82. AMANDA SELLET: Retelling old movies as romance novels with heart and humor

Amanda Sellet is the author of the new romance novel "The Odds of Getting Even" and it's such a great time, much like Amanda herself. We're talking all about friendship with other authors, transitioning from a career in journalism to writing novels, and all the puns this book contains. 

FOLLOW AMANDA

BUY THE BOOKS
Bookshop:
The Odds of Getting Even
Hate to Fake it To You
By The Book

Amazon:
The Odds of Getting Even
Hate to Fake it To You
By The Book

LibroFM:
The Odds of Getting Even
Hate to Fake it to You
By The Book

Transcript

00;00;31;22 - 00;00;52;10
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie here literary hype woman and today's author conversation is a fun one because by this little random journey, she is kind of me. If you saw my conversation with Meghan Bannon, we both feel that we are very similar people. But Megan says that Amanda is also her, so therefore I am Amanda.

00;00;53;00 - 00;01;15;12
Speaker 1
Who knows? But we had a good time. Today's author conversation features Amanda Sally, who has written some Y.A. books and now she's writing in the Adult Romance Space. Her newest book is called The Odds of Getting Even. And there are some shenanigans afoot. It is kind of a nod to an older movie. So if you know that older movies can pick up on the references, but if not, it's really enjoyable.

00;01;15;22 - 00;01;24;29
Speaker 1
And shenanigans, strip poker shenanigans, so I'll let Amanda tell you all about it. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Amanda Sully.

00;01;30;11 - 00;01;32;15
Speaker 2
Welcome to the Literary Society to have you.

00;01;32;15 - 00;01;35;07
Speaker 1
On to talk about your upcoming book, The Odds of Getting.

00;01;35;07 - 00;01;36;11
Speaker 3
Even. Thank you.

00;01;36;13 - 00;01;43;02
Speaker 1
Before we get into talking about the book we have, talk about your best friend. What is it like being best friends with Megan Dillon?

00;01;43;06 - 00;02;03;17
Speaker 3
I mean, it's exactly what you would imagine. You know, you just think like oh, my gosh. Like, could she possibly be as much of an up with people like super cheerleader, you know, constantly supportive and just the wind beneath my wings and all of that. I mean, we have a constant text thread. She reads everything I write. She talks me off the ledge.

00;02;03;27 - 00;02;24;10
Speaker 3
I mean, it is honestly, it's just like one of the greatest gifts you can have is to have a writer bestie who totally gets like the hard parts of the job and is able to see the good in your writing. You know, when you feel like everything you're writing that day is like a steaming pile. Of course, Bucky, to use like a slightly Western metaphor in keeping with the theme of this book.

00;02;24;14 - 00;02;33;12
Speaker 1
So you're making her part of this epic creating community in Kansas City. So talk a little bit about what it's like to be part of such a super squad of local authors.

00;02;33;12 - 00;02;53;21
Speaker 3
I think people are always surprised you know? Well, first, they're surprised that people live in Kansas and, you know, I'm like, Whoa, shocker. And we did not all get blown away by a tornado and then they're surprised by how many writers there are. And we think of it as, you know, like a kcmo crowd. And I live in Lawrence, which is a college town in a university town.

00;02;53;21 - 00;03;12;14
Speaker 3
So maybe slightly less surprising. There are that many writers there. And then we have the Kansas City contingent. But there are so many writers that when I go to the post office in town and I say, I want to mail something media mail, the first question is, oh, are you one of those writers? I mean, it's just like everybody knows, you know, and it's like we have a great independent bookstore.

00;03;12;27 - 00;03;30;26
Speaker 3
You know, we have a book events. We get authors coming through town and, you know, kind of like it feeds itself, you know, as a culture. And yeah, I don't I'm not sure that I would be a published writer if I hadn't fallen in with that group, you know, shortly after moving to this part of the country, like about 15 years ago.

00;03;31;07 - 00;03;38;13
Speaker 1
They are very motivational and and if they find out you travel, they're like, Come, we will need.

00;03;38;13 - 00;03;58;27
Speaker 3
You. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, there's no question I've had like I always remember when my very first young adult book signings and I was in the process of like fielding offers from two different publishers and I was just it was just a constant series of texts and phone calls. And I also decided that would be a good time to color my hair.

00;03;59;06 - 00;04;09;07
Speaker 3
So sort of just running in and out and like hoping that my hair wasn't going to fall off. I was attempting to text people for advice, shout out to Natalie Berger and Tessa Gratton in particular for that.

00;04;09;12 - 00;04;11;00
Speaker 1
They're really good at getting people together.

00;04;11;14 - 00;04;32;00
Speaker 3
Yeah, they're very much community builders and, you know, kind of leaders of that movement and really believe in paying it forward and educating people, which, you know, I think we all of us who have benefited from their advice over the years hope to be that for somebody else in the future. But I feel like I still don't know enough to give people that kind of advice, but someday hope springs eternal.

00;04;32;10 - 00;04;33;07
Speaker 3
Maybe in my sixties.

00;04;33;13 - 00;04;38;17
Speaker 1
Yeah, we have them to thank for serious note and Julie Murphy and therefore Christmas Lodge.

00;04;39;00 - 00;04;40;05
Speaker 3
Exactly the right.

00;04;40;05 - 00;04;42;27
Speaker 1
To make friends as a writer. It's yeah, great timing is just.

00;04;42;27 - 00;04;43;09
Speaker 3
The best thing.

00;04;43;25 - 00;04;52;09
Speaker 1
So your book that is about to come out is getting even. So for anybody who has not seen this on social media or ever good reads what is it about it?

00;04;52;27 - 00;05;15;05
Speaker 3
So the odds of getting even is a retelling of the classic screwball comedy, The Lady Eve, starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. And in the original movie, Barbara Stanwyck is like part of a gang of basically hustlers and card sharks. And so they Henry Fonda they meet him on a steamer, you know, this very glamorous, like ocean liner.

00;05;15;12 - 00;05;37;25
Speaker 3
And he's coming back from like, you know, months. And he now is on study stakes. So he is like the most eligible bachelor anywhere, super handsome. And he's the heir to this beer fortune. And so she sets out to rule him, and he's just like a movie full of amazing sexual tension, even though it's like an old black and white movie and nothing explicit happens.

00;05;37;25 - 00;06;00;18
Speaker 3
The man that you're doing the scenes of him putting shoes on her, things like that. So I love that movie and it is like ridiculous and romantic. And so this is my version of that, like contemporary setting and, you know, instead of going on an ocean liner, they go on a little trip to South Dakota where she thinks she's going to like kind of a Coachella style music festival.

00;06;00;29 - 00;06;04;25
Speaker 3
But it ends up being like sort of a hoedown. She has the wrong wardrobe.

00;06;06;10 - 00;06;07;24
Speaker 1
Only one covered wagon.

00;06;07;26 - 00;06;10;27
Speaker 3
Only one covered wagon, folks. It's glamping time yeah.

00;06;11;27 - 00;06;21;11
Speaker 1
Which was thrown out during her battle. The drums had so much fun. But what was the original spark for you in deciding that you wanted to retell this movie?

00;06;21;19 - 00;06;43;05
Speaker 3
Gosh, you know, I think true confession, like, it's partly because when I saw this movie, I love all movies and like I have a master's degree in cinema studies from NYU and I've always I grew up watching movies and this one in particular because in the time when I was actually growing up, like Henry Fonda was still making movies, he was so like my understanding of Henry Fonda was kind of time.

00;06;43;05 - 00;07;09;02
Speaker 3
So I just look up pictures of that. He was a very old man. Like, his granddaughter was starting her career, like when I was growing up, I saw this movie and I was like, Oh, crap. Like, this has got to be one of the most beautiful men ever. He is so hot. And so it was partly that I was like, All right, I'm just going to write this movie where you have this incredibly beautiful man who is a total goofball and like a hot science nerd.

00;07;09;11 - 00;07;17;11
Speaker 1
We talked a little bit about the cover off camera. And so the cover that you have here is a little bit different than the cover that we were going to see in Source.

00;07;17;24 - 00;07;38;23
Speaker 3
Yeah, Charlie he got to go up between this draft cover, which is on the advanced reader copies, and then you'll see on the final copies. You know, I was like, we really need him to be more sort of Clark Kent with the glasses on. But you can still tell he's hot, you know, as opposed to like extremely nervous guy with like a sweating issue.

00;07;39;12 - 00;07;42;04
Speaker 3
It's sort of what we have going on there. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

00;07;42;20 - 00;07;47;19
Speaker 1
It looks good in the movie. It would seem to me that that's happening there.

00;07;48;06 - 00;07;59;03
Speaker 3
Maybe our tastes have evolved and we're like, you know, Superman, it's a little bit obvious, right? Like the like right leaves nothing to the imagination. I just want something that I can unpeel. I like, you know, I like to savor the mystery a little bit.

00;07;59;13 - 00;08;08;27
Speaker 1
So Elizabeth has a great title, The Odds of Getting Even, which as I've been talking about this book and really I will read it based on that title alone little bit. About the title creation process.

00;08;08;29 - 00;08;13;27
Speaker 3
OK, so I love puns. It's a weakness, right? It's a sickness. I think.

00;08;13;27 - 00;08;15;01
Speaker 1
It might be a journalistic.

00;08;15;11 - 00;08;39;19
Speaker 3
Jesus. I think maybe so. Yeah. So we I suggested 8 billion snake based puns. His intel is me, baby, one more time. His and hers. I mean, went on and on and on, right? And I was like, these are amazing. They're just going to die for these. We're like, no, thank you. No snakes. And so and I was like, all right, we have to riff on the Lady Eve and so it was like some Enchanted Evening, you know?

00;08;39;19 - 00;09;00;29
Speaker 3
And then we finally start working around to this one, which I love, because it gets to the fact that they're two oddballs and there's a revenge plot and, you know, there's kind of the poker thing and all of that. So there's sort of that gamesmanship and that one on each other all the time. So yeah, I just felt like this was the funnest of the options aside from the snake puns.

00;09;01;15 - 00;09;05;28
Speaker 1
And it kind of hints at the, the, the gambling side of things.

00;09;05;28 - 00;09;08;25
Speaker 3
Yes. Exactly. Love being the greatest gamble of all.

00;09;09;02 - 00;09;26;17
Speaker 1
So there's a line very early on in this late. So Gene's working at this resort hotel and she's talking about one of her coworkers, Pauline's lovely singing worm, who's incapable of not singing along with the background music. What song are you incapable of not singing along with her?

00;09;26;23 - 00;09;46;15
Speaker 3
Oh, wow. You know, I kind of thought maybe we were going to get to do walk up songs for the panel today. The Battle of the Troops panel. And I spent a lot of time thinking about that. And so for me is going to be something from the eighties, and it's a toss up between smooth operator shuddering and Betty Davis eyes and I will sing the lyrics wrong.

00;09;46;15 - 00;09;49;01
Speaker 3
Whatever the song is, it really doesn't matter what it is.

00;09;49;09 - 00;09;57;20
Speaker 1
That was about to be the next question because she does not correctly sing the lyrics. What's your favorite misheard song lyric?

00;09;58;00 - 00;10;17;23
Speaker 3
Oh, that's a tough one. Oh, there's so many. I mean, like when I think of Betty Davis eyes, I think about the fact that I really thought it was a disease for a long time. And I think there's a line in that. It's like her hair is Harlowe Gold. And I think it's like Jean Harlow, you know, the old timey movie star.

00;10;17;23 - 00;10;23;25
Speaker 3
And I always thought that her hair as hot, as gold, I don't know, maybe the gold is burning, it goes molten. I'm not sure what's going on there.

00;10;24;03 - 00;10;42;01
Speaker 1
This book is full of so much humor, so much like just right off the bat, all kinds of giggly moments, including bare bones feuds. Who knows who's to say which it's supposed to be. So talk a little bit about crafting humor in your romance.

00;10;42;07 - 00;10;59;02
Speaker 3
I love humor. I have a huge weakness for it. I mean, it's like to the point that sometimes I'll read a book that other people think is a sad book. And my main memory of it is like the one line that was really funny, you know? And so I'll recommend something to people that you like read that was really sad.

00;10;59;02 - 00;11;17;27
Speaker 3
Like, people died. And I was like, Did you read that joke? Like, that was so funny. And apparently that's not how other people read where they're just sort of skimming you know? It's like a like a whale. Like, all the water is going through those things and they're just getting like the plankton out of it or whatever. That for me is that and like plot block, like whatever bromance I like that too.

00;11;17;27 - 00;11;45;06
Speaker 3
But it's mainly the jokes. And for me, the struggle is to pull back. And so revision is about killing jokes. And not like so many because I need to greens readers need to breathe and writers need to breathe, whatever. So yeah, I tend to maybe go a little too hard on it. But yeah, I always want to do like, you know, go door to door with my books and be like, listen, is there people who like really silly stuff?

00;11;45;16 - 00;11;55;08
Speaker 3
You have to like a farce you have to like things where it's ridiculous. It's not pretending to be realistic. It's just about like, OK, it starts at a place of absurdity and then it goes from there.

00;11;55;16 - 00;12;08;14
Speaker 1
One of my favorite lines in the beginning is saying that someone gets the equivalent of a pair of pleated khakis. What to you is a human who's still a paraplegic is.

00;12;08;23 - 00;12;47;00
Speaker 3
I mean, it's a chair, right? Like we you're imagining this guy, you know, it's the guy. He's in the khakis. He's in the topsiders, he is in the golf shirt, and he has extremely boring haircut and yeah, he's not as good looking as he thinks he is. I worked at a dry cleaners in high school, so I saw a lot of unfortunate men's pants you know, like business, casual, whatever, slightly before the era of Dockers are still, I guess you could say, like, maybe I have a little chip on my shoulder this is book therapy, right?

00;12;47;00 - 00;12;51;03
Speaker 3
This is how we get past all of these things that, you know, we've suffered through in our youth.

00;12;51;08 - 00;13;06;29
Speaker 1
We process trauma after reading and writing. Yeah, it is it is a thing that happens. And there's of a traumatic wish for these, too. But let's do some fun times of poker. So what are you, a poker player or did you have to research the poker for this book?

00;13;07;10 - 00;13;30;05
Speaker 3
So my youngest brother does play poker. And so without telling him why I needed to know this, I would just ask him questions like, are there any mildly suggestive poker terms that you know for sure? Like, OK, that's weird, but he did send them to me. So that was in the same way that I get like video game information from my three brothers and things like that.

00;13;30;23 - 00;13;40;15
Speaker 1
Siblings are useful sometimes, which is something that we have in common. You are the oldest of five. I'm the oldest of four, and we are about the shortest amount of our siblings.

00;13;40;16 - 00;13;43;08
Speaker 3
So rude. It's so rude. Like, why does.

00;13;43;08 - 00;13;49;08
Speaker 1
This always happen? I feel like that's a very common thing for the oldest to be the shortest. Why? Why? Why science?

00;13;50;05 - 00;14;10;07
Speaker 3
Well, in my case, according to my mother, it's because she had a lot of Swanson, this frozen chicken pot pie while she was pregnant with me. So I probably did not get the same quality nourishment that my siblings got because after that, she went through her own house kitchen like vegetarian awakening and started, like, making her own pasta and yogurt and bread and stuff like that.

00;14;10;18 - 00;14;17;23
Speaker 3
So they're all like, you know, prime physical specimens. And I'm just like the God of the family. So tragic.

00;14;18;09 - 00;14;19;05
Speaker 1
So true.

00;14;19;16 - 00;14;28;12
Speaker 3
And now my daughter is six feet tall, so I am once again the shortest in my household. So I would say, you know, I know my microbes are coming. That's what I like to know.

00;14;29;12 - 00;14;30;29
Speaker 1
We're not we're not short now.

00;14;31;16 - 00;14;35;10
Speaker 3
You can't judge because we're standing next to each other, but we are statuesque.

00;14;35;14 - 00;14;44;17
Speaker 1
Let's go back to the poker scene. There's a reference to Greco-Roman poker. If you were to make this into a real game, what rules would it be?

00;14;45;12 - 00;15;04;09
Speaker 3
Well, clothing optional, obviously. And I feel like it would be funnier if people had to grease themselves in some way, you know, or an oil, whatever it is, like sanitary. And it's not going to stain like the textiles in your living room. Yeah.

00;15;05;08 - 00;15;23;06
Speaker 1
So main character, Jean. Yes. She's working at a hotel, but she is an artist and she has this line about not wanting to explain that she's an artist. And I feel that that's very common among writers. I'm like, well, I want to be a writer. I'm not a writer yet. So talk a little bit about why we feel like we need to justify air craft.

00;15;23;11 - 00;15;39;26
Speaker 3
It is hard, isn't it? And I remember when I do apply for a new passport and it was pretty easy when I worked at newspapers and you're like, Oh, I'm a reporter. I'm a journalist, you know? And then when I stopped doing that and I started trying to write, there was this time when it's like, OK, but I don't have anything published yet, you know?

00;15;39;26 - 00;15;56;19
Speaker 3
And I'm close, but I'm not there yet. So am I a writer, you know? Am I an author? Like my novel is, I don't know what you call it, house. And then at one point I actually got pulled aside by airport security and Amsterdam, and they're like, so it says here that you're a writer. And I had to defend it.

00;15;57;00 - 00;16;09;06
Speaker 3
And, I mean, they asked me a lot of questions. You're like, and where's your publisher and where are they based? Is that in New York? And I was like, Are you trying to draw me out? Like, is this some kind of weight? Do you think I'm a spy? Like, out of an amazing. Right, but I mean, want to cover.

00;16;09;10 - 00;16;10;12
Speaker 1
That sounds like a whole new book.

00;16;10;15 - 00;16;22;17
Speaker 3
Right? I know. And then I was like, but that sort of forced me to be like, OK, I have to take this on now and and say it. But it is really hard because how do you decide, like, what's that line in the sand? It's like, is it when you're an agent? Is it when you have something in the contract?

00;16;22;26 - 00;16;25;10
Speaker 3
Is it when you finish writing your first book?

00;16;26;08 - 00;16;43;14
Speaker 1
Yeah, I've heard some people would be like, if it's not published, you're not a writer. I've heard people who are if it's not traditionally published, then you're not an author. And then I've also heard if you do any writing at all, you're a writer. So what does being a writer mean to you?

00;16;43;23 - 00;17;15;08
Speaker 3
I feel a kinship with anybody who cares deeply about writing and is committed to the crowd and learning how to do it better. And to me, that's a writer. And so if you're doing the best work that you're capable of doing and you're constantly striving as a writer and to learn and to improve and to level up, then to me, you're a writer, you know, and that really is the heart of it more than having a book published, more than selling a lot of books, more than getting an award or a star review or anything like that.

00;17;16;16 - 00;17;30;02
Speaker 3
Being a writer is the writing that you do alone, like just you and your keyboard or your notebook, whatever it is you in the story, you in your mind, you know, like twirling around in the recesses of your imagination. Like coming up with plots and things like that.

00;17;30;14 - 00;17;42;13
Speaker 1
Serving man Charlie is like, really? And this is like, really? Really. So what was your research process in learning about the to be able to write his love effective?

00;17;42;29 - 00;17;53;08
Speaker 3
Right. Well, OK, you know, there are like historical novelists and they get all these interlibrary loans and they do all this research and stuff like that. I like to just ask people questions.

00;17;53;17 - 00;17;55;13
Speaker 1
As a reporter who likes to ask questions.

00;17;55;13 - 00;18;14;29
Speaker 3
Yes, I know. I mean, and I love libraries, but I'd rather be reading fiction. So that's where my reading time goes. And also, one of my daughter's best friends was in carpool with her at that time. It was just a total mistake. And most reptiles generally and fabians and, you know, has lots of pets and all of that.

00;18;15;10 - 00;18;41;20
Speaker 3
So I would just casually, you know, they would get in the car and you're like, so what would you say is a really common snake somebody might have as a pet? That's harmless. Not that scary. Maybe fun, cute. What does that look like? And like, do you know the scientific you know, I'll let you know. So that was really my process was like, oh, and then I got a few pictures finally out of the library that were for very young children learning to understand snakes.

00;18;41;20 - 00;18;57;19
Speaker 3
And I was kind of embarrassing. And people would walk by me at the big library tables and see me, you know, all about snakes, the big book of snakes. And I was like, Listen, this is all I need. I just need to know how I can make a couple of sex jokes about snakes. That's like for my purposes, that's perfect.

00;18;58;05 - 00;19;10;13
Speaker 1
I love it. That's the priority. Yeah. I mean, it is a romance, right? Did you ever think about changing it up because the snakes were from the original movies? So did you play with any other possible obsessions?

00;19;11;11 - 00;19;24;11
Speaker 3
I thought about it a little, and like the process of discernment was, can I write about snakes or am I just scared now? I was like, OK, no snakes. I find I can handle spiders. We're going to have some, you know, good. That was not going to happen.

00;19;24;20 - 00;19;26;14
Speaker 1
No, not so no spiders.

00;19;26;24 - 00;19;31;18
Speaker 3
And then you just there would be so many questions like, why does he like spiders? I don't feel that.

00;19;31;22 - 00;19;40;26
Speaker 1
Jezebel is so that feels more like a horror movie. So, yeah, because obsessive spiders like you're going to die and you're probably going to end up dead, you know?

00;19;40;26 - 00;19;55;10
Speaker 3
And I mean, but when you do any retelling, it's like, what am I going to eat? What's a fun Easter egg? You know? That'll be like, OK, this is like a fun little wink and a nod if you've seen it. And this. And that was one that I thought, OK, that is just a little touch of Snakes on a Beer.

00;19;55;22 - 00;20;04;00
Speaker 3
And I'll have this basic thing where she chases him back to his family estate to get revenge on him for abandoning her.

00;20;04;07 - 00;20;20;11
Speaker 1
The fear. We were going to do this in the beer area at Comic-Con, but it's not big enough. So that was sad. But we do have a great brewery here that is spreading out all over the place. Boulevard. What's your favorite kind of beer?

00;20;21;01 - 00;20;40;15
Speaker 3
Oh, no, I love Tank seven. That is absolutely my favorite. But that's right. Small quantities definitely don't have one. It's like a whole meal and I've ever had one that is just to confirm that Sarah Sloan is also a fan, so that's something we have in common. In addition to being like junior super.

00;20;40;15 - 00;20;42;21
Speaker 1
Heroes, anything to be a coming this year?

00;20;42;27 - 00;20;46;01
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. She's just some touch of glory right now.

00;20;46;28 - 00;20;59;10
Speaker 1
She's just so cool. Another thing we both have in common is that you were a journalist as well. For both reach the double digits of yours. So what did you learn from being a journalist that has helped you with writing?

00;20;59;10 - 00;21;20;20
Speaker 3
Fiction is so interesting because I think everybody thinks like, Oh yeah, that'll be such a natural transition. Like, you know, you've been writing all the time. So I think, you know, it's something that I share. Like what you don't know. Sarah works wonderfully in fantasy and contemporary, and she's also a journalist by trade, and we've talked about this.

00;21;20;20 - 00;21;39;15
Speaker 3
It is just the ability to do the work and to realize that you just have to show up and you have to keep doing things because it would be easy to get into your head and start to be just incredibly neurotic about it and just feel like, you know, like like an 18th century pianist and like, you know, fans around and like your lay offs.

00;21;39;16 - 00;21;59;02
Speaker 3
I mean, like, oh, no, I couldn't possibly write today you know, I just had to overcome with existential dread. The ennui is preventing me. It's like, no, we just have to do it has to get done because there's always a deadline and so you learn to grind when you have to grind. And so that is really good. But it did take a while to loosen up.

00;21;59;06 - 00;22;15;29
Speaker 3
I feel like from journalism where you are so focused on keeping it short, keeping it tight, keeping it focused and keeping it truthful and accurate. And so letting yourself really be free, you know, and playful and all of that, that takes more time.

00;22;16;16 - 00;22;24;23
Speaker 1
So sometimes I feel like you just it takes every single problem I have already pictured just in one sentence is like, boop, boop.

00;22;25;06 - 00;22;26;10
Speaker 3
It passes, you know?

00;22;27;03 - 00;22;34;00
Speaker 1
Well, that's good to have a what do you wish you knew when you first started writing fiction that you know, now?

00;22;34;10 - 00;22;54;19
Speaker 3
I wish it hadn't taken me quite so long to realize that the main character really needs to be the center of the story. I went through a long phase just thinking like, Yeah, a plot is just a series of random occurrences that you slap on the page, you know, to get from point A to point B and, you know, and they didn't.

00;22;54;28 - 00;23;18;08
Speaker 3
For me often in the early drafts, I didn't really, but it was like, what does this have to do with the character? Or her journey? Not a lot. OK, so yeah, I think and it's still something that like in successive drafts, the gaps to improve as you get tighter, you have to make the connections more intricate, intimate, more meaningful to the main character and have everything flow through them and around them.

00;23;18;08 - 00;23;25;24
Speaker 3
And because of them as opposed to just like they just happened to be in the same building at the same time when this random fire broke up.

00;23;26;10 - 00;23;36;06
Speaker 1
People have a lot of strong feelings about craft books or craft resources. Is there any resources that helped you make the transition from nonfiction to fiction?

00;23;36;15 - 00;24;03;01
Speaker 3
Probably the biggest thing for me was getting in critique groups and having critique partners, so it was more having a direct response from readers who are also writers so that you could see what was working in real time. Because craft books, I always get something out of them. I always enjoy them. But it's not the same as having someone look at what you're actually producing and say, This is what's working, this is what's not working, you know?

00;24;03;10 - 00;24;10;18
Speaker 3
And so that was probably more powerful. And that's always my top recommendation to people. Like, if you want to take a leap forward, you have to choose.

00;24;11;12 - 00;24;15;12
Speaker 1
What is the best advice you've gotten from a critique partner that has helped you in your writing?

00;24;15;23 - 00;24;34;19
Speaker 3
OK, so this book, for example, it started the whole first section was only from Jeanne's point of view, and we didn't hear from Charlie. And so he got about a third of the way into the story and I thought, Oh, that'll be so suspenseful. I can write all this information. But the downside was then it was in care about Charlie because they didn't know him and they had no idea what he was thinking.

00;24;34;19 - 00;24;49;21
Speaker 3
He had no interiority. And so it was the one and only Megan Bannon who said, Hey, I know you think this book is almost done, but guess what? You have two alternate purity chapters all through the first act, so you are going to have to write ten new chapters for your deadline.

00;24;51;12 - 00;24;54;29
Speaker 1
And I'm sure it was like very encouraging. Like, you can do.

00;24;54;29 - 00;24;56;05
Speaker 3
It, totally do it.

00;24;56;05 - 00;24;56;23
Speaker 1
I believe it.

00;24;57;03 - 00;24;58;18
Speaker 3
You it isn't love. Can't wait to read.

00;25;00;10 - 00;25;01;26
Speaker 1
I'll see you in a couple of days.

00;25;03;01 - 00;25;10;15
Speaker 3
I do think we were on a retreat, like a weekend retreat, and I don't think I did write most of them in the past that like three and a half to retreat.

00;25;11;13 - 00;25;16;10
Speaker 1
Back to writing friends with the best of the best friends. But friends are the best friends, isn't it?

00;25;16;11 - 00;25;27;07
Speaker 3
I better watch the movie The Lady, if you see young Henry Fonda and see how much sexual tension you can have, like just with, you know, little anklet choreography sounds good.

00;25;27;19 - 00;25;31;19
Speaker 1
And because this is literary hype, the last question we always ask is what books are you hyped about?

00;25;32;00 - 00;25;49;07
Speaker 3
And this will be an obvious one in July. Everybody has to read the undercutting of Rosie and Adam by Megan Bannon. This is the third series, the third book of the Chandra and Marshall series. And I have already read this book many times. And from the beginning, although I thought I would go to the mat as a trial and Frank stand forever.

00;25;49;21 - 00;26;07;18
Speaker 3
I love this book and it's beautiful. It's a major step forward. This is a true work of fantasy for the people who love that the world building is exceptional and it just brings the whole story down. So you have to read that. And I just read a book that came out a while ago. Margot's got money troubles I interviewed for an outfit.

00;26;07;18 - 00;26;17;16
Speaker 3
My mind was just amazing. Writing and empathy for the characters was so incredible and not at all what I was expecting so well.

00;26;17;19 - 00;26;21;22
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for taking time to talk with us in Literary Night. Thank you so much.

00;26;24;21 - 00;26;39;27
Speaker 1
Thanks, Amanda, for joining me. I plan at Comic-Con Kansas City in 20, 25 to discuss your book, The Odds of Getting Even, which is super fun if you want to check it out for yourself. And I recommend you do. The links are down in the description for you. And by shopping using those links, you are supporting literary hype.

00;26;39;27 - 00;26;50;27
Speaker 1
So appreciate it if you do, if you enjoy this conversation don't forget to subscribe to the literary podcast. Give us some stars and share it with the fans. Thanks for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.