Author Interview: Chris Hannon

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from?

I'm 34, married with a 6 month old son called Toby. We were living in Shoreham-by-Sea near Brighton but right now we're trying something a bit different; living on a small holding in Andalusia in Spain trying to be as self-sufficient as possible; (think solar panels, chickens, orchards, vegetable garden)! I write (fairly dark) short stories, but both my fiction novels have been predominantly for a Young Adult audience. I'd like to write for a novel for a broader audience at some stage.

How long have you been writing? 

I’ve always been an avid reader but I don’t think I wanted to be a ‘writer’ until my early 20s. It started as a hobby, a few short stories just for fun. I look back on them now and laugh and cringe at how terrible they were! When i moved on to writing novels, i kept getting stuck or abandoning them halfway through - i must have five or six half-finished novels on my laptop! I decided I lacked the skills i needed to finish; so i did a Masters in Creative Writing over 2 years. It lifted the veil on the craft, gave me discipline and skills I didn’t have before. I wrote a rather flawed but coherent novel for my Masters, –Perry Scrimshaw’s Rite of Passage– but who cares I’d finally finished one! Eager to move on, I self-published it, and looked to take my writing a step further and produce something truly entertaining; and that was Orca Rising.

What was the inspiration for your most recent book?

I wanted to write something where the main character (Ocean Daley) has a proper learning arc through a book/multiple books. As a teenager living in a small town, i know i felt trapped; you're at an age when it feels anything is possible, but you're told you're not ready, by teachers, parents, the world. So the idea of being given a glamorous escape from these very real-life trappings was very appealing for me to write about. Then there's this idea that you get fixated on the act of escape itself, so much so that you almost ignore what you're escaping to.

What was the hardest part about writing this book?

I wrote the first draft in a burst, two months all told, so initially it flowed quite easily. What was hard was altering my initial premise - which was to have Ocean Daley recruited by an agency of assassins - to a spy agency instead. I got feedback from multiple literary agents that having a killer as the protagonist was just too dark, and to make Ocean more of a hero. Deciding to leave this idea behind was difficult, but so was rewriting large parts of it over and over again- but as i learnt in my Masters, re-writes are the norm and not the exception, so i better just get used to it!

Do you often develop characters from your personal experiences or draw from that of others?

It depends on the character, but definitely yes, you draw on your own personal experiences to an extent, and draw from people you know for other characters- always slices of their persona- never the whole thing. For example, In the book, Ocean has a strong relationship with the sea, always swimming out deep to the shipping lane buoys. That's something i did a lot myself encountering debris, waves, often jellyfish too. When i'm out there so far out, there's an undercurrent of fear, and a sort of electric giddiness that i have at being so powerlessness, at the complete behest of the sea and chance. I tried to convey those feelings to Ocean in those sections.

Are your comfortable writing in different genres? What is your go-to genre?

I definitely don't have one yet! I wouldn't have imagined i'd be writing YA to be honest, but the two books i've finished kind of chose me and just happened to fit into that genre; one is a coming of age Victorian tale, the other a suspenseful spy thriller. I have quite a clean, easy-to-read style that lends itself to a YA audience so maybe YA will become my go-to genre, and why not? It's a great space.

Is your writing genre one that you read a lot of? Why or why not did you decide to/not to write in this genre?

As a reader I'm into ambitious but readable fiction like David Mitchell and Margaret Atwood, interspersed with scissors-fi novels, and the odd non-fiction book. So i don't read spy YA much at all, i actually made myself to read other books in the genre so i could get a feel for who might be the right readership! I'm glad I did. For one I really enjoyed it; YA spy is such a fun genre. I learnt a lot from reading around too, for example I had quite a bit of swearing in the original and some content that some conservative parents might have felt inappropriate for their kids to read: so it was better to cut out the really risky stuff. I really respect what folks have done in this genre to date; Anthony Horowitz is such a good writer, Robert Muchamore too- they have kind of cleared a path so that other lesser-known writers like myself can explore the genre.

Do you have a favorite writing theme?

I find themes can stifle your writing. It's all a bit intellectual and you find yourself wondering with every paragraph whether each section is sufficiently exploring your pre-imagined theme. So, in my view it should never be pre-meditated and I never start with a theme, if one emerges from the writing then fine, you can sharpen it and try and bring it out. In Orca Rising, what emerged was escapism –something very natural for a teenager to feel–and that life is rarely as simple as it seems.

When did you decide that it was time to take your writing public?

It was a super conscious decision. With my first novel Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage, i didn't even try to get it published through an agent or publishing house, i knew it wasn't commercially viable or being totally honest, quite good enough. I did self-publish it, so in that sense it was made public, but i didn't promote it, i did it more to move on from it so i could start something new. I'd had a few modest successes with a couple of short stories, so I knew i wasn't a bad writer. When i finished Orca Rising, I felt it was tight, well structured, had a good plot and an interesting protagonist in a popular genre, so it had a good chance. I sent it out to different YA agencies, got a bit of interest from a few, resulting in signing up with the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency. That was the first time i really believed the story would get out there.

Is writing your first job? If not, please tell us what you do when you’re not typing or writing away.

I'm the main carer for our son, Toby, currently 6 months old! Writing is a new challenge now, saying ‘No sweetie, it’s writing time now’ just doesn’t fly (I’ve tried). I do have writing time set aside each week, and i do a bit of freelance script-writing on the side for a bit of beer money.

What’s something that you do to help find new inspiration?

I usually get in the shower. There’s something about hot water numbing the body that lets the mind wander awhile. That's where i get my good ideas. My absolute best ideas always hit me at night, but I’m too groggy to note them down and by morning I’ve forgotten them. I’m sure I’ve lost a few bestsellers that way already, but what can you do?

What is your next writing project?

I've got 2. The second Orca book is in the early works while i park an adult novel i've been working on.

Now for one of my favorite requests - tell us a random fun fact about yourself.

I'm really tall and gangly, when i play football on Monday nights all the Spanish call me Peter Crouch!

CREATE YOUR OWN FUTURE… 

16-year-old Ocean Daley needs to get away from school, his seaside town and wasting his summer working for his mother's irritating boyfriend. When his mysterious Uncle Frank offers him a place at a summer school for a select group of gifted teens, he jumps at it. 

But the school isn't like any other, with classes in hacking, bike racing, psychological tricks and combat. Orca, the secretive organisation behind the school, needs fresh recruits…but for what? Ocean's father co-founded Orca, and joining the organization feels like a way to honour his memory, as well as strengthen bonds with his strange uncle. 

Orca demands each teenager push themselves beyond the possible and in return each student gets an impressive salary, international travel and exhilarating field missions-a double life. There is one catch. Joining Orca is a life-binding commitment to support their 'noble' cause. For Ocean, it's the challenge in life he's been looking for. 

Others might call it a trap.