Professional Book Nerds - Chris Hammer interview

In 2021 Australian author, Chris Hammer, was interviewed for the Professional Book Nerds podcast in America. The main book under discussion was Scrublands published in 2018. The location for the book is the western Rivierina. Twelve months previously five people had been killed and a journalist arrives in the town to investigate how the community is coping. He then realises that there is much more to investigate.

Chris Hammer, a journalist, writes novels for his own satisfaction. He doesn't necessarily plot the entire book in advance but may have four or five story-lines which hopefully will evolve into the final book. On one occasion he rewrote the ending of a book twice before he was satisfied with the plot.

Chris says that there are two types of writers of novels - the Plotter and the Pantser (writing by the seat of your pants). He says that his best ideas come when he is doing something else such as exercising. In his writing he concentrates on his characters and how they are being affected by events in the story-line. He enjoys adding some humour and attempts to create an immersive book for the reader. He wants to show how the characters are coping with disruptive events and is not interested in just producing a novel of fact finding. He finds it liberating not to have to continually check facts when he writes but can let his imagination tell the story.

As a journalist, Chris knows how the media works and can therefore add additional colour to the story from previous work experiences. To be a writer you have to love the process of writing. Readers of books read for different experiences. This is why books endure - when they allow people to enjoy the world that they enter when reading a good book.