Every Friday, we meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Want to be featured? Email us: online@britishfantasysociety.org
Name:
Laurence Nix (he/him)
Which region are you based in?
I currently live in Warrington. Before that I lived and studied in Glasgow for nine years.
If you write, which genre:
Mostly fantasy, sometimes sci-fi. Always with some weird, silly, or comedic element to it.
Are you drawn to any specific SFFH sub-genres?
I love heartfelt stories with a touch of humour most of all, and—although I usually find myself staying away from horror and grimdark—I’ll give anything a chance!
If you don’t write, what do you do?
Other than writing, I have a pretty big collection (see photo later on this page) of Warhammer 40000, Malifaux, and miscellaneous other miniatures and I spend a lot of time playing board games and roleplaying games (mostly home-made fantasy settings in Cortex Prime). And my day job is researching particle acceleration techniques which is basically sci-fi, right?
Your influences
Tell us about the book/film/thing that got you into SFFH: What was it? How old were you? What impact did it have on you?
I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t coming up with my own fantasy worlds and characters, so I couldn’t place exactly what started it. One that jumps out to me is the Deltora Quest series by Emily Rodda. There were plenty of other books, cartoons, and bedtime stories before that, but it’s the earliest one I can clearly remember. I also remember loving books including Artemis Fowl, Narnia, and The Edge Chronicles and watching The Fellowship of the Ring on a video tape a friend of my parents lent us. I quickly moved on to big books, enjoying thick fantasy tomes. I was too young to understand or retain all that much, but they were still my favourite thing to read. So I think it’s more a gradual summation of loads of different influences throughout my childhood and teen years rather than any one thing to pinpoint.
How does that early influence show up in your work now?
I like to think that my stories, while aimed at adults, retain that sense of fun that’s more typically associated with fiction for younger readers. I also like to put a weird, humorous, affectionately mocking spin on the tropes that filled those big old fantasy novels.
Where do you draw your creative inspiration from?
Any random little thing could be the first step in a Rube Goldberg machine of tangential ideas. As for keeping the inspiration alive throughout a writing project, I’m most productive when I have strong feelings about my characters. If I really feel who my character is, I think about them a lot and that always inspires me to write about them.
Other times it starts with me messaging a writing buddy with a half-joking ‘what if…’ statement about what could happen in the story and realising that I could actually make the silly idea work.
Who do you look to as a genre hero? Why?
Given that I said I love a healthy dose of humour in my stories so it would be impossible not to mention Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams here. Both were formative influences for my early style as a writer and my taste in books, but recently I’ve been fascinated with the work of Jasper Fforde (pictured) and Becky Chambers.
They have little in common, aside from the fact that they both make brilliant books out of premises that sound like they go against the common wisdom of storytelling. Fforde’s stories are a convoluted wild ride of absurd premises, meta jokes, groan-inducing wordplay, and almost non-sequitur plotting but they’re some of the most fun and clever stories out there. Meanwhile Chambers’ stories are so character-focused and often low-stakes with little over-arching plot, but they have so much emotional depth and resonance that I never once get bored even when nothing is happening. She has such a clever way of looking at big topics through the lens of normal people and their lives.
(Photo of Jasper Fforde is a self-portrait | source)
Your work
You’re stuck in an elevator for 60 seconds with that hero, and they want you to describe your work. Give us the pitch.
My goal is to combine humour, heart, and action by throwing interesting characters into absurd situations and seeing what happens. I like to take two opposing things and crash them together and find a coherent plotline and character arc amidst the chaos—I ask myself questions like, “What if you kept accidentally summoning demons in your pottery workshop?” “What if two broke siblings inherited a hotel on Mars and found out it was built on a crack in reality?” and “What if the unfolding Chosen One Prophecy at a magic college was less relevant to the fate of the world than the messy family drama between two sisters?” I love playing with the contrast of down-to-earth character-driven stories set against all manner of weird and wacky backdrops.
What are you working on right now?
I’m deep into writing and editing a coming-of-age comedy-drama set in a remote frontier town of magic cowboy bakers. It has a vague air of Anne of Green Gables about it, but played as an adult fantasy novel with violent cowboy blood-feuds, exploding pastries, magic guns, a Baker of the Year Contest that never ends peacefully, and a whole load of silly puns. It will be the second novel I’ve finished, at least the fourth I’ve attempted, and all going well it will be the first I query to agents—I want to say I’ll be querying by the end of the year, but I won’t beat myself up if it takes longer to be sure I’m definitely ready!
Thinking about all the stories/work you’ve done, what sticks out most in your mind? Why?
I am not yet a published writer, but if we include unpublished work, it’s an easy choice: the first novel I ‘finished’. The journey of writing, rewriting, and editing something of novel length always seemed an insurmountable hypothetical dream and that story proved I could do it. I’ve written better since and it would need significant revisions before seeing the light of day, but finishing that was the turning point that made me go ‘you know what? Maybe I can write books after all!’ and for that reason it’s always going to be very special to me.
Where and when do you create/are you at your most creative?
Most of my best ideas come to me while walking or via the reckless improvisation that ends up happening during writing sprints—i.e. writing the maximum number of words possible in a set time limit.
What’s the best advice you’ve received about creativity?
Start your project now rather than waiting until you think you’re ready, and focus on the journey not the destination.
What’s your writing soundtrack?
I do make mood playlists for each project, but when sitting down to write I usually prefer instrumental stuff—some go-to artists include Covet, 65daysofstatic, and Igorrr.
(Pictured: Laurence’s shelves full of his coveted models)
The quickfire round
Sci-fi, fantasy or horror?
Fantasy
Quiet or loud?
Quiet
Dark or light?
Light
Strict lines or genre blend?
Blend
Awards or bestseller?
Other than the fact that the status as a bestseller or award-winner sometimes brings a book to my attention, I don’t tend to pay much attention to either.
Fiction or non-fiction?
Fiction
Poetry or prose?
Prose
Plotter or pantser?
It’s a spectrum not a binary, but I’m definitely much closer to the pantser end
Reading or listening?
Reading
Notebook or computer?
Notebook for brainstorming, computer for everything else
Favourite SFFH book of all time?
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Last book you read?
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Any SFFH author on auto-buy?
I usually have too long a TBR to keep on top of new releases well enough for that!
Favourite podcast?
- Writing-related – The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel
- Fantasy-related – Lost in Roshar
- Unrelated – No Such Thing as a Fish
The home stretch
What’s the best thing about being part of the SFFH community?
You get to go on about magic and dragons and everyone else is just as enthusiastic about it!
Time to plug your stuff! Where can we find you and your work? What have you got coming up? Consider this your advertising space.
I’ve self-uploaded short things in a couple of places over the years – here’s a link to The Charlotte Ransome Pottery Hour, a 17k-word tale of unintentional demon-summoning via pottery.
I don’t have anything published yet to shout out (unless you like physics research papers…) but I intend to be querying sooner rather than later!