had stayed with her father so long ago. She heard his voice telling her stories of how the cave dwellings of Sacramonte had sheltered their ancestors as blood was spilled on these streets.

They reached the Court of the Lions, surrounded by the stunning arabesque architecture of the ancient Moorish kingdom. Slim pillars in cool ivory-colored marble led towards soaring archways intricately designed with filigree geometric shapes and Arabic calligraphy. The overwhelming sensation was light and delicate, as if the stone palace was constructed of magically spun air.

The Court of the Lions was open to the night air, a courtyard surrounded by one hundred and twenty-four white columns topped with decorated archways. In the center of the courtyard, a great alabaster fountain supported by twelve marble lions spouted water, sparkling in the subtle lighting that only seemed to enhance the otherworldly atmosphere. The courtyard was filled with people, eyes riveted on the scene before them.

A young man sat on the edge of the fountain, plucking his guitar while next to him stood two older men and a woman, singing a song of the gitanos, the Romani people of Spain. In front of them, a young woman danced with the proud stamps and hand claps of flamenco. Her scarlet dress with full ruffled skirt accentuated her dark skin and her full eyebrows arched as she turned, arms raised.

Morgan saw her face in profile and recognized the young girl in the picture in Santiago's room, the granddaughter he was estranged from. Her dance mesmerized those watching, the embodiment of duende, the soul of Andalucia that undulated through her hips and the arch of her back. Morgan had heard that true duende resonated with a heightened awareness of death and a dash of the diabolical, and there was truly an edge of darkness as Sofia moved. The shadows at her feet were almost living things that she stamped back into the depths of the earth. The wail of the older woman's song grew louder, a desperate lament for the loss of their homeland. Sofia whirled, her steps faster and faster until she stood motionless at the crescendo, the guitar silenced by the applause.

She held the pose as the noise died down, waiting for quiet again. She turned and gestured to the guitar player, and Morgan caught the look that sparked between them, recognizing an intimate knowledge. This was Sofia's boyfriend, perhaps the cause of the rift with her family. He had the look of a Moroccan-Spanish Arab, his long dark hair worn loose about his face – a Muslim, perhaps, or a gitano, a man Santiago may have considered beneath his pure-blood Jewish granddaughter. The young man began to pluck the strings and one of the other men from the group stepped forward to dance with Sofia, stamping with fast heels.

A figure stepped from the crowd, standing poised on the edge of the open ring. He wore the black shirt and tight trousers of flamenco and his strong features brought to mind a toreador, a bullfighter in his prime. He had been wounded in battle, his right eye scarred and sightless, but Morgan's gaze was drawn to his wide chest, muscled arms, and his posture of dominance. She tensed at his entrance, aware of the imminent danger Sofia was in, but perhaps this man was just a member of the troupe, a plant for dramatic effect.

The man stepped forward, raising his arms, commanding attention as he stamped rhythmically towards Sofia. She turned in the dance, away from the man in her troupe, indicating her acceptance of his challenge. The man began the dance of the bullfighter, and they circled around each other as the music soared. There was a chemistry between them, and even though the man was old enough to be her father, he was attractive, a dark intensity in his gaze as he danced closer to Sofia, calling his olé as he clapped. She spun in his circle, tilting her body towards his. Morgan saw the guitar player's eyes narrow at this rival. The taut strings of attraction held the pair at arm's length, but as the music reached a crescendo and the song ended, the man reached out and pulled Sofia to him.

The young woman's eyes widened, her mouth opened in a gasp. Morgan stepped forward, suddenly realizing the threat. Then the spotlights flicked off and the fire alarm rang out, its piercing shriek echoing around the Court of the Lions as the whole area was plunged into darkness.

Buy the book now in ebook, print and audiobook formats.

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My Creative Writing Process

January 5, 2016 By J.F. Penn

I am often asked where my ideas come from and how my creative process works. I recorded this for a podcast, so you can listen to the audio or read the transcript below.

Today I am talking about my creative process because I am about to start Destroyer of Worlds, ARKANE book 8, and really, I love, love, love, love, love, love this part of the process!

I wanted to talk about it because so often, I’m reductionist. I like processes and steps and I like how-to stuff. Most of the non-fiction I write is very practical and pragmatic.

But this year (2015) one of my top recommendations for books was Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is excellent. I think magic is probably the wrong word, but the idea that it’s less reductionist, that the creative process has that edge of something almost supernatural is definitely what I find. I’ve called it synchronicity in the past in that as I delve deeper, things happen which were unexpected and that is definitely part of my process.

I’ve just written down a few notes, so we’ll just talk through them, so apologies if this is out of order. Buy hey, it’s New Year, so I hope you’re relaxing as you listen to this.

I get lots of ideas from my travels.

I travel a lot. I have always traveled a lot. I particularly like going to places with a rich cultural history.

The very first scene of Stone of Fire, my very first novel, opens in Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges in India. I went there back in, I think it was in 2006 and I saw them burning the bodies on the burning ghats. The idea that sprung then started that first scene in Stone of Fire, when a nun meets a fiery end. What’s interesting is the idea for that came years before the actual book

I tend to find that in the stories I write, the original idea often came from years ago, unless it’s something unexpected. For example, One Day in Budapest.

We went to Budapest because my husbands’ family originally is from Hungary and we visited the synagogue where we saw his family’s name on the mass grave, and at the same time the government had just called for a registration of all Jews in Hungary and that shocked me so much that that was happening.

I decided I had to write a book about the rise of far-right extremism in Eastern Europe, that turned into One Day in Budapest, which is action/adventure with those themes. That idea was unexpected and I hadn’t thought about it before we actually got there.

But generally, going back to India, Destroyer of Worlds, I remember very distinctly seeing a statue of Shiva Nataraja in India again, in Delhi, same year I visited Varanasi. If you Google Shiva Nataraja you’ll see the exact image. It’s a Shiva dancing in this ring of fire and it’s the destroyer of worlds and the re-maker of worlds, a fascinating myth. I remember seeing that image and just really loving it, and that is what sparked this story.

So I have this kernel of an idea, and then from there, I start to research.

For me, research is going places, obviously, and visiting museums, visiting the kind of iconic places of that city or that region and soaking that up. For all of my books, the setting is incredibly important. Then I just start to find things that are more interesting.

I follow my curiosity into what I will research next. That may come from other places and other things.

I read the Guardian newspaper in the UK, and I just saw this article about the lack of vultures threatening Mumbai’s Towers of Silence. And the Towers of Silence are based on the ancient Zoroastrian tradition of disposing of dead bodies by putting them out in the air and then the carrion birds eat them. This also happens in Tibet, in Nepal, and many of these older civilizations.

It is completely natural, but it’s really interesting that in the middle of Mumbai would be these Towers of Silence. That’s really cool for me, that just makes me go, “Oh yes, that’s got to go in a book.”

So I start writing down the things that catch my eye. Mumbai is a fascinating city. I actually haven’t been to Mumbai, but I’d really like to go. I do write about places I haven’t been, but I do try and ground them in things I have. That is just one thing. That is like shopping for settings as such.

Then I will dive deeper.

Shiva Nataraja, for example. I know a surface level of information, but what I will then do is research that a lot more – research Shiva and the various temples associated with Shiva, because my books generally have multiple locations in. That curiosity drives a deeper research period, and this is what I really love, because I’m such a research junkie and find out really fascinating stuff.

At this point, I tend to read books on my Kindle and I do a lot of highlighting. I then transfer the highlights just into either a Pages/Word document or Scrivener. At this point, I generally just keep it in a general document, just layers and layers of notes on random stuff. I do write notes in my journals which I’ve got here in front of me. I also write notes as I watch DVDs or stuff on TV, TV shows.

Actually, I just watched one on the Kumbh Mela, which is incredible, the biggest gathering of pilgrims of people in the whole world. I think, I’m trying to figure out how many millions of people are there, but it’s a lot of Hindu pilgrims who meet in one place. There’s four different places where they meet and it really is crazy.

When I’m watching programs on things, I’ll just be taking notes, handwritten notes in my Moleskines.

I won’t just be writing down facts. I’ll actually be writing down colors and different things like that. For example, when I think of India, I think of the women wearing bright colors, far more bright colors than we do in the west, and how clean everybody always is. Some people have this image of India as a dirty place, but to me, it’s super clean because everybody is always washing. There is a lot of washing that goes on as part of all the religious faiths really.

That’s where I start and that’s where I am right now with Destroyer of Worlds, which is why I wanted to talk about it now.

I don’t have a plot. I do have an opening scene and I’ve had an opening scene in my head for a while, and that’s going to be in London.

That will then spark the story, but I do know that I will have these various aspects that will go into it. And the title Destroyer of Worlds obviously gives that Hindu aspect to it. Then, of course, also, the first thing people think of when they hear “Destroyer of Worlds” is Oppenheimer, “I am become Death, destroyer of worlds,” which actually is a quote from Bhagavad Gita.

Then it’s like, okay, so Oppenheimer, nuclear bombs, obviously, the links with Nazis and some of Himmler’s fascination with some of the Hindu myths, even the swastika for example, the original symbol. Those are all the things that start going into the ideas for the book.

Then what happens is synchronicity.

As I said, this is the ‘magic’ aspect that I find happens when I’m researching is that something will come up totally unexpected that makes the story work.

For example, with Stone of Fire, that first novel, it really made my jaw drop the day it happened. I was reading Carl Jung’s Red Book, which had been

Stone of Fire picture in Jung's Red Book

hidden for years by his family, it was basically a diary of his breakdown and he did all these paintings. And my book Stone of Fire has a lot of Jungian psychology in it. Morgan Sierra, my main character specializes in psychology of religion which Jung was highly into.

What I found in the Red Book, this hidden book, just shown to the public, was a painting that exactly matched my story. That painting is in Stone of Fire and I include that as part of the plot. But when that happened, I was just gob smacked.

And that synchronicity of story emerging from fascination and research still just makes me shiver a little bit, because it happens every time.

Stephen King talks about the emergence of the story. That story is a ‘found thing.’ I believe that. I think I go looking for a story in the real world and then I will twist part of the reality into the thing that’s fiction.

Stone of Fire is based on the stones of the apostles and the search begins where their bodies are buried. The places that are mentioned, the churches and resting places of the relics are true. There are bones in those places and relics, but the power of the stones, obviously, is made up. That’s what I like doing best is taking real stuff and then twisting it a little bit.

I’ll give myself quite a lot of time, depending on how much I’m into it, but a couple of weeks at least of just delving deep and following rabbit holes on the internet. But usually I will have had the idea in my head for months or even years before that.

For example, I will Google things like Nazis + Shiva, and see what comes up. I’m not going to give some stuff away, because I found some amazing cool things already that just make me go, “Ah, seriously? That is just wow.” Those are the things that happen. Of course you find a lot of conspiracy theories sites, which are for thriller writers just awesome!

Then I just let it all percolate.

Because I’m writing in the existing ARKANE series, I already have my characters – Morgan and Jake.

What I don’t have is my antagonist, because I generally kill them off at the end of each book. For this one, I obviously need a new baddy and I do have in mind who the baddy will be, and pretty cool and quite happy with this baddy.

There’s a spin-off, I’m thinking of, I want to it to be ARKANE Black Ops spin-off. What I want to do in this book is also introduce briefly a tangential character, so that when I do this next book, which I’m already thinking about…and this is the other thing, now I think about more than one book at the same time, but I will never write more than one fiction at the same time. That’s really important for me, because otherwise I get confused.

Some fascinations bleed into several books.

Those of you who read some of my books will discover my fascination with tattoos, for example, come up in several books. If you read Risen Gods and Deviance, there is some crossovers there as well with the Maori mythology.

These things can come up in multiple books. We all know that and we all have our fascinations.

Anyway, I have my characters and I pretty much know the beats of how an ARKANE thriller works. I know that there will be some kind of cool object and someone will want to destroy the world or kill loads of people, and Morgan and Jake will have to stop them. That is the essence of a thriller in general.

So we know that that will happen and there will be lots of different places they have to go and they’ll find cool things and it will be lots of fun and fast paced. But equally, I also like to have an underlying theme and often in my ARKANE books, it really is faith versus unbelief and good versus evil, really big themes.

But the main thing is that after I’ve done this research for a couple of weeks, I use The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne to create a one page outline.

You can go back and listen to the podcast with Shawn, January 2014, episode 208 with Shawn Coyne. The Story Grid is my favorite, number one writing book for fiction authors, so I now do The Foolscap Method for an outline.

I’m not someone who outlines like a crazy person, although I might be doing that more as I get into dictation in 2016, but mainly I do a foolscap one-pager. It’s essential a one-pager with the main beats of the book, the main highlights, the main twists, the main reversals, that type of thing.

From there, I start writing.

I’ll write about 20,000 words, 30,000 words, and then I will re-plot the next bits. Normally I know the beginning, I know the ending. Right now I don’t know the ending. I have an idea. It would depend on how the rest of the research goes, but I normally know the big climatic scene, but I don’t know the middle bit. So I write 20 to 30,000 words and then I will do re-plotting around the rest of the book.

As I’m doing the research, I start a book page on Pinterest.

If you go to pinterest.com/jfpenn, I have boards for most of my books. I started doing it around book four, so I have a number of boards for different things.

At the moment, my Destroyer of Worlds board has some really cool pictures of Shiva Nataraja and India and Kumbh Mela and some of the cool things associated with that, and you can also have a look at the boards for all my other books.

I always do an author’s note at the back of my books, and I include the links to those Pinterest boards at the back, and people really love them and I share them as I write the books as well.

Looking back, it’s amazing, because I’m a very visual person. Setting is super important to me in descriptions of where people are and what they’re seeing. I will be writing some screenplays this year as well, because I really would like to see these done on the big screen. Wouldn’t we all?!

But I do like having the images, because they really help set the scene as I am writing. So what I’ll do, if I’m about to write, I will spend some time really looking at pictures of the people like the Sadhus at Kumbh Mela are just amazing. Some of them are wearing ash and marigolds and the long dreadlocks and these really just fascinating things that are so different to a western church.

Compare the Church of England service with, as my husband calls it, Christian droning, because English people don’t really sing with enthusiasm, versus these Sadhus at Kumbh Mela where there’s millions of people, it’s just brilliant. I love having these images to work from as I am writing.

And with Scrivener, you can have a split screen so you can view your research as you write. So I’ll often even have these pictures up or I’ll watch YouTube videos as I am writing the scene, to bring that to life.

Then I will basically just see what emerges as I write.

One of the many things I have on my wall, is “Trust Emergence,” because what I found is sometimes things will just arrive on the page or in your brain as you are doing stuff. You don’t necessarily know that before you start writing. That trusting emergence is so important. I think that’s an important part of the creative process.

I trust emergence from the research, in that there’s so many interesting things that I could write about. I have to write about the things that my curiosity draws me to. Then, as I am writing, I have to trust in the emergence of an idea from the massive possibilities and the chemistry of what happens on the page.

Once your characters are fully fleshed out, and my antagonist will be fleshed out based on my research. He or she will be Indian. It’s so important to me to do that, and also, as I said, it is the most fun part for me. I love it.

It’s one of the reasons that I am a writer. I spent time thinking about what my ideal life would be like, and I think that’s a very important thing to do.

If you want to decide what to do with your life, consider what you want your life to look like, what would your days look like.

I wanted to spend my time learning, so I love learning and also traveling and creating things I’m proud of. Those things together do come up with writing.

I also like helping people, which is why I like doing the podcast and the blog and everything, and why I write non-fiction. I guess I’ll talk about non-fiction another time, but my creative process for fiction really does revolve around this type of deep dive into research.

I also take a lot of pictures on my journeys, and they will often spark ideas.

skulls — Sedlec ossuary, near Prague, used in Crypt of Bone, ARKANE #2

So for example, we, as I record this, we are going to Prague. We haven’t been yet, as I record this, although I’ve been to Prague before, so I know, for example, I know the Jewish graveyard there, which Hitler didn’t have destroyed, because it was meant to be a memorial to a dead race. That is a place that I remember very, very well, because it’s a very powerful thing, that it’s not a memorial to a dead race.

In going there, you remember what could have been. I absolutely know that I would be taking pictures there that somehow, ideas will come from that, and things will happen because of going to that place.

But it doesn’t have to be traveling to faraway places. It can just be around your house.

I went for a walk the other day, through the fields nearby, I’ve been training for this Race to the Stones, which is 100 kilometers over two days, and so I’m going to be doing a lot of walking.

While I was walking, I got a lot of ideas about a character that I’m thinking, the spin-off, as I mentioned, the ARKANE Black Ops thing. The character who that will be around is a man and I got a lot of ideas about him as I was out walking, just looking at various things. And I’ve some ideas as to how I want a trilogy of books to be set around this particular character and what role he plays in the world as such. And so that was just walking out from my house for a couple of hours.

That’s the thing. I don’t want you to think that you have to travel to faraway places in order to get these ideas. For me, that’s how I write, that’s what I love to write, but especially if you write family drama, you can write that close to home.

I think the important thing is that we get ideas from anywhere.

I don’t think I mentioned that I use my Things app on my phone. I don’t always have my Moleskines, because I have the A5 size Moleskines. I also like Leuchtturm notebooks.

On my phone, I have the Things app, which is a to do list app, but I also have a folder for fiction ideas. So if I’m watching TV with my husband, for example, watching a show or if I’m reading, I’ll often read on my phone, I’ll put a note in.

For example, I’m just in the folder now as we are talking, I found an article on the abandoned libraries of the Sahara, and I just put the link there into the phone. I don’t know when that will come up again, but the abandoned libraries in the Sahara is something that makes me interested. I want to know more about that.

Here’s something I saw on the website for Bath Abbey nearby. So I’ve just written a short story about Bath Abbey for a Stephen King competition and I saw this on their website, so it’s a direct quote. “The adviser on the paranormal can be contacted through the Diocesan office,” and this is on a Church of England website, so I think I just thought that was really cool.

So I just write down different things as I see them and I put links to articles. Here is another one, Cordyceps, fungi that grows inside live animals. That’s really cool. I just write down things.

Who knows when this stuff will come back into my conscious mind?

Or it might not, it might just emerge on the page and I discover later that I’d actually written a note about something and forgotten it, but it came up back into my head.

I guess what I’m saying, and I’m rounding up now, before I just waffle on for hours, is that my creative process does have that touch of magic or that touch of something that’s not quite in my control, even though I’m somebody who is quite controlling in many ways, which is probably why I’m an Indie author.

I like the control we have over publishing and book marketing and all that, and I like being able to write whatever captures my curiosity. That really is how I write fiction. It has to be something I’m personally fascinated with. I pretty much assume that if I’m fascinated, then there will be other people who are interested in it and that will want to read this type of book.

There you go, that is my creative process for fiction and how I get my ideas and how I work them into a book. Thanks for listening and I will see you next week.

Tattoos And London. Behind The Scenes Of Deviance, A Crime Thriller.

September 16, 2015 By J.F. Penn

If you love crime fiction, then you'll love CrimeFiction.fm, which is a great show where Stephen Campbell interviews authors about their books. I was on the show talking about Deviance recently.

You can listen to the show here, and you can read the transcript below.

Stephen: Welcome back to CrimeFiction.FM, where we bring the authors of today's best novels directly to you. I'm your host, Stephen Campbell, and I'm here with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, J.F. Penn. Her latest work, Deviance, the third in her London Psychic Crime Thriller Series was released last week. Joanna, welcome.

Joanna: Hi Stephen. Thanks for having me on the show.

Stephen: It's always a pleasure to hear your voice. Before we get into Deviance, could you tell us a little bit about Jamie Brooke and Blake Daniel, the characters that make up this trilogy.

Joanna: So Jamie Brooke starts in the first book in the series, Desecration, as a British detective. It's set in London, and so basically we're solving murders, but Jamie ends up working with Blake, who is a researcher at the British Museum. He also has a psychic ability, so he can touch objects and he can read the emotional resonance and the history of that object. So Blake helps Jamie solve the crimes in the book, so Desecration, Delirium, and now Deviance.

By the third book, Deviance, Jamie has actually left the police, she's a private investigator, and once again calls on Blake to help when a friend of theirs goes missing. At the same time, lots of bodies are being found around London with tattoos filleted from their skin.

Stephen: Tattooing is one of the themes that you explore in this book, and you always seem to dig into a specific theme with each of your books. So why tattoos with this one?

tattoos — Tattoo art at the London Tattoo Convention

Joanna: Well, it's funny when I wrote Desecration, which is very much about the physical body while we're alive and when we're dead. So I was really fascinated by tattooing because while we're alive tattooing on our living bodies is like an art. There are many people who now go quite mad with tattoos. So that was the first book. Delirium was about the mental world and exploring bedlam and madness and that kind of thing.

And then in Deviance I revisit a character from Desecration.

Her name is O, and she has this full body tattoo of an octopus, like really amazing. Which is

actually a picture I saw in the National Gallery and it sparked the whole idea.

So for me, it was almost revisiting a topic I started on in Desecration, which is the kind of body modification movement, and people with implants, things that are quite extreme for many of us. And I know you are going to ask, but I don't have a tattoo. I don't have…

Stephen: You pre-empted my question!

Joanna: Personally, I'm very vanilla but I'm absolutely fascinated by people who go through this kind of thing. And the research was so interesting, because they say because of our mainly secular Western society that people are craving spiritual experience. The right of passage of tattooing is ancient. In many tribes, tattooing marks a rite of passage and the pain you go through, the blood and the sacrifice of a bit of yourself can really have a powerful effect.

So I read stories of people who'd undergone awful operations, terrible scarring, you know, mastectomies and they reclaimed their body by tattooing with a powerful image. I read a lot around the psychology of that and to me, that's just fascinating. And in Deviance, the murderer is cutting tattoos off people. Tattooing is quite common in London, so there's quite a lot of people to target.

And O goes missing, she has a full-body tattoo so things don't really bode well for her. So how do we find her?

And I found so many really interesting characters as I researched this. For example, you can actually now hire somebody so when you die, your body gets sent to them, and they will preserve your tattoo after your death. Which is like, wow, that's pretty hard core!

Stephen: That's out there!

Joanna: Yes! So I think why I write books, why I write fiction, one of the reasons is to go deep into things that I'm fascinated with, and things that might make me feel a little bit weird, you know.

If there's a physical reaction to a topic, that's something I want to explore in my writing …

because that really is the edge of what we consider acceptable. That's really why the book is called Deviance.

But the question is about the deviants in the book, you know, who is the sinner and who is the saint? You know, who really is deviant in a world where bankers who wear suits and ties can be the biggest criminals and tattooed people on the street are actually the good guys. So that's the stuff behind it.

Cabinet of Curiosities from the Tattoo Convention

Stephen: Now, as a reader I'm a little older than you. I'm considerably older than you. I'm considerably older than most people, but I've never really understood the whole tattoo thing. I see it, and it puzzles me. But I understand it better now in reading your book, and I'll bet there are lots of other people that understand it a little bit better as well.

Joanna: Oh, good. You know, I really think part of it is investigating a topic that makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, with the aim of potentially changing your mind about judging people.

The other thing I found very fascinating was that many people who have tattoos, including facial tattoos and, who we would potentially look at and think, ‘oh, avoid that person because they look weird or they look different.' Most of those people are chronic introverts.

They often use tattooing or body modification as a way to keep people away from them because they're either really shy or they're just people who might have a difficult self-image and the tattoos mean certain things.

It really is a fascinating topic. I learned in my research that you shouldn't judge a person by what they put on their skin. And also, the other thing I learned is that you shouldn't ask people what the meaning of their tattoo is, because often they don't even know.

[You can see lots of the tattoo images and more pictures that inspired the book on my Pinterest Board for the book.]

Follow J.F.'s board Deviance on Pinterest.

The powerful totem figures that people put on their skin, they often don't realize why they've chosen that. Which I also found crazy weird, because, you know, I've thought a lot, and, in fact, the cover of Deviance has a woman with a crow tattoo, like flying crows, and I love that tattoo. I think it's actually gorgeous.

The crow is an image in the book. The Morrigan, the Celtic goddess is the crow goddess of death and war.

In London the crows are a kind of totem figure. So for me that crow tattoo, and the sort of flying birds became a bit of a motif for the whole thing. So if I was to get a tattoo, it would be similar to that.

Stephen: And how big would it be?

Joanna: Oh, that's under discussion 🙂

Stephen: All right, you mentioned research several times while you're describing your work, and from following you and your work over the years I know that you're sort of a research geek. It's just something that you love doing, and it's something that really fuels your writing.

What kind of specific research did you do for this book?

Joanna: I get my story ideas from the environment and from places.

I live in London and one of my favorite walks is to come out of the London underground at London Bridge for Borough Market. And from Borough Market, which is a very old, like a thousand-year old market.

You can look up and see the Shard, which is one of the tallest buildings in Europe. It's this gorgeous glass shard going up into the sky. And it actually has offices and things in it.

Also around there, there's the Old Operating Theater. That's one of the oldest hospitals.

It's the area where Chaucer set off on the Canterbury Tales. It's a very historical area. It's right by Shakespeare's Globe. It's right by the Tate Modern, which is a big art museum. It's an incredible area.

What's so interesting is during the Medieval Period it was outside the City of London, it was the red light district. Southwark Cathedral used to run the brothels on Southbank. This is all historical. So the church was running the brothels at the same time as it was a sin to go to a prostitute.

Then there's a graveyard that's under dispute called Crossbones, which is full of the bodies, the bones from 500 years ago, women and children.

The Outcast Dead, as they're known, are buried here in unconsecrated ground.

ribbons — Ribbons tied to the gates of Crossbones in memory of the Outcast Dead, Southwark, London

The church, even though they ran the brothels, did not allow the women and their illegitimate children to be buried in consecrated ground. And now that land is incredibly valuable, so the developers want to take that land and make luxury flats.

So for me the story was, oh my goodness, the church used to run the brothels, which is like wow, there's definitely a story there.

So who is the sinner, and who is the saint?

Is the prostitute the real sinner here? Or the city men?

And then the second thing is that this land grab of Crossbones graveyard by the developers just made me go, wow that's kind of crazy and this is all real.

So you can go to Crossbones, you can see what I describe it in the book. The ribbons on the gate in memory of the Winchester Geese, the prostitutes. And it's just a fascinating area. So much of Deviance is based on real London and I'm actually going to build a walking tour of the London sites from the series.

Stephen: Oh how fun!

Joanna: So you'll be able to walk the different places because every single place is real.

And the tattoo convention that I describe in the book, we actually went to as well. Probably all of my books, both the London Psychic Series and my ARKANE series, probably 90% of the books are truth.

Then I just make up some characters, but it's as close to real life as I can possibly make it.

Stephen: Now one of the things that you do consistently in your books is while you're researching you spend a lot of time in a given area, and then you describe it just beautifully and perfectly so that the reader can really get a sense of where the characters are in the book. And then occasionally you'll try and blow it up.

Joanna: I can't help but blow up things! I do that more in the ARKANE Series, to be fair.

Stephen: But you did a little bit of it in this one too.

Joanna: Well, you know, I can't help it … No spoilers.

Stephen: Let's talk about the ARKANE series for a little bit. That's where I first became familiar with your work as an author.

Why the two different series?

Joanna: Well, I think, as an author, it's very easy to fall into a rhythm of writing the same series that people enjoy.

So I love the ARKANE books. They're action-adventure, based around religious and supernatural mysteries and Morgan Sierra goes around the world having fun.

Then I wanted to write something that was more British and crime focused. And so I really set out to write a British crime novel with a British detective, but I really didn't intend it to have any supernatural side. But then as I started writing it, I had the experience in the Hunterian Museum that opens in Desecration.

I came up with Blake Daniel, who's psychic. It's normally a woman who is a psychic in stories, but Blake is a man. He's mixed race, half Nigerian, half Swedish. He just came to me fully formed.

I wanted to write something set in London specifically.

budapest synagogue — Grand Synagogue, Budapest which features in One Day in Budapest

And one of the things that marks out the ARKANE thrillers is the international side. They pretty much flit from place to place, except for my ‘one day' novellas for example, One Day In Budapest is just set in Budapest, for example.

But the ARKANE books are definitely more international, whereas the London Psychic series really is very densely about London. You can't walk a meter without finding so much history. It's just crazy. I wanted to test myself both on a creative level, but also the London Psychic Series is darker than the ARKANE books.

They really are just an action-adventure romp, based on the Clive Cussler type of books, Dan Brown, you know. Whereas the London Psychic books I really feel are probably more intelligent thrillers, you know. They have an edge of deeper meaning and it's been a real challenge to write them, but absolutely fascinating. And I've got to know London a whole lot more. So it was both a creative challenge and also a desire to offer something else to my readers.

Stephen: It seems to me, that you select things to write about that you're deeply interested in.

The ARKANE Series, you mentioned, it's globetrotting. You're a globetrotting person. You do a lot of travel.

You love to travel. You seem to love history. You love doing research.

Is this like a big circular thing for you, where you just keep feeding all of these interests that you have? Or does one feed the other?

Joanna: Oh, you busted me, Stephen!

When I thought about my dream job, when I was still in my corporate job a number of years ago and was really looking for another life, I was like, what do I want to do with my life?

I want to travel. I want to read. I want to write. I want to learn things. I want to create new things in the world.

And for me the life I have now is exactly that. I said to my husband, Let's go to Budapest – I'll write a book in Budapest. So I did: “One Day in Budapest“.

And then we moved back to London from Australia, and that's when I started the London Psychic Series because it's my life here.

The opening scene of Gates of Hell is at La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and I wrote that just after a weekend there. We're planning a big trip to Japan because I specifically want to research these particular Japanese mummies and so it is actually a circular process.

“Destroyer of Worlds”, which is the next ARKANE book has got a lot of India in it, and a few years ago we cycled through southern India.

So it's both. I get ideas from the world, and then when I want to

write a book about something, I look at somewhere I want to go, and then have a tax-deductible trip. So I have like the best life!

Thank you to all the readers listening who fund my travel addiction! But honestly, we laugh about that, but I do think that one of the most important things with a story is to take the reader out of their current situation.

I used to read thrillers when I was in my miserable day job. I hated my job, so at lunch time I would go and buy a book and generally it was an action-adventure thriller, so I could be somewhere else in the world for half an hour. And I would read on the train, and I would actually live in this other world for a time.

So for me now, my whole aim with these books is to help other people escape their lives just for a little while.

I'm hoping that everybody has a wonderful life, but sometimes we all need escape. I'm a readaholic and I love escaping mentally. I obviously do sit at my desk a lot, so I love escaping daily life to live in somebody else's world. As much as I laugh and say that I travel a lot and have a lot of fun, I also work really hard to give the reader a good experience.

Stephen: And you're also one of those people who I'm fairly certain can work while you're on the road.

Joanna: I'm always taking pictures and I use Things app on my phone. I've got a folder for fiction ideas and I'm always writing down ideas.

What's so funny is reading back one of my books and remembering where I got that idea from. Like in “Deviance”, one of the main characters is called Magda, she's an urban shaman. There is actually a guy who is an urban shaman in London and then I read a book called “Pastrix” by Nadia Bolz-Weber. As soon as I saw the picture of her, I knew she would be the model for Magda, at least physically.

A “Pastrix” is a female pastor, and I read her autobiography, and she became a real sort of character for me. Obviously I changed a lot of things about her, as with any character but she was the inspiration as a strong woman.

So definitely, I find inspiration everywhere. And it might take years to end up in a book, but I believe in emergence, that if I just write down my ideas when I'm writing a book, it will somehow come out of my brain again. It will emerge from my subconscious at the right time.

Stephen: What a wonderful skill.

Joanna: Well, I don't think it's a skill. I mean, I'm a little bit semi-spiritual in that sense in the same way that Steven Pressfield is in “The War of Art” for example. He talks about the Muse with a capital M. So does Stephen King, actually. It's all quite mysterious. I do read back some of what I've written and go, where the hell did that come from?

Stephen: Joanna, where can people find “Deviance” and the London Psychic Series?

Buy now in ebook and print formats. Coming soon in audio.

Start reading online

Click here to start reading Chapter 1 of Deviance.

Journal Entry From 2004 With The Seeds Of Stone of Fire

January 26, 2015 By J.F. Penn

I've always written journals and I have a stack of them by my desk. Occasionally, I reach down and browse my past, and in one such wandering down memory lane, I found these pages from 2004. [Click the images to see them in higher resolution.]

In that year, I traveled from New Zealand for a holiday in London, and then onto southern Spain and Egypt. This particular journal covers a span of about 5 months: May to September. It's an adventure diary, so the pictures were already in the book – I'm not a visual artist!

There were musings about writing a novel at that stage but nothing serious. Then I found these notes, which are the embryonic idea of what would become Stone of Fire, ARKANE #1 (previously Pentecost). [Read more…] about Journal Entry From 2004 With The Seeds Of Stone of Fire