MARK: What’s the best happy accident of your writing career?
NADINE: I’d say that not reading the small print when I entered the city university competition, because, honestly, if I’d read the small print, then I would have read that: if you win the competition, you win a £2,000 bursary. And I know definitely back then, if I’d read that it was a bursary of the Creative Writing Masters, then I wouldn’t have entered because I’m thinking, I’m already working full time, you know, being a lawyer. But I was also teaching in the law school and I would do that in the evenings. So, I don’t want to spend any more time in a classroom. I give up my evenings as it is, you know, teaching in a classroom. Why would I want to go back? Why would I want to go back to school to learn how to write? So if I’d read the small print, I would not have entered. But because I did not read the small print, I entered and won the competition, did the Creative Writing MA, I and I wrote the Jigsaw Man, so… Is that a happy accident?
MARK: Absolutely, yes. It is. Absolutely. Fantastic. Yeah. Who reads the small print? Honestly, we all sign up to META and it says in there, you know, 17 pages down, we can steal everything you put up here. So yeah, anyway, enough of that.
MARK: What’s the thing that makes you think that you’re ready to start writing on a project?
NADINE: Because I’m a planner; once I’ve done the plan. If I haven’t done a plan and I’m like, well, yeah, it’s like… if there’s no outline, then I wouldn’t be comfortable writing. Because I know what would happen. I would just get to 20,000 words and then that would be it. I’ll just be… I don’t know what I’m doing with the story. But, and I say, it doesn’t need to be a, you know, a beat by beat by beat outline of the whole story. But it’s a general one. And once I’ve got that in place: okay, now I’m ready to start writing,
MARK: It kind of occurs to me, that’s the point in the story where you need to start making serious choices, story choices that have consequences. You know, the first 20,000 words you’re introducing people, you’re having fun, setting everything up. And then it’s like: we can start making serious decisions now. So it’s kind of scary, isn’t it? You don’t know where you’re going.
NADINE: I think that’s exactly it. I’ve mentioned this for my own podcast recently, I was writing this book, and I had a character called Nick. I didn’t have a plan for it. And, you know, the beginning’s, you know, all the set ups, that’s all the fun stuff. But then I got Nick into… Nick got released from prison, and then he went home. Now he’s sitting in his dad’s house, sitting in his dad’s kitchen. And to this day, he’s still there cause I’m like… I don’t know what to do with you now. I don’t know what. I don’t know what to do. So to this day, Nick is still sitting in his dad’s kitchen.
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
NADINE: What I do now… Before I just used to write my first draft — and it sounds like a big thing, but it’s not, it’s a small thing — I write the first draft, and then after that, then do the rewrite, brief re-structure, whatever. That’s the second draft. But now I don’t. I write up to act two, and then once I finish act two in the first draft, that’s when I start doing the rewrite. Because now I’m doing the rewrite, I have a clearer idea of how… I’ve fixed everything now, so I know exactly how that last third is going to finish. And I started doing that. I think with… I think I did it with The Kill List, and I think it was just a timing issue I had. Like, a personal time finishing, I thought, I’m not going to get this done if I wait to finish it. I thought, let me just start rewriting it now. When I did that, I thought, this is a better way for me to work. So that’s what I do now.
MARK: And when you get to that two thirds point, you just plough on and get straight through to the end.
NADINE: Yeah, because I’m not thinking… When I’m writing that first draft, I’m already thinking, well, I already know I need to change this now. I need to change this character, put it in a different location, or I’m just going to get rid of that subplot. I just know these things aren’t going to work. And by the time I’ve done the second draft, I’ve already done that. And then I said, that last third is… I can’t say seamless, but it’s a lot smoother. I’m not fixing things.
MARK: Yeah, it’s so weird because I’ve just done that myself actually. You know, I’m talking about trilogies being hard. I got about I was 80,000 words on this, and the ending is there, and I’m kind of thinking, hmmm… And then I’m writing, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s what this is about!’ So I’ve realised, actually, what it’s about. So I’ve had to go back and sort of, you know, make changes. And now the ending just feels so much… Not, like you say, not easier, but I know where I’m going now. I know I’m going to do it. Yeah.
NADINE: You have a much clearer… There’s no debris in your path. That’s the best way.
MARK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a lot less cluttered, isn’t it?
MARK: Are your first drafts usually quite tidy and well structured, or are you still making big changes?
NADINE: They are the opposite of tidy and well structured. I will say that structured in the sense that… I stick very closely to that three act structure. So they’re structured in that sense. But in terms of it being tidy: no, they’re so messy. But I always say there’s freedom in the mess because I know that with the second draft I’m going to be fixing things and rewriting and restructuring. So no, that first draft is not tidy. But what I will say, I said it the other day to someone was that what I’ve realized is that my… the first three chapters of my books, they are relatively unchanged from the first draft to what’s finally put on the shelf. They very rarely… I mean, I’ll say I’ve changed a little bit in the editing process, but fundamentally those chapters one, two and three, and if there’s a prologue, they’re pretty much how they are from the very first draft to the end.
Nadine Matheson is the bestselling author of the DI Henley crime thrillers and presenter of the Conversation Podcast.
We Discuss:
Writing as a planner Nadine’s great tip for finishing first drafts Why not reading the small print was great for her career We have a fun rant about META and book piracy And much more!
MARK: Question from Gavin here. Does rereading yesterday’s chapter and editing as you go slow down the drafting too? Or are the time savings on future drafts worth the effort on earlier drafts? That’s a great question there Gavin. So you’re spending that time, sort of, re-read… build up momentum up. Does that mean when you sort of break through the wall of yesterday’s work and you’re writing fresh words today, you’re moving faster and with more clarity than you would otherwise?
GARETH: I think so, yeah, definitely. And I also try never to end a day’s work at the end of a chapter, because if you end up at the end of a chapter, then the next day you wake up to a blank white page again and I’ll have to get started. And it’s, you know, there’s enough white space to make Ranulph Fiennes nervous and… So it’s going back and sort of editing the the previous chapter gives you like a run up. And it definitely, definitely does save time doing future drafts. Because you’ve already picked up a lot of, you know, a lot of problems, a lot of typos and stuff, you will still have to go back and change, but you’ve done some of it.
This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals the biggest mistake of his writing career, but how this particular disaster was a blessing in disguise…
MARK: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your writing career?
GARETH: Oh, Lord. The worst thing — I don’t know if it’s a mistake, It could have been an Act of God — But was when the first half of the first draft of Descendant Machine vanished.
MARK: Oh, God, I remember this.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
GARETH: I’d been working on it for three months, I think. And then one day, it just wasn’t on my computer. It wasn’t in the recycle bin. It wasn’t, you know, anywhere. I used various kind of, programs to claw through the hard drive to try and find it. And… nothing. It just completely vanished. So if unless I just did something ridiculously stupid in my sleep or, you know… I don’t know what, I’ve no idea what happened to it. But this entire three months work just absolutely vanished. That was a big setback because, you know, that was when I, you know, you go in that feeling where you just go cold.
MARK: Yeah.
GARETH: You know in the, sort of Agatha Christie films from the 70s when there’s, like, a pistol blast or a scream, and then you’d get a shot of a load of crows flapping up from a tree. It’s kind of like that. I just uttered a curse. Venomous. It turned the air to glass and… And I lay on the sofa and thought, I’m never gonna write again. It’s all over.
MARK: And I remember talking to this, about this at the time, and it was just one of those complete mysteries. It wasn’t like you weren’t backing stuff up. It just absolutely vanished. Is it… because this happened to a friend of mine the other day, and I said, Oh, this happens to all sorts of writers, but every one of them tells me that when they go back and rewrite it, it’s so much better. Would you say that’s true, or am I just trying to make my friend feel good?
GARETH: No, that’s true, but the book I wrote was, substantially different from the first draft I had done, and much better for. So it was a blessing in a very, very heavy disguise.
What’s bringing you joy this week? In this clip from the latest episode of the Creative Differences podcast, Gareth L Powell and I reveal what’s bringing us joy, including works by: Elif Shafak, Sutej Singh, Mythic Quest, Barry Sonnenfeld, the Film Stories Podcast and Eva St John…
GARETH: Well, at the moment I’m reading… there’s books on this desk at all times… I’m reading this book, which is The Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. I’m not sure where it’s going, really, or what it’s doing, but it’s just so beautifully written. It’s just relaxing to read. And it’s about four characters at different periods in history, and they’re linked by this drop of water. So it’s like a raindrop that falls on the head of a Sumerian ruler. And then it’s, you know, it’s a tear that comes out to another character in Victorian times and so on. So it’s got that kind of link, but also it’s… they’re all somehow connected to the, Epic of Gilgamesh. So you have this Sumerian ruler who’s trying to get all the different versions together to create the definitive text, but it’s just beautifully written and it’s got some interesting kind of, little throwaway lines that make you think, oh, that’s really good. That’s a really good observation. That’s a really good motto for life.
MARK: Yeah. And is that one of the books that you said earlier that, you know, you might not have come across it had you not worked in a bookshop? Is that an example of one of those?
GARETH: Yeah, that’s one I kept looking at on the shelf. And after reading bits… Yeah, dammit, I’m going to have to read it.
MARK: So what else is giving you joy this month, Gareth?
GARETH: My granddaughter. So who’s she was born in December, so she’s still very small, but very wriggly and very smiley and very giggly. And it was always lovely to see her.
MARK: I’m going to run through the things that are bringing me joy at the moment. I’m going to start with Sutej Singh, who has a new single out, which is called Kaadambari and features Nandini Srikar on vocals… It’s an epic, guitar track. Singh is this incredible virtuoso guitarist, but he’s not someone who just plays a million notes per second. He knows when to leave space and his solos… like those of my favourite guitarists like David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, they have their own narrative. They’ve got a beginning, a middle and an end. And here’s a lesson for you writers out there; Sutej always wears a long coat and a turban and A guitar. And when he’s in silhouette, you always know it’s him. So I have a think about how your characters might look in silhouette, how they can be more iconic. If you think of characters like Batman, Darth Vader, Sherlock Holmes; once you see the silhouette, you always know who they are. Other things that are bringing me joy: Mythic Quest on Apple TV. We talked about workplace shows earlier with Star Trek. This is a workplace comedy. It’s about the makers of an online roleplaying game called Mythic Quest. You don’t need to know anything about gaming. It’s warm hearted, very, very funny. You got Rob McElhenney in the cast. He’s co-creator But I think the show’s secret weapon is Megan Ganz. She’s a co-creator, but she’s also written for Community, Modern Family, Last Man on Earth, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She’s a brilliant, brilliant writer, and there’s a recent episode where they did a murder mystery retreat. It was just perfect. And in terms of books, I’m loving Barry Sonnenfeld’s book Best Possible place, Worst Possible Time: True Stories from a Career in Hollywood. Barry’s directed many of my favourite films: the first two Addams Family movies, Men in Black, Get Shorty. He did the TV version of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He was also a cinematographer, working with the Coen brothers on films like Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing. He also did When Harry Met Sally, he talks about how they did that multiple phone shot in When Harry Met Sally: it took 67 takes. He’s now at the stage in the career where he talks very, very frankly about some of the people he’s worked with. And I first heard him about this book when he was interviewed on the Film Stories podcast. And that’s what this is, a brilliant, brilliant collection of film stories. And finally, I had the great privilege of reading an advance copy of Flint in the Bones, which is a new novel by Eva Saint John. Flint in the Bones is a brilliant blend of crime and history, the past, the present. Brilliant thrills, there’s a loyal dog. Now, if you’ve read Eva Saint John’s Quantum Curator series you’re going to be familiar… She has these page-turning stories that blend history. If you haven’t, you’re in for such a treat. Now she’s just launched, she’s launching a Kickstarter soon. And you can sort of pre… you can sign up for it. So you can find out when it’s going to launch. It’s launching very, very soon. I’m going to put a link in the comments here so you can have a look at it. I’m definitely going to do it. One of the things she’s offering as well is to, have a character named after you. And I did that with The End of Magic. And it was really, really popular. So do check that out.
This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals how he keeps track of story ideas when they come late at night… and then we’re interrupted by a digital overlord.
MARK: How do you remember that idea that you have it, say three in the morning?
GARETH: I always have my phone next to the bed. And I can say, “Hey, Siri,” take a note, and just dictate it to the phone.
SIRI: (Interrupting) And then what do you want it to say?
(LAUGHTER)
MARK: I was waiting for that!
SIRI: I created you a note. It’s called BRA.
MARK: Oh. That’s priceless. Thanks for that, Gareth.
GARETH: I thought, my phone is off. I’ll be safe saying this, and I forgot it’s on the damn computer as well… I will go through that process — that I just demonstrated — and then in the morning, because it’s synched up with my desktop, the I just open my notes file and the notes are there waiting for me.
MARK: A comment from Usman here: “22:32. Siri gained sentence.” It’s the end times, people. Oh, fantastic.
MARK: What’s the thing that makes you think you’re ready to start writing on a project?
GARETH: As I was saying earlier, it is… sort of things gradually accrete, and sort of clump together and, it’s kind of… there isn’t a single kind of, oh, let’s go! But I kind of write my way into it. So I’ll start, you know, I’ll write the first line, I’ll write a paragraph and think hmm, okay. And then I’ll go back and I’ll rewrite the outline. The outline is usually about a page, just a very brief kind of high level overview of the plot. And I’ll rewrite that about ten times to fix it. And then I’ll start writing a first chapter, maybe that won’t be going anywhere, so I’ll start again. Or realise I picked the wrong character, and I just kind of write my way into the book so that by the time I’m about 5000 words in, starting to pick up steam, and I think: right. I know where we’re going now. So I might chop out the all the original stuff, but yeah, it’s kind of like easing yourself into a hot bath.
MARK: (Noting a listener comment): Elinor says this is the most British conversation ever. Tea and a hot bath. Yes. Brilliant.
Mark Stay Writes 