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Craft Chat Chronicles
Craft Chat Chronicles
Episode 4 How Tess Sharpe Turned a YA Novel into a Netflix Thriller!
From childhood notebook scribbles to groundbreaking queer YA novels, New York Times bestselling author Tess Sharpe's journey exemplifies resilience and creativity. On "Craft Chat Chronicles," Tess shares the thrill and challenges of seeing her novel "The Girls I've Been" adapted for Netflix. She discusses the importance of community support and details her role in the adaptation process, highlighting her involvement with the Writers Guild of America to maintain creative control.
In our conversation, Tess explores the intricacies of intellectual property, the art of writing sequels, and the realities of no-compete clauses in publishing contracts. She candidly addresses the industry's undercurrents of privilege and offers insights into crafting resonant endings and tackling the unique challenges of the romance genre. This episode not only inspires but also provides a roadmap for navigating the literary and cinematic worlds through the lens of a pioneering author.
Keywords: #Tess Sharpe, #The Girls I've Been, Netflix adaptation #queer YA novels #Writers Guild of America # book to screen #publishing insights #crafting sequels #romance genre challenges #Craft Chat #optioned for film #BestsellingAuthorTips #Thrillers #romance novels, #CraftingBestsellers, #PublishingIndustryInsights, #WritingStrategies, #AuthorSuccessStories, #WritingCareerTransition, #WritingCraft #NarrativeDevelopment, #BookMarketingStrategies, #CreativeWritingTechniques, #NYTimesBestsellingProcess, #AuthorInterviews, #BookPromotion, #LiteraryAgents, #RealLifeExperiences #Publishing #WritingTips #J.D.Myall
Commercial before HG release.
Announcer (00:00:05):
Welcome to Craft Chat Chronicles, the Go-to podcast for tips on crafting bestselling fiction. Here at Craft Chat Chronicles, we bring you expert interviews, insights and tips on writing, publishing, and marketing. For workshops, show notes and more information, visit jd mehal.com.
J.D. Myall (00:00:28):
Welcome to episode four of Graph Chat Chronicles. Today we are joined by Tess Sharpe, a New York Times bestselling author, celebrated for her intricate characters and gripping plots. Today Tess will delve into her writing process, her path through the publishing world and how her novel, the Girls I've been, is now being adapted into a Netflix thriller starring Millie Bobby Brown. So have been Tess.
Tess Sharpe (00:00:57):
I'm doing great. I'm excited that I am finally concluding this long journey. I'm usually a standalone writer, so writing a sequel is kind of out there for me.
J.D. Myall (00:01:09):
What was your life like before books?
Tess Sharpe (00:01:14):
Well, I started writing books when I was 10, so I can't really remember. We actually talk about this funnily in my writer's group. Some of us started writing very, very young and some of us started writing in adulthood. I have trouble remembering a time where I didn't have a book in my head because I was a very ambitious homeschooler and I had a mom who was a copy editor. And so at 10 when I was like, I'm going to write a book for my English project and to her, she took me seriously and she edited me like a real editor, which means she tore that work apart. All of that preteen work, my alia just tore it apart, made it bleed red and I don't know, I think that because she took it seriously, it made me take it seriously and there are times where I sincerely, I have trouble thinking, I have trouble understanding what people who don't have books constantly in their heads what they do because I don't. I was 10 and it just became my entire focus for such long time, all time really.
(00:02:26):
It is very difficult to remember that time. Kind of like it's same thing with chronic pain. Weirdly, I started writing around the same time that my chronic pain conditions started and I have trouble remembering what it was like to be healthy as well. And I think that remembering not being a writer is a little more positive than not being able to remember being healthy. But yeah, it's been such an integral part of my personality, my identity, and then it became the thing that was my job when I was 24 and I'm 37 now, so it's really been the dominant thing. It's the thing that I do with my brain. It's the thing that my life is very centered around. What do you think you did right that helped you break in? I was stubborn. I came of age at a time where the queer books that I was writing were not what was being published because we were at the beginning of Queer Ya.
(00:03:26):
And so I didn't give up and that was the hardest thing because I wrote six books over seven years and I queried all of those books and over and over again I was getting tons of requests, I was getting phone requests. I even got a few phone calls where you talk to the agents and stuff, but it was always like, we love your work. I can't sell this. And I remember after four of those four kind of queer books like that, I was not writing coming out narratives at a time where we were only publishing coming out narratives. I was writing the books that I write now, which are just characters who kind of just happen to be gay and they're going through a lot of other stuff at the same time. And I remember my fifth book was a dystopian, it was my attempt to be more marketable and more commercial and it hit at the exact wrong time of the dystopian trend.
(00:04:25):
So once again, I wrote the most what I viewed at the time as the most marketable book that I had ever written and over and over again I got the same responses. We love your writing test, please send us something else when you have something. I can't sell this right now. And I was so down, I was just like, this is never going to happen. At 24, I was like, my is over more like 20. Actually it was more like 22, which is even more crazy. And I remember writing the first page of the book that became my debut far from you, and I remember sending it to my dear friend Elizabeth May who I have been friends with since I was a preteen and we came up together and she had been published about a year before me. So she had already had an agent and a publishing deal at this time and I sent her this page and she said, Tess, drop everything.
(00:05:17):
These are the kind of books you need to be writing. And she pushed me and pushed me and pushed me throughout that process every single time I wanted to give up. So I really wanted to give up at that point. I was just like six books, seven years of querying. It's not going to happen at 23 years old. Like oh my God, I was so silly. But having that person to push me and to believe in me was so important at a time where my stubbornness started to fade and hilariously, she did the same thing with my adult debut as well. She's like my little pusher throughout my career and I really always advise having, I think that, and Elizabeth actually said this, she says that she believes that the key to longevity in publishing in the publishing industry, which is a really hard industry to exist in, is having that supportive group of friends who understand what's going on but will also support you through fallow periods and not dump you.
(00:06:19):
And I think that is the most important thing and the thing that for me has been the most significant thing in my career in being able to sustain and being able to branch out into other things like Work for Hire. I have an entire work for Hire career because a friend introduced me to a packager at a low point in my career and I try really hard to pay that forward now if I ever hear about work for higher jobs that I know a friend will be good for, I'm like, get with this editor. I introduce them, all of those things because I think paying it forward and opening that door that is so hard to get through, especially if you're marginalized, is so important.
J.D. Myall (00:06:57):
I love that. What work for Hire company were you working with?
Tess Sharpe (00:07:01):
I can't say because I signed an NDA. It was a ghost writing job, but it led to my licensing work that I do under Test Sharp. I write for Jurassic World, I write for Marvel, I write for dc and it really led me to a very robust ghost writing career that I love to this day. I love ghost writing, I love working with clients. It really satisfies the people pleaser in me. I love sitting down with someone and taking their idea and helping them develop it into something new. It's so much fun and I've had just extraordinary experiences with incredible creators and celebrities and all sorts of people, just incredible artists. It's been so much fun. I enjoy it so much. I love working with teams a lot. I really like that part of my job.
J.D. Myall (00:07:48):
So for writers who are interested in getting into that, what would you suggest for them?
Tess Sharpe. (00:07:52):
So my suggestion is that you really need to have your agent on board. A lot of the access is only through the agents because these licensing and work for higher editors are often working on really, really tight deadlines. They want writers that they know can work with teams that can really produce fast, that they can produce content really well, that they can develop really well. Sometimes I'm given a one sentence pitch, like write a book about sisters in the holidays or write a series about sisters on the holidays. Sometimes I'm given a 16 page treatment, sometimes I'm given a script, a movie script, and I'm asked to turn it into a book. And so being really flexible, being a personable person and also just consistently auditioning over and over and over again I think is really key. I will say that I audition for probably six to eight things a year.
(00:08:48):
I get maybe one or two of them. Sometimes I'm offered jobs because I have an established career now in this, but auditioning, even if you don't get your first few jobs, don't be discouraged. We all audition and every single time I audition for something and I don't get it and then I see who did get it, I go, oh my God, I totally understand why I didn't get it because you're like that author had a better take and that take was so different than mine. I understand that is what they were looking for. They weren't looking for what I was pitching them. If you're really good at pitching, I really advise getting good at pitching, which is basically getting good at querying, condensing your book into how the obstacles and getting really good at developing and just really being consistent with your agent. There are some agents I feel like, who are not really into the work for Hire game.
(00:09:44):
A lot of it is flat fee work. It is often less money than an original book deal, but I'll say that as a full-time writer, as the breadwinner, as someone who comes from generational poverty and who makes her money purely with writing, I don't teach, I don't edit because I'm not good at those things. I'm just not good at them at all. That work for Hire Work has been the key financial stop gap for me and it's just opened up so many opportunities and it has made me such a better writer and it made me a better screenwriter as well because I got, especially when I worked on the illustrated books for Jurassic World in DC working with Dennis Sheeley who was my editor of those books, he taught me basically how to write to art, how to create to art, create those moments that those artists will love to portray.
(00:10:37):
And that for me introduced a visual element to my work that went on to influence a book that I'm actually waiting to hear if it has been Bought Today, A YA book that has art, that has an entire point of view that's in storyboard and art and collage, and it's also made me as a screenwriter, made me think more visually in a way, and it opened me up in a way that I genuinely didn't expect. I didn't think, oh, writing this amazing middle grade about dinosaurs invading America, it is going to be super fun for me because I love Jurassic World and dinosaurs. But I didn't realize on a craft level how much it was going to deepen me because it challenged me in a way that I had never approached anything before. I had to sit there and think how do I create these cinematic moments that our artist, Chloe Dominique will want to draw and that our readers will love to see? And it taught me so much. Every single time I do a work for horror book, it just teaches me something and I love it also because I get to write Sci-fi in a world where I don't write original, I get caught in the weeds of the world building and then it takes me seven years to write. And so when someone has established the world for me, I get to do all the fun world building instead of all of the hard world building.
J.D. Myall (00:11:59):
I love that. I love that. So what do you like better? The work for hire projects or creating original content?
Tess Sharpe (00:12:07):
I like them both. I'm really that person when it comes to writing where I like all of it, I love whatever I'm doing when I'm in the process of it. I don't hate revising. I don't hate line edits. I don't hate copy edits. I enjoy the entire process and I try to stay in that kind of atmosphere because I can be a negative Nancy instinctively, and I try really hard to combat that with writing. I love my original work because it's mine. You get to kind of be queen of the book. And I love working with my editors that I have long time relationships with who know me really, really well. I love to fiddle around with structure and I love to murder people fictionally because that's fun. But there is something so joyful about working with a team of people who are just so into the same fandom as you are and there's something so amazing.
(00:13:07):
What I love about licensed books for kids and for adults, this is these kind of bridge books for reluctant readers. They know the world and they're part of the fandom. They're like, oh, I'm going to pick this up. I have so many people who tell me that my Jurassic World books are the first books that they have read in a really long time. And I think that that is such an honor and I think that being able to create something that maybe gets someone back into reading and dipping their toes back into it, which can be a scary thing, especially in our day and age where attention spans are so much shorter. I can feel my own attention span just not be as good as it was in my youth, so to speak. And so I just feel like that is just such a special thing about licensed books.
(00:13:55):
It gives you access to these reluctant readers. It gives you a chance to introduce the love of reading to someone who might not understand it until they have a book that really clicks with them. And being able to write a book that really clicks with someone is just such an honor intellectual property. Work is like IP means two things in publishing, obviously IP means intellectual property, so that means anything that is copyrighted to me is my intellectual property. But IP in this sense, in the work for Hire Sense is a subset of the publishing industry where the publishers or a packager or a licenser develops a book idea and then they hire a writer like me to write that idea or turn it into a novel. It's a really big part of our industry. I would say. There are a lot of books that are IP that you would never know that really popular books as well, and it doesn't mean that the author isn't doing the work.
(00:15:00):
Like I said, sometimes you have one sentence, sometimes it's just a character, but sometimes it's a really detailed outline and you work with the editor to develop it. It's really fun. It's a really fun part of the industry. It's a very active part of the industry and I think that it's a part of the industry that if you are someone who wants to be a full-time writer or a working writer, if you're someone who writes fast, someone who develops really quickly, who has a lot of ideas and who is really flexible in opening to pivoting is a part of the industry that might be right for you.
J.D. MYall (00:15:35):
Are there any packages you can think of off the top of your head that you would recommend? Yeah,
Tess Sharpe (00:15:38):
Electric Entertainment, Dhonielle Clayton's outfit is amazing. And I personally do not work with a ton of packages personally. I work with a lot of just editors, licensed editors within the actual established publishers, but I will always cape for Danielle. She's wonderful.
J.D. Myall (00:15:58):
Okay, awesome. Tell me about your current novel. What was the story behind the story?
Tess Sharpe. (00:16:06):
So the Girl in Question is the sequel to the Girls I've been, I'm so, so happy that it exists. It is a book that I conceived of while I am someone who, like I said, I'm someone who's a standalone writer, so if I'm going to write a sequel, I have to plan it from book one. So I wrote a majority of it while I was writing book one. The girls I've Been Serious is about Nora O'Malley. She is the daughter of a con artist who runs a sweetheart con that targets criminal men, and then her mother makes the fatal mistake of falling for a mark and instead of conning him, he's very abusive. And that living situation at 12 years old, my main character Lenora, she decides to her mother and get out of the abusive situation that she is in with the aid of her older sister.
(00:16:59):
And then when we meet her in the first book, she's 17 and she finds herself in a tricky situation y'all because she ends up in a bank robbery with her ex-boyfriend and her new girlfriend and her ex just walked in on the making out the night before, and she has to basically dust off her rusty artist skills to the bank robbers and get out of there safely. In Book two, the Girl in Question, we find ourselves a year after the bank robbery, Nora West and Iris have graduated high school and they're about to embark on a backpacking trip to celebrate graduation into the Trinity Cascade Mountains. And unfortunately, the abusive stepfather that Nora put in prison has gotten out on appeal and he attacks them in the forest.
J.D. Myall (00:17:54):
Ooh. Yeah, sounds intriguing. Now were both of those optioned or just one of them
Tess Sharpe. (00:18:00):
Technically when they option the first one, it is basically the contract language is very carefully worded so that they get the second one as long as they pay you a certain amount of money,
J.D. Myall (00:18:14):
What's the option process? The
Tess Sharpe (00:18:15):
Option process is super fun. I've gone through it a few times now. Basically a bunch of people court you for your book in a book situation as well, kind of like in a book auction. There are also option auctions, basically film auctions I guess you could say. I got to meet with a lot of really, really cool people and ultimately I ended up going with Netflix and I've been really happy with the process. I got to write the first draft of the script and I didn't
J.D. Myall (00:18:48):
Know that. That's
Tess Sharpe (00:18:48):
Cool. Yeah, it was a super fun process. I'm currently in the process of pitching a television show for another book right now, so it's been really fun to dip my toes into Hollywood, especially because when you are part of the Writer's Guild of America, you get health insurance, which was my main reason for wanting to write the script. I got a year's worth of health insurance and I actually got to have my endometriosis excision surgery and it changed my life. So thank you WGA and my film agent and my literary agent and Netflix.
J.D. Myall (00:19:25):
So did they approach you or did your agency approach them?
Tess Sharpe (00:19:28):
Actually, the book leaked, so usually what happens is my film agent will take it out once he has it. My film agent hadn't even read the book yet.
(00:19:39):
I get a call at nine o'clock at night one night and I'm like, why is my agent calling me at midnight his time? And it's because everything was happening on the west coast. So he got the news very late his time, but wanted to let me know. And we had heard that somebody was interested in it, and I was like, okay, that's awesome. But my contingency for this book was that I had to write the script in order to sell it to anybody. That was my big thing. So I basically almost gave my agent an ulcer for like 24 hours. He was like, oh my gosh, I have to tell them this, and she will walk away if she has to. But then about 24 hours later, we were in an auction situation and everyone was like, oh yeah, Tess can write it. It's fine.
(00:20:22):
We're competing against each other. And so it was basically that situation in general. What happens is my film agent takes the book and he goes out with it and he lets me know if anybody is interested. Then I meet with the producers. You have a nice phone call with them, they talk about their vision and basically it's in hard woo mode. They're all just wonderful and enthusiastic, and it's always super fun to hear people's different perspectives on the books. I think especially with my books, it's very easy to take one or two threads out of them and make something new. And I think that's something that appeals to Hollywood about them, that you can go in multiple directions with them, you can take it really dark, you can take it in a more comedic direction, et cetera.
J.D. Myall (00:21:09):
Love that. How did you feel about Millie Bobby Brown being attached to the project? Oh, I
Tess Sharpe (00:21:12):
Love Millie.
J.D. Myall (00:21:13):
Yay. She's a good actress.
Tess Sharpe (00:21:17):
She's wonderful.
J.D. Myall (00:21:20):
So going back to the writing process, what do you consider the core elements of a successful beginning to a novel?
Tess Sharpe (00:21:29):
So for me, it's all about throwing you in immediately and not letting you catch a breath. We were just talking about this, I was just talking about this with one of my producers because he's more of a movie guy, but we're developing a television show and we were joking about both of our instincts is just throw everybody in, but sometimes you have to tease it out a little slower. In the television show, we were both, we need to calm down our instincts a little bit. I love just throwing you in. I am someone who just, you're in it and you do not know. You have to catch up basically. And that can be a challenge. It really can. You have to be able to craft it really carefully that you give enough information so that the reader is not too frustrated with you, but they're also going to continue because they want to have the mystery teased out for them.
(00:22:19):
And that is a really tricky balance that I feel like for me, the beginnings are always the hardest. I'm someone that has to have the beginning and I have to have the end before I really start the entire process. So in my pre-writing process, I write a lot of scenes. I write a lot of scenes that perhaps might not end up in the book, but throughout that process I discover the characters. I discover all of their motivations, I discover their histories, but I also, through that process, I discover the beginning and the end. And that for me tells me that, okay, I can finally start assembling it in some sort of order. But I am someone who I don't really assemble my nonlinear books completely into their correct order until about a week and a half before I turn them in, which I know sounds absolutely insane. It's total chaos in my Scrivener binder, but I love it.
J.D. Myall (00:23:14):
How do you go about maintaining reader engagement and avoiding the saggy middle?
Tess Sharpe (00:23:21):
So for me, I always start panicking around 30 or 40,000 words. I'm currently in that panic mode right now with my adult thriller. I'm like, wait, the villain is getting introduced right now? Is this too late? I often find myself, I am such a thriller writer, I will just kill somebody to keep the action going. And I feel like that's so lazy, but it's also so useful. So I think that the saggy middle, it really, it can be such a difficulty. I hear so many writers being like, I start hating the book at 30,000 words. I start hating the book at around 40,000 words. And it's like you have to just, I feel like a lot of the times in the first draft especially just push through it, get it down and tell yourself that you can fix it later. Because the key is to get through that sloggy part and to not let it kill your love of the project. I think that's so important. Sometimes my agent will check in with me and he's like, how are you doing? Where are you at in the book? And I'm just like, I hate it right now. I absolutely hate it, but I always follow it up with, but I'll like it again in a month.
J.D. Myall (00:24:38):
And your agent's name?
Tess Sharpe (00:24:40):
My agent is Jim McCarthy. We've been together for nine years, I think, and we have sold 21 books together I think in the last nine years. Yeah, he is best.
J.D. Myall (00:24:56):
And how do you close an album successfully?
Tess Sharpe (00:25:01):
I think that for me, it's all about really, I am so obsessed with the long ending. I really, really am. My endings are very, very long because I feel like often they're the only times where my characters are not in frenetic motion or emotion. And when we're finally winding it down, I'm like, okay, I'm going to give the readers this kind of breather. And then you kind of get that punch at the very, very end. And for me, that's really what I aim for. My romance novel is six times we almost kissed has a shorter ending than my typical long endings. And it's been my most controversial ending because of it, because everyone's like, we want more of it, which is why I literally wrote a short story about the character's first date for the paperback to give my readers just a little bit more.
(00:25:55):
I felt so bad that it was a shorter ending. I was like, I went back and forth about it. But for me, especially with that book where the girls are constantly caught in these cycles of avoidance and not kissing each other because that's what the book is about, I felt like it was so important to end right at the time where they almost detract from their goal once again right near the end of the book. And I felt it was so important to close it right at the end of them finally breaking this cycle that they have found themselves caught into. And I felt that that was a very satisfactory ending. But I also understand what my readers are saying because as a romance novel reader, I want as much kissing as possible. So I think that striking that balance between needs and wants can be really difficult. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss, but I think that at the end of the day, if your readers are holding the book against their heart at the end, that's what you want.
J.D. Myall (00:27:00):
Awesome. So with a romance novel, what elements do you think are essential to a good romance
Tess Sharpe (00:27:07):
A happily ever after? For me that is the promise of romance and that is the brilliance of romance, and that is the challenge of romance. As a writer, I go back to romance every single time when I'm feeling like I need a challenge, I need to hone my writing, I need to learn something about my work, I really need to hone myself like a little writer blade basically. And that's why I go back to romance probably every other year. I write a romance novel about every other year. I don't publish them all as test sharp, but I do publish them, but I don't publish them always as test sharp. And it's something that for me, what I find so challenging about it is that the reader knows the end result. They know that the couple is going to be happy at the end. So when the reader already knows the end of the book, it's about the journey and it's about hitting those tropes that they love in a new way, in a fresh way, in a unique way, or in a way that's so beloved that you're just, and that you do it so well that you're like, oh my God, this is the best only one bed scene I've ever read.
(00:28:19):
And for me, I find there is an immense amount of safety and comfort in the promise of the happily ever after. In romance, I discovered romance in my preteen years when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And for me, the promise of romance and that promise of that happily ever after was so important in a time where I was starting to realize that death was inevitable and it was like the first experience of someone really losing themselves, which is a really hard process to go through at any time, but especially if you're young and it's such a beloved figure in your life. And I found that romance novels and their inherent positivity at the end, this inherent promise of happiness and this inherent promise that love triumph, triumphs over everything. It was so important to my grieving process, to my acceptance process, and to just being able to cope as a preteen and teenager dealing with that.
J.D. Myall (00:29:26):
Love that. So back to your agent, Jim. How did you guys connect? Was it the traditional slush pile means or No?
Tess Sharpe (00:29:33):
So Jim is my second agent. So Jim and I connected because of client referrals. My second time querying, I only had, so my first time querying, I had about 18 agents that I wanted to work with. My second time querying, I had about seven. The more you get into your career, the more connected you are with other writers, the more you hear about how other agents work, the more you get an idea of how you work as well and what you need as a writer. And I also want to stress that basically having only one agent for your entire career is actually more unusual than we would actually think. Most of us are on second agents, third agents, fourth agents. The longer that you are in your career, the more likely it is that you will probably have a few agents. I hope that Jim McCarthy never ever retires because I would be so sad. I tell him he has to die at his desk. We joke about dying at our desks together.
(00:30:33):
So what I did with my second time around was because I was about four years into my career, I had a lot of connections. I actually went back and I looked to see if I had ever queried Jim before because like I said, I had queried six books over seven years. I don't think that I did, which is so strange, but in my mind, I think that at that time, Jim to me felt like he was selling a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal ya back then. And so that's kind of what I saw him as an agent who represented that. But then I always heard about him because one of my good friends, Olivia Blackburn, who was in my personal debut group from the start, and we've been friends for 13 years now, Jim is her agent and she always talked about him and I was just like, seems like such a great guy.
(00:31:25):
And so I had Olivia basically do a client recommendation and I sent him my query. I queried a book called Barbwire Heart, which is my adult debut. I had a YA that was done at the time and Barbwire heart I only had a partial of. But what I wanted this time around when I was looking for my second agent was I wanted an agent who would take me at my most extreme and barbed wire heart is my most extreme novel, or at least it was at the time. And so I sent that one out as kind of a test to be like, Hey agents, this is where I'm going. Are you into it? Jim was the only person who offered the second time around. I had five agent offers the first time around. I had just Jim the second time around, I would've chosen Jim if I had had five offers no matter what.
(00:32:16):
We're just very, very well suited together. But yeah, the second time around I went with the client rec route. I found that for me, I talked to a lot of people about their agents. I had a really good idea of what I wanted and where I wanted my career to go. And I was really, really clear with Jim and we just really suit well together. I think that Jim is a really good agent in the sense that I think that the best agents, A, they evolve with their clients. I have pitched so many things to this man. I've asked him about coffee table books for goodness sake. I'm like, you barely give it 2:00 AM being like pitch a coffee table book, Jim. And I think that there's a level of trust that is really important when you're someone who takes really big swings. And I do take very, very big swings sometimes.
(00:33:05):
And so I think that being able to evolve with your client is really, really important. And it's something that I see happening where some agents are not able to evolve with their clients and with this new publishing landscape where we're writing more and more books and more and more genres in order to stay alive basically because of the way that they have structured our payments. And so if you can't deal with that workload or you're not interested in that kind of workload, it can cause contention because we're all just trying to survive, especially if you're a working rider, especially if you're supporting yourself with it. And I also think that an agent who really modifies the goals and how they see things with each client, I'm not someone who really needs a lot of handholding. I'm not someone who goes to gym because I'm feeling insecure or upset, but there are absolutely clients who need handholding and who need that validation and I'm absolutely sure that he gives that to them.
(00:34:09):
Meanwhile, he and I are just business business here, here. And I think that that is really key because being an agent is the care and feeding of authors and we're all a little neurotic and we're all publishing makes you a little crazy because it is an industry that has a lot of professional gas lighting. And so to have that person who will a translate for you but will also be really honest with you and who will hold your hand if you need it or who will not hold your hand if you need it, is so important.
J.D. Myall (00:34:44):
Now, how does it work with you? Were saying you pitch him things. Is that normally how you, do you come to him with a formed novel or do you often go to him with the ideas and inception and what
Tess Sharpe (00:34:53):
I do not give him the ideas. There are absolutely clients who do and who will give him ideas and they'll work together to collaborate on which one is the best. I would say that that's probably more common what most authors do. I'm someone who I do not like talking about things until I have a fully clear idea of what they are. I sold a book earlier this last year that Jim had never heard about before.
(00:35:26):
I had an elevator pitch for it. I've been sitting on it since I was 21. I think that I mentioned it to him once nine years ago when we were just signing as just like, oh, here are some ideas have that I think that I want to work on in the future. Then I've sat on it since I was about 22 years old and I had the elevator pitch when I went into an editorial meeting to meet this editor who I knew was interested in my work and who had the book, who had a book proposal of mine. And so I pitched her the book while we were talking because this is one of my hard and fast tips. Always have a few elevator pitches on hand if you're meeting with an agent or you're meeting with an editor because you never know what they're looking for and you never know what they're into. And so I just gave her the two sentence elevator pitch of this book and they bought it along with the other book because it's a really good pitch, don't get me wrong. But then Jim has to email me and he goes, what is this book about?
(00:36:30):
Which was so funny. But yeah, I'm someone that basically I will give him a warning about when a proposal is coming. About two or three weeks beforehand, I'll be like, I have something coming down in the pipeline this, I'll give him the comps or something and then I give him the full proposal, which is a pitch, a synopsis that's about five to 15,000 words. I write really long synopses, don't think that you have to write long synopsis. And then I write up to the first for the sample pages, I try to craft my proposals really, really carefully. I've sold almost everything on proposals since 2018. I want to say it's not my favorite way of selling books, but for money-wise, it's the way you have to go usually if you're actually working full-time as a writer. And then my proposal pace is usually end up being the first 20,000 words. I'm someone that really likes to take the proposal up to either the first cliffhanger or the first big revelation so that the editor is left either thinking, oh my God, I need more. Or thinking, oh my God, TES just pulled that thing off. That's so impressive. So basically giving them an incentive to really want to continue in the world and want to continue with the characters. And the only way they can do that is if they buy the bug.
J.D. Myall (00:37:58):
Love that. Love that. Love that. So what was your biggest learning experience in publishing so far?
Tess Sharpe (00:38:12):
Oh gosh. I think that I went into it. I was very, very fortunate. I got a big deal with my first book. I got a six figure deal with my first book, and it was more money than I had ever seen in my life coming from generational poverty. And so for me, I think that I had this really naive idea that I was just going to write a book a year and I was going to get paid the exact same each time. And then my editor left between my book deals and she went to a different publisher because she's amazing and she got poached. That's how it goes.
(00:38:48):
And it took my publisher eight months to find a replacement and I just couldn't do anything for those eight months. And for me, I had signed a no compete clause that was very broad because I told myself, oh, I'll just do a book a year and I'll be out of the Noe clause and it'll be fine. That was naive of me. Always, always get a very narrow option clause and no compete clause. And so the no compete clause is basically a clause in your contract that says that you can't publish a book similar to what you're publishing beforehand, but it can be really broad. So my compete clause at the time basically said that I could not publish a anywhere else until this deal was done. And at the time I thought, oh, it'll just be two years, it'll be fine. That is not how it worked out.
(00:39:40):
And in a way, it was really, really good because it forced me into work for hire. It forced me into ghost writing. It forced me into indie publishing. It forced me to completely get out of my comfort zone because until this, I told myself that I was just a kid lit writer, that I did not write adult, that I didn't write anything but teenagers. That's not true anymore. I've diversified because that's the only way you can survive. But I very, very firmly thought of myself as a kid lit writer until I was basically forced to think about if I wanted to survive as a writer. And that is my main goal always is to survive as a writer. This is why I've branched into indie. This is why I've branched into screenwriting because I'm someone who loves writing no matter what we're doing basically. And I've tried to really hold onto that because then I'm having fun. No matter what I'm doing, I'm not writing a screenplay and thinking, oh, I wish I could be writing a novel or I'm not writing a novel and thinking I could be writing a screenplay. And so that is what I've really tried to hold onto so that whatever I'm doing, I'm having fun, I'm enjoying it. And I am incredibly fortunate and lucky.
(00:40:55):
I have another path in my life where I have six children and I'm in a trailer park. And so I'm really, really fortunate and I try really, really hard to hold onto that, to hold onto the fact that no matter how hard writing is, it's not as hard as cleaning rich ladies toilets, which is what I used to do, or working the line on Sunday at the diner. And so I try really, really hard to hold onto that because I think that the longer I, at this point now, I have written longer than I have baked or cleaned houses, which is a really wild thing to say and an amazing thing to be able to say. But I try really hard to hold on to the fact that in another life I would have a very, very different life. And I'm very, very, very lucky. It is a hard industry. It's a demoralizing industry. It's an industry full of an immense amount of white privilege, which is incredibly frustrating because it denies authors of color really important opportunities, and it's unfair and it's just, I mean, it's bullshit. And so trying to navigate that, trying to keep doors open and also trying to use my white privilege to help others is really, really important to me. Love that.
J.D. Myall (00:42:26):
What do you think writing has taught you?
Tess Sharpe (00:42:30):
Oh my gosh. The thing that I think the writing has taught me the most as someone who was raised without religion is faith. I had this amazing experience in this African religion and spirituality class in my college years. I think I was a freshman. I took this great class, amazing professor. I remember him going around the room and basically we were talking about faith and talking about what we had faith in. And I remember him getting to me and me saying, well, I'm an atheist, so I don't have faith in anything. And he is like, you've got to have faith in some things. And I had never had anyone frame faith to me as anything but religious. And it was mind blowing to me. It was one of those moments where my head was exploding because he kept pressing me. He's like, you've got to have faith in things.
(00:43:18):
And I finally blurred it out. Well, I have faith in writing. And it was this kind of lightning bolt moment because every single time you're in the depths of a book, no matter how many books you've written, I've written over 70 novels at this point. There's always this moment where you're like, do I know how to book? You're like, do I actually know how to do this? Is this actually going to unravel the way that I want? Or is this plot point that I haven't figured out going to unravel while I write it? Is it going to figure itself out? And I have so much faith in in my brain's ability to unravel things and to give me information when it's needed. Recently, I have a plot point in my romantic thriller, no body, no crime, and there's a plot point where that causes a accident.
(00:44:12):
And I couldn't figure out if it was an accident or if someone was behind it. And I was asking myself, well, if someone is behind it, then who did it? And I kept asking myself and asking myself, and I'm examining all the characters, and I'm like, well, they wouldn't do it because they have a reason for this and they wouldn't do it for their adult. And then I just write this other scene where one of the characters is going into a house and there's this throwaway line about a baseball cap, and it lit something up in my brain and I realized the person responsible.
(00:44:44):
That sounds like magic. It sounds silly. A hat should not trigger something in your brain and just unlock it. But I find that that is often, at least how my brain works, it's always there. It's there, but it's not there until it is, until you walk into it, until you write your way into it, basically. And I say this as someone who is a really, really dedicated planner, but there's always an element or two that I don't know that ends up becoming really, really important to the pot plot that I discover in the process of writing. I love that.
(00:45:27):
What would you say to aspiring writers? So my first piece of advice is that the idea that we write every single day is silly. What job do you do every single day? Do not listen to anybody who says that you are not a real writer. If you don't write anyway, actually don't listen to anybody who says that you're not a real writer for any reason. If you write, you're a real writer, you're on your way. And that's important to hold onto and to know. I think that just sticking to it and holding onto the love of it is really, really important, especially if you're pursuing publishing.
(00:46:13):
Once you monetize something, it becomes different. Your relationship with it becomes different. So I always warn everybody after the first book is published, it's your second book where you're writing under contract for the first time. You're writing under a deadline for the first time you're developing with an editor for the first time. That is going to be the hardest book you've ever written. Almost every writer will tell you that the second book is the hardest second book published is always the hardest. And so I always advise people to keep that in mind so the second book doesn't kill them. And I also just want to say to all the querying writers that querying is a hellscape right now. It is 10, 15, 20, maybe even 50 times harder than it was when I was querying. It's just a completely different world. The winnowing down of staff on so many sides of publishing has made the submission pool so much smaller on top of agents, clients writing more because we're all trying to survive already.
(00:47:26):
So I want the querying writers to know that it's not them, it's the industry. Because I see so much discouragement and I understand it completely. It is, it's a completely different querying world than when I was querying. So much of the advice that people give is not applicable now. The wait times, the wait times are not applicable anymore. In my day, if you didn't get 20% of your queries got requests, we would be told that you're failing. Your query is not working nowadays. I would never ever apply any kind of number for you to judge that way because agents are completely overwhelmed with their slush piles because it is not, their clients are their priority, obviously, and the slush gets done when they can, and it's a hot mess out there. And it's just, I want them to know that it's not them. It's not their writing. They're savvy writers that it is the industry and we're in a big adjustment phase, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens.
J.D. Myall (00:48:37):
What would you say to the debut class?
Tess Sharpe (00:48:40):
Only do social media if you love it and that it feels good. Okay. In the general sense, your book's fate has been decided. Unfortunately, it's just the truth. Your book's fate has been decided for a long time. Not a lot of things can happen to move the needle the way that your publisher can, but I would also say that in a lot of the debut feels like the most important. It always will in a lot of ways, but I hit the New York Times bestseller list after 17 books.
J.D. Myall (00:49:21):
That's awesome. Still an awesome achievement
Tess Sharpe (00:49:24):
Regardless. Yeah, exactly. But it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And if you start out sprinting, you're going to burn out. And we don't want any of you to burn out because we need your voices and we want you to be cared for and supported and not burnout because it's just really hard to burn out. It's just not fun. As someone who is battling burnout right now, not fun. And so I see a lot of social media pressure these days, and if you love it, if it gives you a charge, absolutely keep doing it. But know that it's not the end all and be all. There's so much hidden marketing stuff that happens in publishing that we never see, that you don't know about unless it happens to you. Like I did not know about Barnes and Noble's hot book Hot Coffee feature until my book was selected for it.
(00:50:17):
And then it ended up on the New York Times bestseller list because I was able to be given this retail placement that was very prominent, and I didn't know about that. My agent didn't know about it either. We were like, oh my God, this feature is amazing. I didn't know that there was an independent California Booksellers Association that has a conference every single year until I was selected to go and present to the booksellers. I didn't know about these things. I didn't know about the Indie Next List until I was a part of it. And so I think that those, there's so much hidden marketing stuff that we don't see that is happening, but we don't know to ask for it unless we have more informed peers who have gone through it or we actually end up being one of the lucky ones who gets those things.
(00:51:14):
That's the problem with publishing is that once you're on the other side, you've gotten the book deal, suddenly everyone, suddenly everyone expects you to kind of know everything through osmosis. And it's like, no. Especially because publishing is not the most communicative. You can end up with a really communicative editor. Like my editor Lisa Sitz is an incredibly communicative editor. We've worked together on and off for 12 years at this point. We've done, she's done a majority of my ba. I love her so much and she'll give me an entire schedule of when the book needs to go here, here, here, and here, because she knows that I like information. But that's a process that you get into the longer that you work with someone. But I think that just enjoying the experience. If you're publishing a YA book, trying to connect with teens, I think that that's such a special thing to be able to do.
(00:52:14):
And then for me, that's the thing that really sustains me and why, which can be a category that has a lot of stressful stuff surrounding it and a lot of demand and pressure to be on social media and to kind of perform authorship. When you actually get to sit down with the teenagers, you're reminded, you're brought back to what you really are doing, which is writing for them. And that for me, that reminder is so important because you can get lost in the weeds of everything else, but to have fun, to make those friendships that are so important, that will carry you. I am 12 years into my career and my personal writers group, I still have friends from my debut group in my personal writers group. We talk every single day. We have helped each other through everything, including life stuff, career stuff, everything. And to have these people, especially for me, someone who is not very worldly and has small town girl still small town girl, didn't get on a plane until she was 24 years old, still has never left the country. Having friends who are a lot more worldly than I am and have different perspectives on the world, on finances, on life, on publishing, on optioning, on all of these things is so helpful for me because I can be kind of a country mouse. And so I love having my city mouses to give me advice.
J.D. Myall (00:53:46):
Any tips on the launch and steps that things we should do or little suggestions to help?
Tess Sharpe (00:53:54):
I'll say that I am bad about this part because I have never done a launch party in my life. I don't do a lot of in-person stuff. I never have, which makes me a little unusual. But the thing that I would say is to expect about a week after release, you kind of get blue because everybody moves on and then you're kind of like, you come down from the adrenaline and we call it post-release depression. It happens basically with every book. It will get better though. It'll get better the more that you publish, but expect to have that adrenaline drop. And I always advise people to either plan a trip, a little day trip plan to disconnect for a day or two, do a spa day, go get a massage, go for a walk with your partner or your kids. Do something where you're completely disconnected for the phone for a day or so, but also treat yourself because you've done something extraordinary.
(00:55:08):
Getting through the publishing doors statistically is more competitive than competitive sports, like professional sports. We are more competitive than technically Major League baseball and the NBA and the NFL, if you actually break it down statistically. So what you have done is extraordinary already. It's incredibly extraordinary. You've published a book that's incredible and it's going to affect people throughout the years who read it. You have contributed to the world and to art and to culture, and that is an extraordinary thing. And you have created something that could possibly change people's lives, which I will say is the best feeling in the world. I recently got an email from a reader who discovered what endometriosis was because of my book and got diagnosed because of it. That's awesome. And I can't tell you, I cried. I cried so hard because for me, I had never heard the word endometriosis until I was 16, 17 years old. No, I was 16 years old. And I had a doctor be like, you probably have endometriosis, but I don't want to do a surgery on a 16-year-old, so just deal with it. And I was like, okay. But I had never, at that point, I had had years of pain and problems and so many doctors, but no one had said the word to me, even though it's the most common disease when it comes to menstrual pain.
(00:56:35):
And so it was so important to me to write an author's note at the end of the girls. I've been, because my character Iris has endometriosis and she's on her period throughout in the first book during the bank situation. She's poor girl, so stressed out. And so I wrote a little author's note at the end, and I remember going back and forth with my editor at the time. She's like, is this necessary? And I'm like, yes, it's necessary. And I feel very honored that I can be part of someone's discovery journey in that way. And so you really can change people's lives. My life, I'm still alive because I read Lori House Anderson's book Speak when I was 15. I am still here because of that, because that book gave me a light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm so grateful to Laurie. She has saved so many people, and it's such an extraordinary book.
J.D. Myall (00:57:29):
I love that. What would you like to say in closing? Any thoughts you want to leave?
Tess Sharpe (00:57:35):
I just want to give all of the querying writers just, I want to give you all a big hug and just let you know sincerely, it is not you. The industry right now is a mess. It's also not the agent's fault either. They're completely overwhelmed and understaffed. The editors are overwhelmed and understaffed as well. Publishing really needs project managers. I think that that would solve so many problems because the poor editors have to work as project managers first and foremost, over being editors. It doesn't seem like the most logical way to run things.
J.D. Myall (00:58:12):
Very true. Very true. And where can readers connect with you?
Tess Sharpe (00:58:17):
You can connect with me via my newsletter. You can sign up on test sharp.com. It's the best way to get behind the scenes publishing gossip from me. I'm diving into the New York Times bestseller list and how I hit it this month in a few weeks, actually, it'll be coming out. You can find me on, oh God, what is it called now? X Twitter X, whatever it's called. That is Sharp Girl. And then you can find me on Instagram and threads on as Forest of Arden.
J.D. Myall (00:58:48):
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.
Tess Sharpe (00:58:52):
You
J.D. Myall (00:58:53):
Continued success. And I appreciate the debut tips too, because I've been very nervous. Oh
Tess Sharpe (00:58:59):
Yes. Now are you debuting?
J.D. Myall (00:59:02):
Yeah. Fall of 2025.
Tess Sharpe (00:59:04):
Oh my God. Tell me everything about your book.
J.D. Myall (00:59:06):
It's called Heart Gambit. It's been pitched, the Knight Circus meets Outlander. So these black God time traveling families that have this, oh my God, I'm
Tess Sharpe (00:59:19):
Going to go preorder. It's so exciting. Are you liking the experience so far?
J.D. Myall (00:59:24):
I'm treating you well, electric postcard, it's through electric postcard. It's IP through electric postcard.
Tess Sharpe (00:59:30):
Oh, so you're okay. Then You are getting the VIP. I know that Danielle. Oh, I'm so glad. I think that she's being so smart. She's being so thoughtful and so caring. I love her so much. That is so exciting. I'm so excited for you. That sounds amazing. Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep an eye out for the announcement so I can boost it.
J.D. Myall (00:59:49):
Thank you. And I can't wait to see your shows on Netflix and your TV series and all that great stuff, and yep. I'll let you know when this goes live when it's,
Tess Sharpe (00:59:59):
Thank you. Yes, please do. Oh, I'm so excited.
J.D. Myall (01:00:02):
Good day.
Tess Sharpe (01:00:03):
Bye. Thank you.
Announcer (01:00:05):
That wraps up today's Craft Chat chronicles with JD Mayo. Thanks for joining us. If you like the episode, please comment, subscribe and share. For show notes, writing workshops and tips, head to jdmyall.com. That's jdmyall.com. While you're there, join jd's mailing list for updates, giveaways, and more.