How to Write Absurdly Well — Adrian Tchaikovsky

Introduction to Adrian Tchaikovsky, Arthur C. Clark Award winner and author of over 60 books, establishing his focus on world-building and imaginative storytelling. The interview promises insights into creating believable worlds, compelling characters, and dynamic action sequences.

Tchaikovsky's meticulous planning approach stems from his role-playing game background, where worlds must withstand player unpredictability. His method involves detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines with specific beats, treating information flow as 90% of the planning challenge while maintaining flexibility during writing.

• Advanced planning worldview developed from running role-playing games
• Creates chapter-by-chapter word documents with specific beats and information exchanges
• Information distribution to the right place within a book is 90% of planning
• Maintains linear approach but allows for detours and logic corrections during writing

Tchaikovsky deliberately avoids planning final endings, believing that the book's momentum and trajectory should organically determine its conclusion. This approach creates a partnership between writer and creation, where the author becomes both director and chronicler of the emerging story.

• Plans up to the penultimate scene but never the final ending
• Lets the book's trajectory and momentum determine how it should end

World-building begins with a single 'what if' premise that creates expanding ripples of logical consequences. Tchaikovsky uses the metaphor of dropping a stone in a pool, where each ripple represents a logical 'therefore' that builds an entire coherent world from the ground up.

• Starts with a particular 'what if' premise as the foundation
• Uses ripple effect approach - each consequence leads to the next logical step
• Avoids repeating others' work by finding unique spins on familiar concepts
• Dragons avoided due to overcrowded idea space despite being fantasy staples

A properly constructed world naturally generates plot and characters through its inherent tensions and fractures. Rather than imposing external stories, Tchaikovsky showcases worlds by finding narratives that explore their most interesting elements and pressure points.

• World-building phase takes about two weeks of formal work after months of subconscious development
• Maintains phone notes to capture spontaneous ideas for future books
• Coherent worlds tell you what the story should be
• Looks for stories that showcase all interesting places and things in the world
• Worlds contain inherent flash points, pressures, and fractures that drive plot

City-based stories force characters to live with consequences unlike travel narratives where protagonists can leave problems behind. This creates more complex, interconnected storytelling requiring extensive character relationship mapping and deeper world preparation.

• Travel narratives allow characters to walk away from consequences
• City residents have existing relationships with all people and factions
• City narratives require living with the consequences of reckless decisions
• Needs extensive prep work mapping who hates whom and pre-existing associations

Addressing science fiction's reputation for flat characters, Tchaikovsky demonstrates how characters emerge organically from world-building rather than being imposed externally. Characters grow from their world's cultural and political contexts, developing depth through their inherent connections to the setting.

• Science fiction unfairly criticized for flat characters compared to other genres
• Characters emerge from specific cultural and political contexts within the world
• All strings connecting character to setting are inherent, not artificially added
• Characters gain depth naturally as their world connections are explored

Tchaikovsky introduces the 'left wall' concept - scientific possibility as a boundary that can only be expanded outward, never violated. Research involves identifying unknown unknowns and consulting experts to ensure scientific accuracy supports storytelling rather than breaking reader immersion.

• Science fiction exists on a continuum from hard science to space opera to fantasy
• Left wall concept: science defines what's possible, can only expand outward from there
• Unknown unknowns are the dangerous research gaps
• Consulted submarine designer for water-filled spaceship physics
• Spent full day with Natural History Museum entomology department discussing giant spiders

Tchaikovsky critiques rigid writing advice, arguing that every writer's process is unique and dogmatic approaches like the hero's journey can be actively harmful. He emphasizes that successful writing comes from individual adaptation rather than following universal formulas.

• Writing maxims are seldom universally true
• Every writer does something that others find unthinkable
• Hero's journey is just one structure, not universal story template
• Children of Time is 60% exposition, contradicting 'show don't tell'

Drawing from stage fighting, live-action roleplay, and historical sword training, Tchaikovsky breaks down fight scene construction across different scales - from massive battles to intimate duels. The key is balancing technical accuracy with emotional resonance while using minimal research details for maximum impact.

• Extensive background in stage fighting, LARP, and historical broadsword training
• Fantasy readers are educated about combat - accuracy matters for credibility
• Different fight types require different approaches: battles, skirmishes, duels
• Used toy insects to map out complex multi-character skirmish logistics
• Fights as character development - actions reveal personality and relationships
• Use minimal research details for maximum impact - avoid vomiting knowledge
• Live roleplay taught the emotional reality of being in combat

Each new project targets unexplored creative territory to avoid repetitive writing. Tchaikovsky specifically seeks to capture 'the numinous' - that sense of awe for otherworldly presence - while continuing his fascination with post-tech societies and their tragic grandeur.

• Each project has one or two things to do differently
• Seeks to create sense of the numinous - awe of just-out-of-sight worlds
• Post-tech societies fascinate due to tragedy and grandeur of forgotten pasts
• Three-sided knowledge structure: author, character, and reader knowledge

Effective writing emerges from conscious and subconscious minds working in partnership. While conscious effort creates frameworks, the subconscious fills gaps and makes connections, requiring writers to develop trust in their intuitive processes through experience.

• Conscious creates framework while subconscious fills the gaps between mapped points
• Subconscious understands connections before conscious awareness
• Reading contemporary peers more valuable than studying classics
• Current era represents a golden age of interesting science fiction

Reader connection comes through inhabiting characters fully, making even minor characters real to themselves. Endings are the most crucial element - they must feel both inevitable and surprising, emerging organically from the book's momentum rather than imposed planning.

• Characters must be real to themselves regardless of their story importance
• Endings are the most important part because they're what readers take away
• Good endings feel inexorably logical yet surprising
• Avoids planning endings so book's momentum determines organic conclusion