Transcript
Joanna Penn (0:00)
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode, show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show. Hello creatives. I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode 819 of the podcast. And it is Friday 11th of July, 2025, as I record this during another heat wave here in the uk. In today's show, I'm talking to Jo Walters about how to get more book reviews. It is a super useful and actionable discussion and we talk about the three different types of book reviews, how to get them and how to use them, what kinds of reviews are okay to pay and which ones are definitely not okay, and how to handle negative reviews. So that's coming up in the interview section. So in writing and publishing things, something that has been dominating headlines certainly here in the uk. Not sure about the rest of the world, but it's been pretty big here, the controversy surrounding Raina Win's best selling memoir, the Salt Path. So the observer newspaper published an investigation headlined the Real Salt How a Blockbuster Book and Film were Spun from Lies, Deceit and Desperation. And this has now spurned lots more articles and it challenges key elements of the supposedly true story about losing their home and walking the southwest coast path. And yeah, I mean, I've read it. I thought it was wonderful. It still is a wonderful book. You can, you can like a book for its story and its writing and then find out things about it and wonder what's going on. So the article reveals their real names, Sally and Tim Walker instead of Rainer and Moth Win, and alleges that Sally was arrested after being accused of stealing tens of thousands of pounds from her employer, then borrowing money to pay it back. And then that loan got called in, leaving them homeless. Now the book opens with them being homeless and in the book it's made out as if that happens because of trusting a friend with a bad investment. So this I think is quite key because it's a very different vibe to the sort of sympathetic stance where we feel the book starts. Medical experts are also questioning her husband's claimed diagnosis and recovery. And all of that is in the articles which I'll link in the show notes, which Raina Wynn has called the allegations highly misleading and has posted an article on her website. She's also taking legal advice, but I don't want to talk about the truth of it, what I've said, is reported by mainstream newspapers, but it's clear that there are elements which may not be true in the sense of the book. So what feels true to the spirit of the book is what a lot of people feel betrayed by. And this issue of trust in memoir is what I wanted to talk about today. What is truth in memoir? How much dramatic license is acceptable? And I've had lots of people on this show over the years talking about memoir. But essentially, writing memoir, there's always a discussion of truth. Now, factual truth is objective, verifiable. There's external evidence, it is dates, it is documented events and bank statements and court records and things that can be verified. Emotional truth is subjective. It's feelings and experiences from somebody's point of view. It's the lens of memory, which of course, is never factually true. And also, a memoir is about forming a empathetic connection to a writer. Gore Vidal said, a memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts, double checked. And most of the writing advice on memoir is to prioritize the emotional truth over the factual truth. So this is so interesting. And of course, there have been other memoirs that have hit this before. James Frey's A Million Little Pieces is the famous one, but there's lots of them. But the issue with the salt puff, perhaps is more around what is left out, which to me is this sort of backstory that changes the place where it starts. Other people are questioning the nature recovery side of it, but the truth of that is, you know, his story is not the one told. To be honest, it's. It's her story. And I was thinking about this like, are we as writers, are we unconsciously or even consciously shaping our stories to fit narrative arcs that readers expect? Do we want a more dramatic story arc? An article in the Guardian has considered this around how do we stop fake memoirs from being published? And it says, if a narrative arc seems too neat and tidy to be true, perhaps it's worth considering why, and employing a freelance fact checker to investigate. But they say the trouble is, neat and tidy narrative arcs are often exactly what many readers and viewers of film adaptations want. And of course, publishers. Penguin Random House in this case, clearly makes a lot of money from this memoir and the other of her books. And also the Guardian article says publishers do not face serious material repercussions for lies told in memoirs. Reputational damage, meanwhile, is usually put on the author. And this is what it feels like in this Case, I don't think. I mean, you're going to sue the publisher and get the price of a book back. That's not really the point. It's more a feeling of betrayal from the reader. The article says authors can get around this by writing autobiographical fiction, autofiction rather than memoir. Books like Carrie Fisher's Postcards from the Edge or the Booker Winning Auto Fiction, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart, they don't come under fire for being made up because we all know that's what fiction is. But the article really says, in the end, it comes down to marketing. Auto fiction isn't an established a genre as memoir, so marketing teams face discrete challenges. A true story has historically proved easier to build a campaign around. There is money to be made with very few legal repercussions by telling the most marketable version of a story rather than the true one. So I find this really hard. I'm finding this difficult and I thought I would talk about it because when we feel this is a difficult problem, I think it's good to acknowledge in the writing community that this narrative arc is certainly what we are told to focus on if you are considering writing memoir. And obviously I've written one memoir, travel memoir, Pilgrimage, and I knew it wasn't finished until I had finished a narrative arc. And if you've read the book, you will see mine. It's certainly not as dramatic as the one in the Salt Path, and it's not dramatic at all, really, I suppose, but it's true. So, yeah, it feels like we're meant to have a bigger, the biggest shift possible. And I think the memoir industry and editors and again, interviews I've had on this show and perhaps even my own recommendation is to have a proper arc. Now, the Salt Path is a mega blockbuster. It's sold several million copies. There's a new film out right now starring Gillian Anderson. It only came out like a week or two ago, which I think is why this observer article has come out now, because without being such a blockbuster, it would never have been investigated. And like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, which again, massive blockbuster memoir, it has a clear arc, this sort of devastating loss, a health crisis. It's a life or death health crisis. Homelessness, this epic journey, and then finding health, finding home, finding life again. It is a perfect arc. And maybe that is the problem. So, yeah, things to keep in mind. I was thinking about how to frame this in terms of what we can do, because in my mind, truth is important, both factual truth and emotional truth. Memory is of Course, unreliable. We can never say this is entirely true, but there's a difference between the subjectivity of memory and maybe not, and changing things deliberately to make a more saleable story. So how do we write authentic memoir? I think fact checking as much as possible is a good idea. And keeping evidence, if necessary, triangulating your experience with others if it's appropriate. Although having talked to other memoir writers on this show, when it's a family situation, for example, how does this affect your parents or your siblings, It. It is still your story. So that is important too, being honest about your process. And if you have compressed a timeline or combined characters, then maybe say so in an author's note. The transparency, I think, is important. And if you put it in an author's note, then it's not that big a deal. I guess, then I think probably the biggest thing is really resisting the pressure to try and construct a narrative arc. And if there isn't one, there, perhaps focusing on the emotional truth, but perhaps not to the detriment of something that might give the wrong impression. But again, very, very hard questioning, am I writing this story to genuinely share my experience, or do I want to make it more saleable? I think if you pitch it to a publisher, they're going to want to make it more salable. So, yeah, in coming to an end on this, I feel that memoir is an act of trust. I certainly was terrified to put Pilgrimage out there, my own memoir, but not because it wasn't true. I was terrified because it was true, because the emotional truth of that book, and also in many aspects, writing the Shadow, which has a lot of elements of memoirs, I was sharing things that made me feel vulnerable. And when somebody reads something vulnerable, they feel connected to you. And I feel that this is what is going on with the reactions to the Salt Path, is that people love Raina Wynne and they feel very close to her. And when you shatter that trust by something that, again, allegedly may or may not be true, read the observer article and her own rebuttal, it leads to this sense of betrayal. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with crafting a story to sell. But the question is, when is the line crossed into this auto fiction? When is it truly memoir? And only you can really think about that for your own writing. But when you look at this example, and I guess James Frey's example, although James Frey's book's still selling, so, you know, you have to decide where you want to end up on this. I would love to know what you think. Let me know. You can Leave a comment on the show notes or you can email me joannathecreativepen.com Are you a memoir writer? Where do you think the line is crossed? Or I guess, are you a reader? Because I feel like it's the readers who are feeling strongest about this. I think probably a lot of writers might understand why you would start a story in that way. So yeah, interesting. So in personal news and very much fiction, I finished the Black Church short story and that is now with Kristen, my editor. And I also wrote the foreword to the short story collection the Buried and the Drowned. It's my first short story collection. Every, every short story has an author's note, by the way. And in the author's note I share the true elements behind the story. But all the stories are fiction. But I've never written a forward to a short story collection. So that was a new writing experience for me. It was really hard to be fair and it's quite short. But it's a more positioning statement on the themes that go across the whole collection and why some of the, I guess the, the deeper things that come up in my writing come up over and over again. So yeah, very interesting to write that. That's going to go to Kristen after the whole thing is done. I, I also have ordered them. So essentially I started a new scrivener project and I put in all the stories, all the author's notes, and then I've been moving them around kind of feeling. Feeling is all I can go on really is how they should be structured because the earliest stories were written a decade ago and I don't write many short stories to be fair, like just I guess a couple a year, one or two a year really for a decade. I'm not massively prolific at short stories, so yes, that was a challenge to write. I've also been building out the Kickstarter campaign with character images which I've generated in midjourney, which I love doing. It is so much fun, sort of in my mind what these characters look like and then creating the character images and now you can just generate a video with one click. So making the character images and then animating them, they will all be part of the marketing. And the pre launch page is up@jfpen.com buried I will be doing a webinar on writing short stories which will be part of the Kickstarter and also some consulting. I will talk about how to write short stories but also the options for publishing and marketing because they do represent quite a challenge, that is for sure. But I also find them a very satisfying form to write. So yeah, that is what I've been doing this week. I guess I should also say that I had a goal this year, so I always have health goals and one of my goals was to do this Double Ultra, the Race to the Stones. And as I record this right now, I have pulled out of that and I wanted to mention it because I am. I'm feeling quite disappointed with myself and down. The reason being is that it is a heat wave here in the UK and the walk, which was 50k and then rest and then another 50k. So Saturday and then Sunday it's on the Ridgeway, which is a, I guess it's by the name of it, the Ridgeway. You can guess that it is a ridge and there is very little shade. And so I have not trained in to walk 50k and then another 50k in over 30 degree heat. And I just don't feel confident that I can do it. I don't think it is healthily a good thing to do. So I feel quite disappointed in myself. But also I wanted to share it because so often we do make goals and plans and then things happen and we make decisions to change those plans and that's okay. And that can happen with our writing as well. I get emails from people sometimes and they say, oh, you know, I said I would finish this book and I didn't. And I feel guilty and disappointed and all this stuff. And it's like, okay, well that's all right, you can just start again and aim for the next goal. And so that's what I'm doing. My next goal is the. If you've been listening for a while, you might remember that I did a powerlifting competition last September and now I'm in my 50th year, I get to be in the second Masters level and in my age group. And of course the older you get, the less competition there is. So my next goal is that in September. So it's only, you know, less than two months away or two months away. So I'm back. I have been training for long distance walking and now I'm back training for powerlifting. So that I have been powerlifting all through the time, but now I'm training to get my lifts up to the highest weight in time for that. So I wanted to share it because on the one hand I'm just. I'm disappointed. On the other hand I am relieved because it would not be a fun weekend in this heat wave. British people don't do well in heat waves. And you probably know we just don't really do air conditioning over here. So yeah, but I hope that encourages you. If there is a goal you have that you've had to reset, then such is life and let us move on. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week, Saskia said on the interview with Ines. Thank you for yet another brilliant episode. So often I find myself listening and up pops help and information I didn't even know I needed. Love the inspirational talk from Ines and also grateful for the tip off about Rebecca Symes, Quick Cast and Ryan Holiday's article. So grateful. Thanks Saskia. Mary said. I truly love the interview with Betsy Lerner and I loved her book, which I picked up at a local event. I saw in the book how her background in poetry still carried her along, even though it was subtly hidden. There was nothing pretentious or overly wordy in her writing. I continually underlined sentences that I wish I'd written, but they were all hers. Oh, I love that. That's really great. Thank you for the podcast. And finally, Mariah said on the interview with Jules on Audio this episode gave me a great idea. Jules's advice was to read my stories out loud, but I don't have the natural excitement in my reading voice, so it wasn't giving me anything. Instead, I put it through 11 reader and had it read out aloud. It was amazing. It made me cry. Not just because I got to hear my stories read aloud, but because it showed me that they're actually kind of good. So much fun. Oh, I'm really glad that helped Mariah. And yes, listening to different voices Voices read your work can be very cool and you can just upload like a PDF onto 11 reader, so lots of fun there. Okay, so please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@wcreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So this episode is sponsored by prowritingaid because however you choose to publish, whether you go indie or you want a traditional deal, you need to make your book the best it can be. ProWritingAid is one of my absolute must use tools in my writing process. And yes, I did just use it again on my short story collection this week. And in fact one of the reasons why is because some of my stories have been written in US English and others have been UK English and we decided to move everything into UK English. So it was really good to use ProWritingAid to do that. And also as I went through, I was fixing up some other issues too. So once I finish a first draft of a new story, I use ProWritingAid before printing and hand editing. Then I use it again before sending to Kristen, my editor. I use it with Scrivener, but you can also use it with other software or just online on your browser. ProWritingAid knows all the rules of editing and helps you apply them. And of course you don't have to use the changes if you don't want to. It helps with making your writing more active, finding repeated words, finding words and sentences you could improve, adding sensory detail, your sentence structure, grammar and punctuation issues, as well as typos, spacing and more. It also now has a manuscript analysis developmental editing tool and a beta reader report so you can get an analysis of your whole manuscript. I've tried both of these and they are super useful. So why use software to help you? Why don't you just learn all the grammar and writing rules and apply them yourself? Well, we all use tools to improve our process and we're also often blind to our writing issues. It helps to have another pair of eyes, even if the eyes are software. So won't an editor do all this? Well, yes they do, but I'd rather pay my editor to fix the things that the software can't. So I use prowritingaid as my essential editing tool before sending to my human editor. Check out the free edition or get 15% off the premium edition by using my link. Prowritingaid.com Joanna J-O-A-N N A that's prowritingaid.com Joanna so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com thecreativepenn thanks to the two new patrons who've joined in the last week, and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. And I appreciate everyone who pops in for a month or two and then pops out again. Every little helps. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, craft, author business and tutorials and demos on AI tools. This week I shared my tips on AI assisted translation, the tools and companies I used for that, and how to adapt covers with AI tools on Canva. If you already have a cover, the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the interview. Jo Walters is the author of the Truth About Book Reviews, an insider's guide to getting and using reviews to grow your readership, and also runs independentbook review.com which focuses on reviewing indie books. So welcome to the show, Joe.