8 Questions for... Chris Patrick

Spotlight on Toasted Fiction

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Chris Patrick

is the series creator, writer and exec producer of SEARCH, and the author of 5 books. He is also the writer of over 10 sketches for BBC The Social, reaching over half a million views and a playwright who has written such plays as Fools On A Hill, Big Bang Billion & Full Stop. His work has featured in bestselling horror anthology, Twisted 50.  He writes Toasted Fiction.

1.     Why Substack?

I think the first time I heard of Substack was in an interview that Nick Offerman did on the Conan O Brien podcast about his Substack Donkey Thoughts. After a little reading about it, the newsletter function and the opportunity to have that direct delivery and connection with readers really appealed to me. I also got a really good feeling about it; I remember setting up the Substack travelling down to Anfield to watch Liverpool and had fun using the tools to set it up. I wanted a platform for my writing that I would use regular. I'd tried Wattpad, it didn't stick. I'd tried Medium, it didn't stick. I had been using my website but I didn't feel like there was any engagement or connection with readers. It felt like sending stories into the void, and there's enough of that when submitting manuscripts or scripts for consideration. As soon as I started using it I loved it; it also really fit with my love of short form stories and the opportunity to serialise longer stories. And yeah, there was definitely more of an instinctual feeling that this was the right platform for me because of this opportunity to connect and engage with readers; because it's a subscriber, they are signing up because they want to read your stories. That really appealed to me. 

2.     How long did it take you to find your groove?

I'm not altogether convinced I have! But I do feel I've got a better handle on it. I'd say about a year/year and a half in. I'm still trying out new things; particularly in terms of the schedule. I've probably obsessed a bit over this recently but I feel like now I've started to settle on one that works; one dictated to when can I write and schedule stories which matches my own reading schedule. 

My perspective certainly changed as well; my mistake in the early days was using it for rejected scripts or stories, ones which I felt comfortable throwing away. When I started to build an audience, I realised that was a mistake; they should only be getting my best work. 

3.     How has it changed you?

I think it's definitely changed my relationship with writing in a positive way and made me more comfortable with sharing stories and connecting with readers. Too often I'd write and write then stick the story in a drawer; feeling that they are no good. It's definitely given me a bit more confidence in sharing stories, but also writing with more of a purpose. 

I think it's also made me feel like a writer more of the time. I've been lucky enough to have some plays produced, a short story published in an anthology, some sketches on the BBC and an eight part audio drama produced. I began to ascribe to these a meaning that I was only a writer when these happened. That I was only a writer when the gatekeepers opened the gate and let me in for a little while before throwing me back out to discover a new password that would get them to open the gate again. Maybe that's a tortured analogy but it's the best I've got at the moment! 

What I think using Substack as a platform for my writing has changed is it's given me that element of control and autonomy as a writer. There is only me the writer, the story and the reader; no hoops to jump throw and no doors to try and open.  It's giving me more opportunity to write and feel like a writer, rather than these fleeting moments when I've prized open the gate for a while. 

4.     What mistakes have you made?

There have been a few and a number of which I've learned from. 

I think certainly in the beginning there was a number of false starts, including even naming the newsletter. On other platforms I'd built, for lack of a better word, a brand under the toasted fiction banner for a number of years.  People who knew I was a writer knew it mainly through Toasted Fiction so my writing was synonymous with that. I saw Substack as having to be something new so started from scratch completely. But the more I thought about it and used it, the more I realised that it was in actual fact the perfect home for Toasted Fiction. So I became less resistant to that, rebranded and settled back into the Toasted Fiction name. 

I think initially I didn't have a commitment to it either. I didn't commit to the notion of using it properly, nor did I perhaps respect or understand what the platform was. I wanted to build an audience without actually properly doing the steps to build one, I.e. post at least once a week and engage. I almost saw it initially as somewhere that I'd share work that I wasn't sending out to agents or submission opportunities. That was probably the biggest mistake when I started out. 

It took a while and some reflection to sit back and realise that if I wanted to build an audience then I should only be posting good quality work or the best attempt at my best work. Changing my perspective on what I was using it for, having respect for the platform and the audiences, was the biggest lesson. After deciding that I would only post that which I would be happy to submit to agents producers and the like, my relationship with Substack changed for the better. 

Announcing a schedule with arbitrary dates and defining what kind of story when was also a big one. I went to this big effort of going "OK week one will be a Fifty Word then week Two will be a longer short and week three will be a new chapter and week four will be nonfiction and it'll be this genre this week etc. as soon as I published it I felt instantly behind and hemmed in to writing a specific type of story each week. Some weeks I want to write more speculative some more humour etc. it depends on what story i want to tell. Committing to this story schedule actually took me away from that. I let it sit for a while then decided no. I'll write what I want to write when I want to write it. I now have a schedule in so much as the commitment is to at least one story a week and no more than two. 

5.     To pay or not to pay?

I am a believer in the "Build it and they will come" philosophy. Which is to say, if people are a fan of my work to such a degree that they will pay to support the writer if they can pay, then they will. I have a few paid subscribers which I am so grateful for and appreciate; I believe they do so not for exclusive content but because they enjoy the stories I tell and want to support me as a writer to write more. 

I dabbled with some "exclusive" paid subscriber posts last year but found only that the engagement was down and there was no influx in paid subscribers; that kind of becomes a bit counter intuitive and demoralising as a writer. You start then quantifying the quality of your work against that; if my work was good or they liked my writing, then they would pay. That does not inspire and becomes discouraging. I find there is enough of that when you are submitting scripts or stories to agents and producers. That's not what Substack should be for. It should be a reprieve from that. The part of your writing career you have sole control over; dictated only by the want to write and share with an audience what you've written. When I was trying the "paid subscribers only" approach it became a little too much like sales and took the fun out of writing on Substack. 

Changing from having stories only for paid subscribers to making stories available to all subscriber levels put me at ease. If people are in a position that they can pay, I think they would do so because they are supporting me as a writer to continue to tell stories and provide the opportunity to tell more and live out the dream of being paid as a writer. Equally, if they cannot but still want to support me as a writer by reading my stories, I'm equally grateful. 

There might be a few ideas in the future I may put behind a paywall, perhaps some comedy writing, but it's not something I think will be a staple at Toasted Fiction. It just depends how it goes I guess. 

6.     What artistic and technical choices have you made?

Fairly recently, I've become more focussed on the format of the story and the category. I love writing stories across all genres so a technical choice I've made to support that is separating my short stories into collections which all have a unifying theme. I want readers to come in and almost feel like they are browsing through a well laid out bookshelf or bookshop. I'm still working on that; but that is a choice I've taken fairly recently. 

Artistically, I've decided to split between serialised stories and standalone stories. 

I love serialised storytelling, and recently the big choice has been to serialise the eight part audio drama I released in 2022, SEARCH, as a serial novel. I've decided that Substack will be the place this story will continue, but first a new audience needs to discover it in this new format, so I'm adapting Season One. It fits Substack perfectly, particularly the cliffhanger nature, but also the style I've chosen to write in. It's an epistolary novel; it's transcripts of phone recordings, email exchanges, letters etc which actually really work well with the newsletter delivery of Substack. It's also helping me rediscover that story in a fun way. 

I'm also finding more of my voice as a prose writer; I tend to lean more speculative and I've started to decide that is what the majority of my stories will be. 

7.     What’s been the effect on your writing?

Routine and confidence are the main two effects. Confidence in my voice as a writer and in telling the stories I want to tell them in the way I want to tell them. It's helping me be less judgemental about my writing and second guess my own storytelling less. In the early days of writing for Substack, I'd write a story and think it would resonate then nothing. Others I'd write and put out without much thought and those have been the ones that have really resonated or had high engagement. Now, I try not to think too much about what stories are going to get a response with engagement and which ones aren't. I just write the story then give it to the reader. It'll be what will be. 

Writing for Substack has definitely given me more of a purpose to have a writing routine. I now try and write each morning before work, then a little at lunchtime or edit/review my writing in the evening. But it's giving my writing more structure and routine which helps. It's really encouraging. 

Having that engagement and connection with readers has also been huge; I've really grown to appreciate that and it's making it less scary to share work with readers. 

8.     In it for the long haul?

Absolutely. It's become the sole platform for my writing; I've even pulled back from social media to focus everything on Substack. It's become a constant in my writing life and one which I'm really grateful for. It's my creative outlet and the one point of stability I have in my writing career. I could be in the throes of a draft for a producer, banging my head against the wall and nervously waiting for the outcome, then I can turn to Substack and write a story for there, delivering it to an audience and having the wonderful feeling that you've written and shared a good story. It's like a tonic. Providing there are no dramatic changes to the platform, I reckon I'm here for the long haul. 

And, to bring us back full circle, as Ron Swanson (played by Nick Offerman) in Parks and Rec said "never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing."

Thanks to Chris Patrick for joining this conversation.