The Place For My Writers Notes

Writer's Digest, March 1991, pages 22-27, had an article talking about Clive Barker. The subtitle was "His fiction deals with the wildest ideas imaginable, yet Barker strives to maintain 'emotional realism.' Here's how he creates such dark fantasy bestsellers as The Great and Secret Show and Weaveworld."

The article starts out with a little background history of Clive Barker. Born in Liverpool in 1952, in the 70s he went to London and got involved with avant-garde theater. He was "the enfant terrible of London's fringe theater..." In the 80s, he started writing fiction, and was first published in 1984. "Horror stories laced with vivid imagery, sardonic wit and sometimes copious amounts of gore." Wild ideas rooted in a realistic framework. 

And then he tackled movies, too! Hellraiser...

"Readers know Barker for hish use of graphic sex and violence in his work." Hum... rigorous writing schedule, 8-12 hours a day. Writes in longhand! Then they drop into an interview format...

Q: When you're writing, do you first focus on the characters or the ideas?

A: The characters. Very much the characters.... Get the reader to accept one thing, one weirdness, and then the rest of it must follow realistically. ... 

Q: When the story ideas begin to get very bizarre or complex, what can you do to make sure you don't lose that sort of emotional underpinning?

A: The first thing is you've got to believe in the characters. You've got to be thinking with the characters and you've got to be in their skins. ... Any writer's belief in his or her characters -- or the situations in which the characters find themselves -- is central to his ability to convince the audience.

The second thing is that I look for parallel situations.

Q: I know you visited a prison before you wrote "In the Flesh" and I know you've watched an autopsy. Do you think that kind of firsthand research is necessary to what you do, even though your work is so involved with the imagination?

A: I think it's maybe more necessary because I'm involved with the imagination. It's very important to root your material, your fiction, in some knid fo reality. ... Solid research gives you a great place to move off from. It allows you a springboard, if you like, out into the fantastical.

Q: Have you ever had to scale back an idea or a plot line because you thought the characters were getting dwarfed by it?

A: Not really. ... Part of the pleasure of writing is taking risks. 

Q: Working on a novel that size, is there a danger of getting halfway through and thinking ... "Is this idea worth the time and emotion and everything else I'm putting into it?"

A: Absolutely. Starting wtih short fiction showed me that you can put a lot of material in 30 pages. If you are going to write 700 pages, they better be full. You better have an idea which is going to justify that length, justify the audience reading the thing for that long. ... I want a novel to be like getting a box of really great chocolates and you just have to go on to the next one and each one is different. ...

Q: Would you recommend short stories as a good place to start for people who want to write imaginative fiction?

A: ... It depends on the idea the individual's got. Short fiction lets you finish soon. A large novel means you have to pace yourself.

... I think it's very important that you try to be original, that you don't simply follow in the tracks of someone else. ... go out and do whatever makes sense to your imagination.

...

Q: What advice do you wish someone had given you when you first started to write fiction?

A: To have faith in my imagination. To not care that this wasn't 'reality.' 

Whoosh! Okay, so... let your imagination roam, and follow where it leads you!