Graham,
you're the author of a new book 'Radio Radio'. What can you
tell us about the book?
The plot is about a bunch
of kids in North London who decide to set up their own pirate
radio station. You follow them over a period of time as they
do it and eventually get closed down by the DTI. I suppose
that's the backbone of the plot, but what keeps the whole
thing moving is the relationship between the kids. Like all
groups of people it's complex, difficult, amusing and sometimes
falls apart.
How conscious were you of your audience
when you were writing the book and how worried were you
that the language and plot might not be authentic or plausible
to them?
I tried to make it as real as possible and I wanted it to
have a documentary feel to it. I wrote it in a language
that wasn't mimicking teenagers speak but had an echo of
it. There's a particular example of this where two of the
guys are performing in a club, as MC's and they have to
say their lyrics. I knew I couldn't write the lyrics, I
could do a kind of pastiche but I thought it would've been
obvious a 'grown up' had written them. So I got my son and
one of his friends who are both MC's to write them based
on what I told them was happening. They also helped me with
the names of the DJ's and MC's and the radio station, which
is called Reel FM. They then wrote the lyrics for me and
explained what they meant because they are in a kind of
patois. I was quite careful in the book itself not to use
too much patois because the language just changes so fast
it would be out of date before it was published.
Why did you write the book as a screenplay?
There were two main reasons and a third one came into play
after it had been written. The first reason was because
at the time I had a full time job. I hadn't got an agreement
from Bloomsbury but, on the basis they liked the idea, I
knew I was going to have to write it and I needed I something
I could do fast. I also knew that, having done comic strip
scripts, radio plays and other screenplay type material,
I could do it fast. It's like a Campbell's condensed story,
you've stripped away an awful lot of what you don't need
in an ordinary story. In a movie you're looking at things
and I was banking on the fact that you tell people they're
reading a movie script and they see the pictures. They actually
do start to imagine what you described, so they are doing
a lot of work for you.
It also had the benefit that this generation
has grown up with MTV and computer games and they are visually
literate kids that don't expect serial storytelling particularly.
They're very good at patching together information that
comes at them in a very random fashion and seeing a picture
that makes sense to them. I did write it in a serial form
but I needn't have done that if I didn't want to because
this generation is very used to that kind of stuff. The
story is very intravenous, I've paired it right down, its
just dialogue driving you on. It also looks very unthreatening
on the page and I know from my own family and other kids
that they can get put off by a page of type. They look at
a regular paperback and they open it up and think it's too
much, I think you have to take on board that the Sun and
the tabloids look the way they do because there's a whole
generation out there who like to read in that way, short
bits, sub-headed.
The third advantage that came to light after writing the
book was that it makes it easier to sell to a TV or a film
person because it's in a format they understand.
You mentioned your experience of writing
comic books and how that helped your style. Were there any
other authors that influenced the style of the book?
I think the author that affected me the most and the way
I write is Elmore Leonard. He was the man that made me understand
how you write dialogue, that you have to write dialogue
the way people speak. So much writing is the way people
write. The way people speak and the way people write are
not the same. You're taping this interview. I presume you're
probably take out the um's and the ah's, finish off sentences
that hang, cut out repetition and remove all that stuff
to make it look neat and tidy and make it more understandable.
But if you want to portray real dialogue, to get characters
to come off of the page as being people, then they have
to speak like real people. As a writer I have to do what
I call getting my ear in, I have to listen an awful lot
to people because my characters have to have there own voices.
My characters are usualy based on a version of somebody,
I don't pastiche someone direct because that's not very
creative.
I remember the first book of his I read
called Stick and I found it really difficult to begin
with. There ware sentences all over the place and I suddenly
realized I was reading what I was hearing when I was out
in the street and that was a revelation to me. I've learnt
so much from him and I think he's probably the main influence
in that respect. Having spent a long time writing comics,
which is all dialogue, you learn how to make a story run
without having to tell massive amounts of description. I'm
happiest when I'm writing dialogue.
What sort of research did you do?
I used the web a lot to find out what was going on in pirate
radio. I did have a fair idea, one of the reasons I had
the idea in the first place was because every radio in our
house was either tuned to a station that one or other of
the kids was listening to, or a local pirate would be jacking
in when I tried to tune into something on a Saturday afternoon.
I did quite a bit of research on the legalities and the
illegalities of what they were doing. I went around the
area I set the story to get some colour and atmosphere,
I had a house full of kids, mine and other peoples, and
I listened a lot.
Part of the plot is based on the rivalry
between two promoters. Was that part of the plot based on
a real story?
Again, looking at the web, reading news reports. The fantastic
thing about the Internet is that if you know how to research
you can find phenomenal amounts of information very quickly.
I did a massive trawl around to pick up storylines about
pirate radio stations so that I could help myself with plot
lines. There were sites that were very pro pirate radio
stations that had facsimile copies of DTI paperwork scanned
in from stations that have been arrested from the arresting
offices. Also through the kids I learnt about local pirate
radio stations.
Promoters run a lot of these pirate radio
stations because they're there to advertise their events,
they know the market that goes to their events is listening
them to. It's worth the risk of getting caught because it's
quite cheap to get up and running again. Some of them are
good and some are bad but that storyline is a reflection
of the reality of what is going on out there at the moment.
There's been a lot in the press recently
about how Rap music and similar genres is a bad influence
on kids. Do you think that's a credible argument?
Not really. People like to listen to songs that reflect
viewpoints, but I don't know that anybody goes off and kills
somebody because they hear a song talking about it. I think
it's knee jerk reaction from adults who don't understand
the music and don’t like it actually. It took me sometime
to get my head round the music, my initial reaction was
that there’s no tunes and even the ones I did recognize
I thought they’d nicked from somewhere else. You start
off by being angry at it and then you don't listen. In my
personnal opinion, if politicians want to understand how
the youth of today feel about things they should listen
to the rap artists, to the MC's who write some very heartfelt
and very politicized stuff. So not Please, Please Me,
I Want To Hold You're Hand, Love, Love Me Do,
that sort of soppy love song stuff. They've got stuff to
talk about. Especially in urban areas like North London,
it's fairly multicultural but still has cultural problems.
My kids have grown up in schools that are fairly mixed race
yet black kids on the street still get stopped by white
cops so that has to be addressed somehow. What they lack
in musicality they often make up for in the literacy of
their lyrics.
I was very impressed by the packaging
for the book. Who came up with the idea for it?
What you've seen is the pre pulication proof copy. I wanted
a cover that would make you want to pick the book up. Bloomsbury
had done a very nice cover but I wasn't entirely happy with
it. I was having dinner with a friend of mine one evening
and we came up with the idea. When a movie goes out to reviewers
it goes out on a video cassette. Book publishers do special
pre publication editions that go out prior to publication
for review and a we suggested that the book go out looking
like a video to reviewers. So we came back to the studio
and we scanned in a cassette and dummied up a cover that
I stuck on a paperback. I then made a cardboard box and
stuffed in a CD thinking that movies have soundtracks. We
delivered it to Bloomsbury and they loved it, they said
that’s it and dumped all the repro they had done. They
decided that the cover wasn’t just going to be for
the press preview but it would be the cover for the actual
book. I think that what you get is something I know you
need, people look at it and think that it’s a bit different
and a bit special. I was really lucky that Bloomsbury were
so up for a new idea.
We’re actually at your place of
work at the moment. Can you tell us about your other jobs?
I’m here as a freelance copywriter. I work for advertising
agencies and marketing companies as a copywriter on brochures,
marketing materials, advertising, you have to be able to
turn your hand to whatever is coming along. My other job
is as the children’s editor for a trade paper called
Publishing News. My job is to cover the industry, mainly
to write features and interviews. It’s a fantastic
job because I get to interview pretty much whoever I want.
I read that you have a love affair
with North America. Is that true?
I suppose I should have gone there to live years ago. I
think it started when I was a kid and my father, who was
in the RAF, was stationed in Canada. I’m actually going
back on February the 26th to do research for my next book
which is set in California.
I don’t know what it is about
the place, a lot of the people are pretty mad and they have
absolutely no idea what the rest of the world is about at
all, but it’s a phenomenal place and people who don’t
like it are often people who have never been. I’ve
been on this road in the Mojave Desert and there’s
nothing in front of us, behind us, to the left or to the
right and there you are in this incredible expanse. I was
only an hour or two from Los Angeles, which is an ant farm
of humanity, and it’s ultimately the opposite from
where I was but it was only two hours away. Geographically
it’s amazing, sociologically it’s not so beautiful
but if you get down to the local level and you make friends
with people they’re just like anybody else. They’ve
just got a funny accent and some odd politics sometimes.
How did you become involved in children’s
books in the first place?
I did a diploma at Art School called Information Graphics
at a time when children’s illustrated non-fiction was
selling by the bucket load. There was a lot of work around
in the whole co-edition market for colour non-fiction, where
an English publisher would devise a project then go and
sell a French edition, a Spanish edition, German edition
and so on. A friend and myself started a business where
we would think up ideas that we would sell to a publisher
who would sub contract the project to us and we’d do
all the work apart from actually publishing the book. I
got a bit bored of that after a while and got into fiction
writing. There was a big difference and I found fiction
writing a lot harder. With a non-fiction book it is either
right or wrong, with fiction it’s completely subjective.
When you come from a very rule orientated side of the business,
like non-fiction, to the wild west of fiction writing where
anything goes it took a bit of time to adapt. My first novel
was a one off and it took another ten or so years before
I got round to thinking I might want to be a writer full
time.
With kids it’s all about ideas, they’re
like idea sponges, and you have to have ideas all the time
as they constantly want you to come up with new ideas all
the time which is great for someone who is creative.
What children’s authors do you like
reading?
Last year there were three authors who made me sit up and
take notice. In a way they were all writing things I thought
I wouldn’t like but I read them for various reasons
and ended up absolutely loving them.
The first one was Michael Hoey who wrote
Time Stops For No Mouse. I don’t like anthropomorphic
furry little animals running around talking to each other
wearing clothes as it just strikes me as ludicrous. Michael
Hoey wrote this fantastic story which was brilliantly written.
It had everything; adventure, passion, pathos, quite adult
themes woven into a kids story and they were animals, yet
they weren’t humans pretending to be animals, they
were very animally animals and that kind of broke the mould
for me. I actually really enjoyed it, he’d made me
suspend my belief which is very difficult fro me personally.
I was also lucky enough to meet him and he was a great storyteller
and a very nice person.
Then there was Garth Nix who wrote Sabriel.
The amazing thing is that he wrote Sabriel ten years ago
and we only saw it last year for the first time. I don’t
like fantasy but had been cajoled by Jo Williamson at Harper
Collins into reading it. So I agreed to meet him when he
was here and thought I at least owe it to him to have read
some of his book. So I sat down with Sabriel and, I know
it’s a cliché, but I couldn’t stop reading
it. He’s such a brilliant writer, it’s hugely
readable and he uses fantasy for all the right reasons.
It’s not a mimsy tale, it’s really rollicking,
very strong with great characters.
Lastly there was Sonya Hartnett who wrote
Thursday’s Child. She’s been writing since she
was 14 and she says that one of the reasons she’s still
seen as a children’s writer is because she’s been
known since she was a kid herself. Thursday’s Child
was a brilliantly executed piece of English language writing.
She used language, she didn’t just write and she was
inventive with the way she used her word which was a delight.
The way she writes enchanted me and I don’t think I’d
read someone who was quite so creative with their English
for quite some time.
If you were going to ask me who else I like
I’d say Philip Pullman, he’s just top dog and
I think he’s extraordinary.
Do you have any hobbies or interests
outside of writing?
I love cooking, I find that very relaxing so I do that quite
a lot. Movies, music, that’s about it really.
And do you listen to drum and base?
A bit of drum and base, a bit of hip hop, I listen to a
lot of what the kids listen to which is a weird mixture.
Now I’ve listened to it quite a lot I think I can appreciate
what’s good and bad. I hate the Streets but I really
like Roots Manuva.
Do you have any
plans for a follow up to Radio Radio?
After Radio Radio Bloomsbury
signed me up for another two books. I’ve finished the
first of those which I delivered late last year, it’s
called How It Works. I’ve just had the synopsis for
my third book approved so I’m starting to work on that
for delivery later on this year.
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