Writing Advice Better Than Your English Classes (Andrew Hunter Murray Interview)

[00:00:00]Andrew Hunter Murray is a writer. He's a journalist. He's a comedian. And what stood out from this conversation is just his love for literature that shows up both in the way that he's written three novels and also how he's gone about studying people like Edith Wharton, Jane Austin. We talked about what makes for a good premise, how to make a character feel alive, but also this conversation was just so much fun. All right, let's roll. Well, tell me about making a good premise. Like what is important with a good premise?

[00:00:32]>> I think a good premise is one you can explain in a sentence. That's useful when you come to try and sell a book to an editor or a publisher or eventually a reader and one that you can say so clearly because it not only helps the reader understand what they're getting, but it helps you understand what you're writing. And that's that's is really important, you know. So just crispness, you know, as many concrete nouns in your premises as you can possibly crowbar in.

[00:00:58]If you find yourself having an idea and someone asked you, "What are you writing and you say, well, it's sort of that's trouble." It's fine to flail in the soup for a while. You know, everyone flails in the soup quite a bit at the start of their writing careers. That specificity, I think, is is so valuable when you when you know what you're writing.

[00:01:18]>> Well, it's not just that. It's also like, "Oo, wow, that's interesting."

[00:01:20]Huh. Yeah. I think my first book, The Last Day, had a very clear and specific premise, which is the world stopped turning 30 years ago. Half of it is is in light, half of it is in cello now.

[00:01:32]And it's been that way for 30 years.

[00:01:33]>> Yeah.

[00:01:34]>> Okay. You may have the reader's attention if they're if they're into sci-fi. They might be interested in that. And my second book, The Sanctuary, people often say second book is very difficult, and I think that's true. I struggled for a long time to articulate what it was about because I was I put a lot of different things into it and you know I'm very proud of it as I am of all my books love them like like children but there's no doubt that the last day has a clearer premise than the sanctuary and I think that made it easier to write as well as easier to talk about. Hm. So, if you were to write a third science fiction book, like what would you look for in terms of all right, this is what the premise needs to have? Um, I was thinking the other day about sleep and about a book where you just rob everyone of the ability to sleep and the chaos that would take place over the following week if the world couldn't sleep and we no one gets any sleep for a long you know anyone any individual who loses sleep starts behaving erratically after eight or 10 days. My friend Mark did this at university for a bet. I don't think he ever recovered fully from it. It really affected him. So, I'd like to see people with their fingers on the button, the nuclear button, not having slept for a week, and just what and see how that scenario plays out.

[00:02:50]>> You know what came to mind with that and the last days for me was that I can hear the premise and I can start imagining what would happen.

[00:02:58]>> And then now I get to go along for the ride of you, the writer. You're taking me on that journey now, having thought through that premise so much more than I ever have. And I get to see where you take me. It's really >> the fact that I can get both of those seems pretty important.

[00:03:13]>> I think you're absolutely right. I think I'd never thought of it in those terms, but as soon as I had the idea for the last day, >> I started thinking, but wait, what's happened to wait, what's happened to this? What's happened to that? And and I spent a long time just planning it out.

[00:03:24]And as soon as anyone else had the idea, often their first question would be, but what about this, Andy? What happens there? And then when you read the book, you're able to sometimes write to the author and say, "Oh, what about this?"

[00:03:33]And I've had lots of lovely messages from people saying, "I want to know more about this detail of the world."

[00:03:38]>> Yeah. So, how does that work? as you're working through the premise like you're just kind of like walking around being like, "Huh, wow. What would happen with the light and temperature and all these sorts of second, third, and fourth order implications?" Like, what is that like?

[00:03:50]>> It's so much fun. For me, it's the most fun possible to have the the stages of the book. Everyone likes different bits of it. Um, for me, plot is an absolute pig. I spend so much time on plot because it's the thing I like doing least. So, which is very annoying. The really fun bit is right at the start when when it could go anywhere. You haven't got a block of marble that you've reduced to a statue and you're trying to look out if the arm should be bending like that. You have a block of marble and you can you can come up with a thousand permutations of how it could be. And that's when you're doing the most scribbling. You know, for me, I start writing longhand and I try and write longhand for as long as I can um in the soup of what the book could be.

[00:04:33]And then eventually when I've got a pretty clear idea, I'll switch to typing because typing nails things down in a for me in a way that um is very useful because you do have to come up with a book at the end of it. But um it it it it clarifies things and it also pins them down. I taught writing for six years and the biggest trouble that my students face was writer's block. They had so much trouble getting ideas from out of their head and onto the page. But you know what's weird? People don't get talker's block. Like if you just talk out your ideas, it works. That's why I love Whisper Flow and use it for my writing all the time. It's super easy.

[00:05:08]Press a hotkey and you just talk and all of a sudden the ideas show up on the page. There's no ums, there's no sloppy punctuation, just a draft that you can work with and shape into something amazing. And since I'm no longer tethered to the keyboard, I can write on the move. And the biggest thing is that I trust it. Look, I love Siri. She and I go way back. We've known each other for years. But sometimes I wonder if she even passed fourth grade English class because she can't even get punctuation right. But Whisper Flow automatically cleans up all your mistakes, digressions, and weird little vocal fillers without losing any of the substance. That's why I love Whisper Flow. I use it every single day, and I recommend it to every writer I know. And you can try it for free at ref.wisperflow.ai/howrite.

[00:05:54]And how do you think about the lie? You know, one lie, two lies in terms of you have a premise, right? And then with that premise in sci-fi, you can kind of bend reality in all these sorts of ways.

[00:06:05]So the physics of your world has to make sense. Yeah.

[00:06:09]>> But the physics of your world does not need to conform to the physics of our world. And there's a kind of lie embedded within that.

[00:06:17]>> Yeah. Absolutely. Suspension of disbelief has to be done carefully. Um, and it's why I'm going to use an example from film now. The world of alien is quite clear.

[00:06:29]>> You know, there's a creature which doesn't exist as far as we know, but it's it's clear what it is and what it can do.

[00:06:38]Whereas if you've got a a world where everything is floating around, so many modern sci-fi films and adaptations have no clear fixed point of view. The the camera is moving around in a way that is very impressive for CGI, but which actually doesn't root the viewer and it makes things feel a little less meaningful, a little less impactful because that's not how we experience stories. You want to be placed down, you know, in downtown Tokyo when Godzilla has just arrived over here and you want to feel your scale as a human being in a world where an enormous lizard has just arrived, that kind of thing. So, making things real in the in the world of your story is is completely vital. You know, I don't know whether the thing that happens in the last day that stops the Earth moving around could really happen, but I did a fair bit of research about I spoke to my sister-in-law who's an astrophysicist, which was quite handy.

[00:07:37]Uh, and she sent through, "Yeah, here are eight different ways you could do that if you wanted to. It feels like it's it certainly feels when you're reading the book like it really it really could happen."

[00:07:48]>> What's true for writing literature that isn't true for writing sci-fi? And what's true for writing sci-fi that isn't true for writing literature? Oh gosh.

[00:07:55]>> Of basically how you approach it, right?

[00:07:57]Like my sense is sci-fi really begins with a premise.

[00:08:01]>> Yeah.

[00:08:01]>> Whereas literature would begin maybe more with characters, maybe more with themes, maybe more with plot, or actually no, maybe the premise in >> literature is actually the core thing.

[00:08:13]>> Well, I think you're right in that my third novel started with um a character and it's called A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering. It's totally different from the first two, which are very gloomy, end of the worldy stories.

[00:08:29]Um, this one is lighter, funnier. It's about a character called Alex who lives in empty second homes when the real owners are away.

[00:08:37]>> Right.

[00:08:38]>> And that is a premise. Um, but it's he's also a character. And I've I very much started with him. It was as if he just arrived in my head. And so the premise is >> Oh, interesting. I really honestly it's it's a it's a bit spooky when it happens. It's lovely when it happens. I often find the characters who become the real core of a novel just turn up and you slightly know how they're going to react to anything really. It doesn't feel like you you're writing them. It's very weird. And this is just to come back to the thing about writing longhand. When longhand writing is working really well, you can find yourself writing a sentence that you weren't aware was in your head. It wasn't in your head actually. You don't really know which bit of you it's come from.

[00:09:21]>> It's your your hand has moved and written the words, >> but there's a really pleasant and very weird sensation of being written through.

[00:09:30]Now, it's clearly all me. I'm not saying anything else is writing through me. I'm not receiving signals, but but the process of writing longhand means you can access sentences that have not fully formed in your conscious mind and you access them with the pen. And you feel like typing doesn't do that in the same way.

[00:09:47]>> Not in quite the same way. It's so It's so easy typing.

[00:09:53]The note don't like it. Delete it. Easy.

[00:09:55]Where did that previous sentence go?

[00:09:56]That might have led to something when you have to grind through. I have notebooks here. I thought, okay, this is really personal, by the way. I never show anyone the note, but um I want to have a really grubby notebook that I can absolutely trash for the next book. I write all the perspective titles on the front. I think yeah, don't don't say any of these out loud. I just said, "No, don't do it."

[00:10:20]Um because they're all embarrassing, you know, but but to have something you can really trash, to take notes from other writers, to have a page of here is a lot of loose dialogue that I want to throw in at some point. Here are a lot of scenes I'd love to write if they can work. You just have this free It's a soup. It's I mean, it's a real mess.

[00:10:37]It's a real mess.

[00:10:38]>> Yeah.

[00:10:38]>> One potential scene for the opening cuz I'm writing another book where Alex is the main character.

[00:10:43]>> Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. So, a sequel.

[00:10:45]>> Yes. In fact, the sequel is out in um a month or so's time. It's called Bad Deeds. This is going to be the prequel.

[00:10:51]>> The sequel.

[00:10:52]>> And Alex, the character, he he is trouble. He's always in trouble. He left home at a young age. He's been scrambling around living on his wits with whatever he can get. And he's, you know, he's likable, but he's a little rogue. And this is a scene of him um trying to like basically nick expensive watches from people who've just stolen them outside of nightclub. Fine. Like who's going to be in it? Are we going to have the same characters who were in the last few cuz he's got a like a little group of friends who he hangs around with? Places to put him, trouble to put him in, you know, crimes I'd like to see him interact commit.

[00:11:28]>> Yeah. There are so many wonderful crimes that you can you can throw in to this world. You know, these books, the breaking and entrying books are kind of set in a a millia of high life and low life. You know, high society and low lifers like Alex who've kind of made their way in. You know, he literally gets into other people's homes.

[00:11:48]Then when we're writing something that's not sci-fi, you've got a character and you're trying to develop themes below the level of character. I'm trying to make sure that the the themes I'm interested in are expressed. And the main theme for these books is try to communicate what it's like to be young today in a world which certainly doesn't open the doors to you readily. People have to scrabble and get by.

[00:12:15]And in a sense, this is a fantasy of a world where you can walk into any lovely house in the country, stay there for free, not not steal anything, not damage anything, but just get in. You have a skeleton key. They're everywhere beautiful in the country. Great. But we are also leading strongly into what life is like in Britain today and the feeling that there are plenty of people who just get away with it right at the top and how frustrating that is. And it's a it's a little bit of wish fulfillment of Alex interacting with some of these people and managing to come off better. Well, you know what's interesting here is that I would imagine that if you look at a problem like this >> straightforward in a very direct way, there are certain things that you can see. But when you're writing literature, you're looking at it in a very oblique way. You're coming at it through your imagination, coming at it through a story, you know, looking at housing, looking at inequality, all these sorts of things that really matter to you that you're like, "Okay, I want to explore what it means to be a young person in this world right now." And in what sorts of ways can you see the world by writing literature that actually are a little bit harder to see through the obvious more rational method of just looking at it through data and statistics and whatever's in the news that day.

[00:13:33]>> Yes, Breaking Entry could have been a very dry book about housing and the shortage of the shortage of new housing starts in Greater London.

[00:13:41]>> Right. But you're not like a policy wonk about this, right? Like you we're not going to like what is it? 10 Downey. Is that what people call it?

[00:13:48]>> Okay. Oh wow. What do you mean? Okay, there we go. Good for an American, right? Like you're not like going there reporting on the scene. It's a very different way of looking at what's going on.

[00:13:57]>> Um I have a phrase that I come back to again and again and again. Um which is sugarcoated broccoli. I I think these book I think the Breaking Entering books have something to say about inequality life in the UK today. um the feeling that some people are getting away with it, but it's not my job to write that and I don't think anyone would be interested if I did. And there are people who are brilliant at like working out policies to try and ameliate these problems. My job is to entertain. Absolutely. First and foremost, you know, um Philip Pullman has this lovely uh idea of writing a book being like taking a walk through the woods. It's great. He wrote a fantastic book called Demon Voices about the craft of writing. And he really he for him it is such a craft. Um and his perspective was basically you are on a walk through the woods. You are allowed to look off into the woods. And Philip if you're watching I'm sorry I am botching your position here. It's a great book. I'm I'm simplifying and I'm forgetting it as well. But his position is basically feel free as you take the path through the woods and make your way through the woods to look around at the scenery. That's a vital part of the book that you end up writing. But do not leave the path and spend a while just noodling around having a picnic. He's talking about the importance of I suppose of of plot and direction and for the reader to feel like they're going somewhere. I could absolutely throw in pages and pages of research about housing and it would make it an unreadably bad book.

[00:15:29]>> So that a core part of writing is to resist the urge to show your research.

[00:15:35]It's brilliant you've done the research.

[00:15:37]Don't tell it to us.

[00:15:39]>> So how do you think about pacing? Like do you feel that your early draft is paced too slowly? Do you think it's paced too fast? Do you see consistent themes there? What are you trying to work towards in your editing?

[00:15:49]>> I'm a bit technical about it. The first draft is is a really rough version of anything you've written. If you if you go through and I will do it I'll put it in a spreadsheet. Microsoft Excel is actually the novelist's most important friends.

[00:16:03]>> Said no one ever. You use use a spreadsheet when you write.

[00:16:06]>> Of course.

[00:16:06]>> What do you mean? Well, just I'll look at my scenes. I'll look at who we've got. I'll look at what we're learning along the way because the Breaking Enduring books are thrillers. You know, they're they're fun, but they are they are thrillers. You've got to keep them thrilling. And every single scene I'll say, right, have we learned enough here?

[00:16:23]Is this does this scene need to be here?

[00:16:24]You know, it can't just be, oh, let's have a great scene set in a fireworks factory and we won't really learn anything. It has to move things along to be a reason to be in the fireworks factory and there has to be something that comes out of it that pushes us into the next scene. And so if you look at your spreadsheet, it's embarrassing that I write novels on Microsoft Excel. If you look at your spreadsheet and you think, I've got four chapters here and there's not there's not the pace in any of them to propel the reader forward. Then I got to fix that. Mhm.

[00:16:59]>> So, what is happening in the spreadsheets? Like number of pages, number of pages, here's what's going on, here's how it connects to the plot.

[00:17:06]Like, help me visualize that.

[00:17:08]>> This is I'm not going to show you my spreadsheet. Some things are really sacred.

[00:17:13]It'll be here's what scene we're on.

[00:17:14]Here's what day we're on. Here's what characters we need in each scene. Here's how they need to be interacting. Here's the main thing we're learning plotwise because this is a plot of discovery.

[00:17:26]It's an it's uncovering some kind of crime or some kind of conspiracy. And here is the other thing. Here is the personal story that's leading through it. Where is Alex u you know in himself?

[00:17:37]How's he doing? And you have to l all these things together. You know, I think I would be quite good. I don't have the hair for it, but I think I'd be quite good at braiding because >> we'll dye your hair gray. We'll we'll go curl it and dude, you will let it rip.

[00:17:51]>> Great. Okay. That'll be my Gandalf era.

[00:17:53]Yeah. um you need to be able to combine those those things. You know, there is the plot, but it is a personal story and there are other characters involved as well. And I I don't I really don't like getting to the end of a draft and thinking that character hasn't really >> had a moment of achievement or satisfaction or development, you know, you you you want that for almost for everyone. Everyone who isn't just, you know, running a street kiosk and selling the main character a chocolate bar, you know. Um, talk to me about the development of Alex over the years, like where you started with Alex, what you know about Alex now, and your own relationship with Alex, of how Alex has come to feel real for you internally, and then how you've come to make Alex feel real on the page externally.

[00:18:43]Well, there's always a risk when you write in the first person that the character is just going to be a proxy version of you.

[00:18:51]I don't think I've fallen into that trap with Alex cuz I'm very lawabiding and he was really not. He's probably um he's probably the Mr. Hyde to my Dr. Jackal, you know. I think having a character who's able to have this wonderful life um is obviously a dream, but then you have to, as you were asking, to make it real, you have to show the consequences. And the consequence of Alex's life living in beautiful second homes by himself, making his way in, getting out, is that he's lived a pretty friendless life. You know, it comes with consequences.

[00:19:26]>> Friendless.

[00:19:27]>> Yeah. He's his best friend in the first book is probably a glazer who he occasionally calls on to to fix up the little break-in job he's just done. You know, is it friendship if it's cash in hand? Not sure it is. Um, so in breaking and entry and in fact in the first two as well, my thing I keep coming back to again and again, and I don't think this is conscious. I think this is something I'm clearly preoccupied with is seeing characters thawing out. seeing a character who in some way has been held back from fully engaging with the world >> and forming proper relationships and seeing them begin that process that that just comes up again and again. Ellen Hopper, the heroine of the last day, >> has has exactly that journey as well.

[00:20:15]>> Now, I don't know why that is. I feel like I've grown up and formed proper relationships. You'll have to ask my wife. Um, but that's clearly something I keep coming back to again and again. The challenge is then uh when you want to write more of Alex, you know, we've seen him thor out a bit in the first book.

[00:20:37]You can't have a character just go through exactly the same journey time after time. Well, actually, look, you can. There are plenty of brilliant series where people make the same mistakes again and again and again, and we love them for it, you Also, Jack Bower kind of saves the day in every single season of 24.

[00:20:54]>> Yeah.

[00:20:55]>> And season 6 was my favorite season. And >> right, >> I don't know. It's kind of amazing that >> somehow, you know, he's going to do it and yet it's still thrilling and suspenseful, >> but you're right. Something does have to change. The premise has to change.

[00:21:11]>> Yeah.

[00:21:12]>> I'm a huge fan of the Slow Horses novels by Mick Herren.

[00:21:15]>> Okay.

[00:21:16]>> He's written nine of them now. Um, and I I got heavily into them a couple of years ago and just tore through them.

[00:21:23]And his characters are all losers, screw-ups, misfits. They're they're the dregs of the Secret Service and they've been basically put in a cupboard. um they stay drex, you know, they always manage to insert themselves into a situation and often make it worse before making it better, but they they they're very recognizable and they and they stay the same and they maybe it's the fact you spend more time with them that your relationship with these characters deepens as you read more more stories about Shirley or River or Jax or whoever it is, you know, >> it's wonderful. um proper old school spy stuff.

[00:22:00]>> And every story has deep roots, you know, from decades ago. The the failures and errors of the Secret Service come back to haunt it inevitably.

[00:22:13]Things never stay buried. Um, but you see inside almost every character's head except the, as it were, the anti-hero of the whole series, the head of this crew, grim crew, who's called Jackson Lamb.

[00:22:27]>> And we never really granted access to his way of thinking. And I find that very interesting and powerful. You don't you don't get everything.

[00:22:38]>> Yeah. There's always a a mystery that keeps you holding.

[00:22:42]>> Yeah. And you you can you hear little bits about his life. You hear a little bit about why he might be the way he is.

[00:22:48]But I'm a huge fan of resisting the urge to say everything about a character.

[00:22:53]What's going on with this extensive series amongst English people? Child, JK Rowling, Pharaoh Tolken, CS Lewis, all people.

[00:23:04]>> Agatha Christie, >> wild the lands of of Great Britain successful series though. It's not just novelists. It's series.

[00:23:14]>> I clearly I'm a fish who can't perceive water. Is this unusual?

[00:23:18]>> I know I just realized this, but I'm just thinking of all these great series.

[00:23:21]British, British, British, British, British.

[00:23:24]>> We know what we like and we'll keep doing it. Thank you very much.

[00:23:29]>> I really don't know. Oh, that's interesting cuz I'm now starting to write this Breaking Entering series.

[00:23:35]I've just fallen into it. I H I'm going to do some national soulsearching now.

[00:23:42]That's really fascinating. I don't have a good answer.

[00:23:45]>> Secondary characters, what matters?

[00:23:48]Make them as real as they can possibly be. Can I give you a bit of Edith Wharton on this? Bring an R. Great. I just read a fantastic book. I I will allow myself to read one or two manuals of writing every year.

[00:24:01]>> Oh, there are rules, are there? And actually, I'm not convinced there are.

[00:24:06]>> Don't listen to any writing podcast.

[00:24:08]Those are even worse.

[00:24:09]>> If there if there's a podcast that teaches you about how to write, turn it off and absolutely >> very unhelpful. Off it goes.

[00:24:18]>> This I actually think is the right level of resolution, but I think I I actually find writing books to be kind of insufferable. There's something about a writing book that I think gets too much.

[00:24:26]It almost imposes logic and rationality without having a little bit more of the energy that a conversation has, which is why I basically don't read writing books. But I do find these conversations to be far more informative. I think that's bang on the money because after a certain while when you're having these rules you're you're basically getting into like comparing diaries and saying what what's most effective and if you if you have if you did overlay every single great novelist on a big ven diagram there's no point where they all intersect. No, my set that they wrote.

[00:24:58]My number one lesson from doing how I write is you can succeed with every single kind of process and every single kind of style, but the thing that has surprised me is no matter what you choose in terms of your approach, you have to be so so so much better at that thing than I ever thought possible.

[00:25:18]>> Oh, that's interesting.

[00:25:19]>> That's my number one lesson from doing this show.

[00:25:22]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I got to write it down.

[00:25:26]Um, Edith Wharton.

[00:25:27]>> Edith Ward. So, she wrote this she wrote this brilliant book about 100 years ago about the writing of fiction. Huh.

[00:25:32]>> I think that's what it's called. And I've just finished reading it, so I should know what it's called. Um, she's amazing. Any anyone watching this or listening who hasn't hasn't tried a bit of the house of mirth or the age of innocence. They are stunning. I'm a huge fan of Jane Austin. And to me, it's it's as if the action of Jane Austin has moved on a hundred years and things are even cruer. And the M >> she was writing about a brilliant world and a world that is really right for fiction where personal feelings frequently clash with social codes and norms. And these days it's a bit harder to write a a a forbidden love story if you're setting it in a kind of in like a free liberal western democracy. Like it's not >> right >> it's not quite as >> the tension isn't as strong.

[00:26:21]>> Yeah. Um whereas in in Wartson's world, golden age New York, you know, those were real and they were devastating to individual lives, those social codes.

[00:26:31]And Warton's writing about that world and she's just fantastic. So she wrote this book really not as a manual exactly. She wasn't saying here's the 25minute process by which I've written my Pulit surprise winning works. Um, so what she's writing about is how to make people real. Um, and when you ask about secondary uh characters, a far profounder effect is produced by the penetrating study of a few characters than by the multiplying of halfdrawn figures. Neither novelist nor playwright should ever venture on creating a character without first following it out to the end of the projected tale and being sure that the latter will be poorer for its absence.

[00:27:16]That I think is is is so important for secondary characters. You know that they need to feel as real as your main character and they can be drawn in a in a few lines.

[00:27:28]You know there are people who we we all remember from our own life and we remember one shining jewel. Um, there was someone someone my my father met once who had a very specific method for folding his shirts and this was his big thing and he was a traveling businessman this guy and he he would tell everyone he knew about this. Look, I've actually cracked it. All right, this is how you do it. And that is a an illuminating moment of character. You know, it could be something physical. It could be a preoccupation of theirs, but it doesn't have to take up 20 pages.

[00:28:05]>> Yeah. Well, I just had uh the author and director of this movie called Train Dreams on the show, and there's this scene in the movie where this this this guy comes up to a bunch of loggers who are sitting down and he pops up and he says, "I'm looking for insert guy's name that goes completely silent." And then this one guy stands up and he starts running. It was clearly him, right? And this guy takes out his gun, shoots him.

[00:28:35]Guy falls, walks up to him, shoots him again, and he looks around. He's wearing this cowboy hat type thing. And he looks at everybody else. He says, "That man killed my brother 25 years ago. If anyone has a problem with this, state your case right now. I don't want to have to be looking around behind my back for the rest of my life." pauses for 10, 15 seconds.

[00:29:01]All right, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Joan. That's not >> And like it's a good example of that's the only time when this guy shows up in the movie >> and yet the character was so vivid >> and so pure and it it's like an abstract painting. It did not take a lot of lines to clearly create the form of a person.

[00:29:26]Yeah.

[00:29:27]>> And then there's other characters in other movies where there's so much dialogue and you're just like, I have no connection to this character. Something about them either lacks depth or doesn't feel real.

[00:29:37]>> Yeah.

[00:29:37]>> And um yeah, more is not better when it comes to character.

[00:29:42]>> It's that it's slightly back to that floating perspective thing. Put us clearly in a room. Show us what is around us. Show us what's on the table. Show us how characters feeling. What, you know, they're suffering indigestion. Oh, they had too much of the breakfast buffet again. Why do they always do this? That, you know, >> aha, there there's a little germ of something, you know, and you don't want it to descend into pointless noodling. you know, you don't want to be wandering off the woods, off the path to have your picnic, but you can do things clearly and crisply and show people as real. Um, so the the points where I have failed have been where I've treated characters as a as a vehicle for plot. And there are a couple of moments I think in the first breaking and entering which if I if I read it back now, I think I've not given them their their reality.

[00:30:36]>> I've not made them physical enough. I think that's I think that's a really big thing is remembering how we all experience the world >> and then just putting down a tiny bit of that on the paper. You have the freedom to write anything you like about this person. Just give us a little bit of their reality before we do the revelation of detail. So if we're talking about making a character physical, what are the different instruments you can play? You can play with their clothing. You can play with their looks. You can play with their skin color. You can play with how they talked. You can play with what they smelled like. like what are the different instruments that are really helpful to play?

[00:31:11]>> How they move, how they >> how they react to things.

[00:31:15]>> You can do so much with gesture, you know, and those are the things which express a person's reality clearly. So Edith Wharton has another great line in this and I think I might get it made into either a tattoo or a neon sign because he writes what a one two, you know. Well, you know, no tattoos yet, but there's a first time for everything.

[00:31:34]I've got and I've got a neon sign which I keep above my writing desk which is very useful. I'll tell you what that is in a second. What she says is her line is real drama is soul drama.

[00:31:46]>> You know >> huh drama. Well, I I think what she's trying to guess at is the really exciting thing is not that there's a freight train thundering down the tracks to where the hero and heroine are tied up and they've got 30 seconds to escape.

[00:32:01]That is dramatic. But the much more important thing is what one of them is going to turn to the other and say when they think it's all up. What they want to say to each other in those moments.

[00:32:12]How we relate to each other. You know, people struggling with themselves.

[00:32:18]People who cannot resist their own vices, people who are always thinking back to that one conversation they just wish they'd done differently. That's soul drama, you know, and that's >> that's the real stuff. Um, I guess this is it's terrible to I know we're talking about books, but there is a moment at the end of Die Hard.

[00:32:39]>> Yeah.

[00:32:40]>> The watch.

[00:32:40]>> Mhm.

[00:32:41]>> Which which symbolizes so much >> is the thing that comes loose and frees um John Mlan to save his wife. You know, that's a moment. It it's a it's a shining jewel. It symbolizes a whole lot about this relationship between the two of them. I know Die Hard is a big silly action film, but there's a reason that it's >> so popular, >> so popular is because it manages to say something about this relationship between a husband and wife which has not worked and they will they have another chance to to try again. It's powerful for that. You know, it's also saying Holly McLean's been very silly to go off and have a brilliant career while while her alcoholic husband was doing such a tremendous job at home in New York. But uh it's trying to say something about a relationship between two people. And they didn't need to throw that in. You know, the writers of that film could have >> could have had it on an even higher skyscraper or they could have had the flames being even bigger.

[00:33:36]>> But they they find a way of expressing character through, you know, a wristwatch. I think that's very impressive.

[00:33:44]>> What's on the neon sign? It says this is not the cake.

[00:33:49]>> What?

[00:33:50]>> Which is my personal mantra. What does that mean? It means when you're writing something, it is incredibly tempting to look at um other people's books and say, "Look at this. I'm holding a 10 and a two and they've all got four kings or whatever it might be." You're think you're com and you're comparing your flour and eggs with finished cakes.

[00:34:15]>> Yeah.

[00:34:16]>> Don't do it. This is not the cake. You have not finished. You've barely started. Keep going. So, I presume you've struggled with that feeling early on. You're writing, "Ah, this is not Edith Wharton level. This is not Jane Austin level. This is not the level I want to be. I'm early on." And it's just like a internal chaos of why am I not there yet.

[00:34:39]>> Absolutely.

[00:34:40]>> But you know what? That also isn't just true for a specific book. It's also true for a career. that one thing that makes writing so unique is that you can get better and better and better and better at it throughout a life. And so you could be four, five, six, seven books in and looking at the cake of somebody else's book 16, 17, 18, and it can be a reminder over not just specific books, but over decades as well.

[00:35:04]>> I have to learn again every time I do it. I always forget in between writing books how to do it and I do have to start again. I trust that some layer is being set down and the next time I'm able to stand up a little bit higher. I hope so, but it doesn't feel like that always from from inside. You know, history is littered with unbelievably great writers who Graham Green, I don't think anyone reads his first book these days. He got cracking about four or five in. You know, Jan Austin wrote Northanganger first and that one is not great.

[00:35:35]Obviously, all six of her books are timeless works of genius, but North Fangarabi is definitely as the flood waters rose higher is definitely the one you say, "Okay, that one can't go first, you know." Yeah. Yeah. Leave that one and stand on that one to try and get out of it.

[00:35:46]>> Why take reading so seriously like you track your books, you you you clearly >> Another spreadsheet.

[00:35:53]>> Another spreadsheet.

[00:35:54]>> You clearly have a certain diligence and dedication to the the process of consumption as well.

[00:36:02]I like tracking what I'm reading and I track what I've read, when it was published, um the the author's sex. I'm just curious.

[00:36:12]I want to keep myself reading, you know, more women. And sometimes I get into a rut of not doing that. And I try and write an impression of the book or sometimes just one sentence from it.

[00:36:22]I think it's good to track reading. You don't have to do it in a spreadsheet, but look, for me it works very well. Um I think it's good to track it Not really because I'm going to go back and reread them, although that's a very good thing to do and I do sometimes. I think I'm doing it because I'm an obsessive nerd who needs to um have metrics of things in his life that he's achieved.

[00:36:47]Other people have a smartwatch, but it's very hard to put down the count of Monte Cristo in a smartwatch. So you got a straa and Microsoft Excel that's that >> um it is nice at the end of a year seeing what you've read and thinking ah yeah that was fantastic and I think everything you read you draw something from.

[00:37:10]I learn more from books I read and I don't really enjoy about the craft of writing than I do from brilliant books which I think are works of genius. It's quite hard when you finished a perfect book or a book that you think is absolutely tremendous to to pry it apart and see how it was done. It's almost like a stone temple where every block fits together perfectly. You can't get a knife between the blocks.

[00:37:36]When you've read something that you haven't really enjoyed, I think it's it's really useful cuz you can see that's where the author lost me. That's where that oh that third act. It didn't it didn't work. Why not? and why didn't it grip me? You know, always when you're writing, you're writing for yourself.

[00:37:53]You are writing for a reader, but when you're actually writing it, you know, there is a perfect version of this book as you see it, and that's the thing you're trying to get out. How much of that perfect version for you, cuz you are more of a planner, how much of that perfect version shows up in the planning and construction phase before you actually get down into typing it versus the sense of, okay, I'm writing this book. It's unfolding. I'm now along for the ride.

[00:38:22]>> Well, the writing bit is so much fun for me because it's where I put in I was about to say it's where I put in the sentences, duh.

[00:38:30]But it's where I'm expressing to myself in a fun way. And I I you know, I'm not I'm not putting the jokes into the planning stage or the little observations about character. Huh.

[00:38:41]>> Those are mostly happening when I'm writing in the morning cuz they're emerging day. They're emerging. Yeah.

[00:38:46]Yeah. Yeah. Um so that's it's a it's a wonderfully fun bit. I've done the awful bit of the plotting and the structuring and the oh no. But that can't work, can it? because that they were there just then and then they go, "Oh, damn." Yeah.

[00:39:00]Yeah. So, I've done all that. That's out of the way. Writing the book is the treat at the end of it basically. Um, and the initial bit is also the treat where you're you're in the soup.

[00:39:10]>> I feel you should just write a book without a plot.

[00:39:12]>> I've done it and I had to throw it away.

[00:39:15]It was unreadable. My first book, The Last Day, I wrote 30,000 words and I had written the world for about 6 months.

[00:39:23]I'd been researching and I'd been thinking what happens to the tide and I, you know, I was I was having a whale of a time.

[00:39:30]>> Yeah.

[00:39:30]>> And I thought, you know what, the first half is going to be almost like a guide to this world and the second half is going to be a crisp, clear plot of a a an exciting conspiracy un unveiled within this world. And I wrote 30,000 words of this first half and it wasn't it wasn't good.

[00:39:49]>> It wasn't there wasn't anything. It was just it was it was a bit like I'm afraid those those endless Tolkian guides to Middle Earth >> where you think I actually am not sure I need to know about this generation of the ancestors of the protagonist.

[00:40:05]>> You definitely don't.

[00:40:07]>> You definitely don't.

[00:40:09]>> Yeah. And so that's what I've been writing and you know it is of interest to me barely. Uh but you at some point it's it's not enough to be doing that. So, I have I've tried it and I've I didn't enjoy it or I didn't think anyone would enjoy reading it.

[00:40:26]>> What is the key to finding crazy obscure facts about reality?

[00:40:32]>> Just read everything.

[00:40:33]>> This feels like your core competency.

[00:40:35]>> I'd say so. I'd say so. Um, everyone knows really interesting things that they don't realize are interesting anymore.

[00:40:45]Everyone has a line of work, a hobby. um something they're fascinated by and you know the you know the basics about your own field and you have forgotten how interesting it is. So I think I think that's true.

[00:41:01]So when you when you talk to anyone about what they do, they will end up telling you things you think, "Oh god, I didn't know that. Didn't know that's how you made Chrome or whatever it might be, right?"

[00:41:10]>> Um so it's just a matter of being open to those when they happen and again reading as widely as you possibly can.

[00:41:16]You know that there are these little jewels in news stories, on the backs of serial packets, in amazing non-fiction books. You know, someone's written a whole book about COD. Well, that actually >> sounds pretty good.

[00:41:29]>> Is this the fish or Call of Duty?

[00:41:32]>> Sorry, The Fish. Okay, I'm sure there are brilliant guides for Call of Duty.

[00:41:35]>> My brain just went into a crazy divergent world there. Or was like, are we going into the PlayStation, Xbox world, or are we going into the the oceans?

[00:41:43]>> I'm a big fan of both.

[00:41:44]>> Okay. Yeah, the podcast I make no such thing as a fish. We just cover these facts every week and we've been going for 12 years now. I mean, it's we haven't missed a week, you know. Um, we remember podcasting before all this.

[00:42:00]>> It was all fields when we started >> just microphones back in the day.

[00:42:04]>> We used to set the four of us around one microphone. I'm not going to get too misty eyed because the sound quality was atrocious. Like it was really bad. This is better. Um, but we've kept going.

[00:42:16]We've kept going for 12 years. Firstly, because we keep finding facts and we love talking about them. And also because we keep finding new jokes and the joke and the thing you're listening to with the podcast is a relationship as much as it is um the the the stuff of you know we're doing a whole section about we we did one about William Hlet a few years ago the the 18th century writer and I don't think anyone has ever done 10 minutes of comedy about William Hlett but we managed it. Do you remember what you talked about?

[00:42:47]>> He hid under the bed at one point to hide from his creditors or pretended to have died. You see, this is the thing when I remember the first episode and I remember last week between a bit of a gap, but people do listen partly for the relationship. Um, especially when it's four of you making the show week in week out. You know, these in jokes develop, they rise and fall. It's like any longunning relationship. You know, >> we have kept it fresh. We've kept things spicy. We've >> Why haven't you taken to writing comedy?

[00:43:17]>> Um, well, breaking entering and bad deeds are both a lot funnier, you know, and that was the pivot I had. I real I looked after my second book at >> everything I did >> cuz I write for a funny magazine, Private Eye. Yep.

[00:43:31]>> I make this podcast, which is pretty funny. We hope. No such thing as a fish.

[00:43:36]And I'm writing these quite gloomy end of the worldy thrillers.

[00:43:41]Is that sustainable? But I think I found a I found my way back to that groove now, you know.

[00:43:48]>> Yeah.

[00:43:48]>> As you went into bringing humor into your novels, >> how is that different from the kind of humor >> that you would do in other places?

[00:44:01]>> I'm not sure it is.

[00:44:02]>> Oh, really?

[00:44:02]>> I think it's it's pretty much the same.

[00:44:04]In a novel, you have the chance to be structurally funny. Hm.

[00:44:08]>> Um, where someone's life is a big joke as opposed to just, you know, an individual joke you're making. In a podcast, you're you're you're just going second to second and if an opportunity occurs to you for a joke, you make it, >> right? Like it's a different kind of wit.

[00:44:23]>> The wit is based more on speed.

[00:44:25]>> It's I think comedy is is all connection forming. You're yoking together two concepts that are not >> Ah, that's what you mean.

[00:44:34]>> That were not previously yolked together. Um, but actually in Breaking Entering and the sequels, people are funny, you know, people are people are writing people are making jokes all the time. Um, because that's how most people talk to each other. Most people are quite funny. H, and I think most people are at their absolute funniest when they just go to the pub with some friends and have a chat. And all comedy is an attempt to recover that pure Garden of Eden state of comedy, which is you in the pub with friends or family having a chat.

[00:45:07]>> Most people are pretty funny under those circumstances. You know, >> novels is weird because you're having to be everyone around the table. Uh you're having to fill all the roles. You're you're making the jokes with yourself, but you can go back and improve them, which is, you know, wonderful. And so many times in a podcast, you make a joke, you think, "Ah, could have got that a bit neater." Now I get a chance to read. Yeah. Okay. So, here we go.

[00:45:30]>> So, this is from uh One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I know that you read that and it influenced you and so I was, you know, looking through it and this really stood out. Maybe not you, buddy, but the rest are even scared to open up and laugh. You know, that's the thing that got me about this place that there wasn't anybody laughing. I haven't heard a real laugh since I came through that door. Do you know that? But this is the line that really got me, man. When you lose your laugh, you lose your foot in.

[00:46:01]>> Yeah.

[00:46:03]>> Yeah. I think that's I think that's so true. I think you very rarely meet someone in life who doesn't have any humor or comedy inside them. Most people do. Comedy is a a a pure human.

[00:46:19]It's a pure expression of humanity >> because you are connecting things together. There's a lovely old line about a joke is like a any joke is like a horse jumping across a some kind of canyon and you've got to pitch the distance of the width of the canyon just right for your audience.

[00:46:35]>> Ah, if it's um too near, no one's impressed by the jump. If it's too far, the horse falls into the canyon and dies. Um so that's the that's what you're trying to do. And everyone will be at different points on this, you know, everyone will have a different optimal canyon width uh of the jokes that they like. Some people will, you know, will like really avong guard stuff and they and they're, you know, more abstract comedy and some people will like much much sort of closer, tighter, conversationally based or like very very concrete stuff. There isn't a right answer at all, you know, but always there's a moment of connection and I think that what I'm going to this is a rant now, but I think that is what links together the art of comedy and the art of writing in general.

[00:47:18]>> Huh. Because when you read uh anything any book um but in particular fiction there is this moment of connection between you and the author hopefully >> and the most wonderful thing is that it doesn't matter that Edith Wortm has been dead quite some time >> right >> we are forming a link across 3,000 mi of ocean and 100 years of time and she is saying to me this is how it is and I'm saying my god I see it comedy is the same it's you know it's a shorter fuse it's faster and it's more immediate but it's the same thing so a comedian is saying to you this is how the world is isn't it this is how this aspect of the world isn't it weird when someone does whatever the connection is formed and you and you say yes I never thought of it like that it's refreshing the world every time because you see things in a sudden slightly new way and everyone carries around with them lines from comedy shows that they've seen and loved and >> totally they really live in you. Like the one I always come back to is there's uh there's this great >> YouTube video from Louis K called everything is amazing and nobody is happy.

[00:48:35]>> Oh the plane Wi-Fi.

[00:48:36]>> The plane wifi one. I think about that all the time. Like you're on an airplane and you land >> and you ask someone, you know, how was how was your day?

[00:48:47]>> And they go, it absolutely sucked and you're like, you have traversed space and time like few people in all of human history. Like Sir Francis Drake would be absolutely amazed at your day. You know, people used to go up in hot air balloons. It was like the highlight of their life. You've basically done the equivalent. You've gotten a nap on the dang thing. You've woken up in another continent and then yeah, you just had this moment when you turned on the Wi-Fi. It was and then it stopped working. All of a sudden, you're just so angry. And like to your point, that bit lives inside of me.

[00:49:22]>> Yeah. Ursula Legim. Leguin. Legend.

[00:49:24]>> I think I've always said Leguin.

[00:49:27]Her >> uh she said, "Science fiction doesn't describe the future. It's a way of looking at the present."

[00:49:34]>> Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Hm.

[00:49:38]>> Couldn't have put it better myself. I mean, The Last Day is basically a climatey novel. Masquerading is, you know, future sci-fi. Um, The Sanctuary is really a book about the power of billionaires and the way in which extreme wealth warps the human mind uh and the minds of everyone exposed to it.

[00:50:02]So, they're both set in the future, but they could just as easily be set today. I I think that sci-fi in a way makes it easier to think about and discuss these things. Um, because you are you're putting things at one remove. You're seeing you're literally seeing you're getting a bit of perspective, you know, right?

[00:50:21]>> And you're able to be a bit freer in what happens, you know? So it's a it's a very useful um genre for thinking about all sorts of things, you know.

[00:50:32]>> Right. Exactly. It's like a tool for escaping depressing. You go back in time, see it differently. Go forward in time, see it differently. You know, like I always >> It's not a coincidence that Toqueville is the best commentator on America as a Frenchman.

[00:50:46]>> Okay? You know, and I think that I look at a lot of the people who are the best American writers, like writers about current American culture, >> when they're American, they've always traveled a bunch, >> and it's when you're somewhere else that you can see where you are.

[00:50:59]>> Bill Bryson, one of the great chronicers of what Britain was like in the '9s and, you know, all the way through. He's from, >> is it pronounced De Moines?

[00:51:08]>> De Moine, Iowa.

[00:51:09]>> There we go. Yeah. I think his one I can't remember which book starts with I grew up in Iowa. somebody had to just but he he came here when he was 19 and his his description of what this vanished Britain of the 70s there's an amazing section where he he describes going to the beach and seeing an elderly couple um having a picnic and it's not a nice day it's a bit drizzly it's a bit chilly it's a bit windy and they have a selection of small Tupperware containers in which they've packed various not incredibly appetizing foods and they're struggling with the elements and they're having to put up this windbreaker thing and they're having the time of their lives.

[00:51:47]>> They're having the absolute they're having a blast. They're loving it. And that >> that um is I think quite a British characteristic. The the careful measuring out of small pleasures and the ability to take great pleasure in small pleasures is I think something we, you know, we certainly pride ourselves on.

[00:52:06]>> I liked his book on Australia quite a bit.

[00:52:08]>> Yeah, I like his book on Australia quite a bit. Tell me about uh Pride and Prejudice because you've read the book so many times but then also done the improv what based on the book.

[00:52:18]>> 10 years I was in a group called Ostentatious. I I I've stopped doing it now but they're still trading very successfully. Uh they're brilliant and Ostentatious is an improvised comedy show set in the world of Austin. So, the premise is that Austin didn't write six novels. She wrote four or 500.

[00:52:36]>> And these are slowly coming to light.

[00:52:38]And the audience suggests a title and it might be Bath to the Future, Pride and Extreme Prejudice, the Vietnam one. Uh Godzilla versus Mega Darcy. I mean, it can be pretty out there or it can be a lot more restrained. But whatever the title we get, we then go into a full show of that novel as if it were real. Now, obviously, we're horsing around cuz it's improv and it, you know, things get pretty strange. Yeah.

[00:53:06]>> But it's in that world. Um, and I think it came from the fact that was it three or four of the original cast of six had studied Austin in somewhere at university. Joe and I, uh, Joe Mogo and I had both spent a whole term of our English degree studying Jane Austin, which was a real treat and a privilege. So, you get to go a bit more under the surface. Um, >> what' you find?

[00:53:30]>> Um, I get a bit I get a bit misty eyed about Austin. I just think she's just had the we've just had the 250th anniversary of her birth. Um, and it's hard to describe how good she is and how much she changed the novel without sounding a bit histrionic.

[00:53:52]>> But the fact that she was able to write works which are still funny today. I mean, there are really funny lines on every page. And if you read a page of it out, it gets even funnier because she's put extra jokes in that as a casual reader, you'll miss. And when you read them out, you realize every sentence is working hard. Um, so they're still funny. The characters are still relevant. We all know someone who's a bit like a Miss Bates or a Frank Churchill. You know, they are they are universal human types, but they're also specific.

[00:54:25]>> And the relationships that that she draws out and forms are are just so crisp and real, even in a world which has changed unrecognizably. Do you have a sense for what she's doing tactically?

[00:54:37]I think so. Yeah. I mean, after a lot of readings, you get to see a a bit more of what's going on and you can look a bit under the surface, but I think it's a little bit like that thing of sci-fi. She's restrained herself to a a specific quite narrow field and and achieves great depth within it. So, she's able to make even the very minor characters very real. Um, and even if they're absurd, you know, you'll have a a heroine and everyone who is the core and then around that core character, you have concentric circles of increasing comedy and decreasing reality.

[00:55:15]>> Huh.

[00:55:16]>> So, the very furthest out characters are the are the most absurd and they appear a bit less and they, you know, they they're the least real, but they are also the most eccentric and funny.

[00:55:26]closer to the heroine, you know, often including the main love interest or the close family, people are a bit more real and they're not played for laughs as much, you know. So that that's I think one thing she's doing technically. Um, but I mean she never met another author. I find this so extraordinary about her life.

[00:55:50]She never met another author. She never saw her own name on one of her own books. The first ones were by a lady. I find it incredibly frustrating that she didn't realize how it would go for her.

[00:56:05]You know, her rel her her reputation's been through a lot of ups and downs.

[00:56:08]It's now probably trading at all-time highs. There's so much Austin around.

[00:56:12]Um, but she's one of those rare writers where there's so much and I think it's all deserved.

[00:56:18]>> Right. She knew that she was Jane Austin, but she didn't know that she was Jane Austin.

[00:56:23]>> She couldn't possibly, she would have sounded absolutely insane if she'd said, "You see the£10 note? I'm going to be on that one day.

[00:56:32]She'd have been sectioned immediately."

[00:56:34]Um, but she is she really is that good. And this is the thing. The reason I mentioned Joe and I, having both read them at university, my counterpart at Ostentatious, is I think she's much less read by men than she should be. And I know that I I mean you will know a lot more about this than me. There is a bit of a split in terms of men are less willing to read fiction. Certain genres are more than 90% women. More than 95% women.

[00:56:59]>> Right.

[00:56:59]>> Yeah. I I mean it's crazy. We can put up a chart of on the screen here of different genres male verse female splits. And there's many more genres that are hard skewing female than genres that are hard skewing male.

[00:57:16]There is an old stat that like 96% of candles are bought by women. A a huge number of literary genres should not be in the candles section of literature.

[00:57:27]And Jane Austin is one of those.

[00:57:30]>> She's writing about women who have to either marry or live with their relatives forever. A fate worse than death. Right. They have marriage is existential to Austin's heroins. and the the path is absolutely littered with women who didn't make it.

[00:57:46]>> So, in in Pride and Prejudice, there's um Charlotte Lucas, who does make it, but she makes it by marrying an incredibly creepy and irritating cousin of the Bennett family called Mr. Collins, the Reverend Collins.

[00:57:58]>> Um, she's one of the books, if you like, failures, but she has made a choice. She's made a decision. She wants security, and this is her route to a life of security. Now, that's not a choice that women today have to make.

[00:58:13]It's much >> less quote unquote relevant to life in the 21st century. It, you know, in plenty of countries. And yet, fiction and literature are great without showing you people making difficult choices and communicating to you that things are not easy. Life is not easy.

[00:58:34]Life presents us with choices we make and sometimes they go wrong and sometimes all the time they're compromises. You know, there are no perfect choices to make and making that real is as important as making the room real. Making the characters physically real. You know, real drama is soul drama.

[00:58:53]>> That's it. And Austin is for soul drama the queen.

[00:58:57]>> That's it. Let's close there.

[00:58:58]>> Okay. That was good, man. Oh, that was so much fun. Thank you. Yeah.