Episodes
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Episode 48 - Do You Need a Podcast? with Hilary Bisenieks
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
Tuesday Nov 17, 2020
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Hilary Bisenieks and his writing:
Twitter @hbbisenieks
Website hilarybisenieks.com
Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger
Mentioned in this episode:
David Tennant Does a Podcast With...
Episode Transcript
(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)
Kaelyn (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, the show about writing publishing and everything in between I'm Kaelyn Considine. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka (00:08):
And I'm Ri—(sputter) Who am I? I am Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Kaelyn (00:13):
So, um, today in a, in what we kind of joked was a slight departure, but then it turned out it really isn't that much of a departure from writing and publishing, we're talking about podcasting and, uh, you know, is this something that you need to do or have, or partake in at all?
Rekka (00:29):
I, I do plan to, um, you know, someday have an episode about actually, how do you do this if it's a thing you want to do? Um, because much like Kaelyn's conception of this podcast was based on someone going, what, how would you know what to do? Um, you know, that's, that's something that I—now I'm feeling like we already did this. Did we do that topic already? Or if I just planned it so thoroughly in my mind, I remember doing it.
Kaelyn (00:55):
We haven't done one about podcasts.
Rekka (00:56):
Okay. So I was just, yes. Okay. I've just done that thing.
Kaelyn (01:01):
It's okay. I dream podcast too. And then think we did episodes about stuff,
Rekka (01:05):
If only we could record those.
Kaelyn (01:07):
You don't, you don't want to see those.
Rekka (01:09):
So, yeah, so I thought, like, "Okay. Someday, we're going to have to do an episode on, like, I want to start a podcast. How do I do that?" But first, maybe we take you aside and we have a conversation about—
Kaelyn (01:21):
Should youuuu?
Rekka (01:21):
—Where do podcasts come from and is that something that you're ready for?
Kaelyn (01:26):
Um, and we didn't do this alone. We had a guest this week, sorry, we buried the lede there a little bit. We're we're joined this week by Hilary Bisenieks.
Rekka (01:35):
Hilary is the host of Tales from the Trunk. And, um, the podcast features monthly interviews with science fiction, fantasy and horror authors and readings from their trunked work. And I thought it would be great to have him on, to be another voice of reason in this conversation of like, "I'm a writer. There are lots of writers with podcasts. Is that a thing a writer is supposed to do? Is that a thing I need to do? I already have an idea? Is it a good idea? Should I do this? Um, I already bought a microphone. Should I do this?" You know, that's kinda how it goes.
Kaelyn (02:04):
If you listen to this episode and you're still like, "Yeah, this is a good idea. This is something I want to do." Then you've made it past the first step because we do not make this sound like a pleasant process.
Rekka (02:16):
We don't, do we? I mean, it is fun. We have a lot of fun. You hear stuff all the time, but it's a lot of work too. And, um, when we do that production process episode that I apparently believe I already did, um, you know, we'll get into the actual process, the time we spend, you know, the hours or the costs involved and stuff like that. Um, but for now, you know, before you even dip your toe in, have a listen to, uh, Kaelyn and my conversation with Hilary about like, where do podcasts ideas come from and should you follow through on them?
Kaelyn (02:54):
Enjoy everyone. We'll see you on the other side of the music.
Hilary Bisenieks (02:55):
I have never caused nonsense in my life.
Kaelyn (03:16):
It's sometimes it's nonsense sometimes it's, um, it's like varying degrees of chaos. The chaos is a little more deliberate than nonsense is something that just happens.
Hilary Bisenieks (03:26):
Yep. Sounds right.
Kaelyn (03:29):
Yeah.
Rekka (03:29):
So this episode is about making a podcast and we've just experienced one of the reasons not to.
Kaelyn (03:37):
Do you need one? Well, that depends. Do you like high blood pressure at a reasonable level?
Rekka (03:44):
So as we said in the intro, we are joined by Hilary. Um, we gave your podcast intro, um, already, but do you want to say a little bit about yourself? Um, you didn't, you know, have me mention that you were a writer as well, so—
Hilary Bisenieks (03:58):
Oh yeah. Minor stuff like that.
Kaelyn (04:01):
Not important, certainly not for a podcast about writing.
Hilary Bisenieks (04:05):
Yeah. Uh, I am a writer who has trunked a lot of stories, which I felt made me qualified to, uh, make a podcast about trunking stories. And, uh, you can find my work in Lamplight Magazine and in the anthology Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger.
Rekka (04:29):
Awesome. So at what point did you decide that writing wasn't enough work that you wanted to add to it?
Hilary Bisenieks (04:41):
2005, when I decided that I wanted to be a writer, but I decided... I started my show, uh, in the spring of 2019, after having some conversations with other writing friends about how I thought that I had a really good idea for a podcast, and I really wanted somebody to do it.
Kaelyn (05:04):
Oh, I know nothing about that.
Rekka (05:07):
This sounds very familiar.
Hilary Bisenieks (05:09):
And then I realized that nobody else was going to do it. Then I was told that my initial idea for a podcast was going to be extremely difficult for somebody with as little name recognition as I had.
Kaelyn (05:23):
I'm having such flashbacks right now.
Hilary Bisenieks (05:23):
And then I changed the concept slightly, uh, at the suggestion of Sarah Gailey, who, if you ever get the chance to get an idea from Sarah Gailey, do it, do it, do it. Then I launched my podcast two months later.
Kaelyn (05:43):
So Hilary, do you want to talk about your podcast a little bit? What you conceived of it as the idea from Sarah Gailey and what it became?
Hilary Bisenieks (05:51):
Absolutely. So my initial idea was I really wanted to have a podcast that was, uh, kind of along the same lines as Mortified, where I would have writers come on and read excerpts from their juvenalia. Yeah. I thought it would just be a great time because I have a lot of terrible juvenalia in my trunk and I thought it would be super fun to have a show where you just get like Hugo winners to come on and read like just, you know, their childhood picture books and stuff like that. And Sarah Gailey rightly told me, "you, a person who, while—" I am, you know, talented and kind and whatever else— "have almost zero name recognition, not really going to be able to do that show.
Kaelyn (06:50):
Yeah. It's going to be hard to, to get those people on. Yes.
Hilary Bisenieks (06:54):
Uh, and so they suggested, I initially pitched it as like, "Oh, you know, nobody else is going to do the show. I should try to do this show" and pitched it to, uh, Sarah Gailey and some other friends. And they said to me, "I wouldn't be comfortable doing that, but you know what would be absolutely amazing is if you had one where people came on and read stories that they had trunked," and I was like, "Ohhhh."
Kaelyn (07:27):
And Hilary real quick, just for people who may be listening and don't know the phrase "trunked."
Hilary Bisenieks (07:32):
Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, so trunk is put your story in a trunk, decide that you can't sell it for whatever reason. Uh, there are, I think as many reasons to trunk a story as there are stories.
Kaelyn (07:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So like, if you, if you hear somebody say like, "I'm going to trunk this," it means "I'm not shopping this anymore. I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not going to query this even, you know, I have an agent and my agent is like, guys really, sorry, this is not—"
Hilary Bisenieks (08:00):
Yeah. My, my most recent episode of the show, uh, at the time that this goes up is, uh, talking with Jennifer Mace. And, uh, she brought onto the show, an excerpt from what was going to be her debut YA and then, uh, as we talked about on the show, she just couldn't sell it. It just wasn't fitting with the markets. And so she and her agent made the decision to stop trying to shop it around and move on to the next thing.
Kaelyn (08:35):
Uh, as, as an editor, I I'm radiating appreciation now for the ability to take a step back and say, "I've written this thing, I've spent all this time on it. This iteration of it is not going to sell. I like it's a, it was, I hopefully had a lot of fun writing it, but it's just not for public consumption."
Hilary Bisenieks (08:55):
Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, the, the idea pretty much spiraled from Sarah saying "if you had a show where people read their trunked stuff, I would totally be on that." And,
Kaelyn (09:12):
Things just went from there.
Hilary Bisenieks (09:12):
Uh, yeah, I, in, within a day I had a name within, I think two days after that I had a mock up sketch for my logo. Uh, thankfully I went to a college with a bunch of amazing creative people and like knew an illustrator already whose work I thought would work well for the concept I was going with.
Kaelyn (09:37):
I am, I'm having such flashbacks like right now, it's like, this is like this, this is almost exactly what happened to me with this. So, uh, you know, people who've listened to this show before probably heard me tell this story, but, um, the way this got started was I was, I was out with friends, somebody brought a new boyfriend and was doing the good new boyfriend thing where he's trying to like talk. I mentioned, you know, I, I have this publishing company with a, with a couple of friends and he was like, well, you know, "if you've write a book, like, what do you do then?" And I'm walking through all these steps and he's like, "well, how do you find that? Like, how do you know this?" Like, and I was like, "I just know it, like, you know, and there's things even I don't, I don't know."
Kaelyn (10:27):
And, you know, I had had a couple of glasses of wine or whatever, so I get home and I'm just Googling all of this stuff about like bookmaking process, you know, and there's like partial information. I was like, "wow, there is really no centralized kind of walkthrough of like the broad steps of what happens, you know, when you write a book and how it gets published." So I spoke— I woke up the next morning and I had written down a whole bunch of bullet points and scratched some things out. And what had, I reorganized them into something coherent. And I went to our publisher, Collin Coyle at Parvus Press and said, "I think we should do this limited run podcast series. We'll go through all of this. We can change, you know, we'll do 15 to 30 minutes an episode, depending on, you know, how big the topic is. Um, you can do it with, you know, guests on and stuff."
Kaelyn (11:19):
I had no intention of being on this. I don't like the sound of my own voice. I especially don't like it recorded. I think it does not sound like me at all. And Colin was like, "yeah, let's be honest. We don't really have time for that. And, um, but it's a really good idea, but maybe you should do this instead." So then Colin mentioned this to Rekka.
Rekka (11:44):
About that time I'd already had about, uh, you know, I think just slightly under a year of podcasting, um, with the different podcast and my podcast co-host lost all his free time and I was kind of trying to float it along and I was getting ready to give up, honestly, and I had a conversation with Colin, um, and he's like, "so you need a new cohost." I'm like, "yeah, I really do." And he's like, "so, uh, Kaelyn, who you met at the Nebulas. And he's like, she's got this concept for a podcast."
Rekka (12:12):
I said, "so Colin says, you want to do a podcast with me." And she's like, "no, God, no!"
Kaelyn (12:17):
I said, "I don't want to do a podcast. Somebody else was supposed to do the podcast. I just had the idea and I could edit it." Yeah. Sometimes it's—.
Hilary Bisenieks (12:26):
Podcasts just happen.
Kaelyn (12:28):
Yeah. So, but I will say that like one of the reasons Rekka and I decided to go through this—and we spent a lot of time looking for reasons that we shouldn't—was, is anybody making podcasts out there about publishing and the writing aspect of publishing? And we couldn't find anything and I was shocked. Um, there was like one thing that was like, uh, a graduate project from somebody doing like their master's degree.
Rekka (12:56):
It was all of like six episodes. And that was like three years ago.
Kaelyn (13:00):
It was very, very dry. I couldn't believe that there wasn't something out there that just talks about like, "Hey, here's an episode on, you know, what query letters are. Here's what it means if your book is distributed," you know, um, these very basic things that are hard to find concentrated information online about.
Hilary Bisenieks (13:28):
Yeah. Like, that's kind of the same angle that I came out with my podcast. One, once I jelled on the idea of trunked stories specifically, um, was like, there are so many podcasts about, you know, writing things and how to write good. Um, you know, we've got Writing Excuses, we've got, you know, Ditch Diggers with all these things, but there's no podcasts about, okay, "I wrote the thing and I couldn't sell it. And what do I do next? And like, how do I move on?"
Rekka (14:02):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (14:04):
So this podcast got started because I couldn't find anything else that was doing this. I went out of my way, Rekka and I both did, scouring the internet, trying to find anything, even a website, that was kind of like funneling all this information into one place. It sounds like you kind of came upon, you know, a unique idea as well. And so back to, you know, the central theme of this, Do You Need a Podcast? I think one of the ways to answer that is, is somebody else doing it? Are they doing it better than you're probably going to do it? Is that, you know, do you have the time for this? Is this something that the world really needs, is to hear this podcast? And I know this sounds like, I don't know if condescending's the right word, but you know, like sounds like weird advice coming from somebody who didn't even want to start a podcast and then did. But, um, you know, I think there's... This is something intrinsic to writers. No, no offense guys, but you guys like to talk, so to speak, in terms of, you know, getting words out into the world, um, a podcast is a way to get more words out into the world.
Rekka (15:19):
But there are an awful lot of writers who are terrified of the idea of actually speaking aloud to other people.
Kaelyn (15:24):
That's a good point. That's a very good point.
Hilary Bisenieks (15:27):
I thought that I hated the sound of my own voice before I started my podcast. And I won't say I love the sound of my own voice. That would be a very like cishet white guy thing to do. And I'm not about that, but like I've learned to get past the sound of my own voice because I was going to be hearing it, you know, on average 20 minutes an episode.
Rekka (15:51):
If you're going to edit your own stuff. You're going to be hearing your voice. And if that's going to really bother you, if you are going to feel like nails on chalkboard, every time you have to edit (cringey noises), just saying.
Hilary Bisenieks (16:03):
Maybe don't.
Rekka (16:04):
If it, if that's an incredibly uncomfortable and it's like, what's your pain point? You know, at what point are you going to say "this was a terrible idea." And the other, you know, thing to just do is just record a couple of episodes because we tend, when we release a podcast to have a couple of episodes banked up and released, like, you know, the, the new Dis— was it Disney+ or a Netflix that, um, put up a couple episodes of something recently?
Kaelyn (16:28):
Oh Amazon did with The Boys, they put, they put the first.
Rekka (16:32):
That's what I'm thinking of.
Kaelyn (16:32):
The first three out and then staggered the rest of them.
Rekka (16:34):
Yeah. So that's, that's how we started.
Hilary Bisenieks (16:37):
Yeah.
Rekka (16:37):
Um, and if you do three or four episodes, you're going to really know what it's like to edit in a crunch. You might know at the end of them, whether it's the thing you really want to do.
Hilary Bisenieks (16:48):
Yeah. I had a situation when I started the show that I recorded my first three episodes, uh, before I released anything, but I recorded them, just the schedules ended up working out, that I recorded them in reverse release order so that, thankfully, my most polished episode where I like had the best idea of what I was doing was the one that came out first. And then there was, I won't say like a dip in quality, I think there, like I still stand by all those episodes, but there's a dip in self-assurance that happens as you listen across the first three episodes where by the time I was recording with, uh, Sarah Gailey, I was like, "Oh yeah, I know exactly how to podcast for this format at this point." And when you get to the episode I did with RK Duncan, who like, you know, I say right up front, like, "this is the first time I'm doing this. This is going to be a hot mess."
Hilary Bisenieks (17:52):
And like, luckily, like in that case, I've known... Like me and Robin have been friends for 25 years. So it wasn't like a huge deal that it was a hot mess because we could just like, you know, jive off of each other, but it really helped to have that idea of like, "Oh, this is actually how you do a podcast" by the time I started recording more episodes and banking episodes out. And certainly by the time I started recording with people who I didn't have an established relationship with.
Rekka (18:32):
So to that point, do you, um, do you feel like you have a format, like a, uh, you know, a template that you go into every episode with, where you basically know how you're going to intro, you know how you're going to start the conversation, you know roughly how you're going to segue into the story and then how you're going to lead out again?
Hilary Bisenieks (18:53):
Absolutely. Uh, I, and that's something that I, you know, had to pick up over these first three episodes. I had sort of an idea when I started, before I recorded the first episode where I was like, "this is what I think the flow is going to be." And it turned out that that worked pretty well. And so since then, like when I do episode prep with people before they start recording, it's just, "okay, here's the format if you hadn't, haven't had a chance to listen to the show," you know, obviously I'd love for everybody to go listen to Tales from the Trunk, available wherever fine podcasts are sold. But I recognize that there's only so many podcasts hours in a day.
Rekka (19:34):
Yeah. You're lucky Hilary, you, you gave yourself a theme for your podcast that is really wide open. You could talk about anything because you have a guest and your guest has a story. So first you get to just have a conversation with your guest and then your guest reads you a story and that, and those two things don't have to relate. You don't have to organize things. Do you, um, do you plan your, your conversations out ahead of time? I mean, it is kind of an interview format, but do you just kind of start with one question and see where it goes?
Hilary Bisenieks (20:02):
Basically start with one question and see where it goes. There are times where I have specific questions that I want to ask. And, um, when I have those, I will, when I, when I invite a guest on, I send them a recording ReadMe to tell them how my recording workflow works and what their part is in that. And I send them a questionnaire that gets basic information, you know, how would you like to be credited? What name should I address you by during the show? What are your pronouns? Uh, are there any topics that I should absolutely avoid? What's the name of your story? Um, and then just like a bunch of, "I might ask these." Uh, the only question I always ask— only two questions I always ask. One is, you know, "why did you trunk this thing?" And two is, I always try to trick my guests into giving me some words of wisdom by the end of the show.
Kaelyn (21:10):
Excellent. We know what to do now.
Hilary Bisenieks (21:13):
Normally I, I asked them, I frame it as, uh, "the TARDIS has showed up in my podcasting studio and come take a step inside this time machine with me, let's go back and talk to [young writer guest] about what you wish you would've known."
Kaelyn (21:30):
Yeah. Yeah. So if you're at home right now, you've been stuck inside for months and you're thinking, you know what? I think it's time to start a podcast. The other question is, do you have time for this? This is, you know, this is a lot of time, but then also beyond that, are you good at talking about things? Um, if you're going to be doing this by yourself, can you talk in an engaging way for, you know, 30 minutes to an hour? If you're doing this with someone else, are you friendly enough that you can talk to them for thir—? And if you're interviewing somebody, are you good at interviewing people? Um, which I think we, you know, say like, Oh, whatever, I'm just going to ask them questions. That's not, you know, that's not how this works. And—
Hilary Bisenieks (22:15):
That's not an interview.
Kaelyn (22:15):
Yeah. And, well also Hilary, I'm sure you've, you've come across this plenty of times is that, you know, some people aren't great at being interviewed and it's the, the job to kind of make them comfortable and get them to, you know, open up and talk.
Hilary Bisenieks (22:28):
Yeah. I went to college for creative writing. And so I took a lot of creative writing classes, both in fiction and in nonfiction, basically all of the, like long-form journalism classes that were offered at my school.
Kaelyn (22:44):
Oh fun.
Hilary Bisenieks (22:44):
From a professor who was not a full-time professor, her first job is being a journalist. And so she was able to like really talk us through it. And like one of our first assignments was an interview where the whole thing was just doing "Q, whatever," "A, whatever." That doesn't make it engaging interview piece. And so learning about the narrative structure of interviews, I think really helped me there. And just generally, like, I'm, I'm an introverted person, but I can turn on the extrovert, you know. But one of my goals for the show was just to be like a very quiet kind, queer place to be, and like bri— myself, bringing that energy makes it, I think, easier for my guests to come on and like open up about things. And I'm never like, you know, pushing, like, "tell me about your childhood," but just like, you know, "tell me about this story. Like, let's dig in a little bit like that."
Rekka (23:58):
When you are listening to the author, reading their work, your like acoustic feedback is so just like gentle and kind and wonderful. It's like, you'll just hear— um, Kaelyn, I don't know if you've listened to an episode yet, but you'll hear Hilary just go, "Ooh," as someone's reading. And to get that kind of feedback is really nice. And I'm sure that adds to that like friendly, Like I'm not just here on a stage reading this thing out with a spotlight on my face. I can't see anybody. Like, I'm actually sharing this with somebody.
Kaelyn (24:25):
But that's a really good point again with, you know, should you start a podcast or, you know, is this a good idea to? You have to understand this is an audio medium. Um, if you are, and it's funny listening to Tales from the Trunk, I dare say that Hilary, and stop me if I'm about to put my foot in my mouth here, there's a little bit of acting, if you will?
Hilary Bisenieks (24:47):
Oh yeah.
Kaelyn (24:47):
Maybe some over exaggeration, you know, things that you maybe wouldn't vocalize because you need to vocalize, because this is an audio medium. They can't see the expressions you're making on your face. So whatever you're thinking, you've got to get out of your mouth somehow without interrupting.
Hilary Bisenieks (25:03):
Yes. And I am nodding along as you're saying this, but.
Kaelyn (25:08):
In our audio medium.
Hilary Bisenieks (25:08):
And that's only for the benefit of you two.
Rekka (25:11):
I'm just going to add to the list of things to consider when you are trying to decide if you are going to start a podcast. Um, and sadly we know if you are already asking yourself this question, you're probably going to try it anyway.
Hilary Bisenieks (25:23):
Oh yeah.
Rekka (25:23):
But, um, well, the one thing to consider is what do you hope to gain from doing this podcast? Because, um, if you are a writer and you are hoping to reach a wider audience of readers, you're going to create a much different podcast than you would if you were someone trying to help other writers, you know, improve their craft, or get a foot in the door with publishing or whatever you're doing, those are two very different targets. And if you write, if you, um, if you create a podcast for writers, then that's great, It's going to help some, you know, you'll probably network and make friends or something like that. You can mention it, you know, you'll go to conventions and conferences and you'll meet people and hit it off and invite them on and you'll have guests to interview, but you're not going to increase book sales.
Hilary Bisenieks (26:18):
Yeah.
Rekka (26:18):
Even if you were, um, making a podcast to specifically about your writing and your books, you're probably not going to increase book sales, right? So, keep that in mind.
Kaelyn (26:28):
Yeah, because if you're podcasting about your writing and your books, presumably you're a bestseller of some kind, and there is an audience that is very interested in hearing your process. So that's more of a "first sell lots of books then podcast about it," not the other way around.
Rekka (26:45):
And chances are, if you're selling lots of books, you are also expected by your publisher to write a lot more of them. So now you're on deadlines and you don't actually have time to edit your own episodes. And like, maybe, maybe consider how this works a little bit. Now, there are people out there who write, um, and like podcast about it in a blog format where it's, um— Like Mur Lafferty's I should be writing for example, which is a very long running podcast is very popular and is literally Mur, usually in a car, um, saying like, "well, I was frustrated today and you know, like it wasn't flowing" or, um, "I really wanted to work on this thing, but I have a deadline for this other thing. And I can't tell you about it because it's under contract." So like, you know, there's the, um, the thing that you get out of like that podcast, for example, or that I get out of it is just this, like, I'm not alone in doing it. And, um, and the purpose of like another podcast might be like more performance, an audio drama. You know, somebody actually writes a story and performs it over a series of episodes. And then they have seasons and each season is either a new story or seasons like TV shows. And, um, if you can find an audience for that, then that actually might help your writing. But, um, keep in mind what you want to be the end result of this. If you just want to chat with a friend and you're like, "we say really smart things, we should record this" then like that's also an option, but what what's it, if its intent is just to be a little like self-gratifying, then that's also fine. As long as you know that when you start off.
Hilary Bisenieks (28:25):
I will say it's a lot of work to just be self gratified. I could not do this if that was my only goal. I love, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love making my show. And I love, like I've, it's opened doors for me in terms of like meeting new people and getting to the, on other podcasts like here and I was on an episode, um, uh, I think a Patreon-exclusive episode currently, of Rank and Vile, but, uh, like it's so much work to do upon. I'm not doing it just to like stroke my ego.
Kaelyn (29:07):
I would go so far as to say that it is in some ways, very similar to writing a book. Um, it's something that everybody thinks, "Oh, whatever, that's easy. I can just do that. I have lots of ideas. I have lots of stuff I need to say." And then when it comes down to actually doing it, you know, like, they're like, if you go back and listen to some of the early episodes bracket and I did, they're not bad, but they're not, the conversation is not as smooth as it gets in later episodes because, you know, we do this together, obviously. Now, if this were just me on my own, I, like, I, it would just be like me getting some words out and then crying a little bit and then, and starting again. Um, but I think everybody, there's certain things that everyone's like, well, "that's easy. I can do that."
Kaelyn (29:56):
Um, writing a book and starting a podcast are definitely the, uh, at the top of that list. Neither of them are easy things to do. Neither of them are straightforward processes and there are a lot more steps in there than you ever think there are going to be.
Rekka (30:10):
And let's be real doing one doesn't necessarily benefit the process of doing the other.
Kaelyn (30:15):
And by the way, doing one doesn't mean that you're going to be good at doing the other. Um, you know, just because you write a book and maybe let's say you've even had that book published, that doesn't mean that you're going to be good at doing a podcast about writing that doesn't even mean that you should do a podcast about writing.
Rekka (30:32):
I feel called out.
Hilary Bisenieks (30:37):
I don't have a book out. I'm fine.
Kaelyn (30:41):
It's a lot of work and it is not as easy as it seems just to, not even in terms of the work itself, but in terms of like coming up with meaningful things to talk about on a consistent basis, um, you know, even like with us, like we do a different topic every week and what happens is we tend to, you know, go in spurts where we come up with a whole bunch of ideas at once. And then we were like, okay, "'we've got to sit down and come up with the next group of ideas and plan and plan this out. Um, you know, Hilary I'm sure for you, it's, you know, it's a week to week, well month to month, of trying to find people to come on to talk to?
Hilary Bisenieks (31:22):
I will say it was last year. And I think partly through the networking that I've done and partly through just like gaining some recognition, uh, it's become a lot less of that. Uh, at, at the start of this year, I think I had, uh, like half of my guests already booked before I started recording my season two. And at this point I have a quarter of my guests for season three booked already.
Kaelyn (31:57):
Oh okay yeah, so you're in really good shape.
Hilary Bisenieks (32:01):
A lot of that is that it's harder, when you're working with a, with a rotating cast, to pin people down that like initially... Uh, exclusive sneak preview my January, I guess it's going to be Fran Wilde. And initially Fran was going to be on in June, but then deadlines and pandemic and everything just stacked up and we couldn't make it happen.
Kaelyn (32:29):
Yep.
Hilary Bisenieks (32:29):
So, you know, I was, I, uh, very quickly turned around and got Merc Wolfmoor on the for June. And I was able to like take that up, but only because I had planned ahead far enough to say, like, you know, I'm, I'm recording this weekend for the November episode and that's about as close as I ever liked.
Kaelyn (32:56):
Hmm that's yeah, that's, that's fairly close. Cause you know, it's November and everything.
Hilary Bisenieks (33:03):
I will have Westman two weeks after recording to get the episode together. To peek behind the curtain. I'm typically finishing the episode up with less than a week ago before release, but that's just editing. That's just, I have to sit down and pound out two to three hours of editing, as opposed to, I have to pin somebody down for an hour and a half reporting session, make sure that our schedules can line up, which especially like I live in California. A lot of my guests do not live in California. If you don't live in the same time zone as me. It's going to get more and more hairy. And so like figuring out that sort of stuff makes it a lot harder and makes it, uh, you know, it's a real commitment and especially, you know, you guys do it on a weekly basis. I do my episodes on a monthly basis. Like that consistency is something that I think is really key.
Kaelyn (34:10):
Yeah. Rekka and I did, last year, we did Submissions September.
Rekka (34:15):
Oh God, yes.
Kaelyn (34:15):
...and both of us had like...
Rekka (34:18):
Regrets.
Hilary Bisenieks (34:18):
Oh no.
Kaelyn (34:20):
It was like, what did we end up with, like nine episodes?
Rekka (34:23):
Nine. Nine episodes in September.
Kaelyn (34:24):
Yeah. We ended up with nine episodes.
Rekka (34:27):
That was too many episodes. By the way.
Hilary Bisenieks (34:28):
That's a lot of episodes.
Kaelyn (34:29):
In 30 days. It was, it was a lot, um, some of them were a little shorter than was typical, but, you know, we decided like it, and again, this is just, this is another thing if you're going to start a podcast. It is a many-headed Hydra and—
Rekka (34:44):
Just be aware of alliteration when you come up with these things that like, we're going to do Submissions September and Artwork August, you know, what that means is you're going to have to come up with multiple episodes on the same topic and have them ready to go in the same month. And if you need guests, you need to be able to schedule them to fall so that you can publish their episodes where it feels appropriate to slip that episode in. And sometimes it just doesn't go your way.
Kaelyn (35:11):
And then on top of this is the work that goes into actual it to the episode before you actually record it. Um, you know, depending on the topic, like I may end up doing several hours of research and, um, even just sitting down, gathering my thoughts before we, before we start talking about things. Um, it's, you know, if I'm, if I'm going to state anything in any sort of a definitive way, I'm to make sure that what I'm stating is correct. So again, you know, depending on if you're thinking of doing this and what you're thinking, the, the topics or the, uh, you know, the theme of this might be, you need to factor into, you know, you don't always just get to sit down and start talking into a microphone and it's, it's going to win a Grammy.
Hilary Bisenieks (35:55):
Well I don't know about you, I get to sit down and talk into a microphone for an hour and a half. It just works out.
Kaelyn (36:00):
But think of all the work that goes into even, you know, yours beforehand, like yes, it's interviews, but all the time that you have to work on scheduling that, uh, getting in touch with people. Also, I assume that you've researched your guests before they come on. Now, granted, it sounds like you know a lot, a lot of them, but like at the same time, you know, if somebody you don't really know is introduced to, to you, you're going to spend time, you know, doing some research on them, checking up on all their stuff. You also have to make sure that they're going to be someone that you want to have on your podcast and aren't just going to go off on tangents, you know, discussing the conspiracies of chemtrails that are gonna turn us all into lizards.
Hilary Bisenieks (36:40):
Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet.
Kaelyn (36:42):
You mean disappointingly that hasn't happened yet.
Hilary Bisenieks (36:47):
I'm leaving the option open that it could. But yeah, you're absolutely right. And like, you know, I, I downplay some of that, but like, you know, before I even started the show, I was making just a list of everybody I could think of who would be cool to have on the show and building out, I built out a spreadsheet that is like my pride and joy that has color changing checkboxes to let me track where in flight, every single episode is and has tabs to track—because I double booked one month then suddenly I was like, "Oh, I actually have to like, have something where I write down who's on which month and can check that box to say, okay, have a guest for this month so I don't double book." So one of the things I'll say for podcasting for the format that I do, it has been an immense joy to me, but kind of tying back to what we've talked about previously of figuring out why you're going to do this podcast.
Hilary Bisenieks (37:58):
Like, you know, I didn't start this podcast because I wanted to win a Hugo award for best fancast—I would love to win a Hugo award for best fancast, iIf you are Hugos Georg who lives in the mountain and whittles 50,000 Hugos a day, please get in touch with me, I'd love one of those. But like I do this podcast to connect with people like me first and foremost, and the response that I've gotten from the podcast over time, you know, like if you're just in it for watching numbers go up on a graph, like good luck with that. But it's not, it's a long game.
Rekka (38:45):
Yeah.
Hilary Bisenieks (38:45):
Uh, especially if you don't have name recognition, but if you're in it for like the moments of personal connection, when somebody finds your podcast and tweets at you and says, "I just stumbled on this podcast. And it's the most amazing thing for me," or, you know, you hear that one of your friends who had started listening to your podcast is talking about, like, "I think this is the best podcast for a working writer and you should absolutely be checking it out if you want to be a writer." Like those are, those are the things that have really made it worthwhile in the long term.
Kaelyn (39:26):
Yeah. The incredibly gratifying moments of this. Well, then I'm gonna finish this off with, with a question let's, let's get in that TARDIS and go back to to little—
Rekka (39:40):
I don't have my piano wire ready. I didn't know we were doing this.
Kaelyn (39:45):
So, you know, previous, younger, wiser, less, less jaded Hilary, you know, what would you have told yourself?
Hilary Bisenieks (39:56):
Oh gosh. Um, so from a process level, I would've said get a macro pad or a dedicated keyboard to make your editing flow easier. Uh, I edited the first like five episodes—I think I edited the whole first season—with like just constantly going back and forth between keyboard and mouse and having to remember a million different shortcuts. But because I was only putting out an episode a month, I didn't, they weren't sticking in muscle memory as quickly as some other things, but I have a macro tab now that just has like a knob that zooms in and out, and a dedicated save button, and dedicated buttons for all of the things I do regularly for the show. And just physically, that makes it a lot easier for me. The other thing I would have said is just like, be open, be open to what this is going to bring, because it's not ,like whatever you're expecting, it's not going to be that it's going to be it's whole own thing.
Hilary Bisenieks (41:15):
Like I, I set out to make a single season and that was, at partway through the season, I was like, "Oh, I think I can do this again. I think I can produce 12 more episodes." Here I am now, having produced almost because I started doubling up for the pandemic. But boy, I wasn't expecting to make the friends that I've made through doing this podcast that, um, you know, I wasn't expecting to actually meet like strangers to me during the podcast where like I have friends who said to me, "Hey, I think this person would be an amazing guest for you. Would you like me to link you up with them?" So just like being open that open to that and being open to it being as much about the process as about the product, but like I finish recording a podcast episode or I finish editing a podcast episode—I didn't think I would enjoy editing—but I finished recording or editing just like grinning ear to ear because, you know, for the last hour, hour and a half, I was just shooting the shit with a friend.
Kaelyn (42:41):
And you've made a thing out of it now.
Hilary Bisenieks (42:43):
Yeah. It's my schtick now, which is great. I didn't know that was going to be the thing. I was just like, "I want to have people come on and read their trunked stuff cause I think that that will be cool." And it's turned into this whole thing of like, it's a conversation where I get to like invite you into my recording studio and just like share this very, almost intimate conversation just between two friends for an hour.
Rekka (43:16):
That's part of the draw of it, I think is this, you hear other people's podcasts and they're having such a nice time just having a conversation. The one that comes to mind other than obviously the trunk cast is, um, David Tennant Does a Podcast With, which are, you know, the same sort of thing. David Tennant has a conversation with someone who is, might be an actor, might be a writer, you know, some kind of performer. And they kind of just talk about all sorts of stuff. And, um, it has that same intimate, you know, like they're having a phone call and we just happen to be able to hear it kind of thing. It's very cool. And I love that. I'm starting to like look for that now. And it's probably the loneliness of, you know, this isolated—
Kaelyn (43:59):
My favorite ones are the ones where I can tell that the people on it are actually friends and like each other and look forward to getting together to record these. Um, you know, I, I like that dynamic and I, like Rekka said, you know, I feel like I'm just getting to listen to some friends talk about something that is interesting to me.
Hilary Bisenieks (44:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I will say that one of my inspirations of like, yeah, I could do this was listening to Be The Serpent, it's just three friends goofin' for an hour. And like I started the show before the pandemic, but there was definitely an element for me of like, "Oh, they have like, that is like genuine friends doing a friendship," you know, in a performative way.
Rekka (44:55):
They have an outline, but they are definitely, yeah.
Hilary Bisenieks (44:56):
Yeah they have an outline, but like, it was still like, you know, "I want to have what they're having."
Kaelyn (45:03):
Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people that, you know, kind of get started in, in this because it's like, I'm getting to see all of these great things that I really like and want to be a part of in some way. So which, you know, hey, if you've got, you know, if you've got a good friend that you enjoy doing this with and want to, uh, you know, start, that's, that's like I said, those are my favorite podcasts to listen to.
Rekka (45:28):
But if you're forcing it, people will be able to hear that too. It'll be more work for you. It'll be, you know, laborious, to listen to.
Kaelyn (45:35):
It won't be enjoyable. Yeah. Final, final thoughts, everyone. Should she start a podcast?
Rekka (45:41):
Okay. I'm going to turn this around on you before we do final thoughts, Kaelyn, for the TARDIS, what would you tell yourself?
Kaelyn (45:47):
Oh God,
Rekka (45:48):
Because this is about all of us now, you know, like this is, this is a conversation about, we all ended up podcasting. How did that happen? And, um, you can be honest if you have regrets.
Kaelyn (45:58):
No, no, I certainly, I certainly don't have regrets. What I would tell myself is first, start having guests on earlier. Um, I think we got so excited with all of the stuff we wanted to talk about that we sort of neglected, you know, what I think has become some of our better, you know, well, not better, but best episodes with, uh, you know, when we have.
Rekka (46:19):
"Not better, but best" I like that.
Kaelyn (46:19):
Well no, like the, the fun ones where like, you know, we have a really nice conversation is, you know, where we've had, where we've had guests on. Um, I would also say, you know, there, there's a couple little things in like past episodes and of course you can look back on this and go, "Oh, that was wrong. That was wrong." Where, um, my, my regrets are primarily centered around myself and times that I thought I maybe wasn't conveying information as succinctly. In general, I would make someone else do this now, as was the original plan. No, I'm joking. I really enjoy this. I have a lot of fun getting talked to Rekka, uh, you know, and, um, especially when I used to get to go visit her, you know, before, uh, when people still used to travel places. Yeah. I think, I think most of my, my look-backs kind of stem from," I should have said this in this episode, or I should have explained this more clearly." Um, part of me would say, you know, go back and have more of a like succinct timeline of like start to finish here as was my original plan. But I think in some ways it's better to jump around a little bit, you know? So it's not like, "Hey, we did this initial run of this, and now we're like scrounging for, you know, other things to talk about." Like, I like that we kind of, you know, spread this out and it's not like a exact chronology of how, uh—
Rekka (47:37):
Yeah, like, sorry we already talked about agents. We can't go back. Now. This isn't an audio book where there was a chapter on agents and then middle of chapter 12, you're talking about agents again.
Kaelyn (47:47):
Yeah, yeah. Um, so Rekka, what, uh, what's in your TARDIS?
Rekka (47:51):
Well I have the privilege of, um, having already done two podcasts before this one.
Kaelyn (47:57):
Yeah. And to interrupt Rekka real quickly here. My list would be a lot longer if Rekka hadn't been involved in this because.
Rekka (48:05):
I got to learn a lot of mistakes for you.
Kaelyn (48:06):
Yeah. Rekka just shepherded me through this whole thing. And I was like, "maybe this" she's like, "yeah, I did that. And it made me start pulling my hair out. Let's not do that."
Hilary Bisenieks (48:17):
Oh no.
Rekka (48:17):
Yeah. Um, so in my first podcast, um, one, we recorded weekly and we recorded on Monday and it was up on Wednesday. Um, the only part of that, that I regret is just how constant the need to be like tuned into it was. Um, we did have an audio producer for that podcast, so somebody was editing it for us. Um, but then I learned that I needed to, uh, double check everything.
Hilary Bisenieks (48:47):
Oh no.
Rekka (48:47):
So somebody was editing and then I would be like, "ah, yeah, no, that's, um, that needs to be edited. Could you please take this out" where we are clearly saying this is going to get edited out? Like, you know, um,
Hilary Bisenieks (49:00):
Not in a jokey way.
Rekka (49:00):
Not in a jokey way. Um, so as I have learned many times in my life, if you want something done, right, do it yourself. Or if you want something done to your own standards, do it yourself. Which is not to say I haven't made mistakes or missed things that could have been edited out, but like, you know, nothing obvious, hopefully.
Rekka (49:18):
Um, and then, uh, so I would go, well, I did, with this one, we went biweekly and, um, we plan things out in advance. We had, um, generally a list of ideas and Kaelyn would come up basically for a weekend. So we'd get, you know, a batch of them ready, and then we'd edit them kind of one at a time to stay ahead of, uh, putting them out there. Uh, another thing that I regret not doing in my first podcast was, uh, providing transcripts for accessibility reasons and also search engine optimization. Once again, accessibility improves everyone's life. So, um, you get those keyword hits if you have every word that you said in your podcast available for a text reader to scan, um, in addition to the benefit it provides to humanity. So I'm very glad that we've been doing transcripts for this podcast.
Rekka (50:10):
And, um, I definitely definitely like that. And then a microphone set up for multiple people in one room. Yeah. We did a lot of experimenting with various microphones and, um, having to rerecord episodes a couple of times and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, there's always something to learn with the technology and it's never going to behave even when you think you've got it down. And, um, um, if you can podcast with a co-host that you can like go to have smoked barbecue, like do it, that's how I recommend doing it. It's definitely like my first podcast co-host was from Texas, but I never got barbecue as a result of being on that podcast. This podcast has gotten me much more pork belly and brisket.
Kaelyn (50:50):
And jars of bacon.
Rekka (50:52):
And bacon in jars. Yes. But, you know, like, did I think that podcasting was going to increase my readership? Um, I think I did think that originally. Um, but I, you know, obviously I've learned that, cause that was my point earlier is, you know, know what you think you're going to get out of it and know who you're talking to. So that would be something that I would have gone back and told baby Rekka, for sure.
Kaelyn (51:22):
So, all right. Then final thoughts here around the table. Should you start a podcast?
Hilary Bisenieks (51:29):
Maybe.
Rekka (51:29):
Maybe.
Kaelyn (51:29):
I was going to say maybe too.
Rekka (51:31):
I think that makes it a hundred percent accurate response.
Kaelyn (51:34):
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.
Rekka (51:36):
I mean, only you know.
Kaelyn (51:38):
Yeah. I would say maybe if you go into it with the expectation of, I'm not expecting too much of this and if it doesn't go anywhere, then it's a fun hobby.
Rekka (51:47):
Yeah. And then, so the next episode will be, "do you need three podcasts?" The co-host I mentioned that, um, was my co-host on Hybrid Author Podcast, uh, had five podcasts at the time and was recording a podcast episode every night, sometimes two a day, uh, to stay on top of that. So like when he, when he ran out of time to do one, he, it was, you know, he'd obviously run out of time to do all of them. So that was a very sudden collapse of his podcasting world and social life. Cause then, you know, you're not talking to your friends all the time. Oh. And I would say, go find a friend to do it with. It makes it a lot more fun.
Kaelyn (52:20):
I was going to say, I mean, when I podcast, I get to talk to my friends a lot. So, you know, that's, that's definitely a benefit for us.
Rekka (52:28):
And make new ones.
Kaelyn (52:29):
Yes. So speaking of new friends, Hilary, where can people find you online?
Hilary Bisenieks (52:34):
Uh, folks can find me on Twitter @hbbisenieks that's H B B I S E N I E K S, where I am.
Kaelyn (52:45):
We'll have that in the shownotes.
Hilary Bisenieks (52:45):
Perfect, where you will find me shitposting about a lot of different things. Um, sometimes it's technology, sometimes it's writing, lately for completely mysterious reasons, it's been Philadelphia, uh, and you can find my podcast Tales from the Trunk, wherever you buy fine podcasts. Uh, it should be available on all the major podcasting platforms. Uh, so, you know, do me a solid leave me a review, all that good stuff. Uh, you can also find my links to all my writing at hilarybisenieks.com
Kaelyn (53:26):
Great. Thanks so much. Well, thank you for coming on. We, you know, this was really great. Um, you know, it's, it's, uh, slightly off topic for writing and publishing podcast, but I think we just determined not really.
Hilary Bisenieks (53:42):
Mm-hmm. Completely on topic.
Kaelyn (53:42):
Yes. So, well, thank you. We really enjoyed talking to you and, uh, you know, definitely check out Tales from the Trunk. It's, um, if nothing else you get to hear a nice story.
Rekka (53:51):
Yeah.
Hilary Bisenieks (53:51):
Absolutely. Thank you so, so much again this was super fun.
Kaelyn (53:55):
Thank you, this was fun.
Rekka (53:55):
Thanks for coming on.
Rekka (54:13):
Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember, you can find us on Twitter at @WMBcast, same for Instagram, or WMBcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand. And what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Episode 47 - Let Us Tell You About "Show Don't Tell"
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Tuesday Nov 03, 2020
Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!
We Make Books is hosted by Rekka Jay and Kaelyn Considine; Rekka is a published author and Kaelyn is an editor and together they are going to take you through what goes into getting a book out of your head, on to paper, in to the hands of a publisher, and finally on to book store shelves.
We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Episode 47: Let Us Tell You About Show Don't Tell
(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)
Rekka (00:00):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of we make books, a show about writing publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.
Rekka (00:08):
And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.
Rekka (00:11):
And you know what you've done? You have shown us that you write science fiction and fantasy as RJ. Theodore, you have not just told us
Rekka (00:18):
Although today I did just tell you.
Rekka (00:20):
You did just tell me now, but I mean, the books exist. I've seen them. So you've shown us that, but you have also talked at length about different parts and aspects of how you've written these and things that have happened to you, therefore showing us that you wrote them.
Rekka (00:34):
Or did I just tell you all this stuff? I don't know. What does this rule mean anyway?
Rekka (00:41):
Yeah. So today we're, we're tackling another one of those,uthose weird, funny little notes that you get from,ueditors and people critiquing your work. And you'll see, "show me, don't tell me" and –
Rekka (00:52):
Really frustrating because everyone says it and assumes you know what they mean, but if you haven't really processed what it means, or you haven't managed to do it and have someone say, "yes, that's what I mean by show, don't tell," like you just feel a little bit lost. You feel like maybe you are falling behind in the class kind of thing. Like why does everyone know what this means? And I still don't understand?
Rekka (01:16):
It is difficult, but I think it's one of those things that once you kind of figure out, it's a lot easier to understand what the note means. What, you know, we're trying to get at here is describing something to the reader and making the sentence do a lot of– do work in more than one way is a lot more interesting to read than just a list of descriptions, actions, emotions, or feelings.
Rekka (01:41):
If you at least identify when you're doing it in the revisions that's going to go a long way to improving your relationship with beta readers and editors later.
Rekka (01:51):
And improving your relationship with your characters, because we're going to talk a lot about that in this episode too. So–
Rekka (01:56):
All right. So let's not tell you what the episode is.
Rekka (01:59):
Let's show you!
Rekka (02:00):
On the other side of the music.
Kaelyn (02:17):
In this case, we're here mostly just to tell people things. If we just record this while showing things to each other, it's not going to be very,
Rekka (02:25):
What we're showing is our competence with writing skills and techniques
Kaelyn (02:30):
Ah okay.
Rekka (02:31):
And demonstrating, Ooh, maybe that's it. Okay. I solved it. Don't call it. Show don't tell because that confuses people show, call it demonstrate don't elucidate. Rolls right off the tongue.
Kaelyn (02:44):
Oh goodness. That's going on a mug somewhere. So yeah, but today we're, we're talking about one of the other great notes that people frequently get back from editors and agents, which is "show me, don't tell me I, I will, I think this is not as quote-unquote unhelpful as, you know, "tighten your storylines, work on your character arcs," that kind of thing. Um.
Rekka (03:12):
But it's one of the ones that people get early on in their writing because it's supposed to be so helpful, but if you haven't come across it and you don't know how to identify why it's being pointed out in your work, like what the heck does it mean?
Kaelyn (03:30):
Yeah. So there's, you know, before we, before we get started in too deep into this, let's kind of define some of the areas that we're talking about here. And it's funny because Rekka and I were talking about doing this episode and we both came to this with kind of different approaches to the show. Don't tell me like, things that were important to Ned,uwhile doing some research, I kind of discovered that what Rekka and I both think is important. Most of the literary world doesn't think is as important.
Rekka (03:57):
Well, we are genre-focused.
Kaelyn (04:00):
Yeah. Exactly.
Rekka (04:00):
That just supports that.
Kaelyn (04:02):
Yeah. So I came into this with like one of my big pet show me, don't tell me a pet peeves is characters. Urecords is world-building and,I–
Rekka (04:13):
It's not even that it was that you said characters first. So I said, Oh, okay. But also "world building." It wasn't like, I was like, "No, world building first!" This wasn't like a showdown.
Kaelyn (04:22):
It's always a showdown.
Rekka (04:22):
It was a telldown. I'll show myself out.
Kaelyn (04:28):
All right. That's the podcast, everyone. We're done.
Rekka (04:30):
Like forever. She can't take it anymore.
Kaelyn (04:34):
Oh God. Okay. but it's funny because then when I was doing research on this and most of these "show me, don't tell me examples. And what everybody's talking about is more of writing and prose and style. So the point of all of it is nobody wants to be bombarded with facts and told "this is the way things are in this book" without actually experiencing it while reading it. One it's bad storytelling and two it's disorienting,
Rekka (05:04):
But if they're reading it, aren't they experiencing it?
Kaelyn (05:07):
Well, no, they're not because that's not experiencing it, that's just being read a list of facts and statements.
Rekka (05:14):
I know I'm playing devil's advocate in case you didn't tell.
Kaelyn (05:18):
I know. Um so why is this a problem?
Rekka (05:23):
Because you bore your reader, you don't engage them. You don't pull them through the book.
Kaelyn (05:27):
Yeah. This is one of those things that, and we rarely, you know, kind of come down to this it's bad writing. It's like, I mean, really, you know, we don't, we don't talk too much about like, you know, universally accepted things that are considered bad writing, but this is one of them because as Rekka said, it's boring, it is not engaging. It's not pulling the reader into the book. Anyone can sit here and rattle off a list of, you know, facts about like the, you know, the kitchen table that had sitting at right now, it was brown and round. Light brown with wood patterns on it. It was made of wood. And that's not really interesting. It distracts from the story. It doesn't paint a scene. It doesn't give you any indication of how the character is feeling or interacting, or considering how to act based on their surroundings or their thoughts. It's bad writing. And it's well, not always lazy, but oftentimes lazy.
Rekka (06:30):
But it's also not serving a purpose other than to describe the table. And if the table itself doesn't have anything to do with the tension you're trying to build in a scene or inform you what this character might be like, because you know, you're discussing the furnishings of their house, which describes the character. Maybe more than just saying the character can afford lots of nice furniture. You know.
Kaelyn (06:58):
The, every everything, well, the vast majority of what you write in your book should be serving two purposes. If a monster erupts out of the ground to try to eat our heroes and you have to stop the action and the story to describe the monster, that's serving two purposes. One, you want to describe the monster. You want to know what the heroes are about to fight against, but two, you want them to know how scary this monster is. So the words you use, you don't just say, "it looked like a centipede. It was purple. It had a lot of legs and weird green eyes with lots of facets on them. Venom was dripping off its fangs." Actually "venom was dripping off its fangs" is a good example of what, how to describe it. But instead of stating facts about it, what you should be doing instead is, you know, "the creature erupted out of the ground, spraying rock and sand everywhere. Once they cleared the dust from their eyes, they beheld the monster before them. It was a towering behemoth of," you know, and go on like that, because what you're doing is you're showing that the readers are, or excuse me, that the heroes are freed here. And then you also don't have to tell us that they're afraid.
Rekka (08:09):
I was just going to say well can't you sum it up and say the monster burst forth from the ground and scared the heroes?
Kaelyn (08:14):
Absolutely. If you don't want anyone to know what the monster looks like. Yeah.
Rekka (08:19):
Yeah. So you would use this to do both things, show that the person is scared and the reaction without having to say this is their reaction and do the thing that you'd really like to do, which is, I assume if you're creating a monster as you want to get into what the monster looks like and the creature design.
Kaelyn (08:35):
Yeah. So in this case you know, what we're kind of talking about here is the last thing I brought up, which is sort of like the style and prose and writing technique of, you know, making your sentences do extra work for you. You're describing the monster and then you're also establishing that it is threatening and our heroes are afraid of it to, you know, circle back to some of the other ones that Rekka and I came up with here. You know, well Rekka you know, had specifically said world-building.
Rekka (09:05):
Yeah, well, mostly because when you have a genre book, you've got some sort of aspect of the world that you've invented from whole cloth. And of course, you're very proud of that. And of course you want to talk about it. And this isn't to say, like, there's the whole iceberg theory thing, and I'm not going to go into that. That's not what I mean by this. But the idea that you want to keep the book interesting, which means you need to keep the motivation of the reader of wanting to find out what happens next. If you're just describing a setting in your world. Well, it doesn't matter what happens next. That setting is probably unaffected by the plot and the story. And the time you take away from keeping that reader in the story is detrimental to their, you know, their draw into the whole world.
Rekka (10:01):
So even though you think like, "Oh, my world is so cool. I have to get all this in here." Your reader cares less and less about the world when you keep interrupting the story to tell them about it. So just like Katelyn was saying, do two things with your sentences, you know, throw a little bit of your world building into an action. That's happening in the story. You know, passing the,uneon ice cream shop where all the ice cream was neon of course is what I mean. Not that it's painted neon. That's ridiculous. You know, so like build your world building in the same way that you're going to build your emotional reactions to things in and your physical descriptions of things. So in the sense, your first example kind of was world building. Ubut it was also emotional. And so your sentences need to do at least two things. So they can be emotion and world building or action and world building, or action and emotion, or character and world like, you know, mixing match. Don't just have nouns and verbs in the right order.
Kaelyn (11:03):
Yeah. So, and then my, my particular pet peeve with the show me don't tell me is is character related. I hate reading books, I hate getting submissions, where all I'm reading about is how a character is. So this and guys, this character, they are just, so This Thing, this, that they're, so This, that it's practically coming out of their ears. Everyone knows that they're, they're, This they're just the most This that there is. And then you see nothing in their actions, thoughts, or speech that would indicate that aside from the author and then usually other characters around them telling you this.
Rekka (11:42):
Reinforcing it in a very direct and obvious way.
Kaelyn (11:45):
Yeah. So it's that's, that's one of that is my big show me don't tell me pet peeve is,uif you know, you've got a guy who's supposed to be like the most brilliant, I don't know codebreaker in the entire world, but we don't actually see him break any codes and that's not part of the plot, why is that, you know, why do you need me to tell to know this? Why is that important here? And,uubut you know, there's, there's things that I think you get a little more and you see this a lot in,uyoung adult and teen novels where,uyou know, you want the cool kid, the shy kid, the goth kid, the, you know, where we get these sort of like emotional angles and none of them are actually then displayed in the writing of the character. Uso why... You know, apart from why is this important? Why, why is it bad writing?
Rekka (12:45):
Good writing is something that someone can enjoy. So if they're not enjoying it– you know, like, okay, across the board, not everyone is going to enjoy every story, but there are things you can do to increase your chances that someone's going to enjoy the story. And one of those things is to control, for example, the pacing and the immersion of the reader in the world. And when you tell someone something, rather than show it to them, you're kind of saying, "No, no, no, no, just trust me on this," without providing the proof. Exactly. And so it's hard for a person to sink into that world and enjoy it if they're constantly thinking, "Well, okay, you say that, but where I, like, what does that mean to this character? Or what does that, how is that going to impact the story or anything like that?"
Kaelyn (13:36):
Yeah. And I think that where this comes from a lot is this, especially, you know, in genre fiction, like, you know, Rebecca and I work in is "I've come up with this really cool thing, and I need everybody to know all about it. I need them to know about how awesome this world is or how scary this monster is or how cool and bad-ass my main character is."
Rekka (14:00):
Well we do want to know these things.
Kaelyn (14:02):
Yes, absolutely. But "if I tell them over and over again, they'll get it," and that is not how you get a reader to internalize things, readers, internalize things by the actions of the characters or the interaction with the world around them.
Rekka (14:18):
Do you think this is kind of, and I hate this phrase, is this just like a "rookie mistake" where they know they need to convince somebody of this, or they know they need to include this. They just don't know how to go about doing it properly?
Kaelyn (14:30):
Yeah. And I think it is. I think it's something that you see a lot with new and emerging writers, where you've just got all of these amazing ideas coming out of your ears and you've just, you know, gotta gather them all up and get them on a page. And so what it turns into is just, you know, a list of reasons why this thing is how you say it is rather than seeing people you know, either display those characteristics or seeing the world, or even just the way that you're writing. So a lot of times, you know, as we said, when you, you're going to get into, if you Google, you know, "show me, don't tell me" it's going to be pages and pages of you know, examples and literature and all of these famous quotes and stuff about it. But it goes beyond just style and the ability and the way that you write. Within the story itself, you can't, you know, make a character a certain way by having everyone else around them insist they are that way, but them showing no signs of that whatsoever.
Rekka (15:41):
So I'm going to give an example with Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, because when you think about Scrooge, you tend to think like, "Oh, well he's a cheapskate." I mean, the name is synonymous with cheapskate. This is a thing Dickens did. He made stuff pretty clear just by the way he named people. His story is about his character arc. You think about it, and you're like, "yeah, no, people are pretty clear that Ebenezer's really awful." And you can say "Ebenezer's is really awful," if you were writing the story or you can describe him as "the cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled, his cheek, stiffened, his gait made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grading voice." Like–
Kaelyn (16:27):
Yeah, that's good writing that.
Rekka (16:29):
Yeah. And I'm not a huge Dickens fan. He got paid by the word. And so he did go on, but like he was described, he described Scrooge as "a squeezing wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous, old sinner." Like these are descriptive things but they're adding so much. Right? And then not only that, but the character behaves in such a manner. You're not just told this, but he says, you know, when people come to him and this is what you're saying about like the character supporting like, "Oh, just saying, Oh, you're an old miser, Scrooge," no people come to him looking for charitable handouts for the holidays. As, you know, as being established as, as good and wholesome and Scrooge says, "are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Like, he has an argument with people that shows how you might expect a person to behave and how this person is behaving in contradiction to that. And so it's just like a really,
Kaelyn (17:34):
No, that's.
Rekka (17:34):
It's rich. Like the way that, you know, this is, this is seven layers of Scrooge-ness that you get out of these, these, these words that are chosen. And so like in some ways it's good that he was paid by the word.
Kaelyn (17:46):
Most people in the English speaking world, even if they haven't read a Christmas Carol or seen one of the movies, which by the way, the Muppet version of it is, is the best one. Michael Kane, as Scrooge, there should be no other Scrooges ever.
Rekka (18:01):
Certainly not Jim Carey.
Kaelyn (18:03):
Most people know when somebody says like, Oh God, he's a Scrooge. Or, you know, like call you Scrooge. They,
Rekka (18:11):
It's an idiom now.
Kaelyn (18:11):
Yes, exactly. Because this was so effective in the writing. So that's a really, really good example of why this is important. Going back to, you know, like new writers and just wanting to get this stuff out there. I just think that information dumps, this insisting upon– the characters that insist upon themselves, is really distracting from the story.
Rekka (18:37):
Because you can feel it's the writer doing the insisting.
Kaelyn (18:40):
Yes. It makes you not like the characters. And I'm not saying every character in your book needs to be loved and cheered for, but you usually need at least one to love and cheer for or everyone's going to have a really hard time getting through the book.
Rekka (18:53):
Yeah. And I'm dealing with that in some of the TV shows I'm watching right now. There are so many important characters, but you at least understand their motivations, even if you don't like them or want to spend any time in their presence.
Kaelyn (19:06):
Did you just finished The Boys, Rekka?
Rekka (19:08):
I might have, yes. There's no one left to root for almost. But the, the idea of you insisting, "Mary Sue–"
Kaelyn (19:20):
Yeah, let's lean in here.
Rekka (19:20):
"Was So beautiful. Everyone loved her and she looked great in everything she wore." That's, that's great, but I'm not getting anything out of that.
Kaelyn (19:32):
Well, also, do you see what just happened there? You're not developing a character. You're giving me a list of qualities and traits about them.
Rekka (19:41):
This is like a job application.
Kaelyn (19:43):
Yeah, exactly. Let's use Bella from the Twilight series.
Rekka (19:49):
I think she's a prime example of this.
Kaelyn (19:51):
Yes. So you know, for those of you who have not read this or have not seen the movies and I, dear God, Kirsten Stewart Um so one of the really common critiques of the Twilight books apart from, you know, like apart from the "dear God, why?" Was, you know, on, a literary level that Bella is an empty vessel and there's debate as to whether or not this was the intention of the author, you know, that she'd just come off as like a very plain uninteresting character with very little personality to speak of, so that young girls reading this could, you know, easily put themselves into, you know, relate to her and say, "I am just like Bella." But what is really infuriating about this character and full disclosure—I have read all of these books. I haven't read the most recent one because why would I, at this point Um one of the things that, you know, a lot of people pointed out about this that is a legitimate critique of Twilight apart from the fact that these are vampires that don't catch fire the sun, but that's fine. It's, it's fine. We don't actually see Bella do too much that would establish her personality. If you took out the fact that this is written from her perspective. And even despite the fact that it's written from her perspective, there isn't a whole lot going on with this girl. She doesn't have a whole ton of defining characteristics other than the fact that she's in love with a vampire. That is her entire personality. We're told things like she's very smart, she's very accident prone. She's very you know, she's a hard worker.
Kaelyn (21:38):
She's really loyal. The loyalty one, maybe we see a little bit, but I'm not sure if it's loyalty or obsession. One of the running jokes through the whole book is how accident prone she is. I, I could not come up with anything other than sometimes she bumps into people in the hallway there, so this is a good example of, you know, show me, don't tell me where and granted, here's the thing: this may have been deliberate on the part of the author, even though I said, I haven't read the newest one. So,ushe re-wrote the first book from the perspective of the shiny vampire boyfriend. Okay. Uso you're getting everything from his angle and you know what, for the sake of this podcast now, I think I'm going to have to go read this book because it would be very interesting to see Bella from outside Bella, and whether or not she seems to have a personality. And I think that's exactly what this book is. So now.. Dammit, Now I've gotta go read this book.
Rekka (22:41):
Well you don't HAVE to.
Kaelyn (22:43):
No. I have to, for the sake of science. Bella, I think is a good example of in terms of characters, "show me, don't tell me" because we just keep hearing all this stuff about her without ever actually seeing her be anything except pretty much completely passive aside from acting dramatically and irrationally when it comes to Shiny Vampire Boyfriend.
Rekka (23:05):
And you say, this is an effective tool to rope in a certain kind of reader. But it seems to me that if you write a compelling character, you're going to rope in a reader of any type.
Kaelyn (23:18):
I would hope so because here's the thing, there were, she was surrounded by compelling characters, everything around her was far more interesting than she was.
Rekka (23:26):
And it was just rubbing off on her, was that the idea?
Kaelyn (23:29):
I GUESS. You know, like I didn't, I remember talking about this with someone and they were like, "I don't understand why, you know, girls, like all of these young girls love this book so much. Like, I mean the main character is like so boring." And I said, "they're not reading it for her, the reading it for the love triangle, the reading it for Hot Werewolf Guy and Shiny Vampire Boy."
Rekka (23:49):
Yeah.
Kaelyn (23:49):
Um Bella's just a vessel to carry that story along in all of this.
Rekka (23:56):
It just seems like it could also be done effectively with someone who is not an empty vessel.
Kaelyn (24:00):
Absolutely. And that's the better story.
Rekka (24:04):
Okay. So getting back to the "show, don't tell," don't don't take too much to heart from the gobs and gobs of money that the Twilight series has made. Please. We would hate for you to go down that dark and disturbing path.
Kaelyn (24:16):
–To Make a lot of money off–
Rekka (24:19):
Look, if, if that's what you enjoy reading and that's how you liked your characters... I guess?
Kaelyn (24:23):
Hey, you know what, look, everybody like knocked Twilight for a lot of stuff. If that's just something you enjoy sitting down and reading and kind of, you know, mindlessly, or in a very engaged way, going through. Awesome. That's great. But Bella is a good example of characters that we were told about rather than shown.
Rekka (24:42):
Okay. So getting back to the, the origins of this, when it's handed out as advice and who's handing it out as advice and where does it come from? Where's it supposed to take you and how do you want a new writer to interpret the phrase?
Kaelyn (25:02):
So if I tell somebody, I never just put, you know, highlight something and say, "show don't tell me," I always put a note next to there saying like, "Hey instead of you telling me about how, you know, sharp, this sword is, have the character pick it up and slice something in half." That's way more interesting than, you know, just staring at this sword and describing it in great detail.
Rekka (25:27):
Although a little irresponsible.
Kaelyn (25:28):
Well, it depends what you're slicing in half. You know, if there was a watermelon that you were about to eat anyway, then sure. You know,
Rekka (25:34):
Yeah but the sword doesn't deserve to be used as cutlery!
Kaelyn (25:38):
Depends on the sword.
Rekka (25:39):
Okay. So two characters arguing over whether or not they can use the sword to cut the watermelon. "I'm Not saying it won't cut the watermelon. I'm saying that's not an appropriate use of our family's sacred sword."
Rekka (25:49):
"And I'm saying that we all want the watermelon. I see nothing else around except the family sacred sword. Don't you think your family would want us to have the watermelon?"
Rekka (25:56):
"And we'll wash it right away. We'll hang it back on the wall over the hearth. Everyone will just think we polished it. It'll look better. Everyone will be happy."
Kaelyn (26:03):
And then we get watermelon.
Rekka (26:04):
And then later, monsters attack and the edge of the sword is dull because you cut the watermelon with it and everybody dies, the end.
Kaelyn (26:10):
Oh. Very good Rekka. Very good. Yeah. So when I highlight these things, what I'm trying to communicate to the reader really at the core of it is either one, you were slowing down the story or two, you're missing an opportunity to contribute something to the story. Be it, you know, establishing of piece of information we didn't know before, giving the characters a chance to kind of show their feelings or their emotions a little bit you know, having an action rather than a description. The author who wrote Fight Club–
Rekka (26:47):
Palahniuk.
Kaelyn (26:48):
There you go. Chuck Palahniuk. I remember reading something that he wrote and I actually, I did go and look it up before this, and he, to remember doing exactly he said. But he doesn't like what he calls Thought Verbs thinks knows, understands, wants desires. What he's saying instead is make sure you have an Action Word in there.
Kaelyn (27:14):
And by that, like, instead of saying like, you know, "understands," describe what they're understanding. They smelled something and it triggered a memory and they remembered this. They, you know, reach their hand out in the dark and touch something and realized it was the centipede monster from earlier in the story. It ate both of those heroes and unow it's hiding in the dark.
Rekka (27:38):
He's back.
Kaelyn (27:39):
Yeah. He's back, the centipede monster's here forever. So, sensory and action details are a good way to avoid telling people about it because what you're doing then is you're making the character experience something and you're making them relate things to you and have to describe it. You can't just say "Rekka smelled something," you need to say, "Rekka smelled something foul. It made her nervous. It reeked of death." Because now what you're doing is you're describing what Rekka smelled. You're giving us a sense of her emotional state. And you're implying that there is probably a dead body somewhere.
Rekka (28:14):
Right.
Kaelyn (28:15):
So you're setting up the scene.
Rekka (28:17):
And I did find the Lit Reactor article that you're talking about with Chuck Palahniuk's words. And so "instead of characters knowing anything, present details that allow the reader to know those things" is kind of how he phrases it. So instead of a character wanting something, you have to describe the thing so that the reader wants it. In the sense of Twilight, you're putting the character in that main character's shoes, except you're not doing it by making those shoes empty for the reader to step into. You're actually tying them onto the reader's feet yourself.
Kaelyn (28:50):
Okay. That's– There you go. Yeah. And that's exactly what it is, is it's immersive. Every story is told from something's perspective, be it, you know, a super advanced alien life form or a somehow borderline sentient rock. They're both still experiencing things. Now they're experiencing them very differently, but that's your job to communicate in the book, and just telling us what they're experiencing is not immersing the reader. If you're a rock on Mars, just sitting there going "wow, I'm just this rock of Mars. It's really red and dusty here."
Rekka (29:23):
See, I thought you were going for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble when you talked about being a rock.
Kaelyn (29:27):
Oh, that's a good book.
Rekka (29:28):
That's an excellent book.
Kaelyn (29:30):
Scared me when I was a kid.
Rekka (29:31):
Scared you, really?
Kaelyn (29:32):
I don't know. It's just like, so for those of you who haven't read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, first of all, go, go read that. But it's a story of a donkey who finds a magic pebble.
Rekka (29:43):
I think his parents give it to him. Don't they?
Kaelyn (29:45):
I thought he found it in a Creek and if he holds it and he realizes he can make a wish and the wish will come true. And he's being attacked by a lion at one point, and I'm not sure geographically where takes place.
Rekka (30:00):
It was Oatsdale, of course.
Kaelyn (30:01):
He's being attacked by a lion and wishes that he were a rock because the lion won't attack a rock. Except then he realizes he's dropped the pebble and he's not holding it anymore and he can't wish himself to be back from being a rock. Yeah. And he stays a rock for a really long time.
Rekka (30:17):
Well, that's what I'm saying, this is the point of view of a rock.
Kaelyn (30:20):
Yeah. But no, it's actually really sad because his parents think like he's dead and like go, you know, search for him forever. And like, they keep like standing on top of him to like search for him and sitting on him and crying about him. And it's, it's a really weird children's book. You know, so if you're, you know, as I said, the rock on Mars and you know, it's still dull, dull, boring life. And then all of a sudden robot shows up your prose and your sensory words and your, you know, way that you're experiencing, and the things that you're seeing obviously have to change in order to communicate the excitement of the rock, because "Hey, robot!"
Rekka (30:58):
Which you can't call to or wave to, or walk over to, or offer ice cream to.
Kaelyn (31:03):
Maybe it's going to pick you up to study you.
Rekka (31:07):
If you're lucky.
Kaelyn (31:07):
Yeah. And then what if, you know, you start to fall in love with the robot, but it turns out that it's not actually the robot because it's a bunch of people in NASA controlling the robot, but you don't know that.
Rekka (31:16):
I don't know, the robot's got algorithms.
Kaelyn (31:19):
Yeah. That's true. How do you fix this? How do you avoid falling into this trap? Rekka, have you ever had to kind of reconcile with this?
Rekka (31:29):
I was just thinking like, I wish I'd grabbed the notes, but Ryan Kelley, my editor at Parvus, when we were working on Salvage, one of the things he did was point out a few areas,uwith the one character Emeranth where some opportunities were there that I had missed to make her as clever and as caring and as smart as she could have been. And so his suggestion was something along the lines of like, "this is a great opportunity to show her doing the governing that she's forced into" and that sort of thing.
Kaelyn (32:00):
Yeah. That is something that I frequently make notes of is it's not even, you know, with the writers at this point that I'm getting bored, it's that you're missing an opportunity to have this person do something and, you know, be the bad-ass that you're saying they are. Be the clever person that you're saying they are, the great leader, the great fighter, the coward, you know, any, any number of these things
Rekka (32:23):
He said when he was pointing out a spot that needed showing, not telling he wasn't saying "show don't tell" waggling a finger and then moving on like, "Oh, my job is done. What a good editor I am." He was saying, "I would suggest that you use this to build this character into the character you say they are." And now Emeranth's scenes make me get all, like we be in shivery on the regular. So...
Kaelyn (32:49):
"Show don't tell" helps develop, you know, whether it be like your world building, your character, or just even your writing technique, it's going to give you a more rich style. You know, like at the most basic level you don't say you know, "Stephanie was a selfish immature entitled girl." You write a scene where Stephanie's throwing a fit because everybody forgot to throw a surprise party for her dog's half birthday.
Rekka (33:20):
So we talk about this broadly, we've talked about children's books, we've talked about movies, we've talked about YA books and all kinds of stuff, but are there genres in which this applies less or more like, are there expectations of like, "yeah, no, I actually just want you to get out of my way with this character and let me use them as an avatar for myself in this story."
Kaelyn (33:46):
I don't know if there are, genres where it's acceptable. I'll be honest with you. This is something that I think is pretty universally frowned on. This is one of the few sort of constants. You know, that said, anytime you're writing something, there's going to be instances where you have no choice but to do a little bit of quote-unquote telling you know, be it because maybe it's a really fast-paced scene and you want to keep the reader engaged and you want to keep the action going. So it's, "he parried left. She swiped, right. He ducked, she dodged they've rolled on the ground," you know, like you're.
Rekka (34:20):
But that's action.
Kaelyn (34:21):
Exactly. Yeah.
Rekka (34:22):
It's engaging. And if we're using Chuck Palahniuk's example, like that's exactly where you want to be, is more in the physical. So if you are telling and, but it's action beats, would you say that's better than telling in thought beats?
Kaelyn (34:38):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Rekka (34:39):
Okay. So then my question is, what role in this conversation specifically, would you say adverbs play?
Kaelyn (34:49):
Ooh.
Rekka (34:49):
I feel like there's some bleed in, you know, between the two.
Kaelyn (34:52):
I think adverbs are, like any other thing in life, good in moderation. You know, there's again, and this is another thing that there's a lot of people with very strong opinions about there, about–
Rekka (35:05):
Never ever ever use adverbs.
Kaelyn (35:07):
Yeah. That's impossible.
Rekka (35:09):
Right.
Kaelyn (35:09):
It's simply, it's simply, it's like not ending your sentences with a preposition, it's like just not the way the English language works. So what Rekka's referring to here is, you know, some editors and, you know, people who get all stuffed up about this stuff. Will say, I don't want to see you write "'Oh, you'll see,' Rekka said slyly.'" I want to hear "Rekka closed the laptop and turned to me with a sly smile on her face and a glint in her eye. 'Oh, You'll see,' she said." Notice how I made it not an adverb.
Rekka (35:44):
Yeah. By not connecting it to the say.
Kaelyn (35:46):
Exactly. Yes. And yeah, there is this little kind of weird nebulous area there where like, you're like, "well, I'm describing what she's doing. It's, it's kind of an action." But at the same time, you're telling me what she's doing, rather than showing me with a sly smile on her face.
Rekka (36:05):
That's I would point out that in the, the example, your quote-unquote correction, we also have things that ground us in the space. And so one, a person who might feel the need to tell you what everyone is thinking might also feel the need to show all the actions in the right order, what hand they're using. Like "she used her left hand to close the door while she scratched her nose with her right, with the fingertips of her right hand," you know, like being very specific about everything.
Kaelyn (36:36):
Yeah. That's interesting that you bring this up because what you're doing now is you're crossing into a different literary problem. We are past the "show, don't tell" and we are into the "excessively detailed for absolutely no reason."
Rekka (36:47):
And we will maybe talk about that in another episode.
Kaelyn (36:49):
Yes. But that is, that is a good point. Is that there is a certain, you know– we get past a certain telling like capacity and into the you're now describing the placement of every single thing in the room for no reason.
Rekka (37:05):
This is a game of twister.
Kaelyn (37:05):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Rekka (37:07):
But what you did was you combined the two things to say, like, we've moved ahead with the story because the laptop has been closed or maybe "Rekka closed the laptop and grabbed her jacket. 'You'll See.'" That implies movement.
Kaelyn (37:21):
Yes. But you're leaving is she being threatening?
Rekka (37:25):
I wasn't going so much for the sly as talking about like trying to get more action in, in that sense.
Kaelyn (37:29):
Yeah, exactly.
Rekka (37:30):
In the case of being sly, then you might say "Rekka closed the laptop, grabbed her jacket and narrowed her eyes as she shut the lights off. 'You'll See.'" Or whatever.
Kaelyn (37:39):
Yeah. So yeah. Are there times where you have to, you will have to tell rather than show? Absolutely. Are adverbs a never use them? No, I mean, you will, at some point have to use an adverb, but they are a slippery slope to telling, not showing, even though they sound like you're doing a good job of describing something, they're really telling rather than describing,
Rekka (38:00):
They are skipping the cues that we want in the story and they are jumping right to the judgment. So what you're doing is you're telling the reader how to feel rather than making them feel that. But one thing you did mention earlier, real quick, that I just wanted to get back to before we wrap this up, is the idea of a fast paced scene where there's a lot of action and maybe you've just, you know, watched a Jason Statham movie and you feel like you need to really show all that action and show and describe the, say, like train– underground train tunnel they're in while they're running around chasing each other. But if stopping to describe the space they're in means that you lose that momentum, then it may still be in the physical, but it could also be more telling than we need. You know, "I nearly slipped on a loose piece of old soggy newspaper" or something like that. That's still–
Kaelyn (39:02):
Gross.
Rekka (39:02):
That brings you back into the action, increases the threat because you could fall down now, versus like "the train station had been abandoned since 1970, despite many attempts by the local politicians to renovate and drum up support for a Renaissance of the train museum, which was founded by so-and-so."
Kaelyn (39:24):
Yeah, Exactly.
Rekka (39:26):
That's world building!
Kaelyn (39:27):
We don't need to know all of that.
Rekka (39:29):
That doesn't serve your action scene with Jason Statham, who's got to get in that train car and then take off his sweater and use it to defeat his enemies.
Kaelyn (39:36):
Yeah. Because unless the enemy he's defeating is the corrupt politician that was siphoning money out of the budget to restore the train station. All we need to know is that has been abandoned for about 50 years.
Rekka (39:46):
Yeah. And some gross newspaper will communicate that better than a history lesson.
Kaelyn (39:51):
Just to round this out. You know, somebody comes back to you and is like, Hey, show me, don't tell me you're kind of going, "Oh, well, what the heck do I do with this?" Take a look at the sentence or the paragraph in particular that they're calling attention to and try– read it out loud, try to figure out if it sounds like the paragraph or the sentence is doing double work to you. Is it conveying more than simple statements of fact or very straightforward descriptions of what people are doing or how they appear or a feeling?
Rekka (40:24):
Is it a list of judgements of a thing versus list of evidence to support that judgment?
Kaelyn (40:30):
Yeah. I would say that, listen, this isn't, you know, we're being kind of catty about this in terms of, you know, like this is one of those universally considered bad things, but this is also very hard. This is one of the reasons why it's difficult to be a good writer. Because we, as humans are used to, when you describe something, you know, like, "Oh, I went on a date with this guy. Oh, cool. Let's say like, well he's tall and he has Brown hair and blue eyes and he's got a scar on his eyebrow. And,uhe, you know, plays the saxophone and he works as a barista." Like you're telling me, like, you're just listing this stuff about a guy who is a real living, breathing person, but that's a totally acceptable thing that we do all the time. Uyou know, a friend of mine is like, "Oh, let me tell you about my new boyfriend. I don't need poetic soliloquy about, you know, his feelings on the bass versus the alto saxophones,uand why he prefers one and the childhood trauma surrounding that. Umou know, I just like to know that he plays the saxophone. So that's a normal thing for us with how we talk and how we describe things to people in everyday life. However, when you're doing that, you're looking at your friend as they're doing that and you're and you know, says like, "'Oh, he, you know, plays the saxophone and he's a barista.' Rekka rolled her eyes. This was Kaelyn's fourth barista of the year. Second one that played the saxophone. Where was she finding these men?" But Rekka knows that that's going on in her head.
Rekka (42:01):
Right. But you put that in the story and suddenly there's context again.
Kaelyn (42:05):
Exactly. But for regular conversation, you don't need context. And hopefully if that's what Rekka's actually thinking, she's not going to start narrating her internal thoughts to me, because then I'm going to–
Rekka (42:15):
Oh! That's a great idea. I'm going to start doing that now.
Kaelyn (42:20):
Um so it's a hard thing to do just because of the way we're used to conducting ourselves in our daily life. We don't need to, you know, I don't need to describe to Rekka the fact that I'm sitting in my kitchen right now and I'm wearing a sweater because it's finally getting a little bit chilly here, but I still have some of the windows cracked open... Because one, Rekka doesn't need to know that two, she can see me in the sweater and probably see the window behind me. In stories you don't have that. So you need to make your sentences do as much work as they can, otherwise you are just describing lists of actions, emotions, and feelings.
Rekka (42:57):
And this might be a great opportunity to take the book that made you feel the most feelings, and give it a skim and see how their prose sounds compared to yours in areas where you're being told this needs some showing versus telling. I mean, the best thing to do is to pay more attention to people who are making you feel the way you want your reader to feel when they read your book.
Rekka (43:19):
"What Can I do to become a better writer? How should I get started writing?" And my first answer is always you need to read a lot.
Rekka (43:25):
Always. Never stop reading.
Kaelyn (43:27):
Really. Never stop reading, because having all of these things in the back of your head, you know, it's not stealing. Think of it as a research. How did this author, that I really liked this book, how did they handle this problem? How did they make sure, how did they grab me by, you know, the heart and really squeeze it for this one scene?
Kaelyn (43:45):
Like, what did they do that left me in tears here? What did they do that made me stand up and cheer? Why did I stay awake until three in the morning? Because of something I read? You know, so don't think of that as copying. It's not that I think of it as research.
Rekka (44:00):
Right. Cause you're not going to take their words and use them in your book. You're going to figure out what they did and find how that parallels what you're trying to do. And that's a good thing, you know? Chances are, they did that too.
Kaelyn (44:15):
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I'm not sure how much advice that was on Show Don't Tell, but at least hopefully that was some information about why it is important and what people are trying to say when they point it out to you. Yeah. And if this is something you struggle with, don't feel down about that. It's hard. We don't think about practicing writing, but like you really do have to practice writing. Now granted, practicing is doing revisions, but you know, I think we think like you practice piano and then, you know, you don't really have anything to show for it at the end, but practicing can still, you know, it's the same way as like, you know, practicing cake decorating. Maybe it's not great, but you still have a decorated cake at the end of it.
Rekka (44:56):
Yeah.
Rekka (44:57):
Yeah. And you can use that to look back and say how much you've improved because your next cake has way more skill applied to it because you've learned
Kaelyn (45:05):
Plus cake! And even if it doesn't look pretty, maybe it tastes really good.
Rekka (45:09):
Exactly. You know, when you keep writing, that's how you keep improving. You're not going to sit down and plunk out one amazing novel and never write again. And it will need revision and whatever you write is going to need a second draft or is going to need at least another pass. There's little you can do to avoid that. The more that you write, the less often that you will fall upon some of these like quote-unquote rookie mistakes, you'll make all new mistakes of more advanced variety, but you will get better. And reading more, writing more, and you know, getting other people's opinions will help. There are critique groups out there on the internet, you know, that you can join and you'll get feedback of varying harshness and helpfulness, but like, it will help you. When you critique other people's work, it will help you critique your own work. Because if you can sit back and read it like you were reading someone else's work, how am I going to help this person understand what I'm trying to say I think it needs? Because sometimes you need to rubber ducky your own thoughts a little bit.
Kaelyn (46:18):
You know, at the end of the day, you hope that you get to a point where somebody puts a note in there of show, don't tell and you go, Oh, of course, right. You don't just sit down and be awesome at writing. That's not how this works. As I said, hopefully that at least kind of clear some of the mystery around the "show, don't tell me."
Rekka (46:38):
Hopefully clear some of the frustrations so that, you know, when you see those words, if they aren't paired with concrete advice, then you can back up and take a look from, you know, a little bit further away from where it is in your mind and say, "okay, what, what do I think I'm communicating that I'm not communicating?"
Kaelyn (46:58):
Exactly.
Rekka (46:58):
Because that's what it comes down to a lot of the times, it's like, okay, you say this person's great. Or you say this monster is scary, but –
Kaelyn (47:04):
You know that in your head for these reasons and you're not showing it to me, the reader.
Rekka (47:09):
Yep.
Kaelyn (47:09):
Well, I think that's, that's pretty much it. I guess that's what we got there.
Rekka (47:12):
We did manage to go on at length, despite me thinking it was going to be pretty straightforward. I got a whole bunch of these really straightforward quickie episodes planned that are going to be at least the normal length, if not longer. So if you're looking forward to those, make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast. If you have questions about any other kinds of editing tips that you've received in your manuscripts that you were like, "what, what?"
Kaelyn (47:35):
What is this note?
Rekka (47:36):
"Kaelyn, Explain this to me, please. Tell me I don't have to do whatever this is saying. "I Think did it say rewrite? Is it saying revise? No, I don't want to just tell me it's perfect." if you have any questions for us about these random topics that editors mark up in your manuscripts, and you're not really sure what they mean, or you want to know how to avoid them in the future, or advice you see that you still don't quite understand, just let, let us know, for sure, @WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter.
Kaelyn (48:09):
We like, we like these episodes. These are fun.
Rekka (48:10):
And we love to answer questions and we love to help people. So let us help you. And hopefully we have helped you. And if you feel that we have, you could really help us out by sharing these episodes with a friend who might be interestedUm do make sure that you're subscribed and not just clicking the link that we post on social media because having more subscribers helps other subscribers potentially find us. And also um, really helpful in getting subscribers to find us is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or, you know, generally any review is helpful anywhere, but the Apple podcasts really seems to still have the corner on the market for that.
Kaelyn (48:46):
That's very true.
Rekka (48:46):
And, and if you are super, super appreciative and want to show that with currency, in gratitude or in an expression of the editor's fees we've saved you, you can go to patreon.com/WMBcast. We are not trying to steal the work from the professionals. We love all editors, present company included.
Kaelyn (49:07):
Thank you.
Rekka (49:08):
We will talk to you in two weeks.
Kaelyn (49:10):
Thanks for listening, everyone.
Rekka (49:11):
Thanks everyone.