Clay More - More Question & Answers

Why do you write?

I love writing. All types of writing. I think it would be very hard to do it unless you got a kick out of putting words on paper or screen. I feel that I have a story to tell and I see myself as an entertainer.

What does your family think of your work?

They are generally very supportive, but they don’t read everything I write. Some of my stuff is technical and some is in genres that they like and others may not be. I have to say that they will all tell me what they think, rather than what I would like to hear. That is good for a writer and sometimes you have to take it on the chin. All in all, if you think that someone is giving an honest opinion, then you can value their criticism and use it to grow as a writer. After all, no writer is going to have ever reader drooling over their work. It can be a big, hard world out there for your literary efforts. You cannot afford to be too sensitive.

What book(s) have been life changing for you?

I think it is a little known book called Brother Surgeons, by Garet Rogers. It is a historical novel based on the lives of John and William Hunter, two brothers in eighteenth century London. They transformed the field of surgery. William the elder brother ran an Anatomy School and john worked for him as a dissector. John became the greatest surgeon of his age and pushed back the frontiers of knowledge about the human body.  This book persuaded me to study medicine and it also gave me a desire to write historical novels.

Do you plot extensively or do they sit down and start writing without a clue where the story might take you?

I a plotter!. I have to have my roadmap worked out. I work out the basic theme, the twists the turns and the chapter by chapter breakdown. I use a flow-chart to give me a visceral picture of the whole thing. To use a medical model, that is the skeleton of the story. Then I add the essential organs and then I flesh it out. It doesn’t always work out the way I originally structure it, since sometimes the characters will go off on a different direction, but generally they work within the plot that I have structured

Where is your favorite place to create?

I used to imagine that to write you had to go off somewhere quiet and tranquil and let the muse work its magic to produce the masterpiece. A villa overlooking the Grand Canal in Venice, a cottage by a Scottish loch or a hotel in the country. Then I realized that all of those places would be too distracting. Nowadays I write wherever I am. In my study, on trains, in the back of the car. I have a far more workmanlike approach now and I just do it. Writing is five per cent inspiration and ninety-five per cent perspiration. By using that axiom I am able to produce, because I don’t allow myself to think that the muse isn’t working. If I get stuck I just keep asking questions until a solution to a plot problem presents itself.