April 26, 2008

Ask anyone, even a child, to list some scary things and they will have no trouble at all. Gushing blood, zombies, sudden chills, creaking stairs; they are all potentially terrifying. And also potentially ludicrous. The trick when writing about them is to make them plausible and original. It is probably F.G. Cottam's greatest feat that he achieves this.

He says that the pacing of his novel was the trickiest part, and his work on the timing paid off. He also realised that to produce a horror story would not be enough to sustain interest. We need to care about the characters. Lost Souls is also a complex mystery. Had there been no manifestations of evil, it would still have been a fascinating book.

Praise has been generous. Jean Marshall, in her e-mail, states: “The author has an amazing skill for evoking an atmosphere of menace.” I agree with Laura Miller, who was glad that the author tied up all the loose ends. It must have been tempting for Cottam to leave us lingering in suspense but he opted for the big shoot-out style of ending as opposed to one with eerie music, mist and no answers.

April 5, 2008

Black magic and creepy happenings in the 1920s infuse a disturbing tale. Alyson Rudd asks the author about his motivations

ALYSON RUDD: How would you describe The House of Lost Souls?

F.G.COTTAM: The novel deals with the modern repercussions of events set in the 1920s and 1930s that involved black magic as practised by the elite of English and continental European society. I'd call it a historical mystery with a strong element of the occult. It does involve haunting and it involves a haunted house. It is located mostly in London, but the house of the title is on the Isle of Wight.

The story unfolds gradually as you leak information; how did you judge the pace?

It was a balancing act between providing information and keeping the reader sufficiently intrigued to keep turning the pages. It was the most difficult technical challenge in writing the book. It helps to have sympathetic characters whose fates people come to care about.

I found certain sections scary; would you consider that you had failed if a reader did not feel unsettled?

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