Well there's this boy, see, and he kidnaps a leprechaun and ransoms it for gold. . . This may not immediately strike you as an up-to-date tale of excitement and suspense. Why, you might well ask, has such a story been optioned by Miramax for $350,000? Surely it's only Harry Potter fever gone awry.
But the four Harry Potter books (the first of which is currently being filmed in the UK) might not have sounded too promising when J.K. Rowling was an unknown. A boy with magical powers who goes to wizarding school? It sounds like an old-fashioned plot that even Enid Blyton - the doyenne of boarding-school adventures - would have dismissed with a sniff. But now that Harry Potter is a household name, publishers must be on the rampage to find the next Rowling.
Enter Eoin Colfer and Artemis Fowl. This is a book of magic and the Internet in which "leprechaun" is spelled "LEPrecon" (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance); the central character is an anti-hero - "a criminal mastermind" - and his nemesis is a female elf called Holly Short. The story is set in contemporary north Co Dublin, but there are trips to Vietnam and Italy, as well as flying sprites and a techno nerd called Foaly (guess what, he's a satyr): "The leprechauns are not the classic `begorrah' kind," says Colfer. "They are border police for fairies who live underground and are not allowed to go overground." Colfer (35) is from Wexford, and has already written six books for children, all with the Irish publisher, O'Brien Press.
Benny and Babe, published last year, was shortlisted for the Bisto Award and, last Christmas, managed to knock Harry Potter off the number-one slot for bestselling children's book. The Wish List, Colfer's sixth book, is due out in March.
As he was getting his teeth into his seventh book, Artemis Fowl, his wife, Jackie, and his four brothers sat him down and "browbeat me into getting an agent".
"I signed six contracts with O'Brien, and they've promoted my books really well. But I wanted an agent to handle contracts because I wasn't really qualified to do it myself." He chose one at random in The Writer's Handbook - Sophie Hicks, a specialist in children's literature. He sent her the first 50 pages of Artemis Fowl in August.
The book was snapped up by Puffin, the children's imprint of Penguin, for an advance of £40,000 sterling. Hicks went to the Frankfurt Book Fair with the manuscript of Artemis Fowl under one arm and a movie deal under the other. Publishers from all over the world queued up for Artemis Fowl, some without having read the book. For foreign rights in European countries alone, Artemis Fowl earned £250,000 sterling. In the US, the publishing arm of Miramax has bought both Artemis Fowl and the sequel for $200,000.
Colfer is now in the throes of writing the sequel in what has become the Artemis Fowl trilogy. His contract decrees that he must finish the second book when the first one appears next May. He has been forced to give up his work at Coolcotts National school in Wexford as a learning support teacher. While teaching, he had to squeeze his writing time into the 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. slot, between finishing work and the appearance of his three-year-old Finn, fresh from the child-minder. Then there was little time until after Finn's bed-time, "usually around 8.30 p.m." "It was hard to fit it all in," he admits.
"I found myself getting selfish and spending more time in my office writing when I should be spending time with Finn. Hopefully that will all change now." Colfer and his wife - who co-owns a boutique in the town - live in a new housing estate on the outskirts of Wexford. Their house may well be empty a good deal of the time in the new year, when Eoin's publicity commitments get underway. "The book has already been sold in France, Italy, Israel and Brazil as well as the UK and the US. For the next five years, I'll be doing a lot of touring. It's going to be a whole new life for us. That's why I can't stay on at work."
Colfer wrote his first book when he was 20: "It was called The Dark Boy, a story of the Fianna. Writing it was my FAS scheme. It was never published, it was really a thinly-disguised version of Tarzan. It remains `The Dark Book'." As a class teacher he liked to end the day with 10 minutes of reading to his pupils: "I'd find myself elaborating if I saw the interest flagging. I'd add in gory bits. In the end I made up my own stories." He took a career break and went to Saudi Arabia, where he and Jackie taught. They also spent two years in Tunisia, which inspired Benny and Omar, Colfer's first published book, about an Irish boy who goes to live in Tunisia when his father, who works for an oil company, is transferred there. Benny joins forces with Omar to try to release Omar's sister from an orphanage. The book was published by O'Brien three years ago.
"It seems like I've done a lot in a short time, but I wrote Benny and Omar when I was 30. After O'Brien accepted the book, I had to wait 18 months until it was published. O'Brien edited out 30,000 words. I learned to shorten descriptive passages - you don't have to describe every petal on the flower.
I learned to cut adjectives and adverbs, and streamline the narrative to keep the reader's interest." Most of his books are written for early teens, but he has published two for six- to eight-year-olds, The Funny Feet and Going Potty. Both feature a youngster who has to come to terms with problems such as turned-in toes, or a fear of using the toilet at school.
Going Potty is dedicated to Finn: "When he sees it in a book shop he wants to take all the copies home with him because he knows it's his book". Colfer has also written plays for adults, one of which, The Lords of Love, was written especially for his brother Donal: "Donal is actor and kept asking me to write a play with a part in it for him. I invented the thickest character I could imagine, but the joke backfired on me, because the play did very well, and was performed in Andrew's Lane Theatre in 1998. Last year, a Dublin group called City Limits won the All-Ireland Amateur One Act Final with it." He likes "the immediacy" of writing for the stage. "There's nothing like seeing people laughing at your lines."
Most of his work is "in the fantasy field", and because of this, he feels it is an advantage to be an Irish writer. "Our well of mythology is so deep and so rich - we are steeped in shape-shifting and magical folklore." He confesses that most of what happens in his books is his own invention, however. He recognises that "Ireland is in at the moment" but does not believe that the "trendy-to-be-Irish" factor will necessarily carry his work into immortality. Although grateful to Rowling "for waking publishers up to the potential of children's literature", he hadn't actually read the Harry Potter books until people started making comparisons with Artemis Fowl: "I can't say I've been influenced by Harry Potter. There are similarities I suppose, in that both books are about 12-year-old boys and magic.
But my character is from a wealthy background, living on an estate in north Co Dublin. He comes from a criminal family - his father is missing, presumed dead, after crossing paths with the Russian Mafia. He has an adult's intelligence and urge to exploit a situation, together with a child's belief in magic." Another huge difference is that, in Colfer's story, the contemporary child's fascination with and knowledge of computers is included (although there are spells aplenty, there are no computers at Hogwarts wizarding school).
"Artemis researches the fairies on the Internet. He translates the fairy bible with the aid of a computer package which he has to create himself," says Colfer. The fairy language, Gnommish, is used throughout the book with translations. Puffin has even employed a cryptographer to create a special font: "Kids nowadays are much more technologically aware than adults, and their huge interest in magic has to do with what they see on computers, videos and movies. It makes them better able to imagine how magic works."
When Colfer was 12, he was reading fantasy books for adults written by Julian May. "I think kids who read tend to read books intended for an older age group. That's why I don't `write down' to kids. In Artemis Fowl I've created a complicated plot." Another childhood favourite was Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn: "I've always loved the idea of kids out of their element, struggling to survive in a strange environment. It's a recurrent theme in my work."
Colfer has always preferred villains to good guys: "When I was a kid I was frustrated when the villain was beaten by some wishy-washy hero." Artemis is not a bad guy per se, but "a good guy who does bad things". Having created him, Colfer realised he'd need a "hero", someone just as powerful. Hence the creation of Captain Holly Short.
Colfer has been greatly influenced by comics. "I collect comics. Batman is my favourite. I'd love to see someone making a comic out of Artemis." Meanwhile, he is hoping that part of the film version will be shot in Wexford. But what if a decision is made to change the setting to the US? He frowns: "Harry Potter is being filmed in Britain with English kids. If that goes down well, there's a good chance they'll make Artemis Fowl in Ireland. After all, it would be hard to imagine a story about leprechauns being set anywhere else."