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A writer for over twenty years, Tony spent over ten years working internationally for a variety of television, radio and magazines as a feature and script writer, winning several awards doing so.

In 2003 he returned to comic writing, and since then has written for Marvel Comics, Walker Books, AAM/Markosia Entertainment, Panini Comics and Titan Publishing, for properties such as X-Men, Amazing Fantasy, Doctor Who, Starship Troopers, Wallace & Gromit and Shrek. With 'Two Drunk Guys In A Bar' partner Dan Boultwood he has created The Gloom for APC and in 2006 he adapted G.P. Taylor's The Tizzle Sisters and Eric and the bestselling children's book Shadowmancer. His creator owned book, Midnight Kiss, was nominated for an Eagle award in 2006.

His upcoming work includes Hope Falls for AAM/Markosia (again with Dan Boultwood), Dodge & Twist for AiT/PlanetLar, Warrior Nun Areala: Excommunicated for Antarctic Press, Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride and the comic adaption of Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate series, both by Walker Books. He's also the writer of the new IDW series Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Pia Guerra on art.

Playing War...

By Tony Lee

Sorry for the delay to this week's column, but it was written a little later than usual due to a variety of reasons, the main two being that (a) I spent last week working eighteen hour days to kill deadlines before Friday and that (b) from Friday until Sunday lunchtime I was in a field in Derby.

Now people will immediately thing 'aw, that's nice, he went to spend the Solstice in a field, being all zen and hippy like' but no – I was in a field with hundreds of other people, armed to the nines and beating the crap out of each other. For two days I wasn't Tony Lee, awesome writer extraordinaire, I was Admiral Jacob Broadside Maverick, Admiral of the Dragon Navy and Governor of the Erin Nation. I had a sword and everything.

Yes. I'm talking about LARP, or Live Action Roleplay. And it's one of those hobbies that regularly gets laughed at by people, usually re-enactors. 'Oho! ' They cry. 'Look out – it's the Rubber Sword brigade!'. And I don't mind. I don't care, really, re-enactors do after smack bloody great metal swords at each other and visit the hospital on a regular basis. I heard one person explain once that if we took LARP into a fighting arena? Re-enactors would be the UFC and LARP? The WWE.

But people in the WWE still get injured. And that's the point of many forms of combat heavy LARP that people don't consider. There are no 'rules' in a battle, no 'when I beep this horn, you guys collapse and die', no 'if you roll a double six or lose in rock paper scissors you lose a life' – no, in the version of LARP that I've done since a student, the Lorien Trust or 'LT' system your character lives only as long as you keep him or her alive, meaning that you have to fight better than the opposing guy. And believe me; they'll do their best to be better, faster and harder than you. On an average LT weekend, the local A & E at the nearest Hospital will have more cases come in than an average Mosh pit or Rave. We break limbs, ribs, blacken eyes and bruise skin, we have a variation of concussions to choose from and a whole range of injuries we can get from this hobby. The swords aren't 'rubber' – they're usually a thin layer of foam / latex covering over a solid core. And that solid core? Can hurt like a bastard. Many times I've been taken off my feet and thrown several yards onto my arse by a well placed shot from a double handed staff.

The whole point of LARP is it's free form. It's unscripted, the players make the plot. And when there's several thousand of you in a field, charging into battle against each other? There's nothing so exhilarating and yet terrifying at the same time.

But that's irrelevant. I do Live Action Roleplay and I don't care if people think it's 'laughable' or 'geeky'. I know people who call it Mythical Re-enactment as if they're almost ashamed of it. Well bollocks to that. I've done it for well over a decade now and apart from seeing friends and getting drunk in a field around a camp fire, I find that it's the best chance I get for a few times a year to be a big damn hero.

And that's the reason I talk about this today. Because as a writer, you should play the parts of the people you write – you owe it to your audience. How do you know the thoughts and fears of a soldier fighting an unbeatable foe – if you've never tried it? I write characters like Matt Sable or Will Tanner and there are points where I go 'What would I do at this very juncture' and of course I go 'well, naturally I would attack the bad guy and save the day'. But would I? Would I really? Strapping on that sword and actually going to do it, I'll realise several things. Firstly, there's a very strong chance that I'm nothing more than a Star Trek redshirt. Everyone is. It's a crap shoot. Secondly, I learn that only occasionally do I charge in sword waving – often I'll look for an alternative, and I'm not too ashamed to stab the foe in the back. And by doing this, by experiencing this, I can then go back and write this into the character. Suddenly they're not a two dimensional character that's a generic 'pick from the shelf' type – I've placed some of my own fears and memories in the mix. And once you let Pandora out of the box, the character will change, alter in their own way, usually for the better.

They say that to truly know a man, you should walk a mile in their shoes. Which means that to learn what makes someone tick? You should at least learn how they live, what they do, how they act. And Live Roleplay is research of a kind, because you can walk in the shoes of a variety of characters, and each one will show you things, about yourself and the character you're looking at.

Case in point. Almost a decade ago, I played a trickster character of the Tuatha De Dannan called Dan'Arell Flynn. In one combat heavy event against an ancestral foe called the Fomor (yes, the faction I was a part of follows the old Irish myths) we were utterly slaughtered one evening, taken out almost to a man. The survivors managed to gather together in small groups of five, maybe six and alone and in the woods try to find others, get to safety – and in the darkness of the Candlestone Camp woods, we made our way in silence. And when we saw a Fomor squad, we hid, so into the roleplay now that they were no longer men, even friends of ours in rubber masks – they were the enemy. They were a fearsome force that had decimated us. And there was a point, a moment where you could see the survivors mentally go 'no more. No more will I take this' and after getting to safety and meeting with other groups of survivors, we made a valiant last stand. We lined up against these creatures of myth that had rolled us like children but hours earlier and we shouted 'We have no fear' to the winds while we banged our shields. We were in an almost zen state. We would stand our ground – or we would die. And we did stand that ground. And some of us did die, but we won the battle.

Now, I know that some of you are going 'but it was just a game. A character. ' But remember, some of these players have had characters for years, decades even. They're not just names on paper, they're an actual part of you. And to lose a character in LARP? It's a tough thing. In an event like the Gathering you don't just grab your dice and a fresh bit of paper. And although it was only a game, we were totally 'in the zone', we believed utterly in the moment. We fully expected to die. We fully expected to fight to the last man or woman. And in stories I have written since then, I have remembered this feeling, this moment and I have taken from it to power my characters in my books, taking from effectively my own experiences as I write the scenes.

In my mind, you can't write about a hero unless you've tried at least once to be one. Maybe it was stopping a fight outside a bar. Maybe it was catching a mugger. It could have been running a World of Warcraft guild. Maybe even running a weekly table top game that lasted years.

But strapping on a 'rubber' sword and charging into an enemy battle line might not sound that 'fearsome' – but if you really think that? Go have a try. Gain some experience in true Live Action Roleplay. A big, vicious battle with hundreds of 'dead', real people losing their long term characters and where every fight could be your characters last.

And then tell me I'm nothing but a kid playing 'War' in a field...

And so this week I've also been writing interviews left, right and centre as the run up to August's Doctor Who: The Forgotten begins. And many of the questions are incredibly similar in nature, who was my favourite Doctor, what do I think of the Tenth, etc – and it's always very difficult to give the same answers while, well, not giving the same answers if you know what I mean. But its fun and I'll never turn down an opportunity to talk about myself. I think we all know that about me by now.

But what an interview also does is give me a chance to pimp projects that I'm also doing. And to be honest, not many people outside of the UK will care that me and Dan are doing "The Prince of Baghdad" for The DFC, or that I'm also doing "St Spooky's" for them with Rob Guillory. And an interview about one of my larger projects will always give me a chance to pimp the smaller ones.

But at the end of the day, I love doing interviews. Seriously. So if you want to interview me, drop me a line. I'm at San Diego too, so Podcasts, start your engines...

And so this time next week? It's my birthday. I'm Thirty Eight years old. And today, the Twenty Third? It's my other half, Tracy's birthday. So happy birthday, sweetheart – you'd better love the present I've bought you.

It's a rubber sword. I just know you'll love it...