Author interview – Marcus Sedgwick

on November 6th, 2011 at 9:50 pm

 

I just want to note that this is the first phone interview I’ve done for a while, and I was between recording devices, so although I’ve tried to transcribe my conversation with Marcus to the best of my abilities, there are no doubt words I’ve missed or misquoted. You’ll be pleased to know that I have a brand new dictaphone, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed talking with the lovely Mr Sedgwick. (I should also note that the questions are a bit out of order, because the conversation took a different path than I had expected.

-Bec Kavanagh

You have a series for younger readers as well as your series for young adults. How does your writing change depending on the age you’re writing for?

I think it’s a mistake to think too much who you’re writing is for, and with young adults especially. I try to write the story that I need to write. It’s very patronising to write ‘for’ an audience. If I was trying to guess what a teenager around the world might think or want to read I feel that’s quite a patronising way of doing it.

For the younger series, it’s a different type of job – more like telling a story. I’m more conscious of the writing, but it’s easier because I can hold the whole story in my head.

Would you call Midwinterblood a young adult book?

I think writers are not the people to ask that type of question! I’m sitting in my little shed and then my book ends up in people’s hands and I don’t care if they’re 14 or 34 or 84. I just write the story that I want to write. It’s in the launch list of Indigo - a new imprint of Orion aiming to narrow the division between adult and young adult books.

Do you ever feel limited by the YA genre?

I know I’ve got a lot of adults reading anyway because I get quite a lot of emails from them through my website. They usually start “I know I shouldn’t be reading your book” to which I reply “I’m thrilled anyone is reading my book!”  But writing for teenagers you can really write anything you want. Wheras adult books are much more genre or trend limited and it’s harder to write ‘outside’ genres.

A lot of your young adult books are quite dark, what are your thoughts on this years discussions surrounding the Wall Street Journal’s article on young adult fiction being too dark?

That debate crops up here every 18 months or so. Occasionally it gets as far as getting to the media. I kind of go back to saying what I was saying earlier about being patronising. I can remember what it was like, not exactly, but maybe this is why people write YA, because I can remember what it was like and I can remember what I could cope with and what I couldn’t cope with. I think it’s really patronising and it’s very easy to forget what it was like to be a teenager. And yet when you spend a lot of time talking to teenagers you know they’re interested in this stuff. And that’s why they’re called Young Adults – because they really are. It’s a squeamishness almost. It would be really doing them a disservice to patronise them and to not write about what they may well think about or be interested in.

Regarding the Wall St Journal – it is right that these arguments  crop up because it does show that we care about what people are reading. Which brings up an even more fundamental question which is “Isn’t it better that they’re reading something?” If it is slightly the wrong thing, children are very very good at self moderating. It’s much easier to stop reading a book than it is to stop watching a film. Even the worst that you read in a young adult novel is nowhere near as graphic as some of the things you see in horror films.

White Crow and Midwinterblood are quite modern, even futuristic, but they have a real sense of old gothic stories, is this intentional? How do you choose the timing and maintain such a delicate balance?

White Crow is interesting from that point of view. My whole reason to write that was to see if I could write the modern version of a gothic novel. Generally the novels I prefer to write are historical novels. White Crow was a bit of a challenge. In a way it was a bit of a cheat because the two girls have mobile phones and are texting each other but are both so isolated which forces them together and the things that happen –  tragic heroines is pure classic gothic novel territory.

In Midwinterblood especially you write in a lot of different times, each with quite a stylised voice and yet it still seems so natural – did you research the tone and writing style of various periods to write the book?

I’m really glad you felt that because it’s one thing that I was aware of but I couldn’t go over the top with. I wanted all of the seven parts to be different, it’s one of the things that you want to be able to do as a writer, to be able to write a story that you’ve been living in the world of your head. And there are so many nuances in language- it’s all kind of fake anyway. All of the dialogue in novels is fiction trying to fake reality in a way that is believable. With the viking part, there’s a lot of alliteration. And the reason I did that was because Scandanavian verse form was quite alliterative. They use a lot of ‘Kennings’ (which are like the viking puns) plays on words used to describe the seas or the sky rather than naming the object directly. There’s a lot of internal rhyme. And that was quite deliberate.

A lot of your books are set in quite isolated places and isolation seems to be a recurring theme. Do you ever feel isolated as a writer? Is isolation specific to young adult characters?

You’re absolutely right, I think I’ve done it in more of my books than I haven’t done it. To be completely honest with you, some of it is for very technical reasons such as it’s easier to justify what’s happening to the characters – Lord of the Flies is a perfect example of this – taking characters out of their natural environment. Partially it’s a simple thing to do, it means that you can really focus on the specific issues.

Whether I feel isolated as a writer? I don’t know, as a child I spent a lot of time just with my brother and my family.

This is not exactly what you asked, but it reminds me. A few weeks ago a librarian asked me “why do I write such dark books” I don’t think I do write dark books at all. I think I write about really gentle people but in difficult circumstances.

What kind of genre do you feel your books fit into?

I think it’s the nice thing about writing for young adults – you don’t really have to worry about that because they’re all grouped together. So its not something I have had to worry about. It’s up to reviewers to decide what your books are. you don’t set out thinking “I’m going to write a horror novel today, you just think I have a story to write today”.

Your books touch on a lot of supernatural creatures, but I wouldn’t call you a fantasy author as such, I’d be more inclined to put shelve you with someone like Poe, for the eerie sense behind your stories, and the feeling as a reader that there might be something over your shoulder but you’re too afraid to look. Do you deliberately try to stay away from the hoards of paranormal fiction (especially paranormal romance) that is flooding YA bookshelves at the moment? Are there particular elements of those books that you steer clear of in your own writing?

I think maybe there is, but I don’t think I’m doing it for that reason. It might sound crazy because a lot of people say that the books I write are broadly fantasy but I don’t think of them as fantasy. I always wanted to write stories that have elements of the supernatural or mythology. But I didn’t want to take fantasy like Tolkein (don’t get me wrong, I loved Tolkein) but the other way of doing it is to take a historical setting and to add a monster. That’s what I’ve always been trying to do regardless of the paranormal romance trend.

Are you inspired by fairytales?

Absolutely. Something I’m doing at the moment, I’ve just been delving around in the original versions of fairytales and finding the most horrific thigns. I said to someone the other day that I would like to publish folk tales or fairytalkes but you can’t really do that at the moment because its not what people want to read. I suppose you could do what Angela Carter did and write updated fairytales but then someone’s already done that. So what I’ve done with almost every book I’ve done is to add folk tales or fairy tales – Midwinterblood is a good example – in part six with the vampires that stems from Icelandic mythology.

When I wrote Blood Red Snow White I was writing the Russian Revolutian as a fairytale and I did it to make it simpler, but it was much more poetic and people really responded to it.

I know that your first published piece was a short horror story – do you still set out to scare people?

Writing horror is a strange thing because it’s really hard to judge what is scary. If you’re making a horror movie, you know it’s not real and when you’re writing a book you know it’s not real but you’re trying to do it in a way that will fool people. And usually it’s when you start getting feedback that you get people saying that there were one or two parts that were really scary. It’s really good fun to write hings that might be scary. It’s just really good fun. It’s important to deliver those punches. Because you have an idea, but it’s important to tell it the right way and that’s why storytelling is so important and that tradition of storytelling  is so important.

What is the scariest thing you can imagine?

The scariest thing I can imagine I actually put into the middle of Midwinterblood, It’s the part where the painter doesn’t want to paint anymore because the scariest thing I can imagine is not wanting to write anymore.

What is the book that you wish you’d written?

The Prestige. Not enough people seem to know the book and it’s superb. When I read it, I just loved it. It was touching on similar themes to what I was trying to do in The Book of Dead Days where you’re not supposed to know what’s real and what’s magic and what’s science and I think Christopher Priest did that so well. I think the film is an excellent adaptation but it does miss things. This is the difference between books and films. The modern story which is left out of the film is actually the end of the book and it’s the creepiest ending I’ve ever read.

Thanks Marcus, and I apologise again if I’ve missed any gems out! It was lovely talking to you, and I cannot wait to read what you’ve got in stock for us next. Hopefully we’ll see you at A Thousand Words sometime :)

 

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Cat Patrick – author interview

on October 27th, 2011 at 9:00 am

Hi Cat, thanks for chatting to us about your recent debut Forgotten and other bookish things. I thought we could talk about memories because really how do we build a life without them?

I agree! Ask away!

 

How did you go about creating a character that had no memories of her past?

Did you feel at times that you needed to forget what you knew about her so that it didn’t colour the way you wrote her?

Once I had the “rules” of London’s memory, it wasn’t that difficult to create her world. I did find that I needed to forget—or ignore—what I’d written the day before in order to truly walk in London’s shoes each new day. That said, I began writing the book when my twins were five months old, so being forgetful came easily.

It must have been complex remembering what London is supposed to know each day. Did you have a particular system that you used to keep track of all the threads in the story?

I created a lot of timelines, and did a lot of re-reading to make sure I wasn’t breaking any of London’s memory rules.

The idea of remembering forward provokes some interesting thoughts on the fixed nature of our future. London experiments with this by trying to change some of her own memories, but she has the luxury of forgetting if things go wrong. How fixed do you believe the future is? Would you fight to change it if you knew what was coming?

I think our futures are always changing based on the decisions we’re making now. If I knew something bad was coming, I’d definitely fight to try to change it.

How did you manage to show London’s memories of the future without giving away too much or impacting the suspense and momentum of the book?

Great question! I did some reverse timelines, writing down the biggest “reveal” then listing the points that I needed to include to get there in the end. Then I made sure those points were weaved into the story. But honestly, the mystery just sort of clicked into place one day. One day it wasn’t working, and the next it was. I think that’s how a lot of ah-ha moments strike: suddenly and without warning.

We see so much manipulation in the book because of London’s method of keeping track. How did you choose who she would be able to trust, and how did you develop their relationship in the book?

In initial drafts, only London’s mother knew about London’s condition. That was great for the mother/daughter bond, but it made London’s relationship with Jamie less meaningful. When I let Jamie in, so to speak, it was much easier to develop her relationship with London because they knew each other’s secrets. Jamie knew about London’s memory and London knew about Jamie’s future. That added a nice layer of specialness to their friendship that was fun to explore.

Were you ever worried that readers wouldn’t be on board with the concept?

Did you have a group of trusted readers that you tested the book on first before taking it around to agents and publishers?

Of course! FORGOTTEN is very high concept and requires a certain suspension of disbelief: I definitely wondered if the general population would be willing to say, “Okay, this girl remembers forward instead of backward.” Thankfully, readers seem to be on board. But yes, I do have a mini test group of dear friends—and Hubby!—who I look to for early feedback.

As a debut novelist who caused quite a stir when publishers started reading your book, what advice would you give to young writers?

My biggest piece of advice is to keep at it. Writing takes practice, and books don’t write themselves. I’ve heard so many people tell me that they want to write but don’t have time. As a mom of twins, I think we make time for what we want to do. And finally, read. So often, I finish a great book and find myself even more inspired to work on my own projects.

What is at the top of your book pile right now?

I’m reading, and loving, THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett, and just finished DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth, which was amazing. On my to-be-read pile: A GAME OF THRONES by George R. R. Martin, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE by Laini Taylor and A NEED SO BEAUTIFUL by Suzanne Young.

Thanks Cat, we loved Forgotten and we can’t wait to read what you have in store for us next!

Thank you!

 

Read more about Cat and her work here

 

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Jane Higgins – author interview

on October 25th, 2011 at 7:53 pm

Hi Jane, congratulations on winning the Text Prize with your amazing first novel. We’re thrilled that you’re taking the time out to talk to us about your first book, the prize & dystopian fiction.

The Prize…

The Text Prize is becoming a prestigious way for emerging writers of young adult fiction to launch their novel. Had you heard of the prize when you started writing The Bridge, and did you write the book with the intention of submitting?

Hi Bec. Thanks for the opportunity to chat. As it happens, I did know about the prize before I started writing The Bridge, but it was a happy coincidence of timing that prompted me to send the manuscript in: I’d just finished my third (and I hoped, last) draft of the story when the prize opened for 2010. I thought ‘what have I got to lose?’ and sent it off.

Given that a lot of our readers are emerging writers themselves, or have a keen interest in the writing process, could you tell us a little bit about your thoughts as a newly published writer on the different ways to get published? What kind of publishing avenues did you consider before winning the prize?

There are so many ways to get stories ‘out there’ these days. People who are web-savvy are using the net in inventive ways – for example, Myke Bartlett, the 2011 winner of the Text Prize, publishes stories in podcasts. There are many online journals (as well as paper ones) that publish short stories and poetry. And of course there are traditional publishers. Taking the traditional path usually involves going through a literary agent and if I hadn’t been lucky enough to win the Text Prize my next step would have been to try to get an agent.

For people wanting to submit their work to any publisher, competition or magazine, what steps would you advise they take before mailing their piece off?

Everyone’s different. What I did was this: I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote until the story was as good as I could make it and I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly make it any better. Then I gave it to someone else to read (not a family member or friend!), listened to their feedback, realised that I could make it better after all, and went back to my desk. I went through that cycle with a full draft three times.

 

It helped that in 2008/2009 I was enrolled in a writing class. The class only met once a week, but it was run by established writers who read my work and gave me great feedback. I didn’t always agree with what they said, especially at first. I’d look over the report they’d given me, then put it in a drawer for a week. That ‘time out’ was important for getting over my first defensive reaction of ‘well, you just don’t understand what I’m trying to do’. But I’d be thinking about it during the week, turning it over in my mind, so by the time I took the report out of the drawer I knew that most of what it said was actually really useful, and I’d get on with the next rewrite. Finally, before I sent the manuscript off I tried to make sure that it was absolutely polished in terms of basics like spelling and grammar – I wanted it to look as professional as possible.

Being a Writer…

How did it feel knowing your words were going to be turned into a book? How did you feel when you saw the cover and the book trailer for the first time?

It was (and continues to be) wonderful. I still find it a bit hard to believe. It’s also daunting, because the book is out there now and I have no control over what people make of it. I’m used to writing non-fiction and publishing in academic journals – that’s my day job.  My non-fiction is backed up by research and data and if people argue with it I can argue right back in the next academic article. But story-telling is a different thing entirely. As for the cover and the trailer – they are fantastic. I think the cover is a genuine work of art and I love it, and the trailer is thrilling and action-packed and conveys exactly the right tone for the story. They both capture the mood of the novel so well. I’m delighted with them.

Where do you write? We’ve been talking a lot on our blog recently about the writing process, and I would love to know if you have a system… Do you have a desk or do you write anywhere? Do you work to a particular writing schedule or word count or are you led by inspiration? And how do you find that inspiration?

I write whenever and wherever I have a spare moment. I have to fit writing around my day job as a university researcher. That means writing at my desk when I’m not working, on my laptop in the evenings and at my local café over a coffee.  Also I write in my head when I’m sitting in traffic jams and when I’m on my daily walk in the hills around my home. If I get stuck on a plot point, walking is a great way to work on this. I ask myself a plot question at the beginning of the walk and it’s amazing how often I know the answer by the time I’ve been up the hill and down again. I think a lot of that has to do with working out precisely the right question and letting my subconscious go to work on it.

 

I’m nervous about being led by inspiration – I don’t have time to wait for inspiration to strike, and in any case I suspect inspiration comes from working, not the other way around. It’s about just sitting down and writing.  Although, having said that – I do get inspired by reading great writing. If I read a wonderful book it makes me want to have a go myself.

Onto the book…

The Bridge is brilliant. I reviewed it a few months ago and I have been thinking about it ever since. It took up all my attention for days and I still feel that it is one of the best dystopian novels to hit our shelves in recent years.

Thank you, Bec!

So much of dystopian fiction is about creating a believable setting that seems frighteningly close to our reality. How did you create your setting? What made you decide on the bridge as a division between the two societies?

I’m a sociologist, which means I study how societies work, and that involves finding out about the causes of poverty and conflict, about what drives global movements of people and about the influence of religion and politics in people’s lives. So when I sat down and thought ‘suppose there was this city in the year 2199….’, a lot of the background was already there for my imagination to work on.  My own city of Christchurch has a small (but beautiful) river running through it, and many of the great cities around the world are cut through by mighty rivers. It seemed plausible that a wealthy society might use its river to control entry from people it considered to be outsiders.

The book starts at a time when society is already divided. When you were writing, did you have a complete idea of the backstory that had led the characters and society to this point or did you just jump in and create the world around a central idea?

I started with that first sentence: ‘We rode to war in a taxicab.’ I didn’t know who the ‘we’ was, why they were in a taxi, or what the war was about. I wrote the story to find out. The backstory grew out of the daily news: globally many societies are already divided, people are on the move, their homes destroyed by wars and climate catastrophes, and they are drawn to places where they hope to find safety. Often that leads to conflict. In The Bridge those divisions are projected into the future onto a landscape and society that cast them into sharp relief. And in the middle of all that is a group of friends – teenagers who have had no part in shaping that world, but who have to deal with the mess adults have created. They rely on friendship and loyalty to get by, and often they see what’s important more clearly than the adults do. Ursula Le Guin calls this kind of story ‘social science fiction’ – it’s not big on future technological change but it is exploring future social change. As a social scientist who loves science fiction, I like that.

Nik is a fascinating character, and the threads of his story weave together tantalisingly as the story progresses. How did you manage his complexities and changing loyalties? Were there any characters that started out on one ‘side’ of the war and then changed or became more complex as you wrote them into the story?

At the start of the story Nik is someone who has been on the margins for most of his life: he’s a scholarship kid in a posh school, he has no family, and he knows that if the school decides to throw him out he’ll be on the street. So he’s learned some survival strategies. For example, he has taught himself to watch people and unfolding events carefully, because if he gets into trouble he has no back-up to help him out. When he and Fyffe set off across the bridge he knows they are walking into deep trouble. But friendship overrides everything for him, so he’s prepared to take the risk, and in doing that he discovers what happens when you meet your enemy face-to-face. His complexities and changing loyalties are grounded in that personal history and that discovery.

 

As I wrote, I was meeting the characters as Nik was meeting them, so my knowledge of them grew as his did. Lots of characters became more complex as I wrote them: Sim Vega is a good example. He started out as the anonymous commander of a Breken road block. When I wrote that scene I thought he’d probably disappear straight afterwards. But then, there he was, crossing the bridge, finding Nik and Fyffe and walking right into the centre of the story.

Finally, have you jumped straight into another piece of writing? Anything you can share with us?

Yes, I have jumped into another piece of writing – a sequel to The Bridge. There was a lot going on at the end of the story and I want to find out what happens next.

Thanks again Jane, I can’t wait to read more of your work, and we hope to see you visiting Melbourne soon!

You can read more about The Bridge and the Text Prize here.

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Lauren Oliver – author interview

on October 25th, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Lauren, thanks so much for being interviewed! And congratulations on your recent tour and the massive success of both books.
Thank you! I’m thrilled to be here…

So far you have been seemingly steering clear of writing for a particular genre. “Before I Fall” was a dramatic speculation on second chances while “Delirium” is an intriguing dystopia. Where did these ideas come from? Do you feel an affinity towards a particular genre or style?
You know, my ideas really come from all over. I have a middle-grade book coming out this fall called Liesl and Po, which is substantively different from my first two books. I get inspired by what is happening in my life, by news items, by my friends and even by strangers. I’m not interested in genres or categories, particularly—just great stories.

Can you tell me a bit about the way you write… Do you start with an idea, or a character? Are you a planner? How do you flesh these starting points into something that you are happy to pitch to a publisher?
I am a very character-driven writer, so usually I have kind of a nascent/rough idea for a book, but it only begins to take on life and clarity when the narrator pops into my head and begins kind of speaking the story to me. It’s very schizophrenic! I usually write 30 pages or so just to get a sense of the world and the character, and see whether it is viable to join my life to the book’s for the next 1-3 years. After that, I step away and outline. I hate outlining but for me it’s a necessary evil; without an outline, I’d simply be writing 800-page plotless books!

Young adult fiction has recently been the topic of much debate as to the depth and darkness of a lot of the issues dealt with in the genre. How do you feel about writing for young adults? When you started your first novel, was it your intention to become a YA author?
I didn’t consciously set out to write for a YA audience, no. Actually, I do a range of things and I don’t think about categories very much when I write at all—I’ve written YA and middle-grade, and I’m working on an adult book now. It’s impossible to write authentically if you’re constantly thinking about categories or appropriateness, I believe. I just try and get to know the characters as deeply as possible; I truly believe that if you have a true and authentic sense of your world, your characters, and your story, it is impossible to wander into a place that is “too” dark. Fiction, perhaps paradoxically, is all about uncovering truth.

Both of your books are such strong stand-alone novels, but it is easy to imagine “Delirium” as a series. Do you see yourself writing series in the future? How do you decide where to end, and what to leave out? Is there a temptation to revisit characters to explore where they have ended up?
Actually, Delirium is part of a series! It’s the first book in a trilogy; Pandemonium, its sequel, comes out March 1, 2012, and Requiem, the final book, a year after that. I simply felt that there was a very rich tapestry of the world that I wanted to explore—and that was begging to be explored—which is what made me want to keep writing. Books speak to authors in a certain way; they take on a life of their own, and characters and stories begin to exist independently. So I think that part of being a writer is learning how to just tune into a rhythm, and let yourself follow it and honor it.

Dystopian fiction is such a rich genre because it allows us as readers and writers to explore the ‘what ifs’ of our society. In “Delirium” the question is ‘what if you could cure love?’ It’s an interesting idea, that love is a disease and is dangerous to society because of the instability that it creates. Certainly, by asking this question the novel becomes something much more than a romance, and manages to look at the real risks and rewards of something that is often such a fickle beast.
It also raises the idea of how much control by the government is too much, and when does an external choice over our safety impede on our personal freedoms.
So how much control is too much? Were you reacting to a particular idea when you wrote this, or is it based purely in your imagination?
I was reacting to various factors, I think. I’ve felt ambivalent about love and the feelings of passion it provokes: I’ve found myself in love with the “wrong” people and unable to love the “right” people; I’ve been heartbroken and wished I could suck out my own heart before; I know that love can be redemptive, and also that it can be damaging. So I wanted to explore all of those issues. I was also responding, I think, to the way that modern American is so sanitized and medicated. There’s a pill for practically everything. People no longer know how to be bored, unhappy, or dissatisfied; there is always a “cure,” always a stimulant to keep you going or a sedative to relax you.
Interestingly, too much choice has been proven to lead to unhappiness. People are often much happier when they have limited choices. And yet I believe that choice is divine, in some way, and our deepest happiness can be found by making strong, independent, meaningful choices for ourselves. So I wanted to explore that tension as well.

How much of yourself do you see in your characters? Do you think you would make the same choices as Lena?
It’s important to identify strongly with all of your characters. I am certainly less obedient than Lena is at the start of the book, although she is probably more radical than I am by the end. I am probably more like Hana. To forsake everything you know—family, friends, society, etc—for love? It sounds beautiful, but I’m not sure I could or would do it. Of course, Lena has a much sparser life than Hana does, and her future will be far more limited, so perhaps that helps influence her decision.

If you could cure one ‘issue’ that young adults face, what would it be?
I would cure the issue of alienation and differentiation; I would cure the fact that people are often bullied or belittled for being different. It’s weird; when you’re young, you strive so hard to fit in, and that’s such a false road to go down. The most wonderful and successful and happy people later on in life are the ones who are most unique.

What was the book that inspired you to write?
I’ve been writing pretty much ince I could read—all of the books I loved as a child inspired me to write, as I began essentially by writing fan fiction (sequels to the books I loved). Some of the big ones were: the Redwall series; the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; and Matilda, by Roald Dahl

Read more about Lauren, including on her new book Leisl and Po here


 

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Meg Mundell – author interview

on October 25th, 2011 at 6:00 pm

 

Thanks for the interview Meg, and congratulations on the success of “Black Glass”. It has certainly left me with plenty to think about. The slight shift into Melbourne’s future is terrifyingly plausible and I imagine that most readers will be left questioning the state of our society’s future and their position in it.

Thanks for having me (:  I hope the book didn’t freak you out too much! But yes, I also hope it does make us wonder about the direction we’re heading in, both as a society and as individual people.

You have described the setting of “Black Glass” as more of a sideways shift than one directly into the future. How did you decide which elements of our current society to develop or change when you were writing the book?

I wish I could answer this more accurately, but mostly it wasn’t a conscious decision. The world of the book starts to take over, and you’re never quite sure where it’s going to lead. But the two things I did want to play around with were, firstly, the idea of surveillance culture; and secondly the kinds of social divisions that exist in our world today. I wanted to take those two things and exaggerate them slightly. To ask: what if…?

One of the foundations of the government in the book is that their control is a way to keep citizens safe. The other side of that coin of course is a society ruled by big brother, where citizens have few if any freedoms. Was this in response to any occurrences in our own society?

Yes, I think we’re already giving up certain freedoms, exchanging them for promises about “safety” or “security” or “belonging” – that’s how surveillance gets sold to us, as a protective thing. But sometimes that’s an empty promise. Information is power, and when you give away your personal information that’s like giving away a little bit of your personal mojo. So we need to be careful about who we give that to. Privacy is important, and it’s dangerous to just blindly accept everything governments say and do. Sometimes they do the right thing; but sometimes they’re just looking for a scapegoat, or trying to win an election.

Why did you choose to set the book in Melbourne?
Were you ever worried that this would limit your reach to overseas readers?

The setting could be any Western city – in fact, it’s never actually named as Melbourne. Because I’m familiar with Melbourne’s geography I used it as a kind of blueprint, but really if you altered a few street names and location details it could be Auckland, or San Francisco, or Dusseldorf, or Madrid. I don’t think overseas readers will have any trouble relating it to their own familiar cityscapes. I hope the book’s themes are universal, too, things that readers anywhere can relate to: things like friendship, hope, courage, creativity and power…the struggle to survive in a world that can sometimes be quite cruel or uncaring.

In some ways, “Black Glass” reads like a script, with the often one sided dialogue and the brief introduction of the characters and setting of each scene. Do you see there being potential to turn the story into a film?
Was this something that you thought about while you were writing the book?

Hooray! I’m so glad you read it that way (: I really love films and one day I’d like to write one – this book would work well as a film, I think. While I didn’t do that deliberately while writing the book, I guess I am a very “visual” sort of person, so the story comes through quite visually. Also the novel deals with things like surveillance cameras, eavesdropping, spying, role-playing and so on, so I thought a film-like style of writing, broken up into different scenes, with sections of dialogue, would work quite well with those ideas and themes.

The ‘moodies’ (characters who control the atmosphere of a room by altering peoples sensory experience) are fascinating. Where did the idea for these artists come from?

Partly that came from my past experience working as a DJ, watching how different sounds would affect the behaviour of a crowd. Also I’m interested in space and the senses, and how we experience different places through sound, colour, touch, smell. And I wanted the Moodie to be a creative character who has to face some tricky moral questions – is it ethical to secretly control people in this way? Where does art stop and greed take over?

What kind of research did you do to be able to describe so well the kinds of scents and sounds that the majority of readers would respond to in the same way as the characters?

Well, I did a lot of sniffing! Strange, but true. I looked into the effects of certain smells, colours and sounds on human behaviour. There are all sorts of theories and experiments circling around out there. For example, about half of the casinos in Las Vegas pump special smells through their air-conditioning systems to encourage people to stay longer and spend more money. Apparently fast-food restaurants often use the colours red and yellow, which stimulate your appetite, so you eat fast and move on, leaving your table free for another customer. And at some train stations overseas they play dodgy, uncool “muzak” through the speakers to discourage teenagers from hanging around. Those sorts of ideas found their way into the book.

Is there a particular scent that reminds you of your own childhood?

There are a few – the ocean, cut grass, jonquils, pine trees, baby lambs’ fleece and milk powder, hay-bales, and, um…horse sweat, and I’m sorry to say, horse poo! I grew up on a farm in New Zealand, near the sea, and we spent a lot of time outdoors. (No sheep jokes please!)

How did you manage to balance a large cast of such wonderful characters? Was there a particular character that you felt more of an affinity towards? Was it ever tempting to follow one character more than others?

I’m not sure exactly how it works while you’re writing it. They seem to take on their own lives, and start doing things you don’t expect. The two main characters, the young sisters Tally and Grace, were the ones I felt closest to. They are really the heart of the book. But I also related to the male characters – the homeless boy Blue, the moodie Milk, and the journalist Damon. I enjoyed spending time in their heads too.

How long did it take you to write and publish “Black Glass”?

A long time! At least four years, off and on. I wrote part time while I was studying and working, and also writing part of another book.

Do you have any tips for any emerging writers who have ideas but are struggling to put them together as a novel?

Just start writing, don’t wait for an amazing idea to come. Just do a little bit at a time, and set yourself daily word limits to meet. It’s not so daunting if you break it down into small parts. Be persistent, write often, and once you’ve done a block of writing, put on your critical editor’s hat and be really strict with yourself: what doesn’t work? What needs to be re-written or cut? You get better with practice, so just stick with it. Carry notebooks and scribble down ideas so you don’t forget them. Write on the tram, write in bed, write while you’re having breakfast.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, hopefully we will see you at the festival!

Thanks so much Bec, it’s been a pleasure. Hope to see you there (:

You can read more about Meg at her website.

 

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