Episode 2: Before the First Word is Written

Where do book ideas actually come from?

In episode two of Unpublished, Angela Mattes and Daniel Stevens dig into the strange, messy, magical, and occasionally inconvenient process of turning a tiny spark of an idea into a full novel. Angela talks through how plot bunnies appear, how music helps shape scenes, how playlists become emotional roadmaps, and how a random hotel TV turning on at 4 a.m. can suddenly feel like the beginning of a book.

Angela also shares how her upcoming manuscript, Eros et Flamingo, evolved from early character names and half-formed concepts into the story of a heartsick assassin searching for love after falling for one too many of her marks. Along the way, she breaks down how she develops themes, reverse-engineers plot from the ending, builds characters over time, and avoids writer’s block by thinking deeply before writing the first line.

If you’ve ever wondered how to start writing a book, how authors develop novel ideas, how to outline fiction, or how a story changes between the first note and the final draft, this episode pulls back the curtain on the creative writing process before the writing even begins.

Unpublished is a podcast about writing a book, chasing publication, surviving the drafting process, and figuring out what it really takes to turn an idea into a manuscript.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Have you ever wondered how the story of your favorite book first began? Or what that first kernel of an idea was that the author knew was going to be the one, the story that they would sink months of their lives into, turning that first little plot point into an entire novel. I'm Angela Mattis, and I'm writing a book. Welcome to episode two of Unpublished.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And I'm Daniel Stevens.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

So, Daniel, have you ever had an idea for a book, or even just like a little observation or a fragmented thought that you let unravel into like a bigger idea or a bigger narrative in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Never like a story, to be honest, because the the kinds of books I imagine writing are more like instructional or like language learning or like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Yeah, like if you were gonna write a book, what would you write a book? Oh, well, yeah, I guess you just said language learning.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, I mean, my true, like, truly, my dream of writing like a book would be to like write a book to explain like the way that I've come to understand Spanish as a non-native language learner of Spanish. I have like tricks and tools that I taught myself and like ways I learned to look at things or break things down that I that's the kind of thing I I could imagine. And yes, I absolutely have thought of that. And I was like, oh, how would I structure that? What would what would the chapter on the subjunctive be like? You know, that kind of stuff. But I know. Give it give me a break. I've but that's like that's what I'm interested in, and that's what I find truly compelling.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Um, I mean honestly, I'm giving you a hard time, I'm joking, but like I don't speak any other languages, but when I travel, I like always get a wild hair that I'm gonna go and start learning French or something, or like you speak Spanish. I have a couple other friends who speak Spanish. So to be honest with you, I am curious about what you're thinking about in your head as you're learning a language, because I am just having an absolute conniption fit in my brain when I'm trying to remember one line in French that I wrote in my phone. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Well, and that's that is actually something you say like when you travel. I do the same thing. Anytime I travel somewhere, I'm like, I gotta learn the basics of the language of wherever I'm going. And a lot of times, doing just the basics of a language, like for example, I went to South Korea a couple years ago. And so Korean, completely, you know, completely different language than anything I've ever studied. And so I learned some phrases, but like I kind of wanted to learn, like, show me some of the basic structures of the language. And like just I Googling, like, how do you say I in Korean? It's like, oh, it's so complicated. And I just remember being like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Like And that's a wrap on Aroset Flamingo. Keep an eye out at Barnes and Noble. We're shifting gears.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

To how to learn a language. But like there is a moment where I my brain works in a certain way. And I have, like, I've taught myself the basics of other languages by like seeking out kind of like the structural anatomy of the language. My mind is very analytical and very like pathways, like if A, then B, but if C, then D. You know, like that's how my brain works. So learning the tools of a language were like super important to me rather than just like, oh, how do you say hello, my name is this, and then no explanation of like what each of those little pieces was doing, that never worked for me. And so there's gotta be other people like me. So that's the kind of book I imagine writing.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Okay. Well, that's kind of interesting because I have a very different way of coming across. So for me, I remember remember in our first episode, I was saying how I had originally thought that I would also do something more nonfiction and something that I was more interested in that way. I always felt, again, when I thought that I couldn't write fiction, I had this idea of like, well, I have no idea what I would ever write. And it's so weird. I will never be able to explain this. But all of a sudden, once I had like one book idea, my mind just opened up. And now I have plot bunnies, like little ideas, little things that I'll see that come up all the time. Like I literally will be doing something just random, walking down the street, and I will see like a bill of board, or I will like hear something in a song, and an entire plot potential of a book will just open up in my mind. And I literally have a note in my phone where I keep track of the ones that I like best.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I'm imagining like what are those shows where people have, I know you don't watch charmed, we'll get to, but like shows where people have like psychic powers or they touch something and then like they have like that flat. That's exactly what it's like.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I literally like stop and I start vibrating and my eyes go back and grab and like okay, we've got the pot now, and like I think through the whole thing, and then yeah, and then I've got the book idea. That's how it happens.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Is it in sepia or black and white?

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh, it's completely technicolor.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

No, actually, I mean, I don't I don't want to burn an idea, but like things will happen. Like one time I was in a hotel room and I woke up because the TV turned on at four o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Were you in the room 1408?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yes. And then all of a sudden the carpenter started playing, and I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna write a book about being stuck in an early aughts really crappy horror movie with John Kusack in it. Um, like I woke up. I think you just described crappy as a word. Thank you. Thank you for defining that. But anyway, I was in a hotel room and the TV turned on at four o'clock in the morning, and it was like the news playing, and it jolted me from my sleep. And then I like fell asleep again, forgot about it, and I woke up the next morning and I went and met up with my coworkers down in the lobby. And one of my other coworkers was like, Did you wake up at four o'clock in the morning because your TV turned on? And I like literally was like, This could be a whole book, but like, what did we see? What did we both see on the screen? And like then what happens because of that, and what is the like path this sense? So, like things will come up like that, but it's actually sort of funny because I don't remember um how I came up with the idea for Eros at Flamingo. I it kind of like stemmed from one plot idea. Like, I had originally been planning to write a completely different book, and this was really what started me on my writing journey is that out of nowhere, I came up with a book idea and I wanted to write it, and it was like this whole thing where it was gonna be like it was gonna take place in the afterlife, and it was gonna be like it was it's like kind of convoluted, honestly. I don't even necessarily want to go down the rabbit hole of explaining this story idea because I came to the ultimate conclusion that like it just didn't work. Like it was taking me too much to explain it to people, and I feel like that's become an indicator for me of like um whether I want to move forward with the plot bunny I thought of, or when something's ready. Like, honestly, Aroset Flamingo, I was explaining to someone the story just a few months ago, and I was like stumbling through it, and I was like, Oh, I'm not ready to start writing it yet. Like, I've got to go figure this out. And like, really, when I got it down to one sentence of saying it's like, this is the story of a heartsick assassin as she goes on a quest to find love after falling for one too many of her marks, like being able to get it down to that was what made me be like, okay, we've got something. But I started out with this other idea, and I remember I had I was going to use the names like Celetria Averos, I came up with for that idea. And Erin Coughlin, I came up with for that idea, and I also was calling Erin Eros. And then it just sort of like shifted where I wanted to still use the characters, but it obviously became a whole different thing because it was like set in the afterlife, and it was like they were spirit guides that were guiding people through like these multiple lives they were living, and this like love story that was happening across multiple lives. Maybe someday I'll keep digging into it and I'll get somewhere with it.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

But yeah, there's probably something there, like the thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Yeah, there's a kernel of something there, but I don't know if it'll ever. I have so many other ideas that have become so much more developed. Like, if I were to like I've actually kind of made this deal with myself because even where I sit right now, I don't have an agent. I don't have anything that's like, yes, Angela, this is going to happen. Like you're going to write this and you're going to get from point A to the ultimate goal, which would be, of course, having a published book that you can go find in your bookstores. There's no guarantee, there's no indicator. So I, you know, as I said in our first episode, like I'm a carrot person. Like I've decided that um I have six manuscripts in me for sure that I will do just for fun. And I will obviously try to see them through. I think it's about six. It's five or six, and you know, honestly, it it it grows and it it transmutes. But like right now, there are like if there's a certain amount of ideas that I've said it's worth it because I love doing this to just do it. So I'm, you know, hoping for the best, but like I, you know, I'm just writing these things because they're ideas that have popped into my brain, they're stories I want to tell. I I need to get them onto paper.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I had this kind of, you know, this whole journey of getting to Aeroset Flamingo. Um, but then now, you know, I got to the point where I said, yeah, like this is something I'm going to sink some time into. Like, I think maybe a long time ago I would have thought that you just like sit down and you start writing the first chapter and you see where it goes. But oh boy, let me tell you, from deciding to do it to actually starting writing is like months and months and months and months.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

That's what I've never been able to wrap my head around about an author, right? Like writing a whole novel. It's like, how do you just start? How do you just put the first word? How do you decide what the first word is? How do you decide anything? It just seems so daunting to me. So like amazing for you to walk us through your exact process and to explain, like it is a long process. You shouldn't be able to just start writing your book. And I I feel like that's kind of whenever you hear about people with writer's block, is that maybe like I know you've said you never really have had writers.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

But I don't I don't yeah, like I don't really get writer's block because I think I put so much time and thought, and not to say other people, you know, don't do this, and that's why this happens, but I am very selective about when I start writing and what I do leading up to it, and I think about it so much. Like I have been thinking about I mean, literally, I just wrote the first lines of my manuscript yesterday, and I have been thinking about it for over a year. I wouldn't necessarily put that much time into every single story idea, but because I have so many of them in the backlog, I do sit and think about them. So, yes, like if this is something where I I write all these manuscripts I'm talking about and I keep continuing, then yeah, the point where I get to these, to the actual point of writing, I have been thinking about them for years and years. So, like I've been thinking about the characters, and I like what I do before I even start is like I'll open up a note or I'll open up a Google Doc and I'll just kind of start like blurting stuff out onto the page of like here's what I think it's gonna be. And it's so interesting because I save them and I did this with my um fan fictions too, and there's like my fan fiction that I wrote called Crushed, the note that I first wrote when I got the whole idea, because that's kind of like a time and place. I don't like I put my ideas out there and I'm starting to shape and and sort things out, but like I don't go back to them really. It's just kind of it gets me from point A to point B. And so when I was done writing Crushed, I went back and I looked at the note, and it was so far from what the story became. And like the story would have been so bad had I gone with what was in the note. And like I even see that with Arrow Set Flamingo. I've you know, I knew very early on how it ends. Like I always tried to figure out how the story ends, because I feel like for me, I see a story as being kind of like going on a road trip. Like you would never just get in the car and go. So I always like know what the destination is, but really what I'm figuring out as I'm outlining and as I'm thinking about it for ages on end is all of the little points along the way and all the places that we're stopping where we're gonna get gas, where we're gonna go to the rest stop, what little sites along the way are we gonna see? That's what I'm planning out, but I do always have I always know how it's going to end. And that's kind of another indicator of like, all right, like this is an idea. Like I know end to end what's happening and like what the goal is. And then I just kind of start thinking through, okay, so if that's how it ends, how do we get there? How do we get there? And I sort of like reverse engineer it. And I'm writing things down as I go, and I might even like come up with little like phrases or words or whatever. I'm starting to get to know the characters and I'm starting to think about like, you know, there's like all kinds of questions that I ask myself. Like, are there going to be main themes? Like I know I've said for Aroset Flamingo, it really is the story is, of course, about this woman who's kind of struggling through figuring out this lifestyle that is very different from what anybody else that, you know, around her or in the world is really experiencing. So she's kind of creating her own blueprint. And I knew I wanted to write something like that that was kind of a mirror of how I feel being a woman in the world who doesn't want to have kids, and how that's made me sort of and like, you know, who isn't married or whatever, and how that's made me have to like redevelop this whole life plan and like figure out my own blueprint when like everybody else around me is doing something different. So like there were themes that I wanted. I also think a lot about like I really enjoy writing relationships and how they grow and they build. And so, you know, you have to start making decisions along the way too of like, well, I know there's going to be a relationship that forms between Celetria, Sal, and Aaron, Eros, like Flamingo and Eros. And then I like, it's like, okay, cool. Like at some point they collide, but do they like each other right away? Do they not? If they don't, do they hate each other? Are they just in like there's so many things that I have to decide and figure out because I know where we're getting in the end. And then as I'm thinking about it though, I start just like I get a lot of like shower thoughts and a lot of I guess I think about stuff at very inconvenient times, like when I'm falling asleep, and like little things will pop up into my mind. I also always start a playlist because I will be listening to music and I will start, like for another story that I wrote, Moonriver, one of my other one of my fan fictions, there was a song that I heard that was like the soundtrack to the final scene, and I heard it before I had even written more than a few chapters. And like multiple times I would just be like walking through the city and like have my earphones, like my earbuds in, and like a whatever song would come on, like that that song, and every single time I heard it, I would be like, Oh, this is the end, and like I would forget that it was the same song over and over again. I was like, Oh my god, this is that final scene. Um, and then as I wrote that final scene, I listened to it over and over again, and it like soundtracks it in my head as I'm writing.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

And it's just like kind of the vibe of the song. You're just like, oh, it's just like it's like the soundtrack to what I'm gonna write, and it just helps you visualize and imagine exactly how it's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Like there is like a chapter in Moon River that I wrote to Into the Red by James Blake, and like there is no way that when I get to my 2026 Spotify rapped, that Into the Red by James Blake won't be my number one listen to song because I must have listened to it hundreds of times, and that chapter is light years better than what it would have been had I not like music is such a huge part of the ideation and the writing process for me. And I listen to movie soundtracks, I listen to like music music, I listen to um like classical music. Actually, it's sort of funny because I think now that we're kind of coming full circle on this, I'm pretty sure that the that what made me pivot from that first story and like really kind of grounded me in what Sal's story was ultimately going to be in Aerosat Flamingo, is that I was listening to the song Long Long Time by Linda Ron's dad. And that was when I was starting to think about like I don't remember when I decided that I wanted to write about like this whole kind of like assassin line. I think I was thinking about how do I tell a story about someone who's living a life that is different from everybody else, and they have to like figure it out. And I was like, you know, what's something I can have fun with? So I feel like that's probably where I was thinking about the assassin point of view. Um, but I was listening to Long Long Time, and it's like such a heart-wrenching, heartbreaking song. And I was just like imagining Sal setting up a shot, staring through the scope, looking at her mark, and just being like gutted and heartbroken because she's got to kill someone that she's fallen in love with, and that she keeps like, and it was it's like okay, so is that what gets her down this path of like where she ultimately finds herself meeting a fellow assassin, um, you know, Aros, Aaron, her her assassin counterpart, and um and it sort of started to unravel from there where I was like, oh, she keeps falling in love with her marks, and that's kind of the inflection point of like something's got to change that sends us along on our journey. So it's like all these little like tiny little bits and pieces, and like I will write out outlines that are just they're not real, they're just kind of meant to like figure things out, and I'll write I'll have a whole rat's nest of stuff written across multiple notes in my foam. And like honestly, at the end of the day, I barely use any of it actually. Like, I'll copy and paste some things over that I really liked into my final document. But yeah, like I I will sit and I will just deeply ponder the story and the characters for months, years, a long time before I even write the first word.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Do you sort of uh I I'm the kind of person I like start a bunch of little things and I have like five projects going at once? Is that sort of are you like constantly kind of workshopping multiple ideas at once, or do you really kind of like focus on one idea and try to develop that one?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Um yes and no, I guess I keep track of all of my story ideas in one note and I will go through and groom through them sometimes. Um like whenever I'm adding a new one, like I always go through and like read ones, or sometimes things will change. Like I literally had an idea for a book that I cannot use because something happened in our time in life that is too on the mark that like I don't know, maybe I'll use it, but like I can't use it because like something in the news happened that like made the story not work anymore. It was maybe that's a story for another day. But um, but right now I have my like four or five favorites out of that list. Like there's maybe like 20 ideas on the list, and I have my four or five favorites that I'm really like, yeah, I'm gonna move forward with these. This is what I want to do. And so I'll think about, I mean, I'm always thinking about them and I'm always um coming up with ideas or like, you know, I fly a lot for work, so I'll be on flights just like pondering, or you know, like if I'm on the L getting from point A to point B, I'm like it'll things will just pop into my head, like little little again, like plot bunnies of plot bunnies, you know, those little bunnies they multiply. Yeah. And like I'll just be thinking about things. And it it can be for any one of those four or five. But like when I'm writing something, I'm only writing one thing at once, and I'm focusing on that for the most part. Like, I probably am not gonna be thinking about any of the other ideas that I have until like now that I have started writing Aerosat Flamingo, like that's where I'm putting my brain power because I just it sounds like so like repetitive and dumb to just be like, I think about it a lot. Like when I'm writing a chapter, you know, and I know we'll have an episode in the future where I talk about kind of my process for writing a chapter, but like I'm thinking about all kinds of things as I'm writing it, but even like as I'm outlining, as I'm going along, there I have not written a single long form work where I haven't had some sort of thought pop into my mind, like almost a little too late in the game, that totally changes the trajectory of the story.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

That was gonna be a question of mine is how often is the end you had in mind that you probably are often going to how often has that radically changed?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Um, the end end I always stick with. Like I really vet that through. Okay. Um, I think like I think through that from every single angle. Like if I'm gonna land on what that ending is, I'm really, really, really deeply thinking about it. So I haven't had that change a whole like I haven't had that ever like radically change.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Major plot points though?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Major plot points, yeah. Like, well, uh in Moon River, it's a story about two people who are in like a marriage of convenience, and it's sort of their uh She marries him because she's going to gain political power from his very rich, affluent family, and he marries her to get out of having to marry someone in his family, you know, like a um someone more arranged or like some notes.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, like an arranged marriage.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

And it all goes to shit because he his father um disinherits him and basically says.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Oh, so she doesn't get yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah, and he basically says, like, you're done in this town. You've gotta like, if you want to work, if you want anything for yourselves, like I will shut it down. Like he's very politically connected and everything.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Because he married her?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, You defied me, you fucked around, you're gonna find out. And so they move away to Paris and they end up falling in love and this whole, you know, story. And I had absolutely no plans whatsoever for them to get pregnant or to have a a child or anything. I was not interested in that. I didn't care. It wasn't gonna be the theme or it wasn't gonna be the thing. And um, and as I'm like writing, because when you're writing stuff on AO3, you're posting like chapter by chapter. So I was like writing it, and then people kept on being like, oh my god, I hope that we get to see them have a kid. And then the weirdest thing, I finally got to the point where I was like, I think it might honestly be a disservice to the people who are really enjoying this story if I don't give them that. But I had no plans, no, so I was feeling bad. And then I went and then I kind of was like, all right, what would I have to redo or rework? Because I was like 10 or 13 chapters ahead of what I was posting. So I had all this stuff written that like nobody had seen yet. So I was like, all right, like, where am I kind of locked in on what's already posted? And then where will I need to go back and rewrite in my work in progress? And like I looked back, I had already been writing it. Like I have multiple plot points that like pointed so heavily in the direction that they were pregnant or that they were going to, and like, like I wrote my own plot twist.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Was she sick one morning in it and you didn't even realize like what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

No, like um, there is a scene where like it's their first Christmas, and he like she had been wearing this necklace when they first got married, and when they were kind of like getting out of town when they were getting exiled, he was like, Take anything that's sentimental to you, and she takes this like necklace with a little diamond pendant that her parents gave to her, and so for their first Christmas, he makes her a bracelet to match it because he wants her to have something sentimental from him because they were like are falling in love. And so I wrote that like the bracelet had these little tiny diamonds intermittently around the chain to kind of match the pendant, and that he had put their birthstones in. And I had written this whole entire scene where she's looking at the bracelet and she goes, When we have our first kid, we'll put their birthstone in, we'll flip out one of the diamonds with no plans known to. I was like, I think I wanted it too.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Like, I think I was like, You truly just wrote that as like it seems natural to say that.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yeah, it was a plot twist for me too. When I finally gave in and said, Fine. But then it was interesting because it created the whole like when we get to the ending point when they are exacting their revenge against his father for everything he's done, and there's there's more layers to it of like what's really going on in the story um and what his father is really up to. Like they kind of uncover this whole web of treachery. So, like when they enact their big revenge plan, first of all, what makes it so much more important and so much heavier and so much more of a like life or death thing is that she's pregnant, and like it's what you know, they only have a certain amount of time now to go and put this plan in motion because you know, she is pregnant, like they have to they have to move things along, and then also, you know, when his mother is brought into the mix, it's like she chooses her side based on like she needs to protect the family from him. So it became this whole thing where I was like, this would have been so much weaker, like all of their reasons for doing things, everything, it would have just been so much flatter if I hadn't written this thing in, but it like really shocked me. I was like, who like I didn't even know my own situation. But I think it's like a testament to how much like what I put in an outline, what I put in a first, even in a first chapter, like I'll probably come back and be tweaking and playing with it and changing it as I get to know Sal better and as I get to know the story and the places that it, you know, is set better. Because really when when I'm in this stage and I have learned this by now, like when I'm just kind of thinking things through and understanding what it's going to be, I'm fully aware that like everything I've written in my notes is just stuff. Like some of it will some of it will see its way through to the end.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

But like Is it just sort of like reminders to yourself, like, oh yeah, I was thinking and I like I knew I had a good idea and I was only able to really at the moment conceptualize it into something that I don't actually love, but I it like just gets you back into that mind space, sort of, and then you can fully develop each individual idea from the notes, sort of.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah, and it's like building blocks and like what it currently is in the outline, even like little conversations and things that I've written just to sort of get to know the characters. Like, I'll write like a little bit of dialogue back and forth and kind of start figuring out like, how does Sal talk? Like, what are her thoughts like? What is she thinking? What is her personality like? Is she funny? Is she wry? Is she flat? You know, and same with Aaron, like what is he like and how does that fit with her personality? Like, you have to think about all of these different things. I'll start kind of playing around with dialogue, but when I get 10 chapters, 12, 13, 14 chapters into the story and we're getting to the real meat of their relationship. When I go look back at what I've written now for them, like in any outlining and stuff, will just seem so like juvenile because I will figure it out and I will get I will get it to such a place where they become such real people to me that like their conversations really evolve. So I kind of like I used to be so much more detailed and like live and die by my outlines and stuff. And I do definitely use my outline as I'm writing, and we'll talk in our next episode. I'll dive a lot more into how I build out my outline and how it works as I'm writing. But I also am like never really fully married to anything because I know that like when I'm in it and when I'm like in that mode of writing, and instead of just like being like, how might the story go when I'm actually in the moment, like in Sal's head, and I'm writing and I'm writing her thoughts and I'm writing the things that she's saying, and things are kind of unraveling, you know, like there's things that will just pop into my mind that I'll end up writing that will never make the outline and will end up being in the story because it just will it just unravels as you're going.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Like it will be light years away from anything that I've already gotten written right now, which is good because sometimes I look at it and I'm like, uh, but I know that I ultimately have a really great story. Like I like was just reading some dialogue I had written for them just yesterday. I was as as I was looking through and I could just immediately tell, like, this was this is not gonna make a final cut or anything.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Is it a lot of you just sort of being like, oh, past Angela, you sweet summer child?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Like, yeah, a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Like your heart was in the right place. I see where you were going, but let me let me take it from here.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah, it's like, oh honey, like that was nice. That was a good thought. Now, well, why don't you just sit back and watch as mommy works, you know? Like, good job, baby. Um, yeah, I mean, the the story as I'm writing it always, and this is a good thing, but it always ends up being this whole other living, breathing thing that like and but like there are things that I'm sure I've thought of. Like there's there's going to be a scene way later in the story, which honestly I feel like I have the most visibility into like things that are going to happen later in the story. And this happens a lot when I'm writing books, is like I really, really clearly can see the end and how we get to the end, which helps me because then I'm like reverse engineering and I'm getting there and I and I, you know, I think it makes it much stronger. But like there are things that I am thinking in my head, and there's like songs that I've been putting on my playlist. Like, I do feel like there are some scenes right now that I know how they're going to be written. And probably when I get there, it'll be even better than what I'm thinking. But like what I'm thinking right now, I'm like, oh, I think that line's gonna make it in. Or like I think that like like I'm thinking about how Sal is feeling in something that I know is going to happen to her. And I'm like, I don't see how she would feel any other way. And like the way she feels, I can't wait to write. Yeah, like there's some things that I just cannot wait to write because I like I have the soundtracks in my mind. Yeah, I know how it's going to feel, I know what I want to create in between those spaces to make her get there. Um, so I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Are you ever just I feel like the way I work on stuff sometimes is I'm just like, ooh, I really want to do that. And I would find myself, I think, just like writing a chapter of the part that I had like playing in my mind. I don't think I would be able to go through the outlining and the the brainstorming process. I would just be like, no, I gotta write this now.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Um, I've done that before. Like, I have definitely written I I have, yeah, I've written ahead. One time I wrote the entire like final chapter pretty much before I'd even finished the first act.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

The How I Met Your Mother special.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah, yeah. Oh god. Um, and like it didn't change. I just kept on building it out and whatnot. But I haven't needed to do that. It's kind of interesting because Moon River, the one I was talking about with like the whole exile and the marriage of convenience, is sort of nuts that I didn't do that because the entire back half is two split storylines between like they go and they the whole first act is leading up to them getting exiled. So it's kind of the whole of like how they decide to get into a marriage of convenience together, and then they get married, and then kind of the sh, you know, they're they have their first little bits of like, oh, like we're in it now, like what is this going to be? Like suddenly we're married to each other, and then um and then like the whole exile, like the shit hits the fan, and that's the end of act one. And then act two begins, it's a split story of like them two years later coming, like so. They the act ends with them leaving London and it's this heart-wrenching thing where they are exiled and they have to leave their homes. And the second act begins with a scene two years later of them coming back to just like fanfare and like cure like mystery of everyone's like, where have they been for two years, whatever. But then, like, then the story kind of splits into two stories that are happening at the same time of like everything that happens leading up to two years from them. So their whole story of them falling in love, and it's like you get snippets of what they look like when they're in love and what they're doing, and it kind of all is giving you little snippets and bits and pieces of ultimately where we get to in the end when they have this like massive revenge plot that unfolds. And um, so it was a lot of moving pieces, a lot of things to keep together, a lot of story happening, and a lot of like, okay, I can hint this thing here, and I can't. So you would think that I would have written so much stuff of all the like happening in all these little bits and pieces, but I wrote the whole thing linearly and I didn't write ahead at all. I had a really, really strong outline. Wow, but I wrote the whole thing just bit by bit.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

As on the page?

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Wow. Yeah, that's it was weird to me too.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

I was like, I can't, I don't know how I didn't but like I had a really, really, really str like strong outline. I knew again, I knew very clearly all the things that were gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

I was gonna say that's a testament to your outlining skills. Like, obviously, if you're able to linear or not, yeah, if you're able to write that almost stream of consciousness, sort of like just get it done with beginning to end, as will be presented, and it's that complex of a story. Obviously, you had a very strong outline, very strong skeleton, very strong knowledge of exactly where all the pieces were gonna fall before you wrote Word War.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah. And I did it on purpose because I was challenging myself. I wanted to make sure that by the time I was gonna come and write a manuscript again, because this is my second manuscript. Like I said, I wrote The God of the Dead already, and I learned a lot of things from it, but I kind of wanted to even continue getting better and better at telling these complex interwoven stories, and I wanted to make sure that like my outlining skills were where I wanted them, and I had like really figured out my process. Yeah. And so, like Moon River was the big challenge to myself. That was what I was trying to learn as I wrote that. And I also was really trying to get better and better at developing the story and like developing a scene and developing a chapter and having you know really strong dialogue. And so I sort of like purposefully made up this story that was gonna be a whole cluster of like telling the story of two people falling in love with each other while having this whole thing going on in the background of um this whole like revenge.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Thriller spy thriller, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah, like this whole thriller thing, and also at the same time you're getting like breadcrumbed along the way of what's happening. And then also I wanted the whole like two years later, I wanted them to almost seem like a completely different couple. That then, like the the two points from where we started where they're like mad at each other and they're kind of enemies to lovers, like the two points have to converge throughout the whole story where they get to the point where you see them two years later, where they're like in love and they're partners and they're in like it's them against the world. So if anyone is curious how this thing all came together and how it went, it is on AO3, it is a completed work, and it went pretty well. I don't know. It's gotten quite a bit of uh feedback and hits and comments and things, and I think people like it. So it worked. I pulled off the brief. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Interest produced.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

So I know earlier you mentioned that you have started writing Aeroseth Flamingo. Where are you completely outlined? Do you like, can you tell me where you are in the process, or did you just have to start writing? Where what why did you start? Where are you in the process?

SPEAKER_01 34:53

So I have written my outline. I like where the outline is. I know that as I go, and again, as I continue thinking and thinking and thinking, I'm gonna be expanding the outline and and things will get added. I've been kind of even starting to think of new things that I need to go add to it. Um, but I got to a point where I feel like like I almost kind of feel like when my thoughts shift, and my thoughts shifted to what's the first line gonna be? What's the first scene? I mean, I've known what the first scene was going to be for a very, very long time. And there's just a massive difference between outlining and thinking about it, and then being in it and writing it, and I just kind of got ready. Like I just wanted to start writing it. Like I've thought about the story so much, and I've thought about Sal and um Aaron so much that like it's time to start writing the story. But like I was saying, I've learned a lot of things about how I do my outlines and how the outline guides me along as I go, as I just came out of my like self-conductive masterclass on outlining and writing a complex story, which I don't think Aerosat Flamingo will be quite as complex as Moon River was. So I've really just flexed and then it's all you know gonna even out from here.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Sounds pretty complex still, to be honest. I mean, things from your own mind, I'm sure it seems much more you've been thinking about like I know the whole story.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah, it's like I mean, obviously, on this podcast, I'm not going to be like sharing the entire story because the hope and goal and dream is that someday you're able to just read it yourself. And you know, I'm sure I'll find a way, whatever avenue I have to take. You will someday be able to read Aroset Flamingo, but obviously I'm not gonna split it all on this podcast. So I know the whole story, so maybe it seems a bit more complex. I know everything, I know the major points of what happens. I have that all outlined out. And now there is a certain balance between what goes into your outline and what flows out of you as you're writing. And I always allow for all of those little surprises, and I've been surprised, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in some future episodes. But next episode, we will talk about outline and the process, and I'll kind of dive a little bit more into um how I create my outlines and how I use them as I write the story. Because I am in it, I am writing the story.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Yeah. So I, before next week's recording, I should start outlining the entire Spanish language to get ready for my book.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

See, senor. How do I say get started?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Dale.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Dale!

SPEAKER_00 37:23

I mean it's a more generic. But close it up. That's like send it.

unknown 37:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

All right, then I guess the same for me and for you. Dale!

SPEAKER_00 37:32

But so yeah, next week we'll talk about kind of transforming from notes to outline and really like obviously not having the finished product, but getting a more strict skeleton in place, sort of is that Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

I love that you're using the word skeleton because I use the word skeleton all the time. Like my outline is my skeleton. So we'll talk about how I get there, how I write the outline, and then I think a lot of different writers have different ways of doing this. There's even tools for doing it. Um, I don't use any of them. So if you are looking to learn how you do it without having to buy any subscriptions or anything like that to writing tools, this is the place for you. Um, but I guess the disclaimer is like this is how I work, this is how I do it. I'll talk about how I how I get the thing done with my outline because I use my outline from start to finish. I don't ever stray away from it. So we'll talk about that and all my little tips and tricks and how I do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Well, uh, that sounds super interesting. I can't wait to hear about it. We'll let you get to it and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

See you next time.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Unpublished is an ish media production. We do not make any guarantees of publication for listeners or hosts of this podcast. If you have questions or comments, send us a query at yaps at unpublishedhepodcast.com. That's Y A P S at Unpublished The Podcast.com