January 13, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode, I’m delighted to be joined by the Queen of Grimdark, Anna Smith Spark!
Anna joins me for a deep dive into all things writing. We look at Anna’s process, how she wrote her brilliant books, A Court of Broken Knives, A Woman Of The Sword, and A Sword Of Bronze and Ashes, and how she approaches pantsing.
Anna also shares her fantastic wisdom on Grimdark, explaining what it is and what the key features are for writers.
We also discuss character creation, worldbuilding, and dealing with writing challenges. You’re bound to learn something new!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Hello, and happy New Year.
Welcome to another episode of the Fantasy Writers.
(00:46):
Soulja. I'm your host, Richie Billing.
And today I'm delighted to be joined by the Queen of Grimda
herself, the brilliant Anna Smith Spark.
Anna, welcome to the show. Thank you.
It's great to be here. Thank you.
And yeah, I'm the 1st guest of 2025, which is lovely.
Yeah, it's it's starting offer in the right way, but I'd say
(01:08):
really appreciate you joining me.
I've been reading the Woman of the sword at the moment just
because of working on something that has a mother figure in it
and it's just fantastic. The emotional connection between
the mother and the children. It just, it just feels so real
and authentic. And the main character, Lidae,
is it Lidae? That's how I would pronounce it
(01:30):
in my head. I was, I say Lidae, but I mean,
I'm yeah, I there is no, there are so many characters in
fantasy. Yeah, because I'm actually
because I'm dyslexic. I'm one that I have to admit
quite a few of my favorite fantasy series.
I do love fantasy names, but I'malso like my favorite character.
(01:52):
And yeah, I mean, it's such a classic thing with fancy names.
No one has any idea how to pronounce them.
Yeah, but I thought it's like everyone, it's always becomes
your own story then because you've got your own take on it.
I just always get really hesitant when I say it out loud
in front of other people. But like the way that story is
(02:13):
written, like she's such an interesting character with such
a rich history and you just wantto know more.
So you can't help but read on. And and another one of my
favorite books is called a broken knife.
And I think that's where what what you showed me as a writer
is how much you can experiment with bio and structure and in a
(02:38):
fantasy because it to be honest,I've read a lot of classic
fantasies like fight poking, obviously, and Game of Thrones,
like a strong inviting fire, actually adore them.
But but you kind of did it your own way.
And that's why I really loved and it sort of encourages you to
(02:59):
try different things. And so, yeah, I'm very excited
to have you on. Anna, though.
Where's it all begin? Like what inspired you to be a
writer? Oh goodness, it actually, well,
it all began actually with the course Broken Knives.
So I mean, it kind of began in my childhood with lots of like
retelling and retelling classic myths and fairy tales and
(03:25):
folklore and children's fantasy books.
And it was always fantasy stories I was telling myself,
partly because, I mean, it's that interesting thing for a lot
of people. You've children's classic
children's books are fantasticaland magical.
If you ask someone to list children classic children's
books, they're all, almost all of them will involve magic.
And then there's often that assumption when you grow up, you
stop reading books like that. But it's just really sad.
(03:48):
But yeah, so when I was a child,it was all wet.
I read a huge amount of fantasy and myth and mythology and I
tell myself stories based on those stories and actually
thinking about sort of all that.Almost always the main
characters were actually people who turned into Marathon Thalia.
(04:08):
But then I I stopped read. I stopped writing completely
when I was an adult. And it actually, it did begin
with Quarter Broken Knives, which is the first piece of
fiction I read as an adult. And that just kind of just
poured out. I mean, it's interesting that
kind of people talk about, yeah,I mean, people do sort of talk
(04:30):
about the the form and the fact it's doing different things, but
it wasn't consciously intended at all.
It just came pouring out of me in a year.
The whole book or the first draft?
The whole book anyway. And all the kind of things like
the way that it's told in the first in the third person past
(04:50):
tense, apart from the flashback chapters that are told in the
first in the third person present tense, but you but
they're kind of anonymous. They're they're just he and she.
And then the, the Thalia's chapters, which were told in the
first person present and all of that, that was not in any way
conscious decision that just happened.
(05:12):
It just felt right when I was like writing.
So when I was writing the first flashback scene, chapter 2
Marath and Karen when they were younger, it just felt right
writing that in the present tense in the third person.
And then when it I started writing about Thalia, and yet, I
mean, she has some she has some sections in the third person.
(05:34):
But then it just felt right to start writing a piece that was
her in the first person because it just felt it was just that
was the right way to write it. It just wasn't kind of so it was
none of it was conscious at all.It just came blasting out of me.
And then I mean, again, they're kind of the fights, fight
scenes. So I mean, I was actually really
(05:55):
nervous about writing the fight scene for a long time.
And I could do a whole podcast for like advice for people who
were wanting to write fantasy, but kind of scared about things
like the fight scenes. Because I think fight scenes,
magic systems and sex are probably the three things that
(06:16):
people are really quite nervous about because fight scenes
particularly they're not something anyone's kind of had
an experience in, but there's most of us have had much
experience in. But they're also something that
people that's that whole genre of getting fight scenes, writing
them really technically and getting it right.
And then you do meet a lot of people on the fantasy scene who
do reenactments or who do Hema or who do LARP or who.
(06:39):
So you kind of get that sense oflike, oh, they kind of maybe
they know what they're talking about.
And then you meet someone who's been in the army as well and
people on the fantasy scene you meet, you have been in the
forces and you're like, and it does feel really nerve wracking
writing a fight scene for someone like me who has never
been in a fight in my life. I mean, I do have aerobics come
(07:03):
to any kind of the endless physical activity.
That's the closest. I've literally that's the
closest I've ever come to being engaged in you kind of combat
situation. Have you ever?
Consented to go out and do some first hand research.
No, because. I'm Yeah.
Because I'm, I'm actually I've got, I've got various hidden
(07:23):
disabilities. So, I mean, I just couldn't if
someone I have done, I did just like kind of target archery once
at an Outward Bound centre and like the instructor couldn't
work out how I could hold the bow that badly because I just
can't. And yeah, and I, I don't know,
(07:44):
left and right. So if I have someone to say like
hold your sword up, like which hand do I hold your sword in?
I don't know. But I mean, it's that bad.
So when I came to write the fight scenes, I was actually for
a long time, I was really scaredabout the idea of writing a
fight scene because I felt really nervous around it.
And I was kind of almost trying to avoid writing a big full on
battle because I was so nervous about it would all be wrong when
(08:04):
I didn't know what I was doing. And then I was just like, OK, I
just need to do this. And I just kind of went with it
and discovered actually I seemedto be quite good at it.
And but it wasn't, again, it wasn't kind of, and then the
battle scenes just ramped up andramped up and the fight scenes
did get more in terms, but that wasn't kind of intended either.
(08:26):
It wasn't that I wanted. That was just the way it turned
out that I somehow saw and thought and yet none of it was
planned at all and none of it was conscious at all.
And then obviously later on withthe other books in the trilogy
and with the Woman of the Sword,which is kind of a sequel, that
(08:47):
was there was a kind of established style and an
established world. But then when I came to write a
sort of bronze and Ashes, that in fact which is my new series,
which is more kind of folklore, that slight change of language
and this will change, slight change of style.
Again wasn't conscious. I didn't kind of think, now I
need to write, OK, I've done this, now I need to write
(09:09):
something which is slightly different.
It just sort of happened. I just sat down and started
writing. That was the way it came out.
And that again, was written thatstarted as a very, very just
kind of intense blast of writingthis story, just blasting out.
And that that's kind of how it work.
(09:31):
I don't really think about it. I don't kind of plan it.
It just happens. And either it doesn't happen,
it's just painful or it does. And then when?
Yeah. But yeah, no, it's all very
organic. It's fascinating, Yeah.
Just like, feels very natural. Have you ever, when you're in
(09:51):
those situations, do you just literally just trust what what
comes out or do you have a second guess yourself and think,
oh, is it the right idea or how?What are the moments like?
I have when it's going well, I just write it and I trust
myself. If I find myself thinking like,
oh, I don't know what that's thepoint when I know this is not
(10:13):
working. So I mean, I can tell anyway.
To be honest, I get, I feel really ill and frustrated when
it's not working. I can't honestly feel quite
physically not well and just really down and not right when
it's not working. But then when it is working, I,
I do kind of know. And I mean, it's because you've
(10:33):
got to keep the energy up to keep writing.
I was sort of giving someone some advice about who is trying
to make time to write. And it is that, I mean, part of
it's almost you have to have that belief.
If you start second guessing yourself and constantly
rewriting stuff and sort of not feeling confident enough to go
on, then you're never going to get anywhere from a practical
(10:55):
point of view. So you have that's, but yeah, I
can usually tell if I'm constantly guessing myself.
If I don't, if I'm looking at itthinking, oh, I don't know, then
I just know that's the point. I need to just get rid of it.
And unfortunately I'm quite goodat just getting rid of it.
I'm quite good at. So I did a lot as I'm going on
and I'm quite good at self editing.
(11:17):
And I think that's a really important thing to be able to do
because when you, when you can tell it's not quite right, you
you need to stop as soon as possible because otherwise it
just gets worse and worse. You get further and further away
from where it should be, where you think it should be and you
just go on. And I think you'd get into kind
of a bit of a, a bit of a spiralwhere it's just getting worse.
(11:41):
And I think you probably just need to trust, actually trust
your instinct that it's not working.
You need to cut a whole lot of stuff and start again, which is
really depressing at us. Yeah.
Would you identify that more as a pantser?
Oh, yes, yes. Yeah.
So you just discover, discover your way.
(12:02):
Yeah, yeah. I mean when I yeah.
So when I, yeah, when I start a new thing, I never have any
idea. I always start all my this kind
of series. I've started all the kind of
connected books I've started. So Empires of Daast and then A
Woman of the Sword, which is slightly separate.
And then the new series, which is The Making of This World
(12:23):
Ruined, The first book, which iscalled sort of Bronze Ashes.
Yeah, each one began with a scene.
So there was first of all, the very first thing was just when I
started writing Quarterback Knives.
I didn't even had a sense I was writing a novel.
It was just a scene of these menin the desert.
And then spoiler alert. Well, this is chapter 2 in the
(12:45):
my first of a book. So but a dragon turns up, a
dragon turns up within about I think 3 pages.
And that it was like, OK, this is probably a fantasy novel.
In that case, it's probably a novel because it seems to be
fiction, but I mean, it could bea short story, but it and then
it just went from there. At the time I had no idea who
any of these people were, and they were introducing so had no
(13:07):
idea who Marith was until he turned up and suddenly this
young man turned up and killed adragon.
And the whole of the book just sort of developed.
And I kind of write and I have no idea what I do, nobody who
these people are. I have no idea what's going on.
And similarly with so sort of bronze and ashes began by just a
description of a woman in a particular valley walking down
(13:29):
to a river. And I had no idea who she was.
I have no idea what was going on.
And then I suddenly just get to a point where I can see the
whole thing. And.
I know exactly what the whole thing's about and where it's
going and what it's. And, and that's this kind of
wonderful feeling where it's allrevealed to me.
Yeah, it's kind of, it really isalmost like sort of labouring up
(13:50):
a mountain. And then you get you get to the
top and you look out at the view.
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's quite a
painful process. I imagine like it works for
everyone's difference. Are they?
And I think one of the most important things is learning
your own process and what works best for you.
(14:11):
And it sounds like it is super effective because I love pants
and just fit in there and just writing feel my T-shirt.
And as time has got on, I've definitely moved more towards
doing that and it's it's so liberating, isn't it?
And I don't know, there's definitely, I mean, if you don't
know where the story is going, it's harder for the reader to
(14:33):
know where the story is going. That's one of the biggest
benefits of Bound. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, there's a real freedom in just writing.
When I often say to people aboutwriting that kind of the best
tip I can give people actually is to write, not to write for
you know, I'm writing a book andI don't know what we're going to
think of it and try try and get that critic that's thinking of
(14:56):
it as your writing is doing something to create a finished
product. Like the way you're right, you
know, like the way you're doing something at work.
When you're doing something at work, you have particular
guidelines and you're obviously doing that and you have to do it
in the way your line manager wants or whatever or the
customer wants it, whoever. And there's that.
And you do have there's that real worry about is my line
(15:19):
actually going to like this or is the customer going to like
this or whatever? But when you're writing, you
just need to so as people dance like you might dance late at
night, you best mates wedding, you know you're dancing for and
you're just dancing because you know you're dancing for the
sheer pleasure of dancing and because you're happy or singing
for the same. Yeah, you know, you write
(15:40):
because you enjoy it and just write what you enjoy and write
for the love of writing and don't think about is this
working to market or what kind of what will my be to do?
Well, one be to readers like this or kind of, you know, is
this meeting the right? Is this hitting the right notes
for this particular sub genre orall these trapes?
Something just right for the sheer pleasure of telling the
(16:02):
story you want to tell. And that will give an energy and
enjoyment to your writing. That means the reader will
probably enjoy it more. And yeah, don't write for
readers. Write for yourself essentially,
and just have fun. Enjoy it and have fun with it.
But also think I do, I mean, I do think about it a lot.
I say to people, I don't know where the book's going, but I
think about it a lot. I it's the kind of excitement
(16:28):
and almost it's almost like trying to work it out.
Like the way I don't know if you're reading detective novel
you often. I don't know why I always find
myself thinking about thinking about it and trying to work it
out and pass it out and distracted in a boring meeting
distractor trying to puzzle out who who the murderer is.
And do you write your own books like that?
Right. And then when you're not
writing, think about it, try andessentially try and puzzle your
(16:53):
own book out in the way you might with other people.
And that kind of because again, it's that sort of energy for
why, why did I write that last scene?
Why is this character doing this?
What's going on? And of course, the other thing
about punching is you can go back afterwards.
So people like sort of, I don't know.
I don't want to give people someamazing impression that, you
know, something like there's some minor detail that happens
(17:14):
on page three of one of my booksthat kind of like 3 books later
at the end is revealed as being really significant.
Like gosh, how did she know she wrote it?
She had no idea. And then three books later, it
was like it fell into place. What is possible.
Some of that was added afterwards.
There's a lovely bit. It was Hilary Mantel actually
(17:34):
talked about how she would go back and like if she realised
there was a picture image that she wanted to stress in the
book, she'd go back from her book and kind of weave the image
in and out. Occasionally, not a huge amount,
but she could spend like weeks going back to nearly finished
text and just very occasionally weaving in one particular image
(17:57):
or one particular phrase or something that was important
that she realised later was really important in the book.
Yeah. And but, and then spend a lot of
time thinking about like, is it too much?
Not like I'm going to put in a reference to this particular
symbol on every page. But, you know, just carefully
weaving it through and reading really carefully reading through
the whole manuscript to see exactly how many times this
(18:18):
thing needs to be in and how it worked.
And almost, almost like kind of,I don't know, like, I don't
know, sort of doing the finishing touches on your home
decoration or like, I don't know, finishing touches on a
piece of embroidery or somethinglike that.
You know, the final tiny detailsthat you need after everything's
done. And that so that yeah, you pants
(18:42):
it. But then you do kind of go back
over it, as I said, self edit ita lot and think about it and
kind of puts work stuff back in and things.
And but it is amazing if you pants it, how much stuff is
there in your subconscious That kind of, Yeah.
And I mean, I'm just, I mean, just really bizarre things.
(19:02):
I I find it really uncomfortableif someone's name isn't, if a
character's name isn't quite right, I find it really, really
hard to write. So I'm always changing
characters names or. And then suddenly like, yeah,
that that's who they are. That's their name.
And that's the point where everything just completely falls
into place and suddenly you understand them.
So the whole thing can just go on.
Yeah. And what about the characters?
(19:25):
Like, how do you get to know your characters?
Do you just literally like put them through the pages in the
story and figure them out so as you go along that way?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think about
them a lot, Yeah. And then they're all kind of, I
don't, some people I know character build and virtually
kind of create mood boards and things for different characters.
(19:45):
I don't do that. But I think I mean some, they're
all different aspects of me. So as I said, Marathon Thalia
were with me actually my whole life.
So I used to tell myself a lot of sort of traditional fantasy,
fairy tale folklore stories, which are always, always about a
Prince and Princess kind of has a lot of folklore and fantasy
and traditional children's stories are or and all the they
(20:11):
were all of those characters. The Prince was always my, I
realised was Premarith and the Princess was always Thalia.
So they would just be with me mywhole life.
And then Lide is very much basedon me.
A Woman of the Sword is a reallyautobiographical book, a really
confessional book. And then Candor in a Sword of
(20:33):
Bronze and Ashes is kind of me as I'd like to be.
She's the kind of person I'd what I'd, what really aspire to
me and want to be. And so they're all different
facets of me or different parts of me.
And then I don't kind of map outthe characters.
They just sort of happen. I mean, they're different voices
(20:55):
just somehow happen quite organically.
And then I get quite into them as well.
So I guess when I so I mean, yeah, I kind of really inhabit
the way they're thinking. And I do find myself.
I would when I was when I was writing Emphasis Dust, I was so
into their different heads. It would be this kind of like,
OK, I'm writing a lot about Marathon at the moment.
(21:15):
I'd be almost like, how would you think about things in daily
life and sort of trying to thinklike him in the rest of my life.
Or when I was thinking, like when I was writing to put
chapters with Tobias, like I could almost feel my like the
way I was speaking to people shifted and I was speaking to
people more like he. But yeah, it's that kind of
sense of just they're all just, I guess they just happened for
(21:40):
me. What if I'm with inner
characters? It's quite useful is often a
very minor character. I actually often name them as an
in joke for someone I know or something.
And then they just suddenly theyjust got that life to them
because they're like they relate.
I relate them to real persons. They have a kind of life to them
that I know because they're kindbecause they kind of exist.
(22:02):
Not I mean, I do. I'm one of those writers that
just sort of observes people allthe time as well.
There's that that joke people talk about about like, God,
don't you know, if you know a writer, be careful what you say
around them because they all endup in a book.
Yeah. And that and I'm I'm like that I
try and pick up things that people have said and store them
(22:23):
up. Yeah.
So that gives that gives the characters sort of realism as
well. But yeah, I think I just kind of
write the characters as they come and it's an.
Interesting point that you make there about bringing life to
them very minor characters because but I agree with you
completely adds so much colour to the story in the world when
(22:44):
you can just give that a little bit of detail.
And you mentioned 1 little trick.
Have you used any other like methods?
Like I mean, I like to give themnicknames or maybe just a half a
sentence to give them a nicknameand explain why they got the
nickname or some some kind of detail that is going to be
(23:07):
better than just like a man withbrown hair or something.
Yeah, there's that. Yeah.
There's just giving them that little life.
So just that sense of yeah, there's something about them, a
little kind of life or an interest or something.
And you don't even need to writein the book or actually often
sort of say to people that kind of working bit.
So you often the bits you might edit out later where you get,
(23:30):
you know, you've got some reallyminor character and you realise
you've given them A2 page back story that they really didn't
need and you just cut that out. But because it's there for you
and you know, so like, so it gives them a kind of depth.
I mean, Tobias obviously isn't aminor, he's a very major
character in Empress of Dust, but he's, because I know, I sort
(23:53):
of, I know all kinds of stuff about his background and his
childhoods that actually, I meanreally stupid things that
actually, I suppose I did do some kind of character mood
boards and that I did things like I did an interview.
There's a really rather cool blog site where someone does ask
you does an interview from your point of view of one of your
(24:13):
characters. So I did an interview from
Tobias's perspective. So there's all this kind of
stuff. And I did one from also from
Gerty in In the Shadow, They're dying, the novella.
I wrote Michael Fletcher. So get get.
So again, there's some stuff in there that was about I just sort
(24:35):
of about like her past that has never that's got nothing to do
with the the novella and has no bearing on the novella at all.
But because I know it's, I usually it's just, it's just a
slight richness and depth to herthat yeah.
(24:55):
So if you sort of things like, so I mean, Tobias is a Weaver
and that is mentioned in Pasadas.
So I used the language he was using.
He talked quite naturally about using metaphors to do weaving
and dying cloth and things because that's the way you
think. So as soon as you start thinking
about that kind of thing about your character, like what's this
character's background? How are they thinking they might
(25:18):
be different from someone else'scharacter?
Some some of the other characters around them that just
gives it a slight. I mean sort of it's almost like
the kind of differences in I guess in things like dialect or
language words. I mean the fame, you know, the
sort of things about English, all those sort of jokes about
different and what different social classes and people from
(25:38):
different parts of the country and whether you set use
serviette or napkin or whether you talk about all that, you
know all that stuff about different words for bread rolls.
Yeah, Cobs that sort of, yeah. What do you call them?
I call them a bread roll. Yes, because I speak the Queens.
Because I suppose I speak the. Queens we have.
We have bombs as well. Yeah.
(26:00):
But all of that and all of that.And obviously if you get this
totally kind of you could you don't want to do your reader in
completely with like what the hell is this character talking
about? But you have those little
details or OK, this character would this character would use
this character would talk about bread cakes or balms.
This character obviously talks about bread rolls.
(26:20):
Now this character you would usethe equivalent of serviette.
This character would use the equivalent of napkin.
This character is that. And then as soon as you've got
those kind of different sense ofwhere your characters are coming
from, Yeah, you've got just a thing that just give.
You've got a whole sense of actually their work of where
they're coming from, which is more interesting.
(26:42):
Yeah, than they've got brown hair.
And it's actually more interesting than giving them
some massive tragic back story or something.
Either because you're just giving them, you're just making
them ordinary people who just more often actually try and use
a bit of emphasis on other people and people are known and
things because yeah, I mean they're real people as soon as
(27:03):
they're not. So yeah, you're just basing them
on perfectly average real peoplethat you know, not basing them
basing on. But because they've got some
link to them, they've got a kindof, they've got a whole life and
a reality and a solidity there. He goes, it is.
I completely agree. It's fantastic.
And one thing I wanted to ask you is Bob Grinda.
(27:27):
So you're very much associated with the little genre.
Can you tell us all about it? Because it's something we've
never discussed on the show. I absolutely love them that I
could read all of that and but yeah, it's never been covered
and it's more popular. I actually often just say to
people it's more realistic fantasy.
(27:49):
Yeah, it's, it's because, I mean, I read a lot of historical
fiction as well, and historical fiction is never almost never
about sort of good and bad in the way that a lot of classic
fantasy is. It's never simple in the way
that a lot of classic heroic fantasy is, because obviously
real history is very seldom goodand bad, and it's certainly
(28:11):
never simple. So I mean, things like Game of
Thrones at the beginning it it'sis some he's trying to tell a
real much more realistic story about kind of the way that I
mean, it's based on. So it's based on the water, the
roses, which is obviously very complicated period of British
history where it's very difficult to say you can't.
(28:34):
People are obviously in somehow people have that instinctive
sense that they are either the House of Europe or the House of
Lancaster in some really bizarreway.
Most people in the end will somehow tell you something about
Oh yeah, Richard the Third. Oh yeah, kind of yeah.
Edward the 4th for some reason, people or yeah, Henry sort of
some reason people come out on one side or the other or but
(28:58):
it's very that that's not for any kind of moral reasons.
And, and also that, but then he's also trying to tell them to
be realistic about it. So they're kind of that
wonderful moment in Feast for Crows where, oh God, I can't
remember his name. The youngest of the Baratheon
(29:21):
brothers just dies. OK.
He just dies in Brenly. Yes, he just dies.
And OK, so he's just dies by magic, by sort of evil magic
assassination. But that reality of this kind of
you're having this, you know, this person is poised and it
looks like they're about to win the Kingdom.
And then sadly, they just kill over and die of some disease,
(29:44):
which was at that kind of curable or they literally just
fall off their horse or whatever.
And, you know, it's that that that randomness that you get
these characters that will kind of, I mean, obviously Rob Stark
is the really massive example where everyone was so shocked by
his death. And the point is that that kind
of again, OK, so it possibly didn't have any quite as
dramatic substances as that. But you've got this whole
(30:06):
narrative built up of this guy who's clearly going to be this
young handsome hero. We've had all these books this
we've gone through a book and a half.
So he knew I was the hero and then he just died.
And again, that is absolutely realistic and much more kind of
historically realistic than the kind of the era or narrative
(30:30):
where he's the chosen 1 and nothing.
So we know, you know, it's all going to work out.
So a lot of that kind of, and again, you know, the kind of
violence and the horror of Grim dark, Grim dark is it's writing
about war as it really is. Rather than that kind of there
is that kind of absurd element of some classic fantasy where
(30:54):
sort of heroic fantasy where it's all kind of weirdly
hygienic war and almost kind of weirdly just, you know, the
baddies are just so bad and our heroes are so heroic.
And it almost kind of feels likethis is battle without
consequence. And that kind of, you know, all
(31:15):
those kind of ridiculous where everyone's so powerful that kind
of they can always, always defeat the bad guy.
And that was, you know, real waris, you know, talking about the
reality of what happens in war and what happens in turbulent
society. And again, they're kind of
again, they're sort of, it's grimmed up for me is actually
(31:37):
just realistic now. I mean, I might, you might say
when you read, a lot of people say they read heroic fantasy
because they want to read something in which good
triumphs. They don't want to read
something they no, it's fantasy,the clues in the name.
I find it really much more intellectually satisfying.
So I read something more complicated.
(32:00):
Yeah, I I completely agree. Yeah.
I know I do enjoy some, enjoy writing many.
I think the characters are much more interesting as well.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's more, I think
it's a more round, it's giving interestingly rounded
characters, making them see morekind of complex and rounded and
problematic in the sense that they're not.
(32:22):
Sometimes there is also, I mean there's the enjoyment of writing
a character who is just evil. I mean, sort of something like
Prince sort of that's there's anenjoyment in a book, in a book
like that, because it is it is afantasy of the self that would
be free of inhibitions. It's fantasy in that sense.
It's fantasy and in kind of, youknow, if you actually were
(32:44):
involved fantasy roaming party, the sheer untrammeled pleasure
of just the fantasy of just being able to kind of charge
around butchering everyone because you've got a magic sword
and you're very good at fighting.
And you're kind of and you know,you're you're a level 5 and
you're a level, you're a level 10 warrior and everyone else
around you were kind of level 1 MPCS.
(33:05):
Obviously that it's that kind offancy elements of enjoying and
exploring the sort of the untrammeled dark side of your
character, which obviously I mean, I enjoyed writing about
Marath greatly as well. Just kind of completely correct
for it. But yeah, so I think it's a
mixture of kind of, but it also does make for kind of slightly
(33:27):
richer, more complicated characters.
Grim dark in the world. I always find the world's a lot
of grittier but a lot more vividand real.
Like sometimes sometimes the world, the the artists like to
hygienic and everything's just. Yes.
(33:47):
But you like to see people live in, I mean.
People generally did, but I mean, there's no it can become
can't get too far. There's that kind of some
grimmed up worlds where like every single like, no, everyone
going to the Tavern and the foodis inevitably disgusting and the
(34:09):
beer is inevitably rancid and everyone is inevitably really
horrible and there's that. It can go too far, but it is, I
think in some ways it's that kind of relatableness.
In the same way that something like that kind of British
tradition, British humorous tradition of things being crap,
(34:31):
the kind of Monty Python, men behaving badly, The Office.
All of that is basically predicated on people being
rubbish and things generally being a bit rubbish and
disappointing and life being pretty crap.
And people are being fairly crapped and crap sort of trapped
(34:54):
in their crap lives. And that it's, it's relatable.
There's a sense that you can kind of get.
It's real in a sense, that kind of something that's kind of
glossy. Yeah.
And hygienic just somehow isn't that kind of inevitable sense of
disappointment that you're really hungry and you go into it
(35:17):
and you're really, really hungry, and you go into a Tavern
and the food's horrible. And it is that it is the kind of
relatableness to it, that kind of sense of a real world that I
think is it's fun to write, but it's also, and it can go too
far. But yeah, it does give it, I
(35:37):
think, a kind of grounding in a slightly more kind of real way.
And I mean, again, people might say, well, it's fantasy.
And I enjoy writing the kind of absurd high fantasy, the sort of
romances in the old sense, the term where it is just about
absurd beauty. I mean it that kind of sort of
(36:00):
Tolkien Loch Lorien, this is just, you know, absurdly,
impossibly beautiful and over the top and just so kind of just
absurd in its beauty and its wonder.
But that's almost the kind of you can have both.
(36:22):
I think that's where Grim Duck goes too far sometimes is it's a
world of absolute squalor that kind of where you can have the
low, but then you also have the breathtaking beauty of the
Highness and the kind of the wonder, which again, is kind of
real in our lives. I think those kind of moments of
sublime wonder almost kind of contrasted with the and then
(36:44):
almost the same moment, the kindof absurdity and the kind of
rubbishness of it all. And I think, yeah, I think there
is a kind of depth to other worlds like that, that you don't
get in a world which is kind of either one or which is just not
going to another extreme. Yeah.
(37:06):
Have you got any tips for writers when it comes to
building the world's? It is quite a tricky thing,
isn't it? I know a lot of people struggle
with it. See, I don't world build out,
don't do any world building either.
I just write and the world comesout as I'm writing and which I
sometimes think makes my world slightly more realistic in a
(37:30):
weird kind of way, or more plausible because it's not
logically constructed. I haven't logically set it out.
And actually, again, reality isn't logical.
They don't have that kind of planned logic behind the most.
Most societies are fairly organic and they've got lots of
(37:53):
different interpretation. Everyone people will often
understand the same society in slightly different ways.
I have different explanations for how things operate, see
things in different ways. And then of course, most
societies I've got people from with multiple cultural
backgrounds and then within those different cultural
(38:13):
backgrounds, different narratives about those cultural
backgrounds themselves. So it's all a kind of chaos.
So I try, obviously, I try and think about the one thing I
always feel slightly self-conscious is I'm sure that
people would point out that someof the kind of, you know, the
geology and energy of impulsive dust is just a boiling hot
(38:34):
tropical forest right next to a sort of cold arid plain, because
that wouldn't work. But or, but, so I try and root
it in real. I mean I try and root places in
real places. So often when I'm describing a
bit of countryside, I try and describe it somewhere that I
know. So I've got the kind of
(38:56):
topography in my head and the and a sense of what is important
within landscape in my own head.So, so most of the places that
are of significance in my books are real places that mean
something to me. But within that also because I'm
writing them from different characters perspectives.
(39:17):
And again, we all see places differently.
So how the different characters see the same place is written
through there, how they see it. So they possibly know different
things about a place as well. So but but it is again, it's all
all completely organic. It comes out and it's what
matters, the characters. And then obviously once I make a
(39:39):
lot of notes, so once someone's been somewhere, obviously that's
what that place looks like. And then at the other
characters, then I make lots andlots of notes on going on.
And I'm lucky in that I can keepit all in my head.
I can see the world I'm writing really, really clearly and it
stays in my head. I'm not lucky in that I it
crowds out everything else. So I will sit there in meetings
(40:00):
and not clue how something that people are talking about.
I have no memory at all of the meeting I was in last week.
We discussed this and I'll sit there.
Really, I was asked to do that. Oh, sorry, have that.
No, kind of, you know, I kind ofbecause my head is just full of
my world, but kind of organicness of it I think
actually does kind of give it. Adept, it is all just things
(40:24):
that mean something to me. If there's some anything is in
there, it's because it means something.
So it, it therefore has solidityto it.
But yeah, but also it's not kindof structured.
It's not about how my world works, which I think is helpful
because it, it doesn't, it doesn't mean I'm focusing on, it
(40:49):
means I'm not focusing on the, the story and the I'm focusing
on one and writing, not on trying to kind of build a manual
for someone else for a world that for a world playing game or
something. You know, it's focusing on what
matters in the story. But then I mean, other people do
really get do a lot of world building.
(41:10):
And then, you know, if people enjoy world watching, then
that's as we're saying, there's always different ways of writing
whatever works for someone. But yeah, that's what works for
me. And I kind of, I get, again, I
think people get quite hung up. You do get a feeling that some
people who really want, there are people who want to write,
who want to start writing, but feel really nervous about
(41:32):
creating a secondary world because of this real fear that
they're not doing it right or isnot going to be good enough or
someone's going to notice some minor detail.
And I actually sometimes think when people are doing world
building, you can kind of tell. So I love a good info jump.
I love a bit where someone tellsme some great thing about how
the world works. I love books with, you know, all
(41:54):
the stuff with appendices and all that kind of stuff.
I love all of that. I would because I'm reading it
to go and live in another world.I love found taking you to
another world. So I certainly, you know, I love
all of that stuff. You can tell when someone's a
bit embarrassed and feels that they need to kind of justify
(42:14):
something and that you kind of they're sort of you can tell
when people are kind of feeling they need to kind of explain
something, something about the way their world works in a
slightly different way because they're worried that people are
going to say, Oh, this isn't plausible.
Oh, this is not I don't know howthis works.
It's I think when people just skate over it and just go with
it as K this is how the world operates.
(42:36):
Within my world, magic works like this.
Within my world, people can do this or whatever and just go
with it. So one question I would like to
ask every writer is what was your biggest challenge and how
did you overcome it? Oh my goodness, my biggest.
(42:57):
So I, I mean, as I said, in someways right back at the
beginning, actually writing a big battle scene or a fight
scene was actually what I found really unnerving because it
wasn't something I'd done, I'd ever had any real experience.
And that so I felt really anxious about it because
(43:18):
obviously and because, I mean, it's one of the few thing you're
writing that you really, if you,if you're someone like me who
has not done any kind of real elements or martial arts or even
like, but you know, camping trips.
And I'm not, I'm, you know, I that kind of whole side of
(43:40):
fantasy, something that I'm only, I know about theoretically
through non fiction, but it's not something I have any, any
practical experience of. But, and it was, you know, it
was a big thing for me to actually just go with that and
write that and think, OK, I can do this.
And I've got to do this because I'm by now it's pretty clear to
me that I'm writing big epic fantasy, a grim doc which has
(44:04):
got it's got battle. I've baffled it.
So I've got to go there. And it was and I was so was tips
hanging around trying to put it off.
And then I just did it. And I I think it comes back to
writing for the pleasure of it. It comes sort of silencing the
inner critic who's telling you to not do this or to be this is
(44:27):
rubbish or to just it is that point of just doing it for your
own sheer enjoyment of doing it and banishing the voice that's
telling you this might not be any good or but what about this
or what about that? Or I'm not convinced by this or
I mean, and actually in some ways, as, as I've had more and
(44:48):
more reviews, you kind of get more and more conscious of it.
Because obviously when I, when Iwas first writing, first writing
a couple of first chapters of the quarter break of knives, I
was just writing. It just was like, you know, this
is just the thing I'm doing for myself.
And then later I was writing it thinking like, Oh, this is, this
(45:10):
is quite good. I think I could probably get
this published. And then, but then by the time
you're writing your 6th published book, you're like,
what if the reviews? So, but this one is not as good
as the last one or, and you're, you're more and more aware of
reviews and you're more and moreaware in fact, of voices saying,
(45:31):
but this kind of there is an implausibility about this plot
or oh, but these characters are just some of the characters are
not very well drawn out. And you, you're more used to
that negative language of criticism.
So you feel it more and more andit is just, it is ignoring that
just absolutely silencing that in a voice.
Someone's told me he often writes when he's a little tired,
(45:51):
when he's quite tired, because that shuts the inner voice up
because he's just writing ratherthan it.
And someone said actually, they often they have a beer and then
they write because it's that nice.
I mean, I wouldn't. Stephen King was.
Writing, but it is that that kind of different ways of
(46:14):
silencing that voice in your head, which is saying like, but
this isn't very good or this could be better or kind of.
Yeah, that's a good voice to have when you're editing.
It's a good voice to have when you're editing, but even then
it's not good in some ways. It's not a good voice to have
when you're editing because you're reducing like, Oh my God,
every this entire book is just rubbish.
I'll just delete it. But it's just that kind of,
(46:36):
it's, is that getting into that point where you can just write
for the pleasure of writing and silence all of those fears and
we all have them. So actually a lot of people have
real anxiety about building a convincing second fantasy work,
secondary fantasy world and world building and how your
(46:59):
magic works and all that. But then actually, it's
interesting. I remember actually, I think I'm
sure Adrian Trakovsky said one of the books he found hardest to
write was his book that sets, actually parts of it are set in
the real world, The Doors of Eden.
That's what it's called The Doors of Eden.
So part of that is set on BodminMoore, and suddenly he's got
(47:21):
this whole like, Oh my God, thishas to be right.
When you're writing fantasy or science fiction, you can kind of
make it up because you know you're making it up.
But as soon as you start writingabout actual places, and since
you start writing about the country that you and most of
your readers live in, at the time of that you and most of
(47:44):
your readers are living in it, that he was saying actually it's
it's unnerving because people are like, but that's just wrong
because suddenly you consider that no, no one behaves like
that. And.
And that's just really interesting because you always
have that voice. You sort of think like, this
world is my world is totally implausible.
(48:06):
And then you're like, yeah, but my real world is even.
But now I'm writing about 21st century Britain.
It's even worse. And yeah, it's just really kind
of so you people never stop having that voice.
So now and you know, you'd thinkI've had some absolutely amazing
reviews and you think I feel like, oh, this is amazing.
(48:28):
But now I'm like, my God, it's never going to live up to the
last one. And you never silence that
voice. And you have to silence that
voice because it kind of it's just, it is horrible.
And it because it's again, because it's baring your soul.
If you're writing, really writing, you are writing
something much more personal. So it is much harder to deal
(48:50):
with than I mean, we've all done, I'm sure we've all had day
job work where you're thinking like, oh God, I know perfectly
well. Well, my manager is going to
tell me this is a bit rubbish orindeed, you think this is
excellent. Then your my manager comes back
and tells you, I'm sorry, you'regoing to have to stop.
Yeah, and that's painful, but the voice in your head that I
still have that voice constantly.
(49:12):
And as I said, in fact, I think it's got worse, but you just
have to silence it and just makeit go away and stop.
It can't really tell anyone. I can't tell you how to do that.
I'm not sure. As I said, someone I know
recommends writing if you've hada beer or two, which I'm sure
it's absolutely I should not. I don't.
I don't drink at all. So I should.
(49:33):
I do not do that. So I'm not encouraging you to do
that. But it's.
Shots Tequila hit the keyboards.Yes, yes.
Another shot every 500 words. Yes, thank you very much.
Fantastic gentleman. You shared so many insights.
(49:54):
I feel like I've learned so much.
Just listen to you. And I always like catching your
panels on a fantasy con as well because again, packed with
insight. So thank you very much.
Thank you. Well, I'm actually helping to
organise World Fancy Con, which is in Brighton in on the
Halloween weekends this year. So that will be Fancy Con, but
(50:18):
more and yeah, so that yes, justto provide that to everyone.
And that will be very much aboutkind of, yeah, that was very the
lots of the panels. And that will be very much about
kind of sort of high level discussion about the craft and
the kind of business of writing and things from a kind of
practitioner's point of view. So yeah, that should be a
(50:39):
really, really good convention. Yeah, you always learn something
new. Fantastic.
And where's the best place to learn more about yourself?
I'm on. So now I have come off X because
I just felt I couldn't. I couldn't anymore.
So I'm on Facebook, although that yeah, my big like, hey, I'm
(51:00):
going to come off X and stay on Facebook went really well,
obviously decision. So I'm on Facebook as Anna Smith
Spark, I'm on Blue Sky as Anna Smith Spark or queen of grimdoc
and Instagram. So yeah, those are the places I
tend to post stuff. I do have a website
calledbrokenknivesnot.net, whichis a fairly rubbish website
(51:22):
because I'm not good at that kind of stuff at all.
I'm definitely one of those. I can write, but I cannot do
anything else and I certainly cannot cope with websites.
But yeah, so I'm on Instagram and Blue Sky and Facebook and I
post stuff and I do have my website for there's some nice
readings on there and some nice pictures and things.
(51:43):
There you go, I'll put all the links in the description.
I thank you everyone for listening at home.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
(52:05):
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for less than.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fancy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Hello, and happy New Year.
Welcome to another episode of the Fantasy Writers.
(00:46):
Soulja. I'm your host, Richie Billing.
And today I'm delighted to be joined by the Queen of Grimda
herself, the brilliant Anna Smith Spark.
Anna, welcome to the show. Thank you.
It's great to be here. Thank you.
And yeah, I'm the 1st guest of 2025, which is lovely.
Yeah, it's it's starting offer in the right way, but I'd say
(01:08):
really appreciate you joining me.
I've been reading the Woman of the sword at the moment just
because of working on something that has a mother figure in it
and it's just fantastic. The emotional connection between
the mother and the children. It just, it just feels so real
and authentic. And the main character, Lidae,
is it Lidae? That's how I would pronounce it
(01:30):
in my head. I was, I say Lidae, but I mean,
I'm yeah, I there is no, there are so many characters in
fantasy. Yeah, because I'm actually
because I'm dyslexic. I'm one that I have to admit
quite a few of my favorite fantasy series.
I do love fantasy names, but I'malso like my favorite character.
(01:52):
And yeah, I mean, it's such a classic thing with fancy names.
No one has any idea how to pronounce them.
Yeah, but I thought it's like everyone, it's always becomes
your own story then because you've got your own take on it.
I just always get really hesitant when I say it out loud
in front of other people. But like the way that story is
(02:13):
written, like she's such an interesting character with such
a rich history and you just wantto know more.
So you can't help but read on. And and another one of my
favorite books is called a broken knife.
And I think that's where what what you showed me as a writer
is how much you can experiment with bio and structure and in a
(02:38):
fantasy because it to be honest,I've read a lot of classic
fantasies like fight poking, obviously, and Game of Thrones,
like a strong inviting fire, actually adore them.
But but you kind of did it your own way.
And that's why I really loved and it sort of encourages you to
(02:59):
try different things. And so, yeah, I'm very excited
to have you on. Anna, though.
Where's it all begin? Like what inspired you to be a
writer? Oh goodness, it actually, well,
it all began actually with the course Broken Knives.
So I mean, it kind of began in my childhood with lots of like
retelling and retelling classic myths and fairy tales and
(03:25):
folklore and children's fantasy books.
And it was always fantasy stories I was telling myself,
partly because, I mean, it's that interesting thing for a lot
of people. You've children's classic
children's books are fantasticaland magical.
If you ask someone to list children classic children's
books, they're all, almost all of them will involve magic.
And then there's often that assumption when you grow up, you
stop reading books like that. But it's just really sad.
(03:48):
But yeah, so when I was a child,it was all wet.
I read a huge amount of fantasy and myth and mythology and I
tell myself stories based on those stories and actually
thinking about sort of all that.Almost always the main
characters were actually people who turned into Marathon Thalia.
(04:08):
But then I I stopped read. I stopped writing completely
when I was an adult. And it actually, it did begin
with Quarter Broken Knives, which is the first piece of
fiction I read as an adult. And that just kind of just
poured out. I mean, it's interesting that
kind of people talk about, yeah,I mean, people do sort of talk
(04:30):
about the the form and the fact it's doing different things, but
it wasn't consciously intended at all.
It just came pouring out of me in a year.
The whole book or the first draft?
The whole book anyway. And all the kind of things like
the way that it's told in the first in the third person past
(04:50):
tense, apart from the flashback chapters that are told in the
first in the third person present tense, but you but
they're kind of anonymous. They're they're just he and she.
And then the, the Thalia's chapters, which were told in the
first person present and all of that, that was not in any way
conscious decision that just happened.
(05:12):
It just felt right when I was like writing.
So when I was writing the first flashback scene, chapter 2
Marath and Karen when they were younger, it just felt right
writing that in the present tense in the third person.
And then when it I started writing about Thalia, and yet, I
mean, she has some she has some sections in the third person.
(05:34):
But then it just felt right to start writing a piece that was
her in the first person because it just felt it was just that
was the right way to write it. It just wasn't kind of so it was
none of it was conscious at all.It just came blasting out of me.
And then I mean, again, they're kind of the fights, fight
scenes. So I mean, I was actually really
(05:55):
nervous about writing the fight scene for a long time.
And I could do a whole podcast for like advice for people who
were wanting to write fantasy, but kind of scared about things
like the fight scenes. Because I think fight scenes,
magic systems and sex are probably the three things that
(06:16):
people are really quite nervous about because fight scenes
particularly they're not something anyone's kind of had
an experience in, but there's most of us have had much
experience in. But they're also something that
people that's that whole genre of getting fight scenes, writing
them really technically and getting it right.
And then you do meet a lot of people on the fantasy scene who
do reenactments or who do Hema or who do LARP or who.
(06:39):
So you kind of get that sense oflike, oh, they kind of maybe
they know what they're talking about.
And then you meet someone who's been in the army as well and
people on the fantasy scene you meet, you have been in the
forces and you're like, and it does feel really nerve wracking
writing a fight scene for someone like me who has never
been in a fight in my life. I mean, I do have aerobics come
(07:03):
to any kind of the endless physical activity.
That's the closest. I've literally that's the
closest I've ever come to being engaged in you kind of combat
situation. Have you ever?
Consented to go out and do some first hand research.
No, because. I'm Yeah.
Because I'm, I'm actually I've got, I've got various hidden
(07:23):
disabilities. So, I mean, I just couldn't if
someone I have done, I did just like kind of target archery once
at an Outward Bound centre and like the instructor couldn't
work out how I could hold the bow that badly because I just
can't. And yeah, and I, I don't know,
(07:44):
left and right. So if I have someone to say like
hold your sword up, like which hand do I hold your sword in?
I don't know. But I mean, it's that bad.
So when I came to write the fight scenes, I was actually for
a long time, I was really scaredabout the idea of writing a
fight scene because I felt really nervous around it.
And I was kind of almost trying to avoid writing a big full on
battle because I was so nervous about it would all be wrong when
(08:04):
I didn't know what I was doing. And then I was just like, OK, I
just need to do this. And I just kind of went with it
and discovered actually I seemedto be quite good at it.
And but it wasn't, again, it wasn't kind of, and then the
battle scenes just ramped up andramped up and the fight scenes
did get more in terms, but that wasn't kind of intended either.
(08:26):
It wasn't that I wanted. That was just the way it turned
out that I somehow saw and thought and yet none of it was
planned at all and none of it was conscious at all.
And then obviously later on withthe other books in the trilogy
and with the Woman of the Sword,which is kind of a sequel, that
(08:47):
was there was a kind of established style and an
established world. But then when I came to write a
sort of bronze and Ashes, that in fact which is my new series,
which is more kind of folklore, that slight change of language
and this will change, slight change of style.
Again wasn't conscious. I didn't kind of think, now I
need to write, OK, I've done this, now I need to write
(09:09):
something which is slightly different.
It just sort of happened. I just sat down and started
writing. That was the way it came out.
And that again, was written thatstarted as a very, very just
kind of intense blast of writingthis story, just blasting out.
And that that's kind of how it work.
(09:31):
I don't really think about it. I don't kind of plan it.
It just happens. And either it doesn't happen,
it's just painful or it does. And then when?
Yeah. But yeah, no, it's all very
organic. It's fascinating, Yeah.
Just like, feels very natural. Have you ever, when you're in
(09:51):
those situations, do you just literally just trust what what
comes out or do you have a second guess yourself and think,
oh, is it the right idea or how?What are the moments like?
I have when it's going well, I just write it and I trust
myself. If I find myself thinking like,
oh, I don't know what that's thepoint when I know this is not
(10:13):
working. So I mean, I can tell anyway.
To be honest, I get, I feel really ill and frustrated when
it's not working. I can't honestly feel quite
physically not well and just really down and not right when
it's not working. But then when it is working, I,
I do kind of know. And I mean, it's because you've
(10:33):
got to keep the energy up to keep writing.
I was sort of giving someone some advice about who is trying
to make time to write. And it is that, I mean, part of
it's almost you have to have that belief.
If you start second guessing yourself and constantly
rewriting stuff and sort of not feeling confident enough to go
on, then you're never going to get anywhere from a practical
(10:55):
point of view. So you have that's, but yeah, I
can usually tell if I'm constantly guessing myself.
If I don't, if I'm looking at itthinking, oh, I don't know, then
I just know that's the point. I need to just get rid of it.
And unfortunately I'm quite goodat just getting rid of it.
I'm quite good at. So I did a lot as I'm going on
and I'm quite good at self editing.
(11:17):
And I think that's a really important thing to be able to do
because when you, when you can tell it's not quite right, you
you need to stop as soon as possible because otherwise it
just gets worse and worse. You get further and further away
from where it should be, where you think it should be and you
just go on. And I think you'd get into kind
of a bit of a, a bit of a spiralwhere it's just getting worse.
(11:41):
And I think you probably just need to trust, actually trust
your instinct that it's not working.
You need to cut a whole lot of stuff and start again, which is
really depressing at us. Yeah.
Would you identify that more as a pantser?
Oh, yes, yes. Yeah.
So you just discover, discover your way.
(12:02):
Yeah, yeah. I mean when I yeah.
So when I, yeah, when I start a new thing, I never have any
idea. I always start all my this kind
of series. I've started all the kind of
connected books I've started. So Empires of Daast and then A
Woman of the Sword, which is slightly separate.
And then the new series, which is The Making of This World
(12:23):
Ruined, The first book, which iscalled sort of Bronze Ashes.
Yeah, each one began with a scene.
So there was first of all, the very first thing was just when I
started writing Quarterback Knives.
I didn't even had a sense I was writing a novel.
It was just a scene of these menin the desert.
And then spoiler alert. Well, this is chapter 2 in the
(12:45):
my first of a book. So but a dragon turns up, a
dragon turns up within about I think 3 pages.
And that it was like, OK, this is probably a fantasy novel.
In that case, it's probably a novel because it seems to be
fiction, but I mean, it could bea short story, but it and then
it just went from there. At the time I had no idea who
any of these people were, and they were introducing so had no
(13:07):
idea who Marith was until he turned up and suddenly this
young man turned up and killed adragon.
And the whole of the book just sort of developed.
And I kind of write and I have no idea what I do, nobody who
these people are. I have no idea what's going on.
And similarly with so sort of bronze and ashes began by just a
description of a woman in a particular valley walking down
(13:29):
to a river. And I had no idea who she was.
I have no idea what was going on.
And then I suddenly just get to a point where I can see the
whole thing. And.
I know exactly what the whole thing's about and where it's
going and what it's. And, and that's this kind of
wonderful feeling where it's allrevealed to me.
Yeah, it's kind of, it really isalmost like sort of labouring up
(13:50):
a mountain. And then you get you get to the
top and you look out at the view.
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's quite a
painful process. I imagine like it works for
everyone's difference. Are they?
And I think one of the most important things is learning
your own process and what works best for you.
(14:11):
And it sounds like it is super effective because I love pants
and just fit in there and just writing feel my T-shirt.
And as time has got on, I've definitely moved more towards
doing that and it's it's so liberating, isn't it?
And I don't know, there's definitely, I mean, if you don't
know where the story is going, it's harder for the reader to
(14:33):
know where the story is going. That's one of the biggest
benefits of Bound. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, there's a real freedom in just writing.
When I often say to people aboutwriting that kind of the best
tip I can give people actually is to write, not to write for
you know, I'm writing a book andI don't know what we're going to
think of it and try try and get that critic that's thinking of
(14:56):
it as your writing is doing something to create a finished
product. Like the way you're right, you
know, like the way you're doing something at work.
When you're doing something at work, you have particular
guidelines and you're obviously doing that and you have to do it
in the way your line manager wants or whatever or the
customer wants it, whoever. And there's that.
And you do have there's that real worry about is my line
(15:19):
actually going to like this or is the customer going to like
this or whatever? But when you're writing, you
just need to so as people dance like you might dance late at
night, you best mates wedding, you know you're dancing for and
you're just dancing because you know you're dancing for the
sheer pleasure of dancing and because you're happy or singing
for the same. Yeah, you know, you write
(15:40):
because you enjoy it and just write what you enjoy and write
for the love of writing and don't think about is this
working to market or what kind of what will my be to do?
Well, one be to readers like this or kind of, you know, is
this meeting the right? Is this hitting the right notes
for this particular sub genre orall these trapes?
Something just right for the sheer pleasure of telling the
(16:02):
story you want to tell. And that will give an energy and
enjoyment to your writing. That means the reader will
probably enjoy it more. And yeah, don't write for
readers. Write for yourself essentially,
and just have fun. Enjoy it and have fun with it.
But also think I do, I mean, I do think about it a lot.
I say to people, I don't know where the book's going, but I
think about it a lot. I it's the kind of excitement
(16:28):
and almost it's almost like trying to work it out.
Like the way I don't know if you're reading detective novel
you often. I don't know why I always find
myself thinking about thinking about it and trying to work it
out and pass it out and distracted in a boring meeting
distractor trying to puzzle out who who the murderer is.
And do you write your own books like that?
Right. And then when you're not
writing, think about it, try andessentially try and puzzle your
(16:53):
own book out in the way you might with other people.
And that kind of because again, it's that sort of energy for
why, why did I write that last scene?
Why is this character doing this?
What's going on? And of course, the other thing
about punching is you can go back afterwards.
So people like sort of, I don't know.
I don't want to give people someamazing impression that, you
know, something like there's some minor detail that happens
(17:14):
on page three of one of my booksthat kind of like 3 books later
at the end is revealed as being really significant.
Like gosh, how did she know she wrote it?
She had no idea. And then three books later, it
was like it fell into place. What is possible.
Some of that was added afterwards.
There's a lovely bit. It was Hilary Mantel actually
(17:34):
talked about how she would go back and like if she realised
there was a picture image that she wanted to stress in the
book, she'd go back from her book and kind of weave the image
in and out. Occasionally, not a huge amount,
but she could spend like weeks going back to nearly finished
text and just very occasionally weaving in one particular image
(17:57):
or one particular phrase or something that was important
that she realised later was really important in the book.
Yeah. And but, and then spend a lot of
time thinking about like, is it too much?
Not like I'm going to put in a reference to this particular
symbol on every page. But, you know, just carefully
weaving it through and reading really carefully reading through
the whole manuscript to see exactly how many times this
(18:18):
thing needs to be in and how it worked.
And almost, almost like kind of,I don't know, like, I don't
know, sort of doing the finishing touches on your home
decoration or like, I don't know, finishing touches on a
piece of embroidery or somethinglike that.
You know, the final tiny detailsthat you need after everything's
done. And that so that yeah, you pants
(18:42):
it. But then you do kind of go back
over it, as I said, self edit ita lot and think about it and
kind of puts work stuff back in and things.
And but it is amazing if you pants it, how much stuff is
there in your subconscious That kind of, Yeah.
And I mean, I'm just, I mean, just really bizarre things.
(19:02):
I I find it really uncomfortableif someone's name isn't, if a
character's name isn't quite right, I find it really, really
hard to write. So I'm always changing
characters names or. And then suddenly like, yeah,
that that's who they are. That's their name.
And that's the point where everything just completely falls
into place and suddenly you understand them.
So the whole thing can just go on.
Yeah. And what about the characters?
(19:25):
Like, how do you get to know your characters?
Do you just literally like put them through the pages in the
story and figure them out so as you go along that way?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think about
them a lot, Yeah. And then they're all kind of, I
don't, some people I know character build and virtually
kind of create mood boards and things for different characters.
(19:45):
I don't do that. But I think I mean some, they're
all different aspects of me. So as I said, Marathon Thalia
were with me actually my whole life.
So I used to tell myself a lot of sort of traditional fantasy,
fairy tale folklore stories, which are always, always about a
Prince and Princess kind of has a lot of folklore and fantasy
and traditional children's stories are or and all the they
(20:11):
were all of those characters. The Prince was always my, I
realised was Premarith and the Princess was always Thalia.
So they would just be with me mywhole life.
And then Lide is very much basedon me.
A Woman of the Sword is a reallyautobiographical book, a really
confessional book. And then Candor in a Sword of
(20:33):
Bronze and Ashes is kind of me as I'd like to be.
She's the kind of person I'd what I'd, what really aspire to
me and want to be. And so they're all different
facets of me or different parts of me.
And then I don't kind of map outthe characters.
They just sort of happen. I mean, they're different voices
(20:55):
just somehow happen quite organically.
And then I get quite into them as well.
So I guess when I so I mean, yeah, I kind of really inhabit
the way they're thinking. And I do find myself.
I would when I was when I was writing Emphasis Dust, I was so
into their different heads. It would be this kind of like,
OK, I'm writing a lot about Marathon at the moment.
(21:15):
I'd be almost like, how would you think about things in daily
life and sort of trying to thinklike him in the rest of my life.
Or when I was thinking, like when I was writing to put
chapters with Tobias, like I could almost feel my like the
way I was speaking to people shifted and I was speaking to
people more like he. But yeah, it's that kind of
sense of just they're all just, I guess they just happened for
(21:40):
me. What if I'm with inner
characters? It's quite useful is often a
very minor character. I actually often name them as an
in joke for someone I know or something.
And then they just suddenly theyjust got that life to them
because they're like they relate.
I relate them to real persons. They have a kind of life to them
that I know because they're kindbecause they kind of exist.
(22:02):
Not I mean, I do. I'm one of those writers that
just sort of observes people allthe time as well.
There's that that joke people talk about about like, God,
don't you know, if you know a writer, be careful what you say
around them because they all endup in a book.
Yeah. And that and I'm I'm like that I
try and pick up things that people have said and store them
(22:23):
up. Yeah.
So that gives that gives the characters sort of realism as
well. But yeah, I think I just kind of
write the characters as they come and it's an.
Interesting point that you make there about bringing life to
them very minor characters because but I agree with you
completely adds so much colour to the story in the world when
(22:44):
you can just give that a little bit of detail.
And you mentioned 1 little trick.
Have you used any other like methods?
Like I mean, I like to give themnicknames or maybe just a half a
sentence to give them a nicknameand explain why they got the
nickname or some some kind of detail that is going to be
(23:07):
better than just like a man withbrown hair or something.
Yeah, there's that. Yeah.
There's just giving them that little life.
So just that sense of yeah, there's something about them, a
little kind of life or an interest or something.
And you don't even need to writein the book or actually often
sort of say to people that kind of working bit.
So you often the bits you might edit out later where you get,
(23:30):
you know, you've got some reallyminor character and you realise
you've given them A2 page back story that they really didn't
need and you just cut that out. But because it's there for you
and you know, so like, so it gives them a kind of depth.
I mean, Tobias obviously isn't aminor, he's a very major
character in Empress of Dust, but he's, because I know, I sort
(23:53):
of, I know all kinds of stuff about his background and his
childhoods that actually, I meanreally stupid things that
actually, I suppose I did do some kind of character mood
boards and that I did things like I did an interview.
There's a really rather cool blog site where someone does ask
you does an interview from your point of view of one of your
(24:13):
characters. So I did an interview from
Tobias's perspective. So there's all this kind of
stuff. And I did one from also from
Gerty in In the Shadow, They're dying, the novella.
I wrote Michael Fletcher. So get get.
So again, there's some stuff in there that was about I just sort
(24:35):
of about like her past that has never that's got nothing to do
with the the novella and has no bearing on the novella at all.
But because I know it's, I usually it's just, it's just a
slight richness and depth to herthat yeah.
(24:55):
So if you sort of things like, so I mean, Tobias is a Weaver
and that is mentioned in Pasadas.
So I used the language he was using.
He talked quite naturally about using metaphors to do weaving
and dying cloth and things because that's the way you
think. So as soon as you start thinking
about that kind of thing about your character, like what's this
character's background? How are they thinking they might
(25:18):
be different from someone else'scharacter?
Some some of the other characters around them that just
gives it a slight. I mean sort of it's almost like
the kind of differences in I guess in things like dialect or
language words. I mean the fame, you know, the
sort of things about English, all those sort of jokes about
different and what different social classes and people from
(25:38):
different parts of the country and whether you set use
serviette or napkin or whether you talk about all that, you
know all that stuff about different words for bread rolls.
Yeah, Cobs that sort of, yeah. What do you call them?
I call them a bread roll. Yes, because I speak the Queens.
Because I suppose I speak the. Queens we have.
We have bombs as well. Yeah.
(26:00):
But all of that and all of that.And obviously if you get this
totally kind of you could you don't want to do your reader in
completely with like what the hell is this character talking
about? But you have those little
details or OK, this character would this character would use
this character would talk about bread cakes or balms.
This character obviously talks about bread rolls.
(26:20):
Now this character you would usethe equivalent of serviette.
This character would use the equivalent of napkin.
This character is that. And then as soon as you've got
those kind of different sense ofwhere your characters are coming
from, Yeah, you've got just a thing that just give.
You've got a whole sense of actually their work of where
they're coming from, which is more interesting.
(26:42):
Yeah, than they've got brown hair.
And it's actually more interesting than giving them
some massive tragic back story or something.
Either because you're just giving them, you're just making
them ordinary people who just more often actually try and use
a bit of emphasis on other people and people are known and
things because yeah, I mean they're real people as soon as
(27:03):
they're not. So yeah, you're just basing them
on perfectly average real peoplethat you know, not basing them
basing on. But because they've got some
link to them, they've got a kindof, they've got a whole life and
a reality and a solidity there. He goes, it is.
I completely agree. It's fantastic.
And one thing I wanted to ask you is Bob Grinda.
(27:27):
So you're very much associated with the little genre.
Can you tell us all about it? Because it's something we've
never discussed on the show. I absolutely love them that I
could read all of that and but yeah, it's never been covered
and it's more popular. I actually often just say to
people it's more realistic fantasy.
(27:49):
Yeah, it's, it's because, I mean, I read a lot of historical
fiction as well, and historical fiction is never almost never
about sort of good and bad in the way that a lot of classic
fantasy is. It's never simple in the way
that a lot of classic heroic fantasy is, because obviously
real history is very seldom goodand bad, and it's certainly
(28:11):
never simple. So I mean, things like Game of
Thrones at the beginning it it'sis some he's trying to tell a
real much more realistic story about kind of the way that I
mean, it's based on. So it's based on the water, the
roses, which is obviously very complicated period of British
history where it's very difficult to say you can't.
(28:34):
People are obviously in somehow people have that instinctive
sense that they are either the House of Europe or the House of
Lancaster in some really bizarreway.
Most people in the end will somehow tell you something about
Oh yeah, Richard the Third. Oh yeah, kind of yeah.
Edward the 4th for some reason, people or yeah, Henry sort of
some reason people come out on one side or the other or but
(28:58):
it's very that that's not for any kind of moral reasons.
And, and also that, but then he's also trying to tell them to
be realistic about it. So they're kind of that
wonderful moment in Feast for Crows where, oh God, I can't
remember his name. The youngest of the Baratheon
(29:21):
brothers just dies. OK.
He just dies in Brenly. Yes, he just dies.
And OK, so he's just dies by magic, by sort of evil magic
assassination. But that reality of this kind of
you're having this, you know, this person is poised and it
looks like they're about to win the Kingdom.
And then sadly, they just kill over and die of some disease,
(29:44):
which was at that kind of curable or they literally just
fall off their horse or whatever.
And, you know, it's that that that randomness that you get
these characters that will kind of, I mean, obviously Rob Stark
is the really massive example where everyone was so shocked by
his death. And the point is that that kind
of again, OK, so it possibly didn't have any quite as
dramatic substances as that. But you've got this whole
(30:06):
narrative built up of this guy who's clearly going to be this
young handsome hero. We've had all these books this
we've gone through a book and a half.
So he knew I was the hero and then he just died.
And again, that is absolutely realistic and much more kind of
historically realistic than the kind of the era or narrative
(30:30):
where he's the chosen 1 and nothing.
So we know, you know, it's all going to work out.
So a lot of that kind of, and again, you know, the kind of
violence and the horror of Grim dark, Grim dark is it's writing
about war as it really is. Rather than that kind of there
is that kind of absurd element of some classic fantasy where
(30:54):
sort of heroic fantasy where it's all kind of weirdly
hygienic war and almost kind of weirdly just, you know, the
baddies are just so bad and our heroes are so heroic.
And it almost kind of feels likethis is battle without
consequence. And that kind of, you know, all
(31:15):
those kind of ridiculous where everyone's so powerful that kind
of they can always, always defeat the bad guy.
And that was, you know, real waris, you know, talking about the
reality of what happens in war and what happens in turbulent
society. And again, they're kind of
again, they're sort of, it's grimmed up for me is actually
(31:37):
just realistic now. I mean, I might, you might say
when you read, a lot of people say they read heroic fantasy
because they want to read something in which good
triumphs. They don't want to read
something they no, it's fantasy,the clues in the name.
I find it really much more intellectually satisfying.
So I read something more complicated.
(32:00):
Yeah, I I completely agree. Yeah.
I know I do enjoy some, enjoy writing many.
I think the characters are much more interesting as well.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's more, I think
it's a more round, it's giving interestingly rounded
characters, making them see morekind of complex and rounded and
problematic in the sense that they're not.
(32:22):
Sometimes there is also, I mean there's the enjoyment of writing
a character who is just evil. I mean, sort of something like
Prince sort of that's there's anenjoyment in a book, in a book
like that, because it is it is afantasy of the self that would
be free of inhibitions. It's fantasy in that sense.
It's fantasy and in kind of, youknow, if you actually were
(32:44):
involved fantasy roaming party, the sheer untrammeled pleasure
of just the fantasy of just being able to kind of charge
around butchering everyone because you've got a magic sword
and you're very good at fighting.
And you're kind of and you know,you're you're a level 5 and
you're a level, you're a level 10 warrior and everyone else
around you were kind of level 1 MPCS.
(33:05):
Obviously that it's that kind offancy elements of enjoying and
exploring the sort of the untrammeled dark side of your
character, which obviously I mean, I enjoyed writing about
Marath greatly as well. Just kind of completely correct
for it. But yeah, so I think it's a
mixture of kind of, but it also does make for kind of slightly
(33:27):
richer, more complicated characters.
Grim dark in the world. I always find the world's a lot
of grittier but a lot more vividand real.
Like sometimes sometimes the world, the the artists like to
hygienic and everything's just. Yes.
(33:47):
But you like to see people live in, I mean.
People generally did, but I mean, there's no it can become
can't get too far. There's that kind of some
grimmed up worlds where like every single like, no, everyone
going to the Tavern and the foodis inevitably disgusting and the
(34:09):
beer is inevitably rancid and everyone is inevitably really
horrible and there's that. It can go too far, but it is, I
think in some ways it's that kind of relatableness.
In the same way that something like that kind of British
tradition, British humorous tradition of things being crap,
(34:31):
the kind of Monty Python, men behaving badly, The Office.
All of that is basically predicated on people being
rubbish and things generally being a bit rubbish and
disappointing and life being pretty crap.
And people are being fairly crapped and crap sort of trapped
(34:54):
in their crap lives. And that it's, it's relatable.
There's a sense that you can kind of get.
It's real in a sense, that kind of something that's kind of
glossy. Yeah.
And hygienic just somehow isn't that kind of inevitable sense of
disappointment that you're really hungry and you go into it
(35:17):
and you're really, really hungry, and you go into a Tavern
and the food's horrible. And it is that it is the kind of
relatableness to it, that kind of sense of a real world that I
think is it's fun to write, but it's also, and it can go too
far. But yeah, it does give it, I
(35:37):
think, a kind of grounding in a slightly more kind of real way.
And I mean, again, people might say, well, it's fantasy.
And I enjoy writing the kind of absurd high fantasy, the sort of
romances in the old sense, the term where it is just about
absurd beauty. I mean it that kind of sort of
(36:00):
Tolkien Loch Lorien, this is just, you know, absurdly,
impossibly beautiful and over the top and just so kind of just
absurd in its beauty and its wonder.
But that's almost the kind of you can have both.
(36:22):
I think that's where Grim Duck goes too far sometimes is it's a
world of absolute squalor that kind of where you can have the
low, but then you also have the breathtaking beauty of the
Highness and the kind of the wonder, which again, is kind of
real in our lives. I think those kind of moments of
sublime wonder almost kind of contrasted with the and then
(36:44):
almost the same moment, the kindof absurdity and the kind of
rubbishness of it all. And I think, yeah, I think there
is a kind of depth to other worlds like that, that you don't
get in a world which is kind of either one or which is just not
going to another extreme. Yeah.
(37:06):
Have you got any tips for writers when it comes to
building the world's? It is quite a tricky thing,
isn't it? I know a lot of people struggle
with it. See, I don't world build out,
don't do any world building either.
I just write and the world comesout as I'm writing and which I
sometimes think makes my world slightly more realistic in a
(37:30):
weird kind of way, or more plausible because it's not
logically constructed. I haven't logically set it out.
And actually, again, reality isn't logical.
They don't have that kind of planned logic behind the most.
Most societies are fairly organic and they've got lots of
(37:53):
different interpretation. Everyone people will often
understand the same society in slightly different ways.
I have different explanations for how things operate, see
things in different ways. And then of course, most
societies I've got people from with multiple cultural
backgrounds and then within those different cultural
(38:13):
backgrounds, different narratives about those cultural
backgrounds themselves. So it's all a kind of chaos.
So I try, obviously, I try and think about the one thing I
always feel slightly self-conscious is I'm sure that
people would point out that someof the kind of, you know, the
geology and energy of impulsive dust is just a boiling hot
(38:34):
tropical forest right next to a sort of cold arid plain, because
that wouldn't work. But or, but, so I try and root
it in real. I mean I try and root places in
real places. So often when I'm describing a
bit of countryside, I try and describe it somewhere that I
know. So I've got the kind of
(38:56):
topography in my head and the and a sense of what is important
within landscape in my own head.So, so most of the places that
are of significance in my books are real places that mean
something to me. But within that also because I'm
writing them from different characters perspectives.
(39:17):
And again, we all see places differently.
So how the different characters see the same place is written
through there, how they see it. So they possibly know different
things about a place as well. So but but it is again, it's all
all completely organic. It comes out and it's what
matters, the characters. And then obviously once I make a
(39:39):
lot of notes, so once someone's been somewhere, obviously that's
what that place looks like. And then at the other
characters, then I make lots andlots of notes on going on.
And I'm lucky in that I can keepit all in my head.
I can see the world I'm writing really, really clearly and it
stays in my head. I'm not lucky in that I it
crowds out everything else. So I will sit there in meetings
(40:00):
and not clue how something that people are talking about.
I have no memory at all of the meeting I was in last week.
We discussed this and I'll sit there.
Really, I was asked to do that. Oh, sorry, have that.
No, kind of, you know, I kind ofbecause my head is just full of
my world, but kind of organicness of it I think
actually does kind of give it. Adept, it is all just things
(40:24):
that mean something to me. If there's some anything is in
there, it's because it means something.
So it, it therefore has solidityto it.
But yeah, but also it's not kindof structured.
It's not about how my world works, which I think is helpful
because it, it doesn't, it doesn't mean I'm focusing on, it
(40:49):
means I'm not focusing on the, the story and the I'm focusing
on one and writing, not on trying to kind of build a manual
for someone else for a world that for a world playing game or
something. You know, it's focusing on what
matters in the story. But then I mean, other people do
really get do a lot of world building.
(41:10):
And then, you know, if people enjoy world watching, then
that's as we're saying, there's always different ways of writing
whatever works for someone. But yeah, that's what works for
me. And I kind of, I get, again, I
think people get quite hung up. You do get a feeling that some
people who really want, there are people who want to write,
who want to start writing, but feel really nervous about
(41:32):
creating a secondary world because of this real fear that
they're not doing it right or isnot going to be good enough or
someone's going to notice some minor detail.
And I actually sometimes think when people are doing world
building, you can kind of tell. So I love a good info jump.
I love a bit where someone tellsme some great thing about how
the world works. I love books with, you know, all
(41:54):
the stuff with appendices and all that kind of stuff.
I love all of that. I would because I'm reading it
to go and live in another world.I love found taking you to
another world. So I certainly, you know, I love
all of that stuff. You can tell when someone's a
bit embarrassed and feels that they need to kind of justify
(42:14):
something and that you kind of they're sort of you can tell
when people are kind of feeling they need to kind of explain
something, something about the way their world works in a
slightly different way because they're worried that people are
going to say, Oh, this isn't plausible.
Oh, this is not I don't know howthis works.
It's I think when people just skate over it and just go with
it as K this is how the world operates.
(42:36):
Within my world, magic works like this.
Within my world, people can do this or whatever and just go
with it. So one question I would like to
ask every writer is what was your biggest challenge and how
did you overcome it? Oh my goodness, my biggest.
(42:57):
So I, I mean, as I said, in someways right back at the
beginning, actually writing a big battle scene or a fight
scene was actually what I found really unnerving because it
wasn't something I'd done, I'd ever had any real experience.
And that so I felt really anxious about it because
(43:18):
obviously and because, I mean, it's one of the few thing you're
writing that you really, if you,if you're someone like me who
has not done any kind of real elements or martial arts or even
like, but you know, camping trips.
And I'm not, I'm, you know, I that kind of whole side of
(43:40):
fantasy, something that I'm only, I know about theoretically
through non fiction, but it's not something I have any, any
practical experience of. But, and it was, you know, it
was a big thing for me to actually just go with that and
write that and think, OK, I can do this.
And I've got to do this because I'm by now it's pretty clear to
me that I'm writing big epic fantasy, a grim doc which has
(44:04):
got it's got battle. I've baffled it.
So I've got to go there. And it was and I was so was tips
hanging around trying to put it off.
And then I just did it. And I I think it comes back to
writing for the pleasure of it. It comes sort of silencing the
inner critic who's telling you to not do this or to be this is
(44:27):
rubbish or to just it is that point of just doing it for your
own sheer enjoyment of doing it and banishing the voice that's
telling you this might not be any good or but what about this
or what about that? Or I'm not convinced by this or
I mean, and actually in some ways, as, as I've had more and
(44:48):
more reviews, you kind of get more and more conscious of it.
Because obviously when I, when Iwas first writing, first writing
a couple of first chapters of the quarter break of knives, I
was just writing. It just was like, you know, this
is just the thing I'm doing for myself.
And then later I was writing it thinking like, Oh, this is, this
(45:10):
is quite good. I think I could probably get
this published. And then, but then by the time
you're writing your 6th published book, you're like,
what if the reviews? So, but this one is not as good
as the last one or, and you're, you're more and more aware of
reviews and you're more and moreaware in fact, of voices saying,
(45:31):
but this kind of there is an implausibility about this plot
or oh, but these characters are just some of the characters are
not very well drawn out. And you, you're more used to
that negative language of criticism.
So you feel it more and more andit is just, it is ignoring that
just absolutely silencing that in a voice.
Someone's told me he often writes when he's a little tired,
(45:51):
when he's quite tired, because that shuts the inner voice up
because he's just writing ratherthan it.
And someone said actually, they often they have a beer and then
they write because it's that nice.
I mean, I wouldn't. Stephen King was.
Writing, but it is that that kind of different ways of
(46:14):
silencing that voice in your head, which is saying like, but
this isn't very good or this could be better or kind of.
Yeah, that's a good voice to have when you're editing.
It's a good voice to have when you're editing, but even then
it's not good in some ways. It's not a good voice to have
when you're editing because you're reducing like, Oh my God,
every this entire book is just rubbish.
I'll just delete it. But it's just that kind of,
(46:36):
it's, is that getting into that point where you can just write
for the pleasure of writing and silence all of those fears and
we all have them. So actually a lot of people have
real anxiety about building a convincing second fantasy work,
secondary fantasy world and world building and how your
(46:59):
magic works and all that. But then actually, it's
interesting. I remember actually, I think I'm
sure Adrian Trakovsky said one of the books he found hardest to
write was his book that sets, actually parts of it are set in
the real world, The Doors of Eden.
That's what it's called The Doors of Eden.
So part of that is set on BodminMoore, and suddenly he's got
(47:21):
this whole like, Oh my God, thishas to be right.
When you're writing fantasy or science fiction, you can kind of
make it up because you know you're making it up.
But as soon as you start writingabout actual places, and since
you start writing about the country that you and most of
your readers live in, at the time of that you and most of
(47:44):
your readers are living in it, that he was saying actually it's
it's unnerving because people are like, but that's just wrong
because suddenly you consider that no, no one behaves like
that. And.
And that's just really interesting because you always
have that voice. You sort of think like, this
world is my world is totally implausible.
(48:06):
And then you're like, yeah, but my real world is even.
But now I'm writing about 21st century Britain.
It's even worse. And yeah, it's just really kind
of so you people never stop having that voice.
So now and you know, you'd thinkI've had some absolutely amazing
reviews and you think I feel like, oh, this is amazing.
(48:28):
But now I'm like, my God, it's never going to live up to the
last one. And you never silence that
voice. And you have to silence that
voice because it kind of it's just, it is horrible.
And it because it's again, because it's baring your soul.
If you're writing, really writing, you are writing
something much more personal. So it is much harder to deal
(48:50):
with than I mean, we've all done, I'm sure we've all had day
job work where you're thinking like, oh God, I know perfectly
well. Well, my manager is going to
tell me this is a bit rubbish orindeed, you think this is
excellent. Then your my manager comes back
and tells you, I'm sorry, you'regoing to have to stop.
Yeah, and that's painful, but the voice in your head that I
still have that voice constantly.
(49:12):
And as I said, in fact, I think it's got worse, but you just
have to silence it and just makeit go away and stop.
It can't really tell anyone. I can't tell you how to do that.
I'm not sure. As I said, someone I know
recommends writing if you've hada beer or two, which I'm sure
it's absolutely I should not. I don't.
I don't drink at all. So I should.
(49:33):
I do not do that. So I'm not encouraging you to do
that. But it's.
Shots Tequila hit the keyboards.Yes, yes.
Another shot every 500 words. Yes, thank you very much.
Fantastic gentleman. You shared so many insights.
(49:54):
I feel like I've learned so much.
Just listen to you. And I always like catching your
panels on a fantasy con as well because again, packed with
insight. So thank you very much.
Thank you. Well, I'm actually helping to
organise World Fancy Con, which is in Brighton in on the
Halloween weekends this year. So that will be Fancy Con, but
(50:18):
more and yeah, so that yes, justto provide that to everyone.
And that will be very much aboutkind of, yeah, that was very the
lots of the panels. And that will be very much about
kind of sort of high level discussion about the craft and
the kind of business of writing and things from a kind of
practitioner's point of view. So yeah, that should be a
(50:39):
really, really good convention. Yeah, you always learn something
new. Fantastic.
And where's the best place to learn more about yourself?
I'm on. So now I have come off X because
I just felt I couldn't. I couldn't anymore.
So I'm on Facebook, although that yeah, my big like, hey, I'm
(51:00):
going to come off X and stay on Facebook went really well,
obviously decision. So I'm on Facebook as Anna Smith
Spark, I'm on Blue Sky as Anna Smith Spark or queen of grimdoc
and Instagram. So yeah, those are the places I
tend to post stuff. I do have a website
calledbrokenknivesnot.net, whichis a fairly rubbish website
(51:22):
because I'm not good at that kind of stuff at all.
I'm definitely one of those. I can write, but I cannot do
anything else and I certainly cannot cope with websites.
But yeah, so I'm on Instagram and Blue Sky and Facebook and I
post stuff and I do have my website for there's some nice
readings on there and some nice pictures and things.
(51:43):
There you go, I'll put all the links in the description.
I thank you everyone for listening at home.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fantasy writing classes and books on Patreon,
check the links in the description.
And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
(52:05):
follow or subscribe. And to support the show, leave a
quick rating on Spotify or iTunes and share this episode on
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for less than.
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