Book 6 Bonus 1: Writer's Ramble (Patreon)

[The plan: this thing today, another bonus on Friday, the best bonus of all time next Monday. New book next Friday. I had to check through Podium's edits of book 7 just after posting the appendix, which was well timed but meant I didn't actually get much break yet and I do need one.]

Hi!

I have written 20 books in this series, 3 million-odd words, and if you're reading this you've read almost all of those. (You probably skimmed Emily in Canada and GET LAMP, but in doing so you missed the six best stealth jokes in the entire franchise.) 

In this post I'm going stretch the phrase 'bonus content' way past breaking point; I'm going to blab about things like 'my process'. This is self-indulgent even by my standards but my wife said 'I would read that!' when I told her the concept, which makes it infinitely more enticing to her than chapter 1 of Player Manager.

If you have any questions I don't cover, slap them into the comments. I might reply and add it to the main post for future generations of Patrons!

Thought 1

One of the general principles of the story is that everything we read is something Max could get his hands on when it comes to writing his memoirs. Like if someone he knows is secretly in the Wrexham Discord, Max could get access to the chat history. There's one occasion where I took a slight liberty with that idea (can't remember what it was but I remember thinking 'this is cheating'!), but generally that's what it is.

Another principle is that my attention follows Max's, and Max is relatively single-minded. When he says he's not reading the papers about a certain incident, and he's not tracking the socials, he really isn't.

After the SS6 epilogue, a reader wished for an update on how Bradford City are getting on. Right now, Max isn't thinking about Bradford, so it's not going in the story. That said, I love those comments because if I can slip little updates into the text in a natural way, I will.

Thought 1 Subthought A

I'm often surprised by the reaction to Max's decisions because what he decides is based on how I used to play Championship Manager! A player dislikes another one? In. The. Bin. A player needs to go for specialist rehab? Yep, off you go, right away. I don't care that there's a cup final next week because I remember that one time a guy was injured for five years because I didn't look after him with Bestian levels of intensity.

The whole story is infused with hundreds of hours of playtime and me inventing stories about the players in my squad. I was actually happy to finally get to 'has lost confidence in his manager's ability'. I want to play all the hits!

Thought 2

In the breaks between books (like now) I always think 'right, need to get more heavily into the tactics next book' but I almost never do. Not for the want of trying! Characters keep doing things, the selfish pigs.

(My wife requested that I explore this more, which I can't really do. My intention for The Wizard of Us was for Beth to be antagonistic to Max, but when I sat down to write it, the opposite happened. Like, from the first sentence. How can I explain that?)

T3

I plot arcs in book format but write like a serial filler. I love the loop of posting, getting feedback, and letting the Discord write the next chapter for me. (That's mostly a joke but they do generate amazing ideas.)

The referee arc was planned ages ago (as I'll show) and I hoped the payoff would be cool but getting the biweekly feedback of 'this is awful I hate this' was hard to take.

The feedback did make me challenge what I was doing and I tweaked the plan slightly. I was going to have the blowup be in the next match, leading into the international break, but in the interests of not having it drag more than was strictly needed I brought it forward and in retrospect it always had to be in the Liverpool match. That's much better thematically anyway.

I'm writing a book, so I can't change horses midstream, which forces me to stick to my guns and stick to my vision - I literally couldn't have dropped the referee arc by the time everyone was complaining about it. I wailed to my wife 'I have killed my story! RIP Player Manager.' She responded by asking me to take the bins out.

T4

Hey, let's funk this up for a minute. How about a world-exclusive reveal of the cover of Soccer Supremo book 1 by the artist Roderick Brydon, paid for by you, my lovely Patrons?

T5

My tech stack is absurd but I am deeply resistant to change.

I write in Gmail. Yep, I know. But it syncs across devices and saves drafts instantly. I email drafts to myself so I can sleep on them, and the night before posting I'll send it to my wife. She reads in the morning and gives me feedback when I get up. If she gives it a big thumbs down, I go back to the drawing board. If it's okay, I edit on a sentence level for flow, then send the text to google docs and read the final version while pottering around the house or garden.

When I'm nearly done, I send the chapter title to Lynedoch (Cobblers represent!) and he creates a chapter thread on the Discord so that ur_land can dissect the chapter title and the memes and gifs can start flowing while I'm doing the last checks and formatting.

I post the google docs text into an html cleaner (docs adds loads of weird html) and post that into Royal Road. I format it with the curse text and the match action and whatnot, which is a pain because at this point I'm almost always exhausted. Then I paste the Royal Road thing into Patreon, which although it keeps most of the formatting, has it own quirks and limitations so I have to check everything again. That's why I forget to credit people who helped me with a certain section or stat or idea - my brain is literal mush and I just want to get the story out.

At least it's over at that point.

Oh, hang on. 

When it comes time to turn a book into, well, a book, I have to get all the text (from Royal Road, which should have all the edits I've made over time) and paste it into a Word doc. If I'm sending it to Podium, that's okay - they clean it up according to their style guides, send it back with edits, I approve them or not. Later I'll get a PDF so I can see what the book will look like.

For the Soccer Supremo series (which I will self-publish), I also have to make a Word doc and clean it up (e.g. take all the images out) so that I can import it into a cool piece of software called Vellum. It makes it easy to create an ebook, but I have to manually go through it and format the system text and the newspaper articles and whatever - and add the images back! It takes a while, but then it's basically ready to go onto Amazon. I did all that for Player Manager 7 - days of work - and as soon as I was done, Podium emailed saying they wanted to publish more in the series. Which is great but all that effort was wasted.

(I have just read all this back and I feel about 5% more despondent than when I started typing. What the actual hell am I doing?)

T6

I email myself ideas with the goal of writing them on a post-it note so they can seep into my brain over time.

Sometimes those mailnotes get drowned by newer emails before I write them out, at which point they are essentially lost to time, like tears in the rain. 

Here are two I sent myself in January, late at night, apparently high on cheese. 

The first one must have meant something at 3 a.m. and the second was telling me to rewatch LA Confidential for a chapter theme. Spoiler - I didn't.

(Actually, now that I have written this, I think maybe I was just in the mood to watch it and it had nothing to do with Player Manager. Who knows? Not me.)

Sometimes I grow attached to a quote. There's one a few emails down that I probably heard on a podcast. It goes: 'Don’t judge a fish on how it can climb a tree.' Don't be surprised if Henri says that in a future chapter.

T7

Here's a section of what used to be a framed poster of Christo wrapping New York but is now a corkboard for my story which my wife IS PERFECTLY HAPPY ABOUT.

Ziggy's still up there after 3 years or so because I have a tendency to forget him. Poor Ziggy! Top right it says 'Panini' after the sticker albums. I might have that as a theme one day, but I'll certainly mention it somewhere. Max and Chester would be in the latest album!

And there's a reference to David Coote (not Cootes), the referee who got coked up (allegedly) and blasted Jurgen Klopp. I saw that story and my brain went haywire. Of course there would be refs saying that about Max behind closed doors!

(There's also a tracing my wife did of Miss Marple, that I found so adorbs I had to stick it right in my line of sight.)

T8

There had to be a referee arc.

If I started PM from scratch, I don't know that I would start Max so low in the tiers, just because now I know how much work that involves. Start in tier 2, Ted! Anyway, one thing that was in my head was to take the opportunity to explore whatever I could - agents, boot deals, sponsorships - sort of spiralling up and out, covering more aspects of the industry as a whole. There had to be a ref story!

And mine is tame by comparison to real life. This was on the BBC's website the very day I published:

A Turkish club says refs have evil in them.

The head ref in Italy suspends himself.

WHAT.

Truth is stranger than fiction. (I watched Everton vs Man City last night and I wouldn't DARE to write that second half.)

And most of you will know what happened in the African Cup of Nations final. The ref was giving every decision to Morocco so Senegal walked off. I was gutted because I thought that meant I couldn't use that in my story, as I had planned for AGES. In the end, I decided it would be the most Max thing ever and I had been subtly guiding the story to that point for a long time.

I saw a match (in the Premier League, I think) where a guy near the corner flag, close to the linesman, knocked the ball onto his own foot. It squirted at a crazy angle but with no opponent within two yards, and when the linesman gave a corner, I thought - that's it. That's the straw that break's Max's back.

T9

So is it all planned in advance?

Not really. Some of the key beats are planned. Max walks off the pitch, quits. That was seeded in book 5 and built to a head in book 6. Generally I'll have the outline of 'Chester finish in the playoffs' and within that framework, individual results can be whatever. It doesn't really matter if Chester finish 3rd or 6th - until I discovered that Luton's stadium was being demolished so there would be a narrative reason for Max to want to finish 4th. Even then, it's fine if he fails on that particular mission - they just have to do things the hard way.

One exception was the arc that ended with goal difference being decisive - I had to plot a bunch of those results in advance, obvs. That finish was inspired by a season in Scotland, by the way, a straight shoot-out between Celtic and Rangers. Whoever wins the final game by the highest score wins the league. (Rangers won 7-0 or something mad.)

Another one that was kinda planned was the injury to Ruud. The intention was to get Foquita over in January, and at first Ruud was going to be signed by Chester and loaned back to Go Ahead Eagles, as they wanted. But as I was writing it, I thought, wouldn't it be better if Ruud got injured long-term, dashing Chester's hopes, but Max signed him anyway out of his blind loyalty? And it was that loyalty that triggered the reaction from Foquita?

T10

'I don't like the supernatural element.' Understandable, but how else do you stick the game into Max's head? Serious question! 

Sci-fi? He gets a chip implanted, it does what the curse can do? Dunno. That angle doesn't feel better, especially because, why Max? He volunteers for a trial? It goes haywire, but none of the lab technicians realise? Except the guy whose brain they were poking around suddenly is on TV being a world-class footballer slash knob? Half the story would be in the lab with them sticking probes into his skull!

If you have a better idea, please leave a comment because I would LOVE to use it in my next series.

T11

My YouTube algorithms are a mess.

I'm going to have at least one scene in Finland, so how can I not do hours and hours of research about it? (I have been to Finland, but don't remember any of it. Oh, except for the thing that happened in a graveyard but I don't see how that could get into the story.)

Today, YouTube suggested this, and I feel obliged to watch it. If I didn't, I wouldn't really be trying, would I?

Finnish guy teaches how to disco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJj6d5QSYaE

And yes, I have seen 'Finnish instructional video: How to open a door' - no need to post the link.

T12

Writing is pretty hard.

T13

I write most of my first drafts using the 'Focus' mode on https://www.brain.fm/ . It's music that aims to keep you in the flow state.

I edit while in the 'relax' mode.

The sleep thing helps me sleep.

I got a lifetime deal and I don't know that I would sign up at the current prices (99 USD a year) because I reckon I could replicate it from free stuff on YouTube but that would take some effort and aggravation. But it definitely works, for me at least, so if you struggle with concentration you could sign up for the free trial and give it a go.

Oh, and our cats love it! It knocks them out, but then I have the problem that I'm being delighted by their snores instead of writing. So, yeah. Possibly a net negative? (Pet positive?)

T14

Dealing with negative feedback.

When it's not justified, instant delete - I don't want to read that comment every time I go back to fix a spelling mistake. (This is more about Royal Road than here, to be honest. Most of the feedback on Patreon and Discord isn't negative but constructive and that's really useful for this story and whatever I write in the future.)

When it's justified, edit the text or trust the process (e.g. trust yourself to land the plane on the referee arc).

When it's a punch to the dick but it's delivered this well, take it on the chin. (Don't @ me about my mixed metaphors, bro.)

T15

'Personally, I don't mind Ted's more, ah, experimental chapters.'

Oof!

'Me neither! In moderation.'

OOF!!

T16

I couldn't do this without my wife reading the first drafts. You don't need to be a Kremlinologist to understand the feedback.

'This one was great. I highlighted three jokes I lolled at. Want to hear which ones?'

'This one will be great when you've worked on it some more.'

'Let's talk about this one after you've had your breakfast.'

Sometimes I get this:

T17

Ideas that didn't make it!

(I moved all these together for the photo, otherwise the solution would be to stop sticking notes in that particular corner.)

Couples Therapy

I really wanted to do a chapter that would have had Max and Henri in a 'therapy' type setting. Unreliable narrators for days! But it's too much work for a short turnaround.

Sword in the Stone

By now, genuinely no clue what that would have been. "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!"

Roy of the Rovers

A famous football-based comic starring Roy Race, a striker who scores the winning goal in the European Cup final aged 17 - on his debut. (I think that's right but there's no way to check.) To some extent I cut off that sort of thing by making CA grow over time as it does. If I don't mention ROTR in the story before it finishes, I will have failed, but I don't know that it will be a whole theme.

Blackadder Goes Forth

I was thinking, Chester move into 4th place, bosh. Would have done it last season if I could think how to use 'Blackadder'. Maybe there's something obvious that never clicked. Slack bladder?

Subbuteo

It's a table-top football game with little men on round bases. You flick the men at a ball, sort of like snooker, but you're trying to put the ball into a net. Wait, that's the plot of snooker...

Ah, Subbuteo, though. The idea of it was so awesome. Much nostalgia!

You could buy stadiums and floodlights to put around the felt pitch, plus they sold entire teams in their authentic kits, so you could play North Korea 1966 against Barnsley away 1984. 

Absolutely mint in every respect, while also being a terrible game.

Max will probably find a mini stadium in someone's house one day and discover the game that way. Or not. It probably would have happened by now... Oh! Sir Ian Masters! Maybe he's how I get there.

Taxi for Maicon

This will surely get a mention one day, but ideally I'd turn it into a full-on theme. Maicon was a great player, a really top defender, who one night came up against a supernaturally boosted Gareth Bale. Bale was running at 1.5 speed for the entire match. I don't know who came up with the phrase 'taxi for Maicon' and maybe Maicon had a good career after that, but AFAIK, that match destroyed him and turned Bale into a superstar.

There was one moment where Maicon tried to solve the Bale problem by shoving him off the pitch, so Bale sprinted the long way round, practically in the stands, and got to the ball first anyway. God, I have to do something with that because it was unreal.

Wrexscam

Was going to be about NFTs and Crypto being loaded onto working-class families by the north american celebrity investors that we all love unconditionally. Doesn't really fit with Max's 'I'll batter you on the pitch and join forces off it' approach.

No-one ever died from exposure

Something about exposure in the social media sense. 99% chance Max is saying it.

Prelude to a Diss

Clever, fresh, impossible to implement.

By the way, the one on the far left says 'Megsterclass'. A masterclass in nutmegging. Clever but if I used it in a chapter I'd have to explain it and there's no way explaining it wouldn't ruin the flow.

T18

How to edit a sentence.

Here's one from the first draft of this very thing you're reading now, which is Stewart Lee levels of recursiveness.

'Like if someone he knows is secretly in the Wrexham Discord, Max could get access to the chat history.'

On re-read, it's obvs that swapping 'he' and 'Max' improves the clarity of the sentence, but now there are two Maxes close together so I need to re-read the paragraph to check the overall flow. Which I would do if this was a chapter but I want to post this and go for a nap.

T19

Maybe a third of the time, I have the theme before I start writing, which means I know how the chapter goes and probably how it ends. Piece of pee.

The rest of the time I know what happens (because of the matches that are being played, the transfer windows etc) so I draft that and hope the theme reveals itself to me. If it doesn't, that's when the panic sets in because the fact that I can't find the theme tells me the chapter isn't about anything so why would anyone want to read it?

When I'm in that state, I ask what I could cut, what needs to be there, why do I think this particular incident is needed, etc. Often the issue is solved by a POV change. Maybe a match gets offloaded into a newspaper report or Dylan is summoned to witness a scene, but now that Dylan is there, the dynamic changes and what was a simple scene gets mixed up with Max teasing Dylan or being annoyed that D is more impressed by the other character or whatever and we get some social dynamics.

Except that once Dylan has been in the intro scene, I want him in the final one, too, to pay off whatever mini-arc that created. As a great writer once said, if Dylan gets a hotdog in the first act, he should have a mustard stain on his shirt in the last bit. So the process of finding the theme is the process of me 'crafting' the chapter.

T20

I think most of you would be surprised (stunned?) by the amount of the story that is randomised. Most Playdar finds are randomised, though in some cases I'll set a lower or upper boundary on the PA. Discord legend nid generates fixture lists that I tweak slightly. In the past he has created vast, intricate tournaments that I have summarised as 'Peru were knocked out in the semis'. When I need the next FA Cup opponent I do a random roll and almost always go with what comes up. The one I remember was when Chester drew Man United away in the third round, handing the club a much-needed cash boost - totally random. I had been planning to make them suffer financially for a while longer.

The Discord ecosystem is amazing at this point. nid keeps track of Welsh co-efficients, multiple people can find paragraphs from past arcs way faster than I can, and when someone says 'when is Dan Badford's birthday?' or 'what exactly are the work permit rules for a Brazilian moving to Gibraltar?' or 'I wonder what Chester's first eleven will look like in 2031?' they go into a frenzy.

They frequently save me from messing things up, and many a plot point has come from people on Discord writing, 'I wonder why Max hasn't thought of...'

The world is so big and cumbersome that without the Discord I would be down to one chapter a week and would still be making tons of mistakes.

Thanks, legends!

Okay, smash Qs into the comments if you want. 

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! IT'S CRAZY WE'RE ALL STILL HERE!