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Episode 101—Creative Writer's Toolbelt Host Andrew Chamberlain Brings the Hammer
142 Plays7 years ago
"You can’t be passive and just sit back and wait for things to happen," says Andrew J. Chamberlain. I’m Brendan O’Meara and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories: leaders in narrative journalism, podcasting, radio, doc film, essay, and memoir and tease out origins, habits, routines, tactics, so you can improve your own work. For Episode 101, I welcome fellow podcaster Andrew Chamberlain. He hosts The Creative Writers Toolbelt, a podcast that gets real granular on the writing process. He has a fiction slant, but his experience interviewing and with ghost writing opened the door for him to come on my show. As an FYI, I went on his show not too long ago, so you should go and check that out. I’ll include it in the show notes. Andy breaks it down for you in this episode. Many of the tools apply to fiction, but if you’re anything like me, you want your nonfiction to read like fiction so I think you’ll get a lot of tasty nuggets from this one. Hey, if you haven’t subscribed, go and do that on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play Music, and soon Spotify, still waiting for approval on Spotify, but it’s coming, I promise. Today’s podcast is brought to you by the 2018 Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference. Now in its 6th year, the CNF Writers’ Conference is three days celebrating the art, craft, and business of writing true stories. May 24th through 26th in downtown Pittsburgh. Details at creative nonfiction.org/conference. Listeners of this podcast receive 20% off the registration price by entering coupon code CNFPODCAST during checkout. Promotional support is provided by Hippocampus Magazine. Its 2018 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction is open for submissions until July 15th! This annual contest has a grand prize of $1,000 and publication for all finalists. That’s awesome. Visit hippocampusmagazine.com for details. Hippocampus Magazine: Memorable Creative Nonfiction. Head over to brendanomeara.com for show notes for this and 100 other episodes. Follow me on Twitter @BrendanOMeara or @CNFPod. The podcast is on Facebook @CNFPodcast. Sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter. It comes out on the first of the month and gives you a sampling of good books and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month. No spam. Can’t beat it.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey CNFers, this is it. Your last chance. Today's podcast is brought to you by the 2018 Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference. Now in its sixth year at the CNF Writers Conference is three days celebrating the art, craft, and business of writing true stories.
00:00:21
Speaker
May 24th through the 26th in downtown Pittsburgh. Details at creativenonfiction.org forward slash conference listeners of this podcast received 20% off the registration price by entering coupon code CNF podcast during checkout all one word.
00:00:46
Speaker
Promotional support is also provided by Hippo Campus Magazine. Hey, hey,
Contest Announcement
00:00:51
Speaker
it's 2018. Remember in November contest for Creative Nonfiction is open for submissions until July 15th. This annual contest has a grand prize of $1,000 in publication for all finalists. That's awesome.
00:01:08
Speaker
visit hippocampusmagazine.com for details. Hippocampus magazine, memorable creative non-fiction. You ready? I'm ready. Let's hit it.
00:01:23
Speaker
Hey,
Host and Guest Introduction
00:01:24
Speaker
I'm Brendan O'Mara, and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I speak to the best artists about telling true stories, leaders in narrative journalism, podcasting, radio, talk film, essay, and memoir, and tease out origins, habits, routines, tactics, etc. So you can approve your own work for episode 101.
00:01:46
Speaker
I welcome fellow podcaster Andrew Chamberlain. He hosts The Creative Writer's Tool Belt, a podcast that gets real granular on the writing process. He has a fiction slant, but his experience interviewing and with ghostwriting open the door for him to come on my show. As an FYI, I went on his show not too long ago, so you should go check that out too. I'll include that in the show.
00:02:12
Speaker
Andy breaks it down for you in this episode. Many of the tools apply to fiction, but if you're anything like me, you want your non-fiction to read like fiction. So I think you'll get a lot of tasty nuggets out of this one.
00:02:27
Speaker
a few haven't subscribed to the creative nonfiction podcast go into that on iTunes Apple podcast Stitcher Google Play Music and soon Spotify still waiting for approval on Spotify, but it's coming I promise I Think that's gonna do it. Thank you very much everyone and thanks to Andy for the time I think you're really gonna dig this here's episode 101 with Andrew Chamberlain
00:02:55
Speaker
How
Interview Dynamics
00:02:56
Speaker
often have you personally been interviewed in this sort of context only once before but it was great fun. I'm looking forward to it. So yeah I've done lots of interviews myself where I have been asking asking the questions but not many where I've been giving the answers.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, same here. It's different because when you're asking the questions, you're kind of in control of the conversation and you don't run into ever getting caught flat-footed or on your heels or something. So it's definitely bizarre.
00:03:31
Speaker
I've always admired people who who give great interviews and as a reporter and all that I've always been in that position of asking it so often wonder what it's like for people who do a lot of interviewing like yourself to then be interviewed like if it's just kind of like this weird vertiginous kind of.
00:03:50
Speaker
disembodied and unbalanced experience. Yeah, I mean, I work on the theory that most people, if you're not being aggressive with them, most people enjoy talking about themselves and enjoy sharing something that's important to them. So and that's, that's the kind of philosophy I take to when I'm interviewing people is I try and think, you know, go to where they are in terms of
00:04:15
Speaker
This is what they're interested in. This is what they're going to get passionate about. This is what they're going to have something useful to say about. And I hope
Interview Challenges and Editing
00:04:21
Speaker
it's usually an enjoyable and rewarding experience for everybody.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's nice when, and I'm sure you've had this experience before, like sometimes, like I had an interview this morning with somebody and it was like, it was probably one of the hardest ones I've had to do because it was kind of like pulling teeth. It was hard. He just wasn't very engaged. It was hard to get a read on when he was tall.
00:04:49
Speaker
When he was thinking and when he was just when he was getting ready to talk, it was kind of awkward and weird. So that'll be interesting to make palatable and in the edit. But the job of editing that down then, haven't you really? I have had ones like that. And it's strange because I think I mean, I think of one interview I had where it wasn't an unpleasant interview, but I just thought, come on, man, you could you know, this is I'm giving you a bit of platform here. Right. Say stuff and get engaged and get involved with it and step up.
00:05:19
Speaker
And obviously you can't say that, well maybe you guys in America could, I don't know, but you couldn't just say to somebody, you know, step up to the plate and tell me something. Exactly. It doesn't really work like that. No, no, it doesn't. You just have to hope that through experience that the person on the other side comes to play ball as like a radio producer I know, he's the best interviewer I know, and he's just this,
00:05:45
Speaker
a wonderful person, great, like he's a great interviewer and he's just like some people, he's like the great, the best interviews are the ones where the other person, they know what they're in for and they come to have fun and have a great calm response. And to have, just to be lucky to have those kind of conversations. And yeah, this morning it was tough. So we'll see. This is why I kind of make a bit of a fuss about going over questions with people.
00:06:13
Speaker
beforehand as well. I always try and say, you know, what these are we're going to talk about? Do you want to add to it? Or if there's something that I think somebody has said, or they're particularly interested in, it doesn't matter what it is to a certain extent, if it's something that's going to kind of light their touch paper, then I'll talk about that as well. Because at least I know they'll kind of get, they'll sit up at that point and start talking.
00:06:33
Speaker
So yeah, but there's probably an art to interviewing and to being interviewed. For sure, for sure. Yeah. How do you ration your energy? Are you a night person so you're able to do your day work and then have the energy and the enthusiasm to do this kind of thing? How do you go about that?
00:06:54
Speaker
To an extent, I do ration my energy. And I find the afternoons are the time when I have the least energy. And the morning and the evening, I've got a little bit more energy then. But for me, trying to do a very engaging interview or trying to do something which requires a lot of energy and input in the afternoon would be more difficult. I mean, I'd like to think I'd still kind of be able to pull it off and put some energy into it. But that would be more of a challenge. To be honest with you,
00:07:23
Speaker
When I start talking about writing, if I get into a conversation with somebody about writing, usually that's got its own energy for me. Um, and, um, you know, it's, cause it's something I'm interested in and it's something I'm passionate about. And it's something I want to talk to other people about other people who are engaged with the subject. So I think my style, when I'm, when I'm being interviewed as well as a mixture of, I'm going to try and put energy into it. But what I, what I don't want to do, what I think there's some, sometimes you could be talking something again, you might've found this and.
00:07:51
Speaker
They've answered the question, but they're actually they've spent seven, eight, nine minutes answering the question and you hoped they'd be able to answer it in one minute or two minutes and they're just chatting on and you want them to stop so you can move on. Right.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, that can be tough, especially when you have maybe just 60 minutes with a person and then you have someone who is like a really trained or a very good speaker, a trained speaker who can just go on and on and then you want to be able to ask 20 questions and then when time's up you might have only been able to ask like 5 or 10.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah and your left just like oh shoot like there's so much you really wanted to get to like some of that good tactical stuff that you're able to get to on your podcast and I guess some of it comes down to just having enough
00:08:44
Speaker
not backbone per se, but like you're the interviewer, grab hold of the interview. Yes. And take hold of the reins. Like that's okay. Yeah. I guess. Yeah. I mean, I would say to you for our conversation, if you want to stop me because you want to move on, just do that because it's fine. And even if you stop me quite abruptly, you can edit it out. So it sounds like we're all still lovely and chums. So it's fine. Exactly.
00:09:14
Speaker
You know, this stuff I want to say, but this is your show. This is your podcast. So, you know, you could you can call the shots. I'm good with that. Of course, of course.
Andrew Chamberlain's Writing Journey
00:09:23
Speaker
So I'd love to dive into your background a bit and what drew you to to writing and how it has folded into your life as a hobby and vocation and where you've actually taken up a big platform with the creative writers tool belt podcast and the book.
00:09:42
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, how you folded that into your life and where that came from. So how did you get involved with that? So, uh, well, there's probably two or three questions in there, so I can give you two or three answers. I mean, to start with my, my, me getting into writing is the way that lots of people got into writing and that, you know, I enjoyed reading when I was a kid and I just started writing stuff. I started writing stories. I was interested in stories before I realized that I was interested in stories, if you know what I mean? So I enjoyed whenever we had, um,
00:10:12
Speaker
creative writing at school. I enjoyed that. I loved creating pieces of work. I used to write poetry when I was younger. And then as I got older, I got into, okay, it's story writing is what I want to do. And then I stopped doing that when I got a job, got married and got into kind of being an adult and life was busy and the kids came along and that crowded a lot of the writing out until probably I was in my thirties, I'd say. And then I had an idea for a book and I thought I've got to write this.
00:10:42
Speaker
And maybe there wasn't quite so much pressure on in terms of life. And I just thought, I'm going to write this book. So I did. And I've been writing on and off since then. And then perhaps four or five years ago, my circumstances, professional circumstances changed. So again, I had a bit more time and I thought, I'm going to go back to writing because I love writing. And I also thought, I need to find a podcast that's going to help me with creative fiction writing.
00:11:06
Speaker
And there were one or two bits out there. There was some stuff out there, but there wasn't anything that was really what I wanted. There wasn't anything that could give me what I would call practical, accessible advice. That's like, here's a subject and here are some tips on it. Maybe interviews with experts who know what they're talking about. So about five years ago, I thought it's just not out there.
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm going to have to do it myself. I'm going to have to create this podcast myself. And I thought this is a crazy idea. What am I thinking? But then, but I thought, no, more I thought about it, the more I thought, yeah, I'm going to do this. And so the, the creative writers tool belt was born. It was, it was something that I thought, if I, and I always thought if I can, I'm only going to talk about things. If I believe in them, I'm only going to talk about something. If I understand it and believe it myself.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I'll have to learn and get a grip on it and learn myself and benefit as a writer myself to then present it to other people. And that's been something that I have tried to stick to, certainly in terms of the episodes where I'm just talking myself. And it has to be stuff where I think, yeah, I believe in what I'm saying so I can share it with others. And writing that book kind of in your early thirties, what was the exact kick in the pants that made you want to write it at that point?
00:12:23
Speaker
The idea came to me and it was, there was stories that I'd read. So when I was growing up, I really enjoyed fantasy and I enjoyed science fiction. And I had this idea in my mind for a book that I wanted to write. And it was, I mean, I'm a Christian and I go to church and it was gonna be a kind of Christian thriller. And the plot just came to me.
00:12:48
Speaker
and very quickly I'm going to look back now and I think I would be much more and when I read that material that I wrote then I'm talking about 20 years ago now in some ways it was it was great because it was very free because I just wrote what wrote whatever I liked I didn't really I didn't really worry about sitting there worrying about point of view and all these other stuff that you're supposed to think about I just kind of this stuff will come out and I just thought I'm just going to write this thing and I didn't really
00:13:17
Speaker
I didn't really think too much about it. The only, so the plot came to me, the storyline came to me and I thought, yeah, and this is going to be my main character and I just wrote this thing. And the only thing, probably the biggest lesson I learned writing that book, which is, and this is something that maybe even in nonfiction, this can happen actually.
00:13:36
Speaker
I thought it would be about one particular character. It turned out to be much more about two characters in their lives together. So one of the characters kind of muscled into the story. They emerged as an important figure in the story as I was writing it.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's – I think that happens in nonfiction a lot because you're kind of – there are certain constraints that you have that you can only – especially if you're reporting in real time. You might have a notion of how something will progress. Like when we talked and we talked briefly about the Saratoga book, the horse racing book I had written.
00:14:11
Speaker
I didn't say this at the time, but it was like I had an idea in my head how things were going to play out. Who were the major horses that were going to intersect at the end? And
Fiction vs Nonfiction Writing Processes
00:14:21
Speaker
that did not happen at all. But actually what happened, what actually happened was better than what I had as the ideal scenario. So that evolved as like I was just scribbling and taking notes. So it sounds like a similar process can even happen in fiction too. It's just where
00:14:37
Speaker
where you were guided throughout the process and just being open to the possibility of improvisation. And that's, it sounds like that's really important to be open and not paint yourself into a corner. Definitely, definitely. And I tend to think of it as there is a story there. And it's the best story that you can tell. And I think this again, this straddles fiction and nonfiction. There's the best story you can tell and your job as the writer is to unearth it. The
00:15:06
Speaker
Stephen King, who, you know, he knows something about writing, he talks about a story being like a fossil, a dinosaur fossil, and the and the, the author, the writer comes along, as if they were like an archaeologist, and they will excavate carefully around this fossil and bring it out in as intact a state as possible. And, and I like that analogy, because I tend to think there's there is
00:15:31
Speaker
There is a best way to tell a story, an authentic and most truthful, authentic way to tell the story. And it may not be what we think to start with. And I'm sure that, for example, if you if you if you're into investigative journalism, for example, you the trial may go somewhere you don't expect it to. And it to some extent is like that with fiction as well. The strong characters will emerge and you and
00:15:54
Speaker
you have to let them, I think. Sometimes you have to adapt the story to do that, but let them come out because they're real and they're authentic and they're powerful and they will be attractive to the readers.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think what's particularly poignant about that analogy that you relayed about uncovering the fossil is that it's a painstakingly slow process that doesn't break the skeleton and the fossil. It has to be very meticulous. And you have to be patient and play the long game. So is that something too that you really connect with with that particular analogy?
00:16:34
Speaker
Yes, I think I think so. The characters, it's you have to play the long game and you have to be a bit brave sometimes in the end and a bit persistent in that when if you're writing a story like if somebody comes to me and they say I'm writing the story about character X, but character Y just keeps turning up, then I'll say I'll say the character Y has the
00:16:57
Speaker
The fact that they turn up is a signal to the fact that they have got the core attributes for a character. There are, maybe we can come to this, but there's a couple of really key attributes that a character has to have in a piece of writing. And sometimes you don't even know they've got it. You only know it because they just turn up, they're in your face, they're there. And you have to be brave enough, patient enough to work out what's going on with them and then allow them to come into the story properly.
00:17:27
Speaker
They shouldn't just kind of crash around and break your plot, but they should you should make space for them if you can. So when you were when you were younger and the idea in this notion of becoming a writer, you know, it really was just kind of it sounds like it's just kind of in your DNA. What did a successful writer look like to you early? And maybe how has that idea changed over the last few decades?
Defining Success as a Writer
00:17:54
Speaker
I would say that
00:17:57
Speaker
my early ideas of what a successful writer looked like were the kind of ideas that a lot of people have and this idea persists with a lot of people even as they grow up in the sense that you think I'm going to write this book, it's going to be fantastic, I'm going to send it to an agent or I'm going to send it to a publisher and they're going to publish it and people are going to buy it and it's all going to be lovely and that's it. And the reality is
00:18:26
Speaker
rather different in in so far as yeah you've still got to write the book and you've still got to come up with something that is as absolutely as good as possible as it can possibly be but certainly for independent writers now i'd say and again i think this probably has a resonance with with non-fiction writers you shouldn't think of the book or the article but think of a body of work
00:18:49
Speaker
And it could be a number of books, a number of articles, a number of pieces of intellectual property that become a portfolio for you. And if you talk to the people who are making their money as writers now, and this is independent writers or people that are going in the commercially published route, they've got a range of assets. If you like, they've got a range of intellectual assets that they've created.
00:19:15
Speaker
and that they're putting out there and they don't they don't expect I mean years ago I would have just expected the publisher to do the work for me in a sense but now I would say to writers you have to you have you are your own advocate your own best advocate
00:19:34
Speaker
to give your work a platform to work for the assets that you've got. So it isn't, you can't be passive. I mean, that's one of the lessons I've learned as a writer. You can't be passive and just sit back and wait for something to happen. You've got to present your work, you've got to present yourself, and you've got to communicate with people. To your point of not being passive, I'd ask, how would you characterize the nature of your hustle?
00:20:05
Speaker
would do it differently. I do it differently from other people. I'm hesitating because I'm thinking, Hustle, does that really work for me? Hustle might not work for Brits, of which I am one, and Hustle might not work necessarily for introverts of which I am one as well. However, I think that the spirit behind that is the same for everybody. For me, it's about getting over that initial hesitancy
00:20:32
Speaker
about, but lots of people are quite shy about talking about their work. And it's understandable because as soon as you start talking about your work, you are exposing to the world something that is very, and very personal and very precious to you. And I don't think it matters whether you could have written a 3000 word piece from magazine, you could have written an 80,000 word novel, you could have written whatever, but it's your work. And it's something, as soon as you put it out there, you're saying to the world,
00:21:00
Speaker
here it is, do you think it's worth anything? And the distance between is my work, work worth something and am I worth something is a very narrow gap, especially for new writers, it's very narrow. And it's something that new writers have to all writers really have to have to do in their head, they have to separate out the value of their work from their own personal worth, because otherwise, it will just cheer you up this process. So it for me, it's about
00:21:28
Speaker
getting my work into as good a state as possible and then presenting the value of it to people. So trying to get to the value all the time, trying to get to, here's the critical bit of the work that is valuable to you. This is why in my podcast that I'm always going on about practical accessible advice for writers. There's plenty of advice out there. There's plenty of books that I've looked at, particularly on creative writing. And frankly, it's just waffle.
00:21:57
Speaker
It really is. And the thing in presenting your work to people is to say, here are some stuff. So here are the critical things I think you need to do surrounding getting characters right, getting setting right. Here's the things that are important to think about with description in your narrative. Here's how you use the senses. These are the tips and insights, and it's not dumbing it all down.
00:22:22
Speaker
but it is presenting stuff to people which is valuable and that they can apply it to their own writing.
00:22:29
Speaker
And you've had some experience with ghostwriting and that can be a way to make some income. It can be an enjoyable process unto itself or it can just be a way to pay some bills while you're doing something that might be more personally satisfying. So what experience have you had with ghostwriting? How did you get into that as a way for you to
Inside Ghostwriting with Andrew Chamberlain
00:22:55
Speaker
to still be writing but also to generate some sort of income around it. So how I got into it was the story that I was referring to earlier that I'd written about 20 years ago eventually got picked up by a publisher and they put it out there and then having put that out there sometime after that they came back to me and they said look we're also trying to publish this biography of somebody and
00:23:22
Speaker
it's half done. We've had some problems with the person who's working on it. They can't finish it. Can you finish it off for us? So I said, Yeah, okay, I can I can do that. And I went to visit this guy, who was the subject of the book, and we had a conversation and I interviewed him. And I tied it and tied the book up and they published it. And I thought that's fine. And then they came back to me again and said, we we've got some people that we want you to write
00:23:48
Speaker
um, you know, we want you to write their stories. And this was a Christian publisher. And they, one of the things they did was they, they would do, um, bad lads who had cleaned up their act. Um, and they wanted, they wanted, um, a ghost writer, a male ghost writer to work with these people to get their story and, and to present it. And so I worked with two or three guys, um,
00:24:14
Speaker
who really, you know, their backgrounds were pretty shady. They'd done some stuff. And so the story was there. There was some interesting things in the story and I worked out with them what for me is the right process for doing this. And some of the lessons, I mean, you don't have to, you know, you don't have to work with people that have been in prison or have done really bad things to take the principles
00:24:39
Speaker
from this and actually carry it out into practice in doing all kinds of projects like this. So how did you approach getting their story down and then distilling it in a voice that sounds like them? That seems like a challenge unto itself. So what was your process around that? Well, I'm glad you mentioned voice because yes, it is a challenge, but it's really important
00:25:04
Speaker
actually that the ghost writer is kind of invisible, that you retain and present the voice of the people so that the guys that I worked with, their voice is not like my voice. So I tried to get that and really, there's a lot of overlap between this and a lot of and a lot of the other disciplines in non non nonfiction, creative writing in the
00:25:27
Speaker
I recording recording interviews was really important to me. One of the one of the tricks that I would do with with these guys is I'd get a long piece of paper, really almost like a piece of wallpaper, perhaps just a long piece of it. And we draw a long line line on it. And that would be their timeline. And then we'd put post it notes on it, significant people in their lives at different points, significant events,
00:25:54
Speaker
good and bad stuff that happened, places they might have lived, things that are strong memories for them. And we would dot these post-it notes all the way along this timeline. And then we would, I'd need to decide. I mean, I suppose going through the process itself, I would always start with what is the purpose of this book? So if you're a ghostwriter, you might be writing as a commercial contract for a publisher. They've come to you and say, you know, here's this great,
00:26:22
Speaker
uh, football player, we need you to raise his story. So it's a commercial contract and you do it. Uh, maybe it's, you know, your granny is getting on in years and you want to tell her story and she wants to tell her story as well for the family before she goes. So that's, so the family, other, other customers there, it's a very different thing. Um, so you have to get that right to start with why you're writing this thing. And, and then you have to think about things like, are you going to present it thematically or chronologically this story?
00:26:50
Speaker
And then you can get into getting your recording equipment out, getting post-it notes, writing stuff down, collecting all that information. And the other thing, well, I guess there's two other things I would mention. With everybody that I have worked with, I've always made a point of saying there is a cost to this. There's an intellectual cost in the sense that when you sit down with somebody to talk about their life,
00:27:18
Speaker
To make the thing interesting, you have to get into the detail. So you're going to be asking them again and again and again for the very specific details, and particularly for people who are older. If you're talking about events from 40, 50, 60, 70 years ago, it's hard for them to remember. So they've got to think hard. And the other thing which was particularly relevant with the guys that I was talking to is you're going to unearth some difficult subjects.
00:27:42
Speaker
right. You could do it even if you're even in families, you know, you could go and maybe you're telling great aunt Nellie's story. And there's a whole bunch of stuff that she's not sure she wants to talk about. Or when you talk to her, it brings up memories and so on. So, I mean, even these the guys that I was working with, and these are hard guys, and I'd say to them,
00:28:02
Speaker
stuff's going to come up when we do this. I mean, I'm not a counselor. I'm not, I'm not your therapist or anything, but stuff is going to come up. And, you know, they, one particular, he'd say, no, I'm all right. I'm hard. But it, but it gets them, you know, because, because, and that's the art of the ghost writers. You really want to get that stuff out. Even if it doesn't go into the book, you've got to get the material because that's the material that makes the story compelling.
00:28:26
Speaker
Right, and I suspect that, especially if you're doing broad family histories too, as important it is as getting the details right, just as important as getting a lot of details is ultimately what you have to leave out of the story. And that's true of fiction and nonfiction.
00:28:43
Speaker
How is when you're maybe going back and forth with someone you're ghostwriting for, do you have those kind of conversations about like, well, this this detail is particularly good and this is you might like this, but it just doesn't move the story forward. Like what kind of dialogue do you have around what comes in and what stays in and what stays out or goes out? So so both of those both of those conversations that you're alluding to there, you have to have and both of them can be difficult stories. So
00:29:12
Speaker
There were occasions where the people I was working with they would tell me a story and I'm thinking This is good stuff you know the one guy I spoke to he used to be a triad he was a triad gangster and His speciality was he'd get his ice. He had an ice pick and he'd run around London chasing people with his ice pick and that was and there were people that he did that with you know, and I
00:29:41
Speaker
And so when you hear that, I mean, and I think a lot of people in nonfiction, you know, investigative reporting or anything like that, you think, OK, I want to give me the details. So then you have to decide how much detail to put in. Are you going to actually incriminate anyone if you put in these details? Are you going to? Is there a question about any unresolved cases in law? I mean, this this happened to be a bit of an issue with the guys I was talking to.
00:30:11
Speaker
but if you were talking to somebody and he says, oh yeah, I remember when Bob and I, you know, we turned over the bank 20 years ago and he says, which branch and when? Now, if that has never come to trial, that's an admission of, that's an admission of a crime. So I'm not saying these things should not be, I'm not saying that justice should not be served, but it's worth saying to the subject, these are the things that will come up. There are plenty of occasions where we change names
00:30:41
Speaker
change locations, in one case, in one instance, change the gender of somebody to try to protect them or try to keep a degree of anonymity in what we were talking about. But these things, I mean, even on a small scale, even in the family, you could have a family situation where, you know, one part of the family hasn't talked to the other part of the family for 30 years, and most people don't know why, but the person you're talking to does know why. And suddenly you bring all that out again, and that could be a bit of a big deal. So
00:31:11
Speaker
It's a conversation, certainly if it's just with a family project, I would tend to go with whatever the subject wants. If you're commissioned by a publisher, they want the stuff, they want the good story, so it's a little bit more tricky and you try to put as much as possible in, but really you can only put in what the subject themselves is happy with.
00:31:33
Speaker
So how do you go about the research and then translating that research into the narrative blocks that are going to get people to turn the page? So I think that to start with, with the research, it's a conversation with the subject. Yep. And it's a conversation around, um, so what just to say to them what happened and they tell you the story, the first pass through the story. And that would be at a fairly,
00:32:02
Speaker
light level. It's broad brush to normally when people are telling stories, particularly from a long time ago, that it's a little bit disjointed, you won't get all the details, it's fairly generalized. And then you have to go back over it again. And, and ask questions like where did where did that happen? Exactly. And exactly when did it happen? And who was there? And what did they look like? And what was what was the car like? And what was the house like and all of this sort of stuff. And certainly when people tell stories, sometimes they just, they just
00:32:31
Speaker
put in these little throwaway comments and you have to focus on those and then bring some of that detail out. And that's where it's hard work for the subject because you're asking them to think about details from sometimes a long time ago and they have to think hard and work hard to remember. And then for me, this works in biography and ghostwriting and a whole range of other things. What makes the narrative interesting and exciting is what I call the sparse and specific detail.
00:33:01
Speaker
So you don't have to put a lot of detail in, but what you do put in has to be really pinpoint, really clear, very sensory stuff. So things which are very colorful, references to what people can hear, what people can smell even or touch or taste, these all bring a narrative alive. So trying to get those very particular details out. And that can sometimes mean in an interesting story, you've got to go through it four or five times with someone
00:33:31
Speaker
to actually get all that out. Conversely, there'll be other times where somebody thinks they've got a great story that they want to tell you and they tell you and you just think that's not very interesting. So really sorry, mate. You know, that's great. But, you know, we did that's going to be two sentences and we're done. And sometimes that needs to be attacked to say that someone
00:33:49
Speaker
So what do you struggle with when it comes to maybe the writing or the rewriting or just the craft in general? What are some things that you really have to work at? If we're talking about the craft in general, there's a couple of things I would mention. I think one is that even though I am a purveyor of advice,
00:34:13
Speaker
I recognize and a lot of writers recognize that you can almost have too much advice when you're writing, but in the end, you have to just let it go and write something. I think there can be a danger, and I feel this, where I know that I can't hold in my head all of the bits of advice, however good they are, that I've received on creative writing when I'm actually writing something. I just need to write it.
00:34:42
Speaker
Um, and that's, and that's why, in fact, that's why I called the podcast, the creative writers tool belt. And some people think, oh, maybe it's creative writers toolbox or something. And that sounds like a, that sounds like a very fine distinction, but it's very specifically a tool belt, because if you're wearing a tool belt, the concept is you can reach for a tool and all those tools are the tools that a writer needs. And you can reach for it and use it and put it back without thinking.
00:35:08
Speaker
And that's where we want to get to as writers. We want to be able to use all of the abilities and practical skills that we have almost without thinking about it. Because if we have to think about it, we have to come away from the story. But we want to focus on the story and get on with it. What I do struggle with to answer that part of your question, the thing actually is recently that I've been thinking a lot about and dealing with is point of view. So
00:35:34
Speaker
with point of view, you've got a number, you've got a choice with the story you're telling and you have to make that choice up front. So it could be first person point of view that you and that you take that approach. It could be third person limited or third person omniscient point of view. So you could, and by that I mean, I mean, so you could write the story directly from the person's point of view. You could say, I did this, I did that. I thought this, I went there. So you've written in first person. And there's pros and cons to that. Or you can say, he did this or she did that.
00:36:03
Speaker
Um, and even then you can write it as if you're, you're focusing just on one character, but you're saying you're referring to them as he or she, or you can take a more broad. Kind of like, like if you've read Tolkien or if you've read Dickens or some of that stuff where you kind of hover, you know, in a kind of omniscient way over the whole story. And you have to decide pretty much at the start, which of those are going to choose. And once you've made that decision, there are certain conventions that you have to stick with. And that I find difficult.
00:36:33
Speaker
Because I think a lot of writers find point of view difficult.
00:36:52
Speaker
Yes, sadly, yes. I'm, well, there's a project I'm working on now. I can, I can, I've told other people, I would confess this to all your listeners. There's a project I'm working on now and I'm a fiction novel and I, I like the premise of the story and I've got some of the characters sorted out, but I spent ages thinking I was going to do this first person point of view. There was one character, that was my main character. That's my protagonist. I'm going to work with this character.
00:37:21
Speaker
I'm going to be saying things like, I, as the character, I did this, I thought this, I saw that, whatever. And, and after months, a lot of months, I'm thinking, I can't do that. I need, I need to do it third person. I need to change the whole thing. So now I've got a first draft and I'm going to have to adjust the point of view. Because it just, but it won't, it doesn't tell the story as it should be told.
00:37:47
Speaker
in its current form. And that's, you know, I'm not looking forward to that. That's a killer because that's not like, Oh, I'm changing the guy's name or something. That's, you've got to kind of really get the bonnet up and change everything with that. But this comes back to something, something else I kind of bang on about in my podcast, which I think is really important. I've mentioned briefly and that's being authentic. So the, the true story, and I don't mean literally factually true, but the authentic story, the story that is the story that should be told,
00:38:16
Speaker
and told the way it should be told, that's what you're aiming for. And really, if you want to set yourself a high standard, then you've got to say nothing else will do but getting that authentic story right. And that means getting point of view right and a whole bunch of other things as well. What would you identify as a particular strength you have and conversely a weakness? If I'm talking about just in terms of my writing abilities,
00:38:47
Speaker
I think I can, I think I'm quite good at observing and presenting certain specifics which can make a scene. Because I think I understand, I think I quite imagine, I think I understand. So I referred to this sparse and specific detail thing earlier. Now I think I can do that.
00:39:08
Speaker
And in a way, actually, maybe I can do it because I think it's one of those areas of writing where if you understand the technique required, it's perfectly possible to do it. With a bit of practice, it's perfectly possible to do it. Writing is a very practical skill, so practice is really important. So that's one thing I think I'm good at. What I'm not so good at, there's probably a whole bunch of things to be frank with you, but
00:39:39
Speaker
trying to use the right metaphor sometimes, trying to get analogies that work. I really struggle with that. I suspect I probably struggle with point of view having said what I just said just now as well. So those two things I really do struggle with.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, there's kind of a sequential nature to this question because a conversation I had with a great baseball coach, he, instead of like leveling up weaknesses to your strengths, he's of the mindset of like, you identify what you're sort of uniquely strong at, and you just kind of double down on that and just get real, real good at what you're good at. And because he argues that bringing up the weaknesses too much will make you kind of average.
00:40:25
Speaker
and everything, which is to say you can't completely mitigate weaknesses. Like if you're particularly say you constantly use passive voice and that's a weakness, you can say like, all right, I'm going to work on more active voice and blah, blah, blah. But you know, that's a real technical grammar thing, which is a weakness everyone should try to eliminate.
00:40:43
Speaker
But I wonder what you think about that, if that's something that you identify what you're really strong at and you should particularly maybe double down on it to differentiate yourself in such a way by leaning into your strengths. I think I'm half in agreement with that.
00:41:07
Speaker
Um, I'm just thinking about, so, so the guy that you've mentioned is it was a baseball coach was here. I think what you said. Yeah. Um, so, um, speaking as a Brit, I'm not very familiar with baseball, but I'm, I'm thinking that you could probably have, um, within, within the baseball team, you can have people with different strengths. Um, so, you know, your, your, your picture needs to have a certain collection of skills. Um, and.
00:41:35
Speaker
It may well be that with baseball, you can you can focus in on a very particular skill. And if you get really, really good at that, it doesn't matter so much where you're at with other things. You know, I think this is where I'd agree with with with what this guy has said. I think that that in anything in life you have to you can't try it. You can't be
00:41:55
Speaker
brilliant everything and what what pays the money what what attracts customers what gives you platform is not being moderately good at lots of things it's being really really good at one particular thing that's you know that it's a it's a big world there's lots of people in it get good at something get really good at it and that is what
00:42:17
Speaker
will gain you some success. Yeah, that's exactly right. He was referencing David Ortiz, a big power hitter in Major League Baseball. He was very good. He was a power hitter, hit home runs, made his millions doing that. Probably more in term with what's more popular in Europe, football, soccer, as we call it over here.
00:42:38
Speaker
You know, David Beckham, he was particularly good at set pieces and just, you know, drilling shots off set pieces, scoring in that sense. Like that's where he made his money. So it's like, yeah, you kind of, it's not that you ignore weaknesses, but you find out what you're really good at and you're like, okay, this is what's going to set me apart. And I think that's probably where I'm at. And I think that with writing, there's a collection of skills.
00:43:05
Speaker
It's slightly broader. I think you have to, you have to bring all of your skills up to a certain level with writing. Um, so if you really cannot, I'm just trying to think, I mean, even with punctuation, you know, if you're brilliant, maybe they'll find you an editor to kind of sort you out. But if, if you're, if your prose always sounds really dull and you just don't care, it doesn't matter how good you are at some of the other things, that's going to be a problem. So you do have to, you do have to bring everything up to a certain standard.
00:43:33
Speaker
That's, that's probably where I'd, I mean, maybe this guy would agree with that. I don't know, but that's, that would be my, my caution on this. So everything's got to reach a certain standard and then things that you're really good at and with writing, it would be, so what do you, like I'd be saying to a writer, what do you really love writing? So there's people who they write, they write fiction because they think everybody should write fiction. Um, whereas actually what they really want to do is write, uh,
00:44:02
Speaker
they want to work on documentaries or they want to they want to tell people stories. So you do get this where people they write what they think they're supposed to should be writing and it's nonsense what they should write is what's in their heart what they've got a passion for and focus on that and so that's if you can if you can find something that you really care about in terms of the kind of fiction or the kind of non-fiction then go for it just just don't worry about anybody else just do that so there's there's that
00:44:29
Speaker
There's that kind of, you know, that's how you kind of sharpen the point. That's how you kind of really can excel at something. And something I really liked about while reading, uh, the, the book, the creative writers tool belt that you, that you've put together too, is this, this point of like clarity, brevity and precision. Oh yeah. And I love that so much. I wonder if you can talk about that and kind of elucidate what those, the three sides of that triangle are and, and how you can apply it. Certainly writing and.
00:45:00
Speaker
Let's say writing. Writing is like water. There's a lot of water in the world. Some of it is clean and pure and really useful. A lot of it is muddy and useless. Water has to be purified to be made really useful. To a certain extent, it's the same thing with writing. To take those three things that you said, clarity, brevity, and precision.
00:45:29
Speaker
So clarity is you know what you're going to say, you know what you want to say. If you don't know what you want to say, you won't say it. You won't say it. And the more you know what you want to say, and this applies to fiction and nonfiction and across all kinds of disciplines, the more you know what you want to say, the better you will say it because it's in your head and you should be able to
00:45:49
Speaker
Like if you're writing, you're writing 1500 words, you're commissioned to write 1500 words on something, I think you should be able to in 1015 words, give the picture and what that is to anybody. Um, and that, that means you know what you're writing about and you're clear. So that's the clarity bit. Uh, the brevity is not summarizing, but it's saying only what you need to say.
00:46:12
Speaker
So if you're focusing on, let's keep it with a nonfiction example. Your task is to write something about a particular event that's occurred, a sporting event, let's say. Don't write about some other sporting event that happened the same weekend or the one that happened with that team the weekend before. Just say only what you need to say. And that does mean editing sometimes. I mean, coming back again and again to your writing,
00:46:43
Speaker
You know, writing that is a pleasure to read is invariably hard work to create. And that part of that hard work is to be brief and have brevity, but not summarizing. It's not summarizing its brevity. I apologize for my dog. We're a pro-dog podcast here. Okay.
00:47:08
Speaker
So that's brevity. So clarity, if you like, is know what you want to say. Brevity is only saying what you want to say. And then precision is about using the right words. So there are subtle distinctions between these three things. And again, precision is about getting to the truths of what you want to say. Precision is about using... Don't use the word that just gives 80% of the meaning of what you're trying to say. Give the word that gives 95 or 100% of the meaning.
00:47:38
Speaker
So those three words are linked, clarity, brevity, and precision. And although they represent hard work, they all point towards the same thing. They all point towards creating the very best story and the very best piece of work that you can. And with that in hand, how do you get the setting right with respect to the story you're trying to tell?
00:48:07
Speaker
There's
Crafting Credible Settings in Storytelling
00:48:08
Speaker
probably lots of answers to that, actually. But again, if people who look in my book will see that there are two elements, I think, to getting setting right, and that is that it has to be credible and it has to be immersive. And both of those two dimensions have to be present in a setting. So credible in the sense that it's factually correct or it's
00:48:37
Speaker
It's consistent, internally consistent. Even if you're creating a fantasy world, what you create has to be internally consistent. And certainly with nonfiction, being factually correct is critical. So there's that side of it. But there's also being immersive. So perhaps this is more for fiction, or that probably applies to nonfiction as well. You need to create a setting in which the reader can be immersed, in which they can really become involved.
00:49:06
Speaker
And so it's not so thin. I tend to think of setting as like different kinds of chairs. If you can imagine all the kinds of chairs and sofas and couches and stuff in the world, a setting which is credible, but not immersive is like a sturdy, hard chair. So you can sit on it. It's credible as a chair. You're not going to fall through the damn thing, but you're going to get uncomfortable after a while. It's not very immersive.
00:49:34
Speaker
It's like, you know, they're kind of sitting on a really hard pew in church or sitting on just a wooden chair. You're going to start fidgeting up for a while. Conversely, a setting which is immersive but not credible is like some big saggy couch, which if you sit in, you're wondering whether you're going to end up, you know, falling through the thing because it's so just beaten up or whatever. So setting has to have both of those qualities. It has to have enough sturdiness
00:50:02
Speaker
to have credibility, but it has to have enough comfort to immerse the reader as well.
00:50:09
Speaker
And something that struck me particularly strongly about your book was how prescriptive and structured things are. And I want to ask, opposed to you thinking, how structured in terms of some of the rules, if you adhere to these rules, essentially, you will be able to. It's kind of like an equation.
00:50:34
Speaker
How can someone still maintain a degree of firm structure but also leave room to be artful? This probably harks back to what I said earlier around. Here's the challenge. When you come to create a piece of art, when you come to do some writing, you don't want to be thinking about the rules.
00:51:00
Speaker
Um, so the two things I say to writers and, and, um, I say this at the beginning of the book, if there's anything in the book, which, or anything that people hear me say in my podcast or anything like that, and it just doesn't work for them. That piece of that rule doesn't work for them. That guidance doesn't, you know, that, that kind of advice just doesn't seem to click. Forget it. Just, just don't worry about it. The, the guidance is there for the writer. The writer isn't there for the guidance. You know, it's not a test. It's not.
00:51:30
Speaker
Um, this is not a, this is not an, a cerebral or abstract thing. It's, it's practical. So if it doesn't work for you, don't worry about it. That's the first thing. The other thing is, um, it's a, as I said earlier, it's a tool belt. It's not a toolbox. So when you're, when you're doing a construction project, uh, if you're making something, you want the tools to hand, you don't even want to think about picking them up. You want to focus on the project itself. So, so.
00:52:01
Speaker
And the way to get to that point, I believe, is through practice. So if you're writing a piece of descriptive prose, I would argue that you have to get to the point as a writer where you just know that you want to have a little bit of sensory description in there to try and draw the reader in. You know that. You know you need to be specific about things. You don't have to think, oh, I've got to write about senses. You don't consciously think that. It's just there.
00:52:30
Speaker
It's like anything is that, um, the greatest picture in the world. Doesn't think about the dynamic. It doesn't think in a sense about the technique of pitching. I would guess they pitch because they they've learned, they've done it. They've done it a thousand times, thousands of times, and they, they, it's just there. It's just instinctively there. And I think the best advice for us all as writers. Um, and I'd broaden that out into interviewing techniques, researching,
00:53:00
Speaker
All of the essential practical skills for non-fiction with practice, they're just there.
00:53:09
Speaker
And I want to come back to something you said earlier about the core attributes of character. And I love that a lot, whether you're making up a character or you're trying to find compelling characters to tell a true story. What are some of, what are those attributes that, that just be, you know, readers really hook into? So it,
00:53:33
Speaker
Any, anybody who looks in my book or listens to the podcast when I talk about this, um, two plus four model, and it's probably best to focus on the two, but the two are the two core aspects of character. One of them is the character has to have a goal. They have to have a purpose. Um, there's a, there's a lady who she, she used to be a commissioning editor. She now runs writing groups. She's called Jean Covellos. So she runs, uh, one of the foremost,
00:54:01
Speaker
fantasy and science fiction workshops in the world. And when I interviewed her early on in the podcast and I had said to her, so what's the, what is the thing that people really need to remember with character? And she said, give your character a goal. They must have a goal. Um, and that's, that is, that's a critical. So that's the first thing. If you, there are lots of stories that people write and people wonder why their stories aren't working and it's because the characters, the main characters don't have anything to do. They're just sitting around.
00:54:30
Speaker
they haven't got something that they're passionate about. So first thing is give your character a goal. And the second thing, and this is hard, this is actually difficult, is to give the character an essence, a core. And this is something that I, it's a difficult, it's a more difficult concept. But if you think about the characters who are, if you think about people that you know well, or characters who are really successful characters, I mean,
00:54:59
Speaker
think somebody like James Bond or Mary Poppins. I'm trying to think of if you think about that some of that, like maybe some of the if you if you've watched house, the doctor in that. So these people, if you think about the very best characters, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf. So these characters, these are these are fine, fine characters. And one of the reasons why they are so good is because
00:55:30
Speaker
When we think about them, we don't just think about the physical aspects of them, or one individual aspect, we understand them as a whole. And that, if you like, is the kind of holy grail of getting a reader to identify with a character is to think of them as a whole, think of them as a believable, authentic person. If you can get your reader to that point, and again, I think this would apply to nonfiction,
00:55:58
Speaker
Um, when you're, if you're, if let's say you're doing a nonfiction piece about just, you know, he's an interesting character. If you were doing a kind of, probably actually is a good, a good exponent of this would be Ira Glass with this American life, the way he presents a scene and presents a character. And you know who those people are very quickly.
00:56:18
Speaker
So it's difficult, but that's what you're aiming for. So if you can create a character so that people understand their essence, who they actually are, and your reader understands what their goal or their purpose is, then really you've nailed most of what a character needs. Yeah, it's the show versus tell thing. Yes. You can really get to the essence of that character by showing them in action, not saying they're brave, but show them running into the fire. Absolutely. Yeah. And why did they do it?
00:56:47
Speaker
So if your reader knows why, they know why. And it could be very simple. The house is on fire. The guy ran into the house because his son was in there. His wife was in there. Or the house was on fire, and she ran into the house because her child was in there. That's very simple. But at that point, we all get it. We're all on board. We understand.
00:57:16
Speaker
If we can understand why somebody is passionate about something, then we're with them. We're on board with them. And these things all work together. We then understand more about them as characters. We start to care.
00:57:32
Speaker
Yeah. And, and earlier, I loved what you said about practice and building, building that into your day. And I wonder what your practice on either a daily or a weekly basis looks like. So you're kind of honing, always honing your skills and getting better and better. Um, so I am, uh, I am not, uh, the, uh, great shining example of practice, I would say, um,
00:58:01
Speaker
I am lazy and you know, anybody kind of grading me would probably send me to the principal or something. I know this stuff and I do it as well as I can. But I find because it's hard work, because achieving these things and doing them really well and all the things, I mean, I'm struck by the fact that all the things I've been saying
00:58:27
Speaker
sound like hard work and they and they are they are let's be honest they're doing a really good job on a piece of you know a writing project is hard work um but i try i try and build some time in um early in the morning earlier in the morning i mean i don't i don't i don't do it like you do it uh but i try and i try and have a little bit of time
00:58:51
Speaker
so that I can, when I'm working on a project, like this, I'm working on an aspect of this novel that I mentioned earlier at the moment, and I'm trying to do a little bit of it, even a tiny bit every day, because I do think that once you build up that momentum, once you build up that good habit, then that can really work well for you. So I would say to people, it doesn't matter what you specifically do, but create a habit out of it, get some momentum into it so that actually
00:59:22
Speaker
you it carries you along and and yeah it will be hard and there will be times when you think oh i've got to go and do this thing but actually go and do it do you have a way of checking in with yourself in the morning whether that's journaling or meditating i do yes so probably to a certain extent separate from my um separate from my writing i spend time uh in prayer and reflection and meditating
00:59:52
Speaker
15, 20 minutes. That's something I do. My report card would look better for that probably than writing. That is something that I do do because I find it helpful. I think it is almost aside from writing, I would encourage everybody to step back. Life is insanely busy. There is so much that goes on. There is so much information that's bombarding us, news, social media, as well as never mind the demands of day-to-day life.
01:00:21
Speaker
that it is actually incredibly helpful and incredibly useful for anyone, whatever their circumstances, if they possibly can, to step back and have some time, usually in the morning, doesn't have to be, it could be an evening, and just have a kind of period of reflection. It doesn't have to be a religious exercise. It can be just a time to reflect on, okay, how is today gone? What's been the important things of today? What's gone well? What's not gone well? How can I reflect on that?
01:00:52
Speaker
And what is your, your endurance when it comes to writing? Like how much can you, when time allows, how, how much can you, what's your output like? How long can you sit there and generate? If I had the luxury of time and you know, the, the muse has struck, let's say, and I'm really on it, I could probably do about three or four hours, let's say four hours.
01:01:19
Speaker
and like just solid work. After that, I need to go and do something. I need to go and lie down, metaphorically speaking. I need to get a drink. I need to watch something on the telly. I need to do something that he's not writing. So, and probably that would be it for the day for me.
01:01:39
Speaker
And what are some other activities or even other inputs, whether that be documentary film or movies or anything like that, that is a way that you use to unplug from writing, but still in some ways helps inform that storytelling itch. So I would, I would encourage people to do some exercise. So although it isn't writing, get off your butt and go for a walk or something.
01:02:09
Speaker
Um, is especially, you know, perhaps if you've done that, if you've done a fairly long stint, um, doesn't have to be a walk at some kind of exercise. I, I, I, I believe that in this theory that basically, you know, as, as human beings, we are created to do some thinking, do some exercise, have a rest, eat something, you know, go out to play, whatever. And so we need to do all of those things and writing can be by, by its nature.
01:02:39
Speaker
quite a sedentary thing. It can involve a lot of sitting around on our own, not moving very much. And even just taking some exercise to go to work or taking just taking, you know, if you've got a dog, take it for a walk, whatever, whatever it is, a little bit of that can actually is good for you. And it can actually help in terms of
01:02:59
Speaker
the writing process because I think your brain is kind of ticking over with with the stuff that you're working on, even when you're not thinking about it consciously. What are a few books that you find yourself rereading over and over again are very influential books and specifically ones that you like to maybe pick up every year or every couple of years. So there is there are some fiction books that I go back to.
01:03:28
Speaker
because I think I just enjoy them. So science fiction is my genre of choice. So Iain M. Banks, I think, is a superb writer. Some of his work I've read several times over. And in terms of books on the craft, there's Stephen King's On Writing, which I think is very good.
01:03:56
Speaker
And that's the book from which I got this idea of the story is a fossil that you dig out. And I agree with him on that. There's also a guy called Solstein, and I'm trying to think of the title of that book. So there are some great books around on the craft, but this is one that I think is perhaps not so well known. It's called Solutions for Writers, Practical Craft Techniques for Fiction and Nonfiction by Solstein.
01:04:26
Speaker
He's just got some great practical tips in here. So this guy, he's probably an old guy now. He's been an editor for like forever. And he's got some great tips on showing not telling. He talks about the secrets of good dialogue and how dialogue works. And I find that very compelling and very practical. How to use all of your six senses.
01:04:53
Speaker
I've borrowed from from some of his ideas for my kind of sensory, sensory description, stuff that I talk about. And it's just, it's very practical. So I'd go back to that book again and again as well, for some of the things and the, for me, I just, the practical stuff that I like, as I said, tools that you can put in your tool belt, and you can just reach for them and use them. And if you practice enough, you don't need to think about them, they're just there.
01:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, those are particular. I kind of love the tool belt analogy, too, because it's portable. You can go up and down the ladder. That's the point. That's exactly the point. Yeah. And with respect to, say, the courage to step out on a limb, you felt that there was a void in the podcastosphere that you wanted to fill. You saw something there that, well,
01:05:53
Speaker
avoid that you could fill. And some people see that, but they don't have the courage to do it. So I wonder, how did you just work up the courage to be able to set up a microphone and buy your hosting and get the thing done? Because that's a step a lot of people can't get over. Yeah. And I think back to it.
01:06:17
Speaker
What was I thinking? What craziness is this? But I think I, even back then, I believed that there were some techniques that I wanted to learn, which would help me in my writing and which if I learned them and they were good for me as a writer, they'd be good for everybody.
01:06:41
Speaker
Um, so another aspect of what I enjoyed, I mean, I enjoy writing, but I enjoyed talking about writing and I enjoy supporting other writers. I really do enjoy that. So I think that, I think that, that, that was part of the impetus for actually doing, you know, doing, doing the thing, doing, getting the podcast going. And I also knew that I wanted to have people come onto the podcast, uh, writers, you know, professional writers, editors, agents.
01:07:07
Speaker
and get them to talk. So at least I could say, well, it wasn't just me and this guy, this person said it and they're in the, you know, they're in the business. So you, so, you know, you can take up your argument with them if you want to. So I've always had, um, a strong tradition, if you like, with the podcast of getting a lot of guests on and trying to find people who I think in some sense are, are in line with my thinking about the need for to be practical with this stuff, but also they really, you know, they know their stuff.
01:07:36
Speaker
they actually can say something useful. In reality, setting up a podcast, cost-wise and technically, it's not that hard. You buy yourself a decent microphone, the rest of it is the computer that you've already got and you need to buy some host space, but it's not rocket science, as they say.
01:08:04
Speaker
And I thought, yeah, well, I'll give it a, I, I thought I'll give it a go. You know, I'll do like two or three of these, these episodes. And if it doesn't, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's fine. But if, if people listen, start listening to it or, you know, it's, it's, it's getting some traction, then great. I'll carry on. At what point did you, did it catch enough traction where you felt comfortable to, to keep on doing it? Um, probably straight away or almost straight away. Uh, I'd say.
01:08:35
Speaker
you know, within two or three episodes, I thought, Yeah, actually, I quite enjoy doing this. Even though it's hard work, I quite enjoy doing it. And it seems that some people are downloading the thing. So I'm going to carry on. And, and there was a point where I thought, so, so the book, my, my book, which is named after the podcast, the creative writers tool belt handbook is a kind of condensation of
01:09:03
Speaker
all the best stuff that I got from the first 100 episodes. And when I'd finished those 100 episodes, I thought, well, I could stop, you know, I've done my book and it covered that covers the basis as far as the basics of creative writing, as far as I'm concerned. But I just quite, quite enjoyed running it. So I just carried on. So I could have stopped at that point. But I've continued. And yeah, it is hard work, but I enjoy it. And that's so that's probably part of the motivation now.
01:09:28
Speaker
And if you if you feel like the basics have been covered already in the first hundred episodes, what are you hoping to glean from the next hundred? So I asked myself that question a lot. I think where I'm going with the next hundred is.
01:09:47
Speaker
Um, there's still a lot of people that I want to talk to and who I want to hear and who I would, I'd like to, I'd like to enable other people to hear. So there are people that I want to interview and questions I want to ask of them. Uh, so there's that there's also areas of the craft, which really for me, perhaps I'm doing it in a sense, selfishly in that if I still have a challenge with some area of the craft,
01:10:14
Speaker
I'm going to either find an expert or try and work it out myself or focus on it and then produce some something for everybody on that. So I've, I've, I've done an episode on point of view, but I'll probably do another one because I feel like it's still, you know, the beast is not slain yet. I need to kind of have another go at this thing. And, and that's it. And that's it. And I've, I've, to a certain extent, I've always produced the stuff that I want to hear.
01:10:42
Speaker
and then I hope other people want to hear it and I try and I trust that there will be enough people who do want to hear it. So where can people find out more about you and your work and the podcast as well? So people can find out a little bit about me at my website which is andrewjchamberlain.com. The podcast is the creative writer's tool belt so if you want to get
01:11:12
Speaker
If you look it up, you'll find you can get it for iTunes or Android or whatever. It's just the creative writer's tool belt. You just stick it in your search engine and up it pops. If people are interested in the book, which as I say, just condenses all the best stuff from those first 100 episodes, that's available through Amazon, either as a paperback or on Kindle. You could just look that up there or again, just search for it. Those are probably the main sources.
01:11:43
Speaker
Yeah, that would be the way. But if people want to track me down and drop me a line, I often say in my podcast and say in the newsletter that I send out that I'm always interested to hear about the projects that people are working on, which I am. I like to hear what people are doing with their writing projects, what challenges they've got, what have they discovered, stuff like that, because I think it's good to share. I mean, I really want to hear about the challenges and successes and solutions that people find
01:12:12
Speaker
from getting involved in the craft, so the practical stuff. That's wonderful. Well, Andy, thank you so much for carving out time in your night and in your evening over there across the pond. So this has been wildly illuminating and a ton of great stuff, and this is great to be on, an honor to be on your show, and I'm so thankful I could return the favor. So thank you for the time, and we'll certainly be in touch.
01:12:38
Speaker
Well, you're very welcome, Brendan. I mean, it's been great from my point of view because, as I said to you, I love talking about writing and I've had a chance to do that. So I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to just talk about this, talk this stuff over with you and talk about what I think are the kind of the important things and the stuff that we all strive for and struggle with.
01:13:04
Speaker
Hey, wow. Thanks everybody, and thanks Andy for the time. That was great. Head over to BrendanOmara.com for show notes, for this episode, and a hundred other ones, like with Mary Karr, David Grant, Glenn Stout, Bronwyn Dickey, Susan Orlean, Andrew Debuse the Third, Andrew Debuse, Andre Debuse the Third,
01:13:28
Speaker
Follow me on Twitter at Brendan O'Mara or at cnfpod. The podcast is on Facebook at cnfpodcast. Sign up for my monthly reading list newsletter. It comes out on the first of the month and gives you a sampling of good books and what you might have missed from the world of the podcast. Once a month, no spam. Can't beat that friends. That's it for me. Have a CNF and great week.