Kit Power has been one of my favourite indie writers ever since his debut novel, GodBomb! I've been yelling at everyone about him for years, because he's one of those writers that should have an enormous audience, major book deals, and movie adaptation rights galore. He's such a talented writer with such great fiction ideas, and then just to add an extra kick, he also excels with non-fiction. He's also a sincerely kind person, which makes supporting his work just that little bit extra delightful.
Disclaimer: throughout this article/interview, you'll find sales links to Kit's work wherever they're highlighted. Kit didn't ask for this, I've just gone ahead and taken the liberty of linking things for your ease if something takes your fancy and want to check it out.
Between his fiction and his My Life in Horror article series on Gingernuts of Horror, he's been entertaining me with his word-wizardry for years. Some might call me a bit of a superfan.
After taking him off-guard by pouncing from a tree like a flying squirrel and taking him hostage... er... I mean, asking nicely, he agreed to this interview with me, and I'm thrilled to present it to you fine folk!
Kayleigh: Do you have a book/story that you're most proud of?
Kit: Oof! That’s a really tough question; whilst I never quite buy the thing some writers talk about where they equate stories or novels to children, it’s true that I had to care enough about a given story to want to write it in the first place. So while I do think some were more successful than others, in terms of getting at what I was trying to get at, I do have some level of emotional connection to all of them. And of course, I’m still trying to get better every time I sit down to write, which tends to weight my preferences towards more recent works.
All that said, I’ve still got a lot of affection for GodBomb! - my debut and so far only novel. I still think the core idea was/is a solid one, and I still think it contains some of my best writing. And I know it was the best version of the story I was capable of telling at the time, which is all you can really ask.
In terms of short stories, I still don’t think I’ve topped 2018’s Fish Hooks, which appeared in New Fears 2 and Years Best Dark Fantasyand Horror 2019 (Paula Guran). That was my first pro-rate short story sale. I sat down with the express intention to write the best short story I’d ever done, and I think I succeeded. Why I don’t do that every time is a perfectly reasonable question I’ve avoided asking so far…
And out of my novellas, I think I have to pick The Finite. I remember being at FantasyCon in 2015 when Adam Nevill won best horror novel for No One Gets Out Alive, and in his acceptance speech, he talked about how writing novels like that felt a bit like chipping off a small piece of his soul, and thinking ‘come on mate, that’s a bit much!’ Then I started working on The Finite, and by the end of it, I knew exactly what he meant. I doubt I’ll ever write anything that personal again. I certainly hope not. I’m very proud of that one, but it was not fun to write.
Kayleigh: The Finite is a truly excellent piece of work, and my personal favourite of your books to date. Which piece of your work did you enjoy writing the most?
Kit: Hands down A Song ForThe End, my most recent novella for Horrific Tales. I’d always wanted to write a pulp horror longform piece in the style of Herbert’s The Rats, utilising that brilliant format of ‘meet someone, see them die horribly, meet someone else, they survive (probably therefore the hero), meet a second person, whoops, they're dead’. No idea if Herbert came up with that first, of course, it’s just the first time I can remember reading it. And while A SongFor The End doesn’t follow that formula to the letter (and doesn’t contain murderous critters, for that matter) I found the core concept almost as funny as it was horrifying, making it a blast to write.
Kayleigh: A Song For The End is tremendous fun (and my favourite subgenre!). Do you enjoy the editing process after the first draft? How many drafts do you typically write, and do you also use an editor? Typically, do you tend to add to or cut your word count, or does it stay about the same?
As to cut or grow wordcount, I’m always aiming to cut - King’s advice in On Writing is that your second draft should always be 10% shorter than your first, and I think that’s a good thing to aim for, especially in a short story where every word counts - but for longer pieces sometimes I’ve discovered that I actually need a third act (A Song For The End) or that a secondary character should actually be the co-lead (a recently co-authored novel, unpublished), so sometimes I end up adding a lot more. In either case, what I’m hopefully doing on that pass is working out what the thing is actually about, and making changes to reflect that (on a first draft, I have no idea what any of it is about - that’s why I’m writing it!).
Kayleigh: You put a lot of work into your writing and redrafts, and it shows! Next question - you're published in several anthologies. Do you prefer to
work to a theme, or to have complete freedom?
Kit: I really enjoy both. As a kid, one of the few things I enjoyed about school was English tests when I’d be given a list of 5 or 6 titles and asked to write a short story about one of them; themed anthology calls take me right back to that mode of storytelling and I enjoy the challenge of that. It also sometimes makes me think about narrative in different ways - when I was invited to contribute to Ebb Tides, the brief was that the story had to be set in a location where the land meets the sea. Part of the initial negotiation was making sure that the authors picked different locations, so I went for sea caves, because that felt like it had the most dramatic potential for the kind of horror I like to write. So then the whole story evolved from ‘how, exactly, does a person end up stuck in a sea cave?’ Which was great fun.
At the same time, I’m constantly worrying at various short story ideas, and have a half a dozen or so that are close to submittable. I’ve yet to have a pre-written short story fit snugly into a themed anthology call, but I live in hope.
Kit: I tend to fly by the seat of my pants, most of the time; I realised relatively recently the common thread that unites my fiction and nonfiction work is that, for me, writing is an act of exploration, a way to try and understand to make sense of something I don’t fully understand. That’s where the juice is. To that end, I try and shut out the world as best I can - I have ADHD, so that can be quite a challenge at times - and I’ll usually use music to do that. Generally speaking, I need to find an album that matches the feel of the piece I’m working on; music is such a fundamental, important part of my life, it makes sense that it also acts as fuel for my creative processes.
Kayleigh: As I'm sure you know, Stephen King doesn't keep a
notebook because he thinks it's the best way to immortalise bad ideas. Do you
keep one? (I do!)
Kit: I did for a while but I kept losing them (did I mention ADHD?). There’s probably stray notes on my phone/in my Google docs, but given I don’t know for sure, and therefore don’t revisit them at any point, I guess by default I’m more like King (Springsteen was a notebook guy for decades, but I think more recently has come around to King’s way of thinking - mind, that guy used to write a song a week for the first couple of decades of his career, so).
Kayleigh: Can you talk a little bit about books/films/music that has inspired you?
Kit: I don’t think we have that kind of time! Also, the My Life In Horror series does a pretty good, if incomplete, job of listing many of my big influences, so just check out the ToC there for a list. For more on that, the podcast series I have with George Daniel Lea (called What The Hell Is WrongWith Us?) covers other early influences alongside some more recent works that have gotten our attention.
Kayleigh: Note for the readers: Both My Life in Horror and What The Hell Is Wrong With Us are absolutely worth your time - enjoy!
Your MLIH series on GNOH is the stuff of legend, and many
people loved those articles. What prompted it? And why did you decide to
compile them into books afterwards?
Kit: The idea came out from a series of conversations between Jim and I back in 2014. He was looking to expand the number of regular contributors, and I’d just written what became a somewhat infamous piece about RoboCop that he’d really enjoyed. And after a bit of back and forth, we came up with the idea of a series about childhood horror influences. The idea was that it’d be part review, part essay, all personal; I’d hit some of the big 80’s tentpole horror franchises (the Elm Street and Hellraiser movies) but I’d also talk about novels, albums, TV shows… I knew from early on that part of what I wanted to do was expand the definition of horror a bit, find it in some more mainstream and also unusual places, rather than sticking with what the marketing teams tell us is horror. And Jim, bless him, went for it with both feet, even when it meant he was running essays about 50’s biker movies, old rollercoasters, or Bruce Springsteen albums. He really had faith in what I was doing, right from the beginning, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
I think I’d worked out there was at least one potential book in the project quite early on, but it came into focus in a hurry in 2019. I was at EdgeLit in July, talking with Neil Snowdon (of Electric Dreamhouse Press) about Stokercon, which was due to be coming to the UK for the first time in April 2020, and at some point in the conversation he made me realise it would be the perfect place to put out a My Life In Horror book. And of course, I’d let it too late to pitch to publishers (did I mention ADHD?), so the Volume One crowdfunder came out of that. And once that manuscript came into focus, I realised thirty essays made for a good length book, and made for a natural halfway point for the blog project, which in turn made a final Volume II inevitable.
Kayleigh: You write characters extremely well, particularly in the first person - is the writing process different at all when you do this as opposed to writing in the third person?
Kit: That’s an interesting question; obviously the process must be different, but it doesn’t feel much different. I think my love of first person goes back to my youth theatre days; for me, acting was mainly about trying to get my head inside somebody who wasn’t me, feel out their thought processes, their view of the world, then put that out there, using the script as a map or guide to the characters interiority. So when I’m writing in first person, I slip back into that mode, seeing the events of the story entirely through that perspective. And what I enjoy about that is the degree to which first person allows me to play with voice, using syntax and sentence structure to give psychological clues as to the thought processes of the narrator, and also the capacity for subjectivity and surprise (there’s no such thing as a reliable narrator, after all).
That said, the attractions of third person are obvious; it’s more cinematic, allows for multiple perspectives, and ups the ‘risk factor’ in terms of the vulnerability of the characters - after all, with a first person narrative, you know the person telling you the story is still alive to tell it (well… most of the time). I like going 3rd close, so I still get to play with interior thoughts and aspects of perception and physical experience, but with just that half step remove. But ultimately, which approach I take depends entirely on the type of story I'm trying to tell.
Kayleigh: Are there any topics you absolutely will not write about?
Kit: Nope. Some I’ll approach with more trepidation, and where I think it’s helpful, I’ll employ sensitivity readers as part of the critical reader/editorial process, but nothing's off limits, I don’t think.
Kayleigh: A Warning About Your Future Enslavement deserves to be studied in writing classes. The format and the framing device is so unique and clever - can you remember coming up with the idea? It's really difficult to thread everything in a collection together like that and you pulled it off so well. I'm wondering if you had difficulties along the way, whilst putting it all together?
Kit: Oh, wow, thank you - yeah, A Warning was actually kind of a nightmare! I thought, when I initially came up with the concept, that it was really just a relatively simple/fun framing device for my first short story collection (plus a way to sneak in a couple of early essays that I liked and wanted to reprint); it wasn’t until I started putting it together that I realised I’d created a monster! I think it then became an interesting combination of sunk cost fallacy and ego/bloodymindedness. I remember Dion, who worked on the editing of that for me, was absolutely invaluable, in terms of helping me assess what pieces were really earning their keep; but, of course, once a story or article is shuffled/replaced, there was a ripple effect on the bridging material that would then require a rewrite. I’m glad I hadn’t appreciated what a pain in the arse the entire thing would be, because I honestly don’t know if I would have started the process if I had! But I am pretty happy with how it ultimately came out, and I do enjoy the positive, if often slightly baffled, reviews. That said, I really can't imagine trying anything like it again :D
Kayleigh: Note to the readers - by Dion, Kit means Dion Winton-Polak of 'The Fine-toothed Comb' editing services.
What's your favourite genre to read in horror (and can
you please name some favourite books)?
Kit: I like most if not all kinds of horror (and also crime, and once in a while sci-fi, historical fiction, fantasy, biography, history… books are good, basically). But my favourite subgenre of horror is non-supernatural horror; novels like Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs, Misery, The Wasp Factory (though I suppose that last is technically debatable), and short stories like King’s The Ledge and Lumleys The Viaduct. King I think is especially effective on the rare occasions he goes full-on non-supernatural; I recently reread Mr Mercedes, purely on a whim, and while I recognise it’s not without flaws, I loved the whole experience.
Kayleigh: I loved the Mr Mercedes trilogy and thought the real-world aspects were the strongest parts, for sure.
If you're working on something at the moment, can you tell us a bit about it?
Kit: Having written two novellas that bring the end of the world to Milton Keynes (The Finite and A Song For The End), the trilogy will be completed (if I ever get back to it, recent life events have conspired to keep me away from the blank page) with Millionaire's Day. I’m currently twelve thousand words in, and rounding the first hour of the day in question, and one of my POV characters is about to kick a door down, behind which something incredibly dramatic will occur. What? I’ve no idea. I should really go find out…
Kayleigh: Consider my interest piqued!
Can you tell us a bit about your podcasting?
Kit: Man, you nearly got out clean! Yes, sure. Umm. I do a lot of podcasting. I have my own show, Watching Robocop with Kit Power, which I think is probably explained by the title. That show is on an extended hiatus, but if you go to the feed (see the next answer) you’ll see that I’m using it to broadcast some of my other podcast work, with George Daniel Lea where, in a project not dissimilar from My Life In Horror, we have extended conversations about the works that messed us up as kids - mainly books and movies, but there’s the odd album and even video game thrown in the mix from time to time, alongside the occasional guest.
Also with George, we’re working our way through Clive Barker’s Books Of Blood collection (which, to my shame, I’ve never read before, though George is an enormous Barker fan). That series, along with what The Hell Is Wrong With Us? is on his YouTube feed.
Over on Patreon, I have two exclusive, occasional shows that I’m working on. One features Jack Graham and Daniel Harper, as we read through the Sherlock Holmes canon in order, and another where I’m embarking on a read through of the Discworld series with my 13 year old daughter.
Finally, back on my Robocop feed, I recently launched yet another new series, which will involve taking on the entire studio album catalogue (plus a few carefully selected live recordings) of the legendary Bruce Springsteen, in the company of the equally legendary James Slater Murphy. We recorded the pilot (covering late career masterpiece Wrecking Ball) a little while back, and I can’t wait to get back on mic to talk about 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park.
Because, clearly, I don’t have nearly enough to do.
Kayleigh: Gimme all your links for everything so I can point
people in your direction!
Okay:
Patreon (just $1 a month gets you something new every week)
Newsletter (an email a month, featuring pet pics alongsideauthor/podcast news)
Podcast feed:
https://talkingrobocop.libsyn.com/watching-robocop-with-kit-power
Black Shuck page (publishers of The Finite and Voices)
The Sinister Horror Company (publishers of GodBomb! And
Breaking Point):
- GodBomb!
George’s Youtubechannel:https://www.youtube.com/@ExaggeratedElegy/playlists
And here are the links to Kit's other work not listed in the batch above:
(Due to a massive technical nightmare, Kit's My Life in Horror articles are no longer available on GNOH, but you can find the articles of Kit's successor, George Daniel Lea there (and they're awesome!)
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