%20(2).jpg)
Craft Chat Chronicles
Craft Chat Chronicles
More Insights from Author Amy K Runyon on Crafting Compelling Narratives
This episode is only available to subscribers.
Craft Chat Chronicles +
Exclusive access to premium content!Get ready to be inspired by award-winning historical fiction novelist Amy K Runyon, as she unveils her remarkable transformation from a busy mom to securing a book deal in under two years. Amy's journey is a testament to the power of choosing unique and compelling topics, even those that aren't trending, and she generously shares practical tips on pitching these concepts to publishers. You'll also hear her valuable advice on bringing less popular historical settings, like the Old West, to life and the digital strategies that skyrocketed her book sales.
In this fascinating episode, Amy delves into the art of crafting historical fiction with a contemporary twist. She takes us behind the scenes of her contemporary women's fiction novel, "The Memory of Lavender and Sage," which weaves magical realism into its narrative. Reflecting on the success of "The School for German Brides" and the nuanced reception of "A Bakery in Paris," Amy explores how external tensions, such as school closures in French villages, become pivotal storytelling elements. Her insights into creating emotionally resonant narratives grounded in personal experience are a must-hear for any aspiring writer.
Concluding our episode, Amy tackles the intricacies of crafting satisfying story endings. She discusses the delicate balance of tying up loose ends in a manner that feels authentic and believable, avoiding overly neat conclusions. Amy also shares her expertise on developing multi-dimensional villains that resonate with modern audiences. Lastly, we highlight the significance of a diverse social media presence for writers, featuring Amy's activities on Instagram and TikTok. This episode is packed with invaluable writing and publishing tips from one of the best in the field!
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. Join the conversation and embark on a new chapter in your writing journey. For workshops, show notes and more information, visit jdmyallcom. That's jdmyallcom.
Speaker 2:In this members-only mini-episode of Craft Chat Chronicles, we will continue our chat with award-winning author Amy K Runyon. Amy gives you a little more of her background and history in publishing. She'll give you some more craft advice and talk writing and publishing a little more. So now we can dive a little deeper in our chat with Amy K Runyon.
Speaker 3:So for those of you who don't know who the wonderful Amy Runyon is, she's a historical fiction novelist. She writes a lot of heroines in history. She's written the Bakery in Paris, the Castlekeepers and a lot of other titles. She's been honored for her work by the Historical Novel Society. Lucky enough to get her, riley can attest, leanne can attest for how good she is. So welcome, and tonight we're going to learn a lot about craft and a lot about her writing journey. Welcome everybody, all the newcomers, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you for that introduction. I hope I can live up to that. My goodness, I feel like that's a bit of an oversell. But you know, I've loved working with my Drexel students. Leanne and Riley are just fabulous and I brag about them to everybody, so it's mutual admiration society, for sure. Yeah, I've been. I've been writing professionally Okay, I'll say I've been writing seriously since about 2013,.
Speaker 4:Which was about the time that my second child, my youngest daughter, or my younger of my two children, my daughter, started sleeping through the night and I started regaining like some semblance of being a non-zombie sort of human and I had, you know, I was 33 years old at the time and you know I thought, you know, this is kind of a watershed moment, that you know, my grandmother and her mother had both lived to be 99 or well, okay, 98 when we did the math, but you know, rounding up 99. And they, you know. So it was like a third of my life is gone and I'm kind of tethered to the house with two very small children and I felt like I wanted to accomplish something big and I'd had the idea for my first novel, promise to the Crown, sitting in a drawer for the previous 10 years, since I had attended a creative writing workshop in graduate school. Graduate school I wasn't working on an MFA, I was working on an MA in French. And you know I decided and you know there's more backstory to that and everything but I decided that I wanted to give the novel a real shot.
Speaker 4:And then I, six months later, I had a really terrible draft of a book. And then I started going to conferences and taking it seriously and I ended up having a book deal less than two years after I started with a blank page. That's awesome, you know agented and a book deal within two years. So I mean, it's as close to an overnight success as you're going to see in business. In this business, you know, the overnight success takes about 15 years and now I get to work with you guys and it's so awesome, yay.
Speaker 3:Looking back, what do you think you did right that helped you become a published author so soon?
Speaker 4:um, a topic that was, um, unusual, um, you know, the Canadian Colonials um, it did not become the next big thing, sadly, but it did land me an agent because the the manuscript was compelling and I did lend me a book deal, which you know, at the time the books tanked pretty badly.
Speaker 4:If you look at the print sales for either of those books, I mean it's pretty sad but digital copies since then have sold miraculously and I think that part of the reason is because, well, after those two books didn't do well, I went to a digital publisher like Union out of the Amazon family and they really promoted two of my three books there pretty heavily and you know it really helped my backlist and that helped me get a leg up and more attention moving forward. But I think the thing I did right was choosing a topic that choosing something that wasn't tutors and sadly wasn't the next big thing but you know who knows it might've been but something that was different enough for a publisher to take a chance on was really, you know, a helpful thing there and I think that you know, choosing the right concept and being able to you, you know, to pitch it is really, really important do you have any tips for us on choosing the right concept, like what's your formula?
Speaker 4:you know, no, whatever grabs me at the time, and of course there are rules like right now, like one thing that people will tell you is that the old West is a hard sell.
Speaker 4:So, for example, if you want to set something in the Old West, you better have something that is, I don't know, a contemporary timeline to go with it or some other hook and downplaying that setting, because some people will just automatically turn off. And I think the reason being for that, sadly, is that the demographic because Westerns were huge in the 1950s and 1960s Most of the shows on television were Westerns and so the demographic that really gravitates toward Westerns tends to be older. And of course publishers want to lean young so that they can build a readership that isn't going to die off in 15 years. Now, world War II, if you didn't have a really fresh spin on it, like the School for German Brides, was definitely a different story from what was being marketed I wouldn't be trying to sell a book about. Like sell a book set in World War II, about a lost library right now for sure, tell me the story behind the story.
Speaker 3:How did your current novel come to be?
Speaker 4:My current novel. So shall that be the Memory of Lavender and Sage? I do remember the title of the book.
Speaker 4:Okay so that's my first contemporary and I guess I was a bit prescient because right now, I think, is a really kind of challenging moment for historical fiction. Like A Bakery in Paris did fine, but not as well as its predecessor, the School for German Brides, and there are myriad reasons for that. I think that releasing a book about baking in August you know, one of the hottest months in recorded history, during a climate crisis, was maybe not the biggest, the best choice we could have made, and also it wasn't quite as high concept like Nazi bride schools Boom. There's the story. This is a story about the Paris Commune and the post-World War II and people coming together in the course of a bakery and the importance of baked goods in French cultural history. I mean, that's a lot. It's hard to put that in an elevator pitch. I think it's a better book, but it's not quite as high. You know, nazi bride school boom. Three words. It's like Harry Potter wizard school boom. You know what it's about.
Speaker 4:But okay, so the memory of lavender and sage was written because I wanted to have two income streams. I know this sounds very businessy, but I did want to diversify my portfolio, so to speak, and I always thought that the right, you know. Second genre for me because I gravitate historical, you know, but that's what I live and breathe. I married a historian and I joke that it wasn't just because he can help me find good research material. But you know, you know I adore him. He's wonderful, we go on road trips together. He's fabulous.
Speaker 4:But I did want to write contemporary women's fiction with some romantic themes, but heavily, and you know, lush, lush settings, virtual vacation fiction, and I was pitching this in 2020. So I thought, you know, the idea of really kind of, you know, immersive women's fiction could be a really good brand for me. And I never felt quite, you know, like I belonged in my tiny little hometown in Northern California. My family wasn't nearly as terrible as a family in the book, but it's about a woman who finds her, her found family, and finds her true place in the universe, finds love in the process and finds her own magic. There's some magical realism elements to it, but it really is kind of a metaphor for her finding her inner. You know her mojo, you know out in the world and world and so it.
Speaker 4:You know it was a hard book to write, you know, because I was telling my husband this just the other day, is that with historical fiction, especially world war ii fiction, there is so much in the way of external, you know um tension going on like a world war ii. If they feel like the pacing is getting slow, throw in a well-timed explosion and everything's back on track. With women's fiction you've got this inner kind of evolution and with World War II stuff you've got the outer tension that's helping to formulate the inner development and it feels natural and you've got, you know, the actual historical events that help you provide structure to the book and you can alter those for the sake of artistry. But you have that there as scaffolding for the book and it felt very daunting that I was, you know. I made up the historical location or the location. The actual location, st Colombe and the memory of Lavender and Sage, does not exist. I created it as kind of an amalgamation of Moussier, saint-marie, which is what I hoped it would become For the memory of Lavender and Sage.
Speaker 4:The book came together when I realized what the external tension was and it was the death of the French villages, just articles. It wasn't like heavy, heavy research books about the death knell for any French villages when the school leaves, when they shut down the school and bearing in mind that, france having a really central government, those decisions are not made at the local level necessarily. They are made kind of like at the state level, the equivalent of the state level, or, you know, more size-wise it'd be more at the state level, the equivalent of the state level, or, more size wise, it'd be more like the county level. But the counties have a lot of influence and, you know, if they feel like it's just not economically feasible to keep a school open, they will eventually close it. And then no new families move in because there's no place for their kids to go to school and they don't want to have to drive them or somehow arrange transportation for their kids to go to school 30, 40 minutes away, bearing in mind they don't have the patience for commuting like we Americans do. So yeah, that was really what I took as kind of the impetus, the external structure for how to revitalize this village.
Speaker 4:They had to save the school, and so I think that that was something that I learned, that was so obvious like I didn't have to think about it on a really deliberate level. Like you know, the external tension is always surviving the war, you know and that sort of thing. It becomes obvious because of the historical context, but I had to think about it in a more deliberate fashion in my contemporary. So that was an interesting exercise as an author and I'm so glad I did it. And I'm struggling with that again on my second book. I'm working on my second contemporary now, but you know I'm sure it'll come to me, but I feel like for me and my brand of writing, yes, it can be fun and immersive. There's a magical realism, there's romance. There's a swoony Irishman in this book coming up. Y'all Swoony, absolutely swoony. But I feel like there has to be overriding cultural issues or it's not an Amy book.
Speaker 3:What are?
Speaker 4:the essential elements of a first page. First thing you have to do is give them a concept that they're excited to read on, and you have to learn how to boil it down into something. High concept, if you you, I mean the old rule of thumb is like one or two sentences that you could pitch in an elevator. I like to boil it down to like a number of words nazi bride school, wizard school yeah, but this one is not high. It's about a girl who has, you know, the ability to influence or emotions through herbs, who finds herself in provence, and you know it's it to influence emotions through herbs, who finds herself in Provence, and you know it's. It's something that you need a couple sentences for, but you know it's.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think, in addition to that, just you know, really getting to the, the trick is deciding where the story starts. Starting off with a family argument, I mean, that's a great way to start off a book. So you know you don't start off with the alarm clock or waking up and you know the dawn, you know I mean. Of course there are counterexamples to all that, but finding where the story starts is the first key there. And you know, start with start the ground running.
Speaker 4:And you know, I think one caveat I have to answer this is that you have to make us care about the characters right away.
Speaker 4:So if you start with literally somebody kicking the door down which I've seen done if we don't care why this, you know this horrible thing is happening.
Speaker 4:It doesn't matter that it's action packed, I mean, in a movie we might be sucked in and it's something that might work better in visual form, but I think it's less effective if we don't care about the characters.
Speaker 4:So you know, I think that literature, it used to be that literary fiction was all about character, all about character, and that genre fiction, which was basically a curse word, character, and that genre fiction, which was basically a curse word, was all about plot-driven fiction. And I think that what we need is to think about story-driven fiction, which is, you know, the plot is a something, the character is a someone, the story is something happening to someone, and the something is kind of static, like going on a journey or, you know, going through a divorce. If you're're doing women's fiction, or dealing with the death of a loved one, or living through World War II, the thing that makes it special is the someone, because that changes a story, a comedy and a tragedy is whether or not the hero's set of flaws line up to help them be ultimately successful or to ultimately fail at the tasks at hand.
Speaker 3:going back to our original Greek roots of story, Do you have any tips for avoiding a saggy middle?
Speaker 4:Oh Lord, keep writing. And you know, honestly, don't worry about it. So the middle being soggy, so much. If something's not working, move on. If you, you can leave a space for it, leave some notes, but it may turn out. You know, I can tell you that in almost all of my books, when I felt like you know I can think of one in Girls on the Line, I wrote it. I was stagnating in the middle and I said, write a scene that helps with the girls bonding here. And I just came back to it and that's always kind of draft 1.5. I'll get through the entire draft.
Speaker 4:I might make a celebratory post on social media that's a complete lie and say it's done, the first draft is done, and then go back and fill in the backfill chapters, because I think it is completely fine to write out of order and it's really important, I think, to avoid the sunk cost fallacy. And just because you spent a lot of time on a chapter or a timeline or a concept doesn't mean it's worth pursuing. I hate to say it. You know, just because you spent a lot of time making a mistake doesn't mean you keep with it. You know it goes to marriages too. All that you know little life lesson. You know they really are.
Speaker 3:Do you have any tips for creating a satisfying ending?
Speaker 4:oh god, okay, satisfying ending is well. I, I, you know, take, make sure that you wrap up your loose and think about all the things that have um, you know that have. You know that you know all that you can't. You know, don't forget about the cousin that you know shows up and drops out. You know that you know all that you can't. You know, don't forget about the cousin that you know shows up and drops out. You know, try to make sure that, because that's one thing that readers will pick up on is like we heard about this one character in chapter 14, and then we never saw them again. So you know, if they're there, make sure it's significant. And you know, I one I admit to a fault. I have a character give another character a gun in the girls on the line and she never fires it. That is a cardinal mistake. If you are handed a weapon, it has to be used at some point, and so that was a mistake on my part.
Speaker 4:But there was so much in that book and it's my favorite. That and Baker in Paris are my favorites. It's like saying they're my favorite children. It feels like, you know, somehow morally wrong to say that, but you know, I loved writing that book. There was so much content in that book it was a breeze to write. But that was, you know, a small variable in that book that if that was one of the things I could take a few minutes to fix in another edition, I most definitely would.
Speaker 4:And you know, I think it's important to just think of not wrapping things up too neatly, because you know, sophisticated, modern audiences don't need everything wrapped up with a bow, but it does. I feel like most American readers would prefer things to end on an upward swing, a major chord. As far as music, you know, of course we have tragic Russian and French literature and things of that nature, but that doesn't really resonate so much with a lot of American audiences. If they're going to invest 400 pages, they want to have at least a satisfactory outcome and you know, sometimes I do. I was accused of, you know, a few, a few reviews thought that I ended up a bakery in Paris too neatly. But I think that they'd been through so much horror in the 1870s timeline that there had to be a happy-ish ending or it would have been really really hard to swallow. But it doesn't have to all be sunshine and roses either and you know, happy enough is. You know that's perfectly fine too, but I think satisfying is the right word.
Speaker 4:And coming up with a resolution for your characters that feels authentic. I think it needs to be believable and I think that that is the beginning and end word of fiction and the expression that truth is stranger than fiction is, because we're our job is to make it more believable. And you look at some of the headlines in the news. It's like if I put that in a book my editor would slap me. You know something? You know some of the crazy headlines like you know, a woman pushing her husband off a cliff on their honeymoon, pushing your husband off a cliff on their honeymoon, that sort of thing. Like yeah, that doesn't happen in novels because it's too unbelievable.
Speaker 4:And or it might be the, you know it might be the impetus for the book, but it couldn't be the whole, like you know, plot. They'd be like resolving the crime would be the end resolution of that book. But you know it's for all the things that I state as rules. You know this is more like piracy. So you know it is more like guidelines, the pirate code, but and there are a million counterexamples of successful books that flaunt that, but they flaunt it in a way that is artistic and well done and thoughtful. They know the rules, so they can break them, and so just bear that in mind.
Speaker 4:But you know the satisfying ending. That's a great question. I think that just thinking about the ending, that is the most believable. And you know if a character has been longing for something throughout the entire book, like going to college, for example. If you're dealing with a historical heroine who wants nothing more than to go to college, don't send her to college if it's not something that legally would have been possible, but find some sort of an alternative, you know, for a way for her to get intellectual satisfaction, whether it's as an intern in a museum or something like that. Think about what would be plausible, what is authentic, but what is you know, if you have a beloved heroine, let her have what she's been wanting or some variant of it, even if it's not exactly what she envisioned.
Speaker 3:What makes a good villain or antagonist?
Speaker 4:Plausibility. I think and I use that word a lot. Okay, I think that a good villain is one that is complex and one that you can sympathize with. If you want a master class in creating a good villain, watch Sleeping Beauty and then watch Maleficent, and I know that these are childish examples, but it is the truth in the axiom that the villain is a hero of their own story. So you have to think about things from their point of view. So take your time.
Speaker 4:The biggest flaw is having a two-dimensional villain. I have that flaw, like this evil character in my second book that beat his wife and everything, and I had a crit partner said give him a dog, do something. Do something to make him likable, at least to a small degree, because nobody is, you know, completely evil. So he had a horse that he absolutely, you know, treated better than any human he ever met, and give them reasons. I mean just inherently being a jerk is not enough of a motivation. So I think understanding your villain as well, if not better, than, your protagonist, is a key Do you have any advice for aspiring historical fiction authors?
Speaker 4:Read tons. I mean you read the market and you cannot chase the market because by the time you have a great idea it's already going to be like passing Any parting advice you want to offer everybody. You know, read a lot, write a lot, enjoy the process.
Speaker 3:How can everybody connect with you.
Speaker 4:I have a website, wwwamykrenyoncom, and you can find me on Facebook and Threads. And Threads is a lovely community, by the way, for the writing community it's kind of taken. It's like there's a lot of bookish people on it. It's kind of like a slightly nicer version of Twitter, though I think the other dark corner is that, too. Instagram. I'm on instagram as bookish amy, um and tiktok even sometimes if you want to watch my baking videos, um and um, you know. So I'm trying to have a social media presence, um. So whatever your social media platform of choice is, I'm probably there.
Speaker 5:That wraps up today's Craft Chat Chronicles with JD Meyer. Thanks for joining us. If you liked the episode, please comment, subscribe and share. For show notes, writing workshops and tips, head to JDMeyercom. That's JDMeyercom. While you're there, join JD's mailing list for updates, giveaways and more.