Nadine Matheson on Messy First Drafts

This month’s special guest Nadine Matheson reveals the benefits of a messy first draft…

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TRANSCRIPT

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 on the Creative Differences Podcast

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!

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

LINKS

NADINE’S WEBSITE
THE KILL LIST
THE CONVERSATION WITH NADINE MATHESON PODCAST
NADINE’S HURRICANE BERYL VIDEO
NADINE’S INSTAGRAM (for sunrises!)

THE ATLANTIC ARTICLE ON META & BOOK PIRACY

THE APPLE NEWS EDITION OF THE SAME STORY

THE GREEN ROOM

INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE
TOP CHEF
HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET
THE STUDIO
CLASSIC FM MOVIES

COME AND MEET MARK STAY IN APRIL 2025 AT:
MAIDENHEAD
LUTON
FORT AMHERST
BANBURY
SOUTHAMPTON
BEYOND THE BOOK FESTIVAL, BRIGHTON

Will META do the Write Thing?

META (who owns Facebook) has used pirated versions of my books and those of pretty much every author I know to train its artificial intelligence software. We need the government to step in and ensure that META will #DoTheWriteThing

If you want to help, there’s a petition you can sign here…

sign the peTition

This Writer’s Favourite Podcasts

Here are my favourite podcasts that inspire me as a writer…

LINKS

FILM STORIES WITH SIMON BREW: https://filmstories.co.uk/podcast-page/episodes/ 

SCRIPTNOTES – John August, Craig Mazin: https://johnaugust.com/scriptnotes 

THE CONVERSATION WITH NADINE MATHESON: https://www.nadinematheson.com/events/23/the-conversation-with-nadine-matheson-podcast/ 

YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT – Sarah Marshall https://yourewrongabout.com/ 

SMERSH POD – John Rain https://shows.acast.com/smershpod 

AUTHORIZED – Andrew Overbye and Hannah Blechman https://open.spotify.com/show/68YhhFLKW5m6ibJJDZ147M?si=4f46a841a4d74390 

COMFORT BLANKET (SEE ALSO BE FUNNY OR DIE) – Joel Morris https://shows.acast.com/comfort-blanket 

ROCKONTEURS – Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt https://www.anotherslice.com/rockonteurs

SCARRED FOR LIFE – Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence with presenter Andy Bush https://scarredforlifebooks.com/#podcast 

FIFTY YEARS OF SHIT ROBOTS: Matt brown and Stephen Murray https://shows.acast.com/fifty-years-of-shit-robots

BESTSELLER EXPERIMENT https://bestsellerexperiment.com/podcasts/podcast-episodes/ 

MARK STAY’S CREATIVE DIFFERENCES https://markstaycreativedifferences.com/ 

Join me and Nadine Matheson on tonight’s Creative Differences Livestream

Join me live with bestselling crime author Nadine Matheson! 

THURSDAY 27TH MARCH, 8PM GMT.

Nadine’s debut crime fiction novel, The Jigsaw Man, was won by HQ (HarperCollins) in a six-publisher auction. The best-selling ‘The Jigsaw Man’ was published in 2021, has been translated into fifteen languages and has been optioned for television. Nadine is also the presenter of The Conversation podcast, which for my money is one of the best British podcasts for author interviews. Nadine is a brilliant writer and really insightful on the craft and business of writing. You are not going to want to miss this one! Join us live and be part of the podcast.

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK

Or on Youtube…

Book Review: The Corn Bride by Mark Stay

Excitement filled the Emporium with the arrival of The Corn Bride by Mark Stay. Quickly followed by the usual scramble and squabble to see who would …

Book Review: The Corn Bride by Mark Stay

A Corn Bride Thank You

Thanks to all those readers who helped make the publication day of The Corn Bride so amazing!🌽👰 And would you be up for a spoiler livestream? Let me know below in the comments…

The Corn Bride is Out Now!

The fifth Witches of Woodville novel is out today! And it’s already getting a great reaction from readers…

“A fantastic read, bringing back friends and foes of the last five books, mixing the usual comedic asides of the residents of Woodville with smatterings of folk horror and nail-biting thrills as Mark Stay takes his characters on their toughest journey yet… I loved every page of it!” Fantasy Book Nerd

“I am absolutely loving this series… puts me in mind of Tiffany Aching joining Dad’s Army, it’s wonderfully old fashioned and is full of warmth and humour. Although it does get dark in places.” Chrys, Goodreads

“I love the mix of humour with horror-tinged folklore elements that gives the story a strangely cosy feel despite, you know, the evil magic-wielding Nazi.” Sam, Goodreads

It’s available in paperback, ebook and audio today and you’ll find links to all the retailers here…

Order the corn bride

And for Kindle readers in the USA and Canada, you can find it here…

CORN BRIDE USA 🇺🇸
CORN BRIDE CANADA 🇨🇦

And if you wanted a signed and dedicated paperback copy, you can get that from me here…

ORDER A SIGNED PAPERBACK

A huge thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered the book and for everyone who has spread the word on social media. It makes all the difference and I hope The Corn Bride lives up to your expectations. I had a wonderful time writing it… Happy Reading!

Editing Tips with Gareth L Powell

This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals how he revises his manuscript as he writes, leading to a stronger first draft…

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TRANSCRIPT

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.

Gareth L Powell on the Biggest Mistake of his Career

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…

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Or watch it on Youtube…

TRANSCRIPT

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.