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Join Suzy as she chats with Epic Fantasy author Katie Fitzgerald to talk about setting the scene for the second book in a series. Learn about the different types of readers you need to think about, and how you can recap information without infodumping.
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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to Show, don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We’re gonna explore writing techniques. I’m gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers’ careers that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
And I’m also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re drafting your first book, you’re editing, or you’re currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show’s gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn’t even know you needed, but you definitely do.
I’m so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, [00:01:00] and you’re gonna also have some fun doing it. Let’s dive in. We have another page review. I just love doing these, especially through the summer when I’m working with so many different writers, A little bit less scary to submit one page than to submit entire book.
There’s so much that we could talk about in terms of concept and just really how to make those one pages pop. And today on the show I’ve got Katie Fitzgerald, who’s the author of Epic Fantasy Books featuring Magic, adventure and Royal Entry. She’s got one book out already. It’s a prequel, it’s a novella.
Book one in her series is coming up in September, and then this page that she submitted is actually from book two. So we talked about all kinds of things on the podcast today, including how to have different entry points into your series, how to do a book two, and what needs to be on the opening page. I like it when they give me the opening page.
It’s a lot of. So Katie has pursued art her entire life. Starting [00:02:00] at the precocious age of 13, she finished her first novel, which remains unpublished in her twenties, which she calls the progenitor of the Ceridian series, but has been lost to the decay of digital media. She swears there’s still a printout somewhere in the garage.
The need for an income entailed a 20 year career in technical writing in Silicon Valley, a career in decorative and fine art. And finally, back to her first love, now fiction writing, primarily fantasy. Her goal is to entertain you and hopefully leave you feeling happier than when you started the story.
Katie lives in the Santa Cruz mountains of California with her husband, two kids, and the world’s happiest dog. As I said before, the page that she submitted that we’re gonna review today I’m gonna read for you is from the book two in the series, which has a working title of the Healer’s Heart chapter one.
They all watched him as people did these days, whispering to each other behind raised hands in voices, [00:03:00] hushed with awe, respect, and maybe fear. Rain dripped off Narelle, far hale’s great coat as he hesitated in the doorway. In the sudden, hush. He strained his ears and caught the faint whisper of hero.
Working at a healers clinic normally brought him peace, especially in this neglected part of Laura Daroff. Yet no matter where he went, the whispers pursued him. Forgetting was not an option, but he schooled his expression to pretend he hadn’t noticed. He spotted a familiar face across the cramped common room, moving toward the inner door Felia, the fellow healer he had met before everything happened, though he only knew her a little, her presence, cold of him like a beacon in a swarm.
He pushed past patience through their musty odor of toil hanging in the air until he reached her. She turned and met his eyes. His heart weakened unexpectedly. I’m Noelle. He smiled with what he hoped was a charming [00:04:00] expression. So last year for a case of Otter Fever, Felia slowly looked down at her bust, then back at him.
I’m sure I would’ve remembered that. He brushed to Noelle’s face. Oh goddess, what kind of fool am I? Felia held his gaze moment longer than versed out laughing. Of course, I remember you Lugen Noelle Far hail. I couldn’t figure out that case. You stepped in tiny as a clerk and discovered what made those people sick.
Welcome to the show, Don Tell Podcast, Katie Fitzgerald. Nice to have you here. Thank you. I’m, I’m excited. Yeah, and I wish everybody, all the listeners could see how you won’t be able to see the video that we’re doing right now on our video call. But Katie is in a beautiful outdoor space where the sun is shining and we were just talking about the fact that where I live right now.
It is Cory Rain and so dark. It looks like it’s, you know, 11 o’clock at night. You’re sitting up there. It’s really creepy. So I love seeing your [00:05:00] smiling face in that beautiful
Katie F.: space. Thank you. I am, I’m incredibly blessed to be able to write in this kind of a environment.
Suzy Vadori: I’m also an outdoor writer myself.
And this morning I spent, I had my coffee, I did my first morning routine things for work on the porch. Even though it’s pouring rain. It is so cold. I was like, I’m done. It’s July now. I’m inside. So Katie is actually, do you wanna tell us a little bit about your books? ’cause we’re gonna talk about the page that you just heard.
We’re gonna talk about that, and that’s for a book two, but can you tell us about Book one in your series? Katie’s an independent author and I’m excited to hear about it.
Katie F.: The book that I have that’s currently out is actually a prequel and it’s a novella, so that is in the hands of healers that’s out and available, and my book one in this series is coming out at the beginning of September, and that’s the Healer’s Air.
So the page that you’re looking at is from my book three, but book two in the series, if that makes sense. Okay. [00:06:00]
Suzy Vadori: I know that
Katie F.: makes perfect sense. Epic fantasy. Yeah. I’ve always had a love and passion for epic fantasy.
Suzy Vadori: Amazing. Amazing. Okay, let’s get to it because book two, there’s so many things. So if you had a prequel, so you’ve already written a second book in the series, right?
Because book one is sort of the second one and there’s so many tricky things that happened. How did you find that when you went to, when you went to write that second time, did you find that you had to figure out how much to recap and how much to tell? ’cause that’s usually what people find when they’re writing a book to you.
Katie F.: Yeah, it is challenging. In fact, I was just discussing this with some other writer friends that I know. My approach is to dribble information in as needed. I wanna avoid the dreaded info dump so that if some of the accidentally picked up book two, that they could hopefully read it and go through the story very close to the end of the first draft, and we’ll see what beta readers have to say.
Suzy Vadori: They had the absolute right approach. [00:07:00] Um, I’ve developed some rules over the years ’cause my clients and writers chose one. Yes, I can dribble it in, but how they want some rules around it. So I try to put parameters, but people do what they’re gonna do. But this is a great page, by the way, Katie, you can tell, oh, thank you.
You’ve done this before. You’re writing is really strong. There is room to round us in your world more quickly. Because like you said, you’re going to get, and it’s a bit reserved, right? So I think you’ve been writing in this world for a little while, but you are gonna get three kinds of readers, right?
You’re gonna get super fans that just finished reading book one and the prequel, and they’re like all over it. They know exactly what’s happening and they wanna get to it. But there’s fans who read the prequel, maybe book one, but a while back, right? Or they skin it, or they’re really fast readers and they don’t remember, and they’ve read like a hundred books in between.
So you gotta satisfy those guys. And then, yeah, you’re gonna get new readers. Which happens, um, sometimes I meet writers. I love that you said that you’re gonna get new readers. Sometimes I meet writers who say, yeah, [00:08:00] I don’t think they have to read book one for this to take sense. I’m like, well, you’re gonna get people that find you on book two.
Um, that’s a be problem to have. Yeah, it’s a great problem to have. And you’re really smart, especially, and we can talk about this a little bit at the end, but. Especially as an independent writer to have both a prequel and a book one. You actually almost had, if you do it well, you got two entries entry points into this series.
Right? ’cause could they start on book one or the prequel?
Katie F.: Uh, yeah, the, yeah. Prequel is completely independent of the series story and arc.
Suzy Vadori: Okay, perfect. So you’ve actually got these two different entry points, which is really fun. ’cause from a marketing standpoint, they can find you either way. And so then also given you a chance to launch once and do a big push, and now you get to launch again with Book one and it’s still an entry level.
So I think it was a really smart choice that you made there. Thank you. So of course you’ve got some people who are gonna jump [00:09:00] into book two with no contact, and thank you for telling me that this is page one. I always read these blind. People don’t always say that it’s chapter one. So unless there’s a, a prologue or something like that, then this is the beginning of the book.
So thank you for giving me that context. I appreciate it. But you can’t repeat everything ’cause then you get this info dump thing. So you can start by getting specific and framing this all in. I’m gonna say this and tell me if it’s right ’cause there’s an accent, but Nielle, is that right how I say his name?
Katie F.: Oh, yes. Thank you. I, before I put that, there’s an. There people who can’t see it. There’s an accent mark on the E in a row. And before I put that there, everybody was pronouncing it nial. Oh,
Suzy Vadori: okay. So you got it. I’m in Canada. I speak French, so I know what the accent means. So I tried, but sometimes they butcher these things and it’s funny because if there’s no audio book then yeah, we don’t always know how to pronounce fantasy characters names.
And I have a good friend who also writes Epic fa like, or writes Spro actually, but fantasy names. Her books [00:10:00] came out on Audible original first, and she realized people couldn’t spell their names. Um, so she had to have a guide. It was just this weird opposite problem to have that nobody had encountered before we started doing that.
Having audio books come out before the book where people were writing reviews and they were butchering this, the names because they didn’t know. Yeah, it was, I think the accent work. What did I say? Nelle. Okay.
Katie F.: Nelle.
Suzy Vadori: Nelle. So is that the same point of view character as you had in Book one?
Katie F.: Same POV in book one, the prequel is his mother as the main character.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. So perfect. So we will have no, for those fans and super fans, you will have had some context in his head already, which is good. And presumably in book two, he’s a slightly changed person. Definitely. And he was when we, than we was when we met him in book one. Perfect. So some of the things that I would love to see you play with rather than info dumping, which is what happened in Book [00:11:00] one, is to really highlight those things that have changed, right?
So to highlight what the new normal is in this world, like what’s changed in his character arc, what’s changed in your world? What’s different now than it was from the beginning of book one? It could be the same as the the book one, but where are we? And so to ground us and what’s still the same? So, yeah, and you talked about dripping and that’s exactly the word that I’ve used here.
Start early, dripping these details through your story, right? Dripping is exactly the way to go. We don’t wanna have, you know, three pages of, by the way, this is what happened in above one. Nobody wants to read that. So you’ve done a really, like a lot of things well here, including you’ve put us right into a scene, right?
He’s walking somewhere, he is doing something. You’re not recapping what’s happening in book one. So you’ve put us into a story present moment, which is what we call making a scene, right? So you’ve done that and you’re not recapping advance too much. Is the utter fever bit from book one? It is. Okay, perfect.
[00:12:00] You don’t go into that. I was like, Ooh. Is this a cow that we’re talking about? No, it’s a female. Okay, I get it. But it’s a really interesting detail. And what I said was, if this is for Book one, it’s a great way to recap without boring dear super fans who remember everything. Right. So just the important things you shared with her.
Asked her name, did she suffer terribly? So he says, I see a woman, he could maybe remember her name before he starts talking with her. And a couple of details about what happened then. I wasn’t sure, is she a healer who dealt with other fever or she had other fever herself?
Katie F.: So she is another healer that he is encountering in this healing ward, and they worked together previously on a case that she couldn’t figure out of, and it turned out to be utter fever and it was a goat.
Suzy Vadori: It was a code. Okay. So that makes sense. And it didn’t quite come across, but that’s where the page ended. So I’m sure it will make sense in subsequent sentences. You don’t necessarily, you can’t fix everything in [00:13:00] page one. But I was a little confused and I understand why. And then I was like, is she the healer or was, but it does say something about what you were the one who figured out what these people.
What was wrong with these people or something. So that was a little confusing because the other fever is actually dealing with animals and not people, unless animals are people, I don’t know. No,
Katie F.: I can explain it if you want, but that’s not, well, also, utter fever is when a milking animal, a goat or a cow, for example, have an infection in their utter, and then that infection can be passed along in the milk and make people sick.
Suzy Vadori: Oh, okay. Perfect. So that does actually make a lot of sense. So some of that, and what you just said, there is two sentences. It might make sense for her to say. You were the one who figured out that the goat’s milk was what made, you know, because of the otter fever, the goat’s milk was faking people’s, right.
Like it’d be three extra words and it would clear all that up. Yep. It’s good point. It’s, it’s a, yeah, it’s just about being specific [00:14:00] and again, it’s the end of, I’m sure that it’s there, but you don’t have to like recap everything. You could do it really. Really specifically. Okay, so let’s start at the top of this chapter one.
We’re diving in. They all watched him as people did these days, whispering to each other behind raised hands and voices. Hushed with awe, respect, and maybe fear. Beautiful opening sentence. There is room to be more specific. I’m being dropped in from a million miles, right? I have no contact. So when you find yourself saying they right, who is they?
Zoom in on one or two of the people, or at least describe that collective. Is there a name for what they is? Are they patients? It could be patients, yeah. Okay. So even something patients would be, it’s the same number of chords, way more interesting, grounds us really quickly of why are they patient? Right?
They’re not just they, they know that it’s like really picky, but it’s the opening sentence. No book,
Katie F.: as you know, worked a lot on the opening sentence and have more to go so. [00:15:00]
Suzy Vadori: Of course, of course. Yeah. And it’s great, but get as specific as you can. This is how you’re gonna avoid that info dump is by making everything that’s don’t change what’s here.
Just make those words really specific and make them use them all. Make them do more work. Right. The sense could do more work without being changed the structure or anything like that. So the patients all walk, watch them now, as people did these days, was an interesting statement. Is that because of something that happened in Book one?
Yes. So now the world has changed. Yes. So as people did these days, so that was really interesting. I don’t think you can necessarily explain that in the opening sentence, but I wanted to make sure. Yeah. Then it actually was something that was important, which it is. I would read all those people did these days.
What do you mean? I would read on whispering to each other, behind raised hands and voices, hushed with awe, respect, and maybe fear. So you got a really good job of setting that stage. I think the one thing was like, I don’t know where he is. Patience helps a lot. Patients would [00:16:00] help a lot because it would tell me a little bit, um, and I would keep reading.
So there’s rain, right? So there’s rain in your world. Rain dripped off, Noelle far hails great coat. I dunno if I’m saying these right as he commentated the doorway. Okay, so here the doorway of where, again, the faster you can ground us, the better the doorway to the clinic or to the, you say it later, but why not?
Why not just say it here and then you don’t have to explain it later. I’m grasping to get grounded in your world. I don’t have any context in terms of where it is. Hopefully your cover helps with that. The back of the book blur helps with that, but I didn’t know. So my guess is where is he in a store? Is he in a ballroom?
It could be anywhere. And then later on the page, like that was my initial reaction. Later on the page, it becomes obvious that he’s in the clinic. Okay. So working at a healer’s clinic. And then I wasn’t sure that he was actually in the clinic, right? Because then he says, I’m working in a healer’s clinic.
Okay. Right. And so just [00:17:00] pulling that together, just show us that he’s there, um, because then he kind of pull back and start telling us something about. The past, which is fine, right? Like he’s, he works there. Normally Rod had peace, especially in this neglected part of Laura Dhar Sha, yet, no matter where he went, the whispers pursued him.
Forgetting was not an option, but he schooled his expression to pretend he hadn’t noticed. Okay. So much to unpack here. I’m super intrigued. So now we’re getting some details. What time period is your fa your epic fantasy world in like, what are you inspired by?
Katie F.: Loosely, it’s loosely based on teen hundreds European culture.
Suzy Vadori: Okay, great. So then those specifics, right? That doorway is a gilded doorway. Is it a crumbling doorway? Is it a wooden doorway? Is it a there’s, there’s ways wanna drip that and set the scene because right now, I’m assuming, ’cause it’s epic fantasy, it’s gonna be olden days somewhere. But it could be go with the clinic down the street from my house at this point because I don’t have anything.
So take that opportunity. If [00:18:00] it’s a gilded doorway, maybe it’s a wealthy world that we’re in, or at least he’s wealthy. But I don’t think this clinic probably isn’t wealthy. Correct. Is it a clinic people?
Katie F.: Quick question. So does lower doff uh, give you the impression that it is not the wealthy part of town or is it neutral?
Suzy Vadori: That’s a good question. There’s lots of hints in that lower, now that you say that I would say, yeah. It doesn’t sound ripy for sure. Is it like the outskirts or the lower mean? Like lower in the olden days often meant that you were prone to floods and prone to no views, things like that, or you’re downstream from the sewage?
Yeah, I think it is a good job. And dab, is that like Russian and like it sounds Eastern European or It does sound
Katie F.: Russian now. I wasn’t intending it to be. Okay. The ruler’s last name is Darsh, so it is. Play on or named after the ruling family.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, [00:19:00] so it works. It definitely works. I’m just trying to, you know, you’re asking me to comment on what the name involved and really it does sound very Eastern European, just because of that, the, the end.
But it, it works no matter where it is. Okay. So, yeah, so there’s an opportunity here. We’re paragraphs in, so just watch those senses. I know we can be really picky on chapter one, page one of the whole book. You’re not gonna pay the same attention to detail on every single sentence in your book, or you’ve never finished.
But yeah, get as grounded as quickly as you can, would be just what I would say. There’s nothing wrong with what’s here. I would just add to it. And because, you know, we’re on the Show Hotel podcast, and I can talk about show hotel all day long and adding those specific details. I wanna know. Especially in Epic fantasy, your scenery is part of it, and you as the writer could probably, do you see this playing in your mind as you’re writing?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So you’re gonna find, I like to talk about this, but in terms of brain science, about half of the people in the world have that happen. [00:20:00] Not everybody. Now there is a disproportionate amount of writers and avid readers who do have that happen because it’s cool. And if we get that experience then we’re probably doing it more.
But even for writers who don’t see that movie in their minds, then it’s especially important to pay attention to what details and get beta readers to actually react to these moments. But if you see it put down a little bit of it, help us. Because when you read it, you see it. But we can’t, I could read this and think I was in 2025.
I’m not, I hope I not because I don’t wanna be, but there’s nothing here that, that gives me a hint. Okay. I was saying, you were talking about names. We’ve got Ra, Faria, Farha, and Elia. So far, hail and felia are both F words. Um, and that came out well how they’re not f they’re, they start with F, but just with, especially in fantasy words, it in fantasy names, it’s really hard to hold them all in your head.
So I don’t know if those names are the same from. They probably are [00:21:00] the same in book one, so it might be too late, but just watch that you don’t have too many similar names ’cause it is hard for readers. Um,
Katie F.: it’s one of my pet peeves. I absolutely understand.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And you know what, with the advent and we were talking about audiobook earlier, with the advent audiobook, you also have to say them out loud because if they sound similar, even if they don’t look the same on the page, then they’re difficult as well.
Okay. So we’ve got here, oh, I love this detail. If you only knew her a little, her presence cold, him like a beacon in a storm. You’re starting to really use some imagery here. Beautiful. Good job. Nice detail. And the beacon in the storm, um, tells me that maybe he, or maybe there’s some kind of military or some kind of directional explorer in him, like I, I don’t know.
Why would he use that language? Why does he know about a beacon dorm? I love that. Does it have anything to do with what he does? No, it was just an appropriate metaphor. Yeah, totally appropriate for the time. Okay. And then you’ve got some more through [00:22:00] their musty odor of toil hanging in the air until he reached her.
Beautiful. Showing details, you’re using all your senses. I can really feel like I’m in that room. I still don’t know what time period I’m in, which needs to be fixed. But other than that, all the smell detail is great. Was this a meat? Cute? Is it gonna, is there gonna end up being some tension here or Really cute?
’cause they might, one. She turns into his love interest. Okay, that’s great because that’s what I expect from this, right? That his heart quick and unexpectedly. You’re giving me a quick moment, so I love That’s on page one. Did you have any kind of romance in the prequel or in book one?
Katie F.: No. Straight up. Good Quest action.
Perfect, perfect,
Suzy Vadori: perfect. So that’s. It’s something to pay attention to. It’s something with pet. I had to learn the hard way personally, um, when I was writing my series because I had a, a strong romance in book one of my series and in book two then Book one came out. I was working on book two. And people were like, oh, I can’t wait to see what happens [00:23:00] with the romance.
And you did that so well. And it was so lovely. And I realized I was becoming known for writing romance and I didn’t have a romance in book two, so I had to quickly pivot and be like, whoops, I don’t wanna disappoint my readers. So hopefully it’s not like all about the romance in book two, because you’re gonna have different readers for that.
And she’s shaking her head no, we’re gonna, um, it’s a secondary arc. Yeah. Perfect. But it’s good to give them a heads up. There’s gonna be something happening in this book that’s different than a book one. And as writers, we love to do that, to mix it up, but we also have to pay attention to what our readers like, so I love that.
Okay. So I’m Noelle. Okay, so here we’ve got, I’m Noelle, he smiled with what he hoped was a charming expression. I love that. I was just saying you don’t overuse it here, but smiled is one that I see and think that day when I was looking at this page, I’d seen it like five times on somebody else’s page. Um, you don’t overuse it here, but just watch, because smiling is one of those ones that can be really overused.
And so watch your frequency, [00:24:00] but it definitely works here. What he hoped was a charming expression. I love it. And then I see now what the ruse is here that I saw you last year of her case of utter fever. She makes a joke that her breasts, she might remember that. Now I understand the joke, but I didn’t understand it from these senses.
So just make sure that at least it’s there. After that, we actually understand that she is not a goat. Never would’ve anticipated that. Um, but that’s the thing is we put things on the page and then sometimes as an editor, I have to be really brave. Because I know that isn’t probably what it is because I’m like confused by it.
And I still thought like even by the next sentence, which she looked down at her breasts and I was like, okay, she’s not a goat or a cow and yet, or maybe this is just how we talk about them in this Europe, open to anything. It’s like we call it, I talk about the doorway effect. You’re walking around your house, you’re late, you can’t find your car keys.
You’re walking around your house. You go in the kitchen, you go in the living room, you run up the stairs, you [00:25:00] go through the bedroom. You say, oh, I forgot to make the bed. And the windows or the window sheets are drawn. And so. We as readers have the same thing happen when we’re dropped into a story or dropped into a new chapter where we trust you so much.
So what happens is your brain resets and has to say, I’m in the bedroom. So it starts picking up those grounding details, right? And it can’t remember. It resets it, forgot that you were looking for keys. When you go into a new room, it’s an actual, like psychological phenomenon. The same thing happens here where, I don’t know, I’m open.
If you wanna call breasts utters in your world, then, then you can. I dunno why you would, but you can’t. So I’m totally open as a reader and, and sometimes I have to be brave and be like, Hey, this is what I thought. And then the writer’s like, what? So anyway, that was my little aside there. Okay. How are you doing so far?
Oh, great. This is all great feedback. You’re just taking it all in. And I will send you this page. Don’t worry, you don’t have to take notes or anything. I’ll send you this after. Okay, but [00:26:00] they’re great world building details, right? That they’ve got this thing called utter fever. We’re also dripping through what happened before, but we’re doing something new.
So this is the trick when you’re introducing something that already happened in Book one, give us new information. Give us new information every time. So this is what happened. And then you could recap and she says, oh, that was amazing that you figured out that people were getting sick because the goats had utter fever.
And she’s nodding her head, you guys can’t hear her. Sorry, your head. Okay. I just, I feel like I’m talking over you, but you’re totally expressive. So I want the listeners to know that you’re like, not in the long,
Katie F.: I’ve been through formal critiquing where you had to just sit on your hands, keep your mouth closed, and listen to my default.
Suzy Vadori: I do the same. And my critique groups and my partners and they also work with some online business owners where we do that style. And it’s quite funny ’cause they often know that it’s very painful for me to not, it’s a difficult exercise. Well, feel free. Yeah. So then we got Pete rushed to Noelle’s face.
Oh Goddess, what kind of fool [00:27:00] am I? I’d love that you just split this. Oh, goddess in there. It’s really smart. You’re. Leaning right into his point of view. We know all of a sudden that there’s goddesses in this world that that’s important. You didn’t have to explain it. We’re like, okay, there’s some kind of goddess that they worship.
This is the language, and you just flipped it in there. So this shows us how we swear and what we pray to in your world actually shows us a lot about what’s important, right? So they don’t worship animals or medicine or other things. There’s something else like some kind of deity. Okay, awesome. Okay, here’s, here is my comments, so you can ignore all my comments about the other fever.
We beat this one together, but discovered what people, what made those people sick. Okay, so again, which people? Those people, it’s really generic, right? I’m grasping. I don’t know your world. It’s a little bit generic. Okay, so what made the people of the villagers, even the villagers [00:28:00] matter, I don’t know what we’re saying.
Do you have an idea of what those people like who was getting sick? The, the
Katie F.: commoner, the, the down and out people.
Suzy Vadori: Okay, so are these two healers, commoners also?
Katie F.: No. In this world, if you can use magic, you are automatically a noble. So there,
Suzy Vadori: so you might say you might actually be able to just, instead of saying those people, the commoners, all of a sudden we know that they are not common because commoners don’t call each other commoners.
They’re not common. So you’ve just done something to show, you’ve just done something to shift and put these healers in a upper, because healers is a really interesting construct in in epic fantasy because how we treat our healers is a decision that you can make, right? So in your epic fantasy world, the healers are above other people, but in some places, the healers are not respected or they’re feared.
So, [00:29:00] yeah, that’s a really good, yeah. I guess the long and the short of it is because this is really book three. You’ve got a novella and book one, and now we’re into book two. Some of these things that you, those decisions that you made really early on about your world, you know them cold and you’re not sharing them here.
Got it. And you could, to really have us dive into this world, what does this room look like to you, Katie? This room full of people. How many people are in it? Where is it? What is it? Oh God, I wanna hear it. Yeah,
Katie F.: it’s uh. Lower neighborhood people who were, you know, just scraping to get by. Probably 20 people packed into this dreary little depressing room waiting to be seen at some point by somebody.
Okay, awesome.
Suzy Vadori: And what colors are in the room?
Katie F.: Oh, in my mind it’s very monochromatic. So it’s very gray walls, dark and streaky. Dingy floor dirty. Yeah. Old people. People wearing old clothes, old ripped clothes, [00:30:00] wor Are they old people, young people,
Suzy Vadori: families?
Katie F.: Yes. All of you Both.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So any one of you don’t have to share it all.
We don’t want three paragraphs or three pages of description, but you know, there were dozens of people packed in there. Helps me there, you know, to show and, and do the healers also have monochromatic clothing?
Katie F.: Good question. No, they typically wear green as healers. Okay.
Suzy Vadori: So. When he sees the healer across the room, this is like all these things that you could do without having to describe everything, but when he sees her across the room, her green stands out amongst the brows and the dingy, ripped clothing the other commoners were wearing.
Right? Like something visual to show would, they wouldn’t be beacons in the store because they’re dressed differently. There are physical reasons why that’s happening. So one of the things that. Especially in a magical world that we can [00:31:00] do to make it feel really special is we can use color palettes, right?
What does the color palette of the world look like? You already know it. It’s in your brain, but if you haven’t painted it into your scenes, like we can’t see that. And so share it, you’ve already got it, and share it as much as you can without doing like Purple Pros and three, three pages of what we’re seeing.
But have them experience it and drip it through when it makes sense to make that really come to life.
Katie F.: That’s really good feedback, particularly with the opening page. What I’ve struggled with is not bogging it down in too much detail and grabbing the reader into what’s happened happening. So yeah, so those descriptions, right?
They need to be dripped in rather than. Here’s all this information. Yeah. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: So notice, so this is a great way to start it, right? And then notice the senses that aren’t doing enough work and just see what you can swap out and watch for those really [00:32:00] generic words like we all have different. Things and every single book I write, I have different issues with that I teach other people to do.
And then I don’t do it with my own writing ’cause you can’t do everything. But yeah, that’s what I would say is watch for those really generic, those people, they, it’s really fast to just swap that out with a really, a stronger world building word commoners or whatever that ends up being and, and I don’t think it would have to be that much longer to be able to do that.
Katie F.: No, I really like that because you’re right, it’s not bogging it down because what you’ve suggested is just swapping one word for another and that makes perfect sense.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, and I think that’s the biggest thing, like people think that show hotel has to be this like flowering language that we’re inserting and people are afraid of it.
’cause they say my book is already, I dunno, how long is the book already? How long is it gonna be? Probably pretty long. As I see from your face.
Katie F.: Yes. Pretty lost.
Suzy Vadori: What’s your target? Yeah, go ahead.
Katie F.: Oh, my target was a hundred thousand words. Yeah, [00:33:00] and I’m, I’m about a quarter of the way from the end, and it’s already at 90, so we’re going Right.
And
Suzy Vadori: so what I don’t wanna do is give you advice to add. All kinds of stuff in, and then you’re gonna go away and go, that’s impossible. So we wanna show like always when we’re adding in these showing details, it’s how do we make what’s already here shine. I’m not about go and rewrite everything, but how do we take a manuscript and make it work the hardest it can?
How do we take each phrasing that we have and make sure that we’re adding it in? When I work with writers, sometimes. I actually worked, I worked directly with one publisher who has a limit on a debut novel of a hundred thousand words, which is not uncommon. So they will still sign a writer or take a writer’s book, or buy a writer’s book that has 117, let’s say, and this is the example I’m gonna use, has 117,000.
Then they’ll be like, go work with Susie Heap, figure out how to cut it down. And the writer comes with on. Katie’s laughing right now. Okay. It comes with a ton of resistance around this idea. [00:34:00] And I have to really talk them off a ledge and say, look, I’m not gonna slash and burn your book. I’m gonna show you how to make your sentences and what you already have.
Work way harder. Take out the stuff that isn’t working hard enough, take out the extra, not pare it down, but how do we replace those things with moments that are like with words that are actually working a little bit harder? And I know the one example that I’m thinking of, her book went on to win some awards and become a USA today bestseller.
And she will give me all the credit, love her to death and she will give me all that credit. And I’m like, all I did was show you how to take what you were doing and make it brighter, right? Like how to take that and make it just work a little bit harder. ’cause at the end of the day. If your reader doesn’t see that beautiful drab room that’s crumbling and dirty with the green masters or the green, not masters, but the green, um, healers.
Healers, yeah. That are bright, that are beacon in the storm for everybody. Really, that is such a powerful image [00:35:00] that you could start this book with.
Katie F.: I love it.
Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning in to show. No. Tell Writing with me, Susie Vidori. I’ll me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening. Also, visit susie vidori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you’ll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events, writing courses that happen in my community.
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