Episode 1 Unlock the Secrets to Writing a New York Times Bestselling Novel with Gilly Segal

Send us a text

Join us as New York Times best-selling author Gilly Segal shares lessons on crafting bestsellers. Transitioning from law to literary stardom, Gilly unfolds her remarkable journey from hidden manuscripts to her collaboration with Kimberly Jones on the acclaimed YA hit "I'm Not Dying With You Tonight." She offers invaluable insights on persistence, the magic of the right partnership, and the importance of robust critique.

Explore the nuanced dance of co-authorship, highlighting the synergistic power of diverse writing backgrounds and the importance of solid co-writing agreements. Gilly discusses the business side of writing, providing legal insights from resources like the Authors Guild, and how to navigate the publishing industry with finesse.

Discover the art of engaging young readers through meticulous research and savvy marketing techniques. Gilly recounts gathering authentic experiences from riot survivors and law enforcement experts to enrich her narratives. She emphasizes strategic marketing to leverage speaking engagements and the detailed orchestration behind bringing a story to life.

This episode is your guide to mastering literary craft with the insights of a passionate and accomplished author. Join J.D. Myall from Writer's Digest and Drexel University on 'Craft Chat Chronicles' for interviews with best-selling authors. Delve into writing, publishing, and book marketing insights that combine creative writing expertise with real-world publishing experience. Tune in for transformative literary guidance, perfect for aspiring and seasoned writers, and students alike.

 #BestsellingAuthorTips, #YoungAdultFiction, #CraftingBestsellers, #PublishingIndustryInsights, #WritingStrategies, #AuthorSuccessStories, #WritingCareerTransition, #WritingCraft  #NarrativeDevelopment, #BookMarketingStrategies,  #CreativeWritingTechniques, #NYTimesBestsellingProcess, #AuthorInterviews, #BookPromotion, #LiteraryAgents, #RealLifeExperiences #Publishing #WritingTips #BestsellingAuthorTips, #YoungAdultFiction, #CraftingBestsellers, #PublishingIndustryInsights, #CoWritingStrategies, #AuthorSuccessStories, #WritingCareerTransition, #YAMarketTrends, #LegalTipsForAuthors, #NarrativeDevelopment, #BookMarketingStrategies  #WritingWorkshops, #LiteraryCollaboration, #CreativeWritingTechniques, #FromLawyerToAuthor, #NYTimesBestsellingProcess, #AuthorInterviews, #BookPromotion, #LiteraryAgents, #RealLifeExperiences.

Support the show

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome to Craft Chat Chronicles, the go-to podcast
for tips on craftingbest-selling fiction.
Here at Craft Chat Chronicles,we bring you expert interviews,
insights and tips on writing,publishing and marketing.
For workshops, show notes andmore information, visit

(00:25):
jdmyhalcom.

J.D. Myall (00:31):
Welcome to tonight's Craft Chat with the
remarkable Gili Segel, a risingstar in young adult literature.
Her debut novel, I'm Not DyingWith you Tonight was co-authored
with Kimberly Jones.
Kim is also a friend of theCraft Chat.
We spoke to her recently too.
Their debut novel is on the NewYork Times bestseller list and
it earned them an NAACP ImageAward nomination.

(00:52):
So you guys have just beendoing all this awesome stuff.
Following that, their book whywe Fly was celebrated as a
Sidney Taylor notable book, andher latest venture, captain
Marvel's Shadow Code, isenchanting young readers
everywhere.
And this one was just Gely.
It's just you, by yourself onCaptain Marvel, right?
Yes, my first solo, my firstsolo.
Geely is a two-time GeorgiaAuthor of the Year nominee.

(01:15):
She brings a wealth ofknowledge on writing compelling
young adult stories.
Tonight she'll share herpublishing journey, give writing
tips and co-writing tips andgive you insights into crafting
stories that captivate.
Let's welcome Gili everyone.
Yay, welcome Gili.
For starters, can you tell us alittle bit about your life
before books?

Author Gilly Segal (01:37):
So before books.
I was born and raised inFlorida and I actually spent
some time in Philadelphia at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and
then after college I decided Iwas going to go.
I grew up sort of solidlymiddle class, lower middle class
.
My parents were small businessowners and the vagaries kind of
of their life owning a smallbusiness and paying employees

(02:01):
and all that stuff was.
I was like that's not for me.
I need somebody else to depositthe paycheck in the bank every
two weeks.
And so I went to law school andthat's actually how I ended up
in Atlanta, eorgia, where I livenow.
I went to Emory Law School and Istarted practicing law and I
spent, you know, two or threeyears practicing law.
I had always been a storyteller, right, I was that kid like in

(02:21):
the back of math class flip intothe back of her notebook and
writing stories instead of doingmy math, which I have to be
really careful about when I talkto groups of high schoolers
because I'm like, oh, Ishouldn't tell that story, but
you guys are grownups so I cansay it.
And so I went to law schoolthinking it was going to be
practical and I was going to geta job at a big law firm and I
did.
And although I worked for agreat law firm, I was like

(02:42):
profoundly unhappy, right, thecreative side of me was missing
and I do contract law a lot ofthe time, which I like, but it's
not the most exciting thing todo with your entire day and I
started writing again when I hadbeen at the law firm for a year
or two and I started outwriting mostly women's fiction.
And then I discovered youngadult novels.

(03:03):
This was kind of the early daysof the YA, the most recent YA
boom, so it was like theTwilight era and Cassandra Clare
and John Green were all makinga real mark.
And I started reading youngadult novels and kind of found
the voice that I loved the mostand the stories that I wanted to
tell.
And so I started writing YAnovels and I had a very, several

(03:27):
very bad trunk novels.
We all have trunk novels, right, the ones that you start
writing and they're terrible,but they're your practice, right
.
They're like you're kind ofcutting your teeth and you're
figuring things out.
So I had a couple of those andthen I started writing with Kim
and things took off from there.

J.D. Myall (03:42):
Tell the people who don't know how long it took you
to get your debut.
Like what book that wasactually.

Author Gilly Segal (03:48):
Oh, gosh, I I mean 10.
I mean I probably written 10 bythe time, somewhere between 5
and 10.
I was the queen before I got.
I had two or three that I hadfinished.
But before this book with Kim,I was the queen of what I call
the 30 page novel, where I wouldget excited by a new idea.

(04:10):
And you know the you.
You fall into it and you'relike, oh, this is amazing, I'm
writing and it's going great,and you write about 30 pages and
then you get to the hard part.
This has was before.
I spent a lot of time kind ofeducating myself about craft.
So kudos to you all that youare doing that with your MFA
program or your association withthe Drexel community, because I
really did not when I firststarted out, and so I'd get 30

(04:31):
pages in and I'd get totallylost.
I wouldn't know where the plotshould go, I wouldn't know how
to develop the characters and Iwould quit.
I would get seduced by the nextgreat idea that would come
along and I'd be like, oh,obviously that first idea was
bad, let me move on and write inthis new idea, that's the one,
and I would get another 30 pagesin.
So I have, you know dozens of30 page ideas that I quit on

(04:54):
before I learned to finish, yeah, so.
So I mean I have dozens ofpartial or trunked novels.
So if you have those, don'tgive up, don't give up.

J.D. Myall (05:10):
Looking back, what do you think?

Author Gilly Segal (05:13):
you did right that helped you break in
and become the novelist that youare today.
Can I say find Kim, myco-author, kimberly Jones, is an
extraordinary creative and agift, and I love working with
her.
But really that's not a veryhelpful answer, right?
I think the helpful answer isspend time on craft, right?
The first thing I had to do,honestly, was learn to finish a
novel and then get valuablecritique or people who you know,

(05:36):
gave me lots of affirmativefeedback that made me feel great
but wasn't helping me grow anddevelop as a writer.
And so spending time figuringout what am I doing well and
what do I need to work on andwhere do I find that help and
information.
I learned that I'm a plotter.
Pantsing, which is what I wasdoing before, does not work for

(05:59):
me.
I can't write that way, and sokind of it was my instinct to
just just pants, to be like oh,I'm going to write, I'm going to
write the scenes I'm excitedabout, and recognizing that part
of the reason that I wasgetting lost is because that
particular method of writingdoesn't work for me.
And that's not to say thatthat's the method that anybody
else should use, just that youshould recognize.
If what you're doing isn'tworking, you have to kind of

(06:21):
free yourself up to trysomething a little bit different
.

J.D. Myall (06:25):
Tell us about your publishing journey.
How did you get your agent in?

Author Gilly Segal (06:37):
Yeah, so I had seen I'm with Adams Literary
, tracy Adams and Josh Adams,and I had seen Josh Adams at a
conference.
I went to an SCBWI Society ofChildren's Book Writers and
Illustrators conference here inAtlanta and I saw Josh, who was
one of the agent presenters, andI really loved their approach
right.
So they talked a lot about howthey came to like stories, but
also about how do you evaluate adeal, right?
How do you evaluate apublishing deal?
Do you want to take just thebiggest dollars that are on the

(06:57):
table?
Do you want to find a publisherthat's committing and writing
to marketing what is it that isright for you?
And I really liked theirapproach.
And so I had, like I said, Ihad a couple of novels.
I finished one that was I mean,let's face it, it's a little
bit Cassandra Clare derivative.
I had kind of an angels anddemons urban fantasy novel that
I finished writing and I hadstarted subbing it to agents and

(07:19):
I was I held back from subbingto them because A-Lit was my
dream agency and I was like I'mjust going to wait and see.
And I got a lot of rejectionsand you learn from that.
This isn't the one right.
Something's not working withthis particular story and I was
glad in retrospect that I heldback from them because I was
like, oh, I don't want that tobe the impression.
And then Kim and I startedwriting together.

(07:39):
We had the idea for our novel,we started writing together and
we actually a friend of ours wasrepresented I used to host this
thing that I called LiterarySalon.
At the time I was working fourdays a week.
My Fridays were off and I wouldinvite all of the writers that
I knew to come to my house onFriday mornings and I would feed
everybody breakfast and then wewould sit and write and talk

(08:00):
about books and our plots andhelp each other out.
And one of the women who cameto that was represented by Josh
Adams, and so when she heardabout our story and she liked it
, she offered to refer us to theAdams and we were like, yes, of
course, and we sent it to herand it was actually just a
partial at the time we had notyet finished it and Tracy
replied back and said I lovethis, but I have never offered

(08:23):
representation on a partial andI think that you are doing your
story a disservice, right?
I think you're rushing, becauseit felt very timely at that time
and she was like I think you'redoing a story a disservice.
I can't offer representationbased on this.
And at the time I was crushed.
I was like, well, there go mydreams, because you know, we're
nothing if not dramatic aswriters.

(08:43):
But actually in retrospect shewas really right.
We were trying to fit themarket instead of do the story
justice.
And so, fortunately, we did notquit and we finished the story
and we got lots and lots offeedback which helped us make it
better.
And then we submitted to heragain about a year later and she
offered us her presentation andwe took it.

J.D. Myall (09:05):
Hey, that's exciting.
Yeah, what do you wish you knewabout publishing before your
first book?

Author Gilly Segal (09:16):
Oh, there's no brass ring right, getting the
book deal, everything that youachieve.
You're going to think that's it, I've made it now and it's not
right.
Like you have to do thisbecause you love it and you
believe in your stories that youwant to tell and you want to
share them and there's no onething that happens.
I mean, I look, I guess ifyou're Stephanie Meyer in
Twilight, that first book washer brass ring.

(09:36):
So there's some exceptions towhat I'm saying.
But for most of the rest of us,you know, the New York times
bestseller list didn't guaranteeme another sale.
I submitted a book to mypublisher after that, um, that
didn't sell.
They didn't want it, and I waslike how can this happen?
But it just does right.
Like it wasn't the right momentfor that book, the editor
wasn't the right editor for it,um, and so you know you have to

(09:59):
love what you do enough to keepdoing it, even through the
difficult times, because there'sno making it in this business
right.
There are moments ofcelebration and the work is
fantastic, but also it can bevery disheartening if you feel
like there are these milestonesthat you should have achieved
and you're not achieving.
So, like, re-evaluate aboutwhat about this that you love

(10:22):
and do what you love, as opposedto looking for the external
markers of success?

J.D. Myall (10:27):
Love that, but the external markers feel good.
How did you get the news thatyou guys made the bestsellers
list and how did you celebrate?

Author Gilly Segal (10:37):
So we got the news, our editor actually
called and I didn't answer myphone.
Then I was I think I must'vebeen on another phone call.
This was it was during COVIDand my day job.
I still have a day job.
I still work full-time as alawyer.
My day job was really crazybusy and I spent a lot of time
on the phone in those first fewmonths of COVID and I didn't

(11:01):
answer his call.
And then all of a sudden Istarted getting Kim's calling me
repeatedly, right, Like she'scalling, she's not leaving a
message, she's not textmessaging me, she's just calling
, calling and calling, calling.
And I was like, oh, I betteranswer that and see what
happened.
And she, she is the one whotold me and we both cried a
little on the phone and then itwas COVID, so we couldn't

(11:23):
actually celebrate like much.
Later we took ourselves out toa fancy dinner, but we couldn't
actually celebrate right away.

J.D. Myall (11:31):
And how'd you find out about the NAACP Image Award
nomination?

Author Gilly Segal (11:35):
Kim actually told me about that as well.
I was this was before COVID Iwas at my day job and my day job
is very supportive of mywriting.
I'm tremendously, tremendouslyfortunate in that they I work
for an advertising agency andthey love being able to say,
like we're so creative even ourlawyer is creative and so I am
celebrated at my day job, but Ialso don't talk about it a lot

(11:57):
there because I'm the lawyer andit's just sort of you wear a
different hat and you have adifferent persona, but that.
So I get this text message fromKim and it was a screenshot of
the nomination that NAACP doesInstagram posts to announce it
and she like texted me and thiswas Kim's lifelong dream, right,
so we were both.

(12:17):
She was falling on the floor.
She didn't have words.
I was falling on the floor.
I was like I can't believe thisand I went running down the
stairs at work.
Like who am I going to say this?
Like I can't believe this.
And I went running down thestairs at work.
Like who am I going to say thisto?
I can't say this to anybody,and actually a friend of mine
she remains a dear friend ofmine like ran into me on the
stairs and she was like are youokay?
And I was like this is sobraggy, but I can't help myself.

(12:37):
And that was wonderful.
It was our publisher's firstever NAACP Image Award
nomination, so they went all outfor us and they sent us to the
awards, where we did not win,but we had a blast Like we sat
near Harold Perrineau.
If any of you are old enough toremember the Leonardo DiCaprio

(12:58):
Romeo and Juliet, he is forevermy Mercutio and he and his wife
are just the most amazinglybeautiful people I've ever seen
in my life and we sat near themat the ceremony and it was
spectacular.

J.D. Myall (13:09):
Awesome.
That's really cool Withco-writing.
I know you're a lawyer, so didyou guys do a co-writing
agreement?
How did that work out?
We?

Author Gilly Segal (13:18):
did.
We did, actually, and I wouldhighly, highly, highly recommend
that anybody who is co-writingdo a co-writing agreement.
We didn't do it before we began, right, we did it before we
decided to start submitting forpublishers, because when you're
writing just for the craft of it, there's no business, right,
there's no business of writing.

(13:39):
But once you decide that youare going to publish, now you
have a business side.
Now this is a career, and youhave to put and this is another
thing that I would say like,before you get into publishing,
this is not just a creative artthe minute that you share your
art with the rest of the world,now you have a business side of
the house, and that's truewhether you're going with a
traditional publisher, a smallpublisher or self-publication,

(13:59):
and you have to worry aboutthings like marketing, you have
to worry about things like legal, you have to worry about things
like royalties.
So I had you know, I drafted anagreement that was it's, ours
is sort of mostly balanced.
The notion would be like, if weever end up in a disagreement,
this is going to be the thingthat we pull out of the drawer
and say if we ever disagree,here's how it's all going to

(14:19):
break down.
Kim had her manager review itright, so it's not unfair that I
have the legal background andshe doesn't.
And we signed it and that kindof governs our relationship to
this day, and you can findsamples of them online.
Don't ever just pull a thing off.
I don't care what AI says, it'snot as smart as people.
Don't ever just pull anagreement off.
Legalzoom Please go and read it.

(14:40):
Make sure you understand whatthe terms say.
The Authors Guild provideslegal services to lawyers at
very low cost.
So if you ever need a legalagreement as a creative person,
as an author, go to the AuthorsGuild.
Join the Authors Guild and getlow cost legal services.
They can help you with thingslike co-author agreements.
They can also help you withthings like if you end up
unagented selling a book, youdon't have an agent yet, or

(15:02):
you're working with a smallpress, or something like that.
They will also review yourpublishing contracts to make
sure you're not trappingyourself into a bad deal.

J.D. Myall (15:11):
Love that, I love that.
So what do you think makes yourco-writing team successful?
What are the elements of a goodco-writing?
I love that question.

Author Gilly Segal (15:22):
We lean on our strengths and lean on each
other for our weaknesses, right.
Like as authors, we all havethings that we're wonderful at
and we all have things that aregrowth opportunities in my
corporate speak or things thatare just that are tough for us,
right.
So, like Kim comes from ascreenwriting background, which
means her dialogue and herpacing are top notch I mean,

(15:44):
they're just amazing, right.
She knows how to pace a book,especially our first book has
really drafted to be fast-paced.
It takes place over the courseof one evening, it's intended
for reluctant readers, and soshe brings that dialogue.
She brings that snappy dialogue.
I come from a traditional novelbackground, right?
So sometimes she would send mepages and I would be like this

(16:04):
is a script, where are they,what do they say, what do they
feel, what's their interiority,and she would be like, oh well,
the camera is going to show.
There's no camera, right?
So I would sort of bring thatstrength of novel background,
dialogue, interiority, and thenI would submit pages to her and
she would be like these peoplesound like they're 40 years old.
And I would be like thesepeople sound like they're 40

(16:26):
years old and I would be like,well, I am 40 years old, but she
would sort of do the be like no, this is not.
You know, we need to snap upthis dialogue.
We need to have more dialoguein the page.
There's too much descriptionand interiority.
So I think a co-author duo,where you have different
strengths and weaknesses so thatyou can lean on each other for
them, is really powerful.
I honestly think the mostimportant part of being a

(16:47):
co-authoring duo is to be really, really honest about how you're
going to do it.
This is that business side ofthings again, right?
So Kim and I both had, and stillhave, full-time jobs.
That means we cannot devote 15hours a week to writing.
We write physically, side byside.
That's how we write best.
And so you know, we used to usethose Friday mornings.
We would use our weekends andit was in the early days.

(17:08):
I think there was more tensionaround are you able to write?
I'm not able to write.
You didn't do your pages thisweek.
Well, I didn't get feedbackfrom you, and once we sort of
had that very honestconversation of like, here's
what I actually have to give tothis project and does that work
for you?
It became really seamless andwe don't actually fight and
argue.
We always joke that we shouldmake up some sort of beef to

(17:29):
tell because it's so boring tobe like no, we never fight.
But we don't fight and it'sbecause we're just really
upfront about what we have togive to a project and we accept
each other.
We meet each other where we areright.
At various points over the lastI mean, we've been writing
together for eight years nowBoth of us have had to be like I
have to step back from thisproject, I can't work on this

(17:50):
right now, and you have to honorthat for your creative partner.

J.D. Myall (17:54):
How did you guys like?
How do you come up with theideas or how do you decide which
topics to work on as a team andwhich one to do individually?

Author Gilly Segal (18:02):
I usually spam her with links.
Links are my love language.
If I start texting you links toarticles.
Or I had a brief affair withTikTok, which I really love,
tiktok and I would send TikToksback and forth.
I've weaned myself off TikTok,but I will like see something
and be like look at this.
And that's usually me beinglike do you want to write about

(18:22):
this thing with me?
So it's actually sort of beenwe've no, any time to.
The project is going to benefitfrom two voices and two lived
experiences is typically when wewant to write together.
And then our solo projects havecome to us really like from
totally different avenues.
We have separate agents.
Now Kim's moved on to anotheragent and so our solo projects

(18:43):
have sort of come from our agentas opposed to from us.

J.D. Myall (18:47):
Now does that make it complicated to do group work
with two agents involved.
How does that happen?

Author Gilly Segal (18:53):
No, they play pretty well together and
you want that.
If you guys are at the stagewhere you're looking at agents,
right, like if your agentdoesn't play well with others, I
would ask some questions aboutwhy.
But it's in.
They represent us, they workfor us and it's in their best
interests for us to besuccessful.
And so you know they want tocollaborate together and they,

(19:14):
you know, sort of when we have aproject that we're pitching,
they get together and they agreeupon the pitch and they agree
upon who's going to send it andthey sort of look at who has the
relationships with the editorsthat we're targeting for a
particular project.
Those types of things.

J.D. Myall (19:27):
That's cool, that's good to know you guys often
write about important socialissues.
How do you do that in a waythat's like balanced and
respectful and also keeps youfrom ripping each other's hair
out?

Author Gilly Segal (19:49):
Yeah, we had a friendship first, right
Before we ever I mean, we writeabout race relations in America,
right, like that's sometimesreally hard, but we had a
friendship before we had arelationship before.
We have literally lived throughromantic breakups, our
children's ups and downs, theelection of 2016.
We were here in my house cryingon my couch together.
So we started from a place offriendship and a place of mutual
respect and we actuallydeveloped a code word that was

(20:14):
like I have a difficult questionto ask, right, this question
comes from a place of ignoranceor it comes from a place of
misunderstanding, and weapproached it sort of with that
background of knowing how muchwe really cared about each other
going.
I know that Kim would never wantto do anything to hurt me, but
she needs the answer, she needsthis information, she needs this
conversation for the book to beits best self.

(20:35):
And so we would say the codeword and that would kind of be
the introduction to a bravespace conversation, right, not a
safe space, because growthdoesn't come from staying safe,
growth comes from being brave.
And we would have theconversation and we always
followed the passion, right,whoever was most passionate
about her point was the one whowon the argument, because the
book was always better served byfollowing the passion right.

(20:57):
It was never better served bywatering down and compromising
and meeting in the middle rightLike that was never the right
creative answer.
So we just found our way throughit.
We put the relationship first.
We still put the relationshipfirst.
We don't need the code word somuch anymore Now.
We use it to gossip, like if wehave good industry gossip,
we'll be like code word.
Let me tell you what so-and-sodid.
So everyone's always likewhat's the code word and I'm

(21:19):
like I can't tell you.

J.D. Myall (21:28):
Cause if you hear us say it, you know what's
coming next.
Okay, for those that might be alittle afraid about tackling
topics like race relations andsensitive topics, what advice
would you give them?

Author Gilly Segal (21:35):
Do the work to get it to be thoughtful, to
understand and learn.
The very first question I wouldsay is ask yourself why you're
the right person to tell thisstory.
So for me, with the with I'mNot Dying With you Tonight.
It was an article that I saw.
Like I said, links are my lovelanguage.
It was about a school bus thathad become trapped behind a
police barricade during theunrest in Baltimore after the

(21:57):
murder of Freddie Gray, and itwas a bus of high school
students.
And I thought to myself so itwas a predominantly Black
neighborhood, although it was amixed neighborhood, so there
were white students as well, andI thought what happened to the
students on that bus and how didthey get home?
But I also knew that, trying totell that story by myself, I
didn't have the lived experienceto do it.

(22:17):
Well, to do it justice, I can'ttell the story of a Black
community in Baltimore.
I don't know that.
I don't know I would never beable to do that culture justice.
So the first thing is am I theright person to tell that story?
And if you're not the rightperson to tell that story, it's
okay to let it go right.
I think sometimes we feel like,oh, this is the one, but
there's no one right.
We're creative people.
There's always going to beanother, there's always going to

(22:38):
be an idea that we're suitedfor.
And then, once you've decidedyou're the one who's going to
tell the story, do the work totake it, to get it right.
Right To do make sure that youhave an understanding of the
culture that you're talkingabout.
Make sure that you are beingplausible and thoughtful about
how you're rendering it.
If you are writing outside ofyour own experience, are you
getting input from people whohave that experience?

(23:02):
Sometimes we call themsensitivity readers, sometimes
we call them authenticityreaders, but it's really no
different than doing research.
And if you're a thriller writerand you're writing about a
murder and you talk to a doctorto see if you got the wound
right, it's really no differentthan writing about another
culture and seeing did I do thisculture justice?

(23:22):
And then be willing to takehard feedback, like whether it's
before your project getspublished or after your project
gets published.
You know, no culture, nocommunity, no hard topic is a
monolith.
People have very differentfeelings about it and so you're
going to get hard feedback.
You're going to get people whohate your work and you're going
to get people who tell you youdid a terrible job and you have

(23:43):
to sort of put your big kidpants on and weather that storm
and accept that if you wrote thebest story that you can write,
that's all you can do what doyou think are the essential
elements of a good young adultnovel?
Ooh, I think plot and characterare really central to young

(24:06):
adult writing.
Right, different from adultnovels, which can take a lot
more time with description,which can take a lot more time
with meandering.
Right Like, at the core of agood YA novel you have it's a
coming of age story.
You have a young person who isnavigating, most often their
entry into a wider world.

(24:27):
Right, middle grade is a lotabout how do I interact with my
own family and my immediatecommunity, and YA is how do I
interact with the larger world,and so you know that's a very
emotional, character-drivenjourney.
And also YA is reallyunabashedly about plot a lot of
times, or at least the YA that Ilove is.
And so you know you don't havea thousand pages to write a

(24:53):
wandering philosophical tomeabout the meaning of man.
Right Like, you can talk aboutthe, you know the significance
of man on earth, but it's got tobe in the context of a
rip-roaring adventure as well,because you just don't hold
young people's attention withoutthat.

J.D. Myall (25:09):
Very true, very true.
Can you give us some tips oncreating a good villain or
antagonist?

Author Gilly Segal (25:17):
Villains and antagonists are the most fun.
They have to be plausible,right, like, unless you're
writing a Phineas and Ferbscreenplay and it's
Doofenshmirtz, which he's alwaysmy example If you haven't
watched Phineas and Ferb, by theway, it's fantastic and you
really should, because it'sreally really clever writing,
even though you know it'sintended for kids but there's a
lot of grown-up stuff in theretoo.

(25:37):
But Doofenshmirtz, the villain,is super cartoonish and
implausible and he's fun becausehe is.
But in a novel you have to havea plausible villain, they have
to have a motive, they have towant something that seems
achievable, and I think theyhave to have a little teeny bit

(25:57):
of sympathetic element to them,right?
You also, I think they have tohave a little teeny bit of
sympathetic element to them,right?
You also, I think, have tothink about your villain in
relationship to your hero.
So in my Captain Marvel novel Idon't know if you all are Marvel
fans or not, but if you are,you will know that, like Carol
Danvers, captain Marvel is themost overpowered superhero in
any universe period.
She is indestructible.

(26:19):
Physiologically she's almostindestructible.
She shoots lasers from herhands.
She can turn into this literalcomet shooting through the sky
called Binary.
It's really hard to harm.
Yep, I love Captain Marvel too.
She's the best.
But it's really hard to take achunk out of Captain Marvel.
So when I was working on thebook, I was like, well, how do
you threaten such a seeminglyinvincible character?

(26:41):
Well, the only thing that'svulnerable in Captain Marvel is
her mind, right, like she's inthe.
I write in the comics universe,not the cinematic universe.
And so she's recentlydiscovered that she is a half
alien.
Her mother is actually an alienSpoiler alert, sorry about that
.

(27:03):
So she's sort of grappling withthis big identity question of
like.
For her it's who am I?
And how much of all thisamazing stuff that I achieved in
my past is because I worked myass off for it.
And how and you can't say assin a marvel book, by the way.
You can say badass, but youcannot say ass to mean the
backside um, how much of this isbecause of who she, because of
of her own hard work, and howmuch of it is just because she
was born this way, right?
So she's grappling with a bigidentity question, and that led

(27:24):
me to her villain, who is theflip side of Carol's coin.
Right, like she did get herpowers from a stone and like,
but for some people in Carol'slife, like she easily could have
been the villain herself, thisparticular villain.
So I think your villain andyour hero should exist kind of
in tandem, and if they don't,you have to ask yourself why are

(27:46):
these two characters in thisparticular book?
If I could swap my villain outwith any other villain and still
challenge my hero, I think youhaven't dug deep enough into
your story.

J.D. Myall (27:56):
Love that.
How do you avoid the dreadedsaggy middle?

Author Gilly Segal (28:02):
I don't know if I do, no, I for me it is
plotting right, like I am anintense plotter and I get
feedback on my plot, like I dooutlines, really intense
outlines and I get feedback onmy outline before I ever put pen
to page.
So I can sort of try toidentify that and then it's if

(28:23):
you're.
Another signal for me is often,if I'm bored writing it, I have
to ask whether the reader isgoing to be bored reading it.
So sometimes your own reactionto a scene is a good gauge of
whether or not you're moving theplot along.
Your own reaction to a scene isa good gauge of whether or not
you're moving the plot along.
I have this method that I use,called the BCD method, and you

(28:44):
can turn.
I said before you should getgood feedback and you always
should.
So you can use this with yourexperienced feedback people and
you can use it withinexperienced people pretty
effectively as well and you givethem a copy of your manuscript
and you say everywhere whereyou're bored, write a B.
Everywhere where you'reconfused, write a C.
And everywhere where you don'tcare, write a D.

(29:07):
And if you find in varioussections, especially in the
middle, that you're getting alot of Bs and a lot of Ds, your
pacing is off, you're in thesaggy middle and then you just
pull those scenes, you reimagine, you pull, you try different
things until you find until youunlock the, the solution, how do
you maintain tension?

J.D. Myall (29:23):
those steps I don't know.

Author Gilly Segal (29:25):
Um, so for suspense, what I the best tip
that I've ever seen about this,and this isn't for me.
I can't remember who it's from,so I'm stealing freely.
Great, yeah, your suspensecomes not from your reader not
knowing what's going to happen,but from caring.

(29:47):
Right, so it's you have to.
It's a very delicate balance ofwithholding enough information
from your reader that they go,ooh, what's coming next?
And I care about what's comingnext, without confusing them.
Right, so you don't.
I see a lot of novice writers,particularly in the mystery or
thriller genres.

(30:08):
They're just sort of they'llget to a place and they'll be
like if only she had rememberedthis important thing that
happened in the past, or shecouldn't stop thinking about
that April.
And there's only so much ofthat that you can do before you
frustrate your reader.
Right, and at some point intime you're withholding from the
reader and you don't want to dothat, right, you want your
character to be in the dark, butnot your reader, and that, I
think, is what builds suspenseand tension.

J.D. Myall (30:32):
How do you hook readers from the very first page
?
What are the essential elementsof a good first page?

Author Gilly Segal (30:38):
What are the essential elements of a good
first page?
You want to start your story atthe moment, before all hell
breaks loose, basically right.
You want them to immediatelyhave a sense of who we are and
where we are.
Right.
Who are our characters?
Where are they?
Why do we care about them?
So you want to give themsomething big and important to

(31:01):
do on the page.
Right, this is the classic.
You don't want to open yournovel with your character
standing in front of the mirrorand, you know, admiring
themselves or looking out at afield, right Like, those are not
things that build tension.
So you want to build tension onthat first page.
First page you want toestablish who and where we are

(31:22):
um.

J.D. Myall (31:22):
I had something else, but it slipped my mind.
It'll come back to me, okay.
Um, what are your tips fortying it up like for a
compelling ending?

Author Gilly Segal (31:31):
um, pay it off right.
Like whatever you're aiming for, don't forget to pay it off
right.
Even if you're writing amulti-part series.
Every novel should beself-contained.
So if we started out with, youknow if your character in our
first novel I'm Not Dying Withyou Tonight the character that I
predominantly wrote is anincredibly lonely kid.

(31:54):
She's been uprooted from herlife.
She's moved to a new city.
Her mom has abandoned her.
She's really, really lonely,and her journey has been to find
friends where she is now so atthe end of it.
The payoff for her is that she'sbuilding a relationship with
the other character in the story.
So, whatever you started,wherever you started your

(32:15):
character, make sure that youhave moved them all the way to
the place where they need to endup, because that's the payoff
for your reader.

J.D. Myall (32:24):
I love that.
What advice do you have forother writers who are
considering the co-writing, likeyou and Kim have done?

Author Gilly Segal (32:36):
Yeah, have the hard conversation about what
you guys can contribute to yourproject upfront, right, is it
whether it's time you know ifyou are not in the same city
what is a realistic expectation?
How many pages can yourealistically commit to this per
week?
Make sure that you reallyrespect each other creatively.

(32:56):
I have tried to co-author withother people and it fell apart,
and in every instance it'sfallen apart because we don't
actually respect each other.
Like each other's creativeproduct at the end of the day,
right.
So like you can't force.
I know that sounds really harsh, but but you know, like if you
find yourself wanting to schoolyour co-author about craft,

(33:19):
you're not at the same place inyour career and maybe you guys
are not the best co-authors,right?
Or vice versa, if you feel likeyour co-author is schooling you
about craft and you don'treally need it, like you have to
sort of respect what eachperson brings to the project and
if you don't, it's best to goseparate ways early.
Like don't invest a lot of timein those projects.

J.D. Myall (33:40):
Okay, I'm going to jump back to your agent, because
I have a question.
What does your agentrelationship look like?
Like, do you submit ideas andthen they let you know which
they think they can sell, or doyou submit whole manuscripts?
How does your agentrelationship work?

Author Gilly Segal (33:52):
That's a really good question.
So we talk kind of in advancebefore I invest a lot of time
writing something, because I'm avery slow writer and I do have
a very demanding full-time dayjob and three children that I
balance all of this with, and soI do not want to spend two
years working on something thatshe turns around and goes.

(34:13):
I'm not feeling that.
So I run everything by her sortof early on in the process she
tends to let me drive.
I'll say to her look, I'minterested in this, and she'll
be like if that's what you wantto do, that's what I'm going to
go out there and try to sell foryou.
Right?
She's honest with me.
I sort of have flirted in thepast with the idea of a graphic
novel.
I have a middle grade graphicnovel idea.

(34:34):
I'm not an artist though, andshe has been very upfront with
me that where the market isright now is author illustrators
are what the market isprioritizing in the graphic
novel space.
And she's like she doesn't tellme not to, but she just sort of
warns like you might sink a lotof time into this project that
nobody's going to look atbecause you are not an author
illustrator.
So she's very upfront with meabout where the market is and

(34:55):
that's what you, you know,that's what she earns her money
off of right, like she knows themarket, I don't.
But also if I say to her, likemy next thing that I'm going to
go on submission with is like adual timeline historical and
modern narrative, and she waslike, if that's what you're,
that's where your heart is,that's what we're going to try
to sell.
So it's a it's a pretty openand honest partnership, I think.

J.D. Myall (35:19):
That's good.
So when she talks to you aboutthe market, what has she
mentioned?
What seems to be selling now?

Author Gilly Segal (35:28):
Romantasy is really big right now.
Right, the romance, fantasystuff, mysteries are still
pretty hot.
Graphic novels for middle gradeare very hot, although, like I
said, they're really looking foror at least six or so months
ago when we talked about this,they were really looking for
author illustrators.
Sadly, my talent is with words,not with pictures, so that's
never going to be me.
Yeah, that's kind of in the YAworld.

(35:51):
I don't really know about theadult market.
If any of you are adult writers, sorry about that.

J.D. Myall (36:01):
So you guys, you guys can ask Gili questions now
if you have any.
She also is a lawyer so she cananswer some of your writerly
lawyerly questions, like if youcan have your characters visit
McDonald's and things like thatin your story.
So if you have any of thosetype of questions, feel free to
ask those as well.
Does anybody have any questionsfor Gili?

Speaker 4 (36:16):
Hi, I've got a question.
First of all, thank you so muchfor visiting us.
I direct the Drexel MFA and welove these craft chats.
Jd, you do such an amazing joband I love your questions, and
so my question is this in termsof your partnership, I really

(36:40):
loved hearing you talk about howyou write side by side and how
you essentially fill in or editeach other.
But my question is this Do youlike assign each other chapters,
like, okay, I wrote thischapter, you're writing the next
one?
Like how does that work interms of actually parsing and

(37:04):
doling out the work itself?

Author Gilly Segal (37:07):
So for both of our two published co-authored
novels they're told in twovoices.
There's two main characters andfor our first novel, for the
first draft especially, kimprimarily took responsibility
for one character and Iprimarily took responsibility
for the other.
And then, by about the secondor third draft of that, we
realized that that kind ofwasn't working and we would sit

(37:28):
side by side and we I mean wetalk it like we're all talking
right now, and then she did thisand then she said that and what
would she say here?
And we wrote all of our secondbook that same way.
I mean, again, there was stillsort of two main voices,
characters, and the nice thingabout co-authoring is that
really ensures that thecharacters don't sound exactly
like one another.
Right, that's one of the hardparts if you're writing a

(37:48):
multi-POV story is, if you'renot careful, everybody sounds
the same, and for us it's builtin that they're not going to
cause we have two voicescontributing to it, but we don't
.
We tried the back and forthdraft, chapter by chapter thing.
I know a lot of other authorswho do things that way and it
just didn't work for us.
Um, which just goes to showthere's no one right or wrong

(38:08):
way to do things like the.
The right.
The wrong way to do things isnever to change your process If
it's failing you, that's.
The only wrong way to write isto stick with something that
ain't working.
But yeah, that's kind of how weliterally side by side I'm a
typer like I'm a visual and Kimis an auditory person, so she's
like talking out loud and I'mlike wait, I can't type that

(38:30):
fast and we'll stop each other.
We also be like we didn't haveanother code word.
This is what I can sharebecause we don't use it to
gossip.
But I can share because wedon't use it to gossip.
But oftentimes when you'rebrainstorming and this is a
challenge, right is you'relooking for that perfect phrase,
that perfect thing and I thinkthat's some of what writer's
block is right is the gapbetween our expectations and our
reality.
And so we have developed, we saynot but and we are go like.

(38:52):
And then she says I hate younow, Jim, not but, and we know
that's like a placeholder phrase, something in the sentiment of
I hate you, jim is going to gothere, but we're not going to
halt our forward progress bytrying to wordsmith the perfect
phrase right now.
We'll come back to that on arevision, and you all can have

(39:12):
not, but because it's not secret, I will do that in my solo
writing too as well, like on myfirst draft.
I will literally have all caps,brackets, something cool here,
or you know, she has arevelation about this, and then
you know again.
I think, particularly if you'resomeone like me who struggles

(39:32):
with drafting, I'm a slow, slowdrafter.
If I let myself get stalledswirling around perfection I
will never finish, and so I haveto be like, give myself
permission, hold the place andgive myself permission to keep
writing and come back to it on afuture draft.

J.D. Myall (39:49):
Is it easier to write individual or as a team?

Author Gilly Segal (39:53):
I think it's easier to write as a team,
especially because sometimesyou're like I mean it's easier
to write as a team, especiallybecause sometimes you're like I
have written this novel into acorner, you get it out now it
feels like your problem for alittle while.
But yeah, I mean you have thatsort of built in.
Writing is such a solitarything.
Except, it's really not Like ifyou are only writing solitary,
I really encourage you to find awriting group that you can go

(40:16):
bounce stuff off of Right.
Encourage you to find a writinggroup that you can go bounce
stuff off of right, even ifyou're not sharing pages quite
yet.
For Captain Novel early on I wasunder a very strict NDA.
I was not allowed to share that.
I was writing about CaptainMarvel for quite a while, and so
I had this group of writerfriends that I oftentimes will
bounce plot problems off of.
And so we went to a coffee shopand I'm like, okay, I'm going
to be really oblique and obtuse,but I'm going to be like what

(40:39):
if I had a?
There's a mother and daughterthing in the Captain Marvel book
.
They're not my superherocharacters, they're the people
that I got to contribute to theMarvel canon and I love them,
but they're sort of a mother anddaughter situation and I'd be
like, okay, so if you were adaughter who was mad at her
mother and I'd have to come upwith proxies for things like
shoots lasers out of her hands,but we sat in a coffee shop and

(41:01):
I and bounced ideas off of oneanother, and so with a writing
partner, you have that built inand if you're writing solo, you
might have to go out and findyour crew that you can do that
with.

J.D. Myall (41:11):
Does anybody else have any other questions?

Speaker 6 (41:16):
I had one.
What is your research processand how do you split that with
your co-author?

Author Gilly Segal (41:22):
Oh, that's such a fun question.
We are a very people-orientedresearch group, right, so we
talk to and interview people whohave the lived experiences that
we're trying to put on the page.
So for I'm Not Dying With youTonight.
We talk to riot survivors,everything from the Philadelphia
riot of the 1960s to Baltimoreto LA.

(41:44):
Kim interviewed someone who hadsurvived the LA riots, who
talked about sort of pockets ofviolence, and that is directly
on the page in our book.
I interviewed a police SWATteam to hear, like what would
the police really be doing?
Like how did they?
How does something start smalland become really big?
What are the conditions in thecity?
Where would you be responding?
Uh, and we split it up kind ofbased on relationship, like who,

(42:07):
who knows the person that theycan ask to spend sometimes 30
minutes and sometimes threehours, like I sat with the squat
guy for three hours and he wasthe first thing he said to me
was like where's your map?
Um, and we had this like janky,like it was like a folded up
piece of you know legal paperlike this, and I like put it on
the page and he marked things onit for me.
But it's relationship based andpeople based For my historical

(42:32):
novel that I'm working on rightnow.
It's a totally different process, and this one is like the Alice
in Wonderland rabbit hole scenewhere she's falling down and
like grabbing things would be avery orderly picture of what I'm
doing.
I mean, it's a lot, a lot ofbook research.
It's a historical novel and themore you write, the more that
you discover things like didthey have refrigerators during

(42:57):
the time period that I'm workingon?
Or was like at what point?
It's like where am I in thehistory?
What did they haveators duringthe time period that I'm working
on?
Or was like at what point?
And so like where am I in thehistory?
What did they have?
What did they wear, what did,how did they communicate, how
did they get around?
And that affects everything, notjust from like writing the
scene, but also the timeline,right.
So I'm writing in the lead upto World War II, the 1930s and
early 1940s.
Information doesn't travel asfast as I needed it to, so I was

(43:24):
like oh shoot, she can't knowthis in a matter of days, she
would not know this for a matterof months, right?
So it's going to affect notjust the immediate scene
construction but sometimes yourwhole plot.
So that is a rabbit hole that Iwill confess.
I'm having difficulty climbingout of this rabbit hole because
it's endless.

J.D. Myall (43:41):
How do you guys handle marketing?

Author Gilly Segal (43:43):
as a team.
Oh, kim is front of house and Iam back of house.
That's how we handle it.
Kim is an amazing order andspeaker, and I mean so.
I say that a little facetiously, right, like we were both.
Um, we do really well in frontof crowds.
This is the thing I'll tell.
It's the dirty secret tomarketing.
Right, I'm gonna ruin some, I'mgonna break some hearts.
Right now, there's nothing thatyou as an individual can do

(44:06):
that competes with the money ofa big publishing house.
Period, end of story.
I will brook no challenge,right, if a big publisher
decides to put a lot of moneybehind a book, it's going to be
successful.
Now, that doesn't mean that yourcareer is over, right.
What it means is you have tofigure out what marketing works
for you, and that's where youput your time, treasure and

(44:27):
talent.
So, for Kim and me, it'sgetting in front of people.
We do the best when we're infront of crowds, so we
prioritize things like bookconferences, librarian
conferences, booksellerconferences, school visits, and
we spend a lot of time workingon our shtick.
Right, like it's not accidental.
We get together, we talk aboutwhat works and what didn't.

(44:47):
We debrief afterwards.
We're both trained orators.
Kim literally went to clowncollege at the Ringling Brothers
and Parma Bailey Circus ClownCollege, and I'm a lawyer where
an enormous part of my trainingin law school was public
speaking.
So that's what works for us andwe prioritize.
You know, if we have to travelourselves sometimes to make it
to a conference or to an event,we'll do that because we know

(45:09):
that that's a successful way forus to sell books.
Tiktok content, instagramcontent, all that stuff not
successful for me.
I don't put a lot of time intothat.
There are ways to do thatsuccessfully.
They're just not my naturallike, so I don't put a lot of
time in that and it doesn't sella lot of books for me.

(45:29):
So it's really like, once yousort of remove yourself from
expecting that you're going tobe able to compete with a big
publisher, what works for you?
Where's your audience?
This is really dependent uponwho you're writing for.
My audience is at school andgoing to school libraries, so
for me it's incredibly importantto be talking to teachers and
librarians, because that's who'sputting my book in the hands of
kids.

(45:50):
If you are writing women'sfiction, your audience is in
book clubs.
How are you going to get infront of the book clubs.
How are you going to get tothem If you are writing
nonfiction?
I don't know the answer to this.
Right, you got to figure, like,where is your audience?
And you find out where they are, and then you meet them there.
You develop the things that youare.

(46:12):
You work hard on the thingsthat you're good at.
You develop the things thatyou're not.
Here's the other thing I wouldsay.
Like if I, when you develop thethings that you're not, here's
the other thing I would say,when I meet new, young, emerging
authors, the number one thingthat I would spend my money on
if you're not good at publicspeaking, is media training.
There is always going to be anelement even if you don't love
it of public speaking associatedwith selling your book, and so,

(46:35):
if you are not already atrained public speaker and you
are uncomfortable with it, spendtime and money developing your
skills.
You're going to have to be ableto pitch your book in under 30
seconds, and it can't be.
Well, it's an exploration of theidentity of a half alien and
she's wondering where she fitsin society.
Like that is not a successfulpitch for Captain Marvel book,

(46:57):
right?
So, before your book comes out,spend time developing your
30-second pitch, spend timedeveloping your shtick, whatever
it is right, like if you canmake them laugh, make them cry,
make them think you have wonthat public appearance and
that's not accidental and youcan develop those things.
So that's like all the stickersin the world and for pre-order

(47:21):
campaigns.
Didn't move the needle for mybooks, but being able to get in
front of librarians and makethem cry was really successful.
So figure out what works foryou and spend time on that.

J.D. Myall (47:34):
And do you have any quick tips for school visits
that worked for you?
Like, how did you, yeah, beflexible?

Author Gilly Segal (47:38):
Visuals are great, right, like how did you,
yeah, be flexible?
Visuals are great, right, likestudents are.
They've got a lot of stuff thatpulls at their attention, and
so be like this is another thingthat you work.
You can work on in media.
Training is learn to read aroom, and when the thing that
you're doing is failing, they'rebored, they're talking amongst
themselves.
They're not paying attention.
Move, they're talking amongstthemselves.
They're not paying attention.

(47:58):
Move on, like abandon ship.
Move on, do something else.
School visits require a lot offlexibility, love that Anybody
else have any questions forKaylee?

Speaker 7 (48:10):
Yeah, I had a quick question.
Thank you so much for doingthis.
Sorry the bad resolution of mycamera.
Here I'm doing a novel that'sset in an actual historical
event.
That was not a historical uhnovel, it's.
It's like a ya teen fictionnovel and it's based on some of
my life and some not of my life,but it's centered around a real

(48:32):
event and there's some realrumors in there that happened in
real time.
Do I have to be worried?
I'm not letting it stop me fromwriting the story, mind you,
but when it comes time to thatbeing read by people, does that
become a worry with thepublishers, whatever that
they're going to needpermissions or that they're
worried about what it'll do?
It's not like anything's beingbad mouthed or anything's
unfactual.
There is some dramatic licensein the timeline, but other than

(48:53):
that you know what I mean it'sstill true to its form.

Author Gilly Segal (49:03):
Yeah, I mean , if it's inspired by real
events, but not actual realevents, you're probably okay.
You know, be inspired by don'tactually be the real events,
especially if you're talkingabout real people.
I would be a little bitcautious about real people
because you can get into thelike defamation and slander
space and at that point in timeyou're also not really writing
fiction, you're writing memoir,which is a different story.
But so I would sort of say,like, make sure that it's truly

(49:26):
inspired by real events and notjust a reflection of them.

Speaker 7 (49:31):
Yeah, no, it doesn't go on to slander or talk about
any of the people, so much asrelate the actual events that
are happening as they happen.
Like I said, the dates might bea little off, but other than
that, the actual events that arehappening as they happen, like
I said, the dates might be alittle off, but other than that,
the the actual events are trueand they're in the press and all
that stuff, I mean they wereall legitimate yeah, I mean,
nobody owns facts, right.

Author Gilly Segal (49:46):
Nobody owns factual history.
Your, your characters, can goto mcdonald's, by the way, if
it's sort of what we call deminimis use, right, like they
went to mcdonald's and haddinner and it's not like the
whole you're not your bookcalled you know surviving
McDonald's so much that it seemslike a brand is owning it.
But yeah, I mean, facts arefacts, right.
If these are things thathappened, again, just be a
little bit cautious about thelicense that you take, because

(50:10):
you know your publisher will askyou for an indemnification.
So if you're too close to realevents and they're non-factual
or they're debatably factual,you have the potential to get
asked some hard questions.

Speaker 7 (50:21):
Right, thank you Appreciate that.

J.D. Myall (50:24):
Any more questions?

Speaker 5 (50:27):
Yeah, sure I'll go Again, like everyone else has
already said.
Thank you so much for takingthe time to meet and do this.
Um, it's very interesting to me.
Um, actually, how many lawyersend up becoming writers?
Uh, everyone I know, and evenprofessors I worked under.
Um, I also hate it becauseevery time I tell my mother I

(50:49):
get the most satisfying I toldyou so imaginable from her.
Because I didn't want to go tolaw school, I chose to try to do
the path of writing while I'mhere.
But my question is kind ofpiggybacking off of what
Jonathan had been saying howwilling are you to deviate away
from facts for the sake of thestory?

(51:11):
Will you incorporate morefictional elements into it, even
though this is based off trueevents that have actually
happened?
How much are you willing todeviate, and how much are the
people that you talk to whoexperience these situations, or
even readers, because we allknow how picky readers are when
they also like to do the I toldyou so how much of that are you

(51:35):
willing to make up for the sakeof your story?

Author Gilly Segal (51:39):
Yeah, I mean it depends how.
You know steely a spine you'vegot right.
It's your story.
You get to decide how much youdeviate and how much you don't
If it all hangs together.
You know, if you're telling agreat story with deviations from
the things that people haveshared with you, um, go for it,

(51:59):
right, like you're fine.
If you are talking about reallife events and you deviate from
them a whole lot in ahistorical novel, I would be a
little bit careful about that.
I would be a little bit carefulabout that, just because it's
like, unless you're telling analt history of some sort, like,
why, why do you need to deviatethat much?
So, for example, the historicalnovel that I'm working on right

(52:21):
now is set in the 1930s.
You can all imagine some bigworld events were taking place
in the 1930s.
If I don't have Hitler invadingPoland at the right time, why
am I doing that?
Right, in a realistic novel,non-alt history, non-fantastical
novel, there's kind of nojustification to deviate from

(52:43):
that massively right.
And what I need to do then isfigure out how to make my
fictional elements align withthe historical timeline.
Or I've got a bigger problem.
But if it's small stuff, I'mtrying to think of small stuff
that I would deviate from.

(53:04):
They did or didn't have aparticular event, the movie
wasn't out yet and they're goingto see a particular movie,
right, the small stuff, I think,doesn't matter so much, but
huge, huge changes to actualhistorical facts are.
In my opinion.
You can do whatever you want,but in my opinion you're going
to rub your readers the wrongway and you better have a really
good reason to do that, becauseif you don't, I'm not sure Like

(53:27):
that's you serving, that's likeself-serving instead of serving
the story.
Does that make sense?

J.D. Myall (53:35):
It does Any more questions?

Speaker 6 (53:39):
Yeah, I had a question that you mentioned I
guess a legal question when youmentioned you can put in your
book like they went toMcDonald's.
How much of that can youactually get away with, like
song quotes or saying you knowthey went to so-and-so's concert
or things like that?
Does it ever get to a pointwhere you would face legal

(54:01):
action, I guess, for puttingthat in?

Author Gilly Segal (54:04):
Yes, and song quotes is a great example.
So you're talking about twodifferent things there.
One is trademark, and you'retalking about three things
trademark, copyright and rightsof publicity.
So trademark is brand names andas long as you're using it to
refer to the actual thing inwhat's called a de minimis way,
right.
So inconsequential, notimportant to the story, not a

(54:26):
major deal you're unlikely toget sued.
Right, because the purpose oftrademark is to protect the
integrity of the brand name inthe eyes of the consuming public
.
So if your novel about twoteens on a road trip has them
stopping at a McDonald's,nobody's gonna be confused about
the source or origin of yournovel.
Everybody knows it's notMcDonald's.
If you use so much ofMcDonald's that it starts to

(54:52):
look like maybe McDonald'ssponsored your novel, now you
have a problem.
But again, if you're doing justself reference to the actual
thing in a non-off, again, ifyou're doing just self, you know
, reference to the actual thingin a non-offensive,
non-disparaging way, and it'sminimal, you're unlikely to get
a trademark lawsuit.
Copyright is really different.
So if you're using copyrightedtext, almost any amount of song

(55:14):
lyrics will get you in trouble.
So you're going to and you canlicense these things right.
You're you know, if you havesong lyrics throughout your book
, you can go and get permissionfrom the owner of the rights of
the songs.
It'll cost you money Almostalways.
There's very few times thatpeople volunteer this up.
So that is a big, big, big.
Watch out Song lyrics, quotesfrom novels that are still under

(55:35):
copyright protection, any ofthose things you want to
exercise extreme, extremecaution.
Reference to actual livingfamous people it's sort of the
same as the brand, right?
If it's minimal, it's just torefer to.
You know they went to a Beyonceconcert.
Beyonce is unlikely to sue youfor one reference in your novel.
If your whole novel is calledFinding Beyonce and it's all

(55:56):
about how Beyonce hasdisappeared because of some
terrible scandal that's happenedin her life, well, maybe now we
have some disparate.
Sorry, I didn't mean to give athumbs up.
Now we have some disparagementissues going on, right?
So there's a little bit of aspectrum of what you can do
safely and what you can't, andagain, the Authors Guild is your
best source for asking thesequestions.

Speaker 6 (56:17):
Okay, because I was also thinking when you were
talking about historical fiction.
How does that work forcompanies that no longer exist?

Author Gilly Segal (56:25):
Yeah, you don't really have to worry so
much about companies that nolonger exist because there's no
one who owns any rights left inthose anymore.
Who's going to sue you?
Whose rights are you infringingon if the company is defunct?
So is Sears still around?
We still have Se.
We still have Sears, like ifyou're talking about she went
shopping at the Sears andRoebuck.
Sears and Roebuck is not suingme for that.
So it's de minimis.

(56:49):
Use is usually not a problem.
A lot of people will do.
They will be like he lip syncedthat song to her about the
scarf that goes missing, right?
If you're a Taylor Swift fan,you know what I'm talking about,
so you can refer to it.
But if you're actually quotingthe song itself, it's going to

(57:14):
depend on how much you change.
But in order to keep itrecognizable, you're probably
going to have to quote enoughthat it's potentially infringing
.
I would refer to it obliquely oralternatively, like is it
necessary to have the real worldexample or can you create an
in-world famous, you knowsongwriter that they're quoting?
Right?
So you know, think about, andyou'd have to sort of seed this

(57:34):
throughout the story.
But I always love it when theworld is so fully developed that
there's a famous singer thatyou know.
In the early chapters it'smentioned briefly and you hear
they're in the background on theradio and then later you do get
quotes from their songs, butthey're ones that you've made up
right.
But you've sort of created thisworld that feels very full and
whole because you've seededthroughout references to this

(57:55):
imaginary famous person.
If you're dying to have songlyrics in your book and you
can't actually get permission touse them, I would do it that
way, with a made up character.

J.D. Myall (58:09):
And then you get to write your own angsty song
lyrics Love that, love that.
Anybody else have questions?
No, okay, what's up next foryou, gilly?

Author Gilly Segal (58:17):
Well, well, I'm working on this historical
novel which, who knows whetherit will sell or not, um and uh,
and I'm actually working on somescreenplay stuff because I
wanted to stretch my creativemuscles and see, uh, if I can do
screenplay work, so we'll seeyeah, we'll be seeing you on the
big screen too.

J.D. Myall (58:35):
Thank you so much for joining us tonight oh, this
is great.

Author Gilly Segal (58:38):
It was lovely to meet you.
Best of luck.
I hope that someday I'm sittingin your craft chats.

J.D. Myall (58:42):
Yes, ma'am, it's been awesome.
And hopefully you considerDrexel for your daughter because
it's a good program.
We're coming to visit thissummer.
All right, you have a blessedone, thank you.
Thank you everybody.

Speaker 8 (58:56):
That wraps up today's craft Chat Chronicles with JD
Mayor.
Thanks for joining us.
If you liked the episode,please comment, subscribe and
share.
For show notes, writingworkshops and tips, head to
jdmayorcom.
That's jdmayocom.

(59:16):
While you're there, join JD'smailing list for updates,
giveaways and more.