Novels:
Empire State
Seven Wonders
Short Stories: several, some of which you can
read for free here
Website: www.adamchristopher.co.uk
> What is your new
novel, Seven Wonders, about?
Seven Wonders is an
all-out, spandex-clad superhero adventure. It's set in the city of
San Ventura, California, the home of the world's last superteam, the
Seven Wonders, who are locked in an endless game of cat and mouse
with the world's last supervillain, the Cowl. One day, an ordinary
guy, Tony, wakes up with superpowers, and he decides he can finally
do what the Seven Wonders have never been able to - take down the
Cowl, once and for all. Only Tony soon discovers that the Seven
Wonders aren't as grateful as he thought they'd be to have a new
superhero in town...
> Your first
novel, Empire State, also deals with super
heroes, but in an alternate 20s New York. How much research did
you do on the prohibition era and what interested you in that period?
I've always been
interested in the Prohibition and 1920s America - looking back, it's
such a bizarre period, and it's amazing that the Eighteenth Amendment
actually came to be. I remember a fascination with that period going
right back to when I was about ten, I think! And looking ahead into
the 1930s, you start to get the whole hardboiled detective thing, and
the beginnings of what we'd recognise as modern comics, including
superheroes. So it's an amazing and crazy period of history. And
because of this, there has (fortunately) been plenty of research into
the period. For Empire State, I leaned heavily on Dry
Manhattan by Michael A. Lerner, which specifically deals with the
impact of Prohibition in New York. The hardboiled/noir aspect of
Empire State came from my love of Raymond Chandler and the
great pulp writers - there is something very satisfying about writing
those kind of characters, complete with trenchcoats and hats and that
very dry sense of humour.
> What drew
you to writing about superheroes?
I love superheroes, but I
never grew up with comic books - when I was about seven, en route to
our regular summer vacation, we stopped at a corner store and my dad
bought me an issue of
Batman, an issue of
Iron Man, and
one of those Marvel character compendium things (to shut me up in the
car, I think - and in those days you could buy comics in corner
stores!), and while I read each one cover-to-cover about a hundred
times, I was more interested in the Marvel character encyclopedia.
Years later, a friend at high school used to read
2000AD, the
weekly British SF anthology comic, under his desk at the back of
class, and I remember being fairly impressed with the stories,
although after he moved away I kinda forgot about it.
Fast-forward
again to about 2003, and I was browsing the magazine rack in a book
store and saw
2000AD there. I picked it up on a whim, and was
hooked immediately - for some reason, at the grand old age of 25, I'd
discovered something that I felt was really for me. So after reading
2000AD for a while, I decided to go for broke and try some
superhero comics, starting with
Iron Man and
Batman.
And that was it - it was like a switch was turned on in my brain. I'd
found my home, and since then superhero comics have been a burning
passion.
So it made sense to write a superhero novel, to get
it all out of my system, as it were!
Seven Wonders was the
second novel I wrote, and
Empire State was next.
> If you could
have a super power, what would it be?
Super-speed, like The
Flash! I could get so much done! Although, when you think about it,
it's a weird power, because The Flash's mental processes also
accelerate to match his speed (they have to, obviously)... but that
means if he runs to China, and it takes like one second in real time,
for him it has still taken three months! So yeah, with super-speed I
could write a novel a day... but from my point of view, that would
still feel like 9-12 months! Hmm, on second thoughts...
> What made
you want to be a writer?
I've always written - we
wrote at school regularly, starting when I was seven - it was just
something you did. This coincided with a huge repeat run of old
Doctor Who on New Zealand television, which I became
completely obsessed with, so most of what I was writing was my own
interpretation of whatever episode had been on the previous week! As
I got older, the creative writing was replaced with things like
essays and assignments (I followed a science path, rather than
something like English), but I kept my hand in with some Doctor
Who fan fiction for TSV, the fanzine of the New Zealand
Doctor Who Fan Club (which I eventually ended up editing, and
won a Sir Julius Vogel Award for in 2010).
Just as I was
moving to the UK, a new SF publisher was being set up and they were
open to unagented submissions, so I decided to give it a shot. I was
rejected, of course, but it was an important moment, a real turning
point. Because that made me realise that a) I really did want to be a
writer, and b) if I was going to make it, it had to be the most
important thing in my life. Having had that lightning bold
realisation, I started listening to writing podcasts, not just for
writing advice but to find the community. One of the first ones I
came across was I Should Be Writing, by Mur Laffterty, which was a
huge help and really set me on my path. And it worked! Which is still
a constant source of wonder and surprise for me.
> If you
could, would you change places with any of your characters?
Good grief, no way! The
main character in Empire State, Rad, gets put through the wringer, and I'm not sure I'd want to go through the events of Seven
Wonders myself! But that's the point of a good story - nobody
comes out the other end unchanged. For some it is for the better, but
for some it is definitely for the worse!
> What were your
literary influences for Seven Wonders and
Empire State?
Seven Wonders: a
lot of comics, obviously -
Astro City by Kurt Buseik was the
biggest influence, but also the work of Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker,
Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Paul Levtiz, and many others. Not
forgetting the greats of the Golden and Silver Ages of comics - I've
described
Seven Wonders as my homage to the Silver Age, with a
dose of Bronze Age angst and grit thrown in!
Empire State:
Raymond Chandler (
The Big Sleep is one of my favourite novels
- in fact, the idea for
Empire State came about after reading
that novel, and wondering what it would have been like if Chandler
had written science fiction - which he famously hated), and a
fascination I have with period superheroes .The Golden Age adventures
of superheroes like the
Green Lantern and
Batman were
frequently bizarre, and I've always thought that the film
Batman
Begins would have been brilliant if it had been set in 1939.
Novels, absolutely. I
don't particular enjoy reading or writing short fiction - the short
fiction I have written only came about when the idea and plot arrived
in my head complete from beginning to end, but I'd never actually sit
down and say, right, I'm going to write a short story! Also, I think
that old advice of starting on short fiction then graduating to
novels is completely bogus - they are two different forms entirely,
and writing one will not teach you anything about writing the other.
You should write whatever you like, no matter if it is 1000 words or
100,000!
> What's the
first novel (published or unpublished) that you wrote and how long
did it take to write it?
The first novel I wrote is
called Dark Heart, and it's sitting in a trunk somewhere. It
was an important achievement, and it told me that yes, I can write a
100,000-word story. It's an occult steampunk novel, and while the
plot is pretty solid (as far as I can remember), it needs a heck of a
lot of work - like, a total rewrite - to bring it publishable
quality. Maybe I'll dig it out and have a go, one day!
> When and
where do you write?
I write in blocks of 1,000
words with breaks in between, and try to fit as many of those into a
day as I can - which depends on my schedule, but the minimum is 2,000
words a day when I have other work to do, and around 3-4,000 words if
I'm writing full time. For the first draft, I work on my laptop in a
comfy chair in our library (really a converted dining room!), which
is nice and relaxed, and then for the edits I shift upstairs to my
office and sit at my desk, because that's a little more formal and
business-like, and I have a big monitor so I can have multiple
documents and notes open at once, which is handy for copying and
pasting and rearranging stuff.
> What’s the
best/worst thing about writing?
The best thing is being
paid to make stuff up and write it down. I mean, come on, that's the
best job in the world! The worst thing is knowing that I've got more
ideas than I'll ever be able to write in one lifetime.
> What is
something you didn’t know about the publishing industry before you
had your first book published?
The whole thing has really
been a learning experience and I find the publishing process
fascinating - there is a reason it takes a year or more for a book to
go from submission to the store shelf! Probably the biggest thing has
been discovering how amazing and valuable good editors and good
copyeditors are. My goodness, the magic they weave.
> Do you have
any advice for hopeful authors?
Keep writing. You learn by
writing, and writing, and writing, and the more you write, the better
you get. Write something, send it out, get rejected, write the next
thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. Keep writing and keep
getting rejected. I think there are four key factors to a career as
an author - talent, skill, luck and perseverance. Talent is something
those lucky few are born with, but for the rest of us you can skill
up, learn things, get better. Getting published is a combination of
hard work and good luck, but you can get yourself into the right
situations where you might get lucky by persevering. Keep on trucking
- that's my advice. Print that off and stick it on the wall above
your desk!
> Any tips
against writers block?
Write through it. Write
total garbage, it doesn't matter, you can fix it later. And by
writing garbage you might discover something new and unexpected. The
most important thing is not to worry about it. Re-outlining can help,
just give yourself a few more tentpoles for the section you're
working on.
> How do you
discipline yourself to write?
Deadlines are a great
motivator! But seriously, whether you have an actual contract
deadline or whether you're unpublished and working on your craft, set
yourself deadlines. Make them realistic, and assign a reward to each
of them. If you plan everything out and schedule it - whether it's
the work you need to do for your editor, or agent, or publisher, or
what you want to achieve in your own work over the next year, you
know where you are going and you can take charge of your time.
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