[SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by CC Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, welcome back to another author interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's guest is Julia McCay, which is the pen name of Marissa Stuffley, a New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels, including the Reese's Book Club Peck Lucky, soon to be an Apple TV Plus limited series starring Ania Taylor Joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has also co-written several bestselling holiday romances, including the holiday swap and three holidays and a wedding.
[SPEAKER_00]: She divides her time between city life in Toronto and late-life in Halibutton, where she writes about love, second chances, and the magic of the holidays.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the show Marissa.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always so lovely having you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Always love visiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, we love having you back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get excited every time there's a new book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so the book that we're discussing today is Christmas at the ranch for those of you watching on our YouTube channel, you will see the stunning cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just gives all the warm and cozy Christmas vibes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read the flat copy so you have some context, and then we're going to dive straight in.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the holidays around the corner and a father recently imprisoned for financial fraud, disgraced journalists, Emory Oaks, doesn't know where to turn.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's only certain of one thing she needs to get away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fate takes the wheel, leaving her stranded in Snowy Evergreen, the picturesque town where she spent her happiest Christmas as a teen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And chronicled every moment in her journal as she fell in love with handsome local Tate Wilder at his family's idyllic horse ranch.
[SPEAKER_00]: until it all went wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Emory isn't ready to face tate, but kismids and Christmas magic have other ideas.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the love they've denied for a decade rekindles, the betrayals that kept them apart resurfaced, and Emory's family scandal reaches the small town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even still, take wilder and his ranch feel more like home than anywhere ever has.
[SPEAKER_00]: will Emory and Tate's alchemy, Fizzle, or will their Christmas wishes come true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I'm sure that, you know, any family member of an author will say, you know, dinners out are either your author parent or, you know, spouse or sibling, either dropping on tables, kind of looking for ideas, not on purpose, but you can help it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or, especially when I'm sort of brainstorming an idea,
[SPEAKER_02]: I've kind of taken to floating things or brainstorming with my family.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with the romance is a rom-com, it can be so much fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we've had extended family gatherings where we've sat around the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: My father-in-law actually came up with a really fun idea with an electrician main character, I'd like to use some day.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Maya was like, you know, I just, I love the idea of, you know, the return to the small town, the Gilmore Girls vibe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what this guy's entire personality should be, and it was just very captivating for me, and it's kids are both so creative, so I loved seeing her little mind work.
[SPEAKER_02]: There have been so many changes to the idea, so now she's like, it's not my idea anymore, I'm like, but it is, you don't understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the, you know, the grain is there, and the book arrived yesterday, actually, the finished copy, and she was so delighted.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have pictures of her looking at the little dedication, and I think that it made her feel very special.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I absolutely love that and I see your name the character of your father.
[SPEAKER_02]: He did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Bruce.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he asked for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that just a surprise?
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't ask.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I was writing a small town newspaper man.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, like, it just kind of put Bruce as a placeholder because I'll try to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you can probably, you know, understand this when you're writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just cannot get bogged down and figuring out the name of the small town newspaper man in the moment when you're trying to draft.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just threw Bruce in there, which is my dad's name.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is a former small-time newspaper man and then it just really worked.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I left it and he'll have that would be a little easter egg for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like Taylor Swift, just dropping easter eggs all through my romance novels.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Rosa, are you the horsey person or is your daughter the horsey person or did you have to do a lot of horsey research?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because like you really know what you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was very satisfying to know that I still do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I and my daughter, so starting with me, I started writing horses around, let's say, 10, 11, just became absolutely horse crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's just that sort of stereotypical, you know, horse crazy preteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And road probably till I was about 15 or 16, which is around when my daughter stopped as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so she started around 10, 11,
[SPEAKER_02]: And we go riding together still every year.
[SPEAKER_02]: This year I was, I think I'm still sore.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was last one.
[SPEAKER_02]: dying, but that whole right what you know thing, you often don't know things that you think you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I sat down to write about the horse component, it was like Charlie said, like it's just like writing a horse.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is like there's so much that I remembered and even in copy edits there would be a few always this that and like, nope, it's the girth is on this side and this and that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: you do still remember all of that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was a lot of fun and I think anyone who is in a question or knows anything about courses will be really satisfied with this read because they're not just throw in there, those scenes where they're real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to recommend it to my niece, who's a big hosting person.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's going to love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: My experience with horses, unfortunately, was very traumatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on a horse once, I think I was like 14.
[SPEAKER_00]: The horse threw me off so that it could mate with another horse directly overhead.
[SPEAKER_02]: One for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really dramatic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so many level.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sorry to hear that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was less traumatic was being thrown and what was more traumatic was seeing a host penis that goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: There.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to hear with your kid and everyone, it's like with the literal elephant in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I still have nightmares.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wake up screaming, but yeah, this made me more in kind to write horses.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was great.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I want to chat about is that you write across multiple genres, so a lot of it's women's fiction and then you do your rom-coms.
[SPEAKER_00]: And something I'm struggling with now at the moment is I'm going back to book club fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my last novel, the most puzzling murder, I used really like purple prose and overwrought language to create this Gothic vibe.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as I'm writing on the line level, I find myself doing that again and I'm like, oops,
[SPEAKER_00]: No, this is book cover fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything has to change the tone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything on a sentence level.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you sit down to change genres, how do you like adapt that stuff?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I sometimes it's easy, by the way, like there's no, oh, I just sit down and I tell myself X and Y. But I think that I've always told myself with the rom-coms.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is
[SPEAKER_02]: fun and as much as writing an entire novel can be always fun and these characters are heading towards the happy ending and you can't be mean to them but it honestly it does not stop me from trying to give them the most heartbreaking backstories and you know
[SPEAKER_02]: Often with rom-coms, the parents can't really be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they can never just feel like the parents are on a cruise.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, truly, I'm working on a novel now, another one, it's a, it's fall-themed, and for whatever reason, like, the fall is just like, nostalgia, melancholy, her mom died in an avalanche, which I had to take out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, so I don't know, I think it just, you sit down.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you try it about five different times until you're there, and then you do get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I feel like I'm there this morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually finally was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this is the I'm feeling that fun relaxation that they do feel when I'm writing the wrong comments, but it's not easy and it always depends on the book you've written before where you are before like I found it weirdly easy to get out of
[SPEAKER_02]: The mindset I was in writing the lightning bottles, even though, you know, was an epic sort of dark love story, but because I was in that like mode of love and so badly wanting a very simple happy ending.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would sit down after the lightning bottles and be like, oh, this feels good and for whatever reason that did not happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't really think I have advice except you can't give up, which is always my advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just have to keep kicking at that can and realize that what you think you're about to write is never going to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's never going to sound the way you think it's going to in that first draft.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just keep going and edit and keep trying.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you'll sink into it, you know, it'll lead like a warm bath.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll sink into it eventually.
[SPEAKER_00]: So something I also want to discuss with you is like the differences in the genres, you know, because you can write woman's fiction with romantic elements.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is that different to romance or rom-coms, you know, because we sometimes see people who are pitching something as woman's fiction, but the tone feels more like a rom-com or the story line feels more like a rom-com, and they'll go no bit, but my woman's fiction has romantic elements.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is that different?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think with a rom-com, there cannot be romantic elements, like you have to come back to the love story.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have to make the romantic hero very multifaceted and it's, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: his heart has sold away.
[SPEAKER_02]: He smells.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you wear?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a can't just be glancing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That being said, I think in women's fiction, the love interest can be quite, you know, very well drawn character wise, but maybe the love story plays second fiddle to.
[SPEAKER_02]: other elements of the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it often is a journey for that female character.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as I say this, I feel like I try to do this in my and rom constantly way and there is always, you know, an important best friend and a supporting cast that is key to the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, you've got to throw in those moments of like the shiver and the free saw and, you know, a couple of sex scenes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like different kinds of cookies, you know, like a sneakily-doodle versus like a chocolate brownie fudge delight.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're putting in the fudge chips and the brownies into the romcom to make it even more sweet.
[SPEAKER_02]: if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And something that I really focused on this time is the physicality that needs to be brought to a rom-com because falling in love is so physical.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the person smell.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like noticing how the eyes glint in a certain light or how the
[SPEAKER_00]: hand moved.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what their fingers look like and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, and that's not something that you would necessarily bring to like woman's fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I was really focusing on that and how well you accentuated that this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I think in women's fiction too, it would be, you know, more cerebral, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like how does he make her feel?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does he make him feel?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does this affect the rest of her life?
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas, yeah, and in her true romance novel there, in the room together, and their hairs are standing out.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he smells like sourdust and sourdust and leather and all of those things that it's very evocative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah and it's their physical response to each other the whole time and it was yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you writing in the romcom space remember to evoke all of those senses not just you know the way someone looks for example but the way they smell how the character responds to that smell the way they feel how him touching her or
[SPEAKER_00]: her touching her makes the person feel so really focused on the physicality there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is in note that my editors, what is she feeling?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does his skin, you know, those are notes that romance editors and you know, really good ones are giving like I have Tara Sing and Carlson and Deborah Sandila Cruz who at it, you know, she at its Carly Fortune.
[SPEAKER_02]: So really talk editors are just saying like, okay, we need these sensory details and that's a huge part of that process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, sometimes I think what helps with me when I create that is like lighting a candle that smells like cedar or that smells like Christmas or whatever because when you yourself experiencing all of those sensations you more in time to bring them into your work, I don't know if you have to do them or so or no.
[SPEAKER_02]: it's music for me really.
[SPEAKER_02]: I put on, and there's always a song.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this one was a song called Books by Van Kaltkamp, and it just got me in that mode every time to feel all those feels.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I could see him in particular.
[SPEAKER_02]: hate and and how he was feeling which I also think this is something else that sets women's fiction and rom-hom apart that you perhaps are focusing on her more for the women's fiction and in a rom-hom romance you really need to try to get in his head even if he doesn't have his chapters to really have this guy who's like Travis Kelsey and your main character, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Worshiping her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if he's a you know grumpy sunshine or it's enemies to lovers or we hate him like
[SPEAKER_02]: has to really love her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So music is my is my way of setting the mood and that works for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love how every rites has got their own rituals like for me it's candles for you it's music for other people it'll be whatever and yeah so for our listeners find to rituals man and it makes it a lot easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay so for today's episodes I really want to do a deep dive into serendipity,
[SPEAKER_00]: versus like coincidence because we're always saying in writing things need to be plausible, you can't have too many coincidences etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in this kind of book, and in fact, in a lot of books, you know, you need to have things aligning falling into place.
[SPEAKER_00]: when they get together.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you need to have things that will also keep them apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can we speak a bit about setting up this idea of Christmas and serendipity so that it all feels so authentic?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and I love this question and I think about this all the time and I know I'm not alone because Carrie Claire, one of my favorite people and authors,
[SPEAKER_02]: Recently, texted me, because we talk about it so much, and then posted, like, you'll go so often get like that good read survey where it's like, I didn't buy this coincidence and she's like, I told myself that I wanted to meet Heather Marshall, who's a Canadian author and another one of my favorite people and authors and she's like, I was camping in
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, somewhere outside of London, and I wish I could remember the name of the book store because it would make this story better, but I'll come back to you with that, and she and her family decided to leave their campsite and go to a independent bookstore in the afternoon, and she walks into the bookstore and there's Heather Marshall, and they had a meet cute.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the world sort of turns on these coincidences happening, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what it's all about, like I, if I hadn't worked at a certain office and had a certain friend I would not have met my husband.
[SPEAKER_02]: My husband was living in Australia at the time and had this moment where he was about to sign a contract to, you know, stay there probably it would have been forever and he just, he was listening to a certain song and realized he couldn't do it, put his pen down and came and met me, you know, like these things happen and I've had
[SPEAKER_02]: happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't always know what they mean.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what the universe is trying to do or if the universe is trying to do anything, but I feel coincidences and weird kismitists, very realistic.
[SPEAKER_02]: But still, you have to work so hard to put that on the page because truth actually
[SPEAKER_02]: So often it is stranger than fiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it can't just be for convenience, you know, say, you can't just be well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to put this in because this works.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I try to do is I always just try to have it a deeper meaning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if they're happening to bump into each other, that the one of them is doing something important to her.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not just, oh, there he is, you know, or we see the other side.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see the what went into the decision making process to get them in each other's path.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I also, I believe in magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had it happen with books so many times.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I'm on the right path with a book, we had coincidences start happening in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when I was writing, I'm making for life this like soccer mom pulled up beside me at the grocery store with a white SUV, a blonde bob, and her license plate was Fiona.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you've read,
[SPEAKER_02]: painting for life, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I swear she walked by me and I was like I made her like I made that when I was writing lucky.
[SPEAKER_02]: I created her dog Betty and then went out for a walk and there was a woman walking on my street with a dog who looked exactly like I pictured her dog and I
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what the dog's name, the dog's name was Hershey, but then the woman said her name was Lyma, and then I told her about my book as you do, just so weird, I was like, can I take future to her dog and then she said, well, I'm a means lucky in Latvian.
[SPEAKER_02]: It must, you know, these things do happen, and we don't know why, and we have to accept that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I do feel sad for the reader and the person who's like, oh, this would never happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what, what, what do you look in with these magical little coincidences?
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they're not happening to you, you need to like do some, you know, some,
[SPEAKER_02]: Deep breathing, or I don't know how to get yourself more into that flow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to dive into a bit more shortly, but first, a word from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, so that's the thing because as you said, truth is often strange in the infection.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember reading a newspaper article about twins who had been separated from birth, who ended up sitting next to each other on some bus, like randomly and turned to look at each other and was like, you look like me, you look like me, and then it went from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that can happen in real life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we read about it in the newspaper and we're like, oh my God, but if you wrote that in a book, you edited it, it would be like there's no way, like forget it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once was at a book club and book clubs are, I'm sure you know, the best, and people will start telling their stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do, again, I talk about Kisman and Coins, and it's quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And someone said, in their family, there was a woman who maybe a grandparent who had ended up in one of those homes for unwedmothers, pregnant, and had been sort of torn away from the grandfather.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was on a school trip downtown, the bus diverted,
[SPEAKER_02]: ended up going down a street where she ended up, she was happened to be sitting pregnant on a step.
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't know where she was.
[SPEAKER_02]: He jumped off the bus.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were together forever and she had the baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because just both have been here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, these things do happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we as authors can say, well, these things happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we still have to do that work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder too if the work is
[SPEAKER_02]: making the goose bumps.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're giving your reader goose bumps, and they're really along for the ride and enjoying themselves, then they're able to go, okay, well, I'm going to allow this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it doesn't feel like enough work has gone into it, then they won't allow it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also you're always going to get the person who's like, oh, I don't buy that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's just the way it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but like with this, there was never pointed which I needed to suspend disbelief,
[SPEAKER_00]: what you do so well is you have the dominoes tipping right so her father is arrested she wants to get the hell out of the city she's freaking out she just happens to drive and it makes sense it's unconsciously she's going to head towards the place where she was last happy you know she gets there there's like a series of things that happen that put her back at the ranch because she doesn't want to go there you're like a whole bunch of things happen and it's all plausible because there's
[SPEAKER_00]: bad weather, there's, you know, driving when she shouldn't be driving, there's all kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, there's other characters who are conspiring to actually get her back there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So each domino tips that leads to the next thing and it all comes together in a really authentic and organic, it feels so organic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and really a lot of that stuff is realistic, like the, I don't know if it's a spoiler, the
[SPEAKER_02]: thing that she runs into on the road that happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't, you know, we all are like terrified of, I'll just say, there's a move.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that would happen, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you're driving in the dark around Haliburton, chances are something will happen that will get you to have to go back to your dreams.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I, I think that's fun too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I love watching little coincidences and things come together when you see you know that something is inevitable, but just to kind of watch it, as you said, the dominoes falling is a lot of fun for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think it takes practice as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they also, like, in terms of romance, rom coms, they have to be like misunderstandings and then things that keep them apart as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there'll be serendipity and kism of that brings them together, but then they've got to face these obstacles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of these things are,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, it goes back to almost like what Lisa Cron said about a character's misbelief.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe deciding you aren't lovable and so how could this person possibly love you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when they say X, they actually mean Y, but they actually meant X, but you must interpret it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it fascinates me how in this day and age where we can just text each other so easily to clear up misunderstandings.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have so many misunderstandings, and in this day and age when we have more access to information than ever before, people are so bloody misinformed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So give us a speak a bit about that as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you learn a lot about your readers as a wrong common romance writer because they're very, very clear with you and each other in discussions you are pretty too online, generally.
[SPEAKER_02]: about what they do not like.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I know now, you know, rom-com romance readers generally really ethane hate the misunderstanding and the, you know, miscommunication trope and it's so frustrating to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they'll often be like, why didn't they just talk to each other?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why didn't, you know, she could just say it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel the same sort of frustration and sometimes when you paint yourself into a corner with a lot to and you're like, oh, there's so much miscommunication, but I also then look around at the world and I'm like, oh, really like I should just, you know, go downstairs right now just tell me I have an exactly how I feel about that thing we had a misunderstanding about and he'll be like, oh, well, all you had to do was just explain it to me and everything will be fine, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's not really how it works and
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people are very communicative, and I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't tend to leave a lot of things on set, but I know a lot of people who do, and it just becomes, you know, crystallizes inside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when my daughter just for her for a great 12 English read that misconnection short story, that I think every student has to read and look that up, and it's about like,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a metaphor really like a man sees a woman on a bus and he doesn't get the courage to speak to her and sits there for 60 years and at the end of 60 years she gets something gets off the bus and that like a wrong palm reader would be like what you know but This is so realistic We do and you get scared and you think you're unlovable and you can't just be like I love you, you know or This is what this is what the cinema is
[SPEAKER_00]: making yourself vulnerable and if you say that to someone and they like well thank you very much that's right you know and then you're like oh and a die I've just declared my love to somebody so to me that makes complete sense but again it has to be tied to that character's misbelief it's got to be tied to their personal wounds right it can't just be a miscommunication for the sake of it it has to authentically make sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: They know, and it's so true.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got to build your, you've got to do a lot of work to sort of break these rules or make it satisfying for your reader, and you've got to just build believable characters who have their flaws and are on a journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to remember that too, because it can be easiest, especially when you're trying to build this lovely cozy rom-com world to have these perfect wonderful characters, but every character has to be on a journey, they have to change in some way throughout the course of the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: is it that they're too afraid they believe themselves to be unlovable or they see something differently than the other person and you do that work and you get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is hard and I find that I'm just frustrated with the reader when they're in this communication.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm trying to get my characters out of.
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes they just won't, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they won't.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not working and you can't get them to say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and something you do as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to give too much ways
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and being unable to say, I'm so sorry for something and I'm ashamed that I did this and all of that feels deeply, deeply human.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of this to say for our listeners, when these things happen, tie it to something within that character, whether it's shame or embarrassment or believing their own loveable etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that when they do these kinds of things, the reader doesn't get super frustrated, they feel empathy, they go, oh my God, you damaged and this is why you can't just say these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe, you know, if you know, but the main character doesn't know yet, or I think approach every novel, no matter which novel you're writing, no matter which genre, create the characters, make them as deep as you possibly can know them so well, because just because you're writing the romance that's intended to be light does not mean that you can really skip that step.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you know that character, you can create a really believable love story for them, but that work does need to be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have to go back and take away all the horrible devastating heart-breaking non-rom clump things.
[SPEAKER_00]: give them the the happy evolved or the happy for now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The parents, it's all fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last question we have time for is you write such amazing secondary characters but they aren't just fun and quirky and lovable which is what you expect but like can we speak a bit about your approach to them and how their personalities or their professions are
[SPEAKER_00]: or like like circumstances need to help advance the plot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you speak a bit about the best friend in the book?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to pronounce a name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it Lany or Lany?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Lany.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she is important because I think sometimes you first of all, how can you get a reader fully on board with someone who actually doesn't have any friends?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you know, you can very you can get to know
[SPEAKER_02]: that character through how their friends use them and how they treat their friends.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's so important.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always find in my romance and rom-com novels, friendship is important because it's very important to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, in order to be at that point in your life journey, where you are ready for the kind of love that I'm building for my characters, you have to already have other things in place in your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, maybe you don't know what you're doing with your job and all that stuff that you need to be emotionally mature enough to have friends to have weathered some emotional storm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's what makes that best friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: piece is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as far as the other characters, that's I love that part.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think that so many people I have met unfortunately a few too many people who will say like they may be a little area and a different genre and say, you know, I'm just going to write a rom com or I'm just going to write a romance or other people who say like I'm just going to write a thriller and I think there are so many different challenges to being able to do it and there are things that we're good at and another person will be better at it or, you know, they're just
[SPEAKER_02]: So many facets to being a writer and different strengths, but I think that definitely is one of my strengths that I don't think that you can just sit down and go, you know, I'm going to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to populate this world with these fun characters and
[SPEAKER_02]: I really just love doing it and I kind of move through the world looking for interesting little tidbits like today, a high school friend, I'm in a group chat with a few high school friends and she was sharing pictures of her husband's like giant pumpkins and like
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, Sue, I have so many questions I'm using this and for my fall book, it's going to be a cute book, like I like what maybe it is to like a little perfect tomato or a gross giant duckkins, although you guys see where this could go to be probably up
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to be constantly on the lookout for those, and I am constantly on the lookout for those that I'm able to make them meaningful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And really, I think you can't just have your two romance people in love, or trying to get love, or really screwing it up, are these islands in your book, like the world that surrounds them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially with the Christmas romance where it's got to be a cozy world, or a fall romance that I'm working on.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really, really important.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's such a good point because I tried to write a rom-com one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, oh my god.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I was like, okay, now this is too difficult for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also just coming back to Lonnie is that you gave her life circumstances that she had twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're very young.
[SPEAKER_00]: which gave reason why she couldn't just drop her life and drive out to, like, rescue, you know, I mean, characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's important that those are the things that help move the platter long because otherwise you're getting, if she's the best friend of my country, just come and help and you go, oh my gosh, she's dealing with twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course you can't just drop everything and go out and help it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but you have to be careful and I will say that at the beginning and I know that every there will be people nodding along like you'll then sort of get caught up in the life of your secondary character.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like at one point she was a single mother and her, you know, X has been, didn't know who wanted kids and then she got pregnant with twins.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he walked out on her like when they were babies and Deborah and Tara were like, well, I mean, we can't have this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this is that's too much for this last twins.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: But don't, again, don't go, oh, I've really screwed it up if you get caught up in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just keep that in mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's important for them to be fully fleshed out human beings that they cannot take center stage with whatever their problems are.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think of those plays where, you know, somebody would go up on stage and try and be the main character and they'd use almost like a ship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hooked to pull them back off the stage and that's what we have to keep doing with our secondary characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to wrangle them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, or like Coke was at Coco Chanel and he said when you get ready to leave the house, don't move to items, to accessories.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, do that with your secondary characters too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Be like, okay, we're going to take out two life circumstances here.
[SPEAKER_02]: No ex-husband, no, and leaving her in the middle of the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're good.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cookers and I would have been confounded as me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave the house without any accessories, so then I'd be screwed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, like they did have to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Marissa, this has been incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for taking the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: For our listeners, we're going to be linking to Christmas at the ranch on a bookshop.org affiliate page.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: They use a port of podcast and you support an independent bookstore and the author at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We hope to have you back again soon.
[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.