WEBVTT 00:07.145 --> 00:08.708 [SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to our show. 00:08.988 --> 00:11.312 [SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing. 00:12.053 --> 00:20.847 [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. 00:23.297 --> 00:27.319 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, welcome to another author interview on the podcast. 00:27.659 --> 00:31.481 [SPEAKER_00]: Now normally I do a long running down of introducing the person. 00:31.981 --> 00:37.123 [SPEAKER_00]: This one just says, today's guest lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. 00:37.523 --> 00:43.006 [SPEAKER_00]: I know she is also the podcast host of day drinking with authors, which is an awful lot of fun. 00:43.346 --> 00:45.807 [SPEAKER_00]: It's my pleasure to welcome Molly Fader. 00:45.927 --> 00:47.168 [SPEAKER_00]: Molly, welcome to the show. 00:47.568 --> 00:49.189 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me. 00:50.058 --> 00:55.580 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like the shorter the buyer, the more accomplished and alter is and I have to pad. 00:56.080 --> 00:57.321 [SPEAKER_00]: I always pad my buyer. 00:57.381 --> 01:01.803 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like she feeds squirrels and loves raccoons and everything else. 01:01.903 --> 01:04.924 [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything else you would like to tell us that is not in the buyer? 01:04.964 --> 01:05.624 [SPEAKER_00]: That's important. 01:05.744 --> 01:06.325 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's funny. 01:06.425 --> 01:10.706 [SPEAKER_01]: I always feel like the shorter the buyer, the more there is like I'm hiding. 01:13.347 --> 01:14.588 [SPEAKER_01]: She did time for murder. 01:16.501 --> 01:26.253 [SPEAKER_01]: I had a bio, I had a bio for a while that said love's playing tennis with her husband and my my husband was always like we've played tennis like twice. 01:26.333 --> 01:28.396 [SPEAKER_01]: What are you? 01:28.596 --> 01:29.397 [SPEAKER_00]: What I loved it. 01:30.078 --> 01:32.821 [SPEAKER_00]: My latest one says that I like playing escape room games. 01:33.662 --> 01:34.283 [SPEAKER_00]: in Toronto. 01:34.303 --> 01:35.965 [SPEAKER_00]: So this is part of my murder mystery. 01:36.346 --> 01:39.350 [SPEAKER_00]: But what it doesn't say is the weakest member of the team. 01:39.450 --> 01:45.358 [SPEAKER_00]: And that I've got really good escape room teammates, whereas I'm just the person that's like communicate. 01:45.398 --> 01:46.339 [SPEAKER_00]: You need to communicate. 01:46.379 --> 01:47.340 [SPEAKER_00]: That's all I end up doing. 01:47.360 --> 01:48.261 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't solve anything. 01:48.281 --> 01:49.082 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just telling people 01:52.066 --> 01:54.628 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like the facilitator, right? 01:54.909 --> 01:55.309 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 01:55.569 --> 02:05.598 [SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you who are not watching on YouTube, I am holding up the cover of the book that we're discussing today, Lady X, to be beautiful cover. 02:06.018 --> 02:07.280 [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to jump off her shelf. 02:07.720 --> 02:12.824 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm just going to redo the flat copy, so you know what we're talking about, and then Molly and I are going to dive in. 02:13.625 --> 02:23.910 [SPEAKER_00]: So Los Angeles, 2024, Margo Cooper's life explodes after she discovers that her a-list actor has been sent explicit photos to multiple girls on social media. 02:24.331 --> 02:30.294 [SPEAKER_00]: Desperate to get away from the world and the paparazzi, Margo flees to a childhood home with a teenage daughter in tow. 02:30.714 --> 02:33.196 [SPEAKER_00]: But home isn't the sanctuary Margo is hoping for. 02:33.556 --> 02:47.446 [SPEAKER_00]: In a cardboard box in the corner of the attic, she and her sister find damning evidence about a mysterious vigilante named Lady X, including a blurry newspaper photo from the 1970s of a woman who looks an awful lot like their mother. 02:47.886 --> 02:52.590 [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out that Margo's husband isn't the only family member harboring secrets. 02:53.130 --> 02:54.071 [SPEAKER_00]: New York City 1977. 02:55.732 --> 03:00.976 [SPEAKER_00]: Ginger Dortry is living her best life for the two beloved roommates, until one of them is assaulted. 03:01.356 --> 03:10.423 [SPEAKER_00]: A standard by the lack of response from the police, the young woman take things into their own hands, and find themselves igniting a movement that suddenly takes New York City by storm. 03:10.964 --> 03:20.031 [SPEAKER_00]: Soon what begins as a little bit of revenge against terrible men, vandalism here and there, signed collectively as Lady X, starts to take on a life of its own. 03:20.431 --> 03:28.634 [SPEAKER_00]: Their inigmatic reputation spirals beyond their control with copycat criminals running a mock under the guise of the inigmatic lady eggs. 03:29.074 --> 03:37.937 [SPEAKER_00]: When a body is found fallen or pushed from five stories high, the hunt reaches a boiling point, but lady eggs has vanished into thin air. 03:40.518 --> 03:45.899 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so Molly, before we dive into that, can you just tell us a bit about your publishing journey? 03:45.919 --> 03:55.462 [SPEAKER_00]: Because you've been doing this for a while, had they been agent changes, edited changes, take us through anything that our listeners might find useful. 03:56.682 --> 04:01.804 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yes, I've been, I wrote previous writing under the name Molly Fader. 04:01.944 --> 04:06.305 [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote romance for a million years, out of the name Molly O'Keefe. 04:06.992 --> 04:10.357 [SPEAKER_01]: So I've been in this business for quite some time. 04:10.757 --> 04:16.345 [SPEAKER_01]: The kind of crazy story about Lady Egg's is for someone who's been in this business for so long. 04:16.525 --> 04:22.694 [SPEAKER_01]: I had written a proposal for this book, and I had sent it to the agent that I have had my entire career. 04:23.094 --> 04:24.416 [SPEAKER_01]: And I loved... 04:24.798 --> 04:27.239 [SPEAKER_01]: love continued to love this agent dearly. 04:27.279 --> 04:29.280 [SPEAKER_01]: She really, really took great care of me. 04:29.840 --> 04:33.301 [SPEAKER_01]: And she came back and she was like, Molly, I don't love this. 04:33.782 --> 04:36.243 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you need someone who loves it to sell it. 04:36.463 --> 04:39.704 [SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, take a week and we'll talk about it. 04:39.884 --> 04:43.365 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh my, do I believe in this idea strong enough? 04:43.845 --> 04:47.587 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so you know, do I believe in it so much that I'm willing to, you know, 04:48.007 --> 04:51.091 [SPEAKER_01]: part ways with this agent who's been so, so very good to me. 04:51.111 --> 04:53.994 [SPEAKER_01]: And I decided that I did that I really believed in this idea. 04:54.074 --> 04:55.476 [SPEAKER_01]: I was really excited about it. 04:56.470 --> 05:06.373 [SPEAKER_01]: And so we got on the phone, and I immediately started crying, and I said, I think as you do, she started crying, and at the end of it, I said, I love you. 05:08.474 --> 05:11.815 [SPEAKER_01]: This really like heartbreaking breakup. 05:12.015 --> 05:22.798 [SPEAKER_01]: So then I took some time, and I really polished up the proposal is everybody, you know, I really worked the thing that I really really worked on was that one sentence, log line. 05:23.158 --> 05:25.400 [SPEAKER_01]: you know, so that I could put it in my query letter. 05:25.680 --> 05:35.249 [SPEAKER_01]: And I sent out a batch of proposals thinking of course with 25 years and 50 books behind my, you know, name that this wouldn't be a problem. 05:35.629 --> 05:42.134 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a bit of, you know, a couple of nibbles, but nothing, you know, nothing completely promising. 05:42.735 --> 05:46.698 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I went back and I reworked that log line to make sure that I got 05:51.398 --> 05:52.779 [SPEAKER_01]: And then I was very lucky. 05:52.879 --> 05:59.962 [SPEAKER_01]: I sent out the next batch and I had five phone calls and five offers for representation. 06:00.202 --> 06:08.326 [SPEAKER_01]: And my dream agency came back to me, and my dream agent said, you know, my roster is full, but we've just hired this young, hungry agent. 06:08.346 --> 06:12.808 [SPEAKER_01]: Do you wanna talk to her and her name's Sophie Cud from the book group? 06:13.088 --> 06:18.071 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I had a conversation with her and I was like, you know, young and hungry, let's, 06:18.743 --> 06:20.544 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's see how that goes. 06:20.584 --> 06:23.166 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so that's how I got a new agent for this. 06:23.226 --> 06:36.376 [SPEAKER_01]: And then in the small world of publishing, we sent it to one of my very first editors as a romance writer, Shana Summers at Valentine at Bantam. 06:36.576 --> 06:38.478 [SPEAKER_01]: And she's who I'm working with now. 06:38.578 --> 06:42.621 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's just, it is an incredible full circle moment. 06:43.621 --> 06:44.222 [SPEAKER_01]: It would be yes. 06:45.523 --> 06:46.904 [SPEAKER_00]: There is so much to unpack there. 06:46.964 --> 06:56.308 [SPEAKER_00]: Firstly, the crying with your agent on the phone because it does feel like a breakup because if you find the right agent, it is such an intense relationship, right? 06:56.768 --> 07:06.272 [SPEAKER_00]: You are constantly making yourself vulnerable with this person more than you probably are with best friends in your career and so it is a big deal when that happens. 07:07.072 --> 07:33.463 [SPEAKER_00]: to the yeah you go okay I've done so many books it's not going to be a problem to find an agent and it's still difficult but I really want to say for our listeners that they do not go well Molly just put together a proposal and she got an agent so I'm going to do that you can only do that when you have the chops and when you've got that writing experience right I mean imagine you're doing that as a debut Molly no you know and it's it's so interesting we when I 07:34.906 --> 07:40.009 [SPEAKER_01]: the chapters and got a new agent, she was like, you need to write the whole book. 07:40.230 --> 07:43.852 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, before we go to editors, we're gonna put together the whole book. 07:43.872 --> 07:45.013 [SPEAKER_01]: And I completely agreed. 07:45.573 --> 07:54.059 [SPEAKER_01]: And the difference, the reality is, that those first three chapters change so dramatically just by getting to the end of the book. 07:54.599 --> 07:59.901 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the vision that you had, the way that you were so sure it was going to work out in your head completely different. 08:00.442 --> 08:01.902 [SPEAKER_01]: And it went through a series of changes. 08:01.962 --> 08:11.306 [SPEAKER_01]: I was my first agent wasn't a very hands-on editorial agent and Sophie's been like incredible and crucial and has incredible ideas. 08:11.727 --> 08:12.047 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's 08:13.195 --> 08:13.896 [SPEAKER_01]: It really changes. 08:13.936 --> 08:22.687 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the idea that anyone would want to send out a proposal and get a deal at this point just doesn't, like, you gotta finish that book. 08:22.787 --> 08:25.010 [SPEAKER_01]: I really do, you need to edit it. 08:25.130 --> 08:29.736 [SPEAKER_01]: You need to get through a couple edits before that's my take. 08:30.357 --> 08:31.598 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes more than a couple. 08:31.858 --> 08:32.079 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 08:32.868 --> 08:37.532 [SPEAKER_00]: So what I always more than a couple of, yeah, never actually just once. 08:37.652 --> 08:38.552 [SPEAKER_00]: Just a couple. 08:38.933 --> 08:46.899 [SPEAKER_00]: So, and again, what you've said about the younger junior agent is so important because I think so many people are like, this is my dream agent. 08:47.079 --> 08:49.141 [SPEAKER_00]: I want this top agent, right? 08:49.781 --> 08:51.963 [SPEAKER_00]: And they are so busy. 08:52.023 --> 08:56.546 [SPEAKER_00]: They've got their existing clients for them to take on new clients means they don't have much time. 08:57.367 --> 08:58.528 [SPEAKER_00]: to spend with the new clients. 08:58.608 --> 09:06.891 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you have a junior agent who's hungry to prove themselves, and is being mentored by a really great senior agent. 09:06.911 --> 09:07.571 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a difference. 09:07.591 --> 09:11.713 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't just want a junior agent who is floundering and no one's taking care of them. 09:11.733 --> 09:17.956 [SPEAKER_00]: You want someone who's really being mentored by someone incredible, and someone who is super hungry to work with you. 09:18.356 --> 09:35.545 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, one of the things that is really, really important and because you're never the person I feel really important I feel is that you're never the person in the room champion mean your book, you know, so you need all of the people who are going to champion your book. 09:35.985 --> 09:39.807 [SPEAKER_01]: to be as passionate about what you're doing as you. 09:40.567 --> 09:46.190 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's your agent, that is your editor, because your editor really has to fight in a room holy, mully. 09:46.591 --> 09:51.353 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, you just a young hungry agent, it's a lot of fun. 09:52.673 --> 10:08.609 [SPEAKER_00]: and coming back to that log line, you know, because when you said the vigilante girl gang, framing it that way, because I mean, if you go, there's a group of three women in New York who decide to take things into their own hands, blah, blah, blah, blah, where should call them a vigilante girl gang? 10:09.090 --> 10:13.314 [SPEAKER_00]: Boom, you've got the hook, and nothing has actually changed except the way you're describing it. 10:13.875 --> 10:14.816 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, exactly. 10:15.478 --> 10:19.701 [SPEAKER_01]: The word choice in that log line, and I can't speak for you. 10:19.721 --> 10:25.705 [SPEAKER_01]: I can only speak for myself, but I've been in a thousand classes, a lot of workshops where it's like, we're going to work on this log line. 10:26.305 --> 10:36.572 [SPEAKER_01]: And you work on it, and you work on it, and you think you get somewhere close, and it feels right, but it doesn't, it lacks that, like, lightning in a bottle feel. 10:37.112 --> 10:40.775 [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like every time I get to that place, it's because I'm missing the right word. 10:41.195 --> 10:46.861 [SPEAKER_01]: so you've got to go back and you've got to comb through it one more time and just see how much more dramatic you can make the language. 10:47.763 --> 10:54.110 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the problem then you write a book about a vigilante girl gang and then the next book you're like, I don't even know another vigilante girl. 10:55.780 --> 10:58.242 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, writers these days are so savvy. 10:58.262 --> 11:09.849 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to meet up with a writing group who had formed from some of our deep-dive retreats and chatting to each other on social media. 11:09.889 --> 11:11.790 [SPEAKER_00]: And so they were like, Bianca, please come join us. 11:12.190 --> 11:18.334 [SPEAKER_00]: They flew in from the US to Canada and got together and were like, just come join us for the day. 11:18.655 --> 11:18.755 [SPEAKER_00]: And 11:19.515 --> 11:25.762 [SPEAKER_00]: I did and they begin with the log line, like they all started off before they even started writing. 11:25.782 --> 11:27.805 [SPEAKER_00]: They had this kick-ass log line. 11:28.165 --> 11:30.728 [SPEAKER_00]: They were like, here's my log line and then they went into their pages. 11:31.109 --> 11:34.733 [SPEAKER_00]: When it came turned for me to read, I was like, I don't need to read. 11:34.753 --> 11:36.495 [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, we weren't here, we were working on it. 11:36.635 --> 11:37.877 [SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, what's the log line? 11:37.897 --> 11:38.738 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I don't know. 11:39.198 --> 11:41.601 [SPEAKER_00]: A long my agent will hopefully figure that out. 11:41.621 --> 11:44.284 [SPEAKER_00]: I was just like it's kind of about this and it's kind of about that. 11:44.384 --> 11:50.832 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was just so impressed that they were smarter about it because I think it helped shape the whole story if you've got that upfront. 11:51.373 --> 11:53.195 [SPEAKER_01]: I am a true believer in that. 11:53.815 --> 11:54.356 [SPEAKER_01]: I really am. 11:55.966 --> 11:59.870 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know so much that you have to have it at the beginning of your book. 11:59.930 --> 12:04.254 [SPEAKER_01]: I do think that helps like as a blueprint kind of thing, but you've got to have it at some point. 12:04.895 --> 12:09.639 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you don't really know what your book is totally about until the end, that's fair. 12:10.020 --> 12:14.244 [SPEAKER_01]: We've all been in that position, but I'm a firm believer in it. 12:14.304 --> 12:19.168 [SPEAKER_01]: That that that sales brain that I've never been very good at. 12:20.253 --> 12:26.936 [SPEAKER_01]: because again, it helps you find champions, you know, it gives them the words to go into the rooms and do the fighting. 12:27.777 --> 12:28.717 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally. 12:29.117 --> 12:31.599 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's begin with the prologue. 12:31.999 --> 12:33.479 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to read it for everybody. 12:33.900 --> 12:36.241 [SPEAKER_00]: Love a good prologue that works. 12:36.301 --> 12:39.302 [SPEAKER_00]: Cause remember on the podcast, you always like, no, we don't like this prologue. 12:39.602 --> 12:46.706 [SPEAKER_00]: But that's because we say, do not use a shitty prologue as a bandaid for opening chapters that are not doing the heavy lifting. 12:47.146 --> 12:47.746 [SPEAKER_00]: So here we go. 12:48.267 --> 12:50.228 [SPEAKER_00]: New York City is super naturally dark. 12:50.428 --> 12:52.309 [SPEAKER_00]: No street lights or traffic lights. 12:52.789 --> 12:56.251 [SPEAKER_00]: The darkened buildings are looming black shadows in the Indigo sky. 12:56.732 --> 13:00.874 [SPEAKER_00]: The Milky Way is visible under southern Manhattan and it's not natural. 13:01.434 --> 13:06.517 [SPEAKER_00]: The night is loud with sirens and shouting something somewhere is burning. 13:06.898 --> 13:14.362 [SPEAKER_00]: Across the street people have gathered in the shadowy dark park with beers and a guitar because it's cooler outside and the rules don't apply during a 13:16.223 --> 13:18.605 [SPEAKER_00]: They don't seem to see the body on the sidewalk. 13:18.965 --> 13:20.266 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't hear it fall. 13:20.646 --> 13:24.148 [SPEAKER_00]: The crescent moon is reflected in the growing puddle of blood around it. 13:24.669 --> 13:26.890 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry she thinks, but she's not. 13:27.410 --> 13:30.112 [SPEAKER_00]: Lady X is dead, she must be. 13:30.452 --> 13:31.813 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't, don't, don't. 13:32.013 --> 13:34.835 [SPEAKER_00]: Right, so let's again discuss attentionality. 13:34.855 --> 13:36.116 [SPEAKER_00]: Did you begin with the prologue? 13:36.136 --> 13:42.740 [SPEAKER_00]: Was there something that was added like what is the purpose that it for fools that it had to be there and couldn't be taken out? 13:43.918 --> 13:47.340 [SPEAKER_01]: So I agree 100% on the rules about the prologue. 13:47.900 --> 13:50.681 [SPEAKER_01]: That said, I'm also very much a sucker for a prologue. 13:51.501 --> 13:59.925 [SPEAKER_01]: So, and you're right, if it's not, if it's trying to fix some really crummy first chapters, it's a, you know, you've just created a mess. 14:00.725 --> 14:11.750 [SPEAKER_01]: I knew going in that I was going to have to create these interstitials that created the lower around Lady X and sort of gave the reader a taste 14:14.071 --> 14:21.476 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, became like the, you know, when you're creating somebody who's kind of important culturally and socially, so I knew that I was going to have these interstitials. 14:21.536 --> 14:26.479 [SPEAKER_01]: So initially it was like a, you know, newspaper article, but that was so dry. 14:27.360 --> 14:32.663 [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, it just grew into this and it, you know, this stakes created the stakes. 14:32.743 --> 14:34.725 [SPEAKER_01]: You knew going in that someone was dead. 14:35.625 --> 14:36.566 [SPEAKER_01]: That's never happening. 14:37.227 --> 14:40.650 [SPEAKER_00]: Set the tone as well, which is awesome. 14:41.371 --> 14:49.339 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so to discuss the structure of the novel, we've got, and I've got to be careful out for analysis, because everybody laughs at me, because it's dual. 14:50.335 --> 14:51.456 [SPEAKER_00]: as opposed to Jewel. 14:51.476 --> 14:52.176 [SPEAKER_01]: I usually say it. 14:52.397 --> 14:58.241 [SPEAKER_00]: I say Jewel and then somebody emailed me and was like, what is a J-E-W-E-L timeline? 14:58.882 --> 15:09.350 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, dual timeline and dual PRV interspersed with like op-eds, newspaper articles etc. 15:09.930 --> 15:13.753 [SPEAKER_00]: So did you know a friend that that was kind of the structure you were going for? 15:13.773 --> 15:16.896 [SPEAKER_00]: Was it something that came through in the edit? 15:16.956 --> 15:18.477 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's speak a bit about that as well. 15:19.778 --> 15:39.480 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I knew it was going to be a dual timeline initially it was not just the two POVs that one woman in the past and one woman in the in the present initially in the past like I had a POV for everybody I'm definitely a writer who has to pare down I kind of start with every noodle I have at my disposal at the home 15:40.874 --> 15:42.295 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, ambitious. 15:42.655 --> 15:47.478 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I feel like you want every book to be ambitious, right? 15:47.498 --> 15:51.661 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you're really trying to do something with every book, so you've got to see what, what work. 15:51.701 --> 16:05.329 [SPEAKER_01]: So we paired that down and then the interstitials I wanted, every interstitial to both comment upon what they had just, what the reader had just read and foreshadow something else without giving anything away. 16:05.810 --> 16:07.130 [SPEAKER_01]: And some of them were just fun. 16:07.351 --> 16:09.432 [SPEAKER_01]: Some of them I just threw in because I liked them. 16:10.525 --> 16:23.053 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, every interstitial, the first rule of business was it has to create this larger than life character, it has to help create the larger than life character, and it has to keep the stakes high. 16:23.753 --> 16:32.158 [SPEAKER_01]: And then it has to capture and encapsulate what they just read and make the pages turn to what's next. 16:32.493 --> 16:36.456 [SPEAKER_01]: So it was an ambitious, I messed it up so many times. 16:36.496 --> 16:43.901 [SPEAKER_01]: Still don't, like when I'm reading it, I kind of skip over those because all they are is like troubling memories to me. 16:43.961 --> 16:45.923 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that was the hardest part. 16:46.849 --> 17:05.945 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, getting that structure right is so difficult and I'm working on something at the moment that also it's for the first time it's going to require interstitials and I've just decided I'm going to just write the story and then I'm going to come back and put in those interstitials because I'm not quite sure yet where the best place is for them because like you say it needs to 17:06.766 --> 17:08.187 [SPEAKER_00]: do something more. 17:08.207 --> 17:15.793 [SPEAKER_00]: It needs to move the story forward in terms of foreshadowing or whatever, so something that authors sometimes just need to play around with. 17:16.453 --> 17:25.960 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you do a dual timeline, dual peer v, there's always the risk that one timeline is going to be more compelling than the other. 17:26.440 --> 17:32.023 [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's so difficult to make sure that the readers aren't like, oh my god, we've now in this timeline, but actually I want to be in this time. 17:32.383 --> 17:36.105 [SPEAKER_00]: So again, how do you ensure that's not the case? 17:36.226 --> 17:41.809 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have certain sort of action beats for each storyline that you feel like you need to hit? 17:41.869 --> 17:43.730 [SPEAKER_00]: How do you make each one as compelling? 17:44.210 --> 17:45.291 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's really interesting. 17:46.011 --> 17:47.152 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a dual-time 17:53.555 --> 17:57.321 [SPEAKER_01]: those books that I've read that I was like, oh, that timeline is a bummer. 17:57.401 --> 18:00.865 [SPEAKER_01]: And there are reviews that people are like, man, they do not like Margo. 18:00.946 --> 18:08.316 [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, even when you feel like you nail it, other readers, you know, readers, everyone hold the time. 18:08.636 --> 18:08.857 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 18:09.762 --> 18:17.024 [SPEAKER_01]: I knew that the present daytime line could not just be about the women finding out what happened in the past. 18:17.104 --> 18:23.126 [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that is a very common mistake that writers do in dual timeline. 18:23.146 --> 18:29.409 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not enough to support that present daytime line is finding out the secrets. 18:29.569 --> 18:35.070 [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew that I needed to have the women in the present daytime line really going through their own things. 18:35.331 --> 18:36.151 [SPEAKER_01]: So having 18:37.104 --> 18:43.327 [SPEAKER_01]: Margo's situation with her husband and kind of like coming into her own rage, that was the 18:44.084 --> 18:50.745 [SPEAKER_01]: the driving force with that and also having her daughter, skies, all the stuff that had happened with her at school. 18:51.486 --> 19:02.188 [SPEAKER_01]: So with those two things being the real and also sky and Julia's forming friendship and their kind of quest to find out who Lady X is. 19:02.208 --> 19:08.529 [SPEAKER_01]: So I knew that I was working with those three things to keep the present day timeline afloat. 19:09.933 --> 19:14.476 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because the past timeline is super compelling in its own right. 19:14.556 --> 19:24.903 [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought it was so genius to have the movie star husband in the present timeline being accused of sexual harassment, et cetera, because she could have gone home for any reason. 19:24.944 --> 19:29.367 [SPEAKER_00]: You could have just had her there and her sister calls because the mom is not well, et cetera. 19:29.707 --> 19:31.388 [SPEAKER_00]: So it could have just been moms not well. 19:31.528 --> 19:34.010 [SPEAKER_00]: I need you to come back and they work through the boxes. 19:34.210 --> 19:40.075 [SPEAKER_00]: But like you say, the stakes were raised so hugely by what this movie Star has been does. 19:40.095 --> 19:52.146 [SPEAKER_00]: And what I loved as well is that he was once very famous, then he wasn't famous for the longest time because he wasn't getting parts and he was at home and whatever. 19:52.266 --> 19:56.590 [SPEAKER_00]: And then suddenly he star rose again, which made it even more interesting. 19:57.050 --> 20:01.754 [SPEAKER_00]: So again, was that something that you knew up front has to be the case? 20:02.334 --> 20:05.477 [SPEAKER_00]: Why have it that he's not just, he's star's rising now? 20:05.577 --> 20:09.560 [SPEAKER_00]: Why have it that he's, you know, he was famous then wasn't then is again. 20:09.840 --> 20:14.063 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I love looking at the intentionality of everything that a writer chooses to do. 20:14.864 --> 20:17.326 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's a, that's a really great question. 20:18.478 --> 20:25.625 [SPEAKER_01]: wanted Margo to wrestle with not just having a husband, you know, Margo has every privilege. 20:25.985 --> 20:34.593 [SPEAKER_01]: She is rich, she is white, she, you know, has wealth and means and men, the man in her life still. 20:35.313 --> 20:37.375 [SPEAKER_01]: knocks her feet out from under her. 20:37.756 --> 20:43.922 [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to show that, you know, women aren't necessarily safe in lots of different kinds of situations. 20:44.342 --> 20:52.069 [SPEAKER_01]: So I, and I also wanted, as a woman who's 50, like wrestling with this is not just a portrayal of me. 20:52.830 --> 20:54.852 [SPEAKER_01]: This is a betrayal of everything we have built. 20:55.012 --> 20:56.073 [SPEAKER_01]: This is my family. 20:56.554 --> 20:57.475 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a 50 year old woman. 20:57.495 --> 20:58.236 [SPEAKER_01]: I have two kids. 20:58.296 --> 21:00.558 [SPEAKER_01]: I have a husband and that's a lot of my identity. 21:00.618 --> 21:04.662 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know a 50 year old woman in the same boat who is it. 21:05.103 --> 21:12.471 [SPEAKER_01]: So when something like this happens, you can't just walk away, no matter how betrayed and gross 21:13.153 --> 21:16.318 [SPEAKER_01]: and awful, this person you married is. 21:16.478 --> 21:23.229 [SPEAKER_01]: Like you need a minute to go, how do I reframe who I am without this person? 21:23.249 --> 21:25.552 [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted, that was an interesting, 21:26.317 --> 21:40.700 [SPEAKER_01]: dilemma to me and sort of showing an older middle-aged woman versus the young women in the 70s was sort of interesting, who's who's whole who were dealing with some very big stuff, but who were like, let's burn it down. 21:41.041 --> 21:45.462 [SPEAKER_01]: Like two women of those three were like immediately burn it all down. 21:45.542 --> 21:50.703 [SPEAKER_01]: And I just was really interested in Margo who was like, how do I burn it down? 21:50.763 --> 21:51.643 [SPEAKER_01]: Can I burn it down? 21:51.663 --> 21:52.903 [SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean if I burn it down? 21:56.212 --> 22:03.495 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's just satisfying to me, but I can't understand that people had a problem with her POV. 22:03.615 --> 22:05.856 [SPEAKER_00]: It just shows you how subjective this all is. 22:05.876 --> 22:08.757 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because you're an excellent character arc. 22:08.837 --> 22:13.839 [SPEAKER_00]: If she started off a certain way and ended up a certain way, then okay fine, she's frustrating. 22:13.859 --> 22:15.099 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you kind of want to shake her. 22:15.139 --> 22:23.162 [SPEAKER_00]: But like, you read to see how a character overcomes adversity and how they evolve and, you know, how they grow in the 22:26.823 --> 22:27.183 [SPEAKER_01]: Indeed. 22:27.383 --> 22:35.690 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not a lot, but there are, there are some who, yeah, they wanted, they wanted Margota to be tougher right off the bat. 22:35.750 --> 22:42.655 [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, that's a, that's just, not, I don't even think I would deal, you know, putting yourself in those shoes. 22:42.675 --> 22:43.856 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's just so traumatic. 22:43.896 --> 22:47.479 [SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, it's an interesting, it's always interesting to see what readers are going to think about. 22:48.840 --> 22:51.842 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's also maybe younger readers to feel that way. 22:52.568 --> 22:53.349 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. 22:53.789 --> 22:55.831 [SPEAKER_00]: I've been talking about generational differences. 22:55.911 --> 23:07.099 [SPEAKER_00]: So you have an ensemble casting each timeline, you know, great secondary characters that are super compelling, that affect the plot in so many ways. 23:07.200 --> 23:09.401 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not just they kind of there as puppets. 23:09.521 --> 23:10.662 [SPEAKER_00]: They also have agency. 23:10.702 --> 23:11.903 [SPEAKER_00]: They're also affect the plot. 23:12.304 --> 23:16.227 [SPEAKER_00]: And I love how we had the different generational perspectives. 23:16.247 --> 23:18.949 [SPEAKER_00]: So even though sky is not like a POV character, 23:20.070 --> 23:30.139 [SPEAKER_00]: So for Alice and Sky is Margo's daughter just like seeing her take on things compared to her mom's take on things was really great There was a lot of social commentary there as well. 23:30.860 --> 23:31.620 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's interesting. 23:32.421 --> 23:43.551 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how your brain works as you're building a book But I often walk around with like two or three kind of ideas or things that I'm thinking about and obviously with this book 23:44.212 --> 23:49.313 [SPEAKER_01]: you know, we had just watched this election in the United States, the overturning of our Rovi Wade. 23:49.493 --> 23:56.114 [SPEAKER_01]: And so like a lot of women, I was just walking around very angry, you know, the Epstein, all of it, all of it, like a lot of women. 23:56.535 --> 23:58.995 [SPEAKER_01]: And then at the same time, my daughter was in middle school. 23:59.175 --> 24:08.597 [SPEAKER_01]: And like every girl in middle school, since the dawn of time, since the dawn of middle school, was getting harassed by this boy, a group of her friends were getting harassed by this 24:13.978 --> 24:34.873 [SPEAKER_01]: you know, all these things that I found coming out of my mouth that were the same things that my mother said to me, right, ignore him and it'll go away, right, like to my great shame, I said this to my daughter and my daughter and her friends were like, oh no, and they went to the principal and the kid got in a lot of trouble and was expelled for a little bit, got some help, like did they did the right 24:35.673 --> 24:53.742 [SPEAKER_01]: And I just thought, oh my, if anything's really going to change, what I, what I did there has to change, like we're, that was a part of the problem as much as like letting these boys grow into men who get away with this stuff is what mothers who with daughters and middle schools have been helping make happen. 24:54.282 --> 25:03.967 [SPEAKER_01]: So that was a real eye opening experience for me, and I was so proud of my daughter and proud of her friends for not putting up with it. 25:05.074 --> 25:11.018 [SPEAKER_01]: So I had those two things kind of swimming around in my head that I wanted to talk about. 25:11.038 --> 25:26.970 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's amazing how what's going on in their personal lives for each of them is mirroring this greater political movement in the background, you know, for the 70s timeline and for the present day timeline, I actually googled, 25:27.730 --> 25:37.136 [SPEAKER_00]: was lady X real, you know, because you built her so brilliantly, you built the the infamy so brilliantly that I was like, oh, this has to be real. 25:37.256 --> 25:43.080 [SPEAKER_00]: So was that inspired by somebody at the time or you just made that shut up? 25:43.660 --> 25:44.460 [SPEAKER_01]: I made that shut up. 25:44.661 --> 25:52.586 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was the having those two ideas, my anger and my the situation with my daughter and how I was, you know, a part of a 25:55.406 --> 25:58.568 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor Swift song vigilante shit came into the world. 25:58.648 --> 26:01.990 [SPEAKER_01]: And so that was the sort of lightning strike that built that put all of this together. 26:02.890 --> 26:12.495 [SPEAKER_01]: But I knew, I mean, I do think the thing, the lady ex, I've heard that before, that I googled it, it's the hard work on those interstitials. 26:12.715 --> 26:22.381 [SPEAKER_01]: I really, like, as a person, as you're going into it, just work as hard as you can at nailing it, because it really does create that world, that lore. 26:23.081 --> 26:24.222 [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I just made her up. 26:26.115 --> 26:27.355 [SPEAKER_00]: So such an excellent job. 26:27.375 --> 26:30.736 [SPEAKER_00]: When people are Googling is this real, you know, you've absolutely nailed it. 26:31.157 --> 26:33.677 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're, we're at our time somehow. 26:34.558 --> 26:37.358 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm holding up the book again, Lady X. 26:37.418 --> 26:40.099 [SPEAKER_00]: You can get it on our bookshop.org affiliate page. 26:40.499 --> 26:45.641 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you get it, they support an independent bookstore and the podcast at the same time. 26:45.741 --> 26:46.661 [SPEAKER_00]: Pick up this book. 26:47.181 --> 26:49.082 [SPEAKER_00]: There is just, it's, 26:49.682 --> 26:50.663 [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much happening. 26:50.723 --> 26:52.084 [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, it's incredible. 26:52.124 --> 27:10.355 [SPEAKER_00]: It'll give you all the fields and yeah, it helped with give me a some way to vent for my own rage, which was awesome because the thing with fiction is you can see justice prevailing and in real life generally that doesn't happen and that's what's so satisfying about a book like this. 27:10.715 --> 27:15.119 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and as we're, as we're all, like we all need some hope, right? 27:15.160 --> 27:18.923 [SPEAKER_01]: We really need some hope that this dark, these dark days will change. 27:19.184 --> 27:22.387 [SPEAKER_01]: And I, you know, I really hope Lady X helps with that. 27:23.027 --> 27:24.909 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's it for today's episode. 27:25.290 --> 27:27.071 [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you'll join us for next week's show. 27:27.312 --> 27:28.793 [SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, keep at it. 27:29.093 --> 27:31.416 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it just takes one yes.