Where I Left Off

Very Slowly All At Once with Author Lauren Schott

• Kristen Bahls • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Thanks to Harper Collins and Author Lauren Schott for joining me to talk about her debut thriller, Very Slowly All At Once.

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Books Mentioned in This Episode:

For links to the books discussed in this episode, click the link here to take you to the Google Doc to view the list.

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For more, follow along on Instagram @whereileftoffpod.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back. I'm Kristen Balls, and you're listening to Where I Left Off, a Bookish Podcast. And today I'm joined by author Lauren Schott, and we are talking about her upcoming debut adult novel, Very Slowly All At Once. Thanks for joining me to talk today, Lauren. Thank you so much for having me.

unknown:

Yay!

SPEAKER_00:

I'm excited to have you. And I haven't done a thriller author in a while, and I've been really wanting to talk about more thrillers. So thank you for giving me an excuse to talk thrillers. Pleasure. Pleasure. And the first question that I always ask everyone is what are you currently reading? Authors just give the best recommendations.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm I'm kind of using the end of the year to do a little bit of rereading, which is something I haven't done enough of, I realize. Because I when you read something for the second or the third time, you really start to really look at how it was put together. So I'm rereading First Lie Winds.

unknown:

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

By Ashley Alphonse, because just because of the tension and that is, you know, you just literally can't take a breath when you read that. Um and so I wanted to read it again with a little more forensic eye, is how she did it. Um and then sort of on a different spectrum, I'm also at the same time, which is unusual for me, reading Ladder of Years by Ann Tyler, which is about a woman who walks out of her life, walks out of she's sort of, I think she's 40 and she just one day walked out away from her family. Um and I just thought that was a really interesting premise. So yeah, usually don't read two things at once, but um, both of those are different enough that really hooked on both right now.

SPEAKER_00:

True. And I'm sure it helps when it's a reread, because then that way it's not like you're intaking that information for the first time. Yeah, exactly. Okay, one quick question. So when you're rereading, do you reread it in the same format? Like if you started with the physical book, do you reread it in the physical or audio, or how do you do that?

SPEAKER_01:

I reread the physical um book, the same book, and I actually have my copy of Ladder of Years from 1995. I think it was my mother's copy. And I was at my parents' house um like a month ago, and I and that's I saw it and I was like, I'm gonna read that and take it. So I brought it back. Um I my parents live in Ohio and I live in England and I brought it back with me to read.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's so cool. That makes it even more special.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And on First Light Winds, uh, whenever you read it the first time, did you guess the killer ahead of time? Um, no.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm I'm interested to see this time if I can like if I'm kind of reading, looking ahead, and I still it's I still it's still like as if you're reading it for the first time. The tension is just so good. And like all the things that I this the settings and everything that I'd pictured in my head, they just pop back, it's exactly the way that you'd picture them before. It's amazing. It's like watching a movie again.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that is awesome. Okay, okay. I need to reread more books. It's hard not to be like, let me just cross one more off my TBR that I haven't read instead of going back and reading a favorite and getting to experience that again.

SPEAKER_01:

I did, I don't know about you, but I did it when I was little. Like I would read over and over and over again the same books, and I feel like it teaches you how to sort of how the story is brought to life. And so I thought I really want to start doing more of that again, get back in touch with the inner sort of sixth grader.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really smart idea. So, what can you tell us about your current work in progress? And you may not be able to say much, so it's okay if you need to keep it fake.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I can say that I had a really difficult time choosing, and it I think it's this sort of second novel syndrome. With very slowly, I had this idea and it came to me like pretty crystal clear, and I knew that that was what I wanted to work on. And this time I have sort of three ideas that I want to write all the time, like there, and I keep thinking about them sort of separately. So it's been really difficult to choose one, but I think I finally nailed down one and I've got about um 30,000 words of the next um novel. And it's about a woman who um meets the love of her life, um, but and the only thing standing in the way is his mother. Um so that's the sort of quick pitch.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice.

SPEAKER_01:

How did you end up choosing between the three? It was really so I wrote the beginning of three of them. One of them was a more sort of straightforward thriller, and that was kind of what everyone thought would be a good idea. And I wrote some of that and I couldn't, um, I I kept thinking about the this this young woman and her mother-in-law, and I think I just have to write it. So I think, you know, following your heart and um the voice sort of came to her voice. I I've had it for a long time, it's in the first person. Um, and it's sort of two timelines, and they were just kind of in my head, and so I think I have have to go back and write that one. Trust my gut.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a good strategy. I never would have thought to like write a little bit of all three and then see kind of where it's taking you. Yeah, it's stressful.

SPEAKER_01:

Um yeah, but I really I think they're all they all feel out there, so you know, at least I know that it's almost like people are waiting for you to pick them back up. Um, and she um this protagonist was definitely the loudest.

SPEAKER_00:

So nice. And first person, that'll be different. So do you think like are so far are you liking writing first person better, or is it kind of just whatever lends to the story? It's not really like one's better than the other for your process.

SPEAKER_01:

So this one I actually tried both ways. I tried writing it in the third person, and I wanted the characters like very loosely based off of my grandmother, my maternal grandmother. Um, and she was uh I'm we used to call her a pistol. Like she just, you know, wasn't afraid to say what she thought, and she was from Arkansas, so had a little southern sort of flair. And that voice, I felt like I had to, even in third person close, I couldn't quite get that voice that was in my head. Um, so it's not her, but she's a little, she's based, the character, the protagonist is based on her. And I really wanted that in there. I wanted like the sort of sharpness, and um, and so that I it feels very intense. Like in very slowly, there's different, you know, you get a little first person, but then the third person close get lets you catch your breath for a minute. Um, and so this is much more intense, but fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, well, I'm excited to read it. Well, thank you. So getting a little bit more into Very Slowly All at Once, uh, whenever you were first kind of writing and drafting it, did the ending stay the same from draft one, or did you end up writing any alternative endings?

SPEAKER_01:

So with Very Slowly All At Once, I knew the baddie. Like I knew I knew the ending. Um, and so that was pretty much from, I mean, I I when I was sort of came up with the idea, I played around with different things, but very early on, before I really started writing, I knew the ending. But I, as the drafts went on, we played with like how to reveal it, how much after the ending you might see, um, and um trying to stay true to the sort of spirit of the book and like the humor in the book, and making it maybe a little bit different than sort of an on the nose, like sort of thriller. And so it was it was getting that balance right, and I hopefully we have done. The culprit is has always been who they were.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. Um, and then at what point in the writing process did you decide to kind of add in those chapters from the main instigator of the story who was stalking Mac and Haley?

SPEAKER_01:

So interestingly, the original title that I had for the book, um, before anyone saw it, even like my closest readers or my agent or anyone, um, was called the it was the instigator, which was a little bit more thrillery. Um, and I I felt like very slowly all at once fit the book more. That voice was kind of what came to me first. It was that um for first person voice. I I was more interested in the sort of, I think I don't think this is giving too much, but the sort of why as opposed to like just what happens, like the you know, um the sort of background, just getting across some of the um psychology that that's at play there, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, especially when the instigator is so much of a mastermind, kind of, and they would have to get to that point. It's not like they just woke up one day and were like, oh yes, I have all these skills, I can torture these what seems like at the beginning, you know, random innocent people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And like why, why, you know, you always read great baddies, but for me, it's always thinking about why they are the way they are. And so that was the to me, that was as important as the sort of main thrust of the plot, if you will. Um, and so I just that was the sort of getting inside the mind, like you say, the mastermind. I mean, like without saying, without giving too much away, I think that that for me that was part of the fun of writing it, probably the most fun thing about writing it.

SPEAKER_00:

That makes sense. And how did you define, how do you define suspense and how do you know when you've kind of hit the right balance, especially in this one that's a little bit more domestic?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so so I love sort of, as you say, as I say, like on the nose thrillers where it's like very external, that you know, things coming at you, lots of twists. But I also really love like where it's more, it feels like it could almost happen to you, and it feels you you sort of tap into tensions that we all have. So here, I mean, I think, you know, we all, I think a lot of people have that feeling where I've like overreached for something or I'm living a little bit beyond my means, or I didn't mean to, you know, pay for this or that. And I that that sort of little like feeling when something might go wrong. I was like, what if you just, you know, what if took that kind of feeling and dragged it out and and really built it up? Um, and so I tried to strike a balance of leading you in that where this could be you and you get what they're doing. And then they, you know, these characters are they're not great, you know, they're they're naughty. Um, and they, but you can sort of see they get themselves in a hole and they can't dig themselves out. And I wanted that sort of tension, like a slow burn, and then you realize all of a sudden that you're like, you know, really caught up in the and you sort of don't want to take a breath. So hopefully that's what happened. Um, and I think, you know, as long as people I some of the reviews have said I couldn't, I read it in one sitting, I couldn't put it down. And that's for me the biggest compliment because it feels like you, you know, I suck them in and then kept them going. Yeah, there were definitely points where I'm like, I have got to know what's gonna happen next and what's going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Um thank you. Well, it's kind of funny um that you said something that could happen to, you know, normal people because I was actually having troubles with my security system, like in my house at the same time that I was reading their portion, and it kept going off and ended up being just like a sensor issue. But I was like, oh my gosh, I might have to take a breather for a second because this is almost too real. Like, what if someone was actually messing with the system? Even though, you know, luckily in my case they weren't, but it was it was very realistic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, and it's those little things. When I was writing the book, my daughter had lost her wallet, and the person who found it left kind of a cryptic, strange message. And this was, and I thought, oh my god, you know, and it's I think it's that just sort of that intersection in life when something unexpected happens. And and then my uh someone was staying with us and said, Well, I heard someone going through your your bin, your trash cans outside, and we were like, What? You know, and it's just little tiny things that sort of you know make you feel unsettled, and this, you know, it in this in in very slowly all at once, they're kind of not paying attention until those things have gone too far. And so that it's kind of that feeling, that sort of unease, the dis ill ease that I wanted to capture. You definitely did.

unknown:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

And um, what scene was there like a specific scene that you felt like you ended up rewriting the most?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it was probably the ending, like just the very ending to see, you know, how much do we want to know um past sort of the end of the novel? And, you know, have we got this balance right of finishing the tension, but but doing it in a way that's true to the novel and the humor being sort of a different type of thriller.

SPEAKER_00:

And once once you wrote that ending then, did you like what made you rewrite it? Was it just kind of you thinking that, or was it like beta readers that had suggestions, or like editor, your editor that had a suggestion that made you kind of change it up a little bit?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we played around with it. Um the editor had a like so we um my agent said what if without giving too much away, what if we sort of had a little more like we called it like Harlan Coban, a little more action. And and that didn't, it was fun, it was really fun to write. It didn't feel quite right again with the tone of the novel and the sort of tongue-in-cheek playing with the sort of genre that it is. Um, and then yeah, it was sort of that people wanted to know what happens to these characters, and so there was like a little bit of aftermath that I thought fit well um with the novel. It didn't vary greatly, it wasn't completely different, um, except for sort of the experimentation with more plot at the end. But I I really think um that we sort of landed on something that was kind of in the middle.

SPEAKER_00:

Who was your favorite character to write?

SPEAKER_01:

So the voice of the instigator was really fun to write because it's just not a very nice voice and says sort of nasty things that maybe you know you think on your worst day, but also would never think. But actually, I think Mac is my favorite character. He just kind of like I he he has this sort of kind of grubby office in his basement and he doesn't really fit in with his fancy new house. And he so I mean there are a lot of parallels between um Mac and myself. He eats, you know, peanut butter with his fingers and a dirty spoon for lunch. So I I liked his sort of professory, writer-y or not writing life. And I think he yeah, we were just very similar, and I liked um the way he moves through the world, although he has some you know aspects to his personality that hopefully I don't. But um, yeah, he was my favorite to write.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And I mean, him and Haley have such different like personalities and jobs, so that's kind of fun that they are just completely different, but yet obviously they still fell in love.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was my favorite part, I think, is writing those alternating chapters and it they're they felt so alive. And I think it was hard to forget, like in my mind, they were such real characters, and I knew why they loved each other, but we actually went in the the most of the edits that there weren't that many edits, but the edits were adding in why did they like each other again? Because I knew, um, but it was just putting a little more of their history back in it, um, and that was really fun. That was like the best part of it because I kind of had it all in my head, so just just getting it back on the page was really nice.

SPEAKER_00:

And kind of speaking a little bit about edits, this next question fits perfectly. Um, what was the path like from manuscript to book deal for you, especially being in the publishing industry?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I had an agent who was my friend um when I worked at Curtis Brown, and she and I had been friends and had similar tastes. She does a lot of children's fiction and then does um adult, um, a lot of thrillers as well. And so I had written a thriller before this one and that didn't sell, went on submission, um, and came very close and had lots of sort of excitement around it and then didn't end up selling. And we wanted to do it in the right way. So we shelved that one for a little while. And I wrote very slowly and sent it to her, and she liked it right away. So I was lucky in that I didn't have, you know, I didn't have to find an agent, but I'd been on the submission process. I had written children's books in the past, so I sort of know what that feels like. But it was, I had to, you know, she read it quickly, but it was still really nerve-wracking. Like, will she like it? And I I trust her, I think she would have, you know, said this isn't for me, or um, and then she went away and found a co-agent um in America, and so and that was amazing. So it was it was really great. Um, it was a really great team behind the book.

SPEAKER_00:

On the thriller that you ended up shelving, do you think that you'll ever come back to it and kind of rip it open again? Or it served its purpose of and helped you get to where you wanted very slowly to be.

SPEAKER_01:

So interestingly, that thriller had a first-person voice that everyone loved. And I loved her too. Um, and I and I I but I think it was just more learning to write in that first person voice than and exercising those muscles. I actually think that book was maybe two books put together. Um, as an editor myself, I didn't, you know, we all I think there were parts of it that were didn't fit together. And so probably not, but I think learning like that voice, that first person voice is still in my head and maybe appears like a tiny bit in the character in the book that I'm working on now. And so I I like to think her name was Margot in the in the that book, and I like to think she's not gone, she's there in some sense. But I I learned a lot from writing it, so it wasn't, it definitely wasn't wasted.

SPEAKER_00:

And do you edit in the genre that you write? Like, do you actually edit thrillers?

SPEAKER_01:

So I edit thrillers sometimes. I do upmarket fiction in general, I do sometimes YA. Um, I I've done a middle grade recently, which I loved. Um, so I do uh but um I would say I'm doing more recently women's fiction as a category, if you categorize it that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, on on women's fiction. Have you read Catherine Center before? I have to ask. No, no, oh my gosh, add her to your TV art. I saw that was one of your favorite. Yeah, I will.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought that was one of your favorites.

SPEAKER_00:

I will yeah, I definitely yes, yes, yes. Oh yeah, I have a whole section of her. I think Things You Save in a Fire is one of my favorites of hers that's still whenever she was in women's fiction before she kind of crossed over more into romance. Cool. I'll definitely read that. Thank you. Have to give a book record. I can give a book record. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

I love the title.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, okay, and then how did you know that very slowly was kind of ready to query and that this was the book that you were going to uh pitch to your agent?

SPEAKER_01:

It was pretty much that I had kind of taken taken it apart, looked at it, and there wasn't anything I could do to fix it or make it better. Like I knew that Mac and Haley were not perfect characters, but that was how I wanted them. So I felt like they were drawn as well as I could see them on the page. This is as good as I can make it. And I didn't, you know, I think I always say to writers, because I do a lot of creative writing teaching and I um and how to pitch your novel and things like that. And I always say, if you can identify a weakness, the agent will. And then you you've you've sort of you wasted an opportunity. So I think, you know, because I you a lot of people will say, Well, I know the ending's not right, but I'm gonna wait and fix that once I have an agent. And and I I think I always advise against that because just you just want it to be as strong as you can. And you might, like in in the case of mine, there were other suggestions and we, you know, made um changes to the ending. I thought it was as good as I could make it the first time, and then other people make it better and better and better. So yeah, hopefully that answers the question.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, it does. And okay, so then since you're an editor, once you wrote your book before you pitched it to your agent, did you edit it yourself or did you go back and kind of have another couple eyes? Like, was it just early readers, or did you specifically kind of edit it before to make it cleaner?

SPEAKER_01:

So I edited it myself, edited as I went along, which it doesn't really count, and as we always tell people. And then I sort of had a good go over it when I was done. And then because I knew Stephanie, so what my agent so well, um, I wanted her opinion pretty early on. And then I have my best friend reads has read every book ever written. And so she read it, and then her 16-year-old daughter read it. It was on she had read it on the same device or something, and her 16-year-old daughter was meant to be studying for exams. And instead of studying for exams, read my manuscript that was on this computer and said, I think it should be a young adult novel. And I said, It's definitely not a young adult novel, but the fact that you read it, like it was literally the best recommendation I could have gotten because I thought if I can, it's about marriage, it's about like, you know, debt. And she was obviously drawn in. So I thought, okay, if I can captivate a 16-year-old kid, it must be, you know, good enough to get to hopefully capture its target audience. So that was quite fun. But yeah, so and then um my daughter is also who was also um like 18 at the time, is a big reader and she read it and was mildly traumatized but liked it.

SPEAKER_00:

And I mean, I'm sure, of course, your situation is different because you have more of an editing eye, you kind of know what you're looking for, and you already knew your agent, so that helps a lot. But generally speaking, if someone were to try to go Tribe Pub, would you um suggest that they get an editor on their manuscript before they start trying to query an agent and or eventually putting it on submission?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I get asked that a lot. I think if you um if there's something you're really struggling with, like I um a lot of people, I don't think you always have to. Like, you know, I think there's a big backlash against like automatically you need to hire someone. It's more is it if you're stuck somewhere or you you've queried agents and you've gotten some passes that, you know, or you're not getting anywhere, maybe you need some help with the pitch. But I think it's um if you read it and you are really if you've written it and you've read over it and you've edited it and you can't find anything wrong and you're really excited, I think at that point you don't necessarily need to find someone who's gonna pick it apart. It's uh the people that I work with the most are people who have trouble pitching what's there because sometimes you know you you forget the inspiration for why you wrote the novel. It's amazing how often that happens, and so you're pitching something else that isn't actually the heart of the novel that's gonna, you know, because if it interested you in the beginning as the writer, it's gonna interest the agent and interest your readers. So um, a lot of what I do is helping people find that again. And actually, I think a good edit is that's what it's trying to get to. It's trying to reach into and pull out, pull that out if it gets lost. So I would say it's for people who are really struggling with um to sort of with an issue that they know is there, but um they don't know how to fix it. Because sometimes another I set of eyes on that is really important.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I agree. Thank you. That's really interesting. It's just interesting to hear about the whole kind of back end of the process and how listeners always like hearing how how things work and how how you got there and how you got the book there and stuff like that. So thank you for sharing that. Pleasure. Pleasure. And then um, is there anything else that you would like readers to know about very slowly all at once?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I guess um, I mean, I hope that they enjoy the slow tension that I try to create. I, you know, it is a thriller, it's um hopefully keeps you on the edge of your seat, but it's also a novel about marriage, about relationships and trust and greed. And so I was trying to sort of paint, sort of look at the bigger issues at the same time and sort of where where we are a society as a whole, and also have fun with it. So, you know, if you are sort of struggling financially or you feel you're over your head, um, I think it's a pretty fun takedown of being in that position. And um, you know, no matter how sort of stressed you're feeling, Mac and Haley are definitely more stressed. And so hopefully it's like a nice outlet and a release.

SPEAKER_00:

It could always be worse for sure for them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, that's exactly what the novel is.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it for today. Thanks for listening to Where I Left Off, a bookish podcast. You can visit Lauren's site through the link in the show notes, and you can purchase her novels anywhere books are sold. And just a little plug for her Instagram. She does have really great writing resources. I will also have that link down in the show notes. Very slowly, all at once releases January 20th, 2026.