We delve into the fascinating journey of creation behind The Book of Doors, with the author of this enchanting tale, Gareth Brown. From his organic approach to writing, where the story unfolds as he progresses, to the unexpected emergence of pivotal plot elements, Brown reveals the intricate process behind his literary magic. With insights into character development, the challenges of conveying emotions, and the allure of time travel, Brown shares his inspirations and the evolution of his narrative. Unveiling secrets about terrifying characters and poignant relationships, this interview offers a captivating glimpse into the mind of a storyteller.
Did you know where and how the story would end before you began writing?
I did not! When I started, I only had the very first scene, where Cassie ends up with the Book of Doors, as a jumping-off point. I had a sense for a couple of the characters, and I knew a few of things that I wanted to happen – events relating to Cassie and her grandfather – but so much of the book otherwise was unknown to me. I had to work out how it would end as I went along, based on what happened in the course of writing it.
How did you go about writing? Did you have a routine or process – did you map the plot out, or did the story emerge and evolve once you began writing?
I don’t really have a particular routine or process. I write whenever I can – I work full-time, so often that’s mainly in the evening or over the weekends. You have to just get the words down however and whenever you can – that might be writing 500 words on my phone in bed before going to sleep, or drafting a chapter on a train while commuting. I like to do around 3,000 words a day if I can. Sometimes it is more, sometimes a lot less, but that is a good sort of level of productivity. It helps that I touch-type, and I can type fast. So once I know what I want, the actual typing of it doesn’t take long. The editing and rewriting are always easier and more enjoyable than the initial generation of text – that’s when the book really comes alive.
I am very much not a planner. I tried to plan a novel once and found the actual writing thereafter really tedious. I like to discover the novel as I go – it is much more like reading in that way. I often don’t know what’s going to happen, and often the best ideas emerge organically as I’m going along. So much of The Book of Doors was like that – characters and plot points almost being ‘discovered’ as I came across them.
Did you undertake any research or extensive reading prior to beginning The Book of Doors?
Not particularly. I like to be as geographically accurate as I can – so if I am writing about a place I try to check maps and locations and architecture – but otherwise this novel didn’t need very much research. I try to avoid plots that require a lot of detailed research, because I prefer to just write without having to do lots of fact-checking, particularly when you are writing at 11pm after a long day of work. It is so much easier to be able to open up the laptop and just make it all up.
Did you have any ideas that didn’t work as you were writing that you had to abandon or edit out?
Yes, quite a lot, probably as a consequence of making it up as I went along. That does lead to interesting plots but you can also find yourself stuck for a while until you work out what needs to happen. For a long time, I couldn’t work out the motivation of Drummond Fox, the Librarian. I had an entirely different subplot relating to a politically-motivated massacre that had been caused unintentionally by something Drummond had done in the past, and he was looking for a way to undo it. But it never felt tonally right for the book – there was something too unpleasant and gritty about that, in a book which is really a fairy tale. I had written probably three-quarters of the novel with this subplot when a much better idea came to me – the secret, hidden library. That is such a big part of the book now but it wasn’t present until fairly late on in the writing. I knew the previous idea wasn’t right, but I had to hope a better idea would come along – fortunately it did!
“The Book of Doors certainly has horror notes, and some interesting ideas in the different magical books and how they could be used.”
What did you find hard about writing The Book of Doors?
Probably one of the things I struggle with is conveying the full range of emotions that characters experience. I am a grumpy Scotsman with the emotional range of a rock, so it never really occurs to me that characters might respond in ways other than stoic pragmatism. Fortunately, my agent and excellent editors are all more rounded individuals, and were very good at pointing out that humans would normally display a range of emotions in the face of extreme events. That was definitely something I worked on in edits.
Time travel has a crucial part to play in The Book of Doors – if you could travel back in time, where and when would you choose and why?
I really struggle with this question because there are lots of things in the past I’d love to see. Any ancient civilisation that we don’t really understand would be fascinating to observe. And dinosaurs … who wouldn’t love to see dinosaurs in the flesh?
I know you said ‘back in time’, but I would be more interested to see the future, to discover what happens to the world long after I’m dead and gone. I’m so curious to know about things I can’t possibly know about, time travel would solve that!
Which books have most influenced you as a writer, if any, and why?
I am probably not very well-read … I didn’t start reading properly until I was a teenager, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I didn’t pick up a book off my own bat until a friend at school told me I should read Christine by Stephen King. It’s not even one of Stephen King’s best books, but it changed my life. It made me love reading and made me want to be a writer. These days I love well-written commercial page-turners that compel you to read more – books by Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Thomas Harris or Greg Iles. I don’t read enough science fiction, but I love sci-fi that plays with interesting ideas, like Flowers for Algernon, The Stars My Destination, or Hyperion (by Dan Simmons – which might be my favourite novel of all time). I can see the impact of these sorts of books in my own writing – The Book of Doors certainly has horror notes, and some interesting ideas in the different magical books and how they could be used, and I hope readers find it compelling and unputdownable. At the more literary end of the spectrum, I loved The Grapes of Wrath, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry – both of which deal with similar themes, I think, about the impact of tumultuous events and changes in society on individual lives. When I grow up I’d like to be able to write a book as powerful as these.
Were there any books you came up with that didn’t make it into the novel?
There were a few books… some where I only had a title and didn’t know what they would do (the Book of Silence, the Mirror Book) and others where I had an idea but there was not a need or place for them in the novel (the Book of Dreams, the Book of Charm). Most of the books I came up with were generated by the plot, by what abilities I needed characters to have, so I didn’t have lots of spare, unused books.
“The large window spilled soft light out into the night, a fireplace in the dark room of the city.”
‘The Woman’ is, quite simply, one of the more terrifying characters readers will have come across in contemporary fiction – where on earth did she come from?!
I can recall a moment, a single thought, when I understood what I wanted to do with The Woman. I hate it in fiction and novels when evil people talk a lot and explain themselves and their plans – that usually services the plot, but truly evil people wouldn’t lower themselves to explain what they are doing. I wanted The Woman to be largely silent. I wanted her to be an unknowable, terrifying, mysterious force – almost like an impersonal force of nature. The first scene I wrote with her, where she meets and kills another character in a restaurant in London, I wanted to make her terrifying without her saying anything. That really helped me see what sort of character she was, and freed me up from the usual villain tropes of saying evil things and threatening horrible deaths. In the end I had to have her say a few more things, for plot reasons, but she was still largely silent for much of the novel, and I think that really works.
As to The Woman’s backstory and where she came from… that is a secret that comes out near the end of the novel that I won’t reveal here, but I will say I didn’t know about that secret until I got to the point where I had to write it. It was a surprise to me too!
The relationship between Cassie and her grandfather is so beautifully, movingly evoked, how easy (or not) was it to bring this to life on the page?
I will admit that I approached the scenes between Cassie and her grandfather – particularly the first scene – with some trepidation. I wasn’t sure I had the skills to do it justice (because there would have to be a lot of these ‘emotions’ things), and I did worry about it for a while as I knew it was coming up. But what is in the final, published novel is almost exactly what I wrote in the first draft. I think I stopped myself from overthinking it and just tried to write it as honestly as I could. Getting out of your own way and trusting yourself can sometimes help!
Is there a particular line or scene in the book that you are particularly proud of?
There are a couple of lines very early in the book that I really liked – ‘the large window spilled soft light out into the night, a fireplace in the dark room of the city,’ and ‘the buildings across the street were a crossword puzzle of lit and unlit windows’.
Both of these metaphors come within a few sentences of each other, and both work well, I think, as descriptive ideas. I often feel my own prose is unpoetic and workmanlike, so when I stumble upon a nice simile or metaphor, I tend to remember it.
In terms of scenes – I was very pleased with the scene near the end when Cassie gives her grandfather the Book of Joy… you’ll know the scene I mean when you read it. And I was quite happy with some of the descriptive passages from when Cassie was visiting places in Europe – although my agent and editors did help make those so much better than they were originally.
READ AN EXTRACT FROM ‘THE BOOK OF DOORS’ >>
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Extract: Voyage of the Damned by Frances White