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Interview: Frank Cottrell Boyce

Frank Cottrell Boyce was born in Liverpool and studied English at Oxford University. In 2004 he wrote Millions based on his own screenplay and won the 2004 Carnegie Medal. His second children’s novel, Framed, was shortlisted for both the 2005 Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award. His latest novel is Cosmic.

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BWI: You were a successful screenwriter before you became an author. How did you become interested in writing children’s books? How different is writing a screenplay versus a novel? Does one format come more naturally to you?

FCB: I’d always wanted to write a children’s novel but when I had the idea for Millions I wrote it as a screenplay because writing screenplays was my job—I knew how to do it. It was only when Danny Boyle told me it would make a good novel that I had the courage to do it. Sometimes you need a shove from someone you trust and admire.

BWI: How has the great success of having your first book, Millions, win the Carnegie Medal as well as being adapted into a successful movie, affected your approach to writing?

FCB: Well, now when I have an idea I write it as a book and not as a screenplay — which is much, much, much more fun. The other thing about the books is that you get to go and read them to people and that’s great because when you’re standing in front of a massive crowd of children, you very quickly learn which bits are boring and which bits are funny. So hopefully you learn to avoid writing the boring bits!

BWI: Do you recall the origins of your latest novel, Cosmic, in your imagination?

FCB: Yes. My son had a very good friend who used to call for him everyday. Then we went to live in France for a year and when we came back this friend had had a MASSIVE growing spurt. He was like a giant, mutant version of himself standing in the doorway blocking out the light and I thought, “That’s interesting. How would that feel?”

BWI: Liam, the main character of Cosmic, shares many perceptive and humorous thoughts about fathers and children. Florida is also convincing in her celebrity obsessions. How do you think you are able to get inside the minds of pre-teens so well?

FCB: I’m not sure that I’m really inside their minds. I think they’re just good characters. I take a lot of things from people I know.

BWI: Is space travel a personal interest of yours, or did you have to do a lot of research for Cosmic? Did you try any Space Camp-like training activities?

FCB: Every single man my age is obsessed with space travel because when we were young we all really, really believed we would go to the moon. We thought we were living in the space age. I wake up every morning thinking, where is my jet pack?!

BWI: Without his experiences playing video games, your protagonist, Liam, would not have been as successful in his adventures. Does this mean that you think online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft teach kids valuable real-life skills? And does it mean that you are a gamer?

FCB: I’m not really a gamer. I have a really good friend—am—who is. He showed me how it worked and I sat with him and I was fascinated. Sometimes if you don’t do a thing yourself, you see things that people who do it all the time don’t see. For instance, I don’t have a mobile phone and I’m always putting them in stories. People who do use them sort of take them for granted.

BWI: Is Cosmic an intentional homage to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? While very different, both stories have a crazy, wonderful contest and some clueless, terrible parenting.

FCB: Thank you for noticing! Yes, I stole from Roald Dahl. I think it shows I have great taste!

BWI: How do you keep up with your seven children and writing? Do you work from home?

FCB: I do work from home and the children are home-educated so the house is noisy all day. Noise is creative! Also, because they’re there it means I can’t sneak off and watch TV. Or play Warcraft.

BWI: Do any of your kids ever accuse you of stealing personal details from their lives for your characters? Have any of them ever been mistaken as people much older than they are, as Liam was?

FCB: No. All my children are small and young-looking! I consciously avoid writing about them because they would kill me if I did.

BWI: Do your kids help at all in your editing process?

FCB: Yes, I’ve got one boy who really likes to read what I’ve written. Though lately he’s got a bit uppity and taken to adding his own gags while I’m not looking.

BWI: There is a lot of humor in your books but also some serious subjects such as fatherhood and religion. Do you find that humor helps to communicate serious or difficult subjects?

FCB: It’s the other way round for me. I want them to be as funny as possible but I think real comedy needs to be about something important. Also, stories are important, aren’t they? They should always be about something that’s important to you.

• Browse our list of featured titles by Frank Cottrell Boyce

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