Faraway Tree

Haywired is a ‘steampunk fairytale’, written by Alex Keller and published by Mogzilla. While I was working at Mogzilla I was lucky enough to be an editorial assistant for the project; it was the first book I ever worked on.

The novel follows Ludwig Von Guggenstein as he attempts to stop his father, a dangerous inventor, from executing his terrible plans. The book has received lots of attention and some great reviews; Alex has since written Rewired and has plans for two more books to complete the series. I interviewed him to see if I could find out a bit more about his writing and the ideas behind it.

Why do you write books for children rather than adults?
I started wanting to write for children when I interned at a few children’s publishers a couple of years back. I’d never really considered doing so before and instead thought about writing for adults, but when I worked in the industry I saw that writing kids books could be immensely fun and I could get away with adding daft and strange things into the stories that perhaps adults wouldn’t be so interested in.  Plus I liked how kids’ books have a much broader appeal than adult books and aren’t quite as pigeon-holed for particular readers.

Do you see the future of children’s books as a digital one?
I’m really not sure. I think the digital aspect of the industry will grow but I don’t really expect it to replace hard copies of books entirely. Personally I don’t really enjoy reading fiction on electronic devices, but if others do then great. I do like the idea of including added content to digital copies like author interviews; videos; artwork; etc, which could be really interesting.

Do you have a writing routine?
Sort of, but it’s ever evolving. When I wrote Haywired I didn’t plan it at all and that was a bit of a mistake. I learned that not planning meant I wasted a lot of time writing huge amounts that ultimately didn’t work. Now I try to plan a book much more before I start writing it properly. However, I still feel like I’m learning new, better ways of writing all the time so I imagine my routine will change as I write more.

How important do you think the relationship between author and editor is?
I think the relationship is VERY important. As an author, especially a new one, it’s easy to treat your books reverentially and not see the problems in them. A good editor is vital in turning your book into something more accessible and appealing to an audience and that’s crucial in helping to make your book more successful.

The Haywired series uses the Steampunk genre, how would you describe this genre and why did you decide to use it?
Funnily enough, I don’t really think of it as a genre. I see it more as an aesthetic than anything else for fantastical fiction. I didn’t actively decide to use it when writing the series. At the beginning I wanted to write a story that was fantastical but didn’t have magic as the drive force for the weird and wonderful. I’d seen a few books, films, and games that instead used machinery and I really liked the look of it a great deal. It wasn’t until a bit later that I realised I was writing a “steampunk” book. I’m a big fan of strange technology so I guess I was simply drawn to it naturally. I like the solidity and limits of it, as opposed to magic systems that seem unclear and potentially limitless in a lot of books.

If you could live in the world of any children’s book, which would it be and why?
It would have to be Terry Pratchett’s Discworld because it’s so strange and has very decent people in it.

Do you think all children’s books were meant to be read aloud?
I don’t think all authors intend that, but I learnt that reading your books out loud (for adults or children), really improve their rhythm. In future whenever I write something I read it out aloud to check it sounds right.

The Haywired books are quite gothic, do you read gothic literature and what do you think of the current obsession with teenage vampires?
I like old gothic literature like Frankenstein and Dracula but I’m not interested in the new vampire books. I’ve not read the newer books and from what I’ve seen I don’t think they are stories I would be interested in. However, I do think it’s great that people are reading them.

What was your inspiration for Haywired?
There isn’t one source of inspiration for Haywired. It’s a combination of a huge amount of things I’m interested in. For example the world is a bit Pratchett-y as well as reflecting periods of history I find interesting. Some of the story lines and names are similar to ancient Greek myths and history; whilst Jack for example was influenced by the Joker.  I love the idea of just taking a number of disparate things I like and throwing them together.

Who is your favourite children’s illustrator?
This sounds terrible but I’ve never really paid attention to illustrators. I do find the Quentin Blake images for Roald Dahl books great though plus Abigail Larson who’s made some portraits for the Haywired characters are superb.

Have the illustrators you’ve worked with always captured the things that you imagined?
The only illustrator I’ve worked with is Abigail. I’ve very happy with how her images came out but I was quite heavily involved in making sure she captured the characters as closely as possible to what I had pictured in my head. I’d love to see other people’s interpretations of them though!