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Anne Fine

HER LIFE QUESTIONS CHILDHOOD FACT FILE

 Anne answers questions ....

When did you start writing?

Way back when my daughter was still taking naps in her cot. One day there was such a blizzard that I couldn't get to the library, and almost went crazy with nothing to read. By morning I was so desperate I sat down with a pencil and some paper, and started writing a book of my own. And even when the weather changed, I just kept going.

What is your favourite book?

Well, now I'm an adult, it's probably George Eliot's Middlemarch, or Vanity Fair by Thackeay. But when I was young, it was Mistress Masham's Repose by TH White. And all the William (by Richmal Crompton) and Jennings (by Anthony Buckeridge) books I could find.

Where do you get your ideas from?

It doesn't take much to start me off. I think the subject has to interest me. I hate getting bored. But some tiny thing seen, or overheard, or read always seems to show a way into the book I want to write. You sense it when it comes. "Yes, that's how I'll do it." If the idea fades, you were wrong. (That's why I take my time.)

How long does it take you to write a book?

Novels for older readers like The Stone Menagerie, Madame Doubtfire or The Book of the Banshee, will take about a year. I take great pains. I never hurry. (I was very different at school - hated correcting, hated writing it twice.)

I'm a very slow worker.  I write in soft pencil, so it's easy to rub out over and over till I feel it's at least halfway right.  Even once it's typed up, there'll be layers of changes and additions and corrections.  (It is work.)  I hated going over things when I was at school.  I'd just sit and let it pour out, and if I'd been asked to redraft it, it would have got staler, and worse.  But now I enjoy nitpicking till it's absolutely the best I can do.  Some books take over a year.   Short books for young readers take just weeks or months.

What top tips do you have for wannabe writers?

Well, first, don't be put off the idea of being a write if your school just happens to be one of those which makes you draft and redraft over and over till you're absolutely sick of it. Don't forget most writers my age never had to do that, and most of us would have just hated it.

But the most important advice is: Read, Read, Read. The practise for writing is not writing, but reading. So find that library card, and use it. And if you can't ever find the books you want - like mine - on the shelves, ask the librarian at the main desk for a request card and fill in just the book's name and the author (if you can remember) as best you can. (They'll work out what you mean. They're brilliant at it.) You'll have whichever book it is - unless you're stuck in the Harry Potter queue! - in no time at all.

Then, one day, just sit down and write the book you'd most like to read, but no one's bothered to write for you.

What would you like to do if you weren't an author?

If I could sing, which I can't, I would have loved to have sung opera. Since that's a "fat chance" scenario, I'll opt for being a publisher's reader. Paid to read? Excellent!WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

What do you like most about being a writer?

The silence.  Working alone.  Not having the constant compromises in my work life that most people have.  I write the books for me.  (Me at 5, me at 14.)   Then hope there are readers out there who like the same sorts of books I do.

Can we email you?

Not at the moment, I'm afraid.    I'm deep in another book right now.  Sorry. (But you can write).

Do you like the films of your books?

I feel quite detached from them, as if they have little to do with me.  What interests me is why people act the way they do:  what's deep inside them, pushing them.  Film can't show that.  It can show brilliantly what happens.  But only the book can explain the complex emotions and (sometimes self-deceiving) thought processes behind those actions.

So, though I quite enjoy watching them, the films people make of my books are, for me, a bit like the fancy icing shell without the cake inside.

Do you have anything to do with the filming?

No.   I just get on with the next book.

Which of your books is your favourite?

ROUND BEHIND THE ICE-HOUSE.  Don't ask me why.  It's nobody else's.  Other people seem to vote for CRUMMY MUMMY AND ME,  FLOUR BABIES and GOGGLE EYES.

Do you put your family in your books?

Bits of them, sometimes.  But mostly, as Jan Mark says:  'Writers don't write about people they know.  They write what they know about people'.

How important do you think it is for us to learn grammar and punctuation now that technology can sort so much out for us?

I think it's absolutely vital! You can't write well if you don't really understand how language works and fits together. It's the craft of the job. Punctuation is really important to help the reader feel the rhythm and to understand what it is you are saying.