Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them <br/><br/><a href="https://kristinmctiernan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">kristinmctiernan.substack.com</a>
Fictional Influence
Claim This Podcastby Kristin McTiernan
4.5(2 reviews)
43 episodes
Updated Weekly
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Podcast Overview
Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them <br/><br/><a href="https://kristinmctiernan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">kristinmctiernan.substack.com</a>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
3/3/2021
2 verified contact emails on file for Fictional Influence
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Recent Episodes
June 24, 2026
Neal Asher | 40 Books. Three Netflix Adaptations. One Brutal Truth About Publishing
<p>Neal Asher has been writing science fiction for Pan Macmillan for 25 years and published 40-plus books, but before any of that he was hauling coal sacks in the rain and fishing typewriters out of skips. In this episode, the man behind Gridlinked and the Love, Death + Robots episodes "Snow in the Desert," "Bad Travelling," and "Mason's Rats" talks about clawing up every rung of the publishing ladder back when distribution was a brick wall, why he thinks indie writers have never had it better, and what's gone wrong with the books the big houses keep putting out. It's a clear-eyed history lesson from someone who lived the old days and isn't romantic about them.</p><p><strong>In This Episode</strong></p><p>* The working man who became a writer: Neal walks through the decade of being a machinist, gardener, barman, and skip-lorry jobs that came before the books, including a two-week stint delivering coal.</p><p>* Rejection, small presses, and the writer’s folio: How he built a career sending sample chapters by post and circulating manuscripts in a literal envelope of writers before email existed.</p><p>* The £1,000 phone call: The first novella sale that knocked him to the kitchen floor, and the 1999 SFX review of The Engineer that he stuck on top of the slush pile to catch Pan Macmillan’s eye.</p><p>* Extending Gridlinked in two weeks: Why his first Macmillan book was too short for the British market, and how he rewrote it from 65,000 to 135,000.</p><p>* From Heavy Metal to Netflix: The cold email to Tim Miller that started 15 years before Love, Death + Robots, the story Tom Cruise reportedly said could carry a film on its own, and working with David Fincher on “Bad Travelling.”</p><p>* What traditional publishing still does and where it’s failing readers: Neal on the distribution and editing the big houses do well, and his blunt take on “the message,” the reading slump among men, and why he reads by word of mouth now.</p><p>* Keeping your mouth shut vs. not giving a damn: The cost of being a vocal conservative or libertarian in publishing, the Dark Diamond dedication to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that got books returned, and where he’s landed on all of it.</p><p>* AI governance in fiction and in real life: How the Polity’s AI-run society grew out of his short stories, his dystopian counterweight in the Owner trilogy, and whether a real superintelligence would wipe us out or keep us around like silverbacks.</p><p>* Indie books worth reading: The titles that pulled him out of a years-long reading hiatus, including Devon Eriksen’s Theft of Fire, Larry Correia’s catalog, and Michael F. Kane’s space western After Moses.</p><p>* Where to start and what’s next: Neal’s advice for new readers (and the blog post on his site that settles it), plus the Time’s Shadow trilogy: Dark Diamond out now, Dark Agent in May, and Dark Horizon next year.</p><p><strong>Guest Links</strong></p><p>* Read the Agent Cormac series: https://amzn.to/3P6xy2c </p><p>* Website: nealasher.co.uk</p><p>* X: @nealasher</p><p><strong>Kristin’s Links</strong></p><p>* Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com</p><p>* Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com</p><p>* YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin</p><p><strong>Timestamps</strong></p><p>00:00 - Meet Neal Asher.</p><p>02:24 - Choosing Writing Seriously.</p><p>03:10 - Rejections and Small Presses.</p><p>06:26 - Writers Folio Breakthrough.</p><p>08:40 - Why Publishing Was Harder.</p><p>12:12 - Macmillan Calls in 1999.</p><p>15:14 - Love Death and Robots Origins.</p><p>20:07 - Traditional vs Indie Today.</p><p>21:45 - Publishers Without Publicity.</p><p>22:15 - Sci Fi And The Message.</p><p>23:59 - Finding Indie Sci Fi Gems.</p><p>26:17 - Word Of Mouth Wins.</p><p>28:02 - Politics And Speaking Out.</p><p>28:37 - Dark Diamond Dedication Fallout.</p><p>30:41 - AI Rule In The Polity.</p><p>32:32 - Singularity Fears And Hopes.</p><p>37:34 - Where To Start Reading.</p><p>40:04 - Dark Diamond Trilogy Preview.</p><p>42:25 - Writing More Than Planned.</p><p>43:01 - Closing Thanks And Wrap Up.</p><p><strong>About This Podcast</strong></p><p>Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them.</p><p>New episodes weekly.</p><p>Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://kristinmctiernan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">kristinmctiernan.substack.com</a>
June 17, 2026
Nick Nethery - The Bomb Tech Building Better Mil Sci-Fi
<p>Nick Nethery spent a career as an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer before he wrote fiction full-time. His debut started with a working observation that unexploded ordnance looks completely different depending on which country built it, which spiraled into a better question: what would a weapon look like if it came from something that wasn't human? In this episode he argues that technical accuracy has to yield to story, explains why he writes faith into characters without ever climbing into the pulpit, and walks us through Raconteur Press — the "pirate skiff" of a developmental press that gave an unknown writer his shot. Join us for a conversation about craft, faith, authenticity, and why the future of storytelling might not be a book at all.</p><p><strong>In This Episode</strong></p><p>* The bomb tech who became a novelist: Nick walks through a military career that ran from maintenance officer to WMD team chief, and explains the leadership philosophy that pulled him toward EOD in the first place.</p><p>* Alien ordnance and the spark for the debut: Different cultures build weapons with wildly different philosophies — how much they’ll spend to protect their own troops, what they want a device to actually do. Nick took that fascination to its strangest conclusion and asked what humanity would make of ordnance left behind by something that doesn’t share our senses, let alone our intentions.</p><p>* The crowdfunded airstrike that came true: His US Naval Institute prize-winning story imagined a Marine platoon Kickstarting a JDAM strike they couldn’t get approved through normal channels. Nick explains the real-world signals he and co-writer Mike Burke were watching — drones, 3D printing, soldiers leaking their own base locations through fitness trackers — and why any tech handed to grunts will get gloriously abused.</p><p>* Detail versus story, and who wins: Every technical writer eventually meets the guy at the back of the panel pointing at one wrong line. Nick makes the case that story has to win, that 99% of your research should never reach the page, and that learning to walk away from hard-won knowledge is what makes the writing feel lived-in instead of like an encyclopedia entry.</p><p>* A Thirty Years’ War fantasy with the magic dialed low: The Peace Child trades future tech for period-accurate wheel locks, taverns, and travel — an alternate Europe where the church and the nations are recognizable but renamed. Nick explains why he leaned on real historians to keep him honest and why the era fascinates him as a genuine before-and-after in how the West thought about faith and money.</p><p>* Faith on the page without the sermon: Nick argues that scrubbing belief out of every character is its own kind of unrealistic, especially in the military and law-enforcement worlds he knows. The trick, he says, is that the moment “the moral of the story” is the first line in your outline, you’ve already lost the reader — so he just lets his characters pray, argue, and stay faithful to their spouses the way the people he served with actually did.</p><p>* Is gaming the next novel: Nick lays out a genuinely provocative thesis: just as epic poetry gave way to the novel, interactive games may become how we primarily live our stories. He points to the emotional gut-punch of certain games as proof, while wondering aloud what we lose when there’s no longer a book or show everyone has read.</p><p>* Raconteur Press and the return of the pulps: Nick calls Raconteur a “pirate skiff” — a developmental press in the old pulp tradition, taking chances on unknown writers who can tell a good story and are easy to work with. He and Kristin land on the unglamorous truth that answering your emails and learning track changes will do more for your career than being edgy online ever will.</p><p><strong>Guest Links</strong></p><p>* Read Relics of the Fallen: https://amzn.to/4uwSwpN </p><p>* Website: nicknethery.com</p><p>* X: @nicknetherybro</p><p><strong>Kristin’s Links</strong></p><p>* Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com</p><p>* Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com</p><p>* YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin</p><p><strong>Timestamps</strong></p><p>00:00 - Meet Nick Nethery.</p><p>01:56 - What EOD Really Does.</p><p>04:08 - Ordnance Inspires Sci Fi.</p><p>06:51 - Nonfiction to Fiction Skills.</p><p>10:02 - Crowdfunded Airstrike Satire.</p><p>14:14 - Accuracy Versus Story.</p><p>17:02 - Writing Peace Child.</p><p>20:31 - Faith Without Preaching.</p><p>23:35 - Faith Feels Normal.</p><p>24:22 - Romance and Infidelity Tropes.</p><p>26:15 - Military Religion Culture Shock.</p><p>27:35 - Secular Myths and New Religions.</p><p>28:24 - Gaming as Future Literature.</p><p>32:11 - Raconteur Press Pulp Revival.</p><p>36:01 - Editing Lessons for Writers.</p><p>38:55 - What Nick Writes Next.</p><p>40:18 - Where to Find Nick.</p><p>41:27 - Publishing Plans and Farewell.</p><p><strong>About This Podcast</strong></p><p>Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them.</p><p>New episodes weekly.</p><p>Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://kristinmctiernan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">kristinmctiernan.substack.com</a>
June 10, 2026
Matthew Bockholt - Why "Writing Rules" Won't Make You Better
<p>Matthew Bockholt spent years in video games and marketing before he ever wrote a novel full-time — and it shows in how he thinks about the work. While most indie authors are great storytellers and shaky prose stylists, he treats writing like a skill you drill, not a gift you're born with. In this episode he makes the case for killing the phrase "rules of writing" entirely, explains why genre stopped serving readers and started bossing authors around, and walks us through Fable Vine — his pitch for a third path that sits between the trad-pub trickle and the Amazon firehose. He also writes YA that refuses to talk down to teenagers, opening his debut novel Bloom at a funeral and meaning it. It's a conversation about craft, death, sincerity, and why "just write every day" might be the worst advice in the business.</p><p><strong>In This Episode</strong></p><p>* Rules don’t make you good — technique does: Bockholt’s basketball analogy reframes everything: anyone can follow the rules and still be terrible. Rules let you play; technique determines whether you’re worth watching. The fix is treating prose like free throws — something you practice on purpose, not something that improves by accident.</p><p>* The crutch words bleeding into your prose: His weekly prompt group writes under 300 words with constraints like “no ‘to be’ verbs” and “no adverbs.” The point isn’t a lower word count — it’s precision, and the discipline of the micro quietly upgrades the macro.</p><p>* When genre flipped from a favor to a cage: Genre started as a way to shelve books readers would like. Now marketing departments use it to dictate what authors are allowed to write, and the defining classics of any genre, Bockholt argues, are the ones that didn’t fit a shelf in the first place.</p><p>* “Twilight if Orson Scott Card wrote it”: His comp for Bloom is a masterclass in positioning: everyone knows Twilight, and the people who perk up at Orson Scott Card are exactly the readers he wants. A good comp narrows your audience instead of flattering everyone.</p><p>* Fable Vine and the third option: Trad pub is a careful drip; Amazon is a waterfall you drown in. Bockholt’s concept puts the author in the gatekeeper’s chair — pay to shelve your book, keep 100% of the return, and let an upfront cost do the quality filtering that readers are desperate for.</p><p>* Killing the five-star review: Borrowing from Steam’s recommend / don’t-recommend model and element-based ratings (concept, execution, ending), he argues for a system that tells readers what an author is actually good at.</p><p>* Writing death honestly for young readers: Bloom opens at a funeral, and its narrator tells you up front that he dies. Drawing on his own experience with loss, Bockholt makes the case that kids are smarter than we write for them, and that respecting death is what gives a story weight.</p><p><strong>Guest Links</strong></p><p>* Read Bloom: https://www.fablevine.com/ebook/bloom</p><p>* X: @MatthewBockholt</p><p><strong>Kristin’s Links</strong></p><p>* Editing Services: nonsensefreeeditor.com</p><p>* Newsletter: https://www.fictionalinfluence.com</p><p>* YouTube: https://youtube.com/@nonsensefreekristin</p><p><strong>Timestamps</strong></p><p>00:00 - Meet the Matthew Bockholt.</p><p>01:54 - Sharpening Prose Skills.</p><p>03:12 - Prompts and Style Challenges.</p><p>04:31 - How Genre Became a Cage.</p><p>07:28 - Writing Across Genres.</p><p>09:54 - Fable Vine Third Path.</p><p>12:20 - Gatekeeping and Reviews.</p><p>15:26 - Rethinking Rating Systems.</p><p>17:59 - Visibility and Silent Launch.</p><p>20:54 - Rules Versus Techniques.</p><p>23:15 - Practice Beats Habit.</p><p>23:54 - Ditch Genre Rules.</p><p>25:05 - Writing Smart YA.</p><p>28:40 - Death as Story Engine.</p><p>30:51 - Respecting Mortality.</p><p>32:11 - Stories That Face Death.</p><p>36:08 - Heroes and Sincerity.</p><p>38:27 - Where to Read Bloom.</p><p>39:07 - Free Copies Debate.</p><p>40:52 - Community and Conventions.</p><p>42:52 - Wrap Up and Thanks.</p><p><strong>About This Podcast</strong></p><p>Nonsense-Free Kristin is where independent authors and creators learn to build their platforms, master their craft, and create on their own terms—without begging for permission from gatekeepers who hate them.</p><p>New episodes weekly.</p><p>Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Music.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://kristinmctiernan.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1">kristinmctiernan.substack.com</a>
43 total episodes available
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