[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!
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to today's author interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today's guest is a writer and campaign producer working with charities and NGOs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The carriers who debut novel was longlisted for BPA's first novel award, shortlisted for Heart Escape and the Science Museum's debut Science Fiction Award and won the Jericho Writer's Friday Night Live Competition.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lives in the North East with her husband
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruth, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you guys next to see you again.
[SPEAKER_00]: So lovely to see you again.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to dive into our shared history shortly before that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to give everybody an idea of what's in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now have a look, Ruth and I are holding up two different copies of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruth is holding up the finished book with that cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very attention grabbing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am holding up the galley.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you who are always interested in what happens in the back end of publishing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we will just get a bit about what the book's about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think my copy is worth more than your copy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gally's cost a lot more finished hard cover.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to hang on to my.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So just to tell you what the carry is about, plug copy, why should you suffer when she can do it for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to you, pneumonia.
[SPEAKER_00]: A revolutionary company that can free you from your unwanted emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jellacy, grief, heartache.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can afford expression, you need never feel them again.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your place are the carriers, women who are paid to process your pain.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a world full of suffering, there is no shortage of demand, but you the Maria has secrets.
[SPEAKER_00]: The true cost of your freedom is the carriers' life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you let them pay the price?
[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,
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's go all the way back, Ruth, until everybody how you're connected to the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, way back when, I've actually not quite clear on the year, but I know it was before COVID, because that's when I started the carrier.
[SPEAKER_02]: I applied to be on the ship that no one tells you about writing with a different book that I was writing to have my first pages critiques.
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe I was your first guest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you'd had an author come in before to have that like critique experience and it was so brilliant.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even though I didn't finish that book, it was a real like milestone for me to share my work publicly like speak to people about my work and feel like it was something I could do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also the criticism of it was useful because it may be really interrogate like is this is this the one and it turns out halfway through it wasn't the book I wanted to write but some of the themes and the thinking behind it very much shows up in the career as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well firstly nothing gets wasted we say this time in the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you work on their book and it feels like, oh my god, everything's wasted.
[SPEAKER_00]: There'll be things from it, things from it, perhaps that you can use, that you felt passionate about, certainly it teaches you to become a better writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were incredibly brave being the first person to come on to books with ups because anyone who came on subsequently could have listened to previous episodes to know what to expect and so you just came in.
[SPEAKER_00]: really not knowing what to expect Ruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all to you and we enjoyed our time with you so much that we then try to bring on as many authors as we possibly could.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, in terms of your journey to publication, I mean, you've already won all these awards.
[SPEAKER_00]: The book is not out yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you take us through how this works?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think it says probably quite a little about me that I need like deadlines and things to help me work and so there's lots of competitions out there for unpublished writers where you can submit
[SPEAKER_02]: partial parts of your manuscript pre-publication and have those reviewed by judges who will then maybe offer a manuscript assessment in return or just a celebration of your work so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I just needed some sort of milestones and validation along the way to feel like I should pursue this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I basically just sort out any, any.
[SPEAKER_02]: opportunities there were and and submitted my manuscript as I went along and used as much feedback as I could get from winning those competitions and also confidence boost if I want to keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a really great way of doing it because the thing is is that, you know, we write this book for a year or two, we do it in the void, maybe we send it to some better readers.
[SPEAKER_00]: but we are never quite sure how good the work is until we find it in show to somebody, whereas if you're showing it to people along the way, as you say you're getting really good to take care of, to calibrate if you're close enough, is this how you landed your agent with that a different story?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so my agent I landed through just going out like the slush pile query letters, but I do think having those wins on my query letter and following your advice of how to write a good query letter really helped it stand out and a couple of people got back to me quite quickly and they were like, oh, I saw the Friday night live and it was just a marker of something different.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, that I did this sort of cold outreach by had those things on my letter which helped.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also would like to say that even if I hadn't won the things, or all been shortlisted, it's still would have been useful because it was a deadline.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's being in that mindset as well, but just because you don't win doesn't mean that it's bad, because obviously there's a huge amount of people applying, but it's still worthwhile to get that milestone in place for me, at least.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely, especially for those of you who struggle with like self-sip
[SPEAKER_00]: more cracking of the web, so we're more inclined to meet those.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, so after you've got your agent, Ruth, take us through that journey to publication, like how much did you and your agent work together?
[SPEAKER_00]: Editing it before sending it out was the more than one offer, I'd love to hear all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so once I signed with Megan at Bergstrom Studios, we did another round of edits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Quite rightly, she suggested changing the title from emotional transport, which in hindsight, not that catchy to the carriers.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is now the carrier without the S, which is a recent change, but sort of repackaging it more about the women and the carriers than like the concept of
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that was a really good reframe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we went out on submission and it took months like, oh, just tumble.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a few like enthusiastic, but no thank you messages until the one Ryan, who is the deputy publishing director at Bantam Books, which was an imprint at Penguin.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got back to me and she said, you know, really loved.
[SPEAKER_02]: The concept was looking for something that was in the sort of severancey issue based with a bit of speculative sci-fi twist.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what she was after.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was really good timing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was good timing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got the call when I was six months pregnant.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the call was very much like love it, but huge amount of work to do because her remit was like thriller and crime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I'm really honest, when I wrote this book, I didn't necessarily, I wasn't thinking this is a thriller, so I wasn't trying to make it fit into the genre of being a thriller.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for almost like, you know, if I take this on, I want to make sure it fulfills.
[SPEAKER_02]: the thriller genre so there will be like substantial rewrite and I was like fantastic sounds great I am six months pregnant so yeah I will do both that's before the baby and and hopefully I will be capable after the baby but you know I wasn't sure how much headspacing time I would have so we worked quite like quickly on the structural edit before I had my son and then another round about it's after he was born copy of it
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of back and forth, but it was strengthened so much by thoughts and puts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the any point it was a revised and resummit or aftergate was torn like I went to some buying it but I'm letting you know you need to prepare for a big rewrite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah the latter it was I wanted if you're willing to to do the work but I didn't have to do a revised and resummit.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the book of this caliber, there's just so much that has to be factored in and then when you go okay, I also have to change the genre but and you know what it's like when you tweak something in chapter 16 and it has like a ripple effect and if you forget about game back to chapter two that doesn't make any sense so there must have been quite challenging and doing its pregnant
[SPEAKER_00]: hats off to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so the inspiration from this book, that's so different from the one you pitched us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the inspiration, there's kind of the sort of the moment where I came up with the idea, which was when I was on a long drive for work and there was a lorry in front of me that said International Transport on the back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if I misread it or if I was just like, you know, looking for things, but I thought all that said emotional transport or it could say emotional transport.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I just started making up a story in my head of like, oh, what would it be like if it was emotions in there and who would they be going to inform?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it came from that word on a
[SPEAKER_02]: But underneath that, I was writing the other book that I shared with you and that was a lot to do with a woman trying to reckon with her feelings that she'd suppressed and also her relationships with other people where she, you know, there's quite a lot of their feelings we're going to like leaking from each other, like she wanted to help.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there was a lot of the thought, but then transferred into like a
[SPEAKER_02]: This, you know, alternative reality space, which actually for me made it so much easier to write about some of the themes that I was finding quite difficult in that first book, because it was suddenly there was like a freedom to like, well, this is something I can now create in terms of a world and also no one can hopefully mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: the protagonists for me or like the situations for me because it's in this like speculative space so it felt safer to then actually just write a story where it's before it was it felt a bit too close to my reality that I without self-conscious and where is this world felt like something like I'd really explore those like themes that I was wrestling with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, sometimes truth, you can land truth so much more in fiction, you know, you can really nail it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, in nonfiction, you're so worried about this one's feelings, or go on's feelings, or how people are going to perceive you, that's why I love fiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's a place where I can tell the absolute truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're constantly saying, bumming chair, bumming chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you should be doing to be writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if Ruth had not been on their road with that,
[SPEAKER_00]: trapped game cast at that particular moment that whole idea would not have fallen into place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, you probably would have written something similar because you still wanted to use those themes, but that truck was the catalyst.
[SPEAKER_00]: And always say, I'm in chair a lot, but also go out into the world, my love leaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go out into the world, eat, drop in your coffee shops, drive on the highways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do whatever you need to do to be inspired by the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the first thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second thing is the world building.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, a lot of this feels so terrifyingly plausible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you've had to come up with a whole world how these things work.
[SPEAKER_00]: was it a case of sitting up front and figuring out the entire world before you died in or was it creating parts of the world as they became necessary?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I thought when I submitted it to the editors that I'd cracked the world building, like I had the concept and you know, I knew how it worked in terms of like the expression process of Mrs. the rich, like transferring their motions to and subclass of women and
[SPEAKER_02]: That felt like, you know, enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as soon as we were in the edit phase, quite rightly, thought my editor was really pulling it apart, like how exactly does this work?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not because she thought that information should be in the book because it would be overwhelming, but she was like, you need to know, like, you need to know, really like the details of this science.
[SPEAKER_02]: which sometimes was frustrating so I had to find myself like almost saying well it's not real so it's not real science so totally then you know I don't need to know everything but she was like no it's it's important for the authenticity of the story that you know so through the edit process with Thorne I wrote like a guide to expression which was like really in detail of how everything worked
[SPEAKER_02]: what the organisations like messages were versus the reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: So much detail that isn't in the book in any obvious way, but it really helped me understand the world that I I thought I'd already built, but in more detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the iceberg principle, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is on the page is the tip of the iceberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to know everything below it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the interstitials from the carriers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Were they there the whole time or was it again?
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that came later that someone else suggested to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to hear how that worked.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that came about later in the process when someone
[SPEAKER_02]: sort of said to me, oh that's a, that's a really great story, but why didn't you write it from the perspective of a carrier like, wouldn't that be more interesting?
[SPEAKER_02]: half me was immediately quite defensive like, well, no, because it's about this, you know, the moral conjures of being an employee of facilitating this process, but it really stuck in the back of my mind, like, oh, you know, I want to hear their voices.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at one point I was maybe I'll rewrite the whole thing in first person from a carrier's perspective, but A, the thought was too overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_02]: And B, because they're not conscious when this process happens to them, it would actually be quite difficult to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then I just thought, what about if I just had snippets of different experiences that would allow me to have carriers' voices, but also show like the spectrum,
[SPEAKER_02]: their experiences and and hopefully reflect that that they are a group of women but within them there is like diversity of the experience and different takes on what career means to them and different motivations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah so that was why I did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really really happy with how it came out.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people comment on how much they love the career's stories but it's
[SPEAKER_02]: It was out of slight fear that I couldn't rewrite it in first person.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad I didn't, but it was someone's, someone's suggestion that, oh, it would have been cool to hear it from like the whole book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the car is point of view, but yeah, this was my solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because when we start the books, there's a lot of intentionality that we bring to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a chunkster of a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: How many words is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't actually know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was more than like 90,000, because I had that in mind as their sort of, you know, don't go over that for a debut.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they got you expanded, because it's like 437 pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think these are those blank pages, like, as well, maybe, but yes, it is chunky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so like this kind of book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we talk about the intentionality, we've been to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This kind of book you could have had so many different points of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't have to be a single carrier or just somebody outside the system.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could have been some of the wealthy people, it could have been maybe someone who used to be a carrier, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, like you said, you wanted a writer from a single point of view.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that do for the story that having multiple points of view would have taken away from or would have detected from the story?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think from focusing on their and her motivations for joining you pneumonia, she's kind of, she's not neutral.
[SPEAKER_02]: She thinks she's neutral at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, whilst she's not, in some ways, that's sympathetic as a character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think you could empathize with the position that
[SPEAKER_02]: On paper, it does sound like it could be a benevolent thing, it does sound like, you know, okay, it's the paid service, women are getting benefits from it, people are happier and healthier from this and I kind of need, I think I needed someone in that sort of like rookie position of not.
[SPEAKER_02]: of that is green to what is happening so that we could learn about the world and and hopefully then put ourselves in their shoes of like, well, how would would I have done that job?
[SPEAKER_02]: If I hadn't have known the truth of what's happening to these women who are working as carriers and I think it also it allowed that growth of staying with her over time to go through the
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one character allows you to build them fully.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a character or who the art at the beginning is very different to without the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time you add another POV character, the amount of time you have or the number of words you have in which to fully develop them and give them a full character arc starts being divided.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be quite tough if you have three main characters and all of them get a character art, art, art, art, art, art.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's interesting because it's really, it's got such a great hook.
[SPEAKER_00]: The plot keeps you turning the pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just...
[SPEAKER_00]: incredible in terms of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are also reading to really bond with this character.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not just like you expect this disagreeing with the character to be in a more literary novel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a brilliantly written novel, but it's definitely fast-paced.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's got that plot.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you pitch it at?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like dystopian fiction?
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your pitch?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I originally said like speculative fiction, or like grounded dystopia, I tried to avoid the word sci-fi, even though I was shortlisted for that sci-fi prize, but I didn't feel like that was the right packaging for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I used words like speculative and dystopian.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I said earlier, I didn't say the word thriller because that just hadn't come into my mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now it's sort of being marketed as like a feminist thriller with a speculative edge.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's sort of not the main driver for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad it sort of lost its sci-fi branding, just because as much as I love sci-fi, I think that sci-fi readers could have been potentially a bit disappointed that it's not sci-fi enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so yeah, I think it's sitting in the right place now.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because you the second author I've spoken to in the last few months, who are sold to a book as one genre and then edited it into another genre and it's not really stuff I've been hearing about before so for our listeners, remember to keep that open mind and but also to protect a vision of a book if you're not prepared to change it to a completely different genre just a last question Ruth is the research that went into this.
[SPEAKER_00]: like how much of it is sort of inspired by real science, how much is just made a lot of shut up in here, big words, so that we would all think wow, there's some basis to the sounds, I'm really interested in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I did do a fair bit of research, especially into like the gut microbiome, and I spoke to a gut microbiome specialist who is really interested in the emotional impact of our gut microbiome and she she was great and she said this is a really good
[SPEAKER_02]: concept because it's not that far away from what is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and even at the moment, she said, you know, people are experimenting with putting their gut microbiome into other people to see if it can help depression and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the idea that we can alter our interior world like through the microbiome, I think it's, there's enough truth in there that the science
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I just did a lot of research around like medical terminology and how like big farmers sort of present their services.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there is also an element of just magical thinking of making things up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was very interested in the other day to reading an article on the Get Microbiome and how every person on this earth's one is inherited.
[SPEAKER_00]: from the mother's mother's mother's mother's and it goes all the way home, is that right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I also did some research about the bacteria you can find in your belly buttons, and there is like there's some really beautiful imagery of the bacteria in everyone's individual belly buttons, which are all complete unique make-ups.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was one man they found that had bacteria that was only like sourced the other side of the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: They couldn't like a glacier or something, and for some reason he had the same bacteria in his belly button.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like just mad stuff that I don't quite understand but I was like that is it's just very interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I also did a lot of reading around the way that trauma impacts the body and so things that the body keeps the school like I was turned to a lot of nonfiction text as well just as inspiration for how this process might impact people in the long run.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you see what I'm busy writing so there I've got your way there is no legacy of Brahma.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the Inheritals and I think I've got the other one you said here somewhere so there I've been using the same books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately the end of our interview it's been so lovely chatting with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love the full circle moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very first person who came on to books or talks as a guest and is now publishing however many years later please show us the book again.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everyone can see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not a terrier.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the carriers.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's now the carrier.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will link to it on our bookshop.org affiliate page.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you get the book there, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much, Ruth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wish you all the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, today's guest writes murder mysteries with history, twists, and perhaps a romance or two.
[SPEAKER_00]: She currently resides in Florida with her two cats, and in her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling and sharing obscure historical facts she has recently learnt.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find on Instagram and YouTube at Jackie Reads and Ruts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's my pleasure to welcome Jackie MacMan, Jackie, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Bianca, I am so excited to be here with you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're going to discuss what a full-circle moment it is very soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: But first, for those of you who aren't watching on our YouTube channel, I am holding up the book that we're discussing today, the cloak and dagger club, lovely eye catching cover, really, really dig it, dig the vibes there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to just read the flap copy so you know what we're discussing and then we're going to dive in.
[SPEAKER_00]: inspired by Agatha Christie's real-life detection club, a murder amongst a group of golden age mystery writers, meets a sweeping second chance romance in this debut novel from author Jackie Macman, London and 1930.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, everything seems to be going right for Lucy Hubbard.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her first mystery novel has debuted with strong sales and glowing reviews, and she's been invited by Horus Hazelmoire, the King of Crime fiction, to join his elite group of writers, The Cloak and Dagger Cup.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through that opportunity, Lucy finds herself swept up into Horus's Gammaus world at the Ritz Hotel.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's even willing to put up with the inconvenient presence of her former fiance Frank Murray,
[SPEAKER_00]: Horace, as Britain's most popular crime writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when Horace is found with the knife in his back, Frank is named the police's prime suspect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite their complicated history, Lucy knows he's not capable of murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: These two mystery writers must race to solve the crime and fight the lingering feelings for each other before the murderers strikes again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's talk about how you were on books with Hux and how this is really a full circle moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I was on books with Hux or my query letter wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, I think, December of 2024.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the episode where you had David Joy on as the guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was for an entirely different project than this one, another historical mystery that I wrote, set in Regency Era Britain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it ended up that, even though that is not the book that I'm here to talk about today, it did indirectly lead to me getting my current publishing deal with Berkeley.
[SPEAKER_01]: After you talked about my query on books with hooks, I implemented some of the feedback.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ended up querying that book for
[SPEAKER_01]: Quite some time, I sent over 60 query letters, I got requests, but no offers from agents.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then in the spring, I guess actually that was the spring of 2024, so the podcast must have been 2023.
[SPEAKER_01]: Berkeley announced that they were going to have an open submission period where people who did not have agents could submit to them for a limited time only.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that time, I was drafting the cloak and digger club, but it was not even close to done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I decided I'll just submit this regency mystery.
[SPEAKER_01]: No agent has wanted it yet, but I have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's ready to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might as well do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I submitted that and then fast forward to October.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, I was planning to start clearing the cloaking diarclub the next week or two weeks later.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I haven't heard from the open submission period.
[SPEAKER_01]: I figured they probably didn't like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I ended up getting a request from Annie at Berkeley, my future editor, asking to read my Regency Mystery, the one that no agent had wanted to offer on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I ended up sending it to her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two weeks later, Cleared, only sent 12 Cleared letters, got an offer from an agent and ended up signing with my agent for the coconut dagger club, then in December Annie got back to me saying that she really enjoyed my Regency mystery and wanted to talk to me about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So mine blown, because I had thought that she was going to say no, I was like, I don't live in like two months and she requested it, which is not a lot of time, but in my mind, I was like, like an eternity, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It does.
[SPEAKER_02]: Time slows down when you're querying and when you're on submission.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it comes this weird thing,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and also the thing is, I was always checking the pub tips subreddit, and Brendan Donovan, an author who had previously gotten an offer through an open submission period, and actually ended up providing a blur for my book, so another full circle moment there, she had posted at one point about how, when she got the deal through open submission, they got back to her in like two or three weeks, or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my entrance frame was like, it's been more than two or three weeks that probably means they hated it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I did get that interest through the open submission, I really wasn't expecting it at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was so excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also at the same time, I was like, I don't know what's going to happen now with the cloak and dire club, the book that I signed with my agent on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what ended up happening is I talked to my agent about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: My agent told Annie, my future editor,
[SPEAKER_01]: They said that sounds like a great idea can we read that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we get an exclusive until early January?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which was fine with us because we weren't planning to go on submission over the holiday season anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: And basically what they ended up telling us is we really liked Jackie's Regency Mystery, but we all obsessed with this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: We like it even more.
[SPEAKER_01]: So would you like to sign a two book deal with us for this book?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, I love discussing how many different paths to publication they are because you never know what's going to end up paying off and even if that book is in published you never know what it's going to lead to.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, have you put the first book completely aside and for the second book they want something completely different or is it a case of revising that?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that going to look like for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: So the second book in my deal is going to be a sequel to the Coconut Dagger Club.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is with my editor currently, and that'll probably come out sometime in the summer of 2027.
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, we'll see what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: My editor has let me know that if someday, I want to revise the Regency Mystery with her, she would be very open to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not currently in the works right now, but definitely something that may be pulled out of the drawer in the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so great to have those options and to feel like, you know, I always say that the book that's in the draw was the book that taught you how to be a writer, but it is lovely if you feel like, you know, that'll also get published.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's first chat about the inspiration of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said that your father said to you, show we have a drink at the roots and that sort of got the dominance going will you take us through that and also take it the Christie's detection club.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So take us through all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so in my book, the Cloak and Diver Club is a crime-lighter's club in 1930s London, and in my book I say that they meet the Marie Antoinette Suite in the Ritz and London, which is a real place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason that I picked that location is because I went with my father on a trip to London.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were eating an Indian restaurant right around the corner from the wrists.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we're walking back to the hotel room, he said, oh, let's pop into the wits for a second to have a drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we sat at their art deco bar, had some very expensive martinis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I then used for the book because I had been there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had taken in the ambiance and it felt to me like a place really steeped.
[SPEAKER_01]: in history, and also a place where I felt like a lot of classy writers would hang out in their free time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have to credit him for that part of the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the original idea came from this group called the Detection Club.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was founded in 1930, though actually today still exists, this stole real group, and I have been a really big Agatha Christie fan since I was
[SPEAKER_01]: 14 or 15 years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm currently on a mission to read every single act of acoustic mystery ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just happened to discover, while going down a Google history rabbit hole as one does, that she had been a part of this group called the Detection Club.
[SPEAKER_01]: The original president of it was G. K. Chesterton who wrote the Father Brown Mysteries and the original idea for the group is credited to Anthony Barclay, who was another popular writer of that period.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would invite other crime writers over to his house to have dinner with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where the idea kind of came from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was basically a group where a bunch of popular mystery writers would get together a few times a month or a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for the 1930s and 1940s or known as the Golden Age of Crime Fiction because of how popular it was in that time period particularly in Britain.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I heard that some of the most popular authors of this era were all together in this club that to me was a really compelling idea because I thought there was so much potential and have in all these people who know about fictional murder being together in one place.
[SPEAKER_01]: What would happen if all of those people had to deal with an actual real murder in their midst?
[SPEAKER_01]: How would they use their knowledge as crime writers to solve the case?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is what the original idea was born out of.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, taking it to the next step, because we always
[SPEAKER_00]: this exact story and just given it a modern twist.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could have been modern day crime writers meeting at the Ritz, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that like the 1930s was the golden age of this, but why specifically in terms of plot in terms of characterization, did you choose to base it in 1930 as opposed to modernizing it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I wanted to keep the historical setting because I really wanted this book to be a sort of murderous love letter to the history of the mystery novel and have it take place during the specific period in history where the mystery genre was really.
[SPEAKER_01]: flourishing into what it is today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what you'll find when you read the book is that it has a lot of meta in book references to mysteries, how they work, popular authors from that classic period.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that is really integral to the book and what I wanted to do with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really
[SPEAKER_01]: I also personally just adore historical mysteries and I just can't get enough of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love so many historical mystery series.
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole reason that I wanted to become an all-girl of historical mysteries is because I first read the Veronica Speedball Mysteries by Diana Rayburn, which when I read those I was like this has every single thing that I love and one book, it has history, it has romance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm really glad that I'm working with Berkeley who is one of my opinion the best publishers for historical mystery.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the decision to keep that classic setting was really born both out of my personal loves as a reader and a writer and also to have an ability to really explore the history of the mystery itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and also, you know, when you're basically in the 1930s as opposed to today, obviously, you know, their technology was very different, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So being able to use certain things to figure out who people were, they didn't have them.
[SPEAKER_00]: you don't have to deal with cell phones, you don't have to deal with like a whole bunch of things as well, which you know can really elevate the tension in in a story as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's discuss the first 90 pages, I think I think I counted 90 pages all take place in one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's extremely challenging to do, to keep up the tension and pacing, to keep us like in one place with one group of people and take up 90 pages really challenging.
[SPEAKER_00]: So take us through like how you structured that was that always the case, I'd love to hear your the evolution of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the book always started in the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: The book begins with Lucy, my protagonist.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's dressed and invited to the cloak and dagger club for the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she arrives at the Ritz gets to meet everyone and there is a bit of conflict because Frank, one of the other club members, is her ex and he had no idea that she was invited to the meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason that I really wanted to start in that moment was to really get to know who all the characters are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do also think it can be really helpful for world-building.
[SPEAKER_01]: If in your story you are able to make the main character someone who is an outsider to a place or a group, because then you are able to have the character
[SPEAKER_01]: character, discover that location, all the other characters along with your reader.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are coming at it with a fresh perspective, just like your reader is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted readers to be able to understand the characters and the inner workings of the
[SPEAKER_01]: Politics and dynamics of all the members and then Horace who is the president of the club and it says on the back he's the one who gets murdered he is someone who Everybody in the club has an opinion about him and he has ruffled a lot of feathers so you really get to understand
[SPEAKER_01]: All the reasons that all of these characters would potentially want him to die, the way that he rules the group like a despot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think that having a mystery novel where the events are coming quickly one after another does really heighten the tension because it gives it that sense of urgency if you're writing a
[SPEAKER_01]: In other genres, you can easily write a story that takes place over months or even years.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when somebody has been murdered and you need to find out who is responsible, there is that sense of immediacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: a murder mystery has some of the highest stakes of ending genre because this is literally a matter of life and death.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody has been killed, is the person who killed somebody who is at risk of potentially hurting more people, our more bodies going to fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, if we don't catch the real killer, who is the one that is going to have to take the blame for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think developing
[SPEAKER_01]: things over a shorter time period.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really does heighten the stakes and the urgency to figure out what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I hope into things that I want to unpack there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love what you saying about the protagonist as an outsider.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, for our listeners, when somebody's an insider, they're not going to be describing the necessity that somebody looks because they've seen them
[SPEAKER_00]: every single day for the last however long they're not going to explain the setting as much.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to have this kind of interiority and reactions to things because you've began, oh, this feels like it's context or the sake of the reader as opposed to the character, themselves are finding all this out for the first time and so we get that sort of outside view of that which are a really love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell me in the egg of the Christie's because I've read the Christie but like not, you know, not as closely obviously as you have,
[SPEAKER_00]: at what point black percentage wise in her books does the murder generally occur?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it sort of depends, so deaf on the Nile, which is one of her most famous mysteries.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody dies in that book until it's 50% of the way over.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the last 50% you know, the bodies start dropping throughout that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I
[SPEAKER_01]: thing, it does maybe take place somewhere around 25%, which is about where my motor takes place in my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't typically start with a body on the first page.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does give some time to introduce the characters and their relationships and then have the murder occur.
[SPEAKER_01]: which also I personally prefer that because for me I like to know who the characters are before the crime occurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when I was preparing to query I saw a video from a literary agent where they said hey if you're querying me with a mystery or a thriller somebody better be dead on page one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is that person's preference?
[SPEAKER_01]: I personally need to know who I'm reading about first, because I want to understand what does that stay here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know who that person was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know what are the ramifications of this person being killed for the other characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think, yeah, I did the Christie usually somewhere around 10 to 25%, though sometimes as late as 50%.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's encouraging to hear because I've also heard a lot more that
[SPEAKER_00]: editors, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: want the murder to happen earlier or at least they want to prologue they kind of flush forwards to the murder but like with my book as well with the most puzzling murder I also had the murder happen quite late because for me it was very important to set up all those dynamics first.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah so for our listeners you know the intentional with where you place it if it's going to come later make sure that you are setting up all those dynamics etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: first
[SPEAKER_00]: if it is on the first page then the stakes need to keep getting raised from there so just be aware of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about introducing a lot of characters who are all doing the same job.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all writers, you know, mystery writers and you introduce them quite quickly because you know she walks in and tries to meet all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: For you, how is your approach to differentiating them beyond their physical descriptions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's really important for the reader to know, okay, this one's this, this one's that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I very much intentionally thought about who was some of the popular authors of the 30s and 40s.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did they write about?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some of the enduring mystery tropes that have lasted for the last 100 years that mystery readers know and love?
[SPEAKER_01]: So very much intentionally so when I was thinking about
[SPEAKER_01]: Who are the kind of people that are going to populate this group?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought about the different types of mysteries.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, for example, one is a mystery that follows a professional detective or a police procedural.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a very enduring trope.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the characters is a former detective who now writes a police procedural that is somewhat based on his own experience as a former Scotland yard detective.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are also a lot of cozy mysteries.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can think about the Miss Marvel stories and her very quite English village that has a disproportionately high number of murders or the follow-ground mysteries by G. K. K. Chesterton, the first detection club president which are about a member of the clergy who is solving murders.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those combined
[SPEAKER_01]: in my mind to have someone write a more cozy series where the main sleuth is a vicar.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really wanted to make sure that we were representing all these different types of mysteries.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thinking about, okay, who are the different types of people who would write different types of mysteries?
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think when you have an initial idea for a story, one of the things that I like to do
[SPEAKER_01]: And think, okay, who are the different types of people that we would potentially have in relation to this idea and just write a list the first things that come to mind the different types of personalities that you would have.
[SPEAKER_01]: that fit the promise of the premise.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to make sure that even though they're all writing mysteries, they're all writing different types of mysteries.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the types of mysteries that they're writing, they also tell you something about them because the person who writes a really cutesy cozy is not going to be the same as somebody who writes a hard-boiled, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love all of that and I love the idea of starting off with, you know, with the premise and then going, okay, who would be the people that they would populate the premise and that can evolve the time obviously, but it gives you a better sense of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also what you do is that you write multi POV even in the same chapter.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we generally use to seeing is one chapters from this character's perspective, one chapters from their characters perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even in one chapter we get to see the story unfolding through multiple characters perspectives, which
[SPEAKER_00]: If done wrong can feel muddling because you like who's head am I in right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: So again, can you speak a bit about that approach and that intentionality?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I always have really liked reading and writing multi-POV stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And initially when I first started drafting this book, I was actually having a hard time with that because I was trying to figure out
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, who's head should be in every particular time?
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes feeling obligated to bring in a certain character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, we haven't heard from so and so in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I should do something in their head.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think when you're actually writing a multi-POV story, you should put pressure on yourself to make it an even split or to follow a set formula.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should be thinking about
[SPEAKER_01]: who is the character who it makes the most sense story-wise for us to have access to their thoughts at this particular moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did sometimes have multiple POVs in one chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always of course with a clean
[SPEAKER_01]: break and indicator that we're going into someone else's head because obviously you do not want to be head hopping and that really disoriented the reader and then they're like, wait, why am I now in this person's head now?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just with the other character so there are still very clean breaks and transitions.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I did is I allowed myself to not necessarily follow a set formula, not necessarily be keeping running tally of, OK, well, we've been in Lucy's head this many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've been in Frank's head this many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, I was following what felt organic to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the character who I felt like was going to best serve the story at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think we spend a lot of time in Lucy's head my protagonist.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is somebody who we follow a lot of the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Frank, the love and trust and the sort of tutor Igonist, we spent a lot of time in his head.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the other characters, we pop in as necessary when, for instance, it's now our point in the text where that character and their secrets are of particular note.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a good time to include their perspective more.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also, I believe, one part that we're in the perspective of the detective who is assigned to the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the only part in the entire bucle we are in that character's head.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I chose him for that moment because it's a part where the murderous occurred and all of the characters have to be interviewed about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: I chose that moment to present the characters the way that this detective who is just come on to the scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: See some?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think the thing about multi-PUV is you need to work it out a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't necessarily pressure yourself to make everything even.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for each moment, just assess what it is that you are trying to accomplish with that scene and what characters
[SPEAKER_01]: love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we've got time for like one more question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I love the interstitials.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got excerpts from characters books and stories and newspaper articles and invitations, etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you speak a bit about how each of those help move the plot along as opposed to just being there because you like them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so the point of having these mixed media elements in the book is to not only tell you something about the characters because, like I said, all the characters have different tropes and the books that they choose to write, tell you something about them, but also to complement and highlight the emotions present in the book at that time, or what it is that
[SPEAKER_01]: So each one of them is meant to pull out specific elements of what is happening at that point in the book rather than just being a cool thing and I actually wrote the entire draft then after I had done the draft that's when I wrote a lot of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: book within a book elements.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did it retroactively after I already had the complete draft so that I could pinpoint the right points to put those in and plan the excerpts around what I was trying to achieve.
[SPEAKER_00]: love that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Jackie, thank you so much for joining us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the insights to be gained there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm holding up the book again, the Cloak and Dagger Club.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you buy it from a bookshop.org affiliate page, you support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jackie, we wish you so much success with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Bianca.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really happy to talk with you today.
[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.