Varuthiin asked Michael Grant:

One of things I like most about your books is that you don't sugar coat anything. Instead, you give it more literary flavor. There's nothing more delicious in books than when the story is told the way it would happen, even if it includes blood and gore. What do you think influenced this approach in your writing?

Michael Grant My approach goes like this: create a premise, then follow it through logically, one event after another, hopefully keeping it interesting, but never betraying the essential premise. So when I come to a dark or scary passage I stay with the internal logic I've established. The reader has to 'buy' my initial conceits - in the case of GONE that's the dome, the exclusion of adults, the powers. But once you've bought that I don't want you to have to 'buy' anything else. Everything that follows the initial buy will conform to the universe I've established.

To the extent that I bring in philosophical, moral, religious issues it's not to preach or convince, but because the issues would be a natural part of my universe, and because I think it will enhance your enjoyment if you see more dimensions of the story.

Also I've just never really given a damn about 'reading levels' or the concept of 'appropriate.' When I write I am not a parent or a responsible adult, certainly not a teacher. I'm not here to instruct or lecture. I don't condescend to young readers because I don't really perceive that there's some big gap between me and you just because I'm older. I work for you, the reader. My job is to entertain you, the reader. To do that I have to play fair, I have to stay true to my characters and my premise.

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