Neil Gaiman Discusses His Writing Method (Which He Doesn't Recommend)

On April 13, 2023, the St. Louis University Libraries presented the 2023 Literary Award to Neil Gaiman for a lifetime of achievements and a prolific career writing short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theater, and even screenplays. He's the author of "American Gods," "The Sandman," "Good Omens" (collaboration with Terry Pratchett), "Neverwhere,"
"Stardust," "Coraline," "The Graveyard Book," "Anansi Boys," "The Ocean at the End of the Lane," and "Norse Mythology."

"30 Days of Neil Gaiman" features excerpts from his interview at the 2023 Literary Award Ceremony and the Craft Talk that followed.

In this video, Neil discusses his writing method.

#neilgaiman #authorinterviews

[willc]

"You will not find me in a master class-"

[youtubeme]

I ain't no Neil Gaimon, and I never knew this of him. But I understand what he is saying and after I started doing it myself (small scale blogger, but popular in my sphere for a short time) What I did was I would write, basic story in 2 or 3 paragraphs, with a brief paragraph intro, and a brief, ending, like we were taught in mid or first year creative writing in highschool as (in my case 12 years old freshmen, Highschool, not colege)). Then I would look at it, and think, "hell, a 6th grader is taught this, " I was much older, 22 or so,

Then what I did was what we were taught in advance writing, if you had the class, or in Creative Writing in first year college (which is a requirement for engineers, at least back then in 93) And I thought. "I'm already tired of the 5 paragraph organized format, but this is what I was taught, this is what I know how to do. So I worked from the middle out, not from the start to the end." And that worked for a while, then I started getting drunk, and oddly it worked.

Again, I was barely a writer, just being a blogger, and a little bit of a "developer" for a couple games, which was very simple in it's use, but then I went stream of consciousness.

It was GREAT! for about 4 years (again, not an "author" just a writer with hobby compensation) but to write good stream of conc for me, I needed to be in a character. I'm not a fan of method acting I think it's lazy, but to tell a story from a mindset, you have to take a moment to THINK that way, and frankly it sucked for me, though it got me a fair bit of attention.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is. . .I believe it was Asimov in response to a question about how prolific he was, if he ever gets writers block. I'm paraphrasing, "Do construction workers get construction block? Do engineers get engineering block? Do Surgeons get surgeons block? Of course not, it's their job, and it's something they must do. If you are a writer, you sit down, and you find a way to write because that is your job, just like a construction worker, or an engineer, or a surgeon, writing isn't special, it's your job."

Of course I am likely exaggerating, but I do believe that it was Assimov, a REAL scientist who was also a VERY prolific Writer pissing on the thing he made the most money from, while praising the thing that he is the most ignored as.

[Tariphilip]

I write like this took. Teach me more Neil

[abhaypanikar]

Why do I think his voice is very similar to alan rickman