Today was the release of “A River in the Sky“*, the 19th book in the Amelia Peabody novels by Elizabeth Peters. There’s a reason readers keep coming back.
The multiple NY Times bestselling Author Barbara Mertz (aka Elizabeth Peters, and aka Barbara Michaels) was a housewife and mother when she wrote her first novel, The Master of Blacktower, (now available on your Kindle in under a minute) in 1966. Mertz’ numerous pseudonymns make it easy to miss what a prolific writer she really is, with a total of 69 books to her solo credit. She holds a Ph. D in Egyptology from the University of Chicago’s famed Oriental Institute, and many of her books have something to do with archeology or Egypt. The Amelia Peabody series of novels focus almost exclusively in this area, and so far are all set between the years of 1884 and 1923.
Mertz’ character of Amelia Peabody is so involving, so enticing, and so electric that I’ve re-read all 18 of the previously-published books in that series* up to 14 times. They are murder mysteries, with a feel that might resemble the bastard child of Agatha Christie and Indiana Jones. (Having not yet read today’s release, I can still say that “The Last Camel Died At Noon” is her best from the series.) There are no other books that I’ve read with that much enthusiasm since I practically lived in the school library’s Nancy Drew section at age 10.
While many could comment on the literary devices and other romantic reasons that Amelia keeps me coming back, I can reduce it to a few simple points that one might also try to include in a non-fiction work.
1. Higher Purpose
Amelia always has something bigger than herself happening, and while it’s not always life or death, Amelia interacts with a wide variety of famous characters in history, plays a part in incidents of the first world war, and is even present when the tomb of King Tut is first opened. While I’m not talking about creating a grand mythology around non-fiction content, Readers want to know that they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Everyone’s work has a higher purpose of some sort, so it’s important to tap into that and involve Readers in that same sense of purpose. Amelia’s missions are much like many that we all have in our own real lives.
2. Constant Movement
Amelia is in many ways typical of the ladies of her class and era, and yet in many more ways, extremely atypical. She is of course self-disciplined, and extremely British in her general outlook, but she constantly bucks trends and acts very modern. She is an adventurer and discoverer, and she needs little sleep. Her mind is so quick that it blindsides not just other characters in the books, but occasionally, the books include various bits of narration to piece together certain puzzles for the Reader as well. She climbs mountains, both literally and figuratively, and she does so on a daily basis. It is not just important to maintain pace of story, but also to maintain pace of information, and that it is dished out in bite-sized pieces that the Reader is ready for, right when they need it. When creating non-fiction materials, the voice of the Author is often that of a Teacher, and the pace of that teaching is extremely important.
3. Level of Detail
Mertz’ descriptions of tombs, methods, how archeological finds are treated or cared for, and descriptions of tools, Victorian clothing, medicine and medical treatment, and even buildings and transportation are rich and full of detail. Her details of locations paint a clear image of what the area must have looked like, and make the reader feel as though they are walking on the same street. She describes the people of her era in Egypt with respect and deference to their glorious heritage, and the racial prejudice of many of the British people present as loathsome and narrow-minded. Her crime scene descriptions rival that of any modern homicide detective. Readers want to hear about the guts and the glory, and to put themselves in the position of the problem, and then of course, in the solution. And importantly, the content that augments the books adds additional enrichment, including maps and timelines to further clarify things like excavation areas and pre-historic locations. Things like tip sheets, checklists and web links augment any type of non-fiction material.
4. Heroes and Archetypes
I’ve talked (at least, verbally, if not here on this blog) about this concept many times in relationship to the Archetype (versus Stereotype) concept as described by screenwriting trainer Robert McKee
*. Mertz does an excellent job of creating heroes and villains, and uses a variety of archetypal-characters, including a number of cats, which form an additional family of personas that many of us can relate to. She has masterfully used many elements of the classic archetype in creating her Sethos character, who is my favourite literary villain of all time. Sethos is Amelia’s dark-ish nemesis, and even though he waits until the third book in the series to appear, he plays a strong role from that point onward. Again, pacing is important here, as more and more details about Sethos are revealed so very very slowly, keeping the reader in suspense. (While the objective in non-fiction is not typically to create a sense of suspense, the importance of deciding on an appropriate pace is the same.) Sethos eventually becomes a hero in his own fashion, and anchors the story in a classic way that cannot be accomplished through any other method. The hero in non-fiction might be a concept rather than a character in that same sense, but the effect is the same.
5. Letting the Reader Think For Themselves
I admit that I have rarely been able to anticipate who the murderer is in any mystery novel, but Mertz doesn’t force the Reader into any sort of conclusions – false or real – too early. She merely presents all the (fictional) facts of the case, and the Reader is encouraged to try to figure it out. Not too coincidentally, this is an essential component in adult education. Since most non-fiction is about educating your Reader (in some way), letting the Reader/Student take ownership of the story or problem/solution combination is essential to getting them on-side, and making them loyal to your point of view. Just look at how I’m evangelizing about Amelia here – I’m one of her peeps because I’ve “helped” her with so many adventures.
As you can see, fiction and non-fiction both rely on classic tools and devices, and in surprisingly similar ways.
*Affiliate link.
Read this fantastic blog post by Tim Ferriss; book marketing guru, world traveler, and Author of The 4-Hour Workweek. Please pay special attention to the part where he mentions, “First off, writing books is a terrible revenue model for authors.”
The adorable Seth Godin 
, is his “life’s work”. (Can’t wait to read it.) And he has decided that none of his future writings will be distributed through traditional publishing channels.
eBooks are now hugely popular. If that’s the case, why are there still printed books?
I’ll be speaking at