TALK: Tim Bowler

Tim Bowler is the Carnegie Medal winning author of River Boy, Starseeker, Apocalypse and the sublime Blade series, to name but a few. He was kind enough to answer some questions about his work, his writing process, and his new book, Sea of Whispers.

Tell me about Sea of Whispers.

Sea of Whispers began long before I put down any words. I started writing the novel in 2010 but the images of sea glass that haunt the dreams of fifteen-year-old Hetty came many years before that when I was on holiday on the island of Bryher in the Scillies and my wife said that she wanted to go down to the beach to see if there was any sea glass worth collecting.

There weren't any decent pieces – just a few nondescript shards from a broken bottle which we left on the sand – but as we walked about the beach searching, a picture slipped into the story-making part of my mind: of beautiful sea glass washed up on the shore; and then I forgot about it and went away and for several years wrote other stories. By the time 2010 had come along and Hetty's story was whispering inside my head and demanding to be written, I found that the pictures of sea glass had returned, together with echoes from my life that I knew would affect the way I approached the book.

The novel took a long time to write, there were many different drafts, and the mystical, elegiac nature of the story made it an emotional tale to tell. Hetty is a strong-minded yet highly sensitive girl and I found myself anxious to do her justice as she struggles to come to terms with her ancient grief, conquer her doubts and stand up to those who mock her. Sea of Whispers is about many things – fear, prejudice, love, loss, hope and more – but ultimately it is the story of a young girl's courage and her quest to understand the deepest mystery of all.

You were a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. Did this help your writing, in knowing what your audience liked?

I'm not sure. Maybe it helped but I like teenagers and find them fascinating anyway and I'd have liked them and found them fascinating without being a teacher. I think my interest in the teenage mind is more deeply connected to powerful memories from my own teenage years: that, probably, rather than having been a teacher, though I very much enjoyed working with young people during my teaching days.

When you write a book, do you plan the story, or fly by the seat of your pants?

I don't find plotting helpful. In fact, I find it blocks me and freezes my imagination. The physical act of writing is often so fruitful in itself that the plot changes by the sentence and I like to stay loose and be able to react to that. Some people see this as chaos but I just see it as the subconscious sharing its richness and fecundity and offering different ways in which the story can go. At some point in this process, I get a sense of the true north of the story, i.e. the way it wants to go. This is often very different from the way my clever little ego-driven conscious mind might have wanted it to go, especially if it has been working to a pre-arranged plot. Having said all that, it's important to remember that this is just my approach. Many top writers plot in detail and swear by it, so it clearly works for them. I advise people interested in writing to experiment and see what works best for them. If plotting helps, that's great. Go ahead and plot, then write your story. If plotting doesn't help and you prefer to dive in and swim around and find your way more intuitively through the story, then that's fine too. All that matters is that the story works in the end. How you achieve that is immaterial.

Are you writing anything at the moment?

I'm working on three main projects at the moment. I'm finishing the edit of a novel that is due out next year, I'm half-way through the first draft of another novel, and I'm putting together material for some fiction for younger readers. I've also got a new book out this August called Night Runner. So I'm keeping busy. 

What one piece of advice would you give to emerging writers?

Keep writing, keep learning your craft, and keep doing that all through your life. Even when you don't believe in yourself, keep writing. You learn about writing by writing. Good writing, bad writing – both have something to teach us if we are receptive. Writing nothing teaches us nothing. So write, write, write, and refuse to quit when it goes badly. Often your best pieces are the ones you had to fight hardest for.

Thanks Tim!

You can find out more about Tim at his website. Sea of Whispers is out now from OUP and is available online and in all good bookshops