What happens when you steal the future?

Every time you complete a book its future is uncertain. Would you steal that future to secure it for your book? It’s a tempting idea, but I feel very lucky to be in the present I find myself in now. If you’d told the ten-year-old me that I’d grow up to be an author, with my books on the shelves of bookshops and libraries around the world, I’d feel that I’d already stolen the best future I could ever imagine.

Where did the idea for this book originate and once you started writing did it feel chillingly realistic? Stories for me always begin with a character, and in How to Steal the Future, this character was Drew, but he was always entwined with the setting of the maze, this impossible fortress that hides a secret known only as the Avenir, which has the power to unlock the future.

Drew though just wants to find his sister, Evie, and this is what drives his journey through the maze, and, as the twists and turns of the maze grew around him, I realised what story I was really telling.

The maze that Drew enters could be the Minotaur’s, or any other from myth or reality. Why do you think stories like that one have such staying power? The concept of the maze seems to be hardwired into the human brain. Ancient cave art found all around the world shows maze-like patterns, while some of our oldest myths tells us of journeys through mazes and the treasures – and dangers – that lurk at their heart.

Mazes are places where we easily get lost, but they are also places where we find ourselves too, and I think this is why stories about mazes have such staying power.

Unlike others before him Drew, we are told, has a different purpose for being in the maze. Did you do that to endear him to readers? How to Steal the Future is a story about choices and second chances. It’s a story about never giving up, no matter how lost you feel.

Drew doesn’t want to steal the future, he just wants to find his sister, and I wanted readers to see the determination that drives Drew’s mission, because at its heart, How to Steal the Future is a story of hope, and how far we’d go to save the ones we love.

Drew is not alone in the maze. He finds others, they work together but also create more confusion. Do you enjoy the challenge of keeping readers guessing? Mazes are confusing places, but I hope the twists and turns in How to Steal the Future intrigue readers, keeping them on the edge of their seats as they follow Drew in search of the secret that lies at the heart of the maze. He enters the maze with Meg, but they meet others who are trying to steal the future too, and Drew, like the reader, needs to work out who he can trust. 

When I was younger, I remember rereading my favourite novels, and I hope How to Steal the Future is a story that will reward as rereading as the twists and turns of the maze reveal its secrets.

When you aren’t writing do you enjoy impossible or incredibly challenging puzzles? No, unless you count Wordle!

How did you balance an exciting, well-paced story with elements of the maze such as dead ends? A dead end in a maze isn’t a dead end in a story as it’s just a new challenge for the characters to overcome. In How to Steal the Future, the maze is ever-changing, constantly shifting and morphing into dangerous new guises, and although they’re trying to steal the future, Drew finds strange and puzzling echoes from his past hidden inside its walls. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, and I hope that these help to create an unputdownable story.

The idea that we might be able to take and change the future is very philosophical. A big question. Is this an interest of yours – big, philosophical questions? I think my stories live in that sweet spot where science meets philosophy. I enjoy exploring big ideas in my fiction: questions about reality, quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and the hard problem of consciousness, but these are always in the service of human stories.

I’m conscious that I’m writing these stories for young readers who are looking out at the world in wonder, and I hope my books intrigue and inspire them, but most importantly, I hope they excite them by giving them stories that live on in their heads and their hearts.

The idea of big philosophical questions leads me to the ending. No spoilers, but was that all part of the overall purpose of the book, to encourage readers to question things which are perhaps too big to conceive? I hope when readers reach the end of the book that they realise that the future is in front of them, and they’ve all got the power to build a brighter future and a better world.

Drew faces some huge challenges, in and out of the maze. What is one of the biggest challenges you've faced as a writer? I think the biggest challenge a writer ever faces is the blank page at the start of every story. But just like putting one foot in front the other when you walk a maze, when writing you just need to keep putting the words down on the page, and by following the golden thread of the story you’ll eventually find your way to the end.

My thanks to Clare Hall-Craggs at Macmillan Children's Books for suggesting this Q&A and to Christopher Edge for taking time to share his thoughts. How to Steal The Future is available from all those places you buy books!