When do you write?
When I get a chance.
Where do you write?
In the studio at the top of our house – and I often review the text the next day in a coffee shop.
Why do you write?
Why doesn’t come into it. It just happens.
Pen or computer?
Computer. I love the computer because it’s so informal. You can test out an idea and then change your mind or move it around so easily. It makes the whole process so fluid. I normally do several full passes of the whole manuscript before I’m ready to show my editor. Years ago, I did my first story on a typewriter – and I can’t think how I managed.
Silence or music?
Silence for drafting. For reviewing and editing text it does not matter.
What started you writing?
I started seriously when I received an approach from a publisher who wanted to turn a film I had done for Horizon into a book.
‘For me story is key. I like to block out the whole plot – to see the entire narrative shape on a few pages.’
How do you start a book?
For me story is key. I like to block out the whole plot – to see the entire narrative shape on a few pages. Then I still won’t start writing until I have plotted the storyline in detail across each chapter, exploring the relationship between the characters and the action to create the most satisfying narrative shape.
And finish?
The last full stop is wonderful. We always have a family celebration.
Do you have any writing rituals or superstitions?
No.
Which living writer do you most admire?
Tom Wolfe.