How to Write Genrebending YA Sci-Fi / Fantasy with Andrea Tang - Kingdom of Without

In this week’s episode, Marissa chats with Andrea Tang about her latest sci-fi heist YA, KINGDOM OF WITHOUT. Also discussed, genre-bending in YA, on discovering who your character is during the writing process, how edit notes really can give perspective and sometimes, exactly what the book needs, leaning on experts to help ensure details are authentic and appropriate, how to balance the sci-fi and fantasy elements to create a specific aesthetic, the process of writing a whole distinct ensemble of characters, exploring gender role reversal, the challenges of writing a heist novel, and so much more!

Scrivener writing software - https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Episode 60: Leigh Bardugo - https://www.buzzsprout.com/950767/8226816

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Transcript

[00:10] Marissa: Hello, and welcome to the Happy Writer. This is a podcast that aims to bring readers more books to enjoy and to help authors find more joy in their writing. I am your host, Marissa Meyer. Thank you for joining me. Holiday shopping has arrived. If you are not sure what you want to ask Santa for this year, I hope you might check out some of our Happy Writer podcast merchandise. I don't even know what there's notebooks and t shirts and all sorts of fun things. You can find that on Etsy instagram and t public. Those links are in our Instagram profile, so I hope you'll check it out. One thing making me happy this week is that I decided to treat myself. I know you're supposed to wait for the holidays and let people buy you things, but I'm bad about that. When I want something, I just get it. So I decided to treat myself to some new bed linens. And I admit I am terrible about replacing things when they start to get worn out because you don't want to be wasteful. And if there's still life left in it, I'll hang on as long as possible. So the old ones had been kicking around for a long time. The threads were starting to come out because the cats are always kneading on them and there was cat fur that you could never get out of it. And anyway, they were just getting really ratty. So I ordered some new soft sheets and a new duvet, which is like, really fluffy. And it has been so luxurious. I never want to get out of bed now. I should be recording this from bed. There's an idea. And I've been spending mornings reading in bed. And this morning Delaney even brought me my coffee, so I didn't even have to get up to get coffee. It's very perfect. I mean, it's just like a little paradise. Who knew new bed linens could bring this much joy? I am also so happy to be talking to today's guest. She is the author of Rebel Wing and its companion novel Renegade Flight. Her newest Sci-Fi heist novel, Kingdom of without just came out last week. Please welcome Andrea Tang.

[02:39] Andrea: Thank you so much for having me on.

[02:41] Marissa: Oh, it is my absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining me. How are you feeling? The book just came.

[02:49] Andrea: Good, good. Amazing. It's always a little surreal releasing a new book into the world, as I'm sure you know from having done it approximately 5 million times over. But it's always exciting. Every time.

[03:01] Marissa: It is exciting and it is surreal. I know for me, whenever you receive the box of finished copies, there's always a moment where it's like, oh, how did this happen again?

[03:13] Andrea: Right? Yeah. I don't know. It's almost like I don't have any kids, but I imagine it's a little bit like watching a kid grow up where you open that box of finished author copies, and you're like, when did this happen? I swear, just yesterday you were a zero draft that I still had all of these markups that I needed to correct.

[03:31] Marissa: Oh, it's so true. And then you think back to how much it's changed over the writing process and the editing process, and you think back to some of your original ideas that in hindsight are really laughable, but at the time seems so great. And yeah, it's a weird process.

[03:48] Andrea: Too real. Too real.

[03:51] Marissa: So, Andrea, the first thing that I like to ask all of my guests is I want to hear your origin story. How did you become a writer?

[04:00] Andrea: So I think I became a writer the same way almost every writer does, which is that I started as a reader and essentially found a way to professionalize what was my favorite childhood hobby, which was reading a lot. And then eventually discovering that there were adult people behind the books that I was reading as a kid and wanting to be one of them when I grew up. So I got really into writing as a direct result of my reading habit as a kid, and one thing just kind of led to another.

[04:31] Marissa: So you loved reading. So did you know from fairly young that you wanted to be a writer?

[04:38] Andrea: I think did. I've talked about this a little bit in the past where I knew from a pretty young age that I was like, all right, I want to be one of those grown ups with their names on the title cover of these books that I love. But I had the privilege, the curse of knowing from a pretty young age also that becoming a professional author is not maybe the most financially stable occupation in the world. So I was aware of that from pretty early on. So I definitely went to university and entered adult life with the understanding that I was going to train for other professions and do other things as well and kind of set myself up to have a nine to five and a life outside of writing. But for me, it was really just kind of all about the discipline of taking the other work that I did seriously, but also just keeping up with writing and practicing and developing craft and querying and failing and querying and drafting and just like going through that whole grindy cycle that we're all so fond of when we're first starting out.

[05:51] Marissa: Sure. Yeah. How many manuscripts do you think that you wrote before your first book?

[05:57] Andrea: Oh, my gosh, I don't know. Are we counting the books that I wrote in middle school which were literally handwritten on pieces of craft paper and stapled together? Because if so, like an infinite number.

[06:12] Marissa: It's uncountable. I count all the things. All writing is practice, but for me, I'm thinking more like how many attempts at novels where you're thinking in your mind, this is going to be 250 plus pages, and I'm going to try to get it published right.

[06:30] Andrea: If we're thinking like, actual, actual attempts at novels, once I developed a real understanding of the industry and what it would entail to query an agent and go through that whole process, I think I must have done. I'm like counting them in my head. I think there were at least like three or four or five. I think at least a couple of those might have been closer to novella's. And also I think there were a couple of duds in there that I realized were duds, like, halfway through and then just kind of insisted on finishing anyway as a completionist. But I think maybe I would say probably at least three or four true attempts where I was like, okay, I could try to maybe do something with this. Some decent practice rounds. It not as many as some of the authors that I've heard of. I have one friend who says that she did, I think, upward of like ten or 15. So my numbers are not quite that impressive, but I got a few respectable rounds in, I think.

[07:30] Marissa: Yeah, no, I think that's a pretty common story and we get the whole spectrum here when I ask this question. Your first book was Rebel Wing, is that right?

[07:40] Andrea: Yes, that is correct.

[07:42] Marissa: So was that the first book that you tried querying?

[07:45] Andrea: It was not the first book that I tried querying was oh, gosh, this must have been, I think, like, first year after finishing Undergrad. It was like this sprawling young adult space opera that had way too much going on in it. Like, in hindsight, looking back on that, I was like, that was a fun book. It was not right for the market at the time, but I was obsessed with it. I thought it was like the best thing since sliced bread when I was writing it. And I had a lot of fun and hilariously that book when I queried it. My current agent, Cal, actually did. I think she asked me for either the full or the partial, and she did read a decent amount of it. And she sent me one of the really nice, exciting rejections that you get at that stage where she was like, well, I'm not going to rep this, but I do actually like your writing style. So if you want to come back to me with your other works somewhere down the line, I'd be happy to read it. And lo and behold, many years later, I went to her with what would eventually become Rebel Wing. So it kind of came full circle there.

[08:51] Marissa: I love that. It's so nice when agents are really encouraging.

[08:55] Andrea: It's not totally right.

[09:02] Marissa: Okay, before we actually move on to talking about this, so you mentioned that that first querying project was kind of space opera, and I know you've written about Mecca. Why am I drawing a blank on.

[09:18] Andrea: Yeah, you got it.

[09:19] Marissa: Thank you.

[09:20] Andrea: Yeah. No, I believe in you. You can do it.

[09:24] Marissa: And then this new book is very futuristic Sci-Fi. Has that always been the genre that you've been most drawn to, or in those early years? Were you playing around with different genres too?

[09:36] Andrea: So I actually started as a fantasy girly, and I still kind of am at heart. And I think you can tell even when you read my Sci-Fi, that most of it's not like Isaac Asimov style Sci-Fi. Right? Like, it's very soft. It's almost more like fantasy dressed up with Sci-Fi aesthetic. But I do really enjoy science fiction as kind of like a complement to fantasy. The two kind of go hand in hand for me personally. And yeah, no, it's interesting that the first projects that really just kind of sparked for me just happened to be Sci-Fi projects, even though I'd always thought of myself as more of a fantasy writer. But I'm really glad that I kind of got the chance to stretch my wings that way because I do also love science fiction. I was a big anime nerd as a kid, so I grew up watching a lot of mega shows with the ones with the giant robots and stuff. You have an idea of where some of the Rubble Wing inspiration yeah, for sure. No, definitely no.

[10:36] Marissa: And I love that description, the fantasy dressed up with a Sci-Fi aesthetic, right? That rings so true, because for me, I also always felt more like a fantasy writer and then was really shocked that the first book I managed to get published was Sci-Fi. And I was like, Where would that come from?

[10:55] Andrea: Right? I was about to say I feel like Lunar Chronicles definitely is very much that vibe where it's like, okay, this is technically kind of like cyberpunk ish Sci-Fi ish, but it has a lot of fantasy energy.

[11:07] Marissa: Very much so. No. And I started just, at some point calling it space opera because you're right, it's this other genre, this mesh of the two.

[11:17] Andrea: Right. Which I love. I adore genre bending. I love mashups. The more creative you can get with the combination, the more I love it.

[11:26] Marissa: Yes, I love that too. And I love that Young Adult in particular seems very open to it. I know in 100% some other age.

[11:35] Andrea: Groups there's, like, a little bit more.

[11:36] Marissa: Pushback when authors try to mix things up, but I think Ya readers in particular are like, bend all you want.

[11:45] Andrea: Definitely. I mean, that was kind of what drew me into writing Young Adult in the first place, because when I first started, all I knew was that I liked fantasy and science fiction. I didn't really care what age group I was writing for. I just knew that I liked magic and dragons and adventures in space and all of that. And I think I fell into Young Adult in particular rather than I guess, like, straight adult SFF, because at the time when I was coming into it, I just felt like so many young adult specfic titles were doing really interesting things with genre that I just hadn't really seen anywhere else before. And granted, maybe that's because my reading was limited. I don't know. But just like, as an anecdotal thing, I was like I think a lot of the genre stuff that I'm finding myself most personally excited about that I think is kind of new and interesting is happening in Ya, where I'm seeing a lot of kind of plot trope, genre mishmash going on. And I really like that option to kind of break the rules a little bit in a fun way.

[12:46] Marissa: No, definitely as a creative type, it's freeing to know that you don't have to be quite so stuck in what the marketing or the publishers or the gatekeepers are thinking is going to sell. Right, okay, well, I am so excited to talk about your new book that just came out last week. And I'll go ahead and mention, as I mentioned to you before we started the recording, I had so much fun reading this book because it does have a very similar vibe to The Lunar Chronicles. And so for me, it was such a nostalgic experience. Like, it takes place in futuristic Beijing and our main character is a cyborg and there's a revolution brewing. And I was just like, oh, I feel like I'm having a homecoming right now. I loved it, and I hope that The Lunar Chronicles fans who are listening will pick it up because it really was a lot of fun.

[13:49] Andrea: Yeah, I mean, like I told you, that's such a high compliment coming from you as the creator of Lunar Chronicles, just because that was one of the early commercial comps, like in house when this project was being developed. I was ah, yes, I have the actual stamp of approval from.

[14:08] Marissa: Gladly Given. All right, will you please tell listeners about your new novel, Kingdom of without?

[14:16] Andrea: Yeah, gladly. So kingdom of without. I would definitely consider it an example of the genre mashup that we were talking about earlier, because it is at its core, it's a heist novel, but it is set against this futuristic cyberpunk backdrop like you mentioned, in this kind of alternate version of Beijing. So the plot centers on this young girl, Ningar, who has grown up to report in the 6th Ring of Beijing. She works as a bartender, but she also takes some gigs off books to make a living. She's done some burglary, she's been a thief. She's picked up some black market skills here and there. So she's almost like a little bit of a kind of young female Han Solo type, where it's like she's kind of legit, but not entirely. And she's running low on cash and is down on her luck when a friend of hers introduces her to an opportunity for a big score. The problem is it is an extremely illegal gig. It's like a big heist on a government property and it's like of a scale she's never really encountered before because it's not stealing an object this time, it's stealing a person. Because as it turns out, without spoiling too much, the gig is to break this former revolutionary icon that everyone thought was dead, to find her and break her out of the secret government prison that she's been kept in all this time. So that's how our heroine falls in with this motley crew of revolutionaries, criminals to get this job done. And for her, again, kind of like leading a bit on that Han Solo comp for her. She's like, oh, it's just a job, it's just a job. I need my money. I need to make rent like DA Ma. But as we know, over time, as happens in stories like these, she does begin to develop soft, fluffy feelings towards her new colleagues and starts forming real friendships with them. So it is very much that kind of story.

[16:20] Marissa: One of those colleagues is like, really ridiculously handsome.

[16:25] Andrea: Oh, naturally.

[16:26] Marissa: Always the ridiculously handsome one.

[16:28] Andrea: You've got to have the ridiculously handsome one. It's like in our contract as writers that at least one character has to be like, insanely hot, right?

[16:37] Marissa: Why am I so attracted to this person that I swear I'm not going to fall for?

[16:42] Andrea: Right.

[16:43] Marissa: All right, let's talk about Ningar's character. And you've touched on it a little bit. She's one of those characters that is so tough, so capable, and yet also has this vulnerable inside that she fights so hard not to let it show. But of course, there are moments where she can't help it. Where did her character come from?

[17:10] Andrea: That's a good question. I think when I was sort of discovering her on the page, I don't know if this is how you write, but at least for me, I often have an idea of what a character is going to be like before I put pen to paper. And mostly I stay true to that vision. But I kind of discover, I think, the more complex aspects of their personalities through the process of writing and kind of seeing the way they interact with other characters on the page. As I'm figuring out the story for myself. And so for Ningnar, I think I had this basic sketch of her in my head, right, where I'm like, oh, yeah, she's a cat burglar, she's poor, she's down on her luck. She's probably going to be a little gritty and rough around the edges, but of course, she has to have tender side. Like we've seen this character for fairly common trope, but as I was writing her, I think I kind of started delving into these nuances to her character, like the things that made her vulnerable, the weaknesses that she tends to have for the fact that she did used to be a much more idealistic person. And all of those were kind of aspects of her that I sort of discovered alongside her journey through the novel itself. And another thing that I think I enjoyed about that process of figuring out her character as I was writing was that I think I realized that a lot of the tropes that she embodies are often kind of like typically masculine tropes that we see in fiction, where it's always like the kind of rough around the edges antihero. Who doesn't want to show that he has feelings and doesn't like schmoop and doesn't and is all about the job. And I think especially in modern day, we're seeing more female characters like that. But when you first think of that character type, it is usually a dude. So it was kind of fun writing that archetype as a teenage girl, and I did just have a lot of fun with that.

[19:04] Marissa: Yeah. And I really how do we say I don't want to say that she has a great backstory because she's got a horrible backstory.

[19:14] Andrea: Her backstory is very upsetting.

[19:15] Marissa: It is not a backstory that anyone very dark. Yeah. But it's clear, and I don't know how much you want to give away of what her backstory is, but you can so clearly see how that also influenced who she became. Was that something that you kind of knew about her before you started writing, or did that develop alongside with writing the book?

[19:40] Andrea: So her backstory was almost kind of a side note before I started writing, where I was like, okay, yeah, I know that I need this in order to make the plot work and to make the character beats work. But I didn't really pay a ton of attention to it at the time because I was kind of, like, wrapped up in, like, oh, how do heists work? I've never broken into anything in my life. How's this going to happen? And so almost forgot about it. And then I got to give credit to my editor, Eliza, who worked very closely with me on this manuscript for, I think in the first couple of drafts. Like, one of her big notes was, know, you're kind of dropping this thread about where Ningar comes from, that she has this very complicated relationship with her father, and again, without spoiling too much, with street drugs and with addiction issues in the family. And that that really is going to inform the way she reacts to the events of the plot as they unfold, because it's been such a formative thing for and, like, you're kind of noding to it, but I would really like to see you truly dive into that and let that breathe on the page. And I think until Eliza gave me that note, I had just been kind of, okay, like, checked it off. This thing happened in her blast past, moving off, blah, blah. But after talking to Eliza about it. I was like, you know what? You're right. Something had felt kind of off about the way that I was writing Ningara up until that point where I was like, I can't really put my finger on what feels off. I just know that something does. And after she gave me that note, I was like, I think that might be it. I think we might just need to let her backstory breathe a little bit more. Not in the sense of like, oh, like every other paragraph, we're going to remind everybody about her childhood trauma, but just kind of like getting into her head a bit and being like, okay, how are the experiences that she's gone through in the past going to inform her reactions to the present? We don't necessarily have to explicitly put it on the page, but we can use it to inform what does get put on the page, if that makes sense.

[21:42] Marissa: No, absolutely. And that makes me curious because there is this thread that runs throughout the book and kind of ties a number of different elements of the plot together that has to do with addiction and has to do with the black market. And some companies profiting from some people having these. Like, did you draw on real life research for that, or were you just very focused on Ningar and her reaction to this? So I'd say a little from column.

[22:19] Andrea: A little from column. Like, initially that whole line was sort of like riffing off of the real life opium wars, essentially, as you know.

[22:31] Marissa: Yeah, which feels very right.

[22:33] Andrea: Right? I was like, okay, it's a Beijing story. It makes sense to kind of dive into, like, I would not claim to myself to be a subject matter expert myself on modern day politics surrounding things like the Opioid crisis, for example. But I'm fortunate that I do have a lot of friends who work in social services or in medical and social research or our first responders who have had much closer contact with those issues. But I spent a lot of time picking their brains. I spent a lot of time reading. We definitely used authenticity readers as well to dive into that kind of more personal angle on the ways that the sort of macro political and social stuff affects the more micro stuff, like the interpersonal dynamics and make sure that that was handled as appropriately as possible. So while I did draw on some background knowledge that I had of historical drug crises because one of my majors in undergrad was East Asian sieve, I have my master's degree in China studies. So that was something I was already I had the groundwork to kind of write about. But taking, I think, crafting a more modern lens to it that was appropriately sensitive to a modern audience was something that, like, definitely leaned a lot on much smarter people than me to pull off, for sure. And I'm super grateful to all of them.

[24:09] Marissa: Yeah, I mean, I think that's just, like, a great strategy in general. Just lean on smarter people.

[24:16] Andrea: Definitely.

[24:19] Marissa: So we talked about how this is Sci-Fi fantasy adjacent, kind of space opera, kind of futuristic heist blending. Was there any question for you as you were writing or as you were developing the story as far as how Sci-Fi to make it? Like, how far do you lean into the technology or expand the world building to include various Sci-Fi elements, or was it just kind of, like, organic to what the story felt like it needed?

[24:52] Andrea: It was pretty organic, honestly. I know that when I was kind of conceiving of it and the general kind of vibes and aesthetic of the world building with Eliza, the two of us definitely agreed that we were like, all right, this is technically going to be shelved as Sci-Fi. It falls into the definition of cyberpunk, right, which is a subcategory of science fiction, but aesthetically, we almost want this to feel like a traditional young adult high fantasy, hence the title, hence the artwork that you see the fact that you still are dealing with an imperial court and with royalty and all of wanted. So we didn't want to lean into super techie Sci-Fi. We wanted it to be plausible. We didn't want to do anything that was too outlandish. There are a few early drafts that definitely had Sci-Fi elements in there that Eliza called out as like, okay, this is kind of stretching the realm of disbelief here.

[25:53] Marissa: I want to see what those were. What were the things that did not make the cut?

[25:57] Andrea: Oh, gosh. I think one of them was, like, Complacency, which is, like, the main street drug that's dealt with in the plot of Kingdom of without. It already does a lot of work. There's a lot that it does as an addictive substance, and I think I just gave it too much to do, where it was like, it can do this. It can be a stimulant, but it can also be used for torture, and it can be used for this. And Eliza's like, this is too many.

[26:25] Marissa: Things to do in the story today.

[26:26] Andrea: Right. It can do literally anything that the plot calls for. And Eliza was like, okay, no, we need to either come up with another drug or another plot option or something, because you're beating this thing to death. It cannot do that much work for your plot. That was one of the main cuts that was made and I think was the right decision in the long run, but yeah, no, when we were plotting it out, we were like, yeah, we want it to feel somewhat realistic, but we also don't want to lean too heavily into the tech side of Sci-Fi. We want it to be there, but we don't need entire chapters on how this particular piece of android machinery works. We could just have androids on the page serving their plot purpose.

[27:19] Marissa: It's not what our readers are here for.

[27:21] Andrea: Right?

[27:22] Marissa: All right, I want to talk characters because this is one of those as so many great heist books are. We've got this wonderful hodgepodge. I think you called them a motley crew, the one that deals with explosives and the one that's the medic, but they're all just kind of thrown together and now have to complete this seemingly impossible task. And I love stories like this. I love it when we see a really fun mix of characters having to work together. And then, of course, we've got Ningar as our fish out of water coming into it, trying to figure out where she fits in. So just generally speaking, when it comes to developing these more side characters, how do you go about doing that and trying to make sure that each one feels authentic and like a full character, but is still interesting and unique and all of that just kind of what's your thought process?

[28:25] Andrea: I think especially what I discovered with writing a true ensemble cast, really, for arguably the first time, because Rebel Wing and Renegade Flight, its companion novel, both kind of had ensemble casts, but they didn't have to work in lockstep quite as much as a literal heist crew would have to. So there's a lot of scenes where there's just a lot of people on the page and they're all doing a lot of different things. And so what I discovered is that it's challenging to track the movement of so many different people in the same scene, and you have to do that scene after scene after scene. And so for me, I think the overarching theme of my process was, like, make sure that these people are all distinguishable from one another. Which means that they all need to have very distinct personalities, motivations, backstories, their histories with each other don't necessarily have to come out super explicitly on the page, but they should kind of inform the way that they're interacting. Because I feel like if I don't keep that in mind, what I end up with are like five witty, fun talking heads. But they could all literally just be interchanged with each other. And that's not **** right? You want them to feel like five real people. You want it to feel like a room full of almost like a room at a party with people that you actually know. So I think that was really the most important task for me when I was coming up with the supporting cast.

[29:51] Marissa: Yeah, so you've got these whatever, let's say five characters, do you think in terms of archetypes? Like, okay, who's going to be the sassy one? Who's going to be the smart one, or how do you go about giving them distinct personalities?

[30:09] Andrea: So I actually kind of let the primary characters almost inform what I needed out of the secondary. So, like, ningar. And our male lead, Chung Yoon, both have particular right where she's this kind of rough around the edges, like street kid. He's a much more kind of, like, stiff upper lip type who's very serious and has always been kind of groomed for leadership. And so when I was filling out the supporting cast, I wanted personalities that would really contrast theirs. So we have some characters that are a little bit more laid back, for example, who seem very laissez faire except when it's time to get down to business. We also have characters that are not rough around the edges so much and not stiff upper lip necessarily, but are like I'm thinking of Feife here, for example, our medic, who's just very sensible, almost aggressively so. Where she's? Almost like, kind of team mom in that she's always kind of, like, gently pointing out the logical flaws in the plan. Not in a mean way, but just kind of in a, hey, I kind of want to keep you all pieced together, literally. And so I was like, okay, yeah, you need somebody who's going to be like, the sensible one who kind of keeps them online. You need somebody who's a little bit more laid back. You need somebody who's, because they're all very young, we have an older character to be who's seen a lot more than they have, who can kind of be the voice of more informed reason and has a more fully developed prefrontal cortex, which I'm sure is helpful. I think the personalities and the individual traits of my secondary cast kind of came together as like, okay, what traits do I need in people to effectively balance out these very strong personalities that my protagonists have?

[32:04] Marissa: All right, well, let's talk a little bit more about those protagonists then, because we've hardly touched on the romance, but it's a really fun romance.

[32:11] Andrea: It is such a fun romance. I loved writing the romance.

[32:15] Marissa: I bet. So what was it that you loved about writing this romance?

[32:20] Andrea: I really liked that. I think I've talked a little bit about gender role reversal previously, but I really like that. Despite the fact that Cheng Yoon, our male lead, is a very take charge, knows what he's about, leader type, when he interacts with Ningar, he doesn't quite know what to do with her. And she kind of ends up being the aggressor and the more experienced of the two when it comes to matters of the heart and dating and hookup culture and all of that. And he's, like, almost despite knowing so much more than she does about politics and about this entire heist plot and being genuinely brilliant in his own way when it comes to stuff like picking up girls at a bar, he's kind of clueless. And I really enjoyed writing that contrast where it was like the heroine who kind of got to be the experienced one, who's like, oh, sweet summer child, let me show you the way you poor Ange knew you.

[33:24] Marissa: I adored that too. He is so sweet. I mean, he really is just adorably clueless sometimes. And I did have this moment where there's a scene that utilizes the one bed trope, which is, of course, one of my favorite tropes because it's so great. And I had this moment of thinking, like, I wonder if Andrea wrote this entire book just so she could have this one bed scene.

[33:54] Andrea: I will neither confirm nor deny, but it was one of my favorite scenes to write. I will leave you with that.

[34:00] Marissa: Yeah, it's a great scene. It's a great moment. So we haven't hardly gotten into talking at all about the heist yet. Challenges of writing a heist. Fun things about writing a heist. Is this your first heist book?

[34:17] Andrea: It is my first heist book. As it turns out, heists are really hard to write.

[34:21] Marissa: I have heard this from a number of people, as a matter of fact.

[34:25] Andrea: I think we all read Six of Crows, and we're like, oh, we should.

[34:29] Marissa: Write stuff like, yeah, nobody can do it like Lee Bardugo can do you.

[34:36] Andrea: And if you listen to her interviews or read through what she's written about that process, even she's like, yeah, writing a heist is hard. Don't do it.

[34:45] Marissa: Yeah, actually, I'll just throw out a quick advertisement. She was on the podcast. It's been a couple of years now, and I remember a moment we were talking about writing heist, and I was like, how often did you regret your life choices? And she was like, Every day.

[35:03] Andrea: That does make me feel better, because similarly, it was just like, oh, I might have been in and off a little more than I can chew. All right, we've made our bed, now we got to lie in it. Let's see where we can go from here.

[35:14] Marissa: Yeah. So how did you end up pulling it off? So I think I've kind of had.

[35:19] Andrea: To, like, this might end up being a controversial statement. Sorry, people. I think I've had to give myself permission to be okay with the fact that I was writing a fictional heist in a speculative world, so I didn't have to know everything about how an actual break in would work necessarily. I could fudge a little bit instead of doing a ton of research on how to break into a secret government facility, which, for one thing, I'm like, I don't know. I want that in my search history. I was also kind of like, well, at the end of the day, what we put on the page is there to kind of move this plot along and to kind of entertain the readers. Right. So we don't necessarily need to fall deeply in love with our own research. We just need to get enough in there to make sense for the characters and make sense to the audience. So in that sense, I took a lot more cues from heist fiction than from actual real life. Obviously. I was one of billions of people who had read Six Crows. I had also read Lies Block, Laura. I had, of course, seen the Oceans movies. I read Grace Lee's Portrait of a Thief, which is a contemporary heist. That was a lot of fun as well. Yeah. So I think I almost like it was less studying how actual heist crime works and more studying how a heist plot works. Kind of the way I've also written a murder mystery, for example. It was less like, how would I actually murder somebody? And more like, what does the structure of a good who done it look like? And what are the elements that you need to pull off? And that was kind of how I treated my high spot.

[37:10] Marissa: Yeah. That's very logical and very practical. I'm struggling to remember. There was another author that I talked to a while back who had also written a heist book. And this is going to drive me nuts until I can remember who it was, but I specifically remember them saying about how, yeah, it's difficult to come up with the plan of the heist and how the characters are going to go about doing it. But on the flip side, I also get to come up with the security system and the thing it is that they're trying to accomplish. So you can devise it in a way that you can make it work.

[37:49] Andrea: Absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree with that 100%, because part of what made this whole thing doable was that I could kind of design a puzzle that was a solvable puzzle. Right. I have the cheat code to the Rubik's Cube, so I could kind of work from the ground up in that sense.

[38:12] Marissa: Right. No, that makes so much sense. Did you ever feel like you'd written yourself into a corner that you had.

[38:17] Andrea: Trouble getting out of a little bit here and there? Again, I have a really good editor. She was there to rescue me a few times when I was like, what did I do with this? I think I definitely tried to slide a few fast ones on her where I was like, this doesn't really make sense, and probably wouldn't work in a heist, but I'm just going to hand wave it with some funky, Sci-Fi world building and it'll be fine. And then she got the draft and she was like, It's not fine, Andrea. Please fix it. And then I did.

[38:48] Marissa: I love that. I love those moments. And I feel like they happen with every book where you're like, no one will notice this one. No, always notice.

[38:57] Andrea: Every time. Every time. But we love them for it.

[39:00] Marissa: No, truly. And then you know that. Yeah. It was so worth it to go in and make that better.

[39:06] Andrea: Yeah, exactly.

[39:07] Marissa: All right, last question before our bonus round. The holidays are just around the corner what's on your writing wish list?

[39:16] Andrea: On my writing wish list? Oh, gosh. Writing not reading. Right?

[39:23] Marissa: I mean, you can interpret that question how you want to, I suppose.

[39:28] Andrea: Okay. For thinking just right. I mean, I feel like it's too easy of a question if we allow for reading, because I'm like, oh, here's, like, a giant list of books that I want to read.

[39:37] Marissa: I would just like $1,000 bookstore gift card. There you go.

[39:42] Andrea: Yeah. Business expense, technically. But, like, writing wise, I have yet to use scrivener, and I've heard its praises sung for so long that I'm like, I kind of want to try it. But I'm also kind of a luddite, and I'm sufficiently afraid of new technology that I'm like, what if I spend money on this and I hate it and don't know how to use it? But if someone gifted it to me, I would use it because I'd be like, all right, no harm, no foul. Risk free trial. Let's do this.

[40:12] Marissa: I like it. No, that makes sense. I am an advocate. I have used Scrivener for ten years, and I can't imagine ever going back to word.

[40:20] Andrea: Oh, okay. All right. We have a full on testimonial then. I like that.

[40:24] Marissa: Yes. No, absolutely. I really love it. But I also understand that you have a process, and it works, and it can be intimidating to shake things up sometimes, right?

[40:35] Andrea: Definitely. But yeah, I'm always like yeah. As professionals, I think we are always kind of trying to think about, okay, what are the tools that I could use to do my job better? In the same way that as writers, we're also readers, we're always thinking of reading to the market, being like, okay, I kind of want to keep up with what's going on in the genres that I'm writing, or even in genres outside of what we're writing. In addition to being a voracious reader who loves stories, it's like, all right, we want to keep our fingers on the pulse of what's going on in our own industry. I think there is also this onus to be like, all right, what can I do to make my life as a writer, as a professional in this industry just a little bit easier? And it sounds like Scrivener might be one of those things.

[41:19] Marissa: Yeah, no, I totally think it makes my life easier. For me, one of the biggest features over, just, like, a basic word processor, is that I always have to move chapters around. Like, my plots change so much that I always am reshuffling and reordering things.

[41:36] Andrea: Oh, that's true. I do a lot of cut and paste.

[41:38] Marissa: Yeah. Cutting and pasting is such a headache. And in Scrivenery, it's just a click and drag. It's so easy.

[41:45] Andrea: All right, you are kind of selling me on this now.

[41:47] Marissa: You're welcome. Merry Christmas. Thank you.

[41:50] Andrea: Thank you.

[41:52] Marissa: All right, are you ready for our bonus round?

[41:55] Andrea: I am.

[41:56] Marissa: What book makes you happy?

[42:00] Andrea: Oh, there are so many of those. Most recently, I've been reading Victoria Lee's A Shot in the Dark, which I've really been like, it is Victoria's first contemporary, and it's like this delightful queer romance. I think it's also her first adult. And it's so outside of what I would normally read or write that I'm just finding so much joy and discovering something new. And because it's a romance, you know that it's going to have a feel good ending despite the turmoil that she is putting the characters through at present, where I am. So even as I am suffering, there is joy in the suffering, like knowing that I am earning my happy ending. So definitely recommend Shot in the Dark. Really fun characters, really tremendous author. So yeah, that is the answer I'm going to give because it's like on my bedside table right now.

[42:57] Marissa: What are you working on next?

[43:00] Andrea: So I have a fantasy murder mystery called These Deadly Prophecies, which technically I finished working on. It is out in early February. So that's going to be nest on the agenda in terms of what I'm working on, in terms of promoting and getting in front of readers and talking about. But if we're talking about what I'm working on as like a project that I'm currently writing, I have a couple of semi secret projects. There's one that I can't talk about right now, but it's probably going to be my fifth novel. It's going to be another fantasy. And all I will say about it is that it concerns Julien magicians. So that'll be fun.

[43:49] Marissa: That does sound fun.

[43:50] Andrea: Yeah, I'm really excited about that one.

[43:53] Marissa: That sounds difficult. Like a heist again.

[43:55] Andrea: Yeah, I think every time I write something new, I pick the most difficult plot structure imaginable. And I'm like, this will be different.

[44:04] Marissa: Magicians. Yeah, right.

[44:06] Andrea: And that one's kind of fun because it's almost like because it concerns like a dueling circuit. And because I'm like a combat sports athlete, I'm like, oh, I can kind of treat this almost a little bit like a sports novel. But it's fantasy. So I think that one is going to be a lot of fun. That is all I can really say on that matter for the moment. But I'm also looking into maybe writing a little bit of adult, a little bit of middle grade. So we'll see where the tide takes us. Awesome.

[44:34] Marissa: And lastly, where can people find you?

[44:38] Andrea: So my primary social media platform these days is Instagram. You can find me under the handle Atang Rights. That's A-T-A-N-G rights writes. And I have the same social media handle on every platform. So I'm also like, it's the same handle on Twitter, even though I'm not.

[44:58] Marissa: Super active on Twitter these days.

[45:00] Andrea: Like many writers after Twitter turned into X and everything got super. Yeah, but you can still find me there. But I think your best bet of getting hold of me is probably via Instagram. And you can also find me at my author website@andreatangwrites.com.

[45:21] Marissa: Awesome. Andrea, thank you so much for joining me.

[45:24] Andrea: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

[45:27] Marissa: Readers, I hope you will check out Kingdom of without. I especially recommend it for you Lunar Chronicles fans who are in need of more cyborgs and revolutions in your life. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore if you can. If you don't have a local indie, you can check out our affiliate store at MARISSAMAYER. Next week, we will be having our very last episode of the year. I cannot wait to talk to Elle Gonzalez Rose about her very charming contemporary. Ya. Caught in a bad fomance. And yes, I had Lady Gaga in my head the whole time I was reading this book. If you're enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and follow us on Instagram at Marissa Meyer, author and at Happy Writer podcast. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing and whatever life throws at you today, I hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.