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Creating Memorable Characters with Nancy Crochiere · WriterCon

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This week on the Writer KHN podcast. I think the words that always come
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to mind for me on that are perseverance and persistence, because there's it is
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it's hard to get published today, and we all know how many queries an
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agent gets in a week. I think, you know my on average maybe
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like a hundred, and I just it took me a while. And I
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feel like if you have a manuscript that you're proud of, that you feel
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that there's something there, it's worth persisting. Welcome to Writer Khan, a
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gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about writing and the writing world.
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Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of the Red Sneaker
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books on writing, and Renee Gutteridge, best selling author of over thirty novels
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and screenplays. Hey, they're writers. Hope all as well with you and
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your loved ones. Hope you're writing every day or whatever your writing process currently
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allows and you're happy with the results. As we're recording this, we're a
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little bit before Mother's Day, but I think it's going to be released a
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little after We've had all the graduations that are part of this season. So
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now it's the season for mom's right, Renee, You're the only mom in
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this room. I'm curious, all right, So tell me what did your
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mom think when you announced your intentions to be a writer? Oh, my
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goodness, very well supportive of my hobby, if you know what I mean.
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And at the point that I was beginning to talk like I might want
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to do this for a living, it can it turned concerned And as a
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parent I understand, with both my kids in professions that don't necessarily pay well,
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you begin to worry. But by when my seventh book came out,
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Seventh, my seventh book, I brought it over to my mom and she
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said, do you know, I think you may just make it. And
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it was high praise, high praise from my mom. She read every single
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one of my books and was an avid reader, but not of She read
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Stephen King and Dune, and she loved sci fi. Yeah, totally,
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would not expect Dean Coots all that she read in her reading days and my
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novels. So that's a mom love. I bet she loved yours best.
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She did like him, she did, what about you, Jessee? If
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anything, your profession is even dodgier than ours. Did that go down at
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home. Honestly, my parents was just happy that I was happy after at
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least seeing me work here in Tulsa in the nonprofit field and saw how draining
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that was on me emotionally. They're just they're happy that I'm enjoying myself.
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So moms are the best. Right. That's good parenting right there, yep.
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Our interview today is with Nancy Chrisscher. For thirteen years, Nancy delighted
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readers with her humorous and very relatable account of family life in her newspaper column,
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which was called The mother Load That's Lad. Now she's making her fiction
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debut with a charming, bighearted novel about a single mom forced to chase her
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elvis obsessed mother and pink haired daughter to Memphis to prevent them from revealing her
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long lost secret, which you're going to hear about hear more about in the
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interview. We'll talk to Nancy after the news segment, and a brief word
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from our friends at Draft to Digital. Hi. This is Kevin Tumbinson with
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Draft to Digital. E books are amazing, but there's just something about having
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d T D print and all the cool tools we've built for you. Find
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out more at draft to digital dot com. Well, let's talk about artificial
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intelligence. In the past few weeks, we've had a deluge of stories about
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chat, GTPGPT and other AI programs and the impact it may have on the
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book world. So I've kind of curated three of the most interesting AI stories
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out of a big field of choices and put them all together in this episode
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so we can just get to the bottom of this team. So, for
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instance, number one, Harper Collins, one of the big five New York
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publishing houses, is testing AI generated content. Their CEO, Brian Murray,
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was at the London Book Fair recently and he announced that they were experimenting with
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what he called generative AI for translated and illustrated book projects. He mentioned one
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test case where they are adapting Harlequin content for the Japanese manga market with AI
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generated art based on photographs. So basically we're talking about a comic book where
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they're feeding the script and the AI is generating there art based on some photographs
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that they've suggested. And I suppose the script he said, and I'm quoting,
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you can much more quickly create translation or images to help get your books
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to market more efficiently. They're also using AI to generate first drafts of marketing
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copy and manuscript summaries and metadata for retailers. Renee, how do you feel
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about the possibility of being replaced by a computer program? Well, I don't
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like it, and I think everybody should be very alarmed by this. I
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really do. I think it's kind of fun in games right now. And
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well, look, I can't really do what we do, but I'm telling
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you this is going to devastate the arts if we keep if we begin to
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tell our society that soulless art is yeah, okay, it's good or even
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readable. Well yeah, but let's say it ends up being good, but
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there's no there's no heart behind it. Well yeah, an English class we
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always, you know, used to talk about theme and what is the author
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getting at, what's the underlying message? Does that even exist when an computer
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program created the story? Exactly? It doesn't, It shouldn't, and it
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should it should really bother essay, I think you know. As I was
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telling my friends who are using some AI to work on creative projects, I
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said, well, you're just training it to do your job. So if
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you've you know, or you could use your brain and do it yourself.
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And that is really dead on because here's the second story I was going to
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bring up, which comes from the Washington Post. It turns out that these
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AI models have been trained by going out onto the web and surveying websites.
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So you know, if you've got a website, more more likely than not,
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you've helped train these AI programs. This Washington Post article analyzed one of
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the data sets used by the biggest chatbox and made that data set searchable.
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So now you can go and see how many websites have contributed. Like I
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said, possibly your own. You can go see if you're there, whether
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you want to be there or not. The biggest sites in the data set
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were Google's patent search and Big Surprise, Wikipedia and scribed. So Jesse,
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Okay, this is starting to get a little spooky. I have three different
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websites that I contribute to, and I don't really want to be feeding the
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AI monster. How can they get away with using other people's content to train
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their AI programs. I mean, this just goes into the list of the
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problems that America hasn't out with as far as like Internet privacy goes, and
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like we're just never gonna by the time we realize we should have done something,
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it's gonna be too late. And but again, the Internet is full
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of wrong information and bad grammars, So let it learn all I want,
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right, Like, the Internet is not a perfect resource. It is a
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It's full of junk and both great things and horrible things. So you know,
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it's always just like how long will it take an AI bot to become
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racist? Right if it's scanning the Internet? Yeah, but scanning internet the
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Internet. Internet has lots of dark corners, and so there's always I feel
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like there's always going to be at least roles for the management of these tools.
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And like my dream is like just like when digital you know, computers
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could handle making graphics right and doing animation. People learned how to use those
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tools to anime instead of drawing right, But the computers couldn't necessarily make an
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animated movie for them. So yeah, you know, like that's the hope.
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But you know, I'm more on Renee's camp of like, we're gonna
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like, we're gonna be rooting a lot of jobs here if we don't,
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if we're not careful. Sure. And the third of the three promised articles
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is about an author who revealed very recently that he has published forty books I
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assume self published at Amazon this year alone, all of which were generated by
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AI. Now, these are nonfiction books on various topics like computer programming and
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project management. But not only are they up on Amazon and he's selling them,
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the books have superb reviews. I'm not exaggerating. Go check it out
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for yourself. People seem to love them. So, Rene, does this
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impact what you were saying before, are you surprised? Well, I'm not
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surprised by it, but I think you've got major You've got copyright issue.
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Now if AI wrote it for you and AIS grabbing content elsewhere, who owns
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the rights to the that that content, and that's you know, part of
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what is going to have to be worked out in the in the copyright laws.
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Um, And you know, I I think and also you know,
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our our public has a hard time discerning deep fake has a hard time discerning
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fake news. Has a heart won't go and do their own research reads a
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book, believes everything in it goes and does that thing. So you know,
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anybody is trusting that author that they're using their own knowledge from their own
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experience. He's not. This should this should be banned and taken off Amazon
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and or disclosed up front right well, at least in this case, if
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I understand correctly, these forty books were all written by AI. On the
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other hand, there's a new novella coming out next month which is a collaboration,
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the author says, between a human author and AI that's coming out soon.
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It's called Death of an Author, produced by Stephen March mrcche, who
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is a respected writer, says he used three different AI programs to generate it.
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And now it's going to be published as an ebook an audio book by
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Pushkin, which if you listen to podcast you'll know as a very prominent distributor.
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It was co founded by Malcolm Gladwell. And get this, the book
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is going to be listed as being written by Aiden Marchine, which is sort
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of a cross I think between march the author's actual name, and AI machine.
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And as if that weren't enough, there's a critic at Slate. Her
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name is Laura Miller who has read the book, and she says it's quote
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pretty good with the prose style above average. All right, last chance for
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either of you to weigh in. Is there anything we can do? What
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can we do? Jesse? Then? What how do we prevent ourselves from
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being replaced? That this sounds like a science fiction movie or something. It's
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it's bad, um, I mean it's it's it's all like anything that makes
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some people's lives easier. They are okay, they're okay with the destroying jobs
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that they don't do. So it's really all about the people whose jobs are
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in danger making sure that they make a lot of noise about this. As
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for example, the writers are in the you know, uh TV writer strike
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that's going on right now. So you know, I don't know scary stuff,
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but the business has changed before, and I suppose it will again.
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I'll find a way to survive. All right, Jesse, que up the
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music. Let's talk to Nancy Croscher. Nancy, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you, thank you so much for having me on here. Okay,
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here's our traditional first question. If you could give writers one piece of advice,
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what would it be by that I don't necessarily mean, you know,
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continuing to send it to agents for you know, two years, you might
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take it back. That's what I did. I sent it out, queried
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for a while, then took it back and worked on it, had a
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developmental editor come in, and when I resubmitted it, I ended up getting
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an agent very quickly. So I'm all about perseverance and persistence. Sounds like
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that work paid off. Yeah, well sure, well, sorry, go
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ahead, no, no, no, I was just going to say it
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was. It was a lifelong dream for me, so it was important that
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it that it come to pass. Well, so this is your first novel
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and you're getting really rapid reviews from people like Leam Moriarty, Susan Wiggs,
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Sarah Haywood. I mean, how does it feel? Well, naturally,
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it feels wonderful anytime anybody says something nice about your book, And certainly it
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feels very validating to have authors who have been New York Times bestselling authors say
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they enjoyed reading your book. So that that has been a very fun part
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of the process. Well, that's terrific. I bet it is. So.
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Um tell us, where did you get your inspiration from? Grace Land?
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Well? Um u. I have been. It's a multi generational road
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trip. Mother daughter, granddaughter, grandmother. Yeah, mother daughter, grandmother,
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and I have been and of course a daughter, I've been a mother,
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and recently it was a grandmother. And I'm fascinated by multigenerational dynamics.
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And you know, Tolstoy was right, every unhappy family is fascinating in its
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own way, right. So I had in mind this this story where a
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grandmother and a granddaughter bond over something, and in this case, it's an
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angry granddaughter who's very mad at her mother. She and the grandmother bond and
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they go off on this this caper together, and that was how it started.
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And I hit upon the idea of Graceland as being their destination for a
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couple of reasons. One was that my grandmother character is a washed up soap
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opera actress who once had a famous date with Elvis back in nineteen seventy that
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was sort of a pivotal moment in her life, and so I thought there
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were there was a lot of fun and comic possibilities with the idea that she
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wants to go back to Graceland one more time before she dies. But I
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also liked the idea of Graceland because of the metaphor basically that these women are
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all they're all at odds with one another, but each in their own way
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they're searching for acceptance and forgiveness and grace. Right, Nancy, let's talk
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about that some more. A lot of the people listening to this podcast will
17:36
be writer, as an aspiring writer. So character creation, of course,
17:40
is a big concern. And you have some wonderful, very vivid, fascinating
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characters in this book, like the one you just mentioned, Olivia. She's
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your protagonist. She's a former soap opera actus, as you said. But
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actually you've done some acting yourself, haven't you. Yeah? I have.
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I've been a background actor, as we say, or an extra in TVs
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and movies in the Boston area. So yeah, yeah, it is.
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It's a lot of fun, you don't You don't get to hobnob very much
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with the Bradley Coopers and the Jennifer Lawrences, but you get to, Yeah,
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you get to. You get to watch them, and that's that's as
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much fun. Well did that give you the did that save some research at
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least because you had experiences to bring to bear for the character. It absolutely
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did. Yeah, I had some sense of what Olivia might go through,
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what it might feel like to have a day on set. I never worked
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on a soap opera, but I certainly watched enough of them growing out.
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My grandmother was a She would watch I think, every soap opera, you
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know, in the afternoons as the world turns days of our lives, Another
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world, and sometime if I was if I was home from school, I
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would watch them with her. So I had my mother loved Another World too.
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I seem to recall being six since or seven and watching a character had
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amnesia all summer long or something like that until it finally came back to her
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at the convenient moment. Yes, and they had the plot lines I think
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got even more outrageous in the years after I stopped watching soap operas. I
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think people are, you know, possessed by the devil, and they have
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alien babies, and they're you know, kidnapped by pirates. So I had
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Olivia enjoy some of those types of adventures. Some of them are mentioned in
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the book That's Fun. Okay, So that's Olivia. And then there's Dylan,
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the granddaughter who you mentioned. She's the sixteen year old activist with the
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flaming pink hair. Where did that come from? Did she come from?
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I had two daughters, and so neither of them were exactly like that.
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Neither of them were flaming pink haired activists. But I knew something about how
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teenage mother and daughter interactions go. And Dylan just sort of came forth fully
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formed and had very strong opinions about everything. She's very impulsive and that causes
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a lot of trouble on the journey to Graceland. Sure, and then last,
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but certainly not least, there is George, who cross stresses as Jordan
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Well, I have to ask give him. All that's going on in the
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world right now with book banning, and we know which books are getting banned
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most, were you concerned that this character might be too controversial? I feel
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almost certain that my book is going to be banned somewhere, and I am
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and James Patterson I will proudly joined the likes of Harperley or and others who
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who have been banned. But now you know, I've known some people with
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that identity in in my life as friends, and I haven't seen them represented
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in literature. And it felt really important for me to to have them represented.
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And yeah, I wouldn't myself try to, you know, write from
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an identity that I don't have. But I felt very comfortable writing from the
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perspective of somebody who has had somebody who is LGBTQ, you know, as
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friends basically. All right, Well, and so let's shift a little bit
21:48
to the writing process, since most of our listeners are writers, and let's
21:52
ask you the first question we always ask, which is who used to say
21:59
are you a potter or a panster? And then we changed it to architect
22:04
or archaeologist, and then we're just kind of coming up with all kinds of
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fundna. Yeah, yeah, Well, if you have your name for it,
22:14
we will throw that in the mix. But tell us a little bit
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about your approach. Well, I have to say, because Graceland was my
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first novel, I will be up front and tell you that I didn't know
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what I was doing when I started. I didn't know anything about novel writing.
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And so I would say, for the first for Graceland, I was
22:36
a panther. I I created scenes and put things together. But then you
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know, I also took a course at a writing center that we have here
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in Boston called Grub Street, and it was it was a year long course
22:52
in novel writing. And I had a first draft and it had a narrative
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arc and everything when I went into it. But they did help me.
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That class helped me refine the novel. And so going forward, now that
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I know more about novel writing, I'm going to try to be more of
23:11
a plotter because trust me, to write a you know, a ninety thousand
23:15
word novel, you can easily write seven hundred thousand words to get it to
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get to where you want to with the ninety thousand. Yes, absolutely well.
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I love that you took a year long course, which I think shows
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your commitment to learning the craft and loving it and all of those things,
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and learning structure and how to do it. That just takes you know,
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people will be working on their first novel for two decades because they never go
23:48
take a class, you know, or something like that. So I'd love
23:51
to hear that. That's wonderful. So what does your writing day look like
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now? I suppose when with this novel, it wasn't necessarily a writing day,
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but maybe it was. What does it look like now? What did
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it look like when you started? I am the worst person to ask that
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question too. I'm terrible in terms of having a set schedule. I feel
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like I'm best on a deadline, and so I will have weeks where I
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get up in the morning and think I'm going to start writing, and there's
24:30
fifteen things that get in the way, and finally in the afternoon, when
24:34
the time is getting short, I'll get down to business. But I have
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to say that then when I'm on deadline and I don't know if either of
24:44
you or a deadline deadline people, but boy, a deadline saves my life.
24:48
I will then have my bottom in the chair twelve hours a day to
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get everything done. So I don't know if that's very helpful for other writers.
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I don't necessarily recommend being like me, but but there it is,
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right there, it is. Yes, Well, we can't argue with success.
25:07
I mean, maybe we're all doing it wrong. You look at those
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reviews. She's got holy smokes. So you have been writing for a while
25:18
now with a novevel, but you were doing your newspaper color you have about
25:23
thirteen years ago you started that, I think thirteen fourteen something like that.
25:29
It's something I had done it, I had done it for thirteen years when
25:32
my girls were growing up, basically so, and I haven't been doing it
25:36
now for about ten years or so. I think maybe Okay, Well,
25:41
one way or another, what are some of the writing tips or strategies you've
25:45
picked up along the way from doing the columns or the novel or both either
25:52
way? Both? Well? I, you know, I write humor,
26:00
whether in my columns or in this book. I I it's just I think,
26:06
Um, I'm wired to see the world that way. There's you know,
26:11
there's a lot to worry about in our world, but I tend to
26:15
want to look on the bright side. And so I would just take notes
26:22
about things if that happened into to me in everyday life that were humorous,
26:30
and I would, you know, develop them into columns or now I you
26:34
know, see if they can find their way into a novel in one place
26:40
or another. So that would I guess be I'm not a journal person,
26:45
but I'm definitely a note taking person. Hmm. Well, so now the
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book is out, you're getting fabulous reviews, big roll out. What next?
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It's a good question. I have another novel that I have started working
27:03
on, but it's more in the planning stages, and as we discussed earlier,
27:08
I'm convinced that this time it's going to have an outline from the beginning.
27:12
It's going to be carefully planned. I also wrote a screenplay, and
27:18
that's more your area, Rene, right, Yeah, A friend and I
27:23
I submitted a screenplay to a contest for screenwriters over the age of forty women
27:30
screenwriters over the age of forty, and so that was something I did earlier
27:36
this year. Those those two things and just writing the publicity stuff for Graceland,
27:45
those are keeping me busy twenty four seven, pretty much. I bet
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so well. I think there're going to be a lot of people very anxious
27:53
to read your next book because they're really gonna love this one. Thanks for
28:00
being on the podcast, Nancy. Oh, thank you so much for having
28:03
me. It was a lot of fun. All right. A couple quick
28:07
words before we sign off. The writer kN Retreat is in July in Branson.
28:14
Small group, focus on your work, get feedback from a small group,
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one on one mentoring and talks and fun. Then trust me, it
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is a great time. And if you think that might be what you need
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to advance your writing, then please come join us. Visit the website and
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learn more about the retreat. And while you're there to take a look at
28:41
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We've got more than sixty presenters. We've got the best roster of agents
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ever. We've got all kinds of publishers and author assistance and publicists and much
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much more. Come be a part of writer Con, all right. Until
29:15
next time, everybody, keep writing and remember cannot fail if you refused to
29:22
quit. All right, See you next time.