My own private universe

by danabnett on Jan.25, 2010, under Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill

Today, I was going to talk a little bit about the other side of the equation: working in your own universe instead of someone else’s. In the spirit of Graham’s excellent advice yesterday, I’m doing that whilst listening to someone singing in French.

I’ve really enjoyed reading what Graham has been writing about this weekend, and I can tell you have too. I agree with everything he said, including the notion that ten different authors will tell you ten different ways. Actually, especially including the notion that ten different authors will tell you ten different ways.

My novel writing process is much more ramshackle: Graham’s work sounds like an organized operation of military precision compared to mine. Blitzspear’s comment about it being a mistake to write notes on the bag of shopping receipts and cigarette papers is news to me. My only professional sophistication of that method is to make sure I collect and sticky-tape (not necessarily in any chronological order) those scraps and notes into the pages of a note book so they’re all in one place.

I’m not suggesting that I’m deliberately lazy or scrappy. Each novel for me is a kind of organic whole that I have to work until it’s the right shape. Like potter’s clay. What concerns me is not so much where it’s going to end, but the over all mass and feel of it.

So each novel has its own notebook or legal pad into which, like a crazed beachcomber, I gather all the ideas, names, words and stuff that feel like they belong to the novel, then I shape the book out of it, constantly dipping back into the notebook for inspiration or atmosphere. Q: Dan, are you, in fact, creating a ‘mood board’ for each novel? A: Get the words ‘mood board’ the hell out of my blog.

Once things feel right, then I shape them into the skeleton I need (the ACTUAL, you know, PLOT that will have been agreed in advance with Black Library etc). My desk is covered with vast, over-stuffed idea scrapbooks, each one a work in progress. I don’t use receipts and cigarette papers so much, but I will admit that I use a lot of American envelopes. I get a lot of mail from the States - from Marvel and DC - and US stationary is just not like UK stuff. I’m always making notes on some because I’ve left some on my desk, unable to throw it away. They get stuck in my notebook.

There are two things they say you should never let people see you make: one is sausages. The other is supposed to be laws, but I think it should be novels. I’m pretty sure I must sound like a Collyer Brothers style compulsive hoarder after the sidebar about envelopes above. This is just the way it works for me. Graham’s shown you the neat and structured plans and diagrams he makes; I’m showing you the mess I make down my apron. Don’t judge me. Once I was a human being, just like you.

Actually, in thinking about the process, I turned up a notion that applies directly to The Thing We Were Supposed To Be Talking About. Remember that? Whether I’m writing in someone else’s universe or one of my own creation, I still gather ideas together and bundle them up in a notebook. Sometimes ideas harvested for one go into the other. The point is, if I’m writing, say, a Black Library book… well, let’s take as an example Titanicus, the novel I published about the huge walking war engines in the 40K universe. I like Titanicus a lot, because it’s a novel about giant war engines (what’s not to like?), but also because it’s about an hive city, about the layers of life in a hive city. I found myself looking for and collecting stuff that I knew would fit that setting: walking down the ideas beach, I’d know pretty quickly what was worth picking up for Titanicus and what wouldn’t fit. In other words, when it’s somebody else’s universe, you look for stuff that will match, that will compliment. You look for the stuff that will decorate it in the places where, perhaps, it needs a little perking up, or in the places where no one’s done more than give it an undercoat of primer.

Last year, I published a novel called Triumff. It’s out from Angry Robot, an imprint of HarperCollins (go check them out at angryrobotbooks.com). It was a big deal for me, because Triumff was my first ‘original‘ novel. I invented it all, universe and all. It was a very satisfying thing to do after thirty six other novels set in other peoples’ back yards. More satisfying? No, differently satisfying.

Just getting on Graham’s theme of ‘how one writes a novel‘ today has made me realise the process for Triumff was virtually identical to the process for any of the others, except for one simple contextual detail: I went idea beachcombing, I hunted and I gathered (note to self: I really should have started out with the image of the ‘idea hunter-gatherer’ instead of the ‘idea beachcomber’… it’s so much more cool writer dude), and I collected everything into a bizarre, ever-growing, disorganized grimoire. The difference is that with 40k projects, I go foraging for ideas fit for purpose. With Triumff, and other universes of my own, I hunt for anything bright and shiny I like the look of, and THEN figure out how they fit together. Not all of them will, but the way that the most promising and interesting do will help determine the shape of the universe they get used it.

Triumff is a fantasy adventure of derring-do and buckled swashes. It’s set in an Elizabethan England. You’ll note the ‘an’ there. This is alternate history. England has ruled the world since Elizabeth Glorianna’s time thanks to the rediscovery of magic. An unbroken line of Elizabeth’s (in the book, we’re on Elizabeth XXX) has dominated the globe as the absolute monarch of a magically-armed super power. Our hero, Rupert Triumff, is a rather wayward, dissolute seafarer, once favorite of old Triple-Ex , who stumbles into the middle of a horrible conspiracy that threatens the security of the realm. There are some rather good sword fights and, though essentially a serious adventure, the book does wander past some jokes here and there. Puns, particularly. I love a good pun. Especially when they’re fresh and fizzling. Current puns (ba-dum! I thank you!).

The universe of Triumff had been in my head for almost twenty years before I got to write it. That’s time for a lot of hunter-gathering. The danger is, you could get too vague and everything-including-the-kitchen-sink. In somebody else’s universe, somebody else has set the rules, and you’ve got to play by them.

In your own universe, the rules are all down to you. And if, like me, you decide those universal rules have to include a magic system, then you’d better make sure they bloody well work.

Next post, I‘ll take a look at Triumff’s universe a little more, and try and figure out if the greater creative liberty of working in your own universe is a bonus or a hindrance. I’ll also be answering questions such as, “Dan, what are you going to write for Angry Robot after Triumff? and “Is it an SF Combat novel called Embedded?” and “Isn’t it handy that you can use a discussion of the contrasting differences between your own and other peoples‘ universes to promote books like Triumff and Embedded?” and “Ow! Dan what’d you just kick me for?”

Somebody else’s blog, somebody else’s universe…
Wow, this is a bit like checking into a fancy hotel. Will you look at this blog? It’s got decorative side motifs, for goodness sake! It’s not like being at home in your own blog. Everything’s so clean, and there are mints on the pillow… I’m Dan. Hello. Morgan and...
England, my England
The universe of my novel Triumff existed in my head for about two decades before I got it into a printed form. It didn’t take that much longer to reach publication than my 40K books because the universe took so much more time to design, but the contrast is useful...
Triumff and Angry Robot
I think Angry Robot’s statement is pretty accurate in terms of intent, Morgan: they are ambitiously and enthusiastically pursuing some great material that would be hard to pigeon-hole in traditional ways. I think a cocky mission statement like AR’s simply serves to remind everyone how excitingly broad the possibilities contained...
Not the end
So I guess we’re at the packing your suitcase and waiting for a cab to the airport stage of our visit here at Babel Clash, and I’d like to echo what Graham said last night: we’ve had a splendid time, it’s been great meeting you all and chatting to you...
For your weekend reading pleasure…
I just wanted to pop back tonight and get you all fired up for Graham McNeill, who’ll be manning the main blog here for the next couple of days. Expect Ultramarines, the origin of Graham’s Ultramarine fiction, writing nuts and bolts (should that be ‘bolters’?), and plenty of other cool...

:Angry Robot, Embedded, Titanicus, Triumff

17 Comments for this entry

Rich (Blitzspear)
January 25th, 2010 on 10:12 am
…..Zing. Just got home early from work and i find Dan’s backed me up on being messy wooohooo. I also try to put the sribbles into a note book (current one has yellow paper, nice) and i do a lot of doodels along side of notes to help remember what the hell i was going on about. This and a Bacon Nantwich for dinner. This may just make up for having to work in hull for the rest of the week
Rich
Rich (Blitzspear)
January 25th, 2010 on 10:15 am
And cigarette papers are just like post it notes cept you have to lick them
danabnett
January 25th, 2010 on 10:44 am
Kudos on your use of the Triumff-ism ‘nantwich’.
grahammcneill
January 25th, 2010 on 11:34 am
Hahahaha…sorry, I gave the impression that I run a tightly organised ship. That’s about as far from reality as it’s possible to get. That’s what I *try* to do, but reality (and my own, easily-distracted, self) get in the way time and time again. Like Dan, I have notebooks devoted to each book I’m working on at the moment, and a little moleskin book I carry with me at all times for any random bits of goodness that float by me in my daily life. It’s an essential piece of writerly kit, though my handwriting is so spidery and ragged that it’s often a job to decipher what I’ve written there. I’ve kept some of the mad A1 sheets I used for some of the novels, so if I get the chance I may take a picture of one of them to show you how anarchic the planning process is…
Tsar Boris
January 25th, 2010 on 12:08 pm
So essentially each book is given life out of Dr. Frankensteins secret notebooks from Young Frankenstein?
Cees
January 25th, 2010 on 12:59 pm
I never heard about the sausages and laws thing; but, having worked in a meat processing plant I can certainly verify the sausage part. That stuff is gross.
However, it does not hold a candle against hams. During their preparation hams look like brains floating in a bath of salty blood. After they have been in there for a few days, they are vacuum-packed. At this point they are put in an oven, and consecutively stored somewhere cold. This done so that a lot of moisture and fat is ‘exhaled’ from the ham. Then they are removed from the vacuum packing, allowing the moisture, which is now a gelatinous orange brownish ooze, to be removed, and then they are vacuum packed again and shipped to the supermarket.

Working there, I became a vegetarian for a while.
Rich (Blitzspear)
January 25th, 2010 on 6:55 pm
Always ment to ask if nantwich would be mangeled the same way as Sandwich ie Sarny Narny or just Nant? And woud you credit it after finishing my second post earler i find my nice yellow spiral bound pad of notes has been seconded by the wife to list her Mills and Boon books for ebaying. She said it’s ok becuse she’s using teh back!!!
The shame and the horror of it all. Thanks for the Kudos btw.
Rich
Hiwayrobry
January 25th, 2010 on 8:22 pm
Thanks for the visual image there, Cees! I’m sure that process will end up on some Chaos world in either Dan or Graham’s sick minds. That’s why we love them!!
Adam
January 25th, 2010 on 10:13 pm
In my own laughably naive writing, I do similar things. I’ve had a universe steadily building, name by name and place by place for a few years now. The concept, originally came not me in high school, and since then it’s become much, much different. Hopefully better, but you never know. Most of my good ideas come to me when I’m about to fall asleep, which is about as useless as having a life-changing epiphany just before suffering amnesia, and I’ve got the beginnings of what I hope to be a pretty solid novel.

Of course right now it’s just an unfinished pipe dream, but you never know what happens until it does.

Anyway, I haven’t been commenting much, but I have been reading. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks.
Recalcitrant
January 26th, 2010 on 12:25 am
Wow, just got caught up on all this sandbox-y blogging. Between Graham and Dan, there has to be a new notebook devoted just to cooking, decorating and house-cleaning analogies, right?

You’ve both described how messy the novel writing process has been(beach sand strewn about and mold spores growing in corners), but I’ve always wondered about the comic writing process, since that doesn’t end up published as a block of text normally, but a kaleidoscope of pics and words. Does a comic book script more read like a movie script? And then, how does movie script writing feel? Like growing a rash?
Rob
January 26th, 2010 on 2:43 am
Dan and Graham- Enjoyed hearing about the writing process, something I’ve always been curious about when reading both of your books. I’m in the middle of forming (perhaps I should say reforming) my own writing process. I tend to write out every scene idea on an index card, then shuffle them and try to deal them out in a logical sequence. After I’ve had a look over them, I make more cards to fill in the gaps between the ones I’ve laid out, reshuffle the pack and start again. When I’ve got something I’m happy with, I type it out into a bulleted outline. It’s especially helpful because I write detective thrillers, and this process lets me create “clue” cards, so I can move the evidence around and reorder when and where the characters discover pertinent pieces of information. It’s gotten me through one book, so I figure it’s at least serviceable.

Actually, what intrigues me most about reading these blogs is how much my own concerns when writing historical fiction parallel yours in writing for established universes. The idea that you have to fill in the gaps between the big, well-known events is especially similar, though I’d go a little further. In my opinion, the real difficulty in writing about a well-known event (be it the Pearl Harbor attack or the Horus Heresy) is creating dramatic tension when the reader ultimately knows how the story ends. Any thoughts on that?
danabnett
January 26th, 2010 on 4:44 am
Didn’t mean to misrepresent Graham’s working processes there (though I still reckon they’re a lot more disciplined than the littered debris field that is my desk/the interior of my head).

Rich - ‘Narny’, I think.
Adam - ah, the nocturnal epiphany. Sleep is actually a very useful way of ordering your thoughts, and you can wake up in the middle of the night with great clarity and a new vision of the way things should work. This is why another essential item of a writer’s kit is the bedside table. You can put your notebook and pen on it.

Keep working on your idea, and let it evolve. Who cares if it takes a long time? Your remark about your concept originally coming to you in high school made me think of something else: Graham and I (and a lot of other writers in the genre, tie-in or otherwise) have a background in gaming. Graham’s was a great deal more on the professional side than mine was, but we both were keen RPGers (I think Graham still is). The point is, you can learn an awful lot of world-building skills refereeing (and working out scenarios for) old school pen and paper RPGs. Players will soon spot any in consistencies, because they won’t be able to play around them. I’m not saying, ‘if you can do one, you can do the other’, I’m just saying they use some of the same muscle groups.

Actually, what I’m probably saying is, ‘if you want to do one, you’ll probably want to do the other.’

Recalcitrant - the comic process is very similar. Whether I’m writing comics on my own or with Andy, the brainstorming distills things down into a finished script (I actually write comics in Final Draft, using a basic screenplay template that I’ve modified so, yes, my comic scripts look very much like movie scripts). A basic ‘full script‘ for a comic breaks the comic down into pages, and those pages into panels, each one of which has a panel description and dialogue. The artist works from that. You can also use what’s called the ‘Marvel method’, where you don’t break the story into specific panels and you don’t put in the final dialogue. It’s left to the artist to break down the story as he or she sees fit, and then the writer comes back and scripts the finished art. There are pros and cons to each method. Anyway, the point is that a comic is a collaborative process, and there are many more opportunities along the way to adjust, revise or alter things before publication than in a novel. I can write some more about comic book scripting if anyone’s interested.

And yes, a movie script is more like a skin complaint that won’t go away.

Rob - I’ve toyed with file cards many times. Just not disciplined enough, but I admire anyone who is.

Running with your other point, I’d like to mention that I approach a lot of 40K and Warhammer work as if I’m writing historical fiction. I research the closest analogy and then ‘twist’ it into genre. And with the Heresy, yes, that’s even more the case: 40K fans know how the story ends. To make the books more than predictable repetitions of the same story, we have to find new angles (that is, layer in surprises, or change perspectives or assumptions) without changing the actual facts. A tricky challenge. My Heresy novel Legion, which was about the Alpha Legion and threw a real curve at fans who thought they knew what those guys were about, is one example of that. Later this week, Graham’s going to be writing about his new HH book A Thousand Sons. This is about the battle of Prospero (and it’s REALLY good) and, without giving the game away, Graham may be able to talk about how he worked to subvert expectation and create dramatic tension.
Adam
January 27th, 2010 on 1:53 am
You know - and I hope this isn’t too late to post here - I had never really gotten into table top RPing until very recently. I’m a super senior at college, and only in the past couple of years have I tried my hand at it. It makes me wish I had started sooner, honestly. Lately I’ve been trying to run a campaign of my own, and coming up with a loose outline of the story is in many ways similar to working on my writing. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but I’m getting there. Until then, me and my roomates have been having a blast with Sidewinder (a Western variant of the D20 system).

We’ll see how my campign goes down. It’s with the green ronin ’song of ice and fire’ system, which has some awesome rules for mass warfare and intrigue, and I’m working on a campign storyline to highlight those aspects that DnD can’t really pull off.
grahammcneill
January 27th, 2010 on 5:01 am
I’ve been playing RPGs since I was around twelve, thirteen I think, and it wasn’t until, say, around eight years ago that I realised how useful it had been as a training method for my storytelling. Though I’ve often had a pre-written adventure before me as I GM’d (though usually one I’d written myself) I would always deviate from it and come up with innovations on the hoof, expanding storylines, refreshing characters and thinking on the run as to where the story might go. Sometimes this didn’t work, and I had to backtrack, but more often than not, we’d get a great adventure with considerably more depth than what was on paper.

For anyone who likes a bit of RPG, there’s worse ways to hone your instincts, and I’ve found it really useful. And it cuts both ways, as I find my tale-telling muscles are pumped up by the writing, which allows me to add more flavour and depth to the adventure I’m running (currently The Fungi from Yuggoth).

And addressing the writing historical fiction angle, I’ve used a similar approach as Dan mentions, in the writing of The Divine Dragon (a novel I’m writing about the First Emperor of China) where I’ve written the book as though it’s a fantasy novel where the dragons, monsters and magic have forgotten to turn up. The people of the time believe in them, and accept it as real, but none of it actually manifests…

Like Dan, I’ve toyed with using file cards, but I only use them now to record details of characters, planets, starships etc. They’re reference material now, not working pieces of writerly equipment. But I’ll expand more on that when, once again, I elbow my way to the front of the blog later in the week and talk about A Thousand Sons and subverting expectations and assumed knowledge in the Horus Heresy series.
elizabeth
January 27th, 2010 on 8:58 pm
all of this communication has been extraordinary. i love it!

i’m happy to hear that i’m not the only one who has such a haphazard method of writing…. and not the only one who utilizes gaming to work out ideas!!!

graham and dan, you’ve inspired me to actually seriously write again. i got so distracted by life i lost track of what i wanted out of it.

adam - gaming is a wonderful outlet and can be a really great time with friends! i definitely encourage you to venture outside the d20 sphere.

i have to wait until april for triumff. why is there a difference of release dates between the UK and the US?
danabnett
January 28th, 2010 on 4:37 am
Elizabeth - I’m not sure why the time delay for Triumff - just the difference in marketplaces, I suppose. Delighted to hear we’ve inspired you.
grahammcneill
January 28th, 2010 on 5:04 am
Indeed. A more flattering comment would be hard to imagine.