Tag: writer podcast

A Tip for Finishing First Drafts from Nadine Matheson

This month’s special guest Nadine Matheson shares a great tip for finishing first drafts…

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TRANSCRIPT

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? 

NADINE: Yeah, definitely.

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.

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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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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.

Keeping Notes of Late Night Ideas… with Gareth L Powell

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.

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TRANSCRIPT

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.

Gareth L Powell “Like Easing into a Hot Bath”

This month’s special guest Gareth L Powell reveals how starting a novel is a bit like bath time (without the rubber ducks)…

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TRANSCRIPT

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.