Café Wednesday: MCM

It is sometimes said that every person has a novel in them, but how many of them are crazy enough to write that novel in three days?

Yes, you read that right. MCM, author of far too many things to mention, is popularizing the livewriting movement, in which writing a novel becomes a performance rather than a solitary art.

This past weekend marked the end of MCM’s fourth livewritten novel, The New Real: Blast Radius, a sequel to The New Real. I pestered him with questions about it all.

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AMH: What is livewriting, and how did you come up with the idea?

MCM: Livewriting is creating a novel in a compressed timeframe, using input from you audience, and posting it on the web as you go. It’s stress and horror and crazy fun. Like literary improv. I came up with the idea in an evolutionary way: one of my earlier stories, Fission Chips, allowed the audience to suggest and vote on which direction the story would go next. Around the same time, I was working on a concept called Topic Tag, where my readers could give me a topic, and I had to write a short story based on it. And finally, there was this three-day novel-writing competition coming up that I thought sounded fun, but a little too introspective. So I mashed up those three ideas, and Livewriting was born.

AMH: You’ve just finished The New Real: Blast Radius (TNR2), your fourth livewritten novel. What have you learnt about livewriting that you didn’t know when you first started?

MCM: It’s more fun when you don’t really know what’s coming. In my first try (Typhoon), my outline was solid, but still sketchy enough that people could affect what happened next. It was more stressful for me, and probably made for a lesser story, but oddly enough, it made for a more enjoyable story. Over the next three projects, I tried to inject a little more control into what I did, so I could be confident the end product would make sense, and people would not feel confused. What I learned (especially during TNR2) is that it’s still more fun if the audience can screw with the outline, mess with the direction, and suggest utter random silliness that I need to fit in. Some of the best parts of TNR2 were unplanned, and I’ve come to realize that I need to embrace the insanity, not try and control it.

AMH: And what would you say is the best part about livewriting? What is the worst?

MCM: The best part of livewriting is the community it builds. Writing a book is a solitary event, but livewriting is something you do with a group. I love throwing words onto the site knowing it will infuriate people, and then watching the comments roll in as people make their way through the chapter. I love being able to see what people are thinking, what their expectations are and where they think the story is going, and then mess with them. I don’t write something and hope it works out months from now, I actively adapt my writing to hit the notes people most want to see (whether they know it or not). It’s the most fun you can have without a license.

The worst part? It’ll sound silly, but the worst part is when someone who hasn’t really participated much finally submits their first suggestion, and the randomizer (that picks answers for me to use) completely ignores them. Sometimes it can take a while for you to get included in the game, and I always feel bad when a new users gets overwhelmed and slips back into silence. I wish there were a practical way to have everyone be included every time, but that would probably kill me.

AMH: Let’s delve a little into the world of TNR2. Where did the idea for this series come from?

MCM: The New Real came from a few directions at once. I really wanted to write the story of an alcoholic cop who messes up badly, becomes a suicidal wreck, and is given an assignment that means certain death. That was Darvey, the protagonist. Then I wanted to write a story about a secret agent with a difficult past and a dangerous secret who takes her anger out on everyone around her. That was Jyi, and she became the other protagonist. And then I wanted to write a story about narcotics control in space, because you very rarely see that kind of thing in sci fi. Not big epic space battles, but drug dealers and dirty cops and interplanetary politics. One day, I sat down and looked at my list of things to do, and those three elements kinda melted together, and out came TNR.

AMH: How much does the audience participation in livewriting influence the series’ storyline?

MCM: Ideally, it should influence things more than I’ve allowed recently. If I were completely insane, I’d let people pick the direction every step of the way, but based on my experiences with Fission Chips, I know that can lead to a muddled story that takes a lot of work to repair. Also, I think a lot of the charm of fiction is that moment where you want the character to zig, but they stubbornly zag. That kind of frustration is what makes you stick with it. On the other hand, all the details of the story should really be in the hands of the readers. For The Scarlet Lemming, a suggestion to find garden gnomes in a closet led to one of the best running jokes of any of my books. In Typhoon, a “stop or go” question changed the direction of the key love story. Those things don’t necessarily switch around plot points, but they inform the characters and make things much richer. In the future, I plan to use a lot more user input. Everyone prefers it that way.

AMH: TNR2 is mainly set on the planet Panella. Can you tell us more about Panella? How many races of aliens does it have, and what do they look like?

MCM: Panella is a forest planet, with heavy jungle across the entire surface. It’s closer to their sun than Earth is to ours, so it’s obscenely humid all the time, and it’s virtually impossible to control the plant life in the few cities they’ve built. Panella supplies most of the lumber to nearby systems (who may have forests, but nowhere near as diverse or large). Because of the booming forestry industry and relatively tiny population, Panella has a comprehensive social safety net, including free health care (even for tourists) and pensions that rival private salaries. This, of course, attracts aliens from all over the place, so the cities are clogged with anyone with a rash and enough money for a shuttle ticket. You have a lot of feline-type aliens called the Geshi, hyena creatures called the Tobor, slugs and bearish aliens with long tusks… anything can that breathe an oxygen-rich atmosphere finds a way to make it work.

AMH: TNR2 is the second book in a “daisy-chain” trilogy, ending with a spectacularly annoying cliffhanger. Can you gives us some clues as to what will happen next?

MCM: Ha! I enjoy annoying you! Let’s just say that this answer will be spoilery if you haven’t read book 2. Let’s see… we end with Darvey being arrested for assaulting various people while trying to save Jyi. The case will go to trial, and there will be repercussions that will dominate book 3. Jyi will have to make a difficult choice, Aphid will finally get what she’s been looking for, and Kaps will have to make a sacrifice. Book 3 will also put Darvey in a dangerous situation that will push him to the edge of insanity, and you’ll see a lot of loose threads from books 1 and 2 come together. And dead people will die again. How’s that for cryptic?

AMH: What about your future projects? Do you see them as being increasingly livewritten?

MCM: I think most of my future projects will be livewritten. I like the dynamic more than anything else, so if I can, I’ll keep at it. One of my next events will really push the boundaries of livewriting, and hopefully blow your mind. I also have a good old fashioned love story called A Quiet Life, a livewritten series aimed at kids called Minions, a love story that may make people cranky (it deals with terrorism), and of course the sequel to Typhoon. All those are going to be livewritten, so I’ll get to refine the process.

AMH: That’s all my questions for now. Do you have any final words for our readers?

MCM: Yes! This applies to any writer, too, I think: let us know what you think. Most of us live in fear that we’re writing crap, and we very seldom hear if we’re on the right track. If you like what we’re doing, drop us a line. Or better yet, review us somewhere. Even two sentences makes the difference between a crappy day and an excellent week. If you’re reading something right now that you like, let the author know!

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What better way to finish an article than with MCM’s own overtired words right after he’d finished livewriting? And I quote: “I really appreciate that you take the time to let me mess with your minds.”