Interview with Scott Meyer (The real deal)

First off, for the people who don’t know you, who would you describe yourself as?

A humor writer, mostly of science fiction novels. Also, I have a web comic on the side.

What inspired you to start writing books in the first place?

Even when I was a kid, I always enjoyed thinking up things I thought were amusing and then sharing them with other people.

In other words, I talked too much.

From the moment I discovered novels, I knew I wanted to try writing one. The idea of creating my own stories, populated with my own characters, appealed to me.

And what works inspired the way you write? / What are your biggest inspirations for your current books?

Anybody who has read my work and his would call me a liar if I didn’t admit to being influenced by Douglas Adams. There’s also some Hunter S. Thompson in there, and Terry Pratchett. Also, when I was very young, I read many short stories by an outdoor writer named Patrick F. McManus, whose work inspired me quite a bit.

Would you recommend others to try writing as well?

Yes! Words are the greatest LEGO set ever created. You can make anything you can imagine out of them and put what you’ve made into other people’s brains.

That sounded more sinister than I’d hoped, but I think you know what I mean.

But you should understand that it’s not for everyone. If you try writing and find it unrewarding, there is no shame in that. The shame would be in not trying. To try it and find that it is not for you is perfectly reasonable.

What are your main tips for people in the creative field (not only writing)?

Find something you love enough to do for free and start doing it for free.

If you hope to make a living doing something creative, you can’t wait for someone to hire you.

People won’t pay you to do something unless you can demonstrate that you’re good at it. You can’t show that without doing whatever it is in the first place, and you probably won’t get good at it unless you do it a lot. That means doing a bunch of work for free, and you will probably only do that if you love doing whatever it is to begin with.

So, again, if you hope to make a living doing something creative, find something you love enough to do for free, and start doing it for free. There’s no guarantee that you’ll ever make a dime, but even if you don’t, you’ll get to spend a lot of time doing something you love.

If there’s nothing creative you love enough to do for free, that’s a perfectly valid outcome. In that case, I suggest you study finance.

How long does it usually take for you to get from a book idea to a finished product?

Years. I wish that was an exaggeration.

I can work on different phases of different projects at the same time, but from initial idea to finished book available for sale, thanks to all the research, outlines, drafts, edits, readers, and notes, it is literally three years at minimum (and usually more) from the decision that a certain idea will be my next project to a finished work being available.

How many revisions do you usually have for your books and how much do they differ from your final product?

I’m told back in the days before word processors, a draft often meant rewriting or re-typing the entire manuscript. Makes me grateful to live here in the future. When I refer here to a draft, I mean I at least read every word and consider every sentence. In a “revision” I only go over and re-work the parts I know need attention.

The first draft takes the longest, because I rewrite, revise, and change things as I go. In the old days of writing by hand or by typewriter, this would probably have been at least three drafts on its own.

Then I do a second draft

Sometimes, if I think it’s needed, I do a third draft.

Then my wife reads it. I do a revision addressing her notes.

Then my other test readers read it. I do a revision addressing their notes.

Then my agent reads it, and I do a revision addressing his notes.

If there have been a lot of notes from all those sources, I do one last draft to make sure I didn’t break anything while addressing them.

Then, after publishing has been arranged, a developmental editor will read it. I address their notes.

A proofreader reads it. I address their notes.

So, that’s two to five drafts, and at least five rounds of revisions. Factor in the time it takes others to read a novel, gaps due to scheduling, and all the research and outlining done before the first draft, and you can see why it takes so long.

Most of my books have only changed in the process by becoming tighter, clearer, and less repetitive. A couple have had entire major characters added or removed, and large plotlines changed. No two are the same.

Would you recommend always sticking to an idea you had, or should you try a lot of ideas until you find the “perfect” one?

I play with a lot of ideas up to the outlining phase, but once I get going on a draft, I try to stick to the plan and execute it as well as I can. I will make minor changes as I go, but it’s like a road trip, and the outline is my map. I figure out on the fly which lane to drive in, when to pass, what speed to go, where and when to stop for gas and food, but the overall route and destination remain the same.

One thing I will add is not to wait for a “perfect” idea. They don’t exist. Go with the best idea you have and execute it as well as possible. Waiting for the perfect idea will just keep you from starting.

Regarding your most successful series of books, Magic 2.0, did you plan on writing as many installments as you did?

As I wrote the first one, I certainly hoped it would succeed, and I’d get to write more. I didn’t expect to get to do six. Had I known, I might not have started. The enormity of the task might have scared me off. One book feels like more than enough when you’re in it.

What big part of your actual beliefs on how the real-world functions played into the Magic 2.0 books?

There are scientists and philosophers who believe we are living inside some sort of computer program (like the characters in Magic 2.0). Others are certain we are not. As near as I can tell, nobody can prove or disprove the idea, so it makes no difference to how we have to live our lives.

There is a speech that Phillip gives in Off to be the Wizard that says something I truly believe about life.

He says there are two kinds of people, and you can define them by how they view the game of basketball. Some think fouling is wrong, should not be done on purpose, and if you get caught doing it three times, you get kicked out of the game. Others think you can foul as often as you want without getting caught, and that you’re allowed to get caught twice. You’re only punished the third time you are caught, and if you aren’t fouling, you aren’t really trying to win. I fall into the first camp, but like most of us who do, I fear that by believing that I may have put myself at a terrible disadvantage.

How do you come up with characters in your books? Do you reference people from your real-life in those characters?

They’re all made up of little bits of people I’ve met, people I’ve seen from a distance, people I imagine must be out there, and me.

But they are mostly me (even the villains ... especially the villains).

My characters’ actions all come from me asking, “What would a person do in this situation?” The answers I come up with are particular to me, so my characters are all reflections of me.

You also wrote a bunch of other books. Which one of those would you consider your favorite? And would you like them to be more popular than Magic 2.0 or do you like the overall status of them?

My favorite is probably Brute Force, because it was so much fun to write, and I think the fun I was having shows through in the final text.

Of course, I would like all of my books to be as popular as possible, but really, I am phenomenally lucky as it is. The fact that I’m getting to make my living writing humor novels is just such a gift, to sit here and mope about how I wish my books were doing better just feels dumb. There are far better writers than me who didn’t have the luck I have. I try to focus on that.

What are your plans for the future?

I hope to keep writing books until I am out of ideas or it seems like people are sick of hearing from me, though it will probably take both of those things happening at the same time to get me to stop.