Children’s author Oliver Lendon joins us in The Reading Realm to talk about his new middlegrade book NO TUNE NED, which is published by Everything With Words…
Before we settle down in The Reading Realm for a chat, what’s your drink and snack of choice?
A cup of tea and far too many custard creams.
Tell us about your book in three sentences and then three words!
In Dravenloch, music is magic, but eleven-year-old Ned Numbles is quite possibly the worst bard apprentice the kingdom has ever seen.
When the Crooner Below begins using perfect music to control monsters and steal people’s voices, Ned discovers that his gloriously terrible music might be the one thing powerful enough to fight back.
With a determined monster hunter and a very sarcastic talking goat beside him, Ned sets out to prove that sometimes playing the wrong note isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Magic. Monsters. Imperfection.
If one of your characters could come to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook them? What do you think you’d talk about?
It would have to be Clove, the talking goat. I’d probably make something elaborate for myself and then discover he’d rather eat the napkin.
I’d love to hear his version of everything that happens in No Tune Ned, because I’m fairly certain he’d insist the entire book should have been about him. He’d probably spend most of dinner criticising my decisions as an author.
What’s the funniest word you know that always makes you laugh?
Flibbertigibbet. Mostly because it sounds like someone made it up on the spot and somehow convinced everyone else it was a real word. It’s almost impossible to say it seriously.
What’s the silliest or strangest thing you’ve ever researched for a story?
While creating the Crooner Below for No Tune Ned, I ended up researching some wonderfully strange folklore around music, singing and creatures that use their voices to lure or control people. I wanted the Crooner’s music to feel genuinely dangerous rather than just giving him a generic magical power.
That’s one of the things I love about writing fantasy. You can start by wondering what an evil magical musician might be capable of and, twenty minutes later, find yourself very deep down an internet rabbit hole wondering how you got there.
Do your characters ever surprise you?
All the time. A great example is Mr Grindle from my self-published Emily’s Cosmic Journey series. In the first book, he starts out as this stern, no-nonsense camp instructor, but by the second book he’d naturally grown into much more of a parental figure. What surprised me was discovering that underneath all that authority, he’s really a big kid himself who still has to be the responsible adult in the room.
I love when that happens. You can have a clear idea of who a character is when you start writing, but sometimes they develop in ways you never planned and end up becoming much more important to the story.
If your writing desk could speak, what would it say about you?
“Are you writing, or are you just checking your emails again?”
Did you like reading when you were a child? If so, what?
I did, although I don’t think I realised then how much those books would eventually influence me. I loved adventure stories and have really fond memories of books like Treasure Island. I also read a lot of fantasy and anything that could completely take me somewhere else.
Looking back now, I think that sense of disappearing into another world is probably one of the reasons I enjoy writing for children so much.
What’s your favourite book that isn’t yours?
Mort by Terry Pratchett. I read a huge amount of Pratchett growing up, but Mort has always stayed my favourite. It’s brilliantly funny and wonderfully strange, but there’s so much heart underneath it all. That balance between making someone laugh and making them genuinely care about the characters is something I really admire.
What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?
That’s tricky, but if I had to choose it would be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I’d love to experience all of its absurdity again without knowing what was coming. It has that brilliant ability to take a completely ridiculous idea and somehow make you accept it as perfectly logical, and discovering just how strange the universe gets for the first time was half the fun.
What’s the funniest thing a child has said to you?
A few years ago, I was in a bookshop holding a copy of The Wild Robot when a girl who must have only been eight or nine came over and said, “I’ve read that!” I asked if she’d enjoyed it, and she enthusiastically told me she had… before immediately spoiling the ending and running off. I just stood there laughing. I still bought it, although I knew a little more about how it ended than I’d planned!
If you weren’t an author, what would you be?
Well, I suppose I have to say what I already do for my day job! I’m a web developer. Writing is what I squeeze into the spaces around work and family life. There are more similarities between coding and writing than you’d think. Both involve creating something from nothing, solving problems and spending an unreasonable amount of time trying to work out why something that worked perfectly yesterday suddenly doesn’t work today.
What BAD advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?
Wait until you’ve got the perfect idea before you start. Terrible advice. If I’d done that, I probably wouldn’t have written anything. And definitely compare your first draft to somebody else’s published novel. That’s always excellent for morale.
SPEED ROUND:
Cake or biscuits? Has to be biscuits!
Dinosaurs or unicorns? Dinosaurs!
Pirates or astronauts? I like both… but let’s say pirates.
Museums or theme parks? Theme parks!
Cats or dogs? Ah, the age-old question. Dogs.
Summer or winter? Winter, I’d rather be cold than hot!
Aliens or robots? Robots!
THANK YOU Oliver for joining us in The Reading Realm today!
