Never Say Never: A Guest Post by Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness returns to the world of Chaos Walking in this tale of fear, power and propaganda. Two decades after the New World was torn apart, a new quest for answers begins. Read on for an exclusive essay from Patrick on writing Piper at the Gates of Dusk.

 

Two-time Carnegie Medalist Patrick Ness makes a thrilling return to the world of Chaos Walking with this launch of the extraordinary New World trilogy, in a deluxe package with sprayed edges and endpapers illustrated by Jim Kay.

 

I genuinely never expected to go back to Chaos Walking.  

I like a story that finishes – I especially like a trilogy that finishes – and I had been very clear in my head that Chaos Walking was finished.  Readers, especially young ones, would ask all the time if there would be more, and I would say what I always say:  “Never say never.”  Which I truly believe, but when it was about Chaos Walking, I secretly thought in my head:  “Never say never, but probably never.”

I was wrong.  It started, as all books do and must, with an idea.  I never expected to have another New World idea, but I had been intrigued for a long time about the Pied Piper story.  Think about that story.  It’s messed up.  What are we supposed to learn from the Pied Piper?  Pay your bills or your children will be stolen?  It’s a mean-minded, kind of cruel little story, so of course I thought, hm, there feels like there’s something here. 

Because the Pied Piper is also about the boy at the end who walks with crutches.  He’s left behind after all the children are taken, the final bit of nastiness in a very nasty folk tale.  And yet somehow, we feel the tragedy of him.  Think about that.  We feel sorry that he wasn’t kidnapped.  Again: messed up. 

But it’s a deeper fairy tale, too.  It taps into a lot of fears, about small-mindedness, about groupthink, and it clearly also taps into that childhood fear of being left behind.  And who’s the Piper?  And why does he do what he does?  

I thought, there’s a story there.  And to my surprise, Chaos Walking was my first thought.  I had very happily left Todd and Viola to the rest of their lives, free from the malign influence of an author who really didn’t give them the best time of it.  But I did wonder, what are they doing now?  What are their kids like?  

And what if the Piper came for those kids? 

So I never meant to go back.  Honestly.  But this idea just stayed and grew, and honestly, if you’re a writer and are lucky enough to get an idea like that, you run with it.  So I ran with it.

It was, honestly, more than a little terrifying, because I didn't want to go back to the trilogy and potentially screw it up.  But being fruitfully nervous is the best way to write for me, because the worry that I'm going to mess it up means that I will really, really pay attention.  For me, a book needs to have a real chance to fail, because it means you’re really risking something.  It’s also, I believe, the only chance you have to make a book great, too.

So here I am, eighteen years later, where I never expected to be.  Offering a new Chaos Walking book, as nervous as I was with the first one.  I hope you like it.