Month: June 2014
BSFA/SFF AGM and Mini-Convention
On the 7th July, the mighty forces of the British Science Fiction Association and the Science Fiction Foundation did unite, for a day of AGMs, panels, interviews and discussions of matters speculative and fantastical. The BSFA was kind enough to invite me as their guest of honour.
The weather was less kind, to the point of being downright unsporting. My walk to the venue was considerably more aquatic than expected. Fortunately my little paper map held out, and only collapsed into a papier mâché tatter just as I reached my destination.
I did at least manage to catch part of the first panel, featuring the SFF’s guest of honour, Jo Fletcher of Jo Fletcher Books. It was a cross between a literary discussion and a balloon debate, the other panellists ‘pitching’ different books to Jo, who used her formidable editorial instincts to decide which ones she would ‘publish’.
Next it was my turn to be interviewed by Tom Pollock (The Skyscraper Throne trilogy). Tom was a generous, insightful and skillful interviewer, and managed to give some shape to my ramblings and digressions.
We discussed children’s fiction with a bodycount, ‘neat’ resolutions versus ‘messy’ complex endings, dead parents, questionable surrogate parents, hats, geese, whether romance in YA fiction can push out depictions of other relationships, and whether my worlds were dystopias.
Tom was also very modest, and did not mention
a) that his second book The Glass Republic had just been shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award,
or
b) that the very next morning he was throwing himself off the Broadgate Tower and abseiling 165m to raise money for St Mungo’s Broadway.
(It’s OK, he survived.)
After lunch, Sophia McDougall (Mars Evacuees, the Romanitas trilogy) interviewed Jo Fletcher, who described the journalistic and publishing career that has led to her running her own imprint. She also talked about the rise of internet vitriol, working with legends such as Ursula le Guin, and running a convention with a broken neck. When asked what sort of manuscripts authors should avoid sending her, she mentioned vampires (she’s seen enough of them for a lifetime) and dystopias (soon to be out of vogue).
The last item on the schedule was my panel with Farah Mendlesohn, Niall Harrison and Virginia Preston. My fellow panelists scared me beforehand by asking whether I would mind a “frank and free discussion of my work”. Since they are all terrifyingly intelligent, I had visions of my books being meticulously dissected while I hid quivering under the table.
In the event, my fellow panel members were actually fairly gentle with me, and no hiding was required. We discussed what constituted a ‘good’ character in my books, Farah suggesting that it was one who “would open doors that everybody else had told them should remain closed”. We also talked about rebels and rule-breakers, mentor-figures and ways that gaming has affected my writing.
Many thanks to everyone at the British Science Fiction Association and the Science Fiction Foundation for a very enjoyable day!
Character-Building at the Story Museum
I mentioned that I was looking for an excuse to go back to the Story Museum, didn’t I?
Fortunately the nice people who work there invited me over to run a workshop at the Museum.
On Wednesday 4th June, I worked with students from Shellingford Primary School, looking at ways of fleshing out a story character. The students came up with lots of really inventive and imaginative suggestions throughout. A character who fell into the sea, were munched by fish then grew gills! A hero whose most important relationship was with the villain, since without him he’d have nobody to fight! A character plagued by terrible flashbacks whenever they saw their nemesis!
At one point, we discussed the way things that a characters’ experiences could change them, and I asked whether anybody knew what had happened in Batman’s childhood. To tell the truth, I liked the “raised by bats” and “swallowed a bat” answers better than the real back story.
I was also pleased that “liking hats” was suggested as a character ‘strength’. (The student who suggested that was clearly adept at assessing his audience.)
Afterwards, all the students came up with their own brilliant characters, including a cookie-based hero (with raisin eyes and sesame seed buttons) questing for the rare Alien Cookie, a troll-hating rhino-rider, a mermaid doomed to be killed by a witch, Lava Man battling his nemesis Water Man, and a schoolgirl overcoming her fears of change and going to a new school.
Many thanks to The Story Museum for letting me come and play again, and to everybody at Shellingford Primary for sharing their ideas with me!
