The Future Lab tells the stories that shape the future. It’s where thriller, science fiction, climate fiction, and fantasy authors discuss how we shape the future with the stories we tell today.
If the interview coming up with Matt Gemmell has a theme, I’d say it is, when writing long-form fiction, don’t follow templates. Instead let intention guide you.
Matt is the author of four books of fiction, including the popular KESTREL techo-thriller trilogy. He has also published four nonfiction books, and six collections of short stories about the supernatural. He’ll send you a free short story by email if you sign up for his newsletter. All the links are in the show notes, and you’ll find Matt online at mattgemmell.scot.
Matt was once a software engineer doing design and user experience work for companies like Apple, and he approaches writing with an engineer’s mind combined with the improvisational approach of a session musician.
Here’s a quote from our conversation: Matt said: “There's this sense of being so engrossed and encompassed in the work of an actual book that I only learn the lessons of it and improve after a major piece of work."
I take that to mean that it’s by doing the writing that we improve, certainly, and we learn by a kind of spidey-sense to hone everthing down to what is absolutely needed. Writing along the path of your story becomes like muscle memory.
You get to know your characters so well that you could drop them into any scene, even an outlandish one, and you would know how they would react and what they would say. You cultivate a deep intentionality that shapes your creative spark.
As Matt says, “You will always, always, always get better results in anything by doing it deliberately and for a reason."
Toward the end of our conversation, we talk about Matt’s writing setup, why he likes mechanical keyboards, and the pleasure he derives from a good e-ink tablet.
Find Matt online:
Website: https://mattgemmell.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MattGemmellAuthor
Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@mattgemmell
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