← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Knowing the Shape of Your Story
00:31:40
Author Interview Kristen Arnett
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- [00:00]
Cece Leera
Hello from cc. I'm so excited to announce an all new class called Starting It Right which is all about how to begin your story in the best place and in the best way. Now this is going to be a four day class so come prepared to take lots of notes. We'll cover the different types of beginnings and how to choose the best one for your story, how to frame your inciting incident in a compelling way, common mistakes writers make when starting a story, how how to balance exposition and mystery, how to make readers connect with your protagonist and how to make the reader want to turn to the next chapter and so much more. And guess what? For the first time ever, there will be an interactive component to my class. Everyone who is registered will have the option of sending in the opening scene of their work for a chance to be critiqued during the webinar. Writers of all categories and genres are invited to attend and there are limited spots, so if you're interested, sign up now. And don't worry if you can't attend one or more live sessions because the recording will be sent to everyone who is registered. This class will begin on March 20th and like I said, will go on for four days. For more details, check out the link in my bio on Instagram. I hope to see you there.
- [01:19]
Bianca Murray
Would you like to do some good in the world while also standing in line to win amazing literary prizes? Of course you would. I'm hosting a fundraiser for a cause that's close to my heart, which is Literacy in South Africa. The Masana Library Project aims to make the future of South African learners brighter by improving their education and supplying a South African high school with the kind of basic resources that we take for granted in North America. Of course, there are a host of amazing literary prizes up for grabs if you donate to this wonderful cause. They include developmental edits, coaching packages, manuscript critiques and so much more. To learn more about the cause as well as the prizes and our brilliant and generous sponsors, head to Biancamarae.com and go to the fundraiser tab. Entries close at 8am Eastern Time on 10 April, after which the lucky winners will be announced. Hi there and welcome to our show the no one tells you about writing. I'm Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Carly Waters and Cece Leera from PS Literary Agency. Today's guest is the queer Floridian, author of With a Novel, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Fiction and the New York Times best selling debut novel Mostly Dead Things, which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabal First Novelist Award. She was awarded a Shearing Fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, has held residencies at Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio center, the Malay Colony, and the Studios of Key west, and was long listed for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She runs the substack dad Lessons. Her work has appeared at the New York Times, Time Vogue, the Cut, Oprah Magazine, PBS NewsHour, the Guardian, Salon, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. She has a Master's in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and lives in Orlando, Florida. It's my pleasure to welcome Kristin Arnett. Kristen, welcome to the show.
- [03:37]
Kristin Arnett
Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:39]
Bianca Murray
I'm so excited to get to speak to you because this book is unlike so many books and I know you are going to be unlike so many authors I speak to. So before we dive into our interview, one thing that I do want to tell our listeners. I know many of you listen while you have children in the car and you're ferrying them backwards and forwards, playgroups and all kinds of things. We kind of putting adult content warning on this episode because I'm not quite sure where things are going to go and I love that about this. So don't say you haven't been warned. Okay, two those of you who are watching on our YouTube channel will see the COVID of the book that I'm holding up at. Stop me if you've heard this one. Awesome, awesome cover. And I'm going to read you the flat copy to give you some context. Cherry Hendrix is a professional clown who creates zany fun all over Orlando. She's constantly hustling until she meets meets Margot the Magnificent, a much older lesbian magician who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business and life and who is sexy as hell. It's not long before Cherry must decide how much she's willing to risk for Margot and for her own explosive new act and what kind of clown she wants to be. Equal parts bravado, tenderness and humor and bursting with misfits, magicians and mimes. Stop me if you've heard this one is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art, friendship and community and the importance of timing in jokes and in life, Right? So Kristen, mostly Dead Things had taxidermists in it, right? And now you have clowns and an exotic pet store. I was sitting thinking, you must have led the world's most interesting life ever to be able to write about these things authentically. Until I saw that Masters in Library and Information science and figured, okay, this woman has researched the shit out of these topics, so can you take us through that, please?
- [05:35]
Kristin Arnett
Absolutely. I would say that being a librarian has 100% affected the way that I approach fiction in my writing career. I genuinely love doing research. So anytime I get, like, obsessed with a topic or excited about a topic, my brain immediately is like, pings. And I'm like, oh, yay. I get to do a ton of research now. So with this book in particular, I'd already done a lot of research about taxidermy, because that was not something I'd ever done before for my first novel. And that was a specific kind of research, too. It was like, a lot of, like, taxidermy manuals, a lot of, like, YouTube videos about things that probably, like, if somebody had come up behind me on the reference desk when I was working at the library, would have worried I was a serial killer. But for this, it was. I mean, maybe they would also be worried I was a serial killer if they came up behind me looking up clown videos. I was looking up a lot of different things about different kinds of clowning because I think that's another thing that gets me really excited about research. When I start researching something and I discovered that there's so much more to know than I originally had thought. So for looking up things about clowning, I started off knowing I wanted to have somebody who was a birthday party clown. And I'm like, okay, I know what that entails. At least I thought I did. You know, I'm like, I understand that it includes, you know, balloon animals, the kind of clothes that you would wear, like a set time of arrival and a kind of payment, and, like, you know, silk scarves, maybe a little magic stuff that's, like, very simplistic and fun for kids at a birthday party. And then when I started doing a lot of research into clowns, I'm like, oh, there's so many more different kinds of clowning than I had assumed. And also a very large community of people who do clowning and are very serious about it. So it was something where I was like, I need to be, like, incredibly respectful while I'm looking at this kind of research, because people are serious about it, and they get very offended very easily because it's like. I mean, it's a profession where people shit on it a lot. People are like, this is, like, something that's not taken seriously. But the people who are genuinely in clowning do it because they care a lot. And it's. It's art for Them. And I was like, oh, living in Orlando and a place where people consider it's a tourist industry here, people come to use your resources, and it's a center for hospitality. And then they leave and they consider you tacky when they're the ones that came here to enjoy what we have. It's something where I was like, oh, this fits, like, right into things I really care about when I'm working. So it was like researching how. Yeah, still that same stuff about how to make balloon animals, but also was doing a lot of research into, like, comedic timing. How do jokes work? How does humor sit inside of situations? Like inside of clowning, but also, like, looking up, like, how standup comedians would do stuff. Look up how drag and performance arts, like, these things all are, like putting on a Persona. So it ended up being, like, really sprawling kind of research. That was a lot of fun.
- [08:32]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. And the more you know, the more you realize you know nothing as you go along, which is why research can sometimes be a stalling tactic to get started. I think for a lot of writers, we use it as procrastination. It's like, oh, I don't quite know everything yet, so I'm not going to write it. So that's something we need to guard against. But, you know, I've always fallen into the category of people who are terrified of clowns since I was a child. It's not that horror movies have done it for me. I'm like, phoebe Buffet, there's nothing scarier than a clown. And then you give us Cherry, who doesn't want to do anything else. She hustles her ass off to be a clown, to live this life. And you gave me that, like, aha moment as to why somebody would want to do this and how it makes her feel, in a way, connected to her late brother, who was considered the funny one in the family. And how for some people, clowning is an attempt to deal with trauma or loss as well. Can you tell us how you climbed into Cherry's skin like that? And at what particular point or part of the draft did you authentically feel like you were cherry?
- [09:41]
Kristin Arnett
That's a really good question. I think part of this process for me is when I began the idea for this book, I sat and thought about it for a whole year before I ever put pen to paper. I was like, I want to be so ready to sit down with this particular person and be very much in their head that I was like, I can't fuck this up. I was like, I need to be thinking about who she is, what she wants, the kind of, like, voice she has. Because I also knew I wanted it to be a very voicey, first person kind of book because I wanted it to sound like somebody really funny next to you, a string, a funny stranger next to you at the bar. You're having the best night. Because they're just so funny. And I was like, that's the voice and the vibe I want. And so I thought about it for a whole year and I had, like, a little word document that I put. Like, if I was like, I can't forget this. Like, when I came up with, like, Aquarium Select 3, I was like, this is such a great, like, other, like, side job for her to have side hustle that I need to remember what this is. So I put that in, or I put, like, little, maybe a little joke I thought of that I wanted to remember to put in. But for the most part, I thought about clowns. Clowning. I collected a lot of, like, images and memes and videos because that's, like, what I was more interested in having. I wanted it to be like a full scale clown car inside of my head. Maybe. I wanted to be like that before I ever touched a page. And then it was about a year, and I woke up one morning and I was like, I'm ready. I'm ready to sit down. I knew exactly how I was going to start this book. I knew the first chapter was going to go. Because I'm not a person who outlines. I really just kind of go for it. And so I sat down and as I was writing, and I was like, there she is. Like, she was right there. And I know so much of this is because I waited a full, truly a full calendar year before. I was like, I'm. I'm going to write her story. And I was like, her voice was immediately there. I knew the exact kind of person. She was like, she's a mess, but she's, like, not messy when it comes to her work for the most part, because she cares so deeply about this thing. I knew, like, where she was in the scheme of, like, being in Orlando. I, like, I knew, like, who her friends were going to be. I knew, like, the kind of relationship she was going to have with her parents. I knew, like, the kind of way she was going to feel about her brother. And then there were still, like, fun surprises for me as I was writing. Like, things that popped out that I wasn't anticipating because that's what makes writing a draft fun for me. I Feel like if I'm bored writing something, that the reader is going to be incredibly bored. So this was a book where I had the most joyful time writing it. And I think that, like, to answer your question, I think that's when I knew that I had her, because I felt so. Even though it's a book that deals with grief and loss and trauma, it's a book that's so completely joyful and still, like, is looking at this kind of, I mean, to use a cliche phrase, like, glass half full situation. Like, no matter how many times the world kind of crushes her down, she's like, I'm getting back up. I'm dusting off my clown shoes. I'm going back out there. I'm going to work for the thing that I feel so strongly about. And that thing is, like, art for her, and for her, art is clouding. And so I feel like as I was writing and felt that kind of joy working through it, that's when I was like, her voice is here, and this is going and doing what I wanted to do.
- [12:46]
Bianca Murray
Yeah, it's amazing. And a lot of people think it's so easy to do that in the first person voice. They're like, oh, it's in the first person. So it's easy to capture the voice. But sometimes it's so difficult because it's like, where does your voice as the author end? And where do you like Cherry's voice to begin? And so it isn't always that simple. It's so easy to interject the whole time, putting yourself into the story, and it's her story, and you've got to let her run with it. She felt so authentic to me. She felt like that messy kind of friend who you have so much fun with, but you just sometimes want to grab them and be like, get your shit together, man. Like, come on. Like, get your together. But you still love them because they're so lovable and they're just amazing. And, yeah, she just felt so authentic to me. So often talk on the podcast about how you need to surprise your readers, how it's so important in opening pages especially to surprise people, to give them some kind of jolt. And nobody has done it better than Kristen has in this book.
- [13:46]
Cece Leera
Book.
- [13:46]
Bianca Murray
So we're going to just hear a word from our sponsors first, and then I'm going to get her to read some of those pages to you. And once again, I'm giving you that adult content warning. Okay. All right. Here's a word from our sponsors.
- [13:59]
Carly Waters
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- [15:51]
Bianca Murray
Okay, and we're back. Right. So will you please read us the first sort of two and a half pages? Kristen?
- [15:57]
Kristin Arnett
Yeah, happily so. This opening chapter is called Cold Open. You can tell a joke one of two ways. One, open your mouth and say the damn thing. Two, wait for someone else to try and tell it for you. The second way is almost always funnier. People don't want to hear a punchline they want to feel like they've beaten you to it. Pretend you're dumber than the audience, at least at first, and suddenly you've got them eating from the palm of your hand. The real gag is waiting behind the scenes, tucked neatly inside the fake out. It's an actual diamond ring disguised as a gaudy cubic zirconia. I'm telling this to the woman from the birthday party, but she's not listening. Her eyes have that far away look, sleepy with desire. Lips part to reveal a slip of tongue and a back tooth gone inky with rotten. I've got her up on the sink, underwear pulled down. She's jiggling her legs rapidly, knees knocking together because I'm taking too long. She's been after it since she opened the front door and found me waiting on her porch. Listen, I've been busy for the past two and a half hours I've entertained her six year old son Danny and his entire First Blade class in a sprawling suburban central Florida backyard. I built zoo animals from stringy multi hued balloons and pulled never ending scarves from the ends of my belly sleeves. The bulbous yellow daisy on my lapel has shot water at the woman's husband, soaking the neck of his expensive Ralph Lauren polo. I've thrown a whipped cream pie into the moon of a child's upturned face and spritz seltzer at an elderly schnauzer who took my rented pant leg between its tiny razor teeth and yanked until the hem unraveled. Come on, she says, voice breathy and impatient. Hurry. There's a swath of black hairs lining the top of her right ankle, a sprawl of red dots climbing the inside of her bare thigh from a shaving rash. She kicks free of her underwear and almost knees my nose off in the rush to get naked. I reach up to write it, smearing a lick of grease paint on my gloved fingertips. I'll have to wash them with dish soap right when I get home or else they'll stain. I tell her this, but she doesn't care about that either. We've got 10 minutes, she says, which means we've got less time than that. I keep my clothes on because that's what she wants. The baggy polka dot blazer, the orange striped shirt and gold bow tie, the purple spangled suspenders. My oversized pair parachute pants with their lines of glittery silver thread outlining the sperm shaped squiggles of bright neon green. My shiny red shoes are long enough to bang into the side of the toilet bowl as I wrench off her blouse, buttons plink onto the black and white tiled floor. Finally, she wraps her legs around my waist, feet bouncing against my back as I slip off a glove with my teeth so I can slide my fingers inside her. She looks away from my bare hand, not wanting to see anything that's not clown. She's paying for clown and has wanted clown since she called the agency's number two months earlier to plan her son's birthday party. She stares hungrily at my painted face, the wide slick of paint that surrounds my mouth, the black and indigo triangles that shape my eyes, the iconic red foam nose that holds my overly hot breath inside its spongy interior. The wig I wear is powder blue curls, springy and cute, like a deranged Shirley Temple who just got back from Burning Man. Atop the wig sits a tiny rhinestone and suede cowboy hat that I picked up one afternoon at a pet shop, which is now a staple of my clowning gear. I'm Funko, a rodeo clown who's terrified of horses, goes over great with kids, so we're gonna skip ahead where they're having a lovely time together. And it gets interrupted. One more solid push and my pants finally tear. Someone grabs my leg and yanks off one of my oversized shoes as I slither through the opening. I fall forward into the brazenly hot Florida afternoon, landing face first in a thatch of bougainvillea. My blazer snags on the thorns as I roll free, knocking into a pair of garbage bins. It's always the jokes that go off the rail that work best, I think, as my own shoe flies from the open window and whacks me hard in the neck. The beauty of it stuns me for a moment, and I stand in the sunshine and watch the shoe roll down the hill and land in a nearby flower bed, squashing a clutch of fuchsia peonies. You fucking clown. The woman's husband yells it again, in case I missed it the first time. You goddamn fucking clown. He chucks a shampoo bottle at my head. I duck and it smacks into the side of the garbage bin, Pantene spurting from the broken lid. I take off down the street at a gallop, abandoning my clown kit in the middle of the couple's living room. It's full of stuff I need for work, $150 worth of makeup and gear, and as I'm running for my life, I realize that the man isn't wrong. The punchline sitting right there I'm a literal fucking clown.
- [20:26]
Bianca Murray
Oh, man. That chapter had me laughing so hard. And you know what? After reading this chapter, I immediately knew that you're an essayist without me having done any research. I was like, okay, you're an essayist because of how you bring us back full circle to that opening statement with that closing. It's like the punchline of a joke. Can you give our listeners any advice about writing fiction this way? And you know how advisable it is sometimes to use that kind of essay structure within chapters.
- [20:58]
Kristin Arnett
Yeah, I think it's one of those things where when I'm writing fiction, especially a novel work, I would say it works a little differently for me in short fiction versus novel work. Like, those two things, like, operate differently in my head. For instance, in a short story, I kind of know it's like an image for me. I kind of. I describe it usually as like a snow globe. Whatever's contained in there, like, sits neatly inside of it, and there's not anything on the outside, that story sits in there. But for a novel, right? It's expansive. It's a much bigger world. It bursts out of the snow globe. It's like living. It's spilled everywhere. So if I'm thinking about especially developing a chapter and, like, what. What sits inside of a chapter that still is connective tissue to the rest of the body of work, I know that it needs to start at a place and not necessarily conclude, but stop at a place that feels still contained but holistic to the rest of the book. So this book in particular, structure becomes a thing for me. I think of it in terms of shape. So each book I've done has felt like a particular shape. My first novel, mostly Dead Things, felt a little like sewing. I had alternating chapters where, like, the past and the present, and the present was like in a linear line going straight forward, like a stitch. And the past is like how the past usually presents, right? Where we don't get to choose when we remember something. So memories come piecemeal all over the place and something triggers it. And that felt like the jagged kind of stitch, and they're overlaid on top of each other. Felt like sewing, which matched up with taxidermy. This book, to me, felt like the trajectory of a joke. I wanted each chapter to feel like its own bit like its own thing. And so how do we work a joke, right? Like a joke needs to start at a place, a recognizable place to draw the listener in, or the reader, in this case. It starts at a recognizable place and then goes into a direction and then suddenly veers off course to surprise. Right. Because so much of the enjoyment of a joke is the surprise that still holds the integrity of the original thing. And then conclusion is still like, pulling down from that and traces back to the orig. So each chapter for me in this book, I was like, even though it's telling a holistic story over the course of the novel, I want each chapter to be its own joke. So each chapter is its own different title for each one. That's kind of like a jokey bit and each is doing its kind of own thing. And so I would say that that's like, stylistically, like, maybe you're not doing that, you know? Right. Like, you're not necessarily writing a joke book for yourself, but you can still think, like, what. What is the shape of the project I'm making? I worked at a Tin House summer workshop with Sam Chang, who heads up, like, Iowa Writers Workshop. And she is always constantly, like, if she's working with anybody in workshops, she's like, you need to tell me what shape this is. If you don't know the shape of it, your reader doesn't understand it either. And then people get lost inside the structure. So for myself, I kind of sit and think, like, what is the shape of this? And I think thinking about shape can really help you to be like, here's where I need to start and here's where I need to, like, kind of wind up. And it helps it feel a little holistic and hold everything. Like, you don't want it to feel open ended. Because I think, right. Like, some people are like, I have good starts, but, like, harder conclusions. Or someone's like, I do a great job with conclusion, and I have a harder at the start. But if you think of those things as connective tissue throughout that they have to touch each other, then that's going to help you in terms of, like, keeping that tight and making sure that they touch each other and make a good fun story and help with a surprise.
- [24:22]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. Talking about structure somewhere where it was really obvious how well you had done this was sort of in the middle of the book. Page 99, we've got Margot the Magnificent. So finally, Cherry has her moment with Margot. And the structuring here was incredible. So firstly, you move from the first person voice into the second person voice as opposed to I. Cherry is speaking in the second person. Right. And the way these chapters are structured is the way a magician would do things. So you have one chapter called Appearance, then Levitation, then Mentalism then penetration, restoration, transformation, transposition, and vanishing. And this kind of explains, like, how these two come together and what happens between them. And you frame that all in the way of magicians act. And I love the intentionality and the deliberateness that was brought here because this is what we're always saying. Whatever you do, do it with intentionality. So can you speak a bit about that?
- [25:27]
Kristin Arnett
Yeah, that was something where it was a fun surprise for myself as I was working, because I love surprises. As I said, when I'm writing, I love to get to a point where I'm like, oh, this is going to happen. Great. Because that feels so fun for me. And this was one where, when I arrived at it, as I was writing through, I knew that I wanted this to be different. I was like, this is kind of the middle of the book. I really want this to be about magic. I want this to be about these two women coming together and what that looks like. And I was like, I need it to be Cherry's voice, but I also need it to not be Cherry's voice because she's so voicey and she takes up so much space on the page that I was like, that's not what this chapter is about. This chapter is about, like, the intimacy of these two coming together and, like, what magic happens. And I was like, it's also about the magician. It's not about the clown right here. So it's like, it needs to have a different structure. It needs to have a different tone. And as soon as I started writing, I went into second person. And I was like, okay, I can. This is the surprise for myself. This is going to be second person. I also was like, the shape of it is going to look different because it's not necessarily the clown story anymore. It's the magician's connection. And so I was like, these are going to be these little headlined bits, and they're going to be like, little things. And it's going to include, like, they're right, like they're interlude together, but it's also going to include this very specific kind of magic show that's happening and how intense and how important and how mysterious and how awe inspiring it is. And I was like, I want it to have a different tone. I want it to look different. It needs to have second person. So it naturally came together. And as I was talking with my editing crew and we started doing copy edits, they wanted to smash all these together into one chapter. And I was like, I need you guys to not do that. I was like, These need to be on their own pages. They need to feel like chapter breaks. And I know they're short, but that's purposeful. I need these breaths in between. So that was like, the intentionality for these was like, I need the white space in between on the page so each thing can feel like its own very specific kind of part of the magic act. And if it's crushed together, it's not going to give you that same feeling as of, like, space on the page. Turn the page new. And I was like, I need the headlines to all be bold. I need them all to feel like that. And so. And that was something I was very adamant about. But this was a. It was one where I reached it. I wrote it in a day and changed, like, next to nothing. And it. I knew exactly what I needed to do when I got there. And again, it was so fun to write, but it's probably the one chapter I wrote where it wasn't the same kind of. You know, how I described it? Like, this was, like, a joyful process of writing. This was like. I felt so intrigued. It felt mysterious and sexy. Felt like Margot, like the magician. It felt like Margot's vibe. And so I writing it, I felt like. It felt very deeply intense. And it was, like, such a fun process because it was so different than the rest of the book. And it felt perfectly placed to me as well, because I have other chapters that are trying out some different things, right? Like, with shape or structure. But this one, very specifically, I was like, like, you're gonna hit the middle of this book, and it's gonna be magic, and then we're gonna go back into the clown. And so that was purposeful and intentional in terms of, like, as soon as I started it, I knew what I needed to do to make that sound like that then also got to be very surprising for me because I didn't know what that was gonna look like. I knew it would be different, but I was like, let's. I was like, let's try some stuff out. And it just really worked, like, immediately. And it was so. It was fun to write, but in a completely different kind of way, I think.
- [28:51]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. When that happens, it almost feels like you're channeling something, you know, something beyond yourself. That's when writing, for me, becomes mystical. You know, it's coming from inside you, but because you haven't planned it. The things just coming, you know, in. Into your fingertips as you busy writing. And then you're just like, oh, this is marvelous. And I'm so glad that you pushed back at the editors. Because I think so much in writing, we're like, oh, editors know best. And so especially emerging authors or debut authors will be like, oh, okay, fine, I'm going to do that, because you know best. But this worked so brilliantly. We needed each of those mini chapter headings. We needed those breaks, exactly as you said. So let this be a lesson for our listeners that, you know, we have to listen a lot of the time to edit and to polish and to make something better. But there are instances where we really have to hold firm and stick to the courage of our convictions. I just wanted to read this one section, page 12 and 13, for our listeners to show you the kind of masterful ways you can give the reader a shortcut into a character's insight. And it doesn't have to be paragraphs and paragraphs and pages. Have a look at what Kristin does here. Your name's Cherry. She sniffles hard. That's exotic. Not really. My name is actually Cheryl, but nobody except my mother has called me that since I moved out at 18. Cherry is a good time, a person who owns a muscle car and drinks straight gin and parties till three in the morning. Cheryl is the name of the person who does taxes for a living and drives a sensible, buff colored sedan. Cheryl is Nancy's letdown of a daughter, Dwight's disappointing younger sister, who was never as funny or as cool or as smart as he was. But Cherry belongs only to herself, and she's beyond fine with that. That was just a masterstroke in, like, shortcut, immediately getting the reader to know exactly who this character is while giving backstory and while giving context.
- [30:44]
Kristin Arnett
Yeah, that was because I knew right away who she was. And it was something too. Where. Because right in scene, like, because she's a clown too. These are all Personas, because her clown Persona is bunko, something she puts on. And then she's like, now this is what I am. But also her Persona is Cherry, right? So I was like, okay, like what? And this is a very deeply, I think, human thing, right? What's the kind of, like, person we put on when we're going into work, when we're going on a date, when we're talking to our kids, when we're talking to our boss, when we're talking to a friend? Like, what are the kind of, like, things that we put on and, like, want to be and act like? And some of this is subconscious and a lot of it is unconscious behavior, but it's all very deeply human. So I think what helps me when I'm trying to get right? Because there's tricks and tips we can do for trying to see, like, what, you know, like, what does a person kind of look like without being like, she stopped in front of a mirror and assessed her, like, face and, like, what she was wearing. You know, it can be as much as, like, interaction with one other person, what that sets off in you. So sometimes I'm like, how is this interaction that a character is having with another character, be it someone they knows well, someone they don't know at all, someone that's an acquaintance, someone's a coworker. How does an interaction with them help them from a beat or a moment, think something about themselves? And it doesn't need to be a lot. I think a little can go a long way. And I'll try that out in different places, usually in a project. And there's some stuff that, like, sticks instead of stuff that I end up going through in a draft and deleting because I'm like, this is enough. Like, we already know this about her or we don't need that part. Like, it's, like, superfluous. Like, it makes the text kind of slow down. It feels tacky, like, sticky. So this was one where I was like, this is just enough. And then later on in the chapter, she has an interaction with, like, her best friend Darcy, who she works with, and she has, like, a different thought process of herself within that moment, you know, so I'm like, who she is, like, thinking about, like, what the stranger has to say about her name that she's given herself, right? Makes her think about the ways in which, like, this other person that she was before doesn't serve her. Then the ways in which, like, when she's interacting with her best friend, what's the version of the person that she is right then when she's with her best best friend and get a little bit of that there. And I think, like, putting these in, like, kind of peppering them throughout, like a novel. And you can do this in a short story, too. It's harder. You have to be, like, way more selective, I think, and be so, so purposeful. Like, exacto knife slice. But with a novel, you can be more playful. You have so many characters that you can bounce off of and be like, you know, like, how do they interact with a server at a restaurant? Who are they at a bar when they're having a drink? Like, these kind of things. And, like, how they can think for. Pop into their head for a moment. Because we all do this. It's like, such a deeply human response. And it's fun. It's a way to get to know a character without feeling like you're flooding the reader with, like, information overload or taking them too far out of scene. Because I always try and be mindful of that. A note that I've had taped to my computer probably for like five years, maybe longer. Oh, my God. Maybe like eight years. Is like, the present needs to be just as interesting as the past, because I think we have a propensity as people. Like, nostalgia is like a dangerous weapon, and we like the past even in our characters. Like, this is something we bring as people into our fiction writing, where we'll take our characters out of scene because the past and a memory that they're interested in is, like, shinier, more interesting. And it's so funny to me. I think that's a fascinating thing because it's interesting to us as people. So we bring that baggage into our characters. And so I'm always like, in scene needs to be just as important, if not more important than whatever memory that they're thinking about. The memory can pop up, but only if it supports what's happening in the present timeline. Otherwise it, like, I think I can make it, like, bottom heavy and your reader can get lost. So I think, like, these small little moments are like, insert and then, like, pop back out again. So you can stay in the scene and stay, like, very present. Is important to me when I'm going through a draft.
- [34:37]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. I mean, every first person narrator is intrinsically unreliable. Right? The minute you have a first person narrator, the person's going to tell you what they want to tell you. And they've got blind spots about themselves, which if you write in the third person person, you can give the reader insight into that character's blind spots, which a character can't do themselves in first person. But when you drop that little thing there, we get something that they maybe wouldn't have told us otherwise about themselves because it's too hard, it's too difficult to think about. But it makes them more reliable to us because we gain that kind of insight into them. So, Kristen, I've taken up so much of your time. Thank you so, so much for this amazing chat for our listeners. I'm linking to the book book on our bookshop.org affiliate page. If you buy it there, you support an independent bookstore and you support the podcast at the same time. Stop me if you've heard this one. It's amazing. Rush out and get it so much to learn. Thanks again Kristen.
- [35:32]
Kristin Arnett
Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.
- [35:35]
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.
- [35:48]
Cece Leera
Hello from cc. I'm so excited to announce an all new class called Starting It Right which is all about how to begin your story in the best place and in the best way. Now this is going to be a four day class so come prepared to take lots of notes. We'll cover the different types of beginnings and how to choose the best one for your story, how to frame your inciting incident in a compelling way, common mistakes writers make when starting a story, how to balance exposition and mystery, how to make readers connect with your protagonist, and how to make the reader want to turn to the next chapter and so much more. And guess what? For the first time ever, there will be an interactive component to my class. Everyone who is registered will have the option of sending in the opening scene of their work for a chance to be critiqued during the webinar. Writers of all categories, categories and genres are invited to attend and there are limited spots, so if you're interested, sign up now. And don't worry if you can't attend one or more live sessions because the recording will be sent to everyone who is registered. This class will begin on March 20th and like I said, will go on for four days. For more details, check out the link in my bio on Instagram. I hope to see you there.
- [37:07]
Bianca Murray
Would you like to do some good in the world while also standing in line to win amazing literary prizes? Of course you would. I'm hosting a fundraiser for a cause that's close to my heart, which is Literacy in South Africa. The Masana Library Project aims to make the future of South African learners brighter by improving their education and supplying a South African high school with the kind of basic resources that we take for granted in North America. Of course, there are a host of amazing literary prizes up for grabs if you donate to this wonderful course. They include developmental edits, coaching packages, manuscript critiques, and so much more. To learn more about the cause as well as the prizes and our brilliant and generous sponsors, head to Biancamarae.com and go to the fundraiser tab. Entries close at 8am Eastern Time on 10 April, after which the lucky winners will be announced.