Tom Pepperdine interviews author and scriptwriter, George Mann, about his writing process. George describes the difference in writing novels to writing comics, what it's like working on existing franchises, and why he drinks biscuit tea.

George's website is here: https://www.georgemann.net/

George's Instagram is here: https://www.instagram.com/georgemannauthor/

And you can find more information about this podcast on the following links:

https://www.threads.net/@realwritingpro

https://www.instagram.com/realwritingpro

Hello and welcome to the real writing process.

The show that finds out how authors do exactly what they do.

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

And this week, I'm guessing many of you haven't listened to the show before.

You're just here to listen to my amazing guest.

Now he's written for Dr.

Who, star wars, the high Republic, Sherlock Holmes and Warhammer 40,000.

He's also had amazing success with his Newbury and Hobbes steam punk novels.

He's done British folklore horror with Wychwood and Hollowdene.

He's also written comics and audio dramas.

The man is a legend.

The man is a Mann.

The man is George Mann.

Now there's no ads to cover the editing.

So here's a transitioning jingle.

And I'm here with George Mann.

George.

Hello.

Hello, good to see you.

Good to see you.

And my first question as always, what are we drinking?

I'm drinking Yorkshire tea, the biscuit variety.

So it's a kind of malt y, biscuit flavoured version.

Yeah.

So it's basically tastes like tea and biscuits, without the biscuit.

That's the idea.

Yeah.

So this is going to be my first taste.

It smells more tea and biscuits.

It tastes very much like tea.

Um, Oh, there's an aftertaste.

The aftertaste!

Yeah, it's already getting you then, yeah.

It's um, yeah, it's like um, malted milk biscuit, I suppose, is the aftertaste.

Yes.

Yeah.

I was expecting more of a digestive, but yes, it is malted milk.

You're spot on.

That's, that's voodoo.

That's yeah.

We're living in the future.

There's a toast and jam one as well, which is kind of, got raspberry

undercurrent to it, and then, I kind of, I tend to have one of each in the afternoon.

It's like with The Jetsons and you just have the pill,

that's your entire meal.

I just had having tea which has all the accoutrement in it is just bizarre.

For me, it's a way of having a biscuit without

actually eating the biscuit.

Oh, yes.

I suppose.

For health reasons, it's the diet version.

Um, so how long has this been your go to brew?

Oh, um, only about a year I'd say.

It was, uh, my friend Cavan Scott introduced me to it.

and I think we were on one of our writing retreats and I

tried it and it was fantastic.

So, um, I've been buying it ever since.

Yeah.

I mean, definitely on the second sip, the aftertaste is much more

note that, yeah, I am kind of falling in love with this as well.

So, um, and I'm not usually a tea drinker.

When I told my wife, who's the uh, religious fanatic when

it comes to tea in the house.

She was just like, doesn't sound right, doesn't sound right.

And I was like, it smells pretty good.

Um, so I will, I will endeavor to get her to try it.

Better than it sounds isn't it?

It is, uh, well, the thing is it's exactly as it sounds without any kind of,

you know, weird artificial aftertaste.

Um, so yeah, it's, yeah, still, still processing.

This is very good.

And so is this what you drink whilst you write?

So, it's why I switched to, so I start the morning with coffee.

I have coffee with breakfast, which I usually then carry into the office with

me and start work, finish that coffee.

About 11, I'll have another coffee.

Um, and it tends to be a stronger one, the second one, to keep me going,

uh, on the hump of, uh, of lunch.

And then after the lunch, I can switch to tea.

Because I found that if I drink too much coffee, I just get, you know, I started

doing jazz hands instead of typing.

Um, so yeah, then I switched to tea and I'll have a, a biscuit tea

and the jam tea in the afternoon.

Nice.

Very good.

And, uh, yes, you say your office, you're in your office now.

It is very much, I can see on the camera, a bit of a man cave.

And what's that on the desk behind you?

I see some like small model.

gaming table.

Nice!

Yeah.

So this used to be a carport and actually the room next door used to be the garage.

first of all, we started by converting the carport to be the office and lined

it with bookcases and the gaming table.

Um, and then realized we didn't have enough room for all the books.

So knocked through into the garage, put an archway through,

which you can't see there.

And there's another room about the same size as this one, which

is completely full of books.

And unfortunately has reached the point that the books are on the

shelf, then they're doubled in front, then they're stacked waist

high around in cases as well.

Yeah, I need to have a bit of a clear out really.

It's a, it's a mega library.

Excellent.

And, so this is where you do your writing and do you like operate

in that kind of office hours?

How, how long do you tend to write during the day?

Yeah, so it, it varies.

I, I tend to do office hours as a standard.

But actually, when I'm deep in a novel, so at the moment, say, I'm,

I mean, I'm writing comic books, so I'll stick to office hours, generally.

But when I'm writing a novel and I start, there's a point I reach in the novel

when the story starts to write itself.

And I'm sure we'll talk about this in more depth, but, at that point,

it's almost like the momentum is so great, I can't stop it.

So I end up doing longer and longer and longer hours as I write the book.

And I'll, I'll do a session in the morning, a session in the afternoon, a

session in the evening, at that point.

But, um, that's not very sustainable.

It's, it happens for a few weeks over the intense period of actually

the back half of the novel.

Other than that, yeah, I try to stick to office hours.

It's difficult, I'm sure a lot of people have discovered through lockdown.

Working from home means that the barriers between work and home life is blurred,I

can't t always help myself from wandering back in and checking my messages.

Or if got an idea, writing it up, or taking my notebook back and

putting it through to the other room.

But I try to be disciplined to have a break,

Yeah.

otherwise I can never switch off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So before all the COVID pandemic things, did you have a home office or did you

actually like go out to coffee shops and write externally to the house?

Yeah, I've had a home office a long time, to be honest.

So I can't remember exactly when we adapted this carport

but it's over 10 years.

And, it's gradually filled up and become more kind of harder to navigate.

But yeah, it used to be a spare bedroom before this, so I've

always had a place to go and write.

I do, again, it depends what I'm writing, I do, if I'm writing something

that's like a short story or a comic book or something less intensive.

I will sometimes take that out on a laptop to a coffee shop.

But, um, generally it's most of them in this room.

Okay.

And, so you're working on comics at the moment.

When it comes to your writing sessions, do you have a plan of like

how many scenes or how many pages, that you try to achieve in a day?

Do you work on word counts?

How do you sort of like plan out a writing session?

Yeah, so if I'm, if I'm doing prose, I'm trying to

do maybe 3, 000 words a day.

And some days will be better and some days will be worse.

But on average, that's kind of what I'm looking for.

But with comics, I try and write a comic in three days, So often a comic

is about 20 pages of, you know, so you're writing 20 pages worth of script.

Um, so I'll try and do, say, seven pages in a day.

Sometimes, again, it fluctuates.

Sometimes if I'm, if I'm on a run, it might go up to 10, or it might

only end up being five if it's, you know, a complex thing that I'm

trying to describe for the artist.

And I try not to beat myself up about the targets, it's easy to get yourself into a

headspace where you kind come away saying I've haven't done enough work today.

It's hard to think in those terms because thinking about

the writing is still writing.

The working.

Yes, you have to get the words on the page but also it's a creative process

you've got to allow yourself to do that, a little bit of wiggle room.

Uh, the key thing is that you do something every day, I think.

Yeah.

And with the comics, because I, I've spoken to people who've

written comics before, but I've not really spoken about the process.

And obviously it is collaborative with an artist as you say.

But there are different ways of approaching it.

So I was just wondering, are you one of the people who will write the full script,

dialogue, everything, and then it goes to the artist to just fully, sort of

draw out and then it goes to a letterer, or is there more of a, a collaborative

ongoing discussion with the artist?

So you do an initial script, they do their drawings, and then you get it back.

And then you might change some of the dialogue now that

you've seen that the images.

Is that, how's that process of creating?

So it's, that's an interesting question.

So I, I learned to write full scripts mainly because I started off

writing tie-in comics for Doctor Who.

And the process with a lot of tie-in comics is that you have to submit

a full script because it goes to approval before it goes to the artist.

So you can't be that flexible really.

You have to get that full story down and, and usually before

you've written the script.

You've also written an outline that's been through approval as well.

So there's a kind of a process.

But, I prefer, and what I try to do, even within the realms of that kind of getting

approval, I try to work with an artist.

So, I prefer if I can talk to the artist.

Some, some publishers you work through with an editor, and it's simply, you

put your script in, script goes to the artist, artist does it, You usually do

get it back, 'cause the artist might have found in, in the drawing a bit, some,

some practical thing where it's easier to represent a scene in a different way.

Or, the idea you had wasn't working in terms of how it translated

to figuratively to the page.

So you'll usually get it back to your pass.

But, um, increasingly what I like to do, especially with big action scenes.

So coming from right at the moment, I can't say what they are.

But they're, they're related to a big video game,

it's got big action scenes in it.

So what I'm trying to do with the, with the artist there is to say, well,

when we get to an action scene, yeah.

I'll put aside these two pages for this big fight sequence.

Here's some bullet points of the things that have to happen in this

fight sequence for the story to work.

So like this guy has to get injured.

This person gets pushed off a building, et cetera, et cetera.

And the scene has to end with this note so that it leads the next page

where the full script starts again.

And in this instance, I've been able to do that for the artists

so they, so they can do something interesting dynamic with the layout.

And then, you know, they might want to throw in a few extra

punches or reaction shots.

And then what happens is because, you The editor knows that that's the process

I'm doing with that artist on the script.

We'll make sure I get it back.

I usually won't put any dialogue on that page unless it's

absolutely essential to the story.

And then I'll go back in and I'll add some sound effects and dialogue that are

relevant to the scene as it's developed..

So that's, I guess that's the answer is that's my preference is to do a hybrid

where it's important scenes that I have a very clear picture in my head of how

it needs to play out are fully scripted.

With action scenes, I tend to try and be a bit more flexible for the artist

and give them as much room as possible.

And when it's something that's gone through an approval because

it's a tie in, is that something that there's a very fast turnaround?

Like you say you, you write it in a couple of days.

So, how quickly does it go from, you know, A signed off script to the

artist to actually being published.

Because I know with novels, sometimes it can be 18 months, even longer for

something to actually hit the shelves.

But I think with a 20 page comic.

Especially if it's tying into maybe a film or TV series or a game that's got a

new release date that's fixed and coming out and it's to tie in with that, um,

I guess as much tighter turnarounds.

Do you have a kind of like average from script to shelf?

So, so the process it obviously starts before the scripting, so you've

worked out the detailed outline, which is what makes the scripting

so quick because you've already worked out most of the story beats.

I mean, in a comic, it's the artist who does all the heavy lifting, you

know, you can't pretend otherwise.

It takes them about a month on average to draw an issue.

Uh, and what will happen is if there's someone who, um, has a, like, there's

different levels of, of, um, engagement an artist might have in a book.

So they might be the penciler and then we have someone else come in and do the

inking, someone else do the colouring.

Or it might be that they do the pencils and the inks and someone else colours.

Or it might be that they do all three.

But they'll often, on a monthly comic, you're basically

working quite hand to mouth.

Yeah, but maybe a couple of months.

And you're trying to kind of stay ahead.

You're, as a writer, you're always trying to stay ahead of the artist,

make sure they have plenty of time to turn the, the pages round.

What will often happen is, they'll be maybe penciling the pages and sending

them to an inker, who's inking them as they're drawing the next page.

What you often find is.

If you're commissioned to do a miniseries, for example, like a four issue miniseries

that ties in with The launch of a new game or TV show, then they'll know

a bit further in advance, more or less when that thing's going to hit.

So the editors will work as far back as possible to give

everyone as much time as possible.

So like, six months, maybe nine months.

If the problem you've got then is you're often waiting for them to

lock stuff down that's going to happen in the show or in the games.

There'll still be bits that are, they're still in their crunch periods

and they think those things can change.

But, we often we find ways to cope with those things.

And it's better to have a script to edit, to fit what they're changing,

than it is to not have anything at all and have to scrabble at the end.

So yeah, so it really depends on the project.

I think monthly comics are where the, the real grind is on, like, the artist

has to turn out a page a day, basically.

you have to do a script every three weeks, but, mini series is

usually a bit more flexibility.

Yeah.

Okay.

And obviously, uh, you write novels as well.

Both, original IP and shared tie in IP.

And do you find this quick method of, uh, working has helped discipline you

in your novel writing and planning?

I do actually, yeah.

In the planning very much so.

I used to want to be a pantser.

And I, you know, I have written books like that.

But I find it's interesting.

It's like, it's, it's what, what it puts the emphasis on actually for me.

It's like, if I pants a novel, there's more work goes into the edits.

Because I'm, I've developed the structure and the characters and

things as I've gone, and then kind of at the end of it, you can see

the shape from that first draft.

And you then go in and you rework that first draft.

if I planned it in advance, the editing process is all about the

language, not necessarily about changing the structure of the story

as much or the character arcs.

So yeah, so actually writing comics has made me more of a

planner for my novels, I think.

Yeah.

And like you say, that sort of reduces the editing time.

Do you find that the actual day to day writing is easier with

that sort of plan as well?

Or sometimes, do you find a character can take a life of its own and they

start sort of like, breaking out of the, the planning, and go, no, don't

do that, you're supposed to do this.

So I always tend to see a plan as a series of signposts, so

that if a character starts to wander off, I let them wander, but I know

where they need to get back to.

It's kind of a, a half, halfway house.

And it'll be like, I'll say about the comic, actually, there's an underlying

structure there, but if I feel that there's an opportunity to be flexible

and do something interesting, I'll usually follow that but I know where

I need to bring the story back to, to get them back on track with the plan.

And when you're doing your original IP and concepts, do you start a plan?

And it might be the same with the tie in stuff.

Uh, do you start with a character, a world sort of, uh, society, or is it

just a scenario like high concept?

I want to set what if this person went through time and was over here.

What is the initial hook that you build the rest of the plan on?

So it's usually that high concept or premise is what comes first.

Then actually bizarrely, it's usually the title.

Okay.

And it doesn't always happen that way, but once it's got a title,

it starts to feel real, you know?

And I know it's just a personal thing, but I'll often start with the premise.

So, like with, Broken Things, which was a novella I did fairly recently,

which I've been I'm working on a sequel, I'm planning a sequel at the moment.

The concept was, a goddess has been reborn and three characters

are all going to make a film.

And that's, so that's it.

And then I knew it was called Broken Things and I don't know

really why that came from, but it became the theme of the novella.

And then what I would do is I would then go to character next.

And go, who are these people and why are they on this journey?

and what is their journey?

You know, both metaphorically and physically.

And once I've got those characters, then I'll start working out the beats

of how the plot kind of interacts.

So, so with, Witchwood and Hallowdeen, Hallowdeen in particular, the second

Witchwood novel, which is a crime plot, um, with spooky stuff going on,

but I knew I had this idea of, like, someone's moved the Witchstone, strange

stuff starts happening in this village.

that's the premise, but then I kind of went into it and went, right, who are all

the characters who populate this village?

What are their agendas?

Yeah.

You know, obviously in a crime novel you need to have subplots and

things, all sorts of stuff going on, you know, or what are the relationships

and the hidden relationships.

And actually, it was a really interesting process to go through because I wrote

all the characters on file cards.

Okay.

And then I, I cleared that massive table behind me, and I laid them all out.

And then I started putting them closer together depending on whether how their

relationships interact with each other.

And I kind of built up this picture of this web of characters and, you know, how

they interacted and then I write on the card, this person has this relationship

with this person, and once I've developed that web, kind of photographed it.

And then that allowed me to build the subplots, to go, okay, well,

this character is secretly having an affair with that person, or, you

know, these people hate each other, so therefore there could be a minor

motive involved for the investigators.

And kind of, um, I know it was a really interesting kind of visual way of doing

it, which I've not replicated yet.

But, um, I do intend to revisit, because it was a great experience.

Yeah, it sounds like a variant on what I think is called the murder

board, you know, where it's like all stuck on a whiteboard with the

thread, sort of linking it through.

exactly

Yeah, no, that's cool.

And yeah, obviously very apt when doing a crime novel.

And, and also with your world building, because certainly with the Witchwood

series, there's a lot of mythology in that even though you know, modern contemporary.

Does that involve a lot of research and did you find that you had to be a

bit flexible with the mythology and put your own sort of interpretation on it?

Or was it actually, you enjoyed using a lot of real reference material?

Interesting.

So, so actually all of the mythology in Witchwood is fictional.

It's all made

up.

Okay.

But what I, what I did was, folklore is a big obsession of mine.

So, mythology and folklore, and weird occult stuff it's

permanently fascinates me.

And it's been an inspiration, not just for Witchwood, but it's also

fed into Newbry and hobbes so I've, I've read around this a bit a lot

anyway, and I've got a lot of books.

And what I did with, with Witchwood was I revisited a lot of those books.

So I did a lot of reading I hesitate to say real folklore because it's folklore,

but, um, but kind of those stories that have grown up, particularly in Britain.

And then went, How do I create something that feels like it

sits alongside those things and amongst them, has the same tone?

So then I started to create that mythology which then fed into the plot of the novel.

And then what was great about that that process.

I mean, doing that is what got me my gig writing Star Wars.

Right.

Um, because, the publisher of the Star Wars books, Max McClane,

I've met him, got talking to him at a convention, and he's a big horror fan.

So he picked up, uh, Witchwood, and unbeknownst to me, but we followed

each other on social media, you know, as you do when you pass upon him,

you know, we'd have a nice, a nice chat and he picked up Witchwood.

And read it and really enjoyed it.

And then the next time I saw him, several months later at the next

convention, he pulled me up to one side and said, Well, that mythology

that was in that book, did you, um, did you create it or is it, is it real?

And I said I created it and he said, Do you want to do some of that for Star Wars?

And that's what led to me doing the Myths and Fables book for Star Wars,

which I started writing for those guys.

So, um, so it stood me in good stead, that.

That effort that I put in to kind of try to make it feel authentic.

Yeah, I think it's just, there's that coherent narrative of the folklore

that it feels like an organic sort of thing that it all hung together.

Because I definitely thought there was some real folklore reference to

it, but it's just your influences in folklore, yeah, a convincing

folklore.

Thank you.

I'm pleased to have achieved that that.

Yeah.

And, Yeah, also, I really love the fact that you do have different

character motives and that is kind of planned in advance.

Because I think sometimes side characters can be a bit short changed and a bit

of a cypher to just move the plot along rather than have their own agency.

I feel you can tell the difference and it just gives that character a little

bit more feeling like a real person.

It's important to me as a reader.

I mean, I'm a big believer that reading is part of my job.

Obviously, you can see the amount of books behind me.

So I'm constantly reading when I'm not writing and I love reading crime novels.

And it's that you just described is really important to me as a reader to

go and enjoy that all the characters in the book are not just the detective,

plus loads of, you know, they've got a name, they've got a face, but they're

just there to tell you, Oh, I saw this person do this in the street.

You know, it's like, actually, if you imbue them with a bit of life and

the books gonna feel all the richer.

Especially with those books and they're the only two books I've written that

are set in the modern day as well.

Um, and what was liberating about that was being able to write from observation.

To go and sit in a coffee shop and, and, and see life pass by and, and

then go, Oh, I'm going to capture some of those moments in the book.

Yeah.

Cause I think what's great about Newbury and Hobbs and the Ghost

series is it's a alternate universe.

So it has that very sort of steampunk, what if, you know,

technology went in a different way.

and I think when I first read Ghost of Manhattan, it was just, what is this

world, they seem to have holograms, but there's chimneys on the cars.

Yeah.

It was just like, this is an incredible world but it holds together.

You know, sort of like everything is coherent and makes sense.

And then find out that it was 25 years after the Newbury and

Hobbes steampunk, Victorian England that my wife really loved.

I was just like, Oh, Oh, wow.

These are sort of connected.

That's really cool.

Small connections but they are there.

Yeah.

And is that a thing that you really love doing before you start the main bulk

of the ride, like in the planning stage, the world building when it's putting these

fantastical or these what if elements in, or is it something that organically

comes out as the story's being progressed?

And as you're writing it away, Oh, wouldn't it be cool if we had this?

It's a good question.

Organically I think it's probably the truth of it.

When I first started writing Newbury and Hobbes, it was

very much an endeavor for fun.

I wasn't, I wasn't even necessarily thinking about getting those

books published at the time.

So I was writing them for me and I was leaning into all my favorite influences

like Sherlock Holmes and Sexton Blake and Doctor Who and Hammer Horror.

And the steampunk aesthetic just seemed to fit.

But I was very much borrowing the aesthetic rather than working out

the details at that point of how this alternate world grew out.

It was, part of it was laziness as well.

I was like, if I, if I set it in an alternate timeline, if I get anything

wrong, you know, then it's like, I haven't had to meticulously research everything

to make it feel authentic Victorian.

I could sketch in the Victorian feeling.

In the same way that, you you sketch it in by seeing a set on a TV.

But as time went on and I, particularly as I started writing the next

book, I'm realizing, okay, well, I want this to feel authentic.

I want it to, to feell coherant as a world.

I started to then map it out in more detail and go, okay,

well it's keeping a record.

These are the, these are the clubs that these people belong to.

This is the timeline of how we got to this point.

This is where history diverged from, from the real timeline.

And built it as I went really.

And I still, I still wish that I had a proper wiki for it that

I'd done because it's now, no, we're now seven books, a novella.

comic series into it and then not including the ghost books, and I kind

of lose track a little bit of some of the, I have to, I have to go like

do my own research into my own stuff.

Um, but yeah, so I, I did start building that in.

And then went with ghosts.

What actually happened, I was lucky enough, when the first Newbury and

Hobbes book was published in the UK, It got shown to a bunch of editors in

America, and I was lucky enough to have a bidding war between three parties.

And, um, TOR eventually won out, but one of the other editors who worked

for Pyre, Lou, Lou Anders, um, who I'm still very friends with, came

to me and said, well, I'm, I'm really gutted I missed out on these books.

Would you write me something else?

Yeah, of course I will, yeah.

So, um, that's where the ghost came from.

Really, I was like, well, I wanted something like, he obviously loved the

Newbury and Hobbes books and wanted to buy them, so I wanted to give him

something that was kind of tangential to that, to that universe, but obviously

had to feel different enough from what I was writing with Newbury and Hobbes.

Um, and I've always loved the shadow and spirit and all that sort of stuff.

And Bob Kane's an early Batman you and the Great Gatsby, and, and Blade Runner.

Kind of, so again, I kind of took all these influences and mashed them together.

Um, and that's where the ghost came from.

So, it just seemed obvious to me at that point to go, well, it's the same universe.

Because then I've got all that work I've done in Newbury and Hobbs and

continuing to do Newbury and Hobbs builds into the work I'm doing in Ghost,

and it becomes this cohesive universe.

And I, I guess all those skills then of learning from making it up as you

go along to kind of needing A record of the internal world structure benefited

you when you started working on tie in books, where you have all these, all

these wiki pages, um, about, uh, the, the history and the shared universe.

And do you have to do a lot of research when you are writing tie in work or is it

just, you ask the editor, can I do this?

And you just get a yes or no back?

Um, bit of both.

You have to know the IP, but again, I think that the essential thing

when you're writing in someone else's universe is that you get the tone right.

It's all about tone.

So if you're writing existing characters that you get those characters right.

But other than that, like, story is king.

And, You can get all the facts and figures right and not tell a good story.

and then there are people to help you get the facts and figures right.

Um, but they're not necessarily going to help you get a good story.

So you have to approach it in a similar way to you would with

an original piece of fiction.

Who are the characters and what is the story I'm telling?

What journey are they going on?

and then the process is you, um, it's pretty much the same universally.

They approach you and say, would you like to write a story?

There's usually some parameters involved in that.

And so we want it to be set in this period or using this character or this

version of Doctor Who of whatever it is.

And then you, you then work up a story or even sometimes a few

story ideas, put them to them.

They'll take a look and they'll say, well, you know, and you have to do

that because they might have someone else writing something as well.

So sometimes they'll come back and say, it's a bit close to something

else we've got in the works.

but they'll, they'll kind of give you a general thumbs up on an, on a concept.

Then you turn it into a full detailed outline.

And at that stage, that then goes to, um, say Lucasfilm, for

example, it goes to the story group.

a group of people who, um, look after all of the Star Wars canon.

Yeah.

And they'll come back and sometimes it can be as

little as, you know, Jedi can't do that with a lightsaber,

Okay.

um, to a bigger thing to say, well, the political situation between

these factions is, you know, such that, or let's not use that particular species

here, let's change it to this one.

So you get, you get your notes and your guidance.

And then write your story.

Mm.

but in that process, I will absolutely be doing research and

checking in Wikipedia is your friend.

As long as you can independently verify important information as well.

Um, and then I try to work with IPs that I care about already

so that I'm already invested.

I already feel like I understand the tone and I've already experienced some of it.

So whether it's movies, TV, video games, um, other comics, whatever

it is, the things I'll have read,

Yeah.

I'll always go back to the original source material as well.

Yeah.

And I just want to talk a bit about imposter syndrome

because it affects all writers.

Um, I feel my assumption is because you have your stories signed off at

like the outline level, when it's in a tie in universe, does that give you

a bit more confidence that No, this is a story that's got an audience because

they've hired me to write this story.

Or is there more pressure on those have gone, Oh, they've hired me for the

story, but I think it's now, or I don't feel good enough to like do it justice.

And I just wondered, does it give you more or less confidence,

when you're working in a tie in?

The truth is a bit of both.

Because when you've had a story signed off by the people responsible,

it is a stamp of approval.

It is a kind of, yeah, this is the story we want, but then where

the imposter syndrome comes in for me is in the execution of that.

Because then you, you, you still have to take that story and turn it into

a really good piece of, of prose.

I don't think you can just bash it out..

You know that there's a massive fan base there, you don't wanna write the, the

book that that fan base are gonna hate.

So you don't want to get it wrong.

and that's, there's a moment as well when you sit down and you go, um,

and it happened to me with all of these ips that I've worked on really.

But when you the first description of the TARDIS landing and the Doctor stepping

out, or the first time a lightsaber fires up in a Star Wars story that

you're writing, can you sit back and go, whoa, um, you know, what am I writing?

Should I be writing this?

Am I the right person to be writing this?

and you start, you do start questioning yourself and you start

thinking, what gives me the right to be this person to write this?

Why, you know, why, why am I the person writing this?

I'm, you know, I'm a fan of this as well.

And am I going to let myself down?

I'm going to let the fans down.

And, and you do have that thing where you, you write pages and pages and

sometimes you go back and just go, no, these are, These are crap, I'm

not, I'm not doing a good job.

And at those points you have to step away and try and get a bit of perspective.

And that's where friends come in and help us, you know, for me, particularly friends

in the industry, who, I can just kind of go to, uh, on a text message and he comes

and, you know, and he does the same to me.

And we, we, we taught these things for a week.

Because you're absolutely right.

Everyone, no matter what level they're at and what process that what, what they're

writing for who gets imposter syndrome.

It's, it's, it's part of creating art.

I see it.

My wife is an illustrator.

She, um, she's got the pencils.

Um, she does, I see her do it as well.

She'll get really, really frustrated with herself.

She's saying, it's not working.

It's not working.

It looks terrible.

It doesn't look like the person.

And I'm going to look at it and the portrait is almost perfect,

like photographic perfect.

But she's, she can see something I can't.

And it might be a hair is out of place or whatever, or it might just be,

she's doubting herself at that time.

Hmm.

That's the point to step away from it for a bit.

And when you step away, are there sort of certain things that you find

are good to just, you know, switch off?

Uh, do you go for a walk?

Do you run?

Do you, um, go and see friends or have hobbies?

what's the best way to switch off for you?

Going for a walk.

Definitely.

Walking in the countryside.

To be honest, it's actually the only time I properly relax.

And I try and do it every day.

I've got a couple of dogs which help get me out of the house.

And I go out into the Lincolnshire countryside and walk and switch off.

And I purposely don't look at my phone when I'm out.

Have it with me in case of an emergency, but that's the only time

again, I'm not checking my phone, not looking at my email, not, you know,

responding to messages or whatever.

Just go and exist somewhere in the landscape.

And my breathing slows down and I kind of get a bit of perspective.

I can usually come back to my desk and go, right, okay, where

was I, and get on with it.

Because the truth is, you have to get past it.

Particularly with tie in work, you're often on a very tight deadline.

Because you, for the reasons we talked about before, you know, it's got to come

out in a particular spot because someone's writing the thing that comes after

it, or it's got a time with a release

. You haven't got the time to lock up and worry about it.

So you have to kind of go, right, yeah, okay, I can scream about it later.

But I've got to, I've got to carry on telling the story.

So the TARDIS has landed, what happens next?

Yeah.

You get into it.

And you get into the flow of it, you get carried along by the tide.

Or certainly I do anyway.

well, uh, I was speaking to, uh, I speak to lots of writers, that's my job.

Um, but he was saying how it's better to have something to

edit than nothing to edit.

And it's never as bad, like when you think that your writing is dreadful, there are

always nuggets of gold that you don't appreciate until you're out of that funk.

And then you look back and go, well, actually there's some good stuff here.

but also on the flip side, you could be having a time when you feel that

you're completely in the zone and you're like, oh, it's just alive

and everything's going amazingly.

And then you read it the next day and go, what was I thinking?

But yeah, I think that's a really important point for all writers to

remember that even when you feel that you can't do the work, do the

work because it can always be edited.

It's just a draft.

It's just connecting the signpost, walking the path, connecting the

dots and then review it later.

That's absolutely right.

I 100% agree.

with that.

I think everything needs an edit.

You know, like you say, you might be in the you might write pages and

pages of stuff and think it's great.

And when you, when you come back to it, You've repeated yourself and

you've put redundant boxes in and stuff, and you can always hone it

down through the editorial process.

And you can always make it better if it's not great.

But if if you've got the basics of a scene in there, then you can keep going.

Yeah.

And obviously you've got the old adage that writing is rewriting.

And moving on to that, actually, like, how do you prefer to, to rewrite your work?

Uh, are you someone who at the start of a day or start of a writing session

looks back at what they did earlier and to go, oh, I might, uh, tweak that

before continuing, or do you like to have a certain number of pages under

your belt, certain number of words under your belt, or is it a complete draft

before you, you look back and reflect?

Yeah, so I'm not, I'm not the latter.

I've tried, I've tried to be more like that because I think that would

be a constructive way of doing it, of just getting the whole draft down

and then going back to the start.

But I do tend to go back a little bit.

I try not to go back and do, you know, All of the previous day's writing because

it's, you know, you can get caught in a, a loop where you've polished

certain pages over and over and over again till they're shining, but you

haven't actually moved the story on.

And then that can also set you up actually for what we talked about earlier, because

you can, you can go from a place where you've got these brilliantly polished

pages that you're perfectly happy with.

And then you write the first draft of the next scenes and they don't

live up to what you've written.

Um, Because you don't see it yourself, you don't think, Oh, I've polished

those to within an inch of their life.

What you do is you go, well, this chapter's not as

strong as the first chapter.

So I don't think it's necessarily helpful.

Again, it's a whole personal technique.

Other writers find different ways to write things, but, I tend to go back, as

much to remind myself and get into the flow, and I'll, I will do a little bit

of minor editing, and I'll, you know, tweak it, because then I'm writing, and

my fingers are on the keyboard, and then I get to the end of bit that I was writing

yesterday and I might, I just keep going.

that's, that's tentatively my process.

And when you come to the end of a writing session, are you someone

who likes to, you know, finish a, you know, sort of an action scene

or dialogue scene or a chapter.

And so there's like an end point of the day or end point of the writing

session, or do you like to leave it mid flow so that when you do come

back to it is it easier to go in, or do you like go, no, section and then

new section on new writing session?

Yeah, it tends to be the end of the scene I think.

Actually, more, more often than not.

Or it tends to be a time constraint.

The actual truth is probably closer to I get called because dinner's ready

or I need to go and do something.

So I, I get to a point where wherever I am, where I know

I can pick it up tomorrow.

But I think my natural inclination is to finish a scene.

I'm a writer who tends to do a scene per chapter, rather than

bounce around inside chapters.

It has to be quite short chapters, do a scene.

I've usually got a plan, but even if it's just a sentence, so what's going to happen

in the next scene, I feel like I can pick it up and run with it the next day anyway.

my perfect leaving off point would probably be get to the end of the scene.

Yeah.

And when you've finished a draft and you've done your personal edit to get

it to a place that you're happy with, who's the first person to read it next?

Does it go straight to the editor or does your wife read it?

Your agent?

Who's the first person to read it next?

So if it's, if it's original fiction, it's always my wife.

she'll often read it.

So what I'll do is, when I start the editorial process from the beginning

of the book, I'll Once I've polished a chapter and I'm happy with that,

I print it out and give it to her.

So she's reading behind me as I go.

And I print out every chapter and give it to her.

And she marks them up for me, which is great.

So she'll often, she'll find typos and things, but she'll also find logic

errors and you know, bits and bobs.

I don't make her do that with IP novels, because she doesn't necessarily know

the IP questions, so it's not as easy, or she's not interested to get engaged.

So, um, Depends what it is, really.

So, I did a Star Wars kids novel, early in this year, and that's,

that's coming out in October.

And I can talk about that one because it's been announced.

Quest for the Hidden City.

And what I did is I got my 13 year old to read it because

that's the target audience.

And they were really up for it.

So it was a similar process.

Here's, you know, here's the chapters.

They read it and gave me some notes and feedback, which was really

useful because, you know, the target audience giving you feedback.

Um, but with other things, it just goes straight to the editor, really.

But again, the benefit of, we've talked about, Cav, you know, referenced

him a few times, but what, what I tend to do as well, especially if

there's a scene I'm not sure about.

I've written something.

I'm like, this isn't, doesn't feel right.

I'll often send it to him and go, what am I missing?

What's not working and he'll either go, no, it's fine you're worrying about

nothing or he'll say, Oh, it's this.

And it's just that fresh pair of eyes can sometimes see it.

And he does the same with me.

We're able to kind of go, Oh, I see what you're trying to do here.

Here's the bit that you're getting tripping.

And obviously with, uh, Cavan Scott, who very busy.

You and Cav have, uh, collaborated on projects and How does it differ?

And what's the, the challenges and the benefits of collaborating through a novel

and bigger projects with another writer?

So Cav and I naturally, we have a process.

But where we talk about our individual products with each other anyway.

So, you know, if I'm working up a new outline for a story, I'll run it past him.

I'll bounce ideas off him.

He does the same.

So we have this kind of thing where we help each other anyway with projects.

And we realized that that would lend itself naturally to coming

up with some stories together.

So, um, I think the first thing we did was some Doctor Who comics, uh, like

event series that we, we did together.

And we've done a few things now, and what we find is we enjoy the process

of brainstorming the stories together.

And we get to the point where we have a, an outline.

And it definitely doesn't belong to either of us, it belongs to both.

We've both fed ideas into it.

And over the years, we've built up, uh, a really important mutual trust.

And that's that's key to it really because what we'll do is

one of us like with the um life's electricity short stories we did.

The Disney star wars ones.

i think there's like eight stories in the book so we went four each.

We'll work the ideas up together and then split them.

And one person does a draft of each story and there's four stories and

the other person does the other four.

Then we swap and we rewrite each other.

And that's where the trust comes in because you have to trust that the other

person is rewriting, not because they want their voice to be stronger, but

because they want the story to be better.

And we, we have that.

So, so we rewrite each other and then we switch, switch back

again and have another pass.

That's when, at that point, we're going to go to the editor.

But by the time it gets to an editor, one of us has drafted, the other one's re

written, the other one's gone back through the rewrites and done some more tweaking.

And by the time the book comes out, we don't know who

wrote what sentence anymore.

I mean, very genuinely, we can't, we can't even remember, really, who

wrote the drafts of which story first.

Um, which is a great, it's a great experience, and I think if it, If

it wasn't for comics teaching me, and audio actually, teaching me

about the collaborative process, I think I might have found it harder.

Because writing a novel I find very personal.

But, obviously when you write comics, you're not really writing

the script for the audience, you're writing the script for the artist.

And the only bit of the script that survives that you've

actually written is the dialogue.

Although, of course, you've, You've planned that story.

And it's the same with an audio, of course, because

you've got the performance.

You're going to add their performance to it, and they might completely change, what

you were intending, but it's important that you're leaving them to do that.

So, that prepared me very well for being able to let go on prose writing

and let Cav rewrite stuff because I go into it that mindset of like, this

draft I'm writing isn't the first draft.

It isn't the final draft.

But also that it allows you to lean on the other person a little bit as well, because

if you're having that imposter syndrome, or if if it's not going quite as well, or

if your first draft feels a bit clunky, you know, it doesn't matter because the

other person is going to go through it.

And their perspective to it and polish it.

So, not that it lets you be lazy, but it it helps your confidence a little bit,

actually, because you know that what you're writing isn't a final product.

And I think with Cav, I think what makes you great collaborators is the same

kind of influences and sort of background.

So, you know, similar age, similar pop culture touch points growing up

and your passions and your loves, uh, you know, really aligned.

So your approach to storytelling is very similar.

So that really helps with the trust that when you go, well, you love the same

kind of stories that I do that I know that you're not going to suddenly take

it off on a completely different tangent to fulfill taste that differs to mine.

And just as importantly, we get excited about the same

elements of the story as well.

but it is another reason, actually, because we, you know, we laugh,

we laugh when you say we're brothers from another mother.

But, it's very true, and, and what we have to do is, we do now have

to talk about what we're, what we're developing individually as

well, so we don't do the same thing we have all the same influences.

There's a number of times where I've gone, Cav, I've got this

great idea and he's like, Oh no, I'm working up a story like that.

And vice versa, in which case we both go, well, who's the furthest along?

Is it, you know, who's most invested?

Who's done the most work?

Or is it something we should do together?

Because we're obviously developing in parallel.

Yeah,

So we, you know, we're always cool with those things, but that's one of the

reasons it's important we talk about it.

Because otherwise we would end up writing the same book twice.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I, I hate the, the idea that one day you guys have a falling

out and then suddenly there's plagiarisms, counterclaims, um, but

no, I don't think that will happen.

You're both lovely people.

One thing I did want to ask actually with all these projects that you work

on both, uh, comics and prose and the tie ins as well as the original IPs,

there's a lot of work that you're doing.

When you finish a project, do you have time to kind of Almost like grieve

the loss of because I know that, you know, when you're writing a novel,

it can be months and you're spending a lot of time with these characters.

And then you've got to let it go.

And it's just that out in the world and that book, you know, it swims or sinks,

depending on whether it finds an audience.

Do you feel sometimes that there's a relief of like, okay,

that's done on to the next one.

And it's that kind of production line of projects, or is it

just, Oh, I miss those guys.

And is that what sort of spurs you on to write more sequels and get more

of a franchise out of uh, your books?

That's a really interesting question.

Yeah, I don't often leave myself enough time between projects

to, to properly reflect on them.

And it's not until usually it's later when the book comes out and we get

into the promotional cycle where I have to revisit that headspace that

I was writing and I go, Oh wow, yeah, no, I loved writing these guys.

And sometimes I have to kick myself as well.

I know how lucky I am to be in the position I'm in.

You can get a bit blase about when you get your box of samples arrive.

And it's a finished book.

And like, you know, it used to be that when that happened, it never

loses its magic, but sometimes you'd like, you're so busy.

You kind of go, Oh, this looks great.

Really, really happy they did that.

Pop it back down, carry on writing.

And again, it's like, no, no, you need to, you need to remember to stop and celebrate

those moments because they're really important moment, they're milestones.

And yeah, I think it does make me want to revisit when I'm writing my own stuff.

Like the Newbie and Hobbes books.

I mean, you know, 14 years I think I've been writing Newbury and Hobbes.

And there's a, there's a particular kind of comfort to

revisiting characters who you know.

It's like going back to old friends.

And you don't often get to do that with the tie in stuff because

by the nature of the work you're doing, it's, you know, you're moving

on to the next, the next thing.

It's tying into the next show or the next um, compuer game or whatever it is.

Whereas, going back to your own characters and telling new

stories with them is, there's definitely a comfort thing.

And there's also a kind of one up myself every time as well.

It's like I want to do a better job.

All the things I've learned since I was last here with these

characters, I now want to apply that and do a better story for them.

Well, that actually leads me on to the next question beautifully

because we're just going to wrap up now with the final two questions.

And it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing

with every story that they write.

Is there something that in a recent project that you finished that you

learned about your writing that you felt you found a better way to do

something or something just really clicked that you're now going to apply

or work harder on with the next story?

Or Ooh, blimey.

I think I can think of a couple.

Um,

so

I managed to catch this before it came out.

I realized, and having got some feedback on it as well, like everyone

who read the comic initially was as invested as I was or more in the world.

Getting someone to read it cold and going, I don't quite

understand all of what's going on.

Because they didn't understand all the references.

And I kind of went back and went, I've forgotten to step back and go,

this needs to introduce people to the setting that I'm writing about.

It's not, it's not just for the people who are already know it.

Um, so that was an interesting experience.

And that's something that I will look for in the future when I'm writing

a comic that ties into something.

Have I introduced this properly in issue one?

But the other thing really, the main lesson I've learned is actually, and

this has been over the course of a few years, is to trust myself more.

I used to be like, with the Newbury and Hobbes books, I used to be very

reserved about, about how much fantasy I allowed to creep into them.

Because I was like, I don't want to put people off.

I don't want to, you know, like, let the weirdness in.

Particularly with the Ghost books, actually.

When I reached books three and four, I just kind of went, you

know what, I'm just gonna have fun.

And I let the weirdness out, and people responded to it really enthusiastically,

and I was like, oh, this is, this is the bit I've not realized.

That this is what the people want, my readers want more of and I've been holding

it back because I've, I've been scared.

And I've just kind of thought, well, no, I need to trust myself more.

I need to just do my thing.

And that's become really important to me.

It's like, don't hold anything back.

Don't hold it back for the next book.

If you've got a great idea put in this one.

Don't worry that if, you are, if you're pushing the limits, because

actually people will enjoy it.

No, absolutely.

And I think, uh, yeah, I think readers can sort of tell that when you are

letting loose and it is just that emotional truth, that authentic self

of yourself as a storyteller, um, is, is where it connects with the audience.

Um, and my last question, you know, in all your years of writing, has there

been one piece of advice that you either read or were told, that really resonated

with you and the way that you write and you find yourself returning to?

And it's just like that one thing that just keeps you going when you

have imposter syndrome, whether you're having a struggling day

that just almost like a mantra is the thing that pushes you through.

Yeah.

I can't remember who said it to me.

But it's that notion that, it's particularly true writing novels, writing

a book is like climbing a mountain.

It's not gonna be easy and you have to do a bit every day.

Like, a climber can't sit on a mountain and wait till they feel great to

climb the next part of the piece.

Once you, once you start doing, you have to keep going.

And that's that's the thing.

It ties into a bit of what we were talking about earlier, but it's that

thing every day, no matter how you're feeling about it, if you can just get

there to your keyboard and add a few words, then you're making progress.

And eventually that progress will, you'll get to the peak.

And then the, you know, the downward slope is the editorial bit because

you've already got the manuscript, so then you're on the home run.

So keep chipping away and complete.

I know for a fact there are thousands, thousands, thousands of people out

there who are better writers than I am in terms of, prose, craft and lyricism,

but they don't finish writing a book.

And that's the difference between a writer and someone who

writes, if you see what I mean.

You've got to finish, you've got to tell a story and get on to the next story.

So yeah it's like, for me, it's recognizing that it's going to

be a slog but keep going any way.

Well, that's a perfect way to end the episode.

And I'd just like to thank you, George man, for being my guest this week.

Thanks for having me.

And that was George Mann, the man who can and does repeatedly.

If you'd like to read more of George's work, it's pretty

easy to find it's everywhere.

But he's collected a list of everything he's done on his website, George mann.net.

Old school.

And if you'd like what I'm doing, please give this podcast to follow.

Uh, this season, we have a BAFTA award winner, an Irish book

awards, multi award winner.

Uh, number one New York times bestselling author.

A man who lives in a shed.

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Anyway.

All right.

It's been great.

See you next time.

And as always keep writing until the world.