Thank you so much Rachel for agreeing to do an interview.

Interview

What was your inspiration for Electric Life?

At school (a looooong time ago) I read The Machine Stops by E.M Forster. It was the story of a future world where everything is controlled by a machine – it connects and informs everyone. It’s all anyone needs, and with the ability to communicate with family through a screen, no one need ever leave their little underground chamber where they live because of the uninhabitable surface. I’m so old that when I read this, the internet as we know it wasn’t even a thing. But when it arrived and expanded – especially into the world of facetime, phones and apps, purporting to make life easier while swallowing our attention so greedily, I began to think about The Machine Stops again. I wondered how much we were losing touch with real life and what things we miss out on when we’re scrolling through our days. I started to explore what the seemingly mundane, but actually thrilling things might be, and to illustrate the joy of unwired living, it needed to be experienced by a character that had never lived a non-digital life.

How did you choose which character to focus the story on? 

Because the story was driven by my fear about an increasingly virtual, cyber and digital future and how it might control us, the main character had to be someone I could understand and connect with authentically. So, Alara Tripp is part me, a nature-lover who suffers claustrophobia, and part my daughter, who has ADD and craves experiences because, in her words, she needs to feel something. Alara’s own version of claustrophobia, irritation and boredom highlight the flaws in this word where citizens are given all the digital entertainment they could ever desire while locked inside a sealed city – a place where her discontent is seen as a defect, but in fact, is a sign that she’s not being dumbed down nor living as she was designed to live.

What was your process for writing for Electric Life?

I’m not very disciplined, so I didn’t have a process as such. I just started with an idea – a concept of a sealed, skyscraper city keeping citizens off the ground – and I launched into it, not knowing exactly what was going to happen. I do this with all my books. I love to see where my ideas take me. Obviously, the first draft is always a bit of a mess, structurally, and the tension points might not always be in the right place – so I put it away for a while, then re-read it and see where it needs improving; I give it to friends and volunteer readers for their thoughts, too. Then I redraft and redraft until it looks something like a good story. It’s not the most efficient way of writing, but it’s the only thing that works for me.

What are the differences between writing YA novels and a middle grade series?

I don’t like to talk down to children in middle-grade, so my tone between MG and YA isn’t all that different – and I tend to go for murky topics in both – but technically, YA offers more freedom with subject matter, language and intensity. With middle-grade, you’re playing with young minds so you can’t lead them to dark places without a safety cord of some kind – for me that’s humour and a light touch. For instance, in my series Mort the Meek, which has a lot of death and violence, it’s painted as ridiculous and Pythonesque. In YA, you still need to be wary about making things unbearably hopeless, especially on the impressionable teen side of things as opposed to crossover YA, but generally, it’s a little more of a freedive into topics. Less handholding through the dark places, more highlighting why they’re dark in the first place.      

What is your approach to world and character building?

I try very hard not to do information dumps, which is a real issue when you’re aiming to get across the aesthetics, politics and back story of a world the reader doesn’t yet know. But I think I manage to avoid this because I literally make things up as I go along – which is the ‘process’ I was telling you about; the world unfolds as I venture into it, so it’s conveyed as I experience it, in snippets of sights, sounds, emotions… In redrafts I have to refine it and explain it a little more, but the initial foray into world-building is an absolute adventure, which I hope shows in the writing. With my characters, I start by drawing upon people I know or have known – e.g., I might take the moodiness of an old school friend and pair it with the physical look of my next-door neighbour – or certain aspects of brilliant characters I’ve met in tv series, films and books. Although I don’t truly know my characters until I put them in certain situations (the whole cliché about characters writing themselves or deciding what happens next is absolutely true), I will have some physical and psychological reference point for them. I will also think about the “want and need wheel” (as I call it) where I try to ensure that every character wants something from one character and needs something from another. For instance, Alara wants her friend, Moles to bring her excitement, and Moles needs to know Alara is there for him.   

How would you describe Electric Life in five words?

A dystopian novel celebrating life.

Did you have a favourite moment to write?

Yes! I don’t want to give the plot away – but there’s the ‘carnival scene’, which is actually more like a rave. I loved putting into words the feeling of being in a crowd, the anticipation of waiting for the beat drops, the absolute joy of dancing as if the music was moving your limbs.

What was your favourite book growing up?

I had so many favourites: Under The Mountain by Maurice Gee, about kids who discover there are giant shapeshifting slugs turning the world to mulch; The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, about the fight between good and evil, with lots of mythology; A Rag, A Bone and a Hank of Hair by Nicholas Fisk, about new people being made from old people – creepy!. I also loved all the Judy Blumes and the Agatha Christie detective books.

Do you have a favourite genre to read?

No, I don’t have a favourite. I read everything – sometimes I’m in the mood for outer space, and sometimes I’m in the mood for inner space. I’m happy to explore all worlds.