On the publication of The Spook's Battle, the foruth book in The Wardstone Chronicles, Joseph Delaney talks to Jake Hope about the series.

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The Spook’s Battle is the fourth book in ‘The Wardstone Chronicles’ series. It is told in the first person by Thomas Ward. What limitations, challenges and opportunities has this extended narratorial viewpoint held for you?

The first person narration helps to create a feeling of authenticity as if Tom is a real person telling his own story. It is also accessible for children making for a relatively easy read. At one point Tom says that he writes as he speaks. This is true because he will never use any fanciful and imaginative metaphors and similes; he speaks plainly and keeps to the point.

One limitation is that the reader can only know what Tom sees, hears, feels and deduces. We will never be able to get inside the head of one of Tom’s foes and see things directly from their perspective. The challenge and opportunity of an extended narration is to keep continuity of voice yet allow Tom to grow slightly more knowledgeable and sophisticated as he ages. In part, the series is a narrative of ‘education’; Tom is learning the ways of the fictional world of which he is a part and, in order to survive, may have to change and not necessarily for the better.

 In this book the ongoing battle between good and evil that Tom faces is epitomised with the rising of ‘Nick’. Interplay between ‘darkness’ and ‘light’ places the books amongst the discourse of many established classics of the fantasy genre. Has this been a deliberate manouevre and what do you feel your contributions are to this?

Yes, it was deliberate and it is very much a piece of fantasy genre writing. Every genre writer takes things from the repertoire and then adds to it placing new ideas (or permutations of existing ideas) into the public domain. Any originality probably lies in the sense of place (Lancashire but always referred to as the County) and the fact that a spook does not use magic but follows a trade and keeps notebooks, learning from the past. There are other slight touches of originality too but you can never be sure that someone somewhere hasn’t used them previously: for example lamia witches which I evolved from the lamias of Greek mythology and also ghasts.

Polarisation is very much part of the genre but good and evil also struggle within the minds and hearts of each character. Alice was trained as a witch but is neither totally good nor totally bad. She is like each one of us.

You maintain a strong sense of detachment and enigma surrounding the Spook? A little of his story and background is revealed in the third book, The Spook’s Secret, is there more that you plan to tease out?

I can’t give too much away but, yes, there are more secrets and background to come. There are also big revelations about Alice and Mam to come in books five and six.

 A great sense of impending doom has pervaded both The Spook’s Battle and ‘The Spook’s Secret’. Do you have an overall plan as to the overarching story and how many sequences or books will there be within this?

Again, sorry I can’t say too much, but I do have a general idea of where the books are going. I’m very much a writer who discovers the story as he goes along. There will be at least six in the series (I have a contract for that number) but see a definite need for a book seven when things will come to a head. That, however, may not be the end because Tom will have a five-year apprenticeship and (unless he dies first) will only have completed two years by the end of book five.

 In The Spook’s Secret we learn a little about the Lamia witches, which you have mentioned are derived from the Greek lamias. In The Spook’s Battle we discover more about these as a species. Was this world established prior to the books, or has it arisen organically through the writing process?

 I do not have a full story arc, only a vague sense of the direction that I’m heading towards, so creatures such as the lamia witches have certainly arisen organically through the writing process. I ‘discover’ such things through dreams, sudden flashes of inspiration and hours spent jotting down possibilities on pieces of paper.

The books are very much grounded in a rich vein of legend and lore. How much research has been involved with this?

 I do little direct research but have accumulated much material by reading over many long years. I don’t have the sharp memory that allows instant recall of things I need but items seep to the surface of my mind when I’m looking for something. I do research when necessary. For example, I’m writing book five which is set close to a canal north of Caster (Lancaster). I need to research (and hopefully visit) a working watermill. I also need information on canals and barges.

When writing The Spook’s Battle, where Tom and his master go east to struggle against the power of the Pendle witches, I did quite a lot of research. I read accounts of the events of 1612 plus novels such as Robert Neill’s Mist Over Pendle. Having done that it was a case of deciding what to leave out. I left out a lot leaving history behind to let imagination be my guide.

Family ties and vocational necessity are played against one another. Is there any redemption for the family or must family and relationships be cast aside as a Spook?

 That’s what Tom’s master, John Gregory seems to believe and what he teaches his apprentice. A spook is like a priest and a girl or woman is a distraction. But Tom has different views. If he lives to become the next Spook he will live a very different life to that of his master

You yourself have had a tutelage not dissimilar to Tom’s. Are parts of the books autobiographical?

 I worked as an apprentice fitter at the Courtauld’s factory north of Preston, Lancashire. I carried a tradesman’s tools about and even had a notebook to make sketches of machinery we’d taken apart. So the influence on the Spook’s series is clear. I lived in a house very similar to the haunted one Tom faces in The Spook’s Apprentice and had a recurrent nightmare there. I lived almost in the shadow of St Walburge’s steeple, Preston; that church became Priestown Cathedral in The Spook’s Curse. So it’s all there in my early childhood almost as if I was being readied to write the series. Choice? Or predestination? You decide!

The roles of predestination and prophecy are highly important to the novels. How much do you yourself believe in these and to what extent – if any – have these influenced your writing?

 I’ve always been fascinated by prophecy and predestination. I like to encounter it in other fictions and have made it an important part of The Wardstone Chronicles Series. I do think that some things that happen in our lives are meant to be. It may only be a trick of the mind; sometimes, retrospectively we think that things could only have happened in that way. But I can think of occasions in my own life that I feel very strongly that something was meant to happen; where I made a sudden decision and it did change my life. But I was free to choose – or was I?

 With reference to the books it seems to me that I was always meant to write the series. I moved house to the village of Stalmine which has its own boggart and wrote that in my notebook. Over seventeen years later, looking for a story idea, I came across that jotting and the story of Tom Ward began. I was also an apprentice but wasn’t taught how to deal with the supernatural; I learnt how to repair machinery. That helped to shape the books.

Finally, if there is one question you would love to be asked, what would that be and how would you respond?

When being interviewed for teaching posts, the opening I dreaded was ‘Tell me about yourself ….” It was just too open-ended and I never knew where to begin. With reference to my books my feelings are completely different. My favourite question would be: ‘What are the books about?” It’s a question I’m rarely asked because I usually begin my talks with the answer to that anyway! It gives me my chance to get to the heart of the books and explain what the series is all about.

2007-07-21