[SPEAKER_00]: there and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Bianca Morey and I'm joined by Callie Waters and CC Lira from PS Literary Agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone, today's guest became obsessed with stories involving family secrets, betrayal and forbidden love.
[SPEAKER_00]: After being gifted a box of used VC Andrew's box at the age of ten.
[SPEAKER_00]: She loves in Buffalo, New York, where she can usually be found cheering on her kid's hockey teams and sneaking words on the page between games.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my pleasure to welcome Melissa O'Connor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Melissa, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so wonderful having you because this is one of our full circle moments.
[SPEAKER_00]: The amazing thing about doing box with hooks for so many years is that this year we've got a solid strong lineup of authors who are now publishing, who's worked, we looked at and critiqued somewhere along the way and it's wonderful
[SPEAKER_00]: To see these works go from being submissions we get in our inbox to suddenly having covers, to being out in the world, to being on bookshel.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're super, super excited, Melissa, and we're going to go through everything shortly.
[SPEAKER_00]: For our listeners, the book that we are talking about today,
[SPEAKER_00]: is the one and only bovian stone really gorgeous glamorous cover and i'm just going to redo some of the flap copies so that you have some context.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets the marvellous missus maisle in this enchanting novel about a strange lovers reconnecting over mysterious tapes
[SPEAKER_00]: found in an attic and the old Hollywood secret hidden within them.
[SPEAKER_00]: After her grandmother's death, there is something Margot Dubois prepares to sell the house quickly so she can go back to a predictable life in Santa Barbara.
[SPEAKER_00]: There, no one knows she used to write and her failing, erect her confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: While cleaning out the attic she comes across eight unlabeled cassette tapes, unable to use the damaged tape player she calls in a favor from Leo, her first love and first epic heartbreak, and they strike a deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: He'll fix the player if he can hear what's on the tapes.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they manage to listen to a shot to hear the voice of comedic legend Vivian Stone, why did she record these tapes and had it Margo's grandmother get them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Between listening to Vivian recount everything from her forbidden love for Hollywood's leading actor to working under a misogynistic exec to her chemistry with her co-star turned husband on TV, Margo and Leo fall down a memory lane of their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Margo is inspired by Vivian's tenacity and courage to keep fighting for the life she wants, but everything changes when Vivian reveals the secret tied to her past in this moving exploration of how it's never too late to start over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Melissa, something that I really want us to focus on in this discussion is the evolution of a piece, the evolution of a work from the query letter to the pages to everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can perfectly demonstrate that for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can please begin by reading the query letter that you sent in to Carly in twenty twenty three that we've critiqued on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it says, Dear Carly, since you represent historical and women's fiction, I'm querying you with Vivian Stone, eighty-nine thousand words, which is inspired by the scandalous, on and off-screen relationship of Lucille Ball and Desire Nets.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great reality of start-up during the mid-twentieth century would appeal to fans of the seven husbands of everyone you go, the marvelous Mrs. Mazeal, and Daisy Jones in the Six.
[SPEAKER_01]: Los Angeles, in nineteen fifty-one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vivienne Stone is used to settling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since she doesn't have the talent to make her dream of Broadway a reality, she turns to Hollywood where looks Trump all.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Tall Dark and Handsome actor Hugh Fox only wants friendship, that's what she takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after she makes a studio exec laugh, she slums it in comedy instead of the refined world of drama she craves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Vivian lands her first lead, opposite playboy, capiers, and falls into the secret world of old Hollywood rules, filling for forty-hour stretches on pet pills, strict diets, and sham dates.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though their on-screen chemistry leads to an off-screen marriage of passionate highs, their addiction strike them to devastating lows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Determine for a fresh start, Vivian and Kit pitch the sitcom Bobby and Clara.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's dubbed the Queen of Comedy, making millions laugh, but her greatest joke is her life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her marriage is in shambles, leaving her with two slivers of happiness, the show which can't continue with the split, and you, the friend she's in love with.
[SPEAKER_01]: She can continue to settle for slivers, or she can risk them to pursue the love she deserves, knowing she might end up with nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: as a freelance writer and editor from Buffalo, New York, Go Bills.
[SPEAKER_01]: My work can be found in texts from educational publishers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And last year I participated in Rogue Mentor where I learned to work on developmental edits on a deadline.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Lucy reruns or staple of my childhood and when I'm not using characters from my favorite TV shows to demonstrate concepts for college students, I'm in an ice ring cheering on my hockey loving kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your consideration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing, Melissa, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us a bit about what the feedback was on the show in terms of the squiri letter and how you were able to use that and how the query letter evolved?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, so the feedback from Carly on the letter was pretty minimal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think her biggest critique was at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said my last line where it says she can continue to settle for slurs or she can risk them to pursue the love she deserves knowing she might end up with nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly had said, I think you can do better with this line.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's a juicy plot happening here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could do more with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kept that in mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But overall there was there was, you know, pretty minimal feedback, which I'm kind of ties to what her feedback was on the show, which I think though, you know, I haven't watched it in a little while, but that she liked it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how long after the critique were you going out on submission, take us through what that journey looked like for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: writer's talk a lot about it's not just the premise of the book that can help you get an agent there's luck and timing involved and I feel like that was really seen and and what I was querying this book because the episode aired March thirty of twenty twenty three
[SPEAKER_01]: And then about a week later, I had last minute decided to participate in, and I don't know if they're still going on or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't go into it anymore, but all those pitch contests that used to be happening on Twitter, last minute decided to do one that was called mood pitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I don't know if that's still going on, and I didn't even know how to make a graph.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get the time I remember the night before.
[SPEAKER_01]: I now know a little bit of a canva, but the night before I was telling my husband who's a graphic designer, I said,
[SPEAKER_01]: have these images could you put them together for me?
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I don't know if I should do this or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, well, you know, why not?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, like I said, that was about a week after the episode aired.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got a bunch of likes on that from agents to query them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so combining the two and actually one of the agents who requested
[SPEAKER_01]: was somebody who had listened to the episode where Carly talked about my career letter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she was already kind of ready to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think I got like a love and likes on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And CC was one of them too.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I sent those out and got full request right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got an offer a week later, which was felt really fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was from that agent I was talking about, who had already heard about the query.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before she offered, I had sent out all my queries because I kind of felt like the feedback I was getting from all those likes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then everything I felt like it was kind of propelling forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just querying everybody which normally I would have gone slower, but because of that, I just thought I would just do it and ended up being the sixth offers within a few weeks on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I end up getting my agent that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love hearing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for all listeners, a ton of agents listen to the show and we've had agents reach out to us and go, I heard this query, can you please put me in touch with so and so.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these things do happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how much did you revise the query later after the show and what did it look like in its form when you went out and managed to get your agent?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the funny thing is that I had submitted
[SPEAKER_01]: My query to the show, I think it was the end of November, December.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know I think until a couple weeks before the episode aired that it was going to be on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's really important for writers just to find between that and, like I said, the pitch contest, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just be on the lookout for all the different opportunities that there are it because you never know, like I said, I thought that maybe the pitch contest was going to be not worthwhile because I've done it before and nothing happened from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that it's always important to just try to try everything you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there wasn't expecting to be on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in the meantime, in those few months between submitting and querying,
[SPEAKER_01]: I did my query entirely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had the tough position of saying, okay, which query letter do I go out with now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Carly liked the one, but then the other one is the one that I had worked on with some critique partners and kind of refined.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't know which one to go out with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did end up going out with the one that I revised.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a little unsure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I sent the original one to a few of
[SPEAKER_01]: the early agents in the next.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kept going.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did the other one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have a second one, which I'd be happy to share with you if you'd like.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to and would you be okay with sharing these with us in Word document so we can put it in our newsletter that'll come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The day after this episode is, because I think a lot of people would love to see it in writing as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you who are listening, you want to see this episode, we'll err on at those day and we'll put both of these in our newsletter on the Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Melissa, will you read us the second query letter?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, dear agents.
[SPEAKER_01]: Inspired by the on-and-off screen marriage of Lucille Ball and Desirenez, Vivian Stone, eighty-nine thousand words, is women's slash a cook fiction with strong romantic elements.
[SPEAKER_01]: It follows a woman who falls into comedy, like the marvelous Mrs. nasal.
[SPEAKER_01]: While she explores the gritty reality of stardom reminiscent of the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and wrestles with mid-twentieth century stereotypes as in lessons in chemistry.
[SPEAKER_01]: aspiring actress Vivian Stone will do anything to make people laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Quirkie dialogue, you bet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Physical comedy, she can do a scarlet oh hair of it in a drapes turn dress get up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vivian gets her big break in nineteen fifty one after she makes a producer cackle so hard he cries, but old Hollywood
[SPEAKER_01]: contracts dictate love lives, since she isn't allowed romance with Dreamboat U-Fox, she settles for friendship.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Vivian is cast opposite playboy Kipiers, America falls in love with their image as the perfect couple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is a relationship the studio can get behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: While their on-screen chemistry leads to an off-screen marriage, a passionate highs, their fighting drags them to devastating lows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Determine for a fresh start, Vivian and Kit pitch the sitcom Bobby and Clara.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's dubbed the Queen of Comedy, making millions laugh at her greatest joke as her life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her marriage isn't shambles, leaving her with two slivers of happiness, the show, which can't continue with this split, and you, the friend she's in love with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vivian can settle for slivers, or she can decide crime, isn't worth the joy of making America laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is some overlap between the two, but there are some differences as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of voicier as well, which are really like.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you definitely went to the voicier approach there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I like how you positioned the comps as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't just a string of comps.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was saying what part of each particular comp, and you went with the lessons in chemistry comp, which wasn't in the original one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what made you add that one?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, that was one of Carly's critiques in her feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, I don't think we need more than one Taylor Jenkins read comp.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I was reworking and I thought, well, what else would be appropriate?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was a little bit nervous because I know a lot of the advice is not to use very big names.
[SPEAKER_01]: and try to do more recent ones, but I kept feeling in my gut that these were the very best comps, these were the very closest to telling you what the story was about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did break, I guess the rules if you want to call them, that to do that's because I thought I thought it was important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, if the big ones all your best comps then go with them,
[SPEAKER_00]: and they kept them in the marketing material which is amazing, which I mean often we'll picture something and what the publisher decides to come to is entirely different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They obviously agreed because they kept those camps which you would have heard when I read the flat copy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now on the evolution of the work itself, Melissa will you please read us the first page as the work was when you submitted to Carly and then I'd like you to read us the first page of how the work is now in its published form.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, okay, first page.
[SPEAKER_01]: Checked her one, lost Angela's, nineteen, fifty-one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another rejection.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lump of my throat grew with a longer, I stared at the notes, sprawled at the bottom of the audition form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't act.
[SPEAKER_01]: It needs a vocal coach to get rid of her accent.
[SPEAKER_01]: The raspy voice is good for sexy roles, but she's not curvy enough for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: At twenty-two, I couldn't have been a housewife like the other girls I graduated with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spending my days gossiping after church, exchanging meat low-fresh bees, and driving to the market with a baby laying in a laundry basket of fresh linen.
[SPEAKER_01]: but the monotony of having dinner on the table every day at five like clockwork sounded like hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though the alternative was being torn apart in the hopes of one day seeing my name in lights, it was better than attending Garden Club or playing bridge or perfecting my cross stitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't act, can't act, can't act.
[SPEAKER_01]: the words thunder through my mind as a valley, it's hand in open my door, and I tossed the paper aside before stepping out.
[SPEAKER_01]: My arch is screamed from hours spent in the paper within souls, but I needed to meet the man roof head and stop talking about for the past few weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I handed over the keys to my beat up forecoop and strode toward the bright lights, illuminating the combo.
[SPEAKER_00]: My heels clicking down the sun and set the strip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you read us the first page from the finished book, just a word from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, right, Melissa, can you read that for us, please?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, the first page of the finished copy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chapter one, Margo, now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll admit it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a creature of habit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Change scares me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe it's less that change scares me and more that familiarity is reassuring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Living a couple of hours away, I don't often drive through my old neighborhood and long beach.
[SPEAKER_01]: But whenever I do, it's like rewatching my favorite movie, knowing what to expect means being able to save her the details.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something charming about how the pizza hardware sign hangs slightly crooked, and the miss popping out from the decorative mug above the door to blossoms bakery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the red and white awning, as I pull up to Ruiz music, is the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been twenty years since I stepped inside, and I wouldn't again, if not for the old shoe box I discovered this morning, while cleaning out my grandma's attic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Inside was a note, a love letter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two in front people I'd never heard of, alongside cassette tapes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably mix tapes, but I couldn't check.
[SPEAKER_01]: The player I also found was broken, but I knew who could fix it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before I can weigh the merits of being a coward, I gather the cassette player and the shoe box from the passenger seat and walk through the music store door.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bell above jingles and a soldier at being here again tingles down my spine.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the left are rows of sheet music book, guitars hanging from the wall above, while amps and keyboards sit in a display on the floor, classical music pipes through the speakers.
[SPEAKER_00]: amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so from my original letter to colleague and the subsequent, it sounded like a single POV novel.
[SPEAKER_00]: One timeline single POV and when I read the flap copy, listeners could hear it was dual POV and most of the focus was kind of on Margo's framing.
[SPEAKER_00]: of everything when it came to Vivienne.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you take us through the evolution of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you originally have two POVs at what point was the second POV added?
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you edit to say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Love to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the funny thing is is that I had originally written this book as a dual POV, a dual timeline, like it stands now.
[SPEAKER_01]: with Margo in the present and fitting in the past.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as an author who didn't have an agent and was looking at kind of the parameters of what is too long to submit to agents, I was a little worried that I can't exactly remember how long it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was over a hundred thousand words.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say hundred and ten thousand words.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was a little nervous that might be too long.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I made the decision to take out the present timeline because
[SPEAKER_01]: in the original and as it stands now, it's definitely the minor timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, okay, how can I fix the book so I don't need both timelines?
[SPEAKER_01]: And would it still read just as well?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I felt like it did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like it worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what I submitted to agents, which as you heard in the query, it ended up being a nine thousand words.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then I worked with my agent on edits and we submitted it to editors and the feedback we got several times was that historical is the top cell right now unless you're one of the big names.
[SPEAKER_01]: what my editor in particular came back and said, I would really love this if it had a second timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the the being story, but I think that it could use a little something more.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then my agent who didn't know that I had originally written this as dual timeline, I told her I said I have from another
[SPEAKER_01]: a version of this with all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we went back to my editor who really wanted to see it, sent that to her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, I had to do some editing to get that back together because I went through all the edits with my agents already.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then that did take some time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But putting it back together and submitted it and my editor was like, yeah, let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how she ended up offering on the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what she originally did was like a revise and resubmit the equivalent of what agents do, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, I'm not offering now.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I'd like to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you can turn it around, send it back to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so how long do you think that took?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I know you said it took a bit of a while to get it there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you estimate more layers?
[SPEAKER_00]: How long?
[SPEAKER_01]: And really?
[SPEAKER_01]: When I we were talking about how we're both Capricorn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I'm on a mission, I really can't be stopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got it done within less than a month, a few weeks probably just because I wanted to make sure that all the plot points still worked and everything was still woven in correctly and I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: during our call with my editor because we we didn't have a call before she officially offered on that and we had done some back and forth on what she wanted to see she had never seen the present timeline but what did she want to see so I said okay so I have to take what I had and then incorporate what she suggested and make that all flow so it did take a little bit of time but not that bad
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: For our listeners, agents love doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is love doing it because it immediately establishes how open to feedback a writer is, how sort of stuck in the ways they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they prepared to pivot with things?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are they prepared to take?
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, feedback and turn it into something else and then how long an author will take.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's not to say you need to rush it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Melissa turned it around quickly because we're kept records and that's what we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But rather take like four months with it and do a really good job and then turn it around then, you know, rushing that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it just shows how much a piece can evolve.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, here was Melissa with everything there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then she second guessed herself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why I say, try not to become too obsessed with word count up front.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know on the podcast, calling in CC, I always like, word count.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if a story needs that other timeline, if it needs that extra point of view, then that elevates it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those extra words elevate the piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how many words is the finished book nameless is it back to the hundred and ten away all yet?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, so while we were editing I did expand Margo's timeline a bit because I did have it even shorter than it is now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I expanded that and then
[SPEAKER_01]: reduced living story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I took out some chapters and scenes while working with my editor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it ends up being about a hundred and one thousand words I believe is the finished copy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe about seventy-five percent of that still is living story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is still the overarching story, but it has a little bit more of, I guess, a balance to it than when I originally submitted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that just goes to show.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a debut.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's over a hundred thousand words, and that's perfectly fine, because that's what the story requires.
[SPEAKER_00]: So sometimes, you know, it helps to listen to your guys what you originally felt the story needed rather than sticking to the rules of to get an agent that needs to be this much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we speak about the tension between the two timelines?
[SPEAKER_00]: So you've got Margo who discovers these tapes and it immediately plants curiosity seeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are immediately primed for the Vian's story because we're immediately curious about what Margo has found.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also what it allowed you to do with two completely different love interests.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you've got two different kinds of romance sort of tropes or leading men
[SPEAKER_00]: which you were able to develop both of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you speak a bit about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So the mystery I felt like I really wanted it to be something where you couldn't get the answers all at once.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why she originally finds seven tapes, but she knows based on what's written on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says one of eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we know from the beginning that one of the tapes is missing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she has the house that she's
[SPEAKER_01]: screening out and getting ready to sell it and what happens if she doesn't find it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was hoping that the whole ticking clock aspect would combine with the mystery elements to make readers feel like, okay, it kind of gives it more of an urgency to the book and to her timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I tried to imagine myself if I had found a set of tapes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would be very curious.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would assume that they were mixed tapes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still, I would need to know what was on them, especially when they're labeled like that, because I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I grew up with more with CDs, but you know, you would label what was on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: So you knew that they were make shapes or what kind of bands they had on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this had nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, that's how I would, I would need to know, but then what if you don't have a tape, most people don't have those lying around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if one's broken, how would you fix that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I brought Leo back in the picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I tried to every chapter I had of Margo, trying to go back to that element of the mystery and are we going to find the last tape?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then giving little pieces throughout Vivian's story,
[SPEAKER_01]: that then Margo can latch on to and they can have a discussion about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And which I was hoping that the reader would say, well, maybe start making theories, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe this is the connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this is what Margo's grandmother was doing or maybe has nothing to do with her grandma.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it has to do with this other person that they've been introduced.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of tried to throw a lot of options at the reader without being obvious that these were options really.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing it through Margo's own thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: and hoping that the readers were either agree with her or maybe they would come up with their own thoughts along the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I tried to extend it as long as I could.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and what also ups the stakes of her timeline is the romantic interest, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this person who broke her heart, this person from the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: She kind of needs him to help her figure out what's on the tapes, but now they're spending time together because he's invested.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's that
[SPEAKER_00]: We have that will they want they what's gonna happen with them tension in her timeline besides the romantic tension in Vivian's timeline
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I'm at heart a romantic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So really the story has probably three love stories and I just couldn't help but want to put all of my favorite things about love stories in this book and I love the idea of a second chance romance and so while we had this mystery going on
[SPEAKER_01]: We also had a reason to keep them coming back together, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They were coming back together to listen to the tapes, which she's now invested in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it helps them kind of go down their own memory lane of reminiscing about their
[SPEAKER_01]: time together in high school and there are parents and just different things that brought them together, which I thought was really fun to do because it's different than in the Vivian timeline because she meets the love interest for the first time so we see that with her as opposed to the other one where it's you know a second chance.
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah yeah I love them both equally I loved both of the romances but you know what Melissa said is so important because when you have dual timeline chapters it's so important that the two are in conversation with each other the first one has got to have its own momentum its own dominance tipping forward things need to be forward momentum same goes for the past timeline and they need to kind of be mirroring each other and like Melissa said it
[SPEAKER_00]: gave things that were happening on the tapes that they heard Vivian say, gave Margo opportunity to discuss it from theories about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here they were literally in conversation with each other, but those two really do need to be braided together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Melissa, our time is up.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been so lovely chatting with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations on the release of the one and only Vivian Stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will link to it on our bookshop.org affiliate page.
[SPEAKER_00]: If our listeners get it there, you will be supporting an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a debut or the who we will be cheering along so congratulations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's it for today's episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll join us for next week's show.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, keep at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it just takes one yes.