Season 4 Episode 3: From Courtrooms to Bestsellers: Jeff Zentner's Literary Journey and Insights

What does it take to transition from a legal career to becoming a bestselling young adult author? Join us on Craft Chat Chronicles as we share thrilling updates, including my exciting new role at the Neighborhood Literary Agency under the guidance of the renowned Eric Smith. We'll discuss my progress on two major writing projects: a vampire novel set for submission and the first completed book of the Heart's Gambit series. This episode also tackles timely and crucial issues like book banning, emphasizing the pivotal role parents play in guiding their children's reading journeys. 

Dive into an inspiring conversation with bestselling author Jeff Zentner, who takes us through his remarkable journey in the world of publishing. Jeff's passion for writing and music traces back to his teenage years, and he shares how perceptions of the literary world evolved over time, paving the way for his success. We'll also explore the nuances of crafting compelling adult novels, from maintaining narrative momentum to the importance of honest feedback. Whether you're an aspiring writer or a seasoned storyteller, this episode is brimming with insights and inspiration you won't want to miss!

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Chapters

• 0:05 Craft Chat Chronicles
• 13:07 Discovering Young Adult Novels Through Failure
• 27:30 Crafting Compelling Adult Novels

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. Join the conversation and embark on a new chapter in your writing journey. For workshops, show notes and more information, visit jdmayalcom.

Speaker 2: 0:33

That's jdmayalcom In season four in season four, episode three of Craft Chat Chronicles. I give you guys a brief update on myself and then I jump into my exciting interview with bestselling author Jeff Zentner. Jeff talks about his publishing journey, his love of writing and music and so much more. That's season four, episode three of Craft Chat Chronicles. Let's get chatty. So today was a good day. I did my Drexel MFA Alumni Craft Chat Jeff Zentiner, which you'll be seeing soon, and by the time this airs it'll be announced. So I can let you in on the surprise secret, whatever you want to call it, my good news that I'll be working with literary agent Eric Smith. You might remember Eric from PS Literary. Well, now he's opening his own literary agency, the Neighborhood Literary, and I'm excited to be starting there as a assistant agency assistant. Super excited about that because one of my secret long-term goals is to be a literary agent, and so I'll get to learn all the ins and outs of agenting from an agent who's been in the business for more than 10 years. So I'm super thrilled about that. I also now have two agents, by the way, susie Townsend and Eric Smith, so I've been in two modes. I just finished what I hope will be the last round of a vampire novel that I'm going to be going on submission with very soon and I got acceptance and delivery. I just got acceptance for my Heart's Gambit novel. Yay, book one of Heart's Gambit is in the can, so now I'm moving on to book two. Actually, I'd already started book two of Heart's Gambit, but we changed the end of Heart's Gambit, so then that changed the beginning of book two. So what I had, I had to kind of scrap it and do something else fun for you guys. So I can't wait for you to read that and check it out.

Speaker 2: 2:58

My own life things have been pretty cool right now. You know, I've been working in a library, which is fun because I'm a bookish gal. There's a lot of cool bookish people there. With the new administration in this country, things have been a little different. Um, my boss is like had to talk about the library director, had to talk about strange things like what do we do in the United States if they get rid of the Department of Education? Because, as a library employee, I'm a school district employee, so they kind of pay us. So we've had to have more talks about how we handle book banning. What are the steps and protocols for that.

Speaker 2: 3:48

It's a scary time, but it's not a time to be defeated. It's a time to buckle down and keep writing and keep working and keep fighting the good fight to make sure voices get heard. Do I believe that all books are for all audiences? Of course not. But I don't believe the government should be telling us what we should read and what our children should read. I believe that's the parent's job. I believe that if a parent doesn't want a certain book in their kid's hand, they shouldn't provide it to them. So that's me, my thoughts.

Speaker 2: 4:23

I signed up for Authors Against Book Bans so I can do what I can to try to help in the struggle, and that's it really. Just been writing a lot, working a lot, trying to work on this podcast stuff for you guys as well, to keep some good content for you and keeping busy. So I hope you enjoyed my talk with jeff. I certainly did all righty I would. That's it. I guess that's enough of my little personal update. Let's get to the craft chat. Let's get chatty. Welcome. Jeffettner is the award-winning author of the Serpent King and In the Wild Light and his debut now, his debut adult novel, colton Gentry's third act, is out now. So, jeff, can you tell everybody a little bit about your publishing journey?

Speaker 3: 5:20

Sure. So first of all, hello everybody. It is wonderful to meet you. Thanks for showing up tonight. It's a great, great pleasure to speak with you.

Speaker 3: 5:29

So my publishing journey begins when I was probably about 16 or 17 years old. I was obsessed with two things I was obsessed with books and I was obsessed with music. And I grew up in a small town. There were no author visits to my high school. This was in a pre-social media era, so you couldn't go on Instagram or TikTok and see authors frantically dancing, trying to sell their books, being goofy, normal people. There was just none of that, and so, because I loved books, I put books on a pedestal. And because I put books on a pedestal, I put the people who wrote books on a pedestal, and so I imagined books coming from people who dwelt in ivory towers and they sat behind huge mahogany desks with Ivy League degrees on the walls and leather bound volumes behind them, and they'd type up a book and they put it in a basket and, like a team of silver doves, would bring it down to earth. For all I knew. That's where books came from, and so I knew at that time that I wasn't that kind of person. Whoever was writing books, I figured they were very different from me, so that left me with music, were very different from me, so that left me with music, and I was starting to feel real hunger to become a creator of the art that I loved, as opposed to only a consumer. So I went out and bought a guitar and I started teaching myself how to play and I practiced for hours and hours a day, sometimes eight or nine hours a day, until my fingers bled and my wrists ached and I got to be pretty good at playing the guitar.

Speaker 3: 7:07

So in my early 20s I moved to Nashville, tennessee, from which I speak to you today, to try to become a professional musician. That was my goal, that was my dream, that was really all I wanted. So I put a band together and we started performing. We recorded a couple of albums, we hit the festival circuit, we were getting good press, we were getting a little bit of a following, things were going really great, we were having a great time, and I did that all through my 20s.

Speaker 3: 7:41

And then I hit age 30. And one night I'm lying there in bed trying to sleep and my mind is wandering, my thoughts are drifting and I suddenly have this epiphany of sorts, and it's this Very few people tend to make it big in music after age 30. So that was not the best realization for me. Why? Because I was 30 at the time, I was having this realization and I had not yet made it big in music. So what does that mean, I wondered. Does this mean that this dream I've had for so long is going to die? Well gosh, I sure hope not.

Speaker 3: 8:21

You know, I had internalized all those messages that we give kids. You know you can do anything you set your mind to. Nothing is impossible if you believe, if you can dream it, you can do it. Winners never quit and quitters never win. All that good stuff, all those wonderful platitudes about never giving up, I had internalized. And so I said you know, I'm going to be that tiny percentage, that infinitesimal percentage that makes it big in music after age 30.

Speaker 3: 8:52

So I plugged away for a few more years and nothing didn't happen. I didn't get big in music. In fact, I started to get, you know, diminish, you know. My following started to move on and and this is where I just realized, sometimes dreams just die. I guess, I don't know. Um, and so I went to the place where dreams go to die, which is law school, and I got a law degree and I started working a grown up job as a prosecutor for the state of Tennessee. So I was, I was working this job and I was feeling pretty directionless, but I still had this hunger to engage with art and to engage with music, to make music as a source of my livelihood. Maybe what I can do instead is pass off music to somebody who can do with it what I can't. This dream of mine has burned down from this bright bonfire, down to this single little glowing ember, and maybe what I can do is take this little glowing ember and pass it off to somebody who can build it into a bright flame again. So I start volunteering at a music camp for teenagers called Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and their sister camp called Southern Girls Rock Camp, and I mean these camps are just like what they sound like.

Speaker 3: 10:12

We teach teenagers how to play rock and roll music. We bring them in on a week during the summer, sit them down on a Monday morning, 8 am. We say, all right, what instrument do you want to learn how to play? And you know guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, vocals, rock band instruments. Then, once they decided what instrument they want to play, we put them in bands kids they've never met before. Then we're off to the races 8 to 5, that Monday through that Friday. It is full intensive. We're teaching them how to play their instrument. Now, some of these kids have never touched a musical instrument before this week because we don't turn any kids away. So we get kids from all kinds of backgrounds backgrounds where they've never touched a musical instrument. So we're teaching them how to play their instrument. We're teaching them how to play in a band, how to write a song, how to record themselves, how to book a tour, how to fix a guitar amp all the things you need to know to be a professional, diy rock musician. We're teaching them how to do.

Speaker 3: 11:10

And then on that Saturday we put them up on stage in one of Nashville's big venues where superstars have played and they perform with full lights, full sound, full production for hundreds of paying audience members, and it's an absolutely magical experience. It's truly an incredible, incredible thing to watch. It was very moving to me and I volunteered at this camp for a few years before I was able to really put my finger on what it was. I loved so much about this experience, and it was.

Speaker 3: 11:41

I love the way that young adults love the art that they love. Young adults. They cling to the art that they love like a lifeline. They make it part of their identity, they weave it into the fabric of their being and it's so beautiful to watch and it made me think, man, wouldn't it be cool to have them as an audience, to have young adults as an audience, to make art for young adults?

Speaker 3: 12:09

Okay, but now I've got a real problem. Okay, so I'm having this realization and this is a new hunger in me, as strong as the hunger that led me to create music in the first place right, that led me to become an artist at all. But my problem is that the time I'm having this realization, I'm like 36 years old. I am way past the age when you can get your big break making the kind of music that gets marketed to teenagers. Right, the people making music for teenagers are your Billie Eilish's, your Sabrina Carpenter's. You know, these are young, young people. They are well ahead of age 30. So I have a choice at this point. All right, option A just walk away and die hungry. Just say you know what? Sure, would have been awesome to have young adults as an audience for art. But don't always get to do what you want to do in life, so just walk away and die hungry.

Speaker 3: 13:07

Option B is a little bit trickier. Here's what that requires. It's multiple, multiple things. Okay, follow me on this. First, I got to find some kind of art that young adults consume, but second, I'm not too old to make. The third I can somehow figure out how to make well, fourth now, having a full-time job, right, a family, a mortgage to pay responsibilities in the community, a lawn to mow, dogs to walk all the responsibilities of adulthood. See, when I was, I was learning how to play the guitar. I lived with my mom and dad. They took care of everything for me. I was a kid, I could play eight hours a day, it was fine, and I got to do all this in time to see my art reach young adults. Or I might as well have just chosen the first option and walked away and died hungry, because it's the same thing and I would have saved myself a lot of work.

Speaker 3: 14:06

Well, I chose option B. So first, I had to find some kind of art that young adults consume, that I'm not too old to make. So I started looking around what can I do? And I noticed that there's this big category of books called young adult books. This is a new marketing category within the world of publishing that didn't exist when I was a young adult and I know this because I worked at a bookstore when I was a young adult and I was over the children's section and this category did not exist in the 90s, in the early to mid 90s when I was working at this bookstore. But now it does. I said you know what I bet young adults read young adult books. Hey, you didn't know you were going to be talking with a genius tonight, did you? So I said you know, I think I'm going to try to write a young adult book.

Speaker 3: 14:58

Now, if you were paying attention to the beginning, this is where you might be wondering well, jeff, but what you know? What about the people in the ivory towers? You know the people sitting behind the big mahogany desks and the leather bound volumes and the Ivy League degrees, and type up a book and put it in the basket. The team of doves brings it down there and what about them, are you? Suddenly one of those people, team of does brings it down to and what about them? Are you suddenly one of those people? Well, no, I was the same person. I always was. Here are the three things that changed.

Speaker 3: 15:27

Okay, first, I was doing a lot of writing in my day job. Just as simple as that. I was having to write lots of legal briefs, lots of legal filings. I was having to make arguments. I was basically engaged in gladiatorial storytelling. I would tell a story and the other guy would tell a story, and our stories would meet on the field of combat and one story would emerge victorious. And I was starting to get pretty confident in that and feel pretty good about my ability to tell those stories. So I said you know, maybe I can use this ability to write stories for young adults. So that's the first thing.

Speaker 3: 16:04

Second thing, I met my first published author, and it wasn't just any old person, it was a friend of mine. She worked at a little library in Weaverville, north Carolina, and when things were slow which they almost always were it was a tiny little library. She would work on this young adult novel and she'd tell me about it. She'd say, jeff, I'm writing this young adult novel and I'm really excited, I'm going to get it published. And I would just listen and smile like a good friend and the whole time I'd be thinking you're not going to publish a novel because you are not in an ivory tower, which is where the people who publish books live. You are down here on earth hanging out with trash, like me. So you're not going to publish a novel ever.

Speaker 3: 16:45

Well, she didn't get the memo. So she finishes this young adult novel, sends it off to a literary agent. Right, because that's what you have to do. That's the step. You send it off to a literary agent. Literary agent didn't get the memo that people like my friend don't publish books and loved her book and said I want to represent you. So this literary agent took her book around to publishers who also didn't get the memo that people like my friend don't publish books, because a publisher bought it and loved it and published it to hundreds of thousands of adoring readers.

Speaker 3: 17:19

Who didn't get the memo that people like my friend don't publish books because she became a New York Times bestselling young adult author and I just I watched it happen. Netflix, who didn't get the memo, turned one of her books into a movie. I just watched it all happen right in front of me and I said, you know what People tend to hang out with, people who are like them more or less right. So if my friend is hanging out with me and she's an author, maybe that means I'm an author too, and I just don't know it yet. So that's the second thing.

Speaker 3: 17:52

Here's the third realization I had, and y'all pay attention to this one. If you haven't paid attention at all up until this point, pay attention to this one, because I think this is really important. This one is really applicable to everybody. Okay, you ready for this? I was no longer afraid to fail because I had failed at music. I did not accomplish what I wanted to accomplish in music and everything was fine. I mean, it hurts to fail, it's embarrassing to fail. You never want to fail, but in the end everything was totally fine. And here's what I realized from that.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Okay, so much of our fear of failure is not failure on its own merits, but it's a being seen to fail right? It's the difference between you know, you're walking down the street and you trip and fall and nobody sees you hey, you're scot-free, you dust yourself off, you keep on walking, you're fine. Whereas if you're walking down the street and you trip and fall and people see you, that's the worst right. Failure is the same way. We're so afraid to try things and fail. But the fact of the matter is is everybody has so much going on in their own lives, they've got their own heartbreaks to worry about. They have their own failures to worry about. They have their own hopes and dreams and desires to worry about. Nobody is keeping track of your failures, your triumphs, any of it.

Speaker 3: 20:48

I still have friends. Come to me okay, good friends, and say, jeff, how's the music going? And I'm like dude, what music. I have not made music in 15 years. I've spent the last 10 years publishing six novels. I am a novelist now through and through, like I'm so done with music. And they're like, huh, cool man, we'll have to read one of your books. That's awesome and it's like that's just how it is. So let that be a freeing thought to you. Let that free you to try things and fail again and again and again, knowing that nobody cares, nobody's watching you. And if you can give yourself the space and the freedom to fail, then you're going to be totally fine.

Speaker 3: 21:44

So with those three things in place, I decided to write a young adult novel. So I go out and I start thinking of an idea for a novel. I go back to actually to my songwriting catalog and I come up with a couple of ideas based on my songs and I can't decide which one I want to expand out into novel form. So I decided to just mush them both together into the same book. Because that's the other thing about not fearing failure it frees you to take artistic risks, to creative risks, which is good. So I was like I'm just going to take a creative risk here because I'm probably going to fail. Nobody's going to read this book. So mush the ideas together. Next I go to write the book. Nothing happens.

Speaker 3: 22:24

This is where I realize I have no clue how to write a novel. I've never had a creative writing class no, mfa, nothing. I have no clue how to write a novel. I've never had a creative writing class no, mfa, nothing. I have no clue how to write a novel. So here's what I decide to do I decide to cheat and let my characters write my novel for me, because I could never sit across from any one of y'all and say to you tell you who you are, let me tell you where you've been, where you're going, what you desire, what you fear, all those things.

Speaker 3: 22:51

What I could do is listen to you as you tell me those things about yourself and I could write that down. That ends up to be a pretty good story Just me listening to you and writing down. So if I can do that with real people, I can do it with fictional people, I figured, as long as I make them real. So I invite my characters into my head and I say to them I don't know how to write a novel, so I'm going to need you to tell me your story and that's how this novel is going to get written. So I walked around with characters in my head for three or four months until they were ready to tell me their story. And so I go to write their story.

Speaker 3: 23:26

And this is where I realize I don't have time to write a novel. I don't know what I was thinking. I have a job, I have a family, I have dogs to walk, I have a lawn to mow, a mortgage to pay. I have no time to write a novel. When am I going to do this?

Speaker 3: 23:41

Well, one day I get on the bus to go to work. I take the bus every day and I pull out my phone, kind of like this one to text a friend, and I start to text this friend. I go wait a minute. What if, instead of texting this friend, I open up a Google document and I entitle it the Serpent King, which was the name of my work in progress, and I just put down some words on the page with my right thumb on the way into work, just tap, tap, tap all the way into work. So I get into work and I look down, there's 543 words there, which is 543 more words than there was that morning, which was zero words. So I worked through the day. Get back on the bus. I say you know what? That felt pretty good, I'm going to do it again going back home. Going to do it again going back home 607 more words, ok, over 1100 words with my right thumb on my phone on the bus to and from work. So I did a little math and I said, if I do this for 60 to 80 more days, I'm going to end up with a novel draft. Ok, because young adult novels, around 60 to 80,000 words. Well, it took me about 25 days because I was going home that night and after my son was put to bed I was working on it on my laptop, so about 25 days I had a first draft of my novel. So, long story short, I got a literary agent for that novel and in sorry, I'm grabbing a copy of it here.

Speaker 3: 25:10

In March of 2016, they published it's hard to see because of my light, sorry, there we go. They published this novel called the Serpent King. March of 2017, they published another book that I wrote with my thumb called Goodbye Days. February of 2019, they published another book I wrote with my thumb called Rain and Delilah's Midnight Matinee. August of 2021, they published another book I wrote with my thumb called In the Wild Light. April 2024, they published my first book for grownups called Colton Gentry's third act. There it is in paperback out now. And in July of 2024, they published another book, my first verse novel that I co-wrote with my friend, brittany Cavallaro, called Sunrise Nights. So there we go. That's that's me. That's my journey, that's how I became a writer. That's a very long answer to your question, jd, but I hope I answered it all right.

Speaker 2: 26:22

You did you did. Now that you write for both adults and children, what's the difference between writing for the two audiences and which do you find easier?

Speaker 3: 26:31

So honestly, there's not a lot of difference. I mean, when I have I came to writing for young adults with the utmost respect for the intellect of teenagers, I believe to my soul that I am not capable of writing any sentence, expressing any idea, expressing any emotional truth, anything that is too sophisticated for a teenager to understand, to face any of it. I can't do it. I'm not capable of it. Maybe there are authors out there who can write stuff that is too sophisticated for a teenager, but I'm not one of them. So when I write for teenagers I swing for the fences and I don't do a thing differently in terms of sophistication of emotional truth, writing any of that, than I do with adults. Really, the only difference is the age of the protagonist. Colton Gentry's third act is a 38-year-old alcoholic country singer who blows his life up and has to move back home to a small town in Kentucky, and there he reconnects with his high school flame who is also divorced and moved back home. You can't write that story about a 17-year-old right, he needed to live a few more years. So that's why it's an adult book. But in terms of craft, in terms of sentence, in terms of emotional truth, no difference, which is easier. I think writing for adults is easier.

Speaker 3: 27:59

I think adults are a more forgiving audience than teenagers are Teenagers. You are competing with video games, you're competing with TikTok, you're competing with texting friends. They have so many entertainment options. Many of them don't have the relationship with reading that we adults have. I grew up in a time when if you wanted entertainment in a car on a long road trip, your choice was book or Nintendo Game Boy. And I didn't have a Nintendo Game Boy, so my choice was book. So I had that relationship with reading. Kids now a lot of them don't have that relationship with reading, so you really got to hook them in. So I think writing for teenagers is actually tougher.

Speaker 2: 28:44

How do you hook someone on the first page?

Speaker 3: 28:48

I think you have to have a good opening line. I think that is so important. I think, within moments of starting your book, you need to show your reader your main character loving someone, being loved by somebody, or both. That's my secret. I think that is the most universally appealing thing is to see that you are engaged with somebody who is capable of loving others or who is capable of being loved, or preferably both.

Speaker 3: 29:24

I'll read you my favorite opening line from any of my books. It comes from Goodbye Days, and I was about to tell you what this book is about, but I say it in the opening line. So here it is, chapter one. Depending on who sorry, whom you ask, I may have killed my three best friends. So that's the opening line, right there, right? I mean, I feel like that would make me want to know who is this kid who thinks he killed his three best friends but who stops himself mid-sentence to correct his own grammar? What kind of kid is this? Who, this character? Um, and I, I think that's what you, you want to shoot for if, uh, with an opening line well, um, the middle.

Speaker 2: 30:17

How do you keep the middle from getting saggy, soggy, or you know?

Speaker 3: 30:21

oh gosh, if you ask people who read my books, they might say, well, jeff doesn't do that, but um, I I think it's really important to try to start your book as close to the ending as you possibly can. Okay, so that the middle is has a lot of action going on and on going on in it. For me personally, it is important to do a little bit of outlining, a little bit of plotting in advance. Give myself a little bit of a roadmap so I can see, before I get into the desert of writing a novel, if I'm going to run into trouble in the middle, if I can look at that outline and say, gosh, that outline, it looks a little slim in the middle.

Speaker 3: 31:05

Now, that isn't the way for everybody, and I want to emphasize that there are as many valid ways to write a book as there are authors. Any method that gets you a finished, polished novel at the end of your process is a valid process as far as I'm concerned. Now, if you've got a process that is not resulting in you finishing books, I think you need to change your process. But any process that results in a finished book that you are happy with, that is an expression of what you wanted to say go nuts. However, you want to do it.

Speaker 2: 31:39

What makes? How do you craft a compelling ending? How do you tie up all the bows and finish it off?

Speaker 3: 31:47

For me. I really have to have my ending in my head before I ever write the opening sentence, so I understand what everything is building to. Everything is reaching a fever pitch for this ending. I think for me that is really important. Again, I don't want to suggest that my way is the only way to write a novel. It works for me. If that works for you, great. But the trick is you've got to find what works for you. Also, I have smart people read my books for me and tell me where I've gone astray, and tell me if my middle is sagging and tell me if my ending isn't compelling. And you want to get smart, honest, candid people to read your work and tell me if my ending isn't compelling. And you want to get smart, honest, candid people to read your work and tell you where you can improve.

Speaker 2: 32:38

You do a great job with settings too. Do you have any tips for us on how to craft a good setting?

Speaker 3: 32:44

Well, I write what I know. All of my books are either set in the South or have a strong connection to the South. My latest book that I just turned into my editor is called Love Like Apples and it takes place mostly in 1970s New York, but it is a character from East Tennessee. So again there is that connection to the South. But I think, write what you know, write what you love, write the place you love, write a place you feel passionate about, write a place you love enough to have observed it in all of its little details and all of its little foibles. You know, be observant, move through your world with your eyes open, like really impress upon your memory the things you love about, about your place and think about how you can describe it to to make other people love it too. I think that all helps a lot.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Any questions anyone? What's the best writing advice you've ever heard?

Speaker 3: 34:00

What's the best writing advice I've ever heard?

Speaker 2: 34:05

Or that you want to share with us, if you have any advice you want to give.

Speaker 3: 34:10

Let me think about that for a second, because I've gotten a lot of good writing advice. I will say that my friend who became the published young adult novelist gave me the advice that everybody sane will eventually get published. That everybody's saying will eventually get published. If you don't give up and you continue to listen to the critique, that will make you a stronger writer. If you're willing to listen and you're willing to improve and you're willing to take critique, you will eventually get published. Now it may take seven, eight, nine, 10 novels for that to happen. You may have 10 novels in your desk drawer before you get published, but if you are willing to do it, you will get published. It is. It is, I won't say that easy, because it's not easy, but it is that amenable to persistence People who just simply don't give up.

Speaker 2: 35:12

Erica wanted to know. I'm sorry. Yeah, Erica wanted to know. Oh, you see it.

Speaker 3: 35:16

Yep, what's the worst writing advice you've heard? I love this. I am a big fan of dialogue. I am a big fan of minimal attribution in dialogue. Okay, because I firmly believe that it is the character's conversation, and the more you butt your nose in as the author, the more chance you run of screwing up that dialogue. So I think never using anything but said is perfectly wonderful for dialogue. In fact, it's preferable, because said as a dialogue attribution is so boring as to be transparent.

Speaker 3: 35:57

Right, and you want to be transparent. You want your reader focused on the dialogue. You don't want your reader focused on your flowery vocabulary in your dialogue tags. So you don't want. Hey, susan, let's go to the park. Jimmy intoned Like who cares that? You know the word intoned. Now you've taken the focus off the dialogue back to yourself. Hey, look at me, let's go to the park, susan, jimmy said. Now you've got the focus back on the dialogue.

Speaker 3: 36:25

So I will see writing teachers in high school pass out these lists to their students that say said is dead at the top, and it'll have like 400 synonyms for the word said. They're all terrible. You shouldn't use any of them. And the reason is because they're more interesting than the word said, because they're going to draw the reader's eye, because they're going to draw attention away from the dialogue. That is precisely why you shouldn't use them. The reason you should use said is because it is boring, it is trite, it is simple. It is all the things that will cause your reader to just barely register it in their minds, just enough so that they know somebody said something and who said it.

Speaker 2: 37:09

That's it just enough so that they know somebody said something and who said it. That's it, love that. Love that.

Speaker 3: 37:18

I know you had time constraints, I'm not going to hold you hostage too long tonight. Well, thank you all for showing up tonight. I sure appreciate it. You know, if you've got any questions, I'm Jeff Zentner at gmailcom. Shoot me a question if you want. And yeah, if you're so inclined, pick up one of my books. They're at the libraries, they're on, you know, wherever fine books are sold. So I thank you very much for your kind attention. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 37:42

And follow him on Facebook. You guys, he has great politics and he's a great guy. Thank you so much, Jeff. We greatly appreciate it. We learned a lot. You have a great night.

Speaker 3: 37:51

You too.

Speaker 4: 37:55

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