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Writing My Fall Rom-Com—A Fall to Remember · Reality Writes

0:05
Ellie Alexander: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Reality Writes.
0:10
Ellie Alexander: I am author Ellie Alexander, and this is the podcast where we talk about all things bookish, writer-ish, and we try to go behind the scenes to give you a taste of what it means to be an author in 2026 and beyond.
0:23
Ellie Alexander: And um, as always, I'm here with the Tech Guy.
0:27
Tech Guy: Hello, hello.
0:28
Tech Guy: Uh, today we're gonna be talking fall, all things fall.
0:33
Ellie Alexander: Fall.
0:34
Ellie Alexander: It's fall, y'all.
0:35
Ellie Alexander: I mean, it kind of almost is fall.
0:37
Ellie Alexander: I literally just got back from the grocery store, and there is an entire wall of fall candy.
0:44
Ellie Alexander: We're talking candy corn, pumpkins, everything.
0:47
Ellie Alexander: I can't believe it.
0:47
Ellie Alexander: It's August.
0:48
Ellie Alexander: What's happening?
0:49
Tech Guy: Well, we were just out for a walk the other day, and you commented on the fact that the trees are just starting to turn here.
0:57
Tech Guy: It seems like summer just started, and we're already we're already into fall.
1:02
Tech Guy: Of course, here in the Bay Area, uh, the kids are starting back to school in just a few weeks, right?
1:09
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, probably now-ish.
1:11
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
1:11
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
1:12
Tech Guy: That's that's true.
1:13
Tech Guy: Yeah, yeah.
1:14
Tech Guy: Um having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, where school starts a little bit later in actual fall, um, this is uh this is kind of wild to see.
1:24
Ellie Alexander: But fall is my favorite season, so I am not sad about this at all.
1:29
Tech Guy: I was gonna say, um, I know that fall is something that's near and dear to your heart.
1:35
Tech Guy: So today we're gonna be talking about a fall to remember, your upcoming rom-com.
1:42
Ellie Alexander: A fall to remember.
1:44
Ellie Alexander: I know.
1:44
Ellie Alexander: I still can't believe it's already here almost.
1:47
Tech Guy: Yeah.
1:48
Tech Guy: But this one, we've teased a little bit on this uh podcast before.
1:52
Tech Guy: Uh, but since we're so close to the release date, I thought we would do a deep dive.
1:57
Tech Guy: Again, for the darlings out there, spoiler-free, not going to be talking about anything that will ruin the read for you, but uh, we're talking about A Fall to Remember, which releases September 1st.
2:10
Ellie Alexander: September 1st.
2:11
Ellie Alexander: It's coming at you.
2:13
Tech Guy: So, why does this one feel different from your other rom-coms that you've written so far?
2:21
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, that's such a good question.
2:22
Ellie Alexander: I mean, so first of all, the two holiday rom-coms that I've written thus far are set in bend during the winter holiday season.
2:32
Ellie Alexander: And the first one brought back a mystery character, Meg Reid, my first OG sleuth, and gave her a love arc and had these intertwining stories.
2:42
Ellie Alexander: This is a totally brand new setting in Half Moon Bay, California, which is like 30 minutes away from us.
2:49
Tech Guy: A real place.
2:50
Ellie Alexander: It's a real place.
2:51
Ellie Alexander: And once I've been living somewhere, and when we take road trips to go explore places near us, I of course, like that writer part of my brain can't shut up.
3:00
Ellie Alexander: And I'm like, oh, this could be a great setting for a book.
3:02
Ellie Alexander: Oh, this could be a great setting for a book.
3:05
Ellie Alexander: Um, but this book is very of the moment, I feel like.
3:09
Ellie Alexander: Miranda, the main character, is in her late 40s.
3:15
Ellie Alexander: She's like trying to figure out what her next chapter is.
3:20
Ellie Alexander: I was in that head same headspace, you know, like there's this transition that starts to happen once your kids have flown the nest a little bit and you're deciding, like, okay, now I have this opportunity, not necessarily to reinvent myself, but to think about like, wow, I spent a lot of time raising kids, and now what do I want?
3:39
Ellie Alexander: Um, and I really love exploring that as a main character and that kind of energy.
3:45
Ellie Alexander: So that feels very different to me.
3:47
Ellie Alexander: And then, of course, this one is set at my favorite season, which I just alluded to.
3:52
Ellie Alexander: No, no spoilers here.
3:54
Ellie Alexander: Fall.
3:54
Ellie Alexander: I love everything about fall.
3:56
Ellie Alexander: I love the smells, I love the scents, I love the food, I love all of it.
4:02
Ellie Alexander: Um, and to get to just immerse myself in fall and love was brilliant.
4:08
Tech Guy: Definitely.
4:09
Tech Guy: And and I know how much you like uh writing about fall.
4:13
Tech Guy: It has been a little weird to have, you know, uh us be not in fall, but have the house smell like fall and have fallish playlists and fallish bakes going on in the house, uh, all to get you in the space to write this.
4:30
Tech Guy: But you've obviously written a lot of cozy mysteries over the years, and you prior to writing cozy mysteries were a prolific reader of cozy mysteries and cozy mystery TV shows, uh, all of the above.
4:47
Tech Guy: And something that darlings out there might not know about you is that rom-coms are also a favorite of yours.
4:54
Tech Guy: You're a big reader of rom-coms.
4:56
Tech Guy: Do were there any in particular that kind of put you in the headspace for writing this one?
5:02
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I have always been a lover of rom-coms.
5:05
Ellie Alexander: Um, and I I tend to like I go in cycles, you know.
5:10
Ellie Alexander: I I love a rom-com during the fall and during the holiday season.
5:13
Ellie Alexander: You've always, for Christmas, purchased me a stack of anything that's like bookish, romance, Christmas, check, check, check.
5:22
Ellie Alexander: Um, and I have a lot of favorite authors in the rom-com space.
5:26
Ellie Alexander: I really love Emily Henry.
5:28
Ellie Alexander: So I think sort of that kind of tone.
5:31
Ellie Alexander: I love anything that Jenny Colgan writes.
5:34
Ellie Alexander: Um, she's like my auto buy in this category.
5:37
Ellie Alexander: I love Christina Lauren.
5:39
Ellie Alexander: I will say all of the rom-coms that I have written and are likely to write um are nobody, no spice.
5:48
Ellie Alexander: Um, so some of those authors, Lori Gilmore um writes a lot of great fall cozies.
5:53
Ellie Alexander: And I I had a darling ask, like, oh, I really like the fall part and I like the rom-com part, but I'm not a spice girl.
6:02
Ellie Alexander: And that's also true for me.
6:03
Ellie Alexander: Like, I love that it exists, but that wouldn't be my slant, myself for writing.
6:08
Ellie Alexander: I think, especially coming from the cozy space, you know, where the most that ever happens is maybe a kiss is alluded to.
6:14
Ellie Alexander: There's there's a touch more uh of that in chemistry, I would say, in these books, but uh, these are more like your classic rom-coms versus spicy romance.
6:24
Tech Guy: And I know that is a frequent question that you're asked about the rom-coms you've already written.
6:29
Tech Guy: So it's not a surprise that is already coming up for a fall to remember as well.
6:34
Tech Guy: What is the hardest shift that you have to make from writing a mystery to moving over to write a rom com?
6:42
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, well, you know this because I was lamenting so much.
6:46
Ellie Alexander: Initially, I really felt like, oh, writing a rom-com is going to be easy because you don't have to follow the same structure.
6:52
Ellie Alexander: There are kind of these three arcs, right?
6:54
Ellie Alexander: They meet, something happens to tear them apart, and then they come back together at the end.
6:58
Ellie Alexander: Whereas a mystery is so driven in terms of suspects and red herrings and plot twists and reveals, and then you do it all over again with the next suspect, and you're building all the way until you close the case.
7:10
Ellie Alexander: So I think really having to like take everything that I know and I've done really like almost in my sleep when it comes to writing a cozy anymore, because I've written so many and throw it all out the window and start fresh.
7:26
Ellie Alexander: And for me, such a big part of my process is all the work that I do ahead of writing.
7:32
Ellie Alexander: You know, I spend a good few days like sketching out a 10, 15-page outline.
7:38
Ellie Alexander: So I really know where my mysteries are going before I start writing.
7:42
Ellie Alexander: I have a good, clear blueprint that I'm working off of.
7:47
Ellie Alexander: Obviously, I give myself permission that if something really great happens along the way, I'm gonna follow that.
7:52
Ellie Alexander: But with the wrong comment is more about sinking into like, okay, we're talking about really character-driven stories and those emotional growth arcs.
8:04
Ellie Alexander: And then how do you weave some level of plot into that?
8:09
Ellie Alexander: And what I know about myself, not only as a writer, but also as a reader, like I really love plot-driven stories.
8:16
Ellie Alexander: I've decided, like, and I'm okay with that, right?
8:19
Ellie Alexander: Um, but I do, I struggled, I would say, a lot more with figuring out that balance point between needing to focus in on the emotional growth arcs, but then wanting to go back to like, okay, plot, but then what happens?
8:33
Ellie Alexander: Like, what's the twist?
8:34
Tech Guy: What's the right, right?
8:36
Tech Guy: What what about what about developing Miranda as a as a character?
8:41
Tech Guy: So you you have Juliet in uh in the Bake Shop Mysteries, you have Sloan in the Sloan Krause mysteries, you have Annie in the secret bookcase mysteries, and then subsequent novel detective series.
8:54
Tech Guy: They're all living their lives but solving crimes, uh, you know, uh along the way.
9:01
Tech Guy: Yeah.
9:02
Tech Guy: But this is different.
9:03
Tech Guy: Miranda, there's no, like you said, no, no body, no crime, no spice.
9:09
Ellie Alexander: No body, no crime, no spice.
9:11
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
9:12
Tech Guy: What what it what is it like?
9:13
Tech Guy: What's the difference in developing a character like that where you have this one major component that is normally present for uh a protagonist in in a book or a series, and that's just not there.
9:26
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I think I think that's what I struggled with initially, is like, okay, usually I have all these other layers or things that they need to be doing.
9:32
Ellie Alexander: Uh it's great because Miranda is a character.
9:35
Ellie Alexander: So any darlings out there who um aren't familiar with the little blurb or the pitch for a fall to remember is that Miranda Brown has become this accidental influencer.
9:46
Ellie Alexander: She goes on this vacation to Catalina Island and she takes all these terrible pictures of her toes and the beautiful scenery with, like, you know, a bus going by or whatever it is.
9:57
Ellie Alexander: Um, and she comes home and her son Pete is like, oh mom, this is so great.
10:01
Ellie Alexander: And kind of on a whim, he posts those online and she goes absolutely viral for all the right reasons, of course, because people really resonate with her.
10:10
Ellie Alexander: And she's just like so in the moment and caught up in the beauty and the joy of being on this solo trek by herself that she doesn't even care that she's taking bad pictures.
10:20
Ellie Alexander: Um, and so that was kind of my entry into who she was.
10:26
Ellie Alexander: And then it took me, I would say, longer to find her as a character.
10:31
Ellie Alexander: I don't think I fully knew her until maybe the second or third draft of this book.
10:36
Ellie Alexander: And I'm really going back and forth a lot with my editor and thinking about like, okay, how do we make sure that she, as this new accidental influencer, she gets invited to um, you know, do something for a company kind of like Expedia, where she's actually taking people on a tour of her beloved Half Moon Bay during this fall pumpkin harvest festival.
11:00
Ellie Alexander: How do we make sure that the joke's not on her?
11:05
Ellie Alexander: Like she's in on it too.
11:07
Ellie Alexander: She's comfortable in her own skin.
11:10
Ellie Alexander: She's able to laugh at herself and have that sense of self-deprecation, but without her being like the butt of the joke.
11:17
Ellie Alexander: And so, like, I think in the first pass or two, that was really my focus for her is making sure, like, okay, we don't, I don't want her to be, she's not like, she's not a Meg, right?
11:26
Ellie Alexander: Where Meg is just kind of clueless.
11:28
Ellie Alexander: Like, she's in midlife now.
11:31
Ellie Alexander: She's going through perimenopause, she's got all, she's got all of her things.
11:35
Ellie Alexander: Her son has grown.
11:36
Ellie Alexander: She hasn't really had love herself because she's put that aside to raise her son and her niece and run the green growth show.
11:44
Ellie Alexander: So so there were there were a lot of layers, but it took a while to unpack and find those because the writing process was so vastly different than writing a mystery.
11:55
Tech Guy: Yeah, Meg, uh, that reminds me, I forgot Meg that Meg Reed investigates mysteries.
12:00
Tech Guy: And then exactly.
12:02
Tech Guy: It's uh Meg started it all.
12:05
Tech Guy: Um, and and then of course Britta, who is uh a lesser-known but but also uh a protagonist in one of your series.
12:13
Tech Guy: So that is a lot of mystery heroines uh that uh Miranda is not like.
12:21
Tech Guy: So tell me, was there a lot of planning that had to go into it, a lot of trial and error and finding Miranda's voice, or did you sit down and at one point during your writing go, okay, now I know who Miranda is.
12:34
Tech Guy: Now I it I know exactly what her voice is, who who she is as a person, and and kind of went from there.
12:42
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I mean, I I don't think there was one like defining point.
12:45
Ellie Alexander: I think it was more of a slow evolution, but I feel like I was able to tap into my own experiences of, you know, being in this midpoint in my life and thinking about like, oh, what is next for me and what do I want and how do I feel differently?
13:01
Ellie Alexander: And it's fun to write a character that's um, you know, that had more life experience and is able to really sink into who she is and know that, especially I think going into love and romance and this arc of her finding love.
13:16
Ellie Alexander: So that part was interesting for me.
13:18
Ellie Alexander: I think the challenge really came in that balance, yet again to go back to it, um, plot, just because I am so driven to like, we need a body, we've got so much blood, we need a victim, we need these suspects.
13:33
Ellie Alexander: Um, so really, I think to any darlings out there who were writing and thinking about writing in multiple genres, I think it's a great thing because it was a brand new challenge for me.
13:45
Ellie Alexander: I love pushing myself out of my comfort zone.
13:48
Ellie Alexander: I finished the first draft of this MOOC and was like, oh God, this needs a ton of work.
13:54
Ellie Alexander: Like at a level that I'm not used to experiencing right now with my cozies because that is so second nature to me.
14:00
Ellie Alexander: Not that a first draft, like they are all still a first draft, but anymore, like if you read my first draft, you would go, oh, okay, she's gonna layer some stuff in, but the plot and the through lines are all there.
14:11
Ellie Alexander: Whereas with this, it's like, okay, now we have this scene and this scene, and how am I gonna weave it all together?
14:16
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
14:17
Tech Guy: All right, let's switch gears and move from the characters to, well, in a way, another character, but the setting, which, as you said, is Half Moon Bay, California, which, like the Bake Shop Mysteries in Ashland, Oregon, is a real place.
14:35
Tech Guy: And the Sloan Krauss mysteries in Leavenworth, Washington, which is a real place, Half Moon Bay is a lovely little town on the California coast.
14:46
Tech Guy: And I know from uh being married to you for so many years that this is one of your absolute favorite parts of writing is the research trips.
14:58
Tech Guy: So tell the darlings out there a little bit about Half Moon Bay and your experiences discovering it.
15:05
Tech Guy: Before you get started, though, I will tell the darlings out there if it is always a pleasure going with Ellie on these research trips because I get to stand there and watch as she takes photo after photo after photo of the most random things.
15:22
Tech Guy: But it it's like seeing a location through her eyes because there are things that you will see that a normal person would just walk by, but you're like, that's gonna be in a book.
15:35
Tech Guy: That that that is gonna be in a scene in the book that I'm writing.
15:38
Tech Guy: I need to take a picture of this, make some notes about it, et cetera, et cetera.
15:42
Ellie Alexander: Well, yeah.
15:43
Ellie Alexander: And the first thing that comes to mind with that is the second time we were there.
15:46
Ellie Alexander: And I had already written the first draft, the second time we were there for a research trip.
15:51
Ellie Alexander: I'd already writ written the first draft of A Fall to Remember.
15:54
Ellie Alexander: And one of the first things that I clued onto was this old rustic gate that was like part of kind of a courtyard and the lock was all weird and rusty.
16:06
Ellie Alexander: And I was like, oh my gosh, this would be such a great place for a body.
16:10
Ellie Alexander: No, stop.
16:12
Ellie Alexander: Like, no, because again, I think my slant is so much the juxtaposition of going to these sweet, charming towns and then imagining the fact that like something so horrific, like a murder would happen, and then how the town's gonna come together and everybody's gonna rally and we're gonna have justice at the end.
16:29
Ellie Alexander: Or this, I was like, no, where are they gonna go on a date night?
16:33
Ellie Alexander: Like, how are they gonna walk from town to the beach?
16:36
Ellie Alexander: Where could they bump into each other?
16:38
Ellie Alexander: Like, where could the holiday parade take place?
16:41
Ellie Alexander: Uh, so it really was a mindset shift for me, even in terms of fleshing out the setting and making Half Moon Bay my own too.
16:51
Ellie Alexander: Like all the other places that you've talked about, I do sometimes feel like it's cheating because I'm not needing to stretch my imagination much because it is so charming and so different than the other locations where I've sent my books to, which for me I think is important because I want to make sure that they stay fresh and that they reflect, you know, my writing up until now, but also maybe some new writing and um feeling that sense of like, oh, this is slightly different.
17:22
Ellie Alexander: It's it's Ellie, it's Ellie's voice, it's all those things, but it's it's not exactly the same as maybe what you've read before.
17:29
Tech Guy: Yeah, and you talked about Half Moon Bay being very charming and walkable.
17:33
Tech Guy: And that that brings me to my next point, which is you do take some creative license because in your book series, um, you tend to move places around or repurpose existing locations to be something else.
17:50
Tech Guy: Were there any major changes you need to make to Half Moon Bay for a fall to remember?
17:56
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I mean, like, so the the bulk of the story takes place at the Green Grocer, which is this specialty gourmet uh market grocery store deli counter that Miranda and her family have owned since the 1950s.
18:11
Ellie Alexander: And there is a really fabulous grocery store in downtown Half Moon Bay, but um, I moved the location.
18:17
Ellie Alexander: And this actual store is kind of a mashup of a lot of other places that I've been before.
18:23
Ellie Alexander: Like there's this wonderful German deli in Portland, Oregon that we used to go to.
18:27
Ellie Alexander: There's a fantastic specialty um grocery store in Pike's Market in Seattle.
18:34
Ellie Alexander: So like I just will take little nuggets of other places and start to build out something that feels like my own.
18:41
Ellie Alexander: And then there were logistical things, and you know this from our trips where it's like, okay, I know we're downtown, but now I need to figure out like, yeah, I know we can drive this way to the beach, but how could we walk?
18:52
Ellie Alexander: And what's that like?
18:54
Ellie Alexander: So there's this beautiful like row of eucalyptus um and ew trees, this whole grove that you can walk through to get there.
19:02
Ellie Alexander: Um, but I didn't want that to be like in reality, you have to cross a highway to take a walk.
19:10
Ellie Alexander: But like that's not quite as uh charming, right?
19:13
Ellie Alexander: So like I'm just gonna cut that out of the book and they're gonna have this sweet little path from downtown that takes you down to the beach, like small details like that.
19:21
Ellie Alexander: But the bulk of the vibes of Half Moon Bay, I feel like are there.
19:26
Tech Guy: Yeah.
19:26
Tech Guy: So for the darlings out there who get a fall to remember and read it, and then subsequently visit Half Moon Bay, California.
19:33
Tech Guy: If you if you try to walk from the grocery store to the beach, just FYI, there will be the coastal highway between you and the and the sand.
19:42
Ellie Alexander: So yeah, that's right.
19:43
Ellie Alexander: I mean, which you can do.
19:44
Ellie Alexander: There's a crosswalk, there's a light, like it can definitely be done, but it might not be quite as charming as what you're gonna see in the book.
19:53
Tech Guy: Yeah, yeah.
19:54
Tech Guy: Is it safe to say that this is the one part of writing both cozy mysteries and rom-coms that is very similar, that whole sensory world building?
20:04
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, for sure.
20:05
Ellie Alexander: And, you know, I don't know why I decided that she was gonna own a grocery store.
20:11
Ellie Alexander: And the green grocer is one of the first things that came to me when I was sketching out the concept for this and then pitching it and having a chat with my editor about it.
20:20
Ellie Alexander: Um, but I guess probably like in the back of my head, that was a not so subtle way to be able to work some food writing into this book, too.
20:31
Ellie Alexander: We just talked about this on a previous podcast, but that is just who I am at my core.
20:36
Ellie Alexander: Like, there's so much food writing that has already happened, clearly because of the bake shop.
20:41
Ellie Alexander: But the same is true with Sloan, even Meg, and to go way back when I was first out on submission with Meg and trying to find an agent and querying.
20:51
Ellie Alexander: One of the first agents who I got an offer from, I did not end up going with this agent, um, but they were lovely and they were excited and eager to work with me.
21:01
Ellie Alexander: But they wanted me to cut out like all mentions of coffee or food or beer, even back then in Meg.
21:07
Ellie Alexander: And she's she's a journalist.
21:09
Ellie Alexander: Like there's she's not in the kitchen at all, but food was already central.
21:13
Ellie Alexander: So I think the green grocer has been a way for me to be able to like take those pieces of my mysteries too and like add just like a little touch because maybe she's preparing a lovely sandwich as she's flirting over the deli counter with this handsome travel uh person who's come to town.
21:33
Tech Guy: Speaking of lovely, this is a love story.
21:38
Tech Guy: Uh like you said, no spice.
21:40
Tech Guy: Uh so this is this is definitely a romance.
21:43
Ellie Alexander: Uh yes.
21:45
Tech Guy: So in your mysteries, you usually have multiple storylines.
21:50
Tech Guy: There's there's, you know, the overarching mystery and then er but but everything seems to kind of converge in that mystery uh it or converge at the crime, the Uh, the murder, as it were.
22:02
Tech Guy: Um, with a fall to remember, is there a convergence point like that?
22:07
Tech Guy: Or is it uh is it totally different than than Cozy's in that regard?
22:12
Ellie Alexander: No, you know, for me, I love stories about female friendship, like strong, central female characters.
22:19
Ellie Alexander: And I also love that idea of like weaving multiple love stories into a book.
22:25
Ellie Alexander: So I did that with the first two rom-coms that I wrote, and I've done that again.
22:30
Ellie Alexander: So I feel like maybe this is kind of my lane for that.
22:34
Ellie Alexander: So we have Jim and Miranda, which is the central love story for this one.
22:38
Ellie Alexander: Jim's coming to town with Voyager Travel, think Expedia.
22:42
Ellie Alexander: And, you know, he is instantly smitten with Miranda and her authenticity and just like how comfortable she is in her skin and kind of laughing at herself.
22:52
Ellie Alexander: And then his younger partner and colleague, Shelby, has also come into town.
22:58
Ellie Alexander: And she has a very different vision for how Miranda should be treated as an influencer.
23:03
Ellie Alexander: She wants to level Miranda up.
23:05
Ellie Alexander: She wants Miranda filtered and in makeup, and she doesn't want any of this kind of kitschy, like stumbling upon um, you know, a proposal or like whatever funny thing Miranda's gonna accidentally do.
23:18
Ellie Alexander: Um, and so there's already then some instant tension between Shelby's goal and Jim's goal, just as far as Miranda goes.
23:26
Ellie Alexander: But Shelby and Miranda's son Pete have kind of some instant chemistry.
23:32
Ellie Alexander: Um and so there's kind of a subplot of what's happening with them, which no spoilers, but that might continue in book two of this series, which will come out next fall.
23:46
Tech Guy: Oh, so that may have been a spoiler in and of itself.
23:49
Tech Guy: Uh Fall to Remember will be part of a series.
23:54
Ellie Alexander: Yes.
23:54
Ellie Alexander: Mm-hmm.
23:55
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
23:55
Ellie Alexander: And the way that series work in the rom-com space is slightly different because you have a satisfying love story for the main arc, of course, because otherwise, darling would feel cheated.
24:07
Ellie Alexander: Like, wait a minute, I'm left hanging.
24:09
Ellie Alexander: And then usually a second or third book in this same world picks up with different characters, characters who maybe we've met in the first book, perhaps some new characters.
24:19
Ellie Alexander: For book two, it will be again similar things where there will be multiple POVs that I'm writing from, which is also to go back to your point, very different than my mystery writing.
24:30
Ellie Alexander: In all of my mysteries, I am writing from first person POV from Jules' point of view, from Sloan, from Annie.
24:39
Ellie Alexander: So we are in their head.
24:40
Ellie Alexander: There's so much that you can do as a writer.
24:42
Ellie Alexander: I mean, there are pros and cons, right?
24:44
Ellie Alexander: But there's so much you can do because you're fully in this one character's point of view.
24:48
Ellie Alexander: So everything that's happening to Jules is happening to us as the readers on the page.
24:53
Ellie Alexander: In this book, there are four different points of view.
24:56
Ellie Alexander: So we have Miranda, Shelby, Jim, and Pete.
24:59
Ellie Alexander: And so I'm switching back and forth between all their POVs.
25:03
Ellie Alexander: So we get to see different things that are happening from different characters' lens, which again, as a writer, is great, super challenging.
25:13
Ellie Alexander: And I had to go back quite a few times and make sure, like, oh, okay, well, wait, does that scene make sense to be in Pete's point of view?
25:20
Ellie Alexander: Or would we learn something different if we're in Jim's point of view?
25:24
Ellie Alexander: So there are a lot of other decisions that I'm having to make when I'm working on this style of rom-com than I have to make in mystery writing at all.
25:32
Tech Guy: Oh, that's interesting.
25:33
Tech Guy: Okay, so Miranda and Jim, Shelby and Pete.
25:37
Tech Guy: Was writing the interactions between one couple versus the other more interesting or more fun?
25:44
Tech Guy: Or did they each uh have their own interests and and you know excitement for you?
25:51
Ellie Alexander: Well, what I learned early on is I'm too quick to want to rush the romance for both of these right out of the gate.
25:57
Ellie Alexander: I initially was like, oh my gosh, they they have this instant meat cute because I love like old school 80s and 90s rom-coms.
26:06
Ellie Alexander: Like they don't make them so much.
26:08
Ellie Alexander: Like we need, we need a resurgence of like great rom-coms or even like, you know, how to lose a guy in 10 days, when Harry Met Sally, my best friend's wedding.
26:18
Ellie Alexander: Like I could go on and on.
26:19
Ellie Alexander: I love that.
26:20
Ellie Alexander: I love the meat cute, I love this then tension, blah, blah, blah.
26:23
Ellie Alexander: What I learned about myself as a writer is I was like, okay, they've met, they have, they've had this moment, they have this thing that tears them apart, but it wasn't until draft two or three, and then working with my editor who was extremely helpful in helping me like figure out the pacing then too.
26:40
Ellie Alexander: Because, you know, she initially had some of the pages, was like, okay, this is great, but like, you know, they can't be in love on page one.
26:47
Ellie Alexander: I'm like, oh, okay, right.
26:48
Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
26:48
Ellie Alexander: Shoot.
26:49
Ellie Alexander: Okay, I gotta go back and and fix that.
26:51
Ellie Alexander: So I don't even know what you asked, but no, that that's perfect.
26:57
Tech Guy: I I will say I can't believe you didn't name Notting Hill in terms of in your list of uh.
27:05
Tech Guy: Oh, we should rewatch that.
27:07
Tech Guy: Yes.
27:07
Ellie Alexander: Anything Jane Austen, I mean, all of these things, right?
27:10
Ellie Alexander: That's all just in my mind from years and years of being a reader and lover of these stories as well.
27:17
Tech Guy: Okay, well, I I hope we've given Darlings a a good look into the content of A Faults Remember.
27:24
Tech Guy: For the sake of not giving away too much and and having any spoilers, let's move on to the physical book because there's some excitement there uh this time.
27:33
Tech Guy: And we've teased it a little bit, but talk a little bit about what this book is going to bring that is going to be a first for Ellie Alexander First.
27:43
Ellie Alexander: This is an Ellie Alexander First.
27:44
Ellie Alexander: I mean, first of all, can we give a shout out for these covers?
27:47
Ellie Alexander: I mean, Storm My Publishing House just knocks it out of the park every time with their cover design.
27:54
Ellie Alexander: And I am in love, no pun intended, with this cover.
27:57
Ellie Alexander: The cover designer just I think captured all of those fall vibes.
28:02
Ellie Alexander: And it's always so fun because this is the first time, like the green grocer, like we've talked about, is just in my head.
28:07
Ellie Alexander: So to see it then realized by somebody else on the cover, it's just like, oh my gosh, yes, that's exactly how I pictured it, which I had the same experience with tort back in the day too.
28:19
Ellie Alexander: So not only is it going to be in trade paperback with this gorgeous cover, but it will have sprayed edges too, which I'm so excited about.
28:29
Ellie Alexander: I love a sprayed edge.
28:31
Tech Guy: Yeah, and we talked about sprayed edges before on Reality Writes when we were covering our favorite book, Trends.
28:37
Tech Guy: So it was very exciting to see that a fall to remember is going to have sprayed edges.
28:42
Tech Guy: And we've seen what the sprayed edges look like, and it is going to be all the fall vibes.
28:47
Ellie Alexander: All the fall vibes.
28:48
Ellie Alexander: Now, the truth of the matter is I should probably not be allowed to touch them because I'm sure I will ruin said sprayed edges because I'm terrible with the way that I treat my books.
28:59
Ellie Alexander: But I'm excited for you, darlings, to get to add this to your shelves.
29:03
Ellie Alexander: And I will say, anytime I'm in a bookstore, I do love the fact that this trend is so popular.
29:09
Ellie Alexander: And you see like collections of fall reads, not only with those stunning covers, but with the sprayed edges.
29:15
Ellie Alexander: And so uh Miranda and Jim are gonna be right there in the mix.
29:19
Tech Guy: Definitely.
29:19
Tech Guy: And I am excited that sprayed edges are spanning genres too, because uh I've seen them in sci-fi and fantasy as well.
29:27
Tech Guy: And that uh it just a little bit of extra excitement for for the book.
29:32
Tech Guy: So I like it.
29:33
Ellie Alexander: It's like a little bonus.
29:34
Ellie Alexander: Uh-huh.
29:34
Ellie Alexander: Speaking of bonuses, one thing that I want to do is I want to, I know this is gonna be a shocker, darlings, but I want to make a recipe from the books because Miranda does, it's fall.
29:46
Ellie Alexander: So she's serving some delicious soups and sandwiches at the green grocer because there's like a little deli eating counter and um just like a few little dining spaces spaces mixed in with all of the shelves of like imported chocolate and olive oil and wines.
30:02
Ellie Alexander: And of course, there are not recipes in the book, but I feel like the release of this demands that I make one.
30:08
Ellie Alexander: So stay tuned for that.
30:10
Tech Guy: Okay, so that is some great information about a fall to remember.
30:13
Tech Guy: Is there anything else you want to share with the darlings out there before we wrap up this episode of Reality Rights?
30:19
Ellie Alexander: Well, I know sometimes getting our hands-on physical copies is not always easy these days.
30:26
Ellie Alexander: And I am excited that most Walmart stores are going to be carrying this book with the sprayed edges.
30:35
Ellie Alexander: So if you are on the hunt for one and can't find them and you've checked your local indie bookstore and what any other places, like wherever you can buy books, you can also potentially snag one there.
30:46
Tech Guy: That's very cool.
30:47
Tech Guy: All right.
30:48
Tech Guy: So that is a Fall to Remember releasing officially on September 1st.
30:53
Tech Guy: And it will be followed next year by book two.
30:56
Tech Guy: And that about does it for this episode of Reality Rice.
31:00
Tech Guy: If you have any questions about a fall to remember that we didn't cover in this episode, or you just want to know more about the book in general, please let us know in the comments or send us a message via the send us a message link in the show notes, and we would love to answer them for you.
31:17
Tech Guy: So with that, until next time.
31:20
Ellie Alexander: Yeah, and before I say until next time, I want to hear from you, darlings, in the comments.
31:24
Ellie Alexander: Are you a lover of spice or no spice?
31:27
Ellie Alexander: Do tell.
31:28
Ellie Alexander: All right, until next time.
31:36
Tech Guy: Until next time.