Tanith Lee Interview
01/09/2004 . Source: John Jarrold 

Author Tanith speaks with SFF literary agent John Jarrold about how people are the starting point for her fiction, tackling pirates with Piratica, and being influenced by Rider Haggard, Viereck and Eldridge.

TANITH - YOU ARE WELL KNOWN FOR WRITING IN EVERY AREA OF THE SF/FANTASY/HORROR GENRES.  IS THERE ONE AREA THAT ENTHUSES YOU MORE THAN THE OTHERS - OR IS WRITING THE CENTRAL POINT?

TL: The one area that always enthuses me is the one I'm writing at that particular moment - but of course you do get an influx of other things you want to do, usually in the middle of an enormous novel.  I just love writing.  It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting.  Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world. 

So I don't mind what I'm doing, and I think that's why I have such an eclectic way of writing, because I just love doing everything - and I have to add that I've also done contemporary novels, a detective novel which is coming out soon, and lesbian fiction.  Almost anything, really. It's very selfish when I write.  I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself, though obviously I am.  I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing.  I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it!

WHAT DO YOU FEEL IS THE CENTRE OF YOUR WRITING - CHARACTERS, THE WORLDS YOU CREATE, OR THE STORIES YOU TELL?

TL: People are always the start for me. In 'people' I include animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead...these are all people to me - and sometimes of course landscape is 'people' to me, as are worlds, so I suppose it's a compendium of all those things.  I start with a spark, an idea, but it always centres around a person - and if it doesn't, as for instance in some science fiction where you get an idea which is to do with a place or a theme, the characters begin to accumulate almost instantly around that central point like bees round honey; I love the way people literally come out of the woodwork. 

I find myself writing a book with a strong central character, and I'll be trailing along with this character, dragged here, there and everywhere, and suddenly a minor character, who I think is going to be there for three pages and then die, has a much more interesting life after they are killed!  This happens all the time.  I see everything I write - the land, the people...sometimes the people obscure their faces, so I get glimpses of them as if I'm looking through smoke, but a lot of them I see completely and they are the driving force and what absolutely fascinates me. 

The ideas and technology will come out of those people, those gods, those immortals, those dead - and those so-called 'ordinary' people like anyone you'd see on the street...because no one is ever ordinary.

WHAT LED YOU TO TACKLE PIRATES, WITH PIRATICA?  IT SEEMS TO BE AN AREA THAT'S POPULAR RIGHT NOW, WITH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN BEING SUCH A HIT, AND SO ON.  WHAT DREW YOU TO IT PERSONALLY?

TL: I don't think I've ever been so serendipitous, because it was a life-long interest, which my husband and partner John Kaiine also shares, and we got hold of a wonderful book of drawings and paintings by a guy called Howard Pyle.  He drew pirates, and pirate scenes, and this book was an encyclopedia of his art.  While we were devouring this book, both of us started to say 'Wouldn't it be interesting to write about pirates' so finally one of us - probably John, because he's an ideas man - said 'What about female pirates?' 

So we thought about the famous female pirates but I didn't want to use someone who was already known because the research for that is terrifying.  So we came up with the idea of a slightly parallel world in which to set my female pirate.  I wanted her to be, not exactly the principal boy but someone who's completely female but not feminine; from that, I wanted to reverse many of the other roles.  So in PIRATICA I have a pirate queen who is the 'hero', and the 'heroine' is the completely male, but not macho, Felix - who is decorative, charming and gentle.  He's very intelligent and loyal and ultimately he saves the day.  I had such fun with that. 

They're almost stereotypes, but reversed!  As I said, pirates have always fascinated me - but I started this book seven times, which has never happened to me, and I could not get it to start properly.  I realised that what pirates do is so ghastly I simply didn't want to get into it.  John solved the problem by coming up with an idea which I'm not going to give away!  Some people have mentioned it, but I'd prefer it to be a surprise for readers coming to the book fresh.  He came up with a twist about a quarter of the way through, in the theatre - so you'll know that's his when you get to it! 

He saved my bacon, and once I had this sorted out I wrote the book quickly and it was a joy to do.  I enjoyed the parallel world, too, because I was able to do so much research, but didn't have to stick to the rules.  In that world there's been a revolution in England, but no French Revolution.  I'm doing a sequel fairly soon and there's a reverse Scarlet Pimpernel, going over to England to free renegade aristocrats and deliver them to the outraged French people - who want to throw out their own aristocrats!  Writing this, I was able to explore our world too.  The PIRATICA world is just slightly off true.

ARE THERE SPECIFIC THINGS YOU WANT TO EXPLORE WITH YOUR WRITING, OR DO THE STORIES AND CHARACTERS LEAD YOU ON WITH EACH BOOK?

TL: Usually the characters lead, but sometimes you have such a strong theme that you think 'I have to get you to do this'...and more often that not, they won't let you.  And if they really won't let you guide them , you have to change things unless you absolutely have to do things in a certain way.  You don't actually say to your characters 'No, I've got to do this', but that's the way you're thinking.  I remember that I've sometimes had to kill people who didn't immediately return. 

You don't always want to do that, but I don't feel I'm killing them, I'm just reporting this horrible event which has occurred.  I don't feel guilt (say that implies that I do, on some level) but I just feel it's horrible, but this is what would happen, it has to be.  Then there are the characters who die but who you follow after death, and they often lead much more interesting lives after they are dead!  So the characters usually drive me along, but occasionally the plot has to come first.  It can get particularly sticky.  But the plotlines come from people anyway, so we're back to that!

WHEN DID YOU START WRITING, AND WHAT BROUGHT YOU INTO IT?

TL: I didn't learn to read until I was almost eight.  My parents were dancers and we travelled around a lot, so I went to some very ropy schools where I learned a lot about being bullied and not a great deal about anything else.  My father suddenly panicked - I think he'd been panicking quietly for a long time - and thought 'This girl is nearly eight and she can't read', and he taught me.  He taught me to read in about three weeks - but I don't remember anything about it, which is rather a bad sign, I think it was extremely traumatic and he was very stern but I will never cease to be grateful to him. 

He opened up all these magical worlds for me.  And of course, once I could read I think writing followed very quickly; I was able to put down my words and letters, and I started to write when I was nine.  So there's just over a year between my learning to read and beginning to write.  To me, it seemed to be a direct result of reading, and at the beginning there was an element of writing what I wanted to read, which I still do sometimes, although I now have other preoccupations too.  I don't honestly remember why I started, only that I did.  I've been shown things since that I hadn't actually written, but had dictated to people. 

They were quite insane, and very funny - this was when I was six or seven.  There were the brave ducks who pecked the bad wolf and drowned him in the pond...I was still reversing things, from the very beginning.  Yes, I think it was a result of learning to read - I read, therefore I wrote.  At an early school, when I was about five, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up.  Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress.  So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.  I just didn't yet know that.  It's all thanks to my father that I eventually did.

WHO WOULD YOU NAME AS INFLUENCES - WRITERS, ARTISTS, FILM-MAKERS, ANYONE...?!

TL: They are endless! I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault, whose novel THE KING MUST DIE I read when I was eleven or twelve and that was an enormous influence on me - I think I've read everything she's written many, many times. She has the combination of an exquisitely visualised, incredibly tough ancient world and wonderful writing which is never less than superb.  I also discovered Rider Haggard, and the first book of his I read was CLEOPATRA when I was about ten.  I was astounded by what he did with Cleopatra - I'd heard of her - it was absolutely wonderful. 

The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about seventeen was C S Lewis and his novel TILL WE HAVE FACES.  Some people might recognise a direct correspondence between  that and the heroine of THE BIRTHGRAVE who has to go masked because she is so devastating that anyone who looks at her is shocked and horrified beyond belief.  Another early influence, which some people won't have heard of, are books by Viereck and Eldridge, MY FIRST TWO THOUSAND YEARS and SALOME.  They're most extraordinary books which follow people who have become immortal from Christ's era right up to the Victorian period. 

Extraordinary short chapters, almost a kind of shorthand, but full of information and wonderful scenes and visions - magic, sex, the lot!  Also Daphne Du Maurier - not so much REBECCA, though it's an incredible book, but MY COUSIN RACHEL and THE PARASITES.  H E Bates,   THE SLEEPLESS MOON.  Mervyn Peake, of course, who I read in my teens.  I couldn't believe someone had produced literature that was like an entirely new language, beautiful stuff.  Graham Greene, everything.  William Golding, LORD OF THE FLIES, which I first heard on the radio when I was about six, which terrified me although I didn't understand it - but which part of me must have understood, because I've retained it ever since.  Jane Gaskell was a terrific influence on me.  I read her contemporary novels first when I was fifteen, and thought she was the most wonderful writer, entertaining and screamingly funny with a wonderful bitter edge inside the stories on which you cut yourself to pieces. 

I read THE SERPENT when I was eighteen, and I hadn't known anyone was allowed to write stuff like this - despite having previously read science fiction.  Boy, had she done something special.  It's an absolute classic.  Her ATLAN book are incredible, I don't think they get the recognition they should.  She one of the pilots of the whole genre, as far as I'm concerned, and I still re-read her books very regularly.  Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett. Ballard,  Clarke and Asimov, of course, and also Ursula Le Guin, were all amazing influences on me from very early on and I still deeply respect what they can do - and I still love their writing.  Later influences include Rebecca West, Rosamond Lehmann and Elizabeth Bowen, but there are so many others.

In art, Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites, Cezanne, early Picasso... I'm afraid he lost me a little bit with his later images, which look like the onset of a migraine attack when everything splits into bits which is probably why they scare me, but I love his Blue Period - beautiful draughtsmanship, lovely paintings.  Cotman, who was a watercolourist par excellence. Magritte.  Klimt, for the pure beauty - I've never seen art like that, it's unique - Beardsley, Van Gogh, Eric Fraser, who did some incredible black and white drawings that look like woodcuts for the BBC.  When I was young the Radio Times had his beautiful illustrations alongside details of plays; and Edmund Dulac, who was a fantasy artist  before any of us knew there was such a thing - although all writing is fantasy when it comes down to it.

In the theatre, Shakespeare, Marlowe, all Restoration stuff, partly for the humour and partly for the horror.  Sheridan, very much so, Chekhov, Strindberg and Ibsen, all of whom I adore.  I love Chekhov so much it's left me with a conviction that I must have Russian blood somewhere.  Pinter and Stoppard, both amazing, and Ayckbourn, who has had me screaming with laughter so much that I fell off the couch I was sitting on - which only happened one other time, when I was watching Charlie Chaplin!

In film I could go on for ever, so I'll just list them: Coppola's DRACULA, which I think is extraordinary.  Neither John or I wanted to see it, we'd seen shots from the film and we weren't very keen but we felt we should see it since we're writers, and I felt as someone who writes about vampires I ought to see it; I'm a devotee of DRACULA, which was a pathfinder in horror and vampire fiction.  So we agreed to stick it for ten minutes and walk out if we hated it.  After the prologue, with that incredible flashback which is so devastating, we turned and gave each other the thumbs up sign, and delightedly sat through the rest, and we've watched it several times since.  It's a most wonderful film.

I was very influenced when I was young by the epics like BEN HUR, SPARTACUS and most of Cecil B De Mille's films.  This seems to have paid off for me in books like THE STORM LORD, ANACKIRE, THE BIRTHGRAVE and even that series I'm writing now, THE LIONWOLF trilogy, which has an epic element.  I also love Disney, and will defend doing so, because there's so much in those films and I don't care if it's stereotyped; it was very awakening to a dawning mind, particularly THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.  I have to say the thing I loved most was Malificent, the wicked, wicked fairy - and boy, was she! She was also beautifully characterised by Eleanor Audley, an American actress. 

Films that I love include GLADIATOR, which I think is one of the best and strongest modern epic films - if not the best and strongest, and which also manages to recreate the religious element, although it's not a Christian element, and that's so sensitive and clever.  All three versions of THE MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, with Gable, Brando and Mel Gibson - all beautifully done and a great influence on me; together with BEN HUR, they helped to instil my love of ships.  BEN HUR, incidentally, left me permanently wanting to drive a chariot, which I'd still like to do!  I loved a film called THEM!, which is a horror film from the fifties. 

At that time, we used to go to the cinema once or twice a week, and they used to preview X-certificate films - those which children couldn't see - and I was terrified, and used to have nightmares just from the previews.  THEM! haunted me and I finally saw it as an adult and it horrified me, and still terrifies me.  It's now recognised as a great classic of black and white horror, I think.  Even allowing for the fact that technology and computer effects have taken over, when you see 'Them', they are still truly terrifying.  Olivier's three Shakespeare films, RICHARD III, HENRY V and HAMLET especially, an enormous influence.  WEST SIDE STORY was also an enormous influence.  In science fiction, FORBIDDEN PLANET was something I loved.  I saw it when I was very young and found it terrifying because of the demon, but I loved everything about it including the fact they dared to have a green sky! 

BLADE RUNNER is one of the modern classics of science fiction, I don't think anything since has surpassed it. And RAIDERS, the first Indiana Jones movie, which managed to combine humour, cleverness and terror - it's an absolute tour de force.  APOCALYPSE NOW is also a modern classic (which isn't why I love it.  There are many modern classics I don't love).  It blends surreality and reality, and the mixture of horror and beauty about something which may be unacceptable.  An extraordinary film.

I love all types of music, but classical music particularly has had an enormous influence on my writing and some pieces have directly inspired a book.  Prokofiev's ROMEO AND JULIET ballet score is astounding, and when I wrote my version of their story, SUNG IN SHADOW, that music was an enormous influence.  Shostakovich's Symphony Number 5 was a direct influence for ANACKIRE, simply because by listening to it I could see scenes that were in the book, and which I subsequently wrote. 

Rachmaninov  had an endless influence on me, but strangely enough his Variations on a Theme of Paganini was very much what inspired me when I was writing my historical novel of the French Revolution - also Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, quite amazing.  Sibelius I used endlessly when I was writing HEROINE OF THE WORLD, these symphonies seemed right.  Saint-Saens Organ Symphony is actually in THE BOOK OF THE MAD, you can hear the notes, they're described, and he's both influence and mainstay of what happens at the climax.  And Chopin.  His two little concertos, which are so thinly orchestrated yet so delicate and wonderful, were an inspiration for - and appear throughout - LYCANTHIA.

DO YOU DIFFERENTIATE WRITING FOR ADULTS FROM WRITING FOR TEENAGERS AND CHILDREN, OR ARE THEY PART OF THE SAME THING?

TL: They are absolutely identical.  We are all people and all have different ages.  No difference at all, except the censoring - I don't like to put too much horror in for younger children, and obviously sex has to be contained in a sensible way. . . which I can go along with.  Otherwise, it's exactly the same. I believe I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people.  If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion.  But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young.  I was reading, as I explained, some complex books in my own youth - and no, I didn't always understand every word, let alone every concept - but I got the main thrust, which was like a lifeline in a fluctuating world. 

And I am by no means unique.  Let us respectfully allow children and the young to make their own decisions - while always, preferably, delaying their confrontation with the graphic extremes of physical connection.  This last not to subdue or blind them, only to keep the sharpest edges away as long as it takes for them to break from the chrysalis and become themselves.   I've been delighted by many letters from people between the ages of 7 and sixteen who, if they didn't all totally endorse every word I wrote, had no problem at all with my 'complexity'.

WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO WRITE NEXT?

TL: As I've mentioned, a sequel to PIRATICA:
 Which is to be called in best filmic tradition, Piratica 2: The Return to Parrot Island. When you've done all that Art ands Felix did in Book 1, what can you do next...? well, this is it. All the crew are back, including excellent Ebad, and also vile Goldie, now reinforced by the attentions of her pet judge...
 
I'm also working on the second book of the LIONWOLF trilogy: Here in Cold Hell. Many of the characters were dead by the end of the first volume, but that, as I mentioned earlier, tends to stop nothing. Lionwolf must redeem himself and get free, new continents must be discovered, and the dreadful mad god Zeth Zezeth removed from the picture - almost.
 
I'm also lined up for a ghostly novella ( USA) and SF tale for younger readers (USA: Firebird)  and my other project, which is editing an anthology of vampire tales under the wise wing of Martin Greenberg. This is a crowded schedule, more crowded really than I care for - I like time to struggle with my characters and plotlines... but then, when you want to do something, you seize it. I'm also going to do ( probably writing in my sleep, or how else could I manage it? ) a second novella for Harlequin in their new romantic fantasy series.
 
DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC AIMS FOR THE FUTURE?

TL: I don't have specific aims. Only to keep writing. I need more time, as I said, perhaps 25 hours in a day would be helpful. I do need space aside from projects that fit in with what I am known for - SF, fantasy etc: to work on more contemporary novels ( which are even stranger than my fantasy stuff, believe me ) Contemporary and other work, including Lesbian fiction and detective, see EGERTON HOUSE PUBLISHING. And extra ideas which always arrive, thrilling and imperative, and often in the middle of other things. I never know where I am going though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does?

John Jarrold

(c) John Jarrold 2004

John Jarrold is one of the SFF genre's leading literary agent and his official site can be found at http://www.sff.net/people/john-jarrold/ - for more information on the works of Tanith Lee, visit www.tanithlee.com