← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
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- [00:01]
Bianca Murray
Omg. Have you seen the Deep Dive Virtual retreat lineup for the 1st and 2nd of February? It's incredible. Gatekeepers galore. As well as the authors who managed to get past them, we've got the editors and agents who worked on phenomenal projects like Station 11, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Crazy Rich Asians, the Flight Attendant, Maame Wayward, the Wife Upstairs, the Tinder Swindler, Big Little Lies, the Perfect Couple, the Other Black Girl, and so much more. The presentation topics are brilliant, so practical and valuable regardless of where you are in your writing journey. One of our speakers, the brilliant Annabel Monaghan, who wrote the best selling Nora Goes Off Script, was a delegate at the very first Deep Dive Retreat and now she's kicking butt all over the place. Coming back to present. That could be you one day. Those of you who take part in the Thousand Words of Summer will also be super excited to see the fabulous Jamie Attenberg in the lineup as well. Trust me, you do not want to miss this. Head to our website, theshitaboutwriting.com go to the deep Dive page to see more information and to register. We hope to see you there.
- [01:23]
Carly Waters
Hi everybody. Carly here, back with another year of my popular publishing predictions. In the past I've done Instagram carousels and Instagram Lives, but with this year, I'm bringing it to you in a webinar format so it can be more interactive. What will 2025 bring? More publisher tech? AI deals? More TikTok shop? I've been told that my predictions are, quote, frighteningly accurate, end quote, and that I think you might be a witch because these predictions seem spot on and I love preparing them for you guys so you're better prepared for the publishing news cycle and trends in the year ahead. So let's get into it on January 10th at noon Eastern. That's January 10th at noon Eastern. The most popular question I always get is can I watch the recording? And the answer is yes, if you buy the webinar in advance, everyone who buys it will be sent the recording. So I look forward to telling you guys all about what I think is in store for us in 2025 and what I think is going to happen in regards to AI and bestsellers and the publishing landscape at large. I'll see you guys there. You can purchase the webinar@cearlywaters.com contact that's carlywaters.com contact or head to my socials for the pinned link arlywaters with two T's. I will see you guys there January 10th at noon Eastern for my lunch and learn.
- [02:40]
Bianca Murray
Hi there and welcome to our show, the shit no one tells you about writing. I'm Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Carly Waters and Cece Lira from PS Literary Agency. Today's guest is an Emmy Award winning journalist and the number one New York Times best selling author of what Made Maddie Run? Which was a semi finalist for the PEN ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. She's also the author of three additional nonfiction titles, a former professional basketball player and spent seven years as a journalist at espn. She currently lives in Charleston with her wife Catherine Buddig and their dog Ragnar. It's my pleasure to welcome Kate Fagan. Kate, welcome to the show.
- [03:28]
Kate Fagan
Hi, I'm thrilled to be here.
- [03:30]
Bianca Murray
I am so thrilled to have you here because after four years of podcasting, I have spoken to so many authors over the years and we are now getting to the point where I'm getting to chat with authors who somehow along the way found our podcast, listened to it, was either influenced by it or helped by it in some way. And that just makes everything worth it. All the years of work that we've put into this podcast, it really, really makes it worth it. So before we get into that, because I'd love to hear your story for our listeners, the book we're discussing Today is the three lives of Kate K. Those of you watching on YouTube will see me holding up the COVID It's beautiful. There are two different covers. There's one in the US and one in the uk Quite different as well. For those of you who love collecting every single edition and every different cover, let me read you the flap copy. Kate K. Knows how to craft a story. As the writer of a best selling book trilogy that struck box office gold, she's one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Kate K Doesn't really exist. She's never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity has been a closely guarded secret until now. As young adults, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. Before their grand adventure could begin, tragedy struck and Kate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Kate Kate understands that returning home is the only way she'll be a whole person again. The Three Lives of Kate K. Is a vibrant, unforgettable debut novel that welcomes an exciting new voice in fiction. And I wholeheartedly agree with that. I devoured this book. I absolutely loved it. So handing over to you.
- [05:26]
Kate Fagan
Well, thank you for that. Thanks for reading it, and thank you for reading the book in advance. I found out about your podcast probably about two to three years ago. My mom and I, who were really close, she always wanted to be a writer, and after my dad died, had started writing this manuscript. But she was also really interested in the world around book publishing. So she was always both kind of writing her book, but kind of thinking about querying and that whole process. And so one of the trips we first went on, she's like, I found this new podcast, and it's so fun. They read query letters and then they assess them, and I want. You want to listen to it. And so that started a tradition of anytime we were together and going for a ride, we would listen to all of the episodes of the Shit no One Tells you About Writing. She had already listened to them, but then she would, like, re. Listen to them, and every time a query would come up, she'd be like, I remember this one. And so I just. I remember we were in Iceland listening to it, and my mom recently died. She passed somewhat unexpectedly. And so doing this podcast is like my. It's my personal holy grail for her.
- [06:39]
Carly Waters
So.
- [06:40]
Kate Fagan
Yeah.
- [06:41]
Bianca Murray
Oh, man. That's just an incredibly special story.
- [06:44]
Carly Waters
Wow.
- [06:45]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us. I've actually got goosebumps. So when you started querying, Tell us a bit about that, because I think you queried Carly Waters. Did you know?
- [06:56]
Kate Fagan
Absolutely. I queried Carly, my mom, when my mom was writing her manuscript, but also, like, making her list about, like, her dream agents. Carly was in her top three. And so I queried Carly, but she also represented the seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which was a comp I was using. And so both because I think Carly's amazing, and also because I think it would really have tickled my mom. She. She was alive then. She. She was tickled by it. She was like. And then when. When Carly initially responded, she just was. My mom was just so over the moon about it. So I did query Carly. I had been repped by caa, but they didn't want any part of this book, and they didn't really want to give me any referrals. And that's, like, a long backstory. And so I was just back out, kind of in the cold, like, querying, like, I was 21 again, which at first I was sort of. Maybe I was. I was a little angry about it, and. But then I just thought, okay, well, like, maybe this will be fun and I'll Find somebody new to work with who I really love. And so I queried maybe, like, I don't totally remember 20 or 30 agents. And you know, my query letter, my mom probably thought, I know my mom thought I should have worked on it longer because she'd been going to conferences and she'd been listening to your podcast and she just thought, I think you should spend like weeks on this. And I probably spent like two to three days on it because I again, I was kind of coming from CAA and I was like, I just want to get, I just want to get through this step. So I sent one to Carly and Carly wrote back, yeah.
- [08:36]
Bianca Murray
That is amazing. One of the things I really want to point out, because, guys, this is some of the shit no one tells you about writing, is that you can have huge success like Kate did. You can have enormous, enormous success and suddenly find yourself having to cold query and go back into the slush pile. So for those of you who view publishing as a finishing line and once you've crossed that line, you've made it, I hate to tell you, but there's another marathon after that and another marathon after that. And you can either sulk about it and really like bitch and moan about it, or you can do a caked it and readjust your thinking around it and be like, okay, it is what it is. Let me try and make the most of it. So Kate, will you please read us the query letter that you sent to Carly?
- [09:20]
Kate Fagan
Yes, I was reading back through this and I was like worried that like spelled Carly's last name wrong or something, but I don't believe I did. Okay. Dear Carly, given the obsession with your podcast, no doubt you get thousands of queries, so let me dive right in. Anonymous. And that was the name of the book at that point. Anonymous, complete at 67,000 words, is upmarket fiction that will appeal to readers of novels about publishing, such as no Two Persons by Erika Bauermeister and the Plot by Jean Hamp Korlitz. While its voice and structure, along with its queerness, is reminiscent of Taylor Jenkins Reid's the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Anonymous is the fictional memoir of Anne Marie Callahan, the 31 year old writer behind the mysterious pseudonym Kate King. Her books, the very last trilogy, have sold over 65 million copies and spawned a media empire of Emmy winning TV shows and Oscar winning movies. The book opens with Kate K's bio and author's note explaining that she has invited key people from her past to help tell her story. She promised not to change a word and she hasn't right from the books forward we get hints at her story, the lawyer and ex girlfriend who established her publishing empire before sabotaging her, the very last actress she fell in love with, and the terrible things she's been hiding from. We learn that Anne Marie's exile is self imposed, a punishment for abandoning her childhood best friend Amanda. After a fluke accident the day before, the pair plan to move from their small Adirondack town to California. Scared of being found out, Ann Marie starts using the name Cast Forward in the days after running away. But she can't let go of the big dreams, the cosmic bigness she's long desired and soon finds herself swept away by Sidney Collins, an ambitious young lawyer who's obsessed with Cass and willing to do whatever it takes to have her. At first, Sidney helps cast build her empire, but when Cass begins exploring a new life in the Hollywood version she's long coveted with actress Ryan Channing, red hot star of the very last Sidney sabotages Cass with a single phone call. Interwoven with scenes from Kate K's bestselling novel and written alternating first person perspectives that bring each character to life, Anonymous moves from small town New York to glitzy Los Angeles and explores the cost of ambition, the value of friendship, and how it's never too late to go home. I'm an Emmy award winning journalist and the number one New York Times bestselling author of what Made Maddie Run which was a semi finalist for the Penn ESPN Award for Literary Sports writing. My first book was the coming of age memoir the Reappearing act and my third book all the Colors Came out was released in May 2021 from Little Brown. In March of 2023 my fourth book, Hoop Muses, a collaboration with WNBA legend Simone Augustus and artist Sophia Chang, came out from 12. This is my debut novel. Thank you for the consideration Kate.
- [12:11]
Bianca Murray
Amazing. Okay, so we're gonna have to hear you heard back from Carly, what did she say and what happened from there?
- [12:20]
Kate Fagan
So Carly didn't write back, but her literary assistant wrote back and said Carly would like to request your full manuscript and the following information. And then it was a one page synopsis with content warnings, two or three alternate manuscript titles, five comparison books, social media usernames and description of whatever my next book was. And then she gave me formatting for how to send this over. So I very quickly, but not too quickly, sent over the full manuscript to Carly and never really heard back. And then I got an offer of representation from another agent and being obsessed with Carly, I went back to Carly and just nudged her about the representation offer. And at that point I believe either she passed or she had her assistant write me back in and pass. And I also included the, like, I included the first, whatever her website said, like the first maybe 10 pages of the manuscript in my query.
- [13:22]
Bianca Murray
There's something I believe very, very firmly when it comes to finding the right agent, is that the person who you believe might be the right agent isn't always the right agent for you. Sometimes there is a chemistry that needs to happen when it comes to finding the right agent. You know, I liken it to falling in love, to being in a relationship. There has to be a kind of chemistry in terms of this person totally gets you, they totally get what you are trying to do and they are prepared to work with you to get the manuscript to where it needs to be. So the person who then offered, was that the person that you ended up going with? Tell us a bit about that journey as well.
- [14:02]
Kate Fagan
Well, I had one agent reach out and set up a phone call and then another agency, Paper Literary, requested the full like that same day and I sent it to them just with a note saying, like, I have a call tomorrow with an A. So I sent the manuscript to Paper Literary just with a note saying, another agents, I have a phone call set. And so I, I obviously the hope there was like, if you do like this, love it, please let me know quickly. And the woman who's now my agent, Katie Greenstreet at Paper Literary, wrote me back like the next morning and had like read it overnight and loved it. I set up calls still and I did the whole two week thing. But there were a lot of signs to me right away that we were going to work well together. And one of the big ones was that one. If you look up Katie Greenstreet on the Internet, she's a huge Duke basketball fan and she lives in the uk and coming from sports, I wouldn't say that publishing was a place where I thought my sports background was very relevant. Not a ton of huge sports fans in book publishing. And so the fact that she just loved a team. So outwardly I was like, okay, like this person could be somebody who gets the things I want to do down the road too. And then just the way she talked about the book very much aligned with how I saw the book. And she brought her whole team from paper onto the call, which is really important too, because I come from a team background with basketball and I've never really been able to find that same form of team. But I'm always looking for it in whatever small ways you can have it outside of an actual sport. So all of those things really added up and made it clear that Katie at Paper was definitely the way to go.
- [15:49]
Bianca Murray
I love that. I love it. See again, chemistry and when you meet the right person, you just know so the Three Lives of Kate K is a hugely ambitious novel for a debut novel. I mean there is a book within a book. It is like you say, it gives off Evelyn Hugo vibes, but there's also sort of Ilana Ferrante vibes with this big name author and no one knows who she is, etc. And it is just really well crafted. But there's a lot of backwards and forwards in time in terms of what gets revealed then. And then of course you've got this multiple POV which you do not expect in any way from a book that's supposed to be a so called memoir. So can you take us through the inspiration for this?
- [16:35]
Carly Waters
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- [20:08]
Kate Fagan
So maybe this will help some writers out there. The structure of this book exists as it does simply because I was trying to write to my strengths. I had tried fiction Many times I have probably four complete manuscripts that aren't. Definitely are not good. And I started and abandoned half a dozen or more projects while simultaneously writing as a journalist, writing magazine stories, publishing nonfiction. And I seemed to understand nonfiction, specifically memoir, like, it just made sense to me. And so before starting this project just as a hack for myself, I was like, well, what if I just structure it as a fake memoir? Because I seem to understand the introspection needed for the main character of a memoir because I've written them. And so. And I anticipated once I got far enough into the book that I would probably take that structure away, that it was just simply a hack for me. And then I did take it away, and I just thought it messed up a lot of the book. And so I put it back in. So the book existed as a. As a fake memoir to make my life easier. It, of course, then created ripple effects, as you can see, that were very tough to figure out. One was that having written memoir, one thing that I always. That I always think is lacking in memoir is understanding how the world and the friends and family of the memoirist see the memoirist. Because you just. You kind of take whatever, you know, having written one, like, say, all the. All the Colors Came out is about. Is kind of my version of Tuesdays with Maury. You don't know if my family doesn't even speak to me anymore, right? Like, I'm presenting myself one way, but, like, that's not how the world that I live in interacts with me. And I think in this book, structuring it as a memoir but wanting it to not be fall into that category of, like, one dimensional unreliable narrator genre. I was like, well, okay, here's something I can do. I can have other people write chapters, and then you'll get to see who they think KK is, and that makes her more than one dimensional. Then, you know, I could go on and on. But then that introduced problems far along the way where, like, even Katie, when we were. When we were running through edits and even up to working with Laura at Atria, who bought the book, we were always trying to differentiate the voices of each character because it's just like, I'm one person. I'm writing all these characters. Like, I'm trying to get into their heads. And I tried to use little tricks, like, right when you meet the character first on the page, I tried to, like, really infuse them with, like, a distinction of some sort, so that even if later on my own. Kate FAGAN WRITER BRAIN Kind of is seeping in that you like, are. You're still differentiating them. So that's, that's kind of like the foundational, like piece of like how it is the way it is.
- [23:10]
Bianca Murray
Yeah. In terms of the challenge of introducing so many first person narratives, what Kate has just said is so true. You know, it's. All of them have to sound different, but they're all being written in a memoiristic style. They're all writing their version of how they viewed their interaction with Kate. And. And so it is. It's an enormous, enormous challenge. And yet you do pull that off. You make it seem kind of seamless. But I can just imagine the sort of juggling that was happening behind the scene. I call it juggling with jello. Right. It's just shit flying everywhere. It's sticking to the walls. You're getting some on yourself and you eventually get it right. But it really tough. And there are genius footnotes. So Kate K. Puts in these little notes because she can't resist. She doesn't change what anybody's saying about her. But every now and again she'll drop in a little footnote to say, well, I remembered it differently. Or, you know, this is why they said the following. At what point of writing it, Kate, did you realize, okay, I'm going to have to do this 360 degree view of my memoirist? Was it as you were writing and you started seeing the limitations, or was it always going to be that way as you were planning it?
- [24:22]
Kate Fagan
It definitely was not always going to be that way. I am not. Although with the book I'm working on now, I'm trying to be a little more front heavy on prep work. But with this one, I had started and stopped so many manuscripts that like, it almost felt like comical. This is kind of the ridiculousness of like the writer brain. It would have felt like wasted time to me to like really outline and like really know what I was doing. I seemed to abandon projects. So I was like, you know what? Until I hit a certain tipping point in this book, like 30,000 words or something, I wasn't doing a ton of like outlining or prep work or character research because I just wasn't sure it was going to pan out. So when it came to the footnotes, it was a very much on the fly edition. I think it was the first time I hit the problem of a different character other than King saying something. And like my brain immediately going, that's not right to Kate. Like, Kate. That's not how Kate remembers it. And it was in that moment, I think I just immediately, like, instinctually added a footnote for myself so that I could at least flag that. Like, my brain is telling me that in this situation, KK doesn't remember it like that, or she's pushing back on the. What the truth of what somebody is saying is. And I did that a few times. And then when we were editing it at Atria with Laura and Darcy, who was Darcy Nicholson was the Bloomsbury editor. And they were in. They worked so well together. They wanted more footnotes. They were like, if we're going to include them, we have to hit a certain number of them. And that was really fun for me to do at that point. And then. And by the time we hit that point in time where, like, they were committed to them, because at one point I was like, I'm going to either pull them all away or you, you two are telling me you love them or think there's value there, and I'm going to add more. And they were like, we want more. We think it adds something different. And by that point, we kind of articulated that. We felt like, back to this question of a memoir and back to this question of unreliable narrator. We wanted to. We definitely said this stuff out loud. We didn't. This is not a book about unreliable narrators. This is a book about where people are giving you their genuine perspective of things, and things don't always overlap, and that's just life. But we also didn't want to leave you as the reader thinking, well, what did happen there? And we also felt it was a pretty great opportunity to add little Easter eggs for the reader if they're really paying attention. And so ultimately, those footnotes hopefully serve as being like, when you first start the book, you think, I'm getting KK's story from her own mouth. And then you're like, oh, actually, I'm getting a well rounded story from a lot of people in her life. What does that mean for the overall story? And then you see the footnotes and you're like, oh, no. KK is maintaining control of her story. And I want that for her. Like, I wanted her to ultimately have control of the story.
- [27:21]
Bianca Murray
It also made it so authentic because I would have hated it if everybody's versions of events aligned. Right? We misread things every single day because all we have is our own heads, our own backgrounds, our own context in order to assign meaning to the things other people say or don't say. And so, I mean, as a woman, I. I think every woman I know spends Hours lying awake every night being like, what did that mean when so and so said this? Should I have said this? Would they taken it the wrong way, etc. So we spend so much of our times dissecting things and being like, was I clear? Did I communicate properly? Was, was I unclear? And it was great in the book to see that Kate's like, no, that's not at all how I remember it. Or oh, wow. This struck me so much that she remembers it exactly the way I did because I never knew that until now. So that was awesome. Something else in terms of the just how ambitious this project is, is it gave me some Station 11 vibes. Now Station 11 is like one of my favorite books of all times. I think I've read it 10 times, listened to the audiobook multiple times. It's just excellent, excellent storytelling. You've got this best selling book that is this huge phenomenon that becomes a movie and there's theme parks and all kinds of things that happen as a result of that. How much of writing the premise of that book was necessity. You would get to a point in the story and you were like, oh, I've got to figure out what the story is or how much did you set aside and go, okay, I'm going to write excerpts of this story up front so that it'll seamlessly kind of fall into place in the novel whenever I wanted to excerpt it.
- [28:59]
Kate Fagan
I wish that some of this stuff was more seamless or thought out, but the reality of the book within the book. So the book within the book is called the Very Last Just for Listeners. I know you. And that is actually a book I wrote years ago, a very bad book. And it was like my dad was really sick and he was in the hospital a lot and I was spending a lot of time with him and I was like, I gotta have something. I can't just like watch stream shows the whole time I'm here. So I was like, I'm going to write a book. I'm like, it. And at that time it was probably like six, seven years ago. And I was thinking, you know, I love apocalypse movies. I'm just going to write an apocalypse book. But I'm in journalism, so I'm going to like, you know, doing that kind of dance of like, I want something super marketable and mainstream with a huge hook. But I'm going to try and ground it in what I know. And so I wrote this entire book about these like two friends who are caught in this explosion, huge explosion, earth changing explosion in New York city, but, like, they're the only TV station that's. That's still up and running. And so they're, like, faced with this ambition versus danger. And so that was, like, a book I had written. And it was like, maybe halfway through writing this book because I. I don't know about you, Bianca, but, like, if I write something, I'm going to try to publish it. Like, all of the words I write, like, I want to try to get them somewhere, right? Like, if I cut a chapter from a book, like, I may try to repurpose it someday down the line, because I'm like, every word is sacred. They take so much effort. So I just, like, one night was like, what if the book that K has written is this book I had already written? Because I thought I was going to save myself time. But I didn't save myself time because that book's tone, the characters in that book, the goals of that book really seemed like they might line up with K. And what she would have wanted to write about Amanda and how she would have tried to storytell in her world, but they didn't. And so I ended up having to write through those excerpts, like, six, seven times because I was so committed to the old vision of that book and bringing it to match this new vision. I just, like, at one point. So both I try to save all my words. And I also learned a lesson, like, sometimes you just should probably start from scratch. So even up until I think one of the last passes we did with Bloomsbury and Atria, we were still, like, we wanted all of the excerpts of the very last to earn their place on the page. And yet they were. I just had trouble letting go of certain things because they had been a certain way. And so that was probably one of the trickiest parts of the book.
- [31:31]
Bianca Murray
And, you know, they had to mirror what was happening in the book. They couldn't just be these random things, right? Because she's. She is writing this book for a reason. I don't want to give too much away, but she's working through trauma. She believes certain things. And so she's writing this book for a reason. So, of course, what she's currently going through needs to be reflected within the pages of this book that she's writing. I love that I almost want to use the word cannibalize because I'm busy researching a novel at the moment that is requiring me to do a lot of research on military terminology. And something that I came up last night was talking about cannibalizing things. So if you take parts of one machine to make another machine work. And it's almost like that with your own writing is cannibalizing it. And maybe it didn't turn out the way it was originally intended, but that work still wasn't wasted. It still served as inspiration. And that's what I'm always saying to authors. I agree. I want to publish every damn thing I write as well. And when it doesn't get published, you feel like such a failure and you feel like you've wasted so much bloody time. And for someone who's uber efficient, like I'm a Capricorn, a type control freak, I'm so efficient. So for me to spend two years on something that I don't publish, it pisses me off. But it gets you to another place. And that is an incredible place where it's gotten you here. We don't have much time left, Kate. But something I do want to do is I just want to read some excerpts for our listeners because you sort of nail insight into people. You've got this way of lasering in into a character and portraying them with just a few lines in such interesting ways. So I'm going to read a few excerpts here. Lawyers, we get a bad rap. Now, this is Sydney. Now, I should have hated Sydney because Sydney is not the nicest person. But you know what? I actually, there were times I really liked Sydney. I found her vulnerable and I could relate to her. And there were times that I really hated it. But this just shows you how well you wrote it. So, lawyers, we get a bad rap. We're just storytellers. The only difference is, unlike a book or movie, we don't say whether the story is true or false. That's for other people to decide. Besides, they say each time a memory is recalled, the mind slightly alters it. This memory I'm about to share may no longer resemble the truth, so frequently have I retrieved it. What I can promise is no conscious embellishments, just clear eyed recollections. Then there's this other quote. I hadn't been cool in high school too lanky and odd with my short hair and slacks. And yet, as far as I could tell, being cool in high school was a death sentence. No pain to fuel you later. I was like, oof, man, reaching for the highlighter for that one. Here we go, another one also from Sydney. My piano teacher once asked me if I could feel the music. I was at her house on her piano. She was sitting facing me. I loved playing. Every note corresponded to a movement Instant feedback about whether I'd done it right. I usually had, but I didn't know what her question meant. Did I feel the music? When I said nothing, she said, what I'm wondering is, do you have an emotional experience when you play? She had played with the Boston Pops, a local big deal lady in Ivermont Town. She wore only these flowy dresses and chunk necklaces that made no sense to me. So it wasn't odd that a question didn't either. Sure, I could feel the emotion of the music. I. I just didn't find that part interesting. For me, playing piano was the satisfaction of repetition and practice. I liked hitting a button and seeing the correct letter appear like a typewriter, which is what I said to her. That had clearly been the wrong answer. She slowly stopped answering my mom's calls to schedule lessons. And then this last one. In my profession, you learn that people are always building a web of lies around a kernel of truth and calling it honesty. It's transparent. So, I mean, those were all from this so called antagonist from Sydney. And yet I was highlighting insanely because I was just like, yeah, I, I agree. I totally get what you're saying.
- [35:40]
Kate Fagan
Yeah, my, my mom used to say that I should be a lawyer because I think her interpretation maybe not the most generous, but it was like that I could always spin any situation to, like, to make me the hero of it or benefit from it. I mean, obviously I try not to do that as much as possible, but I think that was the feedback. And so I think I felt a kinship to Sidney in some ways that she does things, unsavory things in this book, but you can kind of see the way her brain is working about those things that like, she's in this profession where, like, everybody is trying to build a world for themselves based on, you know, either bad clients or bad moments or. And so I thought it would be really interesting to kind of take all of the ways that my brain has always tried to spin contexts to make them better for myself and apply them to Sydney. And I felt like I had to be really. I felt like I really had to let you in on her psyche because she does things that are terrible and yet I don't think she thinks of herself as a terrible person. But I think I thought I had to like, really, really drill down on that so that you wouldn't think of her. So the reader wouldn't just be like, she's like the antagonist of this book, but she's not super well formed. I just wanted her to be I just wanted her to be somebody who maybe had a little nefariousness in her, but thought of herself as generally a good person.
- [37:11]
Bianca Murray
Yeah, you know what? Every villain sees themselves as the hero in their own story. And that certainly came across with. With her. And I love how her sentence structures were so different. She wrote short, declarative sentences, which makes sense because that's how she thinks. She's able to justify her behavior to herself. Another way in which she differentiated all these voices. Kate, I could sit and chat to you all day, but our time is up. It has been such an incredible conversation for our listeners. We're going to link to this on our bookshop.org affiliate page. You get the book there, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time. This is one of the books that I feel is going to have a huge crossover appeal. Memorists, go and read it. Those of you writing fiction, women's fiction, those of you who are writing romance, a story within a story, just to see if you're writing stories that have got Multiple timelines, multiple POVs, have a look at how Kate did it to differentiate the voices. There is so much, so much to unpack here. I absolutely loved it, and I can't wait to see what you come up with next. Kate, thanks.
- [38:19]
Kate Fagan
I'm excited too. A lot of research, just like you're doing, I think.
- [38:23]
Bianca Murray
Okay, everyone, we hope you get the book and we'd love to hear what you think of it.
- [38:27]
Carly Waters
A reminder that this is an unscripted program and our conversations have been edited and condensed and is not a full picture of our feedback or conversation directly with each author. As always, refer back to our written notes for the fulsome picture. Carly Waters and Cece Lira are agents at PS Literate Agency, but their work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly and Cece on this podcast are solely that of them as podcast co hosts and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency. A reminder about all the ways that you can support us as a show. Rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts. Tell your writing friends about us. We'd love to help as many writers as possible and follow us on our substack newsletter. Get our stacked newsletter on a weekly basis. Bonus videos, articles, essays, advice and more. You can find it@the shitaboutwriting.substack.com that's theshitaboutwriting.substack.com.
- [39:20]
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. Omg. Have you seen the Deep Dive Virtual retreat lineup for the 1st and 2nd of February? It's incredible. Gatekeepers galore. As well as the authors who managed to get past them, we've got the editors and agents who worked on phenomenal projects like Station 11, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Crazy Rich Asians, the Flight Attendant, Maame Wayward, the Wife Upstairs, the Tinder Swindler, Big Little Lies, the Perfect Couple, the Other Black Girl, and so much more. The presentation topics are brilliant, so practical and valuable regardless of where you are in your writing journey. One of our speakers, the brilliant Annabel Monaghan, who wrote the best selling Nora Goes Off Script, was a delegate at the very first Deep Dive Retreat and now she's kicking butt all over the place. Coming back to present. That could be you one day. Those of you who take part in the Thousand Words of Summer will also be super excited to see the fabulous Jami Attenberg in the lineup as well. Trust me, you do not want to miss this. Head to our website, theshitaboutwriting.com go to the deep Dive page to see more information and to register. We hope to see you there.
- [40:56]
Carly Waters
Hi everybody. Carly here. Back with another year of my popular publishing predictions. In the past I've done Instagram carousels and Instagram lives, but with this year, I'm bringing it to you in a webinar format so it can be more interactive. What will 2025 bring? More publisher tech? AI deals? More TikTok shop? I've been told that my predictions are, quote, frighteningly accurate, end quote. And that I think you might be a witch. Because these predictions seem spot on and I love preparing them for you guys so you're better prepared for the publishing news cycle and trends in ahead. So let's get into it on January 10th at noon Eastern. That's January 10th at noon Eastern. The most popular question I always get is, can I watch the recording? And the answer is yes. If you buy the webinar in advance, everyone who buys it will be sent the recording. So I look forward to telling you guys all about what I think is in store for us in 2025 and what I think is going to happen in regards to AI and bestsellers in the publishing landscape at large. I'll see you guys there. You can purchase the webinar@cearlywaters.com contact that's carlywaters.com contact or head to my socials for the pinned link arlywaters with two T's. I will see you guys there January 10th at noon Eastern for my lunch and learn.