The Real Writing Process of Christopher Fielden

Tom: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to The Real Writing Process.

Tom: 00:00:03

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

Tom: 00:00:05

And this episode, my guest is Christopher Fielden.

Tom: 00:00:08

Chris is an award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of short stories.

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He has had his work published in over 30 anthologies, as well as his own

Tom: 00:00:16

collection called Alternative Afterlives.

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He has also released a guidebook called How to Write a Short

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Story, Get Published & Make Money.

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And he is the organizer of the annual comedy short story

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competition, To Hull And Back.

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This interview was recorded in mid November.

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And it's the first interview that I've recorded with my new clip on mics.

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Unfortunately, Chris's mic drops out for about four seconds around

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23 minutes into the interview.

Tom: 00:00:42

I've tried to boost the signal for my mic, but it definitely gets quieter.

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So my apologies for that.

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Anyway, without further ado here is the intro jingle.

Tom: 00:00:51

Hello, and this week, my guest is Chris Fielden.

Tom: 00:00:55

Hello.

Chris: 00:00:56

Hi Tom.

Chris: 00:00:56

How are you?

Tom: 00:00:57

I'm very well and very excited to actually have a face to face.

Chris: 00:01:01

We are in the same room.

Tom: 00:01:03

The same room.

Tom: 00:01:04

Socially distanced, but same room.

Tom: 00:01:07

And we'll say which room in the moment, but my first question as

Tom: 00:01:10

always is what are we drinking?

Chris: 00:01:12

We are drinking some rock and roll related water to cleanse the palate.

Tom: 00:01:17

That's it.

Tom: 00:01:17

I will make a disclaimer that this is our second attempt at this interview.

Tom: 00:01:22

As the audio on the first was appalling.

Tom: 00:01:25

Um, we're using new audio equipment for the very first time and fingers crossed,

Tom: 00:01:30

it will be the second and final attempt.

Chris: 00:01:32

Let's hope so.

Chris: 00:01:32

It's nice and comfortable, we can say that much.

Tom: 00:01:35

That's good.

Tom: 00:01:35

Clip on mics, we're going up in the world.

Tom: 00:01:37

And yeah, my second question is usually, is this your writing area?

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But this week we're actually at my house and we're in my library.

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So use your narrative voice, with a fresh pair of eyes.

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Describe my library.

Chris: 00:01:52

It's a room that I would like to write in.

Chris: 00:01:54

It's small, it's cozy.

Chris: 00:01:55

It has a guitar on the wall.

Chris: 00:01:56

The curtains are drawn.

Chris: 00:01:57

The light is romantic, shall we say?

Chris: 00:02:00

Lots of candles and there's lots of bookshelves.

Chris: 00:02:03

It's a, yeah, it's a really nice room.

Tom: 00:02:05

Thank you.

Tom: 00:02:06

And so where do you write, obviously not in this room.

Tom: 00:02:10

Where do you like to write?

Chris: 00:02:12

I sometimes write out of practicality in my dining room,

Chris: 00:02:16

which is where I tend to work.

Chris: 00:02:17

And if I get a choice, I have a mobile writing office, which is

Chris: 00:02:22

otherwise known as a camper van.

Chris: 00:02:25

And I head off in that to remote locations with a view, and write in that, cause

Chris: 00:02:30

that's how to be creative, I think.

Tom: 00:02:32

And is that where you do the majority of your writing?

Chris: 00:02:36

That's where I'm most prolific.

Chris: 00:02:38

I'd say it's about 50:50 though.

Chris: 00:02:39

Cause sometimes for practical reasons, you've just got to write at home.

Chris: 00:02:43

But I mean, the reason for going away in the van is to remove

Chris: 00:02:46

distractions, rather than be away in it.

Chris: 00:02:49

One of my favorite spots is up in the Cambrian mountains high up

Chris: 00:02:52

above the Llyn Brianne reservoir.

Chris: 00:02:56

And there's no internet.

Chris: 00:02:58

There's no TV signal.

Chris: 00:02:59

There's no phone signal.

Chris: 00:03:01

So you don't get any notifications and therefore you can focus.

Tom: 00:03:04

That's amazing.

Tom: 00:03:05

How long have you been going up there or going away to it?

Chris: 00:03:08

Probably about, on and off for about five or six years, I think that's

Chris: 00:03:13

about how long I've had the van for.

Tom: 00:03:15

And so are you just writing pen and paper, is it pure analog up there?

Tom: 00:03:19

Or is it-

Chris: 00:03:20

No, I take the computer cause I've got the van kitted

Chris: 00:03:22

out like a proper camper.

Chris: 00:03:23

It's got a leisure battery, so I can power a computer.

Chris: 00:03:27

My writing, my handwriting is so dreadful that I would never

Chris: 00:03:31

dream of trying to do that.

Tom: 00:03:32

Okay, so it's on the laptop?

Chris: 00:03:33

It's on the laptop.

Tom: 00:03:34

Nice, okay.

Tom: 00:03:36

And what's the longest period that you've had up there?

Chris: 00:03:40

Probably about two weeks.

Chris: 00:03:41

Cause you ha well, you run out of food.

Chris: 00:03:44

You have to come out of the mountains sometimes, but yeah,

Chris: 00:03:47

two week trip and then you can get a nice chunk of words on paper

Tom: 00:03:52

How is it that you discovered this place or discovered that you

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are more prolific writing away?

Tom: 00:03:56

Can you remember the first time that you went away and what motivated you?

Chris: 00:04:00

The first time I went up there was with my ex wife.

Chris: 00:04:04

We used to holiday a lot in the van and we happened upon it by

Chris: 00:04:09

accident when we were on our way over to the west coast of Wales.

Chris: 00:04:13

And we were both very taken with the area.

Chris: 00:04:16

And after that I thought, this would make a lovely place to write.

Chris: 00:04:19

Cause there's loads of Forestry Commission car parks just up above the reservoir.

Chris: 00:04:24

And yeah, I went back not long after to have a go on my own.

Chris: 00:04:30

And it is a beautiful spot there because it's all Forestry Commission.

Chris: 00:04:33

There's just logging trucks and sheep, and there's some tourists up

Chris: 00:04:36

there, but it's not a tourist hotspot.

Chris: 00:04:38

And so it's very peaceful.

Tom: 00:04:40

Do you remember the first thing that you wrote up there?

Chris: 00:04:43

Ooh, that's a good question.

Chris: 00:04:46

No, I can't.

Chris: 00:04:48

It would have been one of the stories out of alternative.

Chris: 00:04:51

Afterlives, but I'm trying to think when...

Chris: 00:04:54

I don't actually know Tom.

Tom: 00:04:56

Okay, but Alternative Afterlives is your first solo

Tom: 00:05:01

collection of short stories.

Chris: 00:05:02

That's right.

Chris: 00:05:03

Yeah.

Tom: 00:05:03

Were the majority of those stories written there, or was it again 50:50?

Chris: 00:05:08

50:50.

Chris: 00:05:09

Some of those stories, probably the oldest one's about 10 years old.

Chris: 00:05:13

And they're all stories that have either won or been placed in competitions

Chris: 00:05:17

or been previously published.

Chris: 00:05:18

Because I used that as a kind of qualifier for whether it was good or not.

Chris: 00:05:22

Good enough to be in a solo collection.

Chris: 00:05:25

And the other thing about that book is they're all themed around death.

Chris: 00:05:29

And I noticed that a lot of my stories, without consciously thinking

Chris: 00:05:32

about it, have death is a theme.

Chris: 00:05:34

So when I went to put it to a publisher, it helps if you've got something

Chris: 00:05:37

that ties all the stories together.

Chris: 00:05:39

And I think that's what helped me sell it.

Tom: 00:05:41

Yeah.

Tom: 00:05:43

And now that you've recognized that as a common, although it was an initially

Tom: 00:05:47

unconscious, theme, is that now something that you are consciously exploring

Tom: 00:05:53

in the stories that you write now?

Chris: 00:05:55

Yeah.

Chris: 00:05:55

Yes.

Chris: 00:05:56

Although I've gone the other way with it a bit and the ones I'm writing now

Chris: 00:06:00

tend to be themed more about life.

Chris: 00:06:04

But I thought that would make a nice contrast for the second book, which

Chris: 00:06:07

is just, again, it wasn't on purpose.

Chris: 00:06:08

It's just, that's the way it's gone.

Tom: 00:06:10

Okay.

Tom: 00:06:10

That's cool.

Chris: 00:06:11

Yeah.

Tom: 00:06:12

And with your stories, is there much planning to them?

Tom: 00:06:16

Like when you get an idea for, you know, that you think you

Tom: 00:06:20

want to turn into a story?

Tom: 00:06:21

What is it about it?

Tom: 00:06:22

Where are you go, this isn't just a flight of fancy, this is

Tom: 00:06:25

actually something I want to write.

Chris: 00:06:27

It's usually when I've got a character that I can

Chris: 00:06:30

see, so I can visualize them.

Chris: 00:06:32

When I write, I tend to see everything on a movie screen.

Chris: 00:06:35

So if I can't visualize it like that, then it tends to not happen.

Chris: 00:06:39

But it's the strong character and it's usually, they've got a story to tell.

Chris: 00:06:43

And I know where, usually I know, where it's going to end and that

Chris: 00:06:47

means I can drive towards it.

Chris: 00:06:48

But that tends to be as far as planning goes.

Chris: 00:06:50

I did one story that I planned properly, just to try it out.

Chris: 00:06:54

And that's called the Ninja Zombie Knitting Circle and that it's got a

Chris: 00:06:58

crime element to it and I had to plan it to make the reveal at the end,

Chris: 00:07:03

as to who the criminal was, work.

Chris: 00:07:07

And the thing I found about that was that it meant I could finish

Chris: 00:07:11

the story, well the first draft of the story, in one sitting.

Chris: 00:07:13

Which is very unusual for me, because I'm not that prolific.

Tom: 00:07:17

And cause you write short stories.

Tom: 00:07:19

You're known for your short stories.

Tom: 00:07:21

On average, how long is a short story for you?

Tom: 00:07:24

Cause you know, the definition of a short story is quite broad and it can be

Tom: 00:07:28

sometimes tens of thousands and sometimes, you know, a few hundred if it's flash.

Tom: 00:07:33

So where do you think you sit on average with yours?

Chris: 00:07:36

My sweet spot is between 1,000 and 5,000 words.

Chris: 00:07:40

And I'd say the vast majority around about the two and a half, 3000.

Chris: 00:07:45

And that's because I edit a lot.

Chris: 00:07:47

So make them tight.

Tom: 00:07:49

And so you're coming up with a character and like you say, you've got an

Tom: 00:07:52

ending in mind, and you're just writing to that ending and keeping it succinct.

Tom: 00:07:57

Is there much, with the characterization, d- do you develop much of a

Tom: 00:08:02

backstory for them, or is it just seeing this person in the moment?

Chris: 00:08:07

I usually know what the backstory is, but it's very rare,

Chris: 00:08:11

in my opinion, it's rare that you need to share the entire backstory

Chris: 00:08:14

of a character with the reader, especially in a short piece of fiction.

Chris: 00:08:17

It's a little bit different in novels because they spend

Chris: 00:08:20

more time with the characters.

Chris: 00:08:21

But I usually know the characters fairly well.

Chris: 00:08:23

And what I'm finding with my writing at the moment, is because I'm doing sequels,

Chris: 00:08:27

the next book I'm working on is called Sinister Sequels, in each short story is

Chris: 00:08:31

a sequel to one in Alternative Afterlives.

Chris: 00:08:34

So I already know the characters.

Chris: 00:08:36

There's some new ones, but it's quite nice revisiting them and learning

Chris: 00:08:40

more about them and seeing what other stories they've got to tell.

Chris: 00:08:42

So yeah.

Chris: 00:08:43

It's really fun experience.

Tom: 00:08:45

Is it a sequel for every story that it was in the first book?

Chris: 00:08:48

Yes.

Chris: 00:08:49

That's the plan.

Chris: 00:08:50

Yeah, but the sequels, they, it's not like the first story finishes

Chris: 00:08:56

and then the second one starts.

Chris: 00:08:58

It could involve one character from the previous story and a different

Chris: 00:09:01

situation or it could be years later.

Chris: 00:09:05

So it's, you know, it's fairly loose.

Tom: 00:09:08

Okay.

Chris: 00:09:09

Cause otherwise I think it'd be really hard to write.

Chris: 00:09:11

It's hard enough to write anyway, to be honest.

Chris: 00:09:13

It is quite challenging, but cause I want each story to stand

Chris: 00:09:15

alone on its own, whether you've read the previous one or not.

Tom: 00:09:18

Yeah, but does the fun outweigh the challenge and revisiting these?

Chris: 00:09:21

Oh yeah, definitely.

Chris: 00:09:23

Definitely.

Chris: 00:09:24

And I quite like the challenge because it gives you a focus

Chris: 00:09:26

and makes you finish the story.

Tom: 00:09:27

Yeah.

Tom: 00:09:28

And with your stories.

Tom: 00:09:32

Would you describe them all in as being genre?

Tom: 00:09:35

And if so, what type of genre do you fulfill?

Chris: 00:09:40

Broadly, humorous fantasy with bits of horror.

Chris: 00:09:44

So sometimes I slip into full on horror, but even then it's more

Chris: 00:09:48

John Carpenter style horror.

Chris: 00:09:50

Where it's you know, seventies, you can imagine the story being told

Chris: 00:09:53

around a campfire kind of thing.

Chris: 00:09:55

Like they opened the fog with.

Chris: 00:09:58

But yeah, for the most part, it's going along the lines of Terry Pratchett and

Chris: 00:10:02

Douglas Adams and that kind of trying to do something as good as they did.

Tom: 00:10:07

And with the fantasy tropes.

Tom: 00:10:10

Are you consciously trying to build worlds with a fantasy element to it, and

Tom: 00:10:15

how does that world building develop?

Chris: 00:10:16

I've got a mix of two, so I've got some fantastical stories

Chris: 00:10:19

that are set in the real world.

Chris: 00:10:21

With like witches or demons or whatever, and others that are

Chris: 00:10:25

set all in one particular land.

Chris: 00:10:27

If you read the stories, you wouldn't necessarily know it's all

Chris: 00:10:29

settled in one world, if you like.

Chris: 00:10:32

But I've got a map and I know where all these things are, so that if any

Chris: 00:10:35

of them develop into longer pieces in the future, it will all tie together

Chris: 00:10:39

because I know the history of it all.

Tom: 00:10:40

Oh excellent.

Chris: 00:10:41

So I delve into a bit of both really.

Tom: 00:10:45

And so have you named your world?

Chris: 00:10:46

The area in the world is called Gordesia.

Chris: 00:10:50

The actual planet, if you like, hasn't been named yet.

Tom: 00:10:54

So is Gordesia the kingdom?

Chris: 00:10:56

So that's the main kingdom and the countries within it

Chris: 00:10:58

are where the conflict happens.

Chris: 00:11:01

Yeah.

Tom: 00:11:01

Okay.

Tom: 00:11:02

That's cool.

Tom: 00:11:03

And you said you have done maps for certain stories.

Tom: 00:11:07

Are some quite close, do they all fit together?

Chris: 00:11:11

Yes, they could.

Chris: 00:11:12

They, in theory, they could in future.

Chris: 00:11:15

They're all in within Gordesia, the ones that I've done so far.

Chris: 00:11:19

And it actually evolved out of a D&D campaign as I used to

Chris: 00:11:22

play D&D when I was younger.

Chris: 00:11:25

And so I had loads of different worlds from that.

Chris: 00:11:28

But there was one that I was particularly taken with, where

Chris: 00:11:30

we did this really epic campaign.

Chris: 00:11:32

It was like, this is a cool world.

Chris: 00:11:33

I've got to set something here.

Chris: 00:11:34

So I've tweaked it for using in fiction, but that's where it came from.

Tom: 00:11:39

Okay.

Tom: 00:11:40

And was it a conscious thing when you started writing fiction that

Tom: 00:11:43

you wanted to set it in this world?

Tom: 00:11:45

Or was it after a couple of stories you went, actually, these would all fit.

Chris: 00:11:49

I think I took a couple of the names originally from this world, and

Chris: 00:11:53

then it was like I've taken the name, so I might as well set them there.

Chris: 00:11:56

Since then I just set them all there.

Chris: 00:11:58

If they're not set on earth.

Tom: 00:12:00

Okay.

Tom: 00:12:01

That's cool.

Tom: 00:12:02

And with D&D and I've, you know, a few authors that I've interviewed

Tom: 00:12:07

have done D&D, do you find that has benefited your writing, like the

Tom: 00:12:11

mechanics of D&D, into the structure of the way you write stories?

Chris: 00:12:16

I think it's helped with the imagination and the characters, but

Chris: 00:12:19

D&D is a game and it is not a story.

Chris: 00:12:22

And there are big bits of D&D that would make a very boring story.

Chris: 00:12:27

When you're all sitting around, chatting about what you're going to do

Chris: 00:12:29

next, given the situation you're in.

Chris: 00:12:31

So you can get some good ideas from D&D I think, but it's a different medium.

Tom: 00:12:36

Yeah.

Tom: 00:12:37

I think with creating characters and the class system that you have in D&D and

Tom: 00:12:42

the political backstories of say like elves and dwarves and things like that.

Tom: 00:12:46

Was your inspiration, you know, the books on D& D and how they present

Tom: 00:12:51

fantasy or was it more, as you said, Pratchett and Douglas Adams and

Tom: 00:12:56

fiction was more your inspiration for the type of fantasy you write?

Chris: 00:13:00

That's a good question.

Chris: 00:13:01

I think probably Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Ursula Le

Chris: 00:13:06

Guin, and people like that.

Chris: 00:13:07

Stephen King.

Chris: 00:13:08

I could make a very long list of authors.

Chris: 00:13:10

I think that's probably had more influence certainly on the way I

Chris: 00:13:13

write stories, but when it comes to the monsters and where they dwell

Chris: 00:13:17

and interactions with mythical races.

Chris: 00:13:22

A lot of that is, whether it consciously or not, is taken from

Chris: 00:13:26

D&D, or influenced by it anyway.

Chris: 00:13:29

I've got one story where it's it's about trolls and humans and the

Chris: 00:13:32

humans don't treat the trolls well.

Chris: 00:13:34

And the trolls are a mix of Lord of the Rings, with some

Chris: 00:13:38

D&D aspects to it as well.

Chris: 00:13:40

So I think I take influence from all of it really.

Tom: 00:13:42

Yeah.

Tom: 00:13:42

It's just that I think as someone who enjoys fantasy, but hasn't

Tom: 00:13:47

written fantasy, it's just where do these wonderful worlds come from.

Tom: 00:13:51

But there are similarities in you know, dragons are often seen the same way,

Tom: 00:13:55

dwarves are often seen in the same way.

Tom: 00:13:57

There's certain like tropes that you associate with certain races.

Tom: 00:14:01

And I think D&D is a good one stop for that because the books that you

Tom: 00:14:08

get in D&D seem to lay out this is the history, this is what powers they have

Tom: 00:14:15

or how they approach magic, or the political classes within this society.

Tom: 00:14:20

And I think if someone wanted to write fantasy.

Tom: 00:14:23

It seems to me from what you've said, and other people have

Tom: 00:14:26

said, that's a good shorthand.

Tom: 00:14:28

It's sort of a cheat sheet.

Chris: 00:14:29

Yes, it is.

Chris: 00:14:30

Yeah.

Chris: 00:14:30

I think a lot of it's based on folklore and stuff like that.

Chris: 00:14:33

So it's, it comes from history and stories that were told by people

Chris: 00:14:37

around camp campfires a long time ago.

Chris: 00:14:39

So it's actually quite a good place to do that, I think.

Chris: 00:14:42

The monster manual is great, if you want to learn about the different monsters.

Chris: 00:14:45

And then you can go on the internet and find out more about them.

Tom: 00:14:48

Yeah.

Chris: 00:14:49

When you take the stereotypes, I find with short stories, sometimes you

Chris: 00:14:52

have to work with those tropes because you're asking someone to visualize

Chris: 00:14:57

something in a very short word count.

Chris: 00:15:01

And for example, I wrote a story about Death.

Chris: 00:15:04

And Death's always described as wearing a cloak and being

Chris: 00:15:07

a skeleton who has a sythe.

Chris: 00:15:10

And I had a, it's a 1500 word story, and I tried writing versions of it

Chris: 00:15:15

where Death was something different.

Chris: 00:15:17

They were a child, or they were an old lady or they were a demon and it

Chris: 00:15:21

just didn't work because it wasn't what people picture Death as being.

Chris: 00:15:25

And really the story wasn't about that, it was about someone dying and

Chris: 00:15:29

facing Death and being worried about what Death was going to do with them.

Chris: 00:15:34

And it had to focus on that.

Chris: 00:15:35

So I actually used all that stereotyped imagery and it worked within the context

Chris: 00:15:40

of that story because it was so short.

Chris: 00:15:43

So I think the tropes have their place.

Tom: 00:15:45

In the past, you've written short stories for

Tom: 00:15:48

competitions and for submission.

Tom: 00:15:51

What challenges have you faced writing to competition that is

Tom: 00:15:55

different from writing for yourself?

Chris: 00:15:57

I think when you're writing for yourself and you understand

Chris: 00:15:59

what you want from the story, you get a certain bit of freedom.

Chris: 00:16:03

Because you're not doing it for someone else, necessarily.

Chris: 00:16:06

I usually write with the reader in mind, but that could be a wide range of people.

Chris: 00:16:09

Whereas when you're writing for a competition, you're really writing

Chris: 00:16:12

for the person that's judging the competition or the panel.

Chris: 00:16:15

And therefore you have to take on board what they're looking for.

Chris: 00:16:19

So I, I enjoy writing for myself more because you've got more freedom

Chris: 00:16:23

to go where you want with it.

Chris: 00:16:25

That said, from doing competitions, I learned an awful lot about how to

Chris: 00:16:28

write a good story and it does make you understand the art a bit better.

Chris: 00:16:33

And I think, you know, there's lots of rules with writing, which

Chris: 00:16:36

I prefer to look on as guidelines.

Chris: 00:16:38

And rather than obeying them, you have to understand them so that you

Chris: 00:16:42

can understand what you want to do with them to develop your own voice.

Chris: 00:16:47

I think, if you're starting out, entering competitions is really good.

Chris: 00:16:50

And if you can get a critique from the judge that's useful,

Chris: 00:16:55

that really helps you.

Chris: 00:16:56

When I started, I entered Writers' Forum a lot, because they give very reasonably

Chris: 00:17:01

priced terse critiques that tells you why they either have, or haven't accepted it.

Chris: 00:17:06

And I found that very beneficial, you know, as a fiver and they

Chris: 00:17:10

tell you what's wrong with it.

Chris: 00:17:10

And then you can go and fix it.

Chris: 00:17:12

Or, you can say no, they've totally missed the point there.

Chris: 00:17:15

This obviously isn't the right place for me to submit.

Chris: 00:17:18

So I think entering competitions is, was a great learning curve for me.

Chris: 00:17:24

And I often recommend it to other people.

Tom: 00:17:26

Yeah.

Tom: 00:17:26

And I guess It's the equivalent of a novelist having an editor.

Tom: 00:17:30

But it's on a case by case basis that you're having that.

Tom: 00:17:34

And so how many years were you writing for competitions before you felt you were

Tom: 00:17:40

ready to publish your own collection?

Chris: 00:17:43

Oh, long time.

Chris: 00:17:44

It was about eight years, or I'd say eight, nine years.

Chris: 00:17:49

And it took that long really to master it is probably the wrong word

Chris: 00:17:53

to become competent enough to do it.

Tom: 00:17:56

And what was the moment where you thought, okay, you

Tom: 00:18:00

know, I've had enough feedback.

Tom: 00:18:02

What was it about your writing at that point where you're like, okay, I now

Tom: 00:18:06

want to get a collection together?

Chris: 00:18:09

I think it's cause I had, for one, I had so many stories.

Chris: 00:18:11

And for two, I got placed in a competition run by InkTears and

Chris: 00:18:17

they ask you to submit a collection of stories for their consideration

Chris: 00:18:21

when you come in the top six.

Tom: 00:18:23

Okay.

Chris: 00:18:24

And I, I basically put a collection together and

Chris: 00:18:27

didn't think about it too much.

Tom: 00:18:28

Yeah.

Chris: 00:18:29

And they came back to me and said, this is too much of an eclectic mix.

Chris: 00:18:32

There's nothing to tie it together.

Chris: 00:18:34

We love some of them and we don't like the others and therefore we can't take it.

Chris: 00:18:38

And they ended up taking about four stories for a showcase book instead.

Chris: 00:18:42

And that really made me think about what a short story collection needed.

Chris: 00:18:46

And that was a theme that tied everything together, so that there was a reason

Chris: 00:18:51

for all these stories to be presented together in a book, beyond just all

Chris: 00:18:54

being written by the same person.

Chris: 00:18:56

They needed to have something that tied them all together.

Chris: 00:19:00

And I suppose that's really what got me thinking about it.

Chris: 00:19:03

So it came off the back of that experience through that competition.

Chris: 00:19:06

And when I thought about it, once I put the book together and

Chris: 00:19:09

thought that through, I sent it to a publisher and they took it on.

Tom: 00:19:14

Oh, that's good.

Tom: 00:19:14

So that was quite fast then.

Chris: 00:19:16

It was.

Chris: 00:19:16

Yeah.

Tom: 00:19:17

So how long was it from dealing with that competition, that

Tom: 00:19:19

showcase, to gathering it and then-

Chris: 00:19:22

It was probably about a two year period.

Tom: 00:19:25

Okay.

Chris: 00:19:25

But it wasn't like I was spending that entire two years just doing that.

Tom: 00:19:28

Yeah.

Chris: 00:19:29

I got the knock back from Ink Tears, which was, while it

Chris: 00:19:32

wasn't the end result I wanted, it was still a positive experience.

Chris: 00:19:37

And I learned a lot from it and they still published some of my work, but then I went

Chris: 00:19:41

to uh, a book launch in London, through someone who'd written for my website.

Chris: 00:19:46

And they were like, "You've really helped me out.

Chris: 00:19:47

Would you like to come to my book launch?

Chris: 00:19:48

Cause I've got a publisher now."

Chris: 00:19:50

And so I went to it and met the publisher there and that's actually how I got

Chris: 00:19:55

the in for the short story collection.

Chris: 00:19:57

Cause I met them and then went on to do some editing work with them.

Chris: 00:20:00

Uh, So there was a little bit of who, you know, going on, but you know, they could

Chris: 00:20:04

have still said no to the collection.

Chris: 00:20:06

They just, it gave me someone to approach and say, "look, would

Chris: 00:20:09

you be interested in this?"

Tom: 00:20:11

What I want to do now is go into the day-to-day writing process of it.

Tom: 00:20:16

So you said that when you write uh, 50% at home, 50% in the van,

Tom: 00:20:25

What is a writing session for you?

Tom: 00:20:27

Do you start first thing in the morning?

Tom: 00:20:29

Do you get everything done out of the day and then write at night and handle,

Tom: 00:20:34

do you write for, do you take lots of breaks or do you just like power

Tom: 00:20:37

through until there's nothing left?

Chris: 00:20:39

That I have no easy answer to that question because

Chris: 00:20:42

I don't work to a set routine.

Chris: 00:20:43

So because of the nature of all the different work I do, I tend to clear

Chris: 00:20:48

the plate as best I can, of work, so that my head space is clear.

Chris: 00:20:52

And then that could be the morning.

Chris: 00:20:54

It could be the evening.

Chris: 00:20:55

It could be the middle of the day.

Chris: 00:20:56

It's usually when I've got a bit of peace and quiet, to be honest.

Chris: 00:20:59

And I'm not that prolific.

Chris: 00:21:01

I'm quite happy if I write 500 words I'm pleased with.

Chris: 00:21:04

I'd much rather do a good 500 words than 4,000 that I can't use.

Tom: 00:21:09

Yeah.

Chris: 00:21:10

So I've always approached it in kind of short bite-size chunks.

Chris: 00:21:13

And I write for as long as I feel creative and then I stop again.

Tom: 00:21:17

Okay.

Tom: 00:21:18

And do you always work on one story at a time until you feel

Tom: 00:21:22

you've got it the best you can, or do you have a couple on the go?

Chris: 00:21:26

I'd like to do one at a time, but no, I've always got

Chris: 00:21:28

about three or four on the go.

Chris: 00:21:30

And then you've got choices, if you get stuck with one.

Chris: 00:21:32

And I find that sometimes if you go off and do a different story, It suddenly the

Chris: 00:21:38

other one, a thought would come to you in the shower or something bizarre like that.

Chris: 00:21:42

And then you're just like, oh, that's what I need to do with that.

Chris: 00:21:44

How obvious.

Chris: 00:21:45

But if you don't have that little break from it, then yeah, you might get stuck.

Chris: 00:21:49

So I approach it like that.

Chris: 00:21:50

The other thing I find really helpful is that I've got writing, which

Chris: 00:21:54

is one person and quite lonely.

Chris: 00:21:56

And I also create music and bands where it's a group of people working together.

Chris: 00:22:01

And I find if you do a bit of music, that really inspires the writing

Chris: 00:22:06

because when you've done that, you're ready to go and work on your own again.

Chris: 00:22:09

So I've got the best of both worlds there.

Chris: 00:22:11

When you work with other people, you don't always get your own way, which is

Chris: 00:22:14

a good thing, but there's that kind of comradery when you're writing the songs.

Chris: 00:22:19

Whereas with writing, you've got to get something finished and then take

Chris: 00:22:22

it to your writing group for a critique or work with an editor or whatever

Chris: 00:22:25

is, it's just a different experience.

Chris: 00:22:27

I like the difference between the two.

Chris: 00:22:30

I find they fuel each other.

Tom: 00:22:31

Yeah.

Tom: 00:22:32

I guess when you're in a music group like you are with Airbus, the pressure's not

Tom: 00:22:38

on you to have the nugget of inspiration.

Chris: 00:22:40

That's right.

Tom: 00:22:41

But someone can start something and it can then inspire you.

Tom: 00:22:45

And so you feed off each other and how long have you been in that band?

Chris: 00:22:50

We started off our first rehearsal was in 1987.

Tom: 00:22:53

Wow.

Chris: 00:22:54

So it was a long time ago in the school music block because

Chris: 00:22:57

we all went to school together.

Chris: 00:22:58

So how many years is that?

Chris: 00:22:59

20?

Chris: 00:23:00

35?.

Chris: 00:23:01

Something like that?

Chris: 00:23:02

Yeah.

Tom: 00:23:02

Yeah, will be 35 next year.

Chris: 00:23:04

Next year.

Chris: 00:23:04

Yeah.

Tom: 00:23:05

And I guess with that, you know, each other's personalities very well

Tom: 00:23:10

and the tastes of each other, because you've grown up and you've progressed

Tom: 00:23:15

with each other, do you find that when you're coming up with your

Tom: 00:23:19

section of the music you can almost predict what their reaction will be?

Chris: 00:23:24

With Airbus, no.

Tom: 00:23:25

No?

Chris: 00:23:25

Cause it's very, I don't know, they're so...

Chris: 00:23:28

It's very diverse Airbus.

Chris: 00:23:30

There's lots of different musical tastes in there and you can never quite

Chris: 00:23:34

tell what's going on with that band, which is why it's still going, I think.

Chris: 00:23:38

It keeps it fresh in our minds.

Chris: 00:23:40

I play in another band called Little Villains and that is

Chris: 00:23:42

very much rock and metal.

Tom: 00:23:44

Okay.

Chris: 00:23:45

And so that's a little bit more like you can predict what that needs.

Chris: 00:23:48

That's got very definite sound to it.

Chris: 00:23:50

Whereas Airbus is influenced by such a wide range of music from

Chris: 00:23:54

different people that there, there aren't really limits to it.

Tom: 00:23:58

Oh, okay.

Tom: 00:23:59

So I guess with uh, Little Villains that the sound's refined over the

Tom: 00:24:04

years and Airbus sounds like it's more exploratory and it's more progressive.

Chris: 00:24:09

Absolutely.

Chris: 00:24:10

Yeah.

Tom: 00:24:10

Okay.

Tom: 00:24:10

That's cool.

Chris: 00:24:11

And I think that's what keeps it fresh now, which is why we're still able

Chris: 00:24:14

to do it even though we're all almost 50.

Chris: 00:24:17

We're still doing it, whereas yeah, with the rock stuff, Little Villains

Chris: 00:24:21

originally the original drummer was Philthy Animal Taylor out of Motorhead.

Chris: 00:24:25

And I had to stand in those boots after that.

Chris: 00:24:28

Oh my God.

Chris: 00:24:28

That was a slightly nerve wracking, it was very different.

Chris: 00:24:31

And I can tell you a little bit about that, if you'd like?

Chris: 00:24:34

Cause obviously he uh, he died, unfortunately.

Chris: 00:24:38

And uh, James, who is also in Airbus with me, which is why I got asked to do

Chris: 00:24:42

it, was like "I've got all this stuff to put out which Phil recorded and

Chris: 00:24:46

would you like to get involved with it?"

Chris: 00:24:47

And I was like, "well I don't, you know, he plays with the double

Chris: 00:24:49

kick drum and he's very quick."

Tom: 00:24:50

Yeah.

Chris: 00:24:51

And I play with a single kick drum and I'm not so quick.

Chris: 00:24:54

It's a totally different style.

Chris: 00:24:55

I play more like Phil Rudd, who's out of ACDC.

Chris: 00:24:58

And James was like, "You can do your own thing with it.

Chris: 00:25:01

I prefer you did your own thing with it.

Chris: 00:25:02

So let's get together and try it out."

Chris: 00:25:05

And it worked.

Chris: 00:25:07

I don't play like Phil did.

Tom: 00:25:09

Yeah,

Chris: 00:25:09

But it's gone in its own direction.

Chris: 00:25:11

Now it's a band in its own right.

Chris: 00:25:13

And it's managed to continue without him.

Chris: 00:25:15

So yeah.

Chris: 00:25:16

Yeah, it is really good fun to be part of something like that.

Tom: 00:25:20

Yeah, cause the so many years have passed.

Tom: 00:25:23

It definitely feels like your role now.

Chris: 00:25:25

It does now, yeah..

Chris: 00:25:26

When we did the first tour where we were just playing his

Chris: 00:25:29

stuff, that was nerve wracking.

Chris: 00:25:31

Because it was like, what are people going to think?

Chris: 00:25:33

Cause I don't play like him and I'm doing my own thing with it,

Chris: 00:25:35

but it was really well received.

Chris: 00:25:38

Thankfully.

Tom: 00:25:39

Yeah.

Tom: 00:25:39

Metal fans are passionate.

Chris: 00:25:41

They are, especially when it comes to Motorhead.

Tom: 00:25:44

Yes.

Chris: 00:25:44

They're very passionate about that band because it's so iconic.

Chris: 00:25:48

But yeah, that was a hell of an experience.

Tom: 00:25:51

That's cool.

Tom: 00:25:52

And yes, getting back to writing.

Chris: 00:25:53

Yeah, sorry.

Chris: 00:25:54

Off on a tangent.

Tom: 00:25:55

That's fine.

Tom: 00:25:55

Um, What is it that actually drew you to short stories as a format

Tom: 00:26:01

that you felt like I don't want to write flash, I don't want to write

Tom: 00:26:05

novels, you know, short story fits me.

Chris: 00:26:08

Laziness.

Chris: 00:26:10

No, it wasn't.

Chris: 00:26:11

It was, I did a short story writing course.

Chris: 00:26:14

Sorry, a comprehensive writing course.

Chris: 00:26:16

And well that came off the back of, I, I used to work as a man with the van.

Chris: 00:26:22

Van man driving superhero.

Chris: 00:26:24

And I got hired one day to do a job where I'd go move a beehive.

Chris: 00:26:29

And I assumed that the beehive would be empty.

Chris: 00:26:32

And I got there and it had 5,000 bees in it.

Chris: 00:26:35

And I, I said to the lady, I was like, I, I can't do this.

Chris: 00:26:38

It's got 5,000 bees in it.

Chris: 00:26:39

I thought it was empty.

Chris: 00:26:40

And she said, "Come and have a cup of tea and a bit of cake."

Chris: 00:26:43

And she plied with me with tea and cake, and somehow coerced me into

Chris: 00:26:46

putting on a beekeeping suit and driving over these bees to Devon.

Chris: 00:26:50

And they forklifted the beehive, it was strapped to a pallet and they

Chris: 00:26:54

forklifted it into the back of the van, gassed them, and off I went.

Chris: 00:26:58

And the gas was supposed to calm them down, but it just seemed

Chris: 00:27:01

to infuriate them beyond belief.

Chris: 00:27:03

And I got lost and I was trying to do a bit of map reading

Chris: 00:27:06

in a swarm of bees literally.

Chris: 00:27:09

I was like, I've got to get a new job.

Chris: 00:27:10

I want to do something different.

Chris: 00:27:11

And I'd been thinking about doing a correspondence writing course for a while.

Chris: 00:27:15

And I went home and signed up for it.

Chris: 00:27:17

And part of that course took you through writing novels.

Chris: 00:27:20

Cause that's what most people want to do.

Chris: 00:27:22

Everyone's got a book in them and that's where those courses come from.

Chris: 00:27:26

And so it was kind, it wasn't geared towards that, but that

Chris: 00:27:30

was the end of it because that's the end result most people want.

Chris: 00:27:33

And so I had a synopsis, the tutor was quite positive about it.

Chris: 00:27:37

So I've, I wrote a book off the back of it.

Chris: 00:27:41

And that took about three years and it was a lot of, it was great

Chris: 00:27:44

learning curve, but it was...

Chris: 00:27:46

I think you're better off starting with shorter fiction to learn the ropes, rather

Chris: 00:27:49

than trying to take on a novel when you don't really know how to write fiction.

Chris: 00:27:53

And I got to the end of that and ended up self publishing it

Chris: 00:27:56

after it got rejected everywhere.

Chris: 00:27:59

And I thought short stories are much, much easier to finish.

Chris: 00:28:02

So why don't I put less pressure on myself and instead of trying to write

Chris: 00:28:05

another book, which I really didn't want to do after just finishing that one, why

Chris: 00:28:09

don't I do something more manageable?

Chris: 00:28:11

And actually I found that the short story format far better

Chris: 00:28:14

suited my style of writing, because it's just the way my brain works.

Chris: 00:28:18

I tend to work with succinct ideas rather than massive sprawling ones.

Tom: 00:28:22

Yeah.

Chris: 00:28:23

So it really, it comes down to it suits what I do.

Tom: 00:28:26

Yeah.

Tom: 00:28:28

And I guess with attention spans these days now, it's much easier to get feedback

Tom: 00:28:35

from people on a short story than a novel.

Chris: 00:28:38

Absolutely.

Tom: 00:28:39

And you run your own short story competition and that's increased in

Tom: 00:28:45

popularity over the last few years.

Tom: 00:28:49

How did you start that and know how has that progressed for you?

Chris: 00:28:53

Originally I had a, a website that I put up to showcase

Chris: 00:28:57

my own writing and because no one knew who I was, no one found it.

Chris: 00:29:00

No one read anything.

Chris: 00:29:02

So I develop lists of short story competitions.

Chris: 00:29:05

Cause I had a big spreadsheet that I used to plan all my submissions

Chris: 00:29:08

and I thought if I share this, maybe people will find it useful online.

Chris: 00:29:12

And that got my website quite a large readership.

Chris: 00:29:14

And because I had all these lists of competitions, it just seemed like a

Chris: 00:29:17

natural progression to run my own.

Chris: 00:29:20

So I wanted to do something a bit different, so it would stand out.

Chris: 00:29:26

And cause I like humor and there aren't that many outlets specifically for humor,

Chris: 00:29:29

I thought I'll run a humorous competition.

Chris: 00:29:32

Not aimed at fantasy, just aimed broadly at your humor.

Chris: 00:29:34

And it started from there.

Chris: 00:29:36

Cause I couldn't compete with all these other competitions that have been prizes.

Chris: 00:29:41

I came up with a loony prize where the winner gets their head on the

Chris: 00:29:44

book and they're depicted riding a flaming motorcycle on the book cover.

Chris: 00:29:49

And then I strap it to my motor bike and ride it up to Hull and back,

Chris: 00:29:52

which is where the name of the comp.

Chris: 00:29:53

Well actually, the name of the competition, which is To Hull And

Chris: 00:29:56

Back, came from a very poor play on words of to hell and back.

Chris: 00:30:00

So it's just a cliche really, terrible idea.

Chris: 00:30:03

And when the competition, when I was trying to think of something

Chris: 00:30:07

original, I was like I'll ride it to Hull and back again.

Chris: 00:30:10

And that will be what makes it original.

Chris: 00:30:12

I was like, no one's going to enter this.

Chris: 00:30:14

And then people did, I got about a hundred entries first time.

Chris: 00:30:17

And I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to do this.

Chris: 00:30:18

And strap the, like, book to the bike.

Chris: 00:30:21

And I offered the winner the chance to go up to Hull with me on the back

Chris: 00:30:25

of the motorbike, but they didn't want to, understandably, but they

Chris: 00:30:28

met me in Hull and made the video.

Chris: 00:30:31

I've had one person to it.

Chris: 00:30:32

Now it's been running for eight, nine years or whatever it is.

Chris: 00:30:36

But yeah, I find it's one of those things where you stick

Chris: 00:30:38

with it and it's grown over time.

Chris: 00:30:40

So it's gone from, just around about a hundred entries the first year and

Chris: 00:30:45

it gets between five and 600 now.

Chris: 00:30:47

So it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding.

Tom: 00:30:51

And you get a sort of submissions from?

Chris: 00:30:54

All over the world.

Tom: 00:30:55

Yeah.

Tom: 00:30:56

And what s eems to be the most random place that you've had submissions from?

Chris: 00:31:02

Trinidad and Tobago.

Tom: 00:31:03

Okay.

Chris: 00:31:04

Random's the wrong word?

Chris: 00:31:05

Isn't it?

Chris: 00:31:05

Most exotic.

Tom: 00:31:07

It was just I didn't know what the answer is going to be.

Tom: 00:31:09

So I was like, you know, space station?

Tom: 00:31:11

I don't know.

Tom: 00:31:12

But yeah, I think it's uh, a fantastic thing to see how you've progressed from

Tom: 00:31:18

writing for submissions and fingers crossed to having a book launch and

Tom: 00:31:23

then having your own competition.

Tom: 00:31:25

We know each other because of open mic nights.

Tom: 00:31:29

And so I do want to ask about how you view the difference of a story that's

Tom: 00:31:34

written to be read and a story that's written to be performed because you

Tom: 00:31:39

have performed and had actors come and perform your writing as well.

Tom: 00:31:47

How has that formed your writing, and is that something that you

Tom: 00:31:51

want to do more in the future?

Chris: 00:31:53

I'd like to do more.

Chris: 00:31:55

I think they're two, they are two different things.

Chris: 00:31:57

Some stories work better written down on the page and others work

Chris: 00:32:02

better when they're spoken out loud,.

Chris: 00:32:05

But there's, there are some that work in both mediums very well.

Chris: 00:32:08

And that's what I try and aim for, so that I can do both.

Tom: 00:32:11

Okay.

Chris: 00:32:12

And it's it's always interesting when someone else reads your

Chris: 00:32:14

story, cause they do it differently to how you would, it was almost

Chris: 00:32:18

like you learn something from it.

Chris: 00:32:20

But what I like about reading to an audience, especially if it's a new

Chris: 00:32:23

story, is you can tell where the points are where are you losing them.

Chris: 00:32:26

If they lose their attention, when we start fiddling with their phones

Chris: 00:32:29

and stuff, that's where you need to pay some attention to the story.

Chris: 00:32:32

So it's actually really good for, it's almost like getting a live

Chris: 00:32:34

critique when you perform it.

Tom: 00:32:37

Yeah.

Tom: 00:32:38

Instant.

Chris: 00:32:38

Yeah.

Tom: 00:32:40

And were you already writing short stories when you decided to

Tom: 00:32:44

read them in front of an audience?

Tom: 00:32:47

And did you notice a shift in your writing when that happened?

Chris: 00:32:51

Yeah, I think so.

Chris: 00:32:53

The first story I ever read out live was, it was in Bristol.

Chris: 00:32:56

I can't even remember the name of the event, but it was held in King Street.

Tom: 00:33:02

Okay.

Chris: 00:33:03

In the upstairs room at...

Tom: 00:33:05

That would have been Small Stories.

Chris: 00:33:06

That's it!

Chris: 00:33:07

Small stories.

Chris: 00:33:08

Thank you.

Tom: 00:33:08

As in Small Bar.

Chris: 00:33:10

Yes.

Chris: 00:33:10

Small Bar.

Chris: 00:33:11

Small Stories.

Chris: 00:33:12

There you go, it was there.

Chris: 00:33:14

And I read Death Of A Superhero and by then I I'd had quite a lot

Chris: 00:33:17

of stories published and it was just another avenue, really, to

Chris: 00:33:20

explore, but I really enjoyed it.

Chris: 00:33:22

And it was nice getting the feedback from the audience.

Chris: 00:33:24

So yeah, that kind of got me hooked.

Tom: 00:33:27

Yeah, it is quite addictive.

Tom: 00:33:29

It is something that, you can see it in, in the audience as

Tom: 00:33:32

well as the people reading.

Tom: 00:33:35

Definitely a mutual benefit.

Chris: 00:33:37

Yeah.

Tom: 00:33:37

Going back to what you said about it's like a live critique.

Tom: 00:33:41

When it comes to critique, cause you did briefly mention submitting to your

Tom: 00:33:44

writing group, and do you see, your writing group as your beta readers?

Chris: 00:33:49

Yeah.

Tom: 00:33:49

And how long have you been in writing groups and how has that

Tom: 00:33:53

beta reading affected your writing?

Chris: 00:33:55

It's vastly improved it, I'd say.

Chris: 00:33:56

I've probably been in groups for probably about eight years

Chris: 00:33:59

now, something like that.

Chris: 00:34:00

And I originally joined because I worked with Christie who had a writing group

Chris: 00:34:06

and I invited myself along to them and I found the feedback really useful.

Chris: 00:34:10

Because it's just, it was a small group.

Chris: 00:34:13

Well, it is a small group, it's got about six, seven people in it.

Chris: 00:34:16

And you get a variety of reading tastes and therefore different

Chris: 00:34:20

feedback from each person.

Chris: 00:34:22

And when you've got two or three people saying the same thing, you

Chris: 00:34:24

know you've got a problem with the story and then you can go and fix it.

Chris: 00:34:27

So I found it really helped my publication success rate.

Chris: 00:34:30

Because sometimes when you you've been writing a story for a long time,

Chris: 00:34:33

you get too close to it and you can't really see what's wrong with it.

Chris: 00:34:36

And it's really helpful to have other pairs of eyes on it, so

Chris: 00:34:40

that you can then go back and edit it and finish it off properly.

Chris: 00:34:43

So I've come to rely on it really, now.

Tom: 00:34:46

Uh, would you say having multiple people read it and then seeing if there's

Tom: 00:34:51

a trend is like the best form of feedback?

Chris: 00:34:55

Yeah.

Chris: 00:34:55

I find that when it's...

Chris: 00:34:57

the stories that like it's second or third draft stage, then yes.

Chris: 00:35:01

And then you can go back and refine it and do what you want with it,

Chris: 00:35:04

but keep what they've said in mind.

Tom: 00:35:06

And, have you worked with professional editors at all?

Tom: 00:35:09

And what's your experience there?

Tom: 00:35:11

What do you think makes a good editor?

Chris: 00:35:13

People that will listen to what you want, but aren't afraid

Chris: 00:35:17

to tell you when something's wrong.

Chris: 00:35:18

So, uh, I've been very fortunate, I think.

Chris: 00:35:21

All the editors I've worked with have been really good.

Chris: 00:35:24

I worked with one recently for Comma Press, cause I'm having a story

Chris: 00:35:28

published by them in the Book Of Bristol, which is all stories set in Bristol.

Chris: 00:35:33

And Heather who did the editing was brilliant.

Chris: 00:35:35

We did about six or seven rounds.

Chris: 00:35:38

And so the story was fairly strong when I submitted it to them originally.

Chris: 00:35:43

And they came back and said, "we really like it, but can you just

Chris: 00:35:46

sort out this structural problem?

Chris: 00:35:48

And one of the characters was not in there enough to warrant being in there."

Chris: 00:35:54

And they asked me to bring her in more rather than take her out.

Chris: 00:35:57

So I had to extend the story a little bit, but actually it worked a lot better

Chris: 00:36:00

when I took that feedback on and did it.

Chris: 00:36:03

And then they accepted the story and that's when we went into the more

Chris: 00:36:06

line-by-line editorial and that is so beneficial when it comes to grammar.

Chris: 00:36:11

Because it doesn't matter how good you are, there are certain aspects of grammar

Chris: 00:36:14

that people I, I get snow blind to it.

Chris: 00:36:16

You can't see it.

Chris: 00:36:18

One of my faults is dangling participles at the beginning of sentences

Chris: 00:36:22

and it just goes over my head.

Chris: 00:36:23

But when they point them out and say, "Why don't you try rephrasing it like this?

Chris: 00:36:26

So it's active instead of passive."

Chris: 00:36:29

and suddenly you're like that's way better.

Chris: 00:36:30

Why didn't I just do that in the first place?

Chris: 00:36:32

So I find it really valuable.

Chris: 00:36:34

And when you get to that final bit with the editor.

Chris: 00:36:37

He is so important for that, the professionalism of that final draft.

Tom: 00:36:41

Yeah, yeah.

Tom: 00:36:42

This is a anthology collection that you've sort of, uh, been involved with.

Tom: 00:36:46

Have you ever paid for an editor privately or do you see there's value

Tom: 00:36:52

in someone who, if they're trying to get submissions to go to an editor?

Chris: 00:36:58

Yes, but it, it depends what your end goal is.

Chris: 00:37:01

So when I did Alternative Afterlives, yes, I had an editor to work on it

Chris: 00:37:05

before I gave it to the publisher.

Chris: 00:37:07

Cause I wanted to make their life as easy as possible.

Chris: 00:37:09

And I wanted to work with an editor that I trusted.

Chris: 00:37:12

Rather than being thrown in with whoever they decided they wanted me to.

Chris: 00:37:16

And luckily, they thought it was a good enough standard where they asked for a

Chris: 00:37:19

couple of tweaks, but it was minor stuff.

Chris: 00:37:21

So yes, when you're doing a book, I think it's imperative.

Chris: 00:37:24

Otherwise it's not going to be professional enough.

Chris: 00:37:27

When you're just submitting to a competition.

Chris: 00:37:29

Editing is quite an expensive thing to purchase.

Chris: 00:37:33

It's a service where you got to pay a professional for their time.

Chris: 00:37:37

So if you're just going in for a competition, I don't know.

Chris: 00:37:40

I don't tend to work with an editor for that.

Chris: 00:37:43

Usually the competition, if they accept it, will work with you on

Chris: 00:37:46

it to edit it for the anthology.

Tom: 00:37:49

Yeah.

Tom: 00:37:50

I was going to say that, you know, when you mentioned before, some

Tom: 00:37:52

of them will for a small fee offer a critique and that's within the,

Tom: 00:37:57

that's a form of editing itself.

Chris: 00:37:59

It is.

Chris: 00:37:59

Yeah.

Chris: 00:38:00

So sometimes you it's so terse that they don't really offer any editorial

Chris: 00:38:05

advice on grammar or anything.

Chris: 00:38:06

It's more to do with structure, but other times, yeah.

Chris: 00:38:09

They'll point out, you do this a lot or you make this mistake quite a lot.

Chris: 00:38:12

You need to sort that out.

Chris: 00:38:13

Yeah.

Tom: 00:38:14

And as a writer who, who found a great readership through

Tom: 00:38:18

putting up a website, I'm interested in sort of your views on social

Tom: 00:38:22

media, as a short story writer.

Tom: 00:38:25

As some sort of a direction to your work.

Tom: 00:38:28

And how beneficial do you find social media as promotion?

Chris: 00:38:33

Social media is beneficial, but it's very hard to qualify

Chris: 00:38:37

your return on investment.

Chris: 00:38:39

Let's talk business.

Chris: 00:38:40

It's really hard to say I did this and that resulted in this much money.

Chris: 00:38:43

You can't do that.

Chris: 00:38:44

It's like, how much shit can you throw at the wall, basically, and what sticks.

Chris: 00:38:48

It's that old analogy.

Chris: 00:38:49

But there are a lot of writers, particularly on Twitter, so it's good to

Chris: 00:38:53

get involved with the community there, just cause you get to know people.

Chris: 00:38:56

And on Facebook, it tends to be more around groups.

Chris: 00:38:58

There's a lot of writing groups on Facebook that can be useful.

Chris: 00:39:03

I've done a fair bit of advertising on Facebook for my competition and books,

Chris: 00:39:07

but I've had mixed results with that.

Chris: 00:39:10

You get a fair bit of abuse.

Chris: 00:39:11

I had unfounded accusations of being a scam and when I'd go back to

Chris: 00:39:17

the people saying it's not a scam, here's the write-up I did last year.

Chris: 00:39:20

You can see how I allocated all the prize money and everything and the

Chris: 00:39:24

profit and all that kind of stuff.

Chris: 00:39:26

They wouldn't have it, wouldn't read it.

Chris: 00:39:28

Basically, wouldn't read the writeup.

Chris: 00:39:31

So I've found that a bit of a mixed bag when it's paid advertising.

Chris: 00:39:36

And I don't really get Instagram.

Tom: 00:39:38

Yeah, you're not going to put in a small square your entire short story.

Chris: 00:39:41

People do, that's the thing.

Chris: 00:39:43

That's a lot of writers on Instagram, but I think some people are quite

Chris: 00:39:46

skilled at it and others aren't.

Chris: 00:39:48

I fall into the not skilled category when it comes to that.

Tom: 00:39:51

I was wondering how you are you feeling now that you've got your own

Tom: 00:39:54

collection out with a second coming.

Tom: 00:39:56

And you've submitted a lot to have things professionally published.

Tom: 00:40:00

What's your view of actually having a website with your short stories on.

Tom: 00:40:04

So there's no revenue from it, but people can find you and judge your work and

Tom: 00:40:10

maybe become a fan and then follow you.

Tom: 00:40:13

Is that something that you think is good or do you think, talking

Tom: 00:40:16

business you know, in the current age, That's not a good idea?

Chris: 00:40:20

I think it's, you've got to get the balance, right?

Chris: 00:40:23

You don't give away everything for free.

Chris: 00:40:25

Because that's essentially what you're doing if you put something online.

Chris: 00:40:28

And then it is previously published and a lot of editors won't consider

Chris: 00:40:32

something that's previously published.

Chris: 00:40:33

But at the same time, you do want people to be able to get a flavor of what you do.

Chris: 00:40:37

So what I tend to do is put part of the story up.

Chris: 00:40:40

And then link to the book that it appears in, so they can read

Chris: 00:40:44

the rest of it if they want to.

Chris: 00:40:46

And that makes sense financially, because if you get someone that likes

Chris: 00:40:49

it they'll go and look at your book.

Chris: 00:40:51

Yes, it's getting the balance, right.

Chris: 00:40:52

I do make money from my website and that's done in different ways.

Chris: 00:40:57

So largely through Google AdSense and affiliate platforms.

Chris: 00:41:01

So you can make money from it in a kind of invisible way.

Chris: 00:41:05

Although more people are becoming aware of how that works now.

Chris: 00:41:08

So it's visible, but there are other ways of monetizing the writing beyond

Chris: 00:41:13

just getting paid for it to be published.

Chris: 00:41:15

Nowadays.

Tom: 00:41:16

Yeah, with monetizing things, I was going to ask you, because

Tom: 00:41:19

your traditionally published with your Alternative Afterlives, but

Tom: 00:41:23

you have self-published in the past.

Tom: 00:41:25

What do you think the pros and cons of self publishing, say through the Kindle

Tom: 00:41:29

store on Amazon, and also people have quite a conflicted view of Amazon, but

Tom: 00:41:34

they're the biggest showcase in town.

Tom: 00:41:37

When it comes to short stories, do you feel that's a worthy

Tom: 00:41:40

avenue to put things up?

Chris: 00:41:43

It depends.

Chris: 00:41:43

Yes, it is.

Chris: 00:41:45

If you're prepared to take on board that the clues in the name, if you

Chris: 00:41:49

self-publish, you are the publisher.

Chris: 00:41:51

And therefore you have to market what you've published.

Chris: 00:41:53

If you just bung a book on Amazon, you won't sell anything.

Chris: 00:41:56

Because you're not going to market it.

Chris: 00:41:59

So I've done quite well on those platforms, but I spend money

Chris: 00:42:04

on advertising and I actively promote the books that I publish.

Chris: 00:42:08

So my how-to book, which is about how to write short stories, I spent

Chris: 00:42:13

quite a lot of money on ads on Amazon.

Chris: 00:42:15

And I find those convert because you can target them on product specific pages.

Chris: 00:42:22

So if you're interested in Stephen King's On Writing, the book comes up

Chris: 00:42:26

and people may genuinely be interested in it, because it's another book

Chris: 00:42:29

on a different form of writing.

Chris: 00:42:31

Interestingly, I find that a book about the craft and grammar is the one that I

Chris: 00:42:35

do best on when I advertise against it.

Chris: 00:42:37

I can't remember the name of it now.

Chris: 00:42:39

Anyway, it wasn't what, cause it's largely about grammar, I wasn't expecting

Chris: 00:42:43

it to convert well, but it converts very well when I advertise against

Chris: 00:42:47

search terms to do with that book.

Chris: 00:42:50

So I overall I'm quite positive about Amazon and the KDP platform, because

Chris: 00:42:54

I think they do an awful lot for authors and they actually allow you

Chris: 00:42:58

to make money out of your writing.

Chris: 00:43:00

If you compare that to Spotify, for music.

Tom: 00:43:04

Yeah.

Chris: 00:43:04

They're far more unfair with what they pay the artist.

Chris: 00:43:08

Cause they're basically giving everything away largely for free.

Chris: 00:43:11

Whereas at least with Amazon people pay to read book.

Chris: 00:43:15

And you can price it low and not make very much money on it if you want to.

Chris: 00:43:19

So I think it's a really good platform, personally.

Chris: 00:43:22

And tend to be supportive of it, even though I understand why people don't

Chris: 00:43:25

like it, because it's such a massive business and they're scared of it.

Tom: 00:43:30

And with traditional publishing, obviously they're doing a lot of the

Tom: 00:43:34

promotion for you, but how have you found, actually arranging a face-to-face

Tom: 00:43:40

book launches and things like that.

Tom: 00:43:42

Cause you've got, well you've got some virtual ones coming up.

Chris: 00:43:45

Yeah.

Chris: 00:43:46

I love book launches.

Chris: 00:43:47

I quite enjoy them.

Chris: 00:43:48

I prefer them when they're the anthologies that I put together with

Chris: 00:43:51

lots of different authors in it.

Chris: 00:43:52

Cause then you involve more people.

Chris: 00:43:54

I'm less comfortable when it's just me.

Chris: 00:43:56

So I wouldn't say I enjoyed that because the focus was all on me.

Chris: 00:44:00

Whereas the ones I've got coming up I've, I'm just about to

Chris: 00:44:04

publish next Saturday, actually.

Chris: 00:44:05

The 81 Words anthology, which has got a thousand authors in it and

Chris: 00:44:09

Victorina Press are doing that one.

Chris: 00:44:11

And that's really nice to be involved with.

Chris: 00:44:13

Cause all these authors are so excited about the fact that they're

Chris: 00:44:15

in this unofficial world record breaking book that's got this

Chris: 00:44:18

many contributing authors in it.

Chris: 00:44:20

Yeah.

Chris: 00:44:21

So that's keeping me very busy at the moment, but we're doing

Chris: 00:44:23

an online launch for that.

Chris: 00:44:26

And while I prefer face-to-face launches, because you get a much

Chris: 00:44:29

better atmosphere, you know, Zoom's got its place, but it's devoid of

Chris: 00:44:32

atmosphere because it's just a screen.

Chris: 00:44:35

When you're dealing with people from all over the world like that, it

Chris: 00:44:38

gives them the opportunity to attend.

Chris: 00:44:40

So it has got that advantage to it.

Chris: 00:44:42

If I held it here in Bristol, only a tiny proportion of

Chris: 00:44:45

them would be able to turn up.

Chris: 00:44:47

So, you know, I think it's a mix.

Chris: 00:44:49

I like to do a mix of things.

Tom: 00:44:51

And final two questions.

Tom: 00:44:54

It's always my belief that you learn something with every story that you write.

Tom: 00:44:58

And obviously as a short story writer, you're writing a lot of stories but

Tom: 00:45:02

you said earlier as well, how it was through writing stories that you improved.

Tom: 00:45:07

I'm just wondering, is that something that you've written recently where you

Tom: 00:45:11

had like a very conscious moment of, oh, I need to do this on my next story.

Tom: 00:45:16

And have you learned something recently?

Chris: 00:45:19

Yeah, the thing I learned the most about is editing.

Chris: 00:45:22

And actually the longer I've written, the more important the editing afterwards.

Chris: 00:45:26

Cause every time you work with a different editor or learned a new aspect of

Chris: 00:45:30

grammar, it makes you a better writer.

Chris: 00:45:33

And so that's the thing that I don't think I'll ever stop

Chris: 00:45:35

learning in respect to that.

Chris: 00:45:37

But I think working recently with Heather on this story and what she did with the

Chris: 00:45:41

importance of every character within it.

Chris: 00:45:44

I'd overlooked one of the characters and not given them what they needed.

Chris: 00:45:49

It's made me think very carefully about one, whether I need to carry these,

Chris: 00:45:53

all these characters in this story.

Chris: 00:45:55

And for two, if I do, they better have a damn good reason for being in there.

Tom: 00:45:58

Yeah.

Tom: 00:45:59

That's really good advice.

Tom: 00:46:01

And as you said, you've written your own book on how to write

Tom: 00:46:06

short stories and get published.

Tom: 00:46:09

Is there one piece of advice that you are consciously aware, like you said,

Tom: 00:46:14

with editing and grammar being important, is there one thing that, if you were

Tom: 00:46:18

to want one piece of advice on your desk as a reminder what would that be?

Chris: 00:46:23

Well, there's so many choices.

Chris: 00:46:25

I think maybe nothing is ever finished.

Chris: 00:46:27

Um, while you've got to draw a line under something at some point.

Chris: 00:46:31

You can always improve it.

Chris: 00:46:32

And I like to, I think when you've written something that's strong.

Chris: 00:46:37

Put it away for a while.

Chris: 00:46:39

Come back to it a little bit later and just make sure it's

Chris: 00:46:41

as strong as you thought it was.

Chris: 00:46:43

And never stop learning.

Chris: 00:46:44

That's the most important thing.

Chris: 00:46:46

I don't ever want to stop learning and I think if you think you know everything.

Chris: 00:46:50

You're in a very dangerous place.

Tom: 00:46:53

No that's great.

Tom: 00:46:54

That's a perfect place to end the interview and I'd just to thank

Tom: 00:46:56

you, Chris, for joining me today.

Chris: 00:46:58

Thank you, Tom.

Tom: 00:47:00

And that was the real writing process of Christopher Fielden.

Tom: 00:47:02

And if you'd like to find out more about Chris, please do check out

Tom: 00:47:06

his website, christopherfielden.com.

Tom: 00:47:09

Again, I'm fortunate enough to have a guest with a very clear website

Tom: 00:47:12

with all of the links to his books and social media on his homepage.

Tom: 00:47:16

So just go there.

Tom: 00:47:18

There is one special mention chris would like me to make though.

Tom: 00:47:21

His latest anthology, the descriptively titled, 81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology.

Tom: 00:47:27

Has just been published by Victorina Press.

Tom: 00:47:30

It contains a thousand stories by a thousand writers

Tom: 00:47:32

that are all 81 words long.

Tom: 00:47:35

The stories, not the writers.

Tom: 00:47:36

I'm not sure how that would be physically possible.

Tom: 00:47:38

Anyway.

Tom: 00:47:39

I'll provide the link to it in the show notes.

Tom: 00:47:41

But if you don't want to read them, Google exists.

Tom: 00:47:44

Anyway, that's it for this episode.

Tom: 00:47:46

As a special treat this week's outro music is by Chris's band, Airbus.

Tom: 00:47:50

This is the single called I from the album called You.

Tom: 00:47:55

And this is a man called Tom Pepperdine saying goodbye.