5 Minutes with Tim Harris

Wow, tough question.

That didn’t count.

Nor did that.

Me in three?

Chocoholic dreaming weirdo.

I loved reading Paul Jennings stories, as well as The Chronicles of Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. But my favourite childhood book would have to be The Loner by Ester Wier. I’ve probably read it over ten times. I love the character development and the slow pacing. Books like that are rare these days.

I once ate a really, really nice Tim Tam during morning tea at a school visit. It was amazing. Maybe I could visit your school and eat a Tim Tam there as well? To find out more about my school visits, click HERE. To find out more about Tim Tams, click HERE.

Can I only choose one? If not, it would pretty cool to hang out with all the other authors. Imagine gathering every single author in the world (in a tiny café) and doing an epic collaboration. It would be so much fun! We would laugh, cry, laugh some more, and drink lots of coffee. But I’ve got no doubt there would be creative tension. Sometimes authors can get a bit protective about their ideas. Come to think of it, the notion of creative control is making me a bit stressed. I don’t want to hang out with other authors anymore.

I have a soft spot for the main characters. Mr Bambuckle is so much fun to write because he is unpredictable, Jigsaw from Ratbags always endears himself to me because he sticks to his rules, and Chegwin from Toffle Towers is simply quirkiness personified. In Exploding Endings, I like Tangentine because she is always going off in tangents. Like that time I was playing cricket and had to wear a different helmet because… Sorry, this is not the forum for that sort of tangent.

Choosing names for characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing. Names are special things – we take such incredible ownership of our names; they carry the weight of who we are. Names like Kilogram, Pound or Ton do this very efficiently.

I like to give my characters names that reflect a little of who they are. Mr Bambuckle’s name was made up from scratch because I wanted him to be completely unique. Jigsaw in Ratbags was named so because he does not fit in with the other rats. Chegwin in Toffle Towers was named by converting a surname to his first name to give him a sense of quirkiness. And Tangentine? Well, those tangents just keep on coming. Did you know that my favourite band was #1 in the charts the week I was born?

This is such a tough one!

I have an idea! Maybe I could be the pet rat of one of the kids in Mr Bambuckle’s class, and the class goes on an overnight excursion to Toffle Towers, but the whole thing is a short story with a twist.

I think you’ll find that response is diplomacy at its finest. Maybe I should be a politician. Do politicians get to eat Tim Tams?

I usually start with a general anaesthetic, a scalpel, and then some…

Woah, that got dark very quickly. I like to keep things light! So, sometimes I interview my characters when I’m driving, and sometimes I map out character profiles. I find that once I know the character well enough, they begin to take over the story for me. Here are some tips for how you can get inside your characters’ heads.

I find the first edit (the structural edit) the trickiest part. Sometimes whole chapters have to be deleted or added, scenes rearranged, or characters moved about. It’s all a learning experience, and I get heaps out of it even if it’s tricky work. Editors are invaluable and I’ve been lucky to work with some very talented ones.

Lots of things to list here! Brainstorming, eating Tim Tams, visiting schools, reading, writing jokes, hanging out with other creators, answering questions for the ‘About’ section of my website. It’s all lots of fun!

Read your own work aloud. This advice was given to me by Jacqueline Harvey and it’s brilliant advice. When we read our own writing aloud, our ears can pick up things that our eyes might not. It helps with the important boring stuff like grammar and flow.

If we didn’t otherwise the flow might not be what we wanted because the sentence could go on for too long and that’s why you should read your own work aloud to stop things like this from happening because reading aloud can stop it.

Go for it!