An Interview with Mark Waid

Published in 14:59, 2011

Are you one of those students whose parents disallow the reading of comics? Is it because it has no effect on your proficiency of the English language? Have you tried constantly to convince them otherwise, but to no avail?

Luckily for you, Mark Waid believes otherwise. Unlike every other parent or teacher, he believes that fluency in any one language takes second place compared to the importance of an imaginative mind.

The American writer dabbled in writing when he was younger, but his original intention was not to be a fiction writer. In fact, he had no interest in fiction writing until the year 1985, when he was invited to pitch a story to the editor of Superman. The editor loved the story and it was sold on the spot. This was his introduction into the world of writing. Although he originally entered editorial – and only did writing on the side – this would soon become a full-time career.

As a writer, Mr. Waid plans his stories out before hand, but when inspiration hits, he is prepared to throw his original script out the window and begin anew. In fact, he states that the more planning he does ahead of time, the “more stale” the actual story becomes. He doesn’t believe in catering to the audience’s whims and fancies – rather, it would be more beneficial to give the audience what will both interest and surprise them, while making use of what they find important.

His own parents have always been supportive of him. Even though there was much pressure for him to “get a real job”, they were much more understanding when he realised that he made more money than both his parents put together. (Aspiring comic writers, take note.)

His advice to budding writers out there?

1. Never forget what a story is. A story is conflict and resolution. A story is about what a character wants, the obstacles he faces and how he overcomes them to get to his goal.
2. If you're stuck on your story (like writer's block), you need to go back to the last place where the story last had some energy and seemed to all make sense, and experiment with other alternatives. Just because there’s an existing outline doesn't mean that you have to stick to it. Don't be afraid to rewrite the outline if your ideas change.

Fans of his works may remember that in Irredeemable, our sunny Singapore island was completely and utterly destroyed. Perhaps, like me, you, a patriotic citizen, were disgruntled when you read about this. For those who are completely clueless(and still outraged), let me enlighten you on this. For the purposes of the story, Mr. Waid needed an island country that was small enough to be destroyed by one man. This narrowed down his search to Cuba, parts of Hawaii, Hong Kong and Singapore. He didn’t want to use Cuba and Hawaii as, up until then, his works had mainly been North America-centric. After comparing Hong Kong and Singapore, he decided that there would be a greater negative impact on the world’s economy if Singapore were to be destroyed. Therefore, he chose us. Singapore. In a strangely perverse way, it’s a compliment.