One of the most common questions I get from kids is, “Who’s your favourite character from your own books?” It’s a hard question to answer. I love Goldie, Broo, Toadspit, Petrel, Mister Smoke and Missus Slink, Fin, Sharkey and pretty much every else as well.

It’d be much easier if people asked, “Who’s your favourite character to write?” “The Fugleman,” I’d reply. “Guardian Hope. Brother Poosk. Or, in The Rogues, the Harshman.”

I love writing villains. When I’m writing a villain, I can indulge all the parts of myself that otherwise never get to see the light of day. I can be selfish, arrogant and nasty. I don’t have to worry about hurting people’s feelings, or fairness, or kindness. If I want something, I can ride straight over the top of everyone else to get it.

But … when I’m imagining myself into the character of a villain, I have to remember not to think of myself as a villain. Instead, I tell myself that I’m just being sensible. Or that I’m working for the greater good and people will thank me in the end. Or that this is a dog-eat-dog world, and anyone who doesn’t realise it is a fool.

No one is thinking, “I’m an evil person, and I’m doing this for evil reasons.” They’re thinking, “I can fix this much better than those idiots.” Or, “No one offends me and gets away with it.” Or, “I really need this information, and if I hold this person over a shark-infested sea, I’ll get it.”

Even if they’re a psychopath, they’re still making sense in their own head. “Why are we wasting money putting the highway over there? Why not put it through the middle of the school? It’d cost a lot less, and if most of the kids die it’d fix the overpopulation problem.”

So when I’m writing a villain, I have to find the story they’re telling themselves. Once I’ve got that, I’m more than halfway there.

. . .

I grew up without sporting skills of any kind. I couldn’t throw a ball, I couldn’t swim, I couldn’t catch. But under the unforgiving eye of my school sports teachers, I still had to play softball at least once a week. Every one of those games is scorched into my memory. They went something like this … 

As soon we hit the oval, I place myself as far from the line of fire as I can get. But, at some stage of the game, despite my teammates’ best efforts, a ball flies straight for me. I freeze, hoping desperately that someone else will run for it. But I’m on my own and the ball’s hurtling towards me with enough force to break every bone in my hands.

To screams of “Catch it! Catch it!” I fumble in the air and watch the ball fly past, to groans from the rest of my team. I turn and run after it, knowing that the worst is yet to come. Another fumble and it’s in my hands. More screams. “Throw it! Throw it!’ So I throw it with all my might. The ball flies in an arc and falls to the ground a few metres in front of me. I chase after it, pick it up and throw it again. Another arc. I chase, pick up and throw. Another arc … 

Looked at from the safety of middle age, the softball games were hilarious. But to a child, they were deeply humiliating. So were the swimming carnivals, the netball games and the school sports days. In retrospect, I know I can’t have been the only incompetent one, but all I could see at the time was my own hopelessness.

In my final years of school, I grew more cunning. Faced with a teacher determined to enter me in a swimming carnival, and knowing that “I can’t swim” wasn’t sufficient excuse, I learned to say unblushingly, “My mother won’t let me go up the deep end.” It was a great line, coming from a tall 17-year-old, and saved me a lot of unnecessary pain.

Once I left school, I avoided anything to do with organised sport until I was in my 30s. Then at last, sick of my chronic lack of hand-eye coordination, I set out to teach myself to juggle – no audience, no competition, no pressure except for my own desire to succeed. To my surprise, it was fun; so much so, that I kept practising until I was good at it. As a result, something else surprising happened. Out of the blue one day, someone threw a ball at me – and I reached up and plucked it out of the air. For the first time in my life I could catch! Shortly after that, I taught myself to swim. That was fun too.

As a society, we recognise that sport and exercise are basic to our well-being. These days, we also know that for some kids the skills don’t come easily. They need to be taught. But, given the workloads that most teachers have to deal with, I suspect that kids like me still fall through the gaps.

If I was that age again – with a dose of middle-aged wisdom thrown in – I’d walk across broken glass to find someone who’d teach me whatever I needed to know to make sport the pleasure it’s supposed to be. But if that wasn’t possible, if the only choice was between, on the one hand, compulsory sport plus failure and humiliation and, on the other, no sport plus no humiliation, I’d choose the latter any day. 

Before Lian Tanner settled down in southern Tasmania to write internationally acclaimed fantasy novels, she did lots of stuff such as being dynamited while scuba diving and arrested while busking. She once spent a week in the jungles of Papua New Guinea hunting for a Japanese soldier left over from the Second World War. Learn more about her at liantanner.com.au.