July 13, 2025 • 58 mins
I'm thrilled to be joined by bestselling fantasy author, Jim C. Hines for an extended interview about his two new books, Kitemaster and the relaunch of the beloved classic, Goblin Quest.
Jim opens up about his writing journey, what it's like to be a writer—even down to the earnings—and shares some of his best advice for writing short stories, crafting lovable characters, and writing stories that you're passionate about.
It's fantastic to learn from such a seasoned and decorated pro. I learned an awful lot, and I hope you do too!
FANTASY WRITING BOOKS, CLASSES AND TOOLS
https://www.patreon.com/TheFantasyWritersToolshed
JOIN OUR DISCORD COMMUNITY
https://mailchi.mp/395aa89d6ec0/join-richie-billings-community-of-writers
ABOUT JIM C. HINES
Goblin Quest (direct from author) - https://payhip.com/b/XBK0D
Kitemaster - https://bookshop.org/p/books/kitemaster/21588658?aid=25009
GET IN TOUCH
thefantasywriterstoolshed@gmail.com
RESOURCES
Discover more writing tips and guides here
And learn more about writing fantasy here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Welcome to another episode of the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
I'm your host Richie Billing, and today I'm delighted to be
joined by best selling fantasy author Jim Hines.
Jim, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me,
Richie. Thrilled you could join me Jim,
it's fantastic writing career and that you've had and working
(00:32):
with big publishers like Door Books, receiving awards,
nominations and make it onto thebestseller list.
So it really is an honour to speak with you.
Oh, thank you so much. It's it's been a good 20 plus
years. I've been very fortunate in a
lot of ways. Well, it's if the stories aren't
good, then you don't last long, do you?
(00:54):
So it's a, it's a testament to how good the writer you are.
And I'm looking forward to diving into it today.
We've got a couple of new, well,one new book coming out soon,
haven't you? And re releasing some classics
too. Yeah, it's a, it's a busy month.
I've got Kitemaster, is the new one coming out at the end of the
(01:17):
month? And then tomorrow actually the
three Goblin books. Three of my first fantasy novels
are being re released as ebooks.Congratulations on both.
Very exciting. Pulled left, right and center
(01:37):
with the PR. It's been a little hectic.
Yeah, I'm, I've got to be honest, the PR is not my
favorite part of the job. I I enjoy talking to people.
I enjoy like chatting with you, but there's a part of me that's
more introverted and I'd just rather be writing.
(01:59):
Let somebody else handle the advertisement.
Yeah, I get that completely. It's, it's the I Like podcasts
because it's quite informal, isn't it?
Like we're just like having a pretty laid back conversation
now and it doesn't feel too strenuous.
But I imagine having to do like events, like quite a lot.
(02:20):
I mean, do you do a lot of conventions and things like
that? I don't actually do that many
anymore. Earlier on, I I would push
myself to do more of them each year, partly because that was
the advice is go out, do conventions, meet editors, meet
agents. It's all about word of mouth and
(02:40):
who you know. And it never, it never really
worked out that way for me. I, I mean, I did meet some
people. I, I made some connections
there. I can point to a few short
stories I sold through making those conventions connections.
(03:03):
But the amount of time, the amount of energy that goes into
it, I think really the primary goal has to be just keep
writing, keep improving, keep sending stuff out.
You know, these days if I do theconventions, it's more to see
the people. It's not a career thing as much
(03:25):
as, hey, I want to go hang out with my writer friends and see
what they've been up to and laugh and catch up.
Yeah, no, I understand. I'm not going to.
Yeah, I don't do many conventions myself.
But the reason why I do go is for that exact same reason
you've just said. And I do find them a little bit
intimidating sometimes because there are a lot of egos there.
(03:49):
Oh yes. People looking to make a point
and and if you're not really in that frame of mind, I don't know
about you, it can, it threw me off a bit and it kind of makes
me less inclined to go to more. The very first convention I went
to, I had, I had gotten onto 1 panel and I was all excited.
(04:12):
I was, you know, I had publishedlike 2 whole short stories at
that point. And I get onto the panel and I
was so overwhelmed. I didn't say a word for the
entire hour. You know, a few times some of
the other panelists would look at me and, and sort of have that
confused expression like is thisthing on?
(04:33):
Is he broken? But it was, it was just too much
at that point. I got overwhelmed and I sort of
shut, shut down. Yeah.
I get what I mean. You are sort of like you said
you, you pushed to do it, aren'tyou?
And sometimes you, you do thingsbefore you're ready.
But the main thing is that you did it.
(04:55):
And I suppose going back and doing the next convention it,
even though you didn't say anything in the first one, at
least you sat up there in front of everybody.
And I didn't die exactly. Yeah.
So sometimes you need little. Things like that to say.
And it definitely got better over time.
It got a little easier. I was able to relax more.
(05:18):
I learned some of the tricks, like when I go to a convention,
I am going to need times that I just go back to my hotel room
and hide and decompress and recover for an hour.
Then I can go out and interact with people again.
And also getting to know people,you know, whether it's meeting
(05:42):
people and building those relationships at the conventions
or going with someone, going with a friend, I think can make
a huge difference. I wish I had known, you know,
back in the late 90s. Take a friend with you, have fun
together. It would help a lot with that
(06:04):
sense of isolation and feeling overwhelmed.
Yeah, certainly agree with that one.
So where did it all begin for you?
Did you always want to be a writer growing up or it's
something that you came into later in life?
I did not actually. I when I started undergraduate
after high school, my plan was to become a psychologist.
(06:26):
I was going to be a therapist and, and save the world that
way. And a friend of mine is a year
or two younger and he wanted to be a writer.
And he had written some short stories and he showed them to me
from time to time. And I remember thinking, this is
cool. This, this is interesting.
(06:49):
And I'd always been a big science fiction fantasy reader.
So I'm watching my friends do this.
And I figured out, well, how hard can it be?
I'll give it a try. And as I imagine a lot of people
listening know it's harder than it looks.
(07:10):
But in that initial sort of, hey, give it a try, see what
happens, I found things that I loved.
You know, I loved the the creation.
I loved those moments when a story comes together and I was
just having so much fun with it that I kept going.
(07:31):
Then I sent some stories out andas almost all of us do, I got
rejected. And I think that hit some sort
of button in my brain that that that stubbornness gene saying,
oh, oh, you rejected this, did you?
(07:52):
Well, I'll show you. I'll write one that's even
better and you'll buy that one. And it.
It wasn't quite that quick, but I am happy to say that after I'd
say 4 years of of writing and submitting, the person who
rejected that very first short story did end up buying a
(08:14):
different story of mine. Nice.
But yeah, a lot of it comes downto my friend Tim, and he was
writing, and if he hadn't been doing that, I, I honestly don't
know if I would have gotten the idea to sit down and try it
myself. Yeah, it's amazing.
(08:35):
And then you, you just tried it and fell in love.
Yeah, I, I mean, I have written one or two things over time
growing up just for fun, but never, never seriously, never
with the idea of being publishedor being a quote, UN quote
author or any of that. I think honestly, for a lot of
(09:01):
us when we're young, you know, it, it doesn't even occur to you
that much that there are actual people behind all of these books
that being an author is something you can do.
Yeah. You know, I just.
Never really encouraged in school is it?
Well, and I can kind of understand it.
(09:22):
It's not exactly the most lucrative or stable career in
the world, but I love it. Yeah, it's definitely a thing of
passion, isn't? It it has to be, I think, yeah.
Yeah. And yeah, I don't know.
You see, sometimes people going,oh, I'm going to do this, I'm
going to make all this money andI want to get all.
(09:44):
This. Stuff.
It's not about that, really. I don't think you could sit here
like at a desk for God knows howmany hours and just read the
same thing over and over again if you didn't love it so.
And then if you're, if you're really fortunate and you've done
(10:05):
this for years and you get that novel manuscript off and, and
somebody actually wants to buy it.
And most of the time they come back with, OK.
And for this project that you'vepoured however many years of
your life into, we're going to give you $5000.
Yeah. You you really can't do it for
(10:27):
the money. We'll talk a bit about that
later because you've you're veryopen and transparent about
earnings in the writing world and it's it's something I really
appreciate and I think a lot of people should hear as well.
So it'll be great to dive into that a bit more.
I was going to ask you about theGoblin Quest books and was that
(10:50):
one of your earlier pieces of oflonger fiction or how did the
wack go about? Goblin Quest was the first novel
length fantasy story that I actually sold.
I had written a few other book length manuscripts.
(11:11):
They sent them out. The publishers sent them right
back and Goblin Quest it was it was a bit of a revelation
because those those earlier books I had been trying really
hard to write capital G good books.
(11:34):
I was you know, what's what's going to sell, what's going to
be well received? What are, you know, how do I
become a a great author? And at the time that I started
writing Goblin Quest, I had justquit a job in Nevada.
(11:56):
I had been coming off of a bit of a bout of depression and I
was in a space where, you know what, I don't care.
I'm just going to write something fun and goofy and it's
going to be this sort of Dungeons and Dragons style
adventure from the point of viewof the Goblin.
(12:19):
And it's going to be ridiculous.And he's going to have a pet
spider who sets things on fire. And I just had fun with it.
And I laughed and it was, I mean, I, I kind of love that
little goblin and, and the fire spider.
(12:40):
And then it turned out that thatwas the book that sold, the one
where I stopped worrying about what should I be writing and
just wrote what I wanted to and just had fun with it.
Yeah. I I wish I had learned that
lesson earlier, but yeah, that one sold originally to a small
(13:03):
press called 5 Star, then got picked up by DAW Books along
with two sequels. And, you know, they kept it in
print for close to 20 years and now finally it's being re
released. It's revised a little bit.
(13:24):
I threw in some bonus material and it's Jig the Goblin kind of
started my career. Yeah.
Nice, it's great to bring them back then isn't it?
Take full ownership of them again.
It's been fun, you know, and it's, it's interesting to look
back and as I was revising them,you know, in some ways there
(13:47):
were a lot of little sentence level things where, oh, this
could have been smoother. And I'm going to reword this.
And because you, you grow over 20 years or hopefully you do,
but also some of it even 20 years later, the fun is still
there. You know, I still reading the
(14:09):
story again, I still felt that love for these characters and
sympathy for poor Jig getting dragged along on this adventure
when all he wants to do is be left alone.
So yeah, it's, it's been fun doing going back to that.
Yeah. What was that like writing that
(14:31):
story and obviously mixing things up and and picking a
goblin as the main character? I mean, did you, it was like, I
mean, you, you mentioned it was,you're paying homage of it to
Dungeons and Dragons. So did you tend to stick to the
sort of classic tropes to do with goblins, or did you just
(14:52):
mix things up and go your own way?
Bit of both, I would say. My goblins are, well, I wanted
to write from the underdogs perspective and goblins are
fairly low on that hierarchy. You know, they're, they're
(15:12):
small, kind of scrawny. Most of them in my world at
least, are not terribly bright. And it was fun, you know, and
they're, they're unashamed of who they are.
You know, they are goblins, theyare the underdogs and they
(15:35):
embrace that. You know, they know what their
role is in the whole fantasy world, adventure hierarchy.
They're going to go out, they'regoing to probably get
slaughtered, but some of them will survive and that'll be
great. And maybe they will kill some of
the elves and bring one back to eat for supper because they're
(15:57):
also, you know, when adventurerscome in, you kill them and you
eat them. There's not a lot of food
variety in your caves and caverns and just.
It was fun getting into it and deciding, OK, you know, for when
they do capture the elf, they'regoing to have a chef who's very,
(16:20):
very good. You know, it's not just going to
be your typical fantasy. We sit down and eat Stew.
No, we're going to have barbecued elf ribs sprinkled
with fire spider eggs and sort of sauteed in oil of whatever
fungus we have growing on The Cave walls this week.
(16:43):
So. But yeah, I mean it, it started
out with some of those Dungeons and Dragons tropes, but I like
to think that it got developed and grew a lot beyond that,
especially over the course of the second and third books.
Yeah. So what was it like creating Jig
(17:06):
as a character? Do you have a sort of process
when you're creating characters generally too?
Is it it to create such a successful series?
I mean, for me, the characters make it.
It's the only reason you'd carryon really.
So like, it's great to see that like you've created Jig, who's
like, not your typical hero, andthen people just love them.
(17:29):
So what was it like that processof bringing him to life?
It was, it was interesting, a jig and smudge more than a lot
of the characters that I've written.
They were pretty well developed from the start.
I think partly I did project a fair amount of myself into jig.
(17:54):
You know, he's he's this Ronnie Little Runt.
Even among the goblins, he gets picked on by everybody.
He's near sighted. Some of what Jig is going
through was my life during junior high.
You know, I was the scrawny little near sighted nerd getting
(18:15):
picked on by all of the bigger kids.
So yeah, I could definitely relate.
Yeah, I've got a sense of that before as well when you were
describing all like you don't really like the conventions and
and then you said Jake just wants to be left alone.
I. Mean I did I like the
(18:35):
conventions, but but yeah, it's overwhelming and and yeah, Jig.
So I wanted somebody who was whowas not your muscle bound Conan
the barbarian type. But I also wanted him to be
clever. I wanted him to survive by out
thinking the other goblins and the other adventurers and just
(19:00):
coming up with these creative ideas that, you know, they're
not the sort of ideas that the heroes would have.
They're not heroic or honorable.They're goblin ideas.
And so creating that, letting him become more clever and
(19:21):
pushing him into these situations where he had to, you
know, fight and think and out there in the adventures that he
absolutely hated, it was a blast.
Yeah. No, I've, I've said before, you
know, more than any of the othercharacters I've created, If Jig
(19:42):
were ever to meet me in person, he would immediately stab me in
the face just for all of the stuff that I've put him through.
That's. What you got to do to your
characters though? In general, yeah, yeah.
If you're just being nice to them, it doesn't usually make as
much or as good of a story. Yeah, I agree.
(20:05):
What are the sorts of key storytelling techniques do you
like to follow, or would you recommend writers check out?
Key storytelling techniques, oneof the things that I need to do,
and obviously everybody's process is different, but for
(20:26):
me, I find myself needing to do like a one or two sentence
summary of who the character is and what it is that they want.
You know, what is that one core desire that's sort of driving
everything? For Jig, it would be he wants to
(20:53):
survive and be left alone. Almost everything he does is how
do I get out of this? How do I survive?
Some of the other characters it gets a little more complex.
Like in Kite Master, the protagonist wants to stop the
(21:15):
evil Queen and protect her friends and family.
But having that one sentence, itlets me go back whenever I get
stuck and say, OK, what does this character want that's going
to dictate what they do next. You know when the plot gets
(21:37):
stuck When I not sure what to donext.
Let the character drive that. What do they want?
What is their next step to get that?
How can you stop them from doing?
It. Well, yeah, and then we throw
obstacles in their way and or wegive them unexpected
(21:59):
consequences or, OK, you've you've made this small step, but
now makes are higher because thebad guys are reacting to what
you've done. Or there there are lots of ways
to to make things go wrong. But yeah, it's, I think one of
(22:23):
the earliest storytelling structures that I was taught is
that a short story is a sequenceof try, fail, try, fail, and
eventually try, succeed or not, depending on how you want to end
the story. Nice, that's interesting.
(22:46):
Yeah. And then with each, with each of
those try fail cycles, the stakes get higher.
Maybe the initial try fail, you've made things worse.
Now instead of trying to get getout of the locked building, now
you've accidentally set it on fire.
Stakes are higher. Try again.
(23:08):
Nice, that's a really good example.
I always find structures short stories quite difficult.
I like messing around with things using different
structures, but capturing that perfect moments is hard, isn't?
(23:30):
It, it is and there's it's so much more focused in a novel.
You have time to to wander a bitto, to follow secondary plot
lines and storylines. And with a short story, it feels
(23:50):
like, I don't want to say constrained exactly, but it
feels so much tighter. I remember the advice back in
the 90s that I was hearing was, you know, start with short
stories, write them, publish them, build yourself up as a
(24:13):
writer through short stories, and then you'll be able to do
novels. And what I found is some of the
skills do carry over, but short stories are short stories and
novels are novels. And just because you can do 1
doesn't magically mean you can do the other.
(24:36):
Yeah. Totally agree with that one.
Speaking of novels, you have a new one out at the very end of
May and Kite Master, which you mentioned there before.
And do you want to tell us a bitabout what the story involves
and, and what kind of themes andthings you're exploring in this
(24:58):
one? I'd love to kite.
Master is is one of the more difficult books that I've done
to sum up in a single sentence, It started in part.
Well, no, let's step back. It's a secondary world fantasy.
(25:20):
It's stand alone and it's set ina world where the wind is pretty
much central. It the wind never stops.
The wind drives almost everything.
You know, the technology, it's all sails and windmills and wind
wheels and kites. A lot of the the animal life has
(25:46):
evolved to adapt to these unending winds.
There are cloud serpents that live their whole lives in the
air. You know they Neverland even the
stars when they come out at night, they're not blowing up
the way they do in our world. They more they blow across the
(26:07):
sky in a streak like they call it the night river and it varies
from one night to the next depending on how strong those
winds are. So that's your world setting and
the character Niel is a kite master, meaning she has some
(26:29):
magical ability to control the wind and to control pretty much
anything that's flying on the wind, Kites being the obvious
one. But she has some control over
birds and bats and creatures like that.
And it means she is very valuable because kite masters
(26:52):
are the ones who can pilot kite ships, these enormous sailing
style ships that are flying on giant kites.
And once she discovers this gift, she gets drawn into this
(27:12):
struggle between the Queen, who is also a kite master, and is,
without giving spoilers, trying to use that gift for some very
bad things. The Queen's son is trying to
prevent this and is a runaway. Neal sort of gets kidnapped and
(27:33):
ends up on a kite ship with the runaway Prince.
So they're trying to survive andstop the Queen and her evil kite
masters from, well, from doing bad things.
That was fantastic. I absolutely love the worlds and
how you've shaped everything around that unique aspect of it.
(27:56):
And the the stakes obviously arereally, really high as well.
It sounds brilliant. I'm going to pre-order a coffee
as soon as we. Oh, thank you.
It's, it's a book that I've spent a long time working on.
You know, it started as a short story probably about 20 years
(28:16):
ago. And I just, I loved this idea of
of the kites and, and the control you have over them.
And, you know, there are scout kites that you can strap
yourself to and actually fly with your kite.
And just more than a lot of my stuff, This one was driven by a
(28:41):
sense of wonder. You know, what are those scenes?
What are those moments that makeme go, oh, that's amazing, I
want to do that? Yeah.
And what was it like creating the world?
It was both a lot of fun and at times very frustrating.
(29:06):
It was fun imagining all of the different aspects, all of the
different implications of how this world works, even to the
point of mapping out the wind charts.
So I know how the kite ships could fly from point A to point
B because you're you're flying on kites, you have some steering
(29:28):
here, but you're also kind of atthe mercy of the winds.
So sometimes you can't go in a straight line imagining the
ecosystem, you know, imagining the stars up here.
And it's very obviously not the same astronomical system as our
world. So how do these stars work?
(29:49):
What happens when one of them falls down?
Are there things that live that high up?
What's the religion? What's the spiritual aspect?
The book starts with Niel flyingthe spirit kite of her husband,
who had died the year before. They're Niel's 21.
(30:12):
This was unexpected. She's also dealing with becoming
a widow over the course of the book.
But what you do in this world, in this part of the world at
least, is you build the spirit kite.
You fly that the one year after your loved one's death.
And this is what flies your loved one's spirit up into the
(30:34):
stars. And so there's just, there was
so much, you know, what about this, what about that?
What if I do this? And some of it worked, some of
it didn't. But what I'd say overall, it
(30:55):
was, it was very rewarding. It was, it was fun.
And it and every every detail you come up with makes the world
feel that much more real. Yeah.
It does. It has the effects of just
(31:15):
drawing the reader deeper and deeper a bit.
The more they see that, how mucheffort and thought you've put
into it, then it becomes almost like a real place for people,
doesn't it? Hopefully, I mean, that that
kind of leads to one of the frustrating parts where you've
(31:36):
also got to make sure none of these details you're developing
are going to throw the reader out of the story.
Like, does this actually make sense?
Would this work or is this a little too far?
Is this something that I would read and say, yeah, right.
(31:57):
And put the book down. How do you usually catch them
things when you edit? Another good question.
Sometimes I think you kind of feel it when you're writing it.
Yeah. You're, you're realizing, oh,
this is a little too cute or this is, I'm trying a little too
(32:19):
hard here. Other times it helps to take
some distance from the story. Like if I finish a draft,
ideally I I want to put it away for a little while, let my brain
reset and then come to it a little fresher.
(32:41):
It also I'm finding it helps I Igot married a few months ago and
my wife is very detail oriented and she has been very good at
reading through some of my work and saying Nope Nope this
doesn't work doesn't make sense.I don't know what you were
(33:03):
thinking here, but, and you knowthat that's not always fun to
hear, but it's very useful and she's good at it.
Well, congratulations on on the Amais.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's sounds brilliant that you've got an editing
partner as well. She, she's not like a
(33:28):
professionally trained editor oranything, but she is really good
at copy editing, proofing, catching things.
It's when Kitemaster comes out, you know.
Thank her for the lack of typos.Yeah, it's, it's definitely
(33:50):
useful to have that extra pair of eyes.
And yeah, I mean, sometimes having someone who's not
professionally trained is betterbecause you get that more
authentic reader perspective, don't you?
It can help, yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of
the rating process is solitary, but it is really helpful to
(34:11):
eventually get those other eyes on it, whether it's roof reading
and catching those little typos that we don't see anymore, or
sometimes it's story level things where, well, I know how
the story goes in my head and maybe I forgot to put a piece of
that into the book. I know what happens.
(34:33):
Yeah. But yeah, getting those extra
eyes on the story, it has helpeda lot.
You know, every one of my books has been, I would say, vastly
improved by editors weighing in and saying this is great, but
what about this? What about that?
And you know those gaps that I missed because none of us are
(35:00):
perfect. Yeah.
Is it's very much a team effort,isn't it?
Right in the book. Very much Writing it, publishing
it, the whole process. Yeah, once the only thing I
wanted to ask you about was yourbackground in psychology and and
(35:21):
how that's you think it helps with your writing.
I mean, in the past we've had psychologists on the show and I
think it's really important liketo get them insights from like
psychologists, sociologists, because I think these different
things all help was really get to grips with our characters,
(35:43):
who they are, what motivates them.
And I find it like psychology asa whole is really interesting
Anyway, So what what was your, what is your background in
psychology? You mentioned before that you
studied it. Did you end up doing a career in
it as well? I did not, I, I finished my
(36:03):
undergraduate degree in psychology.
So I've got the, I've got the four year degree.
I ended up going into computer support after that.
But the psychology piece, you know, I did spend some time, I,
I volunteered at a crisis hotline.
(36:25):
I did some work with a sexual assault counseling program, and
I think one of the biggest ways that it helped was giving me
experience in just listening to people, you know, and some of
(36:47):
the basics of psychology, OK, understanding how how the mind
works, how people think and behave.
That's definitely important, butthen learning to listen to
people with different experiences, different
backgrounds, different hopes, different dreams.
(37:09):
I feel like if you can't do that, it's going to be, I won't
say impossible, but very, very difficult to write a broader
range of people or to write people who aren't thinly veiled
versions of yourself. I've, I've had people ask about,
(37:32):
well, you know, Jim, you're a guy.
How do you rate women? How do you learn to do that?
Well, I talk to them and more importantly, I listen.
It's, it's really that easy. I'm just listening to people
talk about their lives, talk about hopes, dreams, struggles,
(37:56):
challenges, and recognizing thatthey're going to be different
from your own. No, it's a it's a brilliant bit
of advice, just listening and and learning and people tell you
so much and it's. It's you can.
Tell you so much in body language and the things that
they don't say as much as the things that they do say and
(38:20):
looking at the things that they focus on or put emphasis on or
the way they say certain things.I just, I just love it.
I just find it so interesting. Same, same, you know, and
watching people act how they actin different contexts.
You know, watching someone who, how do they behave when they're
(38:43):
up on stage or giving a presentation versus when they're
on their own someplace relatively quiet it, you know,
finding the contradictions in people.
Yeah, you know, bundles of contradictions, aren't we?
Oh yeah, humans are messy. Yeah, that makes good material
(39:05):
for writing. Oh yeah, please.
Do you like to use body languagein your stories as like a bit of
a storytelling device to like get the reader more engaged so
that the thinking about what other characters are doing or
what's going to, you know, what's going on in their own
heads, Like just trying to piecethings together.
(39:25):
Because it's something that we often see in TV and films, isn't
it? Because we're not able to to go
into character's head. So we have to ascertain things
from like the way they look and respond to things like that.
So as a sort of your background in psychology, do you like to
(39:45):
inject quite a bit of that into your stories?
Interesting. I would say somewhat, yes.
Partly because, you know, it's, it's less interesting to just
write Jig was happy than it is to write, you know?
(40:09):
Jig felt the joy bubbling up in his chest and he jumped up and
down for joy and squeezed his ears to keep from screaming with
delight. Yeah.
And also, I think there's a balance of, you know, what
(40:30):
people express, what they don't express and what they hold back,
you know, sometimes like writinga character who's angry or
who's, well, let's go with the anger.
You know, one way to write that and depict it would be very
loud, lots of shouting, lots of gesticulating.
(40:53):
And another way is to show that character being very quiet and
working very hard to contain that anger.
And sometimes that quiet anger is a lot more powerful for the
story. So I think, you know, a lot
(41:16):
depends on the character. It depends on the story.
It depends on what beats you're trying to hit, what tone you're
trying to set. But yeah, you have to have a
range. You have to be able to do the
sort of simple, express it, showit, move on.
And you have to show people being more complex or more
(41:36):
conflicted or giving mixed messages sometimes.
Again, it's that whole range of being human.
Yeah, it's great. Lots of lots of great material.
Like I said before, it's it's amazing.
What I mean, just people watching and getting ideas from
(41:57):
the people you see on the streets.
It's amazing. Just like just from a few
minutes of looking like a busy place, you just see a complete
range of emotions, don't you? I was just going to say I've,
I've had luck with that. Just once the Internet came
along, I can do people watching without ever leaving the house.
(42:20):
You know, just sort of reading people's stories, reading their
experiences, both what they say,what they talk about and how
they talk about it. Yeah, it's fantastic.
There's there's so much you can,so much, so many resources out
there. We are spoiled choices.
As a writer in this day and age,one question I always like to
(42:41):
ask everyone who comes on to theshow is what in your career has
been your biggest struggle and how did you overcome it?
Biggest struggle. I told you how Goblin Quest came
about and ended up with DAW and all of the happy.
(43:06):
This sort of launched my career.Part of the story.
There was another part of that story where when I was sending
it out, I got an offer from one of the big publishers, not DAW,
(43:28):
and it was at that point it was the dream.
It was everything I had been working for, everything I had
hoped for. I was over the moon excited and
for various reasons that we don't really have time to get
(43:49):
into, the publisher ended up withdrawing the offer.
And you know, there were reasons, but it was devastating.
I, I felt crushed and I, I crashed hard.
I was, I went into a pretty hardcore depression for several
(44:14):
months where, you know, up untilthat point, rejection, not fun,
but I could handle it. I could keep writing.
But this, you know, feeling likeI had this dream in my hands and
then it got yanked away. That was hard.
Yeah. It's horrendous.
(44:36):
It was actually the the birth ofmy second child was what snapped
me out of it because, oh, I, I have this other dream and this
is good too. And I'll focus on this.
And that was sort of the first step in my recovery.
So, you know, thank you, Jamie, for coming along and helping to
(45:00):
fix your dad. But no, that that was definitely
one of the low points and it wasa struggle to to bounce back
from that and keep keep writing,keep trying.
Yeah, it's perseverance. Isn't this what you got you
need? To listen.
(45:20):
This game, but you you got thereit's and it's a brilliant
example to to everyone listeningthat if you love what you do,
just keep trying and good thingswill come.
Hopefully you're very active on on Patreon.
(45:41):
I've noticed and you do share some really brilliant and honest
things about writing life. And one thing you posted
recently was about the errands that you make from your writing.
And it's not very often that yousee authors is do this.
(46:02):
But I mean, we do see a lot overhere in like the news about
like, oh, this is the average earning for writers and like how
bad it is and stuff like that. And you tend to see the opposite
end of the spectrum then like all the the big money that the
like the the Hollywood names in.And it's really rare to see
(46:26):
writers just being honest and open and direct about what what
they make. So I really hats off.
See if you're opening up about that and and sharing that
information. So can you tell us why you
thought that was an important step to taking and more about
writers and as a whole? It's because so, so few people
(46:46):
do talk about it. And so there's that sense kind
of like you were saying, it's, it's one extreme or the other
either. If you're going to be a writer,
it means you'll be poor, you'll never make a penny in your life.
You'll just be destitute and, you know, working at McDonald's
or, or basically life will be bad or you're a writer.
(47:14):
So you must be Stephen King level of successful with your
own castle and yacht and spend your days sipping champagne in a
limousine with your agent in NewYork.
And so I think the more we have the conversation, the more we
(47:36):
get, you know, at least a more realistic picture of the range
of writing careers and how that can work.
I've, I feel like I've been veryfortunate and I'm, I'm
definitely not at Stephen King levels, but I feel like I've
(47:58):
been fairly successful. But also I want to put out
there, this is what that looks like.
This is how it varies from year to year because writing can be
very unstable. You know, one year you have a
three book deal and you get a big advance, but then the next
(48:20):
year you have to write the booksand there is no more advance
money coming in. So that graph can vary a lot.
I guess I just feel like we're all better off if we have more
information and more knowledge. Yeah, because I suppose it's
like, it's like going like asking for a pay rise at work,
(48:45):
isn't it? Like if you know what the person
who sits next to you who does the same job as you ends and it
turns out that they earn more than.
Exactly. Yes, and you can quite rightly
ask for the same amount of moneyand it it puts more power in
authors hands, doesn't it really?
I, I had a conversation almost exactly like that early on at a
(49:08):
convention talking to another author from my publisher.
And I think I had sold two or three, maybe even 4 books to
them by that point. And they were like the five,
six, $7000 advances. And I was saying, I don't, I
don't know. Is that good?
(49:30):
Is that? And the other author kind of
paused and said, well, you know,it all depends.
Everything depends. But he also wrote for the same
publisher, for the same editor. And he told me they will go to
five figure advances for, you know, even I don't, I don't
(49:53):
remember exactly how he said it,but he he made it clear that,
OK, that's nice. They can go higher.
And that was that was huge because it wouldn't at that
point, I was just so grateful tobe writing and publishing that
the idea that I could go in and say, hey, I want more money or
(50:17):
hey, I think maybe I deserve a raise, or even even just having
the conversation was terrifying.Yeah, I get that.
Because like you say, you've hadthe dream in your hands before
and it's been snatched away and you don't want it to often
again, do you? Right.
(50:38):
So I, I don't want to, I just want to be grateful for what I
have because I don't want to lose it.
I think that's one of the areas where it's also been really
helpful to have an agent so thatI can talk to him and say, hey,
I heard that that this publishergives out more advances.
Can we ask for more money next time?
(50:59):
And he comes back and says, well, let me look at your sales
numbers. And I think maybe we can do
this. And I am happy to say that the
advances have gone up over time.Yeah.
So it's great that you're so honest about it.
And I mean, what, what do you mean?
Do you speak to a lot of authors?
Do you know what like other people earn as a sort of general
(51:21):
average? I do not.
I maybe 10 years back I did a survey of several 100 authors
just looking at the advances forfirst novels, trying to get more
of a sense of that. I would have to look at the
numbers, but I think it came in around $5000 or so.
(51:48):
But just average author from year to year?
I don't know. Yeah, like I say, there's so
many variables as well. Right.
And an author who makes $1000 one year might have something
take off the next year and be, Imean, maybe even 6 figures.
(52:13):
I don't know. It's probably rare, but you
know, writing is. It can be a little unpredictable
sometimes. Yeah.
And you're obviously doing more of a like a hybrid thing now.
Are you, because you you're relaunching Goblin Quest
yourself And do you think that sort of approach works?
(52:36):
I mean, there's a bit more work involved for you, but in
financially do you think it would be more rewarding?
Oh, it's definitely more work, more rewarding it.
I prefer to put out original novels through a commercial
(52:58):
publisher if I can. They have much better
distribution. They're able to get the books
out to a lot more people than I can do directly.
But then over time, those books fall into the backlist.
(53:19):
They're not selling that many copies anymore.
It it starts to make sense to say, OK, I will take these back.
I will start selling them directly myself, which lets me
boost sales a bit, reduce the price, while you're also able to
(53:40):
get a much bigger chunk of the royalties with each sale.
So I think it does make sense todo both, at least for me.
Yeah. It's like the cycle a book goes,
so isn't there like goes to the traditional routes and then over
time, but the rights revert backthen you can sort of relaunch,
(54:02):
you can't you? And put extra things in and new,
new covers, new contents, and yeah, you basically get to two
runs of the book. Pretty much, yeah.
And if, I mean, even if I can't get that extra sales boost, if
we get to a point where, and I'mjust making up numbers here, say
(54:24):
a book is selling 10 copies a month, you know, through the
traditional publisher, maybe it's an 8% royalty rate, 10 a
month, I make $8. If I'm putting it out myself as
a $5 ebook, I might make $35 forthe same 10 sales.
(54:48):
Yeah. And I do that by selling the
book more cheaply through through putting it out myself.
So yeah, it just the math kind of makes sense at that point.
Yeah, Oh, that's obviously it, Jim, for being honest and open.
(55:11):
And I think if anyone's looking for more advice like that, then
do check out Jim's Patreon page,packed with lots of great
stories as well and lots of goodinsights.
But thank you. Yeah.
One last question for you, Jim. Just to wrap things up.
The question I always like to finish on is what advice or what
(55:32):
single piece of advice would youhave for any aspiring fantasy
writer out there listening? I would go back to what I was
talking about with Goblin Quest and say write what you love.
Write what makes you happy. Don't worry as much about what
(55:53):
you should be ringing. Don't worry as much about what's
popular or what what's hot rightnow.
Write what makes you happy and build from there.
Brilliance advice nice and simple and I get something that
I completely agree. I, I've recently finished the
(56:13):
project and it was something that I was really passionate
about and, and really like keen to do and, and like excited to
share with people. And it was just a completely
different experience compared tolike previous projects I've done
where I haven't really always been like fully into it as much.
(56:34):
But I, I completely agree. And yeah, I think even if you
just do a short story about something you love and test it
out, it's well we're doing. Yeah.
I'd agree. Yeah, but Jim, thank you so much
for giving up your time and how busy you are at the moment with
the two books out this month. And I really appreciate you
sharing your insights and your honest thoughts and and your
(56:57):
brilliant experiences as well. It's fantastic to chat with
someone so gifted as yourself, so thank you very much.
Thanks for having me, Richie. This has been a lot of fun.
It's been good talking to you. Thank you very much.
If anyone wants to learn more about you and you're writing in
your books, where's the best place to go?
Easiest place would be Jim C heinz.com.
(57:21):
Then there are links at the top to all of the different social
media sites, but Jim C heinz.comis sort of the central hub.
Nice. I'll put links to that in the
description as well as links to the books as well, and Jim's
Patreon page as well. Yeah, thank you very much again.
It's been an absolute pleasure. Likewise.
(57:44):
Everyone, thank you at home for listening and we'll speak to you
soon. Thank you for listening to the
Fantasy Risers Tool Shed. If you'd like to join our
writing community on Discord andget 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 follow or subscribe.
(58:05):
And to support the show, leave aquick rating on Spotify or
iTunes and share this episode onsocial media or with anyone who
you think may be interested. Thank you very much for
listening.
Welcome to another episode of the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
I'm your host Richie Billing, and today I'm delighted to be
joined by best selling fantasy author Jim Hines.
Jim, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me,
Richie. Thrilled you could join me Jim,
it's fantastic writing career and that you've had and working
(00:32):
with big publishers like Door Books, receiving awards,
nominations and make it onto thebestseller list.
So it really is an honour to speak with you.
Oh, thank you so much. It's it's been a good 20 plus
years. I've been very fortunate in a
lot of ways. Well, it's if the stories aren't
good, then you don't last long, do you?
(00:54):
So it's a, it's a testament to how good the writer you are.
And I'm looking forward to diving into it today.
We've got a couple of new, well,one new book coming out soon,
haven't you? And re releasing some classics
too. Yeah, it's a, it's a busy month.
I've got Kitemaster, is the new one coming out at the end of the
(01:17):
month? And then tomorrow actually the
three Goblin books. Three of my first fantasy novels
are being re released as ebooks.Congratulations on both.
Very exciting. Pulled left, right and center
(01:37):
with the PR. It's been a little hectic.
Yeah, I'm, I've got to be honest, the PR is not my
favorite part of the job. I I enjoy talking to people.
I enjoy like chatting with you, but there's a part of me that's
more introverted and I'd just rather be writing.
(01:59):
Let somebody else handle the advertisement.
Yeah, I get that completely. It's, it's the I Like podcasts
because it's quite informal, isn't it?
Like we're just like having a pretty laid back conversation
now and it doesn't feel too strenuous.
But I imagine having to do like events, like quite a lot.
(02:20):
I mean, do you do a lot of conventions and things like
that? I don't actually do that many
anymore. Earlier on, I I would push
myself to do more of them each year, partly because that was
the advice is go out, do conventions, meet editors, meet
agents. It's all about word of mouth and
(02:40):
who you know. And it never, it never really
worked out that way for me. I, I mean, I did meet some
people. I, I made some connections
there. I can point to a few short
stories I sold through making those conventions connections.
(03:03):
But the amount of time, the amount of energy that goes into
it, I think really the primary goal has to be just keep
writing, keep improving, keep sending stuff out.
You know, these days if I do theconventions, it's more to see
the people. It's not a career thing as much
(03:25):
as, hey, I want to go hang out with my writer friends and see
what they've been up to and laugh and catch up.
Yeah, no, I understand. I'm not going to.
Yeah, I don't do many conventions myself.
But the reason why I do go is for that exact same reason
you've just said. And I do find them a little bit
intimidating sometimes because there are a lot of egos there.
(03:49):
Oh yes. People looking to make a point
and and if you're not really in that frame of mind, I don't know
about you, it can, it threw me off a bit and it kind of makes
me less inclined to go to more. The very first convention I went
to, I had, I had gotten onto 1 panel and I was all excited.
(04:12):
I was, you know, I had publishedlike 2 whole short stories at
that point. And I get onto the panel and I
was so overwhelmed. I didn't say a word for the
entire hour. You know, a few times some of
the other panelists would look at me and, and sort of have that
confused expression like is thisthing on?
(04:33):
Is he broken? But it was, it was just too much
at that point. I got overwhelmed and I sort of
shut, shut down. Yeah.
I get what I mean. You are sort of like you said
you, you pushed to do it, aren'tyou?
And sometimes you, you do thingsbefore you're ready.
But the main thing is that you did it.
(04:55):
And I suppose going back and doing the next convention it,
even though you didn't say anything in the first one, at
least you sat up there in front of everybody.
And I didn't die exactly. Yeah.
So sometimes you need little. Things like that to say.
And it definitely got better over time.
It got a little easier. I was able to relax more.
(05:18):
I learned some of the tricks, like when I go to a convention,
I am going to need times that I just go back to my hotel room
and hide and decompress and recover for an hour.
Then I can go out and interact with people again.
And also getting to know people,you know, whether it's meeting
(05:42):
people and building those relationships at the conventions
or going with someone, going with a friend, I think can make
a huge difference. I wish I had known, you know,
back in the late 90s. Take a friend with you, have fun
together. It would help a lot with that
(06:04):
sense of isolation and feeling overwhelmed.
Yeah, certainly agree with that one.
So where did it all begin for you?
Did you always want to be a writer growing up or it's
something that you came into later in life?
I did not actually. I when I started undergraduate
after high school, my plan was to become a psychologist.
(06:26):
I was going to be a therapist and, and save the world that
way. And a friend of mine is a year
or two younger and he wanted to be a writer.
And he had written some short stories and he showed them to me
from time to time. And I remember thinking, this is
cool. This, this is interesting.
(06:49):
And I'd always been a big science fiction fantasy reader.
So I'm watching my friends do this.
And I figured out, well, how hard can it be?
I'll give it a try. And as I imagine a lot of people
listening know it's harder than it looks.
(07:10):
But in that initial sort of, hey, give it a try, see what
happens, I found things that I loved.
You know, I loved the the creation.
I loved those moments when a story comes together and I was
just having so much fun with it that I kept going.
(07:31):
Then I sent some stories out andas almost all of us do, I got
rejected. And I think that hit some sort
of button in my brain that that that stubbornness gene saying,
oh, oh, you rejected this, did you?
(07:52):
Well, I'll show you. I'll write one that's even
better and you'll buy that one. And it.
It wasn't quite that quick, but I am happy to say that after I'd
say 4 years of of writing and submitting, the person who
rejected that very first short story did end up buying a
(08:14):
different story of mine. Nice.
But yeah, a lot of it comes downto my friend Tim, and he was
writing, and if he hadn't been doing that, I, I honestly don't
know if I would have gotten the idea to sit down and try it
myself. Yeah, it's amazing.
(08:35):
And then you, you just tried it and fell in love.
Yeah, I, I mean, I have written one or two things over time
growing up just for fun, but never, never seriously, never
with the idea of being publishedor being a quote, UN quote
author or any of that. I think honestly, for a lot of
(09:01):
us when we're young, you know, it, it doesn't even occur to you
that much that there are actual people behind all of these books
that being an author is something you can do.
Yeah. You know, I just.
Never really encouraged in school is it?
Well, and I can kind of understand it.
(09:22):
It's not exactly the most lucrative or stable career in
the world, but I love it. Yeah, it's definitely a thing of
passion, isn't? It it has to be, I think, yeah.
Yeah. And yeah, I don't know.
You see, sometimes people going,oh, I'm going to do this, I'm
going to make all this money andI want to get all.
(09:44):
This. Stuff.
It's not about that, really. I don't think you could sit here
like at a desk for God knows howmany hours and just read the
same thing over and over again if you didn't love it so.
And then if you're, if you're really fortunate and you've done
(10:05):
this for years and you get that novel manuscript off and, and
somebody actually wants to buy it.
And most of the time they come back with, OK.
And for this project that you'vepoured however many years of
your life into, we're going to give you $5000.
Yeah. You you really can't do it for
(10:27):
the money. We'll talk a bit about that
later because you've you're veryopen and transparent about
earnings in the writing world and it's it's something I really
appreciate and I think a lot of people should hear as well.
So it'll be great to dive into that a bit more.
I was going to ask you about theGoblin Quest books and was that
(10:50):
one of your earlier pieces of oflonger fiction or how did the
wack go about? Goblin Quest was the first novel
length fantasy story that I actually sold.
I had written a few other book length manuscripts.
(11:11):
They sent them out. The publishers sent them right
back and Goblin Quest it was it was a bit of a revelation
because those those earlier books I had been trying really
hard to write capital G good books.
(11:34):
I was you know, what's what's going to sell, what's going to
be well received? What are, you know, how do I
become a a great author? And at the time that I started
writing Goblin Quest, I had justquit a job in Nevada.
(11:56):
I had been coming off of a bit of a bout of depression and I
was in a space where, you know what, I don't care.
I'm just going to write something fun and goofy and it's
going to be this sort of Dungeons and Dragons style
adventure from the point of viewof the Goblin.
(12:19):
And it's going to be ridiculous.And he's going to have a pet
spider who sets things on fire. And I just had fun with it.
And I laughed and it was, I mean, I, I kind of love that
little goblin and, and the fire spider.
(12:40):
And then it turned out that thatwas the book that sold, the one
where I stopped worrying about what should I be writing and
just wrote what I wanted to and just had fun with it.
Yeah. I I wish I had learned that
lesson earlier, but yeah, that one sold originally to a small
(13:03):
press called 5 Star, then got picked up by DAW Books along
with two sequels. And, you know, they kept it in
print for close to 20 years and now finally it's being re
released. It's revised a little bit.
(13:24):
I threw in some bonus material and it's Jig the Goblin kind of
started my career. Yeah.
Nice, it's great to bring them back then isn't it?
Take full ownership of them again.
It's been fun, you know, and it's, it's interesting to look
back and as I was revising them,you know, in some ways there
(13:47):
were a lot of little sentence level things where, oh, this
could have been smoother. And I'm going to reword this.
And because you, you grow over 20 years or hopefully you do,
but also some of it even 20 years later, the fun is still
there. You know, I still reading the
(14:09):
story again, I still felt that love for these characters and
sympathy for poor Jig getting dragged along on this adventure
when all he wants to do is be left alone.
So yeah, it's, it's been fun doing going back to that.
Yeah. What was that like writing that
(14:31):
story and obviously mixing things up and and picking a
goblin as the main character? I mean, did you, it was like, I
mean, you, you mentioned it was,you're paying homage of it to
Dungeons and Dragons. So did you tend to stick to the
sort of classic tropes to do with goblins, or did you just
(14:52):
mix things up and go your own way?
Bit of both, I would say. My goblins are, well, I wanted
to write from the underdogs perspective and goblins are
fairly low on that hierarchy. You know, they're, they're
(15:12):
small, kind of scrawny. Most of them in my world at
least, are not terribly bright. And it was fun, you know, and
they're, they're unashamed of who they are.
You know, they are goblins, theyare the underdogs and they
(15:35):
embrace that. You know, they know what their
role is in the whole fantasy world, adventure hierarchy.
They're going to go out, they'regoing to probably get
slaughtered, but some of them will survive and that'll be
great. And maybe they will kill some of
the elves and bring one back to eat for supper because they're
(15:57):
also, you know, when adventurerscome in, you kill them and you
eat them. There's not a lot of food
variety in your caves and caverns and just.
It was fun getting into it and deciding, OK, you know, for when
they do capture the elf, they'regoing to have a chef who's very,
(16:20):
very good. You know, it's not just going to
be your typical fantasy. We sit down and eat Stew.
No, we're going to have barbecued elf ribs sprinkled
with fire spider eggs and sort of sauteed in oil of whatever
fungus we have growing on The Cave walls this week.
(16:43):
So. But yeah, I mean it, it started
out with some of those Dungeons and Dragons tropes, but I like
to think that it got developed and grew a lot beyond that,
especially over the course of the second and third books.
Yeah. So what was it like creating Jig
(17:06):
as a character? Do you have a sort of process
when you're creating characters generally too?
Is it it to create such a successful series?
I mean, for me, the characters make it.
It's the only reason you'd carryon really.
So like, it's great to see that like you've created Jig, who's
like, not your typical hero, andthen people just love them.
(17:29):
So what was it like that processof bringing him to life?
It was, it was interesting, a jig and smudge more than a lot
of the characters that I've written.
They were pretty well developed from the start.
I think partly I did project a fair amount of myself into jig.
(17:54):
You know, he's he's this Ronnie Little Runt.
Even among the goblins, he gets picked on by everybody.
He's near sighted. Some of what Jig is going
through was my life during junior high.
You know, I was the scrawny little near sighted nerd getting
(18:15):
picked on by all of the bigger kids.
So yeah, I could definitely relate.
Yeah, I've got a sense of that before as well when you were
describing all like you don't really like the conventions and
and then you said Jake just wants to be left alone.
I. Mean I did I like the
(18:35):
conventions, but but yeah, it's overwhelming and and yeah, Jig.
So I wanted somebody who was whowas not your muscle bound Conan
the barbarian type. But I also wanted him to be
clever. I wanted him to survive by out
thinking the other goblins and the other adventurers and just
(19:00):
coming up with these creative ideas that, you know, they're
not the sort of ideas that the heroes would have.
They're not heroic or honorable.They're goblin ideas.
And so creating that, letting him become more clever and
(19:21):
pushing him into these situations where he had to, you
know, fight and think and out there in the adventures that he
absolutely hated, it was a blast.
Yeah. No, I've, I've said before, you
know, more than any of the othercharacters I've created, If Jig
(19:42):
were ever to meet me in person, he would immediately stab me in
the face just for all of the stuff that I've put him through.
That's. What you got to do to your
characters though? In general, yeah, yeah.
If you're just being nice to them, it doesn't usually make as
much or as good of a story. Yeah, I agree.
(20:05):
What are the sorts of key storytelling techniques do you
like to follow, or would you recommend writers check out?
Key storytelling techniques, oneof the things that I need to do,
and obviously everybody's process is different, but for
(20:26):
me, I find myself needing to do like a one or two sentence
summary of who the character is and what it is that they want.
You know, what is that one core desire that's sort of driving
everything? For Jig, it would be he wants to
(20:53):
survive and be left alone. Almost everything he does is how
do I get out of this? How do I survive?
Some of the other characters it gets a little more complex.
Like in Kite Master, the protagonist wants to stop the
(21:15):
evil Queen and protect her friends and family.
But having that one sentence, itlets me go back whenever I get
stuck and say, OK, what does this character want that's going
to dictate what they do next. You know when the plot gets
(21:37):
stuck When I not sure what to donext.
Let the character drive that. What do they want?
What is their next step to get that?
How can you stop them from doing?
It. Well, yeah, and then we throw
obstacles in their way and or wegive them unexpected
(21:59):
consequences or, OK, you've you've made this small step, but
now makes are higher because thebad guys are reacting to what
you've done. Or there there are lots of ways
to to make things go wrong. But yeah, it's, I think one of
(22:23):
the earliest storytelling structures that I was taught is
that a short story is a sequenceof try, fail, try, fail, and
eventually try, succeed or not, depending on how you want to end
the story. Nice, that's interesting.
(22:46):
Yeah. And then with each, with each of
those try fail cycles, the stakes get higher.
Maybe the initial try fail, you've made things worse.
Now instead of trying to get getout of the locked building, now
you've accidentally set it on fire.
Stakes are higher. Try again.
(23:08):
Nice, that's a really good example.
I always find structures short stories quite difficult.
I like messing around with things using different
structures, but capturing that perfect moments is hard, isn't?
(23:30):
It, it is and there's it's so much more focused in a novel.
You have time to to wander a bitto, to follow secondary plot
lines and storylines. And with a short story, it feels
(23:50):
like, I don't want to say constrained exactly, but it
feels so much tighter. I remember the advice back in
the 90s that I was hearing was, you know, start with short
stories, write them, publish them, build yourself up as a
(24:13):
writer through short stories, and then you'll be able to do
novels. And what I found is some of the
skills do carry over, but short stories are short stories and
novels are novels. And just because you can do 1
doesn't magically mean you can do the other.
(24:36):
Yeah. Totally agree with that one.
Speaking of novels, you have a new one out at the very end of
May and Kite Master, which you mentioned there before.
And do you want to tell us a bitabout what the story involves
and, and what kind of themes andthings you're exploring in this
(24:58):
one? I'd love to kite.
Master is is one of the more difficult books that I've done
to sum up in a single sentence, It started in part.
Well, no, let's step back. It's a secondary world fantasy.
(25:20):
It's stand alone and it's set ina world where the wind is pretty
much central. It the wind never stops.
The wind drives almost everything.
You know, the technology, it's all sails and windmills and wind
wheels and kites. A lot of the the animal life has
(25:46):
evolved to adapt to these unending winds.
There are cloud serpents that live their whole lives in the
air. You know they Neverland even the
stars when they come out at night, they're not blowing up
the way they do in our world. They more they blow across the
(26:07):
sky in a streak like they call it the night river and it varies
from one night to the next depending on how strong those
winds are. So that's your world setting and
the character Niel is a kite master, meaning she has some
(26:29):
magical ability to control the wind and to control pretty much
anything that's flying on the wind, Kites being the obvious
one. But she has some control over
birds and bats and creatures like that.
And it means she is very valuable because kite masters
(26:52):
are the ones who can pilot kite ships, these enormous sailing
style ships that are flying on giant kites.
And once she discovers this gift, she gets drawn into this
(27:12):
struggle between the Queen, who is also a kite master, and is,
without giving spoilers, trying to use that gift for some very
bad things. The Queen's son is trying to
prevent this and is a runaway. Neal sort of gets kidnapped and
(27:33):
ends up on a kite ship with the runaway Prince.
So they're trying to survive andstop the Queen and her evil kite
masters from, well, from doing bad things.
That was fantastic. I absolutely love the worlds and
how you've shaped everything around that unique aspect of it.
(27:56):
And the the stakes obviously arereally, really high as well.
It sounds brilliant. I'm going to pre-order a coffee
as soon as we. Oh, thank you.
It's, it's a book that I've spent a long time working on.
You know, it started as a short story probably about 20 years
(28:16):
ago. And I just, I loved this idea of
of the kites and, and the control you have over them.
And, you know, there are scout kites that you can strap
yourself to and actually fly with your kite.
And just more than a lot of my stuff, This one was driven by a
(28:41):
sense of wonder. You know, what are those scenes?
What are those moments that makeme go, oh, that's amazing, I
want to do that? Yeah.
And what was it like creating the world?
It was both a lot of fun and at times very frustrating.
(29:06):
It was fun imagining all of the different aspects, all of the
different implications of how this world works, even to the
point of mapping out the wind charts.
So I know how the kite ships could fly from point A to point
B because you're you're flying on kites, you have some steering
(29:28):
here, but you're also kind of atthe mercy of the winds.
So sometimes you can't go in a straight line imagining the
ecosystem, you know, imagining the stars up here.
And it's very obviously not the same astronomical system as our
world. So how do these stars work?
(29:49):
What happens when one of them falls down?
Are there things that live that high up?
What's the religion? What's the spiritual aspect?
The book starts with Niel flyingthe spirit kite of her husband,
who had died the year before. They're Niel's 21.
(30:12):
This was unexpected. She's also dealing with becoming
a widow over the course of the book.
But what you do in this world, in this part of the world at
least, is you build the spirit kite.
You fly that the one year after your loved one's death.
And this is what flies your loved one's spirit up into the
(30:34):
stars. And so there's just, there was
so much, you know, what about this, what about that?
What if I do this? And some of it worked, some of
it didn't. But what I'd say overall, it
(30:55):
was, it was very rewarding. It was, it was fun.
And it and every every detail you come up with makes the world
feel that much more real. Yeah.
It does. It has the effects of just
(31:15):
drawing the reader deeper and deeper a bit.
The more they see that, how mucheffort and thought you've put
into it, then it becomes almost like a real place for people,
doesn't it? Hopefully, I mean, that that
kind of leads to one of the frustrating parts where you've
(31:36):
also got to make sure none of these details you're developing
are going to throw the reader out of the story.
Like, does this actually make sense?
Would this work or is this a little too far?
Is this something that I would read and say, yeah, right.
(31:57):
And put the book down. How do you usually catch them
things when you edit? Another good question.
Sometimes I think you kind of feel it when you're writing it.
Yeah. You're, you're realizing, oh,
this is a little too cute or this is, I'm trying a little too
(32:19):
hard here. Other times it helps to take
some distance from the story. Like if I finish a draft,
ideally I I want to put it away for a little while, let my brain
reset and then come to it a little fresher.
(32:41):
It also I'm finding it helps I Igot married a few months ago and
my wife is very detail oriented and she has been very good at
reading through some of my work and saying Nope Nope this
doesn't work doesn't make sense.I don't know what you were
(33:03):
thinking here, but, and you knowthat that's not always fun to
hear, but it's very useful and she's good at it.
Well, congratulations on on the Amais.
Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah.
And it's, it's sounds brilliant that you've got an editing
partner as well. She, she's not like a
(33:28):
professionally trained editor oranything, but she is really good
at copy editing, proofing, catching things.
It's when Kitemaster comes out, you know.
Thank her for the lack of typos.Yeah, it's, it's definitely
(33:50):
useful to have that extra pair of eyes.
And yeah, I mean, sometimes having someone who's not
professionally trained is betterbecause you get that more
authentic reader perspective, don't you?
It can help, yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of
the rating process is solitary, but it is really helpful to
(34:11):
eventually get those other eyes on it, whether it's roof reading
and catching those little typos that we don't see anymore, or
sometimes it's story level things where, well, I know how
the story goes in my head and maybe I forgot to put a piece of
that into the book. I know what happens.
(34:33):
Yeah. But yeah, getting those extra
eyes on the story, it has helpeda lot.
You know, every one of my books has been, I would say, vastly
improved by editors weighing in and saying this is great, but
what about this? What about that?
And you know those gaps that I missed because none of us are
(35:00):
perfect. Yeah.
Is it's very much a team effort,isn't it?
Right in the book. Very much Writing it, publishing
it, the whole process. Yeah, once the only thing I
wanted to ask you about was yourbackground in psychology and and
(35:21):
how that's you think it helps with your writing.
I mean, in the past we've had psychologists on the show and I
think it's really important liketo get them insights from like
psychologists, sociologists, because I think these different
things all help was really get to grips with our characters,
(35:43):
who they are, what motivates them.
And I find it like psychology asa whole is really interesting
Anyway, So what what was your, what is your background in
psychology? You mentioned before that you
studied it. Did you end up doing a career in
it as well? I did not, I, I finished my
(36:03):
undergraduate degree in psychology.
So I've got the, I've got the four year degree.
I ended up going into computer support after that.
But the psychology piece, you know, I did spend some time, I,
I volunteered at a crisis hotline.
(36:25):
I did some work with a sexual assault counseling program, and
I think one of the biggest ways that it helped was giving me
experience in just listening to people, you know, and some of
(36:47):
the basics of psychology, OK, understanding how how the mind
works, how people think and behave.
That's definitely important, butthen learning to listen to
people with different experiences, different
backgrounds, different hopes, different dreams.
(37:09):
I feel like if you can't do that, it's going to be, I won't
say impossible, but very, very difficult to write a broader
range of people or to write people who aren't thinly veiled
versions of yourself. I've, I've had people ask about,
(37:32):
well, you know, Jim, you're a guy.
How do you rate women? How do you learn to do that?
Well, I talk to them and more importantly, I listen.
It's, it's really that easy. I'm just listening to people
talk about their lives, talk about hopes, dreams, struggles,
(37:56):
challenges, and recognizing thatthey're going to be different
from your own. No, it's a it's a brilliant bit
of advice, just listening and and learning and people tell you
so much and it's. It's you can.
Tell you so much in body language and the things that
they don't say as much as the things that they do say and
(38:20):
looking at the things that they focus on or put emphasis on or
the way they say certain things.I just, I just love it.
I just find it so interesting. Same, same, you know, and
watching people act how they actin different contexts.
You know, watching someone who, how do they behave when they're
(38:43):
up on stage or giving a presentation versus when they're
on their own someplace relatively quiet it, you know,
finding the contradictions in people.
Yeah, you know, bundles of contradictions, aren't we?
Oh yeah, humans are messy. Yeah, that makes good material
(39:05):
for writing. Oh yeah, please.
Do you like to use body languagein your stories as like a bit of
a storytelling device to like get the reader more engaged so
that the thinking about what other characters are doing or
what's going to, you know, what's going on in their own
heads, Like just trying to piecethings together.
(39:25):
Because it's something that we often see in TV and films, isn't
it? Because we're not able to to go
into character's head. So we have to ascertain things
from like the way they look and respond to things like that.
So as a sort of your background in psychology, do you like to
(39:45):
inject quite a bit of that into your stories?
Interesting. I would say somewhat, yes.
Partly because, you know, it's, it's less interesting to just
write Jig was happy than it is to write, you know?
(40:09):
Jig felt the joy bubbling up in his chest and he jumped up and
down for joy and squeezed his ears to keep from screaming with
delight. Yeah.
And also, I think there's a balance of, you know, what
(40:30):
people express, what they don't express and what they hold back,
you know, sometimes like writinga character who's angry or
who's, well, let's go with the anger.
You know, one way to write that and depict it would be very
loud, lots of shouting, lots of gesticulating.
(40:53):
And another way is to show that character being very quiet and
working very hard to contain that anger.
And sometimes that quiet anger is a lot more powerful for the
story. So I think, you know, a lot
(41:16):
depends on the character. It depends on the story.
It depends on what beats you're trying to hit, what tone you're
trying to set. But yeah, you have to have a
range. You have to be able to do the
sort of simple, express it, showit, move on.
And you have to show people being more complex or more
(41:36):
conflicted or giving mixed messages sometimes.
Again, it's that whole range of being human.
Yeah, it's great. Lots of lots of great material.
Like I said before, it's it's amazing.
What I mean, just people watching and getting ideas from
(41:57):
the people you see on the streets.
It's amazing. Just like just from a few
minutes of looking like a busy place, you just see a complete
range of emotions, don't you? I was just going to say I've,
I've had luck with that. Just once the Internet came
along, I can do people watching without ever leaving the house.
(42:20):
You know, just sort of reading people's stories, reading their
experiences, both what they say,what they talk about and how
they talk about it. Yeah, it's fantastic.
There's there's so much you can,so much, so many resources out
there. We are spoiled choices.
As a writer in this day and age,one question I always like to
(42:41):
ask everyone who comes on to theshow is what in your career has
been your biggest struggle and how did you overcome it?
Biggest struggle. I told you how Goblin Quest came
about and ended up with DAW and all of the happy.
(43:06):
This sort of launched my career.Part of the story.
There was another part of that story where when I was sending
it out, I got an offer from one of the big publishers, not DAW,
(43:28):
and it was at that point it was the dream.
It was everything I had been working for, everything I had
hoped for. I was over the moon excited and
for various reasons that we don't really have time to get
(43:49):
into, the publisher ended up withdrawing the offer.
And you know, there were reasons, but it was devastating.
I, I felt crushed and I, I crashed hard.
I was, I went into a pretty hardcore depression for several
(44:14):
months where, you know, up untilthat point, rejection, not fun,
but I could handle it. I could keep writing.
But this, you know, feeling likeI had this dream in my hands and
then it got yanked away. That was hard.
Yeah. It's horrendous.
(44:36):
It was actually the the birth ofmy second child was what snapped
me out of it because, oh, I, I have this other dream and this
is good too. And I'll focus on this.
And that was sort of the first step in my recovery.
So, you know, thank you, Jamie, for coming along and helping to
(45:00):
fix your dad. But no, that that was definitely
one of the low points and it wasa struggle to to bounce back
from that and keep keep writing,keep trying.
Yeah, it's perseverance. Isn't this what you got you
need? To listen.
(45:20):
This game, but you you got thereit's and it's a brilliant
example to to everyone listeningthat if you love what you do,
just keep trying and good thingswill come.
Hopefully you're very active on on Patreon.
(45:41):
I've noticed and you do share some really brilliant and honest
things about writing life. And one thing you posted
recently was about the errands that you make from your writing.
And it's not very often that yousee authors is do this.
(46:02):
But I mean, we do see a lot overhere in like the news about
like, oh, this is the average earning for writers and like how
bad it is and stuff like that. And you tend to see the opposite
end of the spectrum then like all the the big money that the
like the the Hollywood names in.And it's really rare to see
(46:26):
writers just being honest and open and direct about what what
they make. So I really hats off.
See if you're opening up about that and and sharing that
information. So can you tell us why you
thought that was an important step to taking and more about
writers and as a whole? It's because so, so few people
(46:46):
do talk about it. And so there's that sense kind
of like you were saying, it's, it's one extreme or the other
either. If you're going to be a writer,
it means you'll be poor, you'll never make a penny in your life.
You'll just be destitute and, you know, working at McDonald's
or, or basically life will be bad or you're a writer.
(47:14):
So you must be Stephen King level of successful with your
own castle and yacht and spend your days sipping champagne in a
limousine with your agent in NewYork.
And so I think the more we have the conversation, the more we
(47:36):
get, you know, at least a more realistic picture of the range
of writing careers and how that can work.
I've, I feel like I've been veryfortunate and I'm, I'm
definitely not at Stephen King levels, but I feel like I've
(47:58):
been fairly successful. But also I want to put out
there, this is what that looks like.
This is how it varies from year to year because writing can be
very unstable. You know, one year you have a
three book deal and you get a big advance, but then the next
(48:20):
year you have to write the booksand there is no more advance
money coming in. So that graph can vary a lot.
I guess I just feel like we're all better off if we have more
information and more knowledge. Yeah, because I suppose it's
like, it's like going like asking for a pay rise at work,
(48:45):
isn't it? Like if you know what the person
who sits next to you who does the same job as you ends and it
turns out that they earn more than.
Exactly. Yes, and you can quite rightly
ask for the same amount of moneyand it it puts more power in
authors hands, doesn't it really?
I, I had a conversation almost exactly like that early on at a
(49:08):
convention talking to another author from my publisher.
And I think I had sold two or three, maybe even 4 books to
them by that point. And they were like the five,
six, $7000 advances. And I was saying, I don't, I
don't know. Is that good?
(49:30):
Is that? And the other author kind of
paused and said, well, you know,it all depends.
Everything depends. But he also wrote for the same
publisher, for the same editor. And he told me they will go to
five figure advances for, you know, even I don't, I don't
(49:53):
remember exactly how he said it,but he he made it clear that,
OK, that's nice. They can go higher.
And that was that was huge because it wouldn't at that
point, I was just so grateful tobe writing and publishing that
the idea that I could go in and say, hey, I want more money or
(50:17):
hey, I think maybe I deserve a raise, or even even just having
the conversation was terrifying.Yeah, I get that.
Because like you say, you've hadthe dream in your hands before
and it's been snatched away and you don't want it to often
again, do you? Right.
(50:38):
So I, I don't want to, I just want to be grateful for what I
have because I don't want to lose it.
I think that's one of the areas where it's also been really
helpful to have an agent so thatI can talk to him and say, hey,
I heard that that this publishergives out more advances.
Can we ask for more money next time?
(50:59):
And he comes back and says, well, let me look at your sales
numbers. And I think maybe we can do
this. And I am happy to say that the
advances have gone up over time.Yeah.
So it's great that you're so honest about it.
And I mean, what, what do you mean?
Do you speak to a lot of authors?
Do you know what like other people earn as a sort of general
(51:21):
average? I do not.
I maybe 10 years back I did a survey of several 100 authors
just looking at the advances forfirst novels, trying to get more
of a sense of that. I would have to look at the
numbers, but I think it came in around $5000 or so.
(51:48):
But just average author from year to year?
I don't know. Yeah, like I say, there's so
many variables as well. Right.
And an author who makes $1000 one year might have something
take off the next year and be, Imean, maybe even 6 figures.
(52:13):
I don't know. It's probably rare, but you
know, writing is. It can be a little unpredictable
sometimes. Yeah.
And you're obviously doing more of a like a hybrid thing now.
Are you, because you you're relaunching Goblin Quest
yourself And do you think that sort of approach works?
(52:36):
I mean, there's a bit more work involved for you, but in
financially do you think it would be more rewarding?
Oh, it's definitely more work, more rewarding it.
I prefer to put out original novels through a commercial
(52:58):
publisher if I can. They have much better
distribution. They're able to get the books
out to a lot more people than I can do directly.
But then over time, those books fall into the backlist.
(53:19):
They're not selling that many copies anymore.
It it starts to make sense to say, OK, I will take these back.
I will start selling them directly myself, which lets me
boost sales a bit, reduce the price, while you're also able to
(53:40):
get a much bigger chunk of the royalties with each sale.
So I think it does make sense todo both, at least for me.
Yeah. It's like the cycle a book goes,
so isn't there like goes to the traditional routes and then over
time, but the rights revert backthen you can sort of relaunch,
(54:02):
you can't you? And put extra things in and new,
new covers, new contents, and yeah, you basically get to two
runs of the book. Pretty much, yeah.
And if, I mean, even if I can't get that extra sales boost, if
we get to a point where, and I'mjust making up numbers here, say
(54:24):
a book is selling 10 copies a month, you know, through the
traditional publisher, maybe it's an 8% royalty rate, 10 a
month, I make $8. If I'm putting it out myself as
a $5 ebook, I might make $35 forthe same 10 sales.
(54:48):
Yeah. And I do that by selling the
book more cheaply through through putting it out myself.
So yeah, it just the math kind of makes sense at that point.
Yeah, Oh, that's obviously it, Jim, for being honest and open.
(55:11):
And I think if anyone's looking for more advice like that, then
do check out Jim's Patreon page,packed with lots of great
stories as well and lots of goodinsights.
But thank you. Yeah.
One last question for you, Jim. Just to wrap things up.
The question I always like to finish on is what advice or what
(55:32):
single piece of advice would youhave for any aspiring fantasy
writer out there listening? I would go back to what I was
talking about with Goblin Quest and say write what you love.
Write what makes you happy. Don't worry as much about what
(55:53):
you should be ringing. Don't worry as much about what's
popular or what what's hot rightnow.
Write what makes you happy and build from there.
Brilliance advice nice and simple and I get something that
I completely agree. I, I've recently finished the
(56:13):
project and it was something that I was really passionate
about and, and really like keen to do and, and like excited to
share with people. And it was just a completely
different experience compared tolike previous projects I've done
where I haven't really always been like fully into it as much.
(56:34):
But I, I completely agree. And yeah, I think even if you
just do a short story about something you love and test it
out, it's well we're doing. Yeah.
I'd agree. Yeah, but Jim, thank you so much
for giving up your time and how busy you are at the moment with
the two books out this month. And I really appreciate you
sharing your insights and your honest thoughts and and your
(56:57):
brilliant experiences as well. It's fantastic to chat with
someone so gifted as yourself, so thank you very much.
Thanks for having me, Richie. This has been a lot of fun.
It's been good talking to you. Thank you very much.
If anyone wants to learn more about you and you're writing in
your books, where's the best place to go?
Easiest place would be Jim C heinz.com.
(57:21):
Then there are links at the top to all of the different social
media sites, but Jim C heinz.comis sort of the central hub.
Nice. I'll put links to that in the
description as well as links to the books as well, and Jim's
Patreon page as well. Yeah, thank you very much again.
It's been an absolute pleasure. Likewise.
(57:44):
Everyone, thank you at home for listening and we'll speak to you
soon. Thank you for listening to the
Fantasy Risers Tool Shed. If you'd like to join our
writing community on Discord andget 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 follow or subscribe.
(58:05):
And to support the show, leave aquick rating on Spotify or
iTunes and share this episode onsocial media or with anyone who
you think may be interested. Thank you very much for
listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.