Suzy Vadori

Show don’t Tell Writing Podcast: Episode #123. Writing Socially and Environmentally Engaged Fiction

Suzyvadori
 

 

Show, don’t Tell Writing Podcast Show Notes & Links

Suzy welcomes Book Coach Nita Collins to talk about writing Socially and Environmentally Engaged Fiction. Their discussion ranges from women ‘in the back third’ of their lives taking back their power, to  thrutopian fiction and hopepunk, and the need to shift the narrative from an “I” to “We.” 

If you’ve ever felt called to quiet activism or have an important story to tell, this is the episode for you. 

Other Episodes Mentioned in this Episode: 

🌟 Grab your spot in Suzy’s Inner Circle at www.suzyvadori.com/innercircle

 

Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)

123. Writing Socially and Environmentally Engaged Fiction

Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.

Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn. On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to

Nita C.: transform your writing

Suzy Vadori: Today I’m gonna talk all about socially and environmentally engaged [00:01:00] fiction, and I have coming on the podcast to talk about this with me my good friend and colleague, fellow book coach, Nita Collins.

I’ve been able to be on this journey with Nita for a long time, and what impresses me about her most is how she’s continually able to reinvent. And honestly, I hope, Nita, you’re listening to this introduction later because there’s a, a lot of people in my world that I respect and admire are because they can do this thing, which is continually reinvent.

And, and it’s something that I [00:01:30] find I am having to do or wanting to do all the time as well. It’s like this thing inside you that keeps growing and changing as a human, and many of our clients and people who feel called to write a book do this as well. It’s the reason I follow people like Madonna, who I don’t necessarily agree with everything that she does, but oh my goodness, she’s been like a pop star since I was eight.

And all of the reinventions and all of the things, and just keep doing it and being herself and the mark that she leaves on the world. That’s how I feel about Nita. [00:02:00] And I just wanted to read you this quick list before I read you her official bio, which is also listed on her website because she has such an interesting past, an interesting future, an interesting present.

She’s been a lighthouse keeper, a knitter, a quilter, an orchestral clarinetist, a performing dance artist, an administrative assistant, a belly dance instructor, a dance company leader, a choreographer, a manager of an 18-piece big band, a [00:02:30] baritone sax player, childcare worker, choir member, bread and cookie baker, a rock collector, and of course, a writer and a conversation seeker.

She’s a certified book coach and developmental editor trained through Author Accelerator, as am I, under founder Jenny Nash. She spent the past five years helping fiction writers get their character-driven stories out of their heads and onto the page in a way readers can feel emotionally engaged with.

Her sweet spot is working with writers who are deep in revision. She’s [00:03:00] also in the middle of making a shift toward working with writers who want to thread social and environmental justice themes into their fiction without losing the reader to a soapbox. And that’s what we talk about mostly in this episode today is that transformation and the journey that she’s going through to support these writers.

And so if you’re interested in writing socially and environmentally engaged fiction, this is definitely the episode that you don’t wanna miss. Nita is also a fiction writer herself and is currently in the query trenches with her [00:03:30] debut novel. And she lives north of the 60th parallel in Canada’s Yukon Territory where she splits her time between living in Whitehorse and between an off-grid cabin on the North Klondike Highway, which is what we all aspire to or think we aspire to, to write in the cabin off-grid Welcome to the Show Don’t Tell podcast, my good friend and colleague, Nita Collins.

Welcome, Nita.

Nita C.: Thank you. Thank you. I wonder– It’s wonderful to be here. [00:04:00]

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I mean, um, this has been so fun. As I mentioned in the intro, we’ve been on this journey together and, you know, we’ve both gone through tons of iterations. But right now, we’re here to talk about socially and environmentally engaged fiction.

Okay. So what is that? What is socially and environmentally engaged fiction in your world today, Nita?

Nita C.: It is fiction that, that shines a light on the injustices that are [00:04:30] happening in the world. It’s sort of like, um, an umbrella term. You know, like show don’t tell is a big umbrella term.

Suzy Vadori: It sure is. I think show don’t tell is the only term that matters in writing, and everything relates to it, so maybe this is how you’re going with that.

I don’t know.

Nita C.: Exactly. It, it’s exactly what it is. Getting social and environmental justice fiction onto the page is all about show don’t tell, as is all fiction. But the um- the umbrella term is fiction that [00:05:00] engages in a really meaningful way with questions about fairness and power, rights, belonging, inequality, relationships to each other, to our society as a whole, and relationships with the natural world.

So it’s– What it’s not is just, you know, two people tripping la-di-da through the world. It’s actually speaking to issues.

Suzy Vadori: And- Something that means something, right? Yeah.

Nita C.: Something that means something, but it’s not soapboxing. Yeah. Totally [00:05:30] not soapboxing, yeah. So it can be a story that– Uh, well, world-building is another big part of it.

It can be a story that the world in the story is the real world, and the characters are interacting and dealing with- Big, maybe big social or big environmental issues, but that’s not the story. Maybe the story is a group of friends who are pairing up and trying to find out if they wanna get married or whatever your story is, but [00:06:00] it’s taking place on this backdrop of how hard it is to get a job as a young person and how hard it is to pay the rent.

Or maybe your story’s about a bunch of people who have to go in together and buy a house because of the economy. Doesn’t, it’s not conducive to a couple just buying a house anymore, right? So the story is how are they gonna get the house? But the canvas it’s painted on is an awareness of our social, right?

So your story is, or your novel is aware [00:06:30] of those conditions, but it’s not- Yeah … the story itself, right? Does that

Suzy Vadori: make sense? Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So you kind of have, you know, in our author accelerator language, it would be the point of the story is kind of like you’re trying to convey a message.

You’re trying to, you want the reader to think, feel, know something afterward, but you don’t wanna hit them over the head with it, so you wrap it in fiction or in a story where we can kind of

Nita C.: detour. Right. And, and so there’s socially aware and social [00:07:00] justice and social engaged, so we have all these different terms, right?

A socially engaged work of fiction would be a story that’s interacting directly with the issues. So our people, instead of trying to just figure out how to buy a house together, are going to go out and directly confront the problem The problem isn’t just gonna be in the background that the story takes place on.

So the point is gonna be different. The theme and point in is gonna be different for both of [00:07:30] those, but the big overarching goal is the same, to make your reader aware of a problem, and maybe offer ideas about how you might solve that problem.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so what is it about the, this type of work that calls to you at this point in, in your career?

Like, what’s leading to this?

Nita C.: Well, turning 60 and then turning 65 is what led directly to this, yeah. As I’m getting older [00:08:00] and entering this new career, which is actually not new anymore, I am celebrating a five-year anniversary as a certified book coach this year. Congratulations. So yeah. We’ve been on this journey together, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Like you’re human, I’ve been doing it for decades, but yeah. You are a year ahead of me on in the course, yeah. And as I’ve gotten older, I have just felt this big pull towards, oh, I’m making a point in my life. You know, what, what is it that I wanna do? [00:08:30] How can I make a difference in the world?

And I am really aware at 65 that I don’t have a lot of time left. I mean, people say, “Oh yes you do.” Well, I guess

Suzy Vadori: it’s relative, right? You could if you wanna work till you’re 90, right? Like, but we don’t all wanna work till we’re 90. That’s

Nita C.: right, because if I am 90, that’s only 25 years from now.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: Right?

You know? Yeah. So it, when you look at it that way, time is passing by, and what mark do I wanna leave on the world, and how do I want to [00:09:00] be, how do I wanna live as a quiet activist, and what can I contribute? And I can work with writers who are quiet activists. Yeah. That’s how I can- Too

Suzy Vadori: interesting. Yeah, there’s so much to unpack there.

I’ve got so much to say on this, and I’d love, love, love. I mean- Mm … you and I share that. You know, in my 50s, I, I kind of had this revelation as well. I started doing this work actually in my 40s, and but it’s the same thing. It’s like at some point, you know, I had this big career, I was making widgets [00:09:30] in China.

Uh, so what? I, like, what is- Yeah … my mark on this world? And being able to help other writers, and I’m gonna get into this in a second, but being able to help writers find their place is such a fulfilling, amazing job that I can’t even-

Nita C.: Totally … so yeah. It is totally, and that’s why I just used that, that word quiet activism because- Social justice fiction, socially aware fiction, socially engaged fiction.

Th- there’s too much [00:10:00] furniture in your room to try to deal with all these terms, because what they are all really-

Suzy Vadori: Is quiet activism. And so I think that

Nita C.: as I’m going on this journey of discovery of this area, because as I’ve, as I’m aging and I’m really being pulled into this, wanting to work with writers to make the world better, better books for a better world, as Susan DeFreitas, our dearly- Yeah

beloved departed Susan DeFreitas used to say, [00:10:30] better books for a better world. And I’m, I’m internalizing that. And so that’s quiet activism at work in a writer.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And I love that you’re bringing up so many things, like Susan’s work, and I worked very closely with Susan. And so yeah, as soon as you were like, socially and environmentally engaged fiction, I’m like, that was her jam, and it’s so inspiring, right?

Like, there’s so many things to do. Yeah. But many of our listeners are considering writing a book or are writing a book today about [00:11:00] something that they feel called to do as well. And so I love your message about, you know, this quiet activism because it, myself included, there’s so many things that I wanna go and do in the world, and yet when you follow me on social media or something else, you don’t see me actively being politically polarizing or, you know, screaming at the top of my lungs about my beliefs.

And yet I attract a wildly diverse, amazing, open-hearted set of clients [00:11:30] somehow, even though I’m not out there saying I stand for all of these things. Yeah. Is that kind of what you’re getting at with the quiet activism piece? Like, you’re not out there on your soapbox, like you said.

Nita C.: That’s right. I think it’s probably helpful to talk about what is quiet activism in the- Yes

non-writing world, right? Yeah. To help us give some context to it. And really, um, it’s like w- the podcast episode you did with the lovely Laura Elise a couple weeks ago, right?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: Where people, [00:12:00] there’s, you don’t have to be an introvert to be a quiet activist, but you have this quiet power inside of you.

And, and you aren’t standing on a soapbox shouting. Not all of us are built for waving flags on street corners. And so in your daily life, what do you do that’s a, a little bit of quiet activism? Well, you know, maybe you ride your e-bike to work instead of drive your car because you [00:12:30] believe in making your footprint on the planet smaller, right?

Maybe you’re willing to spend $3 more a dozen on eggs because you believe that chickens shouldn’t be kept in tiny little cages where eggs fall through the floor, right? You believe that it’s worth spending double the amount on eggs so that the chicken had a good life. That’s quiet activism. Spent or withholding with your dollar, right?

The little things that you do to make your society around you better that you just do because they [00:13:00] need doing. You see, you see that the, the food bank is put a call out for tampons, and so you buy a couple packs of tampons the next time you’re in the grocery store, right? You don’t make a big deal out of it.

You don’t even tell anybody about it, really. It’s just a qui- a belief that you carry, and these things make a difference in the world. So when you apply that to fiction, as a writer, you are making a difference in the world by putting the seeds for change into the groundwater, [00:13:30] that then the reader is going to soak up and drink when they read your book.

And your book could thread in something as small as, like I read a, a romance over the summer, one of those wonderful, you know, just you just wanna lay back in the sun and read a romance that doesn’t take any- Yeah, absolutely … too much mental power. It’s a beach read. Just wanna…

Suzy Vadori: Total beach read, right? Yeah.

Well, the protagonist was a midwife.

Nita C.: Oh, well, you know, and she was falling in love with the doctor. [00:14:00] Uh, but she threaded in all kinds of little tidbits about women’s reproductive health into this book in such a way that you barely notice. But I came away, and I’m a pretty well-educated person, I came away learning a few little tidbits about women’s reproductive health, and yet here’s this was a little 60,000-word romance beach read.

And so she’s absolutely a quiet [00:14:30] activist as a writer, right?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. I love that. I love that. And, and that’s- Yeah … the work, you know, that I think a lot of writers coming to this … Okay, so if you’re a, a listener out there right now, and you’re thinking about writing a book that has a message, right? A strong message that you feel strongly about, where it would be helpful to work with a coach is this, is how to make it subtle, is how to weave it in so that we’re not hitting the reader over the head.

Because I get a lot of, I wanna go back to this, like, sort of [00:15:00] midlife, or we’re not really midlife, right, anymore. Uh, we call- Yeah … ourselves midlife, but are we really? Uh-

Nita C.: No. Um, one of my, one of my girlfriends and good friends calls it the back third.

Suzy Vadori: We’re on the back third. The thing is, is that as we get older, and a lot of my clients are in this kind of stage as well, right?

We have things to say, and yet when we come to writing fiction, we think we are being subtle, but we’re not. We end up with these huge speeches. Like, have you ever seen this, Nita? Like, like, we get these huge [00:15:30] manifesto speeches in the middle of a book-

Nita C.: Yeah … where

Suzy Vadori: it’s like the whole, their whole thought, and you’re like, “No, no, no.

This is not a book.” Nobody’s gonna read that, by the way, because we’re not- Yeah. Yeah … the five elements of writing. That’s the long version. Skip,

Nita C.: skip,

Suzy Vadori: skip, skip. Yeah. Skip, skip, skip, or skim, skim. So there are lots of techniques. Like, if that’s in your first draft, I’m not trying to shit on anybody here. If you’re listening and you’ve got a big speech that has your manifesto in your first draft-

that’s okay, right? We can fix it. Um, but what are the, you know, what Nita’s [00:16:00] talking about is subtly weaving this through, and how it can be umpteen times more effective.

Nita C.: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And actually, I, I wanna say that getting it, if it’s in your first draft, that’s actually great. That’s awesome. This is where revision comes in because I’m, I’m primarily a revision coach, right?

Yeah. So get that, put that manifesto right there in your first draft because then when you come and you wanna go back and revise, there is it what you wanna say. And [00:16:30] so many writers, when we are working together and we’re trying to talk about what is your theme and what is your point and what is your reader takeaway, they get so stuck on that.

And often what I’ll say is, “Well, okay, you’ve got a general idea. Let’s get through the first draft, and then we’ll know,” because it will come out. In the first draft, and we’re gonna have to cut it all out and reword it and rejig it and put it into the character arc and put it into the plot so the plot can inform the character [00:17:00] to change.

And so if it’s there, you, that’s a huge chunk of the, the work that you’ve already got done. You need to know that because, uh, story is about change, yeah? Our character changes. You know, it’s about growth and change, and what is it that causes change? It’s the plot- Ha … that pushes the character to make choices to change, right?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: Otherwise, what do I have a story?

Suzy Vadori: And what you’ve [00:17:30] said, and, and yes, we’ll dive into revision in a second because we know that that’s, like, your absolute jam. But part of what you need to accept, dear listener, is that first drafts are not it, right? And sometimes when we come to espe- I find especially writers that come with a message and have chosen fiction as the median to share this message, they don’t always

They wanna blurt it out, and then would share it with the world. But your job as a writer- Yeah … is exactly what [00:18:00] Nita was saying, is how you weave it through so that it is entertaining and also convincing through that same … That’s the whole point of doing a fiction medium. That work is subtle work and takes several revisions and several drafts.

Yeah. And so you have to accept that premise right from the get-go. So whatever, if you’re working on- Yeah … a first draft, you’re going through and you’re editing it, and you’re, like, crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s, and you think that’s gonna be enough, it probably isn’t, right? No, no. Even for those of us who are super [00:18:30] experienced in writing novels, we do not- No

publish our first drafts.

Nita C.: Yeah. A- and I see so many people in, like, Facebook groups saying, “Oh, I finished. What’s next?” You know, “

Suzy Vadori: How do I

Nita C.: publish?” And I’m always just cringing. But the story has to be entertaining, and it doesn’t matter if you’re writing a socially engaged story, or you’re writing climate fiction or eco fiction, or dystopian fiction.

It doesn’t matter. It has to be, first of all, ahead of [00:19:00] anything, entertaining because it’s the medium we’re working in, right? If you’re gonna catch

Suzy Vadori: Nita on her beach read day, right, where she’s like, “How do I, like, I just want something that’s gonna follow the formula, please and thank you.” And then she’s like- Yeah

“Well, I also learned something.” That’s what we want, right? That’s what we want. Yeah. Exactly.

Nita C.: Exactly. That’s how seeds of change get into the groundwater, right? That we are just, we’re reading and we’re enjoying, and then this little idea got in there, and yeah. Yeah. And we keep [00:19:30] thinking about it, right? I’m still thinking about that book all these months later, and it’s probably the only easy summer beach read that I can remember ever having read in my life, even though I read dozens of them every summer.

Suzy Vadori: So- Oh, sure, sure, yeah. Okay. I thought you were saying that you didn’t read them, but you’re saying, uh- All the m- … you read them all the time, not just the one that

Nita C.: I mentioned All the time. But I remember this one- Yeah, yeah … because it had that little extra thread of- Which is social justice in it. Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: So I, I say this a lot, and you’ve probably heard me say this before, [00:20:00] Nina, so I apologize for being a broken record, and the listeners have heard this as well, but I wanna repeat it, because we can tell ourselves that we’re writing just for ourselves or just for our family, but we all secretly hope…

I mean, if you’re gonna sit down and spend thousands of hours writing a book, and you will, you know, hundreds or thousands or whatever it ends up being, it’s a big chunk of time and a big chunk of resources with your time and energy, maybe your money, depending on how you go about it. And n- we actually do secretly hope that we will change the world with what we write, [00:20:30] and that we will– somebody will find it, read it, love it, share it.

That’s how it goes viral, right? Like, that’s how th- that happens. And, and nobody would turn that away. You’re not saying, “I don’t want it.” I mean, if you are doing that, then perhaps you’re journaling, which is a whole different thing. But as we– I wanna come back to this idea of aging, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Because as we age into this, and so don’t tune out if you’re younger than Nina and I. Don’t tune out-

Nita C.: No, definitely …

Suzy Vadori: because you can learn this faster [00:21:00] than we did, or you could do it earlier than we did. But, you know, you talk about, you d- you did a Substack, which I love, which is becoming a crone, right? And-

Nita C.: Yeah, yeah

Suzy Vadori: and that sort of crone energy. And I mean, I embrace that. I try not to call other people m- our age out on that, but unless they’ve said it themselves. Um, but- Yeah … but do you wanna talk a little bit about that wisdom that is happening and, and that guide role- Mm-hmm … and, and what that ends up being? ‘Cause people can do it in their 30s, and [00:21:30] people can do it in their 40s.

Mm-hmm. It’s just like we- Mm-hmm … tend to age into it, but you can do it earlier. What is that?

Nita C.: I have thought about it going through my life as going through gates, and I suppose everybody will have a different way of looking at it. But I think about when I entered my 20s and I walked through another gate, I was a very different woman at 21 than I was at 17 or 18, right?

And that’s only a couple of years difference, but brain maturity and all of that. [00:22:00] And then I walked through another gate. I thought I walked through one when I hit 30, but it really wasn’t. It was more in my late 30s and hitting 40 that I became another person again in, just in the, the way I saw myself.

And all of a sudden, I felt it was a feeling of immense power being 39 and 40 and 41. Mm-hmm. Like, I was doing all the things, and I was not a kid anymore. [00:22:30] And, you know, like in my 30s was awesome because I was still young and had energy, and then, and also had s- a little bit of wisdom, but nothing looking back- And when I hit 40, I was like, adult, total adult.

I can do all the things. I aspire someday to be an adult. Oh, I

Suzy Vadori: don’t know if I’m there yet, but, but I’m, I’m working on it, so give it a few.

Nita C.: Just friends, you know? Yeah. And then, and then- That kind of carried me through my 50s [00:23:00] until I got to … When I hit si- 60, 61, I started to think, “I feel this pressure inside of myself.”

There was something there wanting out, and that came with menopause. Um- Ah … and, and I think it’s a, I think it’s a brain shift. You know, our hormones are changing, so our chemicals are different in our brains. And as I got closer and closer to 65, I just started to [00:23:30] feel like I was holding myself back. Like, why can’t I just open that gate and step through it and own myself now?

And so I think that’s what this is all about, this shift into wanting to work with socially engaged fiction. Just this awareness that pre-industrial society and all of our indigenous societies, they have elders, and elders play a huge role in their society. They are like the pinnacle. And [00:24:00] somewhere our Western society, the patriarchy, shelved those women.

They burned them on the stake. They turned the old words like crone into caricatures and cartoon figures, and took the, stooped the power until we also believed that. And now we have, we have elderly women, older women, women who are over 50 being marketed to. The latest thing is persimmon soap because you don’t want to smell like [00:24:30] an old lady.

Have you seen those?

Suzy Vadori: No. I haven’t bought that one yet. I got everything else on my feed. Like-

Nita C.: Yeah, old smell. Old lady smell is the new thing, and so you have to buy persimmon soap. And-

Suzy Vadori: Oh …

Nita C.: another way of saying, “Here is another thing that you need to feel insecure about,” because all of a sudden in the last decade, older women are starting to reclaim that power.

When I say older women, I mean women who are in the back third, back third. We are reclaiming that power and we’re saying, “Hey, wait a minute. We’ve been around the block and we have something to say about [00:25:00] it.” And you know, I don’t know if the patriarchy is a, a thing that’s sitting back, but certainly marketers are t- paying attention and saying, “Oh, here’s something we can earn some money off of.”

Suzy Vadori: So- The men are getting it too, honestly. Yes. And not to s- Yeah … not to say, you know, everybody matters, and I think this is a- Yeah … a conversation primarily about women’s power, um, because men in their a- age do also have a legacy pressure. And I work with a lot of men that are also working on their legacy and, and- Yes, yes

you [00:25:30] know, like working with their

Nita C.: second careers. And frankly, when I say, when I say patriarchy, I’m talking about systems, entrenched systems. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, and I wasn’t trying to say that it’s excuse- It’s not the male

Nita C.: of the species …

Suzy Vadori: and I think, but I think actually it is quite different because the men that I tend to work with, and love you all if you’re listening- are very much, like, aware that they are like, “Okay, this is my legacy and this is what I can give back,” and they feel empowered to do that.

Whereas the women- Yeah … are like, “Should I do this?” And, “Maybe I should do this.” And so it is a little bit different, like, in terms of-

Nita C.: Yes …

Suzy Vadori: you know, you- Yeah … you talked a little [00:26:00] bit about how, uh, our, you know, aging women are being erased, right? Or becoming caricatures or other things, and men don’t have that.

Yeah. And so, yeah, so I think even though I see this, especially this sort of I have something to say about the world in my fiction happening with my clients our age and older, but also that it is very different for women than it is for men, and it’s-

Nita C.: Yeah …

Suzy Vadori: it’s scarier. It’s scarier somehow.

Nita C.: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: And you said, you know, you’d also [00:26:30] said, and you, you alluded to this, but I just wanna recap it, ’cause it was like something big inside you is try- that wants to come out, and, and I think, like, are these your clients as well?

Like, I, I’m sure this is reflective of what you’re seeing in your clients, like something big inside them is trying to get out.

Nita C.: And- Yeah. And how do you get that on the page is-

Suzy Vadori: Yeah …

Nita C.: is what they c- what they’re coming for and asking. I have, uh, I wanna write a novel about some dis- uh, dystopian thing [00:27:00] as a warning because I see all these things happening in society.

And I wanna get this out, and I, I want … This is gonna be my legacy,” they’ll say, right? But how do you get that onto the page?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And it’s, that is absolutely- And- … is gonna be perfect because I believe this episode is gonna air shortly after my interview with Robert J. Sawyer, which you haven’t seen yet. Um, but it’s, it’s a two-part interview where we talk a lot about legacy and a lot about the science fiction trends and how dystopian fiction is coming back [00:27:30] because of the save the world, um, and because- Yeah

we’re trying to, you know, and science fiction and dystopian and all of these things are not trying to predict the future, but warn against it or prevent it. And so- Yeah. Yeah … that’s a really cool episode if you haven’t listened to that yet. Um- Yeah … this will air afterwards. Take a look at that. But you also talk about something that I have actually never heard before, so you taught me something, Nina, with your Substack, which is fruitopian fiction.

Can you- Oh, fruitopian … can you talk a little bit about [00:28:00] fruitopian? So if this is a new term to you, um, as you’re listening, it was a new term to me. I’m gonna give Nina the floor here and explain exactly what fruitopian means.

Nita C.: I love it. I love the idea of fruitopian fiction. It is a brand new kind of a subgenre.

And so you know what, everybody I think knows what dystopian fiction is. That’s fine. And you know what? We don’t make assumptions on the Show Don’t Tell podcast. It’s tell

Suzy Vadori: us-

Nita C.: Oh my gosh …

Suzy Vadori: we gotta learn this. So dystopian.

Nita C.: Dystopian fiction is fiction that [00:28:30] takes place in a broken world,

Suzy Vadori: right? So the opposite of fruitopian basically.

Nita C.: Of the broken. Exactly. Fruitopian’s

Suzy Vadori: like heaven all, like the Garden of Eden and everything is perfect. Dystopian’s like everything’s a little wonky, right?

Nita C.: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So we, and utopian and dystopian fiction has been around forever.

Nita C.: This new trend coming up is fruitopian fiction, and it is writing about the world from a point of view of it is [00:29:00] fixed or it is being fixed.

It’s hopeful fiction. Have you heard of hope punk? It- Yes. Yeah … it’s a type of- Definitely. I’ve got quite a number

Suzy Vadori: of clients writing

Nita C.: hope punk … it’s a type of hope punk. It’s a type of solar punk, um, where it may be hundreds of years in the future, and your story takes place in a world where people have figured out water and/or they have figured out energy or- All of these, it, it’s a, it’s super hopeful.

All of the problems that we are having [00:29:30] environmentally or socially have been solved or are being solved, but it’s not in a utopian way. They’re not perfect. Totally not perfect, but it shows the reader that there is a way through this. So it’s fiction that writes us through the dystopia we’re living in today, and it may still be a dystopian landscape, but it’s getting better.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, it’s hopeful. Oh, okay, that’s really super interesting, and I love that. Yeah. And you also talk about the [00:30:00] shift in socially and environmentally engaged fiction, where the shift in the book is kind of from I to we. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what, what is that shift that characters go through when they’re like, “Me, me, me, me, me,” and then like, “Us, us, us, us, us,” right?

Like, is that, is that what you mean by that? Did I get that right?

Nita C.: That’s sort of my, a personal belief of mine is that part of the, the difficulties we’re having in society is that we are very I-focused. It’s all about- Oh,

Suzy Vadori: yeah …

Nita C.: me. It’s a very [00:30:30] me-first society, and in order for, and this would be a fruitopian idea, in order for a society to truly work, we have to have a we mentality rather than a me mentality.

Mm-hmm. So that would be if you were writing a society that was, uh, very focused on its, on itself and all the moving parts and not each individual being more important than everybody else, that would be kind of a fruitopian idea.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: Don’t you love that word?

Suzy Vadori: I do. I do. [00:31:00] I was, what is this? Like how rude.

Nita C.: I do my

Suzy Vadori: research on purpose. She has- I was like, I love new things. Okay, which is why I have the job I have, and also because I get to work through so many things and learn so much

Nita C.: from every

Suzy Vadori: single person-

Nita C.: Yeah … we work with,

Suzy Vadori: and every single guest that I have on the show. Okay, so but you personally, Nita, you write spec fic.

Yeah. And how does the speculative fiction genre, which is just anything that is speculative, like I said, I like to define things, so it includes science fiction, [00:31:30] fantasy, and how does that genre actually lend itself to addressing socially and environmentally engaged fiction best?

Nita C.: Because it allows you to step outside of reality for a little bit, right?

It just, it, it allows you to really explore that big what if question. And in a way, isn’t all fiction speculative?

Suzy Vadori: Well, we can, we can say that. It is. It is, because it’s [00:32:00] fictional, but we’re playing with sort of the norms of the world, whether pushing the limits or extrapolating what exists in the world today in science fiction, or we’re just breaking the rules altogether and introducing things that, you know, either don’t exist or couldn’t possibly exist in the world.

But in terms of how it lends itself, I mean, there’s a lot of ways that I could see or that I do see when we’re trying to do … We talk about threading it through and making it subtle. [00:32:30] We can use metaphor- Mm-hmm … metaphors a lot in speculative fiction to demonstrate without having to address, hey, this is the state of Canadian politics, let’s say, today.

Nobody wants to read about that, and also it’s gonna be out of date very quickly, but if you kind of set it in this other world that doesn’t exist, you can play out different scenarios in a safer environment for people than, than the polarizing way of doing it with the harsh light shining on existing- [00:33:00] Mm-hmm

problems that we have. Does that sort of make sense? Yeah, so but what other genres do you work with? Like, what, what other genres are you seeing writers wanting to create socially and environmentally engaged fiction? You’re talking about you read a beach read or a romance. Are there other genres that you’re finding, or, or is it any genre that you can incorporate these?

Nita C.: It’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. Birnam Wood, have you read Birnam Wood? What an awesome book. It’s a thriller. It’s an eco-thriller. It’s also [00:33:30] literary, so it’s a literary eco-thriller, and it has huge environmental justice message in it. It’s got- Love it. Yeah, it’s got, what do you call those? Rogue gardeners, um, guerrilla gardeners in it, and, and it’s also got a lot of kind of comedy.

There’s, there’s a few chuckles in there. So th- there you have a literary

Suzy Vadori: eco-thriller, social justice that’s done- Yeah, and before- And I- Okay, before you get all excited and think that there’s no rules, I’m [00:34:00] sure that there’s a primary genre. Is it, is it literary or is it, is it thriller? Which one would it- Thriller

be shelved in? Just

Nita C.: curious. It’s thriller.

Suzy Vadori: It’s literary thriller. So it’s, so it is. But, but I wanna say this because when listeners hear this and then they go, “Oh, okay, that was the next best thing,” and it- It was not magical realism … was the next best thing. We wanna pick a primary genre so that we have some expectations, and then we can sprinkle in stuff, but I think what you’re saying is that socially and environmentally engaged fiction can actually happen in any genre, right?

Nita C.: Like- It [00:34:30] can. It can. One, another example, um, if anybody is a reader of Kitty Johnson’s work- She wrote a, a lovely little novel called Prickly Company, and it’s, it’s about a neighborhood of, of people who are all, y- they all have their troubles, but they all are res- working toward a common goal, which is, uh, making a highway for the local hedgehogs so they can be safe, right?

It’s cute. It’s general fiction. Another kind of a beachy read. It’s [00:35:00] a fun and easy read, and yet it tackles some controversy and difficult topics But you don’t really realize that it is until you finish the book, and you read the book, and then you go, “Oh, I learnt something about hedgehogs. I learnt something about military veterans.

I learnt something about a…” You know, all these different things.

Suzy Vadori: And my mind has expanded, and I now have an opinion- Yeah … on

Nita C.: the

Suzy Vadori: survival of hedgehogs, which I didn’t have before we just had this conversation- Yeah … ’cause I’d never considered it. [00:35:30] I love that.

Nita C.: It’s a wonderful way of having a vehicle to carry a story, is if you have your little environmental thread, it will- you can actually use that as the, the baseline that your story rides on top of.

So- Yeah … it’s a

Suzy Vadori: good way Amazing. Okay. So your first love, or you focus on revision. Mm-hmm. What do you love about revision versus drafting?

Nita C.: I have always been a, a person who loves to take something that already exists and [00:36:00] make it, make it better. You know cut it apart- Yeah … rejig it, work it together. The- it’s, it’s like being a knitter, you know.

You have a skein of yarn, and then when you’re done, you have a scarf or s- something, right? So you have, your draft is like the clay. It’s like that skein of yarn that now you have the material, now you can make something. So your, yeah, your draft is, there’s your material, there’s your idea, there’s your story, there’s what you want.

It’s all in there, [00:36:30] and it can be a terrible messy draft, like a box of puzzle pieces. Now we have to take them and s- and figure out what the picture is. Or it can be a puzzle that’s put together but wonky, and we just need to rearrange the pieces, right? I

Suzy Vadori: wish the listeners could see Nita’s face as she’s explaining this, and all of the hand gestures.

‘Cause this is where, like when I say you’re about revision, you just throw it up there. And you talk sometimes about, and I’ve heard you say this before, that you get writers out of revision hell. [00:37:00] What is that? Like, as I wa- I love drafts … want listeners to recognize, are you in revision hell, a la Nita’s definition?

Nita C.: Revision

Suzy Vadori: hell is you

Nita C.: just keep going back and revising that first chapter over and over and over, and it … Or you go through and you make sure your grammar is perfect, but the story still doesn’t work, and you don’t know why. And it’s because you’re editing and not revising. And you just … It’s so frustrating.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So editing is fixing spelling and grammar, [00:37:30] and maybe sentence structure. Yeah. And revising and looking at the big picture stuff, right?

Nita C.: Looking at the big picture.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, like the foundation. What is your

Nita C.: story about? And do your scenes flow one into another? Do they make sense? Do they just kind of hop along- Yeah

from scene to scene? And how does your plot push your character? To make a choice. Do you ever put your character in a position where they have to make a choice, or does your character just go along reacting to everything that [00:38:00] happens? Revision is literally where the magic happens.

Suzy Vadori: Oh, magic. Yeah.

Absolutely. And I like, I personally, and you’re probably one of the other listeners, so think about it. Do you love first drafts or do you love revisions? And I love revisions, and I think because it feels more like work- Yeah … which to most people is bad, but to me is, like, my happy place. I can, first drafts, I, I go to a coffee shop or leave my current environment where I revise.

And revisions I can do at my desk because it’s my job [00:38:30] for other people, and I can somehow just plow through it that feels like, I don’t feel like … It feels like work, good work, and not luxury. And first drafts feel like this luxury that I should be maybe emptying the dishwasher instead

Nita C.: of doing. Sounds

Suzy Vadori: like me.

But revisions I can somehow … Yeah. Yeah. So but that’s just it, is every writer is different. Yeah. So recognize that if you need that support during revision, Nina just might be the right coach for you. Mm-hmm. And then I love it when my colleagues, like, ’cause [00:39:00] we, we talk a lot about, and we’re not gonna talk about this here- Sure

but we talked a lot about our own writing and support one another in our own writing. Mm-hmm. And Nina is walking the walk here. Um, she’s currently querying her debut, The Face of Amore. Um- Mm-hmm … how’s that going?

Nita C.: It’s I’ve been querying this for, I am c- I am pretty darn close to 100 rejections. A month ago, I finally got my second request for a full.

Suzy Vadori: Amazing.

Nita C.: And the request came in in [00:39:30] such an exciting way. She was so, she’s like, “I don’t wanna miss the chance to read this. Your first

Suzy Vadori: chapter-” Mm … “blew me away.” You know? And, and, and then- Did you change … So, so rejections coming and then did you change anything or it just happened?

Nita C.: I, well, a little bit of both.

I am always jigging the query, you know, every, every eight or 10 rejections or no means no. No reply means no. I hate those.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: Just, you know, but then I rejig the query a little bit, and the first [00:40:00] chapter won a notable mention in the That Secret Novel contest, so I know the first chapter worked.

Suzy Vadori: Amazing

Nita C.: So I have not then, I have not touched the manuscript.

The manuscript a year ago when I, when it was ready to go out is the same. I haven’t, I haven’t

Suzy Vadori: touched it. Well, you know when it’s ready. This is your job, you know, but it’s hard to get attention. It’s like screaming into a void sometimes, right?

Nita C.: Totally. Um- It’s, it’s totally, and it’s difficult, it’s a, a difficult type of story to sell, I understand.

Suzy Vadori: Is it socially [00:40:30] engaged fiction, or no?

Nita C.: Yeah, it is.

Suzy Vadori: Okay.

Nita C.: Yes, and it’s science fiction also, and it’s literary, and it’s- Yes …

Suzy Vadori: it’s

Nita C.: not

Suzy Vadori: a genre. It’s all the things. It’s, it’s hard, y- yeah. I mean, you’re making things difficult on yourself narrowing it- Yeah … but when the right readers find it, it’s gonna be amazing.

Okay. Nita, we have reached the quick-fire portion of this podcast, so here goes. How long from the time that you thought of the idea for, uh, The Face of Amore till now? [00:41:00]

Nita C.: Till now?

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. How long ago? Four

Nita C.: years.

Suzy Vadori: Four years. Four years. Okay, awesome. What was your first big break where you knew that this book was the one that you were gonna be querying?

Nita C.: Before I even started it. This was the book of my heart. This is my heart book. I had been working on another book. I had the incredible good fortune of having my, my blueprint looked at by Jennie Nash, my mini blueprint, and Jennie Nash was asking me [00:41:30] questions about this previous novel, and I had to stop the interview and say, “I can’t answer these questions because the honest truth is this is not the novel I wanna be writing.”

Suzy Vadori: Oh, gosh. As only Jennie could bring that up.

Nita C.: Yeah, I know. She woke up- I know … and actually- And she said, “

Suzy Vadori: What

Nita C.: is my novel?”

Suzy Vadori: I think I might, I think I can remember when that happened, yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

Nita C.: Yeah, because we were students at that time, and I, uh, I struggled away on that first novel for a while, and then I eventually said, “No,” Jennie, yeah, I told Jennie that wasn’t the [00:42:00] novel, so why am I not writing the novel I wanna be writing?

And then I had to, I had to go and spend some time sitting with that.

Suzy Vadori: Do some soul-searching, right?

Nita C.: Mm-hmm. And so four years ago I started writing it.

Suzy Vadori: I love that story. Thank you for sharing it. It’s really important, you know, um, I can’t promise you that if you work with a coach that you’re gonna sell a million copies or that you’re gonna make a million dollars, but I can tell you that writing the right book at the right moment in your life is going to change your life.

Um, and so it’s [00:42:30] been kind of a fun ride to work with Nita so closely and to, to see how all of the changes and how you’re growing as a human is, like, such a gift to your clients as well.

Nita C.: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Suzy Vadori: So what’s your best advice for writers who are listening today? They tuned in because they are wanting, they’ve got something to say about the world.

They wanna write a book that’s socially and environmentally engaged fiction. What’s your best advice for those guys today?[00:43:00]

Nita C.: I would say start journaling about it. Spend some time letting that idea live inside of you, and start giving it permission to exist. And so if you’re a journal writer, or you’re like me, I have my messy journal here where I just … So that you just start sitting with it, that it’s okay. You can write this story.

Let the story grow in you. Start making your notes, and just start. [00:43:30]

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Just start. I l- I love that. I love that. And maybe get their manifesto out. But yeah, I mean, definitely write those notes and journals. Yeah. It’s terrific advice, Nita. And but just know, like if you’re a follower of word count or something, those are not your chapters.

Those are not your pages. Those are how you- No … start to think about it because I think a lot of people write that stuff down, and then they bring it to you or me as a coach. Mm-hmm. And they say, “Here, I wrote this.”

Nita C.: Yeah, yeah. Like,

Suzy Vadori: but you haven’t turned it into a book yet. Yeah. [00:44:00]

Nita C.: Yeah, and your coach is gonna say, “Why did you wanna write this?”

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: And these are the questions you have to, you have to sit with. So if you are a journaler, journal on those questions. Why is this story important to me? Or a- and maybe you don’t even know what the story is, but you have a message. Why do you want it? Why is that important to you, and why are you the person to tell this, this message, to put this out?

Um, start asking- Yeah … you tho- those quest- those deep, those deep questions that, you know, you lock your diary [00:44:30] up. You don’t want people to read the answers, right?

Suzy Vadori: I just never wro- like, I did have a diary, but I think I just phoned it in with it when I was a kid ’cause I never trusted that my mother wasn’t reading my diary.

No. So if you’re re- listening to this, I, I know you read my diary. I also … Yeah, I never trusted anybody with those things.

Nita C.: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that when I take my own example of, of Amore, I had to figure out why I wasn’t letting myself write that story.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah.

Nita C.: I didn’t … You know, and the truth was I didn’t feel like I was equal to it.

And if you [00:45:00] go along feeling like you’re not equal to something, you never will be.

Suzy Vadori: And now you own it.

Nita C.: Yeah.

Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So how can we find you and your coaching?

Nita C.: I am on Substack at Nita Collins Writer, and my website is also nitacollinswriter.com.

Suzy Vadori: Amazing. We’ll drop the links in the show notes, but definitely go and watch Nita’s Substack.

She’s posting some really amazing things and sharing a lot about her journey and what’s going on there, so I found it fascinating. Thanks so much [00:45:30] for coming on the show today, Nita.

Nita C.: Thank you so much, Suzy.

Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori. It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or the book that you’re planning to write. Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us. You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, [00:46:00] Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening to show how much you enjoy the show.

That’s how other listeners will find us. Also, visit Suzyvadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list, where you’ll stay inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. Want my eyes on your writing?

Submit a page of your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes. I’d love to chat with you about your [00:46:30] writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals. I’m here to cheer you on. Remember, that book you’re writing is gonna open doors that you haven’t even thought of yet, and I can’t wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.

See you again right here next [00:47:00] week

 

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