Michelle Paver
Michelle Paver
Michelle Paveris a British novelist and children's writer, known for the fantasy series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, set in pre-agricultural Stone Age Europe. For the concluding book Ghost Huntershe won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth7 September 1960
climbed eruption heavy helmet hours quite three watching
I've climbed Stromboli when it's erupting, which is quite a heavy climb: three hours with a helmet to get to the top. When you're there, and it's dark, and you can see this eruption and feel it, it's quite different to watching it on TV.
four hang months until
In a ghost story, usually you've got to hang on until daylight, and you'll be alright. But if daylight's four months away, then you have a problem.
stories
All stories come from the subconscious - which is why it doesn't make sense to over-plan.
experience intense
For a child, reading a book can be such an intense experience.
books definitely mile run
I definitely don't write with any kind of 'message' or 'lesson,' probably because when I was a child, I used to run a mile from books like that.
greece myths
I loved the myths of ancient Greece and Egypt.
behaviour interested teenager
I'd been interested in animal behaviour as a teenager and had thought of studying it at one point.
indigenous people quite
Indigenous people all over the world take quite a lot of trouble with their hair and their clothes.
bare bones trips
It's true to say that once I've got the bare bones of a story, I often get ideas from my own research trips to faraway places.
answer people writers
People often ask writers where they get their inspiration, and for me, the short answer is that I haven't a clue; I'm just grateful that I get them.
boy paragraph point supposed tried university
At university - when I was supposed to be studying biochemistry - I had tried to write a children's book about a boy and a wolf cub, and there was a paragraph in that which was from the wolf's point of view.
broad chapter knew outline plan sat six took
By about chapter six of 'Wolf Brother,' I was having so much fun that I knew I wanted it to go on and I couldn't tell Torak's story in one book. So I sat down, and it took me about a week to plan in broad outline all six books.
age arrow bow build children deer hunt lived love options skin stone survive
Why do so many children love the idea of being snowed in or shipwrecked, of having to survive on one's own? When I was a child, I was no exception. I wanted to hunt with a bow and arrow like the Stone Age people: to skin deer and build my own shelter. And I desperately wanted a wolf. As we lived in London, my options were limited.
climbed dark driving polar
To get the feel of the polar night, I went back to Spitsbergen in winter. I went snowshoeing in the dark and experimented with headlamps and climbed a glacier in driving snow.