In May 2006, C.S. Goto kindly agreed to be the first 40K author featured in 'Quote the Pro'.
The latest book in his Deathwatch series is called Warrior Coven and features Eldar, Dark Eldar and Space Marines.
He has written five novels for BL Publishing, the other four are: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Dawn of War: Ascension, Salvation and Warrior Brood.
And there are more coming, though you'll have to read this interview if you want to find out about them.
By the way, for those of you who have always wondered, C.S. stands for Cassern Sebastian.
1. How did you become a professional writer and how much of a struggle was it to get there?
Actually, I stumbled into being a writer rather by accident. (C.S. gives more detail in Question Six.)
In general, I think that people hate to be told that, since becoming a writer is supposed to be something that you slave over for decades before finally, after years of superhuman effort (lots of publishers' parties and a few unpleasant cocktails); you are awarded a contract for your long cherished book. I'm afraid to say that quite of lot of this business actually seems to have to do with being in the right place at the right time, and I am pleased to say that I appear to be rather fortunate in that regard.
Of course, the real secret is to work enormously hard to make sure that you are in the right place when the right time comes along (or vice versa). In practice (and certainly in my case) this meant writing short-fiction for magazines like the wonderful 'Inferno!' It is a real shame that 'Inferno!' has folded -- it was not only a good read, but also a fantastic forum for developing authors. BL seem to have done rather well out of it. In addition, I really enjoy short-fiction -- it's the most challenging medium, I think.
More than anything else, I suppose, the key is probably just to really love writing and to love what you're writing about. I always think that readers will be able to tell which parts of a novel I have enjoyed writing and which parts I have found tedious or mechanical -- I certainly think that I can spot these bits in other people's writing, even more so my own. BL authors are very lucky that they have such fantastic material to play with -- its material that readers and authors both love before the writing even starts, and that's a knock-out combination. Because of the pressures of deadlines and the rest of 'real life', however, sometimes writers can forget how great the material is. This is something to guard against, I think.
2. Why do you think that short stories are the most challenging form to write?
Short stories require a really tight control of plot and characterisation -- they prevent writers from being sloppy. Novels give much more scope for 'writing over' your mistakes or inadequacies. With short stories you just have go back and rewrite, then rewrite, and rewrite the entire thing until you get it right. There is always a temptation for new writers to think that writing a novel is a massive challenge because it is long.... or to think that making a short story longer makes it more 'substantial.' I don't think that this is a helpful way to approach writing: saying what you want in less than (say) 8,000 words is a real achievement.
Imagine trying to establish scene, character, themes and then run the entire plot in about the space of a single chapter from a novel. The key, of course, is to realise that you can't do the same things in a short as you can in a novel -- hence, short story writing becomes a distinct art in itself. It's great.
3. Are you writing full-time? Describe your working day: How many words do you write, do you set yourself targets, do you work on more than one book at a time? Also what do you find the hardest and what the easiest part of the craft?
No, I am not a full-time writer, although my time seems increasingly full of writing. 'Real life,' however you like to define it, happens around my writing, but it is certainly real. I have bills to pay, just like everyone else. I can't send a Mantis Warrior librarian round to deal with the bank manager -- don't think I haven't fantasized about it! Actually, I think an ork would be more effective, because the librarian would ask too many questions and eventually conclude that I should just pay the bill (as it is decreed in the Codex Billicus). Anyway: yes, I have a 'day job,' and my writing should fit into the gaps, even if it's the other way around in reality.
As for my daily routine: I don't really have one. I know that some writers tell you that they wake up every morning at 7.00am and write 4,000 words before lunch, go for a jog for 17 minutes, eat 8 carrots and then write a further 2,000 words before dinner. I don't do any of those things (although I do like carrots). Frankly, one of the things I really love about being a writer is that I don't have to have a routine. As long as the writing gets done on time, nobody cares if you do it in the middle of the night, in the shower, or in a regular slot between 7.00 and 11.30 in the morning. Of course, there is a terrible problem lurking in the darkest depths of this apparently easy-going attitude: how do you make sure you meet your deadlines if you don't have a routine?
I have no real answer for that question, although (with one or two significant exceptions) I do usually meet my deadlines. I think that we all know how much we can write in how much time, and hence (if we're honest with ourselves) we all know when we reach the point at which we will miss the deadline (people who tell you this moment is ten minutes after the deadline has already passed are either lying or idiots). A more sophisticated (if slightly more annoying) response to the lurking problem is another question: how can you have a routine if you also have a 'day job' that does not itself have a routine?
I know from experience that I can write pretty quickly if someone puts a gun to my head or threatens not to pay me. I also know how much I can make myself write in a pinch. Without a routine, but with the flexibility to be able to set aside four weeks of solid writing in moments of need, my 'moment of realisation' (at which I realise I will miss a deadline) is usually about three weeks before the deadline, no matter how much of a book remains to be written. Three weeks is a long time in BL-land.
Yes, I nearly always have more than one project on the go at the same time. In general, I think this is a mistake. Nearly everytime I think about it (including right now), I promise myself that I will not do it again. It's hard: one of the things about writing fiction that immerses others is having to be immersed in it yourself, and that's really difficult if you have to keep switching your attention between plots, characters and settings. If anyone cares what I think, I would strongly recommend against working on more than one thing at a time (and I'm promising myself to stop doing it right now). Of course, it may be possible to pull it off if you have a proper routine, eating carrots and jogging for 17 minutes ...
4. Do you want to give up the 'day job? If so, what will it take for you to be able to write full-time?
I do toy with giving up the day job to write full-time, and I have to confess that I have a few things hiding up my sleeve that might help to make that happen. I'm sorry to say that projects that make you completely financially independent are highly unlikely to involve BL! Because of that, I suspect that most BL writers will always have other projects on the go -- the 'day job', if you like, however you chose to define that. I suppose that I should say that I love writing for BL so much that I would do it for free ... I won't say that though (oh! I did!).
5. Who are or were the biggest influences on your writing?
Oh, this is a good question. I love to read and I find that my writing gets influenced from a whole range of material, not all of it is science fiction or fantasy.
Let me just pick a few of the most important that might interest our readers. Ursula LeGuin has to be one of the greatest genre writers of her generation; I find her writing elegant and imaginative, full of great ideas and fully developed characters. I love the way that her fiction addresses themes and concerns that are difficult and often unapologetically political. Without ever meeting her, I feel as though I understand her position on any number of issues. There is real genius in writing that gives the reader that much. Up there with Ursula has to be the late Octavia E Butler, who so tragically died earlier this year: gritty, realistic, character driven speculative fiction. Amazing.
On a completely different level, I think Neal Stephenson is a master of concept-driven science fiction: 'Snow Crash' and 'The Diamond Age' have to be two of the finest pieces of sci-fi of the 1990s.
On a similar page (although certainly not the same one) is China Mieville -- he is a seriously political writer, with lots to say to readers who know what they're looking for. Gene Wolfe. Tolkien. What all of these people have in common is that they can really 'write.' They are not clumsy or ugly on the page. If I could aspire towards anything at all in my own writing, it would be towards the grace of those guys, who (each in their own very distinct ways) are 'proper' writers who just happen to be writing genre fiction.
Of course, I am as far away from them as the carrot dangling in front of the proverbial donkey (the donkey never catches the carrot, otherwise it would stop moving and cease to be useful). As somebody wise on the BL Forum once commented: I don't read BL fiction when I'm looking for literature, I read it when I want heroes and action.
More realistically, I don't think that anyone should really try to write military sci-fi without reading classics like 'Starship Troopers' or 'The Forever War.' At the risk of being seen as sycophantic, I also think that aspirant military sci-fi writers should read Abnett. Of course, he is something of a god amongst the BL devotees, but this can sometimes detract from the fact that he's actually a damned good writer and story-teller, with a real flare for characterisation and military-based plots. I hope that we'll see some original fiction from him soon. Actually, BL has a nice batch of good writers at the moment. If I had to pick out a couple I would probably point to Ben Counter and Si Spurrier.
6. Give us a couple of examples of how the ideas for books came about? For example, do you pitch ideas to BL or do they approach you with a brief?
There is not really any one way in which ideas for books come into my head.
With my first BL novel, 'Dawn of War,' (which was linked to the computer game, as you know) I was given the general outline of the plot from the script for the game. However, rather than making the writing process easier, I have to confess that 'Dawn of War' was by far the hardest book for me to write.
One of the keys to enjoying writing and to making it real is to feel some sense of ownership of your characters and plots, and this is incredibly difficult when you are trying to shape characters and plots that have already been sketched by other people. One of the problems is that of depth: when you are drawing up a plan for a novel, you build it in layers so that characters have depths and plots have subplots (and the subplots also have subplots). When a ready-made plot is given to you, it's harder to develop this layering. Having said that, I was lucky that 'Dawn of War' had a genuine plot and some interesting characters to play with -- I have really enjoyed taking elements from that book and developing them into my own contexts and giving the characters more substance and direction. Gabriel Angelos is a great character with loads of potential.
As an aside here, I should say that 'Dawn of War' was one of those instances of being in the right place at the right time: I was commissioned to write it at very short notice because the editors at BL knew that I could produce something quickly ... very quickly, as it turned out.
All the other books have grown up around themes or characters that I have been interested in or wanted to develop. The Necromunda novel, 'Salvation' (which is one of my personal favourites) was inspired by the absurdity of the Necromunda setting itself, and then by a number of other novels that deal with the absurdity of massive bureaucracies -- think Kafka in space ... think Brazil ... Gormenghast. It's great to watch stories and plots evolve through their interaction with other (much more impressive) novels and ideas. I like the idea of Zefer (the bumbling bureaucrat in Salvation); seeing how he might survive (more by luck than good management) in a dark and violent world was an interesting thought-experiment. I suspect that we will see more of him soon.
The Deathwatch series was really inspired by the fact that the Deathwatch itself is the only opportunity for interaction between Space Marines from different Chapters. In my mind, the Deathwatch is the key to character-driven Space Marine stories because it brings the differences and suspicions between the various Chapters into clear focus -- highlighting and showcasing the idiosyncrasies of various Chapters. The Deathwatch permits me to make Space Marines back into people again, although I am aware that this doesn't please all the readers. In my mind, somewhere deep down inside, underneath all the armour, all the drugs, and the hypnotherapy, there are the remnants of a human being. He must have feelings on some level, whether they're the same as ours or not. The Deathwatch set-up lets me play with that, and I find that really exciting. I think that a number of the characters from those books are pretty solid.
What I also like about the Deathwatch is the opportunity to place these characters up against different types of alien species (since they are alien-hunters, after all). So far, I have done the tyranids and the eldar ... and I have plans for some others. This takes the character-comparison dynamic to whole new levels, of course.
Lots of people ask me about the Mantis Warriors Chapter, and I have to confess that I love those guys (the Marines and the people who ask about them!). It was nice to take a relatively unknown Chapter and give it shape and depth. It was one of the chief motivations behind 'Warrior Brood,' and I think they come out it pretty well (albeit utterly devastated). It is always gratifying to hear that people appreciate the effort of creating new things, and I have been really happy with the feedback about the Mantis Warriors. In some ways, this kind of feedback is one of the best inspirations to write more about certain topics. Anyway, for those who are interested: the Mantis Warriors will return!
7. Do you see yourself principally as a novelist or would you take on other work as jobbing writer? Games, screenplays etc?
I guess that I would think of myself principally as a novelist, yes. I don't really have any ambitions to write games, but I might be tempted by a screenplay, if the right project came along. Being a screenplay writer would be a great 'day job.'
8. Books. Who is your favourite non-BL writer and who are you reading at the moment?
My favourite non-BL, genre writer is probably Neal Stephenson. At the moment I am reading the second volume of Gene Wolfe's Knight-Wizard series. Awesome.
9. When you become Evil Overlord for the day, what rule would you impose on the genre (apart from giving yourself a lifetime's worth of novels to write)?
I remember once reading a definition of science fiction that I rather liked. It said that for something to be properly considered science fiction it had to be entirely self-contained. That is, it could not make any references to (or rely upon) the 'real world' in any way. Readers should be able to pick it up and read it without any particular cultural background or social knowledge, and they should be able to find themselves in a fully formed world that they could understand completely just from reading the book. I think it would be amazing if more than a tiny proportion of writers tried to this for a day.
10. What are you working on at the moment?
I've just finished the third 'Dawn of War' novel, called 'Tempest.' I think it's the best of the 'Dawn of War' books -- I had a good time writing a 'first person' Marine in parts of it. I don't think that's been done before, so it was a challenge. Obviously it is an approach that relies on my faith that Marines actually have personalities! There's other good stuff in there too, stuff that people may associate more with CS Goto. So, there are eldar (Harlequins, actually, which is also cool). And I have also been playing with the Thousand Sons, who seem not altogether dissimilar from the Blood Ravens in so far as they are both seekers of knowledge and power -- they're both scholar Marines, albeit in importantly different ways.
Tempest came hot on the heels of the second Deathwatch novel, 'Warrior Coven,' which is an intriguing look at the interactions between the Ordo Xenos and the eldar of Ulthwe. I had a ball writing all the dark eldar stuff in WC, so I'm really excited to see what the readers make of that.
Next, just appearing as a fresh window on my desktop, is 'Prophecy,' which is a 'pure' eldar novel -- the very first of its kind from BL. This is the book that I have been wanting to write since day one, and I have only just earned the 'right' to do it, I think. I am unspeakably thrilled to be writing it, and I think it should be my best BL novel. As some of your readers will be aware, I am fascinated by the eldar, and this novel gives me the freedom and the scope to develop something really exciting. I'm not going to tell you anything else about it -- you'll just have to wait!
11. What about away from BL? Are you writing any other books for different publishers or genres? Is there a hidden masterpiece you have been working on for years?
I'm not going to tell you! Yes, I am working on a number of other projects, but you'll have to wait and see.
12. 40K. Of all the different warrior races, which do you find the hardest to write about and establish as characters and which are the easiest? Why?
I think that Space Marines are the hardest for a couple of reasons: 1) either they don't have very much personality because they are thoroughly programmed super-warriors/duty-driven killing-machines, or 2) you give them personality and certain groups of readers complain that they are no longer Space Marines. This complaint (which is not without merit, I might add) destroys the possibility of interesting Marines, in my view. My personal feeling about this is that Marines are people too! We should permit them space for personality and character development. In particular, if you are going to allow that the different Chapters have different characteristics, then you have to allow that the Marines themselves can change and evolve as people in their environments. Underneath all that armour is a human being, right? It may have been changed and altered profoundly, but it is still there -- a non-human Marine would probably be a kind of heresy, particularly to the Thorians! Anyway, it's a very difficult balance and it is impossible to please everyone on this front. Space Marine characters and novels are some of the most popular BL products (everyone loves the SMs), but they also come in for the most criticism (everyone hates the SMs).
Alien characters are also difficult, and for similar reasons: 1) either they are so alien that we cannot understand their personalities in human terms, or 2) you give them personalities that we can understand and certain groups of readers complain that they are no longer aliens! Again, my feeling on this is that writers have to give aliens personality and try as hard as possible to make them 'as alien as possible' within the confines of the 40K universe. That is to say: the eldar (a personal favourite of mine) have to be incomprehensible to the Space Marines (to most of the SMs, since some of those have sympathetic personalities too!) but not to the readers of BL novels. This is a real challenge; it's easy to get excited about and very hard to actually do.
I think the idea that there are 'easy' characters to write is very dangerous: all characterisation takes work, and short cuts usually lead to cliché and cardboard cut-outs. If you begin by assuming that everything will be hard, then you will meet with no problems in the end (Confucius); train hard and fight easy (SAS). I hope that I avoid easy writing, but I'm only human and fatigue occasionally sets in!
13. Any practical advice for aspiring BL writers?
Write. Read. Write. Read. And then write some more. Be as lucky as you can be. Make as much luck as you can. Try to be in the right place at the right time, and make sure you have a collection of short stories and a pitch for a couple of novels when that time comes.
Thanks to Cassern for making the time to provide such frank and interesting answers. Any errors or omissions are entirely a product of my dreadful proof-reading skills.
- Martin Belderson
