This week I share about my trip to England and how it inspired me to really take a look at my novel. Before I left I knew there were some problems with it, and I hoped that taking a break would refresh me enough to magically find those holes and fix them immediately upon return.
Didn’t happen. But, there are a few things you can do to find and fix those plot holes. I share what I did and give you a few more resources to check out for yourself.
Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, a weekly podcast for writers. Grab a cup of coffee. Perhaps some paper and pen.
Kat (00:23)
And enjoy an interview with an author, a chat it with a writing tool creator, perhaps a conversation with an editor or other publishing experts, as well as Cat’s thoughts on writing and her own creative journey. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.
Kat (00:38)
Well, hopefully not actually cry. But you will probably learn something. And I hope you’ll be inspired to write because as I always say.
Kat (00:47)
You have a story. You should write it down.
Kat (00:51)
This is Pencils and Lipstick. Hello, creative writers, and welcome to another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. This is episode number 123. Yes, that is episode 123 of, Pencils and Lipstick. I’m Kat Caldwell. I am your hostess and I am not only back from England, which was an amazing trip and I’ll tell you all a little bit about, but I came back directly into cherry blossom season here in Virginia and oh my gosh, am I suffering. So as a person who is allergic to all trees in the entire world, pretty much every single time I go in for an allergy test, they just give up testing and say you’re basically allergic to everything that grows green in the world. If you’re out there suffering too, I feel you. Itchy throat, itchy eyes, everything’s swollen in my face. So I hope that my voice stays for this episode. It is going to be a solo zone episode, just me catching up with you guys. If you didn’t catch last week’s, it was with Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware definitely worth checking out. (Check it out here). Before I go into a little recap of England, if you wouldn’t mind, when you subscribe to the Pencils and Lipstick podcast, wherever you’re listening to podcasts, would you give it a review?
Kat (02:21)
If you haven’t yet, that really helps. Let me know if things are going well. You can always contact me on Instagram, Facebook, Katcaldwellauthor. Instagram. It’s Katcaldwell.Author. You can pretty much find me at katcaldwell.com. And if you know another writer, share this podcast with them. I love interviewing writers. I love interviewing experts in the field, and I think that we can learn from so many people. I was actually talking about learning and how we get exposed out there as writers. And somebody said that Alexander Torre gave us a little bit of advice and I want to pass it on to you because I think it’s really great. As much as I love talking to all of the people that have some sort of author service, because most authors indie authors want to help other indie authors be successful. Elizondo Tori said you should pick and choose the services that are right for you, the advice that’s right for you and not do everything. So I do want to let you know that as you listen to these episodes, come in with just like curiosity and to kick back and have a fun time for a little under an hour.
Kat (03:39)
You know, listen to somebody’s story, listen to about their books or how they got into the book writing field or the book publishing field. But you don’t have to take everything to heart and change up your plan every week because I guess that I have on has something different to say, right. Things that work for you or things that you think that you can implement better. Take that advice. Go down that route, but don’t try to do everything. Don’t try to do everyone’s plan. A lot of people have really great advice out there, and it has to be adapted to what you write, how your life is, what’s going on, how much time you have, how much money you have, all these different things and what you enjoy doing. If you don’t enjoy doing social media, don’t do it. Basically, life is too short. I just want to give you that little bit of, I don’t know, heads up. Don’t feel like every single time you come into the episode that you have to implement everything everyone’s doing. Just have fun. Hear about them. Yes, have fun with me. That’s really what I want from you guys.
Kat (04:49)
So England was incredible. Amazing. We only had two days of rain, so we were super blessed with that. We actually hiked through a sheep field to get to Stonehenge in the pouring rain. It was raining a little bit, and then it started to rain a whole lot more. We had boots and we had big old raincoats, and by the end of it, it didn’t matter. There was water in our boots because our pants were soaked and our pants couldn’t hold any more water. So it was just dripping off of our pants into our boots. Yes, it was a memorable experience. My kids are troopers. They complained a little bit as they should because their kids and their parents are having them try them through this sheepfield to get to Stonehenge, but totally worth it. We have some great shots, and I even managed to not have mascara running down my face as we take pictures. So Stonehenge is one of those places that I’ve always wanted to go, and I was surprised that it was so close to London and we actually rented a car. That was quite the adventure. I highly recommend doing it.
Kat (06:06)
It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s almost like getting on a roller coaster every single day because you just never know what’s going to happen. My husband would drive and I would be in what we would call the driver’s seat, but obviously it’s the passenger seat. Just making sure that whenever he turned, he turned directly into the left Lane and not into the right Lane. And it’s amazing how many times his brain just forgot sometimes. But we all got back in one piece. We also went to go see Bath, which is a really cute town. And I have to say probably my favorite. It’s, like, just big enough to have quite a bit of England to it, plus city, but it’s not super huge. It’s kind of like Toulouse in France, where I live for six years. It’s not the biggest city, but it has enough of the city that you don’t feel claustrophobic, although I think it’s small enough that if you grew up there, it would feel like a small town to you. So those are my thoughts on that. We went up to Stradford upon Even and saw the house that Shakespeare was born in and his wife’s house.
Kat (07:17)
Unfortunately, the Museum was closed for the season, doesn’t open until the end of March, so whatever. We didn’t get to see his gardens and go into the house, but that’s fine. We did get to see the Bath. The Roman baths in Bath very much worth it. If you like history, if you just, like seeing, like, how people lived in the past. It was pretty cool. They’ve set it up really well there. Where else did we go? We went to Bribery, which is voted England’s cutest town or most beautiful town or something. This year, it’s really tiny. It looks like kind of like the Hobbit village from Lord of the Rings. You’ll have to go to my Instagram to see it. Yeah, it’s very cute. And where else do we go? We went to Woodstock, which houses Blenheim Palace, which is the Duke of Marlborough’s estate. I think they call it Estates. It’s Ginormous. The palace is still in the hands of the family, although I think it’s run by whatever historical society or group or whatever. The Duke still lives there, still has his quarters on some wing of the palace. It’s pretty crazy. And we found out that it’s where Winston Churchill was born, and the lady told us that his father exclaimed that he was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen.
Kat (08:43)
And it didn’t last long. I wouldn’t say he’s the most handsome man, but that was fun to see that and just sort of enjoy the view of it happens to have the Harry Potter tree, which is in the film. I don’t know what film it is. My daughter would know that, you know, where Snape has his worst memory ever. So that’s where they filmed that, which is a fun little surprise, because, of course, this was like a half Harry Potter trip. Then we went over to Oxford. My kids actually liked Oxford the best. It was really interesting. Very old, very fun to sort of walk the streets and imagine how many people have been there, how things have changed. They’ve done a really good job of preserving everything. We got to go up into the spiral of the Church and sort of look out over the town. Honestly, if I was younger, I would totally recommend somebody going to school there for a year. It’s a really cool College town. And then we went to London. And the first day we had beautiful, beautiful Sunshine. And so we walked 15 miles. We literally did a full circle of London from above Hyde Park, where we were staying all the way down to the South Bank, seeing all the sites in between, going to High Park in Mayfair and graphs in the park and over to the palace in St James Park.
Kat (10:10)
Where else do we go down over the bridge, seeing the London eye, coming back over, going down Oxford Street, trying to think of all the things, going over to Piccadilly Circus and back over to where we were staying. And then we went to the Tower of London where the Crown jewels are housed. And that was honestly very cool to see. And just to see like that, I didn’t know and I think of myself as a history buff, but I didn’t know that that was really the Castle where a lot of the old Kings lived, where King Henry the 8th, where Anne Bauhan came in and King Henry VII greeted her, where they sort of had these towers and they lived and took taxes from the Thames and all that. So that was sort of like, I don’t know at what point they moved over to the palace, but we’re talking like 1516 hundred over at this London Tower. Tower of London. Yeah. It was cool to see all their swords and all the things throughout the ages of what they’ve had there and what it’s been used for, really. Right. So beautiful, beautiful trip. We are now back in the daily grind of writing and running with the group.
Kat (11:36)
I’m really excited to get back into Sprint, so I’m excited to get some writing done. I was thinking while I was over there, we went into Jane Austin. It actually wasn’t her house. It was down the street from her house, the house that she lived in and Bath was occupied by a dentist. The Museum said they couldn’t convince the dentist to leave, so they sort of got a house down the road. And so we went into her house and it was interesting to sit back and think about Jane Austen and what an impact she has made on the writing world. Whether you’ve read her books or not, her impact is pretty clear through movies, through the romance genre, through just the way to tell stories and write novel. She’s also a pioneer as a female author. And what’s terrible and some of you might know, but I did not was that she never got to see her name on her works when she was alive. Her name actually came out on her works one year after she passed away. I think that was 18, perhaps. Don’t quote me on that. But one year after she passed away, her brother finally convinced the publishers to put her name on her works.
Kat (12:55)
And she was only 42. And that’s young guys, by today’s standards. Right. But that wasn’t so young back then. And she got six books written in her life and they all got published while she was alive. But she didn’t get to sort of have that glory of being kind of the genius that she is and being critically acclaimed for creating these really beautiful, lovely stories that dig really deep into character and people and how people interact and communicate and how their actions and their thoughts, how their thoughts and their beliefs basically how to put them into actions. Right. And then we sort of have to step back and evaluate our actions and then make another decision from there. And that’s really the basis of the modern novel. A good novel is when you’re looking at somebody’s world belief and sort of what we grow up believing the world to be and believing other people to be. We internalize all this stuff and then we act it out as we grow, as we’re adults. Like, how many times as an adult do you sort of look around your family or where you grew up or whatever and you realize that you had a different view of it in your head than what it actually was or what it actually is?
Kat (14:23)
Because we’re internalizing this and it’s creating this world belief. And a novel is really taking the world belief out of the main character, which is always flawed, like we’re always flawed in our world beliefs and they can always be challenged, I guess. And taking that world belief and showing the reader how that belief, how that internalized belief has led this main character to a certain action in which you’re starting the story of how they’re going to sort of overcome their inner struggle right through the outer struggle of whatever’s happening around them to come out on the other end, understanding themselves more understanding the world, more understanding perhaps the mistakes they’ve made and learning from them, finally choosing correctly, usually having some sort of glory in the end. That’s kind of what most novels are. Most of us want fairly good endings, and that doesn’t mean that everyone survives the novel, but we want the satisfying ending. That kind of good has prevailed or what should happen has prevailed. But on the plane, I watched The Green Light. How many of you watched this? I guess this is based on a sort of ancient book, as far as I can tell.
Kat (15:54)
And it was a really interesting movie to watch as a writer to sort of look at it critically and see what is happening. This Knight basically is the nephew of the King, and he is rambunctious and precarious. And on Christmas Day, this green light comes in, kind of looks like a tree and says that he wants to play a game and whoever will stand up to him and whatever that person does to him, he will then do to them the next year. Okay. Pretty clear, right? And so nobody stands up. None of the nights stand up. The precarious nephew who wants glory but has really just been carousing all of his life. Stands Up and says, I will do it. And then when the green knight kneels turns his neck, he chops the guy’s head off. And then it’s very mystical. So the green giant stands up and grabs his head and says, I’ll see you in a year. Okay? So very mystical. Interesting. So a year comes around, and basically the night figures out that he has to go if he realizes that he has to make some sort of change and that he needs to finish this, otherwise he’s sort of going to lose his glory status that he’s enjoyed for a year.
Kat (17:23)
And so he goes on this journey and lots of really kind of weird things happen, and they’re really there to sort of force him into a growing situation. But the ending is very odd. I’ll say I also watched a I don’t think that I should give you the whole layout of the movie, but it was interesting. It wasn’t a very modern tale. It had an ending that isn’t very modern. And so that’s very artistic, I guess, in the sense that it’s not following the grain of what most movies are. And so it isn’t wrong to go off the grid. I’m trying to say as a writer, but you just have to know how to do it properly and you have to know when you do the things that most people aren’t expecting. I’ll say that the ending was very unexpected to me. I didn’t know the story before. You’re going to have to know that it might rub some people wrong. I wouldn’t say that I wouldn’t watch it again, but I wasn’t super into the movie. If any of you have watched this movie, please reach out and tell me what you thought about it.
Kat (18:40)
I also watched a Spanish movie called La CASA DE CARACOLES, the House of Snails. Very interesting. Paz Vega is in it. So it’s very well done. More well known people than this other movie, the Green Night, and that too had an ending that was very different. And it was a mystery movie where he shows up at this town and lots of weird things are happening. And he’s a writer and he’s just trying to get his book done. But you realize more and more that he’s having this emotional crisis. And you wonder, is him getting together with the girl going to help him through this crisis or what’s really going to happen? Are they going to catch the guy that started terrorizing the town? Is this myth terrorizing? Is it a myth or is it not a myth? Is it real? Very interesting ending. And honestly, I personally think there are holes to the ending. I don’t know what other people would think about it, but I think the ending is missing something. But again, if you are going to do an ending that doesn’t roll with exactly how this satisfying ending. If you’re going to go with a surprise ending that really throws people for a loop, just know as you’re writing the story that there will definitely be some people who are like, I don’t know if that works.
Kat (20:12)
Again, great movie. Very well done. I would totally recommend it. House of Snails, CASA DE Los Caracoles. And even, like, in the name. I don’t know how it was really integrated, except that he found snails in the house, like twice. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking too much about it. This is my problem, guys, because I’m writing, I think, too much. Maybe I overthink stuff. So as I use those two examples, first of all, of how Jane Austen sort of revolutionized the novel and how she sort of created this setup that we still pretty much use today. We need character studies. We need to see how their worldview is creating a sort of bias and pushing them to have these decisions and actions that are probably causing chaos. And then how the world around your character is sort of pushing them and squeezing them and moving them into having to confront themselves and to face their decisions and the consequences that they’ve had. All these things. We know that, right? And then I give you these other two examples. So we typically know what we want to do with our book. We know how it should be structured.
Kat (21:37)
And I say this to tell you, but it’s not always easy to do that. And one thing again that I want to reiterate is talking out your novel. So you know how I tell you this sort of summary of the green night? I haven’t told you the ending. I could give you more details, but I’d make the podcast really long and you’d be probably very bored. But taking out these sort of scenes and things of your book with another person is really important to do in order to figure out if you have any holes. So if we take the green light and the ending that it has, it is very odd. And I would say a lot of people would have an issue with. Yeah. I would say that if you’re talking it out with another person, especially another writer, they’re probably going to point out to you, hey, that ending sounds a bit odd. And then you’re going to have to defend the ending or realize that it’s not good or that it’s not enough or that you need more. Right. So I did this actually with my husband. I have two novel ideas, and they’ve just been, like, simmering in my head.
Kat (22:57)
One of them I’m working on, but I knew before I left for England that something needs to shift in it and I need to figure out what it is. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and finally I realized, you know what? I need to take my own advice and get out of my head and talk about it. And so I sat down and I had well, it didn’t fit. We went for a walk and I had to go through the entire story that’s in my head as though it’s a movie. Like as though I had come back from a movie and tell him because he has no idea what it is, what’s in my head, and to tell him in such a way that he would understand the storyline. And of course, because he doesn’t know it, he had questions. And that made me realize I had to go back. Okay, yeah, this is what it is. Okay. But this is the answer to that. Maybe something’s missing. And honestly, it took about an hour to go back and forth and think, okay, because there are two brothers. How would a man react with this?
Kat (24:00)
Like a young boy, a teenager? How would this work? How would that work? And it really came together. The hole that was in my story just got filled. I’m not kidding you. It was like, oh, yeah, this is what I should do. And both he and my husband and I actually got pretty excited. Oh. And then we could do that or this. And we actually came up with sort of two different ways that it could happen that I wrote down. And as I’m writing, I can then look back on the notes that I just took and say, okay, where is the story going on? Which direction on this decision do I want them to make? And I know that I’ve said this before. If you’re a new listener, I would highly recommend you use some sort of Journal so you not only talk about this stuff. Actually, as we were walking, I realized, I wish I had been recording it, but I did come back and write it all out. So you could do that. You could record it, but talk out loud with somebody. Try to go through your entire book. And even if you don’t think it has any holes, try to go through your entire book, telling them what the storyline is and allowing them to ask questions.
Kat (25:13)
Don’t get frustrated. Have patience. They’re not reading your book yet, but you’re going to realize that you’re either not explaining enough and you’re going to need to tell them the full story to even the end. I know I’m not giving you the end of the Green night, but you’re going to have to tell them even the end. This is what I want to have happen. This is what I want to have happen. Okay, then if I want this to happen, how can I have him or her make that choice? Does it make sense? Would a person do that? And I really do think that talking things out helps. This is why there are a lot of book coaches out there. And a book coach will work with you for a couple of months to probably up to a year where you get to come and talk to them all the time. And if you’re really struggling with your book or you’re new to it, it’s a really good option in investment to do because the next time that you write the next book, you will understand that process better and you’ll get out of your head better.
Kat (26:16)
But, you know, you can join writers groups as things are opening up. I’m sure there are local writers groups or just grab a friend, go for a walk. My husband is not a writer. He’s in finance. He doesn’t even read novels, actually. And actually, I wonder if it’s better that he doesn’t really read novels because he didn’t want to shape my book to anything that he reads. So he was just listening. So find a friend, try to explain your novel out. This is also going to help you with your book, blurb what you have to put on Amazon.com or on the back of your book. When people ask you what your book is about, you’ll have a much clearer view of it because you spent first an hour trying to explain it, and then you take notes. I took about four pages of notes on a regular Journal size, so that’s already condensed down. And then you’re going to be able to talk about it better. You’re going to be able to see your characters better instead of like, I don’t know about you, but sitting in front of the computer and just like, doing the study of doing, like, a character study.
Kat (27:23)
Sometimes it’s just kind of boring. But talking it out and having a really clear picture of it, I don’t know. It just saved me time. It saved me some headache. I was getting a headache because I knew there was a hole and I couldn’t find it. I recovered from my headache. That’s it. So I really want to encourage you guys to do that as you’re writing or even if you’re done writing, take somebody for a walk or join a writer’s group. Have that time to explain your phone book, listen to their feedback, listen to their questions, write them down, mold them over, decide what you need to change and not change. And when it comes to all of you who like to be very exploratory and believe me, we all want to be kind of that new thing, right? And it’s not bad. Just know that if your ending or your book leaves people with questions, some will like that and some won’t. That’s sort of like a side note. And it’s in my head because of the green night. So I wasn’t planning on talking about that sign up so much. But it’s like, oh, this ending of the Green night really kind of got me.
Kat (28:43)
We are going to have quite a few guests coming on in 2022, but I do want to leave you today as you’re going through your novel, if you are feeling a little stuck like I was feeling before I left, I think I needed to talk it out, but I also needed to break from it. If you’re feeling stuck, there’s a couple of different places that you can go to sort of not find inspiration but find help. A I would highly recommend Lisa Crohn’s books Wired for Story. If you’re really stuck on sort of what makes a great story. And this is like I was thinking about Jane Austin. She must have just known. It was like inherent to her what made a great story. Maybe her sister was her sounding board. I don’t know. But if you feel suddenly stuck and believe me, this can come when you’re a new writer or when you’re like 16 books in and all of a sudden you realize for some reason your brain gets stuck. I mean, we’ve been through Kovate and now there’s terrible news all around the world and all the overwhelmed. It’s okay if you’re stuck and it’s okay if you are on your first or second or 16th book and you just feel like suddenly you need a refresher course on writing.
Kat (30:01)
The very number one thing I would recommend you to read is Wired for Story by Lisa Crone, followed up by Story Genius. I would read Wired for Story first. It doesn’t matter really. That’s just my personal preference. If anything, read those two Lisa Crone, Cron and Wiredforstory.com. You can find like a course that she created using her method. So that is one resource for you. If you guys have never heard of the writing, the SARSes by Angela Ackerman and Becca Greecey, I think it’s pronounced. I would highly recommend you guys find them. There are the occupation, thesaurus the emotional, thesaurus the conflict visars. I think there’s two volumes of that. There are these just big books like The Occupation, thesaurus it’s like a couple of hundred occupations of what your character could be doing, what conflicts have come with it, what kind of person would be good for the job? Maybe what the pros and cons will be with the job. It’s pretty cool. So if you need like a job for your main character or even your side characters or you kind of need to understand the dynamic of an occupation that you haven’t had, it’s a really great fast source and they have like six of these.
Kat (31:19)
And very cool. I’ve already booked Becca to come on and talk about them, but in the meantime, you should check them out as well. Just type in, let’s say the occupation, the forest, and they’ll come up Angela Ackerman and Becca Gleesy. And of course, I’ll have links in the show notes. Also, if you really like to write short stories or you want to go back to short stories or honestly understanding what a short story is and how you write a short story will help you know how to write a novel pretty much check out Story a Day. I had Julie Duffy on the show a couple episodes back. I would check her out Story a Day.com. You can listen to the episode that I have with her. She’s having her annual Story a Day month coming up in May that it would be a great thing for you to participate in if you feel stuck for any sort of inspiration or you kind of want to go back to short stories or short stories are your thing. You can also check out Jane Freedman. She’s been around for forever. Janefreedman.com. She has so much information about writing in the publishing industry for both fiction and nonfiction.
Kat (32:38)
She is really great to check out. So I just want to make sure that I give you guys some resources as I do these solo episodes. I don’t want to leave you hanging. I do really want to encourage you to talk about your novel and to describe it out as though it’s a movie. Whether you need help with the plotline or not, it’s going to help you see your story better. It’s going to help you see your characters better. I think it’s really going to help your story sort of shine and you be proud of it even more. Even if there’s something to change, you can see already from the reaction of the person that it’s a good story. Get your confidence up there and it’s going to help you with your book, blurb, et cetera. And check out those movies and let me know what you thought about them. So I will have links in the Show Notes below. Next week, I am back with interviews, I believe. Yes, I don’t know what day it is today, so I think today is the 19 March. Oh yes, it’s the 19 March. I’m still jet lagdale and really hyped up on allergy medication, but I hope you guys have a lovely week.
Kat (33:53)
Be sure to share this podcast with your friends, all your writing friends. And if you are not subscribed to my newsletter, definitely subscribe to it. It’s in the Show Notes. I have a writers newsletter for writers in a Reader’s newsletter for readers. And if you want to become a patron and you want to make sure that this podcast keeps going and you keep hearing my lovely voice, whether or not I’m stuffed up with cherry blossoms or not. And you want to hear from other authors and people in the publishing industry, head on over to Patreon. Compentalsick and become a patron. You can do it for $3. You can do it for $10. You can do it monthly or one time gig. If you become a patron at $10, you can let me know what your book is, and I will put your book in the Show Notes and give you a little shout out. But until next time, you all have a wonderful week.
Kat (35:08)
Hey, you’re still listening since you are could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show. It would really help the Pencil Olympics podcast get out into the world and if you’re enjoying the podcast well then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me, you can head over to Catcallsville.com. I have my story over there, my books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market and all the things that go into being an author these days chat check out the membership group there is a 14 free day trial that you can try it out, get into the masterminds, find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group. I would love to see you there.