Simon Mayle
About Author
Simon Mayle grew up in the USA but now lives in Cornwall with his wife and their own Shoutykids. He works in film and TV and amongst his credits are 'THERE'S ONLY ONE JIMMY GRIMBLE' - winner of a Brown Bear at Berlin Film Festival, Golden Griffin at Giffoni, best feature at Vienna and best feature at Kyoto.
Interview
SHOUTY KID: HOW HARRY RIDDLES NEARLY GOT ALMOST FAMOUS
(Shoutykid, Book 3)
HARPERCOLLINS CHILDREN'S BOOKS
AUGUST 2015
In the third SHOUTY KID book from author SIMON MAYLE, 10-year-old gaming-obsessed Harry continues to battle with life at home and at school. The story is told through a series of letters and emails and in this installment, with his dad deciding on a round-the-world sailing trip with the entire family, Harry has his work cut out to progress his plans to become a famous rockstar!
Q: What's next for Shouty Kid?
A: In the third book, Harry's dad is having a midlife crisis and he's thinking about buying a boat and going off sailing around the world, while Harry is still trying to go out with a girl he likes so he enters a band competition to impress her. As you can imagine, it doesn't go well for Harry.
We had thought about making Harry older with each book but we didn't want him to lose the innocence he has as a ten-year-old boy, so we'll keep him the same age in future books.
Q: We've heard that when you're not writing books, you're writing films, just like Harry's dad in your book. What else in the book is based on your real life?
A: Oh, lots of it. The struggling script writer in the story is me, and Harry, who spends all his time gaming, is based on my own children. I have two boys aged 11 and 13 and they like gaming. A lot.
I wanted to write a children's book but didn't know what to write - until I realised the story was right in front of me! We were having financial problems and I was pacing around thinking, how can I tell my wife that we may end up losing the house because of a dispute we were having with a national company? Just like the script writer in my book.
Then I started to wonder what my ten year old might say about it, and what would I do if I was a ten year old and faced losing my home because my dad's latest script had been turned down? I thought I'd probably write letters to ask for help, so that was the start of Shoutykid.
Q: Why did you choose Cornwall as the setting for the books?
A: Again, I've drawn from real life as my family lives in Cornwall although I grew up between London and New York. My wife and I decided we wanted to live in England and we moved to Cornwall because we thought it was beautiful and loved the idea of being by the sea. Plus if you're writing for a living, and broke, you may as well be somewhere pretty! But there's not a great deal going on here. It's a bit like living at the end of the planet....
Q: Why did you decided to tell the story through emails and letters?
A: Because that's what children are doing. They might not do much talking but they are writing a lot through emails and instant messaging which are quick to write and read, so you could call this a twenty first century novel told in letters, texts and gaming!
Q: Did you actually send the letters we read in the books to people like the Queen, football players and television celebrities?
A: Yes, I have written and sent all Harry's letters and emails - and we've had letters back from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Queen and the Prime Minister although celebrities are, on the whole, far too busy to write back.
Q: Why did you want to have your books illustrated?
A: I got the idea for illustrations from something that happened when I was a child.
After my parents divorced when I was seven, my dad would send letters to me every two weeks with illustrations of what was going on at home or in the office and I loved them. I remember enjoying the drawings more than the text.
I also think the illustrations are funny and I make the books as funny as I can because if children laugh at something, they are more likely to want to read it. I can't write about thrills and secret agents but I can try to make people laugh!
Q: How has being a screen writer helped in writing your books?
A: I enjoyed screen writing and I've got a studio trying to get a film made that I wrote three years ago - but since then, I've written three children's books so I'm focusing on books rather than film now.
The techniques you use for writing film scripts definitely helps me write books because I have learned about things like structure and dialogue. Each Shouty Kid book follows a three-act structure, which I've taken from the narrative arc of film, so you have escalating problems in the first act, trying to overcome them in the second act, and the final battle in the last act.
I also use what I've learned from screen writing for writing dialogue in my books. One technique is to read aloud everything I've written and I think the books have a nice resonance. The only problem I have is that, because I've spent half my life in the US I tend to give Harry an American accent, although he's a kid who has grown up in Cornwall!
How Harry Riddles Made a Mega-Amazing Zombie Movie (Shoutykid, Book 1)
