Gareth Powell – author of “Ack-Ack Macaque“, “The Recollection“, “Silversands” and many more novels, stories, and poems – continues to explore the diversity and nuance of creative expression. With experience ranging from advertising copy to music to beat poetry and (of course) speculative fiction, Gareth brings a rare aesthetic to any project with which he engages. Ryan Stevenson and I discovered much writerly goodness in the 20(ish) minutes of conversation where Gareth explores his editing and revision process, his experiences with collaborative fiction, the genesis of “Ack-Ack Macaque”, and more! (and there’s more delights of a writerly nature awaiting you in Gareth’s Workshop Episode!)
PROMO: The “Journey Into…” podcast
Showcase Episode: 20 Minutes with Gareth Powell
[caution: mature language – listener discretion is advised]
Podcast: Download (Duration: 35:45 — 24.5MB)
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Episode Breakdown
01:30 – Gareth’s fabulous intro
07:50 – In an interview, you mentioned that you edit WHILE you write. How did you come to this style that’s so antithetical to the conventional practice of “Don’t look back” for first drafts?
- 08:30 – I didn’t come to it consciously, really
- 08:35 – I found when I sat down to write I had to read back a bit. Obviously when you go back to read you start to notice things
- 09:00 – For continuity problems, I’ll nip back and make the changes on-the-fly
- 09:20 – For the deadlines am writing to, it just makes sense to edit on-the-fly
- 09:55 – That’s not to say when I get to the end I don’t go back and re-edit from the beginning. I just try and tidy things up as I go along
10:05 – Do you think that editing as you go improves your productivity?
- 10:15 – I’m not sure about that but it helps me keep the entire book in my mind at one go
- 10:40 – I DO outline… I usually do a 1K – 2K word outline as a kind of roadmap
- 10:55 – It’s more of a recipe really… I need some eggs some flour some milk
- 11:05 – I have an ending in mind but I take unexpected detours along the way
12:00 – A lot of your stories have dramatically different tonal qualities. Do you write those stories concurrently and are you aware of those tonal shifts as you write them?
- 13:05 – I write them consecutively. Rather than write each adventure separately and then braid them together I just wrote the whole thing consecutively
- 13:30 – That helps keep the tone and the pacing up
- 13:50 – You can kind of complement and play it story against each other, weaving together like Miles Davis and John Coltrane
- 14:10 – They can support and echo and foreshadow each other
- 14:20 – I can’t write non-consecutively for some reason… my brain rebels
14:35 – Are those nuances in your outline or are you discovering them as you work your way through?
- 14:50 – My outlines are very nuts and bolts
- 15:00 – The actual character motivation and everything comes in as we go along
- 15:10 – I’ve never written a book that completely follows the outline I sold it on
- 15:15 – You can’t. Your characters take you off in slightly different directions and become different people… You just have to do the best you can
15:35 – PROMO: The “Journey Into…” Podcast
17:30 – Could you speak a little bit about what it is about the collaborative writing experience that appeals to you?
- 18:10 – Aliette and I had become friends and one day we were talking and one of us said we should write something together one day
- 18:30 – We started chucking ideas around and we ended up writing this 10,000 word story
- 19:00 – It was a lot of fun, like a children’s party game where one person writes one sentence in the next person writes the next
- 19:30 – Then we both took it in turns to edit it. When we were both happy with it we sent it off to the editor
- 19:50 – It was a motivating experience… When you’re writing a short story there’s nobody waiting with bated breath for the next sentence
- 20:05 – When you’re collaborating, you’ll get the next scene and your imagination is already fired to write the next part
- 20:25 – I guess it’s kind of like jamming with another musician, trading riffs seeing what each other can do
- 20:40 – I did another one with a friend Paul Raven and in that process there was a little more friendly rivalry… We constantly tried to stitch each other up
- 21:55 – It’s called “Biz Be Biz” set in a post-greenhouse effect Britain with gangsters everywhere
- 22:40 – It was more of a game of tennis, kind of like lobbing grenades at each other
23:15 – Can you tell us about the creation of Ack-Ack-Macaque?
- 23:50 – He kind of snuck up on me
- 24:00 – As a writer you kind of play with words in your head all the time
- 24:05 – Growing up, I read a lot of WE Johns’s “Biggles” books and from those I was familiar with the term “Ack Ack” for anti-aircraft fire
- 25:00 – That phrase and the phrase “macaque” (monkey) just kind of collided in my head and they stuck
- 25:20 – I thought “I’m going to have to create a world where this thing exists”
- 25:50 – I realized I needed a manga-esque character with a bit of oomph to him… and I turned around and he was just kind of standing there waiting
- 26:15 – So I wrote the story and submitted it and it was very well received in some quarters (absolutely loathed in others)
- 26:35 – I wrote a couple of novels and lots more short stories but everyone kept saying I should do something with that monkey
- 26:45 – Last year when Solaris asked if I had another book I’d like to write, I said yes (obviously)
- 27:10 – And I turned around and there he was standing behind me again picking his teeth saying “About time”
- 27:20 – I’ve had notes for a couple years for detective story with wonderful alternative history goodness and he just slotted into that
- 27:40 – The novel has absolutely nothing to do with the story
- 28:00 – I didn’t set out to write a smoking monkey character
29:00 – What do you consider to be your greatest strength as an author and how do you do to foster that strength?
- 29:20 – it’s probably the fact that I’m just too stubborn to give up
- 29:30 – I could’ve walked away and bought the entire boxed set series of “House” on DVD and spent all my evenings watching that
- 29:45 – This is what I’ve wanted to do, this is what I’m compelled to do, so it’s just arranging my life around that
- 30:00 – Another great bit of training at had was working in the marketing department of a software company writing sales letters, writing brochures, writing case studies… Very dry stuff
- 30:30 – It taught me to write very concisely
- 30:40 – Advertising and marketing copywriters make every single word as vibrant as possible and carry as much freight of meaning is possible
Another great episode!! I learn so much every time I listen to you guys. And I laugh too–especially during the introductions. Planning to listen to the workshop broadcast sometime this weekend. Have a great day!!