Fiction Friday | Readers Questions With Carol Ashby

Welcome to Fiction Friday and our readers questions with Carol Ashby

If you were not an author, what would you like to be?

Since I write full time, I’ve had two very fun careers. My old day job was in scientific research, and it’s a lot of fun trying to figure out how things work and why.

How do you figure out your characters’ personality?

The personalities are whatever they have to be for an adventure where there’s a lot of conflict among the characters. I try to capture personalities that fit the spirit of that time. There will be class differences, with some being wealthy and politically powerful and others being slaves. Some will be Roman citizens (and proud of everything that means), and others might be of a different ethnicity and sometimes a conquered people. There will always be a main character who’s a devout Christian and another who is going to become a Christian by the end. Depending on the story, the believer might be the lead female or lead male.

If you were a butterfly, what colour would you be?

Blue. It’s my favorite color

How do you choose names for characters in books?

As I write Roman era, and there were rigid rules for the names of Roman citizens. I follow those, and I wrote an article about Roman naming practices at my history website. As well I have lists of prominent politicians, military people, names from Pompeii, and names from funeral monuments. I also have a copy of an academic study of the names of Roman slaves. Often they were just some characteristic of the job or the person or an animal, so I can pick something and just use Google Translate to get the Latin version. That’s why the assassin in More Than Honor used the alias Vulpis (fox).

One tricky part about Roman names is that the first-born son had the identical name to his father, and there were fewer than 20 first names in common use. One in five was Gaius, and only 4 names made up 60% of Roman men’s first names. Plus only family and close friends ever called a person by their first name, so the third (family) name is one used most.

Every time I add a character, I have to dig out the lists or use Google Translate to name them.

What did you learn while writing your last book that surprised you?

I do a lot of research to keep everything historically accurate, and I write a historical note for the end of each book explaining some facet of Roman life that was important in the story. I knew the military policed the provinces, but I didn’t know the details of how Rome was policed by three special units: Praetorian Guard, Urban Cohort, and the night watchmen/firemen, with the last two being under the Urban Prefect, who was essentially the mayor of Rome with lots of administrative duties to keep the city running. The lead of the latest volume, More Than Honor, is a tribune of the Urban Cohort who’s responsible for a quarter of the city, which around AD 100 had more than a million permanent residents.

If someone was just starting out with their first novel, what advice would you give them?

I’d encourage them to study the craft of writing, and I have a lot of books I’d recommend that helped me do that when I started. One of the most important was one about self-editing to get a high-quality book. I use the principles and techniques while I’m writing to produce a first draft that’s close to publication ready by the time I write “the end.” That means rereading what I’ve written often while I’m writing the next scenes and editing each scene many times while I’m writing. I find that cuts the time to get a polished manuscript with a tightly written plot in half compared to my first book. It also makes the first draft polished enough to share with my beta readers in 5 to 10 chapter chunks while I’m still writing. The feedback I get from them helps me make improvements even before the first draft is finished.

Have you ever met a person in real life who is a doppelgänger (lookalike) for a character in your book/s?

I haven’t, but there aren’t many Romans in armor or togas walking around New Mexico. If I were in the UK, where Roman reenactments are very popular, I might.

Which book that you’ve written would you like to see made into a movie?

They’re all adventures with a good amount of action, often cross-country travel, and lots of dialog, so I often hear from readers that they’d like to see one be a movie. I try to write cinematically where I envision each scene as a scene in a movie, and that’s probably why I get those comments. I think True Freedom, Hope’s Reward, and More Than Honor would be good choices to film because of the unusual characters and surprising action.

Do you have a pet that keeps you company when you write?

Do the pond fish and the yard turtle that I can watch through the window by my writing desk count?

What do you like to eat or drink when you’re writing?

Black coffee, especially some of the flavored New Mexico Pinon coffees. The pinon cuts the bitter so it doesn’t need cream to be smooth. I also love teas, especially Darjeeling and oolong, but mint green tea is also a favorite. Goldfish crackers (cheesy whole-wheat inch-long crackers shaped like fish with smiles) with a glass of milk is a great quick lunch that lets me keep writing while I eat.

Can you tell us a little about your latest book and where to find you on the web?

On June 15, More Than Honor, the tenth stand-alone in the Light in the Empire series, was released. This one is set entirely in Rome, where the incorruptible hero often gets his commander irritated with him because he doesn’t care about social rank, family ties, or political connections when he’s hunting a criminal. He agrees with the philosopher Seneca that “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” Then his old tutor, who has become a Christian since he left the school, is murdered, and it’s his job to catch the murderer. But his tutor’s little girl has grown into a spirited and Spirit-filled Christian woman who’s afraid he’s going to discover their illegal faith while hunting the murderer.

With all the research I have to do to get the history right, I decided to share what I learn as a Roman history site that I keep PG-13 or cleaner so teachers and students can use it. Crime and punishment is the most popular article there, but slavery, adoption, and Roman names get lots of visits, too. If you want to know how the Romans fattened snails on milk, I have that there as well. It’s at https://carolashby.com.

My author website isn’t nearly as much fun. It’s pretty conventional, and it’s at https://carol-ashby.com.

More Than Honor

Duty and honor had anchored his life, but only truth could set him free.

Devotion to duty and dogged determination make Tribune Titianus the most feared investigator of the Urban Cohort. Honor drives him to hunt down anyone who breaks Roman law, but it becomes personal when Lenaeus, his old tutor, is murdered in his own classroom. Why kill a respected teacher of the noble sons of Rome, a man who has nothing worth stealing and no known enemies? Had he learned something too dangerous to let him live?

Pompeia was only a girl when Titianus studied with Father before her family became Christians. She and her brother Kaeso can’t move their school from the house where their father was killed. But what if the one who killed Father comes to kill again? Kaeso’s friend Septimus insists they spend nights at his father’s well-guarded home. But danger lurks there as well. As Titianus hunts for the murderer, will he discover their secret faith and arrest them as enemies of the Empire?

When Titianus gets too close to finding the killer, the hunter becomes the hunted. While he recovers at his cousin Septimus’s house, Pompeia becomes the first woman to touch his heart. But a tribune’s loyalty is sworn to Rome, no matter how he feels. When her faith is revealed, will truth and love mean more to him than honor? Does honor require more than devotion to Rome?