Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #108 of The Writing Coach podcast, I speak with fiction editor Lori Puma.
Lori previously appeared on episode 72 the show. Lori helps authors write novels readers can’t put down. She works with writers who dream of making a living writing novels in popular genres like fantasy, romance, thriller, science fiction, mystery, and young adult. As an editor, she specializes in teaching authors how to plan and revise their plots so readers stay hooked.
During our discussion, Lori describes:
- Why she loves working with genre fiction authors
- Her life-long love of comedy writing
- Why she frequently uses examples in her teaching
- How writers can get free advice on their story ideas via the author support series on her website
- And much more!
Listen to the full podcast episode:
Watch the unedited video of the conversation:
The Writing Coach Episode #108 Show Notes
Check out Lori’s website at loripuma.com and join her email list for more fiction-writing resources.
Submit your story for a chance to get free feedback from Lori on your work-in-progress.
Check out previous author feedback posts at loripuma.com/blog.
Episode Transcript
Today on the podcast, I’ve got Lori Puma. Lori, welcome back to The Writing Coach.
Thanks Kevin. I’m so excited to be here and have a chance to chat with a regular human again.
Right. It’s been such a weird year just before we hit record. We were talking about someone said they knew you from hearing you talk on videos and podcasts and things that you were saying how funny that is given you haven’t done any interviews in like the last year to a certain extent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
How has the pandemic impacted you and your business?
Well, for me, it’s actually been great. Cause I have a brain injury and it’s just made the world so much quieter, which has made my life a lot easier. And then it’s also been great because a lot of times you know, my clients have other things in their lives other than doing the work that they, I assigned to them and now they all are doing their work on time and they’re so excited to see me and it’s just been it’s just been really fun.
It’s a similar thing in that when the pandemic first happened, I lost several clients. A lot of people were worried about jobs and worries just about life itself, writing just wasn’t a priority. And then, you know, as we went deeper and deeper into it and the fall came and winter came, I was just like overloaded with clients, people with more time people re-engaged, I’m ready to go back to some form of regular life. And even if that isn’t going outside or interacted with people, writing is something so many of us have always found pleasure and joy in and you know, it makes perfect for writing.
Yeah, for sure. It’s definitely something that you know, like it gives life meaning and I’m just really honored to have a job where I get to help people, you know, create, have fun in the moment and also, you know, take steps towards the things that they’re dreaming about.
It’s pretty interesting to working as a writing coach with people all around the world, I’ve been doing video conference calls for like seven years on a regular basis. So when the pandemic happened and everyone else was like, Oh my God, zoom, how does this work? My background, you know, I’m like, Oh man, I’ve been doing this for almost a decade. It was no problem for me.
Yes, yes, yes. That’s definitely true. I had like a long explanation of how to use zoom as like a thing that you get when you sign up to talk to me and like now everybody’s got it now.
Right? No problem. No problem. Yeah. I it’s true. I even consultation calls. I used to be like, okay, here’s how you download the app. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s called zoom now. It’s like so ambiguous. So thank you as well for folks who haven’t heard you on the podcast before, maybe fill them in on what you do in your job as a writing.
I work with authors who are writing in popular genres like fantasy science fiction romance, thriller, young adult and I’m going to be adding comedy soon. And I really helped them a lot with the big picture aspects of their story. So like how do you create a plot that, you know, has, is well, a conflict that will last for the entire length of your book and a plot that has a lot of potential for, for, you know, for twists and turns, but that also doesn’t go off onto tangents that aren’t related to your theme. So I, my focus, I would say my specialty is kind of in, in that area of trying to help authors really get those skills of managing the, the like big picture aspects of their story,
Call yourself a writing coach or an editor, a developmental editor, or what?
I currently call myself fiction editor because people have some idea what an editor does and they’re like, I don’t know what a writing coach says.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I kind of branded that name on myself, you know, many years ago, writing coach, but, you know, I think it’s because I was almost scared to call myself a developmental editor. You know, I was so intimidated. I was like, Oh God, I can’t myself call myself an editor because then I can’t let a single typo through like after years of working with writers now and doing so much editing, but also so much teaching, you know, I, I’m certainly a writing coach, but I’m also a writing instructor or a teacher. And I’m also an editor. It’s funny how, when you work particularly freelance and one-on-one you can kind of serve a lot of different functions for, for authors.
Well, and I also think that, I mean, writing, especially something as long as a novel is so complex and there are so many layers to it. And I think that a lot of you know, a lot of the work for people like you and me is really kind of helping author see like actually making sure there’s no grammatical errors is kind of the last step. Like how you keep a reader engaged in your story. Is that like, if you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter if you have perfect grammar.
Well, I mean, the thing that blows me away is how often my clients and I come across a great idea or a great way to improve their story. But just by talking it out, like, it’s not like I had some great epiphany and I came to the call, here’s what you need to do with your book. And a lot of the time they’re kind of lost. We sit down and we say, let’s talk this out. Let’s spit ball ideas. What about this? And we stumble upon these ideas and I don’t think that happens quite as much when you’re alone in your room, staring at a wall, going like, be brilliant, be brilliant.
No. Yeah, no, that’s really, really, my focus is like asking people, all of those questions that generate those brainstorming discussions, cause like my goal for it. So I mostly work with clients in one-on-one phone calls and like, by the end, I know that I’m doing a good job when at the end of the call, they’re like, Oh my God, I’m so excited to go. Right. You know, so yeah.
So you mentioned you work in commercial fiction, commercial genre fiction, primarily me as well. So I’m curious what draws you to those genres? What makes you want to work with those types of stuff?
Cause those are the types of stories that I love. I mean, there are like literary stories that I really enjoy, but like really, if there’s not violence and there’s not sex, then I’m really less interested or the potential for those things. So yeah. I mean, I grew up on those stories and and they’re, they’re just what I love.
Agreed. Agreed. Do you think those genres lend themself to a kind of writer’s craft support?
Oh my gosh. I think that absolutely they do. Cause you know, like a lot of these stories have been told, like there’s so many thrillers and there are so many fantasy stories and really, you know, if you want to make money as an author, writing those kinds of stories, it’s really important to kind of figure out like how do you stand out amongst the crowd of people that are all doing something similar? And I think that taking the time to do a lot of brainstorming and you know, making sure that you’ve got a story that is really, really like sucks those readers in and does not let them go like that is how you stand out.
Yeah. I mean, I know you’re a student of Sean Coyne and he has the story bell curve where he talks about the, the arc plot or the arch plot right in the middle and then the experimental stuff on one side and the literary stuff on the other side. But it’s like, it seems like all the things we teach as writing instructors, really nails that middle popular commercial fiction stuff. Like it’s really easy to go, Oh, you want to write a werewolf book? I know how to write a werewolf. Here’s some good stories. Start here. Here’s some other things we need to do. Whereas if someone comes in, they’re like, I want to write like Virginia Wolf and Michael and [inaudible], it’s a lot tougher to be like, here’s my framework for a beautiful writing.
Yeah, I’m not even going to comment because I don’t really know what to say.
Well, it’s something I wanted to know were mentioned. I’ve noticed about your teaching, your blog posts, even the work you presented at my writer’s craft summit a couple of years ago is you’re very good at using examples in your teaching. Could you talk a little bit about that? I noticed that often in your blog posts and everything, you’re always like here’s a concept, but here’s an example of that concept playing out. Tell me a bit about that approach to teaching.
I did not plan to become a writer or a writing coach or editor. I trained as a scientist all the way through to getting two graduate degrees, a subject that I never had a regular nine to five job. So I have had to transfer industries and careers like multiple times and I’ve had to learn a lot of different things. And I’ve also had to like mentor a lot of people in different kinds of, of areas. And for a long time I was a data analyst and I had to well I had to train journalists how to use Excel and the data visualization software. And then I had to train like database administrators and other data analysts how to tell stories. And what I found was really effective in terms of, you know, getting the ideas across, which, giving people bad examples or examples that were weren’t like bad, but they weren’t quite what we were going for.
And contrasting that with like, okay, this is a good example. Like this is how you really do it. And this is the difference and you see how this one is close, but it doesn’t quite do the thing that you wanted to do that I was talking about. Cause it’s really easy to convince yourself, like when you have a concept written out abstractly, it’s very easy to be like, Oh yeah. Like, like for one thing, like, you know, a good villain always want something and you might have written down like my villain once world domination. And you’re like, okay, I got it. But I’ve got, I’ve got something that’s really, my villain wants something. They want to dominate the world, but that’s not specific and it’s not concrete. And the reader doesn’t know when you, your villain wins. And so that’s really not good enough for, for that. And so like just having those examples, it’s it just makes it much easier to have a conversation about like, this is, this is the box that I want you to brainstorm in rather than like, I feel like a lot of, a lot of times you know, I’ve read a ton of writing books and a lot of times they’re like ask these really big questions and, but I’m like, but how do I know that I have an answer that is going to help my book?
I see that in a lot of character stuff too, there’s, there’s a lot of like character worksheets and things where they’re like, you know, what, what did your intake protagonist get for his fifth birthday? This is like spending time thinking about that really play out the novel maybe, but maybe not.
I hear ya.
You alluded earlier bit to this idea of helping people find a strong through line in terms of the conflict in your book, as well as this idea of a really strong antagonist. And I know along those lines, you’re doing some work on your website, on your blog where people can actually submit material. I don’t know you tell me about it. I, I know that you’re, you’re providing some free advice here, which is pretty incredible. So tell I’m sure people are going to want to hear about this and probably practice.
So I’m doing an author feedback series on my blog right now, but that’s going to go on for a really long time, most likely. And basically I have a little survey where you know, if you’re an author, you, you tell me about your premise, your protagonists, your billing, your, your plot. And you, you know, tell me kind of like what you’re struggling with in terms of the big picture aspect of the story. And then basically I on I pick one author every month and I give them some kind of like feedback on the, you know, how to get more out of their premise on your characters. Like the two that are up right now are the first one was a a romance novel where the author wanted some help, like crafting her romantic heroes. Cause she was like, how am I going to get these people together? Because they’re living in different countries and they’ve got professions and jobs that they really like, and I just don’t see how to get them together. So, you know, that was one. And then the most recent one was a scifi author. Who’s got like a mystery thriller that wanted to know like, okay, how do I keep readers hooked on this story? Like, and so you know, in the blog posts, I just asked them a bunch of questions of like, okay, you’ve got this. That’s really great. Like what about this other thing? You know?
You mentioned this a series of questions, how do people find those questions and answer them and send them to you?
So there is a Google form that I will, I will send you the link. So yeah. And if you’re not finding the show notes, you can always go to the my, my website, Lori puma.com. And there’s a link in every blog post in this series to the form to submit your story.
Fantastic. So did the sorts of questions that you’re asking, how did you narrow down kind of figure out what are the key things you need an author to tell you in order for you to be able to help them in this manner?
Well, I’ve been doing this for a while and I’ve been noticing that I get the same questions over and over again. So you know, it it’s it’s sort, it’s just, you know, when you do something, you start to notice patterns as, as you work with more people on similar topics. And so you know, the, the biggest, I would say the, the like sort of the four things that I always want to know about are not necessarily in order of importance, but the genre that they’re writing in or like what kind of story it is, the protagonist, the antagonist, and then like what’s the conflict in the story.
And do people struggle answering those questions? Do they struggle with identifying the conflict?
No. Well, I don’t ask specifically about conflict in the questions. I ask them about plot because that’s what tells me, I, so like one of the things that, so I was a health scientist and a lot of my training was in learning to, to interview people or do surveys where you got like sensitive information from people. So I know a lot of tricks about like, this is how you get information out of people. And a lot of times you don’t ask directly what you want. You ask something that is like gets you close to it. And then you, as the person interpreting it are like, okay, this is, I can see that they’re going this way and you might not get the whole answer, but you can kind of get a sense of the direction that they’re going in.
Writing coach Jennie Nash, I think she said at some point, the most important question, a writing coach asks is why then why again? And it’s so true, this idea that like, you’re almost an archeologist when you’re working with authors, you’re trying to like, sometimes they have things happen just because they want them to happen. Right. And you need to get them to have an explanation for why, but then you probably need to go another level below that and have like, okay, there’s your external plot reason. Here’s your internal motivation reason. It’s a lot of that interview process, as you just said, it’s, it’s so interesting how people think of writing and the creative arts as, so dissimilar from the sciences. And yet there’s so much crossover.
Yeah. There’s so much crossover. And I love that. You said, you know, it’s about like, well, yeah, the, the author, hasn’t a reason cause they want this character to be, you know, in this other place, in the plot or, you know, at this other location. But the, a lot of my work is trying to help people understand their characters and their motivations. Cause like I was a health scientist, so I’ve spent a long, a lifetime studying people and I’m like a pirate is not going to just abandon their. Like, and a lot of times, you know, you know, authors that they work with, like they’ll have something. And just like my work is just to be like, but is that, is that character with these traits that you’ve already established? Really? I’m not sure
This is the challenge authors are faced with. I remember in grad school I studied English literature. And I remember a professor said once, you know, people study geography, people, study history, people study the sciences, people study biology. But when you study literature, you actually study all those disciplines. Cause when you read Shakespeare, you’re hearing about psychology. You’re also hearing about the Elizabethan times. You’re also learning about drama and how theater works. It’s like through literature, you can learn so much about humanity in so many different disciplines. That’s the pleasure of being a literary scholar and a reader, but then it becomes the opposite when you’re an author. That’s the challenge to you. You’re not just any one thing, you know, if you move it into the metaphor of like a movie, you’re the actor and the writer and the costume designer and the set designer. And you’re, there’s so many different disciplines that go into writing a novel. So it’s no surprise that people reach out to folks like you and I, to help them in that process.
Yeah. And a lot of you know, so like some of my work is character motivation, but then the other, I would say the other, another big piece of it is really helping authors manage. Like what information do I give to the reader? And what do I hold back from them? Like what do they need to know? And then what does this character know? Because like, it’s really easy for an author to be like, you know, to imbue your characters with all of this knowledge that they really wouldn’t have based on the traits that you’ve established for them. But it takes a lot of discipline to recognize that. And it’s really difficult to do for your own work.
I find with my clients is that often actually they’re too subdued and too subtle and not on the nose enough. I so rarely have clients where I’m like, Oh, this is just too over the top. Emotional. Let’s bring those, the drama down. This might just be my own preference or like histrionics in high drama, but let’s push it further. Let’s push it further. Like if, if a character stubs their toe, I’ve always like break the leg. Why stub the toe when you can break the leg?
Yeah. Well I think that it’s both actually I think that it’s both like a lot of times authors are kind of hesitant to really like, I, I sous a lot of anxiety, you know, cause they’re like, Oh, I don’t know if I really want to do that. And I’m just like, no, like let your freak flag fly. Like that is what people want to see. But then it’s also like how do you do that in a way that isn’t overwhelming that you aren’t repeating that in every scene and how do you have variety for all of these things.
Absolutely. Yeah. It’s funny that idea of being an anxiety alleviator is part of your, your job as an editor and writing coach. And it’s funny, you know, I think it goes back to what you said. It’s about a balance, like being too on the nose or being too subtle, you’re trying to find a balance. And it’s kind of the same as a teacher where it’s like, all I care about is literature, it’s all I’ve studied. It’s what I teach. It’s all what I do. But like at the same time, so much of the time, what I’m saying to clients is like, don’t worry about it. It’s just the scene. It’s a first draft. We can fix it. Right? It’s like this stuff is so important to me, but at the same time as a creator, you can’t go into it with that mindset. You have to be like, it’s a first stab at the scene where it’s the fifth stab at the scene. And even, even if it’s your last shot at a scene and you’re still not happy with it, we’ll get to why your book has 50 other scenes.
And here you have a lifetime of writing ahead of you as well. Like that’s always, you know, I I took a lesson from a really a really excellent Argentine tango instructor several years ago. And she showed me videos of herself at the end of the lesson. And she was just like shaking her head and she was like, Oh, I just can’t. I just can’t believe. And then there’s a few moments where I’m like, okay, there’s hope for her. And I just like really appreciated that about her because I was like, Oh, like everybody hates what they’ve done. Like if you are not displeased with what you did, like three or five years ago, then you aren’t growing.
I think of music. When I think about that, I remember I interviewed an author once and he was like, I was talking to him about like traditional publishing versus indie publishing. He was like, I was like, why don’t you just put some stuff out there? And he’s like, well, I only want to publish like my traditional publish perfect, great novel. He was like, what if people read the, the bad self-published stuff? And then they’ll never want to read me again. But like, I just like any band I’ve ever listened to. I probably discovered them when they were pretty big and pretty polished. And then I love going back and finding their early albums and like listening to that transition and like, yeah, maybe those are early albums. Aren’t as good as the big head albums. But like, it’s interesting to see an artist experiment and grow and learn and change. So I, I think you’re right. I don’t think people should be afraid of thinking they have to come out of the gate. Perfect. Right there. There’s a lot.
And quantity is really the key to like, it’s not, if you will try to do quality, I’m taking a comedy writing class right now. And like you know, every single assignment write ten one liners. And like a lot of my one-liners are very good, but I’ve ran over a hundred now and some of them are pretty funny.
Tell me, I know you mentioned you’re going to bring comedy into the genres that you work with. Comedy is one of my weaknesses, so I’m quite interested. Tell me about what drew you to kind of studying it on your own and wanting to teach it. And what are some of the things that you’ve learned so far?
Yeah, well I have always loved comedy. Like the princess bride is like my favorite story ever. And you know, I’ve done like improv and I’ve, I’ve just been a huge fan of comedy all of my life. And it’s always been this thing that I’m just like, Ooh, I can’t, I can’t really do that. It’s really hard. You know, I don’t know. And then I stumbled upon Scott Dickers who founded the onion. He wrote a couple of books called how to write funny or how to write funnier and funniest and, you know and that basically like break down. So he found, did I say he founded the onion. Okay. So so he, he, he was like, he made it just like a series of steps and I was like, I can follow a series of steps. And then you know, he started offering an online class for it and I’ve, I’ve tried writing like a short story that was finally, and I’ve been working on a comic novel, but it’s just like, I, I haven’t made as much progress as I wanted on it. And it, it just, I was just afraid that it wouldn’t be funny. Cause I feel like a lot of comic novels just really don’t meet their, like they work at stories and they keep my attention, but they’re not as funny as they could be. And so I was like, well, let’s go see if I can get funny. And then if I can bring that with my, you know what I already know about telling stories, then that, that, that should be good.
Well, Lori, I know you’re packed up right now in terms of clientele. You’re not bringing in, not a lot of new people at the moment, but let people know if they want to maybe get on a waiting list, get on your mailing list as well as submit some material for the free review on the blog. I mean, that’s amazing. Let people where know where they should go. And we’ll include all of it in the show notes here as well.
Sure. So you should go to my website, www.lauriepuma.com. And you should join my email list cause I always offer up. If I have openings in my schedule, I always offer them to my email list people first and whenever I do free stuff, I always tell them about it first. And yeah, and I would definitely love to see some more submissions to the author feedback series. And I’ll give you the links for those.
Fantastic. Well, anything else you want to leave the listeners with any final updates or advice or anything you want to share?
Would you like to hear some of my one-liners? Let me, let me okay. I bet. Okay.
In grand bargain, Satan secure spot on next space X flight by trading his soul to Elon Musk.
Mold growing on door seal of a front load washer becoming more demanding once blood sacrifices in exchange for whiter whites.
See, I, I guess I’d never write very funny stuff at all. So I love that you can pull this off. Thank you. I take myself and my writing far too seriously to come up with anything.
Well, I mean, I feel like a big part of comedy is being willing to fall flat on your face repeatedly. So,
You know, I, as an old man now, you know, growing up, I just don’t remember. I think like experiencing, I dunno if I brand it or saw it or what, but Romeo and Juliet for the first time or Hamlet probably too. And I was just like, Oh, that’s what I want from every story. I just want everyone to die in every heart to be broken. And like, that’s what I wanted from all of my entertainment. And that’s, that’s still the art I continue to create, but I can tell you as you know, Amanda, who’s forties now with a lot of kids and a lot of responsibilities when it’s like, when the kids are finally in bed and the dishes are finally done and it’s like 10 30 at night, I don’t want heart’s room tone and everyone died. I’m like, I want something funny. I want something fun, especially this last year, right? This has been, I mean, even these last four years, it’s been a pretty dark time. And I think I appreciate comedy now more than ever. As I got older, as I grew older and as the world grows, seemingly darker in my eyes. I’m I’m I endless appreciation for, for comedy.
Yes. Laughter is, is a very good medicine.
Absolutely. Well, Lori, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It’s always great to speak with you.
Oh, thanks Kevin. It’s really, really fun to talk with you again too.
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