Page Fright
Hosted by authors Sydney Kain (Our Love Language is Murder: coming Feb 2027), and Liza Petrov (Pre-Query). PAGE FRIGHT follows the journey of Sydney and Liza as they find their place in the literary world. Each week they offer a unique take on the ins and outs of the publishing industry, discuss craft and the vulnerability it takes to be a writer, and they answer questions from fans. New episodes every Tuesday.
Page Fright
What Is Voice and How Do I Get It?
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Discover how the smallest details—like unique character quirks and surprising tropes—can transform a story from dull to dazzling. This episode dives into the magic of friction and contrast, revealing how they fuel your narrative and keep readers hooked. Learn practical tips for starting your story at the right moment and crafting scenes that sparkle with your unique voice.
I'm Sidney Kane and I'm Lisa Petrov. And you're listening to Page Fright, where we talk about writing craft, the ins and out of the publishing industry, and our own personal journeys as authors. So let's dive in.
SPEAKER_01So I saw your Instagram post today advertising your edits. You're starting editing your book that is going to be coming out in 2027.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I started that well officially yesterday, but then today I thought, okay, I might as well return to social media and begin the marketing for that book. So my most hated thing to do every day, social media. But I got on.
SPEAKER_01How much do you get a lot of pressure to do the social media bit? Like what kind of how does that take shape for you? Is this something that's kind of self-driven? You're like, this is something I know I should be doing today, or nowadays as a writer, or is this something where like it's written into the contract or what?
SPEAKER_00It's not written into the contract, but there's definitely pressure, not from anyone specific, but let's say you're submitting a book or they want to know about foreign rights or movie deals or things like that. The first question is always do you have a platform on social media? And you're definitely more appealing if you have a platform and they care about that. So it's not ideal for writers who prefer to be to be invisible. But that's why I like this podcast because this counts as a platform for us. So so you're covered, don't worry.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. I mean, I I'll have to start figuring out how to have some sort of social media presence, I guess. Not particularly looking forward to it. I don't enjoy a lot of social media and kind of how the types of posts you have to make in order to become popular.
SPEAKER_00It's a little, I don't know, I it just doesn't seem that interesting to me. It's not to me either. I'm trying to find a way to exist on there where I can just be myself, the real me, but it seems like you have to kind of feed into those fake almost posts to get views and followers. So you have to kind of play the game. I'm hoping that if I get readers that enjoy my books, they'll enjoy just who I am as a person, and then I can just be myself, and then hopefully it'll be a lot easier. Like on here, I can just be myself and say what I want to say, and it's fine. So I'm hoping that I can transfer that to social media as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's funny. So a writer that I know about, I mean she's huge, everybody knows about her, Emily Henry. Oh, yeah. Her her social media feed is funny because it's it's basically promoting other people's books, but also just like her taking just bad, you know, badly framed photos of herself and just I don't care. Yeah, I love it. It has a charm to it, but it also seems like it's one of those chicken or the egg questions, like which came first? The runaway success of Beach Read, your first book, or Instagram on some in some way. I I have a feeling if I actually did some research and I looked like when what happened, like when her book came out versus her Instagram page, I have a feeling that it's just her. Her Instagram page followed her book success.
SPEAKER_00That's what I think too. My idea would be just to stick to my stories and just be like, hey, this is me, no makeup, PJs, writing, sitting by myself, like I always do. Have a great day. That's that's the ideal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There are other online personalities that kind of cultivate a presence uh like I I do, you know, cozy, candlelit, almost witchy level writing. I read my tarot cards like nice before before I sit down and write my next chapter kind of deal. Definitely like there's a lot of sipping of hot tea and looking at a famous writing routines and stuff.
SPEAKER_00I really enjoy Lindsay Straub. Her Instagram handle is like Oxford Lemon, and she writes uh the kiss of the basilist and stuff and um those that series. And I really enjoy it because she mostly just sticks to her stories and it's always like some medieval painting or something like that. And then, hey guys, I'm going to eat a bagel. And I'm like, yes, that is my vibe. Yeah, I guess I guess that that would be the vibe for me.
SPEAKER_01I'd have to because so I I've known some people that have done social media for an actual job. One thing that I've noticed that they do is they are planning out all of their posts and putting them ahead of time. Like months in advance, going, This is the type of post I'm gonna do today, and I'm gonna do that 30% of the time, and then they like space it out over their days, and then they do a different type of post this percentage of the time, and and that's that's it. And then they just make sure to mark all the major holidays and oh gosh. Yeah, and I'm just like, God. That sounds like my worst nightmare. I know, I know. Me too. It it takes so much work to be nonchalant.
SPEAKER_00It's don't look like you don't care.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, again with these Emily Henry posts, I'm just like, how much do you not think about them? I like how much do you think about not thinking about them? So, well, it's kind of it's exciting to see you getting back in the game, but it's more exciting to see you getting your edits. Didn't how do you feel about them?
SPEAKER_00I feel great. Not many changes, so I have really the free reign to do what I want with it. Um I'm having that classic author problem where you go back and you hate your writing, so then you just have to scratch everything out and rewrite it. And so I've told myself, stop that. Yeah you wrote this, it was true to yourself at the time, accept it for what it is and change little things here and there. Remember, we talked about no, I have writing dysmorphia super bad right now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I would say if it's passed through different editors already. Oh many. I think this is the time to not be precious and just let it go. I know that it's it's really hard because you're like, well, this is this is the point at which it it's the last time. But I think that the amount of people that have reviewed it is something that should give you some perspective that it's time to don't don't don't get sucked into changing all the little things just because they grade on you linguistically when you read them back. Just trust that like there are other people that have seen this that are going, like, no, this is good. I do this for a living and I'm willing to to pass this on. You're so right.
SPEAKER_00I yeah, I gotta keep that in mind. How did you manage to get your manuscript off to your alpha beta readers? You did? I did.
SPEAKER_01And I'll spill tea to to people like me, perfectionists. I have this manuscript that I'm trying to edit down, and I was talking to my boyfriend, and basically he he's another creative, and he was saying, anything that gets in your way of finishing is bad. So if this if this word count thing is stressing you out, if bringing down the word count and trying to fit into this particular box is making it impossible for you to edit or move forward, then you need to start questioning whether that's right for this project and complete the project in the way that fits it and then move forward. So from that conversation, we decided that I would submit what I had to him. Him and my my other beta reader, my mom. Both of them are really good. Yeah, it sounds like they have really good insight. They have very good insights. They they're also my inner, inner, inner circle of readers. So I think that there are people that you can trust for like top-notch insight. It's just they're in an outer circle. Like you, you and our other partner in our reading group, you guys just happen to come later for me. These are two people that I basically like, it was almost a confession to tell people that I wanted to write. I was very embarrassed about it at the beginning. And I had a lot of feelings of like, how, how do you deserve this? Why do you deserve this? Don't tell anybody that you want to do something so embarrassing and like self-involved. And so they were the first ones that I dealt with all those feelings with. So I'm kind of going back to that emotional space of saying, like, I'm completely lost. This is a cry for help. I need you to help me truly see the rest of this very long manuscript so that I can ultimately bring it down. I don't trust myself anymore. And I deeply, deeply, in a vulnerable like origin of my writer self way, trust you guys. So I got it to him a week later. Uh, and I, you know, everything that you've read, except for the last submission at my latest submission to our group, like that is what I've edited. And then there's like 70%, 60% of the project that I haven't even touched since I originally wrote it. Wow. My previous self would have hated that transition from all my edits, all my pristine new stuff, to the old stuff that I'm like, I I haven't, I don't even know what it looks like. Like giving it to somebody for them to analyze. And I feel much calmer about it now, actually. That's amazing. I feel so much more at ease and confident that it's it's just a project. Like, this is my project right now. I need you to tell me what works and what doesn't work so I can fix it and move forward. That's that's the state I'm in. And I think that that's ultimately a healthier state.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm so proud of you. And let's get into what you meant by spilling the tea. So, what does that mean if this word count needs to stay where it's at and it can't go lower?
SPEAKER_01You know, so what we were talking about was I think that I should absolutely push myself through the embarrassment of telling a potential agent a high word count. Just like I think that I should at least try, but ultimately I should emotionally accept and professionally prepare for self-publishing and just getting this project out and about into a smaller pool of readers, I guess, and seeing what happens and being able to move forward either in this writing universe, which I have I have a bunch of characters in it, and I do have story ideas for this same space, the same setting that I wrote in, or you know, embarking on completely different writing projects and seeing whether those take off.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm so excited. Anyway, so that's that's where I'm at. But uh I I feel like it's a good place. It sounds like a great place, and I'm I'm super thrilled. I can't wait to read the whole thing. I have been waiting to get my hands on this full manuscript, so I'm happy to see forward motion. It's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01And it's also exciting because my partner is a reader who he read the very, very, very first version. And so he's now reacting to this like updated new and like I think improved. I've improved as a writer since I first wrote those chapters, and he's like he's reacting positively where he's just like, Oh, I love these changes. This is great. This is this amazing thing. And your writing has improved. So it doesn't feel like my my work is for naught at this point. It feels like I've gone somewhere. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_01So good news all around this week. Yes. Well, so that's that's that's all fine about us, but let's talk about our wait what?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Our wait what? You do it so much better than me. So I think it's an interesting one this week, not as interesting as last week, but this one is about all the scams that are going around these days for writers.
SPEAKER_00Yes, crazy. I mean, every kind of scam you can think of, they've got it. They've got one for you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's it's getting worse with with AI because there's there's more ability for scammers to sound legitimate. Yes. To sound like the person that they're impersonating. So we can we can dive into some what some of these scams are. I I I went a little crazy and I did a little bit of research into what's been happening. And there are many different kind of cues of scam out there, but essentially what they all boil down to, or most of them, is um uh phishing emails to writers, some sort of reaching out to them. Uh, and these can be published writers who have books that are no longer in print or not published writers, people, people that are still looking for an agent. And it's offers of anything from say editing to promotional um events or marketing work. Um, like, for example, they could tell you that they're going to get your book into some sort of big prestigious event and there's going to be a lot of push and promotion around it. Or uh they they run a book club that has an incredible amount of members and they want to read your book, they want to talk about your book, they want you to lead online discussion, uh, and they're gonna they're gonna promote you, but it's all a small fee.
SPEAKER_00And sometimes not a small fee, sometimes a quite large fee.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. They're gonna hook you with saying it's a small fee, but over time, it's going to be these exorbitant costs to try to drain you of, I don't know, basically your bank account. Uh and they're targeting gentle flower writers who all we want is success and attention. We just want someone to notice us. So those those things are happening. And there there have been, I mean, a lot of these organizations that are being impersonated, let's say um, like they have they uh they have they have a website and it gets duped by the scammer. It's just a slightly different URL, and they the the scammer sends people to this fake website and all the processing goes there. Or they they say that they have an employee from this prestigious organization reaches out to you, and it's actually there's no employee at that prestigious organization trying to work with you or promote you. You're just sending it to a fake scammer, often overseas. And like this it's really hard to guard against. They are trying their best to warn people about it.
SPEAKER_00But it even says on these major literary agency websites and publishing websites, like beware of scammers. We only will reach out to you if it's like certain emails. I mean, just really trying to warn people because that's how rampant it is, like how many emails are getting sent out. In fact, I actually saw one from one of my Instagram friends who got an email from the Stephen King himself saying, Wow, yes, it was very uh exciting. And it was like Stephen King, you may know me. I am a best-selling author, and listed all of his books, and it sounded like a very legit email. And then just You may know me, Stephen King saying, You may know me. I know, no, I know. And then saying, If if you could just support me with my latest project, and reaching out to readers and writers, and they he would help you get in on the business. I mean, it really just is so wide. I mean, yeah, that it's it's absurd.
SPEAKER_01And like so to to me, I think that where people should beware is in that space after that's like a little bit tougher to spot than someone saying, You may know me, I'm Stephen King. Give me money. The dangerous place for I think most writers is in the space after the most obvious kind of emails where Stephen King tells you he just needs a little bit of help. Because he's not going to, guys, just remember, he's not going to ask you for monet for monetary help. He's quite rich. I think he's a it's the space where it's a an organization that seems legit, some nobody name, saying like they're reaching out and they they are affiliated with something prestigious or not even prestigious, something that just seems like, okay, you know, they saw something in me. They saw something in my writing, they're a they're a literary group, they're uh they're a publisher, they're promotional company, etc. And they lavish you with price. And then they have these kind of like, oh, okay, so in order to get this done, you have to pay this licensing fee. Actually, you have to pay a lot of licensing fees, you know. And that is where it's like, it's a little subtler. It's somewhere where they actually uh they target a lot of self-published authors. So if you're a self-published author out there and someone reaches out and it's like, hey, I'd like to purchase your book, or I'd like to do this, or I'd like to promote it, blah, blah, blah. And then all these fees start coming up, you're probably sending your money into a black hole and you will not see any returns for that. And they and they know that you're vulnerable because what is self-publishing but going out on your own?
SPEAKER_00Right. Which I think it gets confusing when you have things like vanity publishing and hybrid publishing, which just to distinguish that, vanity publishing is usually where there's no threshold for accepted content. They usually accept any type of writing, any types of books. There's not a lot of uh quality control there. They you pay a lot of money for them to do subpar covers, and the marketing's not that great because they don't have the greatest reputation, and so people aren't going to be drawn to your books no matter how much money you flood into their accounts. And then hybrid publishing is a little different because they you do have to submit your book. There is more quality control. And now this is for different publishers, like uh, you know, some hybrid publishers are better than others, and they will accept you, you still have to pay quite a hefty fee, but they will help you with cover art, editing, marketing, all of that. And so when you throw those things into the mix, it can make it hard to distinguish, like, oh, okay, is this a hybrid publisher reaching out to me? Is this one of those situations where I do have to put more money in, but then I get more money back and royalties? And we're in this industry where it's kind of a it is kind of like a black hole in general, like we don't know anything about it till you're in it. And that can be very confusing for writers, especially early on in their career. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The best thing that you can do is stay vigilant and insist. I think insisting to talk to someone is important. Like do not depend solely on email correspondence from someone that is out of the blue, effusively positive about your work. Uh request an online meeting, see them face to face. If they don't, if they if they're as interested as they say and they don't have anything to hide, they will show their face to you on a Zoom or meet you for a lunch or something like that. Like I know meeting for a lunch, everybody's not in the same city anymore. Everybody's scattered. But doing that kind of legwork, especially if you're considering spending money, I think is important.
SPEAKER_00Well, and here's the harsh truth. No one is going to be reaching out to you out of the blue about your work unless you have millions of followers on TikTok or social media. It's just not going to happen. It's going to be people replying to you because you've submitted your work to them. So if someone reaches out to you out of the blue, don't let your ego and pride and your need for acceptance and success override your critical thinking skills. And just automatically tell yourself this is a scam, even though it's doing exactly what it's what it's trying to do, which is stroke my ego and get my attention. Exactly. Exactly. I think that that's the best advice that we can give.
SPEAKER_01Another strategy is if even like if anybody starts responding to you effusively, like really intensely, just remind yourself that nobody does that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Nobody is doggedly going after. There is no agent out there, there is no publisher out there that is banging down anyone's door.
SPEAKER_00Right. They're getting thousands and thousands of people banging down their door. So they don't have time to be looking for other people. They don't have time, they don't have interest.
SPEAKER_01They're they're not going to be doing that unless they're going after money that is that they already see is on the table. Because essentially what the business is, is them betting on your work ahead of time and seeing if it'll pay off. And there are other models like these hybrid publishers and stuff who they have to put money on put money on the table ahead of time. They have to make you pay up front in order to take on the risk that they're taking on. That's why they're this hybrid. So that's what you always have to remember with scammers is that they already see the money. It's not in betting on your work. It's not in you being the next big star. It's in you giving the money regardless of whether the work ever sees the light of day or not.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So anyway. One of the mini hazards. Well, so with that, we have a main topic that I have been aching to get to. I'm very excited about it.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01We were supposed to cover it last week, but we got sidetracked. Yes, we did. But uh so this one is about that spark. Yeah. When your book comes to life to make it come to life. And let's get to it. What do you do?
SPEAKER_00So I was trying to think about this because isn't that the key to it all? Is what gives your book a sparkle because that's what's going to make it successful. And if we had the answer, then we would be New York Times bestsellers, or maybe we will be. So here's what I think. Imagine you are a chef or a baker. You have to have, and you're making a lemon zest cake. You have to have all the ingredients to make this cake good, but it's going to be the little things that you add, like maybe a little bit of I'm pretending I'm a baker here, so I'm imagining these are the ingredients that go in it. Maybe it's I'm liking it so far. Maybe it's a little salt. Maybe it's a little of the zest of the lemon at the end. It's the little touches that are going to make it from good to great. And that's how I think of writing is that you have to have all of the basic ingredients, the plot, the tension, the characters, the, you know, all of the the meat or the main ingredients. I'm changing my now I'm moving to chef. Now I'm being a chef. But then it's going to be the little things that you sprinkle in, like the uniqueness of your story, the uniqueness of your characters, the little, the little zest that you add on top that's going to give it its sparkle. That's like the bird's eye view before I want to really dive into the nitty-gritty of like what that means. What about you? What's your take on it? Definitely agree.
SPEAKER_01I would add though that for me, the thing that brings a story to life really lies in those main ingredients. Lies in like how much, like, do you have let's stick with this bakery metaphor? Like let's say you're making some savory bread or whatever. Yeah. Do you have your flour? Do you have the right amount of flour? Do you have the right amount of yeast? Or do you even have the right flour? Right. Do you have uh yeast that's actually going to rise your bread? That that's where the life comes from me. And I have a I have a basic rule about this, and it comes down to the the advice that I feel is rightly given, but I think that it's slightly off. So writing advice books and and videos and all of that self-help kind of stuff in the writing community, you'll always see the advice about bringing a scene to life or bringing a plot to life centered around the word conflict. You always have to have some sort of conflict. The character has to have an internal conflict. There has to be conflict between uh the characters in a scene in order to give it drama. And oftentimes we use the word drama interchangeably with, you know, there's some sort of conflict going on. Tension building. Yes, exactly. And I actually think that that is a word that can lead people astray into a story that ultimately does lack life, lacks the spark. Where conflict for me puts too much emphasis on the negative, negative interactions, negative um events that could happen in a plot and can lead a writer to being repetitive. And when you're repetitive, there's no growth, there's no change, and thus you're boring and lifeless and dead. But that's like essentially what is what is death, but an unchanging state, you know? Uh and right, and readers don't want to be there. They want to be in a constant flux of change. So, what is a more appropriate word to me than conflict? Something that is a little bit less negative that can include uh the positivity that's needed in order to create this balance between negative events and positive events and creating that like feeling of fluctuation in life. It's friction. You what you essentially need to bring a story to life, to bring a character to life, is not conflict, not something bad always, but friction. And I could like I could go on, I don't I don't want to just like monologue, but that's it's essentially how it works for me. I basically go, okay, how can I add friction points? And friction points can be positive, like someone, like someone's hopes and dreams, whether they'll happen or not. You know, something being on the line, friction can be as simple as a plot point, which is instead of a and then this happened, it's but this happened, or therefore this happened. That's that's where you that's where you get your movement and your life. And I have I have other notes that I've put together for this episode, but we can that's that's where I would start. The difference between conflict and friction and how you generate as much friction as possible from top-down plot all the way to dialogue in a scene.
SPEAKER_00I I love that, but I think of it differently than that. I think of it as like kind of like what you said, like life or death, like like a flower going through its life cycle, it's always changing and growing. And so each scene, what you're saying is you don't want it to be stagnant. And so I think of it as change. Like every scene that I'm writing, I'm thinking, what is changing here? And it doesn't have to be anything major. I'm thinking, is my character changing their mindset? Is there a relationship that's growing closer or further apart? Is the story moving forward any bit at all? Like what is there a quest now? Is there um a plan? Is there a conflict or friction? You know, and so that's what I think of with each scene. And then that's gonna give us a through line of heart, which is the characters themselves, and make us as readers invested in wanting to watch the change throughout the book. I think that's what you want is for the reader to want to turn the page and say, now what? Now what's gonna happen? What's gonna happen next? And the way you do that is the promise of change, and it is through these little tricks of like creating tension, creating whether that be through conflict or through a love affair or through someone's goals wanting to be met. And so if you have that or people are wanting to turn the page to find out what happens next, then you have to follow through with all of the major ingredients like plot and character arc and and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And if you're going with let's let's address plot and character arc, if you're out there and you're going, yeah, but where do I start? Like whenever I write a story or start a story, I I just feel like things aren't real yet. I feel like it's a fake world. Just everything feels limp, and I I don't know how to have those character interactions that have automatic chemistry. How do I get to that chemistry state from nothing? And my recommendation for people is to not forget how powerful and friction-filled tropes are. Tropes are across all the genres, they have automatic friction for you to benefit from. That's what a trope is, basically. So I I I just kind of pulled up some general trope. So, like in fantasy, the ancient prophecy trope, a preordained fate that dictates the plot, that has friction because it suddenly makes you ask questions. Is this ancient prophecy real? Is it going to come true? Is it going to apply to my another trope, rags to riches character who, you know, started out with nothing, and let's say the riches are they're King Arthur. They pulled the sword out of the stone and they suddenly have all of these expectations put on them. They're they're the king, they have magical Merlin with them. That's all friction for you because it's change, but it's also the stakes are are high. The stakes kind of twist your gut and make you question, oh, am I gonna lose everything? Is the character that I'm rooting for like I'm in it with them? And and thus, because you have this automatic start from a trope that frames reality, every new character that you introdu introduce into that trope gains some of that magic because they're suddenly involved in the friction, in the drama. And they might tear everything down, or they might build everything even higher and make you go, I'm higher, like I'm higher now, like on a cliff's edge. Like the higher I go, the further I could fall. And that that is the beauty of just a story that's alive.
SPEAKER_00I agree. And and and when you're thinking of like, okay, but where exactly do I start the story? If you have this idea of like the prophecy and fantasy, you want to start close to the inciting incident, either right before or in it. And what that means is your character's been living their life and it's all been the same, nothing's really been changing, and then something happens that's starting your story where it changes their life moving forward. So maybe for this prophecy, the shooting star comes out across the sky and lands on the ground, and your character sees it and runs out to go find it. Okay. That's where your story could start, or something. You know, they're they're out on a picnic with their family and then they follow the shooting star. You want to start it right where you would want to start a story with like the interesting stuff happening. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I I once saw an agent talking about where to start a story, just like you gave this great example and how to make that beginning interesting. And I and I took that advice to heart. I think about it often actually. They gave an example of a writer that they signed, and this this was a um an agent for adult literature. He published a lot of speculative fiction and short stories. So the inciting incident kind of deal was a little bit more tempered for his world of stories. It wasn't the plots weren't necessarily as intense as commercial fiction would be. But his basic advice was start with your character doing something. It almost didn't matter what it was, as long as it was illustrative of the character or the themes or the plot that was going to be happening, as long as it was connected to your story. So his example was from one of his authors who I don't actually this was years ago, so I don't actually remember what the whole book was about or the short story, but it started with the main character taking care of bees and all of all the intricacies of what it meant to raise these beehives and take care of them and and what was going on with this specific beehive. And that was that had enough motion and friction again to grab the reader, especially the the friction point of going, why am I reading about this? You know, if you if you can be assertive enough, bold enough to make your reader go, why do they start me out in this really specific, narrow type of activity? It has to have some sort of meaning. If if you don't waste their time and don't spend too long there, that is a great trick to pull people in. You're playing on their expectations, sort of. And that's that's the friction. That's what you need in order to bounce off into whatever plot you want to take them along. You're always looking for that interest point. I love that.
SPEAKER_00I feel like it would take a very skilled writer, though, to pull that off because you have to be very clear about where you're going and the point of it and why you're doing that, because so many people will put down a book after the first 10 pages. And so I I applaud anyone that can pull that off.
SPEAKER_01Well, I wouldn't spend 10 pages on one like really intense niche activity, right? I would spend maybe the first few paragraphs on it. But that that's my particular writing pace. I mean, Moby Dick is basically all about whaling. Nobody liked it when it came out. It's just now considered a masterwork. So I wouldn't expect if you want to be Herman Melville, great. Go for it. Just just know what you're setting yourself up for.
SPEAKER_00So I think I think that's the hard thing about books, is that not only do you have to have all of these things that we've talked about, but now you need your voice telling the story. Maybe it's your voice that's giving it the sparkle, the razzle dazzle on top of it. I don't think because you can read the same scene. Let's say, let's say we're in a writing conference, okay, and they tell us they and sometimes they do this for writing activities. They'll say, okay, write a scene about a granddad on his deathbed and his son's in there, and and the granddad has one last thing to say to him, and write this scene, go. Everyone in that room has this scene in their head. They've have like the clear setup. Everyone's gonna write it a different way, everyone's gonna have something different to say, and then whichever one's the best, although there's no such thing as the best, but the one that maybe grabs your attention the most is gonna be the one that has the most gripping voice, wouldn't you say?
SPEAKER_01I just don't even know what voice is. I've never, I've never known. Like we'd have uh we could dive into the concept, but like Maybe that's for another episode of like what voice is. To me, I'm just like, did you pick an interesting perspective? Did you think of an interesting was it interesting? That's it. Like, I don't know what's so special. There's nothing special. I don't even know if I have voice. You have a voice. The voice is the way you would. Okay, I feel like I'm I I want to break it, break like when a student is told, let's develop your voice. I'm like, I don't know what kind of advice that is.
SPEAKER_00What is voice? Okay, I recently was reading about this because it confused me so much because that's what agents always say. They're looking for a voice, they're looking for a voice that grips them. And whatever sounds like magic. I think it is the unique way in which you see the world and the way you say it. So something common that a lot of new writers will do is they'll write in cliches. Like I like it, I I was so cold I felt like I was like shivering to the bone. Okay. It's a cliche. Or like I was so starving, my stomach growled. You know, like very basic phrases that are kind of cliche. I can you think of another cliche I'm having trouble, like a very common one, like a like a phrase that you would say. Uh like it's raining cats and dogs. Okay, that's a very common phrase. It was raining cats and dogs. Okay. So this is something that new writers do. Uh, they will use common phrases that are not their own voice. What what agents want to see is how you would describe that scene. How do you see it raining? Like, how would you describe it and how do you see the world? And if you're able to write something and see the world in a way that they don't normally see it or other people, then they really enjoy that. That is what your voice is. I get it.
SPEAKER_01There's a beatnik part of me that's just like, I want to write a book that just says it's raining cats and dogs, just like over and over and over and over and over. And then like some of the pages will have it's raining cats and dogs just written up here and written down here. That's the stupid shit that they that they would do, like trying to break the rules of writing. Anyway, that's just me.
SPEAKER_00Don't you think that's freeing in a way? It's because everyone sees the world in their own unique way. That's why I do this exercise now every time I go out. This is super nerdy of me, but this is what I do. At night, let's say I'm outside and I see the moon, it's a full moon. I look at it and I'm like, what's a unique way I could describe this moon right now? So I could say, you know, like the cliche would be to like describe it as cheese, you know, or like maybe I could describe it, you know, you can kind of see like the craters on it. Maybe I could describe it or liken it to some spoiled milk and it looks like there's some chunks in it, you know. That could be like I'm that could be setting up for like a theme of like being a thriller or horror and how this character sees the world. And so I always do this now, or anytime I see anything, no matter how simple it is, I'm like, how could I describe this in a unique way? And that is how I've been developing my voice. I like that. That's a really good exercise. I should do it more. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's true. Describing mundane things in a fun and lively way that's as far away from a cliche. Like I can I can accept that as voice. Not not writing with cliche idioms uh to me makes sense, I guess. I I think that also I guess that would that would go to, I mean, it's kind of funny because people get trapped between using a trope and falling into a cliche. People get worried about that. I mean, again, that's part of the the magic of of writing well is when you start to transcend the the types of cliche tropes that are going to get you attention and and they are a shortcut to having a lively and fun book, but you need to do something extra. You need a little um in there. And unfortunately, I don't think that that's something that's something that can be taught or just spoon fed through through a podcast. But I do I do think that like concrete advice starting out with the trope, you're gonna you're gonna get some of that juice and you don't have to start from nothing. That's that's what that's what I think. Okay, um well, do you guys or do you wanna throw some tomatoes? Let's do it. Awesome. I have uh I have a good one. Okay. Or actually, I have two, but they're for the same book. Can I go first? So my uh my two tomatoes for this week, they're both short, are for Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Wynt. I love that book. For anyone who doesn't know it, it's a sci-fi book uh about a traveler that has to navigate a planet where they can the locals, the aliens, uh, can and do regularly morph into the opposite gender to to from woman to man, man to woman, and it's this visitor's uh interpretation of that and trying to navigate the society. I'm not I'm not gonna go deeper into it, but to me it's a very moving and interesting science fiction classic. I recommend it to anybody. So the core reviews, both of them were two stars. I thought that they were just really something uh one is ponderous and confusing. I know that a lot, all caps of people, love this book, but it just wasn't for me. It was slow, poorly written, and confusing. It felt more like a rough draft than a finished product. And then the second one was a snooze fest. Again, all of these reviews always go back to it in some way being boring for the reader. It's not a good sign when you feel a sense of grim relief upon finally finishing a book. This was brutal. Le Guin's writing is precise and elegant. The good news stops there. This story is long and boring and predictable, and the plot moves with a glacial speed. And I I really like these reviews, the second one particularly, because it says it's not a good sign when you have this feeling of grim relief. And I'm like, I don't know. Sometimes like a book can make you feel pretty damn grim and you are happy it's over. Like, I don't know, reading a Cormac McCarthy book, I bet there are plenty of people that were like, I am so glad I'm not living in that world anymore. I felt that after certain movies too, that I'm like, I would never say that this movie is bad, you know? Yeah. It was just hard. And I think that there are plenty of readers out there that don't know how to enjoy a hard read. And that is a skill that you have to develop if if you want to become a good reader.
SPEAKER_00I mean, reading is a skill. Being able to read for long periods of time is like a muscle. Sometimes when I'm really, really into a book, I'll find myself getting tired after and I'll have to be like, no, just push a little further. You gotta build your endurance so I can read for longer periods and have the the ability to persevere even when it's hard. Like for horror, for example, that's kind of a different hard read. But like with movies, you're pushed through it, you know. So if you want to cover your eyes or plug your ears, which I do sometimes, you can get through it without having to fully do it, let's say. But with reading, if you cover your eyes, you're not gonna know what happens next. You have to face it and read the next line, which sometimes makes horror books scarier than the movies because you're forced to witness all of it without ever covering your eyes and ears.
SPEAKER_01That's true. That's true. You have to read like every little detail.
SPEAKER_00So it's like the door opens. Sometimes I'll like I'll I'll look away and then I'm like, okay, what's behind the door? And I have to go back to reading. That's so fun. I love that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So and to to our conversation today about how you get that spark, like that spark is in that book. Conflicts, friction, all all the things that we were talking about, like all of the things that make something great and thought-provoking are in the left hand of darkness. And yet there were still people who, you know, they took the difficulty of the book in in, I think it the wrong way. And you're just going to, you're going to all you're still going to have that even if you even if you have voice.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. That's the annoying thing is you will still get a rotten tomato thrown at you.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um what about you? So I chose An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekanin. I've talked about them before. I love them. And that's I've chosen this book because it's going to go with our question of the day. So I just wanted to start off by throwing some tomatoes at them because later I will be giving them a golden apple. This the one above the one I have is like says it's boring that the writing style is terrible and tedious, which blows my mind. But then the one I wanted to read was it's two stars, unfortunate, and it's an unfortunate denunciation of the field of psychology, a field which has the potential to allow humans to maximize their full abilities. So I loved this because as a psychologist I found it so interesting that someone did not like the portrayal of psychology and its darkness because historically psychology has done some pretty dark things to people in their experiments. Oh yeah. And so I I remember reading this book and loving it and I'm going to save my comments for our question of the day but just thought this was interesting and now we can move on to our question of the day so I can continue talking about it. So our question of the day is can you give a fun book rec in any genre that you loved influenced your writing and then tell us why it influenced your writing. So give a fun book rec in any genre that you loved and then tell us how it influenced your writing. So I'll go first since I just did the anonymous girl. So anonymous girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekanin it's about this girl who is in need of some cash and so she finds out that there's this psychology experiment she can go participate in and get some cash and you know it'll be great. So she goes to do this experiment and then she gets chosen and then chaos ensues. And I remember I first read this book when I was in my doctoral program for psychology. And I was listening I had to drive an hour to my school every day. And so I was like knee deep into this audio book. And this was my first time being introduced to Sarah Pekkin and Greer Hendrix and I remember thinking to myself God I wish I was a writer and not doing my psychology degree. But also wow maybe I can use my psychology degree to write some books. And this started fueling my imagination how could I take the things that I've learned and turn them into dark thriller twisty novels. And I was so swept up in the prose that they wrote I loved their writing style even though this other person thought it was tedious which is crazy to me. I thought they were so beautiful just their twists and turns unreliable narrators how they portrayed certain mental illnesses and I thought you know what I'm going to get this degree and then I'm going to use it to write novels with twisty characters. And so that's my answer.
SPEAKER_01That's such a good origin story. It's funny I I recommend her so often that it's I feel bad recommending it again. But we actually just read The Masqueraders by Georgette Hare. We just read that book in the book club that I participate in monthly and I I literally just kind of gave this little speech that to them but uh that book for me was something that my grandmother recommended to me. It takes place in the 1700s. I like historical fiction but the thing that it does is it sets up a plot with a central character who is basically like everyone talks about him like he's a genius. He's supposed to be a genius he talks about himself like he's a genius and he is supposed to just be this overwhelming force. And when I read this, it was one of the first books that I ever read where I was truly convinced that this person actually was what they claim to be what the author claimed they were what all the characters claimed they were where I I so often read books where there are supposed to be these overwhelming characters that are capable of amazing things. And I'm actually not convinced in in the process of the writing that they ever do anything that's particularly amazing. And so she was so adept in writing this overwhelming genius of a man that it inspired me in my current project. I think about it often I think about like try to break down what she did, the anatomy of certain scenes that she put together and his dialogue to help me understand like how did she create this illusion of this indomitable force and it helped me in my writing and I recommend it to anybody especially if you like historical fiction. It is convincingly historical fiction a lot of people in my book group said that it was difficult to read, that the language in it was very old in this way that seemed foreign. It was written in the 1920s set in the 1700s and yes she convinces you that she is writing from the time that it's accurate. It's almost like you just you you dug up this book from the ground or like it was like from a like a like in in a bottle that's been at sea set off by somebody from the 1700s. That's what it feels like to read it. That's why I recommend it. Another book another book along that vein is um the Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel if you like historical fiction uh that was another book where I was completely transported to the past and still I still think about how she crafted these historical events and made you feel like you were really there and understanding all of the complexities of the day. So that's those those are two books that I would recommend for anybody that's into historical fiction.
SPEAKER_00Wow I'm convinced I might have to add those to my very lengthy TBR exactly I have a question for you Sydney.
SPEAKER_01All right let's hear it what do you do during a second act? What is a second act? You know I asked what voice is but like what what is even going on? How do you make one that's not boring or just like how do they do it? You are always asking me difficult questions. Yeah the second act is very difficult it's a very messy middle but uh I'm taking that as uh you're saying we're going to cover it next week.
SPEAKER_00All right fine have it your way we will talk about this next week awesome on page right thank you for listening bye bye you just listened to PageFright don't forget to like and subscribe and write to us at pagefrightcontact at gmail.com
