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277 Sarah Langan | Thriller and Horror Author and Three Time Bram Stocker Award Winner
272 Plays5 days ago
Satirical thriller and critically acclaimed horror author Sarah Langan joins us this week to chat about her latest novel Tradwife and the dramatic ups and downs of her publishing journey over the years.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sarah Langan
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like you can fix plot holes, but if the writer is bad. So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of a gamble.
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. On today's episode, I am joined by a critically acclaimed horror and satirical thriller author who has received three Bram Stoker Awards for fiction and is a founding board member of the Shirley Jackson Awards. It's Sarah Langan. Hello.
00:00:31
Speaker
hi good to meet you. So nice to meet you too. Thank you so much for coming on.
Exploring 'Trad Wife': A Horror Story
00:00:36
Speaker
um We like to start these episodes by jumping in right away with your your latest publication and that is your new novel Trad Wife which is out in the UK in May and ah in the US in September. Tell us a little bit about it.
00:00:54
Speaker
So it's about um this reporter who has been canceled and ah she thinks that the best way to get her, but get back in print in this sort of dying institution that is journalism by covering a trad wife um and going to live on her farm for a week.
00:01:16
Speaker
And um it is, it's,
00:01:22
Speaker
it winds up being a horror story. And ah there's a lot of lot of fun stuff that goes on with it. Sorry, ah my voice sounds crazy because I i have a sinus infection. son Oh, that's okay. Yeah. yeah No, it sounds wizened. Like you yeah you've you've seen things. Like like i've just I just smoked four packs, right? that's That's not how I was going to describe it. Yeah.
00:01:49
Speaker
That sounds great. The book sounds cool. I like the idea of a reporter who's been cancelled because you would have thought it would be the other way around, that the reporters were the ones doing the cancelling. Well, you know, what happens is early on she... ah you know She's working for this like storied institution in New York, but what's happened in journalism is journalists used to be paid a living wage, and they're not really anymore. It went from you know like a dollar a word to cents on the dollar. And so she's just coming up at a time when um it's not going to work for
Challenges in Journalism and Writing
00:02:28
Speaker
her.
00:02:28
Speaker
She's got to figure out a different career. And it's heartbreaking because it's all she ever wanted to do. And and sometimes you just you're born at the wrong time. So she realizes she can't write this this serious piece that she really wants to write because she can't get any funding or support for it.
00:02:46
Speaker
And because it's a little bit controversial, ah her magazine won't support it. So instead, she writes this confessional essay about her relationship with her boyfriend. And it's, of course, goes viral because people love that.
00:03:01
Speaker
And um it's not what she wanted to be writing. But that's what gets her canceled is ok controversy controversy over that. And then the next thing is her boss is like, now you should write about trad wives now that you're established as this like woman who talks about her life so much. And she's like, I don't want to. However, it's it's the only way she feels like she can get out from under these trolls is to just publish another piece that's bigger.
00:03:28
Speaker
Okay.
The Trad Wife Sphere and Influencer Culture
00:03:29
Speaker
So the, the world of the sort of sphere of trad wife influences, was that something that you were familiar with before this, or did you have to do a sort of deep dive into that?
00:03:42
Speaker
I was a little bit familiar because, um you know, i'm I'm a mom. And like even on the soccer field, there would be parents like saying, like, did you see this trad wife? Have you seen this? Have you ordered this protein powder or whatever? um So I had some knowledge of it. um i e I didn't do too much of a deep dive because it seems – you know It seems like the manosphere, it's it's all a little bit the same yeah of what they're of what they're putting out.
00:04:14
Speaker
um So it it feels like it's a way for people to make money who maybe need to make a living, um but it's not enriching them as much as it as it is the platforms.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, of course. like Like all of these, any kind of social media, the platform is the one that's really making all of the the money and in whatever way it is. Okay, that's interesting. So it's, yeah, I see what you're saying. Why it's kind of like the Manosphere where it's like, it's ah it's not very deep. Like there's not many layers to it. Kind of what you see is mostly what what you get.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's sort of holding, it's people holding up their lives for judgment and aspiration at the same time. Like there's that interesting, I don't know if you, I did a little bit of research. There's that family that adopted a child because they realized the more often they posted about their kids, the more attention they got. So then they adopted one. And it was it was horrific because yeah it didn't work out.
00:05:15
Speaker
Like there was the kid had ah developmental issues. that they were not prepared for. And they wound up giving the kid back or, you know, rehousing the kid. And they were completely canceled for it, which, you know, because it it brought up all these people who were watching were imagining themselves as participants and that's in this perfect family they'd been viewing.
00:05:39
Speaker
And then this realization that it wasn't that and this rage, you know, against ah against the mother mostly. um It's all pretty interesting. It's it's like um you get paid to put yourself out there and you're also being paid to be pilloried.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. It's interesting. And I can see how it's a very ah enticing setup for an author where you've got someone who is this group of people who are extensively externally presenting one depiction of themselves, but internally are, you know, there's, there's a lot more going on. There's a lot more chaos going on.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's necessarily how it is. i wouldn't, you know, there's there's plenty of chaos in my own life. Yes. And I wouldn't post about it, you know, and I'm always surprised when other people post about their chaos.
00:06:35
Speaker
um So it makes that sense not to do that. It makes sense to curate it for, for you know, as a business model. Yes. Yeah.
Society and Personal Branding: A 'Black Mirror' Reality?
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:45
Speaker
ah But a what interested me is like, When when you know, we're all being posited right now as brands. Right. We're this is how we're supposed to make money.
00:06:59
Speaker
um These these are the jobs. Right. um And it's it's very much like a Black Mirror episode. When does the mask eat the face? um And it's, i you know, I'm kind of fascinated by these questions of of, you know, and why do these stylized, radicalized versions of femininity and masculinity appeal so much? I'm not sure they entirely do. I think the algorithm likes them because they get a response from
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I think the algorithm likes to categorize things. So if you can put lots of things in the same bucket, it likes to do that. And then it can just provide the same buckets to lots of different people.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So getting onto the actual writing of this thing, and of all, of all your novels, in fact, I'd love to always like to ask people, are you, when it comes to writing, do you like to plan everything out ahead of time and then kind of work your way through the plan? Or do you just jump right into the pros and kind of see where it takes you?
00:08:04
Speaker
Well, I used to be a pantser, you know, i would just, i would just write, until it was done. um But I've become a planner. So with Trad Wife, I wanted to get it done.
00:08:20
Speaker
And the best way to get it done is to to write an outline. You don't have to follow it. but But i do i do feel like the more I've talked to people, like I i love the journey of writing. I love writing short stories I never plan. I kind of just wander through them like they're a wilderness.
00:08:38
Speaker
But with a novel, I can get lost and then I can have 12 themes when I should have one and they're all fine, but it's important to pick a few.
00:08:51
Speaker
So i think the outline has been helpful to me um as I move forward.
Writing Process: From Pantser to Planner
00:08:57
Speaker
Okay. My first novel took seven years to write. My second novel was on contract, took 11 months.
00:09:04
Speaker
And it was like, you know what? I love being on contract just because you have to plan and you just have to do it. Yeah. Yeah. You have a deadline that you you're going to have to meet. yeah um So what does a what does a Sarah Langen outline look like? Is it just like kind of bullet points on one sheet of paper? Is it is it lots of sheets of paper?
00:09:27
Speaker
It's like, first off, it's like chicken scratch. and then Okay. Second off, I can't find it. Like I write it and then it's somewhere in my desk. um Right. but But then I have a vague idea of it in my head. And so with Trad knew what the ending would be and I had to write to get there.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I think, you know, that's to me, that's kind of an outline if you know where you're going. um For my next one, I'm writing this book called The the parent trap and I'm halfway through it.
00:09:58
Speaker
And i have a bunch of little index cards that I put on a big bulletin board to get through the first half. And now I take them all down and I'm rewriting it so that I can, because, you know, I, the best laid plans, right? I've never ever written a book, even, even trad wife on a tight schedule that it was on.
00:10:22
Speaker
I've never written anything straight through. you know, i I write the first third and then I realize, you know, much as I like it, it doesn't work, you know, for where I'm going and I have to rewrite it. And then I write the first half and then I have to rewrite it.
00:10:37
Speaker
And usually after the first half, I can get through to the end. um So, so it's like, it's, it's a combination of of where am I going with this, but also,
00:10:52
Speaker
ah You know, the there's the little nuggets you find along the way of of truth in your characters that um that sort of sidetrack where you thought the story was going. And it's important to be flexible, too, um to try and try and tell the best story you can.
00:11:13
Speaker
Okay. So, okay. So you sort of, you'll often have a few full starts, but once you get to the middle, generally it's a sort of home stretch from there. I guess it's like, it sounds sort of like you're, you're climbing up the mountain. You have to start again a few times. Once you hit the middle, you're at the top and then you can just run down the second half.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And then you get to the end and you go, okay, does the end match the beginning? Should I come through? And like, I call it combing, you know, like, I just think of it as like a really knotty hair where you have to sort of massage all the knots once you're, once you're all through.
00:11:47
Speaker
yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, writing is rewriting as they say. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the fun part's the writing, the rewriting. Yeah. I think that's how most people feel. I think that I've spoke definitely spoken to some authors who who who will say like, they actually find the, the vomit draft, as some people call it, they find that to be the difficult thing. And they're like, i just have to get through it. And then I, and then I love when I go through and I fix everything. So I think that there's two ways of two different schools of thought on that. um But I think in general, most people like the, the writing part more than the rewriting.
00:12:23
Speaker
it did Yeah, I mean, it depends. like there's the The writing part, what's nice about it is you don't really have to solve any problems. You think, well, You know, I'm going to have to, this is this arc's going to have to happen and this arc's going to have to happen and this conflict has to be resolved and I'll have to like figure out how to just just um nuts and bolts writing action scenes.
00:12:46
Speaker
I don't have to do it right now. I can just, you know, like wing it. Yeah, exactly. So that's fun. But it yeah, and then getting it right on the edit is really fun. But staring at the the the yawning gap between draft and ah something presentable is ah sometimes, ah you know, you get up in the morning and all right, today's a hard day.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I guess the realization that you're like, good for me, I wrote 90,000 words. Unfortunately, no one can ever see this in its current state and I have a lot work to do.
00:13:26
Speaker
And maybe like, and that killing of the darlings is so hard too. yeah And I, I've never, it's always my favorite thing that has to go. so That's all right. It's all right. You don't remember it a year or two later that it ever existed. So, or I don't. My husband was like – I told my husband, I was like, I have to rewrite the first half of my book. This is just this week. I'm down about it. He goes, go ahead and do it and then just save all your drafts. And I was like, what?
00:13:55
Speaker
I don't save anything. Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
It would be too many books in my head. I just have to, you know, move on. Yeah, exactly. Because yeah, like you said, you want to, you want, you almost want to forget about it. It's like, no, no, the final version is the only version. And I don't want to remember the other things that I had to remove or, or whatever it might be.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah. That's interesting. And this, this is your sixth novel is, do you still find it like you haven't hardened your kind of skin to killing your darlings? It's it's still upsetting every time.
00:14:26
Speaker
Oh, no, it's so hard. And every time it feels like ah it's a new book. I was actually talking to um this writer, Philip Fricasse. He's a horror writer.
00:14:38
Speaker
and ah he was saying the same thing where we were like, oh, man, we're writing new books and it's hard. And like, we're trying to figure out new things. And, you know, it's yeah i don't I wouldn't have it any other way. Like, I love the discovery process. Yeah.
00:14:54
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah, You're always learning as a writer and you're always discovering not just new parts of the story, but like new parts of of writing, I think, as of the craft itself. Yeah, yeah. and And I still, there's so much room to get better. i just read Lauren Groff's novel, novel Brawler, or her collection of short stories.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I was so inspired by how good they are. And yeah, I mean, and and I was also inspired by her structural choices.
00:15:26
Speaker
They're so confident. You know, it yeah it trusts a reader to draw their own conclusions. It trusts a reader to make time jumps, um you know, in ways that I don't always and always trust a reader. And, you know i love I love reading books.
00:15:43
Speaker
great books and learning from them and thinking like, I could get better. i need to get better. i want to get better. Like I, I, I, you know, I love that. Yeah. And then, well, for me, sometimes I'll read a book and I'll be like, I will never be as clever or as articulate or as smart as this person.
00:16:04
Speaker
Well, sometimes loud it's like, they have that strength, but you have a different strength. Like we'll never, you know, that's, that's what voice is. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker
The individual personality. Yeah. No, absolutely.
Adapting Novels into Screenplays
00:16:18
Speaker
Um, before we get to the cabin, I did want to ask about, um, I saw on your website, you, you, you write prose, but it says you also work in film, presumably I'm i'm guessing as a screenwriter.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And, and you mentioned that I know that those are two very different processes. Um, and you you mentioned that you are a planner nowadays when it comes to novels, but you, with a short story, you'll still just kind of pants it and see where you're going.
00:16:51
Speaker
What's your process like for writing for film and television versus, you know, um, prose, whether it's short or long form fiction? Well, I've done less of it, so I'm not as ah adept. But so I i have so far have only adapted my own material.
00:17:11
Speaker
And I found that to be not too hard. like like Because it's already my story and I and i think about it. And I wrote the pilot for Good Neighbors as a TV show.
00:17:26
Speaker
And I had a lot of help. I was working with this producer, Aaron Jontow at John Wells, which is like a big production company in L.A. And, um you know, they kind of held my hand through the whole thing and and had me do an outline. And then we talked about like, well, what makes sense to end the pilot on? Because there were a couple of defining moments to end it on. And I think what's interesting about television writing is it eats plot.
00:17:57
Speaker
um So you just have to always have these –
00:18:02
Speaker
these big moments in TV where you may not have to do them in a a feature film. So it was pulling out all of the big moments and figuring out, you know, which episodes would have what.
00:18:15
Speaker
um And then, you know, ah the after that, it was it was really fun to write. But the problem with... ah with screenplays and teleplays is the format I find very frustrating because I tend to like to work a chapter over again and again. However, you know, if there's 70 scenes or 90 scenes or whatever, um it just feels like you're getting stopped every time.
00:18:44
Speaker
And i think I think that just depends on which medium you work in more. So if you're not a novelist, then you're you're doing 10 scenes in a sitting and going over them.
00:18:58
Speaker
But as a novelist, I'm looking at the one scene. you know And then i yeah i it's really hard to make the next transition. yeah and then on top of that, I i wrote the screenplay for Pam Kowalski as a monster, which was great. my last ah novella that came out.
00:19:15
Speaker
um And that was pretty good. And what what I learned was that I actually learned something when I was learning about writing teleplays um about how to do it.
00:19:26
Speaker
And I think, um yeah, yeah, it's been it's been fun. And I live in LA, so it's, you know, it's accessible. Like there's yeah it's a lot of screenwriters out here.
00:19:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So it sounds like it's the kind of thing where you're interested in doing it, but only as an extension of your kind of prose and things like that. You're not looking to write original screenplays. You're looking to do adaptations of your own stories. You know, I've written, um yeah, I would do an original screenplays.
00:19:59
Speaker
feature because that can be kind of fun. But ah mostly it's adapting my own material. And a lot of writers don't bother with that, which can make sense. um But ah yeah for me, I kind of feel like I'm out here and I am really happy to learn new skill sets. So as long as they're willing to let me attach myself to my own material, um I'm going to do it yeah And I think I have something to offer because a lot of the times, um yeah, like they don't know who to hire. They'll like – they'll option your your stuff. But then they're like, who's the best writer for this?
00:20:44
Speaker
And they don't always – they're not always clear. And um it can be – I think I can be an asset in that just just in giving them the initial stab of like here's here's what – Here's what it would look like.
00:20:59
Speaker
and yeah And they can move on from there. They can hate it. They can, you know, find somebody else. But I think I'm pretty good at adapting my own work. Yeah. and Well, and keeping keeping the themes in place because, like, the reason they get it is because they liked it.
00:21:15
Speaker
And so sometimes they'll find screenwriters who are like, oh, but I have this other idea And they'll completely change it And everyone goes, hi don I don't, I don't know how feel about
Screenwriting Collaboration and Constraints
00:21:25
Speaker
this. i don't know if I like this as much. And it's like, because it's not the same, you know, like I'm babbling here, but that's, ah that's what I know about screenwriting.
00:21:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah. And absolutely get it. And you were saying that yeah you, you as an, as the author, I think are an incredible asset because, you know, it's an adaptation. It's going to be made for people who liked the book. Like you said, they, they would have optioned it because they liked the book and,
00:21:49
Speaker
You as an author, like in theory, no one knows the book better than, than you. So like yeah in terms of keeping it true, an adaptation is always going to be different. You know, it has to change to fit the medium. Like you're saying with television, that you kind of need to, you kind of need to mess with the pacing a bit because a book will be paced differently to a TV show. So it's, it's, ah it's about juggling all of that whilst also keeping it, you know, the voice that we're talking about earlier, it's about keeping your voice and keeping the story true to what it's meant to be. And I think the author is going to be one of the best resources that a team can use to be like, is this, you know, is this, how would you do it? Do you think this still stays true to the, to the, you know, the, the meaning of this chapter or whatever it might be?
00:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think we're we're good assets for for anybody trying to adapt our work. It's just, it it makes sense to me. yeah And I don't, you know, you you can't like start crying and being like, you can't take that out. I love that. Yeah. You know?
00:22:46
Speaker
yeah, yeah. Obviously, said there's a huge difference between ah like writing a novel and ah making film or television is that film or television television will involve dozens, if not hundreds of people within a team all working together. Whereas the novel you can write the first draft by yourself and then you go and work with your editor and you're kind of like there at a certain point, you know what I mean? The difference in the number of people makes it makes a big ah impact as well.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah. And I, it's it's funny, film and TV people, the writers, they talk much faster than novelists.
00:23:25
Speaker
And i' like i I remember thinking, am I the only person who's just like a slow thinker? you know And it's not, I wouldn't say slow, but just when I'm thinking about plot, if someone's like, what if we change this character? What if this doesn't work and we need something else? And I'll fit i'll go, hmm, I'll need to take a walk and think about that.
00:23:46
Speaker
And everybody else in the room is like, what about this? What about that? What about this? What about that? It's just, it's a really completely different um way of creating. Yeah. I wonder if it has more and ah more akin to like journalism.
00:24:02
Speaker
It's very collaborative. Yeah. very collaborative. And, and you know, i I think it can only be good when you have a visionary pushing, but that visionary also has to be very good at being collaborative and taking notes. And, you know, the thing with – with film and TV is that sometimes the notes are just somebody doesn't like something ah for a financial reason. Like, oh, this, you know, audiences might not like this, or yeah let's, let's, this, this, you know, we, we noticed in our algorithm, we can never have flashbacks. And so in a novel, your editor doesn't care as long as it's good. Yeah. but
00:24:47
Speaker
But a film writer has to go, okay, great. And then has to has to make it just as good under, you know, 20 new confines. Yeah, that's true. Every time they reach a different ah step in the process of trying to get a green light.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. um Okay. it wasn' Awesome. That was a really interesting, interesting answer. I'm always curious about how these two kinds of things work behind the
Sarah Langan's Book Recommendations
00:25:12
Speaker
scenes. We're at the point in the episode where I ask you, Sarah, if you were snowed in at a cozy woodland cabin in the middle of nowhere, which book would you hope to have with you?
00:25:23
Speaker
Okay, I was thinking Adrian Tchaikovsky's Next Children of book. Okay. That would be really fun. Or Philip K. Dick's Ubeck.
00:25:36
Speaker
Okay. Okay, interesting. Going for the the sci-fi stuff there. Well, it's, some you know, like, you you've got your time to focus. like That's true, yeah. Like, that's what I was thinking of, you know.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think of something where it's like, I need to have no distractions and just be nothing else there. So I can really focus and like understand all the minutiae here. yeah Yeah, I love that. I was going to give you um a hundred years of solitude. And I was like, that's so pretentious. That cannot be my answer. So that's the, ah that book is on.
00:26:08
Speaker
And look, it's a, it's a fantastic book, but that book is the the book that you see whenever you see like a celebrity interview and they're like, what are your top favorite books? It's always, always on there. and i I was like, oh yeah. I know. I like, have you read it? I don't know Maybe you have, but yeah.
00:26:25
Speaker
You know what? Maybe I'd finally read House of Leaves. Could I just like, like I've tried so many times. Well, I mean, let's stick with Adrian Tchaikovsky. He was on this podcast not too long ago. Great, great chatting with him.
00:26:39
Speaker
um Yeah. I mean, he's working. he has so many books coming out all the time. i don't know how he he fits in the, fits in the hours in the day. He's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, he's incredible. He's so good. And and like, ah ah it's great to talk to him and and know that like, with all of his success and everything he's done, he still just loves the craft and loves what he's doing. Like he started playing Warhammer and then he he spoke to the people who run Warhammer and now he writes novels in that universe for them. I'm like, that's so cool.
00:27:07
Speaker
That is really cool. Yeah. That is so fun. Just loves it. love The love of the game. um Awesome. So Adrian Tchaikovsky in the Cozy Woodland Cabin. love that. That's great stuff. um Next up, we are going to chat a bit about ah your publishing journey from before you landed your first book deal all the way up to now. That will all be available for everyone listening in the extended episode, which you can find at www.patreon.com forward slash right and wrong. Yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, it would. that That can be a sustaining career. Yes, absolutely. If you had 5,000 to 10,000 dedicated fans, pretty good. Really good. would say yeah Yeah. Really good. Yeah.
00:27:51
Speaker
Okay. Amazing. Great advice and a great place for for us to to end the episode there. So thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on and and chatting with me and telling us all about your kind of experiences with publishing and your your journey with with writing and everything. And your your new book, Trad Wife, which for everyone listening is out May 14th in the UK and then out in September in the in the US. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's been awesome chatting with you.
00:28:15
Speaker
Jamie, this has been terrific. Thank you for having me.
Conclusion and Social Media
00:28:18
Speaker
And for anyone wanting to keep up with what Sarah is doing, you can find her on Instagram at Sarah Langan. She's also on Facebook. And if you want even more details, you can go to our website, sarahlangan.com. 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, Sarah. And thanks to everyone listening. we will catch you on the next episode.