By day, Alex Segura is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Oni Press, with previous stints at Archie Comics and DC Comics. By night, he’s the acclaimed author of award-winning novels, comic books, short stories, and podcasts. Somewhere in the midst of such a heavy workload, Alex is also a husband and a father.
If that sounds like a lot, then you don’t know Alex Segura. You don’t know his secret…
Alex Segura is a superhero!
Shhh. Don’t tell anybody, but I’m serious. This guy is magic, especially when it comes to other authors and their work. It’s fitting, then, that Alex’s next book, Secret Identity (Flatiron Books, March 2022), features “The Lethal Lynx,” a badass, female comic book hero.
One thing to remember when interviewing a superhero: never dilly dally. Which is why I cut straight to the chase with Mr. Segura.
Eli Cranor: How do you usually get started on a project? Do you outline your novels?
Alex Segura: I didn’t used to be an outliner. I’d just start writing, but then a few chapters along, and I’d always be like, wait, I need to figure out where I’m going. So, yeah. I’m that weird middle. I call it the silent majority. I don’t think everyone’s an outliner or not an outliner. I think there are a lot of writers who do both. You kind of feel out scenes, and then that leaves a trail of breadcrumbs that you can work with. But ever since I did that Star Wars novel—which required a very detailed outline before I could even start page one—I’ve become a much more diligent outliner. I think it makes the revision process much easier. There’s not as much extensive surgery going on at the end. But, usually, I start by writing character profiles. Sometimes I do a vision board, like on Pinterest or something just so I can kind of get a sense of what the thing is going to look like. Then I just start jotting down a little synopsis for each chapter, like a very rough idea. I try to keep the outline loose. I don’t want it to be so detailed that if I don’t do something in the outline, or veer off, the book will fall apart. I almost treat it a little bit like magic. I don’t want to overthink the process too much. You want it to come back to it. You want to be blessed again and again.
EC: I interviewed Jordan Harper a while back for this column, and he said something very similar to that last bit you mentioned about magic. He called it “riding the tiger.” You know, like, if you tame the tiger too much, she’ll lose all her power.
AS: Yeah, that’s exactly right. The outline is like the saddle, basically. That’s all you can do. Just hold on tight.
EC: Okay, so your rough outline is done, and now you’re buckled up, ready to start drafting. Take me through that process.
AS: I’m not a word count mafia person. I don’t post my word count every day. There’s this undercurrent in how we talk about writing, where there’s an expectation that if you don’t write every day, you are not a writer. I do not believe that. I think I could be taking a walk on a Tuesday thinking about my story and not write a word, and I’m still writing. I’m still a writer, you know? And then the next day, I’ll write two-thousand words because of that day before. I’m working on a book right now . . . I really broke into the story on a drive to vacation. I couldn’t write anything down. But you know, everyone else in the car was asleep. And I’m like, let me map out the story, let me figure out the story, and that’s what I did. Anyway, I’m not big on cracking the word-count whip. I know I’ll get there. I know I’ll do the work.
EC: Do you set any parameters for yourself?
AS: If I sit down to write, I want to hit at least one thousand words. That always feels like I made a dent. But if I hit five or six hundred, that’s okay too, as long as the story is going. My point is we all have lives, we all have day jobs, we have kids, we have stuff we need to deal with. And it’s okay, as long as you know you’re not skimming. You’re not just cheating. At the end of the day, you’re just cheating yourself. The books won’t come out. You won’t get it done.
EC: Are you a longhand guy or straight into a computer?
AS: I’m a computer person. My handwriting is terrible. Sometimes, I’ll jot notes down. I’ll also email myself a lot. If I’m on my phone, and I get an idea, I’ll shoot myself an email. I also really like music. While I’m thinking about writing, I’ll say this is a good song for this scene. The Secret Identity soundtrack has a lot of St. Vincent and Phoebe Bridgers, a lot of music from the era, but also some Taylor Swift and random stuff. I think about books like movies in my mind. I cast characters . . . cast actors as a character, so I can visualize the novel more easily. And then I use the soundtrack to kind of get going, but I can’t listen to music while I’m typing. I’ll listen to music every other part of the day, but if I’m typing, I’ll start thinking about who’s singing or who produced this album. I just get distracted.
EC: So complete silence for you, then?
AS: Yeah, I need quiet. But I’m always thinking about music. I’m always thinking about visuals. I like to think I’m a pretty cinematic writer. That’s the comics connection. In comics, you’re always collaborating with someone. Like, I’ll say, “Hey, can you draw a crowd attacking this person? And the artist will then direct the scene and make it look amazing. So I want to give them enough runway. And I feel like there’s a similar contract with the reader.
EC: Do you have any special connection to the computer you work on? Or any special pens and paper?
AS: Man, I just feel like that stuff is bound to hurt you. It’ll break your heart in some way if you hold on to it for too long. I mean, if I have three minutes, I’ll type on whatever I have and go from there. I feel really strongly about this. I try not to over-ceremonialize the process at all. It has to be something I can do at any point. I was talking to Kellye Garrett a while ago, and what I told her was that I have my document open at all times. I never close the document. If I open my laptop, it’s there. It’s always at the spot I left it. That’s the only ceremony I have. I need to be able to jump in immediately. This is a product of having two small kids. One of them is napping, the other one is with his mom. That means I can hop in and do like a good fifteen minute writing session. You know, really jam on something.
EC: Oh, that’s great, man. I can totally relate. With kids, writing is almost like guerrilla warfare.
AS: Listen, when I was first starting out, I was single. I had two roommates. I had a nice job. I didn’t have any major expenses. And I could, if I wanted to, sit and write for four hours one night. Very doable. But now it’s just like guerrilla warfare. It’s like, okay, they’re asleep. But they’re not really asleep. Let me crank out an hour, maybe twenty minutes and then go deal with the screaming kid. And that’s critical. You have to have that ability to just hop back in. If you’re thinking, well, I don’t have the right tea, or the sun is not coming through the window at the right angle—you’ll never get any writing done with kids.
EC: So damn true. It’s a job, and with kids, you’re working overtime.
AS: Oh, yeah. When you become a professional writer, you have to treat it like a job. I see so many new writers who still treat it like a hobby. They’re like, “Oh, you know, I just binge watched this show, and then I played this new video game.” And that’s fine. I think it’s great. I have hobbies, too, but you still have to sacrifice to do the job. Like, I don’t go to the movies. I mean, yes, I’m a parent, and there’s a pandemic. But even before that, I wasn’t going to the movies. I wasn’t playing video games. I watch maybe an hour of TV a week.
EC: A veteran football coach once told me I had time to be a good coach, a good dad, and a good husband. That was it. Coaching just demanded too much time to be “good” at anything else. I think it’s the same way for a writer.
AS: And reading. Don’t forget reading. You have to read well to write well.
EC: That’s true, but wait, earlier we were talking about not getting down on ourselves about word counts. Now we’ve ventured into a more militaristic approach and treating writing like a job. How do you find the balance between these two extremes we’re talking about?
AS: What I’m talking about isn’t beating yourself up about a word count. You’re just treating writing as a professional and as a job. It’s the same way with any job. If you have a day where you’re not as productive, you come home and do the work you didn’t do during the day. You’ll crank in the evening and do what you need to do. That’s how I feel about writing. I’ve tried to be kinder to myself lately about putting in the work. If I miss a few days, I know I’ll make up for it. In your heart, you know when you’re treating writing like a professional, and you know when you’re not. I don’t know if that answers your question.
EC: It does. I just keep picking at this topic, man. Coming from a football background, I was so conditioned to just “grind it out.”
AS: You just have to be honest with yourself. You’re not going to get to the good stuff until you put in the work. That first draft is going to be pretty shitty. You’re going to have to go back and rework the whole thing from page one, all the way through to the end. Again and again. And that’s where I think it is similar to football, because it’s about repetition and improvement and doing the drills. And then, by the end, you can put in the fancy turn of a phrase, or the nice little description, and that’s when it’s like art, still ninety percent of it’s the churn.
EC: Let’s talk revision. I’m a huge Elmore Leonard fan. I keep studying him and asking authors I interview about him, but he swore up and down that he didn’t revise. He took a lot of time writing his drafts out by hand, but didn’t go back and do multiple drafts. What does your revision process look like?
AS: Everyone’s like, “Let the first draft sit for a week.” I don’t do that. I let it sit for a couple days. I give myself a breather. I work on something else. Then, when I come back to it, there’s a lot of marking up at first. Finding things that sound too much like “writing,” as Elmore Leonard put it. Eventually, I hop back in and go page by page, revising it. I always do the big structural stuff first, like cut a whole scene or rework a character. Then I go in and do the tiny stuff. That’s the second draft. After that, I’m ready to share it with some people. I’ll give it to my wife. My mother-in-law’s a great editor and proofreader. I have a lot of friends I’ve been with since the beginning. I’ll let them read at any stage. After all that, I’ll give it to my writers group. They’ll give me some notes. If the revisions on that are pretty manageable, I’ll read it out loud. That’s to get the voice down. I’m repeating phrases, I’m repeating words, asking myself if these sounds are clicking together? That, to me, is the most valuable read. You have to do it at the right time, though. If you do it too early, you’ll change so much that just doesn’t matter. This has to be close to the finish line.
EC: Are you reading it to anyone?
AS: No, it’s just me. I mean, sometimes my wife will hear it, because we’re in the same house, but I don’t read it to anyone, but that’s an interesting thought. Makes me think of being a new author, doing a bunch of events where you have to read your stuff. It can be cringe-worthy sometimes, especially if you’re reading something you never read out loud. You can feel it.
EC: You’re constantly promoting other writers, which is just so damn amazing, by the way. How do you do it? How do you read all those books? Do you have any specific way you structure your reading time?
AS: I’m a pretty fast reader, thank God. How do I structure my reading time? Well, I listen to a lot of audiobooks. If I’m in the car, I’m listening to an audiobook. If I’m going to bed, I’m reading a novel. If I’m really tired, I’ll read a comic book just to like zonk out. But I’m always reading. It’s usually a blend of what I’m researching. What have I been reading lately? Kellye Garrett’s new book, Like A Sister, is going to be great. Kismet by Amina Akhtar is going to be fantastic. Also, Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart. And I just read your book, which is great. I just finished Velvet Was The Night, which is Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest. It’s very similar to my new book, Secret Identity, in that they’re both 70s noirs. Hers also has a comic book element. It’s not as big a plot point as mine, but it’s always interesting to see where the universal subconscious is at. So, yeah, I read Bill Boyle’s new one too, Shoot The Moonlight Out, and I really like that. So to answer your question, I’m just reading all the time. If I have to choose between reading and watching TV, I’ll read a book.
EC: And now for the tough question, or at least I always think it’s tough, but really damn important. Why do you write?
AS: We have to have uncomfortable conversations. It’s the only way we’re going to progress as a society. We have to think about it; we have to talk about it. And for my money, crime fiction is the best way to tap into these problems, to look at the real world. It’s almost like getting your vegetables with dessert. You’re learning about the world and the society and culture, seeing things that you would never experience otherwise. Crime fiction’s having a bit of a reckoning right now. We’re finally starting to think about who is supposed to be writing these stories. We have to be mindful of not just doing the same old thing we’ve always done. We have to think about diversity. We have to think about inclusivity. We don’t want it to become a trend. But, why, specifically, do I write? I didn’t really realize why until a few years ago. I live in Queens, and so does Megan Abbott. We’re in the same area, and she’s a friend, and I just said, “Can I have a coffee with you and pick your brain?” She said yes, and then, a few days later, we’re chatting about career stuff. She was already obviously like a superstar at that point, and I asked her basically the same question. I asked why she wrote. And she said, “Well, if there was no success, if the book never made it to a shelf—I’d probably still be writing anyway.” That’s how I feel. I’d be doing this anyway. I’d be writing these stories anyway. At a certain point, yeah, you want to get paid, and you want people to read it, but I just need to do it. I need to get it out.
