Rose & Thorn: What
was your very first story and what was the inspiration for the story?
Simon Clark:
I've been telling stories
ever since I could talk and writing them ever since I could write. But
the first story I wrote that felt like a REAL STORY was A Trip out
for Mr. Harrison.. I'd be in my late teens and was riding the bus
to work when I had this mental vision of an old man walking along a
road for years on end, heading for some mysterious destination. As
soon as I arrived at work I just had to write it down. That formed the
basis for my first pro sale. It was broadcast on local radio and I was
paid around $25. I spent that several times over celebrating.
R&T:
What writers have
influenced you the most?
SC: The Welsh fantasist Arthur Machen, John Wyndham, Stephen King,
Shirley Jackson and Dylan Thomas. A big influence is a Yorkshire
writer called Stan Barstow who probably isn't known much outside the
UK. He wrote with such verve and immediacy that I've always strived to
capture that energy in my writing.
R&T: How do you feel movies
and television have impacted reading? Do you feel they are or should
be mutually exclusive?
SC:
They must have impacted hugely. I
know I'm a child of the TV age; how I write and what I write is
influenced by a heck of a lot of my childhood spent in front of the
TV. I don't believe TV/movies are bad for reading; if anything it has
forced book writers to evolve, to be more competitive. Certainly
[fewer] people read now than they used to, say forty years ago, but I
guess that's just the way it is.
R&T:
How much—or how little—of yourself
and your life do you use in creating characters, worlds, and
situations?
SC: Lots and lots. When my wife
reads my books she recognises incidents and what people we know have
said in the past. For example when my daughter was six she fell off
her bike and cut her chin badly. When she came home and I saw the wash
of blood down her chest my first horrified thought was: 'Someone's cut
her throat!' I recycled the entire scene into the opening pages of
Darkness Demands. For me it made the story more real, more potent,
so it made me care more deeply about my characters, which, hopefully,
made the novel more compelling for the reader. By the way, Helen
recovered quickly and only has a small scar under her chin to show for
her accident.
R&T: What schedule do you
follow when writing?
SC: I still keep my day job hours,
more or less, starting work at nine after I've walked the dog. I break
for lunch then work through until five. Trouble is when you're
self-employed you always have an ogre for a boss. So often I work for
a couple of hours in the evening, too.
R&T:
How much research goes into your
writing and stories and how much is research you have already learned
and continue to rely upon?
SC: A lot of research for me is
simply living life and being sponge-like, soaking up overheard
conversations on buses, watching people, recalling family life. I love
history, ancient history particularly, and read plenty about the Roman
Empire and its long Constantinople aftermath so there's always this
reservoir of history in my head that feeds ideas into my work. Of
course, sometimes I do research a particular subject whether it's
flying boats, weaponry, industrial processes or whatever. But there's
always a danger with research that if you've made copious notes about
the treatment of snake bites, for example, you are tempted to use it
all in your story. And info-dumping is a crime against good writing!
R&T:
What do you consider your worst and
your best stories? Why?
SC: What I consider my best
stories might be those that I categorise as 'firsts;' for example:
A Trip out for Mr. Harrison was my first real sale. Beside the
Seaside, Beside the Sea, was my first story to appear in a mass
market anthology (Karl Wagner's Year's Best Horror 13), Nailed by
the Heart was my first novel in 1995. But then there are stories
that give me artistic satisfaction. I'm a huge fan of Jimi Hendrix, so
to evoke the spirit of Hendrix in Howls from a Blinding Curve
was deeply satisfying for me. My worst stories? That's like being
asked to name your least favourite son or daughter. There's no story
of mine that I hate but perhaps there are one or two that I had to
rush for a deadline, which could have done with a little more
polishing.
R&T: What is the best
writing advice you were given?
SC: This was from an agent who
nearly represented me but never did (she left the profession and the
country--something I said?). But here's their advice: If you're
writing a novel imagine that your reader will be a commuter reading a
chapter each train journey. They want to be entertained, so make sure
something interesting happens in every chapter.
R&T: What advice would you
give a writer just starting out?
SC: First, write the kind of story
that you would like to read. Some other points: Set a story in a place
you know well, your old school, corner store, the street where you
live. Take the time to write a couple of pages of your character's
autobiography, perhaps recalling the worst day of their school life or
the best birthday they ever had. There's no need to use this in your
story but it will help you learn to understand your character and what
motivates them.
R&T: What legacy would you
like to leave?
SC: In two hundred years I'd like
someone to read one of my stories and say, 'Hey, this is all right.'
R&T:
What does the writing life mean to
you?
SC: Freedom to live the kind of
life I've longed for since I was thirteen or so. As U2 once put it:
the power to dream out loud.
R&T:
Having won a major genre award, has
it changed you or your writing? How?
SC: I don't think it has change my
writing or my life, and the two awards proudly flank my TV (there's
ego for you!). The awards were very good publicity and probably
contributed to sales, but awards aren't vital for a writer's career.
R&T:
Why did you gravitate towards
science fiction and fantasy? Do you believe the boundaries between
genres are becoming less constrictive or more so?
SC: It has to be TV. I lapped
up science fiction as a kid. That love of the genre still spills into
the horror I write. A hundred years ago the boundary between science
fiction and fantasy was porous. In the sixties, seventies, eighties
the genres became distinct, even isolated, but now the edges
are happily blurring again.
R&T: Do
you get writer’s block and, if so, how do you handle it?
SC: I'm too
superstitious to even answer that one!
R&:T
The theme in your books is either
apocalyptic or dealing with the old gods. Why?
SC: There's something so
compelling about these ancient deities that are now in effect
redundant. I keep wondering if they existed what they would do now to
try and gain a foothold in human lives. There were so many apocalypses
in ancient times--plagues, earthquake, invasion--that caused the
collapse of civilisations. I find it endlessly fascinating how people
recovered from absolute disaster to rebuild society anew.
R&T:
You obviously read a lot of science
fiction and horror. Do you feel that colors your choice of plots,
characters, or locations? Why? Why not?
SC: I guess
there must be influence with plots, characters, locations but I try
not to allow what I read to consciously influence me. If anything I
like to find a real-life location then imagine what characters might
have visited there or lived there then allow them to move into the
story and tell it for themselves, but channelled through me of course.
R&T: With Night of the
Triffids you carried on with John Wyndham’s story. Do you plan to
mine any other old territory that you feel has left the reader hanging
on what happens next?
SC: I'd never say never but I've
no real plans to do so yet. I guess there is a similar vibe happening
with writing about an old house, for example, where its past still
haunts the present in some way. Perhaps this stems from my interest in
history, that the past isn't dead but continues to seep through into
the present and affect how we live today.
R&T:
Have you ever considered writing in
any other genre or does science fiction/horror provide you with enough
ground to cover?
SC: I've
written some crime stories, including a couple of Sherlock Holmes
tales. But for me there's still so much to explore in science
fiction/horror. I guess the obvious one for me would be to write a
historical novel but when I'll finally get down to it goodness only
knows.
R&T: Do you feel constricted
as a horror writer or do you feel the lines between genres are blurry
enough to allow exploration into other genres?
SC: No, I
never feel constricted. For me horror is a big canvas to continue
exploring for a while yet, also it allows me to dip into crime and
science fiction and even history.
R&T: How did the meeting go
in 1999 with the time travelers? Did they make a bold appearance or
did they remain incognito at The Howard, Sheffield on July 3rd?
SC: Ah-ha,
this stemmed from my introduction to my time travel novel The Fall.
I thought it would make a neat experiment to, in effect, use the book
as a message in a bottle. After all, by my side here on the shelves I
have books close on two hundred years old; perhaps The Fall
will be found in some attic two hundred years hence? In The Fall
I invited any time travelling readers from the future to come back and
visit me at a given place and time. I've published an account of that
experiment on my website, also I repeated it for a meeting of writers
at an English pub called the Howard. I have to say that if there were
any time travellers at the pub they were the shy retiring kind who
didn't make themselves known.
R&T: How difficult was it to
write a book sent in the United States and how much research and/or
travel did you do to make Stranger so believable?
SC: It did
take some time to build up confidence so I'd waited until I'd made
several trips to the States before taking the plunge. It was important
to me to get it as right as I possibly could. When I set part of
The Night of the Triffids in New York I visited the Big Apple
during the writing and walked the soles off of my feet, exploring,
taking photographs, making notes, just soaking up its atmosphere.
After all, it's that kind of creature response to a place that is so
important in writing. It's hard to get that result from looking at a
photograph. I was also able to compliment that foot work with books
about New York, its history and simply how such a huge city receives
such fundamental basics as fresh water and fuel. Often some seemingly
minor detail as finding out about a tunnel that runs under NYC that
was once used to carry coal can become an essential plot element.
R&T: What is your greatest
dream?
SC: Luckily
I'm living it. I appreciate my good fortune that I am what I wanted to
be: a professional, full-time writer. It's the best job in the world.
The next set of questions Simon uses to learn
about his characters, but I thought I'd turn the tables on him and see
if we can't get a peek into his character instead. Simon was
gracious enough to play along.
R&T: What’s your favourite colour?
SC: Blue.
R&T:
What’s your earliest memory?
SC: My father trying to fix the
wheel on my stroller that had just fallen off and me looking down
watching him..
R&T:
How much money do you have in the house? How did you come by it?
SC: Twenty pounds. I found it
under a bush.
R&T:
When was the last time you lied?
SC: Just then in [the last
question]!
R&T:
Which person has had the most
impact in your life and why?
SC: It must be immediate family as
I was growing up. Mother, father and big sister; she introduced me to
grown-up horror fiction when I was around eleven years old.
R&T:
If you found an injured bird, would
you leave it or put it out of its misery?
SC: Yes.
R&T:
What was the best day of your life and why?
SC: My children being born has to
be the knock out experience of all. But selling my first novel was a
wonderful day too. Although it caused me to walk round in a daze for
the rest of the week. I couldn't even read a book. The words seem to
slide from the page. A very strange experience.
R&T:
What was your worst moment at
school?
SC: Seeing kids being picked on
and hurt by other kids, and then perhaps realizing that life isn't
always fair, and that bullies don't always receive the retribution
they deserve.
R&T: Take
some time to get to know this interesting and personable author:
Simon
Clark: Nailed by the Heart
Magazine