Did you know I also have a little weekly book review segment on Art District Radio?
Dark Mysteries features short book reviews of crime, mystery and thriller fiction. And I only talk about books I really like.
Check me out here.
Happy reading
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 47 with Grant Faulkner – NaNoWrimo Executive Director & writer
“One part writing boot camp, one part rollicking party”
Episode 47 – Grant Faulkner – Show Notes
- Length of project depends on the story idea. Balancing fiction and non-fiction to better inform both styles of writing
- Plantser
- Writing most days – experimenting with 15 minutes per day
- Themes – trying to look behind the veil and transgressions
- Writing regularly – showing up and writing every day is the key
- Active reading
- Discipline, creative momentum, confidence
- Trying something new by telling a story through unsent letters
- Lydia Davis, James Salter, Denis Johnson, Elena Ferrante, Leonard Cohen, Roland Barthes
- Pep Talks for Writer – 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo
- Vulnerability, Creative Community, Writers Block, Playfulness, Improvisation
- Vomit versus Gush
- Grant issues Madeleine a challenge
“Every writer should experiment with their creative process.”
“A goal and a deadline is a creative midwife.”
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Episode 46 with Peter McLean – urban & grimdark fantasy author
“Grimdark doesn’t work like that. If your leg gets cut off, you’re going to get gangrene.”
Episode 46 – Peter McLean – Show Notes
- Writing binges. Plotter and pantser
- Strong black coffee and whiskey
- Thriller writer at heart but in the fantasy genre
- Aftermath of war, Peaky Blinders, retired service people as sensitive readers
- Defining “grim dark” – consequences and more in line with reality
- Reading and writing
- First novel published was the fourth novel completed
- Ed McDonald, Sarah Pinborough, Crab- cakes and Courtesans – republican Athenian social history, Anna Smith Spark, Joe Abercrombie, George RR Martin, Stephen King, Tanith Lee
- Exploring different POVs
- Writing urban fantasy but reading swords and horses fantasy
- Priest of Bones inspired by a gangster character in a Joe Abercrombie novel and Peaky Blinders
- The explanation behind the name Talonwraith
“I am one of the most undisciplined writers you’ll ever meet.”
“Just years and years of practice. I don’t think there are any shortcuts.”
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Hello, Write Through The Roof listeners.
The podcast is moving to a fortnightly release schedule with the next episode dropping on Sunday 30th September.
That’s all folks.
Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 45 with Elizabeth Spann Craig – cosy mystery writer & writing tip gatherer
“Don’t discount the elderly.”
Episode 45 – Elizabeth Spann Craig – Show Notes
- Started off as a pantser
- Understanding your genre’s patterns
- Muscle memory after 26 books
- Old fashioned puzzle mysteries – escape for the reader
- Key theme – don’t discount the elderly
- Set the bar the low
- Twitterific Writing tips
- Doubling down on production and reading more
- Agatha Christie, MC Beaton, Anthony Horowitz
- A reader’s suggestion inspired Cleaning is Murder
- Traditional and independent publishing – getting rights back
“Set the bar low.”
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Episode 44 with Charles Christian – award-winning journalist, podcaster & author
“People get carried with their gadgets… and forget about the human element.”
Episode 44 – Charles Christian – Show Notes
- Novella length is favourite length. Better for ebooks and easier to consume.
- Writing every day and learned discipline from career as a freelance journalist
- ‘All written out’ by freelance journalism
- Green tea, dark chocolate, chips and baked beans
- Exploring how one event can change the entire direction of life – JB Priestly
- Stop doing courses and start writing your own stories
- Stick to the brief, meet the deadline & work count – who, why, what, where, how
- Asking the question – is this project fun to write?
- Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, MR James, David Sedaris, Richard Brautigan
- Genre fiction tips: less about the gadgets, more about the characters
“Get on with it and be business-like about it.”
“If I can’t be bothered reading it, I can’t expect the reader to.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 43 with Trevor Young – PR and marketing specialist
“If you’ve got a blog you’ve got a digital heartbeat. You’re not on rented land.”
Episode 43 – Trevor Young – Show Notes
- Books are more permanent but blogging helps develop a writer’s conversational personal style
- Writing in focussed short sharp bursts; doing less but doing more
- Fiction at night with beer and non-fiction in the morning with coffee
- Joining the dots, identifying a trend and developing a philosophy
- Tips on writing 1300 characters micro-stories – start with one tight idea
- Writing Melbourne Noir. Inspired by childhood reading of Ed McBain and Ian Fleming
- With non-fiction you need to know your market but with fiction you can write what you want to read
- Creating an alter-ego for fiction writing
- Seth Godin, Dorie Clark
- Micro Domination and the changing nature of blogs
- New book coming in October 2018 – Content Marketing for PR
“Getting more done by doing a little bit every day.”
“Edit your way to greatness.”
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Episode 42 with Valerie Stivers – writer, editor & journalist
“The spirit of the book comes alive when you’re cooking from it.”
Episode 42 – Valerie Stivers – Show Notes
- Personal non-fiction is the favourite or novels if the words are flowing
- The Muse has to know where to find you
- Afternoon tea and scones
- Connections between people – both non-fiction and fiction
- Training in an old-school newsroom – learning to write concise & communicative copy
- Time pressure of modern newsroom – erosion of standards in journalism
- Cooking along with writing
- “Outrun your inner critic” – from Pat Barker
- Food styling – the skill of the photographer
- Ivan Doig, George RR Martin
- Eat Your Words – The Paris Review Daily
“I want to show other people what’s inside my head.”
“Those years I spent getting yelled at by old newspaper guys were priceless.”
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Episode 41 with Nin Harris – author, poet & Gothic scholar
“I really love to dig into the guts of a novel to see how it works.”
Episode 41 – Nin Harris – Show Notes
- Inspired to write short stories by Angela Carter
- Both a plotter and a pantser
- Water or rooibos tea
- SFF and gothic but writing about the human experience
- Identity, memory and difficult connections between people
- Gothic in space
- Reading carefully – go outside your fishbowl
- Throwing books across the room – like a book poltergeist
- Beat sheets: major beats and minor beats; cause and effect
- Frances Hardinge, Graham Joyce
- Different writing depending on mood. Academic v fiction writing
“The first draft does have a bit of vomit in it.”
“For me, space is very gothic.”
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Episode 40 with Kira Leigh– content marketer, artist, tech & games writer
“I’m a nerd so I just think of it as role-playing as another person.”
Episode 40 – Kira Leigh – Show Notes
- Prefers long-form articles because ideas are so big
- Playlists and peanut butter sandwiches
- Anger
- Nabokov
- Trying YouTube
- A disappointing career in tech turned into a successful writing career
- Describes current career as ‘Tech creative’
- The Russian Masters and random bloggers on Tumblr and reddit
- Use of online comments to build characters
- Writing reviews for anime
- Reaching people is the intent of writing
- Writing for LinkedIn
“If I feel like I’m stale, I go read Nabokov.”
“A typo is like a palette knife mark in someone’s story.”
“LinkedIn is the place to be for content writers and even artists.”
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Episode 39 with Alexandra Sokoloff – thriller author & screenwriter
“You are directing a movie onto the page.”
Episode 39 – Alexandra Sokoloff – Show Notes
- Good and evil and what good people can do
- Screenwriters have to be plotters. Journey from impro to screenwriting
- Milk
- Exploration of violence against women using a female serial killer
- Using screenwriting techniques to become better authors
- Multi-task while appearing to have a social life
- Taking your favourite movies and working out what the classic movies are doing: Silence of the Lambs, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Casablanca, When Harry Met Sally, The Hunger Games, The Wizard of Oz
- Editors want a movie in their head
- Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, Denise Mina, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Mo Hayder, Tana French, Val McDermid
- Huntress/FBI series – to be read in order – like a binge watch TV experience
- Hunger Moon is an unhappy read for Trump supporters
“If you’re going to talk about good and evil, you need to talk about people and what people do.”
“I do this with a total agenda of changing rape culture.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 38 with Gail Carriger – comedy of manners paranormal romance author
“The strength of the romance genre lies in the Heroine’s Journey.”
Episode 38 – Gail Carriger – Show Notes
- A militant plotter and a purger
- 2000 words per day and only re-read words written the day before
- Novellas in the independent publishing world
- Chronic tea drinker – import from England
- Gentle, frivolous, strong female friendships and the help of others
- The Heroine’s Journey
- Give yourself permission to suck
- Beta readers with different coloured pens and revision pass for funny
- Scrivener
- Moving back into YA high fantasy
- Tamora Pierce, Mercedes Lackey
- Queer characters and power of normalisation
- Competence: with queer main character.
- Shared world of characters but stories are stand-alone
“No one but you has to read your first draft.”
“My goal is at least three LOLs per page.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 37 with Emma Viskic – award-winning crime author
“I kept one word from the story. It was Commodore.”
Episode 37 – Emma Viskic – Show Notes
- Plantser, vomit and polish
- Writing at the extreme ends of the day
- Belonging, communication and loss, deaf and indigenous characters. Exploration of themes throughout a series
- Training wheels novels
- Taking the first sentence from a novel chapter to build a short story
- Short stories teach how to cut words, cut characters and have a clean line throughout
- The difficulty of a crime short story
- A 10 month unfinished vomit draft
- Each book is written in a different way with different pressures; first book, second book and third book
- Hilary Mantel, Peter Temple, JM Green
- And Fire Came Down – scars and fire season
“Sending them to the farm to play with the other words.”
“There’s vomit and there’s polish. It’s a mess.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 36 with Michelle Worthington – award-winning picture book author
“Kids are so bombarded with visuals these days, they love verbal storytelling.”
Episode 36 – Michelle Worthington – Show Notes
- Picture books can be scribbled on the back of napkin or receipt
- Learning the industry & the craft after getting the first book published
- Coffee and Mum chocolate
- Writing a story for one person in particular. Empowering kids who are not represented in other books.
- Reading and ask your audience what they’re reading and why they like it.
- Talking with teachers about child development and the stages.
- Be a lifelong learner
- Authors are small businesses. The best businesses are the best storytellers.
The story you create around yourself as an author. Creating your author brand. - Publishers are looking for people to work with, not stories
- 80s picture books with Australian voice; Mem Fox, Mulga Bill, Man From Snowy River, YA, Stephen King, Jackie French, Nevermore
- Pugs Don’t Wear Pyjamas based on a real person with a real pug.
- Worries about creativity after publishing fifteen books. Stop and listen to your creative voice.
- Coming up – Beards and Middle Grade fiction
“Lovely words that not only look good but sound good too.”
“Authors are small businesses.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 35 with Shona Husk – speculative fiction romance author
“I like a fast and dirty draft.”
Episode 35 – Shona Husk – Show Notes
- Writes quickly but as a plotter, edits aren’t generally structural
- Dark mint chocolate, not coffee
- Dark angsty and tortured heroes
- Every other genre plus romance
- Write novellas to learn characterisation and three act structure
- Learning – Stealing Hollywood by Alexandra Sokoloff, podcasts, the Story Grid and movies as a reference
- Katharine Kerr, Marie Brennan, Jim Butcher
- Different dynamics in heterosexual, gay and lesbian romance
- Servant of The Forest: YA Cinderella re-telling
- Hybrid publishing – write first and then look for the right market
- Ballet classes as research for writing
“All the wonderful world building with a happily-ever-after.”
“I write faster with chocolate.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 34 with Fiona Ross – songwriter, singer & jazz journalist
“I get more creative and crazy as the day goes on.”
Episode 34 – Fiona Ross – Show Notes
- Go with the flow – music and lyrics go together
- A late night writer – daytime writing doesn’t feel right
- Piano, pencil, notebook and cup of tea
- Songwriting is always inspired by a personal experience.
- Journalism and interviews – the purpose is to reveal the person being interviewed
- Discovering journalism voice – it’s about the artist
- Interviewing legends, jazz history and research. Women in jazz and bringing jazz up to date
- To Kill a Mockingbird, F Scott Fitzgerald, Upton Sinclair, Ricki Lee Jones, Billy Joel
- Family history of writers
- Didn’t set out to write a concept album but ‘Black, White and a Little Bit of Grey’ has an intertwining story
- Marketing and genre
“I won the reading cup when I was at primary school.”
“If I’m not jazz and I’m not pop, what am I?”
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Episode 33 with Kim Newman – novelist & film critic
“My novels are my purest me.”
Episode 33 – Kim Newman – Show Notes
- Novels as favourite medium, loose outlines and historical research
- Takeout coffee and working in the dressing gown
- As a critic putting people into boxes but as a writer refusing to be put in a box
- Reading, time and never having had a real job
- The way writing as a career has changed since 1980s
- Buying first computer with money from writing for porn magazines with Neil Gaiman
- Editors used to have more time to deal with and develop new writers
- Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Patrick Hamilton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allen Poe, Ramsay Campbell, Peter Straub, David Thomson, Greil Marcus
- Criticism and deadlines
- The need for a continuity person during novel writing
- Big file full of random film quotes
“Some people don’t realise I’m the same person.”
“My critical range is not good or bad but interesting or dull.”
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Episode 32 with Margaret Skea – historical fiction writer
“I like taking myself and my readers to a place we’ve never been.”
Episode 32 – Margaret Skea – Show Notes
- Storyboard on cardboard with post-it notes
- Silence, chocolate & freedom from distractions
- Exploring conflict and tribalism after growing up in the Troubles.
- Self-editing, being ruthless, editing as a puzzle
- Details, getting research wrong and rabbits
- Journey into historical fiction
- Trying writing in 1st person and present tense
- Katharine Luther as a shadowy character and inspired by 500th anniversary of the Reformation
- Winston Graham, Daphne du Maurier, Rumer Godden
“The more words I lose in the editing process, the more successful I think the editing is.”
“A good editor challenges me.”
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Episode 31 with Josh Larsen – film critic, editor & broadcaster
“Sometimes it’s not fair to the film to dash something off the hour after you’ve seen it.”
Episode 31 – Josh Larsen – Show Notes
- Editing every day
- Writing outside with tea or an IPA
- Daily newspaper movie criticism background
- Pop culture and faith, akin to feminist film criticism
- Working with good editors, the demise of newspaper industry
- Still wrapping mind around faith based film criticism
- Horror movies and faith
- Print deadlines – stressful but the best training. A negative can be writing too quickly
- Manohla Dargis, Richard Brody, Dana Stevens, Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael
“I miss having an editor to bounce ideas off.”
“There’s no time for writers block. It’s a luxury.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 30 with Angela Savage – award winning writer & Director of Writers Victoria
“Good strong writing comes from using simple words in a compelling way”
Episode 30 – Angela Savage – Show Notes
- Writing on the train and “the work of the couch”
- Inspired by songwriters like Springsteen, Waits and Earl
- Wine for writing like drinking when playing pool
- South East Asia, reproductive health, kinship, culture and human nature
- “Just get the story down”
- Reading, study the craft, learning, playing with verbs, mentoring
- Critical reading – underlining and making notes in books
- Why crime fiction is so pleasurable for some readers
- Overdoing the research in historical fiction
- Inspired by Emma Viskic, Julie Koh, Barbara Kingsolver, Christos Tsiolkas
- Deadlier – 100 of the best crime stories written by women
- Daughter as sensitivity reader
“My writing was inspired by the fact no one wanted to hear my travel stories.”
“You need to know how it ends to know how it begins.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 29 with Lara Meone Savine – writer & editor of Musae Mosiac
“I have to be creatively engaged everyday or I’d go insane.”
Episode 29 – Lara Meone Savine – Show Notes
- Getting into a mindset and committing to a project
- Friday Phrases #FP flash fiction. A mini release of creativity
- The rewards as a host of word game prompts
- Safety jacket, tea and K-Pop
- The journey of the mind and the soul. Symbology of dreams
- Hypnotherapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to focus energies
- Tolkien, King, Chris Mahan, Keats, Coleridge
- Developing “Neuro Creative Reinforcement” techniques
- Musae Mosiac magazine, 200 Word Tuesday #200WT and community
“K-Pop is super important to my writing.”
“With a destructive mindset, I can’t be creative.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 28 with Andrew David Barker – author and film-maker
“When you finish something, it gives you the fire to do more.”
Episode 28 – Andrew David Barker – Show Notes
- Pantser for fiction, Plotter for screenplays
- Fueled by independent US film makers; Duplass Brothers and Joe Swanberg
- Writing about 80s kids and movies as backdrops. Harking back to period which personally inspired the creative life
- Wayward journey into writing; leaving school with reading and writing difficulties, self education
- Finish everything
- Playing with Point of View
- Stephen King, Spielberg, Scorsese, Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthy, Bret Easton Ellis
- Screen adaption of own novel – screenplays are all story, everything has to drive the story forward
- Screen writing teaches a minimal and clean approach to prose
- Renaissance of the novella
- Making short films
“I’m a creative cannibal.”
“I use movies like John Grisham uses lawyers.”
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Episode 27 with Charles Chu – non-fiction writer & Medium top contributor
“You need to do a little guerrilla warfare as a new writer.”
Episode 27 – Charles Chu – Show Notes
- Starting with an emotion or aesthetic in essays and non-fiction
- Walking as a ritual and Japanese coffee
- As a Chinese American growing up in a white culture
- Psychology first – consistency, then building on improving writing practice
- Writing for the internet; how digestible is the writing? Trial and error approach
- John McPhee, On Writing Well by William Zinsser, copywriting
- Moving into fiction; the Year of 100 Rejections
- Gene Wolfe, Haruki Murakami, Ken Liu
- Juggling lots of projects to balance out the failures
- Ray Bradbury inspiring the year of 100 rejections
- Tips on how to get stories featured on Medium
“I grew as a child questioning where my place was.”
“Visualising things from the reader’s perspective.”
“Reframing failure as something I should try to do.”
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Episode 26 with Burhan Wazir – award winning journalist & editor
“Why is this happening? And why now?”
Episode 26 – Burhan Wazir – Show Notes
- Career progression from reporter to editor and back to writing
- Morning person and productivity
- Proper Scottish writing fuel
- Middle East, immigration, Brexit
- The personal in journalism; adding yourself into the story
- Constant refining: 20% writing and 80% rewriting
- Reading other good writers: William Finnegan’s Cold New World
- More historical context; the world has always been complex
- History of British mosques and the Rotimatic
- WikiTribune model: news stories as living documents
- Madeleine’s tip – strange writing rituals
“20% writing and 80% rewriting.”
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Episode 25 with Stephen Volk – horror screenwriter & author
“If you can’t write a good scene, write a bad one.”
Episode 25 – Stephen Volk – Show Notes
- Mixing up different lengths and mediums helps storytelling
- Surrounding writing space with ‘friends’
- Alcohol is a truth killer
- Clash between belief and rationalism, fear of the unknown, how finding out about your past affects your future
- Exploring horror, asking why are we attracted to the genre and exploring through story
- Cool down, don’t rush and go back to it
- Keeping your story secret or testing it?
- Patrick McGrath, Stephen Gallagher, Taylor Sheridan, Liam Gavin, Yiorgos Lanthimos, Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta
- Exploring repercussions of crime and criminals rather than solving a crime
- The Dark Masters trilogy; Whitstable with Peter Cushing, Leytonstone with Alfred Hitchcock and a new story with secret true life character.
- With a long project you can lose impetus if you take a break
- Madeleine’s tip – battling the mushy middle
“After 30 years, it’s still hard to look at a blank page.”
“Don’t start the day with a problem hanging over you.”
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Episode 24 with Sione Aeschliman – editor, writer & writing coach
“Approaching both praise & constructive criticism with curiosity”
Episode 24 – Sione Aeschliman – Show Notes
- Pantsing short stories but plotting novels
- Defining Prose poetry
- The Beverage Triangle
- Key theme – being your true self without shame
- Attitude towards feedback both positive and negative
- Learning about reader’s expectations and ask questions
- Giving editing clients at least a week to process their feelings
- Editing improves ability to read critically. Making notes as you read and going back to analyse why you reacted this way.
- Learning about structure and storytelling. Working on beginnings
- Margaret Attwood, Ursula le Guin, Alexander Weinstein, James Tate, Russell Edson
- #RevPit: annual Twitter contest focused on editing and learning. Starts April 21st 2018
- Working on four or five projects at the same time, including historical pirate romance novel and an ebook on structure, plot points and pacing.
- Madeleine’s tip – Grief and change
“It’s hard to know what you’re going to write until you’ve written it.”
“We all need an outlet for our angst.”
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Episode 23 with Dean Mayes – romance, family saga & thriller writer
“Cherrypick techniques but develop your own style and process.”
Episode 23 – Dean Mayes – Show Notes
- Balance between structure and disappearing down rabbit holes
- Writing story notes by his patient’s bedside
- Writing romance in Star Wars pajamas
- Spending a lot of constructing characters and people watching, women and men and their responses to challenges
- Understanding the Aboriginal experience
- Process of outlining with Scrivener
- Using pencil to get away from plastic
- Molly Ringle, Simon Winchester
- A world exclusive!
- Madeleine’s tip – Reading Critically
“Outlining has been a positive tool to improve my writing.”
“A love letter to the two towns I’ve lived in.”
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I’ve been writing a series for Folklore Thursday on the origins of common superstitions and the series has come to an end. Boo. It’s been a fun and fascinating project to delve into why and where these superstitions came from.
Here are all ten articles for your reading pleasure
- Bad Luck Comes in Threes
- Touch Wood
- Breaking a mirror
- Breaking a wishbone
- Opening an umbrella inside
- Shoes on the table
- Spilling salt
- Wishing on a star
- Four Leaf Clover
- Cross your fingers
Enjoy
Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 22 with Kaaron Warren – acclaimed horror, sci-fi & dark fantasy writer
“Trusting yourself. You don’t have to write like other people.”
Episode 22 – Kaaron Warren – Show Notes
- The power of novellas
- Snatching the moments to write: making the most of time and place
- Fuelled by chai: cardamon is good for concentration
- Inspired by darker elements of humanity, inspired by darker fairytales like Bluebeard as a child
- Exploring the afterlife, fear of death and ghost photographs
- Practice, reading others, believe in yourself
- Experimenting with a diary form; each character with a distinctive voice and their public/private face. Part of a new ‘unnamed’ novel about prisoners in a time-ball tower
- Important to have non-writers as beta readers
- Inspired by Lisa Tuttle, Steve Rasnic Tem, William Golding, Alasdair Grey
- Impact of Transcendental Meditation
- Madeleine’s Tip: How To Publish Your Book by Jane Friedman
“I don’t think there are any definitive rules in writing.”
“In dark fantasy you can’t hold back.”
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Episode 21 with Amanda Bridgeman – space opera & sci-fi thriller writer
“Take all writing advice with a pinch of salt.”
Episode 21 – Amanda Bridgeman – Show Notes
- Not necessarily writing every day, but working on the book business every day
- Dead cold silence to write
- Fueled by crumpets
- Sci-fi thrillers but ongoing character driven sagas with a bit of romance
- Writing military without a military background; research including Facebook groups and input from fans
- Learning from other writers but with limits. Finding stories you like and analyse why
- Ernest Cline, Andy Weir, Emily St.John Mandel, Stephen Moss, Lindsay Buroker
- Time of The Stripes inspired by a walk to the shop to buy chocolate and current events
- Setting stories in the US
- Madeleine’s tip – Taking a Break
“Believe in yourself and your voice.”
“The key to a good book is mystery and intrigue.”
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Episode 20 with Caroline Mitchell – best selling crime & thriller writer
“I say ‘how could you not have ideas?’ Look around you.”
Episode 20 – Caroline Mitchell – Show Notes
- Writing a synopsis and the hook before starting to write
- Coffee, music and social media before a day’s writing
- Dark themes, exploring the darker side of human nature and the ripple effects from crime. Nothing is black and white in the police.
- Silent Victim is a story of grooming and a body buried in the backyard
- Keep learning all the time, always push yourself
- Dictation; first draft without touching the keyboard
- Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Mel Sherratt, Angela Marsons
- Combination of her past experiences in the police along with fresh ideas
- Pivoting to reach more readers
- Madeleine’s tip – explorations in dictation
“If the gin comes out I’m not having a good day.”
“Dialogue is lot more natural when you dictate.”
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Episode 19 with Karen Rose Smith – Romance & cosy mystery writer
“Writing, along with cats, is my therapy.”
Episode 19 – Karen Rose Smith – Show Notes
- Writing after back surgery to deal with pain
- Husband and cats
- Dictation; more editing involved but writing goes faster
- Relationships; family, romantic and in small towns
- Writing every day hones your instincts
- Writing 13 books before being published
- Getting manuscripts in early and saying no
- Daisy Tea Garden mysteries; tea shops, Amish country, family relationships
- Emilie Loring, Glenna Finley, Kathleen E Woodiwiss, Harlan Corben, Jodi Piccoult, Dan Brown, Lisa Scottoline
- Madeleine’s tip – dealing with comparisonitis
“When I’m alone in the dark with the tape recorder, I’m good”
“Reading a genre you don’t write sharpens your skills”
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Episode 18 with David Moody – Horror writer & indie-publishing pioneer
“I’m a torturer at heart.”
Episode 18 – David Moody – Show Notes
- An extreme plotter
- Best time for plot development is during running
- Procrastinating as a full-time writer
- Hybrid publishing and the dark ages of indie publishing
- Writing in 45 minute chunks
- Ordinary people in extreme apocalyptic situations
- Setting rules and having discipline
- The cloud – accessible from everywhere for when inspiration strikes
- Richard Matheson, John Wyndham, and learning from James Herbert; the writing and the man
- The ‘sidequel’: creating two trilogies to create one big story
- Madeleine’s tip – the Four Tendencies
“Definitely, irritatingly, a plotter”
“The less time I’ve got, the better my writing is.”
“I always feel dirty when I say this but I’m just a people watcher.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 17 with Abbie Williams – Historical family saga & romance writer
“There’s a different thought process when you write long hand”
Episode 17 – Abbie Williams – Show Notes
- Plotting the story as a bridge
- Exploring family dynamics and gritty historical detail
- Giving a voice to women working as prostitutes in 19th century American history
- Trusting your gut and the story
- Building a writing community to commiserate
- Poetry as inspiration
- Larry McMurtry, Sherman Alexie, Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes
- Ending a series
- Balancing two series at the same time
- Madeleine’s tip – Twenty Solutions
“Punching you in the guts with words”
“Writing the first draft is telling myself the story”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 16 with George Mann – Paranormal mystery & Dr Who comic writer
“You’re chasing ghosts if you’re chasing trends.”
Episode 16 – George Mann – Show Notes
- Dreaded Chapter 7
- Inspiration from music – songs associated with every book
- Theme of Identity
- Mystery and fantastical, the bizarre and the weird. More Peake than Tolkien.
- Trying to be Peter F Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter, and failing.
- Wychwood was a switch into a modern day setting.
- Getting police procedures right
- Initial premise for Wychwood – a BBC Sunday night crime drama with dark spooky elements
- M. John Harrison, Steven Eriksen, Susan Cooper, Peter Robinson
- Madeleine’s tip – Artist’s Date
“Write something for yourself.”
“It’s part of the writer’s job to read widely.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 15 with Angela Ackerman – best-selling writing reference book author
“Embrace the fact that there’s always more to learn.”
Episode 15 – Angela Ackerman – Show Notes
- Chocolate Boyfriend of the Week
- Helping writers with descriptions for emotions and setting
- Wounds, flaws and negative character traits
- Learner’s mindset
- Critique partners who encourage you to grow and extend yourself
- Building structural tools for writers helped Angela to become more structured
- Ransom Riggs, Laini Taylor, Alli Sinclair
- Madeleine’s tip – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
“Understanding what your character’s wound is in the story, is a critical element in understanding their behaviour.”
“Emotional wounds are critical in a transformative arc.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 14 with Gareth L. Powell – near-future thriller & space opera writer
“The more I read, the better I write”
Episode 14 – Gareth L. Powell – Show Notes
- Losing the knack of the short story
- Writing relics – Tiki, rune & painted pebble
- Always character focused – the story is a learning experience for the characters
- ‘William Gibson’s short story collection kicked me in the head’; writing real people into scifi
- You don’t know if you’re measuring yourself against the right people
- Write 100 words every day
- Balancing two different novels in different genres at the same time
- Space opera inspired by technology available for the Titanic; the call for help
- Madeleine’s tip – The Heroine’s Journey
“Ack Ack Macaque is the bastard child of Biggles and John Belushi in the film 1941”
“I wanted to get back to sarcastic self-aware spaceships.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 13 with J. Elizabeth Vincent – fantasy writer & freelance editor
“Writing is like any other job; some days you do it well, other days not so well.”
Episode 13 – J. Elizabeth Vincent – Show Notes
- The Hero’s Journey
- Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) turned into Raven Thrall
- Making writing a priority in life
- Editing other people’s work helps you learn
- Writing short stories for prologues or back stories
- Inspired by Stephen Donaldson, Jim Butcher, Seanen McGuire, Patricia Briggs
- Raven Thrall is ‘Jessica Jones with wings’
- Madeleine’s tip – The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
“Fantasy is the highest form of escapism.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 12 with Oscar de Muriel – writer of Victorian murder mysteries
“It’s not sipping a glass of wine and staring out the window.”
Episode 12 – Oscar de Muriel – Show Notes
- Fuelled by wine and cheese
- Jurassic Park (the book) the first inspiration
- Discipline
- Spreadsheets
- Being a chemist is very useful for murder mysteries
- Isaac Asimov – The Black Widower’s Club and Lucky Starr series
- Banshees, MacBeth and Bram Stoker
- Not a whodunnit but a ‘who will do it’ – balancing reader’s expectations while trying something new
- Madeleine’s tip – Text to Speech functions
“Thanks to Malbec for its contribution to this book”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 11 with Steve Turnbull – Fantasy, steampunk & erotica writer
“The thing that improves your writing is writing.”
Episode 11 – Steve Turnbull – Show Notes
- Don’t feel guilty for not writing
- Themes include ‘all your favourite prejudices’
- Changing and developing as an artist. Inspired by Bowie
- Not necessarily trying new things but rather telling a story the way it needs to be told
- Kymiera from screenplay to novel and back to screenplay
- Cider with Rosie
- Don’t write too many series at once, your fans will be demanding sequels
- Madeleine’s tip – Reading Widely
“Don’t you pity our protagonists and what we put them through.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 10 with Dee Dee Chainey – Folklorist & freelance content marketer
“Bringing magic to the mundane”
Episode 10 – Dee Dee Chainey – Show Notes
- Do your writing first
- Instagram pictures of cake
- Dark folklore; Krampus, hand of glory and the tooth fairy
- Confidence
- Don’t keep rewriting the same piece, move on
- Squeezing a massive topic into an introductory book
- A non-fiction writer mainly influenced by fiction
- Aubrey Burl, Carrie Ann Noble, Jackie Morris, Phillip Pullman
- Madeleine’s tip – 10 story ideas per day
“What do you want to say to the world and to yourself”
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Everyone on my mailing list will be receiving a little Evangeline Christmas treat in their inbox soon, ‘An Awfully Evangeline Christmas’ short story.
Up to her neck in Christmas preparations, Miss Plockton asks Evangeline to run an errand for her. A trip to the bakery for a few special treats for the Professor
The errand sounds simple enough, but of course, Evangeline and Mei find trouble in the most unlikely places.
So if you’d like a little bit of Christmassy silly fun, sign up here.
Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 09 with Garth Nix – uber best selling YA & children’s fantasy writer
“The foundation of my writing is reading, and broad reading.”
Episode 09 – Garth Nix – Show Notes
- Having multiple stories on the go all at once
- Momentum in writing – spending 80% of his time to write first half, 20% to complete the second half
- Writing stories for yourself, which make you curious to find out what happens
- Reading widely equips you with instincts for your writing and gives you the broadest set of tools to draw on
- The role of a good editor to make you a better writer
- Experimenting with form and points of view but the story dictates how it should be told
- Madeleine’s tip – Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages
“As you add more energy into it, it (the story) takes on a life of its own”
“I don’t think ‘how am I going to challenge myself?’, I think what is the best way to tell this story.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 08 with Dave Hutchinson – award winning sci-fi writer & prophet
“You know in your head what a good book is. Try and be that good book.”
Episode 8 – Dave Hutchinson – Show Notes
- A natural short story writer and more comfortable in 1st person but currently writing novels in 3rd
- Winging it
- Europe books: prophetic by accident
- Write something that satisfies you as a reader. Read widely – it’s all writing
- Discovering ordinary people in sci-fi
- Struggling with the fourth Europe book
- Madeleine’s tip – no internet before writing
“I’m a better writer than I am a plumber.”
“John Le Carre is the guv’nor.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 07 with Dominic Dulley – writer of rollicking space adventures
Critiques Groups, Spreadsheets and Con Women in space
“When I didn’t get picked up, the next book I’d write I’d try something different, another tangent, to give myself the best chance to get a deal”
Episode 07 – Interview with Dominic Dulley – Show Notes
- Great fan of spreadsheets
- Plotting only a few chapters ahead
- Hunting down chocolate hobnobs
- Exploring friendship, loss, wealth and privilege in space
- Critiquing others is equally important as receiving feedback in your improving writing
- Debut novel ‘Shattermoon’ inspired by True Grit but in space
- Madeleine’s tip (or is it a fail?)
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode o6 with Harmony Williams – Period romance, cosy mystery & ghost writer
Romance, Co-writing and Regency Research
“I want to lift you up from your daily problems for a few hours and drop you off feeling better”
Episode 06 – Interview with Harmony Williams – Show Notes
- If you write 500 beginnings, you will only get good at beginnings but not middles or ends
- The co-writing process
- Inspiration for the Regency period; Austen, Clarke and Novik
- Humour and romance
- Madeleine’s tip: musings after GenreCon
“Everything’s better with dragons”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode o5 with Beverley Lee – Writer 0f modern gothic
First drafts, Tea and Exploring the Shadowy Places
“The one thing a story hates is a nit-picky writer”
Episode 05 – Beverley Lee – Show Notes
- Being a planster
- Battling to find the right genre
- Don’t compare your work effort to others
- Lewis, King, Rice and Schwab
- Always listen to your story even if you think it’s wrong
- Madeleine’s tip: the Emotional Thesaurus
“With a global community, there’s always someone around to hold your hand or kick you in the pants.”
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Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode o4 with Kristy Acevedo – YA Sci-fi author & writing community leader
In and Out, Diverse Voices and Dried Mango
“It’s getting harder to be in survival mode and also produce art.”
Episode 04 – Kristy Acevedo – Show Notes
- The 100 page discovery draft
- Dried mango as a writing aid
- Getting in and out of a scene as soon as possible
- JK Rowling and Stephen King as inspirations but not for the reasons you might think
- Championing working class and disadvantaged voices
- Madeleine’s segment: The Monthly Twitter Writing Challenge
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Links
Episode 04 – Interview transcript coming soon…
Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 03 with Angela Slatter: award winning dark fantasy writer
“I’m a hybrid mess.”
Episode 03 – Angela Slatter – Show Notes.
- Whiskey and the morning writer
- Reverse engineering for writers
- Reading like a fat kid at the dessert table
- Frankenstein-ing her debut novel ‘Vigil’ together
- Madeleine’s segment – The Foolscap Method
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Links
Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.
Episode 02 with Molly Ringle: writer of romance with a magical twist
“My writing tends to be on the weird side.”
Episode 02 – Molly Ringle – Show Notes
- Molly explains what cheese puffs are
- Mashing up love, honest emotion, humour and cool plot ideas
- The power of marinating
- Beginner’s mind
- Bringing to life Puget Sound in The Goblins of Bellweather
- Madeleine’s segment – Tick. Tick. Tick. The Pomodoro Technique:
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