Bill Scott-Kerr on John Boyne: ‘He has never delivered on time: he is always early’

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. He is the author of nine novels for adults and four for younger readers, including the international bestsellers The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has sold more than six million copies worldwide, The Absolutist and Stay Where You Are and Then Leave. Boyne’s most recent novel, A History of Loneliness, has just been published in paperback. Beneath the Earth, his first collection of short stories, is published next month.

After working as a bookseller, Bill Scott-Kerr got his first job in publishing at Pan Macmillan. He became publisher at Transworld in 2006. Among others, he edits Dan Brown, Robert Edric, Lissa Evans, Frederick Forsyth, Robert Goddard, Terry Hayes, James Holland, Armistead Maupin, Andy McNab, John O’Farrell and Rowland White. As publisher, he is also responsible for writers as various as Kate Atkinson, Bill Bryson, Jilly Cooper, Lee Child, Richard Dawkins, Ben Elton, Tess Gerritsen, Stephen Hawking, Paula Hawkins, John Irving, Sophie Kinsella, Terry Pratchett, Danielle Steel and Joanna Trollope. He was voted Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2006.

Sarah Bannan is the author of Weightless (Blomsbury Circus).

Bill, how long have you worked with John? What attracted you to his work?

BSK: I’ve worked with John since 2007 when we bought the rights to publish Mutiny on the Bounty. I’d read his first novel, The Thief of Time, some years before and had immediately been struck with the ease and fluency of his storytelling and the effortless grace of his writing. His ability to place himself in a situation through his characters is phenomenal. When I saw his children’s publisher, David Fickling, give a bravura pitch for The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas some years later, I was reminded of what an unusual and particular talent John is. He has an enviable flexibility and a huge range of tools in his toolbox to write whatever he wants to write.

John, you’ve had phenomenal success as a writer for young adults and for adults. And you’ve managed to keep this amazing momentum up with your work. Each year, we get a new novel from you. And each, to me, seems stronger and better than the last, even when we didn’t think that was possible. I’m amazed by your ability to explore new terrain with each new novel – do you discuss your ideas with Bill in advance? Or do you just wait until the manuscript is done and then send it his way?

JB: Yes, I always discuss my ideas with Bill in advance but I only do so when I’m sure that the idea that I have is the one that I want to pursue. I usually wait until I’ve already written a couple of chapters so I’m feeling enthusiastic about the project and then explain the themes or storyline. There’s a fairly grotty pub in London that for some reason we both seem to like and we often go there and discuss it over pints. For me, the best thing is when Bill’s enthusiasm matches my own. I always feel like he trusts me and is excited by what I’m working on.

Bill, how do you prefer to work with writers? Do most things come into you as complete manuscripts? Or as an idea? Or in dribs and drabs?

BSK: As an editor you have to adapt to how the writer wants to work. Some prefer to deliver the whole thing, others like to talk from the outset about the ideas, or to keep a continual dialogue through the process. It is horses for courses. Deciding on how the process will run is a key part of the early stages of the writer/editor relationship. And of course makes every relationship different. To be honest I just like working with writers. Working out how we talk to one another is part of the fun.

John, how does it feel when you hand something over? Do you breathe a sigh of relief or go into massive fits of self-doubt?

JB: At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’m not the type of writer who is plagued by self-doubt. But I only hand over the novel when I feel it is as good as I can make it and when I need a fresh set of eyes to look at the manuscript and point out all the things that I’m missing. After about a dozen drafts – which is what I usually do before mailing the novel to Bill – it’s always clear to me that I’m too close to the story to recognise what’s working and what isn’t and that’s when I need Bill’s input, although I’m usually reasonably confident that the novel as a whole works.

Bill, there is an oath among some editors “First, do no harm”. Do you find it easy to stick to that? Are there parts of editing that you feel you are stronger at than others? For example, are you happier to fix plot or would you rather concentrate on the sentence? (Maybe you’re happy doing both, of course!)

BSK: My attitude is very much that an editor is there to be a resource to the writer. We are there as a midwife, a sounding board, a mirror and a safety net. I’ve loved all of the time I have spent as an editor, and part of that very great joy, is that every time you do it again, it is a different experience. I love being involved in the big picture part of the process, of the planning and the plotting, the characters and the scenarios. But I also love the line edit – that part of the process where you can shave off words and phrases to help the creation be revealed to its best advantage.

John, what was the most challenging part of A History of Loneliness for you?

I set out with one goal in mind: that readers who constantly condemned everyone in the church as corrupt or criminal would recognise that there are many people who have devoted their lives to the institution and have done their best to live and good decent lives, and those readers who defended the church against all criticism would recognise the damage that many members of that institution, from local priests to the papacy, have done to the lives of innocent children. I wanted it to be fair and balanced and not to reflect any personal prejudices or bitterness that I felt. A novelist cannot write a diatribe; that would be boring for the reader and fail as a work of literature. A novel has to contain ambiguous characters and conflicting emotions and I worked hard to unsettle the reader through Fr Odran Yates’ narrative voice.

Same question for you, Bill…

BSK: From the moment John pitched this book, I knew it was the book he had to write. He had consciously avoided writing about Ireland and I knew that when he did so, it was going to be important. I also knew how much this book meant to him at the outset. That in itself was a challenge. It is a tribute to the breadth of John’s talent that he was able to keep his storytelling wits about him and deliver a great narrative within the complexities of what he set out to achieve, even though getting it right mattered so much to him.

John, you did an MFA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia before you were published and I know that sharing your work with other writers is often a feature of those programmes. I’ve noticed in your acknowledgements that you often credit other writers, who read your work as you were writing…how important is that process to you? And how is it different to working with Bill?

JB: The writer I generally share my work with is Claire Kilroy. Claire and I have known each other a long time, are great friends, respect each other’s work and trust each other with manuscripts. It’s a delicate moment when you show something to someone for the first time but with Claire and I, there’s enough trust to be able to say, I don’t need any praise, just tell me what’s not working. It’s not really that different to working with Bill, as over the last decade Bill and I have also become great friends as well as colleagues. (In fact, Claire and Bill were at the same table at my wedding last year!) Perhaps there’s something about the fact that both work in the publishing industry, albeit in different roles. When you do, as I do, you have a different sense as a reader as you’re thinking in much more critical terms about every sentence and always considering whether the story, the characters and the themes are holding together in an authentic manner. I never show my novels to family or friends until they’re actually published because I want them to read them in actual book form. Perhaps because there’s a certain legitimacy to book form and there’s no time left for any changes!

Bill, in what way do you make your edits? Is it a series of questions? A red pen? A chat over lunch or coffee or pints?

BSK: All of the above. We might start with chats once John has decided what he wants to write. Pints may be involved. Then once he has gone away and written the thing, I will read it and we will discuss further and then usually I will commit some thoughts to paper – in the first instance, general points, questions, observations and then I will annotate the script. It is an ongoing process and because John is such a professional and so dedicated, it is a relatively compact procedure. John is a writer who needs to keep moving and it is a massive privilege to be part of that process.

John, do the two of you ever argue? Have you stuck to your guns about something and later regretted it (and maybe even changed your mind)? Or vice versa?

JB: No, I respect and enjoy his company too much. I have many friends who have combative relationships with their editors and it’s impossible to have such a dynamic with Bill as it’s not in his or my nature. I always advise young writers to recognise that their editor is the person who believes in their work enough to publish it, so everything they say is in the best interests of the novel. Whenever I’m in London we always make time to go for lunch or a few beers together and I value these meetings enormously, not just because of the amount of work we can get done but because I enjoy his company and good humour enormously. The only regret I’ve ever had – and he knows this – is that when I wrote my novel Mutiny on the Bounty, I originally called it Bligh & I, as it was a first-person narrative about the relationship between a cabin-boy and Captain Bligh. Bill didn’t like that title and felt Mutiny on the Bounty would be better as it had name recognition. I wasn’t so sure but we went with it and to this day I still think Bligh & I was a better title! I never refer to the novel by its published title and when mentioning it at talks I always say “I wrote a novel about the Bounty…” Still, after all these years together that’s not bad as one disagreement!

Bill, John is incredibly prolific and incredibly busy. Do you sometimes find it hard to keep up with him?

BSK: I love the fact that John is prolific. I love his creativity and the way his mind imagines and processes stories and ideas. I love his single-mindedness when he has had the idea. He has never delivered on time – he is always early. He works as hard as any author I know, not just at his writing, but at supporting his books around the world, and supporting new and young writers. So yes, I find it hard to keep up with him but that is the best problem to have.

John, can you give us any hints about what you’re working on now? Since we know you’re always working!

JB: I used to say that I wrote a novel for adults and then a novel for young people but I’ve changed the structure of that sentence. I now say I write a novel about adults and then a novel about young people. A subtle but important difference. My next novel to be published is The Boy at the Top of the Mountain, a novel about a nine-year-old French boy who is orphaned just before the outbreak of the second World War and goes to live with his aunt, Adolf Hitler’s housekeeper at the Berghof. That comes out in September. And in August, I’m publishing my first collection of short stories (with Bill) titled Beneath the Earth. I’ve published many stories over the last 15 years but never put a collection together. This collection of 12 have all been written in the last couple of years so they’re fairly new work. And right now, I’m beginning my next adult novel.