by Mary Hoffman
Graham Marks is a well-known figure in the children's book world. As Children's Editor for Publishing News, he is there at every event and party, book fair and launch. But this year in particular he has been on the other side of the interviews, publicising his third novel for Bloomsbury, called Zoo. (reviewed in the last issue of Armadillo).
I talked to him about how the change in emphasis has worked and about his future plans.
Given that Zoo reads like a film and you mention your desire to write it cinematically, why did it find shape as a book rather than a film script?
I'd already done a novel-as-a-film-script with Radio Radio (Bloomsbury 2003) and didn't want to repeat myself; also, I don't have a rep in the film business and doing it as a straight script probably wouldn't have got me very far. My books are beginning to attract film attention and that's the way I want to do my storytelling: book first, film (hopefully) next.
How does it affect your work as a writer to be so "in the know" about children's books through your job on PN?
Less that you might think. The books I'm writing/editing right now will come out in '06 (øTokyo," Bloomsbury, øHubble and the Child," Usborne) and those in the planning stages are slated for '07 (the next YA novel and another, younger, historical novel for Usborne, if all goes to plan). Even though I work for PN as their Children's Editor I don't have a crystal ball and can't see what the market will be doing a year or two in advance, so I write what comes to me, not what I think the market wants.
Also, although I've admittedly never had to suffer the indignity of the slush pile because of my contacts, I get shown the door as fast as anyone else if my ideas are no good/not what's wanted.
What my other job has given me is an interesting viewpoint and the ability to get to talk to almost anyone in the business I want to.
Tell us about the title of Zoo. I think I read that you started from that.
Zoo did spring to life from the title, and actually started out as a completely different, more sci-fi type of story. But during the months of its gestation it changed beyond all recognition and morphed into what it is today - a kind of police procedural with a twist. For me, the titles nearly always come first as they hold the core of the story. This one is explained near the end, and although I think it's turned out to be quite enigmatic it is descriptive of the feeling of the book.
Why did you write an American book, given that you are not an American writer?
Zoo is an American story; it's set in the US, all the characters are American, there's nothing English about it. I wanted to see if I could pull off writing a novel in an American voice (this seems to be something of a pattern with me, setting myself problems to overcome, rather than simply writing a story that works). Why set a story in the US? I was having no luck selling novels based in England to American publishers ('too London' is a criticism that's been levelled at both Radio Radio and How it Works) so I decided to see if the Americans would buy American. They did.
You've had a lot of different careers. What do you see yourself primarily as being now?
I've been a writer, in that I've nothing else but write, since I gave up being a Creative Director some 15 years ago. I've written just about everything from press releases to comic strips and everything in between over the years, but always seen whatever I'm doing as good training for what I want to do full-time: write stories.
Now I split my time between PN (writing features, a column and news stories) and books. As to all the different careers, which makes me sound like a flibberty-gibbet, they are all interconnected and while there has never been a Grand Plan there's always been a direction!
Are you going to write a novel a year from now on?
It's been a novel a year for Bloomsbury for the last four years (Radio Radio, How it Works, Zoo and Tokyo); I'm hoping to make it two novels a year from now on with the Usborne books - although I have to admit this plan was formulated without taking into consideration just how much time touring a book can slice out of your writing schedule!
Has it helped having a dedicated publicist for this book? I think you have been doing a lot of events.
It's been a revelation - the very best thing that's happened. Justin Somper, backed by Lucy Holden and Ian Lamb, has really put me on the map, raised my profile and ramped everything up a good few gears. I'm now an author who also does journalism, not the other way round.
This year I've been on an 8-venue tour, 2-3 three days at each venue, 2-3 events per day. It's been a steep learning curve, but I've got a hell of a lot out of it - not least spending time out of London and with the audience for my books.
We both went on a training afternoon at Bloomsbury. Has it helped at all in doing these events?
I found the media-training day very helpful in that it focussed my mind on the things I had to do to get ready for events. It also accurately pointed out shortcomings and failings which needed attending to (for me particularly, doing readings). If they offer another one I'll be at the head of the queue as I know that being out there and performing is such an important part of what we have to do now.
Plot, setting, character, language. In what proportion do these interest you?
I'm a plot-driven writer who likes to give his stories something of a documentary feel, to place them somewhere very accurately, and my characters tend to be the ones pushing the story forward through dialogue. All four elements are very important to me, each inextricably linked to the other in a way that would be almost impossible for me to figure out which is the more important.
I like quite complex, time-sensitive plots; I'm interested in making stories work within specific settings (otherwise it's all too made up, which I know is an odd thing to say about fiction, but I like mine on the real side); without characters, interesting ones you can care about, what is there? And language...well, it's how it all happens in the real world, people talking to each other. I learnt so much about dialogue from reading Elmore Leonard, who taught me that the first thing you have to do is listen to people - as he says, find the key to the way your characters speak and then get them talking. Works every time.