FIVE MINUTES WITH CHARLOTTE PLATT

Charlotte Platt is a young professional based in the (very) far north of Scotland writing horror and dark urban fantasy. She was born in Lancashire, grew up on the Orkney Islands, studied in Glasgow then moved up to the north Highlands. Other than writing she enjoys tea, sarcasm and walking near rivers or the sea because that’s where you find interesting things. Charlotte presented the pitch for her debut novel A Stranger’s Guide at the London Book Fair 2019 Write Stuff competition and this is now available via Silver Shamrock Publishing.
 

Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B07VQGBC4G
Curious Fictions – https://curiousfictions.com/authors/484-charlotte-platt
Twitter - @Chazzaroo

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

I’m based at the very top of the map in Scotland and live with my fiancé who is long suffering. I travel back and forth to Orkney regularly, so I get to write during ferry rides - weather depending, I’m still not great on a boat despite having grown up on an island. I work in the legal sector outside of writing and am constantly listening to one podcast or another, which office work is great for.
 
Why horror?  What is appeal of the genre to you as both a fan and as a writer?

As a fan, I like how raw and vicious horror can get without feeling the need to pull punches. We’re allowed to see the grubby underbelly that comes with horror much more readily than you are even with some crime and noir genre work, and that was always the most interesting areas for me.
 
As a writer, it’s fun. I like getting to create creatures with unfathomable motivations or chaotic, unreasonable cult leaders only out for themselves. There’s a lot of freedom in horror because you’re not expected to pull your punches, unless it’s going in a totally different direction and coming round the back. I also thoroughly enjoy getting to play with conflicted characters which horror lets you access in a more interesting way than literary work usually.

As LBGTQ+ fan and writer of horror, how did you when you first became immersed in the genre and found that representation that you could identify was few and far between?

It wasn’t a huge shock – outside of titillating scenes smattered here and there, there wasn’t a huge amount of representation for me anywhere growing up, so I was great at diving into head canons and finding my own narratives. I had the same thing being the child of someone who became disabled – I can’t explain how toxic it is to a young person to see every piece of representation reflects you or a loved one ending up dead, either “nobly” or out of misplaced “sympathetic” narratives.
 
How did you discover authors that wrote about characters that you could relate to?

I was quite lucky in that I dove into Clive Barker pretty early, and I was a massive goth as a teen so Anne Rice was a must. It was pretty easy to get recommendations in that social circle as all the LGBTQ+ (out and not) kids grouped together and swapped info.

Other than the horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Poetry, especially Fleurs du mal and some of the old classical like The Highwayman have certainly had an influence as there’s a lushness about the descriptions.  Pablo Neruda as well, his examination of people is wonderful, and I love dipping back into Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.
 
Genre wise, crime, fantasy and cyberpunk have all been a significant element in my reading and I think this shows in my writing as well. I’m always keen on a gritty protagonist and like the reoccurring themes that come up often in these areas, though I tend to lean in more with monsters and ghosts.
 

The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?
 
Personally I love horror and darker stories because it lets us examine ideas with a new lens, and I think there’s a line to tread there. Some horror is just designed to be disgusting and that’s no bad thing, it is what it is and does its job well. Some things should be repulsive. I like the wide reaching swathe horror covers and I think we should be willing to acknowledge the weird fiction and thriller aspects of that which sometimes get left out (marketing wise, at least).
 
I think one of the ways to break past it is representation, having a wide variety of representation makes things more accessible, and we’ve seen great steps with films like Get Out in doing that. I would like to see people being able to discuss what works or doesn’t work for them in a piece without being a moral or pride mark – filtering your experiences can be useful for some people and that’s natural. There can be quite a “tough” culture about being able to watch a certain level of gore or other things and it gets boring.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?

Well I suspect we’ll have another bunch of English language remakes of rec. which is a shame because the original is so good (subtitles are your friend!) Pandemic jokes aside, I do think we’re going to get more horror comedy because you may as well laugh at Armageddon, and more stories focused on scarcity and isolation, especially water scarcity. I would love to see a proper version of I Am Legend that looked at some of the themes without trying to soften the bleakness of the book, I feel like that would be great to have around right now.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?

Books: the Hannibal series by Thomas Harris, The Ring by Koji Suzuki (translation, alas), Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Suicide Kit by David L. Hayes and Ubik by Philip K. Dick. Also The Crow by James O’Barr which is a of course a graphic novel.
 
Films: The Wicker Man (I know everyone says this one but growing up on an island it hits different!), Franklyn, The Thing (and the prequel too),  The VVitch and rec (original not the English remake)
 
In recent years there has been a slow but gradual diversification within the genre, which new LBGTQ+ writers do you think we should be paying attention to? 

Betty Rocksteady (not quite new but amazing, I love her stuff), Tabatha Wood and Cassie Daley. I’ve shared TOC with Betty and Tabatha and find them both wonderful on Twitter, and I’ve only interacted with Cassie through Twitter but she’s fabulous and recently started getting published so very much one to look out for.
 
How would you describe your writing style?

Goth and aggressively weird with a side of trauma processing.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?

I got one particularly vicious review where the person wanted the story to be a different story entirely, and wanted changes to make it that way. That one stuck with me because it was so clear they didn’t want what I’d written but insisted on the changes.  

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

Keeping hold of “plot bunnies” – I can get several ideas I want to pursue at once and keeping them corralled until I can work on them and give them the right level of enthusiasm is not easy. But if I do more than 3 projects at once I get burned out, so has to be done.

Are there any subjects that you would never write about?

Probably infertility – there’s so many ways to get it wrong, and I don’t feel like making that particular pain salsa without giving it the emotion it deserves. It’s often made into alienating or reductive narratives which ignore the emotional weight of the matter to replace it with yearning or othering which just monster reasonable grief and difficult inevitabilities. I have written stories with a loss of pregnancy before, but I think infertility itself is a different branch.
 
Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years?

I’ve gotten better at working on multiple projects so I don’t get antsy with doing just one – I used to be terrible for falling out of love with one because I wanted to work on another. I am also much more aggressive in my editing which I think comes with practice.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

You can’t edit a blank page so write it wrong then fix it later.

Getting your worked noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you attempted to break through the barriers that are so often in place against LBGTQ+ writers?

Honestly I have a thick hide for rejection so mostly brute force? That and just being upfront with the character’s orientation in text, be it explicit or implied through relationships in text (though my preference is explicit). I’ve had a few pretty othering experiences with some of my works but I don’t think they’ve been any worse for me being bi than they would have been for me being female, and the few instances where there’s been a blatant instance of biphobia I’ve been supported in challenging that.

Many CIS white male authors use LGBTQ+ characters in their works, what’s the mistake that they make when trying to portray these characters?

Assuming non-straight attraction is the same as straight attraction with the same relationship tropes, a la “which of you is the husband” etc. I can find that takes me out of a story completely because it’s not my experience or that of my close friends.
 
Moving on to getting your work read, what do you think ins the biggest misconception about LGBTQ+ fiction?

That it’s all about the sex – so many people seem sure we’re going to stealth in a mass orgy into every tale we tell. I’ve written a wide variety of LGBTQ+ characters and only a few have any sexual elements. One of them may in fact have been an orgy but that was essential to the plot.

There are as number of presses dedicated to LGBTQ+ fiction, do you view these as a good thing, or do you think they help to perpetuate the ongoing exclusion from mainstream presses?

I can see why people worry about the exclusion element but I feel it’s a good thing – if only because I can go to one of those presses and know I can access fiction where I’m not likely to encounter thing like “kill your gays”, “mandatory homophobia to show how much this character suffers” and “I kissed a girl plays in the background while two cheerleaders make out for the boys” tropes. Very tired of those.


Do you agree with movements like this and things such as Women in Horror Month?  If so how would you like to see sites such as Ginger Nuts of Horror tackle diversity? 

I do, I think it’s a good thing. I know I specifically considered using only my first initial when publishing my work because there’s still a view that women don’t really “do” horror or that it’s not really an LGBTQ+ space (despite Clive Barker, really?). I think it helps people feel comfortable about being open if they’re in the position to be, and I have to feel that’s a good thing. In relation to tackling diversity, as above I think representation is the best way to do that and giving space to voices is my preferred way to do that. And listicles of books/resources – who doesn’t love a good list of books to buy?

The most common phrase you hear when people object to active movements to encourage all forms of diversity is “I don’t care about the sexuality, gender, color etc etc of the writer I only care about good stories” what would you like to say to these people?

That’s great for you, the rest of us have to. It’s not a choice for everyone outside of the club. I used to explain it with the analogy of “straight bars” – where are the places it’s explicitly labelled as safe to be straight? Nowhere, it’s just safe to be. We have to have specially labelled spots, and even then a hen party might ruin a good vibe. You can refuse to care about creed and colour as much as you like but it’s privilege to do so.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favorite child, and who is your least favorite to write for and why?


Favourite would have to be Faith, who is a side character in A Stranger’s Guide – she doesn’t get a huge amount of stage time in this book but I have a very clear voice for her and she will be coming back in the future.
 
Least favourite is probably Stan in the book I’m currently working on – he’s demonic and is so cruel in thorough, vicious ways. He always tells the truth, particularly when it’s painful, and he’s constantly beside Shona is her investigations.


What piece of your own work are you most proud of?


A Stranger’s Guide – I have a grumpy, disaster bi main character and a variety of other LGBTQ+ characters as well as some wonderfully vicious things happening.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your books do you think best represents your work and why?


A Stranger’s Guide is my first novel so that’s the only one I can say here. I think it represents my work well though, especially with the nature of Carter – I like my lead characters with a dose of nihilism and there’s certainly a noir influence there.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?
 
Most of my proper favorites would be spoilers so I will hold off of those, but I do like the following description of one character Carter finds:
 
“She shone like she was made of smoke and light. The shadow of wings that weren’t quite there hung huge over her shoulders. Her face was beautiful if a little hard, a quickness to her eyes that spoke of mistrust. She kept shimmering between looking normal and this glowing, amazing thing.”
 
 
Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

A Stranger’s Guide is my first and latest book, which is the story of Carter Brooks coming to Glasgow to look for his missing sister. He has a terrible time. Carter doesn’t enjoy the fact he’s magically gifted, and he has to use said gift to try to seek her out with the help of the people she left behind. It was a brilliant book to write as I love Glasgow, having lived there for five years, and the city is so much fun.
 
I’m currently working on a story based in Inverness and the Highlands and Island. This also involves some searching, as the lead character is a PI, but she’s haunted by a demon clown only she can see. Which makes the work so much easier.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?
 
Last great book was The White Hotel by DM Thomas – I came really late to this book but it’s fabulous and visceral. The last book that disappointed me was The Ritual by Adam Nevill – this one seems to be a very marmite book and I was on the hate it side of the divide, it just didn’t gel for me. I was really looking forward to it as Nevill is a brilliant writer, but I just couldn’t get into it.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?
 
Why so many of my characters are coded as having some type of neurodivergency. My answer would be because there’s a wide selection of nerodivergent people in the word, and a lot of them may not have an official diagnosis (or want one, given the treatment of divergent people in the news) and I want to offer representation for that. It’s something I feel passionately about and while coding is not explicit I would hope people recognize traits of themselves in my lead characters.

Being able to see what you shouldn’t is useful, sometimes.Carter Brooks is new to Glasgow and looking for his sister, Sarah, who went missing three weeks ago. He must rely on the help of her friends, mentor, and the unusual diary she was investigating to track her down.As he navigates the supernatural beings within the city and discovers the life Sarah was hiding from him, Carter is obliged to use the gifts he’s rejected to uncover why someone would want to hurt her. This drags him into the path of an old and hungry god, who abducts Carter in his sleep to offer help at a steep price. With the promise of continued interference and the taunting reminder that Sarah’s time is running out, Carter must choose who to trust and what to believe before he loses her forever.

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