Author and filmmaker James Runcie describes the horrors of bad reviews and the joy of working with JK Rowling
James Runcie
James Runcie is an author and documentary-maker. He’s written five novels including The Discovery of Chocolate
What inspired you to become a writer?
A girl. When I was 16 or 17 I began very bad writing poetry for girls. Then I realised other people wrote much better poetry. I blame TS Eliot and Samuel Beckett.
How did you start out on such a multi-layered career path?
I trained as a Theatre Director at Bristol Old Vic, and worked at Sadler’s Wells and The Royal Shakespeare Company, among others. But I wasn’t sure theatre was right for me so I went into radio and telly and worked with the BBC for ages. Then my first novel was published in 2002.
Did you face much rejection initially?
Oh, yes! I wrote a novel in my 20s and it didn’t get published. I wrote another and that didn’t get published either. Fortunately I had other things going on. I think it’s very important to have something else, not to have absolutely every hope ride on one thing.
How did you develop your writing enough to get published?
After my first two novels got rejected I spent a year writing ten short stories and my agent told me to try developing one into a novel, so I decided to give it one more go. It turned into The Discovery of Chocolate and my agent sent it to Faber & Faber and all the publishers like that and they all said no. so I said, let’s try the more commercial ones, and HarperCollins bought it for quite a lot of money, then they flogged it to America and everything was lovely for a while.
Was it easier with your second published novel, The Colour of Heaven
?
God, no! It had second album syndrome. I wrote it too quickly. I still quite like it, but you have to be careful you don’t repeat your tricks and I’m not sure I managed that. There wasn’t enough texture and detail - it needed fleshing out more. Really, it should have been twice as long.
My next took three years to write and I felt much better about it. I felt I’d finally learnt how to do it.
What do you think your experience has brought to the Bath Literature Festival?
People say the Bath Literature Festival is a bit Radio 4. I’ve tele-ied it up a bit by getting television broadcasters to chair events and debates, people like Sheena McDonald and Tiffany Jenkins, professionals who know what they’re doing and are very good at timekeeping, at keeping things moving along. I’ve tried to glitz things up at bit, luvvie them up.
What do you do on an average working day?
I write in the morning from 8am till 2pm, then from 3pm I’m either working on things to do with the Bath Lit Festival or television work until 9, then I either watch football or Mad Men or something like that.
I don’t write every day, but that’s how it usually works, unless I’m working on a film and then I don’t get to write. I don’t work in an office, which is great. I save a lot of time by not working in an office.
What are the biggest challenges of writing for you?
My problem is not knowing whether I’m wasting time or being creative. It’s terrible when you write for a month and then realise it’s all rubbish. I don’t throw anything away. It’s all about rewriting, so I write like crazy, and then rewrite. You can’t rewrite nothing. If you’ve written 30 pages and get two out of it, then that’s fine.
The worst things are the bad reviews. I had a snotty one from a particular journalist and I hate him, just hate him! In my head I’ve killed in 1,000 times. I’ve shot him, strangled him, blown him up… All because of a nasty little 100-word review.
What was it like working on J K Rowling: A Year in the Life?
I saw Rowling for at least a couple of days every month for a year, and we spoke on the phone and emailed a lot too. It was an amazing experience. The people and the phenomenon around her is mind-blowing. It’s how I imagine it would be to try and date Nicole Kidman.
I had to be very careful about what I said and did. She’s very protected and I knew that if I made one false move the door would close.
It was a remarkable time. I remember sitting in a taxi with the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows three months before it came out. I was one of the first 10 people to read it. I text her: OMG you killed Dobbie and she texted back: Yes, I know, it had to be done.
She’s a very private person, and it’s hard to make films about someone who’s like that, but she’s also very natural and down-to-earth. People ask me, What’s she really like? and I say, that’s what she’s like, exactly as she is in the documentary.
How does JK Rowling compare with other writers you’ve worked with?
A lot of writers who become great successes get very arty and grand, and she hasn’t done that at all. When we arranged to go back to her childhood home, we needed to fly to Bristol and the only airline was EasyJet. I asked her whether that was okay and she said “Of course it is!”
She doesn’t do “Look at me.” I’ve known famous people who raise their voices when they go into a restaurant to make sure everyone notices them, but she doesn’t draw attention to herself at all.
What advice would you offer an aspiring writer?
Writing is to some extent an act of vanity. If you can’t take rejection or criticism don’t put your work out there. No one asks you to. I’m moderately successful novelist, but no one is making me write another one. I do it because I want to.
For more on James, please visit www.jamesruncie.com
For more on the Bath Literature Festival, please visit www.bathlitfest.org.uk
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What a great mixture of occupations! I’d settle for one great literary career, but you seem to be attempting them all.