Chaz Brenchley

Chaz Brenchley agreed to be interviewed via e-mail by Nicola Warwick.

"I enjoy the fact that my books are a mosaic of my life, fleshed out with fragments of my own experience that readers would never guess were autobiographical."

--Chaz Brenchley

NW: Who were your literary inspirations when you were growing up? Who has inspired you most in your life? A favourite author? What did you read as a child?

CB: I read everything in the house, from cereal packets--naturally--to my dad's Torygraph. Never without a book, usually half a dozen books at once. And everything my siblings brought into the house; I discovered SF and fantasy from my brother's library books, Elinor M Brent-Dyer from my sisters'. Both are passions that remain with me. Literary inspirations? Everything from Shakespeare to Tolkien--but Tolkien I could do (or thought I could), Shakespeare was harder. I spent my teenage writing bad Tolkien-imitations--but then, who doesn't? And why not?

NW: When did you decide you were going to be a writer and why? From things you've said it sounds like you were destined to be a writer. Did you ever want to do anything else or was it always writing? Did you keep any of the work you wrote as a child?

CB: My big sister taught me to read when I was three; I must have been four or five when I realised that writing books was a job that people did. After that, I never wanted to do anything else. I don't know about destiny, it just happened. My parents spent years trying to persuade me that I'd be wise to have a proper job to fall back on; they were right, of course, but they failed completely. Nothing that I wrote as a kid survives, alas, though I do remember writing my first poem, about aliens who were half blue and half green.

NW: What was the first thing you ever had published?

CB: If we're not counting school magazines, then my first publication was a teenage romance, that I sold to a magazine called Blue Jeans when I was eighteen. They paid me Ł36 for it; that was riches, in 1977.

NW: Which teenage magazines did you write for? Can you remember the story line of one of them? How long did it take you to write one?

CB: I wrote for them all: Blue Jeans, Jackie, Mates, Just Seventeen, others. Storylines were generally simple--girl meets boy, girl gets boy, girl loses boy, girl (usually) gets boy back again. Sometimes one could be a bit more adventurous: I remember one about a blind girl who had a corneal transplant, and started seeing what the donor had seen before they died. They took an hour or two to write, no more than that.

NW: What are the children's books about that you've written and are they still in print?

CB: The children's books are fantasies: one novel, The Thunder Sings, a collection of short stories, The Dragon in the Ice, and a picture-book, The Fishing Stone. I think that one's out of print now, but the others are still available.

NW: Aspiring writers often ask whether it's important to have an agent. What advice would you give them? How did you get your agent?

CB: Ouch. Sore point at the moment, my agent retired at Xmas (to write novels) and I don't yet have a new one. Best advice is to try all the agents first, before you try publishers; they are generally a boon and a blessing. I originally got an agent through the back door: heard through the grapevine that a publisher was bringing out a series of romantic thrillers where they were providing the storylines, so all the writer had to do was turn a 5000-word synopsis into a 50,000-word novel. I wrote to the publishers, they passed my letter on to the agent whose idea the series was, who was orchestrating the whole thing; she commissioned me, and then kept me on when the series bombed.

NW: How much of what you write is within your control? How much dictated by agents?

CB: Generally I write what I want to, but I was certainly guided by my agent; fortunately, her guidance led me into areas where I was very happy to be working. If she'd told me to write something I didn't want to do, I don't know what I would have done. Probably I'd have been all submissive and obedient and unhappy, I'm like that, but a good agent should be able to lead a writer to their most appropriate field.

NW: Is it hard working to deadlines? Do you meet them?

CB: Deadlines concentrate the mind wonderfully--but no, I very rarely meet them. I used to be good, but then I discovered that actually the sky doesn't fall in on my head if I'm late. And books take as long as they need to; last year I wrote one short book, this year I've already written one long one, and it's only April.

NW: What would you write if there were no constraints about making a living or agent input?

CB: Much the same as I'm writing now, I think. I hope. I love the work that I do; I write the stories that are given to me to write, because I think they're important and for sure no one else is going to write them.

NW: Is there anything you regret in terms of your literary career? A literary boat you missed?

CB: Not sure. I look at the bestseller lists and think, 'Hey, I could've written that'--but then I look at my own books and think, 'No one else could have written those.' Certainly I don't regret any one of them. I just regret that none of them has had the success that I think they deserved.

NW: Are you strict about your writing schedule? What sort of hours do you keep? How many words do you write a day?

CB: I am the most horribly undisciplined writer I know. I tend to work in sprints and staggers: a few weeks working all hours, particularly late at night, and then a few weeks when I can't write a word. I've just finished the most hectic dash of my life--150,000 words in ten weeks--but I was dreadfully late with that book, and it had to be done. Now I'm redecorating the office, and it's taken me a week to peel off half the wallpaper and slap up a bit of polyfilla.

NW: Do you listen to music to put you in the right frame of mind for what you're writing?

CB: No, I don't. I try, every now and then, and I can just about manage to work with music if there's no singing involved (if there are words, I have to stop and listen to them); but it's always an effort. Silence is easier, then I can just listen to the words in my head.

NW: How autobiographical are your books?

CB: Hmm. They used not to be, or I thought not; then someone pointed out that I was actually still writing about some fairly awful things that happened to me a long time ago. They were dead right, I just hadn't realised it. Nowadays I'm more conscious of it, and sometimes do it deliberately; but it's always a ha'porth of tar to an intolerable deal of sack. Mostly I just tell stories; it's just that sometimes my real life slips in.

NW: I find it hard to categorise your novels. The tag on the back cover is very misleading. Do you aim to write a particular genre? What appeals to you about your chosen genre?

CB: You are not alone; publishers and booksellers also find it hard to categorise what I do. Which is why you'll find me on the crime shelves, the horror shelves, the general fiction . . . I just aim to tell stories; they're usually fairly bleak, but sometimes there's a supernatural element, sometimes not. Whatever the story needs. A recent review said that all my fiction is about the darkness of the human heart; I think that's quite acute.

NW: Your Outremer series is to be four volumes. Did you have an end point when you started writing? Is the story all plotted out or does it evolve as you write? How has the first volume been received? Are you pleased with the reviews? What's the schedule for subsequent volumes? Where did the idea for Outremer originate? How long did it take you to write the first volume from research to final draft?

CB: I don't usually plot books before I start them, I prefer to discover the story as I go along, let the characters dictate what happens; but Outremer was my first venture into fantasy, and I had to offer some kind of synopsis to show that I could do it. I did everything else first--wrote up the background material and a few sample chapters--then reluctantly sat down with nothing more than four titles to work with, and inside a couple of days had a basic synopsis. It is very basic, though--I've now written two of the four volumes, and each one hinges around characters who weren't in the synopsis at all. The first book, Tower of the King's Daughter, has been pretty well received, by and large--though I wasn't at all amused by the review that said it was dull, and urged me to introduce leather-clad vampires on Harleys in vol. 2. I didn't do that. Vol. 2 should be out in December. The idea came dropping through my letterbox one morning, quite literally; I'd spent twenty years waiting for an original fantasy idea to arrive, and suddenly there it was. A brochure from the Folio Society, advertising their latest publication, a reprint of Stephen Runciman's classic History of the Crusades; I just sat there flicking through it, thinking that it was a gift from the gods. It's a fascinating time, historically, perfect for a fantasy series, and no one that I knew of had used it before. I spent a year or so researching, on and off, and then perhaps eight months writing vol. 1. Vol. 2's been quicker, but only because I was desperately late with it.

NW: Do you have a favourite character that you've written about? If so, who is that?

CB: I love all my characters, goodies and baddies--I think you have to, if you're going to write about them honestly. I don't really play favourites, though I'm abidingly fond of Benedict Macallan, who's featured in two so far: Dead of Light and Light Errant. Hopefully there will be a third book sometime; there may even be a film or two. Keep your fingers crossed.

NW: I think you mentioned you had a trip planned to the US? Is this book-related and what will you be doing?

CB: I'm going to World FantasyCon in Providence, at Hallowe'en. Of course it's book-related; I've got a fantasy to sell.

NW: How does it feel to autograph books and meet your readers? Are you blasé or do you get a buzz out of it? Do you enjoy book signings?

CB: I love it. The buzz is fantastic; I'm a frustrated performer (almost talentless, hence the frustration), and I adore being given a platform and allowed to show off. Meeting people who actually read my books is a privilege, and a rare delight.

NW: Can you tell us about Shelter which is due to be published soon?

CB: Shelter will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in May. It's a crime novel--about murder, corruption, paedophilia, all sorts of stuff--but it's also a book about storytelling, about how stories work and why we need them. In fiction, we tell the truth about ourselves.

NW: You were crimewriter-in-residence at the sculpture project. Do you still do this? And what did it involve?

CB: Technically it was a one-year residency and it finished five years ago; in fact I still go back every now and then, when the boys start another sculpture. If you walk along the north bank of the River Wear in Sunderland, you'll find many interesting and curious works of art that all relate in some way to the history of the community that has lived and worked there for centuries. Some of them have words. My words--carved in stone, set in concrete, etched in steel . . . It's great. I also wrote a book, Blood Waters, a collection of crime stories that pick up the themes of the sculptures and run with them. The project is a part of my life now; as long as it's ongoing, I'm involved.

NW: What do you hope to accomplish in your novels?

CB: Obviously, I want to entertain; I want to thrill, to frighten sometimes, to amuse, but also to challenge. As that recent review said, I want to expose the darkness of the human heart, and the brightness too. That's what fiction is for--to talk about us, about people, how we live in the world and with each other.

NW: How would you like to be remembered as a writer?

CB: I suppose I'd like to be remembered as a writer. Nothing more than that. I want people still to be reading my books, long after I'm gone.

NW: Looking back on your career, before you were a published writer, what two things do you now know about the business that you wish you had known then?

CB: That dreams die, that publishers lie. No, that's not fair. Actually, I'm glad that I didn't know a damn thing when I started; it's been fun, finding out how the business works. Life is all about acquiring knowledge; it'd spoil things, if you knew what it was about before you started. Understanding has to be earned.

NW: What are your reading habits? Do you find it easy to write and fit in reading as well? Is reading essential for "filling the well"? What's the major attraction of books for you?

CB: As I said before, I used to read voraciously. Less so now. I can't read the kinds of books that I'm writing, while I'm writing them; I need the space to let my own imagination run, unguided by others. Reading is crucial, it's still an obsession and always will be, books open the world; but I mostly read other stuff now: classics I missed or want to reread, non-fiction, novels in other genres. And it's hard to read at home, when the computer's always humming at me; I read in pubs, on trains, when I'm away.

NW: Why do you use the pen names, Carol Trent and Daniel Fox?

CB: Actually, I think they're both dead now. Carol Trent was one of my romantic pseudonyms, which publishers insisted on, because they thought romance-readers would be put off by a man's name; Daniel Fox was meant to be my horror alter-ego, while I wrote crime under my own name. But things got confused, a Chaz Brenchley book was published as a horror novel when it really wasn't, the first Daniel Fox novel was never published at all. . . . At the moment, everything I do comes out under my own name. That may yet change, though. If I decide to do something startlingly different, I may opt to put it out under a different name.

Nicola Warwick is the author of life's little luxuries. She lives in Manchester in the North West of the UK. Nicola's articles have been published in various writing, computing, and electronics magazines. Read more about her here.

About the Author:

Bio
Author's Web Site
E-mail

[Featured Author][Interviews][About Chaz Brenchley][Brenchley Interview]