Interview: Luke C Jackson

Luke C Jackson is a Melbourne based writer and author of the teen suspence novel The Unclaimed. He has also written the screenplay for the independent horror film When Evil Reigns. His new horror novel for teenagers Summer's End will be published through John Wiley and Sons in mid December.

When did the writing bug first bite?

When I was fourteen, my teacher gave us an assignment to write a story that included a couple of set lines, something like, ‘A bottle of champagne sits on the table, two glasses beside it; one is half-full, the other half-empty.’ I started writing a short story (greatly influenced by Psycho) about a woman whose car has broken down, so she heads into a nearby house and accepts a glass of champagne; while she takes a shower for no apparent reason, her host kills her and disposes of the body. When I finished writing I was asked to read, which I did with relish. By the end of my reading, my teacher and the rest of my classmates were sitting there in shock, and I realized that what I wrote had the power to affect people. That was a pretty powerful realization.

What drew you to dark fiction?

A few years after I wrote my ‘champagne story’, I’d found myself gravitation towards the horror section of the school library, and decided to write my own horror story. It was about a woman who teleports into the body of a kid in class, then kills his teacher (you may be picking up a decidedly school-based theme here, something that still exists in my work, although in real life I’m the teacher these days rather than the student). I submitted the story without any expectations and won the school’s writing competition. I then decided to write another story involving the same characters. That became chapter two of my first novel, The Calling, a vampire novel that’s yet to be published.

What form of dark fiction appeals to you most? Do you have certain topics you like to return to?

I think that the type of dark fiction that appeals to me is basically a darker version of the kind of fiction I’d read anyway. I enjoy horror and dark fiction stories that are based in the everyday - stuff that could really happen, but with a supernatural twist. In terms of ‘topics’, a few that seem to crop up again and again in my work are school, family and the ability of power to corrupt and individual or their society. My new novel, Summer’s End, is a great example of how I like to play all these concepts off against one another.

What are your major influences?

In terms of writers, I’d have to say my two greatest influences are Richard Laymon and Dan Simmons. I’ve always loved Laymon’s stuff because, no matter how ‘speculative’ the concept, his stories had a real grittiness. His favourite book of mine is one of about a bunch of serial killers; it’s called Endless Night, and is still one of the most gruesome novels I’ve read. Dan Simmons is a very different kind of writer; his novels are a lot longer, and more classically ‘literary’, and I feel – when I’m reading them – that he’s really done this research. If I could achieve anything like Laymon’s eloquence, or Simmons’ depth in my own writing, I’d be happy.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I’m inspired by a wide range of storytelling forms, both genre and non-genre-based. I love watching films and television, and playing computer games. In terms of the old question, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ I’d say I’m always on the lookout for a good story, and I can find that anywhere, from an art gallery or writers’ festival to a train station platform late in the afternoon. Imagining that you might be ‘finding your next story’ is actually a really good way to fool yourself into thinking that that hour-long train trip isn’t a complete waste of time.

What do you want people to get out of your stories?

Enjoyment. When I’m writing, I try to enjoy every scene, knowing that that will give the reader the best chance of enjoying it, too. Writing for teenagers makes this doubly necessary, since they’re so comfortable putting a book down if they don’t like it (a trait I admire). Hopefully, beyond being read simply for enjoyment, my work may be thought-provoking, but I’d rather that people just enjoyed what I was writing than went away feeling like they needed to engage in deep and meaningful conversations about it.

When you’re not writing, what else do you do?

Currently, I teach four days a week, and write most hours in between. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for other things, but I still like to maintain as much of a balance as I can, catching up with friends, watching a few good shows on TV, playing on my Xbox and going for a walk every day. At the beginning of this year, in preparation for writing my third novel, Sleeper, I traveled with my partner Kelly to India, which was amazing.

What do you believe is your proudest achievement to date?

I would have to say that my proudest achievement was holding my book launch for The Unclaimed. It was amazing to see so many people I’d known over the years being so happy for me, and to hear someone like Kerry Greenwood saying such nice things about the novel. While The Unclaimed isn’t a horror novel, it’s certainly got some ‘ghostly’ stuff in it, that I was extremely proud to hear Kerry describe as ‘a thread of bone-deep fear’.

What are your writing habits? Do you sit down for a scheduled time each day or just write when the bug bites?

For the last couple of years, I’ve dedicated every Friday to writing. On that day, and during the rest of the week, if I’m not actually writing I’m thinking about my novel or making notes or at least reading/watching/playing in the same genre, to keep me inspired.

How tough is it being an author of dark fiction in Australia? Is self promotion an important factor in today’s market?

Being an author is a tough gig, whether you write dark fiction or not, and while writing is an art, publishing is a business, so self-promotion is essential if you want to be successful as a professional writer. The same day I launched my first novel, I launched my website and business cards, which were designed to ‘hook’ a potential reader and show him/her that I was an author of dark fiction. Aside from self-promotion making good business sense, it’s practical: if you don’t control the way people see you, somebody else will. For example, when I’m introduced to a class of school students, the teacher simply paraphrases the ‘about me’ section from my website, which is fine; I’d much rather they did this than tried to make up their own version of who Luke C Jackson is.

Do you believe it is possible to make a living as an author in Australia? What else do you have to do to survive?

I’m not sure whether it’s possible to make a living as an author in Australia; maybe for a few very dedicated and very fortunate people. Right now, I’m happy being paid to do something I enjoy during the week (teach Literature) and supplement my income by writing fiction and non-fiction.

With technology advancing all the time, is there a place for horror novels and short stories in the future?

I would love to see somebody do a count of the number of reputable people who’ve claimed, at one time, that ‘the novel is dead’. I believe that as technology advances it offers audience members more choice of the types of texts they consume but, as choice increases, so does the audience’s appetite for a good story, so our novels and short stories might actually find broader audience than they otherwise would have. Also, changes to technology increase the number of avenues for writers; who knows what form a novel or short story may take ten years from now? Personally, I’d love to be given the opportunity to write the script of a computer game, particularly in the horror genre.

What advise can you offer young writers of dark fiction?

The three pieces of advice I’d offer any young writer, regardless of the genre they’re working in, are:

• Absorb texts, work out what you like and don’t like, and why. Then write. Over time, this practice will help you to develop your own style;
• Persevere in bringing your vision of a great story to life, no matter what anybody else says; and
• Meet people in the industry, because they’ve already made it at least part of the way, and may be able to save you a whole lot of time in the long run.

If my second and third points seem to disagree with one another, I guess that leads me to a fourth point:

• Nobody can tell you how to get published. They can only tell you how they got published, which is one-part talent, one-part luck, and one-part good networking, and if they’re really reputable, they should know that, so be careful about the advice you pay for.

What are the things you have to consider or be careful of when writing a horror novel for teenagers? Is there much difference between that and an adult horror novel?

There is a big difference between writing horror for adults and horror for teenagers; in a word, it’s ‘death’. When I looked at a lot of the teen novels I used to enjoy when I was fourteen or fifteen, I was looking at R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike from a very different perspective, analyzing the mechanism by which they make their work scary. When I did this, what surprised me was the number of characters that R.L. Stine in particular seemed to be happy ‘killing off’. It’s not that I’m prudish about death in a novel, but when writing Summer’s End I was acutely aware of the risk of killing off a character: firstly, you risk not just scaring a reader (which is good in a horror novel), but scaring them off (which is bad). Instead of killing characters, therefore, I used a combination of threats, such as people going mad or losing their sense of self. The bonus of this was that I realized how scary these threats can actually be, particularly for a teenager, whose existence is so fluid anyhow and for whom there seem to be myriad possibilities of losing control of their life, all of which are pretty scary.

A logistical difference between writing for teens and adults is that a teen novel is approximately half the length of an adult novel, in my case 40,000 words. That means there’s no time for extraneous characterization, description, or dialogue – you have to get straight to the point. Thankfully, I got used to this when taking editorial suggestions on my first novel, so Summer’s End didn’t suffer from being indulgent. If I were to liken writing for teens to another experience I’ve had, it would be writing a screenplay.

How did John Wiley and Sons get your manuscript and how difficult was it to get a teen horror novel published?

As a teacher of English and Humanities, I’d admired many of the textbooks published by John Wiley and Sons’ school division, Jacaranda, particularly their History Alive series. In late 2002, I approached a representative from the company and offered my services as a reviewer, but I didn’t really expect her to take me up on my offer. Six months later, I was writing a chapter on World War II, my first experience of writing to a really strict deadline. When John Wiley and Sons decided to publish a series of novels for high school students, I told them about an idea I’d had for a mystery/suspense story, and The Unclaimed was born. That novel took me approximately 9 months to write, by which time I’d already signed up with John Wiley and Sons for three more novels, two of which would be written in the horror genre. Overall, I didn’t find the process of getting a horror novel tough – John Wiley and Sons is a terrific company, and had been really supportive of all my ideas – but it was tough for me to get a ‘break’ initially. I’ve been writing seriously for more than ten years now, and have been knocked back quite a few times.

Was writing for the teen market something you had planned to do? How did it come about?

Before John Wiley and Sons asked me to write The Unclaimed, I’d never really considered writing a teen novel. Partly, this was because I’d always thought of myself as an ‘adult author’; but I guess that, when I’d thought about teen fiction, I’d always thought about the things you can’t do as a writer, rather than thinking about the things you can. Now, I love the challenge of writing for teens, and imagine I’ll be doing it for quite a few years to come. Funnily enough, much of the positive response that I’ve gotten to my first novel has come from adults, who have often whisperingly confessed that The Unclaimed reminded them what it was like to be a teenager. One reader even told me that reading about the ‘free riding’ in the novel had convinced her to buy a mountain bike. Teen fiction – or good teen fiction, anyway – has the potential to resonate with a broader market than we might first imagine.

What can people expect from Luke C Jackson in the future? What are you working on now?

Right now, I’m halfway through writing the spy novel Sleeper, which will be released in June 2006. It’s aimed at 14-16 year olds, and combines elements of espionage fiction with an exotic location to create a novel that I hope will be quite unique in the teen fiction market. In future, I will continue to branch out into different genres, but will try to bring an element of reality and depth to everything I write. And, of course, my work will continue to be infused with a ‘dark flavour’.

For more information on Luke C Jackson visit his website.
His novels The Unclaimed and the soon-to-be-released Summer's End can be found at educational bookstores across Australia, online at booktopia or direct from the publishers.

The horrorscope Australian author interview series continues next week with Kaaron Warren.