When it comes to time tales...

An Interview with Dick Fiddy

What was your favourite book as a child?

I really liked Lord of the Rings. I read it very young and before I read The Hobbit.

When I was a little older, I rapidly read all the Agatha Christie novels and then I found science fiction, and I got heavily involved in it.

In what ways have you changed as a writer since you first started writing?

I started off writing comedy. I was writing sketches and sitcoms, that's a very different discipline than writing about television, obviously.

The greatest lesson I learned was when I worked for the Museum of the Moving Image because they asked me to write the history of television from 1946 to 1969 on plaques, which was all very well except when it came to putting it on the plaques themselves. You had very little space, it was almost like writing a tweet, you know. I had to learn how to get a lot of information in a few numbers of words. I think overall, that helped me a lot when writing future projects. It was good discipline, not waffling, overuse of words and getting as much as you need in a confined space.

It's a little different if you're writing fiction because you can be flowery.

If you could be any superhero, who would you be?

Definitely Batman.

I would have said Superman as a kid, but as you get older, I think Batman's the one that most people will pick. He's the darker one, the one with the more interesting backstory.

It is no coincidence that he keeps getting resurrected and there's obsession around Batman, probably more than any other of the superheroes. I do think there's a reason for that.

He’s one of the few characters in fiction where the backstory is SO important to his current story that affects his every waking moment.

What is the most difficult thing about being an author?

For most people, it is writer's block or knowing what to write next, but for me, it is selling it. There's no doubt about that.

If you want to make a living out of it, finding someone who will commission you and share your vision is the hardest thing. Once you've got them, it's great.

When I was starting out, I wrote with a partner, and we had good agents. We had two or three agents over the years. They told us how the system works. Having an agent was extremely useful.

I feel very sorry for people now because it's even more difficult to get an agent these days.

I don’t suffer from writer’s block. I get around it by having several projects going at once.

So if you're stalling on one, you can just put it aside and embrace the next. I’ve always been able to juggle different projects at the same time.

Another obstacle is the loneliness of writing. For years I wrote with a partner, so I never was alone.  A lot of writers find it quite lonely because they're on the road a lot. They're isolated, they don't get to many social gatherings.

When we started writing individually, I was alone but I still had his voice in my head. He was a very good structuralist. Sometimes I'll write something and hear him say, ‘No, you got to put that earlier on’.

What’s your favourite film?

Sullivan's Travels.

It's a film that lasted with me over the years, and Preston Sturges is probably my favourite American director. He was one of the first directors to write as well as direct when the talkies came in.

Sullivan's Travels is a film about a film director who makes screwball, high-concept comedy, but he's always dreamed of making a huge film about the Depression in America called O Brother Where Art Thou? The company reluctantly agreed to let him make the film, so he set off to make this epic film.

In the end, he comes to realize that what people want during a depression is comedies. They don't want serious films.

What was your favourite thing about writing Destination Time Travel?

Working with Steve was great fun. I've known Steve for a long time, but we've never collaborated on anything before. He was working on Spitting images whilst I was trying to write as a sketch writer. Our paths often intertwined.

I've been doing a lot of writing, but I have not done much concentrated writing on one subject for a long time. It was quite nice to immerse yourself in one subject.

How long was this book in the works for?

Not that long actually, because we had a great blueprint from Steve's website.

I guess it was a year ago that Steve came to me.

Although there was a fair amount of writing to do. But to tell you the truth, it's the sort of writing you can just sit down and hash it out.

What do you wish you would have known when you started writing?

Because there is a constant stream of entertainment coming out that explores time travel, it was hard to know where to cut off.

I wish I'd known if there was going to be a point in the future where it just slowed down a little, but now it shows no sign of slowing down.

If you were to make a film based on the book, who would you cast?

Well, to cast Steve and I, I think Steve could do me.

I don’t know who could pull off Steve.

Why should people read this book?

If you're interested in the subject, then I think it's a timely read, no pun intended.

The idea is that because so much has happened in the last 20 years and it's been 20 years since anyone wrote anything quite in-depth about this subject, it is an important read for those interested.

It brings you up to date with what's happening.

We're faced with an impossible task now, which is due to the streaming of television it's impossible to keep up with. You need someone to sift through the shows to let you know what is worth watching.

It's also a great read if you fancy writing a time travel story yourself. You’ll find very quickly if you start on one path that there are a lot of dead ends, and you can write yourself into a corner. You've got to work out what rules you're using and how time travel will work in your universe.

It opens fantastic vistas.

If you could summarize the book in five words, what would they be?

Telling the tales of time.