Ask the Author: Andrea Chapin
Answered Questions (10)
Andrea Chapin
Hi Sara,
One of my favorites Shakespeare plays is Macbeth: I’m sure the fact that my fourth grade class in Durham, New Hampshire put that play on is a big reason it’s at the top of my list. I still have the purple mimeographed copy of the edited version of the play we used. Under the tutelage of Mrs. Bassett, our gray-haired teacher who wore thick, black-soled tie shoes and glasses on a chain around her neck, we built a theater-in-the-round in the gymnasium and rehearsed after school and on the weekends. I was Lady Macbeth, and I can still, to this day, spout many of my lines.
I’m a big believer in introducing Shakespeare to kids early. Kids get the drama, characters, emotions, and motivations, and even if they don’t quite get all the language and imagery, they get the sound, the rhythm and some of the magic. I remember being astounded and intrigued by the idea of “the milk of human kindness” and that people could read a face like a book, “Your face, my thane, is a book, where men/May read strange matters,” or that someone could act one way while thinking something quite different, “Bear welcome in your eye,/Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent/Flower, But be the serpent under ‘t...”
One of my favorites Shakespeare plays is Macbeth: I’m sure the fact that my fourth grade class in Durham, New Hampshire put that play on is a big reason it’s at the top of my list. I still have the purple mimeographed copy of the edited version of the play we used. Under the tutelage of Mrs. Bassett, our gray-haired teacher who wore thick, black-soled tie shoes and glasses on a chain around her neck, we built a theater-in-the-round in the gymnasium and rehearsed after school and on the weekends. I was Lady Macbeth, and I can still, to this day, spout many of my lines.
I’m a big believer in introducing Shakespeare to kids early. Kids get the drama, characters, emotions, and motivations, and even if they don’t quite get all the language and imagery, they get the sound, the rhythm and some of the magic. I remember being astounded and intrigued by the idea of “the milk of human kindness” and that people could read a face like a book, “Your face, my thane, is a book, where men/May read strange matters,” or that someone could act one way while thinking something quite different, “Bear welcome in your eye,/Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent/Flower, But be the serpent under ‘t...”
Andrea Chapin
Hi Sally,
I did visit Stratford-upon-Avon and toured the house Shakespeare grew up in, Mary Arden’s farm, Anne Hathaway’s cottage and Hall’s Croft, the house his daughter Susanna Hall lived in with her family. Sadly, the large house called New Place that Shakespeare bought from Sir Clopton was demolished long ago, but from drawings of that house (as the Bard describes it in my novel “a house with then fireplaces!”), you can see that Will Shakespeare had made good in the world.
I did visit Stratford-upon-Avon and toured the house Shakespeare grew up in, Mary Arden’s farm, Anne Hathaway’s cottage and Hall’s Croft, the house his daughter Susanna Hall lived in with her family. Sadly, the large house called New Place that Shakespeare bought from Sir Clopton was demolished long ago, but from drawings of that house (as the Bard describes it in my novel “a house with then fireplaces!”), you can see that Will Shakespeare had made good in the world.
Andrea Chapin
Hi Michelle,
I see quite a few connections between the Elizabethan era (when my novel THE TUTOR takes place) and the world we live in today—I’ll mention three here. In terms of technology, the printing press arrived in England less than a hundred years before Shakespeare was born, and the result was a huge transformation in how books were made and who wrote them and that is comparable to how the Internet has changed our daily life. Before the printing press, books in England were written by hand, by monks and scribes, and most often in Latin. After William Claxton introduced the printing press in 1476, more people started to write, to read and to publish in English. There were cheap little books called penny pamphlets and just as any one can write a blog today, many people during Shakespeare’s time (mostly men) started to write poetry and criticism and get their writing out into the world in these inexpensive publications. Were they all good writers? Well, no.
A major theme in my novel is the struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants: the Protestants religion, under the Church of England, was the national religion at that time, and the Catholics were persecuted. Religious strife was around long before the Elizabethan period and it is certainly around now.
In my novel, my fictional character Katharine helps Shakespeare create the first piece of writing he ever published, the erotic narrative poem “Venus and Adonis.” I believe that the impulse to express what one sees and feels, how one channels that creativity and creates art hasn’t changed much since the beginning of time.
I see quite a few connections between the Elizabethan era (when my novel THE TUTOR takes place) and the world we live in today—I’ll mention three here. In terms of technology, the printing press arrived in England less than a hundred years before Shakespeare was born, and the result was a huge transformation in how books were made and who wrote them and that is comparable to how the Internet has changed our daily life. Before the printing press, books in England were written by hand, by monks and scribes, and most often in Latin. After William Claxton introduced the printing press in 1476, more people started to write, to read and to publish in English. There were cheap little books called penny pamphlets and just as any one can write a blog today, many people during Shakespeare’s time (mostly men) started to write poetry and criticism and get their writing out into the world in these inexpensive publications. Were they all good writers? Well, no.
A major theme in my novel is the struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants: the Protestants religion, under the Church of England, was the national religion at that time, and the Catholics were persecuted. Religious strife was around long before the Elizabethan period and it is certainly around now.
In my novel, my fictional character Katharine helps Shakespeare create the first piece of writing he ever published, the erotic narrative poem “Venus and Adonis.” I believe that the impulse to express what one sees and feels, how one channels that creativity and creates art hasn’t changed much since the beginning of time.
Andrea Chapin
Hi Sam,
In “Hamlet,” the family dynamic is between the son—Hamlet—his mother, his stepfather and the ghost of his father, who “visits” his son to tell him that his stepfather (who is also is uncle and now king) poisoned him. As Hamlet struggles with this news and what to do about it, we see his hatred for his stepfather/uncle grow and his confusion and ambivalence for his mother deepen--why did she remarry so soon and is she guilty of the murder as well? So you have a son who despises his stepfather and has a love/hate relationship with his mother. And he feels his mother has not only betrayed him my marrying his uncle, but that she might have been having an affair with his uncle before his father was murdered. Also, Hamlet is the only child and the only son and is used to his mother’s focus and affection; now that she’s married to his uncle, much of her attention is placed on her new husband, the new king, and this also enrages Hamlet.
In “King Lear,” the patriarch of the family is used to having his own way—as ruler of the land and as the head of his family. As with his subjects, he expects his three daughters to follow his orders. Lear’s wife is dead, and from the start of the play his rigidness and his boundless need for adulation and flattery get him into trouble. Two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan are filled with jealousy and ambition; his third daughter, Cordelia simply loves her father.
Shakespeare is a master of portraying royal dysfunctional families and the ambition, competition, power plays, love and hate that go along with them. What is intriguing, of course, is the type of characters he develops and the family dynamics he explores connect and are continually relevant to aspects of human beings and society in every age—whether in the Roman times or now.
In “Hamlet,” the family dynamic is between the son—Hamlet—his mother, his stepfather and the ghost of his father, who “visits” his son to tell him that his stepfather (who is also is uncle and now king) poisoned him. As Hamlet struggles with this news and what to do about it, we see his hatred for his stepfather/uncle grow and his confusion and ambivalence for his mother deepen--why did she remarry so soon and is she guilty of the murder as well? So you have a son who despises his stepfather and has a love/hate relationship with his mother. And he feels his mother has not only betrayed him my marrying his uncle, but that she might have been having an affair with his uncle before his father was murdered. Also, Hamlet is the only child and the only son and is used to his mother’s focus and affection; now that she’s married to his uncle, much of her attention is placed on her new husband, the new king, and this also enrages Hamlet.
In “King Lear,” the patriarch of the family is used to having his own way—as ruler of the land and as the head of his family. As with his subjects, he expects his three daughters to follow his orders. Lear’s wife is dead, and from the start of the play his rigidness and his boundless need for adulation and flattery get him into trouble. Two of his daughters, Goneril and Regan are filled with jealousy and ambition; his third daughter, Cordelia simply loves her father.
Shakespeare is a master of portraying royal dysfunctional families and the ambition, competition, power plays, love and hate that go along with them. What is intriguing, of course, is the type of characters he develops and the family dynamics he explores connect and are continually relevant to aspects of human beings and society in every age—whether in the Roman times or now.
Andrea Chapin
My first “novel” was a mystery called, well, The Mystery of the Green Glass. I wrote it in third grade, long hand, on thick yellow paper with a thick pencil. I wish I had that copy now! My third grade teacher launched a literary magazine for her students to publish poems, short stories and art. This was way back before computers were ever used in schools or were ever used at all. We painstakingly wrote and drew everything on mimeograph paper and then printed out copies on the mimeograph machine the school office. I started my mystery “novel” for that magazine, and then I just kept on going. I remember the satisfaction I felt as the stack of yellow paper grew on my desk. A few years later, my stories became more personal: I’d sit on the basement stairs of our house, in the dark, and in my head I’d write very autobiographical accounts of all the dysfunctional things that were going on with my family. Decades later, after I’d published journalism and a few short stories, it was returning to my autobiographical voice and then publishing memoir pieces and personal essays that truly enabled me to find my voice and to launch my career as a writer.
Andrea Chapin
One wonderful aspect of writing historical fiction, is the “what if.” In THE TUTOR, I imagined what if Shakespeare had a muse/editor/collaborator named Katharine, who helped him create the first writing he ever published--the erotic narrative poem “Venus and Adonis.” And now, another “what if” for #ShakespeareWeek.
In Act I, Scene 5 of “Macbeth,” Lady Macbeth conveys her steely desire to kill King Duncan with such lines as,” Come to my woman’s breasts, and take milk for gall.” And in Act I, Scene 7, when Lady Macbeth is trying to goad Macbeth into killing King Duncan, she says: “I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me.” Yet later in the play, Mcduff states that Macbeth has no children.
What if Lady Macbeth had a child who died? And what if the grief and fury over the loss of this child is, in part, what drives her twisted and murderous ambition. “Macbeth,” thought to have been written in 1606, is one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, and this fact has prompted critics and scholars to wonder if scenes were cut by the time the play was first published in the Folio of 1623.
Here’s my stab at a “lost” scene from “Macbeth,” a soliloquy from Lady Macbeth recounting the death of her child:
The indignities of love, the helpless terror.
A night of deafening shrieks and howls,
A day of hoarse gasps from tiny ruby lips.
I witnessed once sweet breath, fairy dew,
Turn rank and foul and evil.
I have kissed soft petal cheeks,
Felt flesh mutiny from spring to summer,
And from summer to winter.
I have seen the sun in adoring and adored eyes
Grow dim and dark, two caves.
O my blistering, burning babe,
No doctor, no nurse, no mother could cool thee.
The gem does lose its sparkle.
The cream its sweetness, the torch its light.
What is the use of life? Of any life?
When such a bundle of pink turns gray and fetid.
Why love at all?
When such a God gives power to the dying?
Better to hate, so when the death crush comes
No tear is left to shed, no milk to give.
In Act I, Scene 5 of “Macbeth,” Lady Macbeth conveys her steely desire to kill King Duncan with such lines as,” Come to my woman’s breasts, and take milk for gall.” And in Act I, Scene 7, when Lady Macbeth is trying to goad Macbeth into killing King Duncan, she says: “I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me.” Yet later in the play, Mcduff states that Macbeth has no children.
What if Lady Macbeth had a child who died? And what if the grief and fury over the loss of this child is, in part, what drives her twisted and murderous ambition. “Macbeth,” thought to have been written in 1606, is one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, and this fact has prompted critics and scholars to wonder if scenes were cut by the time the play was first published in the Folio of 1623.
Here’s my stab at a “lost” scene from “Macbeth,” a soliloquy from Lady Macbeth recounting the death of her child:
The indignities of love, the helpless terror.
A night of deafening shrieks and howls,
A day of hoarse gasps from tiny ruby lips.
I witnessed once sweet breath, fairy dew,
Turn rank and foul and evil.
I have kissed soft petal cheeks,
Felt flesh mutiny from spring to summer,
And from summer to winter.
I have seen the sun in adoring and adored eyes
Grow dim and dark, two caves.
O my blistering, burning babe,
No doctor, no nurse, no mother could cool thee.
The gem does lose its sparkle.
The cream its sweetness, the torch its light.
What is the use of life? Of any life?
When such a bundle of pink turns gray and fetid.
Why love at all?
When such a God gives power to the dying?
Better to hate, so when the death crush comes
No tear is left to shed, no milk to give.
Andrea Chapin
The idea for my novel, The Tutor, arrived on Christmas day in a present under our tree. At a dinner one night, one of my in-laws, recommended James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, a riveting nonfiction account of the history, politics and plays of a single year in Shakespeare’s life. The following month, while doing a mad dash of last minute Christmas shopping, I saw the paperback of Shapiro’s book on my way to the cash register at my local bookstore and bought it. Back at home, I wrapped up the book and put it under our tree. And on Christmas Day, while reading the gift I had given myself, I was immediately and obsessively struck by how Shakespeare’s “lost years” were the perfect terrain for fiction.
Andrea Chapin
Over the years I’ve learned that for me there are no special places I go and no special things I do to get into the mood to write: I just sit down and make myself do it. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s very hard. There is a wonderful magic that often comes with the process of writing—the sentences or moments that seem to come out of nowhere and light up the page—but I don’t think there’s any magic to the act of sitting down to do it. You have to stay at it, feel as though you are stuck to that chair with Velcro. I guess I’m afraid that if I have to go to a special place or do a special thing in order to write than the process will become precious, even fetishized, and that I will lose the natural, organic impulse. I can work with kids running around me, dogs barking, piles of laundry undone, dinner waiting to be made, bills waiting to be paid, or I can work while I’m alone and there is peace and quiet.
Andrea Chapin
1) Read, read, read. See how other writers do it! Examine voice, plot, character development, language and pacing in novels and short stories.
2) Stop talking about how you’re going to write—sit down and do it! Because the real learning starts when you commit yourself to putting the words down on the page.
3) For writing novels: I think it’s very important to get through the first draft before you start extensive rewriting and revising. It’s hard to know what that first chapter or those first several chapters need to be until you’ve gotten to the end of your story. I remember I wrote a novel in graduate school, and years later I looked at all the drafts of the first chapter that I’d labored over--draft after draft after draft where I tried to incorporate all the comments from my workshops and all my neurotic insecurities about a word or a sentence or tense (past or past perfect, etc.). I think I wrote at least twenty drafts of that first chapter. When I looked at them again, years later, I realized they were all pretty much the same and that I’d been like a cat licking the same patch of fur over and over again. I could have written a draft of the whole book in the time that it took be to rewrite that first chapter so many times.
2) Stop talking about how you’re going to write—sit down and do it! Because the real learning starts when you commit yourself to putting the words down on the page.
3) For writing novels: I think it’s very important to get through the first draft before you start extensive rewriting and revising. It’s hard to know what that first chapter or those first several chapters need to be until you’ve gotten to the end of your story. I remember I wrote a novel in graduate school, and years later I looked at all the drafts of the first chapter that I’d labored over--draft after draft after draft where I tried to incorporate all the comments from my workshops and all my neurotic insecurities about a word or a sentence or tense (past or past perfect, etc.). I think I wrote at least twenty drafts of that first chapter. When I looked at them again, years later, I realized they were all pretty much the same and that I’d been like a cat licking the same patch of fur over and over again. I could have written a draft of the whole book in the time that it took be to rewrite that first chapter so many times.
Andrea Chapin
I deal with writer's block by reading. It’s often poetry—because the language starts working on me, and I become compelled by how words are used, the images, the rhythm and even the rhyme. That’s why it was so fun to use Shakespeare’s narrative poem “Venus and Adonis” in my novel The Tutor; when I got stuck, I went back to the Bard’s text and let it carry me to the next scene or the next thought.
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