Category Archives: On writing

Comparing the creative process of writers and musicians, and why collaboration is worth it

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Having been a musician for much of my life, it has been interesting for me over the last few years of serious book writing to compare the creative process and working styles of the two fields.

The first obvious difference is that writing is very much an individual process, whilst creating music has, for me, been mostly collaborative, also known as shouting at each other until you get your own way.

Working together with many bands over the years, I have had to learn to consciously open myself up without ego when other band members change or make comment about my ideas. It didn’t start out as an easy thing to do, but I think that the ability to do it has grown from having a little more experience and self-confidence. Admittedly that’s not always the case.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who finds it difficult to have their ideas messed around with, but I did find being part of a band often made that easier. I love the act of collaboration that occurs within a like-minded group of musicians and I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a number of them.

When I began my adventures in writing, the control freak part of me (quite a large part actually) went ‘woohoo! No longer do I have to exist without ego, or answer to someone else for my half-baked crazy ideas, I’m free, free!’ Ahh, how wrong I was. Once we began to explore the reality of publishing I discovered that ‘wonderful’ word, editor.

All of a sudden I was thrown, with scarcely a life jacket, back into the choppy seas of collaboration. My strange ramblings were abruptly scrutinized, my careless sentence structure ripped callously apart. I jest of course, I love my editor, she’s my wife, so I guess I probably should really.

What I have found, is that almost every comment made by her in someway enriches the story I am trying to tell. I don’t always agree with them, and I do like being the boss. Being able to say, ‘hmmm, I like what you’ve done here, nope, that sucks’ is something of a relief, but any ideas I may have had about the wonders of isolation have been blown out of the water as I watch my words become immeasurably better under her careful guidance. So, yay for proof readers, editors and the collaborative process. Unless I’m tired. Or grumpy, or they’re wrong.

My experience with music is that almost inevitably working with others on a song will improve it. Sometimes, and particularly if it’s your song, it can take a while for you to really appreciate the improvements. I used the phrase ‘open myself up without ego’ What I mean by that is that in order to really work effectively on an original creation I found that I had to let go of it as being mine. This was just a touch tricky. I tend to invest myself fully in whatever I am creating, so to then hand it over and allow others to change it is a bit like letting someone else raise my child.

However, over the years it became slowly and painfully clear to me that giving others the chance to improve my work was not only humbling (in a good way), but also a fantastic learning curve. Everyone has a different way of seeing and hearing things and having your work viewed through those different perspectives can have a huge impact on how you then approach new creations. Suddenly you have new tools and ways of thinking about doing something that you may, inadvertently, have already become predictable in.

This realisation has made it much easier for me to hand over my new book to my editor without the usual agony. She isn’t telling me how to raise my child, simply suggesting ways I might do it better.  Most importantly, her suggested improvements aren’t a criticism of what I’ve done, but just a different perspective, a different way of seeing the same thing.

Hold on, she is telling me how to raise her. Dammit. Well, you get the idea. What I have come to realise is that in working with others, I don’t have to completely let go of what is mine, just be willing to share it.

 

The thing that makes the works of Bill Willingham so entertaining to read

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Bill Willingham, another comic writer and the creator behind the wonderful Fables series. There are a handful of authors working within the comics medium who are, to coin a phrase, treasure troves of ideas. People you can’t imagine get much sleep because every hour they wake up and have to jot something down, some new nugget of storytelling wonder.

Bill Willingham is one of those. From the very concept behind Fables to the bizarre self-referential world of Jack and on to the shorts he created for House of Mystery, he always manages to make stories just a little more original than most. With either an unexpected twist or simply taking the road less travelled he never seems to follow the well-worn paths of story telling cliché.

This kind of thing is tougher to emulate; the simple creation of ideas isn’t easy to copy, but when I come to a part in my book where I have options within my plot frame, I ask myself, ‘What would Bill do?” My books seem to have more goblins in them now than I originally intended, but it’s a start.

There are a lot of other writers who deserve a mention here, and I’m hoping to write about them in the future.  However, I must just mention Robert Kirkman, mostly for his ridiculous work rate and, as with Bill Willingham, apparently endless supply of ideas.

 

Love to write…Action scenes

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Good action scenes. I hadn’t realised how exciting a written action scene could be until I started working my way through the Matthew Riley books. The man is a genius. For me, a well-composed action scene means one where you can see what’s happening as it’s happening. The ideal scene will carry you along with it, unable to break free or think about anything else. You are visualising, imagining in real time.

David Gemmell also did this wonderfully well, creating vivid fight scenes one frame at a time. I often get caught up in a book, forgetting where I am and what the time is, but it’s rarer for me to experience real excitement and a real physiological response. A great action scene does exactly that, setting my pulse racing and my hands clenching.

As a writer this challenge is ever-present. To take my reader to the edge of their seat, following the action with those nervous twitches you hope no one on the tube notices. I’m still figuring out what works and what doesn’t, but for me the visualising is key. I need to be able to see what’s happening easily and every step of the way. Break the logic, or skip a beat and you’re lost. As soon as you have to stop or look back a few lines to figure out what exactly is going on, the momentum stops and the spell is broken.

Are there any authors whose actions scenes you especially love?

 

The thing that makes Terry Moore so compelling and moving to read

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Terry Moore, creator of the wonderful Strangers in Paradise. There have been a million reviews of Strangers, mostly focusing on how Terry writes female characters. When I cajoled my wife into reading the series, she spent the first few graphics assuming that Terry was a woman, a not uncommon event.

However, whilst I agree whole heartedly with those reviews, it’s not his female characterisation that really gets me. The thing I love about Strangers in Paradise and indeed everything that he writes, is his dialogue.

His characters sound very natural, using rhythms and words that ring true. At the same time, he isn’t afraid to throw in a sentence that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hollywood movie. I think that the naturalism of most of it makes the filmic parts work and not jar, which they easily could. The comics in general have that feeling of heightened reality; real people in not quite real situations, but reacting in very real ways.

In many ways, that last sentence is perhaps a great definition of effective fiction. Once the audience believes in the characters, you can create situations that make for interesting and dynamic stories. The challenge is then creating reactions that are genuine and real and the dialogue to go with them.

Terry Moore is the master at this. It’s impossible to not get invested in his characters, even when they are involved in entirely mad situations.

Inspiration, where does it come from and can I get me some?

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In my writer’s block blogs I managed to palm off the question of inspiration with the vague promise of future exploration. Alas my wife has been reminding me and so the time has come. It strikes me as wholly ironic that at this point I’m staring at the screen feeling somewhat lost.

I asked my wife, a hugely creative person who has 500 ideas a minute, where she got her inspiration from. For her, the following works well.

She will begin with a vague feeling about something, whether she’s writing a speech or creating some marketing. Often very vague, but what she will do is get excited about the prospect of the creation, without yet any clear idea of what it is. She will also try to figure out what is important to her about whatever it is that she is trying to create. She would describe this as being on a ‘values level’, meaning which of her core values, the things that inform the way she lives her life, does it really resonate with. Then, she will do something entirely unconnected with it, something that occupies her conscious brain. This gives her unconscious brain time to work on it and come up with something. When she then sits down to create, the answers and inspiration are there waiting.

So, that’s how I find my inspiration. Heheheh, see what I did there? Saved for another day.

 

Love to write about…Superheroes

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I thought it would make sense to talk about the things that I have a passion for and perhaps explore why I write about them.

The first one can’t be avoided, try as I might and it’s superheroes. I’ve spent many hours brainstorming an alternative name (sorry, it’s true) without success. However you frame it, the name just works and everything else sounds shockingly cheesy.

I’ve read comics since I was a wee lad and there’s still something about superheroes that I just love. The powers, the cool suits, the hot chicks with alliterative names, it just works. What I love about the world of superheroes as well is the complete lack of limitation. They come from all sorts of places, from distant planets, to next door via some sort of disaster. I guess I feel that once you’ve bought into the myth of the superhero, why worry about logic? This feels wonderfully freeing, both as a reader and a writer.

In my own writing I wanted to explore the concept of superhero origins a little more deeply and try and create some kind of reasonable explanation. This has been done quite recently and I’ve really enjoyed the new perspectives on it. The concept that I explore in The Assembly was one of the driving forces behind me creating this particular series.

I also really wanted to explore the personal conflicts superheroes may have if their powers weren’t necessarily good, or had caused pain to themselves or others. I felt that there was room for exploring it in a really serious way and metaphorically exploring the impact that uniqueness and difference can have on people and their families. Or something like that.