My top five favourite characters from the Sex, Love & Dating Disasters series

This guest post was originally postedon Amy's Bookish Life on Tuesday, May 10 as part of the #LadLitBlogTour

On Sunday, before taking my daughter over to the park to enjoy the rare bit of the London sunshine, I was watching a bit of Sunday Brunch (don’t judge me – I’m 38. This is what I do with my life now!), and John Barrowman was talking about the series of YA books he writes with his sister, Carole. At one point he was telling a story of how his sister called him up late one night in tears, crying that she simply couldn’t kill off one of the characters they had created because she had simply grown too attached.

It got my thinking about the characters in my Sex, Love and Dating Disaster series. Who are the characters I simply couldn’t live without in the series?

So for this blog post, I wanted to share with you my top five favourite characters from The Drought and The Flood, and hopefully this will give you a bit of an insight to what lad lit is all about.

5. Kelly Campbell
Kelly is probably the most challenging character I have to write about, because unlike the other female characters in the books, she is actually quite normal! But with that normality comes great responsibility. With more female readers of my books than male, Kelly is my one chance at proving that I had some knowledge of the female mind (although my wife would argue even that is pretty limited!). But Kelly is crucial to the book, because without her it would simply be Dan listening to a bunch of bad advice from his mates. She brings balance to the crazy world that Dan lives in, and creating a friendship between the two of them has been a lot of fun.

4. Ollie Pemberton
How could you not love a guy who thinks Kama Sutra was the name of a foreign exchange student he went to school with, or believes that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is historically accurate?! I think everyone has a friend like Ollie – the sort of guy who would do anything for you, but is as thick as two short planks! No matter what the situation the boys get themselves into, you can guarantee that Ollie will always say or do the wrong thing to make things even worse. I never get bored of trying to come up with an Ollie one-liner that is even more ridiculous than the last!

3. Dan Hilles
With no Dan Hilles, there would be no Sex, Love and Dating Disasters. Dan is the main man of books – the unlucky-in-love fool who can’t catch a break! Whether it’s experiencing a sexual drought in the The Drought or comically stumbling his way through having to date four girls at the same time in The Flood, you can always count on Dan to keep proving beyond doubt that men are definitely not hopeless romantics. We are, in fact, hopeless at romance. A lot of what happens to Dan has either come from personal experiences or those from friends, so he holds a very special place in my heart. For all the wrong reasons!

2. Denise Andrews
Denise is without doubt the most unpredictable of characters I have written so far. She was so much fun to write, because you could take her in so many directions depending on the situation. My favourite has to be the train scenes with Dan which has gotten so much positive response from readers because of how funny they are. Denise turns up in The Flood as one of the four women Dan ends up dating, and the fact she is known as a stalker tells you quite a lot already! Along with her ex-boyfriend, Ronnie (who by the way ends up stalking Dan too), I was never short of comical scenarios to stick her in. She was brilliant to write about, and secretly I think I’d like to date her too… just the once though!

1. Jack Chatham
Like marmite, you either love Jack, or you hate him, but I have nothing but love for the mouthy, little, cockney-wannabee who is always raring to take the mickey out of someone’s misfortune (normally Dan!). Jack’s relationship with Ollie is another highlight to write, because it pits the big, gormless, giant against the sharp-tongued mini assassin! The king of the chat-up lines with a small-man syndrome, Jack is the guy you probably warn your friends against dating, but can’t help but warm to once you get to know him. He is the little devil that lives inside each and every man, even though we might not show it quite as much as Jack.

Characters from The Drought: Ollie Pemberton

The Drought: Ollie Pemberton

What Ollie lacks in brains, he more than makes up for in brawn. When he is not in the gym beefing up, he can normally be found in the pub; pint in one hand, cigarette in the other!

When it comes to the opposite sex, Ollie is not a fussy man. In fact the phrase "any hole's a goal" could have been created exclusively for Ollie. His approach to women is to simply wait around until the end of the night and then pounce on the most drunken girl in the establishment. And if she happens to be overweight, well, that is just a bonus for Ollie, as "fat girls are more appreciative" as he likes to say.

Ollie is a bit of a throwback to old-school man. All of this metrosexual new-age man stuff is definitely not for him. He is at his happiest when he is propping up the bar watching the footy or rugby. His idea of a romantic meal would probably be down at the local Wetherspoons on the burger and pint night!

If The Drought was a movie... Part 3: Will Poulter (@PoulterWill) as Ollie Pemberton

Whenever I think of the character Ollie Pemberton, I always seem to drift back to one particular afternoon I spent sitting in a pub in Mitcham a good few years ago with the friend who I based the character on. It was a bit of a rough old pub, but it was within walking distance of our houses and it served beer so it was good enough for us. As usual I was taking the piss out of him; he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer and therefore an easy target when I wanted to amuse myself. It wasn’t exactly intelligent banter, but it didn’t matter. After all, here was a guy who twice in the space of a month tried to dye his hair peroxide blonde to look like Eminem but ended up ginger both times.

No matter how many times I made a joke at his expense, that big dopey grin of his remained permanently plastered across his face; a cigarette often dangling from his mouth. It was as though he didn’t have a care in the world apart from what time the pub opened and where his next shag was coming from. He was a simple guy with simple needs and all too often would say things without thinking. One of my favourite quotes of his came when we was watching an England football match and he was wearing a replica shirt. When a friends little brother asked him what the difference was between the football top he was wearing and the ones the players on TV had on his reply was: “The only difference is if I was playing I would have my name across the back and my number – nutter.”

And when a girl who he was dating bragged about how big his manhood was, we got him T-Short made up for our lads holiday in Crete which read on the front The Beast of Greece has Returned and we put the number nine on the back but with the inches symbol just below it. Whenever girls asked if they could see his well-endowed member he would shove his hands into his pants and rub himself to the point of excitement explaining ‘I’ve only got a semi.’

He played and had the frame of a rugby player, but smoked and drank too much to ever really be considered an athlete. But despite the fact that he probably could have squashed me (and God knows I deserved it the amount of ribbing I used to give him) not once did he ever get pissed off or display any aggression, and I guess I never really saw him as the type of guy that could quite easily rip your arm off like pulling the wing from a fly.

But the reason I think I always think of that afternoon in that Mitcham pub whenever I think about the Ollie character is because of what happened that day. There was a guy in there who’d had a bit too much to drink and was looking to start a fight with anyone he could. I happened to unfortunately wander within his eye line and he threatened to batter me on the basis I’d spilt his drink or knocked his pork scratching’s out of his hand. I can’t remember the exact reason, but it was ridiculous whatever it was. I’m not exactly a fighter and this guy was clearly a bit of a bad lad who probably had two or three punch-ups a day. But at the precise moment where I was probably about to poop myself, my mate appeared from behind me and asked if there was a problem. That was all he said. He didn’t say it with any malice or anger but at the same time he carried himself in a way that said ‘don’t fuck with me!’

It worked a treat. Within seconds the guy who wanted to batter me backed away, My mate stood his ground for a few seconds longer before he turned to me and said: ‘You shit yourself there didn’t you?!’ And then he laughed and that big dopey grin returned to his face.

I included that story in The Drought because I think it captures perfectly who Ollie Pemberton is. He’s a stereotypical big friendly giant; by no means is he the brightest spark and he will do and say before thinking, but his loyalty to his friends is never in question, and like that day in the pub where I completely fell to bits, not once did he lose his head and he had the presence of mind to use his own strengths (his size) to defuse things without even raising his voice.

For the choice of who I’d choose to play Ollie in my fantasy movie version of The Drought I could have quite easily gone with someone who simply just looked the part – big and thick! But I think when you read the book you’ll find that some of funniest and sometimes most subtle of comedy moments come from Ollie. That is why I opted for Will Poulter because not only is he a brilliant comedic actor (Meet the Millers) but he can also have an air of danger about him (Wild Bill).

In a way, Ollie Pemberton is somewhere in the middle of the two characters Poulter played in Meet the Millers and Wild Bill but with a healthy sprinkle of Trigger from Only Fools & Horses! The fact that Poulter happens to look a lot like my friend who I based the character on is a bonus for me, but probably not so much for Will Poulter!

If The Drought was made into a film which actors would be in it?

Okay, so I'm sitting here the other night a little bit bored and something pops into my head: If The Drought became a film, which actors do I think would play the main characters? 

I accept that I'm getting a little ahead of myself (it would be nice for the book to sell a few more copies before I start thinking about film rights, or any rights for that matter) but it didn't stop my little brain wandering none the less. I guess the idea stemmed from an early review The Drought received when it was compared to The Inbetweeners and what with the second movie installment of that brilliant show coming out this August, why not dream a little big?

So this week I am playing casting director and will be posting four daily blogs starting tomorrow as I pick the four actors I think would be brilliant to bring the main characters alive in The Drought. It'll be fun to think of who I'd choose as most of the characters are based on people I actually know!

First up tomorrow is the main character Dan Hilles...