Hi Triona, thank you so much for sitting down with us! Firstly, can you briefly describe A Game of Life or Death?
Nutshell: It’s a dystopian thriller set in the near future in the world of Video Games and Esports. BUT you don’t need to be a gamer to enjoy.
The book starts when 16-year-old Asha Kennedy discovers the dead body of her sister Maya who worked for Zu Thorpe. A tech/gaming, almost cult-like leader of Zu Technology.
As Asha starts to unravel the secrets her sister kept, she realises that the only way to find the truth about what happened to her is from the inside.
It‘s a twisty thriller that grapples with what cutting-edge technology can do to our lives. And, if they both manage to survive, it also has some EPIC romance…
What drew you to writing in the YA genre and specifically a mystery?
I am a massive YA and YA cross-over fan. Storytelling that, in general, speaks to both teens and adults.
For me, it started with books from authors like Judy Bloom, Roald Dahl, Douglas Adams (the hitchhikers’ guide to the Galaxy was my favourite book growing up) and looking at creatives like Orson Wells (the war of the worlds radio series was a massive influence on me).
YA was always the audience/genre I wanted to write for. And it’s a fantastic time for that genre right now. I ADORE and can’t get enough of the works of Suzanne Collins, Sarah J Mass, Veronica Roth, Louise O’Neil, Angie Thomas, Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Shane Hegarty, Cynthia Murphy, Peadar Ó Guilín, E Lockhart, Holly Jackson, Gina Blaxill, Jumata Emill and of course fellow debut authors like Aislinn O Loughlin, and Ellen Ryan…
The story world of the book and the characters led to it becoming a thriller/mystery.
It started with a ‘What if”. I was producing a kid’s TV series called GAMER MODE, which looks at Video games. Meeting the people creating VR classrooms and Minecraft in education. Chatting to gamers competing in eSports tournaments. Talking to young coders and game creators – the next generation of tech entrepreneurs – about the future and where technology might bring us. And I started thinking…
What if you based a thriller in this world….
What if you had someone who grew up in a care facility and then went to work at a large tech giant run by an almost cult-like leader?
What if this too-big-to-fail company had a secret they didn’t want people to know…
What if they killed the whistle-blower to stop her from telling anyone?
What if her only family came looking for answers…. and then revenge…
That’s where the A Game of Life or Death started.
How do you think your background in television informs your writing?
I plot and look at structure before I start to write. That’s something I took from TV – looking at what you want to tell and then at how you structure that story in a way that can hook an audience for a set period of time.
In TV, it’s also about communicating that vision of the story to a broad group of people (actors, directors, technicians, broadcasters, and viewers who will then add their creative stamp or take on the finished work).
In the case of books, it’s a vision you’re communicating to an agent, publisher, editor, the designer involved in creating the cover art, and eventually, a reader who will imagine the story in their own mind.
The big difference between the two is that TV is about what you can ‘show’ on screen. A set of moving pictures with sound. Books allow you to describe and explore what is going on inside the character’s heads as well as what is around them. To put into words their internal thoughts in a way you can never really do on TV. Books, for me, also give greater freedom to the end user, the reader, to use their imagination. TV is passive consumption of entertainment. Reading is active.
In writing this book – I began by creating a complete outline of the story as a three-act structure (typically what you would find in a feature film) and then working on the characters. Their wants and needs. Their backstories. The rules of the world they live in. All skills that you use when writing TV or Radio drama. Once I had that, I started writing. Things change for me during the writing process, sometimes a lot. But when I start writing, I like to have a road map for the first draft, but I don’t always stick to it. Sometimes things take unexpected turns you didn’t see coming – I think that’s part of the magic of writing.
In terms of informing my work… great question. I work with TV scripts, so I am very conscious of dialogue. I do read text out loud as part of the editing/revision process so that I can ‘hear’ the dialogue and then tweak it.
What songs form the soundtrack to the book for you?
I LOVE this question. (I created a soundtrack for the Book and Asha on Spotify that I played A LOT when writing)
Firstly: Asha’s name comes partly from the Cornershop ‘Brimful of Asha’ song remixed by Norman Cook (so music was always ‘in’ the story).
My ideal soundtrack….has to have Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Pink, GAYLE, Selena Gomez, The Script, Orla Gartland, The Waterboys, Dermot Kennedy and Dolly Parton. No judging. I call it an ‘eclectic’ music mix. Others call it being ‘all over the place’.
For anyone curious, the link to the playlist is here.
Gaming plays a large role in A Game of Life or Death. Why did you choose this theme, and what are some of your favourite games?
Video games were the thing that gave us agency, distraction and connection in Lockdown. I game a lot with my kids –family favourites in our house are games like Mario Kart, Splatoon, Minecraft, Roblox, Boomerang Fu, Tricky Towers, and Animal Crossing.
Seeing how connected my kids were to gaming led me to produce a TV series looking at video games. It meant I got to explore things like the gamification of education, meet the high earners in eSports, and the people looking at our gaming past and future. After feeling the drama and tension of a tournament arena, I knew I wanted to create a story set in that world.
For the book – I started researching brain wave-controlled VR interfaces. I also looked at the history of subliminal advertising (outlawed in the UK, US and Australia since 1958) and at the more recent research into social media addictions, the dopamine shot that comes with every like. And then, of course, there was the raft of documentaries around the now-defunct firm Cambridge Analytica.
All of the above somehow combined in my head to create a near-future world where tech companies and their decisions could control the fate of economies and countries. Much like the banks during the banking crisis, in this world, they became ‘too big to fail’. So, I started to think – what would happen if one of them had figured out a way to retain their competitive edge by doing something morally wrong? A secret this fictional company would kill to protect.
Who would be your ideal casting for an adaptation?
I have so many ideas – but I also have an agent I adore (Marianne Gunn O Connor) who will kill me if I talk about them right now.
So, my question is, after reading the book, who do people want to see as the characters? If people have ideas, you can find me on Twitter or Instagram.
Finally, what lasting impression would you like A Game of Life or Death to leave on a reader?
Hope.
I think we are in a time where it’s more important than ever to question everything. To wait till we know the facts, confirming them from our own trusted sources, before forming opinions. To then live defined by our actions, not words.
But overall, the feeling I have as we grapple with where new technology can bring us– its hope. We are in a time of great change, not all of it good, but also one where one person can still make a difference. No matter the odds against us, it only takes one voice to create change. That is the message I want people to take from the story.
