Bloggery

Friday 18th Nov 2011

Becky Milford

Spook-School 101 – Michelle Paver tells us how she wrote Dark Matter

On Wednesday Mr B’s held the finale of this season’s series of ‘In Extremis’ nights, and we were lucky enough to welcome along Michelle Paver, author of chilling ghost story Dark Matter. The book had already been discussed in a Marvellous Monday reading group on the very apt date of Halloween, and so we were looking forward to finding out from Michelle where she got the inspiration.

After two spine-tingling songs from our ever-so-talented bookshop band, Michelle took the floor and discussed how she approached writing her story. She began by informing us that the title of the book came first, long before the actual process of writing. While reading a book about the Universe she came across the term ‘Dark Matter’ - a word for ‘nothingness’ that could be applied to the way we consider ghosts. Perhaps it was this supernatural twist on the scientific that inspired her, because she says she stored the idea for a ghost story in her head, knowing that one day she would return to it.

“When I originally approached ‘Dark Matter’ it was going to be set in the desert,” she told us, admitting this was partly because she would have liked a trip somewhere hot! But instead the frozen wastes of the arctic were to be her setting, and the reader is taken to the far-flung region of Gruhuken.

When the time did feel right to start the novel, and she had finally completed the first draft, Michelle says she thought she’d give some time for appraisal.

“I wrapped the manuscript up in black satin ribbon and put it in a drawer.  Then I didn’t open it again until Halloween – as you can see I sometimes have a taste for the dramatic!” she told us. “So that night I sat down and read it through…” there was a dramatic pause as we waited to see the result “…and wasn’t actually very scary. So I decided I had to go back to basics.”

While researching this project Michelle actually went to the Arctic, and while there she really did see a polar bear eating a walrus, and was confronted with its blood-blackened face looming out from the carcass. She told us about her experience of the moon, and how the perpetually circling orb really does make one slightly obsessive at the eeriness of its prevalence. Another scary moment she recounted was when, after managing to go out on her own for a brief walk, she thought she heard someone walking behind her. “It was no doubt the echo of the creak of my snow-boots in snow, but I had some idea of what Jack [the main character in ‘Dark Matter’] would have been feeling.”  So she approached it again and was confident it had resulted in a scarier result.

We asked Michelle for the key ingredients to writing a successful ghost story.

“There are several points that I think are important,” she told us, before giving a handy lesson on forming the perfect spine-tingler.

A ghost should have intention. It is far less scary when acts are random and worse when the creature intends to cause harm.

Secondly, don’t go making your ghoul sympathetic! “I wanted my ghost to be malevolent,” Michelle told us. “At first I treated it like a character and gave it a whole history and back story. But then I started feeling sorry for it, which is not what you want from a ghost, so I decided Jack would know as little about this as possible.”

The third point is to gradually build suspense so that the audience feels the chills approaching slowly; a dread that culminates.

And finally the setting is very important. It needs to completely draw the reader in so they feel they are there, as alone as Jack in some ways.

Did she have trouble with the setting? Obviously going to the Arctic gave her some idea of the vast scope she would have to relate to her readers.

“I wrote so many notes when I was out there,” she says. “For example – the scene when Jack approaches Gruhuken for the first time. I had pages and pages of description, and writing this scene took about a week. You have to strike a balance between using emotional language but also being clear. It’s all about paring down your work so there is detail but not so much that you lose a sense of excitement. But it’s a marvellous feeling when it’s done, and I feel I achieved that in this scene:”

A fierce sun blazed in a sky of astonishing blue. Dazzling snow-capped mountains enclosed a wide bay dotted with icebergs. The water was still as glass, mirroring the peaks. At the eastern end of the bay, tall cliffs the colour of dried blood were thronged with seabirds, their clamour muted by distance. At the western end, shining pavements of pewter rock sloped down to the sea, and a stream glinted, and a tiny, ruined hut huddled among boulders. The charcoal beach was littered with silver driftwood and the giant ribs of whales.

So what are Michelle’s tips for aspiring authors?

“It’s about striking a balance,” she says. “From being cold and objective so that you can, essentially, manipulate the reader’s emotions, but then also being irrational and subjective to create a good story.”

Hope this helps any aspiring ghost-story writers – although you won’t be expected to be quite so diligent in your research. We don’t want all our valued customers hot-footing it off to the Arctic any time soon!

And if you'd like to see the list of books that featured in our pop-up shop, simply click the link here