The story is age old, the recognition of the writer and the artist not always forthcoming, not always appreciated by the wider world, bypassed it seems by those to whom image is the powerful narcotic, the drug of youth, of representing their ideal on the world. It is a shame, a collapse of hope perhaps that we do not laud the genius in those who plug away at night, forsaking even the life or the other pursuits they wish to engage in as they dig deep into their own memories, their loves and reminisces, in which a sense of order is hunted, dedication and discipline shadowed and overcome; to those we must seek out their charm and set the record straight on their enigma and the mystery they set out for us to follow.
Being a writer is perhaps difficult enough, the rules of engagement always changing, forever challenging, it is a way of life to which many believe they are called but sadly, and unhappily, either find the discipline is not forthcoming, or the rejection too much to bear. Being a writer is a hard task, often without reward, albeit in the story created and the belief shown by a publisher willing to see what others don’t that the writer and the story are more than a commodity, that they are more than just the vice of profit.
Liverpool’s Bob Stone is a man to whom praise must be given, not only a book shop owner, he puts his creative talent to absolute use in the way he brings great tales to life. With a children’s hero already in the many bedrooms and book shelves of his native town, the fabulous Bushy Tales, he has now turned his attention to the young adults, to those that listen to their hearts and created a world that is both illuminating and full of possibilities.
In his debut young adult book Missing Beat, Bob Stone has created a world that arguably sits comfortably alongside that of Stephen King, not in its use of the horror motif, bit in the dramatic setting, the feel of the physical world being replaced by one that is just out of step from our own, a heartbeat gone astray.
I was fortunate to catch up with Bob before the day’s opening of his book shop, Write Blend, in Waterloo’s South Road. The new novel, published by Beaten Track, weighs wonderfully on my mind, the setting to the story is on our own doorsteps, and yet whilst I am interloper, for all intense purposes a stranger to these shores, Bob Stone has breathed this air all his life, and it is no wonder that the story is vivid and charming.
Congratulations on your new book Bob, it is a clever and wonderful read.
BS: “Thank you!”
Was it a difficult premise in terms of writing as you’re better known for the Bushy Tales series, it’s a big leap from a child’s book to one for young adults?
BS “It was almost the other way around. The stuff that I’ve written generally has been more grown-up, it was more actually of a leap to write children’s books. It was kind of a leap backwards, trying to write stuff which I didn’t dumb down too much but more of a case of reigning it in from time to time; so going back to writing more grown-up stuff is just going back to what I’ve always written.”
The area that you’ve chosen to set the novel in is the area in which you live in.
BS: “Yes, that was partly accidental and partly the old “write what you know”. It’s difficult writing about any location because you’re either limited by what’s there which doesn’t always suit the story or making stuff up about the area and having people say it’s not like that or making entirely something up, so I went with what I knew.”
How did that come across to you during the process of it – I’m thinking particularly about the use of the Iron Men but there’s a wonderful scene where – and he reminds me so much of Trash Can Man in The Stand by Stephen King – where you have the man driving around in the car and then – boom! This had a very descriptive element to it.
BS: “Yes well the Iron Men first of all – what’s the best way of saying “a cynical marketing ploy”? Opportunist! I thought if it’s got the Iron Men in then it will sell around here. Without giving too many spoilers away, I suddenly realised that with them being made out of iron it was very relevant and then they became a major plot point and also the limitations that iron places on certain species which I suddenly thought – hang on, this works! Then they became more of a plot device rather than a scenic backdrop. Bootle just at the time, seemed like a good area to have a son who wants to go around shooting things and then I moved it. Again, it was just one of those things that seemed right. I wanted to have a bad human in it as you said before – Trash Can Man, there always has to be one.”
I know you’re a big fan of Stephen King but in terms of The Stand, such an iconic book and your book lends itself in many ways to it albeit subconsciously by the way in which you’ve set the book out, there’s so much in there where you have this very malevolent-walking dude, as it were, to use Anthrax’s analogy of him, how did that come into play?
BS: “The scenes in The Stand of empty streets and the psychological impact of the situation isn’t just in The Stand, they’re many other instances of them, every time I see one – Doctor Who for example has very powerful scenes. It was one Christmas Day or Boxing Day, I just happened to be out on the streets of Waterloo and there just happened to be nobody around and just the thought popped into my head – what if it’s not just for Christmas? What if this is what it is like – what would you do? That’s why it ended up as a young adult’s novel rather than an adult’s novel because partly I wanted to write on that level. I was reading a lot of young adult fiction at the time but also because the psychological impact on a younger person, would coping in that situation prove more challenging for an older person and it just seemed to work.
Then of course, you do have the problem of logistics. How does it work? You have a world without any people in it – how does it work? What are the rules, that’s the great thing about fiction – you make them up but then you have to bear in mind that any rules that you make up have to have an internal logic to them.
My initial idea sounded absolutely great, I had the idea that the world that Joey’s found himself in is a world that exists between heartbeats, between time, between seconds, if you imagine normal life going on as the beat goes on – he’s found himself in a syncopated beat and everybody was actually there but he was out of sync with them, they couldn’t see him but that presented him with all sorts of problems in terms of – if you go back to that other people are there but you can’t see them, things are going to get moved around. You can actually see that at the start when Joey finds himself alone and he picks the phone up to try and contact somebody but he finds the line is dead but he can hear a whispering on the end of the line that’s the last trace in the book of that idea because I liked it. It’s quite spooky as that was just hearing the other world that was out of reach but what is that trying to tell a story within it – it just didn’t work.”
I assume there will be more explanation in the sequel?
BS: “To a degree, at the moment, the second book is three quarter’s written, it’s the first draft and the explanation is that simply, there are other worlds and there’s another of them, there’s plenty of them and that’s kind of it.”
It’s not so much like the theory of parallel worlds but that the worlds are stacked up.
BS: “That’s always been an idea that’s fascinated me. You call our world, World Zero and then plus 1, plus 2, plus 3, they could just be a split second apart, again it’s that idea of what if? An idea that I wanted to use in Book Two, which I had to change, was about one that I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of when you read somewhere about who was nearly cast in things, like in Dad’s Army, Captain Mainwaring was nearly Jon Pertwee and an aged and made up David Jason was going to be Corporal Jones.
One thing that always fascinated me was the report that Ronald Reagan was very nearly cast as Rick in Casablanca and part of the world that is established in Book Two is a changed world and I had the idea of using that as the catalyst that was the point as the worlds divert, Ronald Reagan was cast as Rick and his movie career took off and he never became President – how was the world without Reagan as President? Then I found I had two difficulties – one, if you ask the internet what would have happened if Ronald Reagan had not been President you get a very wide set of opinions but also the fact that it never happened. Ronald Reagan’s Army career was in full swing as Casablanca was being cast and he was never in the running, so that idea was swiftly abandoned.
Things like that fascinate me, it’s the ripple effect – how a world can be changed by a small thing and one thing that we will discover is that all the worlds that exist have one thing in common that our world doesn’t have and I can’t tell you what that is because that would be a spoiler!”
I look forward to reading the second one. I think your first novel is a marvellous read, as we discussed earlier, there was no such thing as young adult fiction if you were of a certain age. You have really caught a moment of imagination for that age group, more along the lines with, if you’ve seen that report of loneliness being very high amongst this generation, their alienation is perhaps more profound that our generation – Generation X- is supposed to be the most alienated of the lot.
BS: “That was a difficult bit actually, trying to think myself into the heads of several seventeen-year olds, it was a very long time since I was one and seventeen year olds where different when I was. They have so many other pressures, so many other benefits as well that we didn’t have. I discovered through reading contemporary young adult fiction that I could do an awful lot more, not just in terms of how far I could take the story content but also in what I could have the characters do because seventeen-year olds experience more, they know more than they did when I was one. This basically meant that, within certain limitations, the only difference between writing this book for young adults and for other adults, is that Joey is seventeen but the content, like so much young adult fiction, can be just as strong as any adult book. I’ve had some authors say that “Young Adults” is the target area, it’s just the start, there’s no upper limit. Anyone should be able to read it, i’s just that it might not be suitable for younger readers”
One last question, if I may, obviously you’ve published the novel through Beaten Track, Debbie who runs it has guided and helped you with the process.
BS: “I have to say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the editing process, I’ve never had that experience before. When I got the initial edits back, if it had been an essay it would have had see me on it – there was that much red on them. I looked at some of it and I thought she’s right- I do use the word “jus” far too often, I use way too many speech tags. There was so much that I learned through doing that which I don’t do now or try not to do- time will tell, I’ve not finished Book Two yet, I have’t had the edits back on that, I might not have learned nothing. I found it quite an exciting process because it was happening to me finally and I loved every minute of it”
It really does sound as though i’s an absolute dream come true for you.
BS: “It is and ‘m still pinching myself, I still find it difficult, when I put on my Facebook page – Bob Stone- Author, I almost laughed when I did it. I can’t use that word to describe me but I am and there is a book out with my name on it and i’s been published by a publishing house with a contract and whatever else happens, that’s always there and that will always be a very significant time of my life!”
Missing Beat by Bob Stone is available to order from Write Blend on South Road, Waterloo and from Beaten Track Publishing.
Ian D. Hall