THE GOLDEN LIGHTNING ROD

An Interview With Author Christopher Golden


At this point in his prolific career Christopher Golden needs no introduction to readers of dark fiction. But in case you've been living under a rock for the past 15 or so years, he is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as THE MYTH HUNTERS, WILDWOOD ROAD, THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN, THE FERRYMAN, STRANGEWOOD, OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS, and (with Tim Lebbon) MIND THE GAP, which arrives in bookstores this May and is a must-read. Golden co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel BALTIMORE, OR, THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE with HELLBOY creator/artist Mike Mignola, which they are currently scripting as a feature film for New Regency (and not only is that, too, a must-read, it's a must-have and the hardcover belongs in every serious readers' collection).
He has also written books for teens and young adults, including the thriller series BODY OF EVIDENCE, honored by the New York Public Library and chosen as one of YALSA's Best Books for Young Readers. Upcoming teen novels include POISON INK for Delacorte, SOULLESS for MTV Books, and THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON, another collaboration with Tim Lebbon. At some point in the not-too-distant future, his first short story collection, THE SECRET BACKS OF THINGS, will appear.

Not only is Golden prolific, he's good. As Peter Staub has said of the author: "Golden is one of the most hard-working, smartest, and talented writers of his generation . . . Everything he writes glows with imagination." It could be said of Golden's imagination that it's a lightning rod for compelling stories.

Your early novels dealt with classic supernatural archetypes, specifically vampires. Now you appear to be exploring more folklore-related and purely mythical subjects. Why?

I understand the question, but I don't draw the same distinction that you do. My choice of myths may be more esoteric now, but I still spend a lot of time doing what I've always done, which is taking legends apart to see how and why they work, and then putting them back together in a slightly different order. Granted, the supernatural archetypes did interest me more when I was younger, probably because they were fresher in my mind and more visceral. What I love about legend and myth and folklore is that they're all about storytelling and oral tradition and ways to say things about what it means to be human, not unlike Biblical parables. That's not to say that sometimes it isn't just fun to write a monster story. I adore monsters. But I'd like to this I understand monstrosity a little bit better at forty than I did at 21, when I started writing OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS.

Looking back at your already prolific career, out of all the novels you've written (I mean "Chris Golden" novels here; written solely by you and not based on media franchises), what novel are you most proud of?

Interesting question. Normally, I'm asked which is my favorite. But pride is a different thing altogether. My favorite is still STRANGEWOOD, for myriad reasons, but mostly because--despite it being about children's book characters come to life--it was the first thing I ever wrote that I thought of as mature. I'm also very fond of THE FERRYMAN, mainly because, at least to me, it's a heartbreaker. But of my solo novels, the one I'm proudest of is probably THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN. I think the writing is better, and I think it just flat-out works the best.

Using myths and folklore as vehicles for contemporary storytelling, be it unabashed fantasy or "magic realism" has become increasingly in vogue over the past decade. What -- or maybe who -- inspired you to explore this potential narrative path? I'm thinking here about the increase in interest in the works of Joseph Campbell and the way in which Hollywood adopted Christopher Vogler's adaptation of Campbell's model of "the Hero's journey" into a storytelling beat sheet. Any parallels for you?

I've never been a Campbell zealot. I understand and appreciate the model, but hate the urge to codify what ought to spring fundamentally from an author's imagination or ancestral memory or even simply frame of reference. Not that I'm troubled by Campbell's codification of the model, but that those with imagination might consciously ape it. I take a simple approach to all of this stuff. I know what I like, and what feels right to me and intrigues me. At a convention in Atlanta a decade or so ago, I was at a Clive Barker panel, and Clive gave a great talk about not putting chains on your imagination. That helped lead me down the paths I've been following ever since. As far as the Hollywood beat sheet thing, I hate it. It's more a cheat sheet than a beat sheet, allowing unimaginative executives to think they know something about story simply because they've got a Campbell checklist to run down while evaluating pitches. They're not all like that, of course, but there are far too many.

You just stated you see some of your novels as "mature" -- does that infer you consider some of your earlier writing "juvenile"?

The reference was only to the thematic elements in the books. A lot of my solo adult novels subsequent to THE SHADOW SAGA books are about something in a way that the others, to my mind, are not. I love those books. In fact, I think the last one, THE GATHERING DARK, is the best of them. But they don't resonate for me in the same way.

Considering how prolific a writer you are, do you ever express concern that maybe the volume of work you do can undermine the quality of the story you're striving to tell?

I'm not sure it's any more of a concern for me than it is for someone who only writes one book a year. I'm a full time writer, and that often includes nights and weekends. In a given year, I probably write about 1000 to 1200 pages. Since Stephen King is always the touchstone for this stuff, here's my question: you don't think Stephen King writes that many pages in a year? If you take two weeks' vacation and only work five days a week (usually I work more than five days in a week), that comes out to just over three pages a day. Now, all of that said, do I worry about the quality of the work? Absolutely. I want the reader to come away feeling like the time they've spent with me was worthwhile. The busier I get, the more attention I seem to pay to the words as they go onto the page. That may seem like reverse logic, but somehow that's what happens. I couldn't be happier with the work I've done in recent years, both with my novels at Bantam and the short stories I've done in the past year or so.

You've collaborated with a number of writers -- why?

I always say that writing is a solitary occupation, and I'm not a solitary person. But it's more than that. I get passionate about things and I like it when other people get excited about them too. I always want to say, "you should read this book" or "go watch this movie" or whatever. So when I get into conversations with my friends who are writers, or we're at a convention together, naturally ideas will come up, and it just seems right and comfortable for me to say, "hey, we should do that together." I keep saying I'm trying to do fewer collaborations, and that's true, though there are a couple of writers I haven't worked with yet that I've spoken to about collaborating in the future. Sometimes you just get in an amazing groove with someone and that can be more pleasurable than writing on your own.

What's the most challenging aspect of co-writing a novel?

A million things. You need to work with someone who shares your work ethic and at least somewhat shares your temperament. The hardest thing is finding a singular voice, so that it isn't painfully obvious who wrote which portions of a collaborative work. With Sniegoski, it's always easy, because we've been friends so long that we can finish each other's sentences and we write very much in the natural rhythm of our conversation. Most recently, I've been writing with Tim Lebbon, which is a challenge because he's from the UK and I'm from the US. But I'd be willing to bet that most people trying to guess who wrote what would be wrong as often as they'd be right.

How do you work with Mike Mignola?

On BALTIMORE, OR THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE--our first real collaboration--Mike came to me with about 85% of the plot already done and asked if I wanted to write the novel. I filled in the holes, invented some of the characters to fill certain roles, created a couple of the long, winding folktale stories in the book. Mike and I made sure we had an outline we were both happy with, and then I sat down and wrote. Every two or three chapters I would send him pages, and he would come back to me with suggestions or details he wanted me to clarify, and then he illustrated the chapters while I went on to the next batch.

What sparked MIND THE GAP and collaboration with Tim?

I'd had the basic idea a number of years before but knew that, to write it, I'd need to collaborate with a British writer. At one point, Graham Joyce and I were going to do it together. But Graham got incredibly busy and I let it sit. Then I met Tim. We got on incredibly well and I read a bunch of his work and really admired the hell out of his talent. I asked him to take a look at it and he loved the outline, but we wanted to make it something that was OURS, so we revised it quite a bit, adding nearly all of the fantasy elements of the story. When Bantam bought it, our editor asked if it might be the beginning of a series, which inspired us to come up with THE HIDDEN CITIES, which will be a series of thematically connected novels that are set in the same fictional universe but which are otherwise almost completely separate. They take place in different cities, with no overlapping plots or characters. As we wrote, MIND THE GAP changed dramatically, and we talked after every chapter, inventing new plot elements and ideas. We're finishing the second HIDDEN CITIES book right now, THE MAP OF MOMENTS, and so far our collaboration has been incredibly fruitful. The Hidden Cities will continue, and we've also recently sold a pair of young adult novels that will be published in hardcover from Atheneum.

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For more on his wide-ranging career, and for frequent up-dates on his numerous projects, visit his official Website www.christophergolden.com