The Guardians

Author Q&A

20 Writerly Questions with Andrew Pyper


1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
The Guardians is a haunted house story about male friendship and the terrible burden of secrets.
 
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
Some version of it has been kicking around my head for six or seven years, but once I started work on it full-time, about two years.
 
3. Where is your favorite place to write? 
My office. It’s not far from the bed.
 
4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
They suggests themselves, somehow. Sometimes, after a book is finished, someone will point out how the name is connected to someone I’ve known, but it always comes as news to me.
 
5. How many drafts do you go through? 
Many drafts of the outline decreases the number of re-writes of the manuscript (a hard-won lesson). But still, I will do around half a dozen drafts of the written text, no matter how well-prepared I believe I am.
 
6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?  
Heart of Darkness.
 
7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Funnily enough, I had a meeting yesterday with the producers who’ve optioned the novel, and we were spitballing this very question. I’m liking Sam Rockwell — for anything — these days.
 
8. What’s your favourite city in the world?
Toronto. Despite everything they say about us in Vancouver.
 
9. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?
Hunter S. Thompson. ”Can I have what you’re having?”
 
10. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what kind? 
No music (I’ve never tried it, though, to be honest). I just need a chair and a desk. Sometimes not even the chair.
 
11. Who is the first person who gets to you read your manuscript?
My wife and agent are my first readers, and damn good ones too.
 
12. Do you have a guilty pleasure read? 
I never feel guilty about reading anything.
 
13. What’s on your nightstand right now? 
A Field Guide to Demons.
 
14. What is the first book you remember reading?
I remember reading all of Graham Greene as a pre-teen. Didn’t understand half of it, but I loved the alcoholic, angst-ridden, doomed protagonists. Funny that.
 
15. Did you always want to be a writer?
I always knew I would write, but I never envisioned it as a career. Until it became my career.
 
16. What do you drink or eat while you write?  
Coffee (way too much) in the morning, then just water the rest of the day. I avoid the siren song of cookies and sugary treats in the afternoons, counting down to 5:01 PM for a glass of wine.
 
17. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper?
Desktop computer for the most part, though I take a lot of scribbled notes too.
 
18. What did you do immediately after hearing that you were being published for the very first time?
Went out and got drunk as a donkey.
 
19. How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from?
Whoever has the most to lose.
 
20. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?
A salary.