Christine Wells

Christine Wells writes historical fiction featuring strong, fascinating women. From early childhood, she drank in her father’s tales about the real kings and queens behind popular nursery rhymes and she has been a keen student of history ever since. She began her first novel while working as a corporate lawyer, and has gone on to write about periods ranging from Georgian England to post World War II France. Wells is passionate about helping other writers learn the craft and business of writing fiction and enjoys mentoring and teaching workshops whenever her schedule permits. She loves dogs, running, the beach and fossicking for antiques and lives with her family in Brisbane, Australia.

Wells's latest novel is One Woman’s War.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

As a title, One Woman’s War is generic almost deliberately. We wanted the reader to know that it’s a story about a woman’s experiences during war. It’s the subtitle that makes it specific: A Novel of the Real Miss Moneypenny. I felt that using “Miss Moneypenny” in the main title would have made it seem as if I were writing from the point of view of the Bond Moneypenny character, not the real person who inspired the character, and that is quite a different style of book. Also, I wanted to make it clear that the book was set in active wartime, not during the Cold War, as the Bond novels are. So hopefully you get the impression that this is the real story behind Bond, but with a female-centric focus.

What's in a name?

The name of my main protagonist has to feel right to me before I can begin to write. By that, I mean the name has to suit the person’s character. I wouldn’t call a man who hunts and fishes “Shirley” or “Cyril”, for example, unless the character was playing against type. Names must be appropriate to the historical period and country I’m writing about, as well. No “Dakota’s” in 1920’s London! But naming characters wasn’t a problem for me in One Woman’s War because almost all of the people in it were real people and I had no choice about their names. Unfortunately that meant there was a Jean and a Joan, but thankfully they were never in the same scene together.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not too surprised, actually! I have always loved reading about World War II and particularly about spies. I’m also drawn to British eccentricity and wit, so I think my teenage self would not bat an eyelid at my having written One Woman’s War. Some say I was born forty, and I suppose that might be true!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Usually I find beginnings easier but for One Woman’s War, I knew the ending because I was following a real event which had a very strong narrative structure in itself: Operation Mincemeat. Where to begin was a more difficult choice. I wanted to show Paddy’s “take charge” attitude from the start and the British evacuation of Bordeaux in 1940, which Fleming oversaw, was the perfect vehicle for that.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Many of my characters are the way I would like to be, I think. More outspoken, courageous, sometimes even outrageous, a little bit larger than life (as the real people I write about often were).

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I write about real people from history, so I don’t have to look very far for inspiration. Luckily there is no shortage of clever, strong women to feature in my novels. Women like Catherine Dior, who worked in the French resistance, or Noor Inayat Khan who was a wireless operator in occupied France during World War II, or a female writer of the eighteenth century who campaigned for women’s child custody rights, just to name a few. I also like to immerse myself in the historical period I’m writing in, so I watch a lot of movies and read novels, poetry, and plays that were released at or shortly before the time I’m writing about. These give another dimension to the more formal research I’m carrying out and often give clues to small details of everyday living that you can’t find in history books.

Visit Christine Wells's website.

My Book, The Movie: One Woman's War.

--Marshal Zeringue