Charley Robson asked John Gwynne:

I saw "Ruin" was now available to buy in the UK and I nearly started crying with joy. I've cried quite a lot reading this series. I thought you might like to know that. What inspired you to write the story from so many perspectives? The multiple narratives are my favourite part of the series, and I'm really curious to know why and how you chose each of your narrators - and how you manage to keep track of them all!

John Gwynne Hi Charley,

It's really great to hear from you, and I'm so pleased that you're enjoying the series so far. I'm also pleased to hear that you've cried at points during the read! Sorry! But that's a great feeling as a writer, to hear that words you've put on a page have moved someone emotionally. One of my son's, Edward, is my first reader, and if I spot him with a tear in his eye then I always put that down as a scene that's worked!

As to your question about multiple perspectives. Well, I've always liked that style, seeing a story from a person's point of view, with the limitations of their perspective. But my tale started with the story, and grew pretty quickly into a big story, and as I imagined it as a story where there were multiple things happening at the same time, I thought that would require more than one POV to tell it. Then there was coming up with the characters to tell the tale, just a lot of brainstorming, thinking about interesting ways of telling the tale, tying in character issues, working out which gender, age, race, would be a good fit for that part of the story.

Here's a link to a recent interview at the Bookplank Blogspot if you're interested in how I came to write the series and a few other questions besides:

http://thebookplank.blogspot.co.uk/20...

I hope that helps, Charley. Any other questions, please just shout.

All the best,

John

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