Interview with Phillip Gwynne, author of 'The Debt' series

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Phillip Gwynne has been a staple of the Aussie young adult scene since the 1998 release of his debut novel, Deadly, Unna? which still remains one of the (sadly) few Australian YA books with a focus on indigenous culture and characters (something I'm quite passionate about).  

So I was thrilled at the chance to interview Mr Gwynne about his new book series, The Debt  

This series is hot news right now, and an interview also appears into today's The Age. So jump on-board this new thrill-ride, and meet the man behind these books...

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Q: How were you first published, agent or slush pile?

The slush pile, god bless it. I sent the ms for Deady Unna in to Penguin and they accepted it. It was only after I had a deal that I thought about getting myself an agent.

Q: How long did it take you to write ‘Catch the Zolt’, from first idea to final manuscript?

The whole series took about three years to write, which averages out to 6 months per book!  At one stage Catch the Zolt was the second book in the series, but for reasons which I will talk about later it became the first.

I never thought I would be a word quota sort of guy, but I realised that the only way  I was going to hit my deadlines was to instigate some sort of discipline, so daily quotas it was.

In the beginning it was 1500 word per day, which became 2000, which became 3000, and then 5000 words for the last book!

Q: Are you a plotter or a ‘pantser’? – That is, do you meticulously plot your novel before writing, or do you ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ and let the story evolve naturally?

Historically a ‘pantser’ but with The Debt I did a lot more prior plotting. It would be interesting to see how much the final product deviated from this plotting though  I think the way it works for me is that I have to totally write myself into the moment before I know what my characters are going to do, and often what they do is completely surprising,

Q: Where do story ideas generally start for you? Do you first think of the character, theme, ending? Or is it just a free-fall?

I’m always fascinated by this question, and probably still haven’t managed to give it the answer it deserves. So here goes another – honourable, I hope - failure.

I think story ideas can start from something as seemingly trivial as a smell or a fleeting glance.

That fragment of experience lodges in your brain, and for some reason, unlike the countless other fragments that lodge in your brain every day, this one refuses to budge. 

And every now and then your brain, your thoughts, return to it, worry the hell out it.

And it accrues material, the same way that a grit of sand in an oyster accrues material.

Until, eventually, the only choice you have is to prise it out, and turn it into a story.

Okay, that’s one place were stories can come from, but there’s also…

Q: Why do you choose to write young adult fiction? What is it about this genre that you love?

To tell the truth, initially I didn’t choose to write it at all. When I wrote Deadly Unna, my first novel, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Young Adult literature.  When Penguin told me that Deadly Unna? was a Young Adult novel I didn’t really know what they were talking about. And, yes, I have written several Young Adult novels since. But I have also written picture books, and younger readers, and adult novels, and screenplays. I really don’t like to be pigeon-holed as this type of writer or that. I’m just a writer. Full stop.

Q: You’ve been part of the Aussie YA scene for many years now – you could say that your 1998 novel ‘Deadly, Unna?’ helped shape Australian YA into the vibrant and highly-acclaimed readership it is today. What have you noticed are the biggest changes to Aussie YA since you first debuted? How do you see the readership has evolved over the years?

Well, that’s a lovely complement, though I’m pretty sure YA literature was in good shape before I came along!

I think the thing about Deadly Unna is that because it was based on my life, the voice is an authentic voice. And it’s also not a very polite book, in some ways, which is why kids relate to it, even when they have to write essays about it!

 But this is probably a better question for a teacher of librarian. I just write the books, send them out there, and get along with writing the next one.

I don’t really engage that much with the YA world except for this. Not that I don’t think it’s a wonderful world, full of wonderful people. But I’d rather be home writing than in the public eye, being a writer, if you know what I mean.

Q: Your latest endeavour is a six-part thriller YA series called ‘The Debt’ – which follows fifteen-year-old Dom as he fulfils six Herculean tasks for a secret organisation. He’s doing this to repay a family debt, and to ensure he doesn’t lose a pound of flesh. You’ve set up this very Shakespearean and mythological task for a young character – but injected a bit of ‘Bourne Identity’ (for the younger set) into it. What sort of research did you do for this high-octane thrill-ride? And are you living out some secret-espionage boyhood dream by writing this adrenaline-fuelled series?

I did a lot of research – you wouldn’t believe the stuff I had find out about. How do you hotwire a bulldozer? Tick! The history of the Coliseum? Tick! What are the 12 Labors of Hercules? Tick. Thank heavens for Google, or I would’ve been in trouble, especially as I wrote most of it while living in Bali where public libraries are unheard of.

I think most boys have secret-espionage dreams. Actually, so do most men! But what I kept thinking of when I wrote this book, is that I didn’t want to give any kid the excuse to put it down and go and play computer games instead. The greatest compliment you can have as a writer is one somebody tells you they couldn’t put the book down.

Q: A six-part series seems like such a big task, and the books are coming out in quick succession. How did you cope with this massive over-arching series; from connecting plots to deadlines and cliff-hangers? 

I’m not actually sure I have! But you’re right, it was a massive undertaking.

The series was probably influenced more by TV than other books, and more specifically those great American series like the Sopranos, Deadwood, Breaking Bad.

Sometimes I’d think I was all over it, other times I’d just despair – what in the hell have I got myself into!

About half way through writing the series, when we’d already edited the first three books, Anna, my brilliant publisher, came up with an absolute ripper idea.

I resisted for a while, as you do when somebody comes up with something far cleverer than what you have, but in the end the better idea won, as it usually does.

But in order to incorporate her idea, I realised I had the first two books in the wrong order.

I sent Anna an email telling her this and she replied saying ‘I really hope you’re wrong’.

The next day she sent another email saying ‘oh no, you’re right.’

So we had to swap them around – re-architecture the first three books. This was, without doubt, the hardest, most intellectually taxing, month of my writing life and times I thought my brain would explode.
Fortunately I had a great team, Anna and my editor Rachael, and we were able to get through it.

Q: Favourite book(s) of all time:

The Great Gatsby.
Catcher In The Rye
Catch 22
The Butcher Boy
Grapes of Wrath
Treasure Island (a recent addition – a great influence in writing The Debt)

Q: Favourite author(s)?

Steinbeck
Dickens
Fitzgerald

Q: What advice do you have for budding young writers?

Be a bit crazy, normal people don’t write books.

'Swerve' by Phillip GWYNNE

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

One of the country's finest young cellists, 16 year-old Hugh Twycross has a very bright future. A future that has been mapped out by his parents, his teachers, by everybody, it seems, except Hugh Twycross.

Hugh has a secret, though: he loves cars and he loves car racing. When his newly discovered grandfather, Poppy, asks him to go on a road trip to Uluru in his 1970 Holden HT Monaro, Hugh decides, for once in his life, to do the unexpected.

As they embark on a journey into the vast and fierce landscape of the Australian interior, Hugh discovers that Poppy has a secret that will unravel both their lives and take them in a direction they never expected.

Hugh Twycross has it all figured out. He’s a Sydney private school boy on a mission . . . a mission to get good grades, become a concert cellist and keep impressing his mother and father with his budding brilliance. And if that means keeping his lust for Holden muscle cars a secret, then so be it.

And then Poppy turns up. Outside Hugh’s private school gates, Poppy looks like a hippy cultist and he has some wild claims about being Hugh’s grandfather . . . a grandfather Hugh was always told had died years ago.

More than that, Poppy has some wild plans about going to The Rock. Ayers Rock. Uluru. No time to pack or delay, because Poppy has a Holden Monaro GTS 350 ready and rearing to go. . . and Hugh can never say no to Holden.

Phillip Gwynne’s novel is a glorious ode to the Australian outback, and an opus dedicated to the Aussie muscle car. I got so caught up in this novel that it felt as though I'd jumped in to ride shotgun with Hugh and Poppy – feeling the thrill of the ride and the purr of the engine for 228 pages of thrilling car chases and majestic scenery. . . and when I got to that last page, I just wanted to go back and ride all over again.

Hugh is a fantastic leading man. He is, by his own admission, a ner (not quite a nerD, but just inexperienced enough with girls to be cutting it damn close). When Hugh meets Poppy his world is turned upside down. In this old man, Hugh discovers his roots and an explanation for his inherited love of cars and Holden patriotism. Though Poppy is not the sort of person Hugh’s well-to-do Sydney-sider parents want him associating with, he is inexplicably drawn to the old man.

Hugh and Poppy’s dynamic is, without a doubt, the stand-out heart-warmer of this book. Poppy as an old-timer with stories to tell and a past he’s still trying to race away from. . . and his geeky grandson who needs to loosen up. As Poppy puts it;

“My aim is to see if I can make my grandson look less like a member of the Young Liberals and more like a teenager,”

Gwynne’s book is a pretty harmless Young Adult read. Sure, Hugh develops a crush on a hitch-hiking skank called Bella. And, yes, Hugh and Poppy are chased down by a gun-wielding body-builder and his porn-star girlfriend . . . but all in all, ‘Swerve’ is a bit of good, clean fun. A story about a grandfather making up for lost time and a boy who needed to leave his comfort zone.

‘Swerve’ is also a brilliant bit of Aussie storytelling. Uluru is a majesty of Australian landscape. . . but the real scenery comes from towns like Bathurst and Coober Pedy, as Gwynne tells tale of typical Aussie life and times. There are heart-warming tales of camaraderie and mateship on the road, as well as stories that cut it a little too close to Wolf Creek for comfort. And always with the red dust in the backdrop, the endless kilometres of bitumen and freedom;

And, finally, the saltbush-tufted plains stretching out to the left and to the right and the horizon ahead broken by a purple range ridged like a lizard’s tail, Poppy and I sitting in chairs watching whirly-whirlies shot through with afternoon light as they dance a pas de deux, spiralling towards and away from each other.

‘Swerve’ was one hell of a joyride. A tale of familial relationships rekindled with a typical and truthful Outback backdrop. Glorious.

5/5