index

Interview with Errol Scott

Errol Scott is the author of fiction published in literary magazines around the world, in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Czech Republic, South Africa, Mexico, Turkey, Japan and the USA.

Question: Tell us about 'The Silk Road Chandlery'. What was your motivation for writing it? And what's up with the persistent appearance of gorillas in your work?

Errol Scott: It's true there is one small gorilla in 'Silk Road' and it is also true that gorillas are active players in more than one of my plotlines. I just plain like 'em.

Far more consistently present in my stories, however, is the 'ship as destiny' thread. When you develop characters, you want to put them in the most inhospitable situation imaginable, and as far as possible from their most desperately desired goal.

Putting Wilbert in a marine supply shop in a desert, when what he desperately ached for was the Indian Ocean: that was the most ideally inhospitable situation I could imagine.

Question: What sparked the idea for 'Jonah and the Piazza Navona'?

Errol Scott: Jonah's motivation pursues me endlessly. I borrowed his motivation from myself.

There is nowhere better on earth to be than on the water. Anyone who has tried it knows.

Jonah is desperate to have a boat again, he can't walk away from it and won't let anything stop him from getting back into a boat and onto the sea. A boat, along with the accoutrements of beer and a chess board, add up to Jonah's, and perhaps my, ideal life.

From there, it was a simple matter to deprive Jonah of his dream and send him on an adventure.

Question: What was the hardest part of writing 'Davey the Birder'? What challenges or obstacles did you encounter while writing it? How did you overcome these challenges?

Errol Scott: Without a doubt it was managing backstory. 'Davey' was twice as long in the original version.

Compressing key backstory points into the fewest possible words to highlight, but not overwhelm, the main storyline was a real challenge.

Getting good feedback and brutally revising is the only way out.

Question: What made you want to be a writer? What keeps you going?

Errol Scott: I've travelled on six continents and in each place I have met fascinating and eccentric characters. I wanted to capture the unique aspects I had encountered.

What would happen if two or more of these aspects existed in one person and that person were to meet their ultimate nemesis? How would they react? When would they despair and how would they triumph?

I'll keep going until I run out of questions...but that shouldn't be any time soon.

Question: What do you see as the influences on your writing? Who or what influences your writing the most?

Errol Scott: Jules Verne. Eric C. Hiscock. Probability and statistics. The physics of music. Dickens. Douglas Adams. Patrick McGrath.

Question: You began to be published within three months of starting to write. What did you do? Who did you know?

Errol Scott: There's only one way to do it that I know of. Endless rewriting and persistence beyond all pretence of sanity. Once I start a piece I can't put it down till it's done.

And luck. There's no ignoring the key role that luck plays in every writing career. I didn't know anyone in the [publishing] industry when I began.

I recommend adding massive quantities of luck to one's life at each and every possible opportunity.

Question: What are you working on currently?

Errol Scott: I'm focusing on Iceland in my next story. That and at least one animal caretaker with an unquenchable dream. It should be completed by summer.

Question: What is your vision? What do you hope to give readers through your work?

Errol Scott: I have an abhorence of good people who give up on on great dreams.

Not just the might-be-nice dreams or the looked-good-on-TV dreams, but the real dreams that are held forever and then just forgotten. Or worse - the dreams that are stamped out by the ignorant, the selfish masquerading as the well-meaning, the oppressive, or the just-plain-unnecessary.

My heros are often not the strongest of individuals when we first meet them. But they remember what they want and in the end they overcome ignorant obstructors to achieve their desire.

I hope the reader-as-witness to the that-which-is-possible can grab on to the image of achievement in these stories. If 'Davey'; or 'Jonah' or 'Wilbert' pulled that one off, even once, with even just one reader, I'd be elated.

Question: What are you reading now?

Errol Scott: Timothy Findley, 'The Wars'. Good pacing and a structure that carries its message.

Question: What movies/music do you enjoy?

Errol Scott: I'm pretty keen on documentaries and anything produced in science fiction. As for music, I try to pick up something from everywhere I go. Gregorian chants. Flamenco. Celtic pipes. Country. Lieder. Bangra.

The arc of the hero's journey is repeated all around us, in math, in nature, it's in art and in music. The function of the chorus in songs, for example, is equally well employed to great effect in the structure of good fiction. I try to collect as many divergent patterns as possible to compare and to learn from.

Question: What are your plans for the future? Any new books on the horizon?

Errol Scott: I'm currently in the drafting stages of my upcoming novel, expected to be finished in 2007.

At this stage, I can promise it will include a ship, a desperate struggle and quite possibly, a gorilla.