Patrick Ness is one movie deal away from achieving the level of status he deserves. I was fortunate enough to send him some questions about his new novel, ‘More Than This’ and this is not the hyperbole machine talking…pick this book up.
Imagine that you wake up unaware of where you are or how you got there but the last thing you remember is dying. You died, yet somehow you didn’t because you’re obviously still alive, right? But imagine that you wake up in a world that seems strange; off somehow. And you can’t find a single soul, it’s as if the world has completely emptied. Leaving only you. This is the situation that Seth, the protagonist of ‘More Than This’ finds himself in.
How often does the real world give you something seemingly inexplicable, something weird, that becomes a spark for a story or novel?
Pretty much always. My ideas tend to come from somewhere small or a worry about where the world is going, and from there I’ve always said that you can tell what’s a good idea because other ideas start sticking to it. I think that’s the thing that writers do – we just notice more weird stuff and feel the need to write it down.
What led to your coming up with ‘More Than This’? What was your inspiration for the novel?
I’d always, always wanted to write a book about waking up in an empty world. It’s such a great, classic starting point – I particularly remember a New Zealand film called This Quiet Earth but there are zillions of others – and I just felt it really said something about the yearning of Seth and, in turn, the yearning that I think all of us felt as teenagers, the yearning that there had to be more. Also, it felt like a fresh use for the YA dystopia vein, a different use for the metaphor. All stuff that felt really interesting to write.
What type of world did you set out to build in ‘More Than This’?
Just a plausibly abandoned one, but that’s an ongoing question throughout the book. Is this indeed somewhere real? If so, how and why is it real? And if it’s not, how and why is it not? All books are mental landscapes, so this just pushes that a little harder. Seth even says that “a book is just a world made of words.” Not to get too meta, though. It has to work as a world, too, before you can start playing with it.
What would you say the theme of the novel is?
I wouldn’t! I leave that up to other people. I mean, of course, I do have things that are very, very important to me – especially the idea that, to anyone in despair, there’s always always more, particularly for a teenager – but it has to be a story first or none of that will ever work. So I always have to trust that if I’m responding to a story, I’m doing so for a reason and that all the things I care about will be in it.
Is there one particular character or story that you feel is the most representative of your beliefs?
Pretty much all characters in every book are their writer, even the bad ones, let’s face it. It comes out of my brain so they’ve all got to be me somehow, even Mayor Prentiss in Chaos Walking. So I tend to think they’re more parts of me rather than representatives. Having said that, Seth’s “real life” story could easily have been mine. It’s not autobiographical, but what happens with his friends could have been my story and is the story of any number of teens out there. So probably him. But Regine’s anger is mine, Tomasz’ oddball-ness is mine. If I don’t invest in them, I worry that a reader never will.
Assuming that ‘More Than This’ is on screen at some point – is that something you’re looking towards? Something you’d want to script, or just sell the rights and allow the different medium to tell the tale its own way?
I couldn’t really say about More Than This yet, but I’m currently having both experiences. The Chaos Walking trilogy is being made into films by Lionsgate, and they hired Charlie Kaufman to write it, so that’s a GREAT experience and really interesting. On the other hand, I wrote the script for A Monster Calls, which is looking good for going into production, too, and that’s been entirely different and very rewarding. It’s also got me jobs writing other scripts, so maybe I’m a little too busy to think about More Than This at the moment! I’d be very, very interested to see what people think.
What are you reading now? Do you have time to read
If you don’t have time to read, you can’t be a writer. It’s true, so yeah, I’m reading all the time. I just finished Dan Rhodes’ wonderful This Is Life and am looking forward to starting MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, though that trilogy’s been a little hit and miss. But oh, yeah, always reading, always. On the train, in the tub, etc, etc.
What’s next for you and where can our readers find out more about you?
I’m working hard on the movie stuff above, I’ve got some new book ideas percolating, and that’s about all I like to say. Projects are best if they’re secret in the first incarnations. Gives them room to grow and change and make mistakes without anyone watching. But I’m working, I’m working.
And they can check my own website at www.patrickness.com and the book at www.morethanthis.com