So Hercufleas is about a
miniature hero – Lilliput had a miniature heroine – what’s with the miniature
thing?
You tell me, Miss
My-First-Novel-Was-About-Shrinking-Stuff! What is it with the miniature
thing? With Borrowers? With Minpins? With Lilliputians? With
(Honey-I-Shrunk-The) kids?
For me, though, it’s a kind of
wonderful what if? It sets me wondering. How would you do
such-and-such? What would so-and-so be like?
And I find if I wonder about something
enough, if I feed my mind enough questions, then sooner or later, it spits out
a story.
I’ve done two books about the
miniature, now. And for book number four, I’m doing the opposite - The
Gigantic...
In Lilliput did you think long
and hard about using slug slime to stick miniature Lily to the stairs or was it
obvious?
Ha! I ran through the possibilities! Could
she get a lift from a bee? Nope. Strap fleas to her feet and jump? Maybe. I
went through a whole load of ideas. Slug slime seemed to be the most
disgusting. So I went with it.
50% of book-writing is problem-solving. The
other 50% is problem-detection.
Will there ever be a sequel to
the Snow Merchant?
There are plenty of sort-of-sequels. Hercufleas
is one. It is set in the same world, a few decades after… Lettie makes a
(very) brief appearance.
The next book is a prequel to The
Snow Merchant, set about twenty years before. It features some of the same
characters - Teresa, Lettie’s Ma, is a young girl.
Also, I’ve just written a short story
for the National Literacy Trust, that tells what happens to Noah from the Snow
Merchant. You ought to be able to read that for free on their website, soonish.
I love to include old characters in new
stories. It makes me feel like they really exist, and they don’t end when the
book does. It’s cool to glimpse a main character in someone else’s tale. We’re
all the supporting cast in everyone else’s lives, right? And it is exciting for
me, because I feel like I’m creating a new world, and my world has a population
that meet each other.
Do you write using music?
I used to. Sometimes it helps create a mood,
doesn’t it? The downside is that the music creates all the atmosphere,
and disguises the fact that the writing needs to work harder!
But some music can help give you a rhythm to
work with. Novels are songs, sung in your head. They need a beat to them, and
music can do that.
Who reads your manuscripts first?
Hmm. Well, once I have them finished, it
probably goes in roughly this order: My wife. My agent. Me. My editor. My mum.
When you’re writing - who do you
imagine you are writing for?
Myself, at first. But after that, for edits
and stuff, I imagine the assemblies of the schools I visit. It can be useful.
They sort of sit in your head as you read things back over, and you can tell
when you’re losing them, and when you’re hooking them in.
These books are all firmly middle
grade so I want to know - when you were 10 what did you want to be when you
grew up?
Taxi driver.
Really? And what books were you reading at that age?
Redwall by Brian Jacques. Star
Wars books. Ray Bradbury short stories.
And when you came home from
school – what did you do?
Designed extremely complicated boardgames,
and played Lego.
So – on to that very important
subject what is your favourite board
game?
OOOOOOOOHHH.
SUCH.
A.
HARD.
QUESTION.
My favourite has to be an old Risk-type
game, called Power. Me and my mate Steve Biggs used to play it. He
always wiped the floor with me. You plan all your moves at the same time on
paper, then play them all at once. It’s brill.
But I also love Avalon - which you
have to play with a bunch of friends. You’re all Knights of the Round Table,
and you all get cards with secret identities, and you have to form teams to go
on quests for the good of Camelot. But some of the Table are evil minions of
Mordred, and they’ll say anything to get on a quest and sabotage it..!
Sam’s new book, Hercufleas,
(Anderson Press) is hot off the press
and available in all good bookshops. The Snow Merchant and Lilliput are also
published by Anderson Press.
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