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Joe Abercrombie, author of the The First Law fantasy series and the standalone Best Served Cold, is with us on Examiner.com today.
Abercrombie's writing is most often described by words such as "grim," "bloodthirsty," "blood-drenched," "bleakly humorous" and "appallingly vivid." In this interview, he gives us a few clues as to some of his upcoming projects, word count limits in writing and...well...golden toilets.
1. Is there a story you’ve written that will never see the light of day? Why would you deprive us of this genius?
Apart from various pieces of juvenilia written while at school, no, not really. The Blade Itself was my first book. Probably I should’ve tried a few short stories first, but for some reason I decided to begin with Everest. Like you, I see no reason whatsoever to deprive the world of any part of my genius.
2. What’s a story you’ve never written, but always wanted to?
I’m not someone whose head boils over with thousands of undeveloped ideas, honestly. The First Law is the book I always wanted to write, and I wrote that one. So now I tend to work up ideas when they’re needed in a relatively laborious and unglamorous way. I’m in the process of thinking about my next (sixth) book now, in fact, and it goes something like: What shall I write? Always liked westerns, so – a combination of epic fantasy and western? Who shall be the characters, what the settings, what the situations, what the themes ... I work it through bit by bit, think it out, read a lot of western history and a few novels for inspiration, plan it in some detail, then write it (which obviously takes a few man hours), then revise, revise, revise. Not to say that good ideas don’t sometimes come in a flash of inspiration, but they’re usually certain bits of dialogue, or neat ways to resolve a plot or set a scene, rather than whole notions for a story. I think there’s an idea that writers must be fountains of creativity, and maybe some are, but that’s not really my experience.
3. Is there a character or plot point you’ve wanted to change in retrospect?
I think the further away you get from completing a book, the more responses you see to it from readers, the more your own tastes and opinions shift and the more you start to see things you could have written differently in the detail, or done differently on the broader scale of plot and character. But at some point you have to say a book is done, and let it go. You can always change things, and it’ll never be perfect. I’ve sometimes been tempted to do a revised edition of the First Law, and maybe one day I will, but probably a few years after I’ll see all kinds of things I could do differently again, or for that matter prefer as they were in the first place...
4. Which of your characters would you never want to meet (in a dark alley or otherwise)?
My characters tend to be more or less appalling scum in one way or another. I hope I never write a character I’d actually want to meet.
5. Which of your worlds/realities/cities would you never want to visit?
What applies to my characters is pretty good for my settings as well. Besides which I think I’m far too attached to the joys of flushing toilets, games consoles and sprung mattresses to want to visit a more primitive age.
6. Are there any real-world locations you’ve written about but have never visited (or never want to)?:
I read a lot of history for inspiration but my books take place in an invented world, so I guess I’ve visited all the locations I write about that Easy Jet fly to.
7. Is there a piece of writing advice you’ve never followed?
I tend to think of writing as a pretty subjective craft, and every writer has their own way of going about it, so I don’t think there are many pieces of writing advice I have followed, at least not too closely. One that I find particularly ridiculous is advice I often hear to stick to a certain word limit. Obviously things should always be as tight as you can make them, and obviously if a given agent or publisher demands submissions of a certain length then follow their guidelines. But, in epic fantasy, at least, the most successful books are also some of the longest – Martin, Jordan, Goodkind and so on. It strikes me as a pretty dumb agent or publisher who would be closed off to more of what already works. As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don’t get bogged down in it.
8. What is an aspect of the writing craft you’ve never had a problem with (and why)?
I don’t know that there’s any element I’ve NEVER had a problem with, but in general I find dialogue and action easier than description. Usually I’ll tend to write the dialogue first in a given scene then knit the rest around it. Not sure why, really, it’s just the way I’m wired.
9. What’s the one book out there you wish you’d written (but of course won’t, because it’s already written, and writing it again would be plagiarism, and that’s just mean)?
Difficult question to answer, since writing a book is a long, involved, and highly personal process which draws on all kinds of very deeply rooted aspects of yourself. Which has to draw deeply from yourself if it isn’t to be mediocre and generic. So it’s hard to imagine writing a book I didn’t write myself, if you see what I mean. Sometimes when I’m really enjoying a book I’ll read a sentence or paragraph and just think – how can someone’s head be wired in such a way that they’d come up with that? In fact those are some of the most enjoyable moments in reading for me, that insight into a different way of looking at the world, a different manner of expression and way of using language. But if you’re asking for a book I read recently that I greatly enjoyed and admired, then Cormac McCarthy’s The Road takes some beating. And I haven’t read it, but I wish I’d written Harry Potter because then I could have a golden toilet seat, and who doesn’t want one of those?
10. What aspect of writing will you never stop working to improve in?
I’d like to think I’ll always be trying hard to improve everything. I’m sure I won’t always succeed in everyone’s opinion, but the day you stop making the effort is the day your work is inevitably going to start getting worse.
11. What’s one part of the publishing industry/process you wish you could do without?
I sort of enjoy the whole thing. It’s tough to remove one element from another.
12. What’s the one thing you would never do to shamelessly promote your current/upcoming release?
When it comes to self-promotion, I have no shame.
13. What’s a question you’ve always wanted to answer, but have never been asked?
Shall I warm your golden toilet seat now, master?
And your answer?
By all means, and bring me a martini.
For more info: Visit Joe Abercrombie's website for author info, his blog, and insights into his writing.
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