Fuel for writing fiction

Christopher Brookmyre: MA 1989, DLitt 2013
Current position: Author of 18 novels, the latest of which is Flesh Wounds

Christopher Brookmyre Copyright Chris Close

In the ten years since Christopher Brookmyre was awarded Young Alumnus of the Year, he has published a new novel nearly every year, and has a video game in production and a TV adaptation in the pipeline.

Christopher remembers when novelists appeared to him to occupy the same realm as rock stars – becoming a novelist felt like an unrealistic aspiration. So he got himself a job.

Dedicating months at a time to novel writing in between freelancing as a sub-editor soon paid off, however. Christopher’s debut novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, hit the shelves in 1996 – just seven years after he received his first degree from Glasgow.

A further seven titles followed in quick succession, and Glasgow named Christopher its Young Alumnus of the Year 2005 in recognition of his tremendous success. As well as being a huge honour, Christopher says that his experience of winning the title fed directly into his writing: he set his next book, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, around a fictionalised University of Glasgow.

Never one to be stuck for ideas, Christopher has continued to release a new title nearly every year. Today, yet more outlets for his creativity beckon: for the video game based on his novel Bedlam, to be released in 2015, Christopher devised the concept and storyline, wrote the script and was hands-on in almost every technical aspect. A TV production of Where the Bodies are Buried is also in planning.

To a conscientious English Literature and Theatre Studies student who supplemented a rather ‘light’ timetable with copious library time, the University (and its spire – comically nicknamed ‘the Tower of Guilt’) has represented a looming presence in Christopher’s life. Thinly disguised references to its setting are commonplace in his work, and the act of writing has resurfaced many of the experiences, incidents and characters Christopher encountered as a student – all of which he describes as ‘fuel’.

‘Writing is sometimes like trying to solve the world’s most complex equation,’ he says. ‘It is very daunting. Yet, when you do solve a bit of it, you feel really elated for a moment – until you realise that the bit you solved has just revealed another completely unknown bit that is even bigger than you had anticipated.

‘I don’t know the whole story when I’m sitting down to write it, so when the story starts to tell itself to me, there is nothing quite like it.’

Christopher Brookmyre was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters in 2013

This feature was originally published in Avenue 58, the June 2015 issue of the magazine for alumni and friends of the University.

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