[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors. I'm Joanne Morell, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for authors. Thanks for joining me for the hybrid author podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author, both independently and traditionally publishing your books. You can get the show notes for each episode and sign up for your free author pass over at the hybrid author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at www. Dot.
Let's crack on with the episode.
Hello authors.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to. The podcast in today's interview is with mystery author Andrea Barton and we chat plot development, plot twists, suspense and tension for a more spontaneous writing style, Andrea's writing process for her book the Godfather of Dance, Andreas advice in developing a solid plot for their works of fiction, and much more.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: So in my author.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Adventure this week, school holidays are over. I'm sure every parent is cheering.
Even though we love our kids and we love the holidays, it's always nice to get a break from, you know, school lunches and doing the usual routines. It's felt like a very long couple of weeks for me with the kids. We've done some really nice, fun things, but in terms of, you know, business work processes and being productive, it's obviously a little bit less when you're caring for children. So this week has been a massive week for me, getting back into it. Podcasting. I had about twelve podcast interviews over the course of three days. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I batch interviews back to back. And I love it. It doesn't, you know, it's a lot. It's definitely a lot. But I get a lot of energy from podcasting and, you know, it's something I really enjoy. I think I had four on Tuesday, five on Wednesday, and four on Thursday yesterday, and I think five is probably a bit much. By the fifth one, my head was a little bit pecked and I tend to go blank and just be whoa. But four, four seems to be a good sweet spot for the day. Podcasts, obviously, while the kids are at school and I've had, I've got such a varied lineup to share with you. So very hybrid, which I love. You know, we've got some regency romance writers there, lots of really strong stories of real life experience, people's experiences expressed in memoir writing, very, you know, some fun children's authors as well as publishing tips. And gosh, there's just so much, lots of spooky stuff coming up for Halloween. I've just loved connecting with local authors, but also authors, you know, in Britain, New Zealand, Zealand, the US. It's been a ride around the world podcasting this week, and what I love about it is, you know, I've just not even left my little cupboard, but I've spoke to people all over the world, so it's absolutely incredible the. The opportunities that we have to be able to do that these days. And these days. Sorry, and bad grammar there. Yes. I can't wait to share all that with you soon. In other author Adventure News, I am a part of the romance Writers of Australia. I'm a woman's fiction author. So I have gravitated to. I have been a member of this group for the last year, but I'm gravitating more towards getting more involved with this organization because obviously it's, you know, there's authors that write the same as me, and I can learn so much. Even putting my book up on Amazon, which I haven't actually done yet, for third party sales, you know, you're allowed to pick the categories and the keywords and even just typing romance and relationships as one of the keywords. There was about 20 different, like, lists that came up about the different types of romance out there, and it blows my mind. You know, I've heard of some of them, but I hadn't heard of half of them. And I thought, my gosh, it is a massive, massive industry, and there's a lot for me to learn. So I'm really excited to get more involved there. I know there's a conference next April, which I would love to go to, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to swing it with my children and, you know, funds. We'll see. The other thing is, yeah, I've put my hand up to be one of the events liaisons for Western Australia. We also have. They already have one. They have a couple, actually. Shout out, Libby Yerkes and Claire. Claire Elizabeth and, yeah, Alicia Hitchcock as well. We're all part of the Wa kind of chapter there. And my first event that I've put together for really north of the river people is just more like a social thing because I'm just interested to see who, who lives locally to me. I do know of author Polly Holmes. She's been on the podcast. I know she lives quite close to me. And, yeah, I just want to see what other writers and romance and women's fiction and live, live close by to me and see if I can start getting to know people in this category, this genre. So yeah, there's a get to know coffee catch up facilitated by me at Joondalup Resort. Sunday, November 10 130 till three. You can rsop joanneiberous author.com dot au and this is for the romance Writers of Australia. Join us for an inspiring, relaxed romance writers of Australia coffee catch up. Whether you're an aspiring author or a seasoned writer, this is the perfect opportunity to connect with like minded creatives in your area, share your experiences, and exchange valuable tips over a beverage of your choice. Get motivated, ask questions, and expand your network in a supportive environment that celebrates the art of romance writing and women's fiction. Everyone is welcome. Let's chat, laugh, and forge each other's passion for storytelling. So I hope to see any of you local romance writers or women's fiction authors there so we can chat and yeah, just get to know each other. But I'm really my worst own enemy, you know, I've just sort of stepped back from squibbie as an industry, so it's a site of children's book writers and illustrators. The children's fiction is I'm stepping away from, and I was doing the newsletter there and the social media coordinator and you know, all these volunteer roles that can be a lot when you've got a lot on your plate. And it just, I just can't help myself. I just like to be involved, I think. So I'm looking forward to being involved more with the romance writers as I'm able. Next weekend I have the self publishing conference, which is online through ally, which is the alliance of Independent Authors, another organization that I'm part of. And I attended the self publishing conference for the first time last year and I got so much out of it. The community for self publishing is huge around the world. Absolutely huge. And the inspiration I get from these people is incredible. So I'm so excited to join this one. This year the topic is. So there's 24 sessions over 24 hours. Unfortunately, being in Australia, they're all sort of through the morning hours, so I won't get to see a lot of them. So the self publishing advice conference is an online author conference. It runs free of charge once a year in association with the alliance of Independent Authors. Free of charge. I think that means you've got to be a member and it attracts the cream of self publishing experts and advisors as speakers and sponsors. This one this year is called author publishing for profit, and they have competitions and things like that, and they have some of the big names in self publishing. If you are interested, you can head over to theallianceofindependentauthors.org and just type in self pubcon and you'll see all the details. But it's really, really worth it if you're in that sphere and connecting with people. There's an online community that you're sort of put in as a member and it's just fantastic. I absolutely love it, so I'm really, really excited for that. Also, the city of Gosnell's library is running some free writing workshops and author talks in November, and they've just put a flyer up which I've shared around my socials as I am running two of the writing events discovering roadblocks in writing that's Wednesday the 20 November in the Blue Room Amherst Village Library, and I'll put all this in the show notes and things. That's from 04:00 till 05:00 and that author talk runs for 1 hour. It's for 16 plus, and I'll just read the short blurb. How many times have you said your writing's crap or shied away from calling yourself an author? Or couldn't get behind your published work for worrying what others might think about you and your book? Sound familiar? Whether you're an aspiring or published author, join nonfiction and contemporary, fast paced women's fiction author and podcaster me, Joanne Zara Ella Morel for a 1 hour session in discovering what some of the roadblocks in writing are, you will identify, acknowledge, and gain an understanding of internal and external authors or fears which have the potential to hold you back from putting your work out there. Some of these include imposter syndrome, being rejected, being judged by others, money, time, unsupportive people, craft fears, self doubt, and much more. From lived experience, I offer tips to potentially overcome these roadblocks so you can take comfort in knowing your author fears are valid. Other writers feel the same way you do, but are not letting fear stop them from putting themselves out there. We are all feeling the fear, but doing what we love anyway. And you can too. So if you're an avid listener of the podcast, you'll hear about my experience a lot and a lot of the author fears that I have gone through, from putting my work out there to writing to all sorts of things. And this is what I draw upon in the talk and make aware of how I kind of get through these things and how you could possibly, obviously, approach them as well to move forward. Because the sad thing is, sometimes when internal or external fears arise writers either use that as an excuse or just think it's too hard. I can't do it. Sadly, they walk away, which is not what we want. The other event is getting published Friday the 29 November and that's at lesser Hall Mills park library and the event runs from three to four. So again, that's a 1 hour talk. 16 plus. Writing your book is only the beginning. What comes next is deciding on which path you'll take to publication. Lucky for us, gone are the days where one choice ruled all. There are many publishing options available to authors today on how they will publish their books. Individuals interested in publishing their manuscripts can join me, contemporary women's fiction indie author and I'm actually presenting this as Zara Ellen, which is my pseudonym, a pseudonym of Joanne Morell. To learn about the various types of publishing options available, you will gain first hand self publishing advice and know how from Zara me, who has published four books across three genres using three different publishing houses. Quality, quantity and budget will be the focus topics on the self published part of the talk. You will view a variety of correct and incorrect self published products and gain tips for traditional publication from industry professionals and hybrid publishing information and legitimate sources that we have discussed on the podcast and people that I know in the industry and trust. So if you are around those dates, come along. These are free events run through the city of Gosnos. It's called the written word workshops. There's also journaling workshop Monday 28 October 11th one Thornley Library and character and Dialogue Workshop Friday the 8 November 930 to 1230 at Gosnose Library. So I will put links in the show notes for these for this and these events. Otherwise you can go across to the Gosnos dot wa dot gov dot IU website and have a look at what they've got on. So if you love the podcast or any of the episodes has helped you further in your author career, you can now pay it forward by buying me a coffee
[email protected] thehybridauthor. You can also support podcasts by buying any of my books which are now available to purchase direct from my website. Third party retailers are going to be later, so we have the two non fiction books author fears on how to overcome them. You can get the ebook, audio or print signed paperback edition and these all range from between ten, nine and $15. Quite a good, good price I reckon. Or we have freelance writing quick tips for fast success again over audiobook, ebook and print books and print books are all signed editions. Can't get anywhere else, and they range between 710 and $11. And these books are, even though it's freelance writing, these are based on sort of writing business setup startups. So whether you're not a freelance writer and author, that all the tips in there kind of apply to book business as well. And of course, I have my new debut contemporary women's fiction book, fast paced, emotionally charged escapism for the overloaded woman. And that's by my pseudonym, Zara Ellen. And of course, you can get the paperback edition at the moment that's on there for $28 and it is signed. And when you purchase that through the website, you can actually request what you would like me to write in there. And I can do that. Great gifts for the holiday season. We also have the ebook and that's around $10 and you can get that straight away to any of your e readers. Let's all support each other.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Andrea Barton is the author of the Godfather of Dance, a Jade Riley mystery. She runs Brightside Story Studio, a book editing business for fiction and memoir, where she loves helping authors to make their story shine. Amazing. Welcome to the Hybrid Author podcast, Andrea.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: We're so thrilled and honoured to have you. So we'll just find out straight away. How did you come to join the writing and publishing industry?
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Well, I was actually working as a career consultant about 20 years ago when my husband was offered the opportunity to go to Lagos, Nigeria. So after we picked ourselves up off the floor and decided that we would actually take that wonderful opportunity, we took our young family and moved from Melbourne to Lagos and lived there for about four and a half years. So I couldn't work there as a career consultant. There wasn't much call for that in Nigeria. So I decided this was my chance to become a writer. So I came to it completely green. I trained as an engineer, I'd worked in that and in career consulting, so I hadn't worked as a writer before. And I found my feet with a bunch of projects over the next 20 years and finally have released published my first novel this year.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Wow, that's incredible.
No, that's absolutely amazing. And so, yeah, I mean, tell us a little bit about the novel, the Godfather of dance. It sounds very intriguing.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: So the plot in the godfather of dance revolves around the mystery of who shot Danica, who's the fiance of a dance instructor called Anton. Two years after her death, it still hasn't been sold. And journalist Jade Riley, who's an Australian who's moved to Houston, where Anton lives and is one of his students, realises that he isn't who he says he is, but in fact, he's hiding from his crime family, who he believed actually killed his fiance. So his father was tried for Danica's murder, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. So Jade and Anton team up to solve the murder.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Wow. So that all sounds really intriguing. Are these the kind of stories that you have, you know, been involved in and edited or read or. How has this kind of idea been the first novel that you've written?
[00:15:30] Speaker C: It's taken me a really long time to evolve to this place. I didn't initially set out writing mysteries, but I think that's my probably. I read quite voraciously and quite widely, but I think my preferred. Well, it is. My preferred genre, really, is this crime and mystery genre. So over time, my writing evolved to take on that genre as well. So I have done some editing in that place. I've also done editing of a lot of romance and. But it tends to be mainly genre fiction.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Well, we are talking about, obviously, your work and things, but focusing today on plot development, and you've just shared a bit of the plot with the book there, so. Thank you. Can you tell us, you know, what was the process you went through developing plot when you were writing the book? Was there a process or a sort of strategy that you followed, or did it just go quite organically?
[00:16:18] Speaker C: A bit of both. I began the plotting with the premise that I told you so. That was always clear in my head. The setting was clear in my head. I knew it was based in Houston because I had. After Lagos, we moved to Houston, so I'd lived there for five years. And so it was set between there and New Orleans. And I was learning ballroom dance at the time. So I wanted to explore the ballroom dance world and build in a dance competition with all the glamorous costumes, all that tension and the rivalry. So from that basis, I then developed all the suspects and a clue trail for Jade to follow. I'd like to say that I had it all planned out before I started, but actually, a lot of the plot twists and the red herrings developed through the editing process. The first draft I wrote, which was probably about five years ago, was actually a bit linear. It wasn't as complex as the plot became over time. And I didn't pitch it right away because it was originally the book three in a series. And the series evolved. So I rewrote this one as the first in the series. So I changed Jade's age, her family situation and her career, which gave me the opportunity to review everything else in the book. So I actually even changed who committed the murder.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: It's really interesting because as someone who, you know, my writing style has really changed since starting writing to now. And I would say I was someone who started with an idea and or title or character or something and just kind of wrote and saw where it took me. And.
Yeah. And now I sit down and I plot pretty much all the books out. And to me, plotting, I guess, is kind of knowing everything that happens. But, so it's funny to hear that you things have develop just as you've gone on in the writing process, but.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: Yes, and I think I've done a little bit of what you've done as well. I mean, this was five years ago, and I think if I was starting that story again now, I would plot a lot more. So I can talk a little bit more about that. You know, I had the initial concept, I had that initial fairly linear story, and then there were a bunch of things that I changed, partly because I changed who Jade was, but also early reader feedback suggested I didn't have enough insight into Anton's family, so I added his sister's point of view as well. So she was a really feisty, fun character, Nadesca, and kind of took over the book. She was so much fun to write. Beta readers loved her, and she's got this kind of convoluted morality from growing up around criminals. So she's quite a complex character and really, really good fun to write.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: And she sounds great.
[00:18:41] Speaker C: She is. And she has a long term secret love affair with a guy called Echo, who's the son of Rex Buckman, the biggest crime boss in New Orleans. I also had the chance to bring in a little bit of a romance subplot. So it's not a romance novel by any stretch, but it has a little bit of that in a b story.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Oh, it's nice to throw that in there. Yeah, it is.
[00:19:01] Speaker C: It's fun. And I think people have really responded well to that. And by having her point of view, it gave readers a chance to get to know the suspects better, because a lot of the suspects were from her family and connected to her family. And it also because you could see what they were doing, we could see some of the risks that Jade was facing before she fully realized how much, how much danger she was in the. So in a lot of cases, the readers knew more than she knew, which helped to really build that suspense.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I bet. And in the real life ballroom dancing world, is it really like that, like with rival rock rivalries, rivalry. Is there rising tension or is it quite.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Nah.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: Well, I have to confess I didn't actually compete. I tended to prefer to do more like just exhibition dances. So it was more of a creative process of trying to tell a story through dance. But that was really my focus. So I didn't get into that intense rivalry. But I imagine at the top levels it really would be like that.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, gosh. Did you do it for a long time, the dancing?
[00:20:00] Speaker C: I started, actually, when I was in Lagos, and I did salsa dancing for about three or four years. And then when we came to Houston, I danced most of the time I was there, which was about five years. So I was pretty serious about it for about eight years, and I'm not doing it anymore.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Hung up your dancing shoes for a fictional role, you're saying focused more on the writing?
[00:20:21] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Oh, no, that's great. Have you done a lot of research into plot development yourself or when you were writing the book and things like that? Because there is obviously techniques like the red herring and there is, there is technical things for that, isn't there?
[00:20:35] Speaker B: For society?
[00:20:35] Speaker C: That's exactly right. And look, I probably should have done a lot more of that when I started. So it kind of, it's probably why it took me a bit longer to develop this story to completion. But one of the best things I came across that I'll share with you. This is my, wasn't really a secret, but it's, it's a really great tool, is Elizabeth Span. Craig has these, an outline for writing a cosy mystery. She shares it on her blog. While my novels aren't, they don't follow all the cosy mystery genre conventions, so I don't classify it completely in that way. I found her writing tips for that really, really useful for outlining my mysteries. So when I came back to this redraft, when I came across this, I actually used her outline to kind of recraft the story. And I use this now in all of my new books. So in essence, what she does, there's a bunch of sort of set up stuff, but she advocates having five suspects. And the amateur sleuth then essentially interviews each of those suspects. And there's a formula for those interviews. So she asks things like, you know, what's their alibi, obviously also asks who they think did it because that helps cast suspicion on other characters. And then they tell a truth and a lie which is such a great way of thinking of things because aren't lies wonderful? I mean, they give us.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Not in real life.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: That's right. Absolutely. In fiction, it leads to all sorts of possibilities. And so, you know, the classic inner mystery, of course, is that somebody lies to cover up an affair, but of course, that then implicates them in the murder. So it's that style of thing. I didn't use that exactly, but that sort of thing is how lies can be really useful in crafting red herrings and, you know, some of the other elements of making really interesting suspects.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that all sounds really fun. Like, did you have a really fun time writing it?
[00:22:28] Speaker C: I did. I did. And look, because it was a weird process, because I'd written it and then rewrote it, rewriting is different than starting again. And so in some ways, it's almost harder because you've got these bits and you don't know, you know, it's the kill your darling thing. You don't know what to get rid of, but you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water to use another. So you've got to really work hard to figure out what to keep and what to, and what to get rid of and just move on from. So, yeah, it was. It was a. That rewriting process is really interesting. And so I did a second, a whole second draft and then gave it to an editor, and she was just not sure what to do with it because at this stage, it kind of had all these different elements in it and it just wasn't quite streamlined enough. And so again, I put it aside and I knew I was, like, almost there. Like I had the main mystery and I had the stuff with Nadesca, but that wasn't quite working. It wasn't meshing as well as it might. So then I did a third pass, and that's when I think I really got it to where it needed to be.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:23:26] Speaker C: Yeah, it was a really trial and error and a lot of work and sort of putting it aside and then coming back to it. But I think I learned so much through that process. The next book, two, which is I'm nearly ready to submit to my publisher, is, I think, a lot smoother, a lot cleaner. Certainly the process of writing it was a bit better. And I've got another one plotted out already in my head, which has been so much fun to plot.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: And that one, I'm not rewriting anything. I get to start right from the beginning, which is fantastic.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: That's it, isn't it? It is all trial and error in the beginning and learning as you go and then, you know, adapting and adopting a certain style and changing it up as you go forward to get better and faster. Yeah, that sounds fantastic. It's all great.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: Yeah. You're so true. It's such a learning process, isn't it?
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And we can never know enough.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. There's always, always more to do. And I think the risk, too, is, you know, if you get too much into the plotting thing, like we were saying, now we're plotting things much more ahead of time. The risk with that is it can feel a little bit stale and, you know, it becomes a bit like color by numbers. If you already know what every scene is before you start, I kind of feel like, well, can't somebody else just write it for me now like I've done?
So I think it's about then trying to. One of your questions is about keeping spontaneity in the writing. And I think to do that, you have to really be prepared to change. So if you've written something, you've planned something out, and then you're writing it and your characters are telling you they want to do something else, you have to be prepared to make those adjustments. And I think that's also what makes it more interesting for readers, because if it's boring to write, it's obviously going to be boring to read.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. And I think, like you said, you can start with, with lots and then go forward. And as it's. As you're writing, there is especially, and I do love that about writing. There's is a little aha. Moments, even though you've thought it was this way, it was that, and someone else has sort of come forward or surprised you or whatever. So, yeah, I was going to ask you about, like, yeah. Plot tension and twist for spontaneous writing style and what you sort of meant by that, but, yeah.
[00:25:27] Speaker C: And I think, I think that is the key, is that when you said, you know, that your character surprised you, it's that element of surprise that you want to have both for yourself as you're writing and then also, obviously, for the reader. So if you can have characters respond in a surprising way, so if they're known for their temper, then maybe in a certain situation they show excessive restraint that you're not expecting, or if they're really kind and thoughtful and, you know, we expect them to continue in that way, then we find that they're actually masking some dark, deep secret, and perhaps that thoughtfulness and all of that is acting out of guilt, you know, to make up for something they've done in the past. Someone who's full of bluff and bravado suddenly breaks into tears. So they're the sorts of things, I think, that make it interesting when you. You kind of set up your characters to behave in a certain way, and then you turn it around so that they do something a little bit different. So. And I think the lies help with that. We were talking about how great in fiction that is also fun with the characters, because if they lie very convincingly in one scene. So you do, you know, your one set of interviews with these characters, and then often there's a second twist, you know, another murder or something else terrible goes wrong, and then you do a second set of interviews. So in those second set of interviews, then it can be revealed that some of these things that you thought and accepted as truth were not, in fact, truth. And those sorts of things are really fun as well, up the level of surprise. And then it feels more spontaneous, too. Yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Is there. Is there a lot of sort of. Well, it sounds a little bit like, I guess, like tropes and I don't want to say stereotypes and mysteries and things. Do you have you, like, avoided. Avoided that, yeah.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: It was funny. When I started this whole book, right at the beginning, I thought about, because I'm an australian writing in America, do I try to write America as we perceive America from a distance, you know, the whole Hollywood sort of trope, or do I try to do something that turns out on its head and make it much more kind of grounded? And I actually decided I wanted to go more with the Hollywood trope because it was just so much more fun. Yeah. So I did have these larger than life characters, and, of course, the ballroom dance thing is a very visual thing, so that was also fun to write because, you know, you create this whole glamour and drama just with the costuming, for example.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot you could do with that, I reckon.
[00:27:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good fun. And that was one of the things, actually, that one of my early editors helped me with that. I had this wonderful ballroom scene created, but not enough happened in that at the ballroom competition. So that if you read the book, we all find the ballroom dance is actually, the competition is actually really fun. Now, there's. There's a lot happens at the competition.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing. Well, you've already shared so much, Andrea, but do you have any sort of top tips or advice to authors you know, who want to develop a solid plot for their works of fiction because, you know, it's definitely a skill and you can maybe start strong in some areas but then dwindle off and.
[00:28:30] Speaker C: That's right. Look, I think the big thing with plotting is to do some work ahead of time to understand beat sheets. So the big. I'm not sure. I presume your listeners will have some idea of what beat sheets are, but for people who don't know, beats are kind of the main story elements as a plot is developed. It's been used for a long time in screenwriting. One of the classic books is save the cash Blake Snyder. And so he has 15 beats that should be in any movie. And if you look at most movies and analyse them against this, you'll see that that is true. They may not necessarily be played out exactly in the order, in the exact way that he describes it, and that's fine. They can be in different orders, but that gives a really good, solid basis for play in a screenplay. And that book has been adapted for novels. So save the cat writes a novel by Jessica Brodie, is based on Blake Snyder's book, and that uses those same 15 beats and talks about how you can apply that to a novel. So for anybody getting started, that's a really good place to start. And then you have a really solid sense of. Obviously, most people have heard of the three act structure, and that's a beginning, a middle and an end. But this breaks it down just a bit further so that you can see what's in the beginning, what needs to happen in the middle, how to build up to a fantastic climax, and then the resolution for the ending. So, yeah, that would be my hot tip.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing advice there. I have heard of that book, I think. I haven't actually read it, but I think it sounds like it's absolutely worth it. Recommending, obviously, sharing your work to others and checking the plot specifically.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: Absolutely nothing beats having good beta readers. Some of the feedback that I got, like I said, you know, the fact that we had this wonderful setup of Anton's crime family, but initially, the whole book was written from Jade's point of view, so you never really got inside the family and saw what happened inside their house. So that feedback I really took on board and developing Nadesca's point of view really added heaps to the book.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Sorry, Euphanesh.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: And I added a third point of view in the end as well, which was Anton's point of view that wasn't originally in the story as well, because a lot of the very powerful moments, like the opening scene, actually shows Danica's death, which, of course, Jade wasn't there for. That happened two years before she was in Houston. But by showing that on the page, I think made it much more dramatic and real. So that's where, as you said, working with other people and getting feedback just helps you lift to another level that things that you may not have decided to do yourself, but in discussions with others that comes out within the genre.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Or outside of it?
[00:31:01] Speaker C: A bit of both. So I've got a number of friends that I work with, other authors who, one or two are in the mystery or thriller genre, but some of them are more in women's fiction, which these days actually becomes a lot more like a mystery, really.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:19] Speaker C: Those two genres seem to be meshing quite a lot for a lot of big mystery writers.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I've. I don't know if you've ever read any of Rachel Johns, who's a western australian romance writer, and she's good. She's got different types of styles, but some of her books that I've read, I think they are classified as women's fiction, not romance, because she does have specific romance ones. And these stories, I guess, are not. Sorry, these plots are not kind of in it, but definitely her women's fiction ones. There's always, like. There's always something starts out to set the story off, but there's always seems to be, like a halfway point and some sort of. It feels like some. The characters have to solve some sort of mystery, which intertwined with whatever. Like, I've noticed that in a couple of her books now, so. Yeah, absolutely, 100%, yes.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: And I think more and more, I mean, even people like Leanne Moriarty, her later books are more and more in this sort of mystery. There's more like deaths or missing people and things like. Like that. So I think those genres are really merging to a lot of. In a lot of ways.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Is there any or. Because I don't really write women's fiction. Yes, but like, any organizations that you know of to do with mysteries or thrillers, that would be good for people to join.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Definitely, yeah. Sisters in crime, it's great. Obviously more for women than for men, but I guess men can join as well.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: So maybe a brother's in crime somewhere or if anyone wants to start that.
[00:32:45] Speaker C: That's right. So, yeah, I've definitely part of them. And I think a lot of the writing schools, like the local writers Victoria and writers Queensland, as well, as the Australian Writers Centre all have courses in crime writing now because it's such a popular genre. So yeah, so there's some fantastic resources out there. I did a really good one with australian writers centre about how to craft a murder. So I'd highly recommend that there's a lot of resources out there.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Andrea. You've shared so much and the book sounds absolutely fantastic. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you and the books and everything on and offline?
[00:33:26] Speaker C: I can indeed. My website is www.andreabartenauthor.com and all of my socials are Andrea Barton author except on X or Twitter, which is, it's too long for that. So it's just Andrea Bartonau and my book is available on Amazon and if you google the Godfather of dance, you'll find it and it's also on all of the ebook sites.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, thank you, Andrea. That was great.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Joanne. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: So there you have it, folks.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: The lovely Andrea Barton chatting, plot development, plot twists, suspicious and tension for more spontaneous writing style. And I hope you enjoyed the interview with Andrea and picked up some of those fabulous tips there. As did I. Next time on the hybrid author podcast, we have dark romance and taboo author Leila Moon on crossing Oceans, on book signings in America and connecting with dark romance readers. I wish you well and your author adventure this next week. That's it for me.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: It's bye for now. That's the end for now. Authors, I hope you are further forward in your author adventure after listening, and I hope you'll listen next time. Remember to head on over to the hybrid author website at www.hybridauthor.com dot au to get your free author pass.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: It's bye for now.
