← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Big Auction Debuts and What Brings You Back to the Page
01:01:34
Author Interviews
Loading summary
Transcript107 lines
- [00:00]
Bianca Murray
Hi there. We've got a lot we're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real quick so you can get to the episode. The Deep Dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again with the matchups going out early in February. Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available which will make the perfect gift for you or the writer in your life. Head to our website the Shit About Writing to find out more. Hi there and welcome to our show the Shit no one Tells you About Writing. I'm best selling author Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Cece Lehrer of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literal.
- [01:01]
Carly Waters
Hi everybody, it's Carly doing the interview today. I know that you are used to our normally lovely Bianca doing the author interviews, but I met somebody that I wanted to interview for the podcast and so I'm having Katie Burnett here. And yeah, I just have so many things to talk to Katie about. There's a couple reasons I wanted to have Katie on the show. Number one, Katie and I met when we were at dfwcon, the Dallas Fort Worth conference, which I went to in October. I had a chance to chat with Katie, who was great and everybody was just talking about your book. They're like, you have to talk to Katie and your book and it's so good and you know, so much buzz around. And I was like, okay, I gotta talk to Katie about her book. So there's a few things we have to talk about. First of all, I'm gonna introduce you. So I do have Katie's lovely official bio.
- [01:42]
Deepa Apara
So.
- [01:43]
Carly Waters
Katie Burnett is the author of Beth is Dead, a Junior Library Guild Gold selection standard. She's an award winning creative director, a long standing member of the DFW Writers Workshop, and was the director of the 2025 DFW Writers Conference where we met as the oldest of three sisters. She's a die hard fan of Little Women and I have the book description here. But sometimes it's nice to hear from the author about what their book is about. So. And once everybody hears this description, you'll know why I wanted to have Katie on the show. So Katie, welcome to the show first of all, and second of all, tell everybody what your lovely book is about.
- [02:17]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, so Beth is dead, is A modern day reimagining of Little Women as a mystery thriller. So Beth, instead of dying from scarlet fever at the end of the book, she is found murdered in chapter one. So that's Beth is Dead.
- [02:32]
Carly Waters
It's great. I mean, I was scrolling through like all of the materials obviously that your wonderful publicist sent over and kind of getting ready for our interview. And obviously you have some incredible endorsements. You also have. I counted three starred reviews. You have a starred review from Kirkus, a starred review from Publishers Weekly, a starred review from Shelf Awareness. So the buzz is really just building for this one. And I have so many, I have so many thoughts and questions for you. Yeah, I don't even know where should I start. I'm going to start with this is your debut.
- [02:59]
Deepa Apara
Yes.
- [03:00]
Carly Waters
So I want to know how many books you wrote before you wrote this book? Great question.
- [03:06]
Deepa Apara
5.
- [03:07]
Katie Burnett
So Beth is Dead was my sixth manuscript and honestly, like, I had no idea that it was going to take that much time, but I'm so glad that it did. I tell people all the time, I think I learned something new with each of those five manuscripts that were unpublished and they all kind of, you know, built up my skills and led to me finally writing Beth Is Dead.
- [03:28]
Carly Waters
Yeah. And so when did you get your agent, Sarah? Was it with this book or was it previous manuscripts? So how long have you and Sarah been working together?
- [03:34]
Katie Burnett
No, it was a previous manuscript that didn't sell. But yeah, I got assigned with Sarah through Queries and Slushpile with a previous manuscript and I actually had an agent for Sarah's. I had kind of a long journey. But yeah, I have really loved working with her and kind of workshopped the idea for Beth Is Dead with her and wrote that while I was signed with her. So that was really helpful.
- [03:58]
Carly Waters
Yeah. Yeah, I had some questions too about the editing. Right. Because for those of you who are listening to this, this is coming out right when the book is coming out. So you should be able to get it, if not today, then, then very shortly and you should pre order it. But I think this book is like so just tight. Like there's not a lot of room for, I don't know, just like there's not a lot of excess. And I was kind of wondering, like, is it because it was ya? Is it because obviously it's so plot heavy. And then the other thing I was kind of theorizing last night as I was typing up some of my questions was because Little Women is such a familiar book to so many of us, you didn't actually have to spend a lot of time developing the characters on the page because we have these characters so rich in our minds over the lore of the book or the movies and just our general experience with these characters. So I thought it was so smart because you got to like, bounce so quickly into plot because you didn't have to like, over explain the characters to us. So I was just wondering how intentional that was or that was just natural through the process.
- [04:50]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, it was kind of natural, I think, because you're totally right. I had so much borrowed from Little Women. Like, we all know who those characters are. You're coming into it with such a rich idea already, so, you know, you're standing on a lot when you start, which is really, really great. And I think also because the book has four perspectives and two timelines, that kind of forces you to be tight because you have to hop back and forth and there's just a lot to pac in. So I think that was part of it as well.
- [05:17]
Carly Waters
Yeah. And did you always imagine this was going to be ya? Because, like, obviously it's true to the girls ages, I believe, ish from the original story. I don't know. Just wondering, did you ever think about did it have to be ya? I'm just curious about that.
- [05:29]
Katie Burnett
I did debate it a little bit, but I had been writing ya, so I was kind of more comfortable in that genre and had gotten used to that voice. And so that was part of what led to my decision to ultimately make it ya. But I did debate it and I think we've. We have talked, you know, with my publisher and with Sarah, my agent, about it feels a little bit crossover. Like, I think people who are, you know, a little bit older but enjoyed Little Women can also read it and enjoy it. So, yeah, I think it could have gone either way. But I am excited that I made it YA because I really love writing ya.
- [06:00]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah. No, I think it has sense of crossover potential. I think I'm just a prime candidate for that person. Right. Like, right away. I don't read ton of ya. I don't rep a ton of ya either. It's not any particular personal reason. It's just kind of the way my career developed. But I was just obviously really drawn to it because it's one of those things where there's so many retellings of so many things. Right. And I'm sure you went through this of like, what does quote unquote deserves to be retold? How can you retell in a way that feels Fresh. And there's so many Austin retellings. As an agent, sometimes I see a lot of these retellings, and I'm like, how do we know that this is actually going to be the most fresh retelling? And so for you, when you were thinking of, like, how could this be the most fresh retelling? Is that where you worked with Sarah on the brainstorming and that kind of thing?
- [06:38]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, I sent her an early draft. It was probably like, five chapters. And one of the questions that she asked me really early on that was super helpful. What is the reason that you're doing this? Not just, you know, it's an interesting story or I think it'll be a cool mashup, but, like, what is the purpose? And that was something that was just in the back of my head the whole time I was working on it. And I think that's one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when you're working on a retelling. Because a lot of people have so much love for the source material. It's like, you don't want to ruin it.
- [07:08]
Carly Waters
You know what I mean?
- [07:09]
Katie Burnett
You have to have something that you're adding, but you also have to have an appreciation for the original story.
- [07:14]
Carly Waters
Yeah. Because I almost feel like, in a way, and I hope this is a compliment, I think you're contributing to the lore of the story. You're adding a new fan fiction meta layer of the book to the people that I think they're really going to relate to. And it was very interesting to me also. It's hard for me to read things as, like, a reader. I read things as an agent and as a publishing person and as an interviewer. And so I was really thinking about, you know, how true you were staying to each character, not only the story, but did you find it like you had to box anything in? Did things feel forced or what did you do? Maybe when. When you thought, oh, I got to get this person into this box as a writer?
- [07:51]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, that's an interesting question, because I don't think that I've ever felt forced. Because the March sisters are so different. I got to go in so many different directions with them. And, you know, one thing that I thought was really interesting was just, like, the character surprised me starting out. I have never really loved Beth. She just hasn't been my favorite character. But she is now after writing this book. She is absolutely my favorite. I just learned so much about her being forced to write from her pov. Just felt that she was brave in a Way that I had never imagined or thought of before. So that was something cool. Was like, I actually learned new things about these characters that I loved for so long.
- [08:29]
Deepa Apara
Yeah.
- [08:29]
Carly Waters
Yeah. I feel like in some ways, she. I don't want to say she's the least memorable because that's not fair. Don't come at me all the, like, you know, fans, but because we lose her in the end and, you know, just like her health problem, she's not as large in our minds, I don't think. And you really centered her, obviously. It's called Beth is Dead. You know, you really centered her in a way, I think that the original story didn't get a chance to or, you know, wasn't able to.
- [08:52]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, I just think she's so interesting. Like, she. I mean, in the original, she knows she's going to die, and she is. She's facing this really terrifying thing. I think anybody would be scared by that. But even still, she makes space for other people before herself. She's really kind, she's calm, she's strong. It's like, man, I wish we could all be like that. Right? Like, I just had never thought of her that way before.
- [09:14]
Carly Waters
Yeah, that's such a good point that that honorableness of her is so respectable. So how many times have you read Little Women? First of all. And then in preparation for this, like, how did you annotate and, like, did you break things down? Like, how did you use the source material as the launch point?
- [09:30]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, so I've read it. Gosh, I don't even know, but probably seven times at this point. And. And not like, you know, cover to cover. I've read it in different order and kind of pick different chapters to read and things like that over time. But I think what I did is I wanted to have a really good understanding of the story and then take a little bit of a step back. So I definitely didn't have a scene for scene beat as I was, you know, writing Beth is Dead. It was more like the heart of the story, the heart of the characters, the themes. And then some of those really memorable scenes I definitely repeated in my own way. But I didn't want it to be like a beat for beat retelling. So I took a step back after sort of digesting everything.
- [10:12]
Carly Waters
Yeah, yeah. And I think it totally rings true. And I also think, again, when I read retellings or, you know, versions of retellings, where it feels like, again, you're trying to, like, drawing arm, like, remember when this happened? You know, everybody, like, wink Wink, nod, nod. I don't know, like, breaking the fourth wall. But you don't. In my reading of this, like, you don't really break the fourth wall because you're creating a whole new universe where you get to explore it in that context. Okay, I want to go back to YA for a second because I had a. Like, you know the genre. Cause I had a question about technology. Right. So obviously in Little Women, it's historical novel that their version of technology is very different than our version of technology. So how did you imagine you wanted to use technology as modern teens? Where did you feel like, you know, there were challenges or opportunities? Because I find a lot of writers these days really struggle, whether it's adult or whether it's ya. How do you use texting or apps or things like that in a way where if we always know where everybody is or there's always a way to contact somebody, how do you create tension, especially as teens? So how'd you think about that?
- [11:09]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, so that technology was a hurdle in some ways because of the murder mystery aspect. Like, you know, my family, when I was growing up, like, we all shared our locations, and so I had to make a really conscious decision to have the March sisters not share their locations. And there's a sort of spoiler reason for that. But Meg, as the oldest, does not want to share her location, and so they've kind of made that choice. But, yeah, I think technology plays the biggest role in Jo's character because I made the choice to have Jo be kind of an influencer. She's writing personal essays, and she's gaining a following online for those personal essays. And so I think part of her struggle is relevance. How does she stay relevant? And then also just this. This decision of, like, what can I put online and what should I not put online? Is something that's going through her head.
- [11:56]
Carly Waters
Yeah, that was so interesting to me when I got to that part where I was like, oh, my gosh, she's an influencer. Her way of working through her thoughts the way that she would writing as the original character she uses through social media, Instagram essays, or your version of Instagram, I can't remember if you actually call it Instagram, but, like, that idea of using the online universe as a way to kind of journal through and work through those thoughts as a. It was just interesting to me. Like, what would. What would the modern Jo be? And you were like, she would be an influencer. Whoever shares.
- [12:24]
Katie Burnett
I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
- [12:27]
Carly Waters
Oh, that's so great. Okay, so talk to me a little bit about your concept of class structure because obviously in the historical version, it's the Civil War, there's all these kind of elements of that. You have the girls in an affluent neighborhood, but they are not specifically affluent necessarily. I mean it's again, it's all relative. Talk to me about. Yeah. How you kind of thought about like their place in modern society.
- [12:50]
Katie Burnett
Yeah. So they, they live in Concord and they are, like you said, in a more affluent neighborhood. But they, I, I picture them as being kind of like the. Gosh, I don't know if this is the right way to say this, but like the bottom of the barrel in their neighborhood in terms of like what they have. And so, you know, there are characters like Sally Gardner who have so much more and they're comparing themselves to characters like Sally, but at the same time, like they're very comfortable, like they're not struggling for money as much. Meg, being the oldest sister, I think she has a little bit more vis family's finances and to what her mom is dealing with and thinking about. So she worries about it a little bit more. Which you know, just hearkens to the original Meg. But yeah, so they're, they're kind of just, I guess a middle class family in this story.
- [13:35]
Carly Waters
Yeah. I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out like, how many spoilers do I give and how many questions do I ask? Am I going to spoil the ending? It's all great. Every, everybody go read it. You know, I definitely won't spoil the ending for you guys because it is a murder mystery and we're not going to do that. Okay. So I want to come back to some of the publishing stuff. So had a very kind of buzzy publishing story, which is obviously great. I'm so happy for you. After writing five manuscripts, you're like, hey, this is the one that, you know, sold that action. This is the one that sold in. I don't know how many territories you're up to, but can you talk a little bit about like maybe why you think this manuscript, not only was this the one that broke through domestically, but also internationally. Right. Because Little Women is a very American story. Not to say it doesn't travel, but I'm curious about why you think that worked here and also like why you think it works abroad.
- [14:16]
Deepa Apara
Yeah.
- [14:16]
Katie Burnett
So I've actually gotten some feedback on that from some of my international publishers who have said that they think that just the crossover between being a thriller but also having like a more literary bent to it, there's an audience that appreciates literary classics. There's also an audience that appreciates thrillers. That's been really, really helpful. So I think the fact that it spans audiences has been helpful. And then actually, this kind of goes back to. So my sister is a professional dancer, and she owns a dance company in Dallas. And so we were having conversations before I started writing Bet Dead about her shows and people not really wanting to attend dance performances as much. And we were saying, I think you need to do something that's a little bit more commercial, a little bit less heady or artistic. And that conversation led me to think, okay, I might need to come up with a more commercial premise, because all of the books that I had written previously before Beth is Dead, were a little bit more literary. They didn't have, like, a really easy hook, a really easy way of describing the book. And so that was an aha moment for me when we were talking about her dance performance. It's like, hey, actually, I should take this advice myself, and I should come up with a more commercial premise.
- [15:25]
Carly Waters
Yeah, I love that. You're just, like, speaking to the ethos of our show, everybody. So you heard it straight from Katie. Books need hooks.
- [15:32]
Katie Burnett
Yes.
- [15:33]
Carly Waters
That's how we grab onto them from Katie's lived experience. Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about your experience in Frankfurt. So talk to us about. You had a party, and we were able to go to Frankfurt Book Fair. For those of you that don't know, Frankfurt Book Fair is kind of a translation fair, but it's very rare for an author to be invited and be a guest of honor, per se, to meet your foreign publisher. So talk to us about how all that worked out.
- [15:55]
Katie Burnett
It was so cool. I feel so lucky that my agent, Sarah Crowe, took me with her, and she has been going to Frankfurt for many, many years. So she just knows everyone at the fair and knows how to navigate it. It was so cool. It was so much bigger than I imagined it would be. There's so many different publishers from so many different countries, and I had a day where I kind of had free time, and I was able to just walk around and take it all in. But then I was also taking meetings with each of my different international editors. So that was really cool just to hear, you know, hear their thoughts on, like, what works for their market or what challenges they have in their market. It was really educational for me. So it was. It was a great time.
- [16:31]
Carly Waters
Yeah, that's a master class. That's like a. I don't know, Masters in creative writing. Or publishing studies right there to meet everybody and learn about that. And is everybody publishing early next, like early 2026 or when is everybody publishing?
- [16:44]
Katie Burnett
Some are coming a little later, some in the summer. Some of them haven't decided yet. But yeah, a are publishing kind of right around the US date, so January and right after.
- [16:53]
Carly Waters
That's great. Yeah. As you guys know, we record ahead of time. So Katie and I are recording before the Christmas holidays. But this will be out in. This is, I think, our January 1 episode. So this is our kickoff of the new year, which is great. So talk to me about some of your just like, you know, inspirations for writing. Obviously, the source material of Little Women was a big source of inspiration. What are your favorite authors?
- [17:13]
Katie Burnett
Who do you read?
- [17:14]
Carly Waters
What are your like, go to auto buys? What do you like?
- [17:17]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, so YA authors I really, really love Tiffany D. Jackson. David Arnold is a favorite. Nina LaCour, Jandy Nelson. So those are some authors that really inspire me. But then also just in the adult space, I really love Barbara Kingsolver. Poisonwood Bible was a huge inspiration for Beth Is Dead because I read that at a really young age and just loved the four POVs of the sisters and how different they all felt. And so that was something I always wanted to do is write a multi POV novel. So, yeah, she's a huge inspiration. Margaret Atwood as well. Love the Handmaid's Tale. So kind of varied. You know, I don't read in like one particular genre, but then mystery, thriller. I also have to mention Andrea Bartz because I was reading a book by Andrea Bartz. When I decided to write Beth instead, I was like, I'm having so much fun reading this book. How I would probably have this much fun writing a mystery. So that was kind of what tipped me over the edge.
- [18:11]
Carly Waters
Yeah, Andy's a big fan favorite of the pod, so we love Andy. So Poisonwood Bible was one of my favorite books for a long time. Like, whenever anybody asked me, like, what's my favorite book? I would always say Poisonwood Bible. I love that book. And then I just kind of like, I haven't reread it in a while. Like, that's reminding me of, like, how much that was a very influential book to me as well. I absolutely adored, adored that book. That's one of my faves. Now I want to talk a little bit about your experience with the Writers Workshop. And obviously, as I mentioned, you're the director of the festival. Can you walk us through just some of the structures about, like, the Writers Workshop and The festival and how that kind of informed your writing and your career so far.
- [18:47]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, I would love to, because it is honestly the thing I credit for, you know, all everything getting published. I wouldn't be published without the DFW Writers Workshop. I joined right after I graduated from College. So about 11 years ago now, dating myself, but I first decided to go to the conference. So I kind of went in cold. I was. I had written my second manuscript and my first one I had really struggled with querying. And so I was like, okay, I need to find a community. I need to get some advice. So I went to this writers conference knowing absolutely no one. And I realized that the most knowledgeable people at this conference were wearing badges that said DFW Writers Workshop. And so I was like, hey, what is this? How do I join? And so I joined basically the week after that conference. And the workshop meets every single Wednesday, rain or shine. And we have about 200 members total, but I would say maybe like 50 to 60 will show up each week. And we break up into read rooms and you get a chance to actually read your work out loud and then get critique right there in the moment. So that has been so helpful over the past 10 years. Just whatever project I'm working on, reading that week after week after week and then also hearing other people's stories and how they develop them over time has been really, really helpful.
- [20:00]
Carly Waters
No, I think you guys are such a great organization. And we talked about this. Obviously we met in person, but I had been to DFW Con 10 years ago and I had a great experience. It just seemed like such a well run show. Like everybody was so happy to be there. I love conferences. I love coming to conferences where I can tell that the people spend a lot of time together and they really enjoy that like, annual event. And it's such a celebration of the work they've done all year as writers and as organizers. So, like, I feel so charmed by that. And I just like pop in for the weekend and say hi for a couple days. But I'm really charmed by those organizations because I know how much work goes into those things depending on, you know, the amount of writing you're doing. People have day jobs. Like, there's just so much obviously involved with these things. Yeah. So tell us about how. How did DFW go as the. You're the chair. What was your official title this year? What was your job?
- [20:47]
Katie Burnett
I was the director this year, so.
- [20:49]
Bianca Murray
Director.
- [20:49]
Katie Burnett
Yes, it was a big job. We, we all rotate. So, you know, somebody different will step up and be the director each year. And it's funny, when they first asked me to do the job, I actually said no. But I got kind of strong armed into doing it. And I'm so, so glad that everybody convinced me to do it because it was actually a really wonderful experience and it gave me a lot of opportunities to just talk to different authors and speakers that I wouldn't have interacted with otherwise. So it was an amazing opportunity. And the team that I worked with, everybody has their role, everybody knows what they're doing. So it's a really well oiled machine. And it was not as hard as I was imagining it was gonna be.
- [21:25]
Carly Waters
You only had to give like two speeches.
- [21:27]
Katie Burnett
It's fine, no big deal. But yeah, even that, I mean, it gives you experience. Like it's something that tests your limits and pushes you to do things you wouldn't normally do.
- [21:36]
Carly Waters
Yeah, I just want to get a bit more granular about the workshop. In this book in particular. Did you really, truly like Workshop? Chapter by chapter? How was the read in the room as you went? How did your confidence build? Like, this is a writing and author podcast, so we'd love. I'd love to hear the more granular side of the workshop and how that worked for this book.
- [21:53]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, I did Workshop Beth is Dead. I probably didn't read every single chapter, but I was close to it and the reception was different than other books that I had written. So that was really rewarding to feel that and to get different critique than I'd gotten in the past. One of my mentors, Ailey Martinez, he had read almost all of my other manuscripts. And I sent Beth is Dead to him. And I was actually trying to decide if I was going to pursue the idea. I sent it and I said, hey, what do you think? Like, this is really different from what I've written in the past. Should I pursue this? And I got an email back from him that just said, this is the best thing you've ever written. And I was like, I just lit up in that moment and I think that propelled me forward to finish it. But it was like, that was super rewarding because these are the people that have been teaching me and helping me over the past 10 years. And that was the feedback I got from them.
- [22:41]
Carly Waters
Yeah, I love that. And you know, we've talked a little bit about like, what that sense was and that change and how you decided to make that change. Were there other ways that you noticed why this was the reason for this book in particular? I guess I'm just trying to, like, break it down for our audience. It's like, I guess what I'm trying to ask is, if you were somebody listening to this, how would they know? Oh, maybe a couple manuscripts haven't worked out. How do I know? When does the light bulb go on? What are some ways, I guess, that the light bulb goes on, that there's been a shift?
- [23:05]
Katie Burnett
So.
- [23:06]
Carly Waters
Okay.
- [23:06]
Katie Burnett
I think every writer has different strengths and weaknesses. And I think what. What happened for me is that over the course of writing five manuscripts, I was able to identify what I think my biggest weakness was, which was plot. A lot of the previous manuscripts, I was writing like, oh, it's a great character study, or it's all vibes. You know, it just didn't have a really compelling need to turn the page. And so I think for me in particular, deciding to write a mystery forced me to understand plot and forced me to understand tension and how pull a reader forward. So I think. I guess that's a long way of saying, like, each writer, I think it's important that you write enough that you learn what your personal weakness is and then find a way to fix that personal weakness. I think it's different for everyone, and for me, it just happened to be figuring out plot. Learning plot.
- [23:56]
Carly Waters
Yeah. Yeah.
- [23:57]
Bianca Murray
That's such a.
- [23:58]
Carly Waters
It's good advice for anybody. You know, a lot of athletes apply that. Like, I'm thinking of those Tiger Woods. That said, I don't practice the things I'm good at. I practice the things that I'm weakest at. You know, it's that way of, you know, we can go blindly into the things we're really good at, which is great, but if you don't reflect on the things that you actually probably need to improve on and have honest feedback maybe about what those things are. Right. Not everybody's self aware enough to realize, hey, that's my weakness. Right.
- [24:20]
Katie Burnett
Yeah. And also, I think finding friends and critique partners who have different weaknesses. One of my best friends, Dana Swift, she's really good at plot. That's her thing. And so we would, you know, while I was writing Beth is Dead, we were meeting weekly and she was giving me advice on, hey, I don't think this is where this should go. I think this should go this way. So. So finding people who complement you in that way is really helpful.
- [24:40]
Carly Waters
Yeah. And so how long did the writing process take? From idea to figuring out if it's worth pursuing to finishing the manuscript?
- [24:47]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, it took about two years. During that time, I was working A full time job in advertising and doing a lot of other things. So I think I could have gone faster, but with life, it took two years beginning to end. So kind of a long time. Yeah.
- [25:02]
Carly Waters
No, I love it. I'm trying to give all of our listeners all the little things that I think they'd want to know and they'd be curious about it. Oh, this is what I wanted to ask you. And I don't think this is too much of a spoiler. It's just a little bit of character stuff. But I think what I. This is kind of what I opened the interview with was this idea of it's a really complex idea and yet you have the foundational kind of support of the Little Women structure. But it's really like a book within a book within a book. It's actually like very meta, the concept of it. Right. So we have our Little Women, original characters. Right. Then we have the dad in this story, wrote a book about the present day girls and we're reading it in book form while Joe wants to be a writer. So it's like very meta, very sophisticated. Did you run into, like hurdles with figuring out how meta you wanted to be? I feel like I've asked this question a few times, but I think what I'm trying to get at is like how easy the structure came to you, or it really was two years of working this out.
- [26:00]
Katie Burnett
Honestly, figuring out the dad's plot, of him writing this book was the thing that really cracked the story open for me. I had written probably 10 or 11 chapters before I figured that out. I had a completely different storyline for the dad. And then I realized, no, you know what? It was actually the question that, that my agent Sarah asked me if what is your reason for doing this? What's the purpose? And I realized that I think my purpose for writing it was to have the girls give them an opportunity to reflect on who they are and how they're portrayed and how readers perceive them. And so deciding that he was gonna write this book, that the girls were gonna read this book and then have a chance to react to who they are in the book, cracked it open for me. And it's like, okay, this is what I'm trying to say. This is what I'm trying to do.
- [26:47]
Carly Waters
Yeah. But I think that's what makes this book, in my mind, what makes this book really special, why I think it's gonna be successful, knock on wood, why all your foreign publishers think that. It's like you really thought of everything and everything's really Subtle. Everything's really tight. You had to figure out a reason, like, how do we get this dad away? But also, you used him as the launch, how everything blew up. So I feel like, in so many ways, it honors the original story, but comes at it from an entirely new perspective. And it's just like. I don't want to say that writing is sparse in the sense of, like, a literary way, but I feel like you didn't waste any time or any space. And so, anyway, my highest compliment. Everybody. Everybody's listening. Go. Needs to buy it. I screenshotted one line that I. That I really like, and it was about, this is from Jo's point of view. And, Joe, this is the moment where Jo is trying to figure out how to express herself about her sister's death. And basically, as we know, she is a influencer. So she's like, I don't want to write about this on the Internet. I want to figure out a way to write this. And so in Jo's point of perspective, it says, you're gonna crack open a blank page, let the story drain out. I write about this morning, finding Beth in the snow, her empty eyes reflecting the sky, the gash in her forehead so deep, I worried that her memories and thoughts had escaped with the blood. And anyway, it goes on, but I was like, I just love that. And you're not overly gory with it, but that line about worrying that her memories and thoughts had escaped with the blood, I'm like, oh, my gosh. So beautiful. Katie, thanks. Such a great story.
- [28:15]
Bianca Murray
Thank you.
- [28:15]
Carly Waters
I love it so much. So tell me. You don't have to go into detail, but have you started working on something new? How did you manage selling the book, publicizing? You're going through this whole thing while trying to work on something new usually is what happens. So how is that experience going for you?
- [28:31]
Katie Burnett
It was a wild year, I'll say that. But I actually just submitted my first draft of what will be book two about a month ago, so that was a really exciting moment. I am doing another retelling of a literary classic as a mystery thriller and modernized mystery thriller. So I'm gonna keep it secret which one it is. But, yeah, I'm really excited about it.
- [28:52]
Carly Waters
Oh, good. Okay. I wasn't sure. I'm like, is she gonna go in a different direction again? Don't need to spill the beans before it's ready. But, yeah, no, we'll be really excited. So tell us a little bit more about, you know, what advice you might have for writers, you know, like, you've been through this, you know, with your manuscripts, you've had two agents, you've sold this big book. You know, if you think about our podcast listeners, what are some kind of bits of advice that you might want to share with them?
- [29:14]
Katie Burnett
Yeah, I think my biggest piece of advice is something I've kind of talked about already, which is just finding a community, because that is the thing that made the biggest difference for me was just finding people who could give me honest, honest feedback and who could also answer questions every step of the way, like, how do you query, how do you work with an editor? If you find somebody who's done that before, it's just going to be so much easier, and you're not going to be as nervous and stressed about it because you're going to have a roadmap. So that's been the biggest thing. And then I think also one thing that has really helped me is, like, loosening my own grip on who I want to be as a writer and learning how to pivot and just say, you know, I don't have to do the same thing every time. I don't have to write the story that I think other people want me to write. It's just whatever I want to write. And, yeah, so I think being a little bit looser with your work, not holding it so tightly.
- [30:07]
Carly Waters
Yeah, I think that's great advice because I think there's so much conflicting about, like, find your brand, and, like, this is your brand. But what I always tell my authors is, like, your brand comes from the content, and the brand is also allowed to pivot and shift like you do, because, like, you're a human being and the brand is often in. In the themes and the linking pieces between your stories. It's not actually like this, you know, packaged identity that people think it is. So there's. There's always a lot to work through with people figuring out who they are as a kind of commodity of. Of sorts. But I love that advice, Katie. So let's run through your tour schedule. I don't know if you have it handy, but I want everybody to know where. Where you're going to be. Do you have it handy?
- [30:43]
Katie Burnett
Can you.
- [30:43]
Carly Waters
Can you run through where you're going to be this month?
- [30:45]
Katie Burnett
So I. My tour schedule is pinned on my Instagram for anyone who wants to check it out later. But super excited. I'm going to be going to Acton, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Concord, which is where obviously, Louisa May Alcott grew up and wrote Little Women. So that's going to be January 6th on launch day and then the next day I'm going to Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee. Then I'm coming back to Dallas, Texas to do a conversation at Ntera Bang Books. And then I'll be doing a signing in Plano, Texas at Biblio Bar. Then I'll be in Houston at Murder by the Book and then in Waco at fabled bookshop. So I am super excited. Amazing.
- [31:25]
Carly Waters
Well, if anybody's in those locations, I highly recommend you go see Katie in person, hear her, you know, story of the book. And I'm sure there'll be a great community there as well supporting you guys. If you are in the Dallas Fort Worth area or otherwise, I highly recommend you check out the DFW Writers Workshop and obviously the incredible conference which I was at and totally endorsed because I thought it was lovely.
- [31:45]
Bianca Murray
Yeah.
- [31:45]
Carly Waters
Was there Katie, anything that you want to talk about that I didn't ask or any anything else that's been coming up with as people kind of explore the story?
- [31:52]
Katie Burnett
Man, I feel like we covered so much. Yeah, that's kind of it. I'm just really excited to, you know, start actually getting the book into readers hands and seeing what people think.
- [32:02]
Carly Waters
Yeah, it's a long time coming as you know. So. Yeah, no, it's great. I totally recommend it. Everybody.
- [32:08]
Katie Burnett
Beth is dead.
- [32:09]
Carly Waters
Go grab it. Whether you're a teen, whether you're an adult, I think I agree. I think it has that, that magical crossover potential. So I think everybody's going to love it. So I'm hoping the best for you, Katie and I hope our paths cross again.
- [32:19]
Katie Burnett
Yes.
- [32:19]
Carly Waters
And congratulations.
- [32:21]
Katie Burnett
Thanks. This was so fun.
- [32:23]
Bianca Murray
Hi everyone. It's author interview day today and today's guest's debut novel, Gin Patrol on the Purple Line was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, the Guardian and npr. It won the Edgar Award for best novel, was long listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature and included in Times 100 Best Mystery and thriller books of all time. It's been translated into over 20 languages. She is the co editor of Letters to a Writer of Color, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race and culture. It's my pleasure to welcome Deepa and Apara. Deepa, welcome to the show.
- [33:08]
Deepa Apara
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
- [33:12]
Bianca Murray
That is one heck of a resume, Deepa. Wow. Okay, for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, I'm holding up the book cover, the Last of Earth. Absolutely beautiful. Beautiful cover. Stunning. And I'm going to read you the flap copy and from there we are going to dive right in, as per usual. So, 1818 69. Tibet is closed to Europeans, an infuriating obstruction for the rapidly expanding British Empire. In response, Britain begins training Indians permitted to cross borders that white men may not to undertake illicit, dangerous surveying expeditions into Tibet. Balram is one such surveyor spy, an Indian schoolteacher who for several years has worked for the British, often alongside his dearest friend named Gyan. But Gyan went missing on his last expedition and is rumored to be imprisoned within Tibet. Desperate to rescue his friend, Balram agrees to guide an English captain on a foolhardy mission. After years of paying others to do the exploring, the captain, disguised as a monk, wants to personally chart a river that runs through southern Tibet. Their paths will cross fatefully with that of another westerner in disguise. 50 year old Catherine. Denied a fellowship in the all male Royal Geographical Society in London, she intends to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa. As Bahram and Catherine make their way into Tibet, they will face storms and bandits, snow leopards and soldiers, fevers and frostbites. What more, they will have to battle their own doubts, ambitions, grief and pasts in order to survive the treacherous landscape. So that's the context of the book we're going to be chatting about today. Now, Deepa, when I was reading the book and then researching you as well, you said in another interview that you wanted to be a writer from when you were 6. And I think that resonates with so many of our listeners and we really love hearing everyone's journey from that initial desire to their publication. Can you take us through that, including getting an agent and then publishing your debut, Gin Patrol on the Purple Line.
- [35:22]
Deepa Apara
Like as you said, I really wanted to write from the time I was a child and the way in which I tried to do that because I didn't come from a privileged background, I don't come from a privileged background. And so writing didn't really seem the way for me to make a living. So I tried. I wanted to do something that would allow me to write while earning a salary. And the way for me was to be a print journalist. So I was a journalist in India for several years. All the time I was thinking about fiction, I wrote some short stories, but I honestly didn't have the time to work on a novel because, you know, the job was full time and it took, took up a lot of my emotional mental bandwidth. It was only when I moved to the UK that I started thinking about writing fiction more seriously. As part of which I studied in an evening beginning creative writing course. I started working on a novel. I wrote three books that didn't really go anywhere and that essentially stayed on my laptop. And after that, I did a master's course in creative writing in the UK and which was, you know, as part of that Masters, I wrote Jim Patrol and I finished it post the Masters. So with the first three books that didn't go anywhere, I submitted it one of them to a couple of agents who turned it down, and then I didn't send it it to anybody else because I felt really upset by the rejections. You know, I felt that maybe I really didn't have it in me to write and maybe this was not for me, which was something that was ingrained in me as a child, you know, from the kind of society that I grew up in. But I think it was really helpful for me to study creative writing, be around others who also wanted to be writers and who took writing and fiction very seriously, which I had not seen, you know, in other parts of my life. And with Gin Patrol, I submitted it to Novels in Progress competitions in the uk. So in the UK there are still many contests which are for emerging writers, emerging novelists, and fortunately, Gin Patrol won three of those prizes and which led to agents contacting me. So I always tell my students I teach creative writing, and I tell my students that it doesn't usually happen. So I know that that was a very privileged position that I happened to be in, in that I submitted the novel to these various contests. It won those prizes because of which agents got in touch with me, and then, you know, from there they sent it out and it was picked up for publication. So it was a very long process. I was in my 40s when my book was published, and I actually wanted to be a writer when I was a child. You know, I think I wrote my first novel. I finished my first novel maybe in 2013 or something, or 2011, I can't even remember. But it took three failed projects before I wrote Chin and before that was published. So, you know, even from the time I started seriously writing fiction, it took me 10 years to get published. So I just want to make it clear that even though I had quite an easy ride with getting an agent and publishers, it was. It's a very long and difficult, torturous process, really, to get there.
- [38:34]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. Geez. You know what? I don't feel like that was an easy way to get an agent at all. You know, we discuss on the podcast all the time how many different journeys, how many paths to publication there are. And I think writing three novels, querying agents, being rejected, and then finally winning a ton of competitions and getting agents come to you is certainly not the easy way of doing it. But for our listeners, so important to know because sometimes you are not going to grab an agent's attention up front for whatever reason. And there are other ways of doing it, which is why I always like to ask author these authors these questions because it really shows again that you know so many ways to do it. And I love especially Deepa, your sort of overcoming that self doubt because that inner critic, when you're not getting yeses, when you are getting no's or hearing silence, it is so easy to, to say I don't have what it takes. Maybe I should just give up on this. And I mean, can I know. So many of our listeners are going through that themselves. So can you speak a bit about that process of what it was specifically that made you go, I'm not going to give up.
- [39:44]
Deepa Apara
In part, I think it was that I had these stories that I wanted to tell, which I felt nobody else could do. That, you know, I had to tell these stories myself. Very conscious and aware of the stories that have not been part of the mainstream discourse primarily because a lot of stories have been told about say my country, India, by the victors, which is the British Empire. And so there are a number of stories which are not really out in the world because of the ways in which voices have been marginalized or neglected or deliberately suppressed. So in that sense I felt a responsibility towards the stories that I wanted to tell. And I think that was part of what, what kept me going. But I also want to be honest and say that it wasn't an easy process. I think I didn't write for almost a year after my first rejection and when I started writing again it was mostly short stories because I felt that with a short story I can finish one maybe in six months. That's the longest it'll take me to finish a short story. Whereas with the novel, because I'm a very slow writer, it takes me around three or four years and I felt that I couldn't give that kind of time to a project that may never see the light of day. So it was. I don't want to say that I overcame it immediately or overcame it after a period of moping. I think it took me a solid two years before I could start the next project, the next novel. And with that novel, I didn't essentially, I didn't show it to anyone. I finished the first draft very quickly and then I just never went back to it. So it was, there was time between each of these projects, I would say, which I had to regroup and tell myself, you know, that this is what you want to do. And I will say that I do feel quite unhappy when I'm not writing. And I think that's part of what gets me back on the page, which is the fact that I don't feel fully myself if I've not written for a long time. So I feel like I'm missing something. So I think that brings me back to the page more than any idea of publication or accolades because you never know how. You know how your book will be received. You don't know how people will respond to it. So those things are not in your control. What's essentially in your control is, you know, being at your desk, turning up on the page and writing this particular story that maybe nobody else can tell. So those are the things that I would say keep me going. I did hear the great British Irish writer Anne Enright say that offers to delay among her students. The ones who got published were the ones who were the most persistent. So they might not have been the most talented students, but they were the ones who kind of never gave up and who kept going back to writing no matter, you know, how many knocks that they faced. So that's something that I do think about often as well.
- [42:35]
Bianca Murray
Yeah, that's been my experience as well. It's persistence over talent so much of the time. So for our listeners, let that inspire you, please. Okay, so Deepa, your two books are so different. So just the flat copy of the first book for our listeners. Nine year old Jai watches too many reality police shows, thinks he's smarter than his friend Pari, even though she gets the best grades and considers himself to be a better boss than Faiz, although Fayez is the one with the job. When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime solving skills he's picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants and together they drop lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Okay, so I won't like even go through the rest of it. This just tells you how different these books are. So before we discuss the huge leap in genres in the type of stories. I also want to unpack something else you said about writing that book. And you said, I enjoyed writing their point of view. The trick is of course, not to slip into adult sensibility at any point and stay true to their perspective, which is so important. So can you break that down for us as well? And also the intentionality in terms of the Last of Earth, in terms of those points of views as well.
- [43:56]
Deepa Apara
So Jim Patrol on the Purple Line and the Last of Earth, they're both based on true stories. I was working as a journalist in Delhi when I came across stories of children who were were disappearing and no effort was made to find them because they were often from very poor families. So the police would just ignore them, politicians would ignore them. And I became interested in that story because I felt the voices of children were getting lost. We didn't really know what their experience was, living through a time when their friends were disappearing. So I wanted to tell the story, centering their voices. And similarly, with the Last of Earth, the history of India is told by the British Empire. So they essentially curated the archives because India was under the British Empire at that time in the 19th century. So they would curate the archives and they would make sure that the information that was there in the historical record, and in fact, they were quite meticulous about it, it didn't show them in an unflattering light. They didn't portray the voices of Indian. So in that respect, both Jin Patrol on the Purple Line and the Last of Earth, at the heart of both the books is the idea that we can recover certain voices through fiction. And that's certainly my attempt, I would say, in writing Jim Patrol, because the main narrator in the novel is a nine year old boy named Jay, who is very naive and innocent, but also has these ideas about himself, about his time, talent and skill as a detective, as many children do. It was really important for me to stay within that perspective. Whereas if I were to write that story as an adult, I would definitely comment on the unfairness of that society, you know, which allows certain people to be incredibly wealthy and rich. And while the other half is, you know, so poor they don't even have water or basic sanitation. And I would have commented on the. Those aspects of infrastructure, on the failures of governance and authority, none of which I could do because it was a child's point of view. And I felt that was really essential to that story because it's such a dark story and it needed liberty and it could only come from that child's point of view. And perspective of the world in which they're living very closely. Only in that moment, they're not thinking about what will happen 10 years later or what is going to be the consequence if I do a certain thing. Because as a child, you're really caught up in that moment. You just want to have fun and, you know, you're thinking about food, you're thinking about playing with other kids. So that kind of perspective really helped me tell what is essentially a very harrowing story without it. Without losing the humanity of the characters, because I felt that was a real risk, that people would only see the trauma if they read the story in an adult's perspective, where I as telling it from a child's point of view helped me foreground their humanity. And similarly, with the Last of Earth, it has two perspectives. One is that of an Indian surveyor who spied in Tibet for the British Empire. And this is, again, a voice that we don't see in the historical records, which are all written by the British. And they would read these exploration accounts in the Royal Geographical Society here in London, you know, talking about how. How they learned about the cartography of a particular country like Tibet, about altitudes and rivers, the location of mountains, which were very important for them because mapping was a way in which they expanded their empire. So learning about the contours of a landscape helped them figure out how they could control that landscape. So cartography was always a tool of colonialism, and there were Indians who helped them do that. But we don't see the perspectives of Indians as interested in that, you know, in how they understood that mission themselves. Was there a fracture of the self or, you know, how did they understand what they were doing? Because essentially, they're betraying Tibetans, who are much closer to them in culture than the British. So I was interested in that question of exploring what it meant to their identity to be undertaking such missions. The other perspective is from that of. It's the voice of a woman. Woman who is 50 years old, and she wants to be the first European woman to reach Lhasa. And again, she's based on accounts of female explorers that I read from that time who were, you know, they were. It was a time in which there were very strict Victorian morals restricting the freedoms of women. But at the same time, there were these female explorers who traveled to different parts of the world and where there could be a different version of themselves that they could. Shouldn't be, you know, back in London or wherever they're from. So it's interested in exploring these two accounts and the variation between what we see in the historical record and what might have been their experience, which I try to fill in through, you know, my imagination.
- [48:47]
Bianca Murray
Yeah, very much. What you said early on is something that I'm experiencing with my latest novel because I was going to write it in the third person because it's also from a child's perspective. But I found myself soapboxing. I found myself getting up onto the soapbox and being, you know, me being pissed off about these injustices and yelling about them. And that completely takes away from, you know, the kind of undiluted story that you are trying to tell. So again, we're always saying to our listeners, be very intentional with the point of view you choose. Now, Deepa, you could have written Balram or Catherine from the first person in this novel. So again, going back to intentionality, why the third person? I do know that we get Catherine's diary entries or letters in the first person. And I love how we see what she crosses out because this speaks to what you were saying earlier. There were certain things that they would not allow people to see the truth of. So there's so many things where she self edits. But again, in terms of intentionality, why didn't you feel either of the point of views would have worked in the first person?
- [49:51]
Deepa Apara
This is something that I think about quite a lot because, you know, I edited co edited Letters to a Writer of Color, which is a collection of essays on what does good writing mean. If you move away from that very American, MFA centric point of view and, you know, the number of American novels, they do center the individual. And I think the first person point of view is something that works if you really want to foreground the individual. Whereas with this book I very much wanted to talk about the history of both of a place and a people that is not there in the historical record. And for that reason, I felt that I needed the third person to have a little bit of distance from the interior of the characters and to make sure that it didn't come across as is just one person's experience. So I think my argument would be that Balram's experience is not just Balram's experience, that it's the experience of many Indians or Catherine's experience is not just her experience, but of many people who were mixed race and who didn't quite know whether they were British or Indian. And you know, they would have subsumed one part of their identity so that they could continue living a certain life.
- [51:07]
Katie Burnett
Life.
- [51:07]
Deepa Apara
And I. I felt that the best way for me to bring out these aspects in the story was through first, through third person. I did have a different version of the novel in which I tried first person, and I felt that it just didn't. It didn't work for this particular story. So I think I threw away around 30,000 words at some point and started all over again.
- [51:29]
Bianca Murray
I love that because I'm always saying on the podcast that you need to circle the building of your work to find the best, best entry point into it and to figure out, you know, what you want to say and to make a solid foundation. And for me, that's always the case. It'll be first person, third person, second person, past tense, present tense, as you try and figure it out. So I love that somebody of your caliber experiences the same thing, because, again, it speaks to our listeners that no matter what point of your career you're at, no matter how many awards you've won, you still have to circle the building to find your entry point, point. So that's. That's true to my experience. I want to really speak deeper about the specificity that you brought to a novel like this and how it brought the novel alive. Not just the historical accuracy, but there were things like characters, mannerisms. You had somebody digging in their ear with their pinky finger and then wiping wax off on their clothing. You had people chronically, like, smoothing their clothing. There were gestures and there were mannerisms that were so particular to people. And then, of course, course, you know, in terms of writing a book that takes place in the 19th century, in terms of the equipment they used, there was just so much specificity. So I know a lot of that is research, because you have to research it to bring it to the page. But in terms of specificity, when it comes to mannerisms to the way characters speak, that's not research. That's observation, and that's learning through observation. Can you speak a bit about that for us?
- [52:59]
Deepa Apara
I think you put it really well. There's almost nothing for me to add to that. I'll definitely say that, yes, I did a lot of research. You know, I had the idea in 2009, so I spent nearly 10 years researching the book, and some of it was really hard to find because, as I said, these, you know, the experiences of Indians just don't exist in the records. So you have to look at the documents that do exist and construct the Indian consciousness from what's there. So that was. That was tough. But definitely that research helped me, you know, create the setting and create the kind of experience that they would have had mimicking what would have really happened in terms of gestures, definitely there was a lot of observation, especially when I traveled to Tibet, and I traveled to Tibet at the end of her first draft. So every detail was not there at the beginning. But then once I travel through Tibet, you know, you can notice the kind of. Kind of gestures that people do have. The kind of nervousness that something like an expedition or, you know, crossing a mountain which is 18,000ft, that creates a certain level of anxiety in people. And how do you respond to that? So, you know, I was looking at myself and I was also looking at others, but also on a day to day basis. I think what we have to do as writers is to keenly observe the world. And if there's anything that you notice, you know, you take notes either on your phone or if you have a notebook, you want to take notes. And especially if you see people doing something that, that may seem quite unusual. So for instance, this person, it was not that they were digging wax, but that they were immediately eating something almost immediately after that, which is, you know, and you wouldn't even, you know, it might be something that makes you go. But for them it's nothing. It's just something that they do every day. So you want to notice. If you notice something like that, I think it's good to put it down somewhere or to store it in your brain, if you have a good brain, which I no longer have. So I have to take everything down. And it's strange how, you know, where it may come up. It may not go in the project that you're working on immediately, but it might, it might actually, actually find a place two or three years later or five years later in, you know, something else that you're writing, which is completely unrelated to what you were thinking about at that time. So close observation at all times, I think, really essential for a writer. And with my students, what I see is that they're so focused on their phones that they never look up and, you know, they don't notice the world at all. So I think it is really a skill that we are losing as human and maybe as writers, it's something that we can cultivate and, you know, do it intentionally every day, I would say. And it is so much fun as well to see how people behave and respond in certain moments.
- [55:53]
Bianca Murray
Yeah, I love all of that. I'm someone who will sit in an airport and just people watch for ages and I will listen in on conversations quite unabashedly. I'm like, if you're going to talk so loud, then I'm allowed to listen to whatever the heck it is you saying. And that really does. Does inform my writing in terms of the eavesdropping. So, yeah, I feel like writers need to be in tune with their environment, whether they're traveling or at home, because I think it really helps inform the work as well. I want to also chat about writing on the line level. So, you know, something I struggle with all the time is I love metaphor, I love simile. But you don't want to lean so far into it that you're going into purple prose and it's over the top. But some writers write so sparingly that there's never a metaphor or a simile in anything that they write. So, I mean, people can argue for hours what constitutes good writing. But with your book the Last of Earth, I had my sort of highlighter with me, and I was highlighting certain sentences and certain metaphors and similes that were just so beautiful. So, again, you know, is that something that comes to you in the first draft? Is it something that you come back to later and polish? And again, how do you straddle the line of leaning into that beautiful writing but not so much that it becomes too distracting for the reader?
- [57:08]
Deepa Apara
That's such a good question and something that I think about all the time. I was reading Katie Kutamura's Audition recently, and at the lines level, it's so clean and polished and elegant, and it seems to work for her characters and the story that she wants to tell. And I think that is really the key to it. The key to it is to think about what is the. How is the character going to respond to the situation? When I wrote my first novel, because the main narrator is a child, I had to use similes and metaphors or images based on what his interests would be. So if he spoke like a person with a doctorate, you know, it would be. It would ring untrue. So I had to make sure that all the symbols that he used was based on what he was interested in. And his interests are very limited. He's interested in TV shows, He's interested in food. He's interested in animals. So I had to make sure that, you know, if he was drawing for a comparison or reaching for a comparison, it had to be something within his world and, you know, within his understanding. And I think making sure that you're following those guidelines, it really helps. Helps with crafting the sentence. So I think if you think of somebody who is experiencing the world in a very Composed or detached manner. They may not use that many similes or metaphors or images. Whereas with this book, the Last of Earth, it's set in the 19th century. It's a different time. And, you know, they are trekking through Tibet. So they have vast amounts of time, and they're essentially doing nothing. It's just, you know, them, they're around each other, but mostly there with their thoughts. So I felt that there was in this book, I had that opportunity to be more expansive in the kind of language that I used, because they had that time. And it was the 19th century when people were reading books for pleasure. And there was almost no other form of entertainment apart from reading. And then there was also the fact that the landscape was of Tibet. It is so vivid and so rich that you are constantly drawing for comparisons to understand what it is that you're seeing. Because it's such a huge landscape and you feel like a very small, you know, part of the universe. You're very aware of how, you know, if. If you have an ego. I recommend walking through Tibet because then, you know, you'll feel like a small insect. So you have to try and understand what it is that you're seeing because the weather is always changing. The clouds are so close to Earth. You know, you see all these different kinds of animals, which may be a figment of your imagination. The altitude is very high, the air is thin, and you can't really. You know, your thoughts are everywhere. What you're seeing might be just, you know, because you don't have enough oxygen in your brain. So I felt that to convey all that, that experience of being in that land, I had to, you know, my characters would try and understand through. Understand that through imagery and metaphor. But say, if I were to write it, if I were to write a contemporary novel, you know, a novel set in London, for instance, I just don't think I would be. You know, my characters would not be using any of those images. I think most of the images in this novel are really connected to the natural world because that's their experience at that point. And I feel. Feel that is, for me, a useful defining characteristic. While thinking about what kind of language should I use, you know, with Jinpetrol? Some people will say I just hate reading child narrators because they're so limited. But they're limited in. In a different way. They can be quite colorful in how they understand and how they represent the world. And it is, I think, on us as writers, to be truthful, in how we portray the experiences of characters. And I think part of, you know, it's a huge part of that is deciding what is the voice of this character going to be. And for this novel, it just felt appropriate to reach for those metaphors and images mostly associated with the world around them, with the natural world around them.
- [61:19]
Bianca Murray
I love that so much. There was a line where the one character said, I think he said sunlight is the poor man's coat or something along those lines. And I was just like, like highlighting. That is amazing because it's like just rings so true. And it's something that character would think about. Deepa, I still have a ton of questions, but we are unfortunately out of time for our listeners. I am holding up the Last of Earth and we linking to it on our bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy the book from there, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time. Deepa, thank you so much for joining us.
- [61:53]
Deepa Apara
Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun. Thank you for the great questions as well, Bianca.
- [61:59]
Bianca Murray
And that's it for today's episode. I hope you'll join us for next week's show. In the meantime, keep at it. Remember, it just takes one. Yes, Hi there. We've got a lot we're really excited to tell you about, but I'm going to make this real quick so you can get to the episode. The Deep Dive is coming up at the end of January. The lineup of speakers is incredible and the range of topics is mind blowing. You do not want to miss out on the last Deep dive ever. Then the beta reader matchup is open once again, with the matchups going out early in February. Sign up to kick your creative year off with a bang. Lastly, there's an amazing writer's workbook available which will make the perfect gift for you or the writer in your life. Head to our website the ShitAboutWriting to find out more.