Historical and biographical fiction are tough to write. It isn't enough to be a first-class writer, nor does spending hours and hours doing research suffice. Both of these are required, of course, but the very best examples of the genres are truly a synergy arising from the blending of both the elements.


Juliet Waldron, author of the first Independent eBook Award for Fiction, has discovered how to produce that synergy. Her fictional study of Constanze Webber, the woman who married Mozart, makes 18th Century Vienna and the people who inhabit it come vividly alive.



1. Who is Juliet Waldron?

An only child who read too much and who lived in a 1790's house-with-a-ghost in rural upstate New York. Since, I've become Wife, Mom, Broker's Assistant, Grandma and Cat Mother, but the original experience remains central. Remember that annoying geek in social studies class who was always derailing with the teacher from her set speeches?



2. When did you first discover you wanted to be a writer?

Just like every other writer you'll talk to, very early. I wrote a play--kind of “Bambi II,” in the fourth grade. My teacher was so encouraging as to have the class perform it. All the other fourth grades were invited to see my play in the main auditorium. It was the peak experience of my writing career until recently.



3. What is your favorite genre? Why?

Historical or S/F. It's either the past or the future for me. I've always felt out of place in this time, as if I am just a visitor in the 20th century. I remember looking into a mirror and thinking that my clothes looked funny and that people “nowadays” didn't take things as seriously as they should, sort of like some studious misplaced Edwardian. My father's s/f mags or my mother's historicals and leftover college archeology texts were the retreat of choice from a world where “modern” was the only accolade. In America, in the fifties, junking the past was the way. I wanted to get the heck out of Dodge.



4. Did you study writing formally or learn by doing?

Learned by doing, worked with Strunk & White in hand. Had an attitude problem to start and this took time to overcome. Because I wrote letters and read voraciously, I thought I understood how to write a novel. I believe I still have my first novel in hard copy. It's pretty painful to contemplate. However, I started to read my work aloud to myself, and this was a huge moment of truth. I'd recommend the exercise to any beginning writer. Soon after, I stumbled into my first critique group. I can't speak highly enough of critique groups, and what they can do to help you hone your craft--at any stage of a career.



5. What inspires you?

Moon- and sunrise/set. The wind, the rain, a generous snow. Old trees. Old farms. Old tales. Water in any form. Seasonal change--and music, of course.



6.What do you like best about writing?

World building, and digging inside the brains of my characters--playing with the dolls until they move and speak all by themselves. In terms of plot, a historical novelist has it easy. We can study the existing material on our chosen subject and build character and motivation from the record. In plain fiction, you are building everything from scratch, even if you do have that readily understood world of Xerox and Kleenex built in. Of course, motivation is always a tricky business whatever kind of book you are writing. Even in a work you imagine is totally fictional and under your control, a character can surprise you by standing up and slapping you in the face with some unpleasant revelation, or by simply attempting to hijack the entire story.



7. What do you like least?

Marketing, and trumpeting yourself. Ugh. Or trying to write inside some straitjacket category, which I have proved to myself I don't, with the best will in the world, do.



8. In the room where you write, is there something that has special meaning for you as a writer? What is it? Explain.

For the Mozart books, I kept a picture of him right next to the keyboard where I could see him. I used the Doris Stock ink drawing, and sometimes switched to the unfinished Joseph Lange portrait. For any historical I've ever written, there is always a picture sitting by the keyboard. Alexander Hamilton was luckier than Mozart in his artists, and even his “noble, long-suffering” wife got one good portrait. It's a way of engaging the correct frame of reference. Would the face now gazing out at me have said this?



9. If you could have lunch with one person, real or fictitious, who would it be?

Another tough one. Mozart, I guess it would have to be. He was absolutely one of a kind, funny, punny, and it would be easy to get him to play something wonderful for me. Also, he would probably make a pass--at least, 20 years ago he might have.



10. When did you first submit your writing for publication? What was the result? How did you respond?

1986. I got those little editorial scratches on the top of the MS which said, “thanks, but no thanks.” I felt as if I'd been hit in the face with a bat. Then, after rolling on the floor for a while screaming, I got up and started to rewrite.



11. Would it matter to you if you were never published? Why or why not?

Yes, I wanted to be published. Am afraid I'm not so strong as not to care. Besides, as a very old writing friend of mine says, “A writer needs readers. Even if it's just a few--somewhere. Otherwise, you're just talking to yourself.” Which is why I went to the 'Net. Maybe there isn't a huge mass market for my books or kind of storytelling, but there is a large niche, of that I'm certain. I've got a collection of “we loved it,but we can't market it” rejection letters, which tells me that my writing isn't the problem.



12. What is your favorite place, real or fictional? Why?

Land's End, Cornwall. In the rain or fog, though, so there is no one else around. First, a nice long walk along the cliffs to look down into raging ocean and out upon the ruins of Tintagel. Then, inland, over moor, until I reach the Men an Tol, so ancient and standing by the bright green bog.



13. Who is your favorite author? Why?

T. H. White. Brilliant writing, imagery, characterization. I read “The Once and Future King” to my kids long before they were “old enough” for it, and now they read it to their children. It's a primary myth of Western Civ, retold by a true Master.



14. Who is your least favorite author? Why?

I'm going to pass on this one. I have so many! And they are all bestselling.



15. What do you do for fun?

Putter with plants and herbs, love kitties, long-distance grandma stuff. I watch opera and art house video, listen to music, read non-fiction history/archeology/sociology and, as Mother used to say, “commune with nature.”



16. What's the worst job in the world?

Anything with lots of pavement, bad smells and people. I'd imagine that working in the fast food biz would be terrible. The closest I've ever gotten to that is waitressing in a busy sandwich shop. People come in, hungry, tired and stressed and there you are, trying to soothe and feed them. It's not always humanly possible.



17. How important is research in writing historical and/or biographical fiction?

Extremely. Why bother otherwise? This is a rant of mine. You can't move into the future if you continue to lie about the past. If you are going to write “historical” then, please, really, truly do so. Don't transplant your parochial 20th-century values/views/behavior to some other time.



18. How much research did you do for MOZART'S WIFE?

Tons; literally years. I learned a bit about researching with this project, and used a very primitive method. First I'd read a biography, and then I'd copy the bibliography in back and go looking for those works--and so on. Before I was on the Internet, this meant many, many trips to the State Library or a long wait for inter-library loan to function--or not. The folks on the front desk knew all about me and my Mozart fixation.



19. Why Constanze Weber?

She was Mozart's Wife. I wanted to understand him, and thought that the best way to approach such a once-in-this-species mind was through his closest human companion. I'm no genius. How could I--plain Juliet--get inside Mozart's head? Constanze was demonstrably an ordinary woman married to an extraordinary man. Her struggles to cope and to understand, her successes and her failures, were my path to him. Of course, Mozart is a protean figure. That's why I wrote two Mozart books. The other book--which is actually the first--is called “My Mozart” and is told from the perspective of another woman who came very close to him. She was a “fan” and fellow performer, a seventeen-year-old singer who slept with her superstar and then paid the price for the rest of her life.


20. Was it difficult translating history into fiction?

One of my mottos is “stranger than life.” It's a joke, of course. Nothing is stranger than life! I am always amazed by people who alter facts in their historicals. The real story is usually far stranger than anything a writer can invent. In “Mozart's Wife,” “fiction” fills in the blanks in the Mozart letters. Nothing in the book is purely fictional, at least in the sense that I can quote contemporary letters, diaries, or Viennese scandal sheet gossip for every character that walks on. This includes Constanze's officer. Writing the semi-biographical historical is rather like a murder mystery. Here are the facts and here are the body/bodies, but how did we get to here? What caused these documented events to happen? What motivated the players? That's where the digging and pondering comes in.

Elizabeth Burton

With the kind permission of,
and originally published in
the Mystic-Ink Ezine
article © 2001 Elizabeth K. Burton.