Alan Moore's best writing advice: Start with short stories

Hey,

Today I want to talk about one of Alan Moore's best writing tips. Because unlike the mysterious bearded man in this week’s strip, the magician and genius writer doesn’t keep his writing advice to himself.

Quite the opposite.

The man has shared his wisdom in interviews for decades, and if I had to name a single influence on my writing, it would be him, both for his brilliant work and for the way he sees the world and the place art should have in it.

In an interview a few years ago (here), he said that one of young writers’ biggest temptations today is the idea that they’ll create a gigantic epic that will end up as a movie or TV franchise, making them rich and famous. And that’s a terrible way to learn the craft.

Instead, he suggested something much more rational and much less glamorous: start by writing short stories.

Now, in my opinion, it’s less glamorous if you’re thinking about selling millions of copies and taking pictures with famous actors. But if you’re truly thinking about writing, it’s a far more interesting life.

If you’re starting out, Moore says, you should learn to solve all the problems that writing a story demands you solve, and you should be able to do it in just a few pages.

I remember when I started making comics. I began with six-page stories. I made several of them, and I absolutely recommend following the man’s advice.

Short stories build the muscles you need to write longer works.

And the strips I’m serializing here in this newsletter are a great creative exercise, too. I’ve come up with some strips I’m very proud of, and they exist, in no small part, because I followed that advice.

So, to make it short: daydreaming about having Nicolas Cage and Scarlett Johansson play your beloved characters is a bad idea. Focusing on the work, the difficulties, and the pleasures of writing, on the other hand, is a very good one.

And starting small is the best way to tackle the task.

-

PS: I’ll hopefully be publishing the second volume of The Sunday Strips sometime next month. A whole year of short stories created by doing exactly what I just talked about. Just so you can see how good the man’s advice is.

-

PS2: You can get the first volume, which collects the first year of the strip, here:

The Flight of The Condor: The Sunday Strips.