The Clown Service

IN CONVERSATION WITH GUY ADAMS

How did you start writing SFF?

By being an only child who spent his entire day dreaming he was someone else. I’ve been making stuff up on paper (either books or comics) since I could first squeeze a nasty biro dry. When I started writing with an actual view to letting someone else read it there was never any doubt it would be fantastical.

How I actually started writing professionally is a different matter. That was entirely by accident. Myself and a designer friend of mine had talked to the people at Kudos TV and Film (the production company that made Spooks, Hustle, Life on Mars etc.) about how horrid tie-in books could be. If they wanted to keep their reputation as being different, we said, they should try and do something very unusual with books of their shows.

So they told us to, and we did.

What type of SFF do you write?

I mix genres so it’s difficult. Life’s a mess. It’s a combination of comedy, tragedy, horror, adventure and romance. I tend to carry that into everything I do. I can’t just pick one thing and let that set the tone.

In the last year I have written a weird western, a pulp crime/horror/zombie/comedy/thriller and now, a blend of horror and espionage.

I blame my early love of comics. In comics you can do everything, all at the same time. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman for example moved from pure horror to high fantasy to – who knows what you would call it? – within the space of a few issues. I thought all stories should be like that.

Do you think anyone can write SFF?

Well, not everyone, no. You have to be able to write (obviously) but you also have to be able to let go. To enjoy the escapism of it. A good writer can write anything but I think it’s important to actually want to. And to have a level of understanding for the genre you’re working in.

You see it in scripts more than novels I think, because it’s not uncommon for a scriptwriter to take a job simply because they need it. Less so these days, because most genre television is written by people who love it. Years ago though, when there was more of it around, you would see, for example, a Doctor Who script that was clearly written by someone who was perfectly good at writing but had no love for the genre. The result is always a compromise, a translation of genre, someone throwing tropes at a story that they think are ‘the sort of thing you do in this kind of stuff’. You can hear the lie a mile off.

You have to want to. Then, wanting to, you have to be capable.

Then, if you’re really going to impress us, you have to be different, if not in content then certainly in approach.

Where does the inspiration for your ideas generally come from?

It’s all about the flavour really. I wanted to write a spy story so I sat down and decided how. I wanted to write a western so I tried to find what my kind of western would be like… It’s an act of cookery: blending the flavours and atmospheres of the sort of worlds I like to play in and seeing what sort of stew I can make.

How did you get the idea for The Clown Service?

The idea came about because I love spies; the grungy, corduroy and sports-jacket-world of the ‘60s; Le Carre and Len Deighton; and the modern hi-tech adventure of The Bourne Identity. I wanted to create a book where I could tell all types of story.

Being me it had to veer into fantastical territory too because I just can’t help myself.

What do you think is the relationship between the fantasy and the fiction in your writing?

I am a firm believer in having the real and the fantastical rub alongside one another. Everything I’ve ever written is set in the recognisable world but with the fantastical elements bleeding through. That, for me, is perfect fantasy. Heroic Fantasy is not my world.

For me the fantasy elements are liberation – they’re the parts of the book that let both me and the reader soar. I pick up a book because I want to see something that I can’t see with my own eyes. I want to be given new experiences. Package holidays into the writer’s imagination.

Tell us about your writing process. Is it the same for every book you write?

For the most part, it’s identical. I don’t plan on paper. In fact I hate it (which is why I’m lousy at proposals and pitches). I think a lot, I circle an idea, building scenes in my head (which will be, for the most part, visual. I’m a very visual writer which probably stems from my love of comics again). These scenes will be random and in no way chronological. A handful of moments.

Then I get the voice of the book, the tone of the characters, the emotional shape of it.

Then I panic and struggle until the deadline is creeping up on me. Trying to juggle all that into something cohesive.

Then I write like a demon, hating every minute of it. By this point my head is so full of story (no notes again, nothing on paper) that I’m lost in my own head and a pain to share a house with because I’m quiet and sullen and convinced it’s all rubbish.

Then I finish.