Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 138

The State Of My Nation

I’m at a crossroads in writing. I’ve delivered books for 2018 and have a clean slate for 2019. Usually I have three or four slowly gestating ideas in different stages of development. Everything I write reflects something of the times. I make sure there’s themes, parallels, touches of zeitgeist. But after the last couple of […]

Don’t Envy Inner City Dwellers

Apologies in advance for today’s downbeat post – we’ve woken to a hung parliament, an un-negotiable Brexit and appalling economic figures that place our growth at Europe’s lowest level (the highest is that of Romania). ‘You’re so lucky living in the centre of town,’ say friends. ‘Well, I was born there and never moved further […]

First Words: Starting Your Story

I recently discovered a short book called ‘Plotting & Writing Suspense Fiction’ by Patricia Highsmith. I’ve always enjoyed her lean, mean fiction, and feel she was (as she says) lucky to be working in a time when you could attract a director like Alfred Hitchcock to film a tale. Her book is a simply written […]

Black Humour: The Comedy Tool That’s Too Hot To Use

US comic Kathy Griffin got herself into hot water after holding up the severed head of Trump in a video post.  CNN fired her and she broke down in tears. The Daily Mail, that fine source of good taste, squealed like a stuck pig about her ‘offensiveness’, and Griffin promptly apologised for her appalling lack […]

Five Hidden London Spaces

Southwood Garden There’s a secret garden right behind Piccadilly Circus. For over 200 years, this plot to the West of St James’s Church was used as a burial ground for the parish. After the war of 1939–45 Viscount Southwood provided money for the ‘green’ churchyard to be made into a garden of remembrance ‘to commemorate the […]

How Should Writers Respond To Terror Attacks?

At an early point in their careers, writers have to respond to a series of unspoken questions. What is our best format for communication? (performance, TV, literature – the disciplines are very different). What style suits us best? (fiction, non-fiction, genre, mainstream, small press) and if we choose fiction, do we reflect the present state […]

Update: Another Night, Another Horror

You start to think that each day when nothing bad happens is a good day. Last night I was talking to my partner and friends who had been out for meals, and it had been a lovely early summer evening, partly because nothing bad had happened. That was before 10pm, when three men rampaged through […]

Another Night, Another Horror

You start to think that each day when nothing bad happens is a good day. Last night I was talking to my partner and friends who had been out for meals, and it had been a lovely early summer evening, partly because nothing bad had happened. That was before 10pm, when three men rampaged through […]

It’s The Weekend, Let’s Have A Song!

Goodness, it’s been ages since we had a good, obscure or very weird song. But it’s my job to search out the strange stuff so that you don’t have to. This one from ’20 Centimetres’, a film about a narcoleptic hooker who lives with a dwarf and dreams in musical numbers every time she passes […]

The Fake Village That Became Real

The architect Quinlan Terry is widely disliked by his brutalist colleagues for creating ‘fake’ architecture – buildings that replicate the past or provide false fronts. They cite the purity of the Barbican and the Trellick Tower, and condemn his backward-looking nostalgic style. But lately the argument has started to change. Of course, London architecture has […]