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"What is Setting?" featuring Kara Kennedy - Episode 8 - Season One - The Write Way of Life
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In this week’s episode, Karis chats with Kara A. Kennedy, author of the sapphic YA thriller I Will Never Leave You. They discussed how to write setting from a technical standpoint, but also dove into ways you can create an atmospheric, lively setting.
Find Kara A. Kennedy online.
Check out Kara’s books.
Follow the podcast on Instagram or on our website.
Follow Karis on Instagram.
Follow Adi on Instagram.
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Transcript
Introduction and Authoritarian Challenges
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, hello, everyone. Karis Rogerson, one of the hosts of the Right Way of Life podcast, and I am here with the one and only Gilletta. Hello, Addie.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello, hello. how you doing? oh you know trying to survive in an increasingly authoritarian regime.
00:00:39
Speaker
Oh. It's so hard. It's a struggle bus.
Creativity and Resilience in Tough Times
00:00:44
Speaker
But that is why we engage with creativity and stories so that we have a way to deal with the rough times.
00:00:55
Speaker
Damn straight. Bring it back around to the point of the podcast. but but i Yeah, yeah. I see you. um So today is Sunday, May 18th of the year 2025. Addie and I are here recording um to kick us off on an episode that I'm very excited about. We recorded this episode several months ago.
00:01:21
Speaker
And it was a ah super fun conversation um with setting, but that you're going to have to wait a little bit till we get into that because first we got chit chat.
Personal Life Updates and Healthcare Critique
00:01:31
Speaker
um we already talked about how we are i am bro this week this week was a fucking roller coaster my dude i turned 32 last saturday Happy birthday.
00:01:44
Speaker
Thank you. Happy birthday to you. And then on Monday, I found out that I was, my doctor had approved me for this, like, potentially life-saving treatment um for my depression.
00:01:57
Speaker
And so I started a GoFundMe and was like, maybe people will give. um And yeah, that went really well. So I was like, I cried all week, but it was good cries, which is unusual. um And then I crashed a little bit.
00:02:10
Speaker
so Oh, well. Yeah. Adrenaline high can't last forever. It'll come back, you know, and your community showed up for you, which I think is really great. Also, for anyone listening, because we're dropping this episode tomorrow, um check out Karis' GoFundMe link and let's get it fully funded. Because I think we're at like 70% there.
00:02:30
Speaker
73%, baby. ref fan We're at a solid C, but you know what? I think i think our listeners... The secret is that I actually set the goal for 5,000 and GoFundMe was like, we're going to start it off at 35%.
00:02:43
Speaker
ok And then people will think you're getting closer than you are and then will adjust it. And I was like, GoFundMe, that sounds a little shady. It's a good marketing tactic. You know, people love a stretch goal. They love it. they Yeah. yeah So the 3500 covers the initial six treatments and then one potential like follow up if I need like because it's it's like you do six treatments in three weeks, which is insane.
00:03:10
Speaker
um Just like me. Sorry, I had to say it. um Hopefully maybe not anymore once we want to get those treatments. Right. So it covers the first six and three weeks. And then if you need continuing care, it's like one treatment a month.
00:03:25
Speaker
And so those $3,500 covers the first six plus one treatment. The $5,000 would cover up to four treatments. And so that felt like a really good, like, buffer zone for me.
00:03:35
Speaker
um Because i was like, bro, do I have an extra $3,000 lying around? Not even a little bit. Not even on my credit cards. Those are shut the fuck down. Like...
00:03:48
Speaker
We love the state of health care in America where you have to go fund me for your medically necessary needs. which is Listen,
00:03:58
Speaker
all I'm saying is, well, I'm not going to say that on a podcast.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yes. So I will say this, though. I do have UnitedHealthcare. Yeah. And, you know, I think my favorite video game is Mario Brothers.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah. I've heard great things about Yeah. Yeah. I think the second brother is like my favorite. yeah Yeah. Yeah. On that note.
Balancing Work, Entertainment, and Writing
00:04:27
Speaker
ah So what have you been writing and reading lately, Addy?
00:04:31
Speaker
I have been, I've not been reading that much this much lately. I have sort of been swamped with work.
00:04:42
Speaker
And yeah, it's just been a little crazy. Like the past nine days have been like 16 to 18 hour days for me, which have been a little bit and insane. y It's the name the game.
00:04:55
Speaker
um It happens in like but like the way that my job works is like I do like three to four big events every year and they're just like very time consuming and laborious for like a very short amount of time.
00:05:08
Speaker
And then it's a regular sort of like nine to five situation usually. Yeah. But in in crunch time, you just got to go, go, go, baby. You got to get get that show up. um See, this is there are so many reasons why I'm not in the theater world.
00:05:22
Speaker
Literally so many reasons. This is one of them. Yeah, it's a little crazy, but I love it. um So I haven't been reading that much. I have been consuming a lot of ah television that is brainless and numbless, AKA Grey's Anatomy.
00:05:39
Speaker
Nice. Yes. And I've been writing a little bit. um I sort of like I've been working on some revisions of my short film, um which which was great. I think I finally got the version that is that is mostly filmable. I have to make a couple tweaks.
00:05:56
Speaker
um The ending is still bothering me, but I don't think it's wrong anyone else. So so we'll see. We'll see. I did cut two pages of it. And I ah was very proud of myself because one of the one of the things that I wanted to change and in this draft that I just um and sent over to my creative partner, like director, um was really focusing on removing the dialogue, which for me is like huge because I always start dialogue first.
00:06:25
Speaker
ah And in like the film world, you can't, ah it's not it like it, you can have a lot of dialogue, obviously in film, but like it's a, it's a visual medium. So like really distilling your story and telling anything that you possibly can in a visual way.
00:06:41
Speaker
um Which honestly, I think ah like now being someone who has sort of written and existed in sort of three of the three like main mediums of writing, which is like book form, play form and now film form has weirdly like helped me in in ways that relate to the others of like something that I really struggle with this setting. And, you know, and getting anyways.
00:07:09
Speaker
So all that to say. it's been ah It's been a process. um And now I have something I don't hate. That's actually so wild. And that's why it it just like brings home how collaborative um film and TV is. right Because like as a novelist, it's all me. like Obviously, it's a collaborative process. You have an editor, et cetera. But like if I'm setting a scene, like that's ah that's my responsibility. If I'm having characters say something, that's my responsibility.
00:07:37
Speaker
And it's also my like pride. Right. Yeah. whereas Whereas in film and TV, you've got to trust that your cinematographer and your actors are going to fill in the gaps that you can't put on the page.
00:07:49
Speaker
And that's terrifying for a control freak, I fear. Yeah. I mean, terrifying for me. That's fair. Yeah.
Collaboration and Creative Control in TV/Film
00:07:56
Speaker
You have to. And like what I found is like the the things, especially in both theater and I feel like film is like you don't you don't want to micromanage the people who are taking your story and then moving forward with it. Like you need to give them room to breathe because that's where the magic happens in a collaborative like art form is like you build sort of.
00:08:16
Speaker
The themes, the house, and then people fill in the little like micro details, which, yeah, for like an author who's like used to have all of it. It's all it's a shared outcome. Like, yeah, really, it falls or it sails flies on the shoulders of everyone involved.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. it's ah it's very It's very interesting. It's very interesting. And it's also why I have a firm belief that anyone who is like a solo, like any of these like TV shows that have like the singular showrunner, who's also the writer, who's also the director. I'm like, I, I, this is a controversial opinion. I don't think that they're creating the best product or the best story out of that. If you only have one person in charge of all of that.
00:09:02
Speaker
So having just read a book that comes out in several months that follows an actress who is on a show that is run by one showrunner, director, writer, etc. I actually agree with you.
00:09:13
Speaker
This is my experience in the in the TV world as I read this book. And it like, it's a great book. um Marisol Acts the Part by El Gonzalez Rose comes out sometime later this year. I don't have the exact date.
00:09:26
Speaker
But um yeah, it's it's easy to see how like, If you're a control freak, that actually stifles the creative process because yeah it's like you're strangling it.
00:09:41
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So I would love it. Like, my secret dream is someday to be in a TV writer's room. um not even film because I prefer TV shows to movies hot take um if I'm gonna watch a story I want to watch like seasons are after seasons of it and have like so much of it to to bask in speaking of multiple seasons how we feeling about 9-1-1 just an audible sigh of deep disappointment i i don't
00:10:14
Speaker
I'm... i i did Look, 9-1-1 has always been a comfort show of silliness. Of, like, nobody dies.
00:10:27
Speaker
It's... Some of it is some of the best acting you've ever seen, and then the next scene is some of the, like... Not worse, but like you're getting the point across in a way that is for the plot and not for anything else, which is fun.
00:10:43
Speaker
It's network television. It's like it's when you it's I'm trying to think of a a good analogy. um It's like that box of Kraft mac and cheese that you make in your 20s when you just can't either afford a vegetable or you don't want to.
00:10:59
Speaker
And like, it's, that's, that's what I signed up for. and It fills your stomach, but it doesn't necessarily nurture you. I mean, I think it nurtures you from the soul because you're reminded of when like you and your grandma used to make that box of mac and cheese and put green peas in it.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:19
Speaker
Sorry. Green bees? Green? Oh my, wait. Yeah, you put, you you make it box of crab mac and cheese and you put green peas in it. Sorry, I'm a pea hater.
00:11:30
Speaker
I cannot condone. Do you also put like tuna in it? That's what we would also do. Tuna? It's a little casserole. So we're gonna move on now before I say something I'll regret.
00:11:46
Speaker
I'm introducing Karis to Midwest Tom Flurry with pasta. um Oh, Lord. No, it's what's funny is I fucking grew up in Italy and people would be like, what's your favorite type of pasta? And I'd be like Kraft dinner, which was what we called Kraft mac and cheese. And they were like, are you what's wrong with you? And I was like, I miss it so bad. ah Yeah.
00:12:06
Speaker
It's not my favorite pasta anymore. I've grown. Yes, yes. All that to say, nine one one is deeply disappointing me. It didn't turn gay. They killed off a main character for seemingly no good reason. And it was, it's a hot, it's a hot, hot mess.
00:12:20
Speaker
And, uh... It's, i't I don't think I can call it queerbaiting because one of the characters in the ship is canonically bi.
00:12:31
Speaker
so So one of them is queer. I guess it's shitbaiting? I don't know. It's relationshipbaiting. It's relationshipbaiting, but yeah, but it just feels like queerbaiting. Even though it's technically not. I don't know. I just have a lot of, I think that if you're gonna, actually no, this this goes back to writing. If you're gonna kill off your main character,
00:12:51
Speaker
you should have a purpose and a good reason for it and you should end on that in my opinion gotcha like there's no way to move on so you're not going to be hearing me talking about 9-1-1 anymore i feel like i've just been broken up with oh no well okay here what's worse queerbaiting or burying your gays I'm going to say queerbaiting because I love a tragedy.
Media Representation and Tropes
00:13:20
Speaker
So if you've got two gays on screen and they die together and their bones are forever entombed holding each other. Well, that, no, that's not burying your gays. It's when you kill off one of them.
00:13:34
Speaker
The other one just, you know, I'm thinking of The Hundred. i had stopped watching by point. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:13:42
Speaker
I mean, gay people have dead spouses. I think it's okay. Okay. Look, in terms of we shouldn't bury the gays and we shouldn't queer bait, but I think the ones that I hate the most are the ones that are too afraid to make it a little bit queer, even if they're still slightly homophobic and they want to kill one of them off.
00:14:02
Speaker
Okay. Because to the trope of bearing your gaze, i do think the queer community is very angsty. And there's nothing more angsty than the love of your life dying.
00:14:14
Speaker
No, that's so real. Yeah. And I think maybe to some actually, you know, that could be a really interesting if I were to ever get an MFA in English is like, did the rise of burying your gaze like where who like who first originated it?
00:14:28
Speaker
And does it have anything to do with the AIDS epidemic? Oh, shit. and A little professor hat on. Wow. Anyways, what are you reading? there What are you?
00:14:40
Speaker
Give me one second.
00:14:44
Speaker
I am reading. I am reading. I just finished Iris Kelly Doesn't Date, which is a sapphic romance by Ashley Herring Blake.
00:14:55
Speaker
um Delightful. Loved it. Third book in the series. Possibly my favorite. And I'm also reading Fatebreaker by Victoria Aveyard, which is the last book in the series, which i the Realm Breaker series, like, i i ride and die with it. Like, I'm here for it I'm loving it.
00:15:13
Speaker
um Love the characters. Love the, like, epic scale of it. Love that I can see the, like, Lord of the Rings, like, fan fiction, characters. you know not um influence on it because she victoria has said like she always wanted she loved lord of the rings and she always wanted like a lord of the rings where like people like women and non just men could be the heroes and so i'm i'm really loving it um And I am writing again.
00:15:45
Speaker
i am saying toodaloo to my burnout break. And I have started a barr brand new romance novel. It is an adult romance.
00:15:56
Speaker
Paranormal. Um, working title of witches and monsters, working pitch, a witch and a human go on a Pokemon Go hunt through New York City to collect all the monsters that have escaped into our universe on the witch's watch.
00:16:12
Speaker
Also, they fall in love and do some fucking. But that's like, that's not the plot. That's just the romance of it.
00:16:20
Speaker
um and i'm about six thousand words into that and yes i do have plans to make this one a whole series just like i do revenge but i'm also still waiting on notes for revenge which i'm highly anticipating any moment now um every day i check my email every two seconds i check my email i check my email way too often i've gotta i've gotta like stop that it's it's actually it's really it's really bad for me it's But I've got many reasons to check my email now because of secret things that are also happening in the book world. I'm not going to share about other than to say that secret things are happening in the book world.
00:16:57
Speaker
For me, specifically. Right. And on that note, who are we talking to you today, Addy? Kara A. Kennedy has been telling ghost stories and sometimes living them since childhood. She holds a BA in professional writing from Penn State University, where she worked as a writing tutor and cultivated a love of coffee.
00:17:15
Speaker
She lives in a historic and possibly haunted home in Pennsylvania with her partner and their two cats. I Will Never Leave You is her debut novel.
Exploring the Importance of Setting in Stories
00:17:25
Speaker
One thing that I will say about her haunted home, sometimes I am on work calls with her and she'll be like, oh, the door just shut.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think it's the ghost. And I'm like, how am I supposed to go back to talking about marketing? Anyway, let's welcome Kara. Let's welcome Kara. All right. Hi, Kara. How are you? so Karis. I'm good. are you?
00:17:44
Speaker
doing so well. I'm so excited to be talking to you about setting. um For those who don't know Kara Kennedy's debut novel came out. last July. i don't know why I froze there for a second. I know it. like Listen, I forget sometimes when it came out, but yeah, you got it. and July. She's a Leo. she Oh my God.
00:18:05
Speaker
That's amazing. I'm so happy for her. um But I loved it and I was so excited to ask Kara, who secretly is also a coworker of mine, not so secretly anymore,
00:18:19
Speaker
Because I just said it. um But so I was so excited to talk with her about setting. So I setting is one of those like craft elements that i think I struggle with probably because I'm very bad at descriptions as in like I'll just put people in a room and I know what it looks like and no one else knows what it looks like.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm really excited to chat about setting with you and sort of like work through some of what makes it special and important. So kick us off, I would love to know if you had to describe to an audience of non-writers or new writers, like what is setting?
00:18:57
Speaker
How would you describe setting and and like its importance in stories? It's such a simple question, and yet it's such a and such a hard question. I think you kind of were like just talking about this in terms of it can be so difficult to place your character. It's like, obviously, they're in a physical place, but how do I describe What happens there?
00:19:22
Speaker
I think that if I had to define what is setting... it's It's really just what comes first. So for me, I was thinking about setting leading up to our conversation and I was kind of worrying, am i do I know how to write setting? Do I do i ever think about this?
00:19:38
Speaker
And I actually had this realization that that's what I usually define first, um which I hadn't really ever thought about before. But my debut, I Will Never Leave You, um originally when I was drafting it, i called it Lake House Ghost Book because it's set at a lake house. And that came absolutely before anything else, even before the ghost element, because i felt like lake house setting is so atmospheric. There's so much you can do with that.
00:20:05
Speaker
um There's so much you can describe no matter what season you're, you're setting your story in um And so I think for me, i would define what is setting as just what is the world that your characters are in How are, how is the environment around them affecting everything that they do? Because Whether it's like a college dorm or lake house or a post-apocalyptic world like or a fantasy world, it's affecting every decision they make and every action that they do. And and that's I think that's how I would describe it.
00:20:38
Speaker
I love that because one thing that I have learned over the course of like the conversations we've already had for this podcast is that it seems like world building is kind of like...
00:20:50
Speaker
the big daddy of all the craft elements so true it's like you have to do it no matter what you and it colors so much of of everything you're doing and i think especially with setting there is a lot of world building that goes into it because as you know whether you're writing contemporary or speculative or like full fantasy like you have to build a world um and i think um jumping ahead think one thing that I loved from your debut I Will Never Leave You was um the set at the school setting part of it where it was so like we didn't spend that much time at the school but when we did it had such a unique flavor to it and I could tell that it was like this is the kind of school that like appears in LA with these characters like it's not the kind of school that you're going to find in every city or with every demographic necessarily It's very...
00:21:46
Speaker
It felt very like we are the rich producers of Hollywood and we send our children to this school. So, yeah, I love that you you mentioned that and that you you said that it comes first because I do think it is so important. And it's one thing that I need to, like, in my own stories, figure out better is the, like, not putting them in a and a white room with, like, four walls, right? Like, putting them somewhere that is rich and that has atmosphere and ambiance and...
00:22:17
Speaker
life yeah when it comes to setting we've we've described it um i guess my question is like what are the various elements that go into creating a setting for a novel like how do you write a good setting yeah i think that Again, a big thing that I find that I always come back to is weather.
00:22:40
Speaker
So yeah is it a place where it snows? Is it a place where obviously I'll Never Leave You is set in California. And so I was bummed and I definitely take some liberties with how much it rains.
00:22:53
Speaker
And I have always been like waiting for some review to call me out on that. And so far, no one has. ah it It rains way too much in that book. It it should never rain. But i a way that I kind of found around that was to kind of tie in with the paranormal element and explain like, oh, like it affects the weather, which is still a leap.
00:23:11
Speaker
But again, if you're if you're writing anything with any kind of speculative element, you can tie that into setting. And bend the rules to your needs um because really it rains a lot because i think that's fun i think that's more interesting than living in la i lived in la for i'm an east coast girl lived in la four years and very much missed the rain the greenery like weather in general and it's very hard for me to write a setting where there's nothing happening with letter because okay i think that so my book is also a thriller and one thing that
00:23:45
Speaker
I often use to like amp up tension is weather events. I think that there is this sense of like foreboding when a thunderstorm is like starting and you hear that like rumble of thunder or you see a flash of lightning and it can give you the creeps even if you're an adult and you're not afraid of thunderstorms it's still like oh something's coming and i think as a writer and as a thriller writer you can use that to signal other plot devices like plot things happening.
00:24:12
Speaker
So i I think that i've I try to always tie in weather, even if it's playing around with like, oh, it's a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles, but things are terrible. And, you that happens too.
00:24:24
Speaker
So I think that weather is a big thing that I always come back to. think... i think In terms of grounding the story in real life place, that's one thing that I played around with and I will never leave you. So there are moments where my main character, Maya, is in Los Angeles and that's pretty much just straight up Los Angeles. Like I didn't take any creative liberties there except for inventing her school, which was an amalgamation of real L.A. private schools and the my own private high school that I attended.
00:24:56
Speaker
um But when Maya goes to Lake Ember, which is the lake town where her sister lives, that is totally made up. I take a lot of liberties of where that's located ah um and what kind of weather would happen there.
00:25:08
Speaker
And it's loosely based on Ojai in terms of vibe. Mm-hmm. um Which is a very, if you haven't been there, very witchy, spiritual, cool, kind of like Sedona, Arizona type place.
00:25:21
Speaker
And that's very much where I wanted to her to experience so different from the urban like sprawl of L.A. So I think that... Picking a real geographic area, but then taking your own spin, your own twist on that area allows you to be a lot more creative.
00:25:39
Speaker
So I like to tell the reader, we're in California. We're in Southern California. We're on a lake. But this coffee shop is not real. this This school is not real. This lake is not real.
00:25:50
Speaker
um I think that allows the reader to immerse themselves just as just like enough in the story, but still use their imagination to picture places. like I don't always like to read about an exact story. place because I want to be able to put my own spin on it and imagine it the way that I want. And um the, so I don't have any books coming out like contracted yet, but the YA that i'm working on right now is set in a fictional town on Cape Cod and totally different side of the country, but also an area that I love a lot and that I feel like it's very atmospheric and you can create your own seafood restaurants, beaches, lobster shacks, lighthouses. Like there's so much fun. it kind of feels like Clayton Sims.
00:26:30
Speaker
in your own little town yeah i love that you mentioned weather as like the first thing that you think of because i don't i forget about weather unless i'm like it's the middle of summer in new york city and i am sweating otherwise i'm just like oh yeah i guess maybe it should rain like should something happen with the the atmosphere um And I also I wondered I was actually going ask. I do you have a question later about like and like writing authentic like real to life settings versus like making them up.
00:27:04
Speaker
And I was like there's this part of me that was like i don't know L.A.' 's geography well enough to know if you made up like end and like Ember or not. I did.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think.
00:27:19
Speaker
Um, for me, when I like want to really hone in on the setting, I'm a big like I grew up in cities. I did not grow up in the country. And maybe I would still be this way if I had grown up in the country. Maybe I'd be the opposite some other way. But I love ah love me some architecture. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:39
Speaker
I love to look at buildings or like statues or parks that were created by humans and be like, wow, this is amazing.
Atmosphere and Ambiance in Storytelling
00:27:48
Speaker
And so when I'm writing my books and I'm putting them, say, in a city, I'm always focused on like, what does buildings look like?
00:27:56
Speaker
what does the What does the urban like cityscape look like? Yeah. So that's one way that I build setting. And then I go out, I have them go out nature and I'm like, i don't know, the trees were green or something.
00:28:07
Speaker
i love that because that's the total opposite of me. I could not tell you an architectural style, which is embarrassing. um But yeah, I've Googled it before. Like, what do you call... One thing I think is tricky with YA is you always also, as you know, have to think about the ones of like, does does my main character know how to describe this house? And I did run into that um with mine where I was like, no, it's a two-story house. That's all she's going to say.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah. i I like to follow fall into the like, this is what it looks like. It's got like this strange corner over here. I don't know what things are called. but Yeah. What do I look like an architect? No. um Yeah. So i I love just thinking about like the various like ingredients that go into making a good setting. And I think one that you did really beautifully and I will never leave you is the sort of like atmospheric mess of it all.
00:29:02
Speaker
And I think that worked really well because it is a thriller. And so it's got to have that like.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm having a thought. Tell me if I'm wrong. Go for it. But the thought is that I think like setting is really important in thrillers because the atmosphere can really amp up the spooky and the scares.
00:29:22
Speaker
And not that it's not important in other genres, but just like you really have to know where you are because where you are can influence every other aspect of the story. ah here Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I think there's a reason why so many scary stories start with that cliche of like it was a dark and stormy night because and immediately grounds you and like, oh my God, it was a dark and stormy night.
00:29:45
Speaker
You're immediately like, oh, that's spooky. And I just think like that is so enduring. Like no matter how old you are, like you immediately know what kind of like story that is.
00:29:56
Speaker
So let's think about like other stories. like like you said, like a lot of spooky, thrilling stories start with the dark and stormy night. Is there something that you think of like setting or setting like that you would associate maybe with like romance or fantasy or other genres yeah it's a good question I feel like there's there's a good reason why there is that cliche of like rom-coms being like beach reads because I feel like that like sunny beachy summery like that obviously lends itself so well to that feeling of like happiness and falling in love and stuff like that but I feel like you can fall in love in any season so I I do feel like
00:30:38
Speaker
I love a good Christmas rom-com as well. Good Christmas. And so I feel like that wintery vibe lends itself well as well. i I really think like, you know, anything because then there's like fall and there's, I think there's like Meg Ryan rom-com movies. Like I really feel like it can just, it can be any season. um But I feel like it's, it's just how the writer handles it. And this is such a random, I guess you said fantasy. Yeah. Like I, I love the mortal instruments and yeah.
00:31:06
Speaker
One thing that I feel like people don't talk about a lot is that Cassandra Clare really ties in seasons, at least to like the original core six Mortal Instruments books, in a way that like, you know what time of year it is. And I really like that. I want to feel like really immersed in the world. And I think that Talking about, you know, it's fall, it's Halloween, like the leaves are falling, especially in New York City, as you well know, seasons are so dramatic, like it's hot, it's cold. it's And, you know, I think she does that so well. And so I think it's it's just down to the writer and and how they...
00:31:41
Speaker
tie it in uh with that atmosphere like you said that ambiance yeah and i think when i think of like um second world fantasy like epic fantasy or even cozy fantasy that's just like not in our world i always think of like and there's got to be a desert somewhere oh yeah for sure for some reason like i don't well because they're traveling they're on a quest and like what else you gonna do What better way to quest than to go across a desert? You know, it's so dramatic.
00:32:09
Speaker
The the um conflict is like right there. Yeah, yeah. um Yeah. i also think when it comes to setting, i and let's talk a bit about like description, right? Like what I struggle with.
00:32:26
Speaker
So how do you use descriptions to like firmly place your readers and your characters in ah time and place? Yeah.
00:32:37
Speaker
So I, this is one of the reasons why I really like writing setting is because I can, I feel you can find a lot out about character through setting. So one of my favorite video games, perhaps my favorite video game is Life is Strange.
00:32:52
Speaker
um Highly recommend. One of the things you can do in that game as you're kind of furthering the overall plot is like go into a character's dorm room and just like go through their stuff. And it's like to the point where Max, the main character, it's like an in-game joke where people like, Max is so nosy. She just goes through everyone's stuff. Like you can go through people's trash, um like goes to like all their school stuff, go through their closet.
00:33:16
Speaker
And like you learn, you're kind of like piecing together a mystery based on like what you're finding in people's living spaces. And I love writing that. I always loved, this is so weird, but as like a kid, the first time I would go over to a new friend's house, like for a sleepover, like, what does your room look like?
00:33:34
Speaker
And I feel like I bring that into my writing so much. um It was so fun for me to write, and I will never leave you, Maya's bedroom at her dad's house. So not the one where we see her in. It's a lake house for most of the book. She goes back with her love interest, Rowan, and she has to be like, oh my God, she's going to see my room for the first time. And like, I don't really feel like I'm the same person who lived here. And such small details, I feel like can be uncovered through just describing what somebody has in their room. Like, what do they have on their desk?
00:34:08
Speaker
What does their bedspread look like? What's the view out their window? Like, what do they see every day? What's the layout of their house? I think that that is so fun. Again, it feels like playing The Sims. I feel like I'm decorating a little room.
00:34:19
Speaker
And it just, yeah it's easy for me at least to get carried away with that. But if you dial it back and you allow the reader to like uncover just enough about what is in this character's chosen physical space, like they're choosing to, in most cases, decorate the room however they want or, you know, how do they act in that space?
00:34:42
Speaker
I think that um that that really helps me. Yeah.
00:34:51
Speaker
no you are yeah how do they feel about being in the room where they're in so again to use like maya as an example she yeah has this terrible abusive ex-girlfriend who's now a ghost so um And as she's grappling with that, she has this new potential love interest in Rowan, which is just like she's so polar opposite different that Maya is like, I can't even process that this is this person is like an option that I could be with her.
00:35:18
Speaker
And she goes over to Rowan's house and observing her in that atmosphere, in that setting and deciding how she feels about being in that setting like that, then informs their whole interaction.
00:35:31
Speaker
um because she is seeing this whole other life that's so different from this insular, like very oppressive, like rich girl life. She's been in an LA now she's seeing like this girl is so independent. She basically lives on her own. She has this cool house. She lives in the lake.
00:35:47
Speaker
and um I think another way to um Maya's staying in her family is like lake house. So it's a place she went to as a child, but she hasn't been there in years.
00:35:59
Speaker
her older sister now lives there and she hasn't seen her older sister in years and reconnecting in that house that has all these childhood memories now through like the lens of this estranged sister like it's so much and i feel like just by putting her in a setting where she is uncomfortable you can tell a lot about her character and a lot about that sisterly relationship and her other familiar relationships it all starts to kind of come to a head just by putting her in like a room where she's uncomfortable No, you're right. And I, as you were talking, I thought of one, you can learn so much about a character by not just how they decorate their room, but like what, say you're in Rowan's perspective and you walk into Maya's room, it's what is Rowan noticing?
00:36:42
Speaker
Right. Like then you learn so much about her. um When Maya goes to her sister's home, like, what does she notice? What's different? What's the same? What does that tell you about her priorities? Her right.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like mental state. Like, does she notice anything or is she just completely in her own head? Like that can tell you a lot, too. um I think one thing that I have learned. that Like, it's not like it was brand new information, but, like, still, every every day is an epiphany.
00:37:10
Speaker
But one thing that I've learned through doing this podcast is, like, all of these craft elements, we're talking about them separately, but they're all intertwined. Totally, yeah. And so, like, I think I've talked about world building in every single interview.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah. um i I'm like, we've talked about genre today. we Like, we're talking about character. It's just, like, they all... It can be overwhelming at times, I think, when I'm sitting down to like blank page, new draft.
00:37:37
Speaker
brand new story to think of like oh my god i have to think of the setting and then i have to come up with a character and then i've got plot it out and then i've got to come up with those and then you know but the beauty of it is one so much of it is instinctual but also they flow in and out of each other so well right like yeah what your character sees is where they like hold on that sentence wasn't gonna make sense What your character, like how you describe your setting tells you who your character is.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah. And so you can do double duty with all these things. um So that's just a really exciting thought that I just had. is. I think too, like a good writing exercise for people who have like kind of like a nugget of an idea, but you don't really know where to like get started, which is me currently with an adult book that I'm trying to figure out, is like take a character and start with them in a setting where they are really comfortable and they're in their element.
Writing Exercises and Character Dynamics
00:38:29
Speaker
And then something happens, the Fire Nation attacks. And they're now in a setting where they're uncomfortable or deeply uncomfortable. And so why did that happen? Why did they move from point A to point B?
00:38:42
Speaker
And how do they feel now that they've done this? And like, what are they going to do to get out of it? Because nobody wants to exist in like consistent discomfort. So like, how do you get out of that? And I feel like that's... I don't want to say it's a hack. I don't know if it works, but something to try if you're stuck on like, where do I set this? Like, how does this relate to my characters? Like, arc, I feel like that is often ah a good place to start.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, I'm also thinking of studying a lot in the one of the books that I'm currently working on. I'm drafting a young adult witchy romance. and I was trying to like come up with a magic system which was very hard for someone who literally wrote like seven books and was like they're all contemporary so that I don't have to come up with anything new um and then I was like let's come up with a magic system and I decided that it was so it's set in New York City and the magic is like long story short that there's like wellsprings of magic kind of like mines basically that it's just like up appear in random cities and
00:39:40
Speaker
I love that. But then you're tied to the city, right? Okay. Because, like, the closer you are to where the magic originated, the stronger your magic is. If you go to Staten Island or Westchester, you're going to lose some of your, the potency of the magic.
00:39:55
Speaker
That's cool. And that's been a really cool way to, like, tie it in and not just... And honestly, like one of the big things I had with magic was like, how old can magic be? And if magic is ancient, like, why didn't people use it to undo the horrors that we have seen or are seeing currently? And so this was my way to be like, well, magic is localized. Yeah, I think that's good. And it is new. Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker
that was a total aside but yeah that's it's it's interesting to think of like setting and how it really does color everything even if you're not actively describing the setting it's still affecting the character and the story ah here and i think of like I mean, okay. So like, I will never leave you the hauntings, right? Where the ghost is haunting Maya. Like it would feel very different in her bedroom in LA versus the bedroom at the lake house.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure. And I think because you chose that setting where, like, a lake house is lovely and magical and then the sun goes down and you're like, oh, my God, I'm all alone in this, like, creaky old house.
00:41:03
Speaker
yeah there's The neighbors are, like, two miles down the street. it just amps up that feeling of, like... terror yeah you're already in a place that's unfamiliar to you and you know there's that experience of like where you stay in a new house and as somebody else's house you don't know how their shower works like you don't know like what light switch to turn on like it can be really disorienting and so I had a lot of fun with you know the hauntings like when would they happen you're talking about magic systems I had to think a lot and work a lot on like how did the ghost system work and when could she
00:41:37
Speaker
what's the word up here there's a fancier word for that man yeah they yes thank you but when could she manifest it when couldn't she and you know night ghosts it was like pretty easy but then they had to come up with like well why it's difficult but I yeah you know was was kind of not stuck but focused a lot on um what are different ways that every time she manifests it can be a little bit different because I didn't want to be the same exact thing. She walks into her room and Alana is sitting on her bed like that's creepy but you can do that once and then it's like it's not creepy.
00:42:10
Speaker
And I remember talking about this at my launch event for the book but I had always you know sitting down to write like a paranormal supernatural thriller. I thought a lot about like what scares me and I don't like mirrors ever since I saw this episode of Supernatural back in the day. yeah And I was like, the most horrifying thing I can think of is like you're in your bathroom, like getting ready for bed and like pops up in the mirror behind you.
00:42:36
Speaker
ah Yes, that's terrifying. I have to use that. And she, I use that once or Alana pops up in the mirror behind her. And I, I felt like Alana is just going think that's so funny.
00:42:46
Speaker
Like she's just, just another day being a ghost for her, but for my, it's like horrified. And so I think that was fun to figure out too. Like, um, How can I make this as upsetting as possible for Maya?
00:42:59
Speaker
um And how many unique different ways can this can she appear? was fun. That's interesting you say that because that's something I thought a lot about when I was drafting and revising Matt and Cammie, which is a book that was on sub for a while.
00:43:13
Speaker
and I have, um, my character Nat is a runner, and there's this, like, path in, so the book is set in Trieste, which is where I grew up in Italy, and there's this, like, mountainside path that, like, you can see the the sea on one side and the, like, hills on the other, and I love to walk it, so I was like, Nat's gonna run this path every time she has an emotion, um, which is why I joke that the book is, like, one of the tropes is, like, running as therapy, um,
00:43:42
Speaker
So, but I had to stop at one point and be like, okay, that's been like three scenes in a row of Nat on this path. Like, yeah can I differentiate them in some way? Yeah. um Yeah.
00:43:54
Speaker
ah Yeah. So I think that's interesting though. Like you, you can have like ah repeated like themes, settings, but you always have to make them stand out because the last thing you want is your readers to think back on the book and be like, yeah, there, there was a bunch of like these scenes that were all the same in the middle.
00:44:09
Speaker
Right. Yeah. She's always sitting in her bedroom, like talking to a ghost. Like I, that was an early draft of this book, but it fair through lots of revisions, it was, it became different. Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
Um, how do you craft or like you specifically, or you as the broad writer, how do you craft believable settings?
00:44:31
Speaker
That's a great question. <unk> size think, again, there's two things. there's There's one kind of what I said about like how is the character feeling about being in the physical space where they are. and And I think one thing that I always come back to, I had a fantastic English teacher when I was in middle school, which I feel like is really rare. I happened to have him too. Again, i went to this very small private school.
00:44:54
Speaker
I had him for like two years in middle school and two years in high school. ate the English and he was fantastic. And one of the things he taught me was like when characters are having a conversation, it's never just like da-da-da-da-da, she said. Da-da-da-da-da-da, she said.
00:45:07
Speaker
They need to be like doing something. And they shouldn't be just random actions like picking up a hairbrush, walking down the hall. Like it should be like something needs to be like going on.
00:45:19
Speaker
Because how often, I mean sometimes, but how often realistically are you having a conversation with someone and you're literally just sitting there like staring at them? Like, I mean, we technically are doing that right now. But But like you're moving your hands like that kind of stuff.
00:45:32
Speaker
Exactly. Like there's there's other smaller actions that you're taking in between bits of dialogue. And when I learned that as like a teenager, that really, I think, just transformed my writing style and leveled up my ability to write because I was always not just thinking about writing.
00:45:48
Speaker
What are the characters saying to each other, but what are they doing? And then that lends itself to like, oh, they could be, you know, one example is like Maya and Rowan are having this conversation at one point about, don't remember own book, about, you know,
00:46:04
Speaker
how is Maya, you know, Maya's never feeling great throughout the whole book, but how is she feeling about this? There's this police investigation going on surrounding her ex, Alana's death. And they, at the time, are, like, on the beach, like, the lakeside, like, looking for potential, like, clues and, you know, walking around and having them...
00:46:22
Speaker
do physical actions that are related to what they're talking about and are furthering the plot but they're also talking about something different that allows them to just realistically like exist a little bit more whereas if they I think in the initial drop they're just like sitting on the beach which could be fine like you certainly could like do that but one thing I kept coming back to with my editor was like Maya needs to I don't want to spoil too much about my own book, but but that like Maya should be a little bit more afraid of this location, um afraid of the lake.
00:46:54
Speaker
And would she really just sit there and stare out at it or would she be kind of waiting, looking at it and and walking around? and And once I paid more attention to that and gave them something to do, i feel like that makes scenes more realistic.
00:47:09
Speaker
um And I think it's just more fun. One of my favorite scenes of the book, like kind of um because it has existed since the very first draft and i got very sick of it was this party that roan throws at her house um and it just was rewritten so so so many times because it served so many purposes during the book's whole entire life and it landed on, you know, Maya, like, drinking too much and kind of, like, coming on to Rowan more than she means to, and she's not really in that emotional place, and Rowan doesn't want to take advantage of her, and that scene really developed out of them, like, doing different things at the party, like, walking around, like, yeah going outside, like
00:47:50
Speaker
it changed their conversation when I moved them around in physical space and did they interact with other people at the party and feel like I ended up at a place that was much more realistic because I think they talk about things that you would talk about like drinking at a party and early it was like she was in the therapy session with Rowan and I was like these two girls are not going to talk this way to each other like they need to just be in this chaotic environment and then organically what comes out of that felt a lot more realistic.
00:48:20
Speaker
That is a great tip that I'm actually going to use immediately because I'm drafting this like witchy romance and I'm at the point right now where I'm trying to have my character fight with her family. And I was like sitting there earlier today trying to type and I was like, this is just not happening.
00:48:37
Speaker
And I think if I just like move them a little bit, like tweak their their setting, like put them instead of in her bedroom, like in the living room and they're making breakfast, like it's going to change everything and it might open up some...
00:48:49
Speaker
some of my creativity oh i i love to write conflict and and arguments because i think that you know i think that's a great idea and i think that like when you're arguing at least when i'm arguing with somebody i'm like moving all around you know like you're gonna probably walk around cross your arms like roll your eyes like pick up something i don't know like there's so much like something throw it like i don't condone throwing things when you're angry um I think that, like, there is there's so much physicality that when you're angry, you're really not going to just sit there and look at somebody.
00:49:23
Speaker
um And that can be really fun. One of my favorite scenes I ever wrote was in a book called Allie Mae Doesn't Get the Guy, which, like, didn't ever go anywhere. But it was a great book.
00:49:35
Speaker
um And there's, like, the main character, Allie Mae, is fighting with her mom. And I... It's such a blast writing it. This was like 2018 or something and I'm like writing it and I was like and I kind of like pulled the camera back metaphorically and like went into montage mode and was like and then next thing I know like at one point mom is like grilling onions on the stove and I'm like sitting like parched on the windowsill.
00:49:56
Speaker
So and then I was like standing on the couch and mom was like raped across the table and I was like because that's what happens if you're having like a three hour fight with your mom. You're not just like sitting there across from each other going at it. You're like Especially, they're both very emotional people.
00:50:11
Speaker
The characters that I wrote, all of my characters are very emotional. Let's be real. um I love that. I love a good montage. yeah it's one of my favorite scenes i need to reuse it someday that sounds really funny i think also like a lot of comedy can come from like moving people are at like yeah my fatal flaw as a writer is that i will put comedy into anything um i don't think that's a flaw at all shouldn't be there thank you i appreciate that sometimes i'm like this is too funny she's very depressed like watch this scene take it depression can be so funny
00:50:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think mental illness makes you funny. We're getting onto to a whole other topic with this, so I'll stop. the like But it's, you know, yeah, I think that like physical comedy, i think, can also really make scenes relatable.
00:50:56
Speaker
I mean, when you think of like, I went to an improv show a couple months ago, and first of all, I loved it. I thought it was hilarious. I know improv isn't like cool to love, but I was there for it. Yeah, I love it. um But if they're they're very like mobile, like they're always moving around. So much of their comedy is their physicality and how they inhabit the space. And so to bring it back to setting, so much of a believable setting is just like let make it letting characters fully inhabit it, right? Like instead of they're in you know, their tiny corner of their room and that's just what they do. Like you let them have the whole space and kind of see what that can open up for you. Yeah.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you had brought up the like the white room thing because I have that in my notes too. Nice. um Where, you know, i think that that is – that's so common. Like, people fall into that all the time. I know I fall into that all the time where I'm like, i have written five pages and, like, I don't know where we are. I don't know what this place looks like.
00:51:52
Speaker
I think it's so common with early drafts too. Like, it's just you haven't totally figured it out. And I sometimes will literally just, like – info dump to myself and be like i don't have to use this but like what does this house look like or like what does this town look like and her i love making a good map as well o do you make your own massive do you draw maps yeah i draw them i am in no way artistic in that way that's wild look ridiculous um but i but i like to be able to envision if you're walking it's like a math problem
00:52:24
Speaker
If you're walking from this place to this place, like how long is that going to take so that you don't have like continuity issues?
Maintaining Continuity in Settings
00:52:30
Speaker
I'm forever scarred because I had so many continuity issues and I will never leave you. and Copywriter really got made their monies.
00:52:38
Speaker
Yeah, they really did. They really did. Um, that's so funny that you say that because I went to, um, the launch of Fatebreaker by Victoria Aviard last February. think it was. And she talked about maps. She She's a big map girl. Yeah. Yeah. And so she was talking about them and I was like, don't write high fantasy. I don't need no map. Like, this does not apply. And by the end of it, I was like, oh, it does apply. and I think I need to start making maps. So like when I went up to get my book signed, I was like, Victoria, you just like changed my world.
00:53:09
Speaker
And she was like, I love maps. Yeah, i it's so true. I think that that I also used to think that too. It's only for for high fantasy. But one thing I did, drafting I Will Never Leave you when it was like the LA-based places, which is where Maya's from. It's where her school is. where her friends live.
00:53:25
Speaker
I went onto Google Maps and you can make your own private little like list of like places. And so I picked where they lived. And it's like all still in there. I saved to my Google account too. Game changer. This Maya's house. yeah and And then I could figure out.
00:53:39
Speaker
Okay, if she's walking, if she's driving, this is a 10 minute drive. um Because I, again, continuity, but also like, that helped me feel like grounded in the story. And like, I was realistically depicting like, where everything was, I could see it.
00:53:56
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that' so the worst, it's so true, like, the the thing about, like, how long will it take them to drive? Like, so most annoying thing when you're reading is that they're like, okay, we've been in the car, you have two lines of dialogue, and then they're like, yeah, five hours down the road, and you're like, no, you skipped something.
00:54:13
Speaker
Or the opposite, where they have, like, seven pages of dialogue, and then they're somehow one block down, and you're like, that's No. Yeah. How did they say all this? How slowly are they walking?
00:54:24
Speaker
Right. um But that's not something I think about, like, unless I'm reading a book and I find it not done well. Like, and it's the kind of... So much of the work of writing is making yourself and your work invisible, I think. Yeah, that's a good point.
00:54:39
Speaker
Especially with setting where it's like you want it to read so smooth and so natural that people don't realize that you worked your ass off. Yeah. Yeah. Do this believable setting.
00:54:50
Speaker
um But speaking of... How does the believability, like authenticity of the setting, like how does that change when it's a real world setting a la LA or a made up setting la Lake Ember?
00:55:04
Speaker
You have them both in your book. That's perfect. I know, right? je I did that deliberately for this podcast. You did that for me? All those years ago. i Yeah, I think that, um well, first of all, for LA, it's so funny. I lived there for four years.
00:55:18
Speaker
In this exact, it's much of it is like the San Fernando Valley, which is exactly where I lived. And still, like the fear that people would read it and not think it was accurate it was like was so visceral.
00:55:29
Speaker
And I had to hear like, Kara, you lived there. You know what this place is like. You know this route. um i think that that is just a fear when you write a real setting is like somebody somewhere is going to have a bone to pick with like yeah i think i even in la like mentioned real like cafes and stuff like that that are really out there real businesses um but with like ember i think that's The way that i approached making that believable. um So in my earliest draft, I i worked on this book Pitch Wars. I was lucky enough to be in the last Pitch Wars class, which is like one of the greatest experiences of my life. And when I got into Pitch Wars, this is like so goofy now, but Lake Ember was in New England.
00:56:13
Speaker
So Maya was like taking a plane get it. And the reason I did that was because I grew up, my family has always lived on lake houses in like Massachusetts, New Hampshire. And i just really, like that setting was so visceral to me. Again, the ri very like weather based. I was like, it has to be there.
00:56:32
Speaker
and and my mentors were like, this is crazy. Why is she getting on a plane a million times? Who's paying for these plane tickets? Yeah. If there's an active police investigation, like she can't be like across state lines.
00:56:46
Speaker
So I i really oh it like killed me. But I brought the lake to California. And in doing that, I still carried a lot of that. Like, um and I have in my acknowledgments of the book, like three lakes that I spent time on growing up that are very like pivotal in developing the feel of that town. But i had to do a lot of work to de-New England-ize it and make sure I wasn't going on too much about things that are very quintessentially New England because that had really been in there at first.
00:57:14
Speaker
and give it And that's why the real town of Ojai was very helpful to me in crafting like... What would this kind of like metaphysical witchy vibe be in California? and Like that's like an hour ish north of l L.A. What would that feel like?
00:57:31
Speaker
um So I still was pulling from real places and just kind of like making a soup of all of that. um And I think that it was a little more fun to be able to invent things.
00:57:44
Speaker
a lake town based on places that were real but then get to delve into just wildly making it up when I felt like it but I also had those real places to lean on when I had to look at like the geography of the lake and how big of a lake is this and you know how many people would like live around it and how many people would live in this town and like what would their occupations be and i won't go too far on this train of thought but Maya is very She went to a college prep school. She's very academically minded. And where am I going to go to college? And what's my life going to be? And Rowan is like, hey, I'm from this lake town. I'm going to stay here. It's pretty cool. And that is so mind blowing for Maya to meet someone who's just like cool with that.
00:58:24
Speaker
And she ends up, you know, really discovering, like, that's actually what I want for myself, too. And I think that putting her again in in a setting that was realistically what that small lake town by would be like allowed her, I'm talking that she's a real person, but allowed her to figure out.
00:58:42
Speaker
You know, I don't really need this fancy thing that I've been told to want. I can want this, which is also very much me projecting.
00:58:54
Speaker
Isn't so much of writing just us projecting? It's just therapy, you know. then um I love that Lake Ember was like a composite of New England lakes just like transported across the country. And I'm just dying at like her doing cross country moves like in the middle of a police investigation.
00:59:13
Speaker
Yeah, it was a mess. Also...
00:59:18
Speaker
Addie, you can cut this out if you need to. But you said Pitch Wars, and it reminded me that I was talking to our mutual friend Kat once, and we were trying to figure out who your mentors were. And that's how we found the defunct, like, now AI-ified Pitch Wars website.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yes. It um breaks my heart that that has happened. Yeah. Yeah. um That was fun. um Okay, let's see. i only have a few more questions, but one of them is super important, which is like how, what are your best tips and tricks that we haven't already discussed, like for...
00:59:52
Speaker
If you had to teach a class on setting spur of the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's tough because I feel like I've I feel like I've given a bunch. I feel like I've actually like thought of new ones as we've been talking because, oh, actually, like this is what I do. And I've never I've never thought about that Yeah.
01:00:12
Speaker
Let me think for a second. I think that one thing that I would say, i talked a little bit about just kind of like info dumping or like a word vomiting like into a doc and then you don't have to keep it all. I think like with setting, that's almost like one of the most important times to do that.
01:00:29
Speaker
And in the way that I'm working on right now, um fingers crossed the world gets to read it one day. um I've done a lot of of that of just like,
01:00:40
Speaker
on and on and on about like what does this place look like and and there's been a lot of elements i don't know that they're all going to stay in so i won't go super in detail but like into like boarding school into someone's like home and into like small like oceanside town in new england actually this time from my actually get to do it um And just, like, telling myself, like, where is, if you live in this town, where do you go, like, in a day-to-day? Like, especially where does this character spend her time? And um just writing all of that down in a doc, I'll sometimes do, like, um...
01:01:13
Speaker
When I lived in l LA, I had a lot of um TV writer friends. And so I learned a lot about making kind of like a ah show Bible and just everything that you need that goes into that. And I always do that for any project because smart i forget. Again, continuity. i get so scared that I'm going to have continuity issues.
01:01:32
Speaker
um And just writing a list of like, here are the places that I'm going to mention. there's This is like the local coffee shop that everybody hangs out with. hangs out at this is the place on campus where like everyone goes after class this is where this particular character like goes to do her homework um this is the beach that's like the party beach and this is like the chill beach and this is the curse beach and like knowing curse there is a curse yeah maybe oh so and Yeah, like writing all of that down then like saves you so much time when you want to just draft and go quickly. You don't to like, wait, what did I say I was going to name that restaurant?
01:02:09
Speaker
Because I have run into that a lot. And yeah having all of that in ah document is is really helpful. It's like that would be one of my my tips as well as just like that can be a great place to just brain dump. It's just write down everything I want to be in it. And even if it never happens, you have it there reference later.
01:02:29
Speaker
No, that's a great tip. And I need to start doing that because I'm on ah a third draft of a book right now that I'm writing. And i it's my cleanup draft. And the number of brackets, restaurant name, brackets, actor name, that I have to like fix and be like, oh my god, why'd you do this to me? Past Paris, you really screwed me over.
01:02:50
Speaker
um That is a great tip. Final question, which is just for fun. Okay. Do you have any weird or unusual writing superstitions or routines?
Unconventional Writing Habits and Techniques
01:03:04
Speaker
That's a good question. wouldn't go so far as to call it. No, maybe I would. I'm like thinking of all these as soon as you like unlock that in my brain. I wouldn't call this a superstition. I can't ever like eat. I can't like snack while I'm writing except for peanut butter M&Ms, not peanut, but peanut butter M&Ms in the red bag.
01:03:23
Speaker
Oh, my. i don't know why. So why? Now that I said that, I'm like, is that a superstition? Is there something wrong? Am I the drama? and either I remember I just I also was lucky enough to do author mentor match like way I was one of the earlier classes maybe in 2018 um and I like was always eating those M&Ms while I was drafting that book and i don't know if I became a superstition but I don't know that's a that's my one thing and I also i have to draft in Google Docs now that I'm saying this I'm like am I okay
01:03:58
Speaker
I like have to start drafting in Google Docs and I can only use Google Docs until I get to like 50 pages and then I have to go to Word. Oh, there's no reason.
01:04:10
Speaker
It's the have to go to word part where it's like, okay. Yeah, i it's it's something about how I'm like, I don't know if it's necessarily being really visual. i don't know. There's something how about like how I'm looking at the manuscript. It has to move into the different format. and it's um like It's almost like the first 50 pages, you're like, this might not be real yet.
01:04:35
Speaker
Yeah. When it gets real, you're like, okay, yes we got to go to Word. We got to go to Word. Yeah. And I i don't use Scrivener. Scrivener, I yeah always felt like I was faking it when I was writing in Scrivener. like, this isn't real. I'm not kidding.
01:04:48
Speaker
Yeah. Or I will like, sometimes this is really embarrassing to like end our interview on, but sometimes I will trick myself into thinking that I'm writing fan fiction. I'll put it in like, I don't indent and I do like paragraphs, like as if I'm about to like throw this on AO3. Yeah.
01:05:03
Speaker
And so like it unlocks that like writing is fun. ah And I and I don't get us as stressed. There's all kinds of weird little hacks. Yeah, that's that's interesting. I do that sometimes if I'm writing like a poem or an an essay and I'm like, oh, no, the like the Google Doc is too much.
01:05:20
Speaker
It's too serious. I like open my notes app and I'm like, this is where I put my silly thoughts. but Yes. Notes Up is another great one. Like if you're, you know, out and about and it's like, I'm not really writing. I'm just putting oh like there there are literally lines from I Will Never Leave You that I remember one particular one that's at the very, very end of the book.
01:05:37
Speaker
And this was like, oh, my God, four years maybe before it got published. And I was like lying on my living room floor and I was like. Oh, and I got out my phone and I went and wrote like three sentences and it's verbatim in the published.
01:05:50
Speaker
ah Amazing. i feel like something about the notes app sometimes unlocks it because you're like, I'm not really writing. simply vibing. Yeah, it's powerful. I love that. That was an excellent note to end the interview.
01:06:04
Speaker
yeah Just like a glimpse into my brain. It's scary. I appreciate it. That is the point of that question. Okay. i um Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
01:06:18
Speaker
um Thank you for having me. This was so fun. Yeah. Is there anything else that you're like, oh, I should share this about setting? I don't think so. i Other than I feel like I've never thought about setting so much in my life and until like earlier today when I was kind of like brainstorming what we could talk about. and I was like,
01:06:35
Speaker
I have so many thoughts about this and I wasn't sure I would. So yeah, think that setting is like an underrated, like if you're afraid of setting, just dig into it a little bit more and there's so much fun to be had.
01:06:55
Speaker
All right. That was Kara Kennedy on setting. That was such a fun conversation. Not just because I love any time I get to to talk with Kara, especially without publishing.
01:07:07
Speaker
um But just I loved hearing her chatting about setting. One thing that I really loved about her debut was that the atmosphere was like so real. I felt like I was there. I could see it happening. i I like could feel the haunting.
01:07:21
Speaker
of it um and i think she was an excellent person to chat with about setting um i did of course make my silly little like joke about how in my first draft my characters are just in like white rooms that make no sense right they like here's how i first draft messily And my characters are just like they go places that make no sense. It's like it takes them 20 minutes to get from the Upper West Side to downtown Brooklyn.
01:07:51
Speaker
That's not real. That doesn't happen. That only happens Gossip Girl. um And then my revisions are like figuring out what things actually look like and filling in those details. So it was a really fun conversation. I feel like I learned a lot.
01:08:05
Speaker
Nice. Very cool. Yeah, from what I listened to, it's it seemed very cool. And I will listen to more as I edit it this episode and then we post it. Yeah.
01:08:17
Speaker
I'm really excited for our dear listeners to listen to this one. um Yeah, but that was this Kara. That is my manager. That is my friend. That is one of my favorite authors.
01:08:30
Speaker
Really loved her book. It's Sapphic. um Gotta throw that out there because... We gotta know. It's a selling point. Absolutely. Sorry, that was a weird laugh. Wow. um On that note, bye.
01:08:44
Speaker
Bye.