We spoke to the author of middle grade speculative sci-fi Someone’s Been Messing With Reality, John Hearne, about his writing process and what readers can expect from this new, pacy novel.
Can you tell us a little about your novel, Someone’s Been Messing with Reality, and what inspired you to write it?
So here’s my tagline – ‘When Martin Ryan sees a video of his father flying unaided through the air, he realises that everything he has assumed about his life up to this point has been a lie’.
The whole novel arose out of the following proposition: ‘What if you were an alien, but didn’t know it?’ The moment Martin discovers the truth is also the moment that his parents disappear. He and his friends Tina and Enda realise that their disappearance is part of a larger conspiracy which they must unravel and thwart.
What inspired me to write it? I liked that proposition. Like a lot of writers, I log all the different story ideas that occur to me. Most of these ideas will never go anywhere, but if I hit one that’s sufficiently intriguing and exciting, I’ll start sketching out where I might go with it. What kind of characters could carry this kind of plotline? Where could I set it? Where will the intrigue come from? Once the ball gets rolling, it takes on a life of its own.
There’s a lot of mystery from the get-go of this book. Did you always know where the story would go, or did any part of writing it surprise you?
I’m a plotter and a planner. I like to work out where I’m going to go before I get there – but things always surprise you during the writing phase. I like to think of my outline as a map. I’m going to use it to get to where I’m going, but if I spot something interesting that doesn’t lie along the planned route, I’ll go explore it. The writing process tends to generate fresh ideas, and I think you’ve got to be open to evaluating them rather than sticking rigidly to the original plan.
Also, I often find as I write that that clever little plot detail or character quirk that I thought would work actually doesn’t, so I often stop midstream and rethink things. I find too that once you’ve established how a character acts, you’ve often got to give them more freedom that the original plot allowed. In Someone’s Been Messing with Reality, Martin’s friend Tina caused both him and me a lot of grief through her impulsivity – I had to keep readjusting things when I realised that ‘Hmmm, Tina would never do that…’
You have already written another romp of a book published with Little Island, The Very Dangerous Sisters of Indigo McCloud. Did the writing process for this book differ in any way?
The process was similar, though it did have a lot more steps. I spent a lot of time figuring out exactly what would happen with Indigo before I dived into draft 1, but because this was my first attempt at anything like this, draft 1 was pretty much like the first chair that a trainee carpenter might make. The back was crooked and all the legs were different lengths. It went through several redrafts before I arrived at something that I would willingly show anyone – and the finished product didn’t bear much resemblance to the first draft. It’s true that most books aren’t written, they’re rewritten.
The Very Dangerous Sisters of Indigo McCloud had a fictitious setting – the absurdly miserable town of Blunt, and was choc-full of outlandish characters. I wanted to set Someone’s Been Messing with Reality in the real world, and make the characters a little more human. This is sci-fi – yes – but the relationships and problems and characters themselves are all real, or as real as I could make them.
There are so many fun elements about this book, from crazy secrets to adventurous antics, but the characters also feel very relatable and grounded. Did you have to do any research when creating this story, particularly when it came to Enda’s character?
Enda is one of the three friends at the centre of the book. He’s recovering from a brain injury. The emotional arc of the story rests on the different ways in which his two friends deal with this. I’ve always had an interest in brain injury. I made a radio documentary for RTE Radio 1 a few years ago about someone who was recovering from a very serious head injury. The weird thing is that after I had started work on this book, and after I had written Enda into it, I fell and hit my head. I gave myself what would be termed a ‘mild brain injury’. It may not have been life threatening, but it was very debilitating.
To cut a very long story short, I suffered from prolonged bouts of fatigue and could do very little work of any kind for a long time. Thankfully I’m fully recovered now, but the process took a couple of years. I couldn’t use a computer for much of that recovery. I had damaged the visual cortex at the back of the head, and my brain simply couldn’t deal with the kind of light that emanated from the screen. So much of this book was actually written longhand.
… if you’re ambitious for your writing, you need to show it to people – and not just any people – I’m talking about people who understand the market and know what good writing looks like.
Can you tell us what your journey to publication has been like so far?
It has been lengthy! Much rejection, much rethinking, rewriting, repositioning. Getting published is hard and getting harder. This book – my second – was a little easier than the first, because I had a good relationship with the publisher, and they were happy to read what I wrote, but it had to reach a higher standard to get through. Rising costs have made it more difficult for independent publishers to take a chance on something, so they’ve got to love it before they’ll agree to put scarce resources on the line.
What other children’s books do you enjoy reading, or can recommend to our readers?
Since my book is science fiction, I’ll stick to that. My favourite in the genre is When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. A wonderful book, with a plot that rumbles slowly under the surface – you don’t quite realise that it’s sci-fi until close to the end. I also really like Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, the Dune books and The Iron Giant. My kids also love Hilo: The boy who crashed to earth by Judd Winick.
Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
Much of the standard advice is correct. I think you need to do three things – read in the genre you’re writing in, develop your craft by reading about writing or taking classes, and finally, get feedback on your work. The third one is the one that most of us struggle with, but if you’re ambitious for your writing, you need to show it to people – and not just any people – I’m talking about people who understand the market and know what good writing looks like.
The other thing I’d say is that if your sole ambition is to get published, you are probably letting yourself in for a great deal of misery. Unless you’re exceptionally talented and blindingly lucky, the chances of getting published early in the game are low.
I write because I want to get published, yes, but I also write because I love to write. If you don’t love it for its own sake, I would chuck it in. You only get so much time on earth, so you’ve got to get something out of the journey. Without a love of the process, the time will feel wasted, and the destination – even if you do reach it – will not live up to expectations.
Are you working on anything else you can tell us about?
I’m working on something alright, but as we speak it’s an unholy mess. I’ll let you know if and when something readable emerges from it …
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John Hearne
John Hearne was born in Wexford, Ireland in 1970. He worked as an economist in Dublin before changing direction and becoming a freelance writer. He has ghostwritten and edited a range of bestselling books, while his journalism has appeared in numerous national and international newspapers and magazines.
His first middle grade novel, The Very Dangerous Sisters of Indigo McCloud was published to critical acclaim by Little Island in 2021. His second book Someone’s Been Messing with Reality is out now. You can find him on Instagram @johnhearneauthor.
www.johnhearneauthor.com
Someone’s Been Messing With Reality is published by Little Island and out now.
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