I have a qeustion for you. How did you come up with the idea for foot notes, but well anyway thats not my main question i guess my main question is. How did you come up with the char like you did i mean im try to write a book or even a simple story but i always end up following a stroy i have read before its so fusrtating. i would like to know how you come up with all the orginal idea's so i may hed some advice from a great author like yourself

Hi Kol,

Thanks for your questions. Footnotes first. Well, I always liked footnotes when I used to study English Lit at university - often they were more entertaining than the dry and arid essays they accompanied. I think the best thing about them was that they offered the readers alternative directions to move in, and that's something I've enjoyed since I was young and used to read things like Fighting Fantasy, when the books offer multiple routes. I've seen footnotes done occasionally in other books, but when I began Amulet of Samarkand, and I was writing Bart's voice for the first time, I suddenly decided that footnotes might be a perfect vehicle for his brand of sarcastic wisdom. He thinks he's effortlessly superior to humans, and can't wait to show off all his knowledge - footnotes are a great way to do that. I think it's the first time that footnotes have been used in quite this way.

As for your other question, it's a tricky one. Original ideas are pretty thin on the ground whichever way you look. In fact, if you analyse my stories, or ones by anyone else, you're sure to find echoes of other, earlier stories, as well as familiar themes, characters, locations, events. This is inevitable because no one writes in a vacuum. Even Shakespeare pinched most of his plots from previous plays and histories. The key is what you do with it. I think the most you can hope for is to find some little spark or flame that is new, or at least unfamiliar in its context, that will ignite the material around it. And that's hard to do. For me, I think the key was finding Bartimaeus's voice - the demon as world-weary anti-hero narrator. That gave me a fresh perspective on magicians, magic and many other familiar themes. I think you just have to keep writing and experimenting. The more you do the more likely you'll suddenly get that spark that energises your narrative...

Best of luck

Jonathan