In this episode of The Writing Coach podcast, I chat with Sue Brown-Moore.
Sue is a sought-after book revision coach and one of LA Weekly’s 15 Book Coaches to Watch.
Sue and I discuss various aspects of fiction writing, including the importance of character-driven storytelling, imagination, romance, and authenticity.
We share our experiences and perspectives on these topics while emphasizing the need for a comprehensive approach to storytelling and the importance of inclusivity and character-driven narratives.
We also discuss pricing strategies for coaching and consulting services, with a focus on maintaining personal space and high-ticket, low-volume work.
Listen now!
The Writing Coach Episode #207 Show Notes
Breathe Life Into Your Characters
Snapshot the hero’s journey in 5 powerful moments.
Get instant access to Sue’s FREE worksheet that shows you the proven steps to transform flat characters into memorable flawed heroes that readers can relate to: GO HERE.
While you are at it, grab Kevin’s free checklist too:
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The Writing Coach Episode #207 Transcript
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Sue, welcome to The Writing Coach podcast.
Thank you so much for having me. I’ve been listening to your episodes, and I identify with you on so many things, like, you know, growing up Star Wars and all the fandoms. I am very excited to be here not to talk about those things, although we can, but just to talk about writing and how amazing it is. I love it.
Has writing always been part of your life? Do you remember when you started to think of yourself as a writer, or when books became a big part of who you were?
What a great question. I have probably a different answer to this than I think a lot of people who are traditional writers do, because I don’t. I am not a writer in the traditional sense, so I don’t write books. So that’s gonna sound a little weird to people who are like, Oh, I’m a writer. Do you write books? Well, no, I don’t write books. Well, are you still a writer? Right? So it’s the sort of identity question that I had to figure out in the last couple years. So the quick answer is, yes, I consider myself a writer, but I do not write fiction. However, I am an expert in coaching and revising and helping plan fiction, so I’m sort of like the reader expert that helps the writers catch the reader audience, and that is because I am a lifelong reader, and I love it so much I’ve been reading as long as I can remember.
I think there’s a misconception at times about that. I heard, well, I won’t say who said it, but someone in our industry recently say “Those who can’t do teach.” I was pretty shocked that she would say such a thing. I’m always thinking, have you seen NBA coaches? They’re five foot nine old white guys. You don’t have to be able to do a slam dunk to be able to coach a basketball player to succeed. And I think it’s the same way with so many things, including providing editorial advice.
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think the reason for that is that there’s a skill set in delivering the product, but there is a different skill set in understanding what makes the product valuable to the target audience. And sometimes the writer has the full spectrum skill set, but sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t, that’s when you need that overlap from somebody who maybe doesn’t do exactly what you do, but understands the value in what you do, and can help you dial it in.
Okay, but let’s get real for a second. You’ve got a novel in you, don’t you? I know you do. Come on. You’re waiting for that right moment to write that beautiful novel.
I did try. I tried to write a novel when I was, Oh, God, maybe 16. I tried to write, oh, you’re gonna laugh. I tried to write a fan fiction with Luke Skywalker and Calista. Do you remember her from the original Star Wars books?
I do not. You’re going deep cuts here. If I don’t know it, you’re going deep.
She so I used to read in the original Expanded Universe, before Disney took over Star Wars, which we won’t talk about opinions there, but I there was like an entire meal, like 30 book series with multiple X Wing series, and this whole development of the kids, of the stars of the movies, right? And that became my life, like I lived through it for 10 years, just reading those books and those inspired me. And I was like, Well, I want to write that too. And Luke Skywalker had an almost love interest, and I think her name was Calista or Callisto. She was force sensitive, and I decided that I wanted to write the ending that he the books didn’t give them, right? So I tried to write the romance between Luke and her, and I didn’t even finish it. I just, I didn’t, I don’t have the story, right? I get the little, tiny flashes, but I don’t have, I don’t get the full character experience. Like characters don’t talk to me in my head. So I have tried to write. I’ve tried a couple times, and it’s just not my calling. That’s just not where I’m at. Now I write long form and short form in non fiction, like, I’m very comfortable writing non fiction, like help articles and exploring topics and reviewing things. But when it comes to like pure creation, that’s not my sweet spot.
It’s interesting. You bring it to those Star Wars Legends books in the 90s. It’s very difficult, perhaps, for a fan of modern media to understand what things were like that. It sounds like we’re ancient, but in in the 90s, there were, there hadn’t been Star Wars movies in over a decade, and those books were the continuation. They weren’t considered spin-offs or whatnot. It was, this was what happened to Luke Skywalker after, uh, Return of the Jedi. And I wonder if our generation of writers have a special affinity for literature because some of our favourite pop culture intellectual properties, I guess you say, of the 80s became literature in the 90s.
Yeah, maybe that’s so, because you can take something that you loved, that you were just like it was so special, so special. I remember you talking in a previous episode about how you sort of embodied Luke. You know, your like childhood imaginings and even with your kids. And for me, that was the same way, like my brother and I would go into the backyard and get sticks and we would lightsaber fight, right? I was always Luke. He had to be Leia. I was training Leah, right? But, but I remember doing that when I was very young, and so when, when something is that like, that much a part of you, and then it’s continued in a different format, and then you try that format, and you realize how much you love that format, too, the fact that when you’re reading a book, you get to create the whole vision. It’s so unique to each reader, as opposed to watching experience on a movie, like, say, episodes 123, where the, yeah, the generated, you know, images not that great, right? And it was kind of, I find it kind of meh. But when you can create this whole story in your brain, given just the little clues the writer has given, that is so special, and I think you’re totally right in that we take that and we’re like, what else could I do?
Right? Totally, totally. And I think in this world of like, that Tiktok video is over, onto the next one, onto the next one, this idea of being able to create and living in your imagination going, Oh, where does the story go from here, even just something like binge watching, you don’t have that period of time where your imagination fills in the gaps or your imagination takes over. It’s just like onto the next episode, onto the next episode, and then now a new show. We’re done that season.
You know, yeah, there’s no sense of anticipation and in and the anticipation is what really creates the yearning, which I know we’re going to talk a little more about books and romance books later, but that’s romance books are my sweet spot, and that yearning is essential, and that’s what creates the momentum, the emotional momentum, to keep you going forward. And so, you know, when I can just binge an entire season of something on Netflix, it’s satisfying for two days, but then I’m kind of done with it. I’m just like, it’ll be a year. I’m not going to get excited, right? As opposed to, I know that there’s another Star Wars book coming out two months from now, and it’s going to be in hardback, and I can smell the pages, and I can go into the store and I can wait in line and get my pre ordered copy. It’s very exciting, right? The whole experience is different now, but it was special. And like, I just have these super fond memories of books, and I wanted to be part of that since I was very young, just part of the book world.
Did you then pursue literature or editing or something in your schooling? Or where did things go with your education?
Yeah, I did not. I wish I had known it was a possibility. I didn’t I grew up in a very small town in in Texas, and the career counseling at the time was very mainstream focus. It was like, Do you want to be in law enforcement? Do you want to be a firefighter? Do you want to be a doctor or a lawyer? I didn’t want any of those things. I was very good at math and science, so my dad was like, he he wished he had been an electrical engineer, so he kind of pushed me in the direction of engineering so I went to Texas A and M University for civil engineering, and I realized about two semesters in I did not like this at all. But by that point, you know, I’m committed. So I finished my degree, but my favorite class at A and M, like, hands down. I was there for six years, hands down in my six year bachelor’s degree, my favorite class, and the one I did the best in was sci fi English, and we that’s where I learned about dune and Isaac Asimov, and, like all of this, the great Ender’s Game, all of that stuff I learned about because I took a sci fi English class. And then after that, I was like, well, dang, I should have been in. Why wasn’t I in English or like creative writing, like, what am I doing with my life? But it’s too late, right? So you go work and you you do what you got to do, and through a series of events, I sort of fell into book reviewing. And from book reviewing, I fell into beta reading, which then is how I discovered developmental editing, and then I basically decided, screw corporate America. I’m just going to be an independent developmental editor. And here we are.
In the rest of the real world, you’re like, “I have a degree in English literature,” and people like, “Oh, I’m sorry.” This is the only podcast in the world where people are constantly saying, “I’m afraid I have a degree in civil engineering.” like it’s some shameful thing that you didn’t study the liberal arts. This is the only place! Someone recently was like, “Ah, I actually studied medicine. I know I’m a loser… but I found my way to books!”
Well, I do feel like I have a little bit of a disadvantage because of it, too. I I’m the host of the want to write romance conference our very first year was earlier this summer, and I did some live sessions, and in one of them, I remember struggling with the name Jane Austen. And anybody listening right now is like, how can you not know Jane Austen? But I just couldn’t remember, because that’s not the sort of stories that I read. That’s not my niche, right? And had I gone to school for literature, I for sure, would have read Jane Austen, and I would have studied it, and it would have been wrote, but I didn’t. And so, like, here I am in front of the entire audience of the summit, like, oh gosh, guys, what is the name of that writer did? Yeah, it was like, Pride and Prejudice or something. And they were like, Sue! I feel like, you know, I’m a little behind, a little behind the curve sometimes.
This whole journey of beta reading to developmental editing, what did that look like?
That was really interesting. That was one of those fear moments, those face your fear kind of moments. Or maybe it’s not here, maybe it’s imposter syndrome, which are all kind of tied up in the same little ball of anxiety. But I, I loved these books so much. I was a so going back a little further, I was a book reviewer, which I started doing my Grape was called My, my, oh, gosh, let me start that over my blog. What’s called grave tells, tells, books from the grave, or whatever it was about vampires. Vampire romance was a terrible name, but I started that because I had no one to talk about books with, and I just needed to talk about it. So like I compare my book reviewing, uh, sort of origins, with how writers get started creating fiction. You have this this need within you, and it’s like, I have a I have words, and they have to come out. They have to like, you’re taking notes in the bathtub, you’re waking up in the middle of the night. That was me with book reviewing, and I realized that I just had to talk to somebody, or it was I was not going to be healthy, so I created a blog, and I started reviewing books, and then I started working with authors to promote their books and review their books, and then I worked with publishers. And through this whole process, I sort of found out about street teams and beta readers, and one of my favorite authors at the time who wrote vampire romance said, Hey, I’d love for you to just take a look at this manuscript for me. Just tell me what you think about you think about it. It’s a beta read. And I was like, okay, cool, I get to look at it early. That’s so exciting, right? Like, yes, so I did. And the feedback that I gave, and this happened over like, a period of two years, I think the feedback that I consistently gave her was basically developmental editing. I didn’t realize that I wasn’t beta reading. I think there’s a lot of confusion between beta reading and editing, which is the whole other which is a whole other conversation, but I didn’t know. Like, she just said, Tell me what you think. So I told her all the things, right? And she eventually, she said, you know, what you’re doing is actually content, story editing, and you could get paid for this. And I’m like, hold the phone. What? What? Oh, my God, had I known that in school, I would have gone straight there. That would have been my direct path. But I didn’t even know that job existed until I sort of stumbled my way into following the passion of books. So you know, from there it was like, now I’m beta reading, and now I’m I’m, I see there’s an opening, like, I could learn how to edit, but how the heck do I even learn that? There’s no schools for it. There are now, but there weren’t the time. So I just taught myself. I just analyzed all the books that I loved and figured out why I love them so much. And I created my own curriculum, and that that was for originally for edits, and that has sort of transferred into book coaching, which is what I do today.
Where do you draw the line between developmental editing and book coaching? How do you define the two, and which do you think of yourself as well?
I’m not an editor anymore. I retired from doing manuscript edits last year in the end of 2023 mostly because I wanted to be able to work with more authors. I could only you know your your time is limited. We time is the only resource we cannot get more of. And I the older I get, the more I realize how true that is, and I felt like I was giving the same feedback over and over, and the authors were improving, but it was still like I found myself falling into these patterns of the most important pieces of the story are this, right? And let’s really dive into this piece of the story, because this is what’s this theme is what’s most important. And I realized that I could really take that message to a bigger audience and help more people improve their stories foundationally, if I wasn’t always sort of mired in this one to one work which I loved, it was amazing. Being in a developmental letter is so much fun, but the difference for me is that developmental editing is one on one work. So somebody gives me a manuscript, I I do a full read of the manuscript, and I take notes as I go, and I create a developmental Edit report, which is ticked, typically between six pages for a very, very short one or 80 pages for a very long one. Typically they’re between 10 and 20 pages long in standard typeset. And it’s everything from pacing, scene, flow, characterization, development, backstory, the phases of the story, whether or not you have enough 3x versus 4x Did you hit the tropes? Are you serving the audience? It’s like the whole picture. It’s like taking a book and doing a massive deep dive into that thing, so that you can then go back and make changes before you send it to a line or copy editor, whereas book coaching is is a high level view of that. So it’s like, I work with somebody for an hour, and I’m like, What is stopping you right now? Like, what is the problem you have right now? And then they tell me, and I just ask questions to dig deeper, to give them immediate relief and quick wins of that thing so they can move on. So it’s not a replacement for developmental editing at all.
I mean, they’re definitely different things. My perspective is, for the listeners out there who might be thinking about a coach or an editor or whatnot, for me, is, if you’re hiring me to be your developmental editor, you’re hiring me to make this project as good as it can be. And I’m going to give you this editorial report that’s going to say, do this to make this project better? That’s what you’re hiring someone to do with when someone hires me as a book coach, I’m thinking of them as the project. I want to make them the best writer possible. I want to teach them the skills to make this book better, but also every book afterwards, right? Because as an editor, I’m going to tell you how to fix it. I’m not going to necessarily spell out why you need to fix it, but as a coach, I’m going to say this is why we need to make this change so that you don’t make that mistake. Next book in the book after that, and the book after that.
1,000% yes. Part, I think part of the different, part of the distinction, like you said, between coaching and editing, is that focus on the person and not the story. There is still a focus on the story, but the person matters so much, because the person is the reason for the story, right? So as as we evolve as people and creatives, our stories evolve too, which means we can touch larger audiences, and we can touch different audiences in elevated ways. And that is very exciting, even from the other side of it, from the coaching side, where I see people making these improvements all the time, just from small things, sometimes just a tiny mindset shift, and they’re like light bulbs, right? Like I have, I’m gonna go right now. I’m gonna cut this short and go right, because I’m ready, right? That is so exciting and so fulfilling. So I feel like I get, I get more personally, out of coaching, because I found myself leaning I was doing coaching when I was editing, right? And it’s so much extra work that you shouldn’t be doing in a manuscript. It’s too much work, and it’s overwhelming for the author, like they just want to make changes. They don’t want to be learning and making changes at the same time. That’s so much work to do.
The Curse of the editor. Every developmental editor I’ve ever known is also coaching. Every copy editor is also developmental editing. They just cannot help themselves.
Yeah, it’s really hard to know when to stop. Absolutely. Especially when you’re passionate about making the project as good as it can be, which all editors are. That’s where you get into the game to make great books. Yeah. Well, what brought you to the niche of romance? I know romance is really your area of special specialty.
How did you end up with romance as your area of focus?
Because that’s primarily what I read. I have read over 1000 romance books in my life. I did a basic count at one point for that. So I don’t know exactly how many, but is a lot a lot, especially when I was reviewing, I was reading three or four books a week minimum, or and then writing reviews on them. And then that, you know, that you know, that goes all the way back to being child like at a childhood, I was insatiable as a reader. I did read a lot of I read the Star Trek books, the next generation Star Trek books. I loved them because I needed to know what happened to Riker when he went down to the planet. You know, come on, tell me more. So I read both Star Trek and Star Wars and some fantasy David Eddings and other fantasy novels as well. So I, like, I was pretty widely read in like, those genres at the time, but romance is always the thing that’s called to me as a comfort read. It’s my happy place. And I think that’s because, well, it’s a guaranteed happy ending. It’s guaranteed happy ending that is the genre like you don’t if you read a romance book and it doesn’t have a happy ending, it is not a romance not a romance book or is part of the series, right, which the slightly different genre. So I just loved them so much I kept reading them voraciously, kept reading them. And the more I read them, the more I learned about them, and the more intuitive I became about expectations for different genres and themes and, you know, story links and all the details that go into writing.
I think the initial question would be like, “How do you not get tired of a genre after 1000 books?” but I think I know the answer, because I’ve seen that you present yourself as a coach focused on character as opposed to plot. Am I right in guessing that’s how you know you could read 1000 books in the same genre, because it’s not really about the plot. It’s about who these people are.
That’s right. Yeah, I focus on character. So my teachings center around the character growth arc. And there’s, there’s three separate technique styles I use to blend it together to create a healthy plot that’s basically writing from moment to moment, so that you’re not like heavy plotting or heavy outlining, but it still gives you that cohesive story, but that really only works in the character driven genres. So romance is always character driven or, I mean, inherently it is character driven, but it also works for other things that are maybe not romance, but where the people, the heroes, become better versions of themselves. So you really just think about what is the purpose of the story? Is the purpose of the story for the hero to become a better, healthier, happier, psychologically, emotionally version of themselves? If the answer to that is yes, then it’s character driven fiction. And there are frameworks you can use for that that center around how to make that journey resonate with readers, which is what I love the most about what I do. So I think this ties back to what you said earlier, where we’re also helping the author, because when we are writing heroes in a growth arc, we are basically imagining a human being improving themselves. We can take that and reflect on our own lives and be like, Okay, well, what’s bothering me? What’s my greatest fear right now? Why am I afraid of it? How can I push my my comfort zones like, what would happen? What’s the worst thing that could happen if I did, if I tried for that goal? Why do I even want that goal? What does my Phase Five in my growth arc look like? Right? We can become better people ourselves and incrementally improve our happiness, which is, is there’s no value on that. It’s priceless, right?
I assume the listeners of this show are both writers as well as maybe some other writing coaches out there, or people thinking about being writing coaches, and something I would, you know, flag for people who are thinking about a career in helping authors. Is romance is unavoidable for two reasons. One, it’s the most popular genre in the world. It sells. People love it. People want to write it. So it’s really not smart to ignore it. And two, I don’t think there’s any other genre that meshes so well with every other genre. You could write a romance in space, you could write a romance underwater. You could write monsters falling in love. You could write like Right? And so I’m curious, why do you think that is that again, does it come back to character? Or why does virtually every manuscript I’ve ever worked on, they’ve all benefited from either having a romance subplot or adding a romance plot. Why do you think that is
I think it’s twofold. One is hope. We all want hope for the future, and romance is a common saying in the romance field. Romance is the the language of hope. It’s how we see a better, happier space for ourselves. I mean, almost universally, if you ask someone, do you want to feel loved, they’re going to say, Yes, right? No one’s going to say no, I want to be hated. I mean, I guess maybe, maybe that there are people that feel that way. But generally, people want to feel loved. They want to feel accepted. And romance gives you a way to have that interpersonal connection, even if it’s between monsters, right? They have feelings too. Everything has feelings. And have romance, and it makes you feel seen, accepted, understood, and that is a psychological place of safety. And when we have psychological safety, we can do things that we cannot when we are constantly in stress or peril. So I think that’s partially why romance is so universal. Is because most people want to feel safe and they want to feel hope.
Agreed, agreed. And I think, and again, this is not universal, but I would also say generally, most people want sex, or at least physical intimacy, and again, like it’s one of these biological needs that most biological organisms want to recreate. So on the topic of sex, you and I were just speaking about we’re both speaking at a romance conference coming up, and your topic is writing about sexuality. What advice do you have for the romance writers out there when it comes to writing these scenes that can be difficult on a number of levels, I’ve found clients struggle with the mechanics of them. How do you write a sex scene? What’s too much? What’s not enough? How do you do this? But also the mindset of, what are people going to think of me when they read this? Are they going to think I’m a pervert or weird or something? So what’s your take on writing the spicy stuff?
Yes. So first of all, shout out to anybody who writes and publishes romance that is like primary romance, because you are brave and you are a trailblazer and keep doing what you’re doing, because we need stories where people are vulnerable and honest and are themselves. They’re not trying to hide. You’re not trying to hide because you’re afraid of judgment. That is very, very hard to do, even as somebody who edits it, it’s vulnerable, like the whole space is vulnerable, right? I think switching over to the technical side of it, that is a complex question.
What you can’t answer in 30 seconds mid-interview? (Laughs).
I mean, we have conferences fully devoted to this, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So, like, my take on it, and this is what I sort of shared, like a preview of what I share in the conference that’s coming up for the writing romance mastery, is that it’s not really about the sex. In fact, sex scenes should only be in a romance when they serve a character or story. And by story I mean relationship purpose if they don’t serve a character purpose to establish something, introduce something like there’s got to be a reason. We’re not just having gratuitous love on page some now the difference, I guess, is erotic romance. Erotic romance has a lot more sex in it. But even with erotic romance, the sex still serves a purpose. There’s just more of it, and the relationship is more physical. But for if you’re thinking like, how do I how do I write a sex scene, I think you should stop asking that question and say, Why should I write a sex scene. Should I write a sex scene? Because it depends on your audience. So who are your readers? Are they young adults who aren’t having sex yet? Okay, then what? What makes sense for them? What do they want to read? What’s psychologically healthy? Maybe pushing boundaries a little bit to move them forward. But what makes sense for them are your readers, 60 year old. You know, the six year old bracket where they’ve been married, maybe divorced, married a couple times. They’re out there, they don’t care about, you know, what anybody thinks about anything, right? It depends on who you’re writing for, and it depends on the story that you want to tell, and what purpose the physical relationship serves in the relationship. Because there are romances where the in the end, they hold hands or they kiss. It’s typically called sweet romance, but they’re, they tend to be younger audiences, and it’s, it’s just more about the relationship between the two people and less about the physicality. But the beats, the the way the romance progresses is still the same, even if the physicality levels are different. I hope that made sense. That was a very high level quick.
You did great. You did great. And it actually, wish I could say this was a unique moment, but it got me thinking about Star Wars as most things does. But I was thinking about how George Lucas supposedly said a kiss in Star Wars is like sex and other things, right? It fills that role. And then Disney bought Star Wars, and in the sequel trilogy, they’ve almost completely sapped it of all sexuality or even romance of any kind. I’m curious, as a Star Wars fan, do you feel like the sequel trilogy suffered from the lack of romance?
I want to say no, and I have another movie example. Don’t let me forget. I have another example of that same thing. Right after this, I’m going to say no, I don’t think so. Okay, going back to the original, like Episode 123, there’s the romance was icky. Like I didn’t like it at all. It just didn’t work for me. Like Padme and Anakin, no hard pass. I don’t believe it like there’s no chemistry there. It didn’t work at all. And I think part of it is just that we knew there had to be a relationship, because obviously Luke and Leia had parents, right? So we want them to be in love, because that’s a comfortable place for us to be as viewers. I think it would have been more interesting if they hadn’t been true lovers. So that’s me sort of taking my romance like lens and twisting it a little bit. But what they did in the 789, movies, What? What? What, why they had Kylo and Ray kiss, and I’m like, what? Where did this come from? Like, the beats weren’t there, the buildup wasn’t there. There was in the beginning, like there was some tension between them. There’s a little bit of romantic tension, but not enough to establish him giving his life for her, and then them kissing and then him dying. Like I’m just like, No, no, just take it out. Like it doesn’t need to be there. That’s not romance to me. That’s just somebody using the elements of romance to try to evoke emotions, but they’re shallow because you didn’t, you didn’t follow the the things that make romance effective. You can’t just throw it in. You have to intentionally use it.
Okay, can you dig into that deeper? Because that’s fascinating. What’s the difference between kind of going through the motions of romance and actual true, deeper romance writing?
That’s a really good question. It really comes down to how the relationship helps them be each become better people. Typically in a romance book, both there’s usually there’s two heroes. Sometimes in Minaj, you’ll have a three, three character growth arc. It’s hard to do more than that. You know, even in the white shoes, genres, which is like the reverse heroin, where there’s like, there’s, like, you know, one woman and five guys or something, typically, there’s one growth character in those so depending on how many heroes are becoming better people, they’re going through that growth or that transformation arc, it adds more complexity to your story. So in a traditional two person romance, where you have, we’ll just say male female, since that’s the most common right now, you have the heroine who’s on her own journey, and then you have the hero who’s on his own journey, and they meet each other, and there’s some, some interesting thing that keeps them together. They spend time together. They go through a series of romance beats that establish the not just the relationship, but the reason why each of them is appealing to the other, why they are affected by the other, how they help them get through these phases, how they help them have realizations about themselves, like why they need to change. Maybe the new person that came in is the reason they start the growth arc. Or maybe they’ve been stagnant and they see this person, they’re like, Ah, now I see a glimpse of the future, because you were part of my life. And then that sort of theme continues throughout the romance. But if, if it’s just like two people spending time together, and then there’s a kiss at the end, okay, well, why couldn’t they have kissed at the beginning? Right? So that’s always my metric, is if, if the romance could happen on page one, it’s not a romance. There has to be a reason that these heroes want to be together, like are pulled together and they experience things that bring them closer and help them have personal realizations that the other person either challenges, supports conflicts, like there’s always that push and pull throughout the story, but it’s got to be earned on the page through the actions they take with one another. Does that make sense?
Absolutely, I love it earned because that applies. You know, I love it when things apply on multiple levels, right? And you know, if you boil that argument down to the romance needs to be earned, it’s the same with anything. The character arc needs to be earned. The heroism needs to be earned, the skill set needs to be earned. The device that they invent needs to be earned, right? It’s like, yeah, we you need to have your characters struggle and grow through that struggle.
Yes, you asked me to remind you of a movie. You had another movie example you were going mention.
I do. Thank you. So Twisters just came out recently. Have you seen it yet?
No, but I have not been hearing good things.
I really liked it, so I kind of went into it, I bought tickets for it, and I forgot that I had bought tickets for it, because I was like, Okay, it’s a sequel to Twister, whatever. Sure it’s a disaster movie. Great. So we go to the see the movie. I don’t, I don’t even remember who’s in it at this point, which is I, I, if I remember who’s in it. I would have been more excited about it.
The tornado is the star.
Tornado is the star. So we go to, we go to watch it, and it first starts out, and they’re very young. They’re like, very young. I think they probably Aih, the actors down a little bit for the opening sequence. And I was like, Oh no, is this ya? I don’t, I don’t like why i Oh, no, what am I doing here? And then, of course, disaster happens. And there’s, like, the movie actually starts. And there are, there’s a heroine, a primary female character who is the growth character, and then there is a male support character who is the sort of like love interest, and also con, he brings the conflict. And there is clearly a romantic chemistry between the two leads. Well, I’m gonna call him a lead, um, even though he’s not a growth character, really, there’s clearly chemistry between them. But the story is not about the chemistry. The story is about her growth as a person. So at the I’m gonna get a spoiler so just spoiler alert if you spoiler alert. Spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen twisters and you don’t want to know about whether or not there’s a kiss at the end, you know, fast forward 30 seconds, but at the end, there’s not a kiss. And I was like, hell yeah, hell yeah. Good. Thank you, because if they had put a kiss at the end, it would have changed the entire perspective of her growth as a person, it would have made her journey about being with him, about needing him to be a better person. And that is not what romance is about. Romance is not about needing another person to be your best version. It’s about being a better person because somebody showed you something about yourself that you did not already know. That’s romance? It’s not about, I need someone to kiss me, right? So you have to think about like frame when you’re framing that hero’s journey. It’s not about, how can I add romance in? It’s about, is this a story about two people who become better people because of each other, and they have a romance on top, because that could be a best friends could be a buddy story, right? And then you add physicality on top of it, and the romanticism on top of it, and then it’s a romance. So it’s romance is very, very complicated to write, because it is not just one thing. It is like layers of things to create this amazing story that makes us feel something
Lets make it even more complicated by adding progressiveness and inclusion into it. I know that’s something that is important to you, so tell us about how you work that into your coaching and the types of authors that you work with.
Yeah, so I work with writers who, okay, I’m gonna say high level. My Courses are appropriate for anybody who writes character driven fiction. So it doesn’t have to be romance. If you write stories where the heroes become a better version of themselves, just like we’ve been talking about this whole time, then my stories will help you find my sorry, my courses and my workshops and my blog articles and my podcast episodes will help you find the core of your story. What you build the story around. It doesn’t really matter what your genre is or what your external plot beats are, if you don’t have the core character journey, the rest of it does not matter if you’re writing character driven fiction. So I don’t really work in the plot space. I work in the character growth arc space, and that is, it’s unique in that it applies to different genres in totally different ways. So I am not a plot specialist, except for romance. I’m a romance plot specialist, but I’m not a plus specialist in, like, sci fi, or, you know, any of that. So that is my high level stuff. And it’s, it’s a great way to just sort of do a sanity check on your work to see if, you know, am I even starting off right? Am I gonna have to rewrite this? Because I totally missed the point, right? So that’s what I offer. It some very low price points, up to some moderate price points. It’s not expensive at all. And then when I work one on one with authors, I work with Romance Writers, because that is my passion, and that is what I’m good at. And in that space, I’m looking for writers who already have an inclusive mindset, because I have an inclusive mindset. So I is, you know, as an editor, you may have had this experience too, but as an editor, it can be really hard to developmentally edit a story that you you fundamentally disagree with, right? Because you’re trying to put your yourself in the mindset of the reader. But if you cannot put yourself in the mindset of the reader, you can’t serve the writer, and you can’t serve the story. So I try to position myself so that people understand I am. I think progressively. I think, you know, it’s beyond love. Is love? It’s we are all humans. We are all humans. And I don’t care who you love, and I don’t care what you know. That’s not important to me. What’s important to me is that the story resonates with the people you want to touch. So I want to help you find people that you want to talk to and figure out how to best serve them. So hopefully that that makes sense. But in my small group stuff, it’s more, you know, let’s talk about the themes that will bring out the messages that you want to give, that you want to give, not that I want to give. So there’s a little bit of, you know, inclusivity crossover in that, like, inclusivity is a word that we all use, but it means different things for different people. So good advice for finding an editor or finding a coach is just, do you align with who they are, who they are, and what they read and what they want? And not everybody writer, not every writer, is going to be a great fit for every coach or every editor, even if they are, you know, so praised and so popular and so successful. So that was a very roundabout way. I don’t know if I answered your question. That’s great.
It’s why I interview my “competition” on this show, right? It’s because I’m not the right writing coach for everyone you know, like, we all need to resonate with the people that we work with, but like, resonate on a personality level, but also resonate on a values level, right? What do you consider to be your values. And so I consider part of this show. I mean, it’s really just an excuse for me to meet cool people, but, you know, I tell the listeners, it’s about presenting the diversity of supports that are out there for them, right? Because, you know, I, when I was writing my first book The Internet was young, I didn’t know there was coaches out there. I didn’t know I could go to conferences. I didn’t like, you know YouTube was young. I’d never heard of an online course. And like, I just want people to know that, unlike 20 years ago, there’s so many people out here like you and I who like, love to help writers and want to make your life easier and want to support you. And all of that is it’s about the process of connecting with someone and helping them excel, but it’s also about getting good stories into the world. Like art matters, art makes a difference. The narratives we tell about ourselves is important to the world. Nice. She’s holding up a copy of art matters for folks who are listening on the podcast. So you’re resonating with that.
When you said art matters, I was like, Oh my gosh, that book is the best book. I don’t know if you were referencing that book?
No, I’m not familiar with that book.
This book, I actually signed it to myself. I’m going to show you on the camera. Folks listening are not going to be able to see it, but I actually signed it to myself and dated it. I gave myself a little pep talk in case ever I felt like what I was doing didn’t matter. I wrote it says to sue. I’m going to I’m going to cry. Oh gosh, too soon. Never forget why you do what you do, and never lose sight of the possibilities of your open mind. Beautiful. I love it, because art does matter. And when we start stifling art, we start stifling creativity, and we start stifling personal freedoms and all the things that make us feel good about ourselves, that psychological sense of safety that is what art gives us, that creative expression and freedom to just play and learn and be human. And I wanted to mention, sort of so looping back just a little bit, you were asking about who I help, as far as inclusivity and such. And I just wanted to say, for anybody who’s not that familiar with the romance space romance, just by what it is, is is inherently progressive because it is primarily written by women for women. Now that’s starting to change a little bit, but historically and even still today, it is primarily written by women for women. And the themes that are within the romance books, if you look back through the genres, are always pushing the edges a little bit to sort of like explore the boundaries of what we’re allowed to do in any given time period, and how we can sort of transcend those boundaries and still be happy people. And so I think that’s why you see Romance Writers being at the forefront of inclusivity and progressiveness, is because it is the language of hope for that psychological safety and that happy ending. And even within that spectrum, you might be thinking, Oh, but does that mean romance is liberal? No, because even within that spectrum, you have like, everything. So like I said, you have stories where the end is a kiss or holding hands. That’s like sweet romance. There’s like Amish romance, where there’s like no sex on page, right? And then you have all the way to the other spectrum, where people like, totally free, you know, just doing whatever they want, and it’s all there for you to see. So that space of like, How can I how can I write that and feel safe? It’s really just about, where are you in your life? Where are you? Like, are you would you be comfortable if your mom read your romance book, right? And the answer is no, why? And does that matter? Are you going to write it anyway? Right? Just there’s I think, when we when we get in our head about Should I, should I or shouldn’t I, and is this right or isn’t this right? It’s really for me. It’s not about society. It’s about me. How do I feel? What’s going to make me feel good? And if I can’t reconcile what I’m doing with that inner feeling of this is good, even if it’s a little bit scary, then it’s probably not right for me.
I was recently coaching a client about a sex scene that she was concerned with, and she was like, Are people going think this is hot? And I was like, Do you think it’s hot to then write it like if you think something’s hot, guaranteed someone else out there does as well. Like you, like you said, don’t worry about Mom. Go with your passion and write what you want to write, and you’ll resonate with folks if you’re doing it in an honest and deep way, and if you’re earning those kisses.
You mentioned right off the top that you ran the Want to Write Romance conference. Okay, you look alive. You look like you survived it. You didn’t pull out all your hairs. What was it like running a conference, and how did it go?
Oh, man, I’ve been in. It was essentially a summit. It was a summit style conference, so it had pre recorded and live portions, so it was a little bit above and beyond the typical Summit, which is all pre recorded. But I had been in like seven or eight summits as a speaker before I did, I hosted my own conference, and I’m so glad, because I I basically did what I wished other summits had done for me as a speaker. So I did what I wanted as an experience for reader, for both the attendee and as the speaker side. And I followed Krista Miller’s summit in a box program, which is phenomenal, and she says that you need three months minimum. Girl, I needed five months. I mean, like three months minimum is no joke. It is a lot of work. And I knew that going in I had seen, you know, the frazzled summit host, like barely sleeping and their hair is all standing up when you get on a call with them. And I was the same. I mean, I, I really set a super high bar for myself, and I, I was not willing to compromise on quality at all, and that ended up costing me a lot of personal resources as far as, like, energy and time, but ultimately, it was amazing. It was totally worth it. So now that I’m, you know, a month out of it, and I I’ve slept and I’ve taken a bath and, sort of, like, read some books, and I’ve, like, the adrenaline has calmed down. I’m I’m so glad that I did it, and I’m going to do it again next year, but now I have a framework. It’s not going to take five months next time. Maybe it will take the three months next time, because I have the framework in place, I don’t have to build everything from scratch. I know what I’m looking for. I know the small improvements to make. But anybody who’s thinking about doing the summit, you need to have a real good reason for doing the summit.
I hosted The Writers Craft Summit in 2019 and I said, when I’m recovered, I’ll host the next one. I’m not sure if it’ll be annual or not. It’s now 2024 and it has not happened yet. So I’m five years later. I’m still recovering from the mental and physical energy it took to put that thing together. But like you said, it’s an amazing experience, and this was great to connect with other people in your space. And really, it’s a win win win situation, right? The guests, like the people attending, benefit the experts, benefit you benefit it’s a nice thing. If you can pull it off. I’m glad you were able to.
Yeah, I think a lot of people say I’m going to do a summit, because it’s been positioned as a lead making machine. I mean, you do bring in a lot of new email subscribers, and it’s good for visibility, so you can see it as a money thing. So like a lot of people, do it because they they want a cash injection. Do they want, you know, more subscribers on their email list? I would say that while yes, that is a goal, also there needs to be an intrinsic value that you respect that’s part of the process. So like for me, that was, I called it want to write romance because I truly wanted to reach people who want to write romance books but don’t know how, or are afraid or think that they’re not doing it right. I wanted to create a safe space for people who literally want to write romance any skill level. And by like, keeping that as my guiding light, which was hard sometimes I had to keep sort of coming back to that, like, why am I doing this right? By keeping that as my guiding light, I kept the tone of the conference exactly what I needed it to be in order to reach the people I was trying to reach and give them the experience I wanted to give them. But if I had just been like, oh, it’s all about the money, it’s all about the leads. It wouldn’t have been the same experience, and I would have been burned out for no reason, right?
There are easier ways to get leads!
If folks are listening to this and they love what they’re hearing, they want to hear more. Maybe they want to explore working with you. Where can we send them?
I have a special link just for your listeners. Get it here.
When you go there, there will be something for you to download that you can use to create a character arc for yourself. You can sanity check your work. It is my character arc worksheet, so PDF that you can download. Very simple. There are some instructions at the top of it. And there’s it links to an article that explains all about what the car the character arc is and the five stages of it. And then in that worksheet, you can actually map out the moments that represent the five phases of the transformation arc as I teach them. And there is a little special thing on the end of that where you can get some like guided in your ear, editor in your ear help on the very end. So be sure you wait for that next page if you want to get my voice in your ear and ask you some prompts and questions to walk you through these five character arc stages.
Sue, I was thrilled to have your voice in my ear this afternoon. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the show today.
Well, thank you for having me. I mean, gosh, anytime I can talk about romance is dang good day.
