Adrien Tchaikovsky on Crafting Immersive Sci-Fi and Fantasy Worlds

Adrien Tchaikovsky came on the show to talk about how he writes fantasy and science fiction. He won the Arthur C.

Clark Award for a book called Children of Time. And the guy is just prolific. He's written more than 60 books and

novellas. So, he's got a lot to teach. He spends all of his life thinking about this, thinking about how do you make

worlds that are actually believable? How do you build characters that have weight to them? And my favorite one, how do you

write a fight scene? How do you think through the pacing and all the action that needs to happen? that if you want

to write stories, imaginative stories, stories that are filled with wonder and fantasy, well, then you're going to like

this episode. Well, what I want to start with is you really plan your novels in advance. And

how did you get into that? >> The advanced advanced planning is always worldled with me. Um, which is a

practice I picked up long before I started writing cuz I basically come out of a tradition of um running role

playing games. >> Right. So, when you're creating a world for a role playing game, you make it

very robustly because you don't know what the players are going to break, >> but you're also making a world

specifically for other people to see. Uh, even if it's just like three other people around a gaming table. Um, that

then translates very directly into making a world for a book. And it usually results in a world

that is going to be very immersive and very complete and will extend considerably beyond the pages of the

book itself and the particular story that book is about. And that's always what I'm struggling to do because one of

the things I think in fantasy and science fiction writing is the extent that people go to it to be

taken to another place. >> Um, and then from that point, traditionally, I've also been similarly

thorough in working through the plot really just because I that's I like to know where I'm going. I like I like to

know that I'm not going to get halfway through an idea and then just sit there staring at the page thinking, "Right,

I've I've got them into this situation and I can't get them out." >> So, what are you in your office with

post-it notes all on the wall or what does it actually look like? >> Oh, no. I mean, I would it would be

lovely to have like the you know the red tape and the the conspiracy theory guy sort of meme. But, um I generally just

produce a just like a word document and it will be chapter by chapter. This happens, this happens, this happens. And

usually each chapter will have right this beat, this beat, this beat and very occasionally it would even go into right

and then there is a conversation in which this piece of information needs to be exchanged between these characters

because essentially if that doesn't happen then the back end of the book can't work because people don't know

what they need to know and I mean it sometimes feels like getting information to the right place within a book is 90%

of planning it. >> And are you pretty linear in this process or are you just kind of building

out the outline? Maybe you're in chapter 24 and then you jump up to chapter two. >> Oh no, this is I mean so certainly my my

traditional way of doing things. Yes, it would absolutely this happens then this happens then this happens. I'm just

creating this narrative in a very very almost pedestrian way. Um because then I know I have a set of steps which will

get me from here to the end of the book. Now, whether I stay on that staircase during writing does vary quite a lot cuz

I sometimes you'll get an idea that's actually it'll be better just to have a bit of a detour here and come back to it

later on. Or sometimes you'll get to this point and realize actually the logic of this does not work um because

I've not done my job properly when planning. And sometimes it'll be a logic of world building and sometimes it will

be a logic of narrative. Um, you know, I had a I had a book where I got threequarters of the way through and

realized that the entire business of the book was rendered completely pointless by the the

way the book ended. So that you could literally have cut it all out and nothing would have changed at that

point. Right, I'm going to have to go back and rethink through the logic of that and rewrite various chapters so

that all of this has a point. Um, but usually

the penultimate scene >> will be fairly fixed. And the one thing I've never done is actually work out the

very last the very ending. >> So you get almost to the end but not to the end.

>> Um cuz what I mean one thing I found um right from the beginning was you can get yourself in the planning to that. Yeah

you were in the final room. You've got the the big bad. You've got the heroes. they're having the face off, but

letting the book letting the trajectory and momentum of the book to that point then tell you how it should end has

worked really well for me. >> So then as a writer, do you feel that even though you're the creator of the

book, at some point you actually get away from the driver's seat and you're almost a passenger following some sort

of intrinsic telos that the thing that you have made has. >> Yeah. I mean it's to put it in a less

fancy way. you get to the point of feeling that you are chronicling and this is especially the case I think

probably more so with science fiction and fantasy than anything else because so much of the stuff in the book is is

is I want to say fictional and obviously everything in the book is fictional but

is more fictional because you are dealing with places and times and people and creatures that don't exist in any

way in the real world and so to a certain extent you are you are driving the story Um, but

because a lot of that is coming out of your subconscious subconscious, it also feels as though you're

um you're just kind of there with a notebook. >> Is it fun to imagine these worlds or is

the experience of it actually pretty worky? >> Uh, oh, it's the most fun. Um, this is I

mean this is I think why my my process is so very world focused is just making new worlds.

>> And fun in what way? Playful, laughter. Um, no it it's >> imaginative.

>> It's imaginative. It's an exploration because the so the way the way I'll generally start is with a a particular

what if. So we'll have like this is the thing about this world. This is the world where this is this is this is the

world where um a species of spider is going to evolve into the the dominant civilization. So, one what if variable

basically >> and then um the the image I usually use is the idea you're dropping a stone into

a pool and then you have them the ripples from where that stone impacts and you follow them out and each set of

ripples is a consecutive sort of logical therefore if that's is your starting point well therefore this must be true

and if that's true then this must be true and eventually you end up building an entire world, whether it's a science

fictional world that has, you know, that he's borrowing from real science or whether it is an entirely fantastical

magical place where every part of it fits with everything else. >> What's the difference between a what if

and a premise or are those the same? >> Um, I mean, I think those are probably the same thing. It's just I think what

if is just the way of expressing it that appeals to me as a as a sort of a you know, a science fiction and fantasy

author. And then as you're thinking through the what if, what makes for a good what if versus,

ah, that one's crap. Like if I were to throw you 10 of them and you were to say, "Ah, the first nine are bad." What

do you think that they would have? >> Um, I think for a starter, the key thing is

I don't want to ever want to repeat someone else's um, work basically. And so if I am working in a space that a lot

of writers have explored before me, I really want to be aware of where they've gone and to find that own my own unique

spin. And if there isn't a if I can't think of a really interesting spin on something,

I won't go there. So for example, I h you know, I've written a lot of fantasy books. I've never really done a dragon,

>> right? >> Which is like one of the most >> of course, you know, iconic things in

fantasy. But then people have done so many dragons and they've done dragons in so many different and interesting ways.

I would need a really interesting take in order to go there because that's such a crowded idea space.

>> Why do you think dragons are so popular? Cuz they're big. They're kind of dramatic.

>> I mean, if you if we accept that uh say uh eastern culture dragons and western culture dragons are are dragons in the

same way and that that's a bit of a debatable point. It's something that the vast majority of cultures seem to have.

It's something that obviously speaks to the human psyche. It's a it's a symbol of power, whether that's a good power or

especially in the western evil power. It can be a symbol of all sorts of interesting human um

human um sort of nature characteristics. So for example, you go smog in the hobbit is an embodiment of greed and

Tolken is taking that directly from Fafnir in sort of Anglo-Saxon myth and Fafneer was a person who turns into a

dragon because of greed. So it's the idea, you know, monsters that tell us about us

are always going to be more interesting than just a monster. And at the same time with a dragon, you've got something

that is enormously monstrous and powerful and sort of flamboyant and spectacular.

>> Okay. So, you've mentioned originality for the what if. What are the other components?

>> Um, I mean, for me, it's got to it's just got to it's got to feel like a solid enough idea that it's worth doing

a book about. Um, and that's a really hard thing to pin down. And it's it comes down to well, I'd know it when I

see it. >> Yeah. Because one of the things you find when you find a good sort of premise or

idea, what if is you find almost the seed and all of a sudden it grows and grows and grows. It begins to expand. Is

that something you feel? >> I have a lot of half book ideas. >> Huh. And a lot of the books I've written

have been when two of these ideas have clicked together and I've real um that I can get out of that. And

sometimes it's more than two, but often it's just um so for example, in Children of Ruin, which is the second of my kind

of big sci-fi books in that series, I wanted to write about uplifted octopuses. Um because they are very

fascinating creatures, but that felt like half a book. And you get you you learn you get a sense of how much of it

is. And so theoretically, I could probably have done a novela just on that, but not a full novel. But then

there is also in that book this entirely alien creature and the way it interfaces with um human neurology and those two

things together despite the fact they didn't obviously seem to have anything particular in common just clicked and oh

no there is a complete book if I could write both of those into the same work and then as you're thinking about your

world building even going back to the games what then are the components that lead to oh that world feels cohesive

realistic whatever it is you want to call it versus ah That sort of feels like a sham. That's fake. That's not

really going to hold water. >> So I I try and build ground up when I'm doing world building.

>> Okay. >> And usually there that what if is is right at the bottom and everything is

coming up from that. So that if I have done my job properly, by the time I get to the point of actually starting

writing the book or even starting sort of working out that sort of chapter plan of plot, um the

world has already got that level of reality to it, that sort of robustness. So it I I need that kind of um solid

ground under my feet sort of feel. And if I don't get that get there with a world, as occasionally I don't, then I

won't get as far as actually turning it into a book. >> And now when you're trying to turn

something into a book, how would you think through the different phases? How long do they take? And how does the

nature of the work change? >> Um, what do you mean by phases? >> I'm going to plan the book. I have

research to do. I'm writing a first draft. I'm doing editing. >> Okay. So, um, the world stage will

generally be about a couple of weeks and a couple of weeks. Wow, that's pretty fast.

>> Yeah, I I think that is because by the time I sit down to say, right, I will now sort

of formalize this, it's been boiling away in the back of my head probably for months, years even. you know, I have

this whole sort of conveyor belt of forming ideas just sort of marching along and then the next one will turn up

and it will be coherent enough already. And sometime I mean what I do these days because I am getting older and my memory

is not what it was, I have a whole host of notes on my phone where I just every time an idea strikes me I'll say right

that is an idea for that that book I will go to that file I will jot that down and maybe that will be useful when

I come to that sort of formal stage. So it is it's m there is quite a long sort of relatively subconscious process

before I sit down. But yes, when I sit down, I will hammer it out in about that time. And then if I'm doing a chapter

plan, because like I say, these days I've started to vary that up, I will get that done because one of the things you

get out of the world, if you've made it sufficiently coherent, is it will tell you what the story is going to be. um

because I am not in any way advancing this as necessarily the best way to write and certainly it's not the only

way to write but I am always showcasing that world in my work. So I am looking for the story that will allow me to take

you to all the interesting places and see all the interesting things that are happening. And the world itself will

have sort of uh flash points and pressures and fractures inherently within it because when you're making a

world it's not static. It's not the idea of yet and this is how it is and this is how it will be for a thousand years.

It's just like this is how it is in this one moment just before the book starts and that

will mean yeah these guys hate those guys and this is all going to fall apart and this is going to go on fire and then

all of these things you worked into the setting give you the the where the plot is going

to go and they give you the characters as well. >> So what's an example of that of of of

you have a vivid world and then the characters arise out of that? So, my fantasy series that I'm working on at

the moment, it's called The Tyran Philosophers. Um, first book was City of Last Chances. Um, there's something in

particular about citybased books where you get a whole extra layer of of world going on in this case. So, I knew it's

an occupied city, but I want to be writing about very relatively low-level mundane people um who are

under the boot of the occupation uh but they're not going to be the leading likes of the resistance or anything like

that. And so at that point it feels a lot like right well I've done the work. I know who the factions are. I know

what's going on. I know what the the pressures are. I will go out into the streets of Ilar this city and I will see

who I meet. And you're right. This character is a sort of a magical porn broker. And so he is obviously going to

have some interesting relationships with the occupiers and with the resistance and with this other character who is um

he's an academic in the the local sort of university and the university is fighting to retain its kind of

traditional privileges against the occupiers but at the same time this guy is a collector of magical tat and he

will make deals with this crooked member of the occupation force to raid the porn broker's shop for choice. to pieces. And

so you just start building up this spiderweb. >> Wow.

>> Of all of these associations. And then all of that is giving you your plot because you know

these things are happening. And you know that there is this long tale of events informing all of these characters and

how they live together and how they relate to one another. And you know that at some point this relationship is going

to catch fire because this character is not going to live with it any longer. And they will

strike back. And then that will have this domino effect throughout the city. So that you get very small actions taken

for relatively petty reasons that end up with the entire city on fire with a kind of a a huge sort of revolution going on.

>> And now when you're talking about starting with the city and then going to the pond broker and the academic and

then you end up with the drama and you know I just think of a fire building and all of a sudden right it's like a

symphony. So then when you're thinking about that drama, do you feel like you're pushing towards drama or do you

feel like you know what if this happens and this happens and I'm fairly true to the world itself? Drama is just

something that just sort of naturally emerges out of the story. >> AB absolutely that in fact in with these

books I'm not planning them. Um I am literally just setting all of this stuff up and then seeing what it does and all

of the innate drives and friction and relationships of these characters give me the plot. But I don't know any event

in advance in this case, which is, you know, it's kind of like writing without a safety net. And it was terrifying

because I didn't know if I'd end up like 500,000 words in with no sign of an ending. But actually, it all seemed to

come together. >> H Does it sometimes have no sign of an ending?

>> Uh, not I it hasn't failed yet. So, I'm I'm currently working on the fifth main novel in this series, and they've all I

mean, they're long as books go, but they are not sort of ridiculously long, and they've all had a good shape and all and

they all have a lots and lots of interweaving mosaicy threads and lots of point of view characters and everything

kind of comes together at the end. >> Take me back to what you were saying about with the settings and cities

having unique properties versus the other options. Certainly for a lot of narratives, especially fantasy

narrative, they tend to be travels. And the thing there is you get to leave your messes behind. Um, you can walk

away from the consequences of what you do because you're always going on to the next point in the map in your great trek

towards throwing the rim in ring into Mount Doom or whatever you're doing. You don't need to worry about what is

happening back in Brie um after you kind of got out ahead of the rings. If you're in a city, you don't have that

luxury. If you're in a city, first off, you are a resident of that city. You've lived

there all your life. You have an existing relationship with all of these people and factions and events. And when

you do a thing, you know, when your when your tolerance finally snaps and you make that terribly reckless decision,

you have to stick around and live with the consequences. And that makes for a much more complex and interesting

narrative, I think, than the Travalog narrative where you're where you're basically doing the murder hobo thing

and just just walking away from your problems. >> And when you say complex and

interesting, that's for the reader. Do you feel like it's harder for you as the writer?

>> Um, I feel it's more challenging. Um, I think >> Why do you distinguish between hard and

challenging? >> Because challenging is fun. Um, I mean, I think it is it is harder,

but on the other hand, I think it is also commensurably more rewarding when you've done it. And so, I don't I

don't want to get make it sound as if there is a a downside to it. But I do think you need to do more um more prep

work because unless you're starting off with a character just coming to that city from outside who's never been there

before, all of these people you're going to meet are going to have all a pre-existing

association. They're going to know about each other. They may be friends. They may be enemies. They may just have heard

of someone, but we're talking about the board with the red red strings. At that point, you need that board. You need to

know who hates who and who likes who and however you wish to represent that for your own benefit. You kind of need to do

the leg work or I mean I know I know there are writers who will just write and sort it

all out in the in the in the second draft. I have a colossal amount of admiration for that because I need that

world already there. I need to know, you know, wherever I whatever street I turn down, I need to know what I'm going to

find there. >> How do you imagine that world? Do you imagine it in terms of people, in terms

of streets, in terms of clothes? Like in your head, if you were to close your eyes and imagine that

world, what do you see? >> Um, it's kind of a it's a combination of all of it. There's certainly there's a

big visual component. Uh, there's an audio component, but there's also, it's very hard to define, but there's

almost like a a gestalt. I found this a lot. um both with individual characters and with settings as a whole, there's

kind of like a mask you put on and then when you're looking at things through that mask, you're seeing it with a

filter that shows you this is what this world looks like. And at that point you can kind of think right I need to think

about a public baths and rather than instantly thinking about

this is the real world thing this or this is like a picture of baths in the Roman Empire or something like that

because you've got that filter you can say well in this world this is you know this is how that would go or in this

world they wouldn't have that because of these reasons and as long as you've done that prep work and immersed yourself in

the world hopefully your imagin ation will furnish you with the right version of whatever sort of thing you

need that will fit seamlessly with all the other things you put in. >> And we're talking about the world in

terms of making sure that connections work well. We were talking about certain characters like the pawn broker and the

academic. When you're thinking through those characters, where does that begin? Where does that

start? And then what leads to a kind of believability of character? cuz science fiction has sort of a reputation of

having kind of flat, stale, unbelievable characters. >> Um,

which I I mean I think whilst I'm sure you there are you can find examples where that is the case. Um, and

certainly there is a a period of science fiction where the focus is much more on say the technology

than the people. I also feel that we get stick for it in a way that other genres don't and I'm

pretty sure you can find similar examples in every other genre. It's just that that doesn't tend to be the focus

of criticism. Um and you know for example if you look at the work of say Ursula Luin one of the big voices of the

you know the golden age of science fiction she is enormously concerned with the human experience right

>> rather than you know how the technology works or anything like that. So, um, but for for me, sticking with the

characters we've been talking about, so I know what by the time I get as far as, well, there's a porn broker.

I know that this pawn broker is from this particular culture. He is an immigrant in the city from a nearby

nation which has previously been invaded by the same people who are currently occupying this city.

>> Mhm. So, he's already got all of this informing him even before I know what he who he is and what he's doing. Um, he's

growing out of the world um in the same way as all of the other characters large or small are growing out from this same

common sort of weave of ideas I put in. So, ideally, by the time that character has emerged as, oh yes, let's have him

in the book. Um there are all those strings attaching that character to all the other parts of the setting are

already there. Uh they're not things I necessarily need to tack on by hand because it's inherent in who this

character is as to how he's going to relate um to everything else that's going on

>> in the same way that a world would unfold and presumably be kind of surprised by what happens. And same

thing with the story. Do you feel that with characters that they grow, they change, they adapt in ways that surprise

you? >> Yes, absolutely. Yes. Um, and that that applies for books where I planned more

uh more sort of rigidly as well as where I'm I'm I'm letting letting the plot unwind itself. Um, characters will

always have more depth because, you know, they'll start off with just like, yeah, here is like a handful of

adjectives and a couple of notes on their starting disposition. But because they are coming out of that world, as

you meet them, you'll realize, oh, no, they have this going on as well, and they have that going on as well, or they

have they they've got a thing romantically for this other character. It's not in the plan at all, but it's

just like it's it's a thing you discover when you meet them because there is a gap there that of exactly that shape

that they kind of then move to fill. Um, and a lot of this I think is probably

subconsciously mediated. A lot of this comes from the more you do it, the better you get at it. And therefore once

you have been writing for a long enough these this richness of character detail will suggest itself to you much more

naturally because you train your mind to feel to think in a certain way. >> Um

okay so when you're thinking of a science fiction world >> I feel like there's two ways that they

can fall apart. One is that the world itself breaks down and the other could be that the science itself breaks down.

How much do you think about that? So when I'm doing science fiction, um I mean first of all I would say the way I

tend to think about it is that there is a whole continuum between like the hardest of hard science

fiction where you're doing absolutely everything as science works now to our best understanding and then you go all

the way through things sort of like a space opera more of a Star Warsy sort of thing where there are the trappings of

maybe science fiction but the logic behind it is kind of mystical and you know it takes you all the way kind of

full on secondary world fantasy where everything is just magic. Um but when we're working towards this end where the

science is um I have borrowed the idea of a left wall. >> H what's that?

>> So it's the idea that what science says is possible. That is your left wall as you as you write the book. So you can

only expand outwards from that. you can't go into that because at that point you're you're

unless you know unless you're very intently deciding right I want I do not care about this particular part of

science I'm going to have time machines or whatever um in the same way honestly as if if you were writing something set

in a very specific historical context your left wall is well this is what we understand about how things were done at

that time and that really it's working out the contours of that left wall is what re your research is and the

difficult thing there is working out ahead of time what you don't know. It is the unknown unknowns as whichever

statesman said. >> Yeah. >> That get you because otherwise you will

tend to assume well I know how that works and then you'll get to a certain point in the book and either you will

just get it wrong because you don't know how it works and don't realize you don't know or you will get halfway through the

book and realize oh I now need to go off and research and just have to hope that that research doesn't undo a whole chunk

of the stuff I've just written. And when you say research, do you mean if you have something about airplanes, looking

how an airplane would fly to make sure that you understand the physics of aviation? Is that what you're saying?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, for example, um, Children of Ruin, again, in Children of Ruin, the octopuses have spaceships and

the spaceships are full of water because they're octopuses. how thankfully before getting particularly

far into the book I realized I have no idea what this does to a spaceship being full of water because that is not a

thing we do with spaceships. So I got hold of someone in this case I got hold of a chap who designed submarines who

you'd think would have literally the opposite problem to this um but who was able to basically guide me through well

you have this problem with inertia and you have this problem momentum because the whole thing just weighs a thousand

times more um than a spaceship that's full of air and you know this might happen if if you have a hole breach and

the water is going out and that all of that kind of thing but it's just working out those weird little gaps. I mean

ideally my absolute favorite scenario for anything like this is I will find someone who knows this topic extremely

well and generally people are extremely happy um to do this because people who are very knowledgeable about a thing are

are quite happy to share that knowledge that tends to be um so for example with uh the spiders and children of time I

turned out to have a very uh a really fluky connection at the natural history museum. That meant I could go over there

here in London. >> That's the pretty one in South Kensington.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I was able to just go in and talk to their entomology department for an entire day just talking through

the logistics of what if you got a really big spider. Um >> how big were we talking? Like like a

truck or a boat? >> Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I mean you because you can't. Um so in this case

they're about that big. Um that's as big as they get. >> Okay. So like a foot long.

>> Yeah. Um I mean that's kind of including legs. So they're they are they are big. They're about, you know, the size of a

cat or so, but they're, you know, it's big for a spider. Um, well, I mean I Yeah, I mean I I like spiders a lot, but

also with that book, I'm well aware that basically most people don't like spiders. So I wanted a book about

empathy, uh, human empathy with the other. And if you can do that with spiders, you can do that with anything.

And so that was the big challenge with Children at Time. But yes, I also I needed my spiders to be as

scientifically plausible as possible. And so that was the the purpose of that particular sort of retail expedition.

And forgiven my ignorance, but why why is scientifically plausible important? Is that like a pride thing for you as

the writer or is that David? No, the story needs scientific plausibility for this this and this reason.

>> So it's I mean it's mostly the second. I'm not going to say that the first isn't there and I always particularly

cherish if someone basically says yes I am a professional in this area and yes you basically nailed this thing that I

am knowledgeable about and I that's always a bit of a joy you know I it's it's the equivalent of making a table

where all the legs touch the ground and it doesn't wobble you I've built that well

>> but there is a particular way that science informed in science

fiction lands that fantasy doesn't necessarily. So that if I had written a book about just

magical talking spiders, it wouldn't have had the same impact because people would have know well this is obviously

it's a story. >> Mhm. >> Uh I mean you you must have had other

people talking about the idea of the one big lie. >> No.

>> Oh right. Okay. Well, there is this idea, maybe it's a science fiction fantasy thing in particular, but you

have the idea that you can get away with one big lie and it's just, you know, that one thing which is just convenient

to have in the book to make the plot work in the way that you want and that is your one big lie, but in order to

support your one big lie, everything else needs to be true. So, what would examples of that be in different

>> in children of time? Yeah, there is a big lie, but it is not the spiders. This the big lie is literally there is this

uh nano virus which is assisting the uplift of the spiders and the lie is the amount of time that that uplift will

take because of the narrow virus. It happens in tens of thousands of years rather than hundreds of millions of

years which you would need for actual evolution. But the evolution that's going on is as plausible and real as I

can make it because that's what gives the book its effect. It is the idea that people will read the book and think and

come away feeling this is a thing that could happen. These uh this particular species of spider which is it's an

enormously cognitively complex species of spider. The book was in fact inspired by uh

reading the scientific papers of people who've been studying this and finding >> with giant spiders.

>> No no no the the species of the spider you start off with is basically small enough to fit on your thumbnail.

>> Okay. >> It's a species of jumping spider porchia labiata. It is insanely intelligent for

something that is that small and doesn't really have a brain as we would think of it.

>> Wow. >> Uh we have later found, which I didn't get to put into the book cuz it was

written by them, we found that they dream uh like we dream. They you can see them having like eye movements when

they're asleep. >> Wow. >> And yeah, they just like this is just

but this is all very new research. I read the research and thought I would like to write the book where the what if

is what if this specific species of spider became um fully censioned and had a you know as

and developed a society and a civilization and a technology and all of that sort of thing. But the in order for

that to land in the way I wanted it to land it had to be real as possible. It had to be based on the science so that

you know it's not like a 40ft spider or anything like that. It's not like the thing the giant bugs in Starship

Troopers because um if you're talking about an Earth spider that has been um this is being uplifted, there are

physics limits you can't really go beyond. Um but the end the end result is that hopefully the spiders come over as

this is the thing that could be this is the thing that could be real. And that gives the book a weight and a uh gravity

that it would not necessarily have if it was magic talking spiders. And I have written magic talking spiders. And that

when I'm doing that, that's not what I'm seeking to do in the book. The book is doing different things at that point.

>> Mhm. Walk me through some of the differences between fantasy and science fiction, both in

terms of the genre conventions and in terms of the purposes that they serve. >> A lot of the time they may not be

serving different purposes. So the thing that science fiction can do that I think no other genre does is really just that

building on the science that speculation where you are standing on you know the shoulders of giants I guess where you

where you you're building off what we know and saying well this is a plausible way this could go. Um but what I should

also say is as far as science fiction fantasy goes it is that continuum. So you move

away from that hard science point. Uh and you know when and when I'm writing a book I will know right at the beginning

with the initial concept where along this continuum is going to fall. So that in the middle there in that sort of

space opera territory I've got uh a series called the final architecture and it's spaceships and it's aliens and it's

got all of that science fiction stuff going on. So it's still definitely science fiction, but at the same time

there is a lot of, you know, the aliens are all coincidentally of a level where they can kind of interact with humans or

mostly um interact with humans on a human level and they can communicate and there are translation devices and things

like that. Whereas if you look at Children of Ruin, 50% of that book is people working out

how the hell you talk to an octopus. Um and so at the point where you're looking at um

the hard science, it basically means you are accepting I am not going to have certain things in this book. So I am not

going to have time travel because as far as we are where there's no real mechanic to go back in time and then the more you

go towards that the more you cut out uh because your left wall is taking up more and more of the space.

Um whereas as you go away from that more and more things become available to your narrative. Uh I mean one of the reasons

I did the architect series as a space operator I just really wanted to be able to gad about in the universe very uh

with enormous distances very quickly because in children of ruin they take months to get between planets within a

solar system because that's kind of how it goes. Um, and then eventually you end up going straight into um, you know,

full-on fantasy where it said, "Yeah, there is magic." And the magic works like this, and here are the things the

magic can't do, and here is the price the magic demands for you using it, and so forth. And you end up with a world

that effectively you build your own left wall, and you end up with a world that world that has the same amount of logic

and reality to it as your science fictional world. It's just that you have built it by hand rather than importing

large chunks of it from the real world. >> Why do you think that the use of magic so often does come with a price?

>> Um because for the same reason it's easier to write dystopias than utopias because if you have magic with no price

then why is anyone got a problem at this point? Why isn't everyone just doing

everything by magic? I mean also frankly you know just narratively I think it is much more satisfying. Uh we like the

idea of kind of wicked magics that exact terrible prices from their their users whether those users are our heroes or

our villains. It's just it gives you more narrative space >> than if um I mean when you have a

narrative where basically you can do anything. There is a story there. I mean um

Michael Walkart wrote a series called the dancers of the end of time which is set in such a far future. There are

basically about seven people left and they are all but essentially gods and they can just make things at a whim. And

the whole point of that series is they are so bored because magic has no price. The whole

thing is them trying to find some way to obiate this incredible onwe of just having absolutely everything in the

world. >> You were talking about the left wall. >> Mhm.

>> And you were talking about the one big lie. >> Yeah. Are there other

maxims that you think about in terms of writing that you lean on a lot? >> Um, I mean, not many. I mean, one of the

things I tend to find out find about writing maxims is that they are very seldom true. Hm.

>> Whenever I run into a sort of a dogmatic writing take, whether it is, well, you should always do this or you should

never do this, I can always think of a circumstance. Well, actually don't do it like this or actually you do want to do

it like that. You know, I mean, the problem is it all kind of comes down to received wisdom

>> and it tends to get given handed down to people at the start of their writing career as

>> the Ten Commandments a lot of the time. I think that is very irresponsible, >> right? This isn't Moses talking to God.

This is something that's worked for people. >> I think that the most important pe thing

that people need to know about writing is every writer does it differently. I mean, I know a lot of writers. I've been

on lots of panels where we've all talked about our writing process. Every single writer does something that I personally

find absolutely unthinkable. Um, I mean, when I, you know, when I talk about the fact, oh, I never I never I never decide

on the ending. And you should see the looks you get from some of the writers because to them, oh, that's the only

thing I know is I always know how it's going to end and how it's going to start. and you just have this long piece

of string in the middle and that might go anywhere. Um there's no one way of doing this and at the end of it you

always converge on having a book. You know, anyone who says, "Well, you should always show rather than tell." And, you

know, you can absolutely tell too much. It's very easy to do so. I'm sure I do so on occasion. But on the other hand,

my most successful book is Children of Time, and that is basically 60% exposition by volume because sometimes

that is the best way of doing something. And I think there are certain

writing traditions which I think are so entrenched And people assume they are so

unavoidable that it's it can be actively harmful. I mean um I do not like the idea of the hero's journey. It is very

very prevalent. There are people who will basically say well every every story has got to conform to the hero's

journey. And I' I've heard people b why don't you like it? Because it's just one one structure. the

idea of saying well all this is the story that all stories must follow. I mean I I if you listen to people who are

talking about the hero's journey and how this book or that book conforms to the hero's journey you will

always get to this point. Well I mean obvious and I guess this is kind of our descent into the underworld and you can

sort of think well it I mean it isn't. It's not, you know, you're making it that because you know that there's got

to be a descent into the underworld at this point of the hero's journey, but that's not actually what's going on in

the book, >> right? >> Um because once you are reducing

something um that far, then you're left with a model that is completely worthless.

>> Mhm. >> I mean, honestly, it it is like modeling reality in any way. In order to get a

model of something real that you can run through your statistical tests and get sort of valuable data out of, you have

to simplify reality to the point that the data you're getting is actually useless. And it's very much that idea

when you're trying to reduce writing to well these are the ways you write a book. So when I'm talking about the left

wall for example, it's or talking about the stone in the pool and that kind of thing, it's really more that just like

that is the easiest way I can think of to describe a fairly nebulous thing. >> Right.

>> Um >> right. What you're saying is to hold models and maxims with a light grip.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is it's one of those any piece of advice is useful so long as it doesn't basically

become this is the law >> because there's always going to be a situation where it's not true.

>> Sure. >> Including that piece of advice, I'm sure.

>> What makes for a good fight scene? >> Oh. Ah. Well, fight scenes are a thing. So, I have What have I done? I I did

several years of stage fighting and I did well over a decade of live action roleplay and I did three or four years

of historical broadstor training at the lead armories. >> So you've thought a lot about this.

>> Well, well the thing I mean thing is if you're writing epic fantasy that's a lot of fights.

>> Yeah. >> The other thing is if you're writing fantasy you're also writing for a lot of

people who have done one or more of those things. You are writing essentially for a fairly educated

audience who know what end of a sword to stick into people. So when you write the scene where yes, your sword has been

broken, but you can still stab your enemy through with the jagged edge that goes through their breastplate and you

and the what you hear then is the sound of a small but significant group of your readers throwing the book across the

room because they know it doesn't work like that. They know the whole point of wearing armor is you can't just stab a

broken sword through it, >> right? >> Um whereas once you've done a bit of the

research, once you've done a bit of um you know historical European martial arts training and that kind of thing,

you know, yes, you stab them in the armpit where the breastplate doesn't go. And that is exactly because you need the

mobility of your arm. You cannot arm at the armpit against being stabbed through. And at that point, that little

section of your readers are going, "Yes, that's absolutely correct." and they do not throw the book across the room. Um,

in order to write really good engrossing fight scenes, um, you need to have a sense of um, perspective and flow. Um, I

mean, one uh, there's a fancy writer Joe Abocrombi for example, he writes incredible fight scenes. He wrote a book

called The Heroes. There is a very large battle in the heroes which you are basically seeing through the slot in

someone's visor. So that just it is this enormous panicky cacophony of people charging

about and barging into each other and then suddenly you're fighting someone and then everything shifts and you're

fighting someone else and you don't know what happened to the person you were just and that is that's a really good

way of telling a fight scene. Um and a lot of that is that's nothing to do particularly with what you do with a

sword as long as you're not doing something patiently ridiculous with it. But it's to do with how it feels to be

in a fight. And at the same time, you also may want to tell a bit where right, you've got the general and they're

looking across the thing and you're seeing right, yeah, your left wing is doing this and your right wing is doing

that and your siege artillery is doing this thing and having that kind of sense. So, it's getting all of these

different meshing toolkits together. And yeah, there are there are big battle scenes and that's one type of uh writing

of fight. There are skirmishes where you might have like a dozen people just sort of hacking away at each other and that

is another really quite complex way of having a fight because it's very mobile and you tend to have a lot of people

trade trading off uh opponents and sometimes I've got to the point of literally just marking out right this

person is going over here and this person's going over here and you know just having this whole complex scene

literally planned out I think it was with like little toy insects that my son had uh just to just to work out the

logistics of it. And then you have things like if you have a duel, >> wait, that's you playing with insects

trying to say this is going to pick out. >> Yeah. >> Oh, that's a funny image.

>> Yeah. And then you have a duel where you're probably going to be a lot more into the precise um techniques that are

going into a fight because it is just the two people at that point and it is the technique of the fight that is going

to be the narrative of the scene. And then you start to work out well, you know, the narrative of the fight

is also an opportunity for you to express the characters who are involved in the fight. So, for example,

um there's a a fight in one of my Shadows of the Apt books where you've got a fairly unskilled opponent and

someone who was a lot better than him, but who is actually also quite fond of him and doesn't want to kill him. And so

you get the bit at the end where you you see where the more skilled opponent had their opportunity to finish the fight

and doesn't and then they get killed because they have failed to take that opportunity.

>> But that's character development. That is that is letting your the fight tell the story rather than just being a he

hit him and then he hit him and they clothe through there and you know you could you you learn after you've done a

after you've got a certain way into writing fights that actually a fight scene is also a vehicle for advancing

the narrative. >> Well, you were talking earlier about how the story is an opportunity for the

world to reveal itself and to unfold. How would a fight scene reveal and unfold the world that you're building?

>> Um, so it you do it through character, like I say, but also um I mean if you're doing

fantasy or science fiction, you can also use that as a very sneaky way of showcasing fun world parts,

>> right? Because you could show weapons and >> Yeah. Or for example, in um in the

Echoes of the Fall series, everyone is shape changer. everyone has an animal form and you can transfer from human to

animal like that. So that led to a lot of extraordinarily complicated fight scenes where people are turning in and

out of wolves and bears and snakes and things like that just moment to moment because of the advantage it's giving

them in the fight. Uh which was really hard to think through but hopefully is enjoyable to read.

>> That's a funny image. One of the most important things I haven't said about writing fighting is this. Once you have

learned all these clever things from whatever means you're using to learn about fights is you need to learn how to

put as little of that as possible on the page. Because the temptation, as with anything you've done the research on, is

I am just going to vomit all of this stuff on the bay to show how incredibly intensive my research has been. And at

that point, pacing goes out of the window. and you have this, you know, nobody wants to read a fencing manual at

that point, >> but once you know that stuff, it will inform the details you do put in.

So, and it will it will genuinely show through. And this is the same with any kind of research is once even though

you're pairing it down to just maybe a handful of words where you can see that those arose from what you have learned

those are the words that will make it real. >> Mhm. getting into the heads of the

characters, like I was saying. Um, even if you're not doing that, just that very restricted viewpoint, having the

narrative of the fight told as much through the emotions as through the footwork or

the precise blade work. >> Explain that for me. Talking through the emotions rather than the

>> Yeah. Because I mean the thing I mean, so weirdly enough, this is something I got from um live role playing.

>> Okay. Um, >> when you say live role playing, do you mean actually acting in person with

other people? >> Rubber sword, um, dress up as a barbarian, uh, charge about. Um,

>> so it's like improv for fights. >> Uh, yes. And, you know, you're playing a character, there is a a certain sense of

a world going on. And in this case, because it's what we call festbased LAR, it's

full on a thousand people on a battlefield um, sometimes. and you're there standing with your kind of your

spear or whatever in the second rank of your battle line and a bunch of people are screaming at the top of their lungs

charging down a hill at you and you feel it. You feel it here and that's what I gained from that sort of that laughing

experience to put on the page is this is not just the fact that yes, these are standing here and this is the tactical

this and and the kind of strategic that of what is going on the battlefield. It's just like this is what it feels

like to be in a fight. And that's not a thing that regular life these days tends to teach you particularly. Um, but

because you're there, there is a part of you that reacts as if it's real, even though it's, you know, it's obviously

it's it's it's purely a a fictional pastime. And that sense is what you can put on the page. Now, for you as the

writer, whenever you're working on a new book, you're trying to do something new, as I understand it, to avoid writing

ruts. So, as you think about doing that, what's important? >> Um, so there there will be usually one

or two things I want to do >> differently. Yes. In a in particular with any with any new project, there

will be a particular idea I want to explore or there will be a particular moment of emotional impact I want to try

and generate even um there will be so I mean and you to give one example of a thing I have not yet been able to do and

is definitely on my list to have a crack at um there are a couple of books I have read which have inspired me this

incredible sense of the numinous the Huminous. >> Yes. Of this kind of just the awe of

there being just a world that is just out of sight. >> Yes.

>> But is very very real. And you you get I mean um Robert Holdto's Mythgo Wood is one and Susanna Clark's uh Pyreazy is

another. Both of which are books I absolutely love. And at some point I want to write a book that inspires a

similar kind of sense. And it will be very much on my own terms and drawn from the sort of things that interest me. So,

it will be that new terrain, but I would really like to be able to leave readers with that sense of a

of that sort of other world. Um, and like I say, I haven't yet done that. Um, I've

got a book coming out. Um, the title of which I can't say because it's currently in folks because titles

are a thing I can't do. I get to keep about one title out of three of my of what I submit. Um, but it's I wanted to

see can I do a book that is simultaneously gothic horror and also um is exploring things like clones and post

tech societ. I do a lot of post tech society stuff for some reason. That's an idea that absolutely fascinates me and I

keep it. >> Um I think it is

there. What is it about the post tech society? Yeah, it's something it's very evocative. It's I think it's the same

thing that is the explanation for why so many um computer game settings are based around ruined worlds. And it's not a

dystopia thing. It's this idea there is a certain tragedy and grandeur to your story

playing out in the wreckage of a past that has mostly been completely forgotten.

So that the characters, you know, they are there with all of these indicators of what might have been going on in the

past, but they've all, you know, their own society has got to the point where they don't know necessarily where they

came from and they don't know how to do the things that pre who pre people previously did. You get this three-sided

knowledge uh structure. >> What's that? >> So, there's what you as the author know

and there is what the characters in the book know and there is what the reader knows.

And there are many there are all sorts of different ways you can play with this. So, for example, you can have a

situation where your character has a whole lot of stuff that they know

that they're not saying. So that when especi and this is especially the case with like unreliable narrator um stories

>> where you're telling it from a first-person point of view and that character there is sort of a compact

that readers tend to assume well if you've got a narrator and he's telling you what happened then that is what

happened and it doesn't have to be that way of course because if your narrator is telling the story they probably have

an ulterior motive and they have an agenda and then you'll get to a bit in the book

where the reader realizes that they've not been given the story. Um I mean this is something I do in um City of Last

Chances. There is basically a kind of a multis falcon thing going on where there is a particular item and it's gone

missing and one of a set of characters has it and you get to see inside the head of most of those characters and at

no time do any of them admit to having it. >> That sounds like what's that board game?

Uh Secret Hitler. Is that what that sounds? >> Well, it is. Yeah, I mean it is kind of

a hidden it's sort of a hidden rolly a really rolly sort of thing. And that was that was complicated by the fact that

because this is the book I didn't plan I didn't know who had it. So I had to write all of these characters from an

entirely agnostic position of whether they might or might not have had the thing. And then towards the end of the

book it just became obvious, oh this character hasn't has to have it and this is what they've done with it and this is

why and this is when it's going to be revealed that they've had it all along. But there is also the other way that

triangle of information can go is that when you the author and the reader are sharing knowledge that the characters

don't have >> and that is a very much a thing you tend to get with post tech. So for example in

um my expert systems nollas. It's an exoplanet. There was a colony ship that went there but the people who live on

the planet have no memory of this whatsoever. They are living in a very weird sort of sheltered way, but as part

of that, they have lost all track of where they came from. It's just like, well, this is our world and we live here

and we've kind of always have. >> Um, but you, as the reader, of course, have a much broader understanding of

what's going on. And as um the main character explores the world, he doesn't particularly understand a lot of the

things that he finds, but the reader can pick up the clues and stay a step a step ahead of what the character understands.

And some I mean, and sometimes this can be profoundly traumatic. So there's um in Dogs of War,

um the main character is uh Rex. He is an bio-engineered dog who is being used as a military asset and he's telling the

story from his own point of view. And at the beginning, Rex is a good dog because he's doing what he's told. And that's

the the measure of being a good dog. And it becomes readily apparent to the readers that what Rex is doing is war

crimes. >> War crimes. >> Yeah. He's absolutely killing civilians

uh and indeed children because he's talking about, you know, big big big enemies and small enemies and things

like that. But Rex has no understanding of that because he doesn't have the context. And so you as the reader are

potentially just kind of chewing your finger nails off saying this is this is this is really really terrible. And Rex

is such this kind of amiiable likable character who just thinks he's being a good dog. And then later on of course

Rex will catch up and and as he goes out into the world he understands more and gets starts making his own value

judgments about what is right and wrong that isn't just my master has told me to do this thing.

But in those early sections, you as the reader have a lot of perspective and knowledge, even based on Rex's own

account that Rex doesn't have. And so you have this tension between what the author author knows, what the reader

knows, what the character knows. >> Yeah. As you're thinking up these stories, is there uh utility to your

dreams? And you know there's so many even Salvador Dolli as a painter you know he would kind of fall asleep with

the apple and then wake up with the unconscious. Do you feel like coming up with stories and alternate worlds is a

conscious deliberate fun process for you or are you tapped into sort of more subconscious dare I say mystical ways of

coming up with stories? >> Um I mean I don't tend I I don't tend to do mystical per se but I think

subconscious yes. Um I think that the ideally as a writer your subconscious and your conscious are

working in lock step and supporting one another >> in what way? So that for example when I

am consciously working out the framework of the world and well we'll have this and we'll have that and that leads to

that at the same time all of the gaps between those points I'm putting on the map are being filled up by my

subconscious because the subconscious will understand connections between things before I'm

consciously aware of them and then that is what will come out spontaneously in the writing. That's where it's that's

where it's coming from. And really, it's it's kind of you're almost writing in partnership with yourself at that point.

And you you learn to delegate certain parts to your subconscious because once you've done it enough, you have faith

that your subconscious will come through with the goods when you need it to. >> How do you feel like you go about

improving at the craft? How much of it is reading the great, studying them? How much of it is maybe now actually getting