Interview with Author Michael McClellan - Part 3

Hello, and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grohl, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me Shortly is Mike McClellan. He's the author of the Sand Sea, an epic fantasy novel that we published earlier this year through StoryGrid Publishing. This is part three of my conversation with Mike, where we talk about all kinds of things around his writing, working with Sean, putting his book through the story grid. It's been a really great conversation. If you haven't listened to part one and two, you can check your feed for that. Otherwise, let's go ahead and get started on this final part of this series.

When you say rewrite, because I'm always curious what people mean by rewrite, because, like, I've done rewrites where you literally just have to add, like, a sentence to a few scenes to kind of, like, make sure it all ties together. Or were you, like, literally going through and just, like, ripping out the middle of it and rebuilding it from the beginning? Like, what? So you said you had to beef up Hannah and add this, the supernatural elements.

But, like, what. What did your daily, like, work look like in 2017? Because I think sometimes that's even harder, is taking this thing you've already created and trying to, like, change it. It's almost like the ship's already going in one direction, and now trying to, like, get it to go in a different direction is harder. So what did. What did that look like?

I almost don't want to tell you the truth because it's so crazy. I literally started with a blank page and rewrote the whole thing. Oh, my God.

I rewrote the whole thing. And I just.

And did you, like, reference the original as far as, like, okay, this is what I did here. I want to keep that. And then you would just rewrite it into it, or did you just, like.

Mostly only in my head. Mostly only in my head.

There were scenes that I would maybe reference a bit, but mostly.

I had been working on these scenes for so long that they were so sort of deeply ingrained, I think, in the subconscious that I could rewrite them. And I just. I rewrote the whole thing because I knew that so much of the early writing was sort of exploratory. And what I mean is I allowed my imagination to go crazy, and I wasn't thinking about a reader. And so I took the concepts and the energy of those previous drafts and I just started with the new blank page.

So you get that done. So did you check in with Sean, like, throughout that year, or did you basically just take his notes and run?

Oh, many times. I mean, we probably talked about. And honestly, I mean, Sean, what a gracious man. I mean, we would hop on the phone and my enthusiasm and energy of being able to work with him was like 11 out of 10. Right. So we would get on the phone and I would talk at 100 miles an hour. We'd talk for like an hour about, hey, I'm thinking of doing this. And I think this is gonna be a really cool scene and look like OAPA is going to do this to the ship. And what do you think? Like, isn't that awesome? And be like, Mike, I think that's a really fun scene. I think that's. I like it, I like it. Okay. And then here's another one I'm working on right now. What do you think?

Yeah, Okay. I think he could only take so much of my sort of fire hose verbal.

Attack coming at him. So we probably talked six times, seven times over the course of that year. And every time we talked, I think it was for like an hour. And I would basically just use him as a sounding board and make sure he was okay with what I was doing.

And we didn't get into. That was not the year where we got heavy into serious architecture. That was really getting a manuscript that we could take to battle. Right. That was like a real.

I don't want to say ready for prime time, but a real manuscript that you could say, this is the San Sea.

Yeah, yeah. So at the end of 2017, you have that manuscript. What happened next?

So.

We.

We initially. Sean. Sean initially was going to.

Pitch it to the big publishers.

So he shopped it around.

At.

10 of the big folks.

And.

A couple expressed sort of very kind rejections.

And said things along the lines of, hey, we came close.

But we're just not sure. This is kind of outside of our. We're not sure what to do with this. And some just said, no, thank you. But.

I think Sean saw the potential of the book. And look, Sean's a brave guy, right. Sean found Gates of Fire when he was at Doubleday and backed it at real career risk to himself, because who the heck wants to read a book about a bunch of Barton warriors written in this really literary way?

It was outside of the box, and to use this, the cliche, but.

There was no formula that said Gates of Fire was gonna be an amazing success. And so I think on this one, I think Sean's instinct fundamentally believed in the book based upon him doing this for 35 years or whatever it's been. And.

It'S not. There really was, I think, and I don't know that there is anything like the Sand Sea as it stands. People have made some wonderful comparisons to some other folks, but I think it is its own deal. And so at that point, then we decided, are we going to try and send it to some of the fantasy publishers, if not the biggest publishers, some of the other ones. And Sean at that point said, look, I'm launching a publishing company.

With Tim Grall.

And what if we publish this book?

And I said, gosh, you know, what would, what would that look like? And he basically said, it would look like you and I working together and me giving you everything I've got as an editor, taking everything I've learned in my career and applying it to this book to make the hero's journeys as clear as possible, to make the themes as clear as possible.

And you and I will work together and do it. He's like, now, Mike, I gotta tell you, it will require you to rewrite big parts of the book. And it's gonna be a brutal, painful process. But he said, if I'm publishing it, I'm willing to basically bring everything I have to the project. I'm willing to go all in.

Then I thought about it and then we negotiated a publishing contract and I. My lawyer. And you guys had your lawyer. That was a very exciting several month process, being sarcastic.

But it was. The beauty was getting to work with Sean. And it almost had the feeling of being in like a writer's room where Sean is so smart and he has such good instincts. And there's amazing video footage actually of when he flew out here to California in early 2000.

And.

We spent two days and videotaped the discussions going chapter by chapter, character by character. And he had done a full blown story grid of the entire book. And he had stacks of note cards for each character, making sure that we were hitting all of the required scenes for the genre, for the hero's journey, making sure that the relation between the villain and our protagonist was correct. And so that was when all of a sudden I realized that one, the story grid is real, and two, that a true literary architect is worth his weight in gold. And so the sand sea became what the world will know as the sand sea as a result of that decision to have Storygrid publish it. And look, don't get me wrong, the manuscript we sent big publishers. It was still a beautiful book, but it wasn't what it is today, meaning it didn't have the tightness.

That the book has today. It worked. As Sean said, the book works now. He said, we don't have to do what I'm suggesting. It works. We can throw a beautiful cover on it, make some minor tweaks, and it's ready to go out into the world, but it won't be its fullest manifestation of what it can be. And I do believe today that the Sand Sea is what it's supposed to be.

That guy in his late 20s working in his garage on a Saturday in Southern California. I think what I was dreaming the book would be is something similar to what it actually is today. And I owe you so much of that to Steve for the encouragement and the inspiration, but also to Sean for his expertise as an architect.

And so when you say that he had, like, the note cards and he had the full story grid, like, what did you.

Like, what was that process of. Were you literally, like, tracking characters through the story? Were you looking at individual scenes? And when you say things like, you know, you really tightened it up. Like, what. What do you mean when you say that?

That's a great question. So.

Selina is a great example. Peter always had a pretty good arc of his hero's journey, right? The call, the rejection of the call, who's the mentor? What are the trials and tribulations that he goes through in order to evolve into the hero, et cetera. Jack also had a pretty good arc.

But Selina started out in the original version. Selina started out too good. She was already like a sage, like a martyr, like a religious hero leader, like a Joan of Arc kind of character. And we realized, or Sean realized, and then convinced me quite quickly that we needed her to have more of an arc so that people could relate to her more, so that we would be more accessible. And so we needed a concept of how are we gonna take her without altering who she is. Right? She was always the daughter of Saseg Sabinar, who was burned alive by Selahim the Grim Sumatan's father. But. And she always was sort of the hope of the revolution, of the Order of the Ram, the Lion and the Serpent, Right? And she was always tied to the Besserian prophecy. But we.

How she was going to start. Sean and I had protracted discussion and even debate over how Selina was going to start. And ultimately we landed on how she does start, which is that her life has been so upended and rough that she begins as about to begin a career in a brothel in Alwazdin.

And that's where we meet her. That's where we find her.

So that's the kind. And then how do we get her from there to ultimately become the Selina that Selina is? Right.

How do we.

How do we make that journey for her? And so there were specific scenes in which that had to happen. That sort of the tempting of Selina in the dungeon by Gemma Jean early in the book.

Right, right, right, right.

Abandon the truth and I will give you the quick death of a beheading as opposed to the atrocious death of being slowly burned alive at the stake. And what does she say at this stage? Done.

No problem.

I'll say whatever you want me to say. Right. I'm. I'm no ideologue. Yeah. But of course, we know that the Selena that we meet deeper into the book is quite a different person. And so that's the kind of arc adjustment that we did. The other kind of architectural shift that we did was we were struggling early on with how do you get the reader, a 21st century reader, into the story? And that was how we came up with the prologue, which was.

And I can't say who's talking to who in the prologue, because that's obviously a great surprise at the end of the book. One of my favorites. But that was a mechanism for taking from something that looks much more like the accessible presentation into the extraordinary world of the seven cities. And there were lots of different ways that we were looking at what is the first scene of the book? What should the first scene of the book look like? And that was where we landed, and I'm happy with where we land. I actually love the prologue and epilogue because they create architecture and framework for not just the sand sea, but for the entire series.

So when you were one, one of the things I thought was interesting was just how you built the battles. Right. Because for me, the book, like.

There was the first kind of action scene with Selina about to be burned at the stake and everything that happens there. And then the one that was like. Because I read the CNC with trepidation, right? Because it's like, I've got a lot of money in this book. You know, we're putting a lot of time and effort into this book, and I want to like it. And I have this buddy that.

He'S this guy that, like every. He has decided whether or not he likes a movie before he sees it or decided whether or Not. He likes a book before he reads it. And so I feel like he always recommends me stuff that, like, once I read it or watch it, I'm like, ah, it was fine. You know, it wasn't the full potential of what it could be. And so I'm looking at this book and I'm like, oh, man. Like, I really, really want to like it. And I hate going into a book wanting to like it, because I'm the guy that, like, if I get 10% into a book and it hasn't got me, I'm like, ah. And I just move on to the next one. And so, yeah, so I went into this with. With trepidation. And.

And so for me, the book, like, I was like, okay, now. Now it's got me. Was the scene. You have a name for it, but it was when Peter and them get attacked when they're starting their kind of travel, you know.

And 43 for Anglia.

And the three gods. But I call it the Battle of the Crates.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So that was when I was like. Because I also, like.

I tend to, like, like, the darker stuff, the more violent stuff, especially on the, like, the fantasy side. And so the fact that there was such a great battle scene.

That'S what grabbed me was like, okay. And then there was the scene, I think I told you, where.

You had. Because, you know, Sean always talks about, like, you know, you have to back your. You have to keep. You have to back your characters into worse and worse corners and then figure out how to get them out. And there was the one scene where they were. They were on the water with Selena. And again, I won't, like, give it away, but they're like the. Like, you back them into a corner. And I was literally like, I have no idea how they're going to get away. Like, I'm, like, trying to imagine a scenario where they can get away, and I couldn't come up with one. And then the way you pulled it off, I was like, oh, my God, that was so good.

And.

And so, like, those two scenes, they were pretty. Pretty close together, I think. And after those two, I was like, oh, man, I'm all in. But I just thought it was interesting how, like.

Did he help you kind of lay out the bat, like, the. Right. Because you have these early battles with, like, you know, a dozen people or a couple dozen people, and then the next battle is, like, a little bit bigger. And then, of course, the final battle is just these, you know, thousands and thousands of people on this huge stage coming from all these different directions, you know, did you. Like. I guess, again, like, that, to me is such a sophisticated way of building a story that takes a. That, like.

Like, how.

Like, did you have that already? Is that one of the things, like, Sean helped you? Did that come out of just you writing for so long on your own? Like, how did you kind of build that.

That build, you know, that was all luck, man. And what I mean by that, okay, that was all instinct that had. That had been there from the beginning and that. That kind of escalation of the conflict. I don't know if it came from having watched a million movies or having read so many books.

That are either in the epic fantasy genre.

Or in the historical fiction genre, but for me, yeah, the battles have to get bigger and the stakes have to get higher over the course of the trajectory. And that was one of the things I think that Sean loved about the early version book, was that he didn't have to make those changes, was that they were already, and I didn't. Here's the thing. This is one of the things I love about working with Shawn. I didn't know why it was right. I couldn't articulate why it was right, but Sean could. In an instant, he said, mike, here's what's about this book. Your stakes get higher, the battles get bigger, and it keeps escalating, climbing, as you move deeper and deeper into the manuscript. And here's why that matters. And he could give me all of the actual technical words of why it's the correct thing, but for me, it was on. Yeah, it was on instinct.

So did he show you, like, the spreadsheet of the book at that point when you guys met?

Oh, yeah, he did.

What was that like, looking at your book in such a.

Like, detailed, but also almost like an autopsy of your book? Like that. Like, what is profile? What was that like?

Profoundly humbling and awe inspiring. I mean, I.

It was like.

I don't know. I mean, it almost felt like if you did like a, you know, 23 and me or something, and you're like, I didn't know I had all those things inside of me. How weird. Like, that's. It was like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was really in my book, Right. In a way that I. And to see it all there on, you know, reams of paper. Right. You know, the printed giant spreadsheet that you keep flipping. And it just. It was amazing to me to see that.

Yeah. So.

When you're entering into the second book, Right. So you've already written a big, big chunks. A big chunk of it. But.

Like, how.

So you said it'll go faster because of the world building. And it's one of those because I also. The other rule I broke reading the Sand Sea is I decided Patrick Rothfuss with the Name of the Wind finally broke me. And I'm like, I'm never starting a series again until it's done because these authors don't finish. And one of my favorite fantasy authors is Brent Weeks, and he just keeps adding more and more books to this series. And I'm like, I forget what happened in the first two books by the time I sit down to read the fourth book. So then I got to go back and read the first two books. I'd rather just read them all at once anyway. So I broke that rule with reading the Sand. See, but, like, how are you. Like, do you. Because there's these rumors where, like, you know, when J.K. rowling started writing the first Harry Potter, she already knew the whole story in her head.

Do you kind of know where the whole story is going and where it's going to end? Do you already kind of have the second book, like, this is what's going to happen? Or has it been a struggle to start trying to figure out, like, okay, well, how do I sit down and now create this second book? And also, it can't take 12 years.

How are you approaching the second book?

So the answer is.

I know where the ship is sailing. Meaning I know where book two ends. And I know, of course, perhaps more importantly, where book three ends.

What I don't know is all of.

The routes that are going to be taken to get there. And to me, that's incredibly important because you referenced a scene that I enjoy also, which is the escape from the great pool with the galleys coming. And when I started writing that scene, I didn't know how they were going to escape. I had to invent it in the moment on the fly, because.

I'm not smart enough to think about every scene. I'm serious. I'm not smart enough to think of every scene and then come up with, how are they going to do it? Right? How are they? And so I literally get to the point where I'm like, how are they going to get out of this thing? And then the vision arrives, right? Here they come here. Here they come, right? And this is. And this is the next step. And then he does this, and then he does this. And.

Aha.

And. And now it's happening, right? And the same Is true with some of the battle of the big battle at the end of the book where there were some obstacles where I thought, okay, how are they going to get over this?

What is the way to do that? And then it arrives. It's, oh, my gosh, they're going to do this. Okay.

And that I can't foreclose those moments by over planning. Yeah, that's because to me, the art is only possible by allowing it to have room to be living and breathing.

I can't crush it too tightly simultaneously, however, if you don't have enough architecture, you feel like you're sailing to Tahiti without a map.

And that's not okay either. You waste too much time and you'll get off on too many tangents and it'll take 12 years. And so I would say there's better architecture out the gun or out of port in book two than there was in book one. But I'm also trying to get the right balance between art and architecture in terms of seen authenticity, as well as making sure that we're tight in terms of moving. But the reality is, look, I'm gonna need to have long calls with Sean about choices. Here's where this important secondary character is heading. And this is how I view that arc. And what do you think? And sometimes he says, I think that's perfect. Sometimes he says, I think that's really good, but. And sometimes he says, I think that's a mistake and we shouldn't do that. And I say, well, then what should we do? And he'll say, let me think about it, and then we'll talk about it later.

Yeah. So now that the book is out.

And I guess, like, what is it? What does it feel like to have it out? You can hold it in your hand.

We'll get to people reading it in a second. But just like the idea that, like, the maps are printed and they're in the, you know, the front cover of this hardback and the. The COVID looks amazing and your name's on it, you know, and it's like, what's it. What's it like to have it, you know, done.

First?

It's wonderful. I feel like. I think I said this.

To Steven Pressfield right after we launched the arc, the advanced reader copy. I said, look, when everything finally went live. And I think that was what May 6 said. When everything finally.

Yeah, something like that.

When everything finally went live, I had this very, very vivid mental image of a. Of a ship pulling into harbor and there's this place in Catalina island. Which is off the coast of California called Avalon. And it's like a kind of a crescent shaped little bay. And it kind of goes up the hillside. And in my mind there was this big Avalon type place. And the ship pulled in. And I stepped off the ship onto the dock and then onto the solid land. And I felt like finally, not like I, Mike McClellan, had arrived, but that the sand sea had finally pulled into port. And I. And it was. It was safe and in port. And I could. And I could take a deep breath. That was the overwhelming initial feeling, was it was finally done.

The second feeling is I.

Was joking with Sean and with Steve and I said, look, the other feeling, aside from being thrilled, is you feel a little bit like you're standing without any clothes on in the middle of the football stadium. You feel very exposed because you go from having 10 people in the entire universe, or 15 or whatever it is, having read your work to all of a sudden having thousands having read your work. And of course, you try and be very stoic, where you try to take neither the praise nor the criticisms terribly seriously, right? You try to hold it all with balance.

And.

But it is.

There's something in the sand sea, I think, to offend everyone, right?

It's too violent, you know, it's not violent enough, you know, too religious or, you know, I want to see some real religion in this thing, right? And others will say, you know, the characters are wooden, they're cardboard. Someone else will say, I thought the character development was. There was too much emphasis on the character development. I want more action. Or someone will say, there was too much action. It's too much salt, too little salt. So that's. I think you cannot.

Focus.

On that too much. I think it'll drive you crazy. And I think you have to write the story as it comes and damn the torpedoes, you have to, because the story is what it's supposed to be, and our job is to find that. And at the end of the book, for example, you know, that a lot of that stuff, and I can't say any specifics because even sort of saying location or names will be a total spoiler. But.

The stuff in the end, Part six, right, A Child of Komhamram.

That stuff, like, came out of the ether, and it came fast and hard, and I felt like I was just the vessel transmitting it. And that's, you know, there's all different kinds of ways to describe that. Some would say that comes from our deep, deep subconscious.

Others would say Prescott would say that there's moments when, in our service to the Muse, that we stand on the dividing line, on the plane that separates.

The material world from the higher world, the eternal. And we're getting glimpses of that higher plane in those moments. And I'll say that those moments, in my experience, come very, very rarely, and they usually only come.

In the context of daily dedication to the Muse. And then all of a sudden it'll happen. And those are the moments that are the greatest.

But we can't. You know, our job is to show up whether we feel good or bad or inspired or not inspired, and just keep, keep chipping away at it.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything Story Grid related, check out storygrid.com make sure you pick up a copy of the book and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss anything happening in the Story Grid universe. Also, make sure you go to storygrid.com books to see all of the titles, including the Sand Sea, which We've released through StoryGrid Publishing. If you'd like to check out the show notes for this episode or any of the past episodes, all of that can be found@storygrid.com podcast. If you would like to reach out to us, you can find us on Twitter StoryGrid. Lastly, if you would like to support the show, you can do that by telling another author about the show and by visiting us on Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating and review. Thanks for supporting, subscribing and being a part of our work here at Story Grid.

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