Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.
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Mindy: We're here with Karen McManus, author of so many different highly popular YA mysteries. Her newest is Nothing More to Tell, which just released. I wanna talk about a bunch of different things. First of all, I wanna talk about this book in particular, the new release, Nothing More to Tell. One of the things that I think is so interesting about this is that it deals with the murder of an adult, which I think is really interesting to take that angle in a YA novel.
Karen: Yeah, Nothing More to Tell is, hard to believe, my sixth book. I was interested in exploring the notion of centering a mystery around a beloved teacher. I think teachers can play such an important role in a young person's life. I started writing, in part, because of my second grade teacher who encouraged me, and I always wish that I had the opportunity to thank her for that. So Mr. Larkin is the former teacher of both Brynn and Tripp, my protagonists. And Brynn, in particular, has always felt an affinity for him because he was the first teacher to encourage her and her love for writing and ultimately journalism. And Tripp, of course, can't stop thinking about Mr. Larkin because he is one of the three kids who found their teacher's body in the woods behind school four years ago.
Mindy: Something I run into fairly often when I'm thinking about a plot for a murder mystery or anything like that. The very first thing that you have to think about is why. Why would someone kill this person? What is the motive? And one of the things that I have come upon recently is that while I'm working or if I'm trying to come up with a new idea or a fresh idea, to my mind, the motivations, the reasons why people kill people are sex, power and money. And, to me, I have a hard time coming up with anything that isn't one of those three or a mix. And I had a moment, particularly this summer, where I was like, "Oh no. If you've really only got three motivations in the history of the world for committing murder, how do we keep this fresh and how do we keep this interesting?"
Karen: Right. Those are certainly a big three, and then there's sub-categories beneath that. There's revenge. There's to protect yourself or others. There's fear. There's anger. I think getting to the emotions that lie beneath those big encompassing reasons is what interests me. What was a person feeling at that moment that drove them to this worst point in their life?
Mindy: I agree. Those sub-categories is where you get past motive and you get into character.
Karen: And for me, that's always the most interesting part of the story. I mean, I like a good hook. I like a good high-level concept that I can build around, but ultimately, if I don't care deeply about the characters, I feel like the readers are not going to care that much about the story. So that's where I tend to spend the bulk of my prep time is figuring out who's in the room. Either literally or metaphorically, depending on what type of story I'm writing. Why are they there? What are they afraid of? What do they want? What are they hiding? 'Cause my characters are usually hiding something, and what's gonna happen to them if their secret gets out.
Mindy: I think that that is really insightful for other writers that may be listening. When you are working with a murder mystery, typically, I find it has to be character-driven because plot is going to only take you so far. I believe this is true of any genre. You have to care about the person. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to care about the victim, I don't think. They can be dead pretty early on, but you have to care about the people in the story, which I do believe that is true of all genres. But I think it is particularly true of mystery because it raises the stakes so much. It goes from being just, "well, who did it?" To "Oh my God, I really hope it wasn't this person." Or "I am so convinced it's this one and I hate them."
Karen: Right, the way that I like to write stories, there's sort of three tracks that I'm trying to send the reader down. And one is the mystery, obviously. It's like, who done it? Why? How? All of those big questions that relate to the plot. Second is the individual character journeys. Why are they in particular involved? What do they need to learn in order to come to a satisfying resolution, whatever that might be at the end. And then the third is the relationship between the characters, and because I write multi-POV, I like to think of that relationship almost as its own character. It too needs to have a growth arc. It too needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And there needs to be uncertainty and tension between these characters, and, I hope, an investment in the reader and how they ultimately come together, break apart, and resolve whatever conflict might be happening between them.
Mindy: One of the things that I think is really interesting, when you're writing a mystery, is pacing. And I've come to really accept, I think is the right word, I have come to accept that I am a character writer, and that my stories are character driven. They are not plot-driven. And that means that you are doing a lot of baking. You're not doing a lot of flash frying. It is a lot of learning these characters and learning to care about them. This has come to a particular head... You and I were chatting before I started recording about our 2024 releases, which we are both currently working on. I ended up in a situation with my 2024 release where the victim is not dead until approximately halfway through the book, and I was like, "Man, I don't know if this will work." I've gotta clean it up a little bit and turn it into my editor here this week. I don't know if this is going to be a function-able structure, but in order for the plot to matter, the way things are set up, you have to care about the victim before she has died because my narrator is in love with her. I needed to show the relationship between the victim and my narrator and how it is kind of beautiful, but also on the end of my narrator, perhaps unhealthy. I run into problems with pacing in a character-driven plot. How do you deal with that?
Karen: It's important to understand the fundamental structure, obviously, of mystery. Mathematical pace that might be considered ideal, but I think you need to know that in order to break it when you have to. Rules are... they're important to understand. They exist for a reason, a storytelling reason. People unconsciously come to your story with expectations of how it will be paced, and they probably wouldn't even call it that. I would not have before I became a writer. You're expecting a certain flow and you wanna give your readers that for a satisfying experience. But you don't wanna do it at the expense of what's really important in the story. And in this case for your book and often for mine as well, what it's really important is the relationships between the characters. So you just figure out a way, I think, around that and to still deliver that satisfying mystery experience. And maybe that's through smaller sub-reveals. Or maybe that's through setting up an alternate kind of structure from the beginning so that your reader's carried along with that. But as long as you're aware that you're delivering a different type of experience, then I think you can work around that and make it work for your story.
Mindy: I agree, and I wanna touch on something that you said. I don't agree just because I want to feel like hopefully my book actually works.
Karen: Well, I did the same thing in One of Us is Next. The victim did not die until the middle. I think it worked.
Mindy: Nice, I think that's wonderful. And I think it ties into something that you just said about readers bringing an expectation to a book and how you would not have, previously to becoming a writer, have talked about it in terms of pacing... Having an expectation for pacing. As a writer, who is also a reader, because I don't think it works the other way. I don't think you can be a writer and not a reader. Do you find that as a writer who now hyper-analyzes their own work so much, do you struggle to read for pleasure? Is it hard for you to just let go and enjoy a story?
Karen: It can be. I do a lot of reading on my Kindle and sometimes I can't help myself. I'll be reading along, sort of getting caught up in the story, and then I'll think, "Are we at the mid-point?" And I'll have to look and see. Are we at 50% of the book? Because it just feels like we've hit it. So I notice that type of thing. But I love reading romance when I'm writing my own thrillery stuff because it's such a nice change. And romance writers are among, I think, the greatest at our craft in terms of pacing a story perfectly. And you can almost always, if you stop and think about it... This is about 25%. This is about 75%, and I do notice that kind of stuff even when I'm really enjoying a story, just because it's become part of my process now. It doesn't take away from my enjoyment, but it's definitely a different type of reading experience. It's hard for me to get fully swept up in a story and not kind of notice the writer's craft beneath it.
Mindy: Absolutely. I have hit a point where I've discovered that audio books can still transport me but I am not sure what drives that. Most of the time I'm listening to an audio book in the car anyway, so you kinda achieve that almost meditative state.
Karen: The voices and getting caught up in what feels like the character speaking to you might help to that suspension of analysis that sometimes goes along with the reading experience.
Mindy: Yeah, I have definitely found that an audio book will capture me a little more quickly than a print. I read a book a long time ago, and I've talked about it on the podcast before, a few times. It's called The Shallows. It was written like a while ago. I know they've released an updated version, but he was talking about how the internet has kind of rewired our brains for short form concentration. I skim things online. Very rarely do I ever read an entire article. I skim everything. I'm clicking. I'm just reading headlines. I'm not really involved in anything. My brain has been trained for this, and of course now with the rise of TikTok and social media... Everything is little, little little bites, little bites, little bites. His theory, and there was some support for it at the time and I imagine that has grown, was that we're losing the capability to do deep work and focus and thinking. I have seen that in myself. It's pretty scary.
Karen: I mean, if it's that hard to get lost in reading a book by writing one, right?
Mindy: Oh, yeah.
Karen: Having that focused level of attention, since sometimes it is a struggle to get yourself into that head space and just be able to shut everything else out and focus on the story.
Mindy: And do you have a similar feeling then when you're writing as you do when you're reading? Where you just kind of get transported and everything around you is gone? I personally have similar experiences, and just because of my current lifestyle and pace, I find it easier to get lost in work than writing than I do reading and pleasure. But I find the experience mentally is the same - that high level of concentration and the loss of really the world around you and doing a deep dive into an imaginary world.
Karen: Yeah. When it's going well, when the writing is flowing, that is absolutely how it feels. Everything else drops away. The distractions aren't a problem. And I'm just this vehicle being driven by the story and I just have to let it take over and get it out. And it's like a great feeling. And then when it's not flowing so well, that's the time when I suddenly think, "I wonder what's happening on Instagram." I'll do all these little things to let myself be distracted, and it's very easy to do that 'cause it's like, obviously, it's all at your fingertips at the same time that you're working. And that's the point, if I catch myself doing that too much, I have to take a step back and think, "Okay, something's not working. I'm not pulled in enough to the story where it feels necessary for me to keep going with it." And there's usually something fundamental that isn't working.
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Mindy: I think I've just very recently arrived at the idea of dropping social media. Very recently, just within the past maybe two weeks, I have found that I'm going to it more often as a distraction to kill a few minutes, which is how I always used to use it. I think that's fine, just a little bit of entertainment. But this summer, in particular, I have found... I finished the day. I did my work. I went to the gym. I came home. I ate dinner. I took a bath. And what am I gonna do now? It always used to be, I am going to watch TV, or I'm going to knit, or I'm going to read a book, right? Usually read a book was first, and now I will lay down with my phone and I'll lose two hours. I'll lose two hours.
Karen: Right, it's so easy.
Mindy: Yeah, and I'm just like, "Oh, this isn't good." It doesn't make me feel good. I'm not producing anything. And I don't necessarily mean I need to be working all the time, but it's like I'm also not participating in anything, you know what I mean?
Karen: If you're just kind of passively consuming things that are out there, yeah, it doesn't feel great. And I know I used to use social media differently as a brand new author. I interacted a lot more. I chatted a lot more just with other writers, 'cause it sort of felt like our little water cooler on Twitter. And you could just joke back and forth. Twitter has changed, definitely, but also when your audience gets bigger, it's harder to keep up. And you also, I think, you just need to be a little bit more careful about what you say. 'Cause more people are paying attention, and if you think you're making an off-the-cuff comment that is actually a thoughtless comment that could be upsetting to people in a way that it wouldn't have been when you're an unknown. So you find yourself more reluctant to engage and then you think, "Well, why am I even here?" I can't keep up with my notifications. I don't feel comfortable chatting. And it's just ... this isn't really an engaging space anymore. It's a space where I'm just sort of paying attention and liking people's tweets and saying, "Good for you!" And it's just a different kind of medium. So I found myself taking a big step back there. Taking a big step back in social media in general, and just trying to focus more on nurturing those relationships in other ways.
Mindy: I think that that's really smart. And I know that when you and I first started writing, it really was social media, social media, you have to do it. You must do it. You cannot succeed without it. And there's a lot of information out that says that that's just not true. A lot of people that have massive followings will get a book deal sometimes based on that, and they don't sell well. Their audience is not there for a book. The audience is there for their Instagram, or the audience is there for a tweet. And I also find just the content in general has been just more upsetting lately, and I've just been more affected, I think lately.
Karen: Yeah.
Mindy: I'm 43. I'm really self-assured. I have a career and in a good place in my life, and this is making me feel bad. And it makes me wonder about teenagers using this and kids using this. And I'm like, "Oh no. Oh no." If I think about it too much, I'm gonna go down a dark hole of "This is how the world ends." So, I've decided that retracting is probably smart.
Karen: Yeah, taking a step back is probably very healthy. And like anything with writing, I think there's so much pressure on authors to market themselves, but it really is only so much that we can do to move the needle. And so I'm a big believer in doing the things that you enjoy. That you would do anyway. If this were just a hobby and you wanted to engage with other people who liked your hobby, what kind of things would you do? For me, that means I'm not on TikTok because I don't like to make videos.
Mindy: Yeah, me either.
Karen: It's just not my medium. So I'm not there. I actually am there as like a little consumer quietly enjoying dog videos and things like that, but not as an author. I don't do a newsletter because it's just not something that I enjoy. So I think trying to maintain that balance and recognizing that it's good to have some kind of platform for people to find you if they want to. If it's a platform that you like to maintain, then great. Then you just maintain it as much or as little as you're able to do with everything else you have going on.
Mindy: One of the things that led me to this, I went through a pretty upsetting break-up in 2019. I don't overshare on social media. I try to keep my personal life pretty personal. I didn't do a post and say, "Hey, things going on. I won't be around here much. Just wanted to let everybody know." I didn't even do that. I just dropped out for probably like four to five months. I was just like, "I can't do this right now. This isn't part of what I have inside of me." And there was absolutely no effect on...
Karen: Right.
Mindy: I don't think people even noticed I was gone. Why am I doing this?
Karen: If you feel like coming back and doing a little bit of engagement, that's great, and people who have enjoyed your presence before, will enjoy it again. And they're not gonna say, "Where have you been?"
Mindy: So talking then about social media and interacting and getting yourself out there and being in front of people, you just released the new book. And so you have been doing a lot of promotion and a lot of interaction and just raising the visibility bar and doing all of the things that our publishers want us to do in order to make that happen. However, like you and I were talking before I started recording. You do not tour. So talk to me a little bit about what you do, because I know that it can be just as overwhelming as being on a tour and leaving the house. So tell me about that pace, that schedule, what you do, and how you balance promoting something that is out there, while also trying to write the next thing.
Karen: I know it's tricky, right? Because our books that are out there, this book that just came out, I wrote that book two years ago. That's the pace of publishing, and so some of it is just resetting your mind a little bit. Because, like we were chatting before, I'm currently working on my 2024 release. And I was just like heads down, in that zone, really churning out that book and got probably 75% of the way through. But I just had to put it aside, about a week ago, a week and a half ago, I had to put it aside so I could shift gears and get my brain back into Nothing More to Tell. So it's like this disruption thing where you're in your writers cave and then you just... you have to emerge blinking into the sunlight and realize that, "Oh right, I have a whole 'nother book I need to talk about. I gotta put this one aside." So it's that shifting gears thing, and I think some writers are probably good at dividing their attention more than I am. If I'm in that zone, that's the only thing I can think about, so I do have to take myself out of it. You still have local events.
I actually was able to launch this book in person, which is the first book I've launched in person since my third. And this is my sixth book. So there were two pandemic books in between that, that were all virtual. So there's that and just sort of gearing yourself up for the energy of a live audience, which is so different than doing a virtual event. And that part was really nice, honestly, to be back in front of readers and have the energy of a room was really great. And then you're also, of course, doing interviews. You're appearing on podcasts, for example. I have really active international publishers too, and so at the same time I'm doing stuff in the US, I'm also doing things for the UK, in Germany. So there's just a lot of stuff coming at you, and it's sort of hard to remember sometimes what you said you were gonna do which day. But that's where your publicist helps you out, obviously, and your editor is keeping everything track for you. And that it's kind of funny because you do this for two, three weeks, it's like super intense, and then the book is out. And the book is just gonna do what it's gonna do, and you kinda crawl back into your writers cave and say, "Okay, let's get back to that zone."
Mindy: Yeah, it is a hard balance. I find that when I'm promoting, when I've had a book come out... I also have not officially toured since the pandemic. I do feel that that is changing a little bit for publishing. I don't know that that, that the big book tour is something that they're going to continue to do. And that makes me a little bit sad because I do love it. But I set up a lot of events on my own, like you were saying, locally, but I also will travel. I've got a series of visits coming up at schools in Missouri, Arkansas, and Kansas. I'm really ready to do that. It's a grind. It is a small murder. You come home exhausted and spent and an utter shell of a person, but I actually kind of enjoy that experience.
Karen: There's nothing quite like getting out there on the road and getting to talk to people who are passionate about books in real-time. And I do go to conferences, not so many this year, travel in general has been difficult this year. But I'll be going to a couple in the fall internationally, and I'm looking forward to that.
Mindy: Absolutely. I do the same. I'll do conferences and book festivals, and I find them to be really an injection of life for me in a lot of ways. It's a great way to connect with other writers.
Karen: Yes, that's the thing. Our job is so solitary, and it just has become more so in the past few years. And getting a chance to connect, not just with readers, but other writers gives you so much energy.
Mindy: It really does. I'm gonna be in Tennessee this coming weekend for the Tennessee Association of School Librarians. David Arnold is gonna be there. And David is a buddy of mine. I haven't seen him in years. I texted him, "Are you going to be at TASL?" And he was like, "Yeah, are you?" So I was like, "David, I don't think I've seen you for four years."
Karen: Yeah. I mean, time’s kind of lost all meaning, in the past three years.
Mindy: It really has. Last thing. Why don't you let listeners know where they can find the new book, Nothing More to Tell, and where they can find you online.
Karen: Yeah, Nothing More to Tell is available at book stores everywhere. Your favorite indie is, of course, always a wonderful place to shop. My personal favorite indie is Porter Square Books in Cambridge. That's where I had my launch, and they will always do signed copies of my books. If you're interested in that, you can just get in touch with them and ask. And you can find me online on Twitter and Instagram at writerkmc.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.
