In this episode, Elizabeth and Stephanie explore various aspects of writing and the craft of storytelling. They delve into topics such as the importance of rest and balance for writers, intentional goal-setting, managing business aspects while maintaining focus on writing projects, and the value of reading like a writer. They discuss the significance of exploring different genres and styles, analyzing character development, world-building, tension, and word choice. Drawing from their own experiences and observations, Stephanie and Elizabeth reflect on how various authors approach these elements in their works, offering insights and potential strategies for their own writing endeavors. Throughout the discussion, they emphasize the importance of learning from the works of established authors and how each book can serve as a mentor in the writer's journey. The episode concludes with a reflection on narrative choices, including the use of tense and point of view, and how they influence the reader's experience in memoir and fiction writing.
Connect with us! Schedule a coffee chat with Elizabeth or Stephanie!
Join our email list for first to know information about weekly podcast episodes, writing aids, and upcoming offers!
To get more information about joining our Inspired Writer Collective or Read Like A Writer book club, click here.
If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can locate all of them here on our YouTube channel.
In this episode, Elizabeth and Stephanie explore various aspects of writing and the craft of storytelling. They delve into topics such as the importance of rest and balance for writers, intentional goal-setting, managing business aspects while maintaining focus on writing projects, and the value of reading like a writer. They discuss the significance of exploring different genres and styles, analyzing character development, world-building, tension, and word choice. Drawing from their own experiences and observations, Stephanie and Elizabeth reflect on how various authors approach these elements in their works, offering insights and potential strategies for their own writing endeavors. Throughout the discussion, they emphasize the importance of learning from the works of established authors and how each book can serve as a mentor in the writer's journey. The episode concludes with a reflection on narrative choices, including the use of tense and point of view, and how they influence the reader's experience in memoir and fiction writing.
Connect with us! Schedule a coffee chat with Elizabeth or Stephanie!
Join our email list for first to know information about weekly podcast episodes, writing aids, and upcoming offers!
To get more information about joining our Inspired Writer Collective or Read Like A Writer book club, click here.
If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can locate all of them here on our YouTube channel.
Welcome fellow writers to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast, your go to hub for all things writing. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie. Whether you're a seasoned wordsmith or just dipping your quill into the ink well of creativity, we're absolutely thrilled to have you with us. Drawing from our experience in publishing diverse writing genres and the daily grind of showing up for yourself, we're here to be your writing companions. Expect insightful discussions, expert tips, and a dash of inspiration as we navigate the twists and turns of the writing journey together. So whether you're listening on your commute, during your writing session, or just relaxing at home, get ready for an immersive experience that celebrates the art and joy of writing. Hi, Elizabeth! Hey! How are you doing, Stephanie? I'm good. I'm so excited for our topic today. But before we jump in, how was your day and where are you with your writing? Today was a child care day, so it wasn't heavy on the writing. I did do some reading. It's actually a rereading of a memoir. Which is actually very relevant. I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit today. Sort of aligns with the topic that we're talking about today, but rereading a memoir that I've enjoyed in order to glean some insight in as a writer to understand how this particular author has written this bestselling memoir and, and then mining that for wisdom. So I did some of that reading and then I just got back from Restore and write yoga class, which is basically a yen yoga practice of, you know, supported yoga poses for the. It's not meant for like stretching or building muscle or anything like that. It's just for like getting in out of a fight or flight mode and into a rest and digest mode with your nervous system. And it's accompanied with some journal prompts and journaling. So those are the ways that my writing has shown up today or how I've, you know, worked on my writing today. Well, those are those are all great ways to work on writing. What were some of the journal prompts? Or what was sort of the theme of the yoga practice? So, the theme that they were focusing on, because this is the 1st time they're bringing bringing it back in the series and also the beginning of the year was about. Pruning what you need to prune in your life, what it would feel like to have more space. What would you bring into that space? It was an interesting reflection for me because at the jump, I was thinking like, oh, what a waste. Like, I just. Did all my pruning. I've been pruning for the last six months. I don't need to think about more things to prune Right, but it was still really helpful to just take that moment to reflect on what all I have pruned between the divorce And sort of rebalancing my time and energy making sure that i'm pouring into myself First and foremost before giving all that time and energy and a caretaking role To my kid to, you know, my former spouse, that sort of thing. So there's some good reflection for me in just. Reminding myself of how far I've come and how intentional I'm trying to be with what I put in its place. And the facilitator also had us kind of scan our body to see if anything was sort of like a full body. No. And for me, the thing that came up when I did that was doing for the sake of doing, I think there's a lot of tendency, especially in starting a new business to want to feel like you have something to be able to say for the day. Like I did. And that's great if that's something that needs to be done, but I have a tendency to create busy projects for myself, just so I have something that I can, you know, show in case someone tries to hold me accountable for my time. Like, were you productive today? Did you put in effort today? Oh my goodness. I'm, I know that so well because I, I absolutely fall into that same trap because I've always sort of been that one who feels like I need to be doing something and what I've learned so much. And as we've talked is that huge value of resting and providing that balance for yourself because you can show up so much better and stronger. And, and I think the idea of pruning. Is so powerful, especially at this time of year when people sometimes actually think about adding more because it's like, Oh, it's the beginning of the year. I've got to do this. And I've got to add this. Oh, I haven't been doing this. And I have to do this when in reality, in a way, like winter time and kind of turning inward and saying like, well, how can I take care of myself and show up for myself? And especially even more so with starting a new business or you. Going into your writing and really focusing on that, you have to allow yourself the space to just be and it's hard our culture doesn't like really allow for that in so many ways. And so, in a way, there's a certain amount of just Taking back some power for yourself when you just say, you know what, I'm gonna buck the system a little bit here and say, no, like, this is not working for me. You're right. Almost all the New Year's resolutions are about, like, adding to your schedule, right? Or something that takes more time, whether it's cooking healthier meals or, you know, things like that. I mean, I've definitely added some things with mine, like I'm I'm trying to read more and I'm also trying to have a daily meditation practice. That's just a couple of minutes just to like, help me jumpstart my day and get into the right head space. And I, I think the, both of those things will directly impact my writing. But like you said, the thing with the, like the businesses, you have to remember as the business owner. You are part of the product. You can't fry yourself out. Exactly. You know, you have to make sure that you have that balance. You have to make sure, I mean, for us, we need to have something to be able to say about our writing projects. So if we're spending all of our time focusing on, you know, the front facing business aspects of it, then we. May not be making, you know, great progress with, you know, the books that we're writing or the other things that we're, we're doing as writers. And I, I do think it's important. Did you end up working on anything with your, with your book or writing today? Well, yeah, I was just going to make 1 comment and that was, I mean, 1 of the things you mentioned was that even though you're adding things, you're being so intentional about it. So I think that there's. a difference in that way as opposed to just adding for the sake of adding because you know, you're scrolling Facebook or whatever and thinking like, Oh, I have to add this because that's what everybody's doing. So I think the intentional piece is huge. Today was definitely a rest day for me since I'm still Coming out of a COVID fog that hit me. I mean, COVID hit me a lot harder this time than the first time I had it. So, just kind of allowing myself that space to rest because I did last night when we had our time to write, I did get a whole new set of planning done for my book, which I think allowing myself to rest today kind of allowed me to mull that over a little bit and feel comfortable in what I refer to as kind of blowing up my script a little bit, but in a positive way, like it's all good stuff. It's not because I hated it. It's just because I recognize the need to shift. And that's, that's so valuable to recognize that at the stage that you're at now, versus like further down the road. I mean, I've shared on the podcast that originally when I wrote the memoir, it was a blend of memoir and self help. And right before I was supposed to send it to the developmental editor. I like. Next, like so much of the stuff and reworked things. And, you know you have to do it in the moment that you realize that it needs to be done. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and I think to our topic tonight that we'll get into, is about reading like a writer, I think that that's going to really provide even more clarity for me, just because I've been reading as a reader in the contemporary romance genre, and So just recently I did read a book through the lens as a writer and it was so helpful to understand the structure and character motivation and different aspects. And so I think doing more of that is going to be really helpful for my writing. Yeah. And you had recommended one of your favorite contemporary romance authors to me and I had picked up one of Abby Jimenez's books and I was already sort of reading it as a writer because I was I had picked it up specifically to explore the genre that you write in so that I would have a better understanding and it was really cool to see the ways that like, she complicated the story and then how she would have a, a way to solve the problem that she created. And so I, it was interesting to. Be paying attention to it from that aspect versus like where's the next sex scene You know, which is more of my focus honestly, you know when i'm reading that kind of stuff just for the enjoyment of reading it Like i'm like, where's the romance? Where's the you know, love confession? Where's the whatever? But when I was reading it from a writing perspective, I definitely found that I was paying more attention to the character development, because in the particular one you had me read, there were some people that were friends of the main character, but then that friendship, those friendships really, like, fizzle, and it was interesting to watch how the author navigated that and made that believable. Both that they had this bond initially that warranted them taking a vacation together, but then also how it like really blew up as well. And then I think I mentioned to you the other day about then like a big like confrontational point like an act three confrontation kind of thing, how then the like best friend swoops in to like give the love interest the necessary information to not jump to too many conclusions and not be too upset. And it was, it was interesting to notice those things. Reading that genre as a writer, because that would not have been something I would have, you know, paid much attention to and really admired, honestly from just a reader perspective. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's one of the exciting things about us focusing on this for our, our book club for, for this month and it might be what we continue, we're, we're trying it out for this month because it's such a. important way to help improve our own process and our own craft to look at, you know, the best selling authors in our genre. And that's the cool thing about Our book club is just that we're picking within each of our genres, as opposed to saying like, well, we're going to pick just one genre. And so it's really about us as individual writers and then being able to come together. And then we can share what we learned because even across genres, you can learn things that Other writers are doing or the way they're structuring sentences or using particular words or like you were saying, you know, that all the descriptive words that when you're reading fiction, you know, that you don't always think about when you're writing memoir, but then how you can pull that in to your memoir to give. More to the reader. Absolutely. I mean, I've already determined that I'm at least that's going to be the focus of the books. I choose for my reading this year is not so much like a book. I want to read because of the particular story or author, but something that I think is going to teach me or inform me as a writer. So I was starting to dig into and we had brainstormed a lot of this when we had. You know, back before we even launched the community and knew that we wanted to have this book club component and wanted to do it from a writer's perspective. We had sort of brainstormed these kind of key topics that we felt like were important to writers. And then. things like understanding the hero's journey and what that looks like and how you might use elements of it or follow the whole format in order to like move a story along and maintain momentum in a story. We talked about exploring like romantic tropes and how those are dealt with. We talked about world building, especially in you know, a lot of the fantasy books or sci fi books or would be really great for exploring how someone. Builds a world outside of the one that everyone, you know, lives in and knows because you're writing contemporary romance and I'm writing memoirs. So our stories are very much rooted in, you know, our everyday existence and what we know, but it would be really cool to explore how someone creates a totally different world with different rules and how they. How they, like, foster those and build those and make them believable, what they borrow from the real world versus what they just totally take liberties and create for themselves. Absolutely. Sorry to interrupt. So, that makes me think a lot, because in contemporary romance, there are some authors who use real places and others who created spaces. So, It's always interesting to see how they do that and, you know, how they create a whole world. And a lot of that's driven by dialogue, interestingly enough. And so it'll be really interesting when I go back to some of the books I'm thinking about reading, and especially ones to reread, to see how that's accomplished. Well, and I just had this idea. That I'm jotting down, that it'd be cool whenever we pick, you know, a book to represent what we're going to explore for world building, if we find one where it's like two worlds, you know, if you have to show the contrast between like one world and another world. And, and Abby Jimenez does a little bit of that in the book you read, Part of Your World, because she has the kind of country, down home, small town versus the high powered, sort of city, hospital, you know, piece, and it, it's kind of a little bit of that, like, you You know, two worlds coming together that you might not think would come together, and then how well they actually fit together. Yeah, so that's also kind of an interesting Seeing hers felt totally like not world building to me only because I've lived in Minnesota And that small town was every small town, Minnesota Like she did such a good job of like capturing that and so it's like I I've been there You know, like I know that place. I would love to explore one. That's like totally created for the purpose of You know a book as well to see that but yeah, you're right I mean she did balance like the two different worlds, but hers are still very rooted in Actual like oh Yes, even if she gets a different, you know, she did, I think, an acknowledgement say that she had, you know, reached out to a indigenous community to figure out what to name it. And there was intention behind, you know, naming the small town and stuff, but yeah, absolutely. Well, and she, I mean, she lives in Minnesota, you know, full time stuff. So it's always, it's always interesting. And we've talked about this before, you know. When you can really tell when an author has done their research, which is another, which is another part of You know, picking a book and understanding like what, how did the author accomplish their, what they set out to do from start to finish, you know, I mean, how, how does the first chapter especially draw you in and make you care to keep reading because we were having this discussion the other day you were talking about this, even with your first chapter of your memoir is how do you put all the pieces in that you need to read? Yeah. put in to make someone say, okay, I'm, this is for me, this is the book that is going to be relevant to me and you know what I'm, you know, seeking. And the same thing I think about with, you know, there certainly have been books that whether I've listened to them or picked them up where I'm not that interested in them, but then I'm, but then I kind of have that thought in my head where I'm like, well, I'm not really interested in this, but I'm kind of curious about what the author is doing or what. They're gonna do with this. And so then, so then it's actually helped me keep reading to see like, oh, okay. Mm-Hmm, But then I might not still, I mean, I might still not like the book, but it's, I've been using more of my, you know, writer lens to say, okay, well this didn't really draw me in. Maybe there's a reason why. And so I don't want to make that same mistake as a writer to have someone read and go, eh, no. Not work. Right, because I'm going to be an unknown author and people might not have that curiosity of like, is this author going to handle this? Let me read all the way to the end. A couple of the other things we've talked about exploring is tension and how to maintain tension. We've talked about it in regards to like suspense and mystery, but I know you recently read a book that you thought the author did a particularly great job at like. Not relieving the tension, even when there was opportunity to, did you want to talk about that for a second? Yeah, so Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. She does a really good job of, you really like the main character. And then there are all these other characters that kind of connect in different ways to her life and her story. And You keep thinking as the story is going along that there are pieces that you become aware of as the reader because there's an octopus that's kind of the all knowing sort of a little bit of a narrator to what, is going on and you keep thinking, okay, they're going to figure it out now and then, then something happens and it doesn't get figured out and something else happens and there, there's just the continuous series of events that take you all the way to the end. And there is a resolution at the end and, but it's not quite the resolution that you might expect, and so the way that the author crafts it, it's just very creative because as the reader, you're like, Oh, I just want them to know. And then something else comes in, but you're still interested in. the way each scene moves the story forward. And so that would be another one that I would go back to and reread. Well, one for tension, but also for just the progression of scenes, like keeping the momentum. Yes. For pacing and also. For managing a whole bunch of characters. I mean, cause you're not, you don't just have the main character, you have the main character and then you have the, guy who owns the grocery store and you have the girl who owns the surf shop and, you have all these other characters who come in in different ways. And of course, you know, the octopus has its own chapters, and it has a whole meaning and such, and so it just is very well done for integrating and developing the characters in a way that you care about them and then there are characters that are mentioned throughout the book that never actually appear. One character's mother is a key component, you know, and cause he's searching for his father and then, and there's the woman's son who died, but they become integral characters in the story, even though they never have any dialogue, but you start to care about them in different ways. So that's an interesting example of, looking at character development, but also maintaining the tension and a little bit of conflict. And so, that would be an interesting one to go back to. Yeah, I'm very interested in exploring character development as well particularly for selfish reasons in memoir because I also have to be able to show how I've evolved and changed over the course of the period of time that I cover in my memoir. I've seen it done artfully in other memoirs the one that came to mind was the dirty life, which I read a long time ago, but when I was really in my homesteading book reading, it was one of my favorite ones. I own a copy. I've passed it around to a bunch of people and I would love to read it again. To just look at how she described, and showed that development or those shifts between being the city girl to being Out in the middle of nowhere on a homestead driving draft horses in order to plow the fields. I mean, it's a huge contrast of worlds that she like came from and is operating in and I would love to see. I'm curious now, as a writer, how she accomplished that, like, did she show us the same scenario and show that she reacted differently in the beginning versus, you know, towards the end? And then I was also doing some research last night on character development. And books that really showed that and the one that came up I want to say it won like one of the best fiction awards or whatever for either 22 or 23 and it's Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead. Oh yeah, I, I haven't read that but I've heard it mentioned so many times. Yeah, so it sounds really good and it basically it's fiction, but people say it's, written in such a way that's so captivating and so realistic that it almost reads as memoir, even though it's fictional. And the reviews I was reading of it and the descriptions of it really highlighted Her character development and the way she made this character really come to life my inclination is that if we compared character developments You know within fiction and non fiction that we would see that in non fiction in the real world There's a little bit more like up and down because we're not perfect and we don't grow linearly, you know, and we don't develop linearly whereas in in some fictional works The tendency may be to have the character, like, generally grow linearly, maybe only have one hiccup or two for tension building or to complicate the story, but rarely do I see, like, a fictional character make a really Sudden backslide back into old habits and waste another three years with someone they shouldn't be with, you know, that sort of thing. I think it would be interesting to look at, both character development in memoir and also character development in fiction. That would be fascinating. And the memoir you mentioned, I'd definitely be interested to read that just because, I mean, I've definitely been The city girl who's been, out on the farm and had those completely different experiences. So it would be interesting to read someone's story and homesteading is a whole different level of that. And, Yeah, Barbara Kingsolver, I mean, she is a great writer and it's been a while since I've read her books, but I just remember really enjoying them. But yeah, demon copperhead, I've definitely heard that that one just continuously gets rave reviews and character development I think is such a critical component of story because you want the reader to care in some way and, I think that when you really can develop a character, whether it's yourself or a fictional person, getting the reader to care is where you hook them in. I think people were saying she created just a very strong sense of place. Within that too, it takes place in Appalachia and you've got the poverty and the sense that there's very little opportunity for economic mobility or growth or development. So I think it would be a really good one on a number of different levels. So I definitely put it out there as one I think we should dig into and just glean whatever it is. I mean, I definitely think it'll be character development. I think it'll be setting a scene. Who knows? Maybe we'll also find that there's some really interesting dialogue. I am certainly curious how she chose to capture that Appalachian twang. That is very characteristic, sometimes I've read books where authors go all in on it and I can have trouble reading it because it's, so extreme, but I'm curious, as a practiced hand as she is how she's chosen to capture the dialect and the different word usage and sentence structure and dropping of different consonants that is very typical of that region I don't know how you would write a book that sets place there without some nod to it within the dialogue. Absolutely. Well, I don't think you'd have the level of readership that that book has brought in without really having done your research because her books are so well read across the board and there are people who have their opinions and knowledge of spaces and places, and they're going to know whether or not it hit the mark, and clearly it did, and it would be really interesting to read that one as part of our Reading Like a Writer series here now I'm more curious because this makes it even more exciting, since it's outside of books I typically would pick up, even though I enjoy her writing, I've been so focused in my genre for my own writing purposes. And it's good to broaden perspectives, especially when looking at books that are so well received by readers, because of course as writers, we do have to think about an audience who is that audience we can have an idea, but sometimes who the audience becomes can really surprise you, too. Right, and you've heard me rail on some memoirs I read that are written by famous people, and they spend the first three or four chapters giving this, Whole genealogy that I could care less about and some of those I put down they just don't capture me enough And I'm not that invested in the person's life from the lens of them Just being famous that I want to actually continue reading the story Yeah, that's one example of thinking about your reader and who your audience really is exactly. Yeah I think it's so important. Another way I like to think about this whole process is thinking of each of the books as a mentor, we certainly have access to a lot of information, but we don't always have access directly to the writers and being able to pick up their books and say, okay, how did they do it? How did they start this? How did they finish it? What are the choices they're making? And, I'm excited to jump in with my post its again and markup. Books because I've definitely heard there's much more value in having the book in hand for a process like this than even using an e reader where even though you can annotate and take notes, it doesn't have the same impact as when, at least in my perspective of being able to flip the pages back or go back to spaces easily. And say, oh, what was my question there? Or what was my curiosity? Or what was that passage that struck me, you know, in such a way? Which, which brings to mind another book, speaking of passages that are very striking, is The Midnight Library. I listened to the book and I've been meaning to pick up a hard copy. It's this whole idea where the character is in between the space of life and death in this library that has all the, volumes of the books of her life and it's kind of this reflection of Picking certain books off the shelf of things that happened in her life and how her life might have been different if she had made that choice Fascinating. It's really fascinating and it's so well written there's a Poetic way to some of his passages it's very self help like life messaging to it in a lot of ways about choices that we make making one choice over another, ultimately, there's kind of this resolution of feeling contentment, I'm assuming And you can answer this since you've read it, are the, volumes that she pulls out, are they chronological, or are we jumping to different points in her life that are, non sequential? It's very much jumping to different points in her life. Which is such an interesting, different way to handle a fictional character's Yes, it's very interesting. And there's the librarian who serves as a little bit of a character. Mentor? Yeah, a mentor about, you know, which things she's going to choose to explore. It's just an interesting way to take a fictional story. And take away that linear aspect is so intriguing. That would be interesting to study from that perspective. And it almost sounds like it could be a retroactive hero's journey. Yes, yes, it's almost like a reflective sort of thing. That sounds interesting. I think that would be a cool one to, to explore. Yeah and I just remember following the author at the time when the book was published, he had no idea it was going to be. a bestseller at all. He was not anticipating that happening, like, but it's another one where you care about the character in a way that And you're just so interested in the journey that she goes on and we all have curiosities of that space in between or what happens between life and death. Are we gonna wish we did something different? I feel like it would be so informative, even for memoir writing to read that and to see what parts, as a writer, I resonate with to know that. Oh, well, readers want to see this kind of moment. Readers want to see you, at your low points, readers want, you know, I think with memoir, sometimes you want to keep some of the skeletons in the closet. Right? Right. But I think it'd be interesting to read it, even from the perspective of mirroring some of that for the purpose of memoir. iT's interesting. I hadn't even thought about it as a way to think about writing a memoir, but in a way there's an aspect of that because it's that whole piece of fictional memoir is basically what it is. Like what is she choosing to reflect back on, what choices did she make or what opportunities did she not take that then took her life in this direction or that direction? And, and in a way, yeah, that would be an interesting way think about that. And then the last sort of brainstorming idea as far as a particular topic to explore which you already referenced a little bit earlier, but word choice. And the one that I thought about for doing that is Amanda Gorman's poetry book. Oh, yes. Her word choice. Because with poetry, you have to be so specific because your words have to do so much more in a poem than in like a full length novel. I think it would be interesting to study word choice using her poetry. I don't know if you were there when our local group did a master class. We've got to watch one of the masterclasses that she does, and she spoke specifically about how careful she is about her word choice. I missed that one, but, she is incredible with her word choice. Yeah, that is definitely a great example for a place to focus for that, for sure. And word choice is so important, I've been thinking about it especially with dialogue for moving my story along, and And thinking about that just in terms of even in descriptions and transitions. Yeah, I've mostly been thinking about it in regards to verbs as I've tried to strengthen my verb and remove the adverbs. And choosing a stronger verb or a more accurate verb, some of it just does not, come very naturally to me, especially in just trying to describe my own life, but that's why, I think reading other people's writing, especially the people who have, gotten some recognition for their work or widespread readership, I think that will be helpful in seeing some of that. So I'm definitely curious to explore that some more. Oh, I absolutely agree. And I know for me, it's, I need to tighten up some of my pros a little bit more because I'll, switch to the past, more passive voice and it slows the story down and it doesn't sound like I've made a definitive choice about what a character is thinking or doing, and so I have to be really careful about that. And then the other piece as you know, from. Having read part of what I've shared with you, the sort of flipping tense, I need to stay in the present tense and not be in the past tense unless I'm really talking about the past and especially since I'm working with first person point of view and there's an added challenge with that have you decided to definitely stay in present tense? I've decided that for right now. And I'm gonna see. You know, it's interesting because I was doing some research and some camps of romance, people say it should be third person point of view, and others say first person certainly when I was at the romance book club at the bookstore in Columbia, Missouri, that it was definitely everybody was much more like, oh, I love first person, but then there were some who really like third person because I can kind of be kind of a little bit removed and not in the character's head. And so I'm playing around with that, but I do notice a lot more of the contemporary romance I've read or listened to have been more often in the first person. But, I don't know, I'm gonna have to think about that which style works best for me as I move forward, and whether or not I'm gonna stick there. So, that's why, I'm excited about going back to some books I've read and others I haven't to look at the different points of view to see which feels like it fits more with my style of writing. I'm obviously writing in first person because I'm writing memoir, but I'm currently rereading Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and it's interesting because, I don't know, some, part of me thinks she gets some liberties because she's already,, a well known author, so she can break some of the rules, but some of her stories And it's all vignettes, right? So it's not necessarily chronological, the stories are grouped by theme, as opposed to a chronological timeline. So, in one part she's, just found out she's pregnant, but then she's also just met Abby, but then she goes back to being with her husband and not divorced yet, and it jumps all around. It still makes sense because it's all these vignettes and that's the benefit of using that style versus a narrative memoir. But it's interesting because some of the vignettes are written in first person present tense and some of them are written in past tense. And so I, I need to reread some of those where she's chosen one versus the other to figure out why or get a sense of why she's chosen one versus the other. I played around with it in my memoir pretty early on because after I read I'm glad my mother died. Jeanette McCurdy wrote hers all in first person present tense, and it was definitely very captivating, it put you right there in the story, and that was appealing, but then I rewrote one or two of my stories in present tense just to see how it would feel. And to be honest, given some of the topics I'm planning to cover, I honestly felt like for my reader, it was too much. It's already some heavy topics. And to put the reader in those moments with me, I, for one, don't really enjoy having to relive them for the purpose of writing them. But I certainly don't want the reader to have to live through all my trauma, in the first person present tense. it's a little too confronting for Some of the topics that I will be covering in my memoir, and so that's why I ultimately settled on, just keeping it as past tense, which is fairly standard for a memoir. Well, yeah, and it sounds like that makes sense just in terms of timeline. I'm curious with what you mentioned about untamed, if some of the past tense, is it because it's further back in the past or is it no, and. Interesting. So, I'd have to look back, but I think it was the, one of the chapters where she's sitting there on the bathroom floor seeing the positive pregnancy test and wondering how am I going to do this? Can I do this? Why am I that sort of like whole step into her role as like a mother. Because generally speaking, most people will write their memoir and past tense, except. Though you'll use present tense where you're going to do a newer reflection on a past experience, like nowadays I look back and I see this as blah, blah, blah, blah, then you'll use present tense if it's sort of a newer reflection on a past event and having that present tense stand out in that way, but no, it was a past story that she wrote in present tense, even though other past stories are written in past tense. That's really interesting. Well, it sounds like for your own memoir that I would go with your gut feeling well, I've settled on mine. I'm just curious, you know, is it to make a stronger impact on certain stories she's trying to tell or, or what the like pattern is or the reason is for why she's chosen to do some vignettes in past and some vignettes in present tense. It'd be interesting to see if anybody's asked her that in an interview where you can go back and reread and see her choice to do the vignettes in that way. To see if what you were thinking aligns, that would be an interesting thing to understand. I mean, I'm not above, you know, emailing her either and just asking. Well, there, exactly. But, yeah, I mean, I was going to bring that up earlier. That's part of the benefit, too, if we end up choosing books that have been more recently published, is that a lot of these authors have done the circuit and done the interviews and done the podcast where we may have the opportunity to also listen to the author talk about their book. That would be an interesting aspect to bring into the book club piece to hear their take on their own work or what they were trying to accomplish through their work. Oh, absolutely. I always find that fascinating and I've always been such a geek about whenever I have a chance to hear an author being able to go listen to them speak and of course now we're afforded so many more opportunities with so much online and it's always fascinating when you can hear about their process. And of course now the authors that are using social media, You can learn even more about behind the scenes peek or they share little tidbits about their book and the process. And yeah, that'll be the neat thing too with the books that we choose to go back and see, where the author's head was when going through their own process and see how that can influence ours. Yeah, so listener, what you can expect from us, at least at the moment, is this month, January, we have decided that Stephanie and I are each going to read a book in our own genres and we're going to record a podcast episode about our takeaways and what we saw and how we're applying those Insights to our own writing and then in subsequent months we're gonna be picking one of these books that we've mentioned in this podcast exploring one of these particular topics of Writing craft whether that's character development tension world building heroes journey momentum and pacing dialogue whatever that is, and doing that through the lens of a particular book. So we would love to have you join along with us if that's something you're interested in, whether just for your own curiosity to read a book in that with through that different lens and trying to have that different perspective. Or if you want to do it so that you can use that to enhance some of your own writing. We're really excited for this. And we'll, of course, be recording future podcast episodes that also hit on these topics. I'm sure as we gain insights, we'll be creating other courses and things. I already created a worksheet handout mini course on a pattern. I noticed in untamed that Glennon uses repeatedly to add emphasis in the moment in an emotional moment. She has a certain sent 3 sentence structure that she utilizes. That's very impactful and helps with the pacing. So I'm sure things like that resources like that will come out of this endeavor as well, but we would love to hear. Everyone's insights and as we dig into these different books and see what we might be able to glean as writers by studying some of these. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We hope you found inspiration, insights, and connection to yourself as a writer. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe, and leave us a 5 star review. Remember, the power of storytelling lies within each of us, and by supporting one another, we can make a difference. We can amplify our voices and craft narratives that resonate with the world. We're not just about words on a page. We're passionate about the craft, the process, and building a supportive community. Become a part of our community by connecting with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at inspired writer collective on Tik TOK at inspired writer LLC by joining our writing community online at inspired dash writer. Dash collective.mn.co and let's continue this writing journey Together, you can find links in the show notes. Until next time, fellow writers may your pens be mighty and your stories captivating. Happy writing.