Tag: interview Page 1 of 2

End of Write Through The Roof podcast

It’s with an element of sadness that I announce the end of Write Through The Roof podcast.

After almost three years and 76 episodes, it’s time to do something new. But I’m really going to miss great conversations with interesting writers and having the opportunity to selfishly ask my writing heroes the questions I want to be answered.

So what I have learned about writing over the 76 interviews?

  • There is no right way to write

From meticulous spreadsheets of Oscar de Muriel to the pantsing of Rebecca Tope and everything in between, there is no right way to plot your novel.

Some write every day but many more wish they could. However, others see the definite need for rests to replenish their creative well. But discipline is the key and to finish what you start.

Take all writing advice with a pinch of salt.

AMANDA BRIDGMAN

Trusting yourself. You don’t have to write like other people.

KAARON WARREN

Cherrypick techniques but develop your own style and process.

DEAN MAYES

Do you write every day? I wish!

ROSALIE MORALES KEARNS

Don’t bore the reader. Don’t annoy the reader. Don’t confuse the reader.

PATTY JANSEN
  • Writers are generous and lovely people
  • Coffee runs in our veins
  • Writers like to read ‘like a fat kid at the dessert table’

Thanks for the quote, Angela Slatter but all the writers I spoke to love to read. The most popular inspiring authors were Stephen King, Jane Austen, Neil Gaiman, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood.

  • Most writers are life-long learners

Aside from the amazing Karen Rose Smith with 100 romance novels under her belt and a comfortable writing process, most of the writers I spoke with were trying something new with each book and continually trying to perfect their process.

So all things come to an end but I’d like to thank all the writers I spoke with!

#75 – Alison Littlewood – Write Through The Roof

Interview with ‘dark and weird’ writer, Alison Littlewood

‘History, folklore, ghosts and spooky things.’

Episode 75 – Alison Littlewood – Show Notes

  • Plot beginnings and endings and pants it all the rest of the way
  • Word count spreadsheet – 1000 words per day
  • Obsessive about edits
  • Satisfies the canine overlords before she begins a writing session
  • Dark and weird genre – on the edges of horror
  • Themes – loss and death and love – various aspects of being human- twisted fairytales and folklore
  • Perceptions of horror writers
  • ‘Reading a lot. Writing a lot.’
  • The benefits of working with a good editor
  • Writing in the middle of the night – inspired by HP Lovecraft
  • Michelle Paver, Jason Arnop, Paul Tremblay, Joe Hill, Katrina Ward, Andrew Michael Hurley, Nathan Ballingrud, Priya Sharma, Angela Slatter, Graham Joyce
  • Mistletoe – ghost stories at Christmas – MR James, Victorian times – folklore and history of the plant and the season
  • Historical research
  • Cottingley faeries and changelings

‘Plot beginnings and endings and pants it all the rest of the way.’

‘People back away when I say I’m a horror writer.’

Links

#74 – Jon Black – Write Through The Roof

Interview with author and music journalist, Jon Black

“You can’t do a one-to-one transition of role-playing to fiction.”

Episode 74 – Jon Black

  • No preference for medium but a natural geography and cluster in terms of word counts
  • Mix of a plotter and pantser. Influenced by role-playing games
  • Environment is important – quirky 24-hour coffee house and writes throughout the night
  • A music journalist but does not actively listen to music while writing
  • Supernatural, historical fiction with a twist
  • Themes of power of human curiosity, music, exploring the interplay between folklore, mythology and history
  • Cultivating a sensate writing style: all five senses to bring the reader into the scene
  • Benefits of role playing in writing fiction and pitfalls
  • Experimenting with less exposition and background for characters
  • Caleb Carr, Harry Turtledove, Stephen King, Garrison Keilor, Daniel Pinkwater
  • Gabriel’s Trumpet – second wave of spiritualism and Jazz Age
  • Expanding short stories into novel-length
  • Currently editing an anthology about searches for lost books

“I’m not sure whether I have a genuine love for it or whether it’s a Stockholm syndrome thing.”

Links

#71 – Debbie Young – Write Through The Roof

Interview with cosy mystery writer Debbie Young

“Cosy mysteries are an antidote to the strains of modern life”

Episode 71 – Debbie Young – Show Notes

  • Short novels are her favourite form
  • Journalistic background but mainly a pantser
  • Writes a chapter a day in the writing phase
  • Doesn’t always write every day. Needs to recharge the batteries and think
  • Themes of celebrating community and nurturing understanding between people
  • The mystery provides the framework to flesh out with characters and comedy
  • Based on her real village life and her community
  • Closed communities in a mystery; village and classic English boarding school
  • Cosy mystery popularity – an antidote to modern life, resolution and happy ever after
  • Writing without stopping – experiment with the next novel with a little light editing to begin each writing session
  • Different technologies for writing – Word, using Scrivener for plotting, writing by hand with a fountain pen
  • Touch typing
  • Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers
  • Sophie Sayers mysteries are not always murder stories and veer more to romantic and situational comedy.
  • Experimenting with crossing over between the Sayers and St.Brides series and writing more novellas

I’m an organised pantser.”

“Sometimes I feel I’m writing situation comedy sketches.”

Links

#70 – R.R. Campbell – Write Through The Roof

Episode 70 – interview with sci-fi author, podcaster and writing coach, RR Campbell.

“There’s no Twitter, no email. The coffee is here. The time has come.”

Episode 70 – Show Notes

  • Meticulous planner rather than pantser – with scene by scene outlines. This means every morning he wakes up and knows exactly what he’s going to write
  • Analytical approach to writing – informed by linguistics background
  • Daily writing ritual – coffee pot on a timer and ready to go
  • Re-reading a favourite author as writing fuel
  • Empathy between characters. Epistolary novel form.
  • Five core components to any scene: setting, goal, conflict, resolution, cliffhanger/pivot/change
  • Margaret Atwood. David Mitchell
  • Empathy series – internet access brain implants inspired by smartphones
  • Taking time away from a manuscript to get perspective before retooling
  • Multiple points of view, dimensions and shout-outs

“Finding the best way to create empathy between the character and the reader.”

“There are five core components to any scene.”

Links

#69 – Alan Baxter – Write Through The Roof

Interview with Alan Baxter, writer of dark weird shit

‘Write caffeinated and edit drunk’

Episode 69 – Alan Baxter – Show Notes

  • Baxter believes plotting and pantsing is a sliding scale.
  • Vomit drafter but often edits a little before starting each day’s writing session
  • Has a target of 5000 words per week when writing first drafts but doesn’t try to write every day
  • Coffee in the day, whiskey in the evening
  • Genre is ‘dark weird shit’ – soup of urban fantasy, horror and the weird plus crime and noir
  • Themes of justice and consequences
  • Time is the most important thing
  • Martial arts mindset – time and commitment – developing a practice and striving for improvement
  • Stepping away from the manuscript to let the brain to work out the problems
  • Short stories can shake up the process, like cross-training
  • Clive Barker, Stephen King, Lovecraft, Poe, Kaaron Warren, Margo Lanegan and comics
  • Short story collection Served Cold leans more into horror and explores Australian identity

Links

#68 – Lee Kofman – Write Through The Roof

Interview with Lee Kofman – author and writing teacher

‘In each draft I try to get one or two things right rather than everything.’

Episode 68 – Lee Kofman – Show Notes

  • Creative non-fiction is her current favourite medium. Closer to poetry than non-fiction. It is a fresher and younger experimental genre.
  • Multi-tasking with children
  • Prepare for writing session by thinking about the current project before sitting down at the desk.
  • Gerald Murnane – three types of writers: curious, preachy and possessed/obsessed.
  • Themes – doomed loves.
  • Memoir-writing and Russian poets
  • All writing is rewriting.
  • Working on plotting skills but not plotting too much. Needs a sense of tension to keep the writing process interesting
  • Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Helen Garner, Robert Dessaix, Zadie Smith, Geoff Dyer, Joan Didion, Karl Ove Knausgaard
  • Imperfect – scars and haunted by shame. Inspired by her child’s diagnosis of albinism

‘Writing is layering.’

‘What it’s like to have a body which deviates from the so-called norm.’

Links

#67 – Agnes Gomillion – Write Through The Roof

Interview with Afro-futurist writer Agnes Gomillion

“I wanted people to reflect on their relative state of freedom.”

Episode 67 – Agnes Gomillion – Show Notes

  • Writes something every day – maybe poetry or notes but not necessarily her ‘work-in-progress’
  • Poetry, songs and lyrical writing
  • Sleep is writing fuel of choice
  • Afrofuturism – lift the audience from reality for the purpose of looking back and better understanding African-American culture.
  • Humanity with an African-American lens.
  • Writing about the underlying person brings different people together.
  • Perseverance
  • ‘Story’ by Robert McKee – how to create a character and how to use structure to ‘show, don’t tell’.
  • Having to incorporate more structure in the writing day with children
  • Jesmyn Ward – Salvage the Bones, Stephen King
  • Frederick Douglass inspired The Record Keeper with his spirit of freedom. The story of how someone overcomes their fear set in a dystopia after World War 3.
  • Octavia Butler comparisons
  • Working on the sequel – The Seed of Cain.

“Humanity with an afro-futurist bent.”

“Slavery is more than physical chains.”

Links

#65 – Clare Flynn – Write Through The Roof

Podcast interview with historical novelist, Clare Flynn

‘Read everything I could get my little hands on.’

Episode 65 – Clare Flynn – Show Notes

  • Instinctive pantser who occasionally tries to plot
  • The first book took 15 years to write but now tries to be more disciplined
  • Writes most days
  • Two solutions if the words are hard – walk away or force herself to write
  • ‘Edit as you go’ person
  • Once a week writing group to share work-in-progress
  • Nanowrimo – to kick start a book or finish a book off
  • Tea, coffee and water and wine o’clock
  • Displacement: theme comes from childhood experiences, relationship problems, PTSD and impact of war, self discovery, religious bigotry
  • Reading: taught to read by her father
  • Learnt from editor; tough but also positive
  • Read aloud
  • Writing two books at once; keeps the writing fresh
  • Classics: Hardy, Brontes, Anya Seton, Jean Plaidy, Agatha Christie, Mary Stewart, Tolstoy, Zola, Kate Atkinson, Amor Towles, historical research
  • Hybrid publishing
  • Storms Gather Between Us

‘A competitive person, even if the competition is myself.’

‘It’s got to have highs & lows and lights & darks.’

Links

#64 – Christopher Ruz – Write Through The Roof

Interview with horror and fantasy writer Christopher Ruz

‘Look for people who are one or two stages ahead of where you’re at.’

Episode 64 – Christopher Ruz – Show Notes

  • Doesn’t know how to write short stories any more.
  • Tries to write every day – most productive when writing every day
  • Rituals – encasing in a bubble, getting rid of visual distraction and white noise.
  • Pomodoro method – 100 words every 5 minutes.
  • Themes – horror-based but fantasy and sci-fi. But also spy fiction
  • A narrow focus on character – even with epic fantasy using a single narrator.
  • Using a single narrator to create tension with a timeline
  • Finding a group of writers who were better than him
  • Penny Arcade, Discord, Reddit, Twitter
  • Dictation in the car with a lapel mic
  • Cormac McCarthy, Emma Osborne, NK Jemesin, James SA Corey
  • China Mieville and Joe Hill – horror short stories
  • The Ragged Blade – epic fantasy – inspired by a vivid dream – started as a short story
  • All These Shiny Worlds
  • Working on The Ragged Blade 2 (yet unnamed)
  • Originally self-published the first two parts of The Ragged Blade
  • The journey from self-published to traditionally published

‘The novel is the lazy form’


‘Every change they recommended made it a better story’

Links

#63 – Toby Neal – Write Through The Roof

Interview with best-selling romance & mystery writer Toby Neal

‘People are preoccupied by crime because we want to recognise the wolves in our midst’

Episode 63 – Toby Neal – Show Notes

  • Writing is like a muscle – needs regular workouts
  • 2000 words a day target
  • Both a plotter and a pantser. More pantser for romance and plotter for mysteries
  • Recording affirmations and listening prior to writing session
  • Themes of good versus evil and the shades of grey in everyone and how love can overcome a multitude of problems
  • Dark themes but with hope – fascinated with the duality between dark and light
  • Mastering your craft – Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell – the 10,000 hour rule
  • Take off your pants – Libbie Hawker – the hero needs to find a cure for their flaw
  • Unconventional childhood – Memoir – Freckles
  • Putting off writing goals for security – started with an anonymous blog – using real life experience as a school counsellor
  • Speeding up the writing process
  • Dictation, health and accessing creative brain by writing longhand
  • Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens, The Outlander series – Diana Gabaldon
  • Wired Truth: multi-cultural kick-ass female main character. Pushing the envelope for what’s acceptable with female behaviour. Experimenting with different kinds of love.

‘Nothing but writing is going to make you a better writer’

‘I tried to do literary fiction and I bored myself by page 40’

Links

#62 – Suzanne J Willis – Write Through The Roof

Episode 62 with Suzanne J Willis – fantasy short story & flash-fiction writer

‘The best kind of fairies, you know, the nasty ones’

Episode 62 – Suzanne J Willis – Show Notes

  • A natural pantser but learning to plot and outline. A structure helps to hit the right beats
  • Making notes every day but not writing every day
  • Tea and chocolate – freckles
  • Connection between music and writing: lyrical and poetic.
  • Themes of lack of belonging, search for self or a home, life and music
  • Learning that the language is secondary to the story and the interaction between characters gives rise to the plot
  • Writing novellas: taking up an opportunity
  • Jeanette Winterson, Patricia McKillip, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Angela Slater
  • Importance of word of mouth for recommendations
  • Portals and evil fairies in ‘Silver String in between worlds’
  • Novella for Broken Cities shared world for Falstaff Books.
  • Upcoming stories in Syntax & Salt Magazine

‘The language is inseparable from the story itself’

‘It’s a good thing to learn your bad habits.

Links

#61 – Pauline Wiles – Write Through The Roof

Episode 61 with Pauline Wiles – women’s fiction author & writing productivity coach

‘We need to figure out our own path and plod along steadily.’

Episode 61 – Pauline Wiles – Show Notes

  • Benefit from writing both fiction and non-fiction: entertainment v exploring own worries
  • Take a day off once a week
  • Tea – English breakfast with milk
  • Bacon controversy
  • Fiction – light-hearted escapist women’s fiction but dealing with finding yourself as a person before getting in a relationship.
  • Quirky cultural differences between the UK and the US.
  • Non-fiction – productivity for writers – purposeful productivity.
  • Comparisonitis. Humans learn by comparing.
  • Listening to her own advice.
  • Mindfulness – catch own thinking before it spirals out of control. Ten-minute daily meditation – listen to own breath.
  • Dividing week into blocks of time. Writing, business, promotion and marketing.
  • Creating a parking lot for ideas
  • Jane Austen, Marian Keyes, Emily Giffin, Laura Vanderkam, Gretchen Rubin
  • Indie With Ease
  • Ten Things my Husband Hated

‘Try to compare when you’re having a positive day.’

‘I’m definitely not sitting there on a fluffy cloud of zen.’

Links

#60 – David Baboulene – Write Through The Roof

Episode 60 – interview with David Baboulene – author, academic & story consultant

‘I find inspiration but analyse the inspiration to speed up the process’

Episode 60 – David Baboulene – Show Notes

  • Type of writing depending on mood and deadline
  • Both a plotter and a pantser – wearing two hats
  • Successful writers are very productive
  • Writers being hermits
  • Winning a competition but having an unsatisfying experience with a Hollywood guru
  • Explaining the story craft without telling the writer what to do
  • Storification – what jumps off the page and lives in the reader’s mind e.g a moral message in a fairy tale
  • The author doesn’t need to know the ending half as much as they need to know how the story storifies. Then you can work backwards.
  • Encoding knowledge gaps which are decoded by the receiver (the reader) as meaning
  • Leaving gaps makes the reader create meaning in their own mind – puzzles for the reader to do the work
  • PG Wodehouse – books released after his death
  • The Primary Colours of Story coming out in 2019

‘He’d been rubbish but he became a genius because he worked’

Links

#59 – Rebecca Tope – Write Through The Roof

Episode #59 – Interview with cosy-mystery writer Rebecca Tope.

‘I didn’t get published until I was 50.’

  • Written 35+ murder mystery novels as a pantser
  • Coffee or gin
  • Themes of natural burials & anti-technology.
  • British cosy mysteries featuring a village pub.
  • Mobile phones affecting crime stories & the inclusion of drones
  • Practice – millions & millions of words
  • Writing groups didn’t help
  • Mentoring others helps own writing – seeing the good & bad in aspiring writers
  • Brutal feedback
  • Long apprenticeships & writing competitions
  • Biography of Sabine Baring-Gould – writer of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’
  • Research – a lot of research done for the biography & historical fiction but little research for murder mysteries
  • Celia Fremlin (domestic suspense), Agatha Christie, Lee Child, Kate Atkinson, William de Morgan
  • Settings – real & fictitious
  • The Grasmere Grudge, Secrets in the Cotswolds, the Patterdale Plot
  • One draft

‘Readers don’t mind if they think their house is the scene of a murder.”

‘I only really do one draft.’

Links

#58 – Patty Jansen – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

Episode 58 – Patty Jansen– award-winning science-fiction & fantasy writer

‘Don’t bore the reader. Don’t annoy the reader. Don’t confuse the reader.’

Episode 58 – Patty Jansen – Show Notes

  • Do something on the manuscript every day
  • Being a rebel and going with the flow
  • Writing after 4pm and into the evening
  • Themes – down to earth, gritty and difficult topics – sex, religion and politics. Duality in the problems the characters face.
  • Writing workshops – the value is not the critiques you receive but what you learn from reading other people’s work. The bigger the group the better
  • Handling critiques
  • Online Writing Workshop for Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Horror
  • The three rules for writing; don’t bore the reader, don’t annoy the reader & don’t confuse the reader.
  • Concentrate on telling a good story. Get a reader and an editor and don’t sweat the small stuff.
  • Non-fiction reading – the psychology of marketing and political biographies. In fiction, writers who can write across genres – Harry Potter/Robert Galbraith
  • Ambassador series – different ecosystems, politics and conspiracies, action, Kiwis in space. Currently working on book 9.


‘It is up to you. It’s not up to them to write your book.’

‘It is a fantasy setting but it obviously has reverberations in the real world.’

Links

#53 – Vanessa Garcia – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

Episode 53 – Vanessa Garcia – novelist, playwright & journalist

“Write the scenes you want to write.”

Episode 53 – Vanessa Garcia – Show Notes
  • Sesame Street writers room
  • Intersperse long projects with shorter projects
  • Playwriting is collaborative with the director and scenes devised in the moment
  • Writing whenever you can.
  • Cuban coffee – cafecito
  • Obsessed with Cuba – overcoming economic and familial embargoes. Obsessed with erased stories for refugees. Motherhood.
  • Write the scenes you want to write. Don’t worry about bridges connecting the scenes.
  • Discipline. Time carved out for writing and sharing your writing
  • Hiding away from writing advice
  • Using spreadsheets for interactive theatre – audiences following different stories happening at the same time
  • Reinaldo Arenas, Leonardo Padura, TV shows ‘I’m Sorry’,’Broad City’ and kids TV.
  • Amparo – inspired by a call from a marketing company then turned into an experiential theatre work. The story of the family who created the real Havana Club Rum.

“Storytelling and then story selling.”

“There’s writing coming out of TV which is just as literary.”

Read More

#49 – Rosalie Morales Kearns – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

Episode 49 with Rosalie Morales Kearns – feminist fiction writer and publisher

“Do you write every day?” “I wish!”

Episode 49 – Rosalie Morales Kearns – Show Notes
  • Novels give a chance to explore characters and a long history
  • Life getting in the way of writing every day
  • Hot chocolate and milkshakes
  • Magic realism and fabulism
  • Connections – how they are formed and how they affect people
  • Being conscious of the choice of what to show ‘in scene’ or summarise
  • Example of The Frog Prince.
  • Tools to play with during revision
  • Trying to be more organised in plot outlines
  • Creating a synopsis of your novel to highlight potential plot issues
  • Charlotte Bronte, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter,
  • Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
  • Kingdom Of Women – inspiration
  • Historical saga and dealing with the balance of research

“There’s no single right way to do it.”

“Don’t over think it in the first draft.”

Read More

#47 – Grant Faulkner – Write Through The Roof

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.”

Read More

#46 – Peter McLean – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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.”

Read More

#45 – Elizabeth Spann Craig – Write Through The Roof

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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#43 – Trevor Young – Write Through The Roof

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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#42 – Valerie Stivers – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#41 – Nin Harris – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#40 – Kira Leigh – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#39 – Alexandra Sokoloff – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#38 – Gail Carriger – Write Through The Roof

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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#37 – Emma Viskic – Write Through The Roof

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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#36 – Michelle Worthington – Write Through The Roof

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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#35 – Shona Husk – Write Through The Roof

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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#34 – Fiona Ross – Write Through The Roof

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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#33 – Kim Newman – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#31 – Josh Larsen – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#30 – Angela Savage – Write Through The Roof

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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#29 – Lara Meone Savine – Write Through The Roof

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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#28 – Andrew David Barker – Write Through The Roof

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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#27 – Charles Chu – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#26 – Burhan Wazir – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#25 – Stephen Volk – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#24 – Sione Aeschliman – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#23 – Dean Mayes – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#22 – Kaaron Warren – Write Through The Roof

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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#20 – Caroline Mitchell – Write Through The Roof

Welcome to Write Through The Roof, the podcast for writers who want to improve their craft.

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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#17 – Abbie Williams – Write Through The Roof

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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#16 – George Mann – Write Through The Roof

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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#15 – Angela Ackerman – Write Through The Roof

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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#14 – Gareth L. Powell – Write Through The Roof

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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#13 – J. Elizabeth Vincent – Write Through The Roof

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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#11 – Steve Turnbull – Write Through The Roof

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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#08 – Dave Hutchinson – Write Through The Roof

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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