John Lynch is a ghostwriter, freelance writer, and novelist who retired from a lifelong career in international sales and marketing, having lived and worked on every continent except Antarctica. He writes historical fiction under the name R.J. Lynch about 18th-century ordinary people — coal miners, agricultural laborers, parish poor — rather than lords and ladies. He also writes contemporary fiction and ghostwrites for multiple publishers. He sold his first book to a publisher in 1989, his first article to Good Housekeeping, and his first short story to BBC Radio in the same year.
Host: Richard Lowe | Guest: John Lynch
Interview Transcript
Richard: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
John: In the UK, my generation was the luckiest generation — the first and almost the last to have whatever education entitles you to, free of charge. Those who came before me were coal miners on one side, agricultural laborers and brickyard workers on the other. The most intelligent person I’ve ever met was my grandfather, but I don’t mean clever — you have to have education to be clever, and he went down a coal mine when he was 12. My mother won a scholarship to grammar school but couldn’t take it up because they couldn’t afford to have her not working.
When it came to me, I also passed scholarship and was able to go. All these people — agricultural laborers, miners — what they most valued was education. They drove you. My birthday presents and Christmas presents were always books. They used to say, “Work hard, study. If you don’t, you’ll end up down the pit.”
Books represented real life to me, and they still do. That’s how I came into writing. And it’s one of the reasons I write historical fiction about the people at the very bottom of the heap, not about lords and ladies.
Writing About Nobody’s
Richard: Why the common people rather than the rest?
John: I found them more interesting. It’s much harder — you have to do far more research because what history records is the big figures. I’ve spent ages in places like Durham, in the archives. Forget the big history written by big people about big people. Go to the parish registers and the notebooks that rectors kept. There’s all sorts of information about these people. You have to look, but it’s there. Just in surviving, they probably achieved more than the son of some landed family did in going to war.
My historical fiction is set in the 1760s and ’70s. The early books are about the poor of the parish in County Durham — how much worse life gets when the enclosures come in, how they’re treated by their betters. The third book is set in America because these characters escaped there to get away from a false accusation. They’re there at the time of the War of Independence.
Characters Who Tell You What to Write
John: When I wrote The Making of Billy Macklin, I had no idea what I was going to write when I typed the first sentence. Over the next few months, Billy Macklin stood right here, looking over my left shoulder, saying “Probably wouldn’t have said that” or “Don’t forget the anger management.” This was a story I was making up, and yet a character was telling me what to write. I know that makes me sound insane. But that’s how it works. Around the 30,000-word mark, I start to think, “I think I see where this is going.”
The Ghostwriting Life
John: I have three or four publishers I write for. They know the kind of thing I can do and what I’m not good at. They come to me and say, “We want this.” There’s one publisher for whom I write a series — his name appears on the front, he’s well known, and it would probably amaze his fans to know the author doesn’t actually exist.
Someone said to me, “Isn’t that cheating?” Why is it cheating? People want something good to read, and I’m giving them that. The publisher handles the marketing. What they need is a reliable source — a professional who agrees what needs to be done, does it, agrees what they’re going to be paid, and gets paid.
Ghost writers don’t get writer’s block, because you’ve got a deadline. If you tell a publisher you won’t make Tuesday because you’re blocked, they’re never going to turn to you again. Sit down, write something. If you can’t think of what should happen next, describe what should happen and write that. If it doesn’t work, lose it. But get on with it.
Somebody asked me yesterday to write a 50,000-word romance for $600. I’m always very polite about it. But I do have to explain the facts of life.
Selling Books Everywhere
John: Always have one or two books with you. I carry glossy cards for all my books. If I’m on a train and someone is reading, I’ll say, “Do you like to read?” and hand them a card. I’ve stopped in motorway service stations and chatted to the guy by the next car. I’ve sold books in car parks. Don’t give them — sell them.
Literary festivals are a great way to meet people who are interested in books. Work to get yourself invited to those. I’ve tried Twitter — lots of retweets but no sales. Facebook absorbed a lot of money but didn’t sell for me. Amazon’s own marketing worked very well.
Velázquez and Reassurance
John: In this room where I work, I keep a print from the Prado — Velázquez’s picture of the young Prince Baltasar Carlos on horseback. The reason I keep it there is because there are times when I cannot do what I want to do. I don’t have the technique. I’m not good enough. Velázquez was one of the finest painters the world has ever known, but he couldn’t paint horses. I find that reassuring — that one of the best who ever lived had things he couldn’t do either.
Advice for Writers
John: If there’s anything else you can see yourself doing, do that instead. Because this is hard. But if you’re determined, get rid of any thoughts of entitlement. The fact that you’ve written a book does not mean you’re entitled to have anybody read it.
Read voraciously. There’s a book by Francine Prose called How to Read Like a Writer. Read everything you can get your hands on, and you’ll start to read like a writer — thinking, “Oh, that’s how they did that.”
Expose yourself to editors — not your mother and your sister. When they tell you everything wrong with the book, don’t close your mind. Listen. George Orwell was utterly incompetent when he started. But he worked at it and worked at it.
People say “write what you know.” I spent this morning writing about France approaching the French Revolution. I know nothing about it. Forget “write what you know.” But write what you know about how people act, what makes people do what they do. You know emotions. You know how ideas are processed. Include that.
Get your work professionally proofread and edited. However much you think you can do your own editing, you can’t. I can edit other people’s work, but I find it very difficult to do a final edit on mine. If readers find four errors by page three, they won’t read anymore.
John: What writers are engaged in is the same thing everyone is engaged in — an adventure that starts with birth and only ends one way. I’ve had a fabulous time getting this far. It’s not a dress rehearsal.
Learn more about John Lynch at johnlynchbooks.com.
Find Richard Lowe at TheWritingKing.com.
Video edited by Bonnie Dillabough.