WAITING
FOR TOMMY: BRYAN TALBOT
By
Richard Johnston RICH:
It sometimes seems that all people want from you is more Luther
Arkwright. Is his world still inside your head?
BRYAN:
Absolutely. After doing something like that, it stays with
you. I *am* developing another Arkwright story, which I hope
to do straight after ALICE. I want it to be as different from
HEART OF EMPIRE as that was from the original Arkwright.
RICH:
Well, that was fairly different. Met Kenny Baker at Chicago,
wish I'd had a copy of Heart of Empire for him to sign...
did you have any problems with Luther aficionados getting
something different than LUTHER II in HEART OF EMPIRE?
BRYAN:
Not one. Many preferred it. I really like the way that it
looks very different, and that Arkwright is in black and white.
It has the effect of making the first book really look as
it took place in the past - a little like looking at sepia
photographs.
RICH:
In Heart Of Empire, you seemed to spend a lot of time creating
the Earth most of the story took place in. How do you begin
creating such an environment, and how much of it didn't we
see?
BRYAN:
It forms slowly over years. I've been working ideas for a
fantasy story for about 10 years now and have the city now
quite firmly in my mind. Over the period, everything I see
or read is grist to the mill, sparking off possibilities.
The starting point is usually a character or a situation that
I think is both original and striking.
Readers
saw most of what I'd developed though, if asked, I would have
been able to imagine, say, what was in the drawer of a desk
or what the next street looked like.
RICH:
One theory goes that any long form creative work warps the
creator's personality. That writing characters and scenarios
for a long time, your own personality forms mini-personalities.
Not in any health-of-mind threatening way, but accessing what
it is in your brain that makes your own personality, and using
it to manufacture your characters personalities, leading to
the process often described as the characters "writing themselves".
Have you observed this, do you think the theory is a valid
one, or is it some mumbo-jumbo justification for someone who
can "just get on with it"...
BRYAN:
Dunno, never thought of it in those terms. The characters
certainly do "write themselves" though.
Pages:
1 | 2
| 3 | 4
| 5 Continued
Here... |
