‘A tax on stupidity’: The one extravagance writer Debra Oswald has never understood

Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Debra Oswald. The writer, 65, is the creator of hit TV show Offspring, the winner of two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and a playwright whose works have been staged worldwide. Her latest novel is One Hundred Years of Betty.

Debra Oswald: “Yes, we killed Patrick on Offspring ... I still joke that I’m in witness protection: there are still people who are very angry about it.”Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

BODIES

To what extent does a writing life take its toll on the body? Oh, I do sit at a desk a lot, so I have neck and back problems that come from that. One thing that’s good about it – mentally – is that you have a channel to funnel emotion and process it, using narrative, language and the desire to communicate with other people. But it’s also hard on your mental health because there’s a lot of solitude in writing. I enjoy solitude, but writing requires a lot more solitude than is generally good for people. And you’re offering yourself up for judgment all the time.

What part of your body are you quite happy with right now? I’m exercising quite a lot at the moment, so I’m generally happy.

Anything that you’d want to change? I wish I was taller, but it’s not going to happen.

What’s your hidden power? I speak a little bit of Spanish. I’m quite good at picking up a few words of a new language. It gives me a thrill, and I feel that it’s an act of respect towards whatever country I’m travelling in.

What superpower do you wish you had? To be able to sing or play a musical instrument.

MONEY

Is it true you wanted to write plays as a kid and wrote your first one at 12? Yes, I was too young to understand that wasn’t how the world worked, but there was power in that. The naivety was powerful.

At the same time, you’ve made a sustainable career out of this work. That’s true …

Although I hear what you’re saying: you don’t pick a job like “playwright” for financial security. I know how to navigate all that because I’m an anxious person. I was always very careful with money. I always knew I was going to be a freelancer, so I always had a little pot of money as a sort of buffer. I remember thinking from when I was 19 or 20 that a bit of money in the bank was the power to say no to something I didn’t want to do. I would look at my year: “I will write X number of episodes of a TV series, which will buy me six months to write a play.” Now it’s a lot simpler.

How so? Well, I’m old and crusty now. I’m not building my career or taking a job because I’m trying to make connections or get exposure. I’m writing things because I really want to work with the people involved or I’m really fired up about the story. Or it’s my own story and I’m itching to tell it. If I was skint, I’d have to take every job that was going. Luckily for me, I’m not desperate.

For you, what constitutes money well-spent? Travel and buying food to cook a fantastic, slap-up meal for your friends.

What do other people spend their money on that’s beyond your comprehension? You know, I’ve never understood expensive handbags. I just think that’s a tax on stupidity.

DEATH

Given the number of characters you’ve had to kill off in your writing, do you consider yourself a murderer? Well, I used to write Police Rescue and we killed a lot of people every week. It was really good for my writing because it made me bold about killing people. I used to read the newspaper and look up gruesome industrial deaths – “Oh, this is a storyline!” I particularly liked people being impaled on metal spikes so they could talk as they were expiring. But I also still feel guilty about some characters I’ve killed.

Oh, like who? There’s a character called Gary in my play, Gary’s House, who I killed at the end of Act One. I always felt bad about it. I cared about him so much and I tried to save him and I couldn’t.

Which brings us to … I know where you’re going with this. Yes, we killed Patrick on Offspring, which upset many people. It was not a decision that we made lightly. There were actor availability reasons behind it, but it was also great for the show. We’d done almost four seasons by then. We’d put Nina through so much to see how she and her extended support system would handle it. So his death, we felt it deeply. We cried and talked about how Nina would have to go on. I still joke that I’m in witness protection: there are still people who are very angry about it. But I actually love that because it means that people cared about the characters. In my new novel, the main character, Betty, lives to 100. Everybody else who we get to know in the course of the book dies. That’s one of the terrible things about living to 100: all your peers die. So I’ve killed a lot of people …

You also researched a lot of different ways to murder people for your previous novel, The Family Doctor. I never thought I’d write a book with a murder in it until I had an idea for a murder that I could imagine myself committing. I’d never commit murder for financial gain, but I would to protect someone. So imagining your way into thinking exactly how you’d do it? Oh, that was fantastic!

Should we be scared of you now? No … because I’m not a doctor. And I don’t have the resources that character had.

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