Cressida Cowell: It wasn’t cool to be enthusiastic about books!

30:55Yeah. Due to things over which you have next to no control. It's heartbreaking that when you think about it. It is, isn't it? Thank you. That's interesting. Oh, God. Well, there's a first time for everything. Yes, I know. But you see, yeah, no, that's when you put it like that. and you put that I put that very much into the heroes that's what happens with the heroes in most of my books is that they for different reasons they get in trouble a whole time for things like that and the reader is there going but they shouldn't be in trouble but they were doing the right thing or they thought they were helping well they can't help it it was the dragon's fault yeah no that happens a lot and I had a strong sense yeah it's injustice sorry it's injustice that that you're addressing it's a fundamental injustice and of some childhoods yeah and i'm interested in that i'm very interested in i'm interested in injustice in general i think children are interested in injustice hugely it's a simple moral universe sometimes for a child they know what's right and wrong and they know yeah and quite often the people who are doing right end up being treated like they were the ones doing wrong and that runs through your work like Blackpool through a stick of rock.

32:14It runs massively through. And what's interesting also is I'm able in... Children's books are often... I mean, this is another... Children's books are often underestimated, often underestimated. And I write... I've been extremely lucky in How to Train Your Dragon to be able to write a 12-book series. I was interested in what Russell T. Davies says about writing for television, where you're able to write a long story in long episodes. So I'm able to write about things that are unjust. Hiccup, at the beginning, the first four books of How to Train a Dragon, it's a sort of smaller world for Hiccup.

33:01This is what happens as you get older. Anyway, so he's fighting for injustice for his friend Fushleg, because he's being bullied. And then as you go through the series, he's then fighting against his whole world who believe in enslaving the dragons, doing all of these kind of bad things. And this is also true. There's a huge Viking slave trade in Viking times. Dublin was a big center. So I'm addressing huge issues in how to trade your dragon books. of social injustice, which Hiccup then has to address. Anyway, yes. And that probably does begin, maybe, yeah.

33:54So you get to Marlborough, where your best friend is, I didn't know this until today, is Lauren Child of Charlie and Lola. Yeah. Fame. Yeah. That's amazing. That's a sort of little small world moment, isn't it? Well. Is it? Is it? Or isn't it? Heck up. There are no accidents. I don't know. There aren't accidents because in a way, of course, we were drawn to each other because of our kind of interest. And Lauren's father was the art teacher at Marlborough. And he was a phenomenal art teacher. He was incredibly charismatic and very, you know, very inspiring. a third of the children who took A-level took art at A-level, which is highly unusual.

34:42I know. He must have been good. Yeah, he must have been good, because it's difficult to get people to take art seriously. Definitely. Yeah, even now. I mean, you know, the art subjects are massively, take up particularly, well, in both states, and take up of art at GCSE, massively gone down. Anyway, he was an incredibly charismatic art teacher. And you became tight immediately, you two. Yeah. And presumably sort of pushed each other to start exploring your own creativity. We did, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she was already drawing characters that, yeah. And, yeah, she was drawing characters that later turned into Charlie and Lola.

35:24And we've remained very good friends. I loved that when I read that. I don't know why. It had a lovely symmetry to it. that friendship it's a it's sort of nice to be able to speak to somebody who understands this mad world you've ended up in so completely as well yeah yeah my my daughter Maisie um um my daughter Clemmie is her her good daughter my daughter Maisie and Clemmie also were Lola in the in the television series they were the voices of Lola in the television series oh lovely yeah So I've heard them say Soren Lawrenson. Sorry? I've heard them say Soren Lawrenson. You will have heard them say Soren Lawrenson.

36:04Oh, lovely. Yeah. But obviously the academics kicked in a bit because you end up at Keeble College, Oxford. Yeah. Was there a moment of application or did you just sort of stumble happily towards success? I don't know. I only answered, there was an entrance exam. and I only answered one question out of three. Right. Have I told that story before? No, no, no. This story in particular. I love the... Because those entrance exams don't really exist anymore, do they? Yeah. In quite the same way. But they were looking for something that wasn't necessarily linked to how hard you'd been working for the last two years.

36:45They were looking for a brain that they wanted to train or a brain that they thought they could work with. And they were looking for somebody who was, yeah, fascinated in the subject. Yeah. And I was so, I wasn't a very good timekeeper. And I was absolutely passionate. I think it was the question I answered was on D.H. Lawrence. And I just went on so long that I forgot about the other two questions. And I was lucky in the sense that a lot of people might have just thought, oh, this person can't take exams and therefore we're not going to. Whereas what they thought was, good Lord, this person has a relationship with D.H.

37:21Lawrence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, has a relationship. Anyway, and then I, so I was amazed to get an interview. And then I turned up and, yeah, they said, what would you have answered on, you know, and so I just told them what I'd have, the other two. It wasn't, I wasn't interested in the other two questions. It was just that I really did struggle with organisation. You didn't get around to them. I was so excited about G.H. Lawrence. I mean, if I'd started with Shakespeare, I probably would have gone on for the whole time about Shakespeare. But I just, yeah. So, yeah. So I was lucky with that. Well, yes and no.

38:01I suppose lucky that it was being marked by someone that appreciated you. But you'd kind of hope that a paper like that would have been marked by somebody who'd pick up on your passion and your depth of knowledge. And then you got there. So, I mean, would it have been, as you were nearing graduation, would people have been thinking maybe a career in academia? Would you? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I don't know. At one point, yeah, somebody did. Yeah, one of my tutors did suggest that quite early on. One of my teachers there was, in fact, Frank Cottrell Boyce. Okay. Yeah, who is the current children's lawyer.

38:37Yes, no, no. And I don't think it was him who suggested I went into academia. But he was incredibly inspiring to me because he was already writing for Bookside. And he was very intellectual. He's an incredibly intelligent guy, Frank. But he was also, he gave one tutorial on 2000 AD. Okay. That was right up your strasser. Yeah, it really was. But it was interesting. It was empowering for me to see somebody who was making a living at something. Up until then, I suppose I'd seen English as quite an academic subject. But to see somebody who was actually making a living in that area wasn't something I'd seen before.

39:24You know, I hadn't... I didn't... You know, my dad was working as a businessman. You know, my grandfather was a politician. You know, these people... I didn't see anybody. That's what jobs were. I didn't see jobs as being, you know, yeah, being creative. Well, and also your father had this dichotomy. So there is job and then there is the life of the mind. Then there is the creative. So they're very neatly demarcated, aren't they? And what you saw at Oxford was that actually you can have both in the same package. Well, yes. I mean, only in really frank. I mean, the rest of it was all Chaucer and learning Anglo-Saxon, you know, which luckily I loved.

40:05And the Vikings you really loved. Yeah, I loved it. But there wasn't the creativity. So you begin to think maybe there's a job here. Maybe there's something I can do that would allow me to indulge all of the things I really love. I think, yeah. And get paid. Yes. There still is not enough understanding of how the creative industry, You know, the creative industries outperform the rest of the economy by double. But we just don't value that enough. We really don't. You know, those dragon movies are being made in Elstree right now. We've just finished wrapping on that or whatever, you know, doing whatever you do.

40:51I think it's a wrap. I can't remember. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. It's a wrap. And that's hundreds of jobs. I mean, even if you watch the bloody credits at the end of one of them, You've got so many people involved. Exactly. That isn't everybody. And then there's all the other stuff going on. But you're right. There's sort of almost a Victorian attitude to it. Yes. A bit like the teachers you had who thought you were doing something worthwhile. Yeah. When in fact you weren't. Exactly. We just don't. And then you're not talking about the knock-on job. We're fantastic at, you know, arts, music.

41:23and then you're talking about the knock-on jobs in our museums and the tourist industry they're still in that everybody's, that guy who died hundreds of years ago, Shakespeare Stratford-Done-Avon probably generates more cash to the national economy than anyone who's still alive exactly, we are good at this stuff so when did you first think because then you go off on a You know, you do an MA at Brighton. You go to St. Martin's School of Art. Firstly, I go to China and teach. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. I went to China and I taught. Actually, that was before university. That was a big experience for me because it was, yeah, yeah.

42:04I went to, I taught in China. Yeah, anyway. When did you sort of first frame the thought that I could write books for a profession, for a job, for people?

42:22I'm looking back through time I suppose I was beginning to think that through the I mean I worked in publishing very briefly I was terrible You need to be quite organised in publishing because you need to organise the writers You do need to be quite organised and I think it was the first time that was very that was difficult because for the first time At least at school, I could kind of compensate by being very interested in what I was doing. But there, I really was not good. There was no hiding place. In publishing, there is no hiding place. There's nowhere to hide. There is nowhere to hide. I sort of remember hiding sort of letters behind a filing cabinet at some point.

43:10I was the worst assistant in the whole world. I really was terrible and so yeah so I think I realised I couldn't I couldn't make a living at that and so yeah I went back to art school and yeah I was beginning to think that maybe that was something that I could do and you've never stopped writing I mean throughout your childhood and through I mean even when you were being a sort of earnest undergraduate were you still doing your own things were you still writing and illustrating your own stuff or did it sort of yeah yeah no i was writing yeah god even at school was a young person yeah i remember i was i wrote a book with a friend called angora of the shetland isles great which was like a thank you it was sort of romantic novel we were trying to write a romantic novel yeah no i was always writing always writing as a kid so you've got you've got the saint martin's um training you've got the ma and narrative illustration at brighton in your back pocket and yeah and and you come out of the blocks at 100 miles an hour really in terms of getting published and getting yes and no yeah go on yes and no i i would say yeah no i was very lucky i entered a um i entered a prize called the mcmillan children's book prize and i met an editor so i was very lucky my friend lauren um uh who is incredibly talented it took her much longer to get published just because she didn't, you know, most people, you know, but I was lucky in that I happened to meet an editor through that children's book prize thing, and it's not, you know.

44:46Sure, yeah. It's not that. Well, yeah, but sometimes, you know, I think, you know, incredibly sort of celebrated writers, it can take a long time to get published. So I was lucky in that. But my first, I mean, five or six books were picture books, And I would say they were only moderately successful. Yeah, I didn't mean that when I said 100 miles an hour. I just meant that you didn't have a long sort of struggle to get published. No, no, I didn't. But I think, again, that's quite unusual. It is unusual. So anybody who's out there written something in, you know, that is very unusual. But it certainly wasn't, you know, for the first, I had little children.

45:28I recall I wasn't... You'd married Simon Cowell by this point. I had. Not that Simon Cowell. I know. How many times in your life have you... I'm just going to leave it hanging, actually, for the podcast. I was just going to let the listeners puzzle over that one for themselves. Yeah. So you'd married, you'd had children, you're doing books on the... But in the same year that Little Bo Peep's Library book came out, you did the first Hiccup book. Is that right? The Viking River Suits? No, no. How much later was that? That was a couple of years. A couple of years later. It was a picture book. And again, it was not...

45:58It was not... Again, I say this because I think kids today particularly imagine you immediately are successful. Boom, off like a firework. And also that writing, you don't want to give, you know, it is a job that you have to do because you love it. Because the average pay of a writer is just terrible. And I don't want to give, you know, anybody the wrong impression. I think the phrase you use is not particularly wow, is how you have described your first five books. Yeah. Well, I mean, I loved, no, I mean, I loved to doing them. And it was a complete joy. But I just, you know, you have to you have to go you know, you can write the most incredible books.

46:42And no one ever reads it. And sometimes, you know, you just don't have that you know, for whatever reason people are not going to so it is something you have to go in into, I think because you love it. You have to write for yourself. You write for yourself and then hope that other people enjoy it as much as you do. I suppose in some ways or not yeah no I think I suppose I think you are often or you're trying to work out something definitely you are actually in the Wizards of Once books I said that you know a story is a crucible and it changes the person who the characters within it and the person who's reading it and the person who is writing it all at the same time and I think that's what the best stories do do you're looking for an answer yourself you're questioning you're on a journey you're on a literally on a quest when you're writing a book the best books do that that's what i'm trying to do every single time i write a book um but i am thinking about you know how it's going to land but i deliberately set out um to make myself think or make myself laugh or make myself cry or move myself or ask questions and challenge myself when I'm writing a book.

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48:43When did Hiccup and Toothless first appear in your consciousness? Well, Hiccup, you're right, it started with Hiccup, the Viking who is seasick, which was a picture book. But where did he come from? Again, moderately successful. Oh, well, I mean, clearly. Actually, I didn't do this consciously at all. And again, I think, I mean, it's going to sound so pretentious when I say it, but who cares? I'm just going to go for it. I think you partly know what you're doing, but it's quite good to partly not know what you're doing when you're a writer. So I can't say I absolutely knew that Hiccup was me and Stoic was my dad, a version of my dad.

49:24But after I'd done it, my goodness, I did. You know, I drew that picture of Hiccup, a small, lonely Viking in a fearsome, frosty land. That is a fearsome, frosty land. That is Hiccup. And then I drew Hiccup's dad. And, yeah, that was, yeah, it was a version of me. And the father is a version of my dad. And the island is a version of my childhood. Yeah, my childhood on that island. And I sense you can't have one without the other. You couldn't have the picture without the personality. The way you talk about it, I can't draw. I probably can't write either, to be honest. But the way you speak is as if the two are beyond interchangeable.

50:10They're kind of utterly inextricable. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. I certainly if I come to a difficult bit in the books or I will always go back to the pencil or to the pen. Or if I'm struggling to define a character, I will draw the character or a location. I would draw a map of the place. And as soon as you've drawn the map of the place, you know, it's treating an imaginary place like it's a real place. And you know how long it takes to get from one place to another. so it's it's true so for me the the pencil and also it's the unconscious again the unconscious comes out when you um put pen to paper it's um you know a pencil is it's the first instrument that you use as a child and so i think that is why if you're trying to write a moving bit or a poetic bit i will return to the pencil um because the unconscious comes out in that hiccup is another name for an accident that is not an accident that is definitely not an accident yeah that hiccup is called that and and then it i mean it's quite hard to properly articulate it's not quite the right word because then you know a few years later by the sort of 2000 and uh the second half of the first decade of this of this of this century you you really really explode i mean did it happen slowly or or did it happen almost overnight because it wasn't the first book that was the first book when you wrote how to train your dragon that went bonkers but no no was so it was a slow thing and then everybody went back and bought the whole series to that point.

51:57I mean you tell me how it happened and when did you think for the first time holy moly this is ridiculous now. Okay well how to train your dragon, the fiction the first, so I took a picture book character and made it into, this was my first young fiction and I was really lucky actually nobody was paying any attention at my publishers nobody was paying any attention at my publishers so i had a very talented designer called dave mackintosh and i said to david i want to make it like it's a a 200 page picture book that's where i came from so i don't want to just leave holes where the pictures should be i want to design it organically so the pictures and the and the text work together like not quite a graphic novel so but it's like it's a picture book.

52:51So it's like the text, so, you know, the action. Yeah. And that was quite an unusual thing to do. That's what I just said, isn't it, about being utterly inextricable? Utterly, that's exactly what you said. Yeah. And it's completely, so, and that was an unusual way and much more complicated way of designing a book. The production terms. Yeah. But luckily, David was really happy to, he thought it would be interesting. Yes. And so we did it without anybody really concentrating. and it wasn't even my publisher's book of the month at the time. It wasn't a hardback. You know, I can obviously remember the name of the book of the hardback that was the book of the month, you know, because it was, yeah, a bit painful not to be.

53:32But, you know, but it immediately, I mean, it felt like I'm always, I always identify with, you know, And Hiccup is not the kind of, he's not the hero who is the obvious here. I'm always interested in being, you know, the, yeah, if you like to call it the underdog or something. So I like the fact it was a bit culty. It was very culty. Right. I mean, it was, people took it to their hearts. Waterstones actually really got behind it. and they put it, a lot of people, you know, people were hand-selling it in the Indies and the Waterstones and things. They kind of loved it, but it was quite culty, I would say.

54:17And I was really, I liked that. And it found its, you know, passionate readership. And parents were reading it a lot to their kids, which I deliberately made it, I'd made it something like that. I deliberately made it kind of so that the adults, you know, Vikings are like this. I made it a performance and something that worked for adults and children at the same time. So it found a real audience, but it was not a mega bestseller audience right from the beginning. It gradually, it was a long time before the movie even. Yes, no, I know. So because the movie was 2010 and it was beginning to really ramp up a couple of years before that was a real slow build.

55:09And then, of course, when the movie came out, it really that's when it really did explode. Yeah. The how to train your dragon. And pushes you into a place that you'd never dreamt of, really. Yeah. Profile. Yeah. Access. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And got lots and lots of readers who were not necessarily from book reading families or just had not really kids who just hadn't found, you know, the book that they loved. And but they loved the movie and then they thought it was worth trying the books, you know, so that that was wonderful. But, you know, it was very slow. It didn't happen. There was not an overnight thing at all.

55:53And for a long time, I didn't think they were going to make the movie either. and you know so they usually don't they usually don't even when you sign deals and options and all of that sort of thing yeah and then of course it gives you the freedom to throw considerably more heft behind your evangelizing so behind things like free writing friday and your passion for for a reading charter and all the stuff that you've done yeah with the profile and the success that it's brought and and yeah and and and and now he's back i i so 12 books of of how to how to train your dragon and then of course you did the wizards of once which also i mean smashed it to coin a phrase all the awards for fantasy novels there um and and and and just beautiful stuff which you know must be nice for you to sort of have lots of different imaginary worlds spinning in your head where you can choose which one you're going to visit today or you can choose which one you're going to visit for the next six months.

56:52And now you're back with... How to Train Your Dragon School. How to Train Your Dragon School. Yeah. Is it like coming home? It's like putting on a pair of comfy slippers or something when you sit down at your desk and start... Going back to a world that you loved and the characters that you loved. Yeah, because they do feel real in your head. Of course. They turn out... I feel read in everyone's head. Yeah. Oh, well, hopefully. If you've done it right. Yes, yes, yes. It does. Yeah. It does feel real. Yes, it's, it's, it, there is a, there is a comfort in that going back to, um, uh, characters that you, uh, love.

57:32Yeah. It's a prequel of sorts. This is the second. No, no, this isn't, this isn't a prequel. How would you describe it? So I'm just, I'm now picking it up. This is, um, this isn't a prequel. It starts mid, it's set mid the House of Training Dragon series. And it's not a sequel either. I get so many kids saying, will you write House of Training Dragon 13? And I haven't had time yet. But this starts sort of middle of the series and it's very deliberately. OK, I'm going to fess up. It's what's going on not in the books that you've already written. Yes, but I'm going to fess up what it is. Go on then, fess up.

58:08This is me back to my quest. this is me back to my quest to get children reading you know because it is a huge this is so much to do with what I do is to do with that and this is because the latest statistics are terrible only one in three children reading for pleasure and so this one is these ones are there to fit in with the movies because I've got these live action movies coming out at the moment So they're a bit shorter. They're even more visual. And they've got, you know, dragon profiles and a Dragonese dictionary. They're a way in for kids who love the movies. And so I'm trying to get them.

58:59I'm trying to, I deliberately. So it's utterly undaunting is what it is. It's utterly undaunting. I mean, I always make the covers look like a suite. It's supposed to look like a suite. Oh, gosh, yes. Oh, wow, I'll never not see that. Yeah. It's like a suite, not a Brussels sprout. Yes, yes, yes. You know, so it's, and often I have, you know, dragons, talons. It looks like an exciting object. It looks like it's been down to the bottom of the ocean and ink splats. And the illustrative style is often very scribbly. I kind of scratch through the text so that it's almost like physically dragging. There's a lot of wild mark making that drags the child reader from left to right through the.

59:52And it's really deliberately done to get the child into reading. You know, the illustrations are very, there's a mixture of illustrations. And this is all hugely thought through. Clearly. Which is to do, you know, a lot of them are sort of quite cartoony and emotional because I'm telling stories that are funny stories, but also adventure stories, but are moving you as well. Yes. So they're sort of the cartoony ones drag the child through the story, but they also are very emotional. So it makes you and I draw them very softly and it makes it makes the child feel affection for that character. But they're also done in a way, you know, Quentin Blake's illustrations for Roald Dahl, which were actually very revolutionary at the time.

1:00:43They're very childlike. So they look like, and they can't be. They look almost like a child could do them. You know, they couldn't. But it sort of says, come in. It says, come in. This is a joyful object. This is a play object. You know, these things at the back all look like, you know, Top Trump cards, their dragon profiles. It feels like a toy object. And then there's the world building illustrations, which make you feel that the world is real. But the whole thing is deliberately shorter, very visual, fits in with the film. So that to move a kid along from watching movie and into reading the books, you know because yeah and so that that's why i've designed it like that and this is the second one how to train your dragon school fight of the flame strike and it's um it's a it's it's a shorter story you know takes you know takes around a single lesson uh that then turns into a big adventure but it's very deliberately done to try and get children into could be really how to train I have to train a child to read yeah that's the plan have you ever had final question because it's clear that your ambitions all the ambitions we've discussed involve getting children to read not just your stuff but just getting children to read and of course had you had formal ambitions when you set out you'd have ticked most boxes you know bestsellers I think over 16 million copies sold now blockbuster films countless awards do you have any boxes that still aren't ticked just on a personal professional level something you know have you been your publisher's book of the month yet I think I have once or twice the thing is okay there's a character in Friends who's sort of constantly saying am I the ultimate fighting champion yeah And the thing is, there's always, I think, is every child, is every child in the UK reading for pleasure yet?

1:03:00No, they're not. Of course they're not. And so I don't, I think I endlessly, and you know, a lot of, my goodness, a lot of the themes in my books are about looking after the environment. And, you know, some of the challenges that, you know, dragons represent the wild. In which way to anywhere. There's a lot of, you know, all of my books have the theme of looking after the wild and what kind of leaders do we deserve? And all of those kind of, you know, you know, are we looking after the wild in the way that we should? No, we're not. You know, so there's still so much to write about and so much to think about and so much to do.

1:03:44We have leaders who are empathetic, intelligent and creative. You know, are we, you know, this is OK. I'm going to end on a happy note. One of the things is about writing for children is how incredibly wonderful it is to interact with children. OK, this week I did loads of talks and that's great because you go out and meet lots of children. I ask, there's a question I often ask kids in the talk. And I say, what kind of magical power would you have? Five-year-old puts up her hand and I say, OK, what's your magical power? And she said, my magical power is to have to take other people's magical powers, make them better and then give them back to them.

1:04:32Yeah. out of the mouths of five, the wisdom of five-year-olds, yeah? If I can, you know, if I can tap in, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get adults, adults out there, anybody listening, please read to your kids, you know, read to your kids, because reading is just magic. I can remember every single book that an adult read to me when I was a child. I could still hear in my head, Miss Danaszewski reading aloud to me from The Endless Step, yeah? And she took a little nine-year-old growing up in central London into the heart of a nine-year-old growing up in a concentration camp in Siberia.

1:05:11You know, that is magic. I can still hear that in my head 50 years later. So read to your kids. You know, we need kids to read. We need empathy, creativity and intelligence. That's what reading gives you. And hope. We need that even more than ever. And hope. And hope. How can you not have hope when you have a five-year-old saying that to you? Exactly. That's the thing. Five-year-olds, you have to have hope. And I'm going to quote from the Wodensfang from How to Steal the Grunet. History is a set of repeating circles like the tides. Things do get better over time. Yeah. But it's a question of, you know, two step forwards, two step back, you know.

1:05:59And so you have to have hope for the future. You have to believe in the impossible. And children believe in the impossible. And that's what's so wonderful about writing for children. They believe in the impossible. Yeah. How to Train Your Dragon School, Fight of the Flamestrike, is out now. All of the books that we have touched on and all of the ones that we haven't are available in all good bookshops now. Cresta Cowell, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

1:06:32This has been a Global Player original production.