This section will be used to present questions and topics for further discussion and debate regarding the issues raised in some of my books.  Do please feel free to use the messageboard attached to this category to add your own comments and suggestions.

Noughts & Crosses
               – A Book Of Love

“Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination.”

A number of people have stated that Noughts and Crosses is based on Romeo and Juliet. It may well be, but I promise that when I sat down to write the story, that’s not what I was thinking (at least not consciously). As I wrote the story however, I became aware of the parallels between them. Some aspects of the plot are quite close – like the letter that never reaches its intended recipient. Other aspects were more accidental – like the balcony scene!

How did you come up with the idea for Noughts and Crosses?

I’d been mulling over the idea of writing a story about slavery for quite a while, but the reaction from my friends was lukewarm to say the least.
‘Slavery is in the past’, ‘Why d’you want to rehash something so painful?’, ‘Why do black people always harp on about slavery?’ are just a few of the comments I received. Almost everyone I spoke to about it was of the view ‘Been there, done that, let’s move on.’ But I wanted to write a story about the legacy of slavery. About how attitudes way back when, still influence all our lives and the way we think and live today.

I really believe the subject of slavery is terribly important – especially in this day and age. I think it gives a context to modern day Western World thinking and attitudes regarding other races and cultures.

But the comments and feedback I received planted the seed of the idea for Noughts and Crosses in my mind. It occurred to me that the story I had in mind would be more challenging to write and hopefully read if I played with people’s perceptions of the society presented in the story. I wanted to turn society as we know it on its head in my story, with new names for the major divisions in society, i.e. Noughts (the underclass) and Crosses (the majority, ruling society). I wanted to see this new world through the eyes of the main two characters, Callum (a nought) and Sephy (a Cross). Race and racism are emotive issues that most people are loathe to discuss but I think they should be discussed, no matter how painful. I wanted the society in my book to be viewed from two different points of view (Callum and Sephy’s) to show how our perspectives colour our thinking. The adage, ‘you can’t really know someone until you have walked in their shoes’, is like all clichés mostly true. That I think was the idea I had in mind when I sat down to write Noughts and Crosses. I think it was Nietzsche who said, ‘There is no truth, only perspectives. And the more perspectives you have, the closer to the truth you get.’

How did you come up with the title?

Noughts and Crosses is a game that no one really plays much past childhood because once you’ve grasped its objective and tactics, it invariably ends in a draw – a no-win situation. (In the US, I believe the game is called Tic Tac Toe.) At the risk of sounding arty-farty literati, I think that pretty much sums up racism. Ultimately no one wins. And as was said by Abraham Joshua Heschel, ‘Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.’ I guess that why I love the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore so much. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the only way we’ll get peace on our planet is if we all face a greater threat from outside Earth.

How did you come up with the names of the characters?

I’ve always loved myths and legends from other cultures. One of my favourites has always been the story of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone who was abducted by Hades – and the consequences that had for everyone else on Earth as her mother mourned her daughter’s loss. I hasten to add, Noughts and Crosses isn’t a retelling of that story. The stories aren’t the same – apart from Sephy getting abducted – but that’s why I called the two sisters Persephone and Minerva – I wanted classical names.

The names of the McGregor family were harder to come up with. I wanted names that were not unknown but were not very common either. I decided on Callum as a strong Celtic/Gaelic name. Callum means ‘dove’ – as in someone who is a peacemaker and a bringer of good things. I thought the meaning totally conjured up the character of Callum. So much so that when he is forced by circumstances to do things he hates, he has to switch off his personality, switch off the real ‘Callum’, just to be able to do them. I wanted Lynette’s name to conjure up her personality and the same for Jude.

For the daughter of Callum and Sephy, I wanted a name which would be as close to Callum’s as possible but which would mean something special. Callie means beautiful and I believe its origins are Greek. I think Callie Rose’s name suits her personality.

I must admit, I can’t start a story until I have the names of my characters. For me the names conjure up aspects of character and I think names are incredibly powerful. For example the story of Rumplestiltskin is a case in point. The miller’s daughter doesn’t have any power over him until she learns his real name.

Why do so many awful things happen to Callum’s family?

Being in a society but not of it, takes its toil in many different forms. That’s what I wanted to explore in Callum’s family. For example, Callum’s sister, Lynette suffers from a mental illness, brought on by a trauma she experienced a few years before the story starts. The sad fact is Afro-Caribbean British people are over-represented in British mental institutions. The resentment of Jude (Callum’s brother) for the Crosses, stems from the fact that he was not allowed to stay on at school even though he wanted to and he’s not allowed to play his full part in the society he lives in. He is truly in it but not of it – but there are various ways of doing something about that. Jude, unfortunately, chooses violence. So for dramatic purposes yes, Callum’s family do have a number of ordeals to live through, but some, if not all of these, are issues that ethnic minorities have to deal with a regular basis in real life, i.e. inequalities in education, health, the justice system, employment and access to opportunity.

Why did you end the book the way you did?

Because it had no other ending. It upset me to write it, and I know from the letters, comments and emails I’ve received that the ending upset a number of people to read, but I don’t think it could’ve happened any other way. And I know that a vast majority of the people who’ve read Noughts and Crosses agree with me.

Did you always intend to write a series of books based on Callum and Sephy?

I knew I wanted to tell the story of Callum and Sephy and their daughter Callie Rose. I’d always envisaged telling their stories over two books but the story expanded to fill four books (one book being a World Book Day novella, An Eye For An Eye – see below).

Do you see Noughts and Crosses as a book about racism or a love story first and foremost?

Noughts and Crosses is a story about two friends, Callum and Sephy, and their relationship as they grow older and grow up. The society they live in is the back drop and of course it has an impact on their lives, but I left a lot out because it did not serve their stories. Their stories came first. When I get an idea for a story, I tend to get the general plot in my head first, but for me, the characters make or break a story. I have to care about them to care about the plot so I spend more time on trying to get the characters right before I start writing than on anything else. I don’t necessarily have to sympathise with everything the main characters do but I feel I should empathise with them, that is I should understand what motivates and drives them – even if I disagree with their ultimate actions. Callum is a case in point. I grew really attached to his character but I think he makes some terrible choices. But then, so does Sephy!

Why is An Eye For An Eye so short?

Because I was asked to write a story for World Book Day 2003 which had to be a prescribed length. All World Book Day books are short because they sell for £1 in Britain and can be exchanged for the £1 book tokens every child receives who is at school and below a certain age.

An Eye For An Eye is really hard to get hold of. Will it be published again in the near future?

An Eye For An Eye has now been published at the back of a new edition of Noughts and Crosses.

Knife Edge
               A Book Of Hate

Why did Jude do what he did to Cara?

Jude (Callum’s brother) is a man who has let hatred and bitterness rule his life. Cara is his last chance to rejoin the human race. He has a choice to make and he makes it. And then he has to live with the consequences of that choice.

Why does Callum write that letter to Sephy?

All is revealed in Checkmate.

What happens to Callie Rose at the end of the book?

All is revealed in Checkmate!

Was Knife Edge hard to write?

Very. I thought the story would end with Knife Edge but realised over a third of the way into writing it, that it wasn’t going to happen. A further book was required. Because the story wasn’t planned from the outset as a trilogy, it meant that some of the things I wanted to happen in Knife Edge had to wait until Checkmate.

Now that I’ve finished all three books, I have to say Knife Edge was the hardest book to write of all three. Being the middle of a trilogy, it doesn’t start or end the Callum-Sephy story. And being the middle of the whole tale, things have to get worse before they can get better and conclude in Checkmate. But the experience has taught me a lot. I have a brand new trilogy in mind now…

SPOILER ALERT!

Don’t read any further if you haven’t finished (or even started) the books and don’t want to know how each book in the trilogy ends.

KNIFE EDGE:

It’s interesting to me that this is the book I’ve had the least amount of letters about! It suffers from middle book of a trilogy syndrome, I fear. I’m a middle child so I know how that feels! In my opinion, the middle book of a trilogy is always the most difficult to write. It doesn’t really start the story and it doesn’t end it either. I wanted Knife Edge to be different in tone to the other two books because I wanted it to be more inward looking, more introspective. I wanted Sephy to be lost inside her own grief with tragic consequences.

As for Jude and Cara, it was very strange writing their scene which appears in the middle of the book. (Those of you who have read it will know what I mean!). When I was writing that scene, I felt sick and I swear a chill ran down my spine. I don’t think I’ve ever written from the point of view of a character I detested quite so much as Jude. That was a strange feeling in itself, putting myself in the shoes – and head – of someone that evil. (Or was he just too much of a coward to go with his true feelings?). When I wrote each chapter of the trilogy, it was as if I became each person who was telling the story, so writing from Jude’s point of view was particularly chilling.

Checkmate
               A Book Of Hope

What is it about?

Checkmate concludes the story of Callum, Sephy and their daughter, Callie Rose. It paints a picture of the present using the past as a palate. How’s that for arty-farty alliteration!! To be more serious for a moment, with this book I tried to show how the past has influenced the present for a number of people.

The book is called Checkmate because I wanted to have a number of confrontations taking place – the two major ones are between Jude (Callum’s brother) and Jasmine (Sephy’s mum) and between Sephy and her daughter, Callie Rose. I wanted a sense of tactics and strategy and final chances in these confrontations. And I thought Checkmate would sum up the fact that once the game has been played there would be winners and losers and a time to reflect and learn and hopefully move forward.

Is Checkmate really the last of the Noughts and Crosses series of books?

The whole trilogy has taken almost five years to write. Checkmate took just over two years to finish. When I finished Checkmate, all the characters’ voices were quiet inside my head for the first time in five years. But I have to admit, they’ve started to whisper again… So who knows?! Also, see below.

SPOILER ALERT!

Don’t read any further if you haven’t finished (or even started) the books and don’t want to know how each book in the trilogy ends.

Let’s start with the last book in the trilogy first.

CHECKMATE:

There’s been a quite a lot written about CHECKMATE in the press, an awful lot of it by people who obviously haven’t bothered to read the book. Yes, the book does feature a girl, Callie Rose who is being groomed by her uncle to be a suicide bomber.

Do I feel this is appropriate subject matter for Young Adults? Yes, I most certainly do. The assertion by some individuals that ignorance in our children and young adults is preferable to knowledge and debate is astounding, not to mention frightening. No, I’m not saying that anything goes when it comes to children. Stories have to be age appropriate. This is not so much a question of subject matter but a question of how a particular story is told.

Do I feel the sex scene in CHECKMATE is appropriate? Yes, I do. I didn’t write it for gratuitous reasons but as a remembrance of just how much love there was between Sephy and Callum. The trilogy started off with love, I felt it should end the same way.

Do bad reviews/comments about my books upset me? Hell, no! Besides I do believe that if you can’t accept criticism then you shouldn’t look for praise either. I’ve read some bizarre stuff about me and my books over the last few months. One web site even suggested that I should be taken out and beaten up for writing about Jewish people being blown up on a bus. Needless to say, I didn’t write any such thing but people will believe what they want to believe I guess. And anyone who has read the book will know that’s a load of nonsense!

Why did I leave Checkmate with so many loose ends? To be honest, I really didn’t think I did. I certainly knew in my own mind who was on the beach with Callie Rose and who Sephy decides to be with. But the reason I left it the way I did was because I wanted the reader to believe the characters had lives which would continue after the book was closed. I wanted the reader to speculate as to what might happen to the main characters next. From the letters I’ve received, I think some people found that a bit frustrating. So I’m seriously thinking about what I should do about it! Hence the reason I’m thinking about one more book…