Episodes
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Episode 63 - More Than the Sum of Half Their Parts (Co-writing)
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
Tuesday Jun 22, 2021
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Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Mentioned in this episode:
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
A Ship With No Parrot by R J Theodore (MetaStellar)
Episode Transcript (by TK @_torkz)
[Upbeat Ukulele Intro Music]
This is We Make Books, a podcast about writing publishing and everything in between. Rekka is a published Science Fiction and Fantasy author, and Kaelyn is a professional genre fiction editor. Together, they'll tackle the things you never knew you never knew about getting a book from concept to finished product, with explanations, examples, and a lot of laughter. Get your moleskin notebook ready. It's time for We Make Books.
Kaelyn: We’re talking today about writing with a friend. Hopefully a friend. If not a friend, then a partner.
Rekka: Hopefully a friend for longer than it takes to write the project.
K: Hopefully a friend after you’re done. [laughing]
R: Yes, before and after. Hey, even after is probably more important than before. Let’s be clear that you don’t wanna destroy a relationship, but you can make a new friend.
K: Yes, absolutely. Let’s talk first about, why would you do this?
R: [giggles]
K: Why would you want to - and, okay so maybe a little context first. I will admit I have never worked on a project that a single story had been written or contributed to by two different people.
R: As an editor, you mean?
K: Yes.
R: Ok.
K: So why would you do this? It seems like a difficult thing to do. And for context, Rekka has done this a couple times. So Rekka, why would you do this?
R: Because writing is lonely, and the idea that someone else will work on a project with you is just like the biggest longest most creative sleepover ever.
K: Okay!
R: It’s a good reason.
K: That is certainly a good reason, writing is lonely. I think a lot of writers, their editor when they get one is the first time they’re really having somebody to collaborate with, and to talk to.
R: To go back and forth.
K: Yeah, but the editor is not writing the book.
R: I know! Which is unfair, honestly.
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: I wanna know who I talk to about this.
K: Yeah but you know what you’re right, writing is a lonely process. There’s a lot of time spent sitting by yourself just having to think.
R: And having feelings.
K: Yeah. If you’re writing with someone, you get to share those with someone else.
R: And shout about things.
K: Absolutely. Shouting is a necessary component to that 100% —
R: It’s actually kinda how it gets started, there’s a lot of enthusiastic shouting about an idea.
K: [laughing]
R: But you know what stinks? Is that you still have to write alone.
K: Well and that’s exactly what I was gonna ask you. So okay, let’s go through this. You’ve decided I’m tired of being alone here, I want to also inflict this upon somebody else. So what do you do?
R: [deep sigh] How do you find someone else to inflict things upon? So the first person that I sat down to write a project with was a friend, and we said like hey we should try this out! And we were both writers to begin with, writing in fairly different genres but still genre fiction. And we decided we were going to do a project and we said hey, it will be this, like we outlined it together. We - or we didn’t so much outline it together but we concepted it out together.
K: Okay.
R: And then we each created a POV character as part of that concept. And then we wrote our chapters back and forth, so that the tone, the voice, for that POV character is consistent.
K: Mhm.
R: And so that you can have a character that’s slightly unreliable, just because like you couldn’t catch all the continuity errors, that you and your partner -
K [overlapping]: Mhm. Yup.
R: - created. It also lets you kind of reshuffle the scenes if you need to later, uh move things around a little bit easier, extract things if you need to without losing too many threads. But my other experience in doing it we did not, we had one POV. So, it doesn’t have to be done that way.
K: Tell us about the time you wrote one POV.
R: I sort of went through my text file that I keep on my phone that’s just like the little random lines and concepts, phrases that occur to me. And so the writing partner latched onto one and said, “That’s interesting, let’s work with that.” And then that was it, we just kind of went. I wrote something and sent it to him, and then I think we gave a week or two weeks max for each turnaround, so that one person wasn’t waiting on the other forever. So it kinda bounced back and forth, and it would twist a little, like I’d get back and reread what the new words were and I’d be like oh okay, that’s where that’s going now.
K: [chuckles]
R: So it felt a little bit like improv, where somebody tosses you something, and y - the guide for improv is don’t say “no,” say “yes, and...” So I think I had more of that spirit in the second project than I did in the first time attempting it, where um. As a kid I used to play with my friends and we’d get the toys all out and I’d immediately have a plot. And my friends would never adhere to it -
K [overlapping]: [chuckles]
R: Because of course they didn’t know it. They would have whatever toy they were holding do a thing and I’d be like “No no no not that, have it do this.” So I can’t imagine I was much fun to play with. Nor was it probably much fun to try and write with me on the project where I didn’t have the spirit of “yes, and...” I had more like “mmm. That’s interesting, how’s that gonna fit back into where I’m taking this?”
K: Well and that’s a very good point, is I think if you’re going to write with somebody it has to be a genuinely collaborative effort, rather than someone coming in with a story and having someone else tell it.
R: Yeah and like I said, both times it was starting from a concept that, it wasn’t like, “Oh I wanna write this book, do you wanna write it with me?”
K: Mhm.
R: So it was two people coming together each time saying “let’s work together on a thing, what should we work on, do you have any ideas, yeah sure how ‘bout this concept, okay that’s interesting what can we do with that? And then how do you wanna do this? Like okay I’ll write some and then you write some and then I’ll write some and then you write some.
K: So like just examples off the top of my head, did you read This Is How You Lose the Time War?
R: Yes.
K: Yeah, so that was, so that’s a novella actually written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. And I remember going like huh, I’m curious to see how they did this, and I went back and I think I read an interview or something with them, and sure enough what they did was they outlined a plot, and then they took turns writing the letters in it, and -
R: But not only that, interesting point that maybe you want to cut me off and say we’ll get to that in a second -
K: No, no prob. [laughing]
R: But they wrote it at the same table, part of it at least.
K: Yes. If you haven’t read This Is How You Lose the Time War, read it, it’s very good and it’s a quick read.
R: It won awards for a reason.
K: I - yeah, it won a lot of awards. [chuckles] But the entire story is told through letters being sent back and forth between Agent Red and Agent Blue, both of whom work for separate agencies that go back in time and change things to make history fit what they want it to be. So I remember reading in this that sometimes they were, like they were writing the letters and then mailing them to each other essentially, and letting the other person correspond and reply, it was almost a bit of role-playing. But yes they did write some of it sitting across from each other. But then another good example that’s the opposite: Good Omens was written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett and they both -
R [overlapping]: [laughing] I was thinking of The Omen, and I’m like, I didn’t know - wait what?!
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: They wrote that? Okay, I’ve caught up, continue.
K: Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett, one of them wrote a lot of the main story, and then the other one fleshed out a lot of it. There’s a main plot that but there’s a lot of other stuff going on, and there’s a lot of ancillary characters that turn out to be important to the plot but they never really gave a clear answer if it was like an assignment list so to speak, if there was like a breakdown of who was doing what. It sounds like they are just very good friends who were both very talented writers and were able to do this. I do see a lot of times when there’s two authors involved, it’s two different POVs, and - which is a perfectly intriguing way to do it.
R: The way I always imagine it is that it starts with some sort of conference call or in-person visit, and the bones of the story are shaped out there. And then, at least far enough ahead that people can get to work writing. Because okay we’re back to writing being lonely, you do have to go back to your own desk -
K: [giggles]
R: - and work on the project from your side, by yourself. I have heard of people writing in Google Docs so they can see the other people’s words appear at - that just seems like chaos mode.
K: I will say that’s how I take notes at work when I’m on a call with multiple people from my side and like, I won’t say it’s easy, it’s not terrible.
R: It’s very distracting.
K: [chuckles]
R: So I mean that would be a tremendously interesting way to do it, I would love to try that sometime. But coordinating that puts you back into the whole like ‘we have to be at the same place at the same time’ aspect, which is probably not one of the benefits that most people would list of co-writing, is that you write your part of it without having to wait for the other person until like your check-in, and then you see what’s come up with the other person’s side of things and then you go back. And I will say again, the first time I tried to do this, we were writing in a shared Scrivener file.
K: Okay.
R: This was before Scrivener had real integration with Dropbox.
K: The dark ages, yeah.
R: Well no but -
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: I don’t think it would work now, because back then two people could open the same Scrivener document. Now Scrivener will tell you sorry, you can’t. It would have to go back to Google Docs or something, if we wanted to do it that way where we could see all the bones of the project coming together. The second time, we were just emailing a Word document back and forth that was updated and trying to keep them straight and not work in an old version. Which didn’t happen, it was short enough that I don’t think either of us were confused.
K: How important is it to set down rules, so to speak? Of like, “Okay. This is how this is going to happen. Then we’re going to, you know, everything must be tracked here, or you have to let the other person know if you’re changing something to this.” I imagine it would depend on, are you both writing in the same document or are you each writing from a separate POV and then they’re gonna be combined. How did you manage that?
R: So it’s interesting you ask that, because the first time, my partner and I actually wrote up a contract.
K: I almost asked you, and I was like you know what, that seems like something maybe you wouldn’t do right at the start of this, but -
R: No, I think it’s important. It’s a good idea to have a contract that outlines who’s responsible for what, how quickly people are expected to get things back -
K: Mhm.
R: How royalties are going to be split.
K [overlapping]: Okay.
R: Like if somebody’s only responsible for the outline, in terms of word count they haven’t contributed the same as the other person, but is it possible that you’re splitting it 50/50? Either way, put it in writing, because that protects your estate later on from trying to come after somebody in arguing how much should or shouldn’t be shared. It also can say like alright, this project is dissolved if the person takes more than two months to come back with their paragraph contribution for the week.
K: Yeah.
R: You know, all the questions that you just outlined can be described in there, including things like how are we going to edit this? Are we going to finish this project by taking it to a professional editor, like all the nitty gritty details can go, if not in a contract, in a project outline that can be referenced in a contract.
K: All of the things we’ve been saying in the 60-something episodes of this podcast, now imagine you have to okay them with somebody else.
R: Yeah.
K [laughing]: Like -
R: It depends on the personalities involved. One person might be like, ‘I’m going to leave all these decisions to you.’
K: Mhm. ‘I’m just here to write,’ yeah.
R: Well ‘I just wanna write’ or ‘I am - my faith in you and your ability to do these things is greater than my willingness to try and learn them,’ and then the other person saying like ‘Yes, I agree to also take on all those tasks.’
K: Mhm.
R: So yeah. The first project, we drew up a contract and we said what the project was, who was going to - that we were splitting it, not necessarily like even chapters but that we were going to have two POVs and the POVs would each be the responsibility of a different person.
K: Did you have an expected word count?
R: Yeah. I think it was a little bit like a query letter, in terms of the way that the project was described. (I was looking for it but I couldn’t find it.) In the way that the project was described and then in the way that we talked about the production timeline after, it was a little bit more like a marketing plan even. Including distribution: how were we going to release this? Was it going to be Kindle Unlimited or was it going to be distributed wide through all the retailers?
K: You do need something like that, because let’s say you start writing with somebody and you get pretty far down the path and it turns out you fundamentally disagree on what to do with the book. Well each of you have the files now presumably, [laughing] so -
R [overlapping]: Mhm.
K: What are you gonna do?
R: You have to trust that the other person’s not going to run off with it. Also, that’s what the contract is, to ensure that they don’t.
K: Did you sit down and kind of come up with some agreed upon stylistic choices?
R: In the sense of what? Like, comp title kind of things?
K: Not just comp title, but stylistic in terms of writing. Granted if you’re writing two different POVs you can attribute these things to a character, but like did you decide ‘Okay this is going to be descriptive, we’re going to really emphasize the natural beauty of the setting,’ or ‘we’re going to make sure the characters always take note of a certain thing so that we can note it to the reader.’ How’d you handle worldbuilding? How did you come to terms with all of the things that an author typically has to decide on their own?
R: We did not, I think in either case really, get into that.
K: Okay.
R: We knew enough of each other’s writing to sort of know what we were getting into.
K: Yeah, and that’s a very good point by the way; probably don’t try to collaborate on a writing project with somebody whose writing you’ve never read before.
R: Yeah. At the very least read some before you finalize all your contracts.
K: Yes. I’d say that’s important and, I’m not saying this to be mean or flippant, the last thing you want is to get started on a project and find out the person’s not actually a very good writer.
R: Or that your styles just don’t make for good story together. You are not going to find a writer who writes exactly like you; don’t assume that you aren’t going to come up against like ‘Oh, I don’t actually enjoy reading this from you.’
K: Yeah.
R: You want to challenge yourself and see how you can make your two styles fit together. Because if you’re not growing as you work on anything then why bother? But you also don’t want it to be such a challenge that you cannot enjoy the process.
K: So what do you do when you have disagreements about something?
R: Well hopefully the answer is something that you’ve already figured out in the contract, like if you’re -
K: Okay.
R: It’s kinda like when a company goes back to their mission statement to figure out how to proceed with something.
K: What about if it’s a story-related thing that’s not necessarily outlined in the contract?
R: Give me an example.
K: Alright so, let’s say in the end of the fifth season of Buffy there was like a fight in the writers’ room about - uh, spoiler for a show that’s been off the air for about 15 years, everyone - ‘we think Buffy maybe needs to die,’ ‘no there’s no reason she has to die,’ and then… there’s a fight! [chuckles]
R: Hopefully your contract has a walking clause. Something that says like alright, if at some point the parties can’t decide on where the story should go, they can walk away, and at that point maybe they decide, or maybe in your contract it should say, that you need to pick who gets to take the story with them -
K [overlapping]: Mhm, yeah.
R: - if somebody still wants to write it. ‘Cause that’s something that wasn’t in the contract for my first one, and part of me - like I wouldn’t write the same story -
K: Mhm.
R: We never finished it. I wouldn’t write the same story but there are elements I’d like to take, but they’re elements that would be recognizable enough.
K: Mhm.
R: So, how should we have proceeded? Probably one of us should - well at this point I could write to the person and say, “Hey, I wanna write this story, do you mind if I write this story on my own, not giving you any credit?”
K [chuckles]: Yeah. Or if you do, how do I compensate you accordingly?
R: Or just an acknowledgement, like I’ll acknowledge that the story started, and then y’know life happened, we didn’t finish it.
K: Well that’s a form of compensation.
R: Yeah. Acknowledgement is like credit in a certain way, without - but again, in that email you say, “Okay cool.” And they write back and they’re like, “Fine,” and I say, “Great. Here’s something I’d like you to sign, just to say that like you are aware that I am writing this, and that I’m writing it all on my own -”
K [overlapping]: Yup.
R: “Using new material. And that, the only thing you expect is to get a nod in the acknowledgements.” That’s something that you can do if you get to the point where you disagree on something and there’s no - it’s like if you’re to the point of fisticuffs you should probably walk away, or take a break. Are you so stressed about either the project or whatever that you’re just lashing out, or is this actually a problem, this relationship that you’re working in?
K [overlapping]: Mhm.
R: So, you know, be an adult.
K: And listen, by the way. I have writers that get, I mean, so defensive, about just - no one that I’ve worked with on a published book, but people I’ve talked to, people who’ve asked for advice and different things. And they’re so defensive about the story to an editor. Imagine, again, trying to write this with another person.
R: That’s the thing is you really have to gauge how well you’re going to work together with this person.
K [overlapping]: Mhm.
R: Do you just wanna do stuff because you’re friends and you like spending time with them? That might not be enough to go on for the amount of, like think of the anguish that you put into a novel project in the first place. You would think that co-authoring means you share that anguish, but you actually just each have your own anguish -
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: - which might make you less compatible than you are at the start.
K: My grandmother always says to never marry somebody before you’ve taken a three-day bus trip across country with them. I kind of feel like with writers it’s like alright, I wanna see you two cook dinner together in the same kitchen, making the same dish. Like you, you have to collectively present me with one dish. And let’s see how that goes. [laughing]
R: Are you following a recipe or are you creating a recipe?
K: You have to decide.
R: Hm.
K: But you actually, you kinda touched on something interesting there, which is the other form of collaborative writing that I’ve seen in query letters a lot, you said “Is this just your friend that you wanna hang out with and spend time with?” And where I get a lot of those from is roleplaying games.
R: Mhm.
K: There’s a lot of thought and worldbuilding and character development and everything that goes into those. The, I hesitate to even call them players, by that point they’re basically writers, put a lot of time and effort into developing these characters and these worlds and things and then they interact with other people who help them contribute and grow, and that is a way that I’ve seen some collaborative writing come to fruition is, start out as a game.
R: You have to be a very caring person to be a good gamemaster, in that you have to care about the experience of the people that you are essentially having a collaborative worldbuilding experience with. You have to want them to have fun, or they’re not going to have fun.
K [overlapping]: [chuckles]
R: You have to have set up different paths that they can choose to take so that they have some agency in the experience as well, and you have to be willing to say ‘yes and’ rather than ‘no.’ And you have to be willing to accept that sort of spontaneity. The best path forward may not always be the one you expect, but if you care about working with someone in a way that 1) doesn’t negate their contribution -
K: Mhm.
R: - and make it seem like ugh, well that almost matches what I would’ve done; like it’s not about anybody looking for permission from somebody else, it’s unwinding this coil of like where is this going, and unwinding it together. So we mentioned before that there are experiences where somebody writes the outline and somebody else writes the story to the outline, and I think that’s another balancing act because as somebody writes to an outline that they’ve made for themselves, they feel free to deviate from it. And I imagine that also happens when they write to an outline that somebody else has written. But also, writing an outline doesn’t quite transmit everything that goes into a story. It’s very hard to imagine what a person intended for an entire scene based on a single sentence or a couple of sentences. So there’s gotta be a lot of letting go; if one person is handling one creative step and another person is handling another creative step, again that contract but also your expectations have to be that like that first person is going to be letting go of a lot of control of the story if they’re not going to participate in the writing of it.
K: It certainly is an exercise in having to give up and trust somebody with something that you created and love.
R: It’s interpersonal relationships on a scale that usually you can separate from your personal creative self, and you would expect to put this much work into a business project or a marriage or opening a business with somebody - and again like, have a contract. Yeah you are putting that much effort into this.
K: You’re opening a business with someone in a respect; you’re creating a product.
R: Yeah we’re creating a product here that can be sold and resold and rights have to be licensed and -
K: Mhm.
R: You have to envision the success of this to really get a grip on all the things you have to consider. You can’t just ‘oh haha this’ll be fun’ if you are going to publish it, because you never know where it’s gonna go.
K: Look at some of the greatest duos of what-have-you that fell apart because of differences in ideas.
R: Mhm. I mean here are the advice like, never work for friends, watch out, you’ll ruin your relationship if you try to do this, I mean that’s kind of true of this if you don’t go into it with the right mindframe.
K: So now that we’ve scared the hell out of everybody and never gonna wanna write a collaborative project together. What were some of the fun things about it?
R: The brainstorming at the beginning was definitely really fun. Sit down with somebody that you like and you talk about what ideas might come out of something, depending on your level of prepwork, you might’ve had a really long conversation or you have lots of these little visual pieces that you’re gonna see how you’re gonna string together. Or you might have just kinda said ‘well let’s just see where it goes.’
K: Mhm.
R: Which I think was my experience the second time, once we picked that concept out of my Word doc of random ideas that I’ve had.
K [laughing]: By the way, if you’re listening to this and you wanna be a writer and you don’t have a Word document of random ideas you’ve had please start one immediately.
R: Hopefully if you’re called to be a writer and you go ‘oh, you mean I should’ve been writing all those down,’ as opposed to like ‘oh I’ve gotta start coming up with ideas’ - like I think if you’re at the point where you don’t even have ideas -
K: I’m saying for ideas you’ve already had.
R: Okay.
K: You need to have a good place to keep them.
R: Jot them down. But yeah, so we picked something out of my book of ideas. If it’s a collaborative effort between friends, it might’ve even been something like that started as a Twitter conversation and now you’re writing it. So wherever you get your idea from, it usually starts with social connection, friendship, enthusiasm, and hopefully it’s all mutual. And then you go to the, ‘okay, are we really doing this?’
K: [giggles]
R: ‘Let’s start the contract.’ If the person’s not comfortable entering into a contract with you, then that’s a red flag right there, that one of you is uncomfortable with what it’s gonna take to finish this project out. Because the contract is the thing that’s gonna see you through it all, so if you stop and you refuse to move forward at that point, that saves everybody some trouble. But the fun things about it are that starting moment, where the excitement is just zapping back and forth between the two of you, whether online or in person.
K: Mhm.
R: And then seeing what the other person wrote every week and getting to respond to it in like kind. It’s a little bit like writing fanfiction, in real time, with an author.
K: [laughing]
R: And then the other person can feel the exact same way, that they are the one writing the fanfic in real time with the author. And hopefully it is a surprise every time that you open the document to see what’s new. And then you pick someone whose writing you like, whose writing you enjoy, and then honestly it kinda carries you through the submissions process. ‘Cause you’re like okay well it can’t be that bad because I respect this person’s writing -
K [overlapping]: Mhm.
R: - so if they liked it, then there’s just a little like ‘no, this isn’t bad,’ that you can hold in your heart when you get a rejection from a magazine or something.
K: Aww.
R: Because like, you have faith that the other person knows what they’re doing, and they have faith that you know what you’re doing, and together you have this piece that you both believe in, even if you are believing in only half of it. [chuckles] And not the half that, you know, you worked on. So it’s just really nice, yeah.
K [overlapping]: In the end you’re coming together to all believe together.
R: Yeah I mean, we kinda, like in the second case it was a short story, and we did finish it. So, going back and forth, one person writing a few thousand words or like kinda getting to the end of a scene, like that break moment kinda thing where like -
K: Yup.
R: Fade to black, commercial break, whatever you wanna call it, and then going ‘ok! I just feel good about that writing session; I’m sending this back to you.’ We did that a few times back and forth. One of us sent the first 500 words in November. By the time we had finished it, it was February of the following year. And, so that’s pretty quick -
K: Yeah that’s really quick.
R: We were both on top of it; we only sent it back like a couple of times. I think our total word count is 4100 words, so, at most that was like eight back and forth of -
K [overlapping]: Mhm.
R: - 500 words each, or I think some of them were a little bit longer. I think once we sorta started to see where it was going some of us were - some of us - [chuckles]
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: Half of us - one of us would write more of that, and the other person would write more of the other.
K: Okay.
R: So, and then after that, we started talking about like okay what do you wanna do now, ‘let’s sit on it for a month’ was the response, and then we picked some markets to target and one of us was just in charge of submitting them.
K: So you, you had a system, you had a plan.
R: Yeah. We didn’t have a contract on that one, maybe we should. The nice thing is when you say you’re co-authoring, the magazine tends to send two separate payments.
K: Okay, nice.
R: Or at least in my experience so far, of selling this once.
K: [laughing] So overall, a good experience?
R: Yeah! Yeah, that one was a lot of fun. Like I said, having a totally different attitude toward where it was going and who was in charge - which was neither of us or both of us? - it was a very different experience than the first time. My first experience was with someone, we were trying to write a whole novel, and I think our intent was it might be a series. So this was like long-haul planning, and it wasn’t long before I realized like I don’t think our styles really mesh. And he also wrote really really fast, and kind of expected me to write really really fast, so I would turn around something after working on it for like a week or so, and then the next day he’d be like ‘okay, your turn.’ And I’d be like ‘oh, see, um, this isn’t the only thing I wanna work on.’ [laughing]
K: Yeah. [chuckles]
R: And so it was also, I think, in the middle of the final phases of getting Flotsam out, so it probably felt like a disruption, and the fact that he was turning things around so fast was like, frustrating to me. Whereas like I would work on something for awhile and then think like ‘okay, there, done, check it off my list’ -
K [chuckles]: Deep breath, yeah.
R: And the next day it’d be on my list again.
K: That can get a little stressful, certainly.
R: Yeah.
K: I guess the takeaway from all of this then is whether or not you have a good experience with this, a lot of it comes down to you.
R: And planning and expectation yeah.
K: Yeah.
R: You could go to the Happiest Place On Earth and be a total stick in the mud about it, so -
K: Yes.
R: Like, that’s true of everything.
K: Yeah. Yeah but there’s certain things you can do to make sure that it doesn’t become a miserable experience, certainly.
R: Yeah. Or, that you have a way out if it does.
K: Yes, yes, there you go. So yeah I think that’s - any, Rekka, any parting thoughts, any final suggestions or advice?
R: If it’s something that you’ve wanted to do, I definitely recommend doing it. Try it out and see. Hopefully, it doesn’t break a friendship - [giggles]
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: Y’know, the first time you try it. Having that contract will go a long way to having a mutual not-fun-anymore clause. If neither party is interested in going forward, then that’s it. That’s all that has to be said, and the project is dissolved. And if the other person is loving where it was going and wants to keep going with it, then you just have that release agreement, where like “I don’t expect any royalties or anything from this, you go ahead and have fun with it.” You hate to think that you need a contract to go do something that you and a friend both love doing, but ahh, I really think it’s a good idea.
K: It’s probably, yeah.
R: At worst, it doesn’t hurt, and at best, it protects you and it gives you something to fall back on if things aren’t going well. But, hopefully things go very very well and you end up with a story and you sell it, like I did!
K: There you go. Rekka, what’s the story you sold?
R: [giggles]
K: You knew I was gonna ask you about -
R: Maurice Broaddus and I wrote a story called The Archivist, and it sold to Lightspeed magazine and should come out sometime within the next nine months or so. One day I imagine I will wake up and have been tagged on Twitter.
K: It’s just gonna be on there, yeah.
R: And I will be able to share it then. My recent story on MetaStellar I was told the date, and then a few days ahead of time I was told what the URL would be and when it would go live, so I was able to prepare, which was nice.
K: Very nice! As always, we hope we left you with some food for thought.
R: It’s worth doing, if only to find out whether you enjoy it or not, but also keep in mind that it takes the right pair of minds to do it. So if you don’t enjoy the first time, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be fun again. But I hope you love it, ‘cause I did enjoy it, and I really am proud of the story that came out of it. I would not have written that story on my own.
K: Oh, okay, well great!
R: Which is another point, like I shouldn’t leave off without saying that, but like we created a story that neither of us would’ve written if it was just working alone.
K: Greater than the sum of their parts.
R: Or at least greater than the sum of half the parts. [laughing]
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: Alright, well that is probably enough. If you want more, or you want to be notified when the story goes live, you can send us a message on Twitter or Instagram, we are @WMBcast. You can also find us on WMBcast.com with all our old episodes. If you are listening from the future, I might come back and add the link to that story when it does go live, to the show notes. If you are listening from a very very profitable future -
K [overlapping]: [giggles]
R: - you might consider going to Patreon.com/WMBcast to support us financially, but we don’t need that! What we would really really love are some ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast aggregator, whichever you’re listening to right now. That would be so, so helpful; it helps people find us. We had someone shouting on Twitter the other day saying like ‘why are more of you not listening to this podcast?’ I guarantee it’s because it’s hard to find podcasts, unless they have really good ratings and reviews. So please, drop us some five stars and some glowing words, they don’t have to be expansive. Just like ‘this podcast rocks!’ I mean, that’s what I think, that’s what I would write. You can use that though. I’m not gonna hold you on a contract or anything.
K: [laughing]
R: Alright, two weeks from now we’ll be talking about something entirely different, but probably just as goofy.
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
Episode 62 - Tension and Anxiety (and Velociraptors)
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
Tuesday Jun 08, 2021
We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Hit us up on our social media, linked below, and send us your questions, comments, and concerns for us to address in future episodes.
We hope you enjoy We Make Books!
Twitter: @WMBCast | @KindofKaelyn | @BittyBittyZap
Episode Transcript (by TK @_torkz)
[Upbeat Ukulele Intro Music]
This is We Make Books, a podcast about writing publishing and everything in between. Rekka is a published Science Fiction and Fantasy author, and Kaelyn is a professional genre fiction editor. Together, they'll tackle the things you never knew you never knew about getting a book from concept to finished product, with explanations, examples, and a lot of laughter. Get your moleskin notebook ready. It's time for We Make Books.
We Make Books Ep. 62 Transcription
After intro: [00:26]
Kaelyn: We’re talking today about reader tension and tense situations and managing these things. And you know getting the, kinda grabbing everyone and wanting to be like ‘this is important and there’s peril and stakes here, and you should pay attention to this.’
Rekka: This was another topic that was suggested to us by an uncredited listener, because I failed to write down all the people who suggested a very long list of topics that we will be going through. So I apologize, feel free to @ us on Twitter and take credit for the topic. But the original question posed was how to manage reader stress, and I assume they mean the tension and anxiety that our reader feels as they go through your plot. Because, as Kaelyn pointed out, you don’t want to get so anxious and wound up over a plot that you can’t finish the story and you need to protect yourself for self care reasons and back away.
K: We’re interpreting this question as not managing the external stress of readers. There’s generally not a lot a book or an author can do about that, so please don’t try.
R: Although! A good book can really help you escape.
K: Absolutely, yes. Maybe a book that’s just full of pictures of puppies.
R: Also good!
K: Yeah.
R: Yeah. So, the anxiety and tension that we’re talking about is being cast upon the reader intentionally to draw them into your story. But how do you make sure you don’t go too far, and how do you ramp up tension where you want it so that they aren’t just kinda reading it and being like ‘I don’t care about any of this.’
K: Building tension is, it’s difficult. For two reasons: one, it’s a hard thing to do in writing, but then two, it’s also very difficult to place it in a story. Let’s qualify here depending on your genre, if you’re writing a suspense thriller that’s just going to be a tense situation [laughing] throughout the book. Most books, I would argue the majority of books, have some sort of conflict in them. There’s going to be a point at which things come to a head. It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be, you know, strictly verbal confrontation. It could be characters that never actually meet but you know were seeing each other’s perspectives as they, I dunno interact over the computer, they’re both trying to hack the same database at the same time.
K:I have a friend who trains people in various business ventures, and one of the things she always says is “conflict is crucible.” And what she’s kinda saying there is that when you’re trying to solve a problem you have to resign yourself to some conflict, because conflict helps you get information, it helps you understand what you’re looking at, it helps you understand the stakes. And I think that applies well to writing, because the conflict, first of all, builds richer characters, it builds a better storyline, it helps us understand motivations and actions better. But it’s also really engaging. That’s kinda what we’re here for.
R: Yeah, I would say that a story without conflict is going to be a very milquetoast kind of story. It doesn’t matter what scale the conflict happens on, but -
K: Mhm.
R: - you want some kind of ‘what’s going to happen’ to linger, right up until the end of your story, you just want to kind of change like ‘ooh! Now that happened, what’s going to happen now?’ You know, it kind of elevates in stages. So every story is going to have conflict that’s on a - that is proportional to the scale of the story being told. So, it doesn’t always have to be end of the world scenarios; it can be ‘this person needs to sort their life out, and will they get that job they want, and will their roommate discover that they’re actually a sorcerer?’
K: I mean I hope so.
R: Right? Those kinds of conflicts can be big or small; it’s the stakes of the story. And you want your reader invested in the stakes of the story, so you want them to feel a little bit of anxiety about how the story’s going to go. If they don’t, then they can drift away from the book at any point and forget to pick it up ever again.
K: I look back at things that I read as an adult, and things that I read as a kid, and the like really intense parts where you’re like trying to keep yourself from skipping ahead on the page -
R [overlapping]: [giggling]
K: - and you know reading as fast as possible -
R: Kaelyn that is cheating.
K: I know! But like I - tell my brain. [laughing]
R [overlapping]: [laughing]
K: You know but where you’re like ‘oh my god I gotta know what happens, I gotta know what happens!’ And then sometimes -
R: Just so everyone knows, as an editor Kaelyn wants to know the end -
K [overlapping]: Yeah.
R: Like as soon as the author knows it. So don’t feel like she just skips to the end in books she picks up at the bookstore, no she wants the spoilers all the time.
K: I need to know the end to a story. I’m not one of those people who waits ‘til a series comes out to read the books, because I can’t wait that long -
R [overlapping]: Mhm!
K: - to be [???], I need a fix in there somewhere. But this is why I’m like weirdly into unsolved mystery kinda things, because I just need to know what happened, like [laughing] I always say if I could have a superpower, it’s not that I want to time travel. I don’t wanna like go back and interact and change things.
R: Or go forward and get lottery numbers.
K: Yeah I just wanna be able to like astral project or something so I can just, I just wanna see what happened. I just wanna know what actually happened, you know, who shot JFK? What’d they do with the aliens at Rosland? Did we land on the moon? I mean -
R: Roswell.
K: Roswell, yes. Why did I say Rosland?
R: Maybe you know something we don’t because you went back in time.
K: It’s possible. It’s very possible. But yeah, I am someone who like feeds off of that tension. And I love intrigue, I love building the story, and by the way I just touched on another way you build tension here, which is not always necessarily conflict; sometimes it’s mystery. Sometimes the stakes are trying to find something, or figure something out, or solve a puzzle, or learn someone’s true identity. There was definitely a heyday for this sort of thing in the 90s and 2000s, especially with young adult literature, where a lot of the tension that was building in the book was people trying to get answers about a mysterious prophecy or an object or find a lost relic.
R: Ohhh, I love a good lost relic.
K: Ah, the best. Romantic tension is also a thing.
R: You would have to imagine it is, because in the romance novels like that is -
K [overlapping]: Yup.
R: - the main plot of the book. So a will-they-won’t-they is a ‘what’s going to happen next?’
K: Yeah, a will-they-won’t-they, or how will they get through this, will they ever find each other again. So I think when we say like tension in the book we’re picturing like a big Lord of the Rings style -
R: Oh I’m imagining the boulder in Indiana Jones just hovering over everybody.
K: Okay! Or that, you know we’re thinking of like direct action and conflict. But tension can be built a lot of different ways. It’s not always ‘I’m going to fight this knight now to free the dragon,’ and yes in my scenario we free dragons, we don’t slay them.
R: Absolutely!
K: Dragons are people too.
R: Yeah.
K: Creating tension for readers is part of what’s compelling about a book. Now, sometimes these get a little out of hand. I’m gonna qualify that again, genre matters a lot here. If we’re talking about like a spy thriller, if we’re talking about a murder mystery, a suspense thriller, something like that. Yeah, you should go in expecting a lot of tension, you should know what you’re getting out of that genre. Rekka, can you think of any books offhand that you had to like put down and walk away from?
R: Because there was too much tension?
K: Because the situation, the intensity of the situation was making you uncomfortable.
R: Hmm.
K: I can think of a couple. I’m not gonna say what they are, but I’ve definitely had that happen.
R: So you’re asking if that’s happened?
K: Yes. Has that ever happened to you?
R: No. I’ve never put down a book because I was uncomfortable with high levels of tension; I’ve put down books because there was little tension and I wasn’t grabbed.
K: I’ve got a really thick skin when it comes to this stuff, there isn’t a lot that bothers me. There’s been two books that, one where it was just like the violence and the tension was just getting gratuitous. With that case it wasn’t that it was making me uncomfortable. It was almost like coming full circle and getting pedantic. This is so ridiculous it’s almost erased the tension, I’m no longer able to suspend my disbelief.
R: Okay. So, what does that say about the author’s ability to manage the tension?
K: Not doing a great job.
R: What was broken, if you wanna use that word, in that case?
K: I think in this case, there was too much trying to shock people. Trying to shock the readers reading it.
R: Okay, is that tension though?
K: The scenario of the book was a group of people going through some kind of a building, I don’t even remember what it was, and they’re getting picked off by monsters and booby traps the whole time. It started out well, because it’s dark, there’s a lot of sounds and things and nobody’s quite sure what’s like, is that us, is it something else, is something following us, we know this place is full of danger okay we just have to get through here, and then what was happening was characters were dying. They were dying in horrible ways, and they were being very - described in great detail. And again, I have a really thick skin for this. That kind of stuff doesn’t bother me. But what was happening was it was actually getting to the point that it was breaking the tension a little bit, because they were losing me there.
K: So I think the author’s intention was to really up the scale and the stakes, because it wasn’t just like ‘and a hole opened, and Jonathan fell through and we heard screams and then nothing.’ Like first of all it was breaking the tension of the story stopping to describe all of this stuff. But beyond that, it was - I don’t know. It was a very strange reaction, a very strange feeling, where it was kind of like I can’t tell if this is making me nauseous or if I’m bored.
R: Okay. This is making me think of the movie Thirteen Ghosts.
K: Yes.
R: Does this, is this ringing true for you?
K: That is definitely ringing true for me. I had a similar experience with that movie. On the flip side, the other one that I had to put down and walk away had to do with sex. The tension that they were building with this couple that wasn’t really a couple, and the dichotomy and the power struggles here, and the clear anxiety of one character vs not the other that I think was supposed to be building romantic tension, and ooh they’re so into each other, it didn’t at all.
R: Okay.
K: It was actually, I can’t read this. As I’ve been talking through both of these you sort of pointed something out: was it the tension or was it things that writers were trying to use to create tension that weren’t actually tension-building devices?
R: Right. It sounds like people are trying to use some visuals and elements that are, let’s say, flashes in the pan -
K: Mhm.
R: - in terms of the effect they have on the reader, versus something that’s actually building a landscape over which the story is traveling. And it’s the landscape I would argue that you want, because jumpscares are great for a horror movie, but once you’ve calmed down, that’s all there is. Versus actually building, in that case, dread or fear. So things that have an intense effect but the effect is not lasting I don’t think are going to be what you want to use when you’re trying to control how the reader paces themself to get to the end of your book.
K: I think in the example I used with the violence one, you know you have these characters, they’re trying to get from point A to point B, and they’re getting picked off or killed horribly one by one. And on some level I understand what the author was trying to do there. Instead of simply saying ‘and this person’s dead now,’ they’re upping the intensity of the situation by showing that they’re not dead, they’re dying horribly. So you’re getting the collective fear and horror built into the group of the remaining survivors so you’re empathizing with them more. In that scenario, I see what they were doing. They were trying to use this gore and this violence to instill an intensity in you, but it got to the point that it was too much.
R: So it wasn’t flash in the pan, it was just overreaching?
K: Overkill, if I can make that pun? [overlapping] A little bit, please?
R [overlapping]: You cannot. I’ve checked with our producer and -
K: [grunts]
R: - they’re shaking their head.
K: Alright, fair. [chuckling] There can be times that you just take the device you’re using too far, and it jumps the shark a little bit and becomes ridiculous.
R: In the case of something getting to the point of ridiculosity, are they even employing the tools that would work and just overdoing it, are they overutilizing the tools, leaning on them too heavily, abusing them, or are they in the wrong toolbox entirely?
K: Exactly, yeah.
R: No, I’m asking you. [laughing]
K: Oh. [laughing] Um no I was going to say those are all things to consider. I think that’s something you have to work with an editor on, and I think that’s something that you have to have readers give you feedback about, because this for a lot of writers becomes a can’t see the trees for the forest scenario. You’re so deep into this, you’re not reading this for the first time like most readers will be, you wrote this. Rekka you tell me, when you’re rereading things that you wrote, either for fun or doing revisions, does your heart beat a little faster when you get to these scenarios?
R: If it’s been long enough that I forget where I’m going with them. [laughing]
K: Exactly, yeah.
R: Because you know what you’re trying to build to, and when you’re trying to write it sometimes you can feel like you’re being sooo hamfisted about it.
K: Yeah. Writers need help for contextualizing this, I think. Because first of all you know what’s gonna happen, hopefully. [laughing] Second, you’ve been through it so many times it doesn’t have the same punch, the same meaning that it did.
R: That’s one of the frustrating things about being a writer, trying to know whether you’re being effective. You burn through beta readers because you need somebody who hasn’t read it before to tell you whether it’s working.
K: Yeah so circling back to is it too much, are you leaning into it, are you in the wrong toolbox entirely, that can be a really hard thing for writers to understand. I’ve definitely read books where I’ve felt like after a few revision paths, every time the author was going through and trying to up the scare factor or the intensity factor in everything, I think that’s something where you need an editor or a very good friend to help you there.
R: [laughing]
K: It’s a balancing act. You have to maintain believability. There is a difficult-to-track issue of understanding when a situation is intense and when it’s not tense enough or too intense. I’ve definitely read books where important things have happened, and I didn’t realize that was an important thing because the writing and the way the characters were behaving didn’t indicate to me that that was a significant event. And if you’re going ‘oh well, what does that have to do with it?’, that’s building intensity.
R: I recently gave someone feedback that said like ‘hey, I think this moment needs to slow down for a second, and I know there’s a lot of other stuff going on, but like if you don’t linger on this, it’s not going to have the impact you want.
K: You don’t wanna have to be in a position where you gotta insert a character in the story jumping up and down screaming at the reader that something that’s happening is important, but if you can’t signal to them in some way that it is, that’s not great.
R: You have to figure out how to signal it without really putting a wavy-armed balloon man in front of it.
K [laughing]: Yes. Exactly. It’s difficult, and there’s a reason that authors that can do this well are very successful in writing, you know, murder mysteries and spy thrillers and suspense novels and stuff. Because there’re people that eat that up. That’s like what they live for. I can take it or leave it. But then there are people who avoid it like the plague.
R: Like you said, genre has a lot to do with it. We’re getting to a point which I think is good where people are starting to put content notes on books just like you would get at the beginning of a TV show. So you know this has depictions of graphic violence, sexuality - um, there’s a difference between sexuality and nudity - endangerment of a child, trauma, stuff like that. And that helps people dial in, like ‘do I wanna read this book, is this the kind of intensity I’m looking for or not?’
K: Now, and that said, there may be things that happen in the book that it never would’ve occurred to you to put a content warning about.
R: And hopefully maybe your beta readers can highlight a couple things too.
K: What I’m getting at is there’s going to be things that happen - in books, in movies, in TV shows - that are upsetting for a specific person for a specific reason.
R: Mhm.
K: There’s no way to predict all of these -
R [overlapping]: Yeah.
K: And try to compensate and notify for that. It sounds terrible to say stick to the obvious and take in the advice of others, but that is what I would say. And I’m not saying don’t write these things. Be aware of what you’re writing.
R: Be aware of what you’re writing and then be willing to take the responsibility for the people who are going to be upset by that and say like ‘yes, this is something I felt was necessary to the plot, but I promise you I gave it thought and hopefully the people who’d be extra upset by it will be warned by friends or somebody before they pick it up.’
K: For anyone who’s sitting at home going - and to be honest I don’t think many of our listeners think this, but maybe who knows - ‘why do I have to bend over backwards to accommodate this?’ You know what, honestly, you don’t.
R: It’s a choice you make, yeah. [chuckles]
K: But it’s really shitty not to when it’s so easy to do. And believe me, people who suffer from particular anxieties or trauma and everything, they’re ultra-aware of this stuff. They’re typically not going to go into a store, pick up a random book, and say ‘I’ll just read this now’ because, exactly for that reason: they don’t wanna put themselves in a position where the intensity of the book is going to induce an anxiety spiral. And if you think that doesn’t happen, I don’t know what to tell you at this point because you’re wrong. [laughing] So!
R: And it’s also not necessarily the intensity of the book, but the specific situations and the intensity of that person’s personal experience laid over top of that.
K: Yeah. Exactly. So, for readers who are saying “how do I keep myself safe from this kind of thing” so to speak, read content warnings. Read reviews online. Here’s a thing: read the bad reviews, read the people who didn’t like the book, because the ones who are complaining about things are gonna give you a little bit more insight probably, into areas that you might find distressing.
R: And you can always just post a question on Twitter, like “hey -
K [overlapping]: Yeah.
R: “ - here’s something that really bothers me in books; I’m thinking of picking up this one, anything you wanna warn me about, I’d appreciate.”
K [overlapping]: Yeah. You know, I’m not saying this to put all of the onus upon the reader who’s concerned about this, but, I mean do your research. If you know this is something that’s important to you and something you need to manage and minimize as best you can, the best judge of character for that’s gonna be you.
R: For the writer, you know, sensitivity reads are not a bad idea. Like we said, we can’t cover everything with a single sensitivity reader but they might be able to give you more insight. If your intensity of your plot is overlaid with a certain kind of life experience, I guarantee you can find a sensitivity reader for it. And if you don’t, ask around and someone else will be able to help you.
K: Yeah but I mean beyond that, content warnings do a lot.
R: You can’t cover everything and everyone, like -
K [overlapping]: No.
R: - Kaelyn was saying, you can give it a fair attempt.
K: Listen, if your fair attempt is something along the lines of ‘contains violence, gore, and depictions of furries,’ like, that’s that’s giving everyone at least a heads-up of what’s in here.
R: And a Venn diagram of figuring out where they fall in that. [chuckles]
K: I will defend the writers a little bit here in saying that there’s only so much you can do, to a certain point. [laughing]
R: In order to indicate everything that happens in your book, you literally have already done that, you’ve written the book. You can be broad and you can welcome people to send you a note and ask you if they have a specific concern they’re afraid of running into.
K: I would call it a good faith gesture to do that. And, I think if there’s parts in there where you’re going ‘I wonder if I should explain this,’ the answer is, maybe decide what it is and then just mention that that’s a thing that’s gonna happen in there.
R: Okay, so this is managing the readers’ stress literally, and kind of the external forces as we said we weren’t going to cover.
K: Well I mean I was joking about just like daily life stress. [laughing]
R: Right, but I mean this is kind of tied to their personal experience. So, going back to considering it now a positive to build stress and anxiety, what would you say to an author who brought you their story, and it reads as a little flat. What would you tell them, how to increase anxiety in the reader, by which I mean tension in the story?
K: I’m gonna flip that and ask has that ever happened to you? I know the answer to that is no because I read your writing [laughing], so!
R: You know, I am really surprised by how many people have told me that my books are really tense.
K: Yeah my blood pressure’s definitely spiked a few times over the course of events. [laughing]
R: Is it just because of Hankirk? Like is it just because he’s infuriating?
K: It’s a lot of things, um -
R [overlapping]: [laughing]
K: And actually you’ve touched on something that I think is very interesting that you do in your writing - and this is another kind of tension that I think we don’t really appreciate as a different kind of tension to build - is hopelessness. And despair.
R: Aw, now I’m mad. I didn’t mean to be hopeless!
K: No, you weren’t, but this sense of like ‘what are we going to do?’
R: Mm.
K: And things just like um, a sense of despair and despondency, and I’m not necessarily talking about -
R [overlapping]: Look, my characters have to come back from like their lowest low, like I’m gonna make that low real fuckin’ low. [laughing]
K: Yeah, exactly, but that’s a kind of intensity too. So yeah, you definitely do not suffer from not having well-built intensity.
R: You’re avoiding my question. You turned it back around on me, as though we needed to analyze me, but we’ve just clarified we don’t need to analyze me -
K [overlapping]: No, no.
R: What do you say to an author who is not me, who needs a little dose of, I guess some me-ness?
K: I’m very much into helping writers solve their own problems.
R: Yeah you do that.
K: Yeah. I find that authors frequently know there’s a problem and at least have the inkling of an idea of how to fix it. I would write them back and ask them, first do you have an outline of your story? If you don’t, well, depending on our timeline here, write one; if we don’t have time for that, I want you to highlight for me what you think the most important points of the story are for the plot. And depending on what was going on, I might tell them I’m gonna do the same. And let’s see if we match up. I like to do that one a lot.
R: Yeah you do.
K: I want them to highlight the most important parts of the plot, and then I’d want them to pull out some areas where maybe it’s more introductory, more worldbuilding, more establishing, and compare how those are written versus the important plot points. And look at your language, look at the way you’re communicating with this, because this is - and I won’t go too far into the weeds on this because it’s slightly off topic, but it is worth mentioning - your language changes when writing intense situations.
K: The way you describe things, the way characters communicate with each other, the way they take in their scenery, a lot of times you’ll notice writers that do this well have short-clipped sentences that match the franticness of the situation. Minimal description, because they don’t have time to stop and look and describe something. So I would say that you know look at this and if these very important points of the story, these parts where it should be intense where the reader should be concerned and involved and engaged, and you’re writing it with the same tone and cadence that you do with the part where they’re walking through a meadow -
R [chuckles]: The meadow is full of velociraptors.
K: Ugh. You’re describing heaven.
R [muffled]: Stay out of the long grass!
K [laughing]: I’m just picturing them with flower crowns now.
R: Ohhh, they’re so happy.
K: [laughing]
R: Beautiful queens!
K: [with accent] “Don’t go into the long grass!”
R: We really just need to admit that this is a Jurassic Park fancast.
K: Yeah we do talk about it a lot. So, I would say that that’s a good place to start. And in terms of like exercises you can do, read it out loud. Act it out! I stood in a room with a manuscript and like held in front of me and like done both parts of the characters and imitated how they would be yelling at each other or what have you, just to make sure that like it sounds okay and it’s coming across the right way. Because if I’m doing this by like kinda like staging a play here, then hopefully you’re getting that across to the reader. I think also developing your characters and having a good idea of how they would react in intense situations. If they’re acting the same across the book no matter what, well, I don’t know, maybe they’ve got a really good valium prescription.
R: [laughing]
K: You should see changes in not just their actions but their body language, their speech. If Rekka and I were trying to diffuse a bomb right now, I wouldn’t be telling “okay, so um cut the green wire, um,” okay and then like imitating the scene from Jurassic Park where John Hammond’s giving Ellie instructions over the radio and he’s like talking so calm and everything - but that’s a good example because even though he’s talking very calm and walking her through everything, his voice is very intense.
R: And he’s having an argument behind the scenes. [laughing]
K [overlapping]: Yes. He’s having an argument with Ian, but like his voice is very intense. And now granted, movies get to use music to help with this kind of thing.
R: Yeah they cheat.
K: Yeah but if I were having a conversation with Rekka and it was a genuinely tense situation where I’m trying to give her instructions on how to diffuse a bomb - now granted– Okay so we’re getting a little sidetracked here but I just wanna point out Rekka says he’s having a funny argument with Ian, part of the reason for that was the shock value of the next scene.
R: Right.
K: You’re luring the reader into a false sense of security of going like, oh look it’s fine, John and Ian are arguing, Ellie’s got this, and I think - “Mr. Hammond I think we’re back in business!” And then an arm falls on her. Oh no, wait first the raptor attacks her, then the arm falls on her. That’s a good instance of diffusing a situation only to re-intensify it immediately. If I were talking to Rekka and I was talking even in the same tone that like we talk in this podcast, like ‘well you know I guess if you wanted, like, so think about the green wire, think about why the green wire is important to this bomb. And if you take the green wire out what’s going to happen?’ Like that, you know, that’s not a good way to write that scene.
R: Yeah ‘cause meanwhile Mr. Arnold’s arm has fallen on my shoulder and I am flipping out. [chuckles]
K: I always wondered why the velociraptor didn’t eat that, or how that happened. Like -
R: I assume it like got bit off and then went flying and got caught in that little corner -
K: I guess, but like it seems -
R: Look, they needed it to fall on Ellie’s shoulder.
K: I know, but like it seems like it was in like wires, and it’s like how did that get there? Did the raptor go back and -
R [overlapping]: This is, this is going back to the believability of the situation and is it going to suck your reader out of the moment and go, ‘wait, how?’
K: I remember being 10 years old and watching that and going, ‘how did that get there?’
R: I also had that thought but I didn’t linger on it, because -
K [overlapping]: Ah, no.
R: Ellie was being chased by a raptor, dragging a big flashlight, and I was worried like the flashlight was gonna get stuck on something and she wouldn’t be able to keep going.
K: But yeah it’s, that would be kind of where I would start. And if the problems are still persisting, if we still can’t get to a place where I feel like okay I understand that something important is happening, I understand that there’s peril here, I understand that these two characters have left very angry at each other, that sort of thing, then that’s a different conversation. That’s a conversation about writing style and technique. And, that’s harder to fix.
R: You can’t just add six more raptors and fix it.
K: Six more raptors fixes everything, Rekka.
R: Okay. Back up. You can just add -
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: - six more raptors; there’s your fix for everything.
K: Yes.
R: But you do have to exercise it with extreme care.
K: More raptors!
R: - because people will pick up if you just do it every time.
K: Yeah. If your solution to everything is add more raptors -
R: Get your own solution -
K [overlapping]: [laughing]
R: - my solution to everything is add more raptors.
K: Yeah that’s, that’s fine.
R: Yeah, I thought so.
K: It solves multiple problems, not just intensity of the situation problems, so.
R: Mhm!
K [chuckles]: I think that’s it. If it’s something you’re struggling with, I hate to say this, but like this is something you just kinda have to work on. It’s one of those style and technique things that, I won’t say can’t be taught because absolutely you can take writing classes that would help you with this, but I think it’s something that also just comes from practice and learning.
R: And I would suggest doing it with short fiction, because that’s a really great way to learn how to control the pedal.
K: Absolutely.
R: To adjust your pressure on your reader. And also to build it quickly, because in a short story you don’t have a lot of room, so it’s a boiled-down condensed version. And also being shorter you get more practice, ‘cause you get to write more of them.
K: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, that’s my final thoughts on managing intensity in books is: it’s not easy. There’s a reason people who do it well make a lot of money off of it.
R: It’s not like if you aren’t making a ton of money off of it that you’re no good at it. To that point, pick up a book and see how someone else is doing it.
K: One of the best ways to get good at writing is reading a lot.
R: Yep. And steal everyone else’s tricks. Except mine; the raptors are mine.
K: Only Rekka’s raptors. Ahh, that’s what we need, a book series called Rekka’s Raptors!
R: Vick’s Vultures but -
K: I know.
R: But it’s dinosaurs.
K: I’m already unfolding it in my head, trust me.
R: Oh yeah.
K: [laughing]
R: Send me the outline. [giggles]
K: See this is the problem is, I have all of these ideas of books that I would love to exist in the world and I need someone to write them for me. [laughing]
R: That’s what I said, send me an outline, I work really well off an outline!
K: Yeah. So I think that’s, that’s the end of the episode. Hopefully it wasn’t too much for you.
R: Even if it’s not the end of the episode, we’re done. [laughing]
K: Yeah. I think that -
R [overlapping]: The raptors got us. We’re in the long grass.
K [laughing]: Does he say ‘the long grass’ or ‘the elephant grass?’
R: You know what? I recently read an article about how we all remember lines differently -
K [overlapping]: Yes.
R: - because of the different aspects we’re focused on. So let’s just assume that anybody quoting Jurassic Park to the point where you get the quote, has said it right.
K: Okay. That’s fair.
R: I think that’s like a way to be kinder to other people.
K: Tension! It’s good.
R: The right amount is good. The wrong amount is bad.
K: Yes. I can’t even say in moderation because sometimes it’s not moderation that makes it a -
R: Sometimes the whole point is not moderating it. Except moderating the effect that you want in terms of, ‘hey, I the author have control and am moderating how much I want,’ there. That’s -
K: Yep.
R: That’s the moderation that we’re talking about. [laughing]
K: Exactly.
R: We should stop.
K: [laughing]
R: This episode isn’t going to have a nice end, it’s just going to -
K: Ooh, maybe it just cuts to black mid sentence. [laughing]
R: Well that’s not a great pressure valve on your tension. Yeah no, let us know how this episode needs to end. You can @ us on Twitter and Instagram @wmbcast, you can find us and all our old episodes at wmbcast.com. Please remember to subscribe, please remember especially to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and if you somehow just really wanna support my love of velociraptors, you can go to Patreon.com/wmbcast and send us some financial support, and I promise I will spend it on dinosaur plushies.
K: Oh, I was gonna say velociraptor food.
R: Well, I am the velociraptor food.
K: Which now that I’m saying it I think is just goats, so. [laughing]
R: No that’s T. rexes, and it didn’t work anyway.
K: Yeah, they dropped the cow in the velociraptor.
R: Yeah that’s true - oh wait am I a velociraptor? Because I’ve been eating cow this week.
K: You have, yeah.
R: Hmm.
K: Hmmmm.
R: We’ll have to investigate this in a future episode.
K: Hey, because the mystery is building tension.
R: Yeeeah, that’s it.
K [laughing]: Alright everyone, thanks very much for listening.
R: For your indulgence.
K: [laughing]
R: Take care everyone!