Patrick Ness was the 2011 winner of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for his book Monsters of Men, the third and final instalment in his Chaos Walking trilogy. Pupils Sonia and Jess from New College Worcester went on stage at the Carnegie Awards at Bafta to hand Patrick a braille copy of the book. Patrick is American and has lived in Britain for over ten years. His Dad was in the US Army and he travelled around a lot. This is reflected in his Chaos Walking trilogy which is about power struggles and conflict and a search for a peaceful place to live. He spoke to Clare Carson.
The previous two titles in your trilogy were shortlisted, how does it feel to finally win?
It feels great. Shortlisting is a great thing because of the shadowing. To have shadowers who have read all three books over three years is a fabulous thing. It means the books get read and talked about by so many people. People say why did this book win and not the others? You can't ask an author what their favourite book of the trilogy is so I can't possibly say!
I think possibly the judges have caught up with the teenagers who have given a massive vote to you doing something new
People always say you have to give them vampires or this and that they are as hungry for a story as everybody else. I don't think that at all. As long as it's new and fresh and exciting and you take them along. Also I aimed to tell the truth about tough things, teenagers know all kinds of tough stuff and they often get dismissed when they worry about it. I remember as a teenager being dismissed and hating it so I wanted to write a book I would have wanted to read as a teenager.
You were given your braille copy by Sonia and Jess from New College Worcester, was that special?
It was fantastic. In fact I had a teenage boy reader email me to say he'd read Monsters of men in braille and he made the point of saying, "all 11 volumes - 11 hundred pages of it", so I'm sorry about that! I loved getting that copy though.
Your book is about war and how war makes monsters of men but on a different planet. Where did the idea come from?
It evolved from the idea of information overload, the world is already noisy with mobile phones, texting, the internet and tweeting, what if you couldn't get away from that and had no privacy. In the book people's thoughts are played out in front of you and you can't get away from them. You need privacy as a teenager to discover who you are.
I also wanted to talk about war and how it dehumanises other people. It started when I saw All quiet on the Western front, a story about soldiers suffering in the trenches during World War I and about halfway through I realised that it wasn't about American or English soldiers, it was a story about German soldiers. These are the "enemy" we see suffering and that was a revelation. We dehumanise them so we can fight them but they stay human and that is vital to remember.
You always say you know the ending before you write the book, was that the case with the trilogy?
I know the last line. I may not know how I'm going to get there but that is the exciting thing to find out. I know how I want to leave the reader because ending a book is so important.
You run a lot, is that when you develop your complex plots?
Running is great because you are using different parts of your body and brain and that's when I get my best ideas and work out my toughest plotting problems. If you are struggling when writing, just do something else, doesn't have to be running, just different from writing.
Did you always want to be a writer?
Yes I wrote from the age of seven or eight, usually copying people I liked. I didn't think it was possible to have a career in writing so I went to college to be a film editor, but it is possible. There are lots of ways to make a living by writing.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
If you are going to write a book you have to write one that you would want to read yourself - you'd be amazed how many people don't! They write for what they think publishers or the market want but nobody was looking for the first Twilight book or Harry Potter, they were written by writers who had an idea they couldn't wait to read themselves. A reader can tell if you are having a great time.
The Chaos walking trilogy is available from the Library:
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The knife of never letting go (braille 9v, giant print 3v, TB 16562)
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The ask and the answer (braille 9v, giant print 3v, TB 16884)
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Monsters of men (braille 11v, giant print 3v, TB 404314 synthetic voice, real voice in production)