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How to Win 2021 as a Writer with Jessica Brody, Novelist · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with notable writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: As you know, one of the main things that we emphasize here on this podcast is the importance of habits, rituals, and mindset.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: And since we're almost to the end of January, chances are pretty high that you might have had some great intentions for making changes in your life, but you're human like the rest of us.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: So that probably means you've been tempted to give up on your goals a couple times, or you've fallen short of what you wanted to accomplish.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: First of all, that means you're totally normal.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: And second of all, it means that you're going to enjoy our special guest today, who is here to give us the boost of motivation and help us to make 2021 our best writing year ever.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Her name is Jessica Brody, and she is the author of the number one best-selling novel writing guide called Save the Cat Writes a Novel.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: She is also the founder of the online writing school called Writing Mastery Academy, which by the way is awesome.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: I've been a member for several years.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Jessica has written over 20 novels for teens, tweens, and adults, including The Geography of Lost Things, The Chaos of Standing Still, A Week of Mondays, Fifty-Two Reasons to Hate My Father, Better You Than Me, The Unremembered Trilogy, and The System Divine Series, which is a sci-fi reimagining of Victor Hugo's Le Miserab, co-written with Joanne Rindell.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Jessica's books have been translated and published in over 23 countries, and several have been optioned for film and television.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: She lives with her husband and three dogs near Portland, Oregon, and you can visit her online at Jessica Brody.com.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, as you can see, Jessica is eminently qualified to help us become more successful as writers.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Now you might wonder sometimes how I get connected with amazing guests like Jessica.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: So here is a little bit of backstory before we get into the interview.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: So I've been part of Jessica's Writing Mastery Academy for several years, and honestly, I really, really enjoy it.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: She is a top-notch writing teacher, and Writing Mastery Academy is just super well done.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: I've also been a huge fan of the Save the Cat series for a long time, and I've actually used the original Save the Cat book by Blake Snyder in my college film course for probably six or eight years.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: So if you've never heard of Save the Cat, it's a screenwriting guide that you know basically helps you to understand story structure, and if you want to write for the movies, that's a guide to help you to do that.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: So when I discovered a couple of years ago that Jessica was writing a version of Save the Cat to help novelists understand story structure, I was really excited about that.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you firsthand that Save the Cat Writes a Novel is an extremely well done and very fun book on how to write a novel.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Specifically how to structure the story of it.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: So I've been wanting to interview Jessica for a long time, and finally just a couple months ago, I shot her an email and she said yes, and we scheduled it.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: So I guess the lesson learned there is don't be afraid to connect with people that you really admire.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: So in this conversation, Jessica shares some great tips on how to make 2021 a great year as a writer.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: She also talks about writing routines.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: She talks about her book Save the Cat Writes a Novel, of course.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And she also talks about how to choose a story structure method, as well as lots of other tips for being successful as a writer.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, I had a blast doing this interview, and I know you will love it as well.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: So let's get to the conversation with Jessica Brody.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Jessica, thanks so much for being on the Daily Writer Podcast.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate you making time to do this.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: I've got a million questions, but I'm going to try to narrow it down to a reasonable length.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for having me.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be on.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: So I was struggling honestly with what to talk about, and again, in terms of like narrowing it down.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: And then you sent a newsletter actually earlier this week that I loved.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: You were talking about how to win 2020.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, 2021 as a writer, and you gave a bunch of tips.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: So I thought we would start there, and then I've got a few other things I want to throw in there.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: If that sounds like a cool yeah, that sounds like a good plan.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that you talked about in your newsletter was the importance of setting a goal, which of course we're in January.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: We're recording this on January 7th.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: This will come out in um next weekend, actually, on my show.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And so January is still that very much that goal setting month.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: But something that I see a lot of writers struggle with is knowing what goals they should have.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, should they do a blog, should they do a novel, a nonfiction book, should they do freelance writing?
5:10
SPEAKER_01: There's so many options for goals that a writer could have.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: What advice might you give a writer in terms of figuring out what their goals should be as a writer?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's tricky.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because you know, we're all sort of multi-passionate, right?
5:23
SPEAKER_00: We've got like all these things going on, all these things we want to do.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And it and I think the there's nothing wrong with that, but I do think that the world is sort of set up right now to encourage us to be tugged in a lot of different directions.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so it's kind of hard to focus in on one thing.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I would just say the thing that excites you the most and stay away from the things that you think you're supposed to do, like, oh, blogs are really big this year.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: I should do that.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: If you, if you using the word should, you're probably not gonna have the motivation to finish that project because the should, you know, will wear off really quickly.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: But the like, I'm really excited to do this, um, is what's gonna kind of give you enough motivation to to at least get to the meat of it, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And so I think you know, you really want to sit down and say, when you look at all these different ideas or different projects or different venues that you can venture into, which is the one that really stokes the fire and makes you go, I can't wait to get started on that, as opposed to, well, if I just try hard enough, I think I can make that work, you know.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, because as I talk about a lot in my newsletters, in my courses, in my in my book, that inspiration like it it wanes throughout a project.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't start with enough of it, if you don't start with enough excitement, like it's really hard to kind of push through to the end of that that project.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad I asked this question because you have just taken off a huge load off my shoulders because I have two friends literally in the past week.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I've got one friend who's like, man, you gotta get on Clubhouse, this new social media network.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: You gotta you gotta do it, you gotta do it.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Then I have another friend who's like, you gotta get on TikTok.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: I've been selling books like crazy on TikTok.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm a middle-aged guy.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, should I really be on TikTok?
7:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't really sure about that.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't seem like the place for me.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm not excited about either one of those.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: So I that is great advice.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate I appreciate that.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people needed to hear that.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: Do what you're excited about.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: And one thing that you mentioned also in your recent newsletter was accountability partners.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: And as we look around our lives, if if someone is not already part of a small group or mastermind or a community of some kind, what are the qualities that they should be looking for in a good writing accountability partner?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of accountability partners for any kind of project you you undertake.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I sort of learned about them accidentally when a friend, a friend and I decided to do the same at-home workout pro program.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so every day there'd be like a new workout, and we would do we were separate, you know, we would do them separately in our own home.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And um I would get this like panic of, oh my God, she's gonna do it.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And she's gonna text me and go, you know, what was your rep count and what how'd it go?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be like, I haven't done it yet.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: And so there was this constant pressure of knowing she was she was gonna do it too.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: Um and I realized how effective that was, and I worked my butt off.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever worked out harder.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I kind of learned the the magic of accountability partners, is just that you know, there's there's this sort of peer pressure about it, but then there's also just you don't want to let people down.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And we as sad as it is, we we tend to let ourselves down much eas much easier than we do others.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: And when other people are sort of checking in on us, you know, and and and rooting for us, it's it's harder for us to you know to quit.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think accountability partners are really important for any project.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: But when it comes to writers, the I think the big misconception is that you need an accountability partner who is also a writer, which is not the case.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, you can definitely have mutual accountability partners where you're both working on a book or a project or whatever and you're checking in with each other and you're sort of adding a little healthy competition to the to the mix.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: But I think, you know, if you can find someone who you know is going to be kind of on you every day and sending you those text messages.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Did you write today?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, how many words?
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's just as valuable.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think when you look for the accountability partner, you want someone who really knows how to hold you accountable and is going to and and and believes in you.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think when someone asks you to be their accountability partner, you know, there's a there's a certain amount of responsibility in that too.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you want someone who's kind of up for the task and who supports you, believes in you, but is is sort of loves you and and supports you enough to um to to kind of give you that firm hand when you need it as well.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Um you don't want like a wishy-washy accountability partner who's gonna go, oh, you didn't write for four days.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Life is tough.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: You want you want someone who's really gonna kind of kick you in the butt a little bit.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Cobra Kai just came out on Netflix.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's okay.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: We know that was really a bigger priority.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: So there is a sense in which you know, writers are our creative types.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh sometimes we can get a little bit squirrely about goals and priorities and discipline and all those kinds of things.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: So we could look around in our lives and perhaps there's a a business owner who's successful that we know, or uh a friend who really is good with health and fitness, or or something like that.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, I think what you're saying is find somebody who is a good person overall and who is successful at something.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: They don't necessarily have to be a writer, it's just somebody who would make a good partner to help us be more successful.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can definitely, you know, explain to that person what you're trying to achieve, make sure they understand the goals and the the steps involved in getting to that goal.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I'm gonna I want to finish this book in six months.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, that's gonna require me to write, you know, 1500 words a day.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And they need to kind of sort of understand at least those steps, even if they don't understand the story or the process of writing a book, they need to be able to go, did you write your 1500 words?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: If not, why not?
11:09
SPEAKER_00: What can we do tomorrow to make sure that we're not, you know, you're not skipping it again or or whatever it is.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: So if we are in an accountability partner relationship, obviously there's two sides to that coin.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: How can we be a good partner to somebody else?
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so if you are, you know, kind of doing a mutual accountability thing, um, where two, let's say two writers are getting together to hold themselves accountable, then you know, you need to not be afraid to lay down the law a little bit as well.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think just taking into consideration, you know, what's gonna inspire you.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and you know, you want to use a firm hand, but you want to also use you want to be supportive and you want to be compassionate.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, life does get in the way.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget this one webinar I was doing where somebody said, uh a student said, Um, you know, I'm trying to write every day, but my husband just came back from deployment.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And is it okay if I skip a day to spend the day with him?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, of course, my gosh, like go be with your husband.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, we we don't want to be the to the point where we're slave drivers, um, but at the same time, we want to make sure that the excuses are not just excuses, like you said, you know, okay, Cobra Kai is coming out.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not good enough.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think, you know, you want to be able to, you need to be able to understand the balance between life's sort of real obstacles and the made-up ones that we put in our own way.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Man, that is so true.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: That is so true.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, speaking of obstacles, something that we oftentimes throw in our own way as writers is this idea of, man, if I have a set time of day where I'm writing, like I've got to be all disciplined and everything, that feels like an obstacle to many people.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: But how can that writing routine actually help propel them forward instead of just saying, Well, I'm just gonna write when I feel like it or when I feel inspired or when I feel ready?
13:05
SPEAKER_00: I actually just did I just posted a YouTube video about this very thing.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Um so I I'm just gonna start out in saying, like, I've I've written now over 20 novels, um, and none of them have ever gotten written because I wrote only when I was inspired.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Not a single one.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't think a third of anyone has been written, be when I was only inspired.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to throw that idea out the window.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: And there's this romantic idea for writers about, you know, every time I sit down, it's gonna be like angels singing, and and this great force is gonna power through me and like fuel my hands and whatever.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not that magical most of the time.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And uh this romantic version of what a writer's life is like will only injure you.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, the the reality of most writers' lives is that every single day we sort of have to force ourselves to sit down, we have to force ourselves to keep writing because we're not inspired every day.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And um it's easy to be inspired at the beginning, it's not easy to maintain that.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: So, what I tell people is to don't rely on inspiration because it's really fickle.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: I kind of equate it to um a really bad uh employee who like never shows up for work and like takes unplanned vacations whenever they feel like it, and um, and it's just like this terrible employee who you can never depend on because you don't know when they're gonna be there.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's inspiration.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Discipline, on the other hand, is what you should be relying on because discipline is the best employee ever.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: They show up on time every day, you can depend on them, and most important, you can control discipline.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: You cannot control inspiration.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: So you can always decide to be disciplined.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: You can't just say, I'm gonna be inspired today.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I urge people to create discipline in their life.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And the first step to doing that is to set aside a time every day or or on a on a consistent schedule.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: So like five days a week, the same five days a week.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, set aside the same time every day so that it becomes part of your routine.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, the problem with sort of writing willy-nilly, like when you find a few minutes here or there when you feel inspired, is that there's no consistency to that, and you can fall into this trap of, well, I don't, I can't find the time or I don't feel inspired, so I'm not gonna write.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, 10 days go by and you haven't written a word.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: But if you say, like, I'm gonna write for 30 minutes every single morning between 7 and 7:30 before I have to go to work or before my kids get up or whatever it is, um, and you do that every single morning, it eventually at first it's hard, and then eventually it stops being a thing you have to force yourself to do, and it's just a thing you do.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: And um it sort of takes away that question of will I write today and replaces it with what will I write today?
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and how how much.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And so I think like I talk about how writing is sort of like when you bring when you build it into your schedule, it's sort of like brushing your teeth.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't really think about brushing our teeth, we don't like kind of hem and haw over it and procrastinate it for like three hours going, I'm not inspired to brush my teeth.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to brush my teeth.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: We just brush our teeth because it's part of the day.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, so when you set your your writing like even if it's just 30 minutes, when you set it into your schedule like every single day, then it just doesn't become a thing anymore.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: It's more just oh, now it's time to write.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I do.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: I love that a lot.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Now let me dive into some specifics specifically related to Save the Cat writes a novel, which is an amazing book, by the way.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for writing that.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: That is a phenomenal writing craft book.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: I think absolutely essential for anybody who wants to write a novel.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing I want to say.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for saying that and for reading it.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: So this book is a little over 300 pages and uh uh came out what about two, two and a half years ago, something like that.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's about right.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: So, how did you actually write that book?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Walk us through the process.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh, maybe we'll do a little case study here, if that's okay.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: How did you get connected with this the whole Save the Cat brand?
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I've used those books for years.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, so in my day job, I'm actually a college prof and I teach film and um podcasting and media and some related kinds of things.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: And I've used Save the Cat in a movie class that I teach for years, and I love it.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: It's such a fun book.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, how did you get connected with with that whole thing?
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And then walk us through the process of how you actually wrote the book in terms of how how long did it take you, what was your process for writing it, and so forth.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm really curious about all this.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd love to talk about that, and then I will come back to that what you said about the length because there's a funny story in there about how many how many pages it is.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I actually found Save the Cat, the original screenwriting book, uh, way early in my career, thankfully, because I I hadn't sold a book and I was struggling to, you know, to make it as an author.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And um, as soon as I found that book, uh, I rewrote the book I was working on from scratch, and I ended up after, you know, I'd gotten rejected tons and tons of times.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I think I was like 50 rejection letters in my file on that book.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And then I rewrote it using the save the cat method, and I got an agent, and the agent sold the book in like 10 days.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And it was just this sort of whirlwind from there.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I kept selling books based on this method, and I since have sold over 20 novels to major publishers, and I have followed this method for every single one.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: So it started as just like, this is magic, and this saved my career.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, eventually I started blogging about my process of using the screenwriting method to write novels, and that got the attention of the people who run Savethecat.com.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, and these are the people who are keeping Blake Snyder's legacy alive.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Blake Snyder was the original book uh author and he passed away in 2009, I believe.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Um and uh they contacted me and said, you know, would you mind blogging for us?
18:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like starstruck, and I said, of course.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And then that kind of turned into we got such a good reaction to those blogs.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: That turned into, I started teaching workshops for writers or for novelists through them.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, just sort of it just sort of spiraled from there.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And at one point, I remember we were all having breakfast.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: They live in LA and we were all having breakfast, and we just kind of all said, not at the same time, but it just sort of was inevitable, like there needs to be a book for novelists, and they said, we'd like you to write it.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, so from there, we um I I created a proposal.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I sold the proposal, I sold the book to um 10 Speed Press, which is a division of Random House, and uh I started I started writing it.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Um it was so exciting.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, there was actually an auction for the for the book between multiple publishing houses, so that was really exciting.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: And then came time where I actually had to write it, and that's when all the panic set in.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, um, this book is beloved by millions of, you know, hundreds of thousands of screenwriters.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And here I am taking on the task of converting it to nut for novels and for novelists.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: And I just was like, oh my God, people are gonna just skewer me.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna, they're gonna be like, she doesn't know what she's talking about.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I was so fearful of the of the reaction.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And the funny part was is that the thing I was most fearful about was I knew I had to break down novels in this book.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I knew I had to sort of combine what Blake Snyder did in Save the Cat, which is the method, and with what he did in Save the Cat goes to the movies, which was the second book.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love that one too.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So he breaks down 50 different movies with the Save the Cat beat sheet to show you how these movies fit this uh blueprint.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I have to do both in one book.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: I have to break down the method, and then I have to break down the novels as well.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Because I knew there was gonna be sort of a there was gonna be two kinds of people, the people that really love, you know, just the theory of it, and then there's gonna be the people who really need the examples.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: And then I knew there was gonna be sort of the the doubters who are gonna say, yeah, that works for screenplays, but it doesn't work for novels.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to, you know, show like actually it it's already been working for novels long before Save the Cat was even around.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know, so that's why I included examples from books as early as Pride and Prejudice and Charles Dickens and all that.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but my biggest fear was that I was gonna break down these novels and and uh like these literary critics were gonna be like, you don't know anything about Charles Dickens, or like you don't know how to critique, you know, or analyze uh Pride and Prejudice.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that was just stemmed from all these years of English classes with my teacher going, Jessica, you don't know the theme of this book.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that was just really nerve wracking.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, I had it, I had it read by a couple of beta early beta readers, and they they had really great feedback, and I sort of started to get over my fear and um and just really enjoy the process of it.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, and the response has been amazing and it's still.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Sort of every time someone says, like, it's so great, I'm just like, really?
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean gay, but um, so there's still, I guess, a little bit of panic inside of me.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: But um, it's been just such a rewarding experience.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I read and analyzed about 30 to 50 novels in the process of writing the book.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I um I knew that I wanted to take different genres.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Um the I think the hardest part of the book was actually deciding which 10 uh novels to to to include with full beat sheet.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: So the book has sort of a breakdown of the method, and then it has 10 examples of novels, um, one from every different story genre, which I can talk about more if if you want.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: But um so I deciding which of the 10 which 10 books to include was really difficult because I wanted to make sure that I was picking books that, you know, really were the best representations of story structure, but then also the best representations of that genre.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: But then I also wanted to make sure that I wasn't filling the book with um novels written by a bunch of white, old white dudes.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, I wanted to make sure I wanted to make sure there was diversity in the kinds of stories I was showing, the kinds of authors that I was um, you know, I was representing.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And so it became this masterful puzzle of well, this book really fits this genre very well, but you know, like I don't want to include it because like I'd rather include something else that you know represents a different uh diversity group or something like that.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And yes.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was very I was trying to be very aware of that.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Um and so in the process, uh the original pitch that I sent to the original proposal that I sold the book on, it said there was actually gonna be three examples from every genre, and it was gonna be 30 beat sheets because I thought, oh, it's gonna be like Save the Cat and Save the Cat goes to the movies, and I'm gonna do 30 beat sheets.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I got to a point where the first draft had two beat sheets for each book or sorry, each genre.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And I realized that the book was like so long because the beat sheets for novels are much longer than the beat sheets for screenplays, which I quickly learned.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh I sent it to my editor as is, and I said, Do we really need a whole nother set of beat sheets for each genre?
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And she said, actually, we need to cut half of these because the book's too long.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: So um, we ended up cutting half of the beat sheets, and I ended up actually giving them out um as a free ebook as part of a pre-order campaign for the for the for the book at the very beginning.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, so they all kind of got used in some way, but it was just a really this is a really interesting process, the whole thing.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: So, how long did it actually take you to to write the book from start to finish?
24:52
SPEAKER_00: It was about a year, I would say, with all of the reading.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And um the the writing of the actual book.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: So the book's broken down into the the first chapter is all about how to create a story-worthy hero.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So, like a main character who who deserves to be in your story.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: The second chapter is all about the beat sheet, and then you know, pretty much from there on, with a few exceptions, it's all the beat sheets and the genre breakdowns.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, the first two chapters I think I wrote in like two weeks.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like those were just straight out of my head, I knew exactly how to how to explain this process because I had been doing it for more than five years in my workshops.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Like I had the process down in terms of how to teach it to someone.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, the biggest time, the most time-consuming part was the reading of all the books, um, the writing of the beat sheets, um, and then of course, like the big puzzle of which books to include.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was like sort of a very skewed process where there was most of the time was spent um reading and analyzing other literature.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And the actual teaching of the process didn't take very long to write.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: That totally makes sense.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say it must have taken you at least a year to do this because I mean the book is is big, but it's also dense.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's not like it's not like the kind of book where you're just sort of pouring out your thoughts on something.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: It's obvious this is really well thought out, well researched, uh, and the like.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: So great job.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Great job.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I do, I I do owe that a lot to the experience I had teaching the method for many years.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I would every time I would teach, I would I used to do these two-day workshops um where writers would come in with an idea on the first day, and then on the end of the second day, they'd walk out with an outline.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and every time I taught it, I tweaked it because I would see how people were responding, how they were absorbing the material.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: And I would see, for example, Blake teaches you in his book, he teaches you how to write a log line first.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought that was backward.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And I would I started that way with my classes, and people would be like, wait a minute, how do I write a log line for a story I haven't figured out?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so I put the log line last.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: So there was just a lot of kind of trial error in the classes that sped up the process of writing the book.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: So here's a big question that I want to ask about, and something I have really struggled with myself, and I'm sure you have some insights about this.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: So I am currently working on a book, uh, you know, famous last words for writers, right?
27:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm currently working on a book on such and such, but but it's it's true.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: So I'm working on a book that is a it's a parable, kind of a teaching story about four things that every writer needs to have.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: It's something I've been thinking about a long time.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: It goes along with my daily writer community, something I talk about a lot on my podcast.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: And I thought it would be fun to write about this in the form of a story.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of taking this character on a character arc and so forth.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: However, something I have struggled with with this whole kind of approach over the last few years, not with this book specifically, but just in general, is when you're writing a story like this, which story structure form do you use?
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we have Save the Cat writes a novel, and I'm grateful for that.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we also have templates like the hero's journey, you have the write from the middle approach, you have the snowflake method, you have all these different kinds of things, including um, you know, writing into the dark, which is basically you write without an outline.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: So how how does someone know where to start?
28:22
SPEAKER_01: If someone is writing a novel or a story for the first time, how do they know which of these methods to choose?
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And I I will admit that I don't know a lot of the other methods.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: I know of them, I don't know them very well.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I was sort of I found Save the Cat early on in my career and it worked for me and I stuck with it.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's sort of my answer is you you have to find the one that that resonates with you.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And I remember reading the first Save the Cat book and just being like, wowed, like it spoke to me.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Like I knew this was right.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you kind of have that feeling of like, yes, this is the right way.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, the same way that you sort of know that your book's working or not working after a while, you know, when you when you write something that you know works, um, I think there's this feeling you get.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think if if this book, you know, save the cat doesn't work for you, that's fine.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Find one that does, you know.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: I think all of us who are writing these types of books, we're all we all have something in common.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: We're all trying to help writers tell better stories.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think the world, especially right now, needs stories.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, they need your story, um, they need inspiring stories and they need uh stories that that you have inside of you.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I think we're all sort of on this mission of helping people do that and bring those stories to the world.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, just like I might read a novel that I think is the most brilliant thing ever, you might read the same novel and go, that was crap.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Um we're all so different and we're so different as readers and we're also really different as writers.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, try try it's kind of trial and error.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: If you've tried one that you don't like or that doesn't work for you, or that's not really resonating or sinking in, you know, try a different one.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I there's so many options now, and there are, you know, the ones that you mentioned, there are these sort of popular ones that have risen to the top.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, try those.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And if those don't work, you know, dig a little deeper.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: But I think with writers, we're such a tight community and we share what works.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, like we're not afraid to share with our, I'm gonna put this in in air quotes competitors, um, what our secret sauce is.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I use the word quote in competitors because even though, yes, any novelist who is writing in my genre is technically my competitor, I don't see it that way.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's what makes writers so great is that we are so willing to share our advice with and our knowledge with each other and our wisdom.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I would never once thought, as I put out Save the Cat, like, oh great, I'm creating an army of competitors out there who are gonna like steal my shelf space.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I never thought that.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think writers just we have this kind of bond of like, we want to know what works and we want to share that with each other.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: So I think, you know, find your ask your friends what they're really enjoying and what's working for them and start there.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I think sets your approach apart though, is that you've actually used this method to write a bunch of successful novels.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: As opposed to, and I'm gonna I'm gonna pick on some other people here a little bit, as opposed to other well, they shall remain nameless, but I'm still gonna pick on them.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: There's kind of a whole sub-industry of writing teachers who write these story analysis books and so forth.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: But then when you try to find their novels, there are none because they haven't actually written any.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: And that really bugs me because I'm like, yeah, but you can analyze all these stories and you can do all this stuff and say this is the foolproof method for doing whatever.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: But if they haven't actually done anything themselves, I really start to question kind of the validity of that.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's that old trope of uh you can teach something, but you can't do it.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm speaking as a college prof, guilty as charged to some degree, probably.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: So to me, the fact that you have actually used this method to write a bunch of your own books says, hey, this is this is really what people should be doing.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: Plus, it's just really stinking fun.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: The whole time the camera thing is just really fun, and there has to be like an inherent level of funness to it.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: I know that's not a word, but it is now.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's what sets your stuff apart.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: I I agree with the fun, the funness, which which now I've used.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: So now two people have used it, it's it's past.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's legit then.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: It's legit.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: I I agree with the funness.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what's really spoke to me about the original method is Blake well, not only his voice was really fun, like he felt like he was just talking to me about story and not trying to lecture me about story.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, but just the you know, the fun names for things like the bad guys close in and the dark night before or then uh the dark before the dawn, you know, like all these like dark night of the soul.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: There was just sort of a tongue-in-cheek about some of it.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And um, I think that's really important because we tend to take ourselves really seriously, not just as writers, but a lot of you know human beings.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and it just sort of reminds us that writing is supposed to be fun and storytelling, as even if we're writing the most depressing story ever, it's still something that's supposed to like stoke our soul and and be in and be a an entertaining thing.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, I I agree with that about the the funness.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Is there any reason why uh why save the cat writes a novel approach?
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Am I even saying that?
33:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know I'm saying it correctly, but is there a better a better phrase that I could use for your specific approach?
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Um I call it the save the cat storytelling method, but I there's like an official, I don't know if there's an official term for it or not.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, gotcha.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: So uh in this book that I'm working on, it's gonna be like 140 pages.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's kind of one of those very short business parable type of books.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: Is there any reason why save the cat storytelling method would not work for that kind of a book?
34:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, obviously that like a business parable type of a thing, much less detail, it's gonna be shorter.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: It's meant to convey certain concepts.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, but is there any reason why it wouldn't work for that kind of a story?
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not sure.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: I haven't studied a lot of those types of stories, and so I can't really speak to that question with any any authority.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, I am sort of been touting from the beginning that the method works for any narrative, you know, any sort of narrative.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: So um I've broken down Taylor Swift's songs using this method.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: I've I know Blake Snyder broke down like a TV commercial once using the method, um, short stories.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: I just I think that anytime you have a a narrative story inside of anything, um, there is there are these 15 beats, or if not all 15, then sort of the the core beats.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: There are sort of beats that I think are a little bit, I wouldn't say more important than the others, but they kind of cement the story uh more concretely than the others.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Um but I definitely think that those beats are found in any in every narrative that you that you that you read or see.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Um so I can't imagine that they wouldn't, but again, I haven't, I'm not as familiar with them as you probably are as that these types of stories.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: So do you ever watch movies?
35:28
SPEAKER_01: And uh of course, because you're an expert with uh Save the Cat story beats, do you ever watch movies or TV shows and just you kind of grit your teeth a little bit and go, Oh, they totally messed up this point.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: And and internally you know why that story is not succeeding, but maybe the filmmakers missed uh a story beat or something like that.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Does that ever do you ever have that experience?
35:48
SPEAKER_00: It it you know, it does happen once in a while, but I think more often than not, I'm more praiseworthy.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm more like, yes.
35:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is awesome.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: That was such a great midpoint.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, or you know, like, yeah, that you know, that Allah's lost was really great.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Or or I just really like finding them, you know, it's sort of like a giant Easter egg for me.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and lately I've been I've been really intrigued with um there's been a lot of these limited series uh TV shows, which are like five episodes, eight episodes, and then the show's over.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and those are really fun for me because it is more like a novel.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, the you you have much more story, but the arcs are really, really clear to me in the 15 beats.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Like I just watched uh The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, and I was just like my wife loves that show.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's just eight episodes and it's over.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: So and I was like, yep, there's the midpoint of the season, you know, there's the all is lost, there's the whiff of death, there's the um here's the five-point finale.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Like it was all there, and it was just it's just been so fun for me to to break down those kind of longer form TV series.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, it's it's fun.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm every once in a while, yeah, I'll I will watch something and I'll go, okay, that happened a little fast, or that was a little unbelievable, and they probably could have done something differently.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: But um, I think at this point where the the method is so ingrained in me, I I'm just looking for escapes a lot when I watch shows and TV and movies because I'm like, I just need to shut off my brain and not think about the story and how it's working or not working.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: So I try to do that, but it's it doesn't always work.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a hazard of the the job, you know, when you're a storyteller for a living.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, I do want to ask about writing mastery because this is something I've been a part of for a couple of years and have really, really enjoyed it.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: I love the community that you've built there and all of the courses that you have, they're just really, really well done.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I've connected with a couple people from writing mastery.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: We've gotten to be friends, so that's been a lot of fun.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: So, can you share what that's all about and how people can get involved in that?
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um thank and thank you for being part of my community.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: That's so great.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: I um I started writing mastery a few years back.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, I actually just started doing teaching online courses um because I was traveling around a lot to speak at libraries and writing conferences, and I had a few sort of workshops that I would be hired to do.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And the travel was so taxing, um, you know, where I would, I would, it would be like this whole ordeal with planes and trains and automobiles, you know, just to kind of go and do like a two-hour presentation and I thought to 50 people.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, if I just, you know, record these and turn them into kind of interactive streaming workshops that people could take whenever they wanted, um, call them on-demand workshops, um, I could reach a lot more people that way.
38:42
SPEAKER_00: And so I started, I started putting courses together um in this fashion, and I got some really great responses from it.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I started calling them the writing mastery courses.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: And um then in January of this last year, oh, this is the first time I've said last year in terms of that was crazy, right?
39:00
SPEAKER_00: January of last year.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: So about actually almost, I didn't think it's uh exactly a year ago, um, I started the Writing Mastery Academy, which is um my online writing school.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: And it's all of my, I have nine now uh streaming writing courses that are available on demand.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like Netflix for writers, like you you join and you um it's a monthly subscription.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: It's as of right now, it's only$12 a month, and you get access to everything.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: And um, you sort of you know consume as much as you want, take the pace, take the courses at your own pace.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: And then within the academy, we also have a community, which you you mentioned where um where people can can connect, find accountability partners that we talked about, find critique partners, share their wisdom.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: As I said, writers just love to share uh what they've learned.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And so we we built this community inside the academy.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do live webinars there every month.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: I have guests, uh guest instructors who come on and do live webinars as well.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's just sort of an all like an all-inclusive uh buffet for writers of of resources, courses, you know, bonus content, like all sorts of things that might help them.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: And it's really, really cheap.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I I'm just kind of baffled why the price for this is so low because because it's it's like really, really good stuff.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: So well, I'd I thank you.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to talk about that.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: I that was a very conscious decision.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, with the price point, is I have seen other types of programs, um, other types of courses that are are higher price points.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, there for me it was really about I didn't want price to be the any deciding factor for anyone.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want anyone to say, well, I can't get the knowledge I want because the price is too high.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, I wanted, you know, I wanted this to be something that was accessible to as many people who wanted it, and I didn't want it to feel like an elite experience or like something that only certain people could afford.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, so that was really important to me to keep it uh affordable and um and just accessible to to anyone.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, I love that because you know that there's a lot of people who are listening to this who can, I'm sure, relate to the fact that hey, um, I don't have any a lot of extra money to invest in myself.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they've lost a job, maybe they've got this situation or that situation.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: So I love the fact that this is really affordable.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: And there have been months where I haven't used it, but every time that I that a month like that goes by and then I see the charge on a debit card, I'm like, yeah, I haven't used it maybe this month, but I there's no way I'm gonna cancel this.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's too good.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: It's like a gold mine sitting there.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: So well, thank you.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate you I appreciate you saying that.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Um it's yeah, that was that was just a very important, that was a very important factor to me.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's not to say that there's not a place for you know the high end other kinds of things because there's markets for for everything, I guess, but but I think it really shows where your heart is in helping people by having something that is accessible.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially uh especially today, I know that not a lot of people have extra income um in in in today's day and age.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I but also I just um I don't know.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: I just I I won't I won't harp on it, but yeah, it was just a it was just an important factor.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, I love it, and I and I appreciate that for sure.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: Well, Jessica, this has been a blast.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: There's a million other questions I can ask, and actually we're gonna do a bonus here, uh a bonus interview here in just a moment, uh, which I'll do on a separate episode here.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: But how can people connect with you, find out more about your books, writing mastery, save the cat writes a novel, and all the other cool stuff that you're doing?
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, well, everything is on jessicabrody.com.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: That's J-E-S-S-I-C-A-B-R-O-D-Y.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, there you'll find all the information about my novels, um, save the cat.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: And uh right on the top says online writing courses, and you can click there to get information about the academy.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, everything's everything's in one place right on on my website.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: This has been a blast, and I appreciate you taking time to do this.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, hey, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jessica.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: My main takeaway from this interview is really very simple, and it's this if you're considering writing a novel or really a story of any kind, just go out and get her book.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: Save the cat writes a novel.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: So I'll be honest, for a long time I struggled with how to approach the story structure of the book that I'm currently working on.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: And finally, when I got her book, it solved a lot of problems and it made everything really, really clear for me.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: It is a very fun and engaging read, so I'm just gonna encourage you to go out and get the book.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: There's a link in the show notes for that, or you can, of course, uh get on Amazon and search it up there.
43:59
SPEAKER_01: And of course, I also encourage you to visit Jessica's website at jessicabrody.com.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Additionally, I recommend checking out her online writing school, which is Writing Mastery Academy, as well, of course, as Save the Cat Writes a Novel.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: And there are links to all those things in the show notes.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed this episode, please give Jessica a shout-out on Instagram at Jessica Brody.
44:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, tomorrow I have a special bonus interview with Jessica where she goes more in depth about traditional publishing versus self-publishing.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: That's a great conversation, so I encourage you to check that out as well tomorrow.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks so much for listening to this episode.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: One more thing before we close out.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: I would be extremely grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review of the show at iTunes.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: Those reviews are extremely helpful for reaching new listeners, and I read and I appreciate every single review.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: And if you know of anybody who would enjoy these episodes, please consider sharing it with them.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.