Live from C2E2: An interview with Neil Gaiman

By Kate Kotler

Does Neil Gaiman really need an introduction to the readers of this website?  The prolific, iconic writer of  The Sandman comic series and Stardust, Coraline, The Graveyard Book and M is for Magic, Neverwhere, American Gods and many other sci-fi/fantasy novels was in Chicago today.  He is here to appear at a fundraiser for the CBLDF (which I support, and so should you!) this evening at the very first C2E2.

I was lucky enough to be able to sit down with him and chat for a few moments.

First of all: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. Everyone who writes for Geek Girl on the Street is a really big fan. They were all very excited and jealous that I was coming to Chicago to talk to you…

Good. Well, especially the jealous.

Jealous – very jealous – there was clawing of eyes and begging to come along with me to sit in on our interview. So: the first thing that I wanted to talk to you about – I was just looking over your impressive dossier of work. Of everything that you do and have done in your career as a writer, what do you feel the most passionate and affectionate about?

I don’t know that there is any one thing anymore. What I feel most passionate about is the body of work.

The body of work as the whole?

As the whole. What I feel most passionate about is whatever I’m doing next. Sort of mostly looking forward. I don’t tend to stop and look back. I suspect -and this is just from something that happened over lunch when I was talking with some movie people about Sandman – that I have very specific protective feelings about Sandman that I don’t necessarily have about some of the other things [I've written].

There are definitely things out there where my attitude is “Oh I will get involved and help you do this.” With Sandman my attitude is very much “I made this thing, it is what it is.”

It is mine?

Not even “it’s mine” – I wish it was – but, very much “I made it.” And, if you want to go and make a movie, that’s great – you can put it on stage, you can put it on television, you can do whatever you want – but this is the thing that I made. And, there is very much a line in the sand there.

That actually really flows into my next question really well: How odd is it for you to see – you’re incredibly popular, people call you the “rockstar” of sci-fi and fantasy, the “rockstar” of comics – how strange is it as a creative person to see other creative people reinterpreting your work into a new creative project?

It’s fun. It’s really fun. At the worst it’s faintly disappointing and you look at the thing and you go “Well, the book is there.” I tend to think of them all – and, this may be a little odd of me – because sometimes especially with movies you end up talking to people who are convinced that the books or the comics or the graphic novel is the caterpillar from which the butterfly comes out and the film is the thing. But, I tend to look at them and go no-no-no — the book, is the book — films will come and films will go, just like theater adaptations will come and go. [For example] – Stardust – I love the movie adaptation of Stardust. But, maybe in 15 or 20 years time someone will come along and pick up the book, read it, then look at the film and say “You could make a completely different film that is much prettier, or much more sensitive, or less rollicking, or doesn’t have cross-dressing pirates and stuff.” And, it would be just as faithful or just as un-faithful, perhaps, in different directions. I would love to see that one, too.

Of course I have to ask you about Doctor Who.

Yes!

As a Doctor Who fan yourself, from childhood, how exciting was it when Stephen Moffat called you and asked you to write a script for the new series?

He never quite called… The way that it worked was that we had dinner and during the course of the dinner he sorta admitted that yes, he might be the new Doctor Who-Supremo… And, I admitted that yes, I might really-really-really-really want to write one. Then I basically sat down and came up with an idea. I phoned Paul Cornell and said, “This is my idea Paul, does it sound good? Is it a real idea?”

And, he said “Yes!”

What was actually great about the idea was that the original idea that I wanted to do -I’d had this idea- and a friend said “Oh you can’t do that anymore because they’re doing that sort of plot in one of the novels.”

So I was like, oh well, if I can’t do it that way, I’ll come up with another way and I came up with this idea that I really liked. And, I sat and I wrote a little treatment that was just like a page long and I sent it off.

And, they liked it?

They loved it! The entire process has been absolutely glorious. Occasionally bumping up against practicalities. You know, I did a script and they had a meeting with me and they said “We really really like your script. It’s great. And, you should know that an episode of Doctor Who has 100 man hours of CGI and we just had yours estimated at 530.”

I said, “Oh-okay.” And, I took it away and did my rewrite on it – I’m currently doing a rewrite on it that is just like changing some continuity things and wiggling it around.

Tweaks.

It’s being tweaked because it’s not at the end of Series 5 anymore — it’s now going to be episode three or four of Series 6. But the truth is – what’s it like? It’s been fun – all the way – there has never been a moment that wasn’t fun. And, getting to write the words “interior TARDIS”…

Did it make you feel five years old again?

It really did. It made me feel like a weird combination of five years old and God. Because -you know- God gets to decide what happens in the TARDIS. Here am I and I’m writing “interior TARDIS.”

Who is your favorite Doctor?

Patrick Troughton. William Hartnell was the Doctor, but he was a little bit scary, Patrick Troughton was the Doctor and he was awesome and he was the person I wanted to go off and be a companion with. Jon Pertwee was the “Doctor Just.” After that they were just actors playing the Doctor. Tom Baker was great, but he was an actor named Tom Baker playing the Doctor.

For me, my Doctor was Patrick Troughton.

I think that’s one of the things I love about what Matt Smith is doing: it feels there are weird kind of resonances -as if you have a low G and a high G- they’re resonating with the Patrick Troughton Doctor.

To wrap up with, do you have any advice for aspiring writers in the sci-fi/fantasy and comic genre?

Read everything. By everything: Read outside of SF/fantasy and horror — if you want to work within it, then read everything that’s been written within those genres to know what people have done. Then read outside. That’s where you’ll also learn how to stretch.

And, write everything. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give to anyone is “finish stuff.”

Even if it’s not a good ending or the grand ending that you envisioned when you started out?

Finish stuff. Then go onto the next thing. Too many people wind up with drawers filled with the first chapters of novels or the first three pages of something – you will learn more from finishing something than you will from starting something else.

Geek Girl on the Street would like to thank Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF for arranging this interview for us.  We would also like to thank Neil (himself) for graciously spending a moment of his time in Chicago with our geeky little publication.