Samuel Burr, author of 'The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers' - Mystery writer talks about learning from making TV, spying for inspiration, and how the business actually works
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2024
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Samuel Burr has worked as a TV executive, creating shows like 'The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds', 'Eight Go Rallying', and 'The Secret Life of Cleaners'. Many years ago he worked on a documentary in a retirement home, now it's given him the basis for his debut novel.
'The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers' looks at Clayton Sumper, an enigma who was abandoned at birth on the steps of the puzzlemakers, ending up being raised by some of the sharpest minds in the country. The hope is that he's learned from them, as to discover the secrets of who he is and who he can be, he needs to crack one last puzzle.
We talk about the details of writing such a tricksy book, matching chapter names to crossword answers, and how getting deep into those details impacted his ability to be creative. You can hear why he works towards a final sentence, also why he uses the pomodoro technique, and how he gets ideas by spying on strangers.
We discuss his time at the Faber Academy, how working in TV has influenced his storytelling in novels, and you can hear about the business of writing - what does an advance mean? What happens if you get a big deal? How do you get paid?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. |
| 0:11.8 | This week we're chatting to Samuel Burr. |
| 0:14.4 | Samuel has worked as a TV executive producing all sorts of reality shows, and he's got a new novel out. |
| 0:20.4 | It's a tricksy mystery |
| 0:21.6 | called The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers. We talk about some of the intricacies of the writing |
| 0:27.6 | business, but what big deals mean, how much say you have, how do you actually get paid. Also, |
| 0:33.5 | you can hear why spying inspired his characters, and we chat through how working in |
| 0:40.9 | tele affected his writing. |
| 0:42.5 | It's almost as if I've got a camera and I'm sort of trying to decide where I'm going to |
| 0:45.9 | point it. |
| 0:46.9 | I think that definitely feeds into, you know, from TV into books, but I think actually, |
| 0:52.7 | I always worked in unscripted television. So obviously we tried |
| 0:56.2 | to plan stuff a bit, but the sort of beauty of documentary and reality is that you, you want to see |
| 1:02.5 | what sort of naturally unfolds. And I guess I've tried to do the same thing with my book in that |
| 1:07.0 | I plot to a degree. I like to know the main beats of the story |
| 1:10.8 | and I like to know roughly where I'm going, where I'm heading. |
| 1:15.0 | But I do like to be surprised |
| 1:17.8 | and I like to really sort of try and listen to the characters |
| 1:20.8 | and allow myself the freedom to move in different directions if I need to. |
| 1:25.3 | There is more with Samuel Burr in this week's Writers' Routine. |
| 1:35.6 | Yes, welcome along to the show. |
| 1:37.1 | My name is Dan Simpson. |
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