This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Hannah Richell is the author of the wonderful novels Secrets of the Tides and The Shadow Year. Recently, she told Novelicious why a book of Greek Myths, given to her by her grandmother, has played such a huge role in her life.
‘A very long time ago, in the Golden Age, every one was good and happy. It was always spring; the earth was covered with flowers, and only gentle winds blew to set the flowers dancing …’
And so begins the book that changed my life.
It’s quite a call, I know, but this book here – this rather tatty and unassuming-looking orange hardback – really did change my life.
I was about eight-years-old when my grandmother gave it to me. "I think you might like it," was all she said, passing me the dusty volume from her own bookshelf. It didn’t look a bit like the Enid Blyton, Noel Streatfeild and E. Nesbit books I was so enamored with at the time, but I accepted it (graciously, I hope) and started to read that night.
Inside were the Greek Myths, stories of brutal gods and powerful goddesses, fallible mortals and amazing, mystical creatures. They were fairy tales on steroids, filled with the sort of racy content that boggled my young brain and left a lasting impression. I read them over and over, often by torchlight, and returned to them many times throughout my childhood.At school a few years later I chose to study Classics and Latin, hoping for similar excitement and inspiration. The reality was, unfortunately, a little disappointing (Caecilius est in horto, anyone?) but I persevered and I can see now how those myths not only steered my education, but also fed my passion for language and words, as well as my ongoing yearning for stories with a real sense of tension and drama at their heart.
Later, I went to university then found a job working in publishing and I forgot about that tatty orange book. But ten years on, when I began to write my first novel, I was reminded of it all over again.
Writing Secrets of the Tides had me thinking long and hard about why terrible things happen, and about what’s left behind for a family when the very worst has occurred. Re-reading the myth of Pandora brought me a new level of understanding, and by referencing the myth in a small way within my novel, I felt able to add an extra layer to the story. It’s no mistake that the three key female characters in the book are named after famous classical women (Pandora, Cassandra and Helen), nor that the character of Helen is a Classics Lecturer. Their names say a lot about their experiences as women.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can see quite clearly the huge role this book has played in my life. I don’t think I’d be travelling the writer’s path now if it weren’t for that early grounding in storytelling, and I honestly don’t know if I would have found the inspiration to continue with the earliest draft of Secrets of the Tides if it hadn’t been for rediscovering the myths again, at exactly the right moment.
My grandmother’s book looks a little sad and worn now, and while I don’t think it would hold much value to anyone else, I’m wondering about having it restored. Perhaps, one day, I will take it down off my bookshelf and hand it to a grandchild? They’d probably think me an eccentric old woman, but just maybe they’d give me the benefit of the doubt and open it one night by torchlight, surprised to find their own world changing, word by glorious word. Wouldn’t that be nice?