Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
263 Hannah Brohm | STEM Romance Author and Neuroscientist
303 Plays15 days ago
Neuroscientist and writer of STEM romance Hannah Brohm is with us this week to talk about her experiences of finding a literary agent, writing, editing and publishing a novel for the first time.
Support the show on Patreon! 💖 And get extended episodes, ad-free and a week ahead of everyone else. 🙏
For audio listeners:
Listen to The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes, Jamie's other podcast with Melissa Welliver and Naomi Gibson! 📚
Follow on socials! 🥳
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Episode
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. I love Because the writing sort everything, right? Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writer... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of, it's kind of a gamble.
Meet Hannah Brome: Romance Author & Neuroscientist
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by a romance author with a PhD in neuroscience whose debut novel is out very soon. It's Hannah Brome. Hello.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for coming on.
Plot & Scientific Influence in Hannah's Novel
00:00:31
Speaker
Let's jump right in and talk about the book, your debut novel, Love and Other Brain Experiments. Tell us a little bit about what it what the story is.
00:00:42
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So Love Another Brain Experiments is a romance novel um and it follows a scientist, Frances, as she travels to a conference in New York and her research contract is running out. um So this conference is very important to her because she's hoping to network there and find her next job position.
00:01:04
Speaker
But the issue is that this event is organized by her ex, who has now become mega successful, and she hasn't spoken to him in five years. And the other problem she's facing is that her rival, her academic rival, who's called Louis, is also in attendance at this conference. And once they meet there and get into an argument, their colleagues mistake this argument for flirty chemistry and assume that the two are a couple. So they they miss the moment of clearing up this misconception. And because once the news has spread, it would be detrimental to their careers to admit that they lied. So now they have to keep up appearances and pretend that they're in a relationship alone. Um, and for any good scientist taking data, of course, is out of the question, but fake dating might just be a solution that they need.
00:01:55
Speaker
Okay.
Exploring Romance Tropes in Literature
00:01:56
Speaker
Okay, great. Um, so you've got some fun little tropes in there. I love that. Yes. And it's about neuroscience or Francis, Dr. Francis is a neuroscientist, um, tapping into your own area of expertise there.
00:02:10
Speaker
Did you write a lot of your own experience into Dr. Francis? Yes, I did. i actually, i basically took the context that I was familiar with. So the neuroscience context and tried to pluck her story into that. um And for me, being so immersed in that area, it was very, very important also that the science is right. so the best way I could ensure that was to talk about the research that I know and the yeah the type of neuroscience that I'm familiar with and that I work in myself.
00:02:42
Speaker
So not only does the science and obviously the book's not about the science, but it's always nice to know that the, that those things are intact. Is it also the sort of like the procedures that that, you know, having to go to get a grant and things like that, this is all stuff that you would have to do as a neuroscientist.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So i think actually one of the one of the ways that I came up with this book is because I was in grad school at the time still, so younger than Francis. And I realized that this was a really good way, writing this book was a really good way to deal with all the different frustrations I had around all of these procedures. But kind of like... play them out in a way that either they worked out or I knew that they wouldn't work out, but it would be fine. So
Hannah's Writing Journey and Inspirations
00:03:26
Speaker
it was kind of like um like a way of um supporting my mental health in some sense as well and making light of those situations in a way as well.
00:03:34
Speaker
Okay, that's great. Sort of acting like your own little coping mechanism for exactly things that were just frustrating. Okay, amazing. yeah um I wanted to talk about some of the tropes that you mentioned there. But first of all, just just as an overhead, when you as ah as a reader, is romance your favorite genre to read in Yes. I do read widely, but I think in the last few years, romance has become the genre I read the most.
00:04:01
Speaker
Okay. Okay. And you mentioned, so this is, this is a fake dating. This a bit, is a big trope in this. then also Amaritan thinking this is rivals to lovers. Yeah, exactly.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Okay. And when it comes to romance, such an interesting genre, it's sort of exploding in very different directions over the past few years, but tropes have been, become such a powerful marketing tool within romance. It was always fun to to talk about them. Are there any like big tropes that people can expect within this story?
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah, so other than the academic rivals and the fake dating, I mean, I think STEM romance as a trope has become a bit more popular in recent years as well, because mainly with Ailey Hazelwood as a big STEM romance powerhouse, I would say. um But there's also a forced proximity because they are pretending to be a couple at this conference.
00:04:50
Speaker
um And it's set over a summer in New York. So I guess that could count as a trope as well. Okay. I didn't realize that was a trope, but yeah, now I think about it. Yeah, it probably is.
00:05:04
Speaker
And you're on TikTok, right? Yes. Yeah. So I imagine you've interfaced with the BookTok space. um Do you get a lot of books pushed onto your feed with that like list of tropes within them?
00:05:19
Speaker
Um, yes and no. So I think for the fake dating and maybe the rivals to lovers, yes, I don't see so, so much stem romance. I think it's because there aren't maybe as many books there. There are more and more coming now. More and more, yeah. think, yeah, I think it's also a bit more specific maybe than the other tropes. Um, yeah, on TikTok, it's a, it's a weird mix. I try to kind of stay a little bit out of the reader space because I don't want to get too absorbed into watching other authors, like yeah readers reviewing other authors. Um, but I definitely do get some recommendations pushed my way there. Okay.
00:05:57
Speaker
As a, as a reader, are these your favorite tropes? Are there more tropes that that you haven't got in this book that you love to read? Oh, there are there are many more, I would say. I think um i think the the question is more like which tropes I don't like as much because i'm I'm happy about any kind of like friends to lovers as well or more like microtropes, like only one bed. These kind of ones, I like all of them a lot. um ah Second Chance is a big favorite of mine as well. So, yeah.
00:06:29
Speaker
So which of the tropes you do not like? A trope where you're like, I don't know if I want to read that because I really don't like that trope. A surprise pregnancy or unexpected pregnancy. I've read a few books in that direction that I actually really did like. um So I would say never say never. But yeah, they are not necessarily a book.
00:06:47
Speaker
It's not a trope that I would gravitate towards if someone would tell me like, this is the book with that trope. Okay. And I'm sure you that you are you are well underway writing something new. Are there any tropes that you love as a reader that you haven't got in this novel, Love and Other Brain Experiments, that that you want to, maybe not in the book you're currently writing, or maybe in the future that you want to write?
00:07:10
Speaker
I would really like to write a second chance romance, actually. um yeah I think it lends itself very well to kind of ah going into maybe a little bit more conflict within a relationship as well, because there must be some kind of reason why it didn't work out in the first time around. So as characters then encounter each other a second time, I think it's a very good opportunity to go into that and see whether they've changed or are willing to change enough to get over it at that point.
00:07:39
Speaker
So that's something i'm really excited about. um And I also really, really like Marriage of Convenience, although I feel that's a bit more difficult to pull off when it's not a historical romance because it's not so common nowadays anymore that people actually have to get married without wanting to in our society, I think.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, I guess fake dating is the kind of modern equivalent of that yeah because of like social norms and stuff. Yes. Yeah. I did read a great um marriage of convenience Romans last year that was revolving around marrying for visa purposes. so I think that that's at least still ah a setting that works nowadays. But yeah.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. I think the fake dating is more more accurate. Yeah. Or more realistic maybe. Yeah. And the stakes are much lower. ah Yeah, that's true. We're talking you about, you know, potential crimes. Like fraud, yeah, exactly. yeah um On your website, ah yeah I was looking at your bio and I saw that it says, you actually published your first novel when you were a teenager. Yeah.
00:08:51
Speaker
I didn't publish it. It's just, I wrote it then. You just wrote it. Okay. Yeah. I didn't publish anything. I think it's good that that wasn't published, but yeah, I wrote it. Okay. And of course, um, it was about vampires naturally.
00:09:05
Speaker
What else would a teenager write about? Exactly. So have you been writing basically, you know, your whole kind of life since you were ah presumably a a teen?
00:09:18
Speaker
I wasn't because... So I did write a lot when I was a teenager, but then once I started university, I stopped for a while because i've yeah it wasn't my priority. I didn't have ideas or didn't feel the urge to write. um And then during the pandemic, actually, i started writing again because I was getting more into romance novels and i really...
00:09:44
Speaker
liked how they gave me a lens into different realities different work contexts as well and that was what then gave me the idea to maybe try and write a romanma romance in a setting that I knew well to to let other people into that setting kind of um and that's when I started again so I had probably around 10 years where I wasn't writing and then I came back to it Okay.
00:10:08
Speaker
And did you write many books or like manuscripts before you got to love and other brain experiments or was it, was that the kind of first one and you just kind of worked on it?
00:10:20
Speaker
Um, I started another one before, but only got about halfway through and then love another brain experiments was the, the one that I started working on then and revised it many times. And yeah, that's
Navigating the Publishing World
00:10:32
Speaker
the one that's getting published. so I didn't, uh, actually write a full novel before this one.
00:10:39
Speaker
Um, okay. When I came back to to writing in my adulthood. Yeah. Okay. So this, this was the first one that you this is the first finished all in one. Okay. And then, so at what point did you say to yourself, I want to try and, you know, get this one published to, to, to, to go into the publishing industry.
00:10:58
Speaker
um So I was, i think it took me about a year and a half to write and edit it. And then i came across on social media um via this author that I was following across this mentorship program. And they had...
00:11:14
Speaker
openings or they were opening the application process a few months later. So I thought that I could take that application deadline maybe as a point until when I would want to finish all my revisions. And I thought I would give it a try. And if I was accepted into that, maybe there was some merit to like trying to publish it. um And then fast forward, I did actually get accepted into this program. And that's more or less the time when I started thinking that I could really yeah work on trying to get an agent querying the book and actually publishing it. But for the first almost two years, I was just writing it for myself and ah one friend that I sent it to, to read it. Yeah. Okay. Did they give you feedback or was it, were they just reading it for like a ah fun sort of supportive thing to do?
00:12:03
Speaker
In the beginning, it was more of a fun, supportive thing, um which is very kind because the first draft was actually pretty bad. But she yeah she read it for fun. And then after I was done with the first draft and I took notes myself on what I wanted to change, I asked her for input. And then she also gave me some some more feedback. Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker
Okay. Okay. That's, you're not the first person who I've heard. It's actually given, been given as advice where people are like, when you're writing your novel, especially, you know, when, before you have an agent, before you have any deadlines to give yourself a deadline by saying, oh, there's a competition on this date or there's an application on this date. It's a great way of sort of fake giving yourself a deadline. so it's So it's nice to hear that you kind of put that into practice and and and it worked out for you.
00:12:47
Speaker
um When you started querying, and this is something that I'm always interested in because it's such a, when people first write something and then they think, oh, what do I, now that i I've written something, what do I do with it at this point?
00:13:00
Speaker
um How did you, you know, did this course that you went on explain to you how querying worked? You know, did you just go online and have to try and to kind of research it yourself?
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, so the the great thing with the mentoring program that I did is that you're basically paired up with one um writer or author who is already agented. And together with that, so that the program is called Smooch Bit. I just want to mention it here because it's ongoing. So it's still yeah where i'm I'm a mentor in it now. um And it's still it's still out there, so I would recommend it. But yeah, you're basically paired up with an agent writer or author, and um they give feedback on your manuscript, and they also have a look at your query query and give notes on that. So it was very helpful with my mentor to not only get this feedback, but also to talk to her about the strategy that she used to query.
00:13:58
Speaker
And then take that over or yeah make adjustments to that um and have someone with me basically along the way. Okay. Is the, and was that program genre specific? Was that just for like romance novels?
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, so it's for romance novels, but it can be any kind of age group. So there is YA, YA and adult are accepted. And it can also be any kind of crossover with romance. I know that in the past few years, also fantasy romance or like horror romance and these kinds of crossover genres have become more popular.
00:14:32
Speaker
yeah yeah, absolutely. When you did start querying, was it yes quite a long process? Or did you actually find interest quite quickly? ah For me, it went quite quickly in the end. So the first the first step for me in querying was within this program, they organize a kind of query showcase where all mentees in the program put together kind of an overview of their query and then agents are invited to view those moreti materials, um which was very helpful because this way you already get within a week an impression of whether your query materials are working to some extent.
00:15:09
Speaker
because agents will be requesting more um or not. And after that week was over, I had quite a few agent requests. So I submitted my materials to them and then started querying more widely as well. And it took from there, I think about three or four weeks until I signed with my agent or until I had the offer and then I signed a few days later.
00:15:32
Speaker
Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I think those kinds of events, because there's a lot of different courses and and programs like like you did, where they do at the end do a sort of showcase that kind of event where agents are invited or a sort of um collection is sent out to to agents who have signed onto it. I think those are so helpful. um if If you know you don't end up actually getting connected with an agent through that, just to, like you said, know that the package that you put together for your query is is is good, kind of get a sense check on whether that's actually working or if you should revise that package a bit.
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So in my case, I actually found the agent that I ended up with ah didn't request from me during the showcase, or she didn't even participate in the showcase. But the good thing was that because some UK agents, I believe, want you to send them updates if you get full manuscript requests, I came out of the program, sent her the query, and then a day or two later, because I knew i had those full manuscript requests, I could then follow up on that email and kind of like put it on top of her pile of cold queries. And I think that um helped a little bit as well with getting, yeah getting my my manuscript in front of eyes outside of the showcase as well.
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah,
Book Recommendations & Conclusion
00:16:49
Speaker
absolutely. Um, because yeah, agents don't want to miss out on something. Yeah, absolutely. Um, okay. Yeah. We are going to pick up this thread in little bit and talk more about querying agents, editors, but, um, we are at the point in the episode where I ask you to pack up your things because you are to be snowed in at a cozy woodland cabin in the middle of nowhere.
00:17:14
Speaker
Which book would you hope to have with you? Okay, so I picked one that I think is maybe a little bit unfair because it's not out yet, but I have read it already and it's coming out soon. It's called Deathbringer by Sonja Tagliareni and it's a romantic fantasy book with dark academia elements and a murder mystery.
00:17:34
Speaker
So one of the reasons I picked it was a that I really liked it when I read it, but also it has kind of a bit of everything that you need, I think. um And just to tell you a little bit more about the book, it's ah about... It has a really interesting magic system where the two main characters... practice death magic and the other one poison magic. And they have these kind of relics that can come alive and become snakes that either kill or heal. um And the murder mystery is basically that our main character's sister used to go to that school, but turns up dead at the beginning of the narrative. And now the main character wants to figure out what happened, decides to go to the school. And there she runs into Silas, who is kind of like an academic rival as well, um who doesn't like her ah at first glance. And he might just be the person that she needs to figure out what happened to her sister.
00:18:27
Speaker
And I read an early draft of that one last year. And now that it's getting published in April in the UK, I believe I really can't wait to read it again. So I would like take that one to the cabin with me here. Oh, wow. Well, that's a beaming review. It sounds great. um yeah They're really fusing a lot of different genres and and settings together with with ah with that mixture. mean, it's very, i mean, like you were saying with romance earlier, I've been talking to people about what they think the next big trends might be in publishing. And I think just combining lots of different genres might be the next big trend because we all want to see all these things kind of working harmoniously together. So this sounds like it it really ticks all the boxes. Definitely. it was It was a page turner for me when I read it, so i would most definitely recommend it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Okay, amazing. I think that might be the first time someone has chosen a book which they've read but isn't out yet. So you might be the first on the podcast to do that. Okay, nice. Nice one.
00:19:25
Speaker
So next up, we are going to continue our chat going back to the sort of publishing journey and continuing on from the agent stuff. um That will be in the extended episode, ah which you will be able to find at patreon.com forward slash right and wrong.
00:19:42
Speaker
like The way that i see the world. um so it's So it's easier or those ideas come to my mind. um Yeah, to feature those kind of characters as well. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that makes sense. yeah That's what's kind of the the thing that you know the best, right? And what are people i say, write what you know. so yeah yeah keep it safe.
00:20:02
Speaker
um Awesome. That brings us to the end of the episode. Thank you so much, Hannah, for coming on and chatting with me about your publishing journey and your your debut novel, Love and Other Brain Experiments, which is out February 12th in the UK and February 3rd in the US.
00:20:17
Speaker
ah It's been both so fun chatting with you. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. um And I had a very good time for this for first podcast episode of mine. yeah And for anyone listening, if you want to keep up with what Hannah is doing, you can find her on threads and Instagram at Hannah Brom or on TikTok at Hannah.Brom or her website, HannahBrom.com. She also has a newsletter, which you can find on the website. To support this podcast, like, follow and subscribe. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again to Hannah. Thanks to everyone listening. we will catch you on the next episode.