Helen 0:00

The Kill City Podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands we're on. Here in Melbourne, that's the Wurrundjeri Woi Worrong people of the Kulin Nation. We honor their deep connection to storytelling, a tradition carried across more than two thousand generations. Pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and we extend that acknowledgement to First Nations people listening today. And I just wanted to know because the story is told from two viewpoints, you've got sort of, and for people who have maybe haven't read the book, there's Kate, who's a widow, whose grief basically is compounded about what she learns about her husband's secret life, and then you've got Abby, who's also a local the island community whose world is turned upside down when she's confronted by her husband's guilt. This was one that we did at our book club, and I actually crowdsourced a few questions for you from my book club who were very excited to participate. And Amanda asked one which I really like, so I am taking credit for it. Sorry, Amanda. When you write these individual storylines within a novel, how do you actually build them? Do you like, do you write the threads separately and weave them together, or do you kind of grow them side by side? How does it actually work?

Christian 1:53

Originally I thought um I thought I could just write them separately. So so you know, uh uh all of my books, except for Wildplace, they alternate between either characters or or times or anything like that. And I and you know, in the Nowhere Child, it's um you know uh modern day in the 90s, the story of the missing girl and all of the stuff. And Wife and the Widow, it's here, these two women. And originally I thought, oh, 80, 80, 90,000 words, that's a lot to write. What if I just have two stories and write them separately, and then it's like that's no big deal. And I realised so quickly that you you can't do it. Firstly, my brain, it's um I have to do I have to write chronologically, I I just uh as it appears in the book, you know, so that's that's really really tricky um otherwise. But then you if you have these two separate stories, they they just feel disconnected, and I think that what I really like to work on is is um having something in each chapter that that informs the next chapter, even though it's a different perspective, and so you do really um I I you know I really think about links and bridges. So so I I like to I like to link each um I link each scene. I uh you know, I want every every scene to have a cause and effect and and build naturally to the next place and the next scene because I think that's um what makes things feel uh propulsive, you know, you want to keep reading. Um but also those chapter bridges where I kind of want to think, I want I want to uh a good chapter end does two things for me. It it informs the next chapter, even though you you might not be in that part of the story, and you think, oh man, okay, that means this, but also you really want to get back to it. You know, I've had a lot of people say they want to skip chapters sometimes because they want to, you know, these little cliffhangers. Uh so yeah, it it's um definitely something you have to build and you have to entwine, and it's really honestly harder than than doing it the normal, you know, wildplace was just hey, here's the story, are so much easier than than doing all these sort of mental gymnastics, but not as fun, also, you know. I I think um uh you know, weirdly, this is such a strange sort of analogy, but my my publisher, he's no longer at a firm, Martin. He used to say um that it was like uh those, you know, alternating between chapters should feel like um an orangutan swimming swinging through the jungle, which it's really weird, but I think he meant every chapter is sort of like a branch and everyone has to be sturdy in itself, but also sort of propelled to the next thing. Really weird. It's a very flawed analogy. He's he's he's not a perfect human, but he, you know, he's he's a smart guy, but I kind of know what what he meant.

Helen 4:34

No, I can see that, and again, as a reader, because you get you're basically the fault of so many late nights because you do such good things at the end of your chapter, you're like, okay, I'll just read one more, okay. I'll just read it. And the other thing that my book club really liked about your books was your sense of place, because that's just so strong in terms of you bring people into the world. And um, Tracy wanted to know that um whether you actually the scout the locations yourself and immerse them in it, or do you kind of stick to places that you already know?

Christian 5:06

Uh it's a it's a bit of both. So uh so usually I'll create a fictional place um so I can well, firstly, it present prevents me from getting uh emails from people saying, you know, Cromdale Street doesn't actually intersect with that, you know, that sort of stuff. Um, but also I really like just having that freedom to move things around. But usually it will be if I create a town, it'll be a combination of probably two or three towns. You know, with the wife and the widow, it was um it was this island, but really it was uh I was living in Ocean Grove at the time, so it was Ballerine Peninsula, a bit of Phillip Island, a bit of Mornington Peninsula where I grew up, and that kind of um you know, there's these amazing places where uh you know Ocean Grove was uh beautiful and a booming, you know, bustling with tourists during the summer, but in winter it's just so eerie and quiet, and I really really responded to that. I really love that um that that tourist destination, but in the off-season, it's like you know, being in a uh this is another weird thing, but I remember my years and years and years ago, I had a friend who was a cleaner and he cleaned uh a pancake parlour. And once I went into the pancake parlour after closing, and it was such a weird, cool feeling. It's that sort of thing, it's like it's something, um, it's it's it's not empty, but it's emptied. You know, it's it's a place that should have people in it, but then it's been emptied, and I really, really love that. So usually I'll just um I'll just kind of have have places in mind, and uh, and then sometimes I'll be driving down a road and I'll think, oh, how do I how do I capture this in a book? You know, how do I um how would I write this? And again, it goes back to that thing as a kid. It's like I you actually can't, there's this you can't get you can't put it all in onto the page, but what bits would I choose to put in? So I'm often thinking about um about that for setting, but then I also do tricks, so I also I will give I'll give the streets a name and I'll I'll talk about the supermarkets and I'll I'll name things, and I think by naming things you they just feel more real. You know, I won't say she walked down the road, I'll say she walked down you know Gilbourne Street or something you think, okay, that's a street. Things like that I think really um just anchor a person in a in a place. I I also think that the readers bring so much of it to themselves, you know. I I I I the the the sort of more I write, the more I think about um especially books, the the what the reader brings, you know. For example, in the Nowhere Child that the town was uh Manson, a fictional place but in Kentucky, and I remember a guy said, a guy who grew up in Kentucky, he was living in California, but he said, You really captured what it was like growing up in Kentucky in the 90s, and I said, Oh, thank you very much, it's because I'm a fantastic writer. But really, he had done it all. I just sort of given a few details and he had brought the rest. So, and I think it's the same with um with all of my books, but Wife and the Widow is a good example because I think everyone knows that feeling of going to a tourist town in winter and and have that kind of that eerie eeriness, I guess.

Helen 8:23

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And I think um and to your point, while like you can tell it's set in Australia, to your point, like a reader could imagine it could be anywhere in the world. But I'm just wondering, because so many of your stories are set quite obviously in Australia, does that kind of make it harder to sell your work internationally, do you think?

Christian 8:43

Or you know, uh not so much. I think I think in the old days it did. Um, but thanks to well, a lot, you know, a a lot of uh a lot of people, but I mean really I think we owe a lot to Jane Harper, who because there was these there was amazing crime books. Like if you go back, there's all these all all Gary Disher's, you know, Gary Disher's been writing brilliant books forever, uh, Australian books, but Jane Harper kind of pushed it onto the world stage a bit more, and especially in the UK, where people are um you know, I think it's just a bit more hungry for for international stories, stories that feel a little bit different, and and and I honestly think it's this huge shift. I think things like um, you know, the TV, the Netflix show Squid Games, suddenly they realized, oh, we don't need to be in English, we don't need to have something English speaking for people to get on board. And I think now that there's there's there's so much content, people are hungry for just different things. So I think um you know, in part it's a selling point. It's a different world from what they used to. Um I think in the old days it would have made it harder, but yeah, not so much now.

Helen 9:47

That's good to do.

Leigh 9:49

We probably don't talk about Gary Disher enough. He's done so much work, and we just we probably haven't given him the credit that he deserves or talked about him enough, essentially.

Christian 9:57

He's yeah, he's he's great. He's one of those, um, you know, one of those sort of uh I don't know, he's just been doing it for so you look at his body of work and it's ridiculous. He's written so many books and and they're great, he's been running forever, and um yeah, he'd be good as well.

Leigh 10:13

Um absolutely so if we move on to the wild place, you described uh this one as a kind of rear window mystery with satanic panic um as the secret ingredient. Um how did you build this book um when you sat down? Was it a f a fresh idea that grabbed you first? Was it character situation or something else entirely?

Christian 10:36

Yeah, this one, well this was I I wrote it during COVID, so I um I had for a very, very long time been interested in uh again, research. Definitely was researching that whole time, not procrastinating, but I was uh I was looking into satanic panic, which is this um you know wave of really mass hysteria really that that swept the the Western world uh in sort of the 80s and early 90s, where um you know suddenly there was people, parents really concerned about these roaming satanic cults, and and if you play the heavy metal record backwards, it'll summon the devil, and and Dungeons and Dragons is a gateway into Satanism and all of this sort of stuff. And I had always thought that was so interesting, so really juicy, and there's something there, but it always seemed so silly, you know. I thought I I wouldn't really know how to write about it because it's so silly, and then but then COVID happened, and all of a sudden, very sane people, everyone was very scared, and and and and I think that when people get scared they they want to find answers, and I think that um, you know, people were coming up with some crazy answers, like you know, uh crazy sort of theories about what's going on and how 5G was causing it and and tracking stuff in the you know in the vaccines, all of that sort of stuff. And I thought, um, oh, this is just satanic panic in in the digital age, in the social media age. So I thought, I don't know, suddenly I had my way in, suddenly it didn't seem so silly, and I thought, oh, I'll just write this COVID book, but I'm gonna set it in in the late 80s, and it's gonna be about satanic panic. And it's set, uh it's by far my I think my coziest book because it's set in betwe of between Boxing Day and New Year's Day, you know, that weird part of the year, which is just it's sort of like the Pancake Parlour after dark. It's this weird, you know, or a tourist island uh in winter. It's this weird space that that just nothing really happens. I really enjoy and I'm interested in that time. So anyway, it's all set over that, and it's just this um this local girl goes missing, and this school teacher who's on holidays and just bored starts to suspect the kid next door, this this goth kid um next door. And then it really, as soon as I had that kind of as soon as I knew I was writing about COVID, I it just all fell out. It was a really, really fun, really, really um cathartic to write during COVID as well. It was this real fun um uh you know uh fun book to write, but then it came out and it was weird because I didn't have a launch for that book, all of the everything, all the events I was doing online all of a sudden, it was when when we when Zoom became a thing, you know. Um, so it's a weird time. I think back to that time and just think how uh I do think it was cozy because not only is it a cozy sort of book, I I wasn't allowed to leave the house. So it was sort of for a writer, it's sort of paradise.

Helen 13:35

I'm pretty sure you're the only person I've ever heard that can say satanic panic and cozy in the same sentence.

Christian 13:41

Yeah, that's strange. No, I have a I have a weird thing with horror where I do find it very cozy. When I was, you know, uh I used to watch Blair the Blair Witch project every night to go to sleep too. There's some weird crosswires in my brain or something that it that it helps me get to sleep.

Helen 13:58

Well, that's a great segue to the next thing because really keen to um talk a little bit about um your book, The Ledge. So that's the one that came out in 2024, and again, another one of my favourites. And I think because while it was a sort of a really clever thriller, it was also kind of that coming of age story. And um, yeah, for those who haven't read it, um basically it's another fictional town in Victoria. There's a set of remains that's found in the bush. Um, the discovery drags a group of old friends back into each other's orbit, but it kind of focuses on um the teenager main character Aaron and his best mates Justin Chen and Leeson and what happens, and it again you move people through different timelines, um, and there's lots of secrets and guilt, so much guilt involved in this one, but a great story. Um but you said Aaron, who is our um narrator, an interesting character, I think you describe him as maybe a 40-year-old slightly washed-up writer, inspired by you. So I think A, that's a bit harsh on you, but B, um, just in terms of how you thought about that, in terms of creating that character, what what did you decide that you would pick that was part of you, like what was exaggerated, what did you kind of completely invent?

Christian 15:11

Well, that was interesting because it was um, I think it was Amanda's question before. This kind of goes back to this because I I actually thought um, I thought that the, you know, because the book alternates between the 90s and and now, and 90s are about these four teenage boys, and I I I actually thought that was the book, and and I wrote an entire, nearly an entire book where it was just that, and then and then when I made this decision to alternate between the chapters, I had to go back in and rewrite every single friggin' thing. Um, but that came about because I was I really wanted to write a a coming-of-age thriller, that was my thing. I wanted to write a a love letter to Stephen King's It and Stand By Me and the things like the Goonies and Catherine the Rye and Lord of the Flies, all of that sort of stuff. And I thought, um, oh yeah, I'm gonna write this coming-of-age thriller about these four teenage boys, and I I didn't really think too much beyond that, but then as soon as I started to um create those characters, I just brought more and more of not only myself but my my group of friends when I was a teenager. You know, the the characters in the book are kind of weird kids, and they they they find other weird kids, and I think that that's what I did. I um I I found this this group of kids who were um sort of essential to me surviving puberty. It was a really hard time, they be they be really important to me, and um it's so sad I don't see them anymore. It's really depressing. But and actually, to be honest with you, that's sort of what um what what led me to end up deciding to write them as adults as well because I was pulling more and more of my own experience, my own teenage experience into these kids, and I was thinking more and more about these friends that I hadn't seen for years, and I thought, oh, where are they now? I'm not on social media, so I can't even stalk them anymore. Um, and I thought, where are they now? And then I sat down to think, okay, where's this main character gonna be? And and then I wrote what was the ends up being the first chapter in the book. It was, yeah, he's a thriller writer, like, you know, like doesn't Ace has a has a daughter, you know, exactly how old my daughter was when I was writing it, all of this stuff. And that kind of happened um almost by accident. I really didn't I mean f firstly I do like reading books. I love you know every other Stephen King book when the character is a writer, because it's a very um it's really fun because you don't have to, you know, I I knew this guy was gonna have to go back to his town and to investigate this body, and I didn't want him to have to call his boss and say, hey, can I have a few days off? I thought, hey, if I if I had to go to my hometown and there's a body there, I don't have to call anyone. I can just no, it's fine, I've got I've got time. So there's that real there's that element to it where you kind of you know just takes the stress out of it a little bit, uh, and saves you from writing really boring scenes. But there was um, you know, it was something about thinking about where where this urge to write comes from, and and and and are you um, especially writing dark things like I write and the and the character in the book, right? Are you informed by um experience and trauma and how does that work its way into the to the work? Because it really does, it's this weird, um, it's bizarre thing that happens where for me it's subconscious where I will um I will finish a manuscript and then I'll sort of figure out what it was about, and it's and I look back at all my books and there's these weird similarities, these fears that keep coming up, and and you can really get deep. Um, so I I think I was just thinking about thinking about that and what what fed into that, and then I just built out the others, you know, I just kind of figured out where they were now, but I really didn't think about what happened in the middle. So, you know, we meet them when they're teenagers and meet them again when in their 40s, and I like there being a bit of a mystery about what happened in that middle time, you know. So, yeah, it was that was um again, who knows if I answered your question, but that was a fun exercise.

Helen 19:05

That was that was fantastic. And look, I think um definitely have picked up your love of Stephen King through your novels, and for me that was probably the closest one because of the stand. But I think what you talk about that um how you love to lean into that kind of horror part of the thriller aspect is becoming, I think, a bit more apparent the more you do. And I know particularly with your screenplays and the um like relicants of Apartment 7A, you know, very much more leaning on the horror side, which I think is it leads us quite nicely into your latest thoughts along night, because I think that one is probably your darkest um full-length novel. Um, and I think it's been described as a very fast, high-tension thriller that's told over one night. It sort of centers around M, the 19-year-old, who's kidnapped after what could have been a promising date, and the mother Jody is forced to confront a trauma that she spent years to outrun. Um, and look, and again, it's the sort of dual storylines between the two characters. Um, but because it's so fast and so I was absolutely exhausted by the end of this one. Very, very, very stressed. And I read some um reviews on Goodreads, and my favourite was it opens with a bang so intense, I wondered if I'd walked into a horror movie. Oh, that's good. I thought that was pretty good. I can't take credit for who the person was, but yeah, I thought that movie was awesome. But I think um, because in this one you juggle so many viewpoints, there were so many twists. Oh, I actually thought my brain was going to explode at one point. So can you be honest with us? Do you actually get pleasure out of torturing your readers like this, or is this just a side effect about how your storytelling brain works?

Christian 20:49

It it definitely is a side effect, but I also get I am also I take a sort of a very sick pleasure in when people tell me that they've been scared or that's really terrified, or my favourite is when they they're thinking about it. You know, it it they're putting laundry out at night and they start to think about it and they get scared. I love that. My favourite was uh this is gonna make me sound so mean. I mean, I'm glad she's okay. But there was this um way back in my first book, there's uh a lot of snakes, a lot of rattlesnakes, and there's a scene where you know the character gets trapped in this shed of snakes, and there's all this and it's dark, and there's snakes everywhere. And this woman, this reader told me that she would have um she would pass out sometimes, she had something wrong with her. Uh I don't know why I'm laughing, some of them I laugh nervously. She's still okay, it's fine. But she would pass out, and she said she passed out at this time when she was reading the book, and she thought she could sort of see snakes and feel rattlesnakes, and she said it was the most intense, awful thing, and I just was smiling, thinking that's you know, I feel really bad, but I also love that I could put her through this experience. I don't know what that says about me. Um, but I do I do love, I I think I do love horror. that reason that you can kind of go to these really really extreme places and you know the long night's not it's not a it's not a supernatural horror but really goes as it really really pushes um pushes into that real that sort of scary realm and and I think that the big difference between I think my first four books and the long night was I used to have um with my first four I had this really strange image of the reader being like a lobster in a pot where you where you they go in when the water's comfortable and then you just slowly turn up that heat and then that it's but it's too late that you know they're then it starts bubbling and they're in it. But with um with the long night I thought no I want it already to be bubbling. I just wanted to throw them in and then and God knows where you know what will happen. But it was this really great thing because I wrote that first chapter which was you know that this woman getting kidnapped and it's really intense and because I knew I wanted it to take place over one night I knew that um just the stakes needed if the stakes are high your character's not thinking about money problems or romance or anything like that. It's just really that dial has to stay up and it was a really fun um it was it was it was really fun just to start the water boiling and just to to go for it. So and I've done that with my um it's not out until next year but my next book uh it starts with this really like I I I want to tell you about it but I guess I won't but it's really really let you just give us some clues just we won't tell anyone I'll give you a clue it it it's this opening that that is really intense and it actually takes place at uh at a a sex party in in in country side well yes not quite I still haven't got that swing so I can't still look in but no but it's not but it's and it's really uh a big it's the bubbling water thing again which is um yeah I'm I I think it goes to that thing where you just want to want to hook them as soon as you can so yeah can't wait for that until next year it seems like so long away but um but it'll come come around fast.

Helen 24:07

And just really quickly can we just squeeze in because um still on Stephen King and the way you write I know he has a very famous book what's it Leigh?

Christian 24:18

Writing Yeah I I I um that was actually what a hugely profoundly uh uh important book because I read that before my first book The Nowhere Child I um that was the fifth book I tried to write and the second one I finished and the first I thought was anywhere near near good enough to show anyone but the big difference between books what you know my my my four abandoned attempts and what became the Nowhere child was I read that book on writing and and it's I mean it's a roadmap it's a it's how to write a novel basically and and it does things like it um it holds you accountable it says this is how this is how much you should do you know it holds you accountable if you're too busy then you're not a writer then don't do it. You know it's really it's it's really great it kind of forces you to hold yourself accountable. But there's one nugget of wisdom in that book that really changed me which was um he says you should write with the door closed and rewrite with the door open and what he means is when you've when you're when you're writing your first draft shut the door you know you're write free of judgment but but when you're rewriting you have to open that door and let others in and that was such a um that that was the hardest thing. I would do weird things where I would write I'd write a manuscript and I'd have one chapter to go but then I'll just put it away and never return to it because I I was I guess I was I thought I had this idea that if I tried and failed that I wouldn't be able to write anymore which is so silly you know but that showed me that no just opened the door and then I started so I showed my wife and then I entered the competition and and then really that was led directly to my first publishing deal so it's a great an amazing book and it's also just you know it's part how to write a book but part memoir so he talks about when he got the phone call what you know when he when when Carrie was published and you you're in the room and you feel it's such a great book and you want to you're reading it and then you want to run to your computer and write and you want to run back to the book. It's such an amazing book.

Leigh 26:20

It is remarkable and I don't you don't have to be a Stephen King slash horror fan you don't necessarily need to be a writer but there is just some amazing stories about his writing journey. I think it was Carrie was the one that he'd actually thrown in the bin from memory and his wife picked it out of the bin and then I think he encouraged him to read write it and then it went across and then the next thing you know is it published and one of them I think he was I think there's a there's a story about how he wrote Kujo and he essentially for reasons I can't even remember actually writing it and I'll leave that to people to go and read. But it is just a remarkable book to read. So yeah urge anybody that's especially somebody anybody that's um um that is at the early stages of a writing career or the mid stages of a writing career it is just yeah it's a it's a crack of a book it's so good I'm due to read it again actually yeah so we like to sort of end with a bit of fun.

Helen 27:26

I reckon we should just go straight to rapid violet because I know um Christian's got places to go and people to see so I reckon we'll finish on a high so basically for this one Christian if you're up for it all we do is basically throw some either or questions for you and just go with your gut and that'll kind of give us a bit more of a clue of how your brain works.

Leigh 27:47

Oh interesting great so this is it the last quick round that we call rapid fire the quick and the curious uh it's just a fun way for listeners to get to know you. So okay full disclosure we absolutely make this up as um well I shouldn't say we make it up as we go along we do have a little bit of a script here so but um here we go cats or dogs?

Christian 28:08

Cats now yeah Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Pyro Oh Sherlock Holmes yeah these are hard your toe in or dive straight in dive dive espresso shot or a cup of tea espresso shot oh yeah yeah I'll stick with that I'll stick with that final answer these are really I can I just email you guys if I change my mind on any of these? Absolutely paperback or audiobook paperback good cop or bad cop oh um good copy now this one I'll be interested in vampires or zombies vampires definitely uh one episode at a time or binge the whole season a binge the whole season uh magpie or binge chicken uh magpie beach or snow oh that's a really hard one uh I'm gonna say beach I'm gonna say beach that's probably true yeah beach Kylie or Danny Minogue oh wow um uh completely neutral probably Kylie no you want Kylie because she did that song with Nick Cave that was amazing yeah yeah Kylie yeah sorry for Holden Ford or Holden oh um Subaru um Bunning snag or bakery meat pie bakery bakery meat pie I think yeah and the final one road trip or stay cation stay cation that was excellent Christian thank you so much for sharing that with us I'm so excited you went for vampires not zombies because I think that argument with my the rest of my family are all zombie fans so vampire fans that that was a fun that was a fun way to end it no well thank you very much Christian this has been um such an open and generous chat we really uh really appreciate hearing from you so thanks so much for um spending some time with us well thank you both so much for having me this was uh you're both very easy on me well it's um such a uh it's such a wonderful catalogue of books um you've just given us as us as readers uh massive joy and and no obviously for all the other readers out there of your books um you've given them a great deal of joy as well so thank you so much for spending this time with us um that's so nice of you to say thank you thanks for having me no right and we'll put um we'll put links to all of Christian's books in our um show notes today so you can dive in there if you haven't already dived in um but yeah Alan and um yeah that's unfortunately that's it from us this time um thanks Christian and thanks everyone for listening to us uh we're putting the bookmark back in the book until we see you next time