Interviewing Barry Nugent
Helloooo!
I recently tempted in advance the excellent Trail of the Cursed Cobras by Barry Nugent a middle-grade (yet suitable for all geeky ages) tale set in the 1980’s of magic, secret societies, traps and legends mixing Grange Hill with Dark Season. It comes out in hardback 15/11. Wanting to know more Barry kindly agreed to answer some questions about the book and the future of the series!
How do you like to booktempt Trail of the Cursed Cobras?
This is a fast-paced supernatural adventure set in the 1980’s, aimed at middle grade readers. You’ve got five regular kids from a North London comprehensive school going up against an immortal sorcerer, sinister secret agents and a centuries old secret which could spell the end of everything. So yeah these kids have a very full plate.
With this story I wanted to recapture in prose the essence of those films I loved as kid like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters or The Goonies combined with TV shows such as Grange Hill and Dark Season.
On the book front I was heavily influenced by The Three Investigators series created by Robert Arthur. In those books, the supernatural elements were always revealed, in the best Scooby Doo fashion, to be fake. In Trail of the Cursed Cobras the supernatural is very real and very dangerous.
What led to the choice of your characters?
When I’m developing characters for my stories I like to have a phrase that encapsulates that character’s skill set. In this case I had the Detective (Ada), the Adventurer (Bobby), The Magician (DJ), The Scholar (Tony) and the Knight (Nikki). Originally my first draft had six kids, but it was suggested this might be a little too much narratively, so I whittled them down to five.
In many ways Trail of the Cursed Cobras is a sequel to a story we never get to read but only get glimpses of. As the plot came together so did the idea that three of the kids (Bobby, Ada and DJ) had experienced a supernatural event the previous year which has created a strong bond between them. As the new boy to St Batten’s, Tony Tadsby is the reader’s way into Ada, Bobby and DJ’s world. He was also a way to bring in a little extra friction amongst them all which is always the case when figuring out new friendships. Nikki, although new to the group, is not new to the school but is the outsider, the loner. She’s one of those kids who can be seen as aloof but once you’re earn a spot in her friendship zone there is nothing she wouldn’t do for you.
How much fun was there recreating 1980s schooldays?
At the beginning I was really struggling to come up with an idea for a middle grade novel. My wife then reminded me of some of the crazy stuff I got up in secondary school, which included werewolf and vampire hunting. It was like someone had set off a massive box of fireworks inside my mind. I decided the story would be set in the eighties and drew on my own experiences of growing up in those years. Once the choice was made everything started to flow. It became much easier to put myself in the headspace of these kids and their world because it was a world I remembered so well.
When I finished my first draft my wife said to me that it was the most fun she had ever seen me have writing and she was right. I love all my stories but this one now holds a special place in my heart.
One thing that has always impressed me with your work and this book is another example is the world is full of hidden secrets and histories. How does this creation of depth in your world help your writing and why is it such a hallmark
I think my love of world building started with comics. I’m still a big comics reader but back when I was a kid the scale of worldbuilding blew my mind. At the same time I was playing a lot of Role Playing Games. I loved how the Dungeon Master would come armed with tomes of knowledge on the adventure they were hosting. I’ve never been a DM myself but I always remember buying a source book for pulp adventure RPG. I used to love reading about all the different cults, agencies and societies of super agents. There was also all the detailed character breakdowns of adventurers, spies, cultists and world dominating baddies constantly at war with each other. I felt a part of that world even without playing a single RPG within it. Since then I’ve tried to bottle that feeling within the pages of my story. I want my readers to feel like this is a living, breathing world where there is always something happening, even when you close the book.
Maybe one day I’ll publish my own source book!
Will we ever know the truth about Norfolk?
Well to be honest I didn’t know the answer to that question until I was on my fourth draft. When I was developing the story the first big idea I had was that some of these kids had already been on a hero’s journey, with a terrifying supernatural experience at the end of it. In the beginning I didn’t need to know what that experience was just that it was utterly terrifying and made their friendship even stronger. However the more I worked on the book the more my imagination kept whispering the question ‘What happened in Norfolk?’. In the end I sat down and wrote out the answer (which is safety hidden away, under lock and key).
Will the reader ever find out what happened in Norfolk…maybe…then again maybe not.
Will there please be just more books?
I haven’t decided what’s next for Bobby, Ada, DJ, Nikki and Tony. I’ve loved writing these characters and it will be tough to leave them behind. However, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t given the matter some serious thought…I might have even have plotted out a few ideas.
Where else can we find out more from you?
The best place to find out more about my writing life is barrynugent.com.
Any cool reads from this year you’d recommend?
I’ve currently doing my yearly reread of the books by David Gemmell books, although this year I’ve decided to try the audio version. I can heartily recommend Gemmell’s Drenai series as the audio narration is sublime. I’m also reading Deny All Charges the second Fowl Twins book by Eoin Colfer, whose stories are always a joyous and captivating ride.
