Write Through The Roof | For writers who want to improve their writing

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

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”

“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.

First drafts, Tea and Exploring the Shadowy Places

“The one thing a story hates is a nit-picky writer”

“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.

In and Out, Diverse Voices and Dried Mango

“It’s getting harder to be in survival mode and also produce art.”

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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.”

Madeleine

A little introduction about Angela. She is the winner of a World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, a Ditmar and six Aurealis Awards. She has an MA and PhD in creative writing, she has eight short story collections and she’s currently writing an urban fantasy trilogy set in Brisbane. Vigil is out, Corpselight is out and the third one is in edits called Restoration comes due in 2018. Thanks Angela for coming along.

Angela

No worries.

Madeleine

I’d like to start with kind of some short and sharp questions so people get to know you. So, think of this as jumping jacks, star jumps. Scales. Do you write every day?

Angela

I try to write every day but sometimes it just depends on what projects are going, sometimes I just do admin and sometimes just talking with my editor or publisher, and some days I’m editing for other people. So, it just depends very much on deadlines.

Madeleine

You write in lots of different mediums. What’s your favourite?

Angela

I like different things about different mediums. I love the satisfaction of writing a short story quickly. I love the process of doing a novel. And I’m currently learning to write for TV and film. So, that is a whole other form entirely which breaks my brain but I really love continuing to learn

Madeleine

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Angela

I’m hopping in between. I used to be a pantser, but I just find particularly with longer work. I need goal posts, I need guidelines. I do a fairly loose framework and outlines, I know what I´m writing towards, and the next thing might change depending on the needs of the story or I have some idea that knocks the rest of my ideas out. But there needs to be kind of a loose framework, and within that there´s complete chaos, so I’m a hybrid mess.

Madeleine

And your favourite time to write?

Angela

Probably mornings now. I used to be a night owl. I used to probably start at nine o’clock at night and write until one or two in the morning. But, that was probably when I was working having a day job as well but now that I’m able to be a freelancer, which I’ve done for about six years now. I treat it as a day job as I start writing at eight or nine o´clock now, write through until about one, take a proper lunch break, put on the television, some terrible daytime TV and yell at it.

Madeleine

Any particular favourite at the moment?

Angela

Judging Amy. I always judge Amy. The whole point is that it gives me a break, a brain break and I’m not worrying or thinking about it. If anything happens in the unconscious, that’s fine. It just gets me out of the seat, moves me around, gives me stimulation, and then I go back at around two o’clock until five or six. I don’t do too much work in the evenings now unless I know I’m going to have a skype call with my agent or a publisher or something like that. Because most of them might be in the UK or the US so you need to be awake for that.

Madeleine

Your writing fuel of choice?

Angela

Black coffee because if I have whiskey I then just fall asleep.

Madeleine

Whiskey at 8.30 in the morning? What are you? Hemingway?

Angela

Unlike Hemingway, I always lose the first five hundred words, I don’t delete them, I just lose them because of the morning whiskey.

Madeleine

Sounds like we’ve got to know you a little better. So, let’s go a little bit more in depth into your writing. How do you describe your writing and what themes do you like to explore?

Angela

Somewhere between dark fantasy and horror. I think the themes that I always explore depend on whether I’m writing over fantasy or fairy tales or horror, there´s always ideas of family and belonging and ideas of home whether you’ve left it or lost it, how you find it again, and the effect that loss has on different people. Vigil is much like, a series of stories about a family you make for yourself when you’ve had loss.

Madeleine

Because she is basically an orphan.

Angela

She is basically an orphan now but in Vigil you kind of see that she’s got all these people who are satellites in her life that bring her in closer. You know when you get to Corpselight, she’s got, basically got a family that she didn’t have before. And, Restoration which is the third deals a lot with friendships, and how you sometimes, especially friendships with people earlier in life you would have happily set alight. Somehow, they become quite essential to your life. There you go.

Madeleine

So, what is the one thing that you think made the real difference in your writing?

Angela

I always try to find new techniques. I’m getting a greater understanding of structure helps me enormously, when I’m editing the thing that I picked from Alison Goodman, of the Dark Days Club, was the idea of reverse engineering for writers. So, you start either at the end of a scene, or the end of a chapter, or the end of the book. And you work your way backwards to make sure that the end is properly set up. So, you’ve got all your causal links in place, and at no point someone says, well you know, the building did blow up at the end but nobody ever bought dynamite. So, it’s really a good way of, because when we read what we know we’ve written, we read it forward, we insert things. Like how you miss a word because your brain inputs it in there, you may have missed an action when there desperately needs to be one. When you’re reading backwards to front, it’s just a different perspective and you’re more likely to notice it. That´s probably the most helpful thing I have I’ve learnt to date.

Madeleine

Wow, that’s really great. Are you trying anything new at the moment?

Angela

At the moment, not really. Even though I do love structure, I try to. I try to be good about my structure. I sometimes will still write the last scene first because it´s all I’ve got in my head, particularly for short stories. My friend Kim Wilkins who is the structure queen, the linear queen, and she goes, you know, start at the beginning, middle, end. She’ll say “I sense a disturbance in the force. Are you writing backwards again?”

Madeleine

How can she tell?

Angela

She can’t. But she knows I do it.

Madeleine

What writers inspire you?

Angela

Tanith Lee who just had such a broad range of genres and such an extraordinary stylist. Margo Lanagan obviously and John Connolly who’s an Irish writer, he does the Charlie Parker series, he´s the author I wait around every year for that to come out. I’ve got to pace myself. Four hundred pages, oh, I finished it in twenty four hours, then I have to start reading the whole series again. Fat kid at a dessert table.

Madeleine

So, what is it about him?

Angela

He has a fantastic protagonist, a great voice, very conflicted, he knows how to mingle the idea of the noir story with fallen angels. It’s this idea of something very dark moving through the world and targeting Charlie Parker and his family and friends. So, this guy’s got to be not just a detective in a traditional sense, he’s got to research apocrypha and he’s got to find old hidden stories and Biblical ideas. There’s always guns, there´s always lots of guns, there’s always the shootout kind of a thing and there’s always some very interesting stuff with Charlie Parker’s daughters. One of whom is dead. So, I just love the voice, I love the pace and I just think he’s an extraordinary story teller. So, that´s what I look forward to in the Charlie Parker’s books.

Madeleine

So, tell me a little bit more about Corpselight. What inspired it and did you try anything new?

Angela

With Corpselight, I think it’s a better plotted book than Vigil and a lot of people may know this but Vigil started out as a short story ‘Brisneyland by night’, and then I wrote three novellas and then I “frankensteined” them together. So, it´s a bit of a monstrous book but I´m very fond of it and I think it works.

Madeleine

I agree.

Angela

Thank you. But Corpselight, when I went in to write Corpselight, I had learnt so much from writing Vigil and so much about how to structure. It’s got heart, because I like the fact that, as we were talking about, when it starts, Verity´s basically an orphan and by the time you get to Corpselight, she’s got a boyfriend and she’s got a new baby. Sorry, spoilers.

Madeleine

What?

Angela

And it’s, it’s about turning the tables on her. She’s got so much more stake and it’s sort of hard to chase the bad guy down when you are eight months pregnant.

Madeleine

I’ve just got this mental image of her running with this big belly.

Angela

I actually like the idea that, you know, she would just throw something, like one of the DocMartens. and knock them out, because she can’t just be bothered to run. And it’s too much trouble for her. She’s back now. She’s more foul mouthed and impatient. But again, fun, really fun to write, and to give her new things and threaten to take them away and see the way she reacts.

Madeleine

And what are you, you’re working on the third one right now?

Angela

I have finished the third one. I talked about it with my publisher and structurally it’s all fine, it´s just the fine tuning and the editing, going back and finding those infelicities of spelling and grammar that got through because it’s the first draft. And just polishing it up. And there’s a couple of thing I just need to change, it’s just a matter of sitting down when I get back to Brisbane and starting the big polish so, I’ll do that and then I’ll start, I’ll go back to a novel that I wrote as a novella and it´s going to be a novel of a Sourdough World book called Briar Book of the Dead. So, that will take up hopefully the rest of my year.

Madeleine

And it is October tomorrow.

Angela

I know. Three months. Fine, I can do that.

Madeleine

So, time to wrap up. I’m sure you have to get to other things. I haven’t mentioned we’re at Conflux in Canberra at the moment and Angela is one of the guests of honour. She’s got a million panels. Thank you for cramming a few minutes to come and talk to me which is lovely. So, where can people find you and your work?

Angela

They can find me online, my website is angelaslatter.com, you can find my books in all bookstores, Amazon, Book Depository, Booktopia. So, just google. If you´re in Brisbane please go to your local independent bookstores, Pulp Fiction because they always have my books there that have been signed and they can get me to sign books for you.

Madeleine

Well, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Angela

No problem at all. And the other thing I´m doing in November is, I’m a guest of honour at GenreCon in Brisbane. They’ve got about three tickets left.

Madeleine

And I will see you there.

Angela

Excellent. That’d be great. Thank you so much for having me on.

Madeleine

Not a problem.

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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.” 

Madeleine

Hello, and today I’m speaking with Molly Ringle. Thanks for coming on the show Molly.

Molly

Oh, thank you for having me.

Madeleine

No problem. So, just quickly a little introduction about Molly. So, Molly is a writer from the Pacific North West, she´s seven novels under her belt. Her most recent trilogy, The Chrysomelia trilogy is based on Greek mythology in a college setting. She´s also the dubious recipient of the Bulwer-Lytton prize for the worst opening sentence for a novel. And a new novel, The Goblins of Bellweather which is inspired by the glorious poem by Christina Rossetti, The Goblin Market is out in October. Thanks for coming on the show.

Molly

Yes, thank you. Right, as we were first talking when we first got on, Bulwer-Lytton prize is actually not a novel sentence that I wrote, I mean, it’s not for a novel that was published. It´s an imaginary novel, intentionally bad.

Madeleine

Let´s just do a couple of quick warm up questions so people can get to know a little bit more about you and your writing style. Do you write every day?

Molly

I try to write every day, but some days are a little harder than others, but I try to write at least something every day, even if it´s not the actual fiction that I would ideally be working on. There are other days when I’m trying to figure out something that´s causing me to be stuck in a story or even a free write of whatever´s on my mind, which mean I´m getting closer to finishing a book, but it feels like it´s still practice. Like doing scales on a musical instrument, people say.

 Madeleine

Absolutely. And, are you a plotter or a pantser?

 Molly

I kind of wish I were more of a pantser but every time I try to be I write myself up against some walls that I can´t see past. And then I don´t know what should happen next, because I haven´t figured out the big picture sufficiently, who these characters are and where they´re going or why. So, it does work better for me when I use my plotter side and outline it first. But that said, I never stick a hundred percent to the outline. Inspirations always strikes somewhere in the process and prompts me to change something in the outline, based on a new brilliant idea. So, the outline is a guide, it´s not something I have to stick to a hundred percent.

Madeleine

Absolutely. And, what´s your favourite format of writing?

Molly

Novelist. I´m basically a novelist at heart. I will once in a while write something shorter, like a novella or short story, like, if I see a call for submissions that I´m interested in or if I´ve had an idea that´s very simple that can be told in short form. But, for the most part, I love the feeling of settling into a novel that I can work on for a year or really get in it and live in it for a while.

Madeleine

Yes, in my introduction I forgot to mention your parodies as well.

Molly

That’s true. They´re almost like fan fiction because it’s me really liking something, like the Harry Potter books or the Lord of the Ring movies, and doing something with them, making them ridiculous, condensing them down way short, and actually, not just condensing them but making jokes too. But I only do that with the things I really love, I wouldn’t if I didn’t actually like something. So, even if I´m parodying them, it’s a form of love to do that. Those are the shorter things I like to do occasionally.

Madeleine

Ok, and what´s your writing fuel of choice?

Molly

Well, so cliché, but it’s probably chocolate. Now, when I´m thinking through a problematic plot idea, I often find myself wondering into the kitchen and getting a handful of chocolate chips and standing there thinking about it. I guess my salty cravings it might be tortilla chips or cheese puffs. I know it sounds very unhealthy, I don´t eat very unhealthy on the whole but on the thinking moments I might get through these. I also drink a lot of tea though, that´s not so unhealthy.

Madeleine

What kind of tea?

Molly

I’ve all kinds. Black, green, herbal, many different kinds, I mix it up.

Madeleine

What are actually cheese puffs? Being from Australia, I don’t know.

Molly

I remember talking to somebody else in Australia who didn’t know. You don´t have Cheetos I guess. There´s this snack food thing that’s puffy, it’s probably based in corn, it’s sort of like Styrofoam but it´s sort of cheesy and salty, yes, and it´s strangely delicious. Yes.

Madeleine

Yes, we´ve got something like that but I can´t think at the moment what it´s called. A kind of cheese ring thing we have.

Molly

Something comparable, we call them cheese puffs, there are several different brandings. Cheetos is kind of the famous one but there’s others.

 Madeleine

Cheezels, that’s what they´re called in Australia, Cheezels. Ok, less about snack foods and more about writing.

Molly

More important, yes.

 Madeleine

How would you describe your writing? What themes do you explore?

Molly

Well, I would say my writing tends to be a bit on the weird side first of all. I do almost always write a love story in what I´m working on. Usually some humour. And at least in some books I like to have a magical or paranormal element.  But I seldom end up sitting the book nearly into any one genre, which is kind of the weird angle. And this is maybe because I don´t like some rule of a given genre so I decide I´m going to bend it or break it and maybe blend in something from a different genre instead. And luckily the publishing world these days is getting a bit more open to kind of mixed genre books, and people seem to be ok with that.

Yes, it does get called weird sometimes and that´s probably why. So, what´s important to me about any book I´m writing or reading is that I really care about the characters. And then there´s a good story that will keep people turning pages wanting to know what happens. I guess what I hope I consistently include is love, honest emotion, humour, cool plot idea and some intriguing way of mashing all that up together so it´s something unique, and maybe weird.

Madeleine

That sounds awesome to me. So, in your, I don´t want to say writing journey but I just did….

Molly

Craft.

Madeleine

Craft. What is the one thing that you think really made the different in your writing career that took you to the next level? What would that be?

Molly

What came to mind with that question was the rule to let the book kind of marinate after the first draft, and this is also one of the hardest things for me to do.  But, as everyone says, you know, when the first draft is down, you should not immediately jump right back at the beginning and start erasing because you won´t be able to see if you´re fixing it.

You need this objective distance, so you need to close the manuscript and not look at it for a while. I try to make it a month, although it´s really hard not to look at it. But then if you do, when you come back to it, then it´s much clearer what works and what doesn´t, it´s kind of magic but it is a hard month.

And actually another trick which is simpler is to change the font every so often when you´re revising it, because reading it in a different font, it helps you see it fresher. It´s weird but it works. At least for me it does, it may be because I´m very visually oriented but it might not work for people who aren´t. It´s kind of a fun trick and it´s very easy.

Madeleine

So, where did you get that tip from?

Molly

The font tip? I don´t remember. I may have heard it somewhere, or maybe I just stumbled upon it as I do often mess with the fonts anyway just from procrastination or I don´t know, because I like to mess with the fonts. I don´t remember who at this point.

Madeleine

Are you trying any new techniques at the moment?

Molly

Well, lately I´ve tried to coming in at writing novels or at least the plotting outlining part as if I were completely new to it. Beginner´s mind as they call it in some circles. Because maybe I feel that I´ve gotten too complacent at putting together novels. I feel it´s always worth going back to study the basics and make sure you really do know what you´re doing. So, I´ve been reading or listening to podcasts too about people´s theories of story structure and what goes into a compelling character or the typical plot line events like romance or a fantasy or so forth and thinking about that for the next book as well as the one I´m realising.

Madeleine

Are there any books or podcasts that you recommend for this?

Molly

Let´s see, there´s a couple of podcasts I’ve found. There’s ´Writing excuses`, it’s really good. Helping writers become authors is one I’ve recently found. I’ve been searching around to try new ones. There’s a bunch out there and they’ve given me a couple of good general rules and basically people put up really awesome plot outline worksheets that are good to ask yourself the questions that are on it. What´s the pinch point for the mid-point of the book and what’s the pinch point for that and characters´ goal going into it. Because sometimes I look at that, even with the book I’ve completely finished writing and you know, I´m not actually sure what the goal of the character is. That´s not a good thing to think. So yes, ask yourself some questions again.

Madeleine

And that’s what´s good with your taking that time to marinate because you get a little bit of distance.

Molly

Yes, definitely.  I think I just figured out eventually that I was revising and tinkering endlessly and just feeling like I was in a muddle, and all I really needed to do was put it away for a while and when I came back I was like, I know what the problem is. This part isn´t clear over here. So, if you´re just in it all the time, you can´t see it.

Madeleine

So, what writers inspire you?

Molly

There are so many. Just this week I was speaking to an Australian author. I was telling Kate Forsyth in e-mail that she inspires me because not only the amazing amount of great writing she does but the reading and reviewing and travelling she manages to fit into life. I’m following her Instagram page and she’s well travelling to do her books in two hours, seeing all kinds of things and she´s writing a gazillion books and reading them on. So, people like her remind me that, it’s like the old saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. People are good at doing a lot once they get into the practice. So, I feel that I shouldn’t be so reluctant to take on a little bit more about writing and life sometimes. Probably fit it in, with what some people can manage.

Madeleine

But you do have a couple of small children, don´t you? I’m always in awe of people who can do that with the little ones.

Molly

They’re getting a little bit older now. I can leave them in another room for a while. They’re in school now. When they were much smaller, looking back, it´s amazing that I got anything done. I´m not sure how that even happened. I certainly didn’t get out and do a lot of world travelling and marketing, that kind of thing, just stayed at home and did what I could here.

Madeleine

I don’t know how you guys do it. You should be proud.

Molly

Thank you. I also have a deep of respect for people who can do historical research, and Kate Forsyth can do that, and also my dear friend Abby Williams is a writer of westerns as well as contemporaries. Like, they can just dive right into their research and bring it to the book so it feels like they’ve been to this time period and can tell us how it was. I just feel daunted by it. I´m just going to get things so completely wrong, I try to do it anyway. Yes, so people who can write historicals I really, I admire them a lot.

Madeleine

Absolutely. So, tell us a bit more about the Goblins of Bellweather.

Molly

Well, it was only a few years ago actually that I only read Christina Rossetti’s poem, The Goblin Market. A friend of mine told me about it, I read it and it intrigued me, because it´s not only based on a paranormal story about two sisters dealing with a nasty goblin curse, which is interesting in itself but it also has all this other evocative and a twisted imagery about, like sucking on fruits and grappling with the goblins smashing fruit in your face. Anyone who´s read it knows it comes come off kind of sexual, which, maybe that´s where my mind goes, but a lot of people said that. And, in any case, it struck me as the kind of story I can do something with because like a fairy tale, just seemed to have a lot of symbolism, it could mean a lot of things, or a lot of ways you could retell the same story. So, I wrote it down in my story idea file and after finally finishing my huge Chrysomelia trilogy, I decided to try the Goblin story next. It was very different because it was much smaller, that´s what I wanted. I wanted a smaller, simpler book after the big exhausting trilogy. So, this is a smaller cast, simpler story but similar to the trilogy in the sense that it’s paranormal and it’s retelling an older story in my own and weird way.

Madeleine

Yes, it was very interesting for me being Australian to read and not knowing the forests, and that was an interesting setting.

Molly

Yes, that was kind of, my other motivation in writing was to bring to life this landscape that I’ve always loved and Puget Sound is my probably my favourite place on earth. It´s very relaxing to me, also mysterious and a little bit spooky in its way. If you walk deep into the forest there and into deep dark waters, so I thought, this is a perfectly good setting as a deep dark forest and spooky setting for a goblin attack or a fairy tale so I should give this some love in my stories. I don´t think that I’ve given Puget Sound enough attention, so I give this setting a lot of attention, yes.

Madeleine

That’s great. So, what are you working on right now?

Molly

Well, for most of the year I’ve been on this ongoing revision and feedback from others is for a contemporary coming of age romantic comedy, no magic this time. And it’s a love story between two guys and I really hope to get it shaped up for the road soon, get feedback and revision done before that and next project I´m pondering another magic and fae related book. So, I´m writing the notes and figuring out how it´s all going to work, what the story should be about. There will be another love story at the centre, I know that much, that´s what makes me happy.

Madeleine

So, just to wrap up, I’ll let you get back to your writing and your little ones. Where can people find you online and your work?

Molly

I’m in a lot of places in social media, I’m on Twitter which is @MollyRingle, I´m a Goodreads author, I have my Facebook author page, a Tumblr that I sometimes update, a blog that I mirror in about three different places now. Basically, anyone who googles my name will find any one of those and my books can be found at the usual online bookstores and they should be able to be ordered locally in any bookstores and libraries too, if you ask them.

Madeleine

I also have to say that The Goblin of Bellweather has a beautiful cover.

Molly

Oh, I know. I can´t take credit for that. That´s my publisher who put that together. When I gave her a few back she said, yes, I like that. It is so pretty, I know, everyone loves the cover and rightly so.

Madeleine

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and I hope you have a good day.

Molly

Thank you, you too. I’ll be excited to share the show with everyone.

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

Episode 01 with Scott McAteer; comedian, improv performer and playwright.

“The fear of monsters is a very particular fear, a safe and curious fear.”

Madeleine

Hello and welcome to Write Through The Roof. Today I’m speaking with Scott McAteer. Hi Scott, how are you going?

Scott

Good, how are you?

Madeleine

Good, thanks. Scott is a playwright, dramaturg, improv performer, stilt walker, stand-up comedian. He’s been a finalist in Raw Comedy a couple of times. His plays have been performed all around the world and he’s been a finalist in the Short and Sweet Play Writing competition. Thanks for coming on the show Scott.

Scott

Sure thing. My pleasure.

Madeleine

So, what I wanted to do to start up are a few warm up questions, to get you limbered up, you know, some star jumps and get to know what kind of writer you are. Here are a few questions before we get into the deeper stuff. So, do you write every day?

Scott

No, I should but I don’t. I´ve got to be more disciplined. But I think about a story I did in concept pretty much every day.

Madeleine

Do you put them into a little book?

Scott

I keep them on Google Document files. At the moment, there´s quite, an extensive amount, probably the most interesting in terms of research, is what I called a Monsterpedia. It’s just going through, and doing research, and any little ideas that may be useful for a story or concept later on, or keep together in a different google document, and then I separate them out.

Madeleine

So, what’s your favourite writing format?

Scott

I think writing for performance is my favourite format. I used to say that it’s great for lazy people, because you don´t have to write all the details, but it’s also a way to write knowing what kind of other colours you can bring onto a story. Even if it’s something as simple as writing for voice, something that´s going to be spoken out loud, you can control the kind of pauses and anticipations that the audience will have in a story, when you´re writing it. And it’s more difficult I think to get that in a prose piece because the reader is controlling their own pace in their environment when they´re enjoying it.

Madeleine

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Scott

I guess there’s two ways that I normally go about. For instance, I’ll give you the best example, just the other week I wrote a piece for the Stranger with my Face ten-minute, ten page challenge thing that they´ve got, which is basically a 48 hour writing challenge. You get three prompts to start you off and then you have to write a piece. The way that I went about that is, essentially, I started thinking about the characters first and how the characters would talk and just would have a little conversation about things, and then thinking about the plot. And then, once it´s sitting there in front of the keyboard, it’s just letting the characters speak and do what they want to do in order for them to get to the end point. And sometimes it’s not the end point because they decide that they don’t want to stop at that end point.

Madeleine

Absolutely. And lastly, in the short questions, what´s your writing fuel of choice?

 Scott

Coffee. It’s quite a weird thing in terms of fuel, as I’m one of those people that eats very large meals and then gets very tired, so I actually have to schedule my writing and when I’m going to eat, otherwise I’ll have to have a big snooze.

Madeleine

In between naps.

Scott

In between naps. Absolutely. Haven´t mastered the art of writing while napping yet.

Madeleine

Maybe we can help you with that. So, let´s go a little more in depth. How would you describe your writing and what themes do you generally explore?

Scott

Generally, I guess, I always thought of myself as primarily a comedy writer. But now I tend to think of it in terms of themes in that I think that there are quite a lot of things where horror and comedy are very similar and they work in terms of emotional reaction. Everything is geared towards that emotional reaction. There are other kinds of forms of writing where there is much about getting the reader or the audience to think about something.

But that´s not the kind of thing that I write, I write things that will have an emotional reaction, either a laugh or a giggle or a tingle or even a shock. So, that´s how I would classify it. If I write something which isn’t funny at all but has quite a few sort of horrors and shocks in it. I don´t think of it being a different kind of writing but using shock and horrors instead of giggles and laughs, but there will always be a few giggles and laughs.

Madeleine

So, it’s really the reaction.

Scott

Yes. It’s about getting that emotional reaction from the reader or audience.

Madeleine

So, what is the one thing that you think has been the most helpful to improve your writing?

Scott

I think, one think that’s really helpful is deadlines because I think I have to work towards them instead of putting stuff off.

But probably the most important thing is doing improvisation as a performer. In improvisation you have to, improvisers and writer will say no, no, we do completely different things but in essence, you’re doing exactly the same thing, just different speed. And something that improvisation does, I think, well, something that I do when I improvise is, I will try to figure out where characters in stories will take them and that´s something that’s very useful for writing because there are points where you get, ok, I don´t know what’s going to happen in the story. And, instead of building it in terms of a structuring like in architecture, making sure the pillars and the plot is there. You can just let the characters and the events happen, and as long as you have the characters down, the events will happen then the story will unfold.

You get to where those characters need to go because you´ve got those characters down and that´s one thing I don’t think I had before doing improvisation. I was very much, ok, I know something needs to happen here, but it was quite torturous to get that thing that happens there. It had to be worked out and then sort of written down whereas now I have more of a skill of letting it go and fill up the space with that the characters want.

Madeleine

So, I can imagine you pacing up and down in character. Are you trying anything new at the moment?

Scott

I’m working on something which is sort of an expansion of compilation of monster stories. That’s my sort of driving thing right now. Trying to figure out, and I don´t know where it’ll end up, whether it’ll end up in prose or how connected they’ll be. But just a series of different monster stories. Because they sort of almost common now and maybe even it’ll end up being in the connected stories somewhere. Just finding different ways to tell, I guess, stories of what people fear. Because the fear of monsters is a very particular kind of fear. It’s kind of a faith and curious fear, and there´s a lot of research used to base it off, which people actually believe are true. Like the Maryland goatman or 19th century vampires which were believed to be true.

Madeleine

And it´s also really fun to research as well.

Scott

Very fun. It´s quite fascinating to find out how lots of stories you would assume are not connected, you do find out that they are actually connected, they were happening. There’s a fairy tale which is set in fairy tale time which usually ends up being 300 AD and it’s about a woman who turns into a bear, and although it’s a pretty old fairy tale, it’s basically the Cinderella type of story. But at the time that it’s set, in that region there was a cult related to Diana . They’d have women who join the cult and would then dance around in bear skins and get in touch with their primal nature. So, you have to wonder if that’s connected to the story at some point.

Madeleine

So, what writers inspire you?

Scott

I like the writers that are very, very clever. I think. They’re the ones that inspire me most.

Madeleine

Like?

Scott

Like Kim Newman who seems to have read every single book and every single movie ever written. My inspiration at the moment, which I’m very adamant about that is Arthur Conan Doyle who gets a lot of flack for being terrible, almost a dopey guy who just happened to write Sherlock Holmes. He wrote other short stories which are incredibly wonderful, and he’s got all these little off hand remarks in the Sherlock Holmes stories about the other stories. And if you do a bit of poking around with little clues that he’s given, you find out that he´s clearly got an amazingly well researched story that he’s just decided not to write and left little references to.

Madeleine

Do you wonder if they’re notes for future stories for himself?

Scott

Yes. I think so…

 Madeleine

That he never got around to doing?

Scott

That’s where you go and, oh, is this story… did that start in that throw-away line? Another one but such a cliché, but is William Shakespeare. It’s that thing where you asked before about being a plotter or pantser. If I´ve got an idea in mind, with characters in mind but I can’t quite get a hold of how the plot will happen. I would have always gone back to the books of William Shakespeare and think, which of Shakespeare’s crowd he’s most like and look at the scenes in the plotting because they are perfect. If you´ve got a guy who’s a crazy murderer, Macbeth does it the best way possible, and so on. I mean, they really are, it’s one of the things that everyone takes the guy for granted, he´s a great writer. But, if he´s a great writer, he’s a great resource, in terms of this happens, then this happens, then this happens, Shakespeare´s probably wonderful for that. It’s like bang, bang, bang.

Madeleine

So, what would Shakespeare do?

Scott

What would Shakespeare do? And how can we rip it off?

Madeleine

Because everyone has for the last six hundred years. Are you trying any writing techniques at the moment?

Scott

At the moment what I’m trying, right now, is that I’m working on something a little bit different, in that I haven’t sort of plotted out a story. But I have plotted out what the main… the story isn’t going to flow chronologically, it’s going to kind of go back and forth, but it’s going to escalate chronologically. So, that’s something that’s kind of difficult to sort of plot through. It’s going to have the end happen at the beginning but the author happens at the end. But it´s going to be kind of, it’s going to escalate so that it has that climax but it’s not going to be a pure climax of action, but it´s going to be a climax, I guess, of all the threads coming together.

Madeleine

Cool, so this is the monster…

Scott

Yes, this is the monster thing.

Madeleine

Oh, I look forward to that then. Let´s wrap up, I´ll let you get on with the rest of your night. So, where could people find you if they wanted to see your work or read your work?

Scott

My place would be at the Australian Script Centre, there´re quite a few of them there. It’s not just my place there, there´s also lots of other plays there to have a look at, and also anyone looking for dramatic stuff. Probably a place to hear my work would be Grain of Truth which is a fun little improvised game show that has a very short prepared written piece by each of the performers. You can get a taste of the work that I´m working on through that.

Madeleine

And, that’s on Itunes?

Scott

I believe it’s on Itunes, yes.

Madeleine

So, if anyone wanted to connect with you on social media, how would they…?

Scott

I´m on Facebook or on Twitter @ScottMcAteer

Madeleine

@ScottMcAteer. Alright, well, thank you for talking to me today Scott. That was really great.

Scott

My pleasure.

The post #01 – Scott McAteer – Write Through The Roof appeared first on .

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

I’m Madeleine D’Este and in this show, I’m interviewing writers of all different types and asking  “what’s the one thing that took your writing to the next level?”

So, come and join me and learn all the proven tips, tricks and techniques to take your writing right through the roof.

This is episode zero of Write Through The Roof, I’m thinking of it as a prologue. The story before the story begins. So, let’s set the scene. So, why am I doing this podcast? Now, I don´t have a masters in fine arts or a degree in creative writing, but I’ve got a lifetime of story loving behind me.

But some days, when I’m putting words on the page, I bang my brow against the keyboard and things don´t quite fit how I like. I want to learn how to do this writing thing better. And where better to learn than from other writers who are way ahead of me in the game, because no matter where we’re at, we’ve always got tips and advice to share with people. There are always people ahead and behind us. So, I’m here to learn how to improve my craft and I’m sharing it with you.

Who am I?

I’m a speculative fiction writer with the occasional non-fiction scribblings. I’ve self-published a series of steampunk novellas called ´The Antics of Evangeline’, set in 1882 Melbourne up on Amazon. I’m working on a few novels at the moment as well as balancing a day job. Now, I’ve always wanted to write and I always loved books. I dabbled here and there with writing for years but now I’ve come to take my writing seriously. A bit later in life, I’m in the over 40s club. And I’m keen to learn more, and that´s really what inspired me to start this podcast.

How is the podcast going to be structured?

Well, each week I’m going to be interviewing a different writer to ask what´s the one thing that elevated their writing. Plus, also a little bit more of what they´re up to. I’ll also talk about any tip or technique that I´m trying out that week and how I’m going with it. I´m aiming to talk to a lot of different types of writers from fiction to non-fiction, scriptwriters, people that write screenplays, content marketing, memoirs, poetry, you name it. Because we have got something to learn from all different types of writers.

Let´s kick off this episode zero with me.

To be fair, I should really put myself under the microscope to answer the questions I’m going to subject others to. But I´m going to cheat, because it´s my podcast and I can. So, rather than one thing, I’ve narrowed it down to three.

What do I think are the three things that elevated my writing to date?

Number one is writing challenges.

NaNoWrimo or the national novel writing month is a challenge which runs every November to write fifty thousand words of a novel in a month or thirty days in November. I´ve been doing Nanowrimo here and there for about ten years, over ten years I think. And this was my first challenge which really showed me that I could write a novel. Now, there were years when I failed, when the story petered out and my ideas run dry but over the years I learnt how to plot and push through to the end when I was winning every year.

Another writing challenge which has been really helpful for me is the monthly writing challenge. The NaNoWrimo pace of 1660 words per day is really not sustainable for me on the long term, but then I found the Monthly Writing Challenge on Twitter with a more sensible five hundred words per day or an hour of editing. Now, there is a sign-up sheet where you record your daily scores and a wonderful community of other encouraging writers on twitter. And this really embedded a daily practice for me, plus hooking me up with an amazing bunch of people. Some you´ll hear me interviewing in later episodes. So, writing challenges really gave me the confidence and built my writing habit.

Number two is the Story Grid.

Now this tip is more on a technical side of writing. Shawn Coyne is an editor with decades of experience and with the Story Grid he outlines a method to analyse writing to find the problems and how to fix them. When I use the story grid technique, I take off my writing hat and put on my editing hat. I analyse scene by scene for emotional transitions, how I moved the story forward or not and general continuity as well as in the context of the overarching tree structure. The story grid also provides guidance on genre and their obligatory scenes, themes, controlling ideas and initial story planning. Now, I’m a planner and an analytical person by nature, and the story grid may not be for everyone, it’s very helpful for me, in my own self-editing process.

Number three was a decision.

So, that decision was to take my writing seriously, to stop dawdling and give this a proper go. Steven Pressfield from ‘The War of Art’ and ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’ calls this ‘Turning Pro’. Once I made the commitment to take my writing seriously and fully commit myself, writing became my number one goal.

So, writing challenges, editing books and turning pro are the things that really helped me to take my writing to the next level. And, over the next how many episodes or so, I don’t know how long this is going to last, we’re going to hear from a whole bunch of other people, what things have taken them to the next level.

So, now let’s talk about what I’ve been trying this week or this month. What technique am I trying right now?

What I’m trying is the 5AM writers club. Some of you may shudder at that.

I’m already a morning person but now I’m getting up at the crack of dawn, here in Melbourne at the moment is dark, to get my writing and editing done before the day job and before the rest of the world wakes up. It’s such a nice day to start my day, arriving at work already with my words done and having started the day doing my favourite thing, It’s also nice and quiet at that time without any distractions of noise, people and even dogs. Only the dawn bird chorus and perhaps the odd out garbage truck.

I find the 5am writing sessions to be fantastic, if I had a good night sleep, which is not all the time, but if I have a little bit of insomnia, it can be really rough. And I also found that, personally, five days a week and 5am writers club really wears me out, I’m a zombie by Friday. So, I’m balancing the 5am writing with the rest of my schedule, so I’m only doing three days a week at the most. So, I’m going to stick to the 5AM sessions for now, just not every day.

So, this is the prologue episode to Write Through The Roof. Over the coming weeks I’ll do interviews with other people so you won’t just be hearing me speak but thanks for listening to Write Through The Roof.

If you enjoy the show, please spread the word and write a review on your listening platform of choice, or if you’d like to get in contact with me please go do www.madeleinedeste.com or @Madeleine_deste on Twitter, no apostrophes.

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