Introductions Abound!

[MUSIC PLAYING]Right out loud.The storytelling aspect is the heart and soul.[MUSIC PLAYING]What?How do I not remember this?[LAUGHTER][MUSIC PLAYING]a storytelling voice that is unlike anything.- What do you hope people get out of this podcast?- I think I just answered that too.- I mean, it's "Write Out Loud."Welcome everyone to "Write Out Loud."This is our podcast about writing and storytelling and everything you would wanna know about how to be a great storyteller.I'm here with.- I am Tina.I am one of your hosts of Write Out Loud.And I have actually been wanting to do this podcast for years, had it on a little post-it note,Write Out Loud podcast on my desk.I think for probably like five years.But I didn't know how I wanted to do it.I didn't know what it meant.I just knew that I wanted to talk writing.And I think part of it was, as I had talked about earlier,I used to go and speak in front of writers and talk about writing.And I used to host webinars and talk about writing.This was another way that I could use my voice.Someone from the publishing industry who's been in the industry,I'm gonna age myself here, 25 years plus.And having my start at the bookstore level while I was in college,And then I kind of just worked my way up through the ranks of Borders and into the home office.And my love of genre fiction took me straight into the marketing department there.And I actually did all of the marketing.And by that, I mean the in-store marketing.So you know, signage, placement, all that kind of stuff with all of Border stores in the US for all of the genre fictions, the fun fictions, like babies, romance, sci-fi,mystery, thriller, horror. Even at the end there, there were, you know, graphic novels and manga.So yeah, I had a blast doing all of that. And of course, everyone knows the fate of the border stores. That took me to a small press publisher that did a book first and then print. So kind of a reverse traditional publishing. That place eventually closed down as well. And I just started freelancing and kind of worked my way into editing. And it was a natural fit for me,talking about writing storytelling. I've got the degrees in writing and English. I had all of these writers, authors that were dying to try self publishing. And I started my little book matchmaker biz. That's how I got into it. Matt and I met, I'm not going to age either one of us,but it was prior to all of that. I just sent you this picture and we're going to post it somehow on the website so people can see it of Alice Oseman's Charlie in overalls because that's my clearest first memory of you. You and your buddy there walking into the store and you coming up to me and saying, "How does this look on me?" Or "How do I look?" Or "I can't even remember exactly what you were saying and I just thought you were adorable and I loved you from the moment you asked me how to look at my overalls. But we became friends from there, so.Yeah. Well, see, you remember it very differently than I do because I remember we met on JDate.No, I'm just kidding.I don't even know what JDate is. Is that something back then or is it now?No, it's something now, I think. I don't even know, to be honest. It just sounded funny in my head. Yeah.like most things. I'm thinking, what? How do I not remember this? I just remember you guys walking to the bookstore. No, what I do remember is I thought you had the crush on me. I love you.I know. I love you too. So I remember, you know, I remember that my friend we'll call him Joe and I walked into the store together. And at that point he was making fun of my overalls. And as as we're walking in towards the store,he's making fun of my overalls at the time.And he says, looking to you in hope that there was an ally there of his point of view.- Wrong.- Hey, doesn't this look ridiculous or whatever he had said?And you were like, no, I think it looks cute.- Yes, and I did, that was not a lie.So we connected over books.- Yeah, we first started talking over books.And as it turns out, my overalls.But we, you know, just maintained our friendship over the years and we had a couple of major things that we really talked about often.One was our love of books and of stories and writing and reading and the other was music.- Music, I do, that I do remember introducing you to a lot of good music.- The cores for one. - The cores.- But yeah, you know, we bonded over those things, right?And so we became fast friends and maintained our friendship over the years.For me, writing has always been kind of that elusive little minx pose out there.And storytelling in particular,I think is the one that I relate to the most of it, right?Is that ability to create a world out of nothing and to breathe life into it and to bring something that was purely just a glimmer of a thought in the back of your mind that became this full-fledged thing.It's something that I've always loved and something that I've always gravitated towards.And being able to spin that into a tail that gets others to come along is even better.So I think for us going through this podcast,it's really gonna be a lot about how do we teach everybody else how to unleash that voice?- Yeah, and unleash it in a way that makes them believe that they can do it, finish it,and do what they're going to do with it.And also, one of my big things that you will hear over and over and over again is be you.I get a lot of writers coming to me and saying,I want to get into this genre, for example, vampires.Oh, but vampires are so overdone.But have you done them?And are you going to give us something a little different?Probably.If you infuse you into the story,you're going to give yourself the shot that you need.- Yeah, absolutely.Find your specific voice and find your specific spin on something, right?Find a way for you to bring something that other people have done, but maybe, again,you haven't had your ability to put your mark on it,your thumbprint on it that says,no, no, this is worthy because this is something I've come up with.No one else has it.- What you and I were talking pre-podcast tonight,The Last of Us kind of represents that to me.So it's kind of the zombie apocalypse story,but right now it's completely different.It's completely different from the other zombie apocalypse, either books or movies or TV shows that I've seen. So I'm really enjoying this new spin on it. And I think that's the difference in what we're saying here is that it might be something that people are tired of, but if you give us the little bit of different, the little bit of special, it can just surpass everything.- Absolutely. So what do you think, what are some of the stories that we hope to cover throughout this podcast. I think the sky's the limit. What are some of the things if you had to kind of tease to people, Hey, we're going to explore some stories like what what stories come to mind? Well, Heartstopper, yes, the whole inspiration for us doing this initial podcast,the Heartstopper TV series so far has just season one. So we're going to focus on that. And the books. We're going to focus on the first two volumes that season one covers. We're doing this intro, but yeah, I really want to explore season one of Heartstopper because as I was watching it,I thought I'm going to watch a little half an hour show here on Netflix before I go to bed at1130 at night and two o'clock in the morning later, or was it three? I found I had finished the whole thing, which is not unlike me to binge an entire series in one sitting. But I immediately went and got the books. I immediately went and like had to devour all of Alice Oseman's books. There was so much meat to it. In the show itself, I found myself who is somewhat jaded in storytelling and somewhat very picky. I was surprised. Normally I can sit with a show and just say, this is what's going to happen. This, this, this. Oh, and here's,this is what's going to happen. Like I can feel the script leading me to what's going to happen next. But with Heartstopper, I kept being surprised. Oh, this is going to happen.Oh, Nope. Oh, okay. That's not what I expected. I think it's going to be interesting to look at the series, the series versus the comic versus expectations of writing.Nice. Yeah.Was that the answer you were looking for?Yeah, absolutely.I think we're also going to do other things too, but this is going to be our jumping off point.Lastly, I do want to address the fact with Heartstopper 2, what intrigued me about that is I felt a shift in storytelling industry, whether that's again via mediums of TV and movies or books. I think there was a huge shift in representation. So we are going to spend a lot of time talking about representation. I've seen different shifts at different places being involved so much in the romance industry. When I was there as a part of Borders, I saw a lot of changes within romance as far as multicultural LGBTQ, that sort of thing. But this was definitely a shift. And I would actually say not too dissimilar, I'm going to say it, quote me right now,to the Harry Potter books. Because I was in the bookstore pre-Harry Potter, post-Harry Potter,and that was a huge shift in the publishing industry.>> BRIAN KARDELL, Ph.D. Nice. Yeah, I think the other thing, too, to temper expectations for those that may be hearing this and thinking, "Oh, sweet. So, you know, we'll watch the episode,we'll talk about it." No, no, no. That's not the thing. What we're going to be doing is maybe a little bit different than that, right? It is going to be centered around some of these shows. So,for example, Heartstopper is definitely going to be a big piece of this. You know, and there will be others as well, but it's really about representation, maybe one of the episodes.We talk about that and what does that mean to a story? How does that breathe life into a story?We may talk about show versus tell and kind of how an episode or a story arc is revealed that way.And what's the difference and how does that mechanically work? Not so much from a technical standpoint necessarily, but like great examples of this is show versus tell. Here's the impact that that made in this instance. You can certainly watch the episodes, watch them all if you'd like.We'd love that because of course it'll make it maybe a little bit more relatable if you've seen it, but just don't expect that we're going to go through it and be like, well, in this scene, we had Charlie and did it. And then this following scene, then we had, you know,and it's, it's not going to follow beat for beat the show. So I just want to put that and put that out there. Cause I think that's, you know, our focus is really around the storytelling aspect of these types of things. So absolutely 100% this podcast is absolutely at the heart at the core of it is storytelling. And that's always going to remain how we approach any anything that we talk about on here.- Do you think there's room for throwbacks?Like, I know you mentioned,Stephanie Meyer and her ability to tell a story or spin a tale, but do you think there's any throwbacks where maybe we call out specific scenes,maybe not necessarily go through the whole series or,but you know, do callbacks to that.Okay.- Yeah, absolutely.You were talking about show versus tell and immediately hops into my head,different parts of it that I think there's actually a large part of the audience that may not know what we're talking about. And within books, novels,we have to picture what you are talking about. But that's not what we mean by show versus tell.Show versus tell is a character telling you, I think you're cute versus us.I like your overalls.Yes. I like your overalls versus something different altogether. The most prominent with Heartstopper for me is actually when Charlie is in front of the mirror and he's playing with his curls and his sister walks up and she's and he's like, does it look bad or different? Or I can't remember exactly what was said. And she says, it looks the same. It looks the same. And quite frankly,is an audience member. I thought it looked exactly the same. But then, you know, two minutes later, he's knocking on Nick's door and saying hello to Nellie. Nick is like,dude, you got your haircut that without telling us is Nick showing interest, Nick paying attention,Nick interested in the little things. That's Charlie. Yeah. So yeah, so we're going to talk in depth about those kinds of things as separate things, because I will tell you,when I was talking about before teaching storytelling versus writing,show is storytelling, telling is writing.- Love it. For me, it's just about, it always has come down to, I've always had a love of storytelling, I've had a love of connection, I've had a love of learning and curiosity,and that's what fits so nicely with this podcast too because we can really deeply explore something that matters to both of us and talk about that and hopefully share that with you kind listeners.You know, you might get something out of this too, right? So we'll see what happens.What one piece of work would you say impacted your life in a life-changing way?Put you on a different trajectory?that's a good question you know what's interesting and i was thinking about this as we were talking about kind of what got us started in stories and reading and all of that so in kindergarten i vividly remember that there were times when the teacher would need to do something and was you know needing to step out of the classroom or needing to do take care of something or whatever and i was the only kid who could read so she would put me in front of the kids and have me read a book. So I would just pick something and read it. And it was fun because I got to read to them and do voices or whatever and have fun with it. Watch these kids kind of be interested in the story that I was telling. So I think that's kind of cool. But I think it was Charlotte's Web.And for me, Charlotte's Web, I think just the underlying piece there was that interconnectedness.Like everybody, all those, the animals were connected together, even though they were very different from each other. You had a spider and you had a pig and you had a rat and you had a goose and you know but they all work together. They all like yeah they were a family loved co-existed lived everything together and it was such an emotional story of course but that one really hit me. I think what's also interesting is from a movie perspective Old Yeller oh that's one yeah no but that's why because it was so insanely emotional like I remember bawling the first time I watched that movie, right? And so those types of stories are the things that I look back to and that that's kind of what got me into my little arc of that.

Interesting little insight. You talking about kindergarten and standing in front of the class and reading and like literally I gasped inside because like, oh my God, can you think of that. But actually, for those of you who aren't familiar with Matt, this makes so much sense.Because you've been a radio DJ, you've I mean, like you have always had your voice,I can just see you as a kindergartner standing in front of the class, reading, doing voices,doing the whole nine yards, I mean, for me, that is the pinnacle of who you are. So you were that person in kindergarten. What do you think, what's one piece of writing advice that really changed the way you look at your own writing? Like in other words, you had five minutes with a writer and you were to give them one piece of writing advice, what would it be?- I would say if your first piece of writing doesn't suck, you're doing something wrong.And I don't mean first draft. I don't mean first draft. I mean, because that's a given,or it should be a given. I really truly mean like your first attempt at something should be terrible and you should embrace it. You should embrace that, that it might be a dumpster fire. That's okay. You're making something, right? And eventually you're going to fine tune it.you're going to figure out how to make it better. You're going to learn little things that work that didn't work the first time and you're going to grow. Just be okay with the first thing you ever make. I don't care if it's art. I don't give it's music. I don't care if it's writing. The first thing you make has to suck. It's okay. Yeah. Just do it. You know what? Honestly, that's really great advice. And the reason I say that is because I have had first time writers hand me their first draft and it was so grammatically perfect that they had perfected the emotion out of it and that is the worst thing that you can do. So I always say give me the mess.Give me the mess because the mess is something I can work with cuz the mess has emotion. I look at it almost like again.This is another story like a story trope. Maybe I don't know But you look at it like this if there's something that you just love so so so so much.And you want to always have that feeling of oh my gosh I love this thing I can't let it go I can't ever lose this thing because I just wanted to love it so much right that feeling is there.Yeah that you kind of squeeze the life out of it.Yeah because you're holding on so hard exactly that now it's like.It's just you've inadvertently kind of killed it just because you've put so much pressure on it.- Yeah, absolutely.- Same kind of thing, like just take a deep breath and just roll with it.- Yeah, yeah.One of my favorite pieces of advice is actually something that I discovered while reading,but it is one of the things that if I were to gather all my clients,they would say, "This is her piece of advice that everybody should have."But honestly, it came from Nalini Singh. She's one of my favorite authors. I was lucky enough back in the day when she first published her first Cy Changeling book, I knew her editor.Her editor sent me an early copy and not even a printed copy like, you know, most reviewers get.This was actually like the manuscript itself. So page by page. Back then we didn't have eBooks,So it could not be sent in an ebook. It had to be sent in paper copies. And I was on a flight to Atlanta. When you get there, you know, you call all the people and, oh, I'm here, let's meet for drinks. Let's meet in the lobby. Let's, you know, do all of that. I'm reading this book on the way and I get, I think I've got like 10 pages left and we start our descent and I'm thinking,Atlanta, you're supposed to circle. This is supposed to be one of the busiest airports in the world. You know, let's, let's, can't we just circle for a little while. I've only got 10 pages left. I got off the plane, got in my cab, didn't call anyone, checked into my room, didn't call anyone, sat in my chair by the window and finished the last 10 pages. The reason I say this with paranormal, sci fi, anything that you have to world build. I call it cheating. When you make it the character the only exception or, you know, you build the world, but then you're going to break the rules. Okay, number one, that is the biggest No, no, no, no, no. So I thought Nalini saying, Oh, my gosh,okay, so this is a romance. And so the couple has to end up together, right? It's a happily ever after guarantee. But in order to do that in my mind, she's either going to have to kill the heroin or she's going to cheat and she's going to say, Oh, but she was the only exception she could live and blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking this, this can't add this way. This book was so good. She can't end this way. Oh no. Nalini. God love her. She found door number three.She wrote herself into a corner in my mind that she was either going to make this the only exception and cheat or she was going to kill off the main character which is breaking the rules of romance. But she came up with this third option that I had not thought of and she wrote it beautifully and it was magical and it was mind blowing and I sat there for a few minutes and thought to myself there's always a door number three. There is always a way to solve, to write yourself into a corner, write yourself out of the corner without breaking the rules, without cheating, without, you know, breaking the rules of the world that you have built. Anytime my writers write themselves into a corner, I said, you got to figure out how to write yourself out and it's gotta be good. You can't, can't phone it in. You can't cheat. You can't. Yeah. So that's, that's my, my biggest piece of advice that I ever give to any storytellers is there's always a door number three. And don't you dare make it all a dream.Don't you? Yeah. Exactly. It's cheating. It's a cop out. Now the first time it was done new heart, I think is when it was first done. Possibly. That was actually really funny and a great way to end the series because it hearkened back to his first series that was one was New Heart and then the other one was Bob New Heart and so on and so forth. But yeah, that's, that's the classic, but you can't do that. Lost, lost, made it the worst. Made it the worst. Okay. So Lost is its own podcast. That's true. Because the thing is, had those writers stood up to ABC and said,no, then it would have been really great.- Yeah.- But ABC came to them and said,"No, this is our number one show."We are not going to stop it after three seasons."And I don't know if it was three seasons exactly,but I think that's what I read at one point or another.- We need to milk this cow for all it's worth.- Yeah, exactly.And you can't do that.You know, so if I had been those writers,I would have stood up to ABC and said,"No, it's three seasons,But if you want more things from me, my brain is here, ready to work.I got more ideas, some that are even better than Lost, but you know, I had to get my foot in the door. Yeah. I think that's the other thing too, with Lost, the lesson with Lost is as writers,you've got to know what's best for your story. Well, that was a fun first podcast. I think we made it through. Yes. I think that's really good. Cool. Well, if anyone out there listening is looking for a way to find you online. Where do they go, Miss Christina?Oh, well, let's see bookmatchmaker.com or you can just email me at Christina,c-h-r-i-s-t-i-n-a @bookmatchmaker.com. Find us there and let us know what you want from a writing podcast or if you have questions or comments or just want to say hi.There you go. You can also find me on Instagram @sarcassem.We have official Write Out Loud podcast social media.We do.On Instagram. So go follow us over there.At Write Out Loud, Write Out Loud Pod on all of the major platforms.Yes. Good deal.All right. Well, we will talk again soon.Yes, we will.All right. Bye.Bye![music]>> [ Event Concluded ]