With more than 100 published books during the past 25 years Michael Scott is a well known Irish author. We are talking to him about his inspiration behind the series “The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flammelí” and how he did become a writer for very different audiences…

For anyone who has not yet discovered your fantastic ‘The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flammel’ series, can you briefly describe what it is about?

The series is really about Sophie and Josh, who are ordinary 15 year old twins who, one day, discover that there really is magic in this world, and all of the creatures from myth and legend still exist.

What was your inspiration behind the series?

I know I started to develop the series on May 18th 1997 because that is the first time the word “Alchemyst” with the “Y” appears in my notebooks. However, it was really three years later, in late September 2000, when I was in Paris and stumbled across Nicholas Flamel’s house in the Rue de Montmorency that the series really came together. I knew a lot about Flamel and the legendary Book of Abraham and, sitting in Flamel’s home, which is now a wonderful restaurant, I realized that here was the hero for my series.

Nicholas Flamel was one of the most famous alchemists of his day. He was born in 1330 and earned his living as a bookseller (which was the same job I had for many years.) One day he bought a book, the same book mentioned in The Alchemyst: the Book of Abraham. It too, really existed and Nicholas Flamel left us with a very detailed description of the copper-bound book. Although the book itself is lost, the illustrations from the text still exist.

Over the course of his long life, Flamel became extraordinarily wealthy, and used his wealth to found churches, hospitals and schools. Both he and his wife, Perenelle, were very well known in France and across Europe. The streets named after them, the Rue Flamel and the Rue Perenelle, still exist in Paris today.

What is it about folklore, myths and legends that interest you so?

When we talk about myth and legend we are retelling stories that have existed for thousands of years. These stories are still being used today, in fantasy and science fiction novels, as the basis for games and movies. The stories are often about real people. When we read the Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, we are hearing a story that is over 4000 years old. And we have evidence that Gilgamesh was a real person.

Did the Book of Abraham really exist?

The Codex: it did actually exist. We have very detailed descriptions of it, and there are even copies of some of the drawings and of course, we have Nicholas Flamel’s own diary and writings taken from the book. It is reported that the original came into possession of Cardinal Richelieu (Nicholas mentions this in The Magician).

Have you been to many of the locations mentioned in the book?

I’ve lived in all of the cities mentioned in the Flamel series. I’ve visited them many times over the past ten years and taken thousands of photographs. Nowadays, if I need to check some data or directions, I can drop in using Google Earth. Young writers are always advised to write what they know. I always say, “write what interests you.” However, I will add, if you are writing about a real place, you really do need to know it very well.

Which Elder do you think is the scariest?

They’re all fairly scary – Bastet the cat headed goddess is not someone you would want to meet, but even the Elders are scared of the Archons (who appear in book 3, The Sorceress.)

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer because I was a reader. As a child I read just about everything I could get my hands on. I think if you read a lot, you decided one day that you have your own stories to tell. My first book was published in 1982, the next book in the Flamel series, The Necromancer, will be my 108th published novel.

You write books both for adults and children – which do you prefer writing?

They are very different audiences, but there is a much more immediate reaction from my younger readers. They read so intensively and have the most perceptive questions. They are also the toughest audiences in the world!

The main difference I’ve found with writing for young adults is language. It requires greater precision in expression. Young adults are also a much more attentive audience. Doing a Q&A with a teenage audience can be quite terrifying: more like being interrogated as stories, characters, scenes and situations are dissected.

What is interesting about the Flamel series, of course, is that is has crossed over. More than half of the emails I get or comments on the fan forum, come from adults.

If you could go back in time to any period in history, when would you choose and why?

The Elizabethan period has always interested me. The original hero of the Flamel series was Dr John Dee, who is now the villain. Dee was exceptional man: he was a mathematician and geographer, astronomer and astrologer and also part of the Queen’s network of spies. Shakespeare is reputed to have modeled the character of Prospero in The Tempest on Dee. Dee was also an alchemist and included in his enorsmous library were the writings of one of the most influential alchemists of the previous century: Nicholas Flamel.

The Elizabethan age really establishes so much of the our modern world.

What authors or books inspired you when you were a teenager?

I was a great fan of The Borrowers series by Mary Norton, a big Alan Garner fan, and a huge Susan Cooper fan. But I was a voracious reader as a child – and it is true that most writers have that in common. I have yet to come across a writer who never read in their youth.

Last year, when I toured across the States for The Sorceress I brought my all time favourite novel, which is Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it now, but it is still fabulous.

What was your favourite subject at school?

English and History (unsurprisingly!) though I was never very good at either.

How do you decide which characters from history and myth to bring into the story?

Once I had plotted the series, I had a rough idea of the type of characters I wanted to include. My settings – the United States, France and England – suggested certain types of characters. I could not write about Paris, for example, and not include Joan of Arc. But there were other characters – Scathach is the perfect example – who was there right from the very beginning. Again, she was someone I was written about before in my early collections of Irish folklore and knew that I wanted to use again.

Also, because this series is based upon legend, mythology and history, it put in place certain rules: the only “created” characters in the series are the twins, Sophie and Josh. Everyone else existed.

Who do you think is more powerful – Sophie or Josh?

That changes throughout the series. At the beginning, in The Alchemyst, they are equal, then Sophie becomes stronger, but Josh catches up in The Magician and The Sorceress … and of course, everything changes again in The Necromancer.

If they were fighting one-on-one without any help, who do you think would win- Perenelle or John Dee?

Perenelle, without any doubt! She has defeated him before (and Machiavelli too.)

It is hugely exciting that film rights have been bought! Do you have any actors or actresses in mind that you can imagine playing the main characters?

I have no idea. Lists of actors and actresses are sent to me regularly, and they all bring different things to the part. It is fascinating for me to see how, on YouTube, fans have created their own “ideal” casts.

But when I write the books, I never have any particular actors in mind.