Interview with Susan DeFreitas

Emma Dhesi  00:00

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Okay, let’s dive in to today’s episode.

Susan DeFreitas is the author of the novel hot season, which won a gold IPP why award and is the editor of dispatches from an RS tales in tribute to Ursula Gwynn forthcoming from forest Avenue press, an independent editor and book coach.

She specializes in helping writers from historically marginalized backgrounds and those writing socially engaged fiction breakthrough into publishing.

So let’s delve into this fascinating conversation with Susan and find out more how she uses fairy tales to rate her socially engaged fiction.

Susan, thank you so much for being here with me today. I’m delighted to chat to you.

Susan DeFreitas  02:31

Oh, thank you for inviting me.

Emma Dhesi  02:33

Now. I always start my conversations with asking my guests, you know, how did you get started in writing? What’s kind of brought you to this point?

Susan DeFreitas  02:41

Yeah, you know, I started writing fiction pretty much as soon as I could read it. You know, I’m one of one of those people.

So I started when I was eight years old, I wrote, you know, illustrated, ridiculous, you know, mystery stories about cats that lived aboard ships. My dad was a chief engineer on the sailing ship. There were in junior high. I, when I read fantasy and science fiction, I wrote my first novel, you know, I believe it was, you know, around 100 pages.

But it was a big accomplishment for an 11 year old. I won some little small town awards. And then I want to, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan, which is a Boarding School for the Arts and that is an experience that absolutely set my course.

You know, I discovered not only amazing, you know, writers of fiction there, but the great poets, you know, and it was really one of the most amazing years of my life, it’s set my taste for really top shelf fiction and maybe, you know, I just decided that’s it. You know, I want to do that more than anything else.

And so, you know, I majored in creative writing fiction and undergrad. And, you know, I was always writing a novel, always working on a book all through my 20s. You know, regardless of what my day job or my gigs were, you know, um, but it wasn’t until I was in my early 30s, that I went back to school and got my MFA, and really centered writing in my life that way and that’s also the point where I became in an editor first and then later a book coach.

So you could say that it has always been with me and but maybe it took a while to become the main thing I was doing with my life.

Emma Dhesi  04:53

I’m always interested in the MFA programs and people who have taken them. What do you feel was your passion main takeaway from doing that, that you that kind of either elevated or changed or enhanced your writing?

Susan DeFreitas  05:09

You know, I came in with a very strong sense of the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. And I soon discovered that those stories were considered rather unconventional in their subject matter being somewhat political, I’m the I write about the environment, I’m an environmental writer, and in centering characters, many people had not seen in fiction before, among them activists.

So there was definitely some some, I would say, some tension there, you know, because I wanted this thing for so long and I’ve been working on it for so long, but to discover that maybe what I was, I was so passionate about what’s considered perhaps marginal, or, or outside the mainstream.

But so, you know, that’s just being honest, that’s just being very honest, in terms of many different people have many different experiences and MFAS. But that was definitely part of what I had to grapple with their, but a huge takeaway that I got was, was how to distill once pros, you know, I call it professional strengths, pros, the author, Matt Bell has this wonderful term for weasel words.

You know, they are, they are words and phrases that are just not holding the weight, you know, they, they are just taking up space, they’re taking up your word count. And I discovered this when one of my mentors there, David long, you take a paragraph that I had written, and I swear to you cut a third of the words out of it without changing a bit of the sense.

And in fact, it read the way that I thought it read when I had sent it to him and you know, maybe this is part of what really sent me on my course of first working as an editor, because I saw what magic that was, you know, especially when I started to read for former literary magazines, I read for tin house magazine, RIP.

And I found what a difference it made. You know, when I opened up a submission, I could tell right away, I call it professional strength pros. You know, when when the the sense has been cooked down, you know, I love to cook. So I think of it as it’s been, it’s a reduction, you know, it’s it doesn’t taste of the original ingredients, it’s this own unique finally flavored strongly flavored thing and I really began to see that that has so much to do with what makes work publishable.

So that was a huge takeaway I got

Emma Dhesi  07:54

Okay. Well, that’s, that’s interesting. You said that, because I was thinking my head when you were talking, I was thinking or what’s turning words into an art form, which perhaps is not always the most accessible, but you’re you’re consuming notes more publishable which would kind of suggest that it is more accessible than when it’s when it’s distilled that…

Susan DeFreitas  08:17

That was, yes. You know, that’s interesting. Because, certainly, you know, some people take the poet’s approach, you know, and then they do focus on that lyricism and those, those wild turns of phrase, you know, but, but at its heart, this is a process that can apply to to the most straightforward nonfiction writing there is it’s simply efficient, and it doesn’t waste your time as a reader and and that communicates respect, you know, for the readers time that especially with fiction, you know, where it’s not as if you’re reading a how to manual, you know, on how to accomplish something in your life, like I help self help book or, or prescriptive nonfiction.

You are, someone is asking you to pay attention to something they entirely imagined, you know, well, while your your kids need a snack, and you know, the laundry is not done and you’ve got a text from your boss, like, you really owe it to your reader not to waste their time and to communicate very clearly and authority that says, I have a story. You know, I have something astounding to tell you.

I have a secret. You must know what this is, you know, and, and yeah, distilled prose that’s…

Emma Dhesi  09:12

Gives me chills. Just keep talking about the idea of this being something so special. I love it. I love it. I’ve got slightly sidetracked what I was very interested in what you’re saying.

But what I my next question was going to be something I’d read on your website and you described one of your professional values as being literary citizenship and I wondered what that what that means for you?

Susan DeFreitas  10:07

You know, it is, um, it’s a term that is an, you know, well in circulation these days in literary communities, and I’m happy to see that, um, and it means different things to different people.

But one of the best ways I think I can characterize it is talking about some of the differences I’ve observed between the more academic MFA, you know, literary circles, and those associated with speculative fiction, which is one of my great loves write science fiction and fantasy, and all of its various derivatives, imaginative fiction, and what I saw in the more academic world, where people were, you know, competing for those top prizes, and, and really, you know, in workshops with each other, yeah, there’s a, there’s a tendency to be a little competitive, you know, and, and with it, a real tendency to judge your work intensely based on that of others.

And also to judge your fellow writers there were, you know, based on your standards, and your ideas and your concerns, etc. Um, and it’s natural, and it’s human, but it’s a, it’s an, I’m not convinced that that serves us, you know, as people, as artists, or as a culture and it was a revelation to me when I attended some of my first cons, as they’re called, you know, I was a presenter up at Norwescon in Seattle, which, which does a wide variety of fabulous, I mean, the Northwest is just lousy with amazing speculative writers. You know, mmm Neil Stevenson. And, of course, Ursula Gwyn used to live there. God bless her.

And she, she passed, I don’t know if you heard just a few years back. And I’m actually in the process of editing an anthology and tribute to her work. Absolutely a writer who both literary and speculative. But what I saw in that community was that no matter how well published, no matter how many of the top awards, you know, the writers there had won, they were fans first. Right.

And nobody was above, you know, standing in the hallway, having a drawn out conversation with some young geek, about the influence of Pope, you know, on on the genre, or, or, you know, Heinlein or, or their love for, you know, the cJ cherryh, or the feminist themes and first of all, the Gwen’s work, and I thought, this is it, this is the ideal, right, is that we are fans first and we are artists second and the love and the passion that we have for for the work that has inspired us and made us you know, that is what we share with a 14 year old kid who has just read the first book that lived their world on and we are still those, no matter how far we become, or, or if we’re just beginning, you know, there’s a kind of level levelness to it that I found inspiring, and I thought I will serve literary culture.

You know, until then, I’d wanted so badly again, I’d started quite young, feeling like, Oh, I’m a prodigy, or whatever, because I was gifted or whatever. And I had disappointed some of my greatest hopes, you know, by the time I was 30, and also went through these workshops, where I learned that, you know, my work really was not the genius thing that I had thought it was.

But I thought, you know, what, that’s an illusion, that wasn’t the goal to begin with. That’s not what I should aim for. There. There is no lack of ways for me to be part of this conversation. So that’s when I began reading, or working as a reader for magazines. Right. You know, I it was also when I was learning my trade as an editor and learning to serve other writers in strengthening their work.

I wrote book reviews, you know, and so I really just, I began teaching, you know, to a certain extent to especially working with young people. I work every year teaching Institute at at interlocking during the summer program on the novel for teenagers with kids in junior high, you know, teaching them about the uses of the imagination in fiction, you know, I just began to see that it was so much bigger then my personal vision as an artist, and that has been the entire key to what to, to establishing, honestly, the beautiful literary life that I have.

Emma Dhesi  15:15

Oh, beautiful, lovely. Um, well, talking about your the Super relife, your novel hot season was winner of the 2017 is gold independent Publishers Association Award for Best fiction of the Mountain West.

So I wonder if you could tell us about the book and where the inspiration for it came from?

 Susan DeFreitas  15:35

Sure. Yeah. So I shared a little bit with you about my, you know, the process of going through my MFA program. And, you know, when I came into that program, I thought, you know, I’m the kind of person who has far too many ideas for books, you know, people who struggle for ideas, I find it amazing and mysterious that anyone has this problem, I have so many, I’ll never be able to get to them all.

But out of all possible ideas that I had, I thought, you know, I’m just learning how how to outer really, right now and workshops are, they tend to work better for short stories than they do for novels, right. So I will write a novel.

In stories, I was intrigued by the Linked Story form, which I’d studied in undergrad, and I thought, you know, this is a way that I can sort of have my cake and eat it too.

You know, even even if the novel winds up being a complete train wreck, I figured I would still be able to take it apart and use some parts, right, maybe still managed to publish your story or to still manage to get a leg up that way, because up till that point, in my life, I had only published nonfiction and poetry.

Um, so I wrote a series of stories that was based on events in my own life, and in that in the lives of people I knew at the time, through through my somewhat, you know, bohemian 20s, where I and, you know, a group of young people, all summer associated graduates of Prescott college, you know, we were living in a certain neighborhood in prescot, it was a barrio, is a diverse neighborhood.

And we were very concerned with ecological and environmental issues, you know, Prescott college is known for its its focus on the environment. So you study that, regardless of whatever your subject matter is, regardless of whether you’re going to school for creative writing, or education or science, you study the environment and the human impact on it.

So, you know, I, my friends, were artists, they were activists, they were, they were people who were wanted to be farmers, you know, small scale urban agriculture folks, you know, and it was interesting and inspiring, and, you know, at times ironic group of people to be around, you know, because we were all trying, we’re all idealists, you know, focused on these causes.

We’re also just young people making mistakes, and, you know, having romances and intrigues and all that. But the real inspiration for that first book came one. This is a true story, one of the alumns from our school, um, he had started kind of activist community center in town, and then that the place was raided by the FBI.

Oh, and as it turned out, he was one of America’s Most Wanted, were having been part of a group responsible, they, you know, they were known as eco terrorists. Okay. Right and they had they had gone beyond activism and, and gone into what’s called monkey wrenching right where they had during the 90s you know, they had done quite a lot of damage to a lot of, you know, buildings and equipment owned by corporations that they had deemed to be, you know, highly destructive to the earth among them timber companies in the up in Eugene Area anyways, you know, I that event was so dramatic, it, okay, and this is really.

I got a little choked up thinking about this because this guy was a friend of mine, you know, who’s a friend of a lot of our None of us knew this about him his past, all of the people who had been part of the group that he had been part of, they were known as the family and they were all anonymous. In their identities with each other, they had all wound up serving life sentences in federal prisons where they remain and so he was the last of the group to fall in that Domino chain.

And so rather than allow that to happen to himself, he took his own life.

 Emma Dhesi  20:32

 I’m sorry to hear that.

 Susan DeFreitas  20:35

And it just rocked our community, because it brought up questions about where do you draw the line? and your commitment to the cause? And, you know, yes, this is this is a matter of life and death in the long run for this planet, but how extreme are you? You know, and how does temperament play into it.

And all of these things make this book sound very serious and dramatic, but really my angle on it was, was that at that time, I had two young roommates, I had graduated already, I had two roommates who were still enrolled in school and they told me they got a message from the dean, alerting the student body that undercover agents had been enrolled, and were enrolled, enrolled in classes. So imagine how that affected you know, undergraduate romances at this.

We don’t know who is who. So I haven’t told you much about the plot of the book at all, but I hope it’s given you it’s taste, it’s really…

 Emma Dhesi  21:36

Behind the story is just as good. Yeah.

 Susan DeFreitas  21:41

This real life event. Yeah. Let’s say it’s a humorous story about some dark things…

 Emma Dhesi  21:48

I am intrigued, I’m definitely getting myself a copy now. Okay, so that said, yeah, that’s conference and dark stuff.

But here’s a humorous story you say? And do you do is that’s kind of one of his, like, a style of viewers that you like using humor?

And because you’ve also written around and about kind of fairy stories? And so do you bring your humor into those as well.

 Susan DeFreitas  22:16

You know, I really, I really feel that I do work in very different forms. And I, you know, I honestly would say, I mean, sometimes with the fairytales it’ll creep in, you know, but, um, it’s really, I suit my, my approach to my subject matter.

And in that first book, and the book I’m working on now, I told you, I was working on linked stories, that was one manuscript that I’ve been broke into three sections. And the first section became my first book. I’m now working on the on the next for that project, you know, as Bonnie Guit is, in my year, you know, Tom Robbins is in my ear, even Brod again, who was more experimental is in my ear. And those, those guys are all very funny.

You know, um, yeah. Abby and John Nichols, two, two icons of the Southwest literature that are seldom read outside of this part of the of the US, they’re both very, very funny people, you know, who wrote about, you know, yeah, the environment monkey wrenching and about, you know, they, they took on that serious subject matter environment, you know, and in the fight to save a land and landscapes, you know, from that humorous perspective.

And so it just, that’s what came to me when I tried to write about these things. But when, you know, when I write right now, I’m working on a series that fairy tales that deal with climate change, right, um, that for those tales, I’m going to assume the tone of the classic fairy tales that I grew up with, they have a certain amount of repetition, they have a certain lack of embroidery about that, you know, they have a certain, I guess, maybe implied humor, but there’s also just a brutality in fairy tales you know, where…

 Emma Dhesi  24:20

I think we, we don’t I think, these days, we don’t know, we don’t realize that everything has been defined so much that I haven’t studied it myself.

But I believe if you go back to the originals, they’re really really dark, dark stories…

 Susan DeFreitas  24:34

Especially the ones Disney has has mined the most which are brands, you know, grams are quite grim. You know, I the, the tale I have up now the Seven Sisters, Seven ravens in their sister, you know, that’s it, there’s a turn in the story where the heroine cuts off her own finger and uses it as a key to open In the door,

and that’s the sort of unthinking violence that, you know, fairy tales, it is the natural province of fairy tales to deal with the dark and I feel like, you know, with climate change, or we’re not good at thinking about, about the dark in a way that that is not, you know, sensational, you know, in a way that isn’t, you know, the sort of turns you might see on on television or, or movies, like, what it really like,

getting to the heart of, you know, this is actually a feature of existence, you know, that we are animals and, and we’re subject to, to, to these pains and, and horrors, and I think it suits the truths of climate change.

We’re just now starting to get hold of these, you know, that things are coming down the line, you know, big forces on, on, on par with the method on what on par with our human history, when there were still wolves and beasties out the door, you know, I think we need these sorts of Tales, to prepare us.

And, and not to get too grim, but to prepare our children, you know, because fairy tales, in many ways have been our way of preparing our children. For for the, for the dark truths of human existence.

You know, when you think about a story, like blue beard, you know, you know, and the way you know, the, the young girl marries the Lord and his castle, and there’s a room that is only one room is forbidden to her. You know, when she opens it, she finds the dead bodies of all of his previous wives.

You know, there’s there’s a kernel at the heart of that, that is speaking to girls about the violence that is potential within romance, and marriage, you know. And so, you know, I’m just interested in the way that these forms might help us to prepare ourselves, you know,

 Emma Dhesi  27:11

I like that correlation you’ve made, you know, it’s, it’s easy to kind of look back and see that, okay, yeah, fairytales served a purpose. At a time when life was a lot harder. Life was tougher. There wasn’t too much pleasure going on. It was it was a hard grind.

And I can see them that by taking fairytales now and pushing them into the future rather than the past. And what might happen in the future, if we don’t heed the warnings that we’re seeing coming now that there’s really good.

Oh, what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s, it’s, it’s giving imagery, I guess it’s storytelling in a more accessible way, in a less moralistic way that we see on the news about chatting as we’re doing everything wrong.

But actually, if your story is more engaging, we’re more open to it more receptive, and we can digest it in our own way, and then come to conclusions about Yeah, what does this mean for the future for me, for my children, my grandchildren?

Because Oh, actually, I was just talking to my husband about this the other day, just saying, oh, we’re all right. We’ll be dead before all this happens.

But it is the next two or three generations down that are going to bear the brunt of what we’re doing. And the two Gen two, three generations before.

Yeah, is like I hadn’t seen fairytales in that way before and so so thank you for that. That’s given me a whole new perspective on them. Yeah.

You mentioned before that you you do write in many different forms, some long form like your novel, some more shorts and experimental. Can you kind of talk a little bit more about the different forms that appeal to you?

Interview with environmental writer Susan DeFreitas.

Susan DeFreitas  28:52

Oh, sure. Um, yes, you know, I do write novels. And with the series that I’m working on now, again, I am taking linked stories, and, and rewriting them as novels, but in so doing, you know, part of what I it’s a maddening process, but part of what I really love about it is the way of bits and pieces, you know, chapters from other point of view characters remain in the novel,

even even though you know, in the revision, the protagonist has a clear art, there is that rising action towards a point of climax, you know, there is a main storyline, but because I wrote these as linked stories, they’re almost asides, you know, where another character will have a chapter in a way that survives on or develops and, and so let’s say that I’m enjoying the way that those things work together.

And I’m continuing to work with that form. in that series I have on the backburner a more traditional, traditionally structured sci fi novel, dealing with artificial intelligence, although that moves back and forward in time, in a certain way.

I also write short stories, you know, straight ahead, not linked stories, I have a collection I’ve been working on called dream studies.

And you know, one of my mentors in graduate school said in an assessment, Susan has a strong tendency for formal experimentation.

And I thought I didn’t know that about myself before, you know, but it caused me to really embrace it. Even though the stories in Dream Dream studies are traditional story, short stories, and they are not linked. So when I came up with them, you know, I was recovering from surgery.

And I really had to have to sit and just be, you know, and not be at the computer to so I sat in the backyard of a notebook, and I’ve really been interested in the idea of a static, what do you like, what, what do you just enjoy?

You know, I kind of had it with the grind of submission schedule, and graduate school, it sucks some of the joy out of the process for me, so I wanted that job back. And to me, aesthetic is where the joy lies, right? So I made a list of things.

What do you like in your fiction season? I like books about books. I like libraries. I like architecture, I like odd buildings. I like secret messages.

You know, I like notes. Um, you know, I could go on, I like dreams, let’s say that too. And, you know, I made a list of all these things. And me, you know, what I did was that I just said, uh, pick this thing here, this thing here, I circle them.

And I came up with the plot for a short story, I did that I came up with 12 plots in the course of three days. And then I spent the next three years just writing them.

And so all of these stories, they’re, they mirror each other in these ways, these themes run through them in a way that I don’t think would have arisen naturally.

Or, or through a different process. So that’s one thing. I also love flash fiction, you know, and I developed, I have developed various different forms for it, um, much in the way a, you know, a sonnet is a form for a poem or a villain malice, I thought, why not have some forms for flash fiction or the lyric essay?

So I had developed a number of those for my patreon last year.

 Emma Dhesi  32:58

Okay, so yeah, I’ve been fascinated by this.

So we do kind of expand on particularly the one that you mentioned on Patreon is the Fibonacci Spiral. Wonder if you tell me about that.

 Susan DeFreitas  33:11

Yes, um, you know, I, and it should be obvious. I’m a geek, you know, being a fan of science fiction I thought I was making here. And I’ve always been fascinated by forming patterns in nature.

And so a Fibonacci spiral. For those who don’t know, it’s a, it is a form that arises everywhere in nature. And, and in art, too, you know, that it’s a sort of spiral pattern that corresponds to the golden mean, which, you know, Da Vinci used in his, in many of his paintings and is still use, you know, it’s a form that we tend to find beautiful.

If you think of the pattern of, of a Fern, a Fern observes a Fibonacci sequence in the way that it’s small leaves become bigger, right?

So a Fibonacci sequence is, is a number pattern in mathematics, where the sum of each of the two numbers, well, the easiest way to explain it is say, your first number is zero, right?

And say your second number is one, add zero plus one, you get one, right? But then for the next number, you add one plus one, you get two, right? Two plus one, you get three, three, you take the last two numbers, and you add them and what starts very small, soon becomes exponentially much larger.

Okay, right. So, you know, I’m not a mathematician, and I’m not explaining As well as I would like to, but I thought why not apply this to work counts, you know, and work in sections.

And so I would, I would just set a title for, for a piece of flash fiction or a lyric essay, often based on a fairy tale and set that the word count of the title as my first in the sequence, ok and then I would reproduce that same number count in section one, but then section two, the word count would be the sum of the word counts of the title and the first section and so you It starts off in practice, you know, again, it’s a bit of a game, play it out, see how see how it goes.

In practice, it winds up being that you sort of make a statement, you make a statement with your title, you make a statement with your first section, and then you elaborate on a gross, two sentences or three.

And before you know it, it ends, you know, wherever you choose to end, you know, Fibonacci sequence has no end, it just keeps, you know, the numbers keep getting larger and larger but wherever you choose to end, it has the sense of being a rush, you know, your, your words are tumbling, oh, what started very terse, and very distill, then becomes this, this whole onra of, of images and words and story that you’re sharing.

And then that I felt like it, it almost felt like a conversation, you know, especially with someone new, where you start off somewhat feeling each other out, but you become more comfortable.

And before you know it, you’re telling this long winded, you know, story from deep, you know, in your childhood, and you’re, you’re feeling so connected, or, you know, it really, it was a thought experiment, that when I played it out, I thought this is fun.

And this is really interesting. And I’m just very fascinated by where this form can take me. So, again, with fairy tales, I found it easy,

I don’t have to think too much about what to say, in part because my word counts are set for me, you know, I’m it occupies the part of the brain that’s analytical, and it I feel like it kind of keeps you from thinking too much about what you’re writing, right, disarming your inner editor.

Um, and you know, fairy tales are a subject that are so deep seated for me that I can riff on them. I don’t have to think too much about that, either.

So what’s what has been on earth through this process is often surprising to me. And I love that.

 Emma Dhesi  37:47

Oh, cool. Well, so and people can find out about that on your Patreon account company. Very cool. I love it. I love it. And now you mentioned did you mention it?

But I’m gonna Well, if not, I’m going to change tack again, and talk more about what you kind of do now and what you do with other writers, which is predominantly coaching and editing. Is that right?

 Susan DeFreitas  38:13

That’s right.

 Emma Dhesi  38:14

Yeah. And so what kind of stories do you like to work with that other people are writing?

Susan DeFreitas  38:19

Yeah, that’s, that’s great subject and I love that we have had this conversation about, you know, all these experimental forums where we were chatting before this interview,

I thought it was saying how it’s, it’s somewhat ironic, because so much of what I do is, is coach people through an understanding of traditional structure for the novel, you know, in to support them, you know, in their pursuit of landing, the first book deal, which is something I feel very passionate about is helping people break through into publishing.

So, a lot of what I do you know, it is brass tacks, it is basics, you know, but but as I understand them, which, you know, I, I there are so many forms people talk about right, and so many forms that are quite effective there’s three act structure those four act structure and one of your previous interviews you you mentioned that with it’s like a grid structure right there there’s the save the cat you know, yeah.

Oh, this is derived from movies. There’s, there’s the, the hero’s journey, which is derived from mythic cycles. I think they are all fabulous, you know, and they all work you know, if your story fits into those one of those formats, you can take it to the bank because they are tried and true.

But I am, I’m feel very passionately about the fact that not every, none of those structures will fit every story. Right? So my approach to, to coaching people and and helping people as an editor with their novels is to focus on three fundamental things.

Okay, which I think are the broad spectrum, you know, yeah, biotic, they will hear most, most of the ills that that can afflict a manuscript. Okay, number one is plot the causality of how one thing leads to another, you know, and how tight they are in time, right?

That’s the pacing, right? How clearly connected how the story logic is, right. So number one, how the plot connects number two, the character are. And I, I, I put that first honestly, though, most people think of plot first, because I’m a, I’m a protege of Lisa Kron great story, coach.

She’s also one of my book coaching clients, you know, and good friend, you know, I am a huge believer in what she has on Earth, about the brain science of fiction, which is that it’s not about what happens, it’s about how it changes the protagonists. It’s about who it happens to write.

And it’s about how it pushes the event, the external events, push the protagonist to grow and change, and come to understand something that they did not before, you know, come to understand, you know, on a deeper level, that something that they have held to be true, is just not true at all.

Because that’s where the emotional catharsis lies in that realization, you know, and it’s also where we derive meaning from fiction, because that’s the part that we can take for ourselves, the events of a particular story, you know, we’ll probably will probably never encounter those events in our own lives.

But that internal truth, and that change in perspective, that’s the part that we can use. That’s the part that makes us wiser, stronger, better, more empathetic, you know, that is really what we are reading for, whether we realize it or not, the plot sort of the fireworks to capture your attention, right?

This is the thing that we we really read for and then finally, the part that makes the story legible to the reader, which is, is the goals and motivations of the protagonist, if you don’t know what somebody wants, or what they’re trying to achieve, you can’t tell what what’s even supposed to be happened.

Right. So those are the those are the big three that I focus on in my approach to structure. And what I love the types of stories I love to work on, are literary stories, and speculative stories, and those that blur the bounds in between, you know, but particularly, I love to work with writers from historically marginalized backgrounds.

So that’s writers of color, that’s women, that’s folk from folks from the LGBTQ spectrum, you know, a differently abled folks, you know, this is the time where we must hear those voices, those voices must be in the conversation.

And as a writer of color myself, you know, I am here for that, you know, I am here to support that and then also, you know, just writers who actively seek to engage with the most pressing issues of our day, you know, and that’s sexism, that’s racism, that’s the environmental crisis, that’s, you know, poverty and, you know, economic disparity like, these,

I do not believe I do not accept that those are not subjects worthy of literature, of the best literature, you know, and I am here to support our writers doing that work and bringing them into the conversation.

 Emma Dhesi  44:13

Fantastic and let me ask, do you do you see a change happening in the landscape that way?

Do you see more people coming in from these different backgrounds, different experiences, and kind of the subject matter of poverty or environments of racism, sexism, do you see that growing and we are kind of moving in the right way?

Susan DeFreitas  44:36

I feel that we are but you know, at this time, I feel that fiction is is behind nonfiction. You know, if you look at you know, the bestsellers and nonfiction you know, these are our books about here and here in the US.

We have books like how to be an anti racists, you know, We are both like as Elizabeth Wilkerson’s cast, we have hillbilly ologies, you know, dealing with the the political split and the economic situation, in our rural areas, you know, we these, we are in the midst of an intense, you know, social justice movements, environmental justice movements, you know, that’s what’s happening in our culture right now, that’s what’s in the conversation.

And nonfiction is getting there quicker than fiction. And that, and that should add, that should be no surprise, because fiction takes longer to cook down, it takes, it takes longer to turn experience, into the stuff of fiction, you know, grapple with meanings, you know, and their impacts these sorts of issues, impacts on the lives of real people and generations, you know, yeah, so it’s not surprising to me, but we need to get there, you know, writers, we need to get there.

And if you are writing, you know, anybody writing any kind of story at this time, there is a way that your work can intersect with these issues, whatever, whatever particular issue you are most passionate about, right now, you can find a way to get there, you know, within without changing in huge part, you know, your concerns or your approach, you know, and I encourage everybody to do that. But I think, you know, things are changing.

Slowly, you know, partially in the publishing industry, as we get more women in in gatekeeping positions, as we head slow, more people of color and gatekeeping positions right now, it seems as if there’s far more agents of color than editors, acquisitions, but, you know, I do what I’m seeing and hearing from my agent friends right now, is that I’m part part of what’s getting sold and part of the shift is that you know, it, we’re still selling straight ahead romances, but, you know, their romances,

I love the work of my client, Iai delion. You know, she she writes a feminist romances that, you know, the protagonists are like, former sex workers, you know, they’re, they’re women of color there, there are women from marginalized backgrounds. You know, she writes, heists, and thrillers, where they’re, they’re taking on, you know, they’re, they’re robbing the rich white guys, they’re, they’re funding public clinics, and, and this is straight head romance, or it’s straight ahead, thriller,

I think that’s so subversive, and it’s so brilliant, you know, and, yeah, I was talking with a friend of mine, who’s an agent of a couple of weeks ago, we were having zoom drinks.

And, you know, she is saying, you know, what I’m looking for what I’ve really been able to sell are, you know, the, the Y A stories that are, you know, their own voices, you know, they have protagonists with color, or the, or were protagonists, or, you know, there’s some angle again, it’s not as if the whole structure has changed,

there’s still say, a romance at the heart of it, or we’re coming of age, you know, but, you know, the kids might be activists or they might be, there’s all these different ways that these, these pressing issues of our day, are, are now coming into fiction, and I think it’s fascinating that it seems to be coming from genre, you know, genres sort of taking a chance that way, because, again, genre is like, its form, right?

Like I was talking about a sonnet or a villanelle. As long as you observe the dictates of form, you can kind of put whatever you want to and yeah, you know, and I love the way that form, you know, traditional tropes are being subverted within genre fiction, right.

 Emma Dhesi  49:28

So that begs the question then, in the sort of literary circles, then why is it not happening there so much Is it because of the people who are at the top and literary circles and making the decisions about what’s bought and sold, that they are of an older type and diverse themselves and so they’re not interested in writing and reading about more diverse characters.

 Susan DeFreitas  49:58

I, You know, I can’t really say exactly what it is, some of it is that that top shelf, you know, literature is dominated by people who went through MFA programs. MFA programs have been pretty white, you know, but beyond that, I received this signal very clearly and I mentioned that earlier.

There is a an unspoken element of, oh, academic, creative writing workshops in this country that signals to the young writers who may be interested in particularly the political issues, but that is not a proper subject for good art.

Okay, it’s changed a bit. When it comes, it’s changed a good amount actually, when it comes to, to racism, sexism, because those are so called identity. Politics.

Right, right. Or queer stories? Like if it if it is primarily about the individual, then yes, this has been allowed into the Canon and yes, now we have, you know, these top shelf stories coming, you know, books, winning awards coming out about such things, you know, but it’s still very rare.

I will point to Richard powers, astounding book, The overstory, you know, that, that book breaks form, in that it’s not about just one protagonist, you know, and its subject is forest is the forest.

And its role in human health, civilization, culture, well being, you know, there’s no way he could tell that story in a more traditional way.

And, you know, if that had been his first book, I, I doubt he would have broken through it, you know, and I think, you know, in many ways, it’s time of people like him, you know, who whose credentials are unassailable, you know, and who’s so well established,

I think, are, are helping to broaden this idea of what, what you can write about, you know, and still be can have it be considered great art, you know, or high art.

And, you know, not to go on too much about it, because I could, this is a subject I’m very passionate about, too. But that signal that politics is not proper two to two literature, is based in the origins of the US MFA program, start the Iowa Writers Workshop, which was developed as a way to counter Soviet era propaganda, right?

Because the USSR demanded of its artists that they prop, that they propped up their political agenda. So the US aesthetic was very consciously crafted to, to have nothing to do with that, to focus only on the individual, you know.

And I really think it’s time to push back against that. Absolutely. So that’s my soapbox now.

Emma Dhesi  53:38

Well, I’m just conscious of time because it’s a very, you know, it’s an emotive subject, and it’s very, kind of relevant here and no, so, but I am conscious of time, so I’m gonna and I want people to find out more about you, and where they can find out if they’re interested in working with you or more about your written work and self, where can they find out about you online?

 Susan DeFreitas  54:00

Well, the best way to find everything about me is on my website, which is just my name, SusanDeFreitas.com.

You’ll also find me on Patreon. I believe that’s patreon.com/SusanDeFreitas.

It might be reversed and might be afraid, Susan is one of those, go to patreon that I’ll link to.

That’s where you’ll find all my strange little fairy tales and Fibonacci spirals and such and, yeah.

 Emma Dhesi  54:32

Brilliant. That’s lovely. Susan, I really appreciate your time and, and sharing so many of your thoughts and your ideas with me and your, your experimental approach to the writing forum.

So thank you so much.

 Susan DeFreitas  54:45

Well, thank you so much for just a fabulous conversation.

 Emma Dhesi  54:50

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational.

Now, don’t forget to come on over to Facebook and Join my group, Turning readers into writers. It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet.

They’re called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadeshi.com/turning readers into writers.

Hit join. Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you. Bye bye

If this interview with Susan DeFreitas was useful, you’ll love:

• How to co-write a novel with author and podcaster Crys Cain – EMMA DHESI
• Interview with Asian American poet and writer Dr Stephanie Han – EMMA DHESI
• Clarity and Confidence with Non-Fiction Book Coach Andrea Glass – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

Interview with September C. Fawkes

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Hello, I’m Emma Dhesi and welcome to another episode of turning readers into writers. If you’re brand new here, welcome. And here’s what you need to know. This is a community that believes you are never too old to write your first novel, no matter what you’ve been up to until now, if you’re ready to write your book, I’m ready to help you reach the end, I focus on helping you find the time and confidence to begin your writing journey, as well as the craft and skills you need to finish the book.

Each week I interview debut authors, editors and industry experts to keep you motivated, inspired, and educated on all things writing, editing, and publishing. If you want to catch up, head on over to emmadhesi.com, where you’ll find a wealth of information and tools to help you get started.

Before we dive in, this week’s episode is brought to you by my free cheat sheet 30 Top Tips to find time to write. In this guide, I give you 30 ways that you can find time to write in the small gaps that appear between the various errands and tasks and responsibilities that you have in your day to day life. I know you might be thinking that you don’t have any time to spare, but I can guarantee these top tips will give you writing time you didn’t think you had.

If you thought writing always involved a pen and paper or a keyboard. Think again. If you thought you needed at least an hour at a time to write your manuscript. I help you reframe that you won’t be disappointed. Get your free copy of 30 Top Tips to find time to write by going to emmadhesi.com /30 Top Tips

Okay, let’s dive in to today’s episode.

September C. Fawkes approach to editing has been described as thorough, precise and kind. She has worked in the fiction writing industry for over eight years, and has been editing stories for even longer than that.

She has edited for both award winning and best selling authors, and has worked on manuscripts written for middle grade young adult and adult readers.

With most of her experience being in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Previous to freelance editing, she was mentored by a creative writing professor, and award winning international best selling author and a professional editor.

So let’s delve into today’s episode where September gives us a one on one tutorial on the different types of cliffhanger there are and when and if you should use them to let’s find out more.

Well, welcome, September. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It’s really great to have you here.

September C. Fawkes  02:46

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

 Emma Dhesi  02:49

And so I’d love to just start with our unit. You know, what was your journey to writing to publication to editing? How did you get to where we are now?

 September C. Fawkes  02:57

Yeah, so I’m kind of one of those I feel like it’s a little cliche, always wanted to work in this industry always wanted to write or edit. And really, I wrote my first story when I was like seven and I was like hooked, and I edited it to has like, in fact, my mom was really smart. So she kept it, we still have it and I have an amoled binder It was about chickens or something because we own chickens.

But anyway, I had like blocked out like lines I have, you know changed or whatever so has like all this stuff crossed out and like things are misspelled. But anyway, so that was kind of my first experience with that and I was kind of hooked after that. Um, sometimes I feel like people get this idea though that you have to have quote like always wanted, you know, to be in this industry to be successful.

I don’t feel that way at all. But I kind of was interested in that all growing up from that from that first time and knew this is kind of my planet was I wanted to work in this industry with have with that said I didn’t have a lot of you know, any kind of professional training or anything like that going on. Luckily now we have so much stuff on the internet, like even this podcast back, which I feel like wasn’t that long ago.

But even just like when I was growing up, I didn’t have access to a lot of those things on the internet wasn’t, you know, on there, I didn’t know where to look. So like I did it. Like I would write and my friends would share stories and things all the time. But I still felt like as I became an adult I wanted to get serious into it. In some ways. I feel like I still had to start at the beginning because I didn’t have all that, you know, I don’t have any training or mentorship.

I shouldn’t say I didn’t have any you know, because obviously, I took English classes and stuff growing up, but I still had a lot to learn. So from there, I went to college and I got my degree in English. And so that’s when I kind of started getting more of a sense of kind of professional or industry and what’s expected and I became the managing first I was the fiction editor.

And then I was the managing editor of their literary journal. So I kind of did that and had that experience. And then after college, I started working as an assistant for New York Times bestselling writer, his name is David Farland. He also does freelance editing. So, um, after working for him for a while, he had me start going through manuscripts, um, first, you know, and then he kind of go through after, so I kind of got more editing experience with that, I started my blog.

And that’s been a great little project where I just share my ideas about writing or what I’ve learned about writing on the hire. And from there, I started doing my own freelance editing services. So now, I’ve worked for myself that way, and I edit people’s manuscripts that way.

So it’s kind of the basic journey, I guess. I don’t know if you have any additional questions or anything about that, but that’s kind of my story. Yeah.

 Emma Dhesi  06:00

Cool. Yeah, no, we’ll do I’ll follow up on that a bit. Later on, we’ll get further along. But you mentioned your, your website there. I know, you’ve got two websites. One is predominantly your blog, which we’ll come to. But the other one is sort of more for your, the editing work that you do people specifically looking for an editor, you also have this great page on that website called writing tips.

And when I was looking through it, I love what I love about it is you’ve broken it down into different sections. So you might have you know, how to write the beginning of your book, How to brainstorm how to write about characters or write dialogue, such a useful index such a useful resource, and what prompts you to put it all together like that? So was there a sort of a crying demand for it?

 September C. Fawkes  06:51

Um, I think just, I thought would be helpful. Okay. Well, I will say part of it’s also for me, as I like to have these things organized on a website. So I can just go click and look for what I’m looking for wherever I’m at. But I just thought it would be really helpful to have things a lot of things that were organized by topic, just when we’re kind of scrolling through, you know, on a website.

Okay, here’s the topic that I’m looking at, here’s different, you know, things that I can click on. A lot of them are, well, most of them are really are articles that I’ve written from my blog. But I do have some other articles in there that I often refer people to that maybe already explained something that, you know, I haven’t written something on, or they’ve already done a good job on explaining it.

So I’ll send them there. Some of them are just articles, like when I’m editing that I might suggest to people who are working on certain things. And I just think that’s kind of a helpful way to learn more about the craft, and like, have it organized in that way you can go on there, you can learn more about the craft and kind of help. I mean, it’s great to have an editor, but you also need to know like the craft yourself, obviously.

And it’s good to be like a self editor too. So the idea for that is just to make it more accessible. And so people can look up, like whatever topic they’re struggling with, they can go read about it. And hopefully, I mean, I feel like there’s a lot of stuff on there. But I keep, you know, keep updated and keep trying to add to it. So there’s

 Emma Dhesi  08:15

There’s more there is there’s a lot of stuff. And I’m gonna link specifically to that page for people I really think people should go and take a look at it will be a real, just one of those tabs you can have open on your desktop. So you can refer to that regularly.

I think it’s great. But they do have your blog, as we’ve mentioned before, and it’s a fantastic blog, because a prize winning an award winning blog today, yeah…

 September C. Fawkes  08:40

Well, yeah, it’s funny about that. So it’s a Writer’s Digest, which if people don’t know, it’s a pretty well known magazine for fiction writing. They do awards every year. And it’s funny because I had this dream that maybe someday, you know, when soared. And I guess I want it but I didn’t know, I don’t know how that happened.

And so it wasn’t till like months and months later, I found out on accident that I had won. And so that was really exciting for me. So yeah, I did win the Writer’s Digest award so that was fun, exciting so…

 Emma Dhesi  09:16

Well, I’m not surprised. It’s really great. And I am on your mailing list. And and I got, you know, an email come through to tell me about the most recent one, which is about cliffhangers and we were chatting just before we press record that that is not often you see something written about cliffhanger. So I was really intrigued to to read it.

And it seems that they’re quite contentious that some people love to have a cliffhanger in the book at the end of the chapter perhaps. And then others really don’t like it at all. So I wondered what your opinion was on it. You know, is it ever good to use a cliffhanger or generally they should be avoided? What do you think?

September C. Fawkes  09:56

Yeah, yeah, it is funny because I have talked to people that have Very strong feelings about Cliff fingers, which is a little I think it’s a little funny, but I mean, I can get it. You know, people don’t like having to wait or whatever. Um, but I’m actually I actually like Cliff fingers.

Both definitely, you know, as somebody who’s working on a project to make it better. But also, I don’t know, even as an audience member, I like them. And I like to hate them sometimes.

Because you’re kind of like, oh, why do I have to wait, you know? And so sometimes I wonder for some people, my Do you really absolutely hate them? Or do you like to hate them? I don’t know. But people usually a lot of people have strong feelings about them. Um, one of the common things that people say about cliffhangers is that, you know, it’s good to have a cliffhanger to get the audience to start the next chapter, or turn the page or start the next episode.

And that’s absolutely true. I mean, obviously, if you’re going to suddenly cut something off that somebody the audience really wants to know, and you cut away from the narrative, they’re going to want to see what happens next. And, um, so it is really effective that way, but I kind of feel like saying, that’s the only way it’s effective. I feel like that, to me, that feels a little shallow. I feel like there’s more to it than that.

And I mean, you could just add a bunch of tried to add a bunch of cliffhangers and then still have enough be a great story, you know, and so, um, I feel like, another good way to use them is when you have a cliffhanger, I guess the audience a second to pause and think about what’s happening, or what they think is gonna happen.

And so like maybe a good example of this as if you’re writing like a murder mystery, you know, and they’re about to figure out who the murderer is, maybe they’re about to mask them, you cut away.

So there’s a cliffhanger that gives the audience a second to kind of pause and think, who do I think is under the mask who do I think is the murderer. And usually, like, the cliffhanger is going to come out of like, every, you know, obviously a powerful moment, because we want to see what happened that what happens next. And so sometimes I feel like the audience will just want to keep, you know, pushing reading through it, which is okay, we want them to feel that way.

But when you have a cliffhanger, they’re forced to kind of stop and think for themselves. And so that’s an example of like, you know, maybe thinking, like predicting we think is going to happen, but sometimes a certain cliffhangers when you stop it makes people kind of self evaluate, or I guess ask themselves like, what, what would I do next? Or how would I get out of the situation.

And I think those two things are really effective. They also, um, in that sense, you’re, you’re inviting the audience to participate in the story. So sometimes I feel like one thing I have to watch out for is we might write stories, that audience feels more like a spectator, as opposed to feeling like they’re kind of like they’re in the story. And so I feel like if you put the cliffhanger in the right spot like that, they’re being asked, they’re being invited, participate more by pausing and thinking, What’s going to happen next.

Beyond that, I think they’re also good for like, and really emphasizing a moment of suspense or shock, or wherever you put it, because that’s a moment the audience has to sit with that a little bit longer.

And obviously, if you have it, like at the end of the chapter, even just that whitespace, of flipping, flipping over to the next chapter, you know, it just kind of adds emphasis to whatever you made a cliffhanger about.

 Emma Dhesi  13:19

Oh, yeah, yeah. I hadn’t thought about it in that, that way, that it’s not just about getting them to turn the page, but actually to have a moment to where Have a think and pause and get almost more involved with the story?

Because they’re thinking about it. Yeah. You mentioned in the article that there are the four types of cliffhangers with that be sort of two of them, or whether they’re more times,

 September C. Fawkes  13:44

I’m kind of Yeah, well, so I will say if you go read up on cliffhangers, people will categorize them differently. So, I mean, this is the way that I categorize them. And it’s kind of based on structure. So um, and story structure, you know, you’re going to have the rising action, the climax and the falling action. That’s kind of the basic structure. And that will be true of the whole plot.

But it’s also true, like on smaller things, like within a scene, you’re going to have like a climactic moment, or within you know, an act. So maybe the beginning, middle and end, there’s going to be a climactic moment within, you know, it’s kind of like I think of it as like a Russian nesting doll that you have the smaller you have smaller shapes and size, the bigger shapes anyway, so the climactic moment is sometimes called like a turning point because it turns the direction of the story.

So it really can turn two ways you can either have like a revelations, like new information enters the story, that changes our understanding or direction of it. The second way is an action, you know, something happens that changes the direction of the story. So um, even on a scene level, you’re gonna have Ideally, if you have things structured well and you have a plot that keeps moving, there’s going to be a turning point or climactic moment in each scene.

So for example, if I’m writing an example would be like if I’m writing a murder mystery story, the climactic moment of the whole story is probably going to be when we figure out who the killers. But if I’m just looking at a scene, you know, maybe the opening scene is when they first discovered the dead body, well, the climactic moment of that scene will probably be will be when the dead bodies discovered. So that kind of creates a climactic.

That’s a turning point, right? Everything’s going fine, we found a dead body Well, now we need to kind of deal with that. So keeping that in mind, so cliffhangers, I feel like get down to knowing where to cut away in the narrative. Because sometimes I feel like we get this idea of Oh, I just need to throw in something, I need to throw something in really shocking. And then cut away.

And like that can work. I’m not saying it can’t work. But ideally, if you have a great plot, and you have your structure there, you’re going to have lots of great moments like that What matters is when you choose to cut away from the narrative. So with that in mind, I kind of have a broken down four ways based on that. So the first one I call like, a pre point, cliffhanger.

So that’s going to be before the turning point. So um, an example I’ll give, I think a lot of people have seen Scooby Doo. Scooby Doo as an example, right? I think most of us are familiar with the general format of those episodes, basically, the Mr. Gang goes out, they find you know, there’s a ghost or there’s a banshee or something.

And towards the end of the episode, they’re gonna mask it and see who it is. So, um, the unmasking is gonna be like the climactic moment the turning point. So a pre point cliffhanger is gonna be okay, Fred’s about to pull off the mask, and then we cut away to a commercial. And so that kind of works in the sense that, well, the audience is really invested, they’re anticipating a certain outcome, we want to know who the ghost is, or whoever, and then we cut away. So that plays into the example I gave earlier.

Well, now we have to sit for a second, and maybe we’ll think about who we think it is, or whatever. So I would call that a pre point. Um, the next one I would call a climactic cliffhanger. So when you get to the climactic moment, the turning point, sometimes in some stories, there will actually be more than one turning point.

So a common thing that happens in a story is near the climax of the whole story, there will be like a character, the protagonist will have a realization that then allows them to decide like take an action to defeat the antagonist, sometimes those can be reverse, but, you know, they realized something, okay, this is what I need to do to defeat the antagonist.

So that’s actually two turns, the realization and the action. So you can create a cliffhanger by cutting those in half. So you could have the character has the realization, boom, cliffhanger. And then when we come back, he’ll take the action. And so that kind of works in that you have kind of a sense, you know, maybe what the character is going to do next.

And we’ll have to kind of sit with that for a second. So it’s kind of possible to cut it like during the climactic moment that way. Um, the next one, the third one I call the post point, so meaning that it happens just after the claim the climactic point or turning point. So going back to our Scooby Doo example, you know, in this scenario, you know, Fred goes over to the ghost unmasks the ghost.

Oh, we see it to George, the electrician, you know, I’m just making this up. The next question we come to is, well, why, you know, why did George do this? What’s the motivation? What, what are the ramifications of this? What are the characters going to do now? And so you can cut away, right when we realize, Oh, it’s George, the electrician, and that can create a good cliffhanger to you know, it’s a little bit different, because we’ve passed over the turning point.

But now we have new questions about well, what’s next? Why did he do it? What was his motivation? And so in a situation like that, um, the audience is waiting for, you know, like an explanation, they’re waiting for meaning, or what’s gonna, you know, what’s the new direction going to be, and so you can cut away right there to kind of leave them sitting with that. Um, then the fourth one, I call the post hook cliffhanger.

So the idea is so the stick you know, rising action, climax or turning point falling action. If you’re working in anything smaller than the whole story, like if you’re working with scenes, this is gonna repeat itself. You know, we’re gonna have a scene that has rising action climax, falling action, the next scene is gonna have rising action, climax, falling action.

And so what happens pins here with the post hook. Usually, at the starting of the scene, you’re gonna have like a hook, hopefully anyway, right? We all like hooks. And, um, what you can do is you can cut right after a hook to create a good cliffhanger because a hook is usually going to be in this situation, usually, it’s gonna be something like unexpected that disrupts what’s going on or what the characters are trying to do. Or might be like laying down the stakes, like, what’s that risk, like, Okay, if we don’t do this, then this terrible thing is going to happen.

And so you can have either of those, and then a cut away right after that create a great cliffhanger. Because now you know, we’ve had the hook, we want to know, what’s going to happen, what’s I guess I would say, what’s the rising action going to be? What are they going to do? And so it’s possible to cut right there.

I feel like we see this a lot in series. And a lot of I don’t know, you could just look at a lot of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean Marvel does stuff like this, where you have like, the whole story. There’s like the falling action, you know, everyone’s Okay, we say everyone or whatever. And then there’ll be like an additional scene where you see, like, the bad guy is still alive, and he’s planning something evil, or, you know, someone else is alive. And they’re like, Hey, we you guys, we need to go do this. Now there’s this other issue.

And then it like cuts off. And so basically, what’s happening there is we had the whole story, we’ve got the climax, we’ve got the falling action. And then we just barely hit a new hook for a new, like rising action, which is probably going to be the next installment, you know. And so by ending the book right there, like that’s a good way to end a book if you want to end on a cliffhanger, because, um, the audience still gets like the full story, and they just get like a hint of what’s gonna come next.

Whereas if you were to just like actually, like cut off the book, like a climactic moment, or just after it, it probably wouldn’t be very satisfying. So if you want to end a book or story with a cliffhanger, it’s probably better to, you know, kind of wrap up that plotline, and then just give enough of a hook or a hint of what’s going to happen next.

And then it. So basically, like, I guess the idea with this is sometimes we think I got to add, I got to add all these cliffhangers or I got to add something really shocking. But the thing is, is when you have these pieces together, those things are already there, you just have to know where to cut it. And so those are like the four places where you could cut away, you might cut to another plotline.

Another viewpoint. I mean, if you’re doing television, I mean, most people are doing books listening, I’m more into the books, but you know, cut to commercial, whatever.

But um, it’s it’s gonna create, I guess, I feel like it won’t create better cliffhangers with less mistakes that can come up when you’re just trying to throw and clear fingers. Yeah, so those are the four types.

How to use a cliffhanger with September C. Fawkes

 Emma Dhesi  22:53

I think that’s amazing. Because it’s, when you when you when you describe it to us like that we got is I’m sure there’ll be a lot of listeners going, Oh, yeah, there’ll be a little aha moment going on.

Yeah, it’s not about having to create this false big moment is actually it’s already there in the script. It’s the editing of the book and positioning or when you as you describe it, that cutaway of the narrative, and just looking for the right point to do that.

That’s brilliant. And also, then you’ve got then you do have moments of those big cliffhangers. And also the smaller ones as well. And so you can vary, I guess the pace with the difference in cliffhangers as well.

 September C. Fawkes  23:36

Yeah, I think so too. I think one thing to be kind of careful with, if you are just like, gonna throw on Clifffingers, which I’m not gonna say is always bad, because sometimes you get like a great idea for a cliffhanger.

And then you can work into the story, you know, but what one thing to be aware of is where a lot of times they go wrong is when cliffhangers writers are just like throwing in the club fingers to just try to get you to keep reading. And like they don’t deliver on what’s promised. You know, so like, um, you know, we could end a scene will not end but we could have a character come into his house and his loved one is like lying there bleeding, you know, we’re like, oh, no. And then you cut away to create a cliffhanger.

And then when we come back, oh, it’s just catch up. She just has ketchup all over her. You know, it’s kind of a letdown. And so you want to make sure that I’m most I would want to say always, but there’s always exceptions.

You want to deliver on whatever you’re saying your cliffhanger is because if you’re not delivering on those promises, and it’s a letdown too many times, then obvious is gonna start having a problem with that, you know, and you kind of feel cheated, like, Oh, they just threw that in there so that I would keep reading you know, and it feels more shallow. I’m not gonna save that’s always wrong to do because in certain genres, I feel like it can be effective.

Like I think we’ve all seen. Well, I think I’ve seen scary jumpy movies. You know, where maybe there’s like a babysitter walking down a dark Hall and there’s like creepy music, we’re waiting for something to pop out, you know.

And then, um, maybe like, we cut away or something, and we come back and like the phone rings, and we’re like, oh, you know, that’s it. And like, but sometimes it works in situations like that, because it sets the tone and a place with the audience expects, they don’t know, when it’s gonna be something terrible when it’s not, you know.

And so you can kind of do some of that, that’s where I would say you’re kind of breaking the rule intentionally to kind of play around with the audience and what they expect. But even a lot of times in a situation with that, you know, say, okay, so I’ll go back to their example, we see, you know, the protagonist goes and sees his loved ones covered in blood cuts away comes back, oh, let’s actually catch up, let’s kind of a letdown. But what happens is, the audience kind of relaxes right then.

So what would be good is then you can then bring in something, you know, really scary, oh, then a monster came out and, you know, attack her. Because we’re not the audience isn’t expecting because they’re like, Oh, it was just catch up. And then bam, you know, and then they’re like, Oh, so you can play around with them in different ways to kind of break different roles and create those effects.

But generally speaking, I think I’m paying attention to those turning points do you have in your scenes, or where whatever level you’re working at, and cutting around those is probably the safest best way to go?

 Emma Dhesi  26:29

Oh, love it. No, it’s not going to change tack slightly. Oh, and just to say, I will, I’ll link to that blog post directly so that people could go and kind of digest it, as well, because there’s a lot in there.

But I am going to change tack a little bit. And I’d love to just kind of learn a little bit more about you know, you, you what you do and your editing work. And one of the questions I get asked a lot is, okay, what are the types of editing? First of all, because there’s, we know that there’s quite a few different types.

I wonder if you could just walk us through? I think it’s three or four different types, and then the ones that you focus on?

 September C. Fawkes  27:08

Yeah, okay. So yeah, there are different types of editing, I will say, just as a kind of heads up is, I have found certain people sometimes define them slightly differently from each other.

And I feel like there’s a lot of things in the writing industry like that, like, like, no, this is called the inciting incident notice, you know, so I’ll go through, you know, the way I understand it, but it’s worth keeping in mind when you’re looking around that somebody might have a slightly different definition. And that doesn’t mean they’re wrong or terrible.

But anyway, so um, there’s constant editing, as sometimes called developmental editing. And that’s going to be more like the big picture stuff. So like character, you know, character arcs, plot, theme, maybe world building, all those big picture things about like, what the story actually is, that’s how I think of it like, What the What is the story at what is the actually, you know, what is it?

What’s happening in it? What’s the content of it? How does it play out, like big picture things, and then below that, you’re gonna have a line editing, and align editing is, I think a bit more of the way the story is being told.

So like, maybe, you know, sometimes they’ll be like, okay, I feel like this chapter needs more voice in it, or this pacing is too fast, or, you know, these descriptions are long or boring, or I’m trying to think of, you need a cliffhanger, maybe, you know, so it’s gonna be more about like, how the author’s telling the story, and, you know, help them with ideas of how they can tell it better.

With books, we’re going to be talking, you know, we’re going to be dealing with the way it’s actually written on the page to, you know, maybe you have too much passive voice or whatever. And so looking at the actual writing and how to make that better. Um, after that you have copy editing. So this is going to be this is often what people think of when they think of editing.

This is where you’re going to look for things like typos and punctuation and grammatical errors, and things like that, and tighten that stuff up. Maybe sometimes wordiness, sometimes put wordiness more with line editing.

But anyway, and then after that, you also have, I guess you have proofreading. Sometimes I see people kind of put those together, but they’re slightly different. So proof editing usually happens after copy editing.

And it’s kind of the last thing where we just, you just go through the whole manuscript, make sure, you know, look, dry, check for typos, again, all those types of little things before it’s ready to be published or printed or whatever. So those are the four different types that I would break down.

 Emma Dhesi  29:49

Mm hmm. And do you do? Do you do all four of those or do you focus on one more than another?

 September C. Fawkes  29:56

Yeah, so I mostly do content and line editing. I can do um, I mean, I can’t do the other two, but I can’t do i do do copy editing sometimes? Not as much. I just, there’s just a lot of little little things to look at with that, which is fine.

But I’m more interested in, you know, let’s get down. What is the story? How do we make the story itself better? And how do we tell the story better and more effectively, that’s really where I like to focus on the most.

So that’s really what most of my work ends up being. I occasionally do copy editing, I only take on so much at a time of copy editing, just because it’s really I find it hard to be focused on all the commas and all the, you know, periods in the right spot for so like that hyper focus for so long, because I’m trying to catch everything.

The other stuff is demanding in its own way. But it’s kind of more, it’s more interesting to me.

And I don’t have to be like, I guess so perfect. watching all the little comments and thoughts and everything. I like talking about the story, I like helping writers see how they can tell the story more effectively, what works, what doesn’t. And I like teaching those concepts to when I work with them.

Emma Dhesi  31:10

Yeah, that’s one thing I have learned about working with an editor, which I didn’t expect at all, was how much of a craft lesson it is. So every time I send my book for an edit, it comes back with the teaching that you just mentioned.

And I learned so much that I’m then able to carry on into my next manuscript. And then that gets edited. And I learned more, and I hadn’t, hadn’t kind of seen it from that point of view until it happened.

And it’s, it’s invaluable is absolutely invaluable. Because so you know, if someone is listening out there is going to go with a traditional deal. If they managed to get one, that’s great, you know, the, the publisher is going to deal with all of those different layers of, of editing, for those that ended up or choose to go down the self publishing route. What from your point of view?

Do you think? Because editing is an investment? Undoubtedly, especially when you’re just starting out? From your point of view? What do you think is the most important edit that an indie author should prioritize?

Would it be the developmental would it be the copy editing lancing? What What do you feel is the most important?

 September C. Fawkes  32:20

Oh, well, I feel, um, I kind of depends where the writers act, you know, and their skills. I, to me, I think content and line editing contents, obviously, really important, because if the story isn’t effective, then it doesn’t matter how it’s written. But on the other hand, if it’s not written very well, that nobody’s gonna care about the story.

So it’s kind of, to me, it’s kind of a balancing act between those two things. Um, if you were on, I mean, say, because it can be an investment, if you were on a tight budget, I would say, you probably want to get content and development, edit editing, and that, usually, when I do that, it’s cheaper than online editing, right? Because or copy editing, because in those I’m going through each one and checking each thing, whereas concept developmental, I’m looking at the big picture.

So I can look at the big picture and tell you, you know, these are the things you need to fix in the story. If somebody is, you know, tight, financially, I guess, or they want to just get the most out of their money or decide prioritize, well, I might would do sometimes they’ll be like, Hey, I’m gonna give you a content edit. And then for a line issues, as opposed to going through each line, I will add some sections in my critique letter about overall issues related to lines that you can then apply through. So that I don’t have to comb through everything.

Another option I would maybe say is, you know, I’ll do a content developmental edit, and then maybe we can do a section of line editing, so that you can see what needs to be improved. And you can apply that through the rest. Okay, um, ideally, you know, I would say, get both content and light editing and copy editing. And, you know, but that can’t I understand that that can be quite an investment.

But I do think content in line I think, is pretty important. Most people I work with don’t have terrible grammar and punctuation. And I think, I mean, I’m not but you guys, but like, if I see a comment on the wrong spot, it’s not going to ruin the story for me, you know?

And so ideally, I would say get all of them. But if you have to prioritize, I think content and line editing is probably the place to go in my opinion.

 Emma Dhesi  34:35

That’s good advice for everyone. And no, just in terms of you and what you work with, what you what you enjoy working with. Are there any particular stories and or genres that you like working with? Or are you happy to kind of try everything and anything?

 September C. Fawkes  34:52

Yeah, so most of my experiences with fantasy and science fiction and even thinking about that the other day even more Fantasyland stuff. fiction, but that’s the those are the genres that I really love to work with.

I’ve done adult, why middle grade for any of those I have worked outside of those genres. I’ve done just general fiction, and I’ve done memoirs, and a few other things. But mostly, that’s where most of my work is, is science fiction and fantasy.

That’s kind of where I guess my expertise is, that’s where I’ve done a lot of that type of stuff. And I’m really okay with working for any kind of age, you know, middle middle group, I mean, I don’t do picture books, early young readers, so I wouldn’t be able to help people with that.

But middle grade young adult, and adult I have all worked in. And I’m really people of all levels. I’ve worked with people who have had bestsellers, and I’ve worked with people who are, you know, brand new, or people who are just getting into writing that they just want some help with?

So all different levels I’ve helped with? So in that regard, I’m usually pretty open. Yeah.

 Emma Dhesi  36:00

Um, do you have any advice for particularly new writers? So say they’ve written their first manuscript, and they’ve done all their revisions. But is there anything kind of that they can do in terms of of editing, or revision, that you from experience, you’ve seen sort of common mistakes that people make or common areas for improvement?

Shall we say that we can work on ourselves before hiring an editor so that when we do make that investment, we’re, we’re getting the best, the best that we can out of that editor?

 September C. Fawkes  36:30

Yeah, so one of the common problems I see that I feel like actually doesn’t get talked about very much, very much, excuse me, which is why I’m gonna bring it up.

And it’s a best way I explain it is, a lot of writers tend to want to look backward and their story, meaning they want to look at what happened to the character previously, what happened before the story started, they want to look at the backstory, how we got to this point, and those things all have a place.

But a lot of times writers and I think part of this is from like, maybe the writer hasn’t yet completely figured out what the story was when they started writing it. And so it’s helpful for the writer to look at, okay, where was this character before?

How did we get here, or what happened before, this isn’t going to be so interesting. And what happens is like, when I sit down the manuscript, like, I feel like we’re kind of living in the past a little bit, sometimes writers will start like in the present, and then they’ll go into the past for a while, which isn’t always wrong.

But it starts to kind of feel like the writers focusing more on the past. And I think of it as like, they’re looking backward to how what happened before the story started, or what happened previously, the audience actually wants to look forward, present or forward, right? We don’t usually want the story to mostly be in the present, you can always break rules.

And then they want to anticipate what’s going to happen, because that’s what’s gonna make them want to keep reading, they want to see Oh, what’s the outcome? What’s this going to be? What’s this going to be? And so um, my friends has a lot of new writers, they tend to look at, well, how did we get here? How did this character become this way?

The audience likes more of this is where we are now, here’s some things that here are some stakes on the line and what could possibly happen. And the thing is about the future is the, you know, we don’t know what could happen hasn’t happened yet.

And so it’s more interesting, and it draws the audience in, because it’s like, Okay, I’m trying to think of an example, if she gets invited to this party, you know, she can meet this guy she has a crush on, or if she doesn’t, then it’s going to create another issue. I’m just throwing an example.

And so when you have something that has like, okay, yep, this one element that has two different outcomes for the future, we’re certainly more interested in seeing what happens in the present, because we want to see what ends up happening and so it gets the audience to anticipate the rest of the story. So they’ll want to keep rooting and they’ll want to know what happens.

And once they start caring about that more, they’re going to be a little more interested in what happened before, if that makes sense. Okay, so yeah, that’s one of the things that I would say probably easier said than done but

Emma Dhesi  39:11

front loading, you know, sometimes I’ve heard that phrase use that, like in the beginning of a story. The waiter piles, everything, the whole history of the character, and everything that led them up to this point, and then move on. Is that was that what you’re talking about? Or is it something different?

 September C. Fawkes  39:27

Well, sorry, repeat clarify what you mean.

 Emma Dhesi  39:30

So I’ve heard this term front loading when you Front Load the story with everything that’s happened to the character up until the point that we start the actual book, or you know, and so we get their characters whole back history, their family, their schooling, everything.

And in that first chapter or two, before we start the story, is that the same thing that you’re you’re talking about now, or is it two different things?

 September C. Fawkes  39:57

Yeah, well, kind of depends how how it’s done. Um, I guess ideas, you don’t want to spend too much time just talking about like the past and the backwards, you want to be anticipating what could happen when you’re writing it, it’s okay if you as a writer know that. But if you’re putting in like a huge encyclopedia entry about, you know, this character, how they were born, and then grew up and all this stuff before the story actually starts, it’s usually very hard to pull that off and be interesting. It’s not impossible.

So you know, cuz I know people are gonna be like, Well, someone, so did this, and it worked. Like, yeah, it works. But a lot of times, it’s difficult to pull that off. It’s more interesting. Usually, if you start in the present.

And then when, like, if you’ve heard the term stakes, I think of stakes as like, potential outcomes, you know, if this happens, then this happens. So if you can put something like that in it, that’s a little more interesting.

And then you can kind of weave in some of the background stuff as you move forward in the story. That kind of make sense. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t say it’s always wrong to start the other way. But it’s very difficult to pull off, especially if you’re a newer writer. And it’s usually more interesting if you get the other way.

 Emma Dhesi  41:14

Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, you’ve given us so much today. And I stole the stuff about cliffhangers. And then you know, about the, the sort of those common mistakes that you’ve seen those problem areas, you’ve given us a lot of to think about and a lot to kind of work on for our own manuscripts.

And thank you very much. If any of our listeners are kind of interested in finding out a bit more about how they can work with you, what’s the best way of doing that?

 September C. Fawkes  41:43

Yeah, so um, you can find me if you’re interested in editing services, you can go to Fawkesediting.com, it’s kind of just where I have all my editing services, info, my blog articles and everything is just septembercfawkes.com But if you can’t remember, like, if you can’t remember my name, for some reason, you can also get to it by going to writebetterwithaneditor.com, and that’s gonna pull up all my blog articles or some other references and things you can look at on there.

Other than that, I’m on most social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr. I don’t know that all of them. But anyway, so you can also find me there.

 Emma Dhesi  42:21

But yeah, in September, it’s been so lovely speaking to you and finding out, you know all about what you do. Thank you very much for your time.

 September C. Fawkes  42:30

Thank you for having me.

 Emma Dhesi  42:34

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational. Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, turning readers into writers. It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet there called three secret hacks to write with consistency. So go to emmadhesi.com/turning eaters into writers. Hit join.

Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you.

Bye bye.

If this interview with September C. Fawkes was useful, you’ll love:

• How to co-write a novel with author and podcaster Crys Cain – EMMA DHESI
• Interview with Asian American poet and writer Dr Stephanie Han – EMMA DHESI
• Clarity and Confidence with Non-Fiction Book Coach Andrea Glass – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

Interview with Vanessa Soto

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Hello, I’m Emma Dhesi and welcome to another episode of turning readers into writers. If you’re brand new here, welcome. And here’s what you need to know. This is a community that believes you are never too old to write your first novel, no matter what you’ve been up to until now, if you’re ready to write your book, I’m ready to help you reach the end, I focus on helping you find the time and confidence to begin your writing journey, as well as the craft and skills you need to finish the book.

Each week I interview debut authors, editors and industry experts to keep you motivated, inspired, and educated on all things writing, editing, and publishing. If you want to catch up, head on over to emmadhesi.com, where you’ll find a wealth of information and tools to help you get started.

Before we dive in, this week’s episode is brought to you by my free cheat sheet 30 Top Tips to find time to write. In this guide, I give you 30 ways that you can find time to write in the small gaps that appear between the various errands and tasks and responsibilities that you have in your day to day life. I know you might be thinking that you don’t have any time to spare, but I can guarantee these top tips will give you writing time you didn’t think you had.

If you thought writing always involved a pen and paper or a keyboard. Think again. If you thought you needed at least an hour at a time to write your manuscript. I help you reframe that you won’t be disappointed. Get your free copy of 30 Top Tips to find time to write by going to emmadhesi.com /30 Top Tips

Okay, let’s dive in to today’s episode.

Vanessa Soto is a book proposal coach who works with first time authors with a big idea for a nonfiction book.

She helps women generally but all are welcome with a POV to get their book idea out of their head and into a standout book proposal that they will feel confident pitching to literary agents and editors.

She’s the founder of Vanessa Soto book coach, and the host of she has a book in her podcast, which launched earlier this year.

So let’s find out a little bit more about Vanessa and how she helps those first time writers get their book proposal written.

Well, welcome, Vanessa, thank you so much for being with me today.

 Vanessa Soto  02:33

Thank you so much for having me.

 Emma Dhesi  02:36

So I wanted to ask you, I know, you know, what attracted you to publishing in the first place, and what sort of led you to being the coach that you are now?

 Vanessa Soto  02:46

Well, I actually have a background in marketing. And that has been something I’ve done for many, many years. But before that, in my formative years, as a young person, as a teenager, I was always that person who was the editor of the newspaper, I always wanted to be, well, I wanted to be a magazine editor is what I intend to do. And then somewhere along the way, I found myself in advertising marketing.

And then later in life, I was trying to figure out what do I really want to do. And that and then I kind of reconnected to publishing, and found the world of book coaching, specifically non-fiction book coaching. Because while I personally love to read fiction, what I identified that I like to work with other people on actually kind of pulls on both my editing and publishing interest, as well as that marketing background that I have.

And that is putting together book proposals. Because a book proposal, like a nonfiction book proposal, is really, it’s a packaging exercise, it’s putting together your book idea, it’s packaging, it takes a lot of marketing skill. So um, so that’s kind of how it kind of, actually, while it’s publishing, it’s, it’s secretly a little bit of marketing to.

 Emma Dhesi  04:18

I like that though, isn’t I like, it’s one of the things I like about publishing and writing generally, is, we can come to it slightly later in life, and we can bring all the skills that we’ve had before. And it’s nice when they all kind of dovetail together when we find that passion and that niche that just fits everything else that we’ve been doing. And we can step into it with a lot of love. I really like that.

 Vanessa Soto  04:41

I think so. Yeah. And I appreciate that also, and I think one of the other little pieces that I use a lot in my book coaching is another kind of secret skill is project management because putting together a book proposal, I work with clients for usually about six months.

It’s a complex project, there’s a lot of moving parts. And then all the years of working in marketing and advertising, those are complex projects with lots of moving parts. So it’s, it’s that layer kind of fits under there too.

So it is what you’re talking about is using all those different skills from the different times of my life. And that feels good feels like, you know, fat kind of satisfying and fulfilling to use them all.

 Emma Dhesi  05:23

Yeah. So you mentioned that you work with nonfiction writers. And I’d love it if you could share with us some of the more interesting kind of storybook ideas or proposals that you’ve worked on it, you know, subject-wise or even personality-wise, I guess.

 Vanessa Soto  05:39

Sure, sure. Absolutely. Well, I’m working with a wonderful client right now on a cookbook. And, you know, so when you think about nonfiction, you might think about anything from academia to memoir, which kind of crosses genres to cookbook, which do fit in there, there’s their self help. I do tend to work with a lot of self help authors, personal development, that kind of space. But yeah, I’m working with a wonderful cookbook author right now.

And what I love about that is, it draws on kind of family stories, as well as like, her passions around food, she happens to come from a background, she grew up in India, and then traveled a lot, then landed in Canada, and then developed a passion around like, you know, nutritious foods and feeding her family in a healthy way.

And then fell upon the the the realization that all of the foods that she grew up eating in India, were exactly the most nutritious healthy food, she wanted to feed her family. So she so you know, that’s, that’s just like a wonderful story to share. And I learned about it while I’m helping develop the book proposal. So, you know, I’m stocking my own pantry now with more tumeric and more lentils.

And I’m like, making sure that I’m doubling up my vegetable batches and things I’m learning from my clients. So that’s, that’s one that’s top of mine, just because I’m working on it with her right now. Yeah, so you know, you learn things. And then, of course, I have worked with a couple of memoir, writers. And those are just so interesting.

Because, again, it’s the stories, right, it’s people’s lives and it’s the through lines and what what you do with memoir, when you’re putting together a book proposal is I don’t work with them on the memoir itself, necessarily, they, they you, I usually will refer them to someone else if they need help with the writing of the of the book, but, um, but with identifying who would want to read that memoir, and it’s not usually everyone, but finding who what, what are the through lines between that story and who else would want to read it? and, and that’s just like, really interesting to me, because, because other people’s stories, they’re interesting to other people for different reasons.

Like, you know, sometimes you don’t want to read stories that are just like your sometimes you do, but oftentimes, you want to read stories that are very different from yours, but have maybe some little nugget of interest. So I enjoy the memoir quite a bit, yeah.

 Emma Dhesi  08:39

Yes, I like memoir as well. It’s emmm and even when yeah, quite often I go to it, if I’m looking to get a different perspective on something I’m experiencing, just to help me with what I’m doing at that moment in time. When Yeah, other people’s lives, too, are fascinating, and what people go through…

 Vanessa Soto  08:57

Where they land, where they started, where they go.

 Emma Dhesi  09:00

Yes, yes. I love it! Um, okay, get carried away with that. But let’s…

 Vanessa Soto  09:06

We really could, yeah…

 Emma Dhesi  09:09

Let’s come back to you and, and your clients. So how can your clients decide? And more anybody listening? In fact, they decide if they should self-publish a nonfiction book, or whether they should pursue a traditional deal?

 Vanessa Soto  09:25

Yeah, I mean, that’s pretty big question. So there’s a lot of different things to consider. But at the highest level, the types of things that I talk about with folks, when they’re trying to make that decision, are who do they want to reach with their book?

And what are their goals for their book? So those are kind of like the two key questions that we dig into. So at the broadest level, if you want to reach a really broad audience, You probably will have a better opportunity in traditional publishing, if you have very niche audience.

And again, there’s a broad broad strokes, you might have a better opportunity with with a niche audience better opportunity with self publishing and then if you want to make and then in terms of your own personal goals for your project, if you want to hit bestseller list, like if you’re thinking to yourself like that is my primary goal is I want to be on bestseller list, I want to be on the Today Show, if those are your types of goals, and I’m not, you know, laughing because those are funny goals or bad goals.

But if, if those are your, your types of goals, then you need to be thinking about traditional publishing, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get a book deal. But those are the types of things that you need to be thinking about, because self publishing is not going to land you in those types of opportunities.

If your goals are more like I want to grow my business, I want to have a book that I can give out when I do speaking opportunities, I want to have a stack of books that I can hand out, or I want to book I can mail to my clients when you start working with them, then you can self publish, those are just like very broad strokes of how you could make the decision and then there’s so many other decisions in there things like, yeah…

Emma Dhesi  11:27

Gosh, she’s gonna pick up on the, when you were saying about if you have a niche, a particular niche you’re interested in appealing to? Why is self publishing better for more niche markets?

 Vanessa Soto  11:40

Well, it depends on how niche we’re talking. So if it’s niche, niche niche, like, there’s only 100 people out there who will ever buy your book, then really, really self publishing is right for you. Right? If it’s if it’s, if it’s niche, like, it’s women entrepreneurs, if we’re thinking, then that’s not that small, but niche, and right, and you could absolutely, you know, to consider traditionally publishing, that’s why it’s a pretty challenging question to answer and there’s so many different ways, I’m actually working on launching a new episode, my podcast, just this, I think it’s gonna launch next week on this topic.

So we can dig in, and people can dig into a little bit more on if they want to, but it’s a hard one, because there’s some other things in there around things like platform.

So traditional publishing, it’s getting more more competitive to get a book deal. traditional publishers want to see you having a big platform, they like it, they like you to have a large following on social media.

That said, many agents will say that if they love your idea, they will hang out while you build your platform, you know, if they see something there, or they if they see that, uh, you know, the client that I mentioned with the cookbook, she has a, she appears on national television in Canada, quite a bit. Um, she has a quite a solid platform as well.

They’re not massive. But I think there’s like these different ways into platform. It’s some other you might hear some people say like, you have to have 100,000 followers. It’s not, it’s not as straightforward as that. It’s more nuanced but platform does continue to be quite quite important as well yeah. Yeah, unfortunately.

 Emma Dhesi  13:49

But it’s nice to know that it is more nuanced that it’s not just about having a certain number of Twitter followers, your Instagram followers that there is room, and I didn’t realize as well that agents or publishers are quite if they really like the idea that they will have some wiggle room and they’ll be agent…

 Vanessa Soto  14:05

Totally varies. Yeah, I talked to a couple of agents recently for my podcast, and we talk about all different topics and again, every agent is different, right? They’re all their their individual humans and their and their agencies have different perspectives.

They all work with different different publishing houses and if they fall in love with an idea, and they can sell it, they and they see promise, and there is a platform that is started. We’re not talking about somebody who has starting from nothing, right? There’s possibility.

And I always talk to my clients. I just had just signed a client very recently.

And I speak very frankly with my clients and say, Are you committed to building your platform and growing it alongside working on this proposal? While I don’t personally handhold them through, like the strategy of developing, like a marketing plan for for building their platform.

But it’s very important that they understand the importance of that, like that’s. So I just kind of want to say that for folks who are listening, who are DIY, their, their book proposal, they should at the same time be working on their, their platform at the same time.

 Emma Dhesi  15:26

Yeah, good advice there. So, um, somebody decides, okay, I’m going to self publish, or or they’ve made the decision, they know which way they’re going to go. What are the three questions that they need to ask themselves? Before they, before they even write the book proposal itself?

 Vanessa Soto  15:44

Before they even get started?

 Emma Dhesi  15:45

Yeah.

 Vanessa Soto  15:46

Yeah. So the things I always encourage people to think about as early as possible to really know the answer to our who, who’s their reader, like, really, really know your reader.

And I think whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, whatever you’re writing, like, really, you need to know your reader. And I do all kinds of exercises with my clients, I’ll do like, if I do a workshop or something, we might dig into this, but it’s like, really understand your reader, like, what are they doing all day long? You know, maybe give her a name.

You know, what, just understand her What is she? What is she thinking about? How is she feeling? What is she? What does she need, so really, really understand your reader. And then the next thing is really understand, like what you yourself, want to get out of this book. And that is very much in keeping with what we were talking about with how to decide which route of publishing to go down.

Because you need to understand what kind of impact you’re intending to make with this book in order to, like, make it happen, right? So you need to be really clear about that. So you need to know what you want to make happen with your book.

And then you need to understand the competitive landscape surrounding your book and, you know, I think more that’s becoming more and more important is understanding what else is going on in in the marketplace.

When the pandemic’s over, you know, head of the bookstore, know what’s on the bookshelf, know who else is selling similar books, and a lot of people think that the book that’s going to sell, is going to be the book that is brand new that no one’s ever written before.

But the reality is that what publishers are looking for, is a book that has sold before, they do not want a brand new idea that has never been heard of before. They are looking for your fresh take on an idea that, in fact, has been successful before. So, so understand what’s going on in the world have be educated about what’s out there.

Write your book proposal with Vanessa Soto

Emma Dhesi  18:13

That’s such good advice. I think it works in the fiction world as well. I think that, you know, you might hear somebody say, I’ve got this brand new story note, nothing like this has ever been written before and that can be all very well.

And perhaps it’s true, but the message then comes back. Well, what do we do with it? Where does it sit on the shell?

 Vanessa Soto  18:34

Where does it… Yeah?

 Emma Dhesi  18:35

Market sets?

 Vanessa Soto  18:36

Yeah, yeah. And that can be a little discouraging to people. So I think it’s important to say it and say it again, and have it sink in? Because I think if it doesn’t mean that your book that’s never been heard of before is a bad idea.

It’s how do you reframe that book as? Oh, well, actually, it’s kind of similar to this, but in this different way and, and, and that is what’s new about it?

 Emma Dhesi  19:05

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I like that. Yes. So okay, so now they’ve answered these questions. They have a good idea of what they want for their book where it might sit in the world.

And they feel they’re confident and they want to go ahead. What are the different stages of developing a book proposal? What do readers listeners need to think about if they want to put one together, either with vinyl sales or with a coach like yourself?

 Vanessa Soto  19:35

Let me think about that. Let’s see the stages would be I think the first stage is kind of what we’ve been talking about this establishment of really what is it’s a very basic level, like what is your idea? And Who is it for? Right so That’s basic, it’s like, you have an idea. Who is it for? And what kind of impact do you want to make with it? Is it really a book is also kind of in there.

So it’s this formulation idea, in terms of how I work with folks, that shapes out into a whole, like 50 page workbook that I call the blueprint and it’s actually yeah, it’s actually something that I have my clients work through over a number of months before we even start working together and then they it’s like, the first deadline is they bring this workbook to me and we like hash it out and go through everything and it’s that first step, like this is my book idea.

This is what I think it is and I take it’s kind of like a first stab at, like, every piece of a book proposal also. So it’s really organizing everything you think your book proposal is how I think about it and then you take it apart.

So when I think about the phases of a book proposal, it’s it’s not like, first draft and then polish it, it’s like, what do you think your idea is, and then get some help from someone you really trust?

Who will tell you the truth, and make sure that everything that you’re saying really makes sense to somebody else, and like, take it apart, and then put it back together again, because when I see first draft proposals, because a lot of people will bring me their first draft, and they’ll say, I think it just needs to be polished, like I just need to edit it.

And it’s I, I, I feel like I’m breaking hearts every time. But every time it needs to be started over. And there’s always wonderful nuggets, and the idea is in there and everything.

But um, usually people’s book ideas are so in their own heads. And when you’re taking an idea to a book agent who’s never seen it before, and who has to sell it and it usually needs to be like completely repackaged.

So I think the biggest thing for people to think about when they are writing a book proposal is to remember that you’re writing something that is a lot closer to a business plan, then you’re sweet idea that you love, and it’s so close to your heart.

And that’s like really hard for people. But that’s really what it is, is you’re writing a business plan for your book, it’s a packaging exercise. And it needs to have excellent writing, and it needs to sell your book and it needs to sell you and it needs to perfectly position your book in the marketplace.

And all those things are not things that writers think about and then and because they’re not like why would you think about those things and nonfiction writers sometimes think about those things more depending on what their background is, like, let’s say you have a, you know, nonfiction, writers background might be in business, right? So they might come more naturally that.

But I worked with a client recently who is a entrepreneur, she’s a coach, like a life coach. And she actually, you know, does quite a bit of business oriented work.

But she said to me, the section where we did the market analysis, where you have to position, you know, who are the people who will buy this book, she wrote something like, I don’t even know how I would have written that, without your help, because it would never have occurred to her to approach it in the way that we did.

Which was to think about what are the things that are going on in the world right now that make your book? Um, you know, kind of relevant and, and, and right, so it’s just stuff like that. It’s just, it’s just it’s how would you know, right? You’re not like writing a book proposal every day.

Emma Dhesi  24:33

So yeah, so I was curious about that, you know, what are some of the things like you give us good example there about market analysis? Your client was like, Oh, I didn’t know I would need that.

What are some of the other things that have taken some of your clients by surprise when they realized they couldn’t put this in a book proposal?

 Vanessa Soto  24:52

The the marketing plan section is a doozy. So I think it’s I think someone thinks so the sections below proposal that are pretty straightforward. The overview section is like the first part, and sort of the overview for what your book is.

That’s generally pretty well understood. The bio pretty well understood. I’m, I’m thinking about some of the other the market analysis, we talked about that that can be a little tricky. The annotated table of contents, the annotated table of contents, so you can approach this one different ways. So it is a table of contents, which is the flow of your book, right? Like, what is going to be the flow of your book.

But really, what what agents are looking for, and publishers ultimately is like, what is the story arc of your book, so they don’t want to know every detail every chapter, but they want to know, they want to see a shape, they want to see a shape of your book.

So it’s not like the shape. It’s not, you’re not writing, like every single thing that you’re going to put in that chapter, you’re, again, you’re thinking through the eyes of the, through the eyes of the agent who’s reading it, what do they need to know to see the story, and that’s hard, right?

So it’s, it’s thinking through the eyes of the person who’s reading it. So that can that can, you know, be a little challenging them, but I guess if the marketing plan is a tricky one, because like, like the market analysis, it’s not something that most writers or most non marketers are doing every day and the marketing plan is a make it or break it, because, like, we talked about what platform, if you have a ginormous platform of 100,000, Instagram followers, blah, blah, blah, okay, fine, you know, you’re probably going to be getting a book deal and they will give you a marketing team, and they will put everything together for you.

But if you have a middling platform, you are really going to need to put together a plan that’s going to sell your concept and your marketing plan needs to be something that you yourself can execute, like, they’re not going to do it even for you. So a you need to show them that you can, you need to develop a marketing plan, and then you need to be able to execute it.

So you need to show them something that you can actually bring to life. And it’s multi pronged. Like you need to show them how you will use your own platform, how you’ll grow your platform in advance of the book, launch, how y’all also do a lot of outreach, like something like getting on multiple podcasts getting on television, if that’s appropriate, or do like a blog tour, things like that.

So there’s just a lot a lot of pieces that people wouldn’t think of me in a marketing plan.

That’s like a whole expertise that people don’t have. So I think that one, you know, can it can throw people how, how detailed it’s expected to be. So, I tend to go about as many as 10 or 12 rounds of edits on each of these sections with my clients…

 Emma Dhesi  28:20

Which is the sections…

 Vanessa Soto  28:21

Each section, maybe not, I mean, manuscript edits, maybe two, two rounds, but all the other ones, we go a lot of rounds. Um, it’s hard!

 Emma Dhesi  28:34

In your new experience, what are the hallmarks of a good book proposal? stand out to me, it’s very agent, and I’m guessing then this marketing plan is one of them.

 Vanessa Soto  28:44

Yeah, they love the marketing, they want to see a robust marketing plan that’s also really authentic, like something that’s, that can actually be accomplished, they don’t want to see a marketing plan that looks amazing, but isn’t, like real, like you can’t actually do it.

So they want to see something that is real, they want to see real connections like real people that you know, that you can actually reach out to and make things happen with. So that would be that would probably fit in there.

So real robust marketing plan. Top of the list with your book proposal, hallmark, you know, hallmarks would just be like, polished, excellently written free of typos. I know that sounds basic, but like, get it proof read.

Make sure that your concept is clear, right. Like you are clear on what your book idea is, you’re saying over and over again, you’re iterating it, you’re not kind of like saying it one way and then like later on kind of saying it a little bit of a different way, which is something that I see a lot of times in first drafts, kind of like, first

I kind of say like this, and I can still be really clear, be really clear, as you’re going as you’re that people will be, agents are looking for clarity, they’re looking for something they can sell, they’re looking for something that’s marketable, they’re looking for something with a market, they learn, they’re looking for you understanding your market, they’re looking for you to have a platform, they’re looking for you to have a vision, you know, for you to, they’re looking for you to be somebody who has a point of view, you have something you really want to say and, and that you’ve been saying it for a while, probably hopefully, for five or 10 years.

I think those are probably some of the key things, some confidence, right, some confidence in your voice, some authority, even if you’re, I’m not gonna say fake it till you make it.

But um, but a little bit of, you know, you might be feeling a little wobbly on this, because it’s scary to put yourself out there. But if you’re putting yourself out there, you know, you’re, you’re putting yourself out there, right. And over time, you’re going to get more comfortable with it so…

 Emma Dhesi  31:07

So they had this to it. And I was just thinking about the confidence and you know, being bold in your statements and having your voice is I, I think that I feel like we live in a kind of society now where it’s very difficult to be bold, and to one way or the other, that it’s especially online, you can get vilified for almost anything these days.

Is that are you noticing that in the, in the book proposals you work on people are more reticent these days to really put themselves out on a limb? Or? Or is it just me?

 Vanessa Soto  31:44

I don’t know. I mean, I feel like it I feel like, what I’m actually seeing is a lot of people feeling like, you know what, I have been thinking about this book for a while.

And it’s time that I just go ahead and do it. And I’m kind of giving up on feeling like, I’m not enough of an expert and I’m just gonna go ahead and try. And I so I’m actually seeing a little bit more of that. I think since the pandemic, people are feeling like, I’m going to stop waiting.

And I’m just going to go ahead. Right, and, and so I’ve seen more of that. And I think that’s I think that’s really so so then instead sometimes I’ll say, Well, okay, let’s work on your platform and make sure that you’re also at the same time, you know, developing your audience and that kind of thing, because you don’t want to rush but amm…

 Emma Dhesi  32:33

They talking about.. I was surprised. Yeah. And there that you. You know, you mentioned six months there that a book proposal can take six months to do is that average? Or is that…

Vanessa Soto  32:43

You know, I used to tell clients that it would take four to six months. And that’s just because I work at a certain pace with folks where we work on a two week deadline cadence.

So every two weeks, they submit their pages to me and that’s just kind of the the cadence that I work on, I find that it gives people time for their ideas to formulate, I’ve tried shorter timeframes, and what I find is it feels rushed.

And it feels like we’re just trying to like squeeze things out. And the stretching things out actually gives ideas room to breathe in form.

That’s what I’ve found. So I’m sticking with that. Even though most everybody wants to do it faster, and they think they can do it faster.

 Emma Dhesi  33:36

Okay, so that’s good advice there.

I like that you emphasize the point that our ideas need to room to breathe, especially if you’re kind of guiding people on new things they haven’t thought about, or they haven’t given enough clarity to, and having that space will make it feel less pressure they imagine.

 Vanessa Soto  33:54

Well, and I will add that some people have completed it faster for sure. And I take them all the way through querying their proposal. So that includes developing developing their query letters and pitching agents.

So it’s a and that blueprint process that I described, so it’s quite a bit.

 Emma Dhesi  34:15

Now you offer free consultation to people who are thinking about publishing their book, and what sort of things do you cover in that call?

 Vanessa Soto  34:24

Anything that we just talked about today, Really, it tends to be in the area of Should I self published or traditionally published?

That seems that’s that tends to be one of the big topics. Also, I have a first draft does it make you know, does it make sense for us to work together kind of thing sometimes we’ll we’ll we’ll talk about that.

But really, I keep them very open. I am happy to use the time to even just answer questions so on my calendar, I do just offer them and one window of time on Saturday mornings specific time. If that time doesn’t work for them, they can send me a note. And we can try and find another time but but really we can use it however works for them. I’m happy to, to have conversations with folks.

 Emma Dhesi  35:10

Fantastic. Now, one of the other things that you do, which you’ve recently started is your podcast.

 Vanessa Soto  35:17

Yes!

 Emma Dhesi  35:18

Tell us about it!

 Vanessa Soto  35:19

She has a book in her is my new podcast, and I am sharing all kinds of guidance tips and advice on all things, publishing and book proposals, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. And yeah, I would love it, if you would check it out.

It’s it’s a baby podcast just launched in the last couple of months so thanks for mentioning it, Emma. The other thing that if folks are interested in, they can sign up for my monthly newsletter, book notes, they can grab that on my website at Vanessasotobookcoach.com/booknotes, I just send out a monthly first Sunday of the month newsletter.

So if they want to keep in touch that way, they can sign up there.

 Emma Dhesi  36:15

That’s lovely. And is there do you? Are you on social media yourself? Is there any way…

 Vanessa Soto  36:20

You can find me on Instagram? That’s pretty much where I hang out at Vanessa Soto book coach.com. I’m on Facebook, but I’m not really very active there anymore.

 Emma Dhesi  36:33

Well, Vanessa, it’s been really interesting speaking to you. I’ve learned a lot today about the whole publishing world I’ve never investigated before. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

 Vanessa Soto  36:44

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure. I very much enjoyed it. Thank you.

 Emma Dhesi  36:52

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational. Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, turning readers into writers. It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel.

If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet there called three secret hacks to write with consistency. So go to emmadhesi.com/turning eaters into writers. Hit join.

Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you.

Bye bye.

If this interview with Vanessa Soto was useful, you’ll love:

• How to co-write a novel with author and podcaster Crys Cain – EMMA DHESI
• Interview with Asian American poet and writer Dr Stephanie Han – EMMA DHESI
• Clarity and Confidence with Non-Fiction Book Coach Andrea Glass – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.

Interview with Lisa Lilly

An author, attorney and adjunct professor of law, L M. Lilly founded writing as a second career to share her information with people juggling writing novels with working at other jobs or careers.

She has written and published multiple books on writing craft, including super simple story structure, a quick guide to plotting and writing your novel and creating compelling characters from the inside out.

Writing as Lisa M. Lilly She is the author of the QC Davis mysteries, and the best selling for book awakening supernatural thriller series. She also hosts the podcast, Buffy and the Art of Story. So let’s delve into finding out more about the two series and Buffy and the art of story.

Well, welcome, Lisa, I am so thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you very, very much for being here. 

Lisa Lilly  02:43

Oh, I’m so excited to be here. 

Emma Dhesi  02:46

Now, one of the things I often ask my guests is, you know, what was your journey to fiction? So I’m, I’m curious how you made? You know, because often for us, it’s a bit of a meandering route. And so I’m wondering what brought you to the world of fiction? 

Lisa Lilly  03:00

Yeah, there was definitely some zigzagging, I started writing when I was very little, just because I love to read. So I started writing stories. And I scribbled out novels. When I was in sixth grade, I had a friend, we would trade our novel chapters, but I didn’t finish anything.

And then in college is really when I focused on it more, I was struggling for major took a bunch of accounting classes, which have come in handy later. But when I looked at a major, I found this school that had a writing program. And at the time, I wasn’t thinking career so much as Oh, they’ll give me a degree for writing awesome.

So I did that. And I wrote finished my first novel a year after I got out of college, I wrote a number of them and this was back when your options, there really were no options to put your work out there directly.

So I kept trying to get agents and get publishers and I was making progress in terms of getting more personal letters, getting letters saying, Oh, this is so close, send me your next novel.

And at some point, I decided to go to law school. I had been working as a paralegal and I really liked it. I liked what the attorneys seem to be doing even better. And so I went to law school, I went at night, so I was pretty much working or in school or studying all the time. So I did not write fiction.

Then I wrote some poems, I wrote a bunch of poems. And then after that, I was always writing on the side. So I continued, I was never I almost see it as a I couldn’t like I tried to stop. My first year as a lawyer. I thought it’s enough. Just Just don’t, you know, don’t try to write a novel just too It’s too much and I really missed it.

And I discovered I had actually written about 90 pages during that year Just here and there. So that’s when I started deliberately making specific time to write despite that, I worked a lot of hours.

And it took quite some time, but about I had been practicing about eight or nine years when I self published my first book, and then I have been writing and publishing novels ever since. 

Emma Dhesi  05:13

It’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s, I think, for many creative people, even if, I mean, I’ve never worked in the law, but I imagine it’s, it’s very much based. In fact, it’s got to be very precise.

There is rules to all you know, and then having that option, even if it’s just every now and again, to kind of break free from that and be creative and spill things down on the page or, or paint, you know, paint if you’re an artist.

But there is something about being creative and using that part of the brain that drives us. And as you say, we don’t necessarily know why.

Lisa Lilly  05:47

Yeah, I had people ask me because my law practice involves a lot of writing. It’s it’s a kind of practice where a lot of things are decided on what we write and submit to the court. And people would ask me, well, how can you sit down then go home, you work in 11 hour day and six days a week, go home and write.

But it’s it is it’s the skills crossover a little but it’s a different kind of frightening and it felt very, almost restoring and, and freeing to me that I used to take what I called writing vacations, where I’d take a week off, I wouldn’t go anywhere, and I would just write my novel and it did not feel like work.

It felt fun and creative in a different way. And you bright part of it is I do like to structure my stories, I think a lot about plot, but it is such a more free form creative area than in a different way and more relaxed to me kind of creativity than all the very specific rules and deadlines you have to follow in law. 

Emma Dhesi  06:53

I can imagine it’s a bit of a palate cleanser for your….

Lisa Lilly  06:56

Yes. Yeah, very much. So yeah.

Emma Dhesi  06:59

you mentioned overlap there. And indeed, with your QC Davis mysteries, I think there is a bit of an overlap between the fiction and the legal world. I wonder if you tell us about that series, and where you got the idea from? 

Lisa Lilly  07:12

That series. So you’re right, the main character, although she is kind of an amateur sleuth, she solves crimes, but she also is a lawyer. She’s a lawyer who used to be a child stage actress.

So I drew a little from my life, I was never a child stage actress, I did a little bit of community theater, but that idea of balancing your work and having this creative side of you, and then for her now it’s fitting in her law practice and then investigating these crimes and how you juggle that there isn’t a ton about that.

But there’s a little and I’m sure that I didn’t think about it that way. But the more I write them, the more I realized that is part I do draw for my life for that. I did not I started that series in 2018.

And that was at a point where I had really scaled back my law practice, it was very, very part time. Now I don’t run my own firm anymore. I work with someone else. And I feel like that opened up space for me to have a character who was a lawyer.

Before that people would say to me, why don’t you write legal thrillers or why don’t you use your law practice. And my thought was, I’m spending 60 hours a week on this already, I don’t want to sit down and write about a fictional lawyer.

But once I was not as immersed I now I enjoy drawing on that background. And it gives me a chance it’s a first person. So here and there.

I do admit that my character quills commentary may resemble some of my thoughts about the profession, mostly positive, but it’s kind of fun to be able to play with that a little bit. 

Emma Dhesi  08:54

And so the mysteries that she solves, are they also based on kind of real life experience and things that you might have worked on as well?

Lisa Lilly  09:04

They come some of the ideas are sparked by that none of them are directly from an experience I had. But for example, in the first book, the question is quill begins investigating because and this happens in the first chapter, so no spoilers.

This man she’s been seeing. She’s very close with him. It’s been a very fast romance, and she finds him dead in the apartment they were going to move into and the question is the police think it’s suicide.

And she is not convinced partly because she knew him and his son doesn’t believe that his father would ever do that. But also as a side issue, he has this life insurance policy and and I happen to know from my practice, they don’t pay out.

Most of them have what’s called a suicide clause and they won’t pay out if you commit suicide within X amount of years. Her boyfriend is someone who is former doctor working in the insurance industry.

So she knows he knows that and she knows he wouldn’t have left his son, basically, he would not have left his son with nothing. So it isn’t a huge part of the story because no one wants to read about insurance.

But it’s it’s a small factor in why she is so convinced that in addition to the personal aspect, and it’s one of the things she uses to tell other people because they’re like, well, you haven’t known him that long.

And of course, his son doesn’t think he would do this. So it’s it’s partly her wedge to say no, but look at this issue. Like he is not someone who would leave his son without any means to support himself. 

Emma Dhesi  10:45

So yes, you’re able to use your existing knowledge and kind of throw it into the background of a story and help it move along nicely. 

Lisa Lilly  10:52

Yeah, and I do I try to keep it very background. But yeah, it sparks the idea. And then it went all kinds of other directions. But it was this little grain that caught me thinking about Oh, wait, what if somebody died? And there was this this issue? Which is it murder suicide? And and how do you convince people? 

Emma Dhesi  11:14

Now, I think there’s three in the series. Is that right? 

Lisa Lilly  11:17

I just released the fourth in December. So and they’re all it’s the worried man, the charming man, the fractured man and the troubled man. So that’s the branding and part of my idea for it. I love to read thrillers and mysteries, but I got tired of women are always the victims, not always.

But there are so many that focus on women as victims and many of the thrillers, because you are seeing through the antagonists point of view, you’re seeing women being terrorized.

And I just I got tired of that. And so I wanted to flip it. And my character my main character, obviously she’s a woman, it’s first person so we’re not seeing from the villains point of view, but also not always, but in my books, it is more often men and women who are the victims and I try to make it more most this I did learn from my law practice most victims of murder. If it is someone they know and it is if it’s a man killer, it’s an A stranger violence.

It’s usually men against men. It’s not it’s very over represented in the thriller. genre.

The how often women get killed by strangers, like usually it’s someone personal. So most of my all of my mysteries pretty much center on personal stories personal it’s somebody they knew. 

Emma Dhesi  12:50

Okay. That’s interesting. I didn’t know I didn’t know that about the being killed by a stranger that is usually male to male. Oh, that’s interesting. 

Lisa Lilly  12:58

Yeah, the vast, I mean, it’s sad. But the biggest danger to women, statistically, is the men they live with and or fall, you know, or are close to our close family with or are involved with.

And it Yeah, and I feel like it’s the as much as I love thrillers, it started to bother me that this message was, Oh, you’ve got to be so careful what you do and where you go, which of course we all are.

But it just seems so outsized, and I got tired of reading it. So I thought, I’m gonna write what I want to write. What I want to read 

Emma Dhesi  13:30

Its great that you redressing the balance there, because I think I’ve heard that sort of commentary from a number of particularly women, Thriller writers, crime writers who Yeah, as you say, kind of fed up seeing as always women who are the victim of some horrible crime.

So it’s nice to see the violence being redressed a bit and that it happens worldwide to everybody. 

Lisa Lilly  13:49

Yeah, yeah. 

Emma Dhesi  13:51

Well, that’s a good thing. But you know what I mean? 

Lisa Lilly  13:53

Right, right. Not that we want more men to be to be victims. 

Emma Dhesi  13:58

So we were talking before we started recording, we were still talking a little bit about the marketing of books, because we’ll come on in a second to talk about your other series, which is fits firmly within the thriller genre.

But we were talking about your QC Davis mysteries and where they fit because this is something that is affects all of us writers, whether we’re published yet or to be published, we need to figure out where we fit.

And so I was asking you about your the series, is it a Cozy Mystery, but you were explaining to me the nuances between cozy and where, where the deepest mysteries fit. I wonder if you could kind of share that with our listeners. 

Lisa Lilly  14:37

Yes, it when I started marketing them. I really went too broad because and I think we’re all as authors, we want to say, oh, everyone will love my book. And I was that broad, but I have mysteries and thrillers.

So I just want to draw on mystery and thriller writers and gradually through reviews, I discovered a lot of people who like cozy mysteries? I really like this series. I had someone on Twitter tweet me and say, Oh, my mom loved your QC Davis mysteries.

They’re a little darker than the cozy she usually reads but she’s so happy that there’s no graphic sex and little swearing and no on screen violence violins and those are the things that make something a cozy but as I was telling you usually in cozy people are also looking for something a little more kind of cute and lighthearted. There’s a cat solving the mystery or it’s a knitting circle or something like that, and the books don’t have that.

So it took me about three books before I honed in on the categories, particularly on Amazon, but also I want to say Kobo as well. They have amateur sleuth categories. In fact, a reader suggested that to me, she said I think your books would fit in amateur sleuth, traditional detective, so people who like this sort of British detective mysteries and the Sherlock Holmes and mine are a little more character driven, but they those people tend to really love it.

It’s really enjoy the characters follow the clues unravel the mystery and as a result with my fourth book, I’ve, I got a review from Windy City reviews.

And it’s the best review I’ve ever gotten in my life like I was so thrilled that the reviewer actually mentioned Louise Penny, who I love in the review as another author whose book she loved and Jo nesbo.

And I thought, yeah, this is I, I found my target reader. She’s someone who loves detective novels, who loves the unraveling the clues, and it was clear, I had found the target reader. So it only took me you know, three years and four books to to narrow it down it not that I wasn’t reaching any readers before that.

But I kept sort of looking through those reviews and seeing Oh, if someone doesn’t like it, what else did they read? If they do love it? What else do they read? And what words do they use to describe it. 

Super simple story structure with Lisa M. Lilly.

Emma Dhesi  17:09

But I think that’s a fantastic example of how it’s an ever evolving thing, being a writer, we don’t get it all, especially as Indians, we don’t get it, we don’t understand every facet of the publishing space away.

It takes us a bit of time to find what we love to write, where our readers are, how to express what the kind of book is, and the story is and, and even those other things like writing the correct blurb so that it engages a user, and then the color Of course, all these things are trial and error.

And so I think that’s a really great sort of message for everybody that, you know, you’re doing very, very well.

But it’s, it’s again, it’s trial and error and finding finding the way forward. So thank you very much for sharing that with us. That’s great. 

Lisa Lilly  17:55

I’m glad you mentioned. Oh, I’m sorry. If I was to say I’m glad you mentioned the blurbs because yeah, at first I was writing them more like thriller blurbs. And I used a book description service for the first book too.

And I went to look back and looked at the language that they used. That improved it and it included language that went more toward the detective, you know, follow the clues unravel the lies.

And I thought, oh, clever, amateur sleuth. And I thought Oh, okay. Yeah. If you’re presenting your book as a thriller, people expect a thriller. So it is yeah, it is good to always kind of look back if your sales are not where you hoped or your reviews are not what you hoped.

See if you can figure out maybe your blurb is targeting is just needs to be tweaked a little. 

Emma Dhesi  18:45

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’m still doing that myself. I’m still figuring it all out. 

Lisa Lilly  18:50

I don’t think it’s ever finished.

Emma Dhesi  18:53

So let’s move on to your other series, which does fit very clearly within the supernatural thriller and so tell us a bit more about that series as well. 

Lisa Lilly  19:03

Yeah, that one I. So I used to read a ton of horror and not not like not slasher or gory, but the kind of what I think of as quiet horror. And I was a huge fan of the book, Rosemary’s Baby, which now is is quite old, but a classic.

And then the Do you remember the book that Da Vinci Code with? There was such a huge interest in that and whenever I talk to women about it, they would say part of what fascinated them was this alternate view of the Christian religion of how in the book or in the books the feminine side of God had been sort of removed.

So part of that background plotline it’s is that there was this femininity here and I started thinking What would happen if you brought those things together the Rosemary’s Baby idea and this idea of the Divine Feminine so by the awakening series started as kind of a cross between Rosemary’s Baby and the Da Vinci Code and you have this young woman who’s in college and she’s discovered she’s pregnant, and she has never had sex, not for religious reasons for very practical ones and there is this one this like religious cult of these powerful men who think, Oh, this is going to change the world.

This is going to trigger the apocalypse. And then you have other all these people telling her what it means. And it focuses on her discovering what does this mean? What is her role is her child about saving the world, destroying the world evil good, really explores all those things, but in the context of this one is definitely a thriller very fast paced, and I just it, I had so much fun with it.

And it also was such a compelling idea to me, essentially, I thought, what would happen if a young woman today found herself pregnant couldn’t explain it? What would her boyfriend say? What would her family say?

And then what happens when all these other forces come in convinced that it means one thing or another, she’s evil, she’s amazing. She’s gonna save the world. It’s the end of the world. 

Emma Dhesi  21:25

Interesting premise there. And I love that you’ve done what Stephen King and other horror writer says he always says to me, you know, when he’s coming up with his ideas, it’s what if I put this with that what would happen? If, and so you’ve kind of malga mated these two to come up with this amazing series. sounds quite what’s the word I’m looking for?

And, you know, big and scope kind of not just one man trying to survive but actually kind of a global what could be a global impact with the 

Lisa Lilly  21:58

Yeah, very like, be you know, faded the worlds kind of, which is probably why it ended up taking for books to finish that the story and people sometimes readers will ask me, will I write anymore, but it really, maybe at some point, it’ll occur to me something else I could do with it.

But I I felt like it really was this story arc and at some point you have, I think you have to resolve that and not just kind of keep stringing it along. 

Emma Dhesi  22:27

So to, to add kind of mystery genres, there are two different series as but very different kind of feels to them. Is there an overlap in terms of how you approach because you mentioned there that you, you plot? Is there a difference in what’s expected in terms of how you plot the story, you know, is there so in a thriller is sort in a Cozy Mystery or an amateur sleuth?

Like in a thriller do have that inciting incident really close up up front? And it’s very dramatic? And it sets kind of like you need the body up front from that one as well. or other? New Where are the overlaps of the two? And where do they differ? I guess it’s my question. 

Lisa Lilly  23:13

Yes, there are definitely overlaps. And you’re right, the inciting incident. And this is partly my own, I used to joke if if somebody doesn’t die on page one, I don’t want to read the book.

Because Because when I was in law school, and as a lawyer, I had to plow through so much. There’s so much difficult reading involved. So when I want to read for fun, I want it to grab me immediately. I don’t literally put a dead body on page one.

But yes, in both of those, I think you need your inciting incident very early, because that or at least something that tells the reader that it’s coming and that is a much faster shot than a lot of books and there’s also overlap, I generally use the same plot structure to start with where I look at how it starts, I look at the major plot turns, I tried to do a really strong midpoint of the story.

The differences are more in in pacing. So with thriller may mess move much quicker, you have much bigger, more dramatic things happening almost at the end of every chapter. In any book, it’s good to have a hook at the end of every chapter, but they’re kind of much bigger.

So when the awakening series is used, that it’s almost a global story. So everything is there’s more in the way of explosions and secret meetings and somebody disappears and someone gets kidnapped and it’s there’s much more of that were in the QC Davis mysteries.

It’s a little bit more step by step you still have these major turns at the same places, but in between one reviewer described it as you know quill peeling back delicate layers to find the truth which Yeah, is not in the awakening series that that is not going to work.

You know, we need a car chase here and there. But also similar in that I do I feel like both I really go into the characters, they’re still very character based, but the thriller series much quicker and nothing supernatural in the QC mysteries. 

Emma Dhesi  25:21

Okay, interesting. So I’m going to change tack just a little bit, because I know that as well as writing your own fiction, you help others do the same. And one of the ways you do that is with your podcast, you have a podcast called Buffy and the art of story.

So I’m taking it, you’re a big Buffy fan. And that’s where that idea came from. 

Lisa Lilly  25:43

Yes, I am a huge Buffy fan. I watched it when it when it came out. And then I was thrilled when this is old technology now, but when DVDs became available, and that’s the first time I truly saw how the show told this season long story arc, which was more like a novel.

And that was very new. At that point, it may have been the first show that did that TV used to be much more episodic. So I found it so much more interesting. And I have probably watched the whole series here at least a dozen times.

There’s always something new in it. And I also I learned so much about writing from it. So a cutting edge to 2019. I was thinking about I really wanted to do a podcast. And I listened to a lot of writing podcasts like yours, a number of other ones, their creative pen.

And I thought what what do I have to add to this? There’s so many voices out there. And I thought, Oh, I love Buffy.

And I can use that. So what I do is watch every episode of Buffy and break it down from a story perspective, looking at the major plot points, how the characters develop the themes and how those are conveyed? Does it work?

Does it not the pace, both on an individual basis and then I do a little spoiler for shattering section in case there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen all of it? and talk about how does this episode relate to the bigger story arc of the season or this series.

Emma Dhesi  27:18

You’ll be horrified to hear that I’ve never watched Buffy kind of bypassed me a bit. So maybe this is my opportunity to go back and watch them and have the study notes with your podcast as my study notes beside it. And watch how the how they crafted the story so…

Lisa Lilly  27:34

Yeah, and see and you won’t have to worry about spoilers.

Emma Dhesi  27:41

So not only do you have podcasts, but you also have a website called writing as a second career. And so what prompted you to develop that particular side of your writing life as well.

Lisa Lilly  27:53

I went to a few in person indie author conferences, when independent or self publishing was somewhat new, and I went attended some video conferences. And they were extremely helpful.

And at the same time as someone who had been in the legal field and a professional for most of my life even before that, yeah, when I was a paralegal, I went to work, I had to wear a suit. I for me, I had to kind of get past that this was a different world because to me, when you go to a conference, you should everyone should be dressed well, and you know, look, look professional in what in my mind was professional.

So I had to kind of work past Oh, I’m watching this video with this guy and a T shirt that’s kind of pulled out a shape. And it looks like he’s sitting in his parents basement. And my initial reaction was, which shows how we judge people, but certainly in court and stuff. That is how people end up being judged.

And I think well, what can this person had to tell me and then I’d take a breath and listen, and I learned so much. So some of my thought was one to create something for people who maybe they’re coming to this space, and they want to talk to or hear from someone who is managing another career or another job also particularly, that’s sort of the optics of it.

But the time issue, you and I were talking about making time to write. And if you’re going to publish your own work, or even if someone else publishes it time to market, how do you juggle all that?

How do you fit all that in because most writers, even some of the ones you see on the bookshelves all the time are still working at some other job, or maybe they’re caring for children, and they have to fit in their writing here and there, which is essentially for years I would write in 15 minute bursts or I’m sitting at court and I’m scribbling in my notebook while I wait for my case to be called.

So I wanted to address that and it seemed to me there was so much out there.

That wasn’t really hitting that market. So I would get, I still get calls from other lawyers or referrals from friends of friends saying, Oh, I have this friend who’s a lawyer or an accountant or an insurance adjuster, and they’re writing a book and they want to talk to someone of how do you manage this?

So that’s a very long answer. But that was the inspiration for it. 

Emma Dhesi  30:21

It’s a good question. Because you know, you you still, although you said it’s part time you still practice and teach law.

You’re doing your own writing, you’re doing the podcast, you’re doing the website and coaching. How do you fit all in? The so how do you? 

Lisa Lilly  30:36

It’s it’s definitely tricky. I do a lot of each week, I try to sit down and I look ahead and schedule my time, my time and I, I try to keep certain hours, like Monday through Friday, I try to make at least three hours each morning writing.

So whether it’s writing fiction, or writing a nonfiction book, those are my writing hours. So the week before, I’ll figure out, Okay, what am I working on that week, and then I’ll have certain hours that are marketing, the podcast takes a lot of time. So I know there are certain big chunks that I have to fit in, and then I’ll have what are the smaller things to do to fit in between.

And then I also which I think is more key, I do for the year, what I think I would like what I would like to accomplish my goals. And then every couple months, I sit down and say okay, for the next two months, what were How am I going to make progress on this is it I’m going to get a first draft of the novel done.

I’m going to release X amount of podcast episodes. And usually I don’t get everything done. So it’s it’s very aspirational. But it really helps keep me on track. And I try to really stick with that.

Because otherwise I have found I look back and I’ve been very, very busy. But I can’t always it’s sometimes hard to see. Yeah, what what I’ve accomplished. Usually I have accomplished things, but maybe it’s not the ones that were the most important.

Yeah. So I feel like the priority is the big thing. What is what is the main thing I want to do that particular month or that particular week?

Emma Dhesi  32:18

 I love that you’ve said that because being busy and being productive are two very different things. I have to catch myself as well and Emma just being busy.

Lisa Lilly  32:28

Oh, yeah, it took me a long time, partly because in my legal career, most of my work when the deadlines are imposed from outside, so it tells me what the priorities are I that isn’t really my choice.

And then I generally get paid by the hour. So as long as I am making progress, being busy generally is being productive, because I’m getting those things done and going forward. And I know what I have to do.

And yeah, it took a long time to make that connection of Oh, just because I worked eight hours today. I may have spent a lot of it on things that sure they’re sort of helpful, but not not the ones that really matter.

Yeah. So I think that is a huge thing, especially when you have limited time, if you have half an hour, where is that going to do the most for you? And then what do you enjoy? That’s important as well, that basically.

Emma Dhesi  33:26

Yeah, it’s got to be fun. You mustn’t forget about that. Now, you mentioned just before your nonfiction books, which I haven’t yet asked you about. So could you tell our listeners a little bit about those as well. 

Lisa Lilly  33:38

I started the first one super simple story structure. Initially, I was writing it as a free download for the website for people to join my email list, but it ended up being a book.

So now what you can get is, is the worksheets that go with it free. And it it’s a relatively short book, but it’s aimed at that sort of in between plotting and winging it or discovery writing or pantsing.

So it’s a very loose structure where you pick out the the inciting incident the major plot points. And then if you’re someone who likes to wing it, you might just write from there, but you at least know where you’re going. It especially focuses on the middle of the book where a lot of writers struggle, how to make that very strong.

And if you’re more of an outliner I, I usually will do a little bit of outlining in between each of those plot points. But if you don’t have to, so it’s a nice in between and I found that it really resonated with people. We were talking about marketing on the fiction side, you’re doing all this to try to get people to see your book.

In the beginning I didn’t do anything and marketed I just put it up there and and people started buying it and commenting on it and emailing me so then I expanded I did one Under the books is is very much timing.

It’s called the one year novelist. So it is how do you fit that in, if you want to write a novel in a year, you can expand it or contract it, but it’s almost a schedule that walks you through and kind of encourages you to do that.

And then I have one on character, I have a book for sixth through eighth graders, that’s essentially how to write a novel following that same structure, but on a more examples that are more relevant for that age group, because I always use examples of movies or books so that you can see how these things work.

So that that’s the core of it. And my next book I’m hoping to do will be a more overall book on writer’s block and getting you know, getting yourself writing and keeping yourself writing.

Emma Dhesi  35:49

Well, that leads me nicely into my next question, which is also are you working on at the moment? Are you doing both fiction and nonfiction or concentrating on the nonfiction at the moment? 

Lisa Lilly  35:59

I usually alternate. So I, I’ll finish a draft of a novel and then I’ll work on let it sit and work on a nonfiction book. And then I’ll come back revise, so I’ll go between them so that each one get some time to sit.

So right now, I am just finishing a novella in the QC Davis mystery series, which will be for my email list subscribers, I wanted to do something really of substance for them. And then yes, I plan to work on that writer’s block book.

And I also do the Buffy in the art of story podcast, you can read. I’ve compiled that into books as well. So there’s one available for season one.

There’s one for the first half of season two, because it’s much longer and so that will be the next project is getting that second half of season two out there. 

Emma Dhesi  36:52

The idea yeah, so that people can go back and study it and kind of sort of digest at their leisure. That’s a great idea. 

Lisa Lilly  37:00

You are our podcast listeners. Oh.

Emma Dhesi  37:04

You are a busy busy lady. Yeah. So tell me where can listeners where can listeners find out more about you online? 

Lisa Lilly  37:12

Yes, they can. For my fiction can go to lisalilly.com.

So that’s Lisalilly.com and if you go to that slash free, the first in my each of my series is free that both the supernatural thriller and mystery for writers looking for resources writing as a secondcareer.com.

There’s books on writing there. There’s lots of articles about writing, publishing, marketing and some free downloads. And then for the podcast. You can find that at Lisalilly.com/buffystory. 

Emma Dhesi  37:49

Fantastic. Wow. Brilliant. Well, Lisa, thank you so so much for your time today. I really enjoyed speaking to you. 

Lisa Lilly  37:55

Oh, it’s been wonderful. Thank you for having me on. And it was really terrific.

Emma Dhesi  38:02

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you find that helpful and inspirational. Now, don’t forget to come on over to facebook and join my group, Turning Readers into Writers.

It is especially for you if you are a beginner writer who is looking to write their first novel. If you join the group, you will also find a free cheat sheet there called three secret hacks to write with consistency.

So go to emmadhesi.com/turning readers into writers. Hit join. Can’t wait to see you in there.

All right. Thank you. Bye bye.

If this interview with Lisa Lilly was useful, you’ll love:

• How to co-write a novel with author and podcaster Crys Cain – EMMA DHESI
• Interview with Asian American poet and writer Dr Stephanie Han – EMMA DHESI
• Clarity and Confidence with Non-Fiction Book Coach Andrea Glass – EMMA DHESI

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.