Tim Bowler was born in Leigh-on-Sea in 1953. He is the Carnegie Medal winning writer of teenage and young adult novels including River Boy, (1997) a story about love and bereavement, Starseeker (2002), a mystical exploration of love, loss and music, also made into a play; Apocalypse (2004), an allegory about the future of mankind; and Frozen Fire (2006), a philosophical thriller about the nature of reality.

Bridget Carrington met Tim during a week away from his Devon home to launch his latest novels, the first two books in a series about a teenager called Blade: Playing Dead and Blade: Closing In. Blade narrates his own story, living on the streets, hiding from something or someone in his past. Through him readers experience not only the harsh realities of street life and youth gang culture, but also his perceptive view of those around him and, despite the character’s trademark knife, his enormous vulnerability. Tim has two further titles about Blade due for publication in 2009 (Breaking Free and Running Scared), and is currently writing more.

Your previous novels have been lengthy. Why split this story into a number of short books?

Cliffhangers! This format lent itself to splitting up what is actually a very short period in Blade’s life, and leaving the reader with a cliffhanger at the end of each book. It is also a contrast with my other, long, books, and OUP suggested I should try writing in this new way. I started with a totally different story, but very soon threw that away as the character of Blade formed himself in my mind. Despite his circumstances, Blade is a very intelligent boy who has read widely in many different areas, not only fiction but philosophy. He is now beginning to face up to his past.

 Did you have the whole idea in your mind before you started writing?

I learnt more about the character of Blade as I wrote. I could hear Blade’s voice, complete with his idiomatic street talk. I don’t plot my books, I can’t systematize in that way. I know what the end may be, but I might have a better idea on the way!

Where did that street talk come from? Is it authentic? Will it date the books?

 I made up the slang. It’s not an existing patois. I didn’t want to root the books in any one time or culture, so the words I use indicate their meaning by the sound and/or the context – gobbo, zipping me over, bogged out – but won’t date the books, as a genuine patois would. I didn’t set out to write in this way, it came with the character’s voice in my head – a strong voice.

 What about the story?

Sometimes, long after I’ve written about an incident, I realize that it came from something in my own experience, but I don’t deliberately set out to use people or events I’ve known. I don’t need to – the character of Blade directed his own story. I did realize after I’d written it that the first passage in the first book is based on an incident I witnessed years ago, when a ten year old held up the traffic and shouted abuse at drivers in Newton Abbot just as the seven-year-old Blade did.

Blade addresses the reader as ‘Bigeyes’. Is there an element of Big Brother (in the Orwellian sense!) or God here?

Possibly, but more about the relationship between Blade and Bigeyes will emerge later in the series, as will the story of Blade’s previous life and what led him to his present situation.

Youth culture and particularly knife culture have become a favourite and constant source of shock stories in the media. By making Blade intelligent and vulnerable as well as violent, did you set out to excuse, glamorize or glorify it?

Certainly not. I wanted to give it a sense of proportion. There is no glamour to Blade’s life. I visit about 50 schools a year, and I hope that some readers may be touched by the books and turned away from embarking on or continuing such a lifestyle. Of course the really hard cases won’t be influenced by it, but if it makes a difference to some, it’s worth it. Fiction can work on people. It is all about choices – those which Blade makes, and those which the reader might make as a result of reading. It can change people underneath. Much fiction is about redemption. Blade is a boy on an urban odyssey. He is a boy with a past. The question to be answered in the books is: can he come back from it?

How many books will Blade need to tell his story?

 I could easily write 20 and would like to write at least 10. It’s something I’m discussing with my publishers. I hope I’ll be allowed to tell Blade’s story in detail, but it obviously depends on how successful these first books are….

I don’t think there’s any doubt that teenage readers will find Tim’s series utterly gripping and addictive. I certainly can’t wait to read what happens next! Tim has a website at www.timbowler.co.uk  in which he explains a lot about his books, about himself and about how he writes. He puts it so well there, I’ve shamelessly plagiarized it…

 I've written since the age of five. I wrote short stories and comics as a boy, then mostly poetry in my student days. I started my first novel at the age of 25 and wrote most of it during the early mornings between 3-7 a.m. before going out to work. I'm a storyaholic. I believe in the power of stories to move us, entertain us and transform us. To me, writing is as much about listening as it is about putting down words. I start from characters and settings. If the characters and settings are strong enough, then I usually find the plot reveals itself, albeit through a sometimes laborious series of rewrites. Some people think there must be a set of rules for writing but the truth is there aren't any. It's more like tickling trout, holding your hand out and trying to coax the ideas to swim into your grasp; or being a potter, throwing the rough clay of your thoughts down and letting the story twist out under the palms of your hands; or being a sorcerer, stirring the cauldron of your imagination and watching the vapour of the story rise. Writing is all these things and many more. It's something you never bottom, never crack, never stop learning about. And that's why I love it.

Thank you Tim Bowler for talking to Write Away!