* Hi Colin and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself?
I work full time as a Teaching Assistant in a primary school. I laugh at my own jokes when no one else does, I like throwing things in the air and catching them, currently trying to learn to ride a unicycle despite being in my forties. I love cartoons, old horror movies, and anything with Simon Pegg in.
CLASH
Alex: school psycho and under-ground cage-fighting champion.
Kyle: talented artist, smart school-boy and funny man.
When Alex witnesses a brutal murder at the club he can't go back to The Cage, but without fighting, he starts to lose control. He soon sets his sights on Kyle, a boy he thinks can help.
But Kyle has his own problems and he's convinced Alex is one of them.
Boys can play dangerous games when they're scared and this one will haunt everyone involved.
What will it take for each boy to confront the truth?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Colin Mulhern on Clash and writing for teens.
First of all, I haven’t got a clue what teenagers like to read, and I think, for writers, it’s a lost cause trying to work it out. I spent several years trying to write for teens, trying to gauge what would work. I missed the mark every time. That’s probably because the market moves so quickly. If you look at what is popular now and try to write something similar, then by time an editor sees it, she’ll know it’s going out of fashion. The only thing you can do is write the book you really, really, want to write. That’s how Clash came about – total frustration at getting nowhere for a long time. I decided to write something I wanted to read. I didn’t even plan to send it out because I never thought it would get picked up. Weird, eh?
On the subject of issues and moral boundaries, I try not to consider them unless they come into play as the story progresses. If you set out to write an “issue” book, say on a medical or mental condition, you risk it sounding like an “issue” book. There are issues in Clash, but I never set out with those things in mind from the start; I started with Kyle and Gareth getting chased by the local psycho. It grew from there. The local psycho became Alex, began to develop, and before I knew it I was writing about him just as much as Kyle. Their individual problems developed with them.
I didn’t worry about taboo subjects, otherwise a lot of Clash would never have been written. There were a few scenes that were calmed down when it came to editing, but I never really considered holding back at th
2 Comments on DIVERSITY MATTERS: COLIN MULHERN and his publisher talk CLASH & respecting the teen reader., last added: 9/2/2011
Display Comments
Add a Comment
Oh man, my blog is also called TALL TALES, oh well great minds think alike:-)
An honest and down-to-earth interview. I particularly liked the point about writing what you want to write, not trying to second guess what's flavour of the month with teens.