Ask the Author: Alex Musson
Answered Questions (2)
Alex Musson
1. Write. Start small, with blogs, diary entries, sketches and skits, then short stories. Write all the bad stories that you need to get out before the good stuff can start coming.
2. Rewrite. There's an old truism; 'writing is rewriting'. Your first draft will probably suck, but get it out onto paper, redraft it a few times to make it as good as you can, then lock it away in a drawer for several weeks. When you come back to it fresh, all the problems with it will be as clear as day and you can begin the real work of structuring and moulding and scraping and polishing. Some of this process will be really fun and exciting, and make you feel like a genius. Other days it will be like pulling teeth and you will feel like a terrible hack. Both are probably necessary.
3. Read. Read as many of the great storytellers as you can, in all of the genres. Read once to be involved in the story, then again to study how they did it, from epic structure to the subtle crafting of prose and dialogue. Always have a pencil, to scribble notes in the margin when you spot something to learn from.
4. Walk. Your brain works better when you are moving. Keep a notebook, or use an app on your phone. The first half of my writing on Myth Management was making bullet point notes of plot points, themes, character ideas and snippets of dialogue in my phone's Notes app.
5. Keep your eyes and ears open. Sometimes a character will walk right past you, and *bang*, there they are, fully formed - this happened to me with Rudy. Same goes for plot points, which can be inspired by the inscription on a park bench or a song playing through an open window.
2. Rewrite. There's an old truism; 'writing is rewriting'. Your first draft will probably suck, but get it out onto paper, redraft it a few times to make it as good as you can, then lock it away in a drawer for several weeks. When you come back to it fresh, all the problems with it will be as clear as day and you can begin the real work of structuring and moulding and scraping and polishing. Some of this process will be really fun and exciting, and make you feel like a genius. Other days it will be like pulling teeth and you will feel like a terrible hack. Both are probably necessary.
3. Read. Read as many of the great storytellers as you can, in all of the genres. Read once to be involved in the story, then again to study how they did it, from epic structure to the subtle crafting of prose and dialogue. Always have a pencil, to scribble notes in the margin when you spot something to learn from.
4. Walk. Your brain works better when you are moving. Keep a notebook, or use an app on your phone. The first half of my writing on Myth Management was making bullet point notes of plot points, themes, character ideas and snippets of dialogue in my phone's Notes app.
5. Keep your eyes and ears open. Sometimes a character will walk right past you, and *bang*, there they are, fully formed - this happened to me with Rudy. Same goes for plot points, which can be inspired by the inscription on a park bench or a song playing through an open window.
Alex Musson
Myth Management popped into my head many years ago. The name occurred to me first, just as a silly pun - but it conjured up an picture in my mind of a tweedy bureaucratic agency dealing with the world of myths and legends. I thought this would be a fun idea for one of the 2-page comic strips that appeared in my self-published comedy magazine, Mustard, and ended up writing three of those. I always thought the concept had more life in the idea, but never had time to pursue it.
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