Jennifer Robson: On Writing Characters During Historical Moments

Jennifer Robson is the internationally bestselling author of seven historical novels, among them Somewhere In France and The Gown. She holds a doctorate in British economic and social history from Saint Antony’s College, University of Oxford, where she was a Commonwealth Scholar and an SSHRC Doctoral Fellow.

She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and children. Find her on Facebook and Instagram.

In this post, Jennifer discusses the surprising relevance of her new historical fiction novel, Coronation Year, her advice for writers, and more!

Name: Jennifer Robson
Literary agent: Kevan Lyon
Book title: Coronation Year
Publisher: William Morrow/HarperCollins
Release date: April 4, 2023
Genre/category: Historical fiction
Previous titles: Our Darkest Night, The Gown, Somewhere in France, and three other historical novels
Elevator pitch for the book: Come to London for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and stay at the historic Blue Lion hotel!

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I wanted to know what it felt like to witness the excitement surrounding the coronation of the late queen in 1953, and in particular what it was like to watch the coronation procession pass by. From there it got me thinking about who might have been watching the procession, and what their stories might have been, and why they might have found themselves in London on that particular day.

I started work on this book about three years ago, layering my research for it in between final edits for my previous book, Our Darkest Night. It’s remained broadly similar in outlook and scope to the story I first envisioned, with a few twists and turns along the way to take into account discoveries I made while doing my research.

I would say the biggest surprise, and it was truly a surprise and shock for me, was when the Queen died last September and I realized that my book, meant to coincide with the 70^th anniversary of her coronation, would be published in the same year as the coronation of her heir. Of course, she was very elderly, and she had evidently been in fragile health for some time, but I still couldn’t believe it when the news came through. I do hope that readers will not assume that the book is being published for opportunistic reasons—it was written and fully edited months before the queen died, and I would much rather they see it as an homage to her life and times.

One of my three central characters, Stella, changed quite dramatically between the first and final drafts of the book. Early on she was a more passive figure, reacting to events rather than acting with any real verve or agency; I knew there was something wrong, and that she wasn’t where I wanted her to be, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix the problem. Fortunately, my editor Tessa Woodward is a magician when it comes to such issues, and with her help I rewrote Stella’s chapters, gave her an entirely different profession and outlook on life, and in so doing found the character I’d been chasing all along.

I hope they will get a sense of what life was like in 1953. It was a time of such change, a lot of it unsettling, much of it good, and for those who had survived the war it was a moment where the austerity of postwar life was coming to an end and the promise of a beautiful and hopeful future seemed finally within reach. (I’ll leave the anxieties of the nascent Cold War for another book!)

Don’t write the book you think will sell based on what is popular on social media or the current bestseller lists. Write the story that you find exciting and compelling and impossible to set aside. If you’re very, very lucky you’ll end up with a bestseller, but even if you don’t, you’ll have created something that people will want to read.

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