Alex Bell - fantasy author

Since Lex Trent came out I seem to have done loads of interviews for it. Or maybe it just feels that way to me because a lot of the questions I’ve answered have been replicated and so I find myself trying to think of new ways to answer the same question. I enjoy talking about Lex, so I’m not complaining. Taking time to do your bit to promote a book is a necessary part of a published author’s life.

But there are two questions that have come up a few times now, which I want to set the record completely straight on, and so I’m going to answer those two FAQ’s here on my site as well.

The first one has to do with the fact that Lex’s grandfather in the book suffers from a disease called the Soulless Wake. This is, essentially, a fantasy world version of Alzheimer’s. In almost every interview I’ve done about Lex, I’ve been asked where this came from and, more than once, people have suggested that perhaps it was because of Terry Pratchett’s diagnosis. I want to be completely clear about this: the inclusion of an Alzheimer’s type disease in Lex Trent has nothing whatsoever to do with Terry Pratchett. I have not – and will never – exploit another writer’s illness as a plot point in one of my books. In fact, at the time that I wrote the first draft of Lex Trent – back in my second year of university – Terry Pratchett had not even received his diagnosis yet. My grandfather, though, had been diagnosed with the disease two years previously. This is the reason that it features in the book.

I usually try quite hard to avoid allowing my own life to seep into my novels, but I suppose to some extent it is unavoidable. Everything – both good and bad – that happens to a writer, contributes to who they are. As Dan Simmons has his Wilkie Collins character state in his excellent book Drood: ‘I was a novelist. Everything and everyone in my life was material.’

It was not a conscious decision of mine to address the very serious issue of Alzheimer’s in what is, after all, meant to be a light comic fantasy novel. It crept in, somehow, on its own – I suppose because it was something that was very much on my mind at the time. However, once it was there, I decided to keep it, because it seemed to fit with Lex’s back story very well, and I don’t think that the odd serious scene detracts from the overall light-hearted nature of the book. If anything, I think such moments compliment the rest of it.

I did not react to my grandfather’s illness in the cowardly way that Lex does in the book. I did not abandon him because he had Alzheimer’s - but I understand the temptation. It is not easy to visit someone you love very much indeed only to have them not really know who you are. My grandfather was still alive when I got my first publishing deal, but although he was told about it, I don’t think he really took it in. If his reaction when I won a short story competition at the age of thirteen is anything to go by, I know he would have been absurdly proud, and if I had signed my deal even one year earlier, then I would have been able to tell him about it properly. This remains one of the few real regrets that I have so far in my life.

My grandparents lived several hours away from us so when we went to visit, the trip involved a full day’s outing. We tried to make it there every six weeks. I went, but I had to force myself to go. My grandmother, on the other hand, cared for my grandfather day after day almost for the rest of his life, and however difficult it was for me to see him every six weeks for a few hours, for my grandmother this was a reality that she lived with permanently. She became his full time carer, despite suffering from health problems herself. The way that she was with him was one of the most brave, loyal, devoted things I have ever seen in my life. I would like to think I would conduct myself with the same grace and dignity if I were ever in her position but I seriously doubt I would be capable of that kind of selflessness. The point I wanted to hint at with Lex was that there are different kinds of bravery. Lucius, who is Lex’s wimpy, weedy, gentle twin brother, could not cope with the thrilling adventures Lex takes on, but he willingly stayed behind to look after their grandfather when he became ill - something that Lex simply could not do.

That is where the Soulless Wake comes from. It is a direct result of my own experience – not an insensitive exploitation of someone else’s suffering.

The second – and far less important FAQ – is people believing that I decided to call the main character Lex because that name is a variation of mine. This is not the case either. It is true that Lex and I share some similarities in that we were both law students; we both share a sort of dread of the idea of working as lawyers; and we both had grandfathers who had Alzheimer’s. But the reason I gave Lex his name was because of this man:

This, as any Smallville viewer will recognise, is Lex Luthor, as played by Michael Rosenbaum. I was watching a lot of Smallville at the time, and I loved Lex as a character – I thought he was far more interesting than Clark. I also liked the fact that the name ‘Lex’ has instantly notorious connotations. That was the reason that I took it. Lex is therefore named for super-villain Lex Luthor. He is not named after me.

I’ve recently been reading Jessica Morrell’s Bullies, Bastards and Bitches, which is, ostensibly, about writing villains, but also discusses heroes, unsympathetic protagonists, dark heroes and bad boys. It’s a fantastic book, nicely set out, with some very interesting observations about characterisation, and I would highly recommend it to any aspiring (or, indeed, professional) writer. At one point it talks about alpha males and beta males and uses Mr Darcy as an example of the former, and Mr Bingley as an example of the latter. Morrell suggests that women want to marry a Mr Bingley but want to read, and fantasise about, Mr Darcy. It’s an interesting and, I think, accurate suggestion.

Mr Darcy – and most of the romantic male leads in the Madeleine Brent books – are, in some ways, anachronistic. Women do not depend on men in the same sort of way in the modern world, and marriage is not a woman’s sole preoccupation. When I studied A Level Sociology, we looked at articles from the 1950’s giving advice to wives and I remember being particularly horrified by a passage suggesting women take a nap shortly before their husbands were due to arrive home so that they would be suitably refreshed to receive him. They were then to change their dress, put a new ribbon in her hair, and greet the husband at the door with his slippers. In addition, they should not be the ones to instigate conversation because the husband has had a long day and might be tired etc. That being the case, the last thing he wants is a chattering wife bleating dull, domestic trivialities in his ear. Garghh! It’s just too awful! And only fifty years ago!

So, this is a problem with some male romantic leads like Mr Darcy. It might have been fine back then, but modern women do not want such over-bearing coddling. The feminist in me revolts against this character type.

And yet . . .

Who can deny that there is an appeal in spite of all this? I have recently watched the excellent Lost in Austen and am now re-watching the definitive Pride and Prejudice (of Mr Colin Firth renown), and I will admit that I am as much enamoured with Mr Darcy as the rest of the female audience/readership. I will also admit that I am an avid reader of the Madeleine Brent books, even though I feel they are something of a guilty pleasure. I feel I ought not to like them – being modern and all – but I am hooked regardless.

But much as I enjoy Darcy’s character in the book and TV adaptations, a real life version is really the very last thing I would want. And that is because, for me, a Darcy ceases to be interesting as soon as he professes his love. As soon as he does that, he is no longer cold and immovable but just another silly sap mooning after a woman. The book has to end with the marriage because nothing would be interesting after that. You want the characters to get to that point but have no interest in reading beyond it. Nobody likes gooey love, after all.

This is why I think that Jessica Morrell’s suggestion above is an accurate one. Marriage to Darcy may sound great on the face of it, but in reality? Surely one of the most important aspects of a relationship is that you are able to have fun with your partner. For example, I’m not sure that I could have a long-lasting relationship with a guy who refused to wear a silly hat at a Christmas party. There is always one whose vanity forbids it. And there is always one who collects the spare hats, and ends up wearing two, or even three silly hats all at the same time. The cold aloof Darcy routine is fine for creating mystique etc, but it might start to wear a little thin once you were actually married.

So although at first it seems quite odd to suggest that women might prefer one kind of man in dreams, and another in real life, I think there is definitely some truth to this. I don’t know if the same thing applies to male readers having an ideal female character in film/literature but quite a different ideal woman in real life. Presumably the same principle might apply, although I haven’t seen as much evidence of it.

I suppose the point is that characters like Mr Darcy drive the story more, so they are far more exciting and entertaining to read about. Characters like Mr Bingley (or, say, John-Boy Walton, or George Bailey), whilst being ideal husband material, are not exciting, so they do not get to take on the smouldering romantic roles in a book (or film). Perhaps the difference is that real life cannot be exciting all the time – and who would want it to be? As Morrell points out, alpha males are not going to be the types to stumble out of bed to see to the baby in the middle of the night, or clean out the cat tray – or, indeed, take great delight in wearing lots of silly hats at a party. And, much as I love Mr Darcy in the context of his own little fantasy world, in real life I would always rather be with the guy wearing three hats rather than the guy who is too far above himself to even pull a cracker with someone, let alone wear the paper hat inside it.

Thanks to the insatiable appetite my parents have always had for travelling, I have been well-travelled since about the age of six. By that time I had been trudging fairly extensively around the Far East as well as the usual places like Europe and America. And I have been thinking recently about how travelling has helped me as a writer. It might sound clichéd, but travelling really does broaden your horizons, and if you can do it from a young age, I think it’s even more useful.

I was a little kid when I went to Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, and so it didn’t occur to me to think: these people look different, this food tastes different, the air smells different, am I happy about this? In many of the photos from these holidays I’m either sat on a filthy pavement cuddling a stray cat or sat on a filthy pavement reading a book. But I put the cats and books down for the sightseeing, obviously, even if I sometimes had to be forced to do so. I have seen the Great Wall of China, and the hieroglyphics in the tombs at the Valley of the Kings, and climbed the ruins in Chichen Itza. I’ve ridden on elephants and camels (although not at the same time, obviously); sat in a sled pulled by huskies (and even runaway huskies on one memorable occasion), and swam with dolphins. I’ve held giant snakes, fed giant tortoises, and had my sandwiches snatched away by monkeys (all right, so maybe I gave the monkey my sandwich because it tasted horrible and I didn’t wish to eat it). In the Far East I’ve been caught in a sudden downpouring of rain so heavy that you’re soaked within seconds, and I’ve walked out of air conditioning into heat so intense it feels like you’ve been smacked over the head with it. We have been swindled, robbed and tricked during our travels – which perhaps is no great surprise given the kinds of back street places we have been known to wander into. My parents are such seasoned travellers that they can now spot a scam a mile off. Not me, though. I’ll fall for any con going. In addition to this, I’ve seen the most beautiful crystal waters on beaches in the Caribbean, and soon got used to the jellyfish bobbing around in the sea on beaches in the United Arab Emirates.

From a very young age, my brother and I did everything on holiday that my parents did. There was none of this going to bed early crap; there was certainly none of this being carried or pushed in pushchairs nonsense (we knew we would have been laughed at if we had even suggested such a thing); and there were absolutely no Kidz Clubz (shudder), which I absolutely loathed, possibly because they did not allow me to sit quietly in a corner and read my book, but instead insisted that I participate in group games with the other children (although I do still have the cap I won in the coca cola drinking contest). I ended up in such a club just once in Jamaica only because my brother was so keen to go. There was a bit of an incident when I ran away at the first opportunity and, I’m happy to say, I’ve never seen the inside of one of these clubs since.

I have used locations from my holidays in both my Gollancz books, and I have drawn on my experiences from them for the Lex Trent books, even if only indirectly (although the midnight markets are created straight out of the night markets I visited in Hong Kong and China). I don’t ever remember a time when I was not well travelled, and I am extremely grateful to my parents for taking us to those places and giving us those experiences rather than molly-coddling us in some English-only hotel year after year. You don’t get a feel for the country if you never leave the private beach, after all. Better to intrepidly venture forth in search of adventure and new experiences and glory! Even if this does mean that somewhere along the line you may get scammed, or robbed; or find yourself horribly lost; or stranded in the middle of nowhere with a flat tyre; or bitten by a really huge bug; or, as in my brother’s case, have copious amounts of blood gushing out of your head on at least two occasions that I can think of. But that, perhaps, makes my parents sound a little more happy-go-lucky than they actually are. They did mop up the blood, after all, and they were only accidents. But, yeah, travelling is great, and all writers or aspiring writers should do it. Just try to avoid the blunt trauma to the head thing – especially when out on safari in the African wilderness surrounded by wild lions, because blood is much more difficult to clean up under those circumstances. And the lions dislike the screaming.

This is a post I have been meaning to do for a while, but never quite got round to. However I have been inspired recently by a brilliant post on a similar subject by novelist Faye L. Booth: http://fayelbooth.blogspot.com/2009/01/when-emperors-are-in-buff.html. Faye’s post is much more comprehensive than mine, but I feel the pressing need to add my twopence to this discussion.

Writing a book is a labour of love. If it wasn’t then you would never get past the first chapter before you sickened of it and threw it in the bin. When you’re first starting out, you need a tremendous amount of faith in your own novel if you’re ever going to succeed in getting it published. I firmly believe that there must be unpublished novels out there that are phenomenally good but will never be published for the simple reason that their authors just aren’t determined/bloody-minded/stubborn/arrogant enough to withstand the ego-battering onslaught of rejection letters, and to send the book out again and again until it lands on the right desk of the right editor of the right publisher at the right time.

The ‘correct’ philosophy here is to say that everyone has their own opinions yadda, yadda, yadda, and not to be too disheartened because even if some people don’t like your book, others will. I accept this, in principle. But I also believe that not only must you have faith in your own work in order to succeed, but that you must love it practically to the point of being quite arrogant about it. There is no room for modesty here, my friends. If you don’t think your book is the best thing since sliced bread then how can you expect a publisher to? If you can’t be defiantly proud of your book even when it’s being rejected left, right and centre then you’ll be in danger of giving up at the first hurdle. There are countless examples of famous books (now considered masterpieces) being sent out time and time again before someone, somewhere recognised them for what they were.

Here I would like to direct anyone who hasn’t already seen it to go and watch Randy Pausch’s ‘Last Lecture’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo This lecture on achieving your childhood dreams is probably one of the most inspirational things I have ever seen in my life. One issue Dr Pausch talks about, which has stuck with me ever since I first watched the lecture, is that of brick walls. These are the hurdles and problems that anyone will face when trying to achieve their dream (whatever it may be). I think any writer can sympathise with the disappointment of a generic, single sentence rejection letter, or a witheringly negative review. But as Dr Pausch points out, the brick walls are there to give you the chance to prove how much you want something. They are there to keep the other people out, not you. They are there to stop those who only half-heartedly work towards their goals, rather than those who are utterly determined to get there even if they half kill themselves in the process. You can’t half-heartedly want to be published - you must be prepared to fight to the death for it.

I think this especially applies to writing – and trying to get published – because writing is its own reward even without publication. You can therefore, if you are so inclined, decide to write for yourself alone. You can view writing as a pleasant hobby and nothing more. You’re certainly not (with a few obvious exceptions) going to get rich and famous pursuing a writing career. So the only reason I can see for embarking on the rocky, perilous road to publication, is because you love your novel so much that having it all to yourself is simply not enough – you want other people to read it and enjoy it too. That is why hearing someone praise your book is one of the very best feelings in the world. But it is also why negative reviews are so abhorrent to a writer. If your final goal is not publication itself, but for people to enjoy your work, then getting a bad review is like falling at the last hurdle. I have now acquired a much thicker skin with regards to bad reviews, but at the beginning, when The Ninth Circle had just come out, I will admit that I found poisonous critiques of my work almost physically painful to read. And it was one of those unfortunate facts that a good review would make me feel good for about ten minutes, whereas a bad review could ruin my entire day.

Really, this is a case of: ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ coupled with ‘if you stay out of the kitchen you won’t get burned, but you will go hungry.’ If you can’t take criticism of your books, then you’re probably better off writing for yourself alone. But if you are going to attempt publication then, in my opinion, you really do have to be an arrogant little so-and-so. You have to be able to look at rejection letters you receive from publishers – actual professionals in the industry – and think ‘you are wrong, and I am right.’ That is harder said than done. But, assuming you do not get picked up by the first publisher/agent you approach, it is necessary. You must love your book so much, that anyone who doesn’t like it must a) have bad taste, or b), be an idiot. Of course, logically you can acknowledge that this isn’t really the case because people have different literary tastes etc etc, but this is the illogical feeling you must feel with conviction when you first open that rejection letter. That way you can stick your tongue out at it, rip it up into little pieces, throw them in the fire and firmly tell yourself that clearly this commissioning editor is an utter fool who has just lost their publisher an awful lot of money by passing up on your masterpiece. Ahem.

But – and this is the tricky part – you somehow have to counter-balance that arrogance with some degree of humility, especially if you are fortunate enough to get any kind of professional feedback. I’ve been extremely lucky with my editors, both at Gollancz and at Headline, in that they have both vastly improved my books with their comments and advice. It’s no use clinging to the idea that your book is perfect and cannot be improved. That’s taking the whole arrogant thing just too far.

Ultimately, readers and reviewers are entitled to their own opinions, and I would never begrudge someone for disliking one of my books. No book, no matter how wonderful, is going to appeal to everyone. Even geniuses like Terry Pratchett and J K Rowling are not universally adored by every reader in the world. You cannot do more than love your own book absolutely, and trust to the fact that, eventually, it will find its way to the people who are meant to read it.

My point, then, is that I am extremely arrogant when it comes to my books, and I ain’t sorry for it because the fact is that I couldn’t have got here if I wasn’t. But, at the same time, I would hope that I’d always be humble enough to acknowledge that nothing I write will ever be perfect. I would always strive to make my new book just a little bit better than the last one. And for that reason, I am certainly going to listen very carefully to anything any editor, reviewer or reader says to me about my books - i.e. I will pull the little pieces out of the fire, paste them back together, and read the letter/review/rejection again later when I can be calm and professional about it. If I still don’t agree with what’s been said then I will throw the letter back into the fire, and leave the damn thing there for good.

Something I get asked about a lot is whether I write on paper or on the computer. The answer is that I write on the computer, partly because I’m lazy (and so have no wish to spend time typing up handwritten stuff later), and partly because that just works better for me. I wish that I could write on paper. Somehow it seems more writerly to be sat there with a pen and notebook. Very Austen-ish and Bronte-ish and Poe-ish. But, quite aside from the fact that my handwriting is almost illegible, even to me, and that I would almost certainly lose the notebook eventually, the main problem I have with writing on paper is that it’s too difficult to move paragraphs around or rephrase sentences. You end up with a lot of messy crossings out and scribblings. I can make notes on paper happily enough, but actually writing part of a novel directly onto paper is something I find quite trying.

Recently, though, I’ve been forcing myself to write on paper sometimes for the simple reason that I can then go out to the garden. This is nice because it means that Moose can run around and release some pent up energy. It’s also good because I can be working whilst at the same time eating ice cream and drinking beer. Or wine. But not too much beer or wine, obviously, because writing when you’re drunk doesn’t tend to yield particularly good results. Ahem.

Anyway, the point is that working in the garden with sun and ice cream and beer, at hours that suit me, is one of the great things about being an author. I cringed recently when I heard of a company that insists their employees raise their hands and ask permission to go to the toilet in order that the time they’re away from their desks can be timed. Eh? What? Seriously?

I still prefer writing on the computer because I hate having to waste time typing up stuff later. But I’ve found that I can write on paper if I have to, as long as I have a really pretty, girly notebook, and a funky pen. Thankfully, having been to America recently, I am well stocked up on funky pens, including some particularly cool ones from the Rainforest Cafe.

On a related note, I can’t write if there’s music on, and I certainly couldn’t write in a coffee shop as I know some other writers do. I need quiet because I need to be able to think, and I generally can’t do that if there’s too much going on around me.

Lex Trent is the exception to the above. I’ve written scenes for Lex whilst on a packed train, on holiday, and various other noisy, public places. This is not something I would ever usually be able to do but Lex comes to me so easily that I believe I could write a Lex Trent book on the walls of a cave using nothing but a stick of charcoal. He takes over my head so completely that I’m simply not aware of anything else that may be going on around me. Lex aside, though, much as I have enjoyed being all Austen and stuff, writing in a notebook underneath the pear tree in the garden whilst the dogs enjoy a rare bit of sunshine, and the tortoises walk mashed up bits of food around their pen, I still would take the PC over the paper every time.