Latest / Mythmakers / Thirst: Horror Folk Stories, Uncanny Rivers and the Walking Dead

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Thirst: Horror Folk Stories, Uncanny Rivers and the Walking Dead · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, my name is Julia Golding.
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  And today I'm doing one of my favourite things which is to meet a fellow fantasy writer
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  and we are in conversation today with Darren Simpson whose book first is just about to come
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  out. If you're listening to this a bit later on, it's come out in September 2025 but we're
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  just on the eve of publication as we chat. So hello Darren.
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  Hi Nadelia. It's lovely to meet you. Now Darren, it's not your first book is it?
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  No it's my fourth published book after I've sort of sort of said I've published this
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  episode for all that Malaki. Okay well we'll get to the journey to being a published writer in a
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  minute but let's start by little Darren. Who were your gateway authors to falling in love with the
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  idea of writing fantasy in particular? What were you reading? Yeah it's a company with a multi-media
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  thing for me growing up really. So I think like a lot of people I guess my first memorable
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  introduction to fantasy would have been the Narnia books. I remember sort of reading through those
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  while I was quite young and enjoying those and then after that I think it became a bit more of a VHS
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  thing I think in our home. VHS for the younger generation is would you like to explain?
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  Well do not I don't actually know what it stands for now I think about it.
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  It's a video cassette tape. Yes. So it's the technology prior to DVDs. Funnily enough you've
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  having said that little sidebar I have just taken my wedding video not professionally done but
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  a wedding video which is on a VHS tape to be translated you know into something digital so that we
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  can watch it. So that technology is a good 30 years old. Yes yes basically yeah and what that
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  technology means is that back in the 80s with you basically the family would have a few VHS tapes
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  i.e films around in the drawer in the house and you'd because you'd have so few of them you watch
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  them over and over again as a child. So and I remember we didn't have many VHS cassettes but we did
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  have of course labyrinths which I think everyone had on tape in those days and also the
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  never-ending story so very sort of classic 80s fantasy kind of got me to run into that.
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  And I think another one that was quite influenced along me actually it's a bit more of a cult one
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  but it was a film called Crull in the 80s I don't know if you remember that page. Is that sci-fi?
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  It's kind of a weird fantasy sci-fi that's kind of what I like about it on hindsight it's kind of
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  this weird it's kind of got a very strong sort of medieval fantasy vibe but there are weird sci-fi
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  and I think it's on the tale of Star Wars I think the studio is competing but it's got a weird
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  fantasy plus sci-fi blend and to be honest I mean it wasn't it's not a great film and it's quite
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  flawed but I remember being struck by that combination that kind of weird mixing of genres at the time
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  I think it's still quite distinctive now even though the film isn't brilliant it's got a very young
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  romical training and stuff like that you know it's got all these names yeah it's worth the watch
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  but like there's not great film but stylistically that blend of fantasy and science fiction really
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  come up so I like fantasy and science fiction that kind of restayed with me so I think that was a
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  big thing but in terms of reading fantasy a lot regularly the first thing I don't know if it
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  really like I assume it counts but the Terry Pratchett's Disc World books of course it counts yeah
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  right yeah sort of different approach to fantasy but I grew up in an army estate and well it was
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  in Germany or often abroad so we didn't have a British an English library instead the army would
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  have a band that went around to all the army estates like a library van something I still love
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  the idea of and I just kind of every time they'd have them there are many things I like like the
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  asterisk comics and stuff like that but I was just I was just wolfing down these Terry Pratchett
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  books and I think it was my introduction not to fantasy but I guess to do using fantasy as an
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  as an analogy as kind of satire I was reading duck with saddles at the time as well kind of you
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  know sort of doing similar thing with science fiction and I think I really fell for what fantasy
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  allows you in terms of kind of obviously the satirical element there's a lot of absurdity you
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  can play of and stuff but just that whole idea of an analogy really appeals to me that way you
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  can explore our world through very different worlds and so they were big things for me and yeah
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  I'd say those those ones yes of course for me the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the
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  Douglas Adams started first as a radio play I mean eights me but that's early eights and I would
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  let the thing about the technology then is you had to record the live program so you had to be
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  there press record but I got I did so have my little cassette tape and so I could almost pretty much
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  recite vast quantities of what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book says as a result because it
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  sort of goes into your brain like poetry or something doesn't it yeah and it's yeah wonderful the
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  Douglas Adams books particularly for me it was always particularly the first one yes yes I
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  think I mean the others have their funny moments but the first one is just superb yeah also as
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  I say like unlike the Terry Pratchett fantasy books I think as much as those books are very
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  which comedy they are I'm a full of a lot of wisdom and humanity I think like Terry Pratchett in
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  particular there's just so much satire that was still very relevant today I think and I think
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  the reason those books are still so popular now and the Douglas Adams ones because there's there's
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  quite a sort of timeless yeah it's just kind of really sort of then latching on to some human things that
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  don't particularly change I guess over time yeah have you ever read his essays a slip of the
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  keyboard no I've never read any of this but not for a treat for that on the reading list
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  he's got some great wise words about things like dark lords should be rationed
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  what's the name of that one again slip a slip of the keyboard
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  and I think they are a gathering together of the various bits and pieces he wrote for other
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  publications but it comes out as a set of essay so anybody out there who wants a kind of humorous
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  take on fantasy writing it's it's a very good good place to go sounds great so let's turn to
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  first now first reminded me an awful lot of the kind of fantasy you get from those people who
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  are steeped in folklore particularly in the UK context I'm thinking of Alan Garner was the one
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  I was immediately taken to so while you're reading Alan Garner growing up or is this something
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  people have told you since that your book is like this person you never heard of yeah it's kind of
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  more the latter really I think obviously new the name Alan Garner for a long time but I think
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  my interest in in folklore and advertising with fantasy and and folk horror too there's kind of more
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  recent fascination that comes to me as a writer and and I think as I learned about it the likes of
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  the Susan Cooper and Alan Garner they come up a lot so I read the out service but only kind of maybe
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  like a couple of years ago when I was sort of thinking about writing something for this age group
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  and so I only read the out service and I enjoyed it massively and so but yeah I wouldn't say
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  it had a chance that sort of thing had a chance to influence me too much it was more something
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  I approached kind of from the other direction in hindsight really yes and so so the I think the
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  the tie is the the the thus almost horror relationship with with folklore which is why people go
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  there anyway let's before we talk about other people let's talk about your book tell us a little
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  bit about first and what's going on in the book and who are you imagining as your your reader as you
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  do it because it's not a young child's book but it's something you can pick up when I'm guessing
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  you're about ten upwards yeah so normally I book so far I've been what people call middle grade I
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  guess so about nine plus nine to twelve and but even my open this book is a bit old and I say
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  officially like the publisher of marketing this book has been for teens so twelve plus is what
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  they're saying because there is some more mature and dark content without slipping to sort of into
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  the sort of no sex and drugs you might get in YA it's kind of that there's a bit of a there's a
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  bit of a reading age that's uncatered for in a way which is kind of that when you're between being
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  a young reader and a YA reader there's a bit of a gap there and this kind of feels that gap where
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  it's again not in YA but it satisfies maybe that hunger for more mature themes for something
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  that's a bit edgy and dark darker so yeah it's a basically twelve plus but a lot of adults have
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  always read my books to them hoping they'd like us to I still write for adults we even want to
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  write for children and it's kind of and that's just kind of how I like writing and you don't I
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  don't want to patronize or talk down to my readers and I think thinking about both all this helps
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  with that and so yeah so that's the age group in terms of the story it's it's basically a it's
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  about a fictional rural pre-industrial village called main debris but they're a bit quirky they
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  they worship their river and that this is kind of based on real kind of pagan traditions I guess
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  there's been a lot of research and that's found that there was a lot people to treat rivers as
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  living entities and that kind of sort of thing inspired this book so in this story it
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  managed to be the folk there they worship their river they sort of and it gives them plenty it
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  gives them their fish it kind of helps it gives them water obviously it kind of irrigates the fields
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  and in return to that they often annual sacrifice every festival every spring echo equinox there's
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  a festival called Yale thank and they go deep into the woods they go to the river they tie ribbons
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  to the trees and they offer wine and honey they pour it into the river they offer like kind of
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  dolls and also they sacrifice a farm animal every Yale thank as well there's a the Yale thank queen
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  she puts on a sort of like a crown of flowers and guides the ram into the water or the sheep
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  and and that's why I mean it gets it gets drowned as an offering to the river and the river
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  gives back in return but this year the main character in the story Gorse he discovers the this
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  drowned ram it kind of it turns up in a kind of on land called quite far from the river outside
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  the forest that concerns him because it's the sacrifice to the river and when he checks this out
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  of the elders they reassure him it's okay this means it's a brim year it means the river's
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  satisfied already it's returned our offering what Gorse finds out during the course of novelist
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  no it doesn't mean that it means that the river wants more it means that this animal sacrifice
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  isn't enough it needs a human sacrifice and this is kind of the secret thing that goes in the
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  village that normally talks about the normally likes to admit to and so Gorse finds out that he is
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  part of the group who are responsible for hunting down someone from outside the village to drown
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  for the sake of spraying their own because the river got quite gruesome ways of taking a
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  a local life for itself so Gorse is in the and that's the crux of novelist this very moral dilemma
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  about Gorse having to basically hunt down there's a girl called Fey who's from another village and
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  she come up hiding in the frost and on the run from these people who are stalking her and he has to
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  do the thing is to join this group and try and drown Fey to satisfy the river and also he doesn't
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  want to do that but if he doesn't someone he cares about or loves or knows it's going to get taken
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  by the river instead in quite probably grizzly way and that's kind of what the novel is about it's
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  about Gorse's discovery of this situation and how he faces upside dilemma and how his character
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  kind of develops as a result of that so you mentioned it is in a sort of pre-industrial
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  village it's it's a sort of anytime anywhere it's not a specific moment in history
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  that you have in mind it's like the time you get in folklore once upon a time
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  yes a bit fairytales in that sense it's a very sort of it I kind of kept the sense of place
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  and exact time quite vague intentionally a to help with kind of maybe future projects that are
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  set in this fictional county but also to I figured if I didn't pin it down that much it would
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  give that sort of fairytales air but also yeah kind of give it more honestly kind of universal
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  feel in a sense that it is so relatable without being a specific place yeah it could almost be a
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  post apocalyptic world as well you know you don't know where it depends what where your brain goes
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  with this so I noticed as I was reading it it's beautifully illustrated it's got lovely
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  chapter vignettes by the way if you like books with little pictures in that it's full of those
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  words and the landscape of what you often hear now as the lost word so gorse
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  implicating people's names gorse, jaro, spruce these are all familiar things in the landscape
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  but we're also being told that children no longer know what these things are they no longer do
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  their nature table or like you might have done in a sort of 70s primary school are you thinking
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  at all about the the environment which is being lost to children as you're writing or if you
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  thought about this since I don't you haven't had a chance yet to try it out in school classrooms
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  I suppose yeah well that's kind of I mean that element of reintroducing people to these words
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  that is kind of yeah that's kind of a secondary bonus in a way I think I chose those names so yeah
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  basically all the characters in mainsbury to distinguish the places being very much sort of a
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  self-contained place with its own culture I came upon the idea of yeah naming all the characters
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  after kind of plants and herbs and animals and I think for me the main reason I did that is
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  because it gives the place a distinct in terms of world building it creates a kind of vibe of
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  the community a kind of feeling for the place and also I thought it just kind of a lot of those
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  verses feel so good I mean it's hard to explain but perhaps because they tied to such kind of
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  old English and stuff if there's a nice earthy feeling to them and yeah I was never
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  right using those names expecting young readers to they might recognize a couple of the terms
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  they are some more common words like for a bird rock for example might be recognized from I don't
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  know the down the line and bird up drinks perhaps but I just figured that even if young readers didn't
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  pick up on those words and their roots they would they're pun intended they would still get a
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  feeling of place from those names of kind of atmosphere and then if any of them did pick up on
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  that or learn about it afterwards and look up those words and learn some new terms about natural
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  things like that that's for me is a is a massive bonus but it was probably never the main goal it's
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  not a single yeah so yeah I'd say it's about more about feeling in place and then but I do love
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  that idea of if a few young readers do sort of start looking up those words or they come across
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  them later on when they're older perhaps and they get an interest in that sort of thing that's
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  always a really nice thing to imagine happening but you mentioned us was what do you for me as a
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  fellow writer is that interesting side of your naming process is part of your world building
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  uh you mentioned Douglas Adams of course he's got great silly names you know it's
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  as he bark fast and that's the one I immediately go to name things like that you know you're
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  you're in a silly world of sci-fi yes yes absolutely yeah yeah our fader is
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  serious you know you can tell they're meant to be afraid of this character if our fader was
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  called sarty bark fast it would not work so I'm not just on this book how do you go about the
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  process of finding your your names and do you change names this is something I sometimes do do
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  you change names while you're writing yeah that's interesting I mean so sometimes like the names
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  will have a very sort of specific purpose or meaning like for example the the role I just mentioned
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  for the names in first or for another example in my first book scavengers there's a the main character
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  is called landfill which is kind of a reference to this is basically a boy growing up on a sort of
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  dystopian junk it's like a junkyard jungle book sort of story and uh his name kind of is a sort of
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  it says a lot about the fact that he was kind of a found chart when he's kind of thrown away but it
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  says a lot about how a lot of stuff we throw away is precious and his guardian who named it was
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  called babagu which that's kind of a way of hiding his real name and it sort of reveals something
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  about his but sometimes basically sometimes the names do have a real purpose in terms of connecting
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  with the characters say something about them uh other times though when it's perhaps more normal
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  games when our names when I write a book bit set more in our world with more standard names that
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  kind of often comes down sometimes they could be a connection sometimes it's just more about
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  something that feels right for the character I've got in my head and you write that name can change
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  because as I'm sure you'll know often your characters you sort of have an idea of what they are
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  at first but as you start writing they do change and they become other people they start making
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  their own decisions or surprising you and sometimes the name suddenly doesn't fit anymore so
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  and of course names are all kind of even what we would call normal names they're all laid down
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  of kind of certain kind of class assumptions I guess and reasonable elements and stuff so
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  so even the normal name says so much doesn't it so yeah I would say that sometimes my names have
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  a lot of purpose someone who just have feel right and they can change depending on how the character
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  develops yeah I want to buy early fantasy books for the same sort of middle grade teen area was
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  called the glass swallow and I decided in that that this area I was writing about children are
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  named after something that happens at their birth so the main character is called rain because
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  it was raining and of course I I thought oh that's a nice idea but what then happened was every time
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  I came to name a somebody in that world I had to think what was happening when they were born
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  so immediately I got a backstory you know if it was peace maybe they just hurt
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  after a war peace have been made or something happened yeah sorry maybe someone had died you know
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  so I know there are cultures where my my sister in Norris from Ghana and there's an element of this
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  in the naming of children there and in her sort of a family culture so I'm probably picked it
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  out from her but it really works as a way of prompting a backstory connection to to what was going
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  the other thing I find about naming characters in the real world books having just spent the
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  summer writing one is that there's a slight very practical about not having the same starting
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  letter for main characters because the way people read is you do it quite often people read by
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  whole word recognition so you might be able to get away with Harry and Hermione because Hermione is
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  so much longer than Harry yes but ideally you wouldn't do Harry Ron Hermione you do Harry Ron
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  and something beginning with another letter yeah yeah that's not very Hogwarts name is it
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  Linda maybe that would have been quite good for Hermione because she was a daughter of dentist
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  anyway so there are some practical things about how you choose to name that's very true yeah I know
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  an unpublished book I wrote was called and there was the two main characters there was a
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  cool name love so that there was an imaginary character being imagined by the main character
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  called a bongo the bongo kid and the other character then the main character had a name like
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  I think it was Billy or something like that and testry at his point out it gets a bit annoying
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  when you get a similar sound going over and over again because they're too small name so you're
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  right there are as much as we can sort of follow certain instincts you there are yeah you're
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  right very practical considerations but I love the idea of that in the glass swallow that's
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  that's a beautiful idea yeah well it's not original to me there were cultures around the world
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  that do it so you feel free to you know nab that one I was also wanting to ask you about the
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  balance of cruelty and courage in the book because well not many of these adults come out well
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  because they're planning to sacrifice someone so yes you know it's a wicked man world thank you
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  that film um but I think goss too is ambivalent because he he isn't finding it easy to make this choice
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  um it's the kind of choice that you might have to make in a horrible war yes living in Germany
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  during the second world war or something is that sort of feel of there is really very
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  limited scope for good decisions um and it may be wonder about where good and evil resides in your
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  world well you thinking that the sort of predominant so we've got a river that is some sort of
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  entity but are you thinking that it's a entity which is made by the people's belief in it or
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  is there some external sense of as you often get in folklore some kind of um spiritual forces
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  outside the village yeah so how and I suppose that that would decide where the standards of good
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  and evil reside is it's a complex question but these are some of the most interesting things about
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  inventing a fantasy world with new forms of faith and religious practices yeah or folk practices
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  so where did you land on that one um so yeah I mean in terms of I mean the river in this story
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  it's um the river literally literally has an awareness and it has a hunger and it's a real thing
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  and like as much as it's kind of I guess the one we may antagonist of the story it is a natural
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  thing that simply wants to survive just like any natural thing that's alive I guess so um as
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  much as it kind of does quite sinister things throughout this story uh uh to kind of do to get
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  what it wants it is the agency is ultimately with the human element I would say the kind of human
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  drama element with with so in terms of that I it's interesting to mention the wicker man um
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  I guess that's going to come up quite a lot during um as I talk quite a spoken future and I think
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  I from my memory the island in the wicker man the all the locals who know what really goes on there
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  they're kind of they're fine with it and they're like almost gleeful it's quite festival-based it's
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  quite um the difference with maims breeze that even though people are aware of it they kind of never
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  they're not happy about it they don't enjoy it um they are reluctant about it they kind of try not
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  it's like an unspoken truth that no one does admit no one does talk to makes them very uncomfortable
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  and that's why there's a kind of very very small group called the satyrs who are the ones who are
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  responsible for doing this and they don't like doing it although one of the satyrs does enjoy
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  the hunt he does enjoy the powerless role gives him so again it's exploring different sort of
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  human approaches to these kind of dilemmas we have and of course yeah you're right here's
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  way I'm relevant because I mean I don't I couldn't figure out how you could not be because he's
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  he has to choose between killing a stranger or someone he loves dying which is a impossible
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  dilemma and it's something that obviously people have been complicit within within it's village
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  for a long time and the whole point and goodness and badness is that Gauss is the first of many many
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  generations to finally do something about that ambivalent to act upon it and so you know
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  I'm sorry when between with spoiler but he sort of ends up doing the right thing he ends up
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  taking the risk of doing the right thing because people listening to this are going to be adults
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  largely if they're considering buying it for a younger reader don't worry they're not going to
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  leave with a message that is fine to go around murdering strangers like that is not where we land
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  but there is definitely a cruelty within the world and the natural world yes and also within
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  some people which is part of this folkloric driving the folkloric background which takes us on
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  to what I actually enjoyed the most which is your walking dead no I have enough walking dead
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  because they felt different and organic and spooky so the zombie is the wrong word because the
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  zombie is actually from a particular particular sort of folkloric tradition or religious tradition
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  isn't it but when I'm talking about the walking dead I am talking about those that come back
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  in a form so George was a little bit about what you felt they what part they were playing because
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  there is I can think of at least two important ones yeah so um so I mean that's in terms of the way
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  as the readable front out later on the novel that the way that a river do have to have
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  developed a funnest certain way to take offerings for itself take sacrifice for itself so
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  it does I mean it does various things I mean in the past you know it can you know there can be
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  accidents in the water it could take a fissure and that sort of thing but in terms of getting on
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  the land it can't reach the land so the method is kind of I sort of see as a sort of um
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  I was I was kind of like a corpse hydraulics I would describe it so you know the lives in the river
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  bed is full of dead animals dead bodies previous sacrifices and stuff so when the river needs to
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  do its thing if it needs to do that then it basically can fill the corpse with itself rather than
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  with the blood that would have been originally there so and whatever it needs it can kind of dredge
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  up and send on to the land so yeah there is a there's a zombie element in the sense that these are
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  things I mean in the book there is a whether the stack that appears in this kind of form and there's
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  a kind of a fairly central character who comes back in this form as well but yeah you're right it's
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  not the sort of traditional kind of zombie because these things haven't returned them in given life
• 25:16
  they're simply filled with the river and they're being controlled they're limbs they're organs
• 25:21
  so yeah it's yeah so it's not a zombie book but there's that parallel but that's how the river
• 25:25
  works it can basically fill it's got this riverbed full of of things of broad bodies ready for using
• 25:30
  and depending on those needs it will take one and send it on land to either lure someone to tempt
• 25:36
  them like they're like the sirens of old that sort of thing or to use more violent direct beings
• 25:40
  whatever it needs really yeah so I suppose this leads me to thinking about your magic system because
• 25:46
  it's come on is writing fantasy with a magic in it you have to work out the limits of your magic
• 25:53
  so that you've got like a magic budget that you spend within your rules did you yours is quite
• 25:59
  I would say quite a low level people like them spells so it's it's the river mainly isn't it
• 26:06
  it's the the young cany the supernatural magic element in I mean have I got that right in terms
• 26:13
  yeah I'd say and can is a good word for I think yeah so I mean there's obviously a strong
• 26:16
  supernatural element but this is sort of rather than being a very explicit I say sort of spell
• 26:22
  basement magic system it is more based on old folklore I guess and kind of more ancient belief
• 26:28
  systems overall I'd say if I could think of compared to one fantasy book it would be that the
• 26:34
  earth see books I mean those are all words and spells which aren't in this book but at the same time
• 26:40
  from what I gathered of the earth see books it's very much based upon balance and kind of the
• 26:45
  tapestry of things and maintaining order and balance and that's very much what how the the
• 26:51
  kind of supernatural element in the world of first works there is always a balance and also it
• 26:58
  draws upon the idea of kind of underworlds and thin places these kind of thin barriers these memories
• 27:02
  between the world we know and then something more magical on the other side and that's kind of
• 27:07
  where the power of the river comes for example a lot of beliefs around the world and a lot of
• 27:12
  folklore systems believe that water for example as something that is a bit contradictory a bit
• 27:17
  complex in fact it's always different you know river is always different it's always the same
• 27:22
  this kind of idea of reflections a lot these tie and add up to the idea of rivers and water being
• 27:29
  something a boundary so yeah there's a there's a kind of other world called l's world let's
• 27:34
  refer to a couple times in the book and that's kind of where the supernatural power comes from
• 27:38
  and it can be drawn up and it can be given offerings as well so it's like a two exchange and
• 27:44
  there's a trickster element to it and sometimes sometimes it doesn't always do what people
• 27:48
  hope in the story that happens in the story as well but I'd say overall yeah I mean again I
• 27:53
  only recently read the obviously books actually I've absolutely adored them and I loved the magic
• 27:57
  and I don't think it was a direct influence but there are parallels in this idea of I think this
• 28:01
  it's a very organic natural order of things and the magic system ties in with that I would say
• 28:06
  and you're right I don't I'm not keen on magic magic systems are too loose which is why I've kept
• 28:12
  some vagueness because I like the sense of an unknowbility to this kind of other world to this
• 28:16
  power but there are also very strict rules in terms of for example how to defeat the river
• 28:21
  how to achieve certain things there are specific rules that are set so that the character's kind of
• 28:25
  deal within that boundary I guess does that make sense yes but you also have the message that you
• 28:30
  can break out of patterns which are destructive absolutely yeah absolutely again we're not going
• 28:37
  to tell you the end but the idea is that some of these practices have grown up to feed this beast
• 28:44
  to feed them on not not patent you want to bring on to the next generation so absolutely yeah
• 28:51
  absolutely in terms of I was talking early on about analogy for example in fantasy and I don't
• 28:57
  sort of I'm hoping it's fairly subtle and not too on the nose but this this kind of fictional
• 29:02
  mainstream place where people have this complicity and something in accept tolerating sacrifice
• 29:07
  of others for their own benefit for their own plenty there's kind of the idea was probably there
• 29:12
  are parallels to what goes on in our world you know when you think about kind of the way things work
• 29:16
  how much even now when we're talking about a couple of laptops or the clothes I'm wearing you know
• 29:21
  and it's nothing we do on purpose it's the system we're kind of born into and what we're used to
• 29:25
  but these things all depend on kind of people being exploited elsewhere and we kind of either have
• 29:29
  to deal with that around comfortably or try and just turn up like that or we can be active about a
• 29:34
  bit and these are things I would never expect of anyone or make big judgments about but that kind of
• 29:38
  is the kind of dilemma I hope this story has a parallel to I guess yeah there's a lovely discussion
• 29:44
  going back to Tolkien and Lewis where they talk about the difference between an allegory and
• 29:50
  something which is applicable so allegory is your one-on-one like a political cartoon world you
• 29:59
  know so this this parliament of fouls going to the medieval version is a parliament of people
• 30:06
  and you know so you do that owl is that person and so on and parliament of birds isn't it parliament
• 30:14
  of fouls anyway so that's a one-on-one thing and they think it was Tolkien said that's in the power
• 30:21
  of the author whereas application is in the power of the reader somebody reads your story and
• 30:29
  thinks oh that's a bit like the dilemma that I'm facing over buying things from this online
• 30:36
  return or going on a long haul flight or whatever it is is your particular thing you're applying
• 30:43
  somebody else's book and they put that in there perhaps knowingly perhaps unknowingly but they're
• 30:49
  not forcing you to take a moral from the story so I've always found that a really helpful way of
• 30:55
  thinking through how a book can be engaging in the sort of world debates without being didactic
• 31:04
  yes exactly that's what I was thinking of because I think that's a I think often a bit of
• 31:08
  attempt actually especially when you're writing for younger readers is to slip and sort of like
• 31:11
  yeah I mean a lot of my books do have messages and someone I'm wrong the knows and others but
• 31:15
  I do prefer it when you can have that message there as an almost just a possible thing for
• 31:20
  each to pick up on in their own way and I do yeah again it's about not talking down to young readers
• 31:25
  maybe just sort of planting ideas in subtle ways or things like resonating ways they don't understand
• 31:30
  just yet you know so I think you're right I do prefer giving messages in that sort of way I think
• 31:37
  it's really interesting yeah so let's talk about the actual process of writing I know a few people
• 31:44
  some of the people listening to this will be trying to write their own novels did you have a
• 31:50
  relatively smooth sailing between published or was it many many years of trying how did it happen
• 31:55
  for you yeah definitely wasn't a smooth sailing so I so my first published was scavengers I got
• 32:01
  a sort of crowdfunded sort of indie book before that as well a very small scale but yeah before
• 32:06
  I actually got published by traditional publisher I say I was going for nearly a decade I think I
• 32:12
  wrote like three or four books that didn't make it anywhere so it was a long journey and when I
• 32:18
  do school visits I try not to sort of that question comes up how long did this take you to get
• 32:22
  published and I try not to put young writers off or any writers off because that sounds like it
• 32:27
  sounds like a slog it sounds like a lot of work but at the same time it's sometimes it can be a gift
• 32:31
  to have to go for that struggle because I think if for example when I wrote my first novel if that
• 32:36
  got published I wouldn't quite know which author I was yet I wouldn't really have my writers
• 32:39
  voice settled down just yet and so for me yes it was a long slog and I definitely was very close
• 32:43
  to giving up at times but I learned so much on the way there's nothing I will tell kind of writers
• 32:50
  who are trying to get published to everything even you know every short story every idea you have
• 32:54
  that doesn't work out it's never a waste it's always practice it will always feed into what
• 32:58
  ultimately does become your first success so so yeah for me was definitely a long slog and hard at
• 33:04
  the time but I'm glad on hindsight and do you enjoy the process of working with an editor I do yeah
• 33:11
  I remember I never I remember I was much more young and a bit more I don't know I don't want
• 33:15
  to be a bit uncompromising I sort of not like the idea of someone meddling with my stuff you know
• 33:20
  I mean which is a bit on highs it's quite a young attitude I think but now having been through
• 33:24
  especially I mean it might be that I've been lucky I've always had I've only I mean I'm fairly
• 33:29
  neutral so I've only had two editors so far my experience but they've both been editors who really
• 33:33
  get what I do and understand what I do and I think I so I mean might be different if you have
• 33:38
  an editor to seize your book as being something else to what you imagine it being but I've been
• 33:42
  lucky that we've always kind of clicked in that sense so I've always enjoyed the editing experience
• 33:46
  a lot I've never been afraid to sort of say if I disagree or something I don't understand
• 33:51
  something but I am basically so far my experience my books have always been better for that kind of
• 33:57
  fresh self-experience diet I mean how do you how do you find it has your view of that sort of
• 34:01
  thing changed as you've kind of gone on? No no I've always really I always feel it's um it's like
• 34:10
  I'm not gonna go back to CS series again um there's that bit it's it's been in a completely
• 34:15
  different context but there's a bit where Eustace um turns into a dragon and um he can't change
• 34:21
  himself back into a boy he needs Aslan to take the dragon skin off him I often feel the editor
• 34:26
  and that's got really just sort of application but I think about it in terms of me as a writer
• 34:31
  that actually sometimes I feel as though I'm stuck in my dragon skin and I need somebody to
• 34:38
  umpill those layers which are getting in the way of the story should be it happens I find that
• 34:45
  I still sometimes can get a major edit particularly if I'm starting um the first novel in a new
• 34:51
  series for example but and it gets less because then you anticipate what someone's going to say
• 34:57
  and do so you get less edited in a way as it goes on but what makes me laugh is possibly because
• 35:06
  editors do have very sensitive flowers of um authors um always the letters are couched in this sort
• 35:13
  of you know this is really good and you know don't get defended if I tell you that it's not
• 35:18
  perfect you know they don't quite put it like that but that's the subtext is please don't throw
• 35:22
  your toys out the prayer yes and I always want to see look just tell me tell me what you think
• 35:27
  because I know that after I've had a think about what you're saying you've often picked on things
• 35:32
  which I had in the back of my mind weren't quite right but thought no one would notice yeah
• 35:37
  actually it's really helpful if you tell me yeah so um I think it's great and it's a privilege it
• 35:43
  so these days the economics of getting published are really rubbish it was much better when I started
• 35:49
  out um so a lot of the joys of editing are like free work or my books for me yeah I look at it
• 35:56
  like that um yeah because authors don't people out there be afraid authors don't make a lot of money
• 36:03
  unless they happen to hit the big time with a but that's a different league most of us are just
• 36:09
  puttering along piecing together uh yeah and it's funny how that um that kind of idea of right
• 36:16
  is I mean the amount of schools I go to when I do festive lens or school visits um so many
• 36:21
  will not just say younger readers there are a lot of adults often assume that if you're a
• 36:23
  published writer or rich it's still quite a kind of common cliche in people's minds and it probably
• 36:29
  hasn't been since maybe the I don't know maybe as far back as the night is there a lot of from
• 36:33
  authors who have very did very well for themselves but now you know I saw um I sort of have a part
• 36:39
  time job which um I'm very again feel very privileged to sort of have half my income come from writing
• 36:44
  wondering what I love and that took a long time to get there but yeah a lot of people do still
• 36:48
  assume the right is a generally must be quite wealthy because their books are in shops then
• 36:51
  and this doesn't apply just to books obviously applies to the music industry it's just the way
• 36:54
  a lot of creative industries are going but um which is sort of partially why you do have to do it
• 37:00
  obviously not just for the money right yeah yes there were I think partly it's because of
• 37:07
  the emptying out of the value particularly I do a lot of adult publishing with HarperCollins
• 37:11
  in the download predominantly they expect the book to go as a download so genre publishing
• 37:18
  uh motor mysteries that kind of thing um and it your your books are being sold for on deals for
• 37:24
  99 cents or 99p it's not even a cup of coffee yeah um so you have to think how many and that
• 37:33
  the author isn't getting 99p the author is getting some fraction of a fraction that's right yeah
• 37:39
  so um you have to sell a lot of books to make that add up to hundreds of pounds let alone thousands
• 37:46
  of pounds so yes you don't do it for that reason there are people having said that there are people
• 37:52
  of course who have the the phenomenon book which will pay the bills which will then become a film
• 38:01
  which will then become a stage play yes that does happen but um if you're aspiring to be in
• 38:07
  also don't give up the day job if you get a contract because it won't work like that um and you
• 38:15
  just have to really enjoy what you do yeah I mean the same story it's just a story yeah yeah
• 38:21
  and I mean I mean I mean for me like obviously um I'd love to sort of um have that sort of
• 38:27
  fair stroke of luck at some point it sends me to do this full time and I don't know I don't know
• 38:31
  a couple of writers who have done it at the same time um it's so it's so rewarding in other ways
• 38:37
  it's just such an amazing I mean I also a lot of income doesn't just come from that percentage
• 38:42
  of the percentage uh you know I do a lot of school visits and that kind of like kind of help us
• 38:46
  pay the bills and stuff so there's there's kind of a much more holistic picture to kind of what you
• 38:49
  can do and earn as an author and also just like sounds cheesy but to be able to have these
• 38:56
  stories in your head and share them and then have people respond to them and uh when it responds
• 39:00
  positive or negative just just to add to sharing them in these books coming alive and other people's
• 39:04
  heads it's um it's just it's still I still feel very lucky when I wake up every day and remember
• 39:09
  that I get to do that exactly that's why we do it yeah um okay so where we always land is we
• 39:16
  try and think of where in all the fantasy worlds by which we mean it can be a computer game it can
• 39:22
  be a film it can be a novel series where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be something
• 39:29
  and I was thinking about your walking dead your revenants your zombie return ease and there is
• 39:37
  quite a literature out there but where do you think would be a good place to be a walking dead
• 39:42
  like the zombie type character you don't have to be a good guy you could have a great time as a
• 39:47
  bad guy in this world it um but where would you think would be a fun place it's like a water-powered
• 39:53
  undead creature you can be your own type if you want or you can just say I like the world of
• 40:01
  um what I was thinking this is the sort of is the Garth Nyx um
• 40:07
  sabriel uh there's a trilogy a Garth Nyx is an Australian writer if you come across him but
• 40:14
  that's all about death and putting creatures back to sleep again um so that's a great world for
• 40:22
  bruh yeah that's the revenants I think it's a sabriel liriel and abhorson other three
• 40:29
  liriel i think he's all about a lot has got a sort of central library but sabriel is a
• 40:35
  necromancer and she's charged with returning the dead spirits back to sort of the layers it's
• 40:43
  like a layers of gates to hell or not out underworld that's an underworld type thing yeah um they're
• 40:50
  great books i think you'd really enjoy them yeah i do i do know of Garth Nyx um yeah i'll have to
• 40:54
  check that out um i'm just thinking as well where where i of the other worlds i could put my um
• 41:00
  kind of uh my hydraulic corpses i think one of them i saw a little while ago is the cinema's
• 41:06
  recently i guess it's not a fantasy world as such but if we can it doesn't matter uh if you've
• 41:10
  got a fan because once your guys get there it turns fantasy well okay well yeah that's true um
• 41:14
  thinking that i was told that 28 years later recently in the cinema the yeah the dany boll film and
• 41:19
  i think that struck me um obviously that's that's proper zombies in that kind of series of stories
• 41:25
  than that those movies but the the most recent film it's got again that quite strong focus feel
• 41:31
  it's a kind of island based small community where they survived and it's all gone a bit yeah rustic
• 41:36
  and so it's not kind of yeah rustic folkloric community pluses on these so i think if i place one
• 41:41
  on my one on my guy's bed it'd be quiet home perhaps
• 41:45
  i think it'd be fine this is pretty pretty nice yeah okay so they're 28 28 years later
• 41:53
  yes that's got ray fines in hasn't it that film it has yeah in it in a new person yeah i think he um
• 42:00
  i think he yeah quite a quirky role as well but i think you i get the impression he played it
• 42:03
  with quite a bit of relish um but he's very good at that very good and that thank you so much
• 42:08
  Darren and all the best with the launch of this book and uh i hope it goes swimmingly oh well
• 42:13
  thank you so much for having me today it's been a lot of fun thank you
• 42:21
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• 42:27
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