Interview with Alexander Gordon Smith, Part One

Alexander Gordon Smith, the author of Lockdown: Escape from Furnace, has kindly consented to join us today and talk about his book.

First of all, Gordon, it’s a pleasure to be able to speak with you today.  Can you tell us how long you have been writing, and what first led to your interest in writing?

Hi Jennifer. I’d just like to say thanks for inviting me to answer some questions on your excellent blog! It’s a real pleasure to be here!

Like so many of the writers I know, I have been writing for forever – well, for as long as I can remember anyway. When I was a kid I was an avid reader, I used to devour every book I could get my hands on. I just loved the fact that every new book I started was the beginning of a brand new adventure. All you had to do was turn that first page and literally anything could happen. I think that feeling is addictive!

I guess when I was very young I didn’t think that books were written by actual human beings – I thought they magically appeared on the shelves! But my dad, and my Uncle Frank, used to tell me stories all the time, and occasionally they even packaged these stories like books – with illustrations and a cover – and I had a moment of revelation when I realized that all books must have been written by real-life people. And if other real-life people could write books, then I could too!

So I picked up a pen and started writing. Of course these early stories were rubbish – books full of scribbled monsters and the adventures of super-hero vegetables (seriously, the first “novel” I remember writing was called Super Carrot). But that feeling of opening up the first blank page and starting out on a new adventure was amazing. It was just like reading a book, only you had total control over what happened! I guess writing was addictive too, as I just haven’t stopped creating stories since I first picked up that pen. I hope I never stop.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts of writing?

For me, the best part of writing is the moment you begin a new book. I always start running, and that feeling of embarking on a new story and having the world open itself up to you is exhilarating. Even talking about it now is making me want to start another book!

I don’t like plotting. It’s not that I hate it, but I’m too impatient for it. Every moment spent trying to organize the future of your story is a moment you don’t spend in your story. And from my experience no matter how hard you plan, the story always ends up going in its own direction. I like to throw myself into the adventure and see what happens.

Of course when you write this way it doesn’t always work – you can end up hitting a brick wall! But I like that aspect of writing too, especially in a book like Lockdown where the main character, Alex, has no idea what is going to happen to him. Because I didn’t plan the ending, Alex’s fear and confusion and hopelessness is real. He didn’t have an escape plan when I started the book, he had absolutely no idea what lay in store for him, and I think that makes his experiences, his actions, more realistic.

I don’t plot, but I do get to know my characters as well as possible before I start writing. I think this is essential. I spend weeks, months, sometimes even a lifetime, with the characters in my head. I ask them questions about their life, try to discover every single thing about them. Even if I never use this information in the book I still want to know it because it turns the character from a literary construction to somebody real, somebody living in my head, somebody I know better than I know my own family.

And when you know your characters as intimately as this then they drive the story, they determine what happens. Even if you have an idea of what is going to happen in a chapter your characters sometimes just won’t obey you. And that’s the most amazing thing about writing – when the book comes alive like this. That’s what I absolutely love about it – writing the first draft in that white heat of excitement, feeling like you’re right there alongside your characters experiencing this adventure for the first time.

Oh, and the less said about editing the better… I know it’s essential, but it’s my least favorite part of the process!

When I had finished reading Lockdown, the only other story it put me in mind of was Stephen King’s novelette Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which, like Lockdown, dealt with someone who was unjustly imprisoned, the way people change inside prison, and how they continually yearn for freedom. What inspired you to write Lockdown?

Stephen King is one of my biggest influences. I love his books, I love the way he writes, I love the fantastical element of his stories, and most of all I love his characters. That’s what King does best, creating utterly believable, utterly real characters who you empathize with and respond to intimately. That’s why his books are so scary, I think, because you care so much about the people in them. It’s an honor to be compared to him!

The idea and the inspiration for Furnace came from a number of different sources. I guess the earliest spark came to me when I started thinking about my own worst fears. I wanted to write a horror novel for young adults, and I wanted it to be scary. I figured that the best way to make it scary was to write about things that scared me; that way my fear would feed through into the writing and hopefully seem more real to the reader, therefore making them more scared! So I made a list of the things that scared me: being incarcerated for the rest of my life, being wrongly imprisoned, being buried alive, being powerless, being beaten, being trapped in the dark in a tiny space, being experimented on, and of course being locked in a place full of monsters! Furnace Penitentiary really was the most terrifying setting I could think of, and so I began to write about it.

Interestingly (and I say interestingly now because I’m looking back on it), I suffered a personal tragedy just after I started writing the book. I won’t go into details, but anyone who has read the dedication at the beginning of Lockdown will have a fair idea of what happened. It was a very, very dark time for me, everything just seemed to unravel. I could have stopped writing, I could have stopped everything, but strangely the writing was what kept me sane.

I began to see Furnace – this horrific place buried beneath the earth – as representing this dark period in my life. And as soon as I did that I knew that if Alex didn’t make it out of Furnace then I would never get past this tragedy. So his fear and panic and desperation and hope are also my fear and panic and desperation and hope. I really think this is what gives the book so much of its power, and its drive. Writing Lockdown, I think, kept me from the brink of oblivion. Alex and I were both inside trying to save each other.

I’m not going to say whether he makes it out or not, though!

Lockdown has only recently been released in the United States, but the entire Furnace series has been available in the UK for some time now.  So far, the series consists of three novels: Lockdown, Solitary, and Death Sentence.  Will there be a fourth book in the series?

The first book in the series is called Furnace: Lockdown over here in the UK, and it came out in March this year. Furnace: Solitary followed in July and the third book, Furnace: Death Sentence, has only just been released. Yes, there will be a fourth book and a fifth book too, which will be the last one. The titles haven’t been confirmed yet, but their working titles are Fugitives and The Crimson Mile (which references another King story that was a huge influence on me). I’m not sure exactly when they are due to be published, but it will be sometime in 2010. The series is really formed of the first three books – which are almost a trilogy in their own right – then the last two, which still follow Alex but which involve a different twist on the story. I can’t say any more without giving too much away, sorry!

The sequel to Lockdown, Solitary, is listed as coming out in the U.S. in Fall 2010.  Can you tell us a little about it?

Again, I don’t want to risk giving any spoilers! However, I can say that there are worse things in the blood-drenched tunnels beneath Furnace Penitentiary than the wheezers and the Warden – much, much worse. Solitary confinement makes General Population look like a summer camp, and Alex and his friends discover that escape is only the beginning of their nightmare…

I’ll leave it there, but I will say that Solitary is a darker and scarier book than Lockdown. But it is just as thrilling and action-packed! And it does begin to answer the mystery of what is happening!

Will you be doing any signings or other events in the U.S. to promote Lockdown?

I really, really hope so! Nothing has been confirmed yet, but I’d love to visit the U.S. and talk to people about Lockdown. I’ve never been to the States, but it is number one on the list of places I would absolutely love to go. There is so much so see and do! Hopefully we’ll be organizing a tour, if not this year then definitely next Fall for the release of Solitary. If anybody is interested in arranging a visit then get in touch! Fingers crossed I’ll see you all soon!

The Furnace series isn’t the only thing you’ve written.  The two-book Inventors series is available in the U.K., but not yet here in the U.S.  What can you tell us about that series? Will it be released in the United States eventually?

The Inventors was my first published book. I actually wrote it with my little brother, who was 9 at the time (he is 13 now). It is very, very different to Lockdown! It’s an adventure story about two young inventors, called Nate and Cat, who love building gadgets and machines and other things (even though most of their experiments go terribly wrong)! After accidentally turning their headmaster purple they are entered into a competition to win a year’s scholarship with the world’s richest, cleverest and most famous inventor, Ebenezer Saint. Along with a number of other young geniuses they win, and begin this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Soon, however, they realize that Saint isn’t all that he appears to be, and that if they ever want to see their parents again – and save the world –they have to out-run, out-wit and out-invent the master inventor…

It’s a roller-coaster story with all kinds of crazy things – laser guns, x-ray specs, killer robots, killer robot dogs, rocket boots, two-headed goats and loads more! It was so much fun to write, especially as my little brother Jamie and I tried to actually build most of the inventions for real (which is a story for another day)! I have so many fond memories of the book, and I think the story is so exciting (even if, looking back, I would maybe have tightened up the writing a little – but then I think all writers feel that way about their books). It did quite well over here, but it was never published in the States. I really hope that it is one day – maybe if enough people demand it then somebody will pick it up!

(To be continued…)