The Branford Boase Award for authors and their editors
The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition for young writers
Branford Boase Award 2010 - Last Year's Winners
The Traitor Game evokes the fear and panic of being bullied. How did you go about creating such a realistic depiction of this terrible thing?
I thought quite hard about how people experience traumatic situations, and tried to imagine how Michael would respond. Often it seemed most evocative to find specific details – vivid, concrete things that would make the situation seem as immediate as possible – but also I found it was useful to focus on the gaps in his memories, the moments where what’s happened to him is so bad he won’t let himself remember it. The unknown elements can be much more sinister than providing all the answers.
Have you experienced bullying firsthand yourself?
No. There was some bullying at my school – I suspect there almost always is – but it was much more verbal; I don’t remember seeing any physical violence at all. But I think The Traitor Game is mainly about the unseen, emotional damage that bullying does, and that’s a common factor to all bullying, not just physical kinds.
How did you begin to create the world of Evgard? Were you aware of how other fantasy worlds had been created?
I really love fantasy, and actually The Traitor Game started out as a story that was only set in Evgard. I had this idea about a fantasy set in a kind of Renaissance East Anglia, with marshes and crumbling cliffs and guerrilla armies. But as I was thinking about the world of the book I started to imagine how fun it would be to be creating it with someone else, and that’s how I started to think about Michael and Francis. I suppose, really, I just wanted a friend like Francis – or at least I would have done, when I was Michael’s age… Anyway, I think when fantasy works really well – like in Tolkien, or Ursula Le Guin, or Robin Hobb – you can see that it’s a kind of metaphor for real life, as well as being its own perfect world. And when I thought about Michael and Francis’s story, I thought I’d like to try to make that relationship between realism and fantasy more dynamic and explicit. When I read The Traitor Game – which I try not to do too often! – I feel like it’s a book about the way I write, the way a narrative will unfold in my head because I’m trying to escape the real world or reinvent it or make it more bearable or comprehensible… And fantasy is very exciting to write, because anything can happen – there’s room for plots that in the real world would be melodramatic. I really love that.
Michael and Francis strengthen their friendship by creating Evgard. What do you think it is about these pastimes that help to forge bonds?
I think that having something creative in common is the strongest basis for a friendship, because the high you get by making something that you’re pleased with is so unique. I love writing with other people, because you’re so focused on your goal, and you’re working together… I really love it.
Do you think this is something that mainly happens between boys? Do girls have their own rituals in creating friendships?
Hmm… Well, I’ve never actually known any teenage boys, so I’m not entirely sure! I think the stereotype is that girls will generally be more interested in boys than in having intense friendships with each other – or at least that they will define their relationship in a less solipsistic way – but I’m not sure how valid that is. I think the rituals and dramas of friendship depend much more on environment and temperament than on gender – I definitely identify with Michael!
Betrayal is a key theme in The Traitor Game, do you think that such an act changes a friendship irrevocably?
I think betrayal always changes a relationship, and I think it’s very hard to learn to trust someone again once they’ve hurt you. A lot of people I know have fallen out with their friends and never managed to regain the same warmth, because the trust was destroyed and the friendship wasn’t deep enough to weather it. But in The Traitor Game the betrayals invariably lead to revelations, and so the characters end up with a new understanding of each other. The destructive power of their secrets has been taken away, and there’s space for them to rebuild on their affection, which was always real. I like to think that at the end of the book Michael and Francis are better friends than they were – I’m optimistic!
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BRIDGET COLLINS on THE TRAITOR GAME back to winner page
Paperback edition out in September 2009