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When the Story Takes Over—What Really Happens When Your Book Changes Mid-Draft · 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.
• 0:12
  Ellie Alexander: This is the podcast where we talk about all things writer-ish, bookish, and um maybe ghostish today.
• 0:19
  Tech Guy: I don't know.
• 0:20
  Tech Guy: Yeah, that was weird.
• 0:21
  Ellie Alexander: Um I'm here, first of all, though, with the Tech Guy.
• 0:26
  Tech Guy: Yeah, maybe.
• 0:26
  Tech Guy: I don't know how much longer I'm sticking around.
• 0:29
  Tech Guy: That was bizarre.
• 0:30
  Tech Guy: So I was uh getting everything set up for the for this episode.
• 0:35
  Tech Guy: Um, and this episode has nothing to do with ghosts, but I was here with my monitor headphones on, and Ellie was not in her office, but her mic was on and and video, uh, for those of you watching on YouTube.
• 0:49
  Tech Guy: Uh and I started hearing voices.
• 0:54
  Ellie Alexander: Don't like that.
• 0:55
  Ellie Alexander: I don't like that.
• 0:57
  Ellie Alexander: I went, darling.
• 0:59
  Tech Guy: I got a recording of it, and I just I couldn't make out the words, but it was definitely a man's voice talking.
• 1:05
  Tech Guy: Um really don't like that at all.
• 1:07
  Tech Guy: So I'm a little freaked out right now.
• 1:10
  Tech Guy: So this is your haunted podcast about bookish, writerish things today.
• 1:16
  Ellie Alexander: I know, and kind of what we're gonna talk about is sort of on the lines of like this kind of mystery around what happens in the writing process.
• 1:24
  Ellie Alexander: So I don't know.
• 1:26
  Tech Guy: Yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with ghosts, but uh no, that this topic came up um because uh we were we were ch talking the other day, um, and we're gonna get to this in a um in a another episode here coming up on Reality Writes, but we were talking about uh writing schedules and you were talking about the the um being in the process of the different phases of editing for a few different books, and um and it just came up the the topic about uh you know what you had set out to write and what is making it into the final book um are two different things.
• 2:06
  Tech Guy: And I was like, wait, what?
• 2:07
  Tech Guy: I the for whatever reason, that took me by surprise.
• 2:11
  Tech Guy: And I feel like I know uh at least a little bit about you know the writing business and and uh books um being married to you and and in this business for so long.
• 2:22
  Tech Guy: But this topic I thought was like, no, we got to do an episode about this because I it just it kind of blew my mind.
• 2:30
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, yeah, and it happens a lot, I think.
• 2:33
  Ellie Alexander: And it's one thing that I often talk to my writing students about because I think you have to leave yourself open to the possibility that the story is gonna change.
• 2:43
  Ellie Alexander: And perhaps because there's some weird ghostly voice in my microphone, the next book that I'm plotting will end up being completely different because I'll then have that in my head.
• 2:53
  Ellie Alexander: Who knows?
• 2:54
  Ellie Alexander: So, one of the things that I do for myself, and I always encourage my writing students, is plotting ahead of time, right?
• 3:04
  Ellie Alexander: We've talked about it on this podcast.
• 3:06
  Ellie Alexander: You've seen me share this on social media.
• 3:08
  Ellie Alexander: You and I have done so many plots over the years.
• 3:12
  Ellie Alexander: I always start with a very thorough outline.
• 3:16
  Ellie Alexander: I call it a blueprint, especially if we're talking about a murder mystery, because I need to know all of the suspects, the lies, the crime scene, blah, blah, blah.
• 3:25
  Ellie Alexander: But, uh, and this is a big but.
• 3:28
  Ellie Alexander: And this is hard, I think, to embrace until you've had some experience with it happening.
• 3:36
  Ellie Alexander: Once you start writing, things are going to evolve and change.
• 3:42
  Ellie Alexander: And I was just doing a coaching session with a client who was devastated by this.
• 3:48
  Ellie Alexander: They were just distraught.
• 3:49
  Ellie Alexander: They're like, I did, I did my plot, I had everything worked out.
• 3:53
  Ellie Alexander: I got about halfway or three quarters of the way through the book.
• 3:57
  Ellie Alexander: And now I'm having to flip it all upside down.
• 4:00
  Ellie Alexander: And I'm like, that's great.
• 4:02
  Ellie Alexander: That's good.
• 4:03
  Ellie Alexander: Because that means now you've tapped into that creative energy.
• 4:06
  Ellie Alexander: Your characters are starting to probably feel more real to you.
• 4:10
  Ellie Alexander: The story is in flow.
• 4:12
  Ellie Alexander: And so things are going to change, and that's okay.
• 4:16
  Ellie Alexander: Um, but that's, I think it's a really hard thing to embrace as a writer.
• 4:21
  Ellie Alexander: And it's something that as a reader, I don't think I ever understood happened to writers either.
• 4:27
  Tech Guy: Yeah, and that's where it came from for me, where I, I mean, I know all about editing, and you have to change things sometimes, but it just seemed like a much bigger shift, right?
• 4:38
  Tech Guy: Where you're you're setting out to write things where you're going down one path, and then through editing, it's like, no, this has to change.
• 4:46
  Tech Guy: And now you're way over here, and it's just completely different than what you set out.
• 4:51
  Tech Guy: And usually for the better, right?
• 4:55
  Ellie Alexander: Usually for the better, yeah.
• 4:56
  Ellie Alexander: And sometimes that happens organically.
• 4:58
  Ellie Alexander: Sometimes that happens because then I send it to my editor.
• 5:02
  Ellie Alexander: And let's say my editor is like, oh gosh, you know what?
• 5:05
  Ellie Alexander: I really love this part, but I feel like, you know, there's this little nugget that you've hinted at here, or maybe we're gonna change up the whole concept of the book because really you found the story at the halfway point or the three-quarter point.
• 5:18
  Ellie Alexander: And especially with something like a mystery, then you have to do a lot of work to go back and trace every thread because every time you change one thing, you have to change it a dozen, four dozen, fifty dozen times through the rest of the manuscript, either ahead of time or after the after time.
• 5:39
  Ellie Alexander: One thing we always talk about in my writing groups is like you have to do the plot work.
• 5:44
  Ellie Alexander: You can't not plot.
• 5:45
  Ellie Alexander: You can do it ahead of time or you can do it after, but you the time is there, one way or the other.
• 5:51
  Ellie Alexander: So you're gonna have to do this work.
• 5:52
  Ellie Alexander: I always recommend that you keep notes as you go.
• 5:57
  Ellie Alexander: So let's say I'm a quarter of the way through the manuscript and I realize no, this entire thread has to change.
• 6:06
  Ellie Alexander: At that point in my writing, I start changing it from that point forward, if I know that early on.
• 6:15
  Ellie Alexander: And then I have a note when I'm going back to edit to go, okay, make sure in that first quarter of the manuscript you go back and make those changes that sometimes you've written the entire book and then you get feedback from an editor or editor, or you read it yourself, and you're like, oh no, this whole thing has to change.
• 6:33
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 6:33
  Tech Guy: So but that that just seems wild to me.
• 6:36
  Tech Guy: Like, how from a writer perspective, how hard is that?
• 6:41
  Tech Guy: Because you let's say you've written 200 pages, and then something is like, you know, 250 pages, and then something changes.
• 6:50
  Tech Guy: Going back, I I just I'm trying to wrap my head around like having to go back through and remember every single place that would be affected by that change and making sure that those edits are made throughout the course of the book.
• 7:05
  Tech Guy: Because if you miss one, that's just gonna throw, it's gonna pull readers right out of the story, right?
• 7:11
  Ellie Alexander: Right.
• 7:11
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 7:12
  Ellie Alexander: Three quarters of the way the readers are gonna be like, wait, who's this character?
• 7:15
  Ellie Alexander: I haven't even met that.
• 7:16
  Ellie Alexander: Oh, sorry, that was a holdup, and that's happened before.
• 7:18
  Ellie Alexander: That's happened usually.
• 7:20
  Ellie Alexander: I mean, so yes, as a writer, then that's why I think it's important to take copious notes as you go about changes that you are either making mid-manuscript or things that you know you want to change after the fact.
• 7:30
  Ellie Alexander: If you've finished a book and now you're going back through a second, a third, a fourth round of edits, I am usually handwriting those out.
• 7:40
  Ellie Alexander: So I will print out the manuscript and physically make notes in the margin because for my brain, it's easier to do that on paper still than it is in a Word document or, you know, whatever program you're using.
• 7:53
  Ellie Alexander: There are programs that help you track that too.
• 7:56
  Ellie Alexander: So some writers do that.
• 7:57
  Ellie Alexander: But the truth of the matter is this is why you need other eyes, because it will often be an editor or a copy editor or a page proof or someone that's farther down the line that might pick up on some little minutia of a change.
• 8:14
  Ellie Alexander: I've looked at that manuscript 27,000 times.
• 8:17
  Ellie Alexander: I can't see it anymore.
• 8:20
  Tech Guy: Yeah, that's uh that's super important, the the additional eyes on it, because I mean, that's true of anything in life.
• 8:28
  Tech Guy: If you're working on something and you're the only one looking at it, it's just you're gonna miss things if if you don't have other people help you review it.
• 8:36
  Ellie Alexander: Right, for sure.
• 8:38
  Ellie Alexander: But I don't think it I don't think you should panic if you're a darling out there that's working on your first project and and you've realized halfway through you have this aha moment and you're like, oh, it would be so much better if blah, blah, blah happened.
• 8:52
  Ellie Alexander: Now, let's say that you're getting a lot of outside feedback on your manuscript.
• 8:56
  Ellie Alexander: Maybe this is coming from early beta readers.
• 8:59
  Ellie Alexander: And if you're not familiar with what a beta reader is, these are readers who look at the manuscript before you would send it to an agent or an editor, et cetera.
• 9:08
  Ellie Alexander: I always recommend that you get a variety of beta readers and that you comb through that feedback and you look for parallel themes.
• 9:19
  Ellie Alexander: So if you're seeing, you know, three or four beta readers are pointing out like, oh, I think this part of the story could use some eyes, or I don't think this part of the story is working, or I got bored here, or, you know, whatever it is.
• 9:32
  Ellie Alexander: And you start to see a trend, I think that's a point that, you know, you might want to pay attention to.
• 9:37
  Ellie Alexander: If you get feedback that comes through that feels like it's just completely out of left field and it doesn't resonate with you, I mean, ultimately it's your book, it's your story, you get to decide.
• 9:47
  Ellie Alexander: Um, but I do think being open to feedback 99% of the time makes my books that much stronger.
• 9:56
  Tech Guy: Yeah, that's that that's a good point.
• 9:58
  Tech Guy: Um, the one area I would say, though, that the changes, like editing changes that are required, whether it's something the author comes up with themselves or their editor suggests later and everything, uh, the one thing to point out for readers, I guess, would be those um the sample chapters of a forthcoming book that are at the end of a book.
• 10:23
  Tech Guy: Because there are there are going to be things that change in that, and that's totally planned.
• 10:29
  Tech Guy: Like, I mean, not not that changes are planned, but it's just it's expected that those chapters are not final uh, you know, at the end of the book, right?
• 10:39
  Ellie Alexander: No, so that process is like I have delivered, let's say, book 24 of the Bakeshop Mysteries.
• 10:44
  Ellie Alexander: It's going into production, and so it's already, you know, like formatted.
• 10:48
  Ellie Alexander: There's cover art, they're getting it up for pre-order.
• 10:50
  Ellie Alexander: I haven't at this point started book 25, but my editor will reach out and say, like, hey, we'd like a first chapter or two to include in the back of book 24.
• 11:02
  Ellie Alexander: So then I am quickly like, ooh, okay, I'm gonna sketch out the plot and I'm gonna have a couple of chapters written, but that book is not finished at that point in time.
• 11:11
  Ellie Alexander: So odds are really good, pretty high that some things are gonna change there.
• 11:16
  Ellie Alexander: For sure.
• 11:17
  Tech Guy: Yeah, no, I mean a great example.
• 11:19
  Tech Guy: I think you've heard from several readers over the years that one of the Bakeshop Mysteries I threw in Carlos's son, Ramiro, right?
• 11:26
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 11:26
  Tech Guy: Uh when he's first introduced, it's in some sample chapters at the back of one of the books, and he has a totally different name.
• 11:34
  Ellie Alexander: Right.
• 11:34
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, because I hadn't met him yet.
• 11:35
  Ellie Alexander: So I'm like, oh, that seems good.
• 11:37
  Ellie Alexander: Oh, no, that's not gonna be his name.
• 11:38
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:39
  Ellie Alexander: Right.
• 11:40
  Ellie Alexander: But you know, I do think it is those bigger structural changes, and that takes a lot of time from a writing perspective, but I also think it's always worth putting in the energy to make sure that you get something that's right.
• 11:55
  Ellie Alexander: You don't want to put something out that feels like it's half-assed, it's barely done.
• 11:59
  Ellie Alexander: You know, you want to make sure that what you're sharing with readers feels so good to you.
• 12:05
  Ellie Alexander: I always tell my new writers that you should be to the point that you literally cannot look at the book again.
• 12:12
  Ellie Alexander: You're so sick of it.
• 12:14
  Ellie Alexander: You cannot see it.
• 12:15
  Ellie Alexander: That is your sign that it's time to send it to somebody else for fresh eyes.
• 12:19
  Tech Guy: Yeah, I'm too uh this all makes sense, but I'm still just it's boggling my mind that, you know, uh the name change example, um, that seems like an easy fix because no matter what word processing program you're using, word pages, whatever, you just you you type in Steve and you want to change Steve's name to Mike.
• 12:40
  Tech Guy: Yeah, super easy.
• 12:42
  Tech Guy: But it's the plot pieces that like that just seems like so much work.
• 12:49
  Tech Guy: I I don't know, maybe maybe I'm alone and think of this.
• 12:52
  Tech Guy: I'd love to hear from the darlings out there.
• 12:53
  Tech Guy: Like, leave a comment if you think, ah, that tech guy, that's just that's easy stuff.
• 12:57
  Tech Guy: But I can't I can't imagine I'm the only one that's like that seems really, really like a like a really, really big deal if if something structural changes, because you can't really just do a search and replace in your word processing program for that, right?
• 13:17
  Ellie Alexander: No, no.
• 13:18
  Ellie Alexander: You know, and um I've had the experience sometimes where it's like maybe I should just go back and rewrite the whole book.
• 13:25
  Ellie Alexander: Like that might be faster.
• 13:27
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 13:28
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 13:30
  Ellie Alexander: Um, and sometimes that's it.
• 13:34
  Ellie Alexander: And then the other piece of it is sometimes, and especially I think when you're new to writing and you're finding your voice and you're finding a story, sometimes that story is just your practice story.
• 13:48
  Ellie Alexander: Um maybe it never goes anywhere else.
• 13:52
  Ellie Alexander: And I've had plenty of those over the years where it's like, oh, I'm I'm deep into this, and then I I finish it and I'm like, okay, it's not that, but in the middle of that, I found this little nugget, and now I'm gonna follow that.
• 14:06
  Tech Guy: Wow, that a practice story.
• 14:08
  Tech Guy: That is that's nuts.
• 14:11
  Tech Guy: Um so what where do most of the changes come from?
• 14:17
  Tech Guy: Or is this something that just is it different for every writer, every project?
• 14:21
  Tech Guy: Um, like from it are are like these structural changes just coming into your head as you're writing as an author, or it or are most of them coming once you get to the editor phase when like your publisher's editor is looking at the book?
• 14:38
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, I think it totally depends on the project.
• 14:40
  Ellie Alexander: I think it depends on the author, the editor.
• 14:43
  Ellie Alexander: I've certainly had instances where, you know, I've written an entire book and I'm sure I know who the killer is.
• 14:49
  Ellie Alexander: And then I get to the end and I realize, oh no, it's not that person at all.
• 14:54
  Ellie Alexander: It's actually this person.
• 14:55
  Ellie Alexander: And here's by the end of the book, I know why that suspect is so much stronger in terms of a motive, et cetera.
• 15:04
  Ellie Alexander: But now I have to go all the way back to the beginning and start over because I have been trying to throw suspicion 20 other ways.
• 15:13
  Ellie Alexander: And so not only do I have to fix now the killer's thread and what the killer is revealing as I go out, as I go through the entire manuscript, I also have to look at all of the other suspects because every few chapters, I want the darlings going, oh, it's definitely them.
• 15:30
  Ellie Alexander: Oh no, there's some big reveal that sends me down a path towards somebody else.
• 15:34
  Ellie Alexander: So you're not just fixing one thing at that point in time.
• 15:37
  Ellie Alexander: You have to go back and fix every single thread.
• 15:40
  Tech Guy: Yeah, wow.
• 15:41
  Tech Guy: Um, I guess that works in the book itself, but you're I your hands are kind of tied if you've already laid the groundwork that are that's in previous books, right?
• 15:53
  Tech Guy: And you decide something should be different with a character or plot, but you've already got things established in like let's say books one through three, you can't really you can't really change things up at that point, right?
• 16:08
  Ellie Alexander: This is where uh soap opera writing is so fantastic because I wish I was writing a soap opera because then you could be like, Dad, dun dun dun, she's like this, like you know, whatever.
• 16:19
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Ellie Alexander: Back to my days of our lives, obsession in high school.
• 16:24
  Ellie Alexander: Um, you have to be really careful about that, which is one of the reasons, especially when I'm working with new writers, that we do so much work that feels like, come on, just let me get just the story.
• 16:37
  Ellie Alexander: Like, I want to start writing.
• 16:38
  Ellie Alexander: And it's like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about your main, your protagonist's growth arc.
• 16:43
  Ellie Alexander: We're gonna build out the world of secondary characters and what their growth arcs and challenges might be.
• 16:49
  Ellie Alexander: And we're gonna set the world and we're gonna expand the world because you don't want to get boxed in later on.
• 16:55
  Ellie Alexander: You might get to book three, four, five and go, oh no, that was such a missed opportunity.
• 17:01
  Ellie Alexander: So I think it's important to have a strong base and foundation to work off of.
• 17:07
  Ellie Alexander: And then it's a really tricky balance because you also don't want to plot so heavily that you're not leaving yourself open to changes and possibilities that do inevitably always show up in the process of writing a first draft.
• 17:24
  Ellie Alexander: So, you know, if you're like, oh, I know exactly what's going to happen in book nine, um, and then this cool character shows up or some new love interest or whatever it is, like you might have to ditch all that plotting.
• 17:37
  Tech Guy: Wow.
• 17:38
  Tech Guy: Um I know just from talking to you over the years, writing like characters have shown up, like you, like you were just referencing in in books where you didn't anticipate them being there and then they kind of worked their way in and everything.
• 17:55
  Tech Guy: Yep.
• 17:55
  Tech Guy: Has the reverse happened?
• 17:57
  Tech Guy: Have you gotten through the first draft of a book and had a character in there?
• 18:01
  Tech Guy: You get to the end and you realize, I actually don't like this person, or they don't really carry the story forward.
• 18:08
  Tech Guy: I need to remove them.
• 18:10
  Tech Guy: Have you ever had to do that?
• 18:12
  Ellie Alexander: Oh, sure.
• 18:12
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, that's the whole kill your darlings part, right?
• 18:15
  Ellie Alexander: There are definitely characters or characters that just like they're they're just so cardboard, they're not fleshed out enough that like who I thought they were going to be at the beginning doesn't match at all by the time I get to the end.
• 18:29
  Ellie Alexander: So basically then I'm having to go back and recreate an entire character for sure.
• 18:34
  Ellie Alexander: But yeah, definitely people get cut out.
• 18:37
  Tech Guy: Wow.
• 18:37
  Tech Guy: Wait, so is that what kill your doing means?
• 18:41
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Tech Guy: I'm learning this is like an educate the tech guy episode, I guess.
• 18:47
  Ellie Alexander: That's hilarious.
• 18:48
  Ellie Alexander: So we've never talked about that.
• 18:50
  Tech Guy: I know maybe we have.
• 18:51
  Tech Guy: I don't know.
• 18:51
  Tech Guy: It's one of the I I make that can it's one of the the best-selling.
• 18:55
  Tech Guy: I it's my favorite candle to make the fragrance.
• 18:58
  Tech Guy: I love that.
• 18:59
  Tech Guy: Oh funny.
• 19:00
  Tech Guy: Uh you know, your killer darlings candle that that uh is in your Etsy shop, but I never knew that.
• 19:08
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah, or like, I mean, it can be a physical character, but sometimes the it also references the idea, and I just had this happen with a new book and I saved it in a note.
• 19:17
  Ellie Alexander: Sometimes I'll save it because I'm like, oh, I just love what I wrote here.
• 19:21
  Ellie Alexander: It doesn't work at all in this story right now, but I'm just gonna save it for a future story.
• 19:27
  Ellie Alexander: But there was this beautiful scene that I wrote that isn't gonna work at all with the changes that I made.
• 19:31
  Ellie Alexander: So that's also killing your darlings.
• 19:33
  Ellie Alexander: You gotta let it go.
• 19:35
  Tech Guy: All right.
• 19:35
  Tech Guy: See, I'm like, I this this podcast makes me like 20% smarter every time we do it.
• 19:40
  Tech Guy: There you go.
• 19:41
  Tech Guy: For all the darlings out there, that's another benefit of listening to Reality Writes.
• 19:45
  Tech Guy: Share it with your friends.
• 19:47
  Ellie Alexander: That's right.
• 19:50
  Tech Guy: Wow, that is that's amazing.
• 19:52
  Tech Guy: Um, what is the biggest challenge that you've faced with regard to this topic?
• 19:59
  Tech Guy: Like where you thought you were done and something happened, whether it was you, it was publisher or whatever, came and said this has to change, and you were like, Oh no.
• 20:11
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 20:12
  Ellie Alexander: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Ellie Alexander: I mean, I've I've just had that experience this last year.
• 20:16
  Ellie Alexander: And, you know, I'm deep in my career by this point in time.
• 20:19
  Ellie Alexander: I've written nearly 50 books and it still happens.
• 20:21
  Ellie Alexander: So I think, darlings, if if you're a new writer, like take that to heart.
• 20:26
  Ellie Alexander: It's not, it's not because you're new only.
• 20:28
  Ellie Alexander: Um, that I had written an entire book that we collectively, my editor and I decided like this isn't working.
• 20:36
  Ellie Alexander: And I had to flip the entire narrative.
• 20:39
  Ellie Alexander: I had to what um, well, I can't give too too much away about this project, but um, we'll talk about it in a future episode.
• 20:48
  Ellie Alexander: Let's say that, because this is a project that's coming in 2027.
• 20:51
  Ellie Alexander: But I had finished the book, I had sent it to beta readers, I had done multiple rounds of edit edits myself.
• 20:57
  Ellie Alexander: I sent it to my editor and she's like, this isn't working like this.
• 21:02
  Ellie Alexander: And when we had that discussion, I really saw what she was saying and agreed.
• 21:06
  Ellie Alexander: So I basically like I bloodied that book.
• 21:10
  Ellie Alexander: I killed pretty much the entire book.
• 21:13
  Ellie Alexander: I it was a lot of it was big murder, big, big murder.
• 21:17
  Ellie Alexander: Uh um, so like gutting full chapters, reworking what what maybe the main character is telling readers that initially I was hiding from readers, like so many things.
• 21:31
  Ellie Alexander: It's it's impossible to tell them all.
• 21:34
  Ellie Alexander: That's one where I was like, oh, in hindsight, I probably should have just started back from the beginning and rewrote it, but I didn't.
• 21:41
  Ellie Alexander: And um, it's all coming together now, and it's so much better.
• 21:44
  Ellie Alexander: Like I'm super excited about it.
• 21:46
  Ellie Alexander: I see, I understand the strength behind the changes that I've made, but um it was a moment of like, okay, let's not panic.
• 21:55
  Ellie Alexander: Let's just breathe through this, have another coffee.
• 21:59
  Tech Guy: Right.
• 21:59
  Tech Guy: Uh so for the darlings out there, that was a little bit of a cheat because obviously I knew uh what the answer to that particular question was, but I did want to see what Ellie would say.
• 22:10
  Tech Guy: Um, because just I I just want to clear it up because I think right now some of the darlings are like, geez, man, tech guy, what the hell?
• 22:16
  Tech Guy: Like you've you had to have seen that happening, right?
• 22:20
  Ellie Alexander: You know that you're in my office.
• 22:22
  Tech Guy: Right, right.
• 22:23
  Tech Guy: Uh no, so I did.
• 22:25
  Tech Guy: It was um I've you you're always very focused and very concentrated when you're writing.
• 22:31
  Tech Guy: Um, this was like this took it up a notch for sure.
• 22:35
  Tech Guy: Um during that that process.
• 22:38
  Tech Guy: But I've also like when it's funny you said that you know, it clicked, and when it did click, I it was cool to see that actually happen where you were just like, oh, okay, got it.
• 22:51
  Tech Guy: And then you were just like you know, you just think that these kind of changes are um, you know, unexpected edits, unexpected changes like this are a good thing for writers?
• 23:06
  Tech Guy: Like it helps them grow, or is it a challenge that's going to frustrate people uh more than than help them?
• 23:14
  Ellie Alexander: I think absolutely it's a challenge that can help you grow.
• 23:17
  Ellie Alexander: It doesn't mean that it's not frustrating in the process, but it's pushing through that discomfort.
• 23:23
  Ellie Alexander: It's pushing through the like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna fix this?
• 23:27
  Ellie Alexander: That usually gives you such great insight and a breakthrough, like that moment that you're just talking about where it's like, oh, okay, that does not happen overnight.
• 23:37
  Ellie Alexander: I mean, sometimes it does, but a lot of times it means you're going back and you're re-looking at something multiple times.
• 23:44
  Ellie Alexander: And I do think if you get to that point where you are so frustrated with it, it's important to walk away and to get somebody else's perspective on that, even if it's not a professional editor, if it's your partner, your friend, like whomever, call your mom.
• 23:57
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Tech Guy: No, I I mean, you've talked about that a lot on uh multiple episodes of Reality Writes that beta readers and having other sets of eyes uh from people that you trust, um, on you know, who you trust on uh on your work before it it goes out to the world.
• 24:17
  Tech Guy: So all right.
• 24:18
  Tech Guy: Well, uh any other last pieces of advice for uh people or for the darlings out there on this topic?
• 24:25
  Ellie Alexander: Um I mean, I think it's fun to flip it from the reader perspective.
• 24:31
  Ellie Alexander: It would be really interesting.
• 24:33
  Ellie Alexander: I don't know how I could share it, but to show like what the book that I thought I started writing was versus what you darlings end up with in your hot little hands.
• 24:45
  Ellie Alexander: Um, and sometimes it might look pretty close, and sometimes it might be a completely different book.
• 24:52
  Ellie Alexander: Um, but we're discovering that together, which hopefully is part of the fun.
• 24:57
  Tech Guy: That's great.
• 24:58
  Tech Guy: That's so great.
• 24:59
  Tech Guy: All right.
• 25:00
  Tech Guy: Well, uh I'm gonna wrap that up for this topic, but I do have a special little bonus at the end here because um a couple episodes ago I talked about a new feature that we have in the show notes of the of each episode of Reality Writes, where you can send us a message and uh I asked people to write in.
• 25:21
  Tech Guy: Um uh this particular episode, we were talking about um the uh your new book, uh Death in the Dark, uh the second book in the novel detective series.
• 25:32
  Tech Guy: And um, I just wanted to uh read this message that uh April from Utah sent in.
• 25:40
  Ellie Alexander: Oh April, hi.
• 25:42
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 25:42
  Tech Guy: She says, Hi, Ellie and Tech Guy.
• 25:44
  Tech Guy: Love this episode.
• 25:45
  Tech Guy: I think you can totally have a mystery without a dead body.
• 25:49
  Tech Guy: I really like the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton.
• 25:54
  Tech Guy: It has numerous books with mysteries that don't involve killing someone.
• 25:58
  Tech Guy: I think the community that the novel detectives is written in is rich enough to support a mystery without a body.
• 26:04
  Tech Guy: Thanks, April.
• 26:06
  Ellie Alexander: Oh thanks, April.
• 26:09
  Tech Guy: Yeah, because we we had been talking about uh the novel detectives and kind of how the just the setting and kind of overarching story of that particular series kind of opens you up to other options uh besides just murder.
• 26:25
  Tech Guy: Um, you know.
• 26:28
  Ellie Alexander: Um and if other darlings want to leave us a message, they can do that in the show notes and they can also leave a voicemail too, right?
• 26:35
  Tech Guy: That's right.
• 26:35
  Tech Guy: Yeah.
• 26:36
  Tech Guy: So um I we'd love to hear from you.
• 26:38
  Tech Guy: Uh you can if you're on YouTube, you can leave a comment.
• 26:42
  Tech Guy: Uh it's just the same.
• 26:43
  Tech Guy: But uh if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform, um click the send us a message link in the show notes, and uh we'd love to hear from you.
• 26:53
  Ellie Alexander: Yay.
• 26:54
  Ellie Alexander: Well, on that note, um until next time, I guess it's gonna be me and my microphone ghost working away on some edit.
• 27:01
  Tech Guy: That's right, because I'm moving out after this, right after I finish edit editing this episode.
• 27:06
  Tech Guy: All right, until next time.
• 27:10
  Ellie Alexander: Till next time.