Season 2 Episode 9: From History to Romance: How Eliza Knight Built a Bestselling Career as a Hybrid Author

Ever wondered how a childhood love for storytelling can transform into a successful writing career? Join us as we sit down with USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight, who takes us on a journey from her early passion for writing to becoming a celebrated historical fiction novelist. Eliza shares invaluable insights from her educational background in journalism and family studies, her first foray into publishing with a short story in 2008, and the pivotal moments that shaped her full-time writing career. Learn about her quest for the right literary agent and how she navigated the complex world of publishing, both traditional and self-publishing.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the emotional and creative challenges Eliza faced while co-writing historical fiction. Discover the secrets to crafting authentic dialogue, handling sensitive topics like race, and creating a balanced co-authoring dynamic. Eliza opens up about the often daunting task of manuscript revisions, including cutting 150 pages based on editorial feedback, and how these hurdles ultimately lead to more compelling stories. You'll also gain practical tips for engaging your readers from the first page, avoiding a saggy middle, and ensuring a satisfying conclusion.

Eliza doesn't stop there; she also shares her dual publishing journey and the marketing strategies that have contributed to her success. From leveraging BookBub and Amazon ads to balancing traditional publishing's benefits with the demands of self-publishing, Eliza offers a wealth of knowledge for aspiring authors. Finally, we dive into character development, promotional responsibilities, and even a sneak peek at her upcoming contemporary novel, "Rush Week." Whether you're an aspiring writer or a historical fiction enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights that you'll find both inspiring and practical.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener-affiliate.html?fpr=craftchat

Chapters

• 0:05 Craft Chat Chronicles
• 11:50 Navigating Co-Writing and Manuscript Revisions
• 26:17 Dual Publishing Explained
• 35:58 Character Development and Promotion Strategies
• 46:51 Writing Advice and Historical Trends

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Craft Chat Chronicles, the go-to podcast for tips on crafting best-selling 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 jdmyhallcom.

Speaker 2: 0:33

In season two, episode nine of Craft Chat Chronicles, we get chatty with USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight. This is season two, episode nine of Craft Chat Chronicles. Eliza Knight. This is season two, episode nine of Craft Chat Chronicles. Let's get chatty. Hi and welcome to tonight's Craft Chat. Tonight we are thrilled to welcome Eliza Knight, a USA Today bestselling author celebrated for her captivating historical fiction. Tonight Eliza is going to talk about her newest novel Can't we Be Friends? And she's going to talk about writing craft historical fiction and her journey through the publishing world. Welcome, eliza, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 1:10

I was turning around to grab a copy of Can't we Be Friends, but just realized my bookshelf is empty because I packed it.

Speaker 2: 1:22

We're in the midst of a move, but I have a little bookmark here so you can see the cover. How did you start your publishing journey?

Speaker 3: 1:34

So that is a really good question. My publishing journey started when I was a child. Actually, I always had wanted to write stories and so when I was in second grade I wrote a book like a little children's book called the Mouse who Stole the Cheese, and it had like its own cardboard cover and my teacher told my parents I was going to be an author one day and they were like, oh, that's so cute. And then in third grade I had a story published in a charity anthology and I just kind of like continued my writing journey from there.

Speaker 3: 2:01

When I was in high school I wrote for my high school newspaper. I became the editor, and then I went to college for journalism originally, and I studied journalism for two years before I realized I didn't want to write like facts, which is ironic considering I write biographical fiction, which is facts. I wanted to have like that creative power to write fiction. So I said to my parents I'm switching majors to English and they said, no way, you need a real job when you graduate. And I was like, well, that sucks. So I did get a job in our degree in family studies, which is like psychology, social work, education, and I worked in mental health for a little while, but all the while I was still like writing on the side just for fun, because it's always just been a part of who I am and I love just the process of creating stories and characters and then sharing them with people.

Speaker 3: 2:56

And so probably six years or so into that career, I was like you know what? This isn't what I want to do. I'm taking control of my life and I am going to write a book. So I started writing for publication in 2006 and I was entering a lot of contests and getting a lot of feedback and taking classes and things like that, and my first short story was published in 2008. And it's kind of just been like a whirlwind of writing ever since then. I got my first agent shortly after that and I'm now what you would consider a hybrid author. So I have several traditional contracts and then I also have several books that I've written and published myself and I really like being firmly in both worlds. So if anyone ever has any questions about being hybrid or anything like that, I'm always open to those sorts of questions.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Oh, I love that. We'll definitely be getting into that soon. How did you get your current agent?

Speaker 3: 3:59

So the agent I have right now. We've been together since 2010. And my first agent I was only with for about a year and it just turned out like it wasn't a good fit, and at the time I was looking for another agent and a friend of mine had said well, my agent loves historical, so you should reach out to her. And it was an agent that I had on a list of agents to query before I got my other agent and then I hadn't done that one yet. So I was very excited to have the opportunity to chat with her and she asked me to send her partial, which I did, and she loved it. So we ended up working together and we've been together ever since. That's awesome, how many years. So I guess like 14.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Oh, that's really awesome.

Speaker 3: 4:45

How many years? So I guess like 14. Oh, that's really awesome. Yeah, yeah, she's, she's great.

Speaker 3: 4:52

And I always tell everyone I feel like having an agent is like committing almost to like a marriage, you know, because, like this person, they, um, they know all your financial information, they hold your money for you, they, they make sure you get paid, um, they, they hold your hand when you're upset about rejections or they high five you when you know you've got some good news. So if you really want to be with someone that you can trust and that you can feel like it's going to give you that feedback, that, and not just be sort of like blase about it or not interested. I've had several friends who've had that experience and, honestly, my first agent, like we weren't a good fit, like blase about it or not interested. I've had several friends who've had that experience and, honestly, my first agent, like we weren't a good fit. Like you know, she just really didn't like my stories, which is funny because, like I don't know why she signed with me to begin with. But it happens.

Speaker 2: 5:44

So how did you get into co-writing with Danny S Bryce? How did you guys meet? How did you um get into co-writing with Denny S Bryce? How did you guys meet? How did you guys end up co-writing a novel?

Speaker 3: 5:50

yeah. So, um, denny and I have been friends for a really long time. I think we met originally in about maybe it was 2009. We were both along to the Maryland romance writers and the Washington romance writers, so we saw each other a lot at different meetings and we would go to conferences together. And um, we, since we lived so close by and like formed like a friendship, we started writing together. About once a month we would just get together to like do write-ins, have lunch, drink some wine, gossip, things like that.

Speaker 3: 6:19

And um, I was already co-writing some books with some other authors. Some we called them like novels in part, so it was like six of us that would write one novel. We wrote A Day of Fire and A Year of Ravens and Ribbons of Scarlet just same like a couple of those and so when I was chatting with Denny, she was like I would love to write a novel together. So we kind of like always thought about that and sometimes when we'd be getting together for our write-ins, we would just like jump down rabbit holes and on one particular write-in during our lunch, we were like thinking about different clubs in LA on the Sunset Strip Like at first it was the 70s, which ended up being kind of funny because we did have a little bit of our book be in the 70s, but we were looking at the Macombo Club, which hosted like a lot of really famous singers and entertainers, and we came across the story of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe having met and that Marilyn assisted Ella in getting her first gig at the Macombo Club. So we're like, oh, that's really interesting, like we didn't know that they were friends. And so we kind of like dug a little bit deeper into that friendship and we found an advertisement for an album called the Friends Album actually, that they were going to sing together and the album never came to fruition. So that put in our minds a big question like why this was a contracted album with RCA Records. It was printed in the paper that they were going to do it.

Speaker 3: 7:51

What happened? And there's a couple of reasons for it not happening, mostly having to do with some of the managers on Marilyn Monroe's side side, but the friendship nevertheless was just something that really fascinated us, and so we were like you know what we need to write about this? I think this would be a great story to share and a lot of fun to do together. So we jumped right into it. Well, sort of we jumped into the research of it, but we both had other contracts, so it took us about two years before we could actually start putting together a proposal to send to our agents. But eventually we did, and then they loved it. So we ended up getting a pitching it out to different editors and it went to auction because a couple different editors wanted to buy it, and the rest is history.

Speaker 2: 8:37

Now how does that work when there's two agents involved with the sale? How do you discern, determine which agent sends it out, and submission and stuff?

Speaker 3: 8:43

Yeah. So we we figured out from the get-go that we were going to use my agent because she had contacts at the publishers that we really wanted to see if they'd be interested in the book. So that was pretty much the reason we decided that, because she just had more contacts there. And I think that's usually what ends up happening is you pick the agent who would have more contact and be able to get in touch with them and kind of wield like their powers in the in the editor space or whatever. And so she was the point person.

Speaker 3: 9:17

But Denny's agent was involved the whole way, so like we would all four of us get on the phone to chat about everything. So like we would all four of us get on the phone to chat about everything. And so it wasn't like one agent was just in charge and Denny's agent still got paid the 15% of her portion as well. So it was just like a point person, kind of like how, if you do a group project, you say, ok, you're going to be the speaker, but we're all going to do the work together. We just have like appointed a speaker.

Speaker 2: 9:45

That's basically how it was. And how was it with the writing. Did you guys, like each take a character, did you? How did you do that?

Speaker 3: 9:50

So, yeah, we each took a character Denny did Ella's voice and I did Marilyn's voice and we would switch back and forth with the chapter. So when one of us would write a chapter, we'd send it to the other and we'd edit it, and back and forth, like that. And then if the scenes had the characters in it together, we actually wrote those scenes together so that the character voices would remain authentic in each chapter, no matter which one of us was, you know, in charge of that chapter. So it was really fun. We did that a lot on Google Docs. We were on Zoom a lot. We had about 18,000 spreadsheets that we used to keep track of all the information and timelines and characters and themes and all of that. So it's a lot of planning when you go into writing a book with someone else, because you have to make sure that you're all on the same page and that you're getting the information from the same place, and that also that your chapters match in theme, because you don't want it to not make sense. Basically is really important.

Speaker 2: 10:53

And did you guys ever like disagree on anything? How did you?

Speaker 3: 10:58

Yeah, so the only thing we ever really like I don't even necessarily think it was like a disagreement but one thing Denny always says is that I write so fast and she's she's not really a new writer. She keeps calling herself a new writer but she's had like seven contracts at this point. So I think she's, you know, very well established and she's been in the writing space for a really long time. But I just write really fast and so I know that that was a problem, because I'd be like here's my chapter and she's like, wait, I'm only on, you know, page one of mine and I'm like, oh, my God, sorry. So that was like just one thing, was like learning each other's pace so that I wasn't overwhelming her and and she wasn't making me feel like, you know, she wasn't going fast enough or something like that. So just like those little minor things and it really wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 3: 11:50

The biggest problem that we had with the book was actually when we got our edits back. Our editor wanted us to cut the first 150 pages and you guys are all writers, exactly, ouch, I pretty much cried, denny like cursed, and we were like why this is horrible. We spent so much time writing it. That's such a huge chunk of the book, but in the end it ended up working out really well because those first 150 pages actually allowed us to get to know the two women very well, and so it I like to think of it as like an exercise, even though it was a very long and painful exercise to cut, but it helped us really get into their headspace, I think. So in the end the book is better for it, and we were able to beef up a lot of the later chapters from cutting all of that and having extra word space. So that was the biggest thing.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Love that. How do you keep the dialogue in historical fiction like relatable to modern audiences, but still authentic? That is such a good question.

Speaker 3: 12:55

So I think keeping it relatable is it's a lot easier, I think, than it sounds, just because people back in history whether you're talking about like the 1700s or you know 1900s or whatever people's problems haven't really changed that much. And a lot of our book is about like friendship. So there's friendship themes in you know all realms, but and then obviously, like there's a lot of racial contention in our book as well that Ella's having to deal with and that's something that you know Black women are still dealing with today. So there's a lot and that carries over. And you know the issues with women in the workplace in the 1950s. Like we have come far.

Speaker 3: 13:44

We can now get credit cards. You know that happened in the 1950s. Like we have come far, we can now get credit cards. You know that happened in the 70s. So that's nice. But there's still things that women are really trying hard to work for. So I think that those themes sort of carry through all time periods and readers of today can connect with those things as well. But remaining authentic is really just like making sure that we stayed true to the characters and their histories and what they were going through, and I think it's just you know, something that anyone can really connect with.

Speaker 2: 14:16

Love that Were you shy or scared about approaching race in the novel.

Speaker 3: 14:21

Yes, mostly because, as a white person, I obviously haven't dealt with racial issues myself, so I was very, very conscious of that and Denny is such a wonderful person so, like her and I had so many conversations about it and very like open dialogue, which was really really nice because I learned a lot and then you know, obviously we're able to share that with readers.

Speaker 2: 14:50

That is really cool. What are the benefits and the drawbacks to co-writing?

Speaker 3: 14:55

So the benefits, the benefits that I we always think that there might be aren't isn't really a benefit. So one of them is that you think like, oh, I only have to write half a book. Or if you've got more than one uh co-writer, you're like, oh, I only have to write a third or a quarter or six of this book, which is not really true because even though you might only be in charge of a certain word count, you still have to read and edit and be, like you know, knowledgeable of what is happening in the rest of the story. So it's still just as much work. But the benefit is that you get to share that in all of the excitement with a writing partner you get to share, and also the crying like if your editor says to cut 150 pages. And then also the fun part is that we got to do different events together. So getting to travel together, getting to you know, geek out about history with and writing with you know people at the same time that has really been very rewarding.

Speaker 2: 15:53

Awesome. Yeah, what do you think are the essential elements of a good first page?

Speaker 3: 16:03

So I think the essential elements of a first page is really hooking the reader. Obviously, right from the first sentence you really want to draw them in by asking a you know question, like forming questions in their, in the reader's mind by what's happening on that page and I think also introducing the main character and so you get a taste for who they are and their personality and then maybe a little hint of what their goal is. But the major thing is really introducing those questions and hooks that are going to keep the reader going on to page two.

Speaker 2: 16:36

And how do you avoid the saggy middle? The dreaded saggy middle?

Speaker 3: 16:41

The saggy middle is so hard. No matter how many books you've written, it's always the same. It's such a struggle. So for me, I think the I just go back to do I need more conflict. Um, if it's getting kind of boring and I'm feeling like it's stagnant and I'm not going anywhere, then maybe I need to introduce some conflict, or maybe I need to beef up my actual plot or like heighten the stakes, um. So I usually just go back and try to read through and figure out if there's something I can do to make it more exciting, and that's pretty much my thing.

Speaker 2: 17:13

And how do you craft an engaging ending?

Speaker 3: 17:18

The endings are also really hard. So I think, like crafting an engaging ending, I really try to make sure that I at least for me personally, I don't leave any books on a cliffhanger. So any of the questions I've introduced throughout the entire novel, I really try to make sure I've wrapped those up at the end and I want to say that I leave the reader satisfied, except that, you know, in some stories it's not always a satisfying ending, but at least it's satisfying enough. I guess is the way I say it. Like, for example, my book, the Mayfair Bookshop. My heroine has a really big struggle and at the end she doesn't get what she wants but she's happy with where her life is headed.

Speaker 3: 18:00

So there's that. And then, of course, in Can't we Be Friends everybody knows Marilyn Monroe doesn't make it. I mean that's, you know it was very hard and very tragic and for us one of the things that we wanted to do was not put that on the page. So you kind of leave off with a little bit of hope, even though you know it's not going to end up happening, even though you know it's not going to end up happening.

Speaker 3: 18:24

So we wanted to leave the book sort of like on an uplifting note kind of At least not make people just like cry at the end, I mean maybe they did? I don't know, but I think that's the best thing is just making sure that you've wrapped everything up and not left your reader like, okay, well, what happened to? Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2: 18:46

How did you guys tackle the revisions? How many revisions did the novel take?

Speaker 3: 18:50

Oh my gosh, prior to the 150 page cut, I think that we rewrote and revised probably like four or five times. Denny has a really great editing system. That we did and it really made the sentences very tight and flowy and she's really really good at writing rhythmically, so we worked a lot on that. What is that?

Speaker 2: 19:16

system like how does that work?

Speaker 3: 19:19

It's just like layering back and forth. So, like you know, you first write like a very bare bones, kind of like just spitting it out, and then going in and like adding in the details and kind of like massaging things, seeing if you've written any themes into the novel that you maybe weren't aware of which definitely happens a lot and then kind of seeing if those work and how you can exploit those in other ways. And then looking at like she's really much better at it than I am, of like writing like these, like lyrical, rhythmic sentences that like she'll read it out loud and like count the beats and then see like if she can change the sentence in a way to make it flow with this beat, which is really cool. So there was a lot like that and then just really tightening the sentences a lot, which you know we used like Grammarly and stuff like that, to kind of tighten stuff up.

Speaker 3: 20:16

And then we had, I think, three or four beta readers go through it and then we would take their suggestions and rewrite again. And then after the 150 pages, it was pretty much the same thing because we had to rewrite and add in some scenes.

Speaker 2: 20:31

So we just went through those things over again um, you talked about your three or four beta readers. How did you, how did you select your beta readers and how do you know what feedback to incorporate versus what doesn't work? How do you decide that?

Speaker 3: 22:17

so, um, we each picked, like two of our own people that normally read our work, so they're familiar with them, and, um, the one thing that's really important about beta readers, I think, is that you find someone that you can trust that's going to give you feedback. They're not afraid to give you good feedback, because you know it doesn't help if they're like, oh, loved it, great, but they're not mean either, like I have had a mean critique partner before and I just felt like terrible about my writing every time. So I think finding someone that you can trust and that is like that happy balance for constructive criticism is really good. So we just picked two people that we're familiar with and then they read the whole book and they gave the feedback.

Speaker 3: 22:58

And normally what I like to do is if more than one person says like, hey, this scene is an issue, or I'm not getting the motivation here, or this character is kind of falling flat, something like that, then I will definitely beef it up. If it's just one person, I'll reread it and see if I can do something to make it better, unless I just don't agree. Sometimes people are like, oh, you should have her do this. No, thanks, that's not part of the story and then word choice and things like that. It's always subjective, so I'll think about do I like that or don't I like it? It's basically just like a personal like choice. Unless more than one person says the same thing, then I really I'm like okay, if two people are pointing this out, it's an issue.

Speaker 2: 23:52

Love that you write romance as well. What?

Speaker 3: 23:54

are some tips for writing a juicy and good romance novel. So obviously with romance, the, the whole point is like the relationship and getting to that happily ever after or the happily for now. But the fun part of reading the romance is thinking like you know, why should these two be together and why can't they be together, and like basically figuring out ways to keep them apart the whole time. And then there's like, oh, they're going to get together. Nope, they're not. So like a lot of the back and forth is fun, but also adding in all of that tension and you know the flirting I love like a good banter session and I think just like heightening it that way with a lot of like chatter and body language and things like that.

Speaker 3: 24:34

Of course in romance there's also the love scenes as well that readers seem to really enjoy. So there's that. But I think for me that the the best part of making it a juicy novel is really just that back and forth, tension like that, the chase and the fun of the game of like figuring out whether or not two people are going to be together and for people who aren't like necessarily romance readers what does tension look like in romance?

Speaker 3: 25:00

so it's like, um a perfect example. If anyone here has ever watched the kira knightley pride and prejudice movie, um, it's when he gets out of the car and their fingers like happen to brush and he like squeezes his hand really tight because, oh my god, our fingers just touched. That's basically what it looks like you mentioned that you're a hybrid.

Speaker 2: 25:24

How did you your path, your hybrid path, begin and tell us a little bit more about that experience. What are the benefits, the rewards and the challenges of being a hybrid? Author.

Speaker 3: 25:36

So my hybrid career started actually back in 2010. I was originally published by two small presses and I had no idea what royalties were going to look like. And I was very disappointed, because when I started writing and the small presses were really electronic book presses back in 2008, people didn't really read on e-readers all that much. There was a Sony e-reader. I'm not even sure the Kindle was a thing back then, but it wasn't working out for me.

Speaker 3: 26:11

And then in 2010, amazon opened up the, the self publishing platform, and I thought, well, you know what, maybe I'll just get my rights back from those stories they're not making money anyway and I maybe I can do a better job and so I published them on. I think I got the rights back for seven stories and I published them on Kindle and in the first month I made more money than I'd made in like two years with the publisher. So I thought, well, this is really interesting. And so I thought, well, maybe I'll try writing a book that I don't send out to a publisher, just write one for myself. So I did that in 2012. At the time, I was still with two other small presses publishing through them as well, so I was doing both. And when my novel came out in 2012, the first one that I did on my own it went very well and I was like really excited about that. So I was like really excited about that. So I was like you know what.

Speaker 3: 27:10

I think I'm just gonna keep doing both and um, at some point I want to say maybe 2016 one of my publishers went defunct, so I got all of those books back and I put those up as well. Um, but I've always just really firmly believed in doing both. I think that writers should have the ability to do both, and if you're willing to do both, why not? I like having my hands in all of the different pots, so I do a lot of traditional audio as well, and it's different for romance, because I think you can find a bigger readership with Kindle and things like that that are more indie, whereas historical fiction the readers are much more likely to buy a paperback and unfortunately I can't get the kind of distribution that a publisher has. So I still like to publish traditionally with those because I can get in front of readers more than I could if I did it independently.

Speaker 2: 28:10

And how do you market and promote your independent books?

Speaker 3: 28:13

So I do a lot of advertising. I love BookBub, I have used Amazon ads before and then I use Facebook ads and things like that, and then I have a newsletter. So I obviously send out to my newsletter and then I'm pretty big on social media as well, because I feel like that's one of the ways to reach out to your readers and kind of keep in touch and and they like following you on there and seeing what you're up to and then if you comment and they comment back they, they. It's a nice exchange and a way to like show appreciation for them reading your books love that.

Speaker 2: 28:48

What's? What are the differences? What do you like better, what do you like worse? About traditional versus indie okay.

Speaker 3: 28:56

So I love with traditional that I'm just really in charge of writing and promoting the book. Um, I don't have to find the editor. I don't have to find the copy editors. I don't have to hire the art designers. I don't have to hire the art designers. I don't have to be in charge of all of the nitty gritty things which, with self-publishing, I do have to do that and it just takes a lot of time. I have to do the formatting, I have to do all the uploading, pricing and things like that. So it's just really time that I don't enjoy. And then with traditional, like I said, I really enjoy the benefits of being in bookstores and having a wider reach and then, you know, having their marketing expertise as well.

Speaker 2: 29:42

I love that. Do any of you guys have any questions? Okay, cool Hi.

Speaker 5: 29:44

Well, thank you for being here. So I had a question about the soggy middle. I know you said you go back and think, well, should I raise the stakes or heighten the plot? Could you talk more on that? How have you done that personally in one of your books?

Speaker 3: 29:59

So I'll talk about a book I'm actually working on right now. I just keep going back and thinking, okay, am I taking the easy way out in this situation, or could I introduce a like an issue and then resolve it to be where I am right now? So, for example, this is going to sound silly, but so my character she is a copy editor and she has a lot of contention with people at work, including this one girl who's always kind of backstabbing her, and she has these special red pencils that she special ordered for her copy editing. And when she gets to work one day, her pencils are gone, and so she goes over to her co workers desk and she opens the drawer because she's not in there and she notices that her pencils are in there. Now I just had her take one pencil and go back to work and not say anything, because my character doesn't really like to rock the boat, she doesn't want to get involved.

Speaker 3: 30:57

And that was one place that I came back to and I was like you know what this is really silly.

Speaker 3: 31:03

This is a perfect place for me to up the tension and actually show a lot of the contention in the office and kind of grow her arc by giving her, you know, a little bit more of a backbone here and and so I had her actually confront the coworker and they got into a spat and then she goes back to her desk to finish working, so stuff like that. Like if you're giving your character an easy way out into something, or you're being too nice about something, or you're avoiding a conflict because maybe you don't feel like writing it that day, or maybe you just wrote it and didn't realize you could have had a conflict there, that's kind of where I would suggest revising and adding conflict and upping the stakes and then also, if you already have some stakes going on, see if there's some way that you can add in additional like plot points, that kind of keep the stakes rising on the arc versus like a lower arc, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 31:57

Any other questions? Okay, someone wrote a question in the chat. Knowing, let me blow it up because my digit is terrible. Knowing you do write fast. How do you keep yourself from procrastinating? Asking because it's a big issue for me.

Speaker 3: 32:16

Cheryl says so, oh my gosh, writers love to procrastinate, don't we? I'm really good at it. So basically, what I had to figure out for myself was what is my best writing time. I am for the longest time was trying to write like throughout the day, or had a lot of friends that were like nighttime writers. So I thought like, oh, writers write at night, I should do that. But I am not like that at all.

Speaker 3: 32:45

I found that my best writing time like my brain really works super well is at like 630 in the morning. I know that sounds horrendous, but it's still like quiet and there, you know, no one's on the internet yet, so there's no distractions of social media or checking your email or anything like that. So I think for me it was finding a good writing time that I wouldn't have the outside world distractions. I used to also use an app. I think it was called Focus. I think iPhones also and Mac computers also have a focus thing you can use to turn off the world from your fingertips while you're working.

Speaker 3: 33:27

But the other really great thing that helps me is writing in small increments. So I'll set a timer for 15 or 30 minutes and I will specifically force myself not to do anything else but write during that time period, and then when the buzzer goes off, I can get up and go look out the window or go do laundry or whatever it is that is going on around here, or check my email. So I think that the timing has really helped too, because, you know, people say like oh, I wrote for three hours, or I wrote for an hour. I can't write for that long in one time. So I mean I could do three 15 minute sprints in an hour and get more done in that time than three hours. If I sat there because I figured out that the time was just you know me writing for 15 minutes and then staring off into space for 15 minutes, I wasn't really doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So I think setting a timer is really really helpful.

Speaker 2: 34:29

I love that. Cheryl said thank you. She's downloading the app right now. Oh good, Any more questions? You guys, you can just ask. You don't have to raise a hand or anything if you have any.

Speaker 4: 34:41

I'm curious whether you wrote the historical fiction first or the romance first. Which did you start with and how did you get to the other?

Speaker 3: 34:52

I was kind of both, so I've always been in love with, like, history and historical things, so I was always kind of writing those stories. My historic first historical fiction didn't get published till 2014. But I'd been working on it since 2009. And prior to that, when I was first starting out in 2006, I actually dabbled with thriller and fantasy. I was really just trying to figure out where my voice fit the best and I ended up entering a contest for a romance. It was a time travel romance, so that was actually my first story that got published was a time travel. So it was a lot of playing around and but I've always, like, history has always been at the heart of my main writing, so I think it was easier for me to get published with the romance than it was the historical fiction, just because it took so long for me to write that first book love that, love that.

Speaker 2: 35:52

Do you have any um advice on characters, on writing good characters?

Speaker 3: 35:56

yeah. So I think, like just writing good characters takes a lot of time and thought, and I am a huge spreadsheet person I think I mentioned that earlier so I'll do like a spreadsheet for each character and I really try to think about, like, what are their and what's that thing that they've always told themselves, like what's the lie? Um, so it's really just making sure that the characters are well balanced and, um, like real people, you know we're all complicated, so I I'll even go down to like you know things that might not even make it on the page. Like you know things that might not even make it on the page. Like you know, one character really hates apples because you know her parents never, you know, or she had to eat an apple every day, or something like that, like just silly things like that.

Speaker 3: 36:43

But I think that making characters that are complex and interesting and also that people can relate to so they have real problems mixed in with maybe they're not so real problems, but I think that's just like the best thing is making them authentic to the character or to the reader so that they can, you know, connect with them and not, you know, I've read I've read a lot of books lately where I feel like people are writing flatter characters and I don't know why that is, um, if maybe it's like I hate to say this because it makes me just sound like I'm, like you know, an old fuddy-duddy, I guess is what I would say but like I think social media, tiktok and Netflix have like really, um, harmed people's attention to reading books that take a long time. You know they want like fast and so so that doesn't always lend to like really complicated characters, but I think complicated characters that people can relate to are interesting.

Speaker 2: 37:49

What makes a good villain or antagonist?

Speaker 3: 37:56

what makes a good villain or antagonist? Oh so I think a good villain or antagonist is whatever is thwarting the character's deepest desire and always getting in the way, so like. Sometimes it's not even a person, sometimes it's society. So like in the ella and marilyn book, one of the biggest villains there is society itself, and that was really really fun to kind of weave that in there and make sure that it was really felt like that society is holding them back or society is forcing them to do things or make decisions that they didn't want to.

Speaker 2: 38:24

I love that. So for historical novels, we talked about the elements of a good romance. What are the elements of a good historical novel?

Speaker 3: 38:34

So the elements of a good historical novel are obviously the history. I always like to think of the history as one of the characters. So it's growing and changing and has its own you know arc as you go through the story. But it's woven in a way that doesn't feel like you're reading a textbook. It's gotta be just the flavor of it and you read it and you don't even realize. Oh, the author actually had to research that. It's just a piece of it. But also, the same thing I kind of mentioned earlier is like characters that readers can connect with in a way that they understand to their own modern sensibilities kind of mentioned earlier is like characters that readers can connect with on in a way that they understand to their own modern sensibilities.

Speaker 2: 39:22

Love that.

Speaker 3: 39:24

What do you wish you knew before publication? I wish I knew that I wasn't going to be sitting in like my beautiful attic Garrett, you know, looking out on a lovely landscape. I wish that like fantasy of what writers actually like do wasn't false. So I sit here in my really dirty office because I've got piles of papers and books everywhere and sticky notes and actually put my computer in front of the window so I can't like look out the window. So that's one thing, but I guess the other thing on a more serious level is I didn't realize that the job wasn't just writing.

Speaker 3: 40:05

You know, I think I write probably only 50% of the time. The other 50% is doing all of the you know promo work or you know I guess editing is also part of the writing, but it's a lot of like business stuff that I didn't realize, that I would have to know how to do stuff. And you know accounting work and all of that, because you know when you get paid as an author they don't take your taxes out or anything. So you have to make sure that you set aside part of your royalties to pay your taxes and then you've got expenses that you need to reimburse yourself for. So I just think that I wasn't aware that I was going to be only writing about half the time and the rest of the time I was going to be like a business person.

Speaker 2: 40:54

Now, with the promotion stuff that you talked about, what are some of the things that you have to do for your traditional contracts with the promotion versus the things you do for your hybrid?

Speaker 3: 41:03

promotion. So that's a great question. One of the biggest differences that I don't pay for advertising for my traditional stuff. I do have to pay for advertising for my indie stuff, my um traditional stuff. I do have to pay for advertising for my indie stuff. I could um, I do occasionally, I guess boost a Facebook post if I have like a new release, but the promo work I normally do for a traditional is a lot of social media um and a lot of sharing, because you'll have um like an Instagram, um blog tour or whatever, and when and when people are posting about your book, you want to make sure that you reshare and you say thank you. So it's a lot of like social media promo work. I think is the right way to say that.

Speaker 3: 41:44

And I get and planning. You know, I'm going to do the cover reveal and I need to ask all of my friends to do the cover reveal for me and help me out here and um, I want to organize a giveaway. So I'm I'm planning how I'm going to do this giveaway Um, I don't have to ship the books because the publisher will ship the books, fortunately, for the giveaway Um, whereas with the indie stuff I have to do the shipping for that too. Um, so it's not that much difference. I think the biggest difference is that with the indie I'm paying for it, whereas with the traditional I'm not necessarily paying for it.

Speaker 2: 42:22

Now, with the giveaways, do you have to? I mean, do you do those in conjunction with your publisher or do you just say I'm doing a giveaway? How does that work?

Speaker 3: 42:29

Kind of both. So I'll email and say um, I have, you know, 10 historical fiction author friends that um are willing to send out a book to one of their readers for this big giveaway. Um, so would you be willing to ship those books for me? And then they usually say yes.

Speaker 2: 42:45

Okay, that's cool. Yeah, anybody else have any questions? Just jump in. You have to raise your hand or anything.

Speaker 4: 42:52

If you have one, it's not a lather on um, I'm wondering whether you write one book at a time or whether you write multiple books, like hop between several at a time. That's a great. It seems like you're so prolific yeah.

Speaker 3: 43:10

So, um, at any given time I am working on multiple books not writing multiple books, though, so I'm always writing one, I'm always editing one, I'm always promoting one, and I'm always trying to put together a proposal for the next pitch. And then you're also, you know, trying to, um, boost your backlist, so you kind of have to juggle all of those things. Um, so, you know, trying to boost your backlist, so you kind of have to juggle all of those things. So, you know, if, let's say, okay, right now I am working on revising a draft that is due in June 15th or 14th, it's due in June, next month, ah, it's kind of scary, but I'm also editing a book that I wrote months ago and just got the edits back. So, having to do that, and then I'm working on a pitch with another friend of mine who wanted to try her hand at co-authoring, so that's something that I'm doing. And then I have a book coming out next month with my publisher, so I'm promoting that, and at the same time, next month with my publisher, so I'm promoting that, and at the same time I'm also promoting Can't we Be Friends, which came out in March. So it's a lot of juggling, if that makes sense. But I'm only actively writing, like the book I'm revising that's due in June. I finished the draft but I'm like doing my whole, like editing, revising stuff, making it not garbage.

Speaker 3: 44:44

What do you think you did right that helped you make it? Oh, wow, um, I think just learning. Um, I think it's really important, no matter where you are in your writing career, to always be reading and learning the craft, because, even if it's just like a brush up, you might be like, oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that. I should be doing that. Um, but I and and reading is super, super important. But I think just keeping up with learning what is important and what's not, and trying to just better, better, better my writing I think Love that, love that.

Speaker 3: 45:22

Any advice for aspiring authors? Yeah, I think the best advice I can give you is that you need to not stop I wouldn't say every day, because I don't write seven days a week, but I think at least three to five days a week be sitting in front of that manuscript, be putting words on the page, even if you think they're total garbage. You can fix garbage, but you can't fix anything that you haven't written. So I really think that my best piece of advice is to actually sit down and do the work and don't like discourage yourself from it. I think all of us, even myself included, can say like oh, why are you doing this? Why are you bothering? This is terrible. Just ignore that person. They are a bully.

Speaker 2: 46:09

I love that answer, by the way, best piece of writing advice you've heard, I love that answer.

Speaker 3: 46:15

By the way, best piece of writing advice you've heard, um, oh well, one of my it's from my friend, um Stephanie. She's a historical fiction writer and one of the best things that she said was um, you could just make that up, because sometimes, like, we'll like get really, really into like the research part of it and get stuck for days. I need to find this fact. I need to find this fact In one of my books. I needed to figure out whether the floors were linoleum or some other material. Actually it was. Can't we Be Friends? It was when Marilyn was in the hospital and I was like I need to know what the floor is, because she's sitting on the floor and I've got to know. And I was like I need to know what the floor is because she's sitting on the floor and I've got to know.

Speaker 3: 46:54

And I was like researching it. I even called like a doctor to find out what the floors were in the sixties and they're like I don't know. And I was like this is terrible. And so it was hours of work on this floor. And then it's like okay, remember, you can just make it up. And I was like, oh, she was just on the glossy floor. Glossy floor, that's it Done.

Speaker 3: 47:18

So just not like obsessing over stuff. Love that.

Speaker 2: 47:26

So what tools are there? Any tools or websites or books or anything that you found most helpful, either like now or when you were first starting out?

Speaker 3: 47:34

Oh yeah, one of my favorite books and I still look at it every once in a while now is called Writing the Breakout Novel and it's by Donald Moss and it's so good, Like that Anthony's question earlier about upping the stakes, if you haven't read that book, that book has great advice on upping the stakes in scenes Really really good.

Speaker 2: 47:56

Awesome. Anybody else have any more questions? What is the worst piece of advice you have gotten?

Speaker 3: 48:06

Another really great question. I'll have to think about that. I think one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever gotten was right to trend. Because the issue is, if something's really hot right now and you're like, okay, I'm going to write to trend, first of all you have to figure out, like, how to write that Like.

Speaker 3: 48:25

If I were to like suddenly decide to write like um, like fourth wing style stuff, romanticy, or whatever it's called, um, I don't know how to do that, so it would take me a while to figure that out. And then by the time I like wrote the book enough that someone would want to look at it, and then it was. You know, let's say, they did buy it eventually, and then I wrote the book, and then it's edited. It's like three years from now before that book hits the shelves, and at that point that trend could have been over like a year or two ago hopefully not, because everybody loves romanticy. But I'm just saying like, don't write to trend unless it's something you love, because you might not love it. And then it's a lot of work and then it ends up bombing because it's not a trend anymore.

Speaker 2: 49:10

Have there been any recent historical trends that you're aware of?

Speaker 3: 49:15

have there been any recent historical trends that you're aware of? So world war ii is a huge historical trend, um, and they keep saying it's dying, and I think that readers are getting a little bit um worn out by it, but at the same time, you still have those rabid readers that love it. I used to write tutor historical novels and they told me that was dead. But, um, people are like still ask me like, are you going to write more Tudor? I love Tudor, so I don't know if that's true or not either, but, um, it seems like right now, bookshops are a huge trend, um, and it's kind of like like it's getting like a little bit gluttonous, so I'm not sure if that's something that's going to pop soon.

Speaker 2: 49:52

What are you working on now?

Speaker 3: 49:54

So right now I am working on a. It's actually a contemporary novel under a different name that's due in June and I'm pretty excited about it. It's called Rush Week and it's about four sorority sisters who when they were in college kind of gotten to some issues and now they're, you know, after graduating and and starting families and things are being recalled to an alumni event, um, to kind of contend with these secrets that they've been holding love that.

Speaker 2: 50:24

Thank you, what's up? Well, where I'm tripping over my tongue, where can everybody connect with you?

Speaker 3: 50:33

so, um, I um, I'm pretty much everywhere. Um, I'm on Instagram Eliza night fiction, uh, facebook, same thing. I go on Twitter every once in a while, but I'm not really big on there. Um, I have a Tik TOK account, but I'm not great at it, and my website, I guess, is Eliza nightcom, but like, you'll find my stuff there, but I'm not personally there.

Speaker 2: 50:54

Anything you want to say in closing.

Speaker 3: 50:56

I just just that. I wish you guys luck with your writing. Don't give up. You, you know, just a page at a time, a chapter at a time, you'll eventually get there and just keep going and and don't you know, don't let anyone tell you that you're not good enough.

Speaker 2: 51:12

Cheryl said thank you so much. This has been super helpful. You've been delightful. Thank everybody for coming and thank you so much, Eliza. We've learned a lot. We've had a good chat, Good talk.

Speaker 3: 51:22

Good, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad to be here with you guys. Thank you I enjoyed it.

Speaker 6: 51:28

That wraps up today's Craft Chat Chronicles with JD Mayer. Thanks for joining us. If you liked the episode, please comment, subscribe and share. For show notes, writing workshops and tips, head to jdmayercom. That's jdmayercom. While you're there, join JDd's mailing list for updates, giveaways and more.