Q&A with Jack Mackay and Katie Jennings, author and editor of Gloam.
In an old house, on a remote island, Gwen and her siblings encounter a terrifying monster. If only they could convince their stepfather of the dangers they’re facing. Gloam is a scary and evocative Gothic thriller that is also great fun to read, say the judges, and it shows children how hard it is to be a grown up.
When did you realise you wanted to be a writer and what then drew you to write such a scary story?
I knew I wanted to be a writer pretty much from the moment I could “want” anything. As a kid I was a voracious reader, mainly of stories about monsters and dragons. The moment I realised that being a writer is something you can do for a job, I knew I wanted to do it, and that ambition has never really wavered.
Gloam came about when my 11-year-old sister started asking me if she could watch horror movies. I didn’t think The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would be a very appropriate introduction, so I showed her the movie Coraline and gave her Goosebumps to read, but soon started coming up a little short on horror in her age range. I thought about the stories I grew up on, which were always a little dark, a little complex – sometimes even gruesome – and I realised how much the new generation of kids are craving that sort of thing. A lot of the media they see is very consciously nice, but kids have a preternatural sense of when they’re being patronised and sometimes they get a bit sick of niceness. They want stories that trust them enough to scare them. So, I thought I’d write a scary story of my own and see what happened.
What do you enjoy about the editorial process and working with Katie?
I love working collaboratively, especially when my creative partners are as thoughtful and passionate as Katie is. You hear a lot of real-life horror stories about having to “kill your darlings” when you get published, and while I’m not particularly precious about my manuscripts, I did feel very strongly about the preserving the spirit of Gloam rather than defanging it or sanding it down. However, any worries I had melted away very quickly when I met Katie. You only need to have a brief conversation with Katie to understand that she motivated by a real passion for storytelling and a respect for the minds of children. Her editorial approach is guided by those principles, so I knew I was in safe hands and felt very supported throughout the process. She has a keen eye not only for the broad thematic strokes but also for ensuring the story reads well at the sentence level. No darlings were killed, or even harmed. If anything, Katie helped me bring the story closer to what I would have always wanted it to be. I feel very, very lucky.
What were the main things you worked on together in your manuscript?
We worked a lot together to really hone the characterisation of the main character, Gwen, and draw out her many different facets in a way that felt cohesive. Protagonists are often the hardest characters to write because you exist in their head, which means you sometimes find yourself supplanting their personality with your own and taking certain things for granted. Katie really helped to provide an outside perspective on Gwen, identify the things that made her journey unique and then provide possible ways to make them clearer in the text. Some of my favourite bits of character writing in Gloam were prompted or strengthened by Katie’s notes. We also took care to iron out the plot logic of Esme and the cellar key and the way the world fits together. As a writer, you often let big, floaty ideas lead the way, which can sometimes leave you with inconsistencies or gaps in the connective tissue. Katie was instrumental in making the story more legible in that respect.
Horror stories tend to have a set structure and readers enjoy knowing, to a certain extent, what is coming. Did that help with your debut and how do you work within that?
Anyone who watches as many horror films as I do inevitably internalises, consciously or not, some of the formulae and genre tropes that crop up time and again. On one hand, writers and audiences can find a lot of comfort and satisfaction in those familiar ideas, and an advantage of writing for kids is that many of them might be experiencing them for the first time. On the other hand, you always want to be exploring new things from new perspectives without getting bogged down in cliché. In Gloam, I’m playing with some of the oldest tropes in the toolbox – a mouldy old house, an evil interloper, a friendly cat companion – which creates a comfortable foundation for a 19-year-old writing his debut novel. But because those basic ideas are so familiar, I made a conscious effort to inject the story with something specific and personal, which feels unique to the book. I filled the story with fragments of my own life, including some genuine autobiographical moments of terror (like the wasps in the treehouse), and tried to subvert some of those aforementioned tropes in ways I found interesting. That familiar Gothic foundation gave me plenty of scope to play around.
Your second novel will be published in September. Are there things you learned from the process of writing your first book that made the second book easier?
Every book is different, so every book presents its own challenges, but I do think the sheer confidence boost of having written one book and seeing it on the road to publishing made me feel more comfortable approaching another one. Collaborating on the editing of Gloam gave me a much better understanding of the nitty-gritty of writing – how to control pacing, how structure can totally improve the flow of a sentence, etcetera – but it also proved to me that some of the best stuff only enters the story in a second, third, fourth draft. One of the most important lessons Gloam taught me was that it doesn’t have to come out perfectly the first time. Indeed, my own work may never feel perfect to me; it’s just about making it as good as I can. I’m very young and my craft has a long way to go, but the best way to get better at writing is to write stuff. When I’m locked in a low-confidence procrastination cycle, sometimes it helps to remind myself of that.
What do you like best about writing for young people?
When I was eleven, I read constantly and the books I read shaped my interests for the rest of my life. In some ways, it changed who I became – who I am now. The best part about writing for young people is knowing that your book might be that for someone else. When a young reader tells me that they secretly read Gloam in one night under the covers and emerged the next day with a love of horror stories they didn’t have before, it’s the most exciting and most humbling feeling in the world. I consider it my responsibility to write stories that take young readers seriously, that are responsive to their passions and their perspectives on the world around them, that never become complacent or contemptuous about their emotional and intellectual capacity. Writing is a kind of communication between author and reader, and kids are by far the most earnest and surprising conversation partners. When answering letters or meeting readers in person, I get a chance to hear all about the stories they want to tell, and that’s easily the best part of the job.
What was your reaction when you first read Gloam? What appealed to you most about the story?
As a seasoned horror fan, and having commissioned my fair share of YA horror, I’d actively been looking for a Middle-Grade horror for some time. So, when Gloam came my way, the manuscript went straight to the top of my reading pile! From the opening scene where Gwen and her family race across the causeway to Gloam Island, I was utterly hooked! Jack Mackay conjures up such a distinct sense of place and genuinely chilling set-pieces, and the way that these scenes were drawn from the fears of the various characters made them all the more terrifying! Admittedly, the other thing that really appealed was that the book was on the shorter side. It’s not easy to write a story with such depth of characterisation and such a strong sense of place in less than 300 pages, believe me!
What impressed you most about Jack’s writing?
From his visual imagery to his dialogue, Jack’s debut is hugely impressive on a stylistic level. But, for me, what made his book truly special is the vividness of the characterisation. Above all, Jack has created the most brilliant of villains in Esme Laverne – a babysitter whose alluring façade conceals something truly monstrous! The psychological dimension to the story, as Esme erodes the bond of trust between the various family members, is the thing that really stayed with me.
Why do scary stories have such appeal?
I think scares are at the heart of stories for children. What fairytale doesn’t contain a terrifying villain or horrors of some kind? By their very nature, scary stories are immersive and visceral. As children get older and start to choose books for themselves, there’s also something transgressive and boundary breaking about picking a horror book. I think that element of choice is a key part of why horror is such an important genre where it comes to getting children reading for pleasure and keeping them engaged into their teens and beyond.
Gloam is both a scary story and one that deals with grief and loss. What makes it also accessible/appealing to young readers? Did you have that in mind when editing?
The orphaned protagonist is one of the most common tropes in children’s fiction, but in Gloam rather than merely a convenient catalyst, the theme of grief is interwoven throughout, making the family particularly vulnerable to the machinations of the seemingly empathetic Esme. As an eldest child myself, I completely identified with Gwen as she struggles to hold things together and take care of her younger siblings in the aftermath of their mother’s death. The character of the flawed but ultimately loving step-father Henry, meanwhile, allows the story to resonate with younger readers from a variety of family set-ups, who don’t always have the chance to see themselves represented in children’s books. In the edits, it was a question of balancing these undercurrents with the thrill-ride aspect of the story. We also worked to make this Gwen’s tale and to develop her relationship with Esme beyond an instinctive dislike into something more grounded.
This is your first time on the Branford Boase Award shortlist. What do you enjoy most about being an editor?
It is indeed – although I’ve been longlisted several times! The thing I enjoy most is working so closely with authors on the text at various stages to really draw out their story. I should probably leave the visual imagery to Jack, but it’s a bit like chipping away at a statue to create the best possible version, and there’s always something fresh and surprising to discover in every draft. I also love collaborating with authors to get the book into as many readers’ hands as possible!
What do you think marks out the best writers for children?
I think having a genuine desire to write for children in a way that is bold, unpatronising and true, regardless of genre. This is something that really shines out in Jack’s writing!
Thank you to Jack and Katie for answering our questions.
Andrea Reece
30 Winton Avenue, London, N11 2AT
Tel: 0208 889 1292
Mob: 07807 893369
Email: branford.boase@gmail.com
Andrea Reece
Tel: 07807 893369 | Email: branford.boase@gmail.com