Why We Love Heists and the Benefits of Co-Writing - Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka - Heiress Takes All

Marissa chats with the husband-and-wife writing team of Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka about their latest YA adventure heist novel, HEIRESS TAKES ALL. Also discussed in this episode: the process of cowriting and the division of labor that resembles a marriage, carefully and consciously casting a heist book’s ensemble of characters, benefiting from each other’s writing strengths, the benefits of having a cowriter for marketing and events, and so much more! 

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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. One thing that is making me happy this week is that the girls and I have been learning about plant propagation through stem cuttings, which is a really fancy way of saying you like, cut a stem off a plant and stick it in soil, and then six months later you have a new plant. And I don't know this. I have done this with, with my house plants a number of times. For some reason, it never crossed my mind you could do it with plants in the garden. But I recently heard that this was a way to. You could use this technique to grow more hydrangeas. And I love hydrangeas. And many, many years ago, I saw a picture on Pinterest of this garden that had like a whole hedge of hydrangeas in full bloom. And it was one of those pictures that really stuck with me as, like, I would love to do that, but hydrangeas cost like $50 per plant. And so I, it just always seemed out of reach. But now I know that I can turn my one hydrangea bush into many hydrangea bushes. So thank you, science and Pinterest and the Internet for teaching me these tricks. And the girls and I spent all morning preparing our pots and taking our cuttings. And we've got root growth hormone, and we're really like sciencing it up here. And that was our school day for today. And fingers crossed. Fingers crossed that here next year, I will have many cute little hydrangeas growing in our garden. If it happens, if it works, I will take pictures. I'll post them on Pinterest. I am also so happy to be talking to today's guests, high school sweethearts turned married co writers. They are the authors of ten romance novels for both teen and adult readers, including the roughest draft. And do I know you? Their newest novel, Eris takes all, came out earlier this month. Please welcome Emily Wibberley and Austin Sigmund Broca.

[02:30] Emily: Hi. Thanks for having us. We're so excited, thrilled to be here.

[02:34] Marissa: Thank you so, so much for joining me. I just have to let listeners know that you are tuning in from the airport on your way to a book event as we are recording this, which that is dedication for your production schedule.

[02:50] Austin: Well, it's also love for your podcast. Miss it.

[02:53] Emily: And it's a very fun way to spend time in the airport. I must say.

[02:58] Marissa: That, because you could be like sitting in a bar, having a glass of wine, and instead of talking to me, oh, no, we'd much.

[03:04] Austin: Rather learn about plant propagation.

[03:06] Emily: Yes.

[03:08] Marissa: That's what people really tune in for, is like my homeschooling hacks and gardening techniques. I am so delighted to talk to you. I have so many questions about, just, like, this whole scenario, the, the high school sweethearts to husband and wife, to co writers. I am fascinated by this. You're actually my second set of married co writer guests, but you're the first who has been doing this for a long time. I'm just so curious to hear all about the process, about all the things. So to start, tell me how this came about. Were you both always aspiring writers? Was it really one of you that was like, let's give this a shot. Like, how did this come about?

[03:58] Austin: Yes, to all of that. You want to tell a time?

[04:00] Emily: Yeah. You know, we've been together since high school, so we weren't really, like, aspiring anything back then. We were just trying to graduate. And I think that I didn't have a very clear idea of what I wanted to do at all. And then we stayed together throughout college, and I just fell in love with YA novels in college. And, I mean, like everybody, I was reading Fangirl and to all the boys, and all of these books were just, like, getting me through college. And so when I graduated, I also handed all these books to Austin, of course, and he happily devoured them.

[04:33] Austin: I did.

[04:33] Emily: And we just started. I was writing, trying to write on my own, and I would bounce ideas off Austin. And one day I asked him if he wanted to just collaborate.

[04:43] Austin: And, you know, this was the best question in the world to me. I had always wanted to be a writer in some capacity. I studied journalism in school and wrote some fiction and did some screenwriting, and it was always something. Telling fictional stories is something I've loved for as long as I have been conscious. My mom is an elementary school librarian, and so telling stories, particularly exciting stories and ones full of joy and suspense and for young people in particular, has always been important to me. So I get out of college, and Emily's happily writing YA novels, and the more we start speaking, the more I start thinking to myself, this would be the greatest collaboration in the world. This would be so, so exciting. And so, of course, gently offered my input when requested. And finally, when she said, why don't we just work on this together? It was a dream come true.

[05:32] Marissa: And so that was really the very start, wasn't it? Had either of you written or completed a manuscript prior to working together on one?

[05:43] Emily: Not really. I mean, we wrote one, our first one together, and we queried that one, and it did not lead to success.

[05:51] Austin: And so we decided, you know, let's, let's outline something from idea to finished manuscript together. And it was an incredible process. We did it in a few months, and that became the book that got us our agent and eventually became our debut. So, yeah, that was the true beginning.

[06:06] Marissa: Wow. So only two books in, and then you were sold.

[06:09] Austin: We got very lucky.

[06:11] Marissa: Yeah, that's, that's amazing. You don't hear that too often. Okay. And then, and that's been the process ever since. Like, have either of you ever, um, tried to go off and do solo work or you're just like, this just is working for us.

[06:26] Emily: Yeah, we, it would be like cheating on each other. We would never, I mean, also, like, we really do depend on each other a lot. We, like, value what the other one brings to our books. And we joke that we each have half of a brain, and so together we come, we have the full writer brain.

[06:46] Austin: Have to put the brain together.

[06:47] Emily: Yeah.

[06:47] Austin: I wouldn't ever want to do it separately. You know, it's like Emily brings so much skill that I just as far surpasses my own in so many areas that it's very reassuring, very exciting to know that it's. I've got an idea that we both love. You know, I get her hands on it as well.

[07:03] Marissa: Mm hmm. No, I love that you say that. The, the whole, like, we are each half of a brain. I actually read something. What was it? It was, it was like an article, and I can't remember what the whole point of the article was, but at one point, it talked about how when you're in a marriage, it really is like you have each have half of a brain because you just fall into these roles where, like, one person in the couple, it's their job to remember birthdays, and it's their job to make sure that the groceries get bought, whereas the other person, their responsibilities include making sure that the car's oil gets changed or the filters in the house, air conditioning, or you just kind of figure out, here's what I'm going to handle, and that's what they're going to handle. And so, and I was talking about how when, when one person in the couple passes away or there's a divorce or a separation, that it really is like, you have to learn how to brain anyway, which I thought was just a really fascinating way to think about marriage, and I don't know how relevant that is to, like, overriding, but it.

[08:13] Austin: Seems that's exactly what we do.

[08:15] Emily: Yeah, it is. We also learn from each other too. Like, we see, we each have things that we more specialize in when it comes to our books. And over the years that we've been doing this, we have watched each other in their spheres and tried to absorb that information. So I feel like we're doing the learning while we're collaborating.

[08:36] Marissa: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So I'm really curious. So for you, is there a distinction when it comes to the steps of writing a book or the responsibilities, certain tasks involved? Are one of you the outliner? Is one of you the researcher? Like, how do you divide the work?

[08:58] Austin: That's exactly how we divide it, actually. I mean, it's. It's something that one learns the more one does serious writing, that it's. It's kind of like. It's kind of like a sport like baseball or something, where, like, it's actually a bunch of different skills bundled together. And to say you're, like, good at baseball really means you're good at hitting or running or fielding. And so we divide these up, and we have kind of spheres of influence. Emily has always been much more the plot structure, the outliner, both as far as the overall arc of the story, but also the dialogue, the scene level, the surprises at the end of each scene. And I get to benefit from that enormously because it develops the ideas when I'm not looking and because I get to learn that skill. And then I tend to favor writing the prose and converting those outlines into the pages of the book a little bit more. And that's, you know, it's. It. I really feel like we view each other in high regard as far as both of those skills, and it's what makes the partnership go.

[09:54] Marissa: Mm hmm. Okay, and then take me through, like, your day today. Are you sitting in the same room, like, look, reading over each other's shoulders, or, like, do you, do you tackle a chapter and then pass it to. How does the nitty gritty of it?

[10:12] Emily: Yeah, you know, it's funny because it actually just changed. But for the first ten books we wrote together, we really wrote it in the same room. And, like, I had an outline, we brainstormed together, and then I make an outline, and then I would say to Austin, like, hey, here's this outline. And we would go back and forth with each sentence and picking out each word until we were satisfied, and we would type it into the computer, and that was. It was. We liked the products that we made, but it was very slow. It had a lot of conflicts because we could disagree on just, like, tiny word choices and bog everything down, just, like, you know, and, like, the more that you're, like, deep into it, the more those tiny word choices really matter to you. And, like, if you put a magnifying glass on it and, like, it creates a bigger conflict than if you were just, like, reading it, you'd probably be like, that doesn't matter. It's fine.

[11:01] Austin: It's fine.

[11:02] Emily: And so we. We did that for ten books, and then we decided that it would be more economical in terms of our, like, time and maybe even better, because we wouldn't, like, fight as much if we more divided it up and kind of did more of an iterative approach where, like, I do a long outline, and then Austin does a first draft, and then I edit that first draft and put my thoughts into it. We kind of go back and forth until we're satisfied.

[11:30] Marissa: Well, that's actually one of the questions that I wanted to ask was, how has the process changed over ten years, ten books? And I think that that's, like, a huge one. That's. I'm not sure how much a process could change more than that, but it makes so much sense.

[11:50] Emily: Yeah. Parts of it remain the same. Like, the way we brainstorm is the same. We each kind of contribute parts of an idea, and we don't have a finished idea until the other person has, like, added an element to it. And when we edit, we do a lot of that together. We talk out the ideas, we go through the document together, and it still.

[12:09] Austin: Reflects a fundamental division where one of us sort of more favors the structural part and the other weighs a little bit more heavily on the stuff on the page. And that's important for how we resolve conflicts, which. Not that we resolve conflicts particularly well, but we do now. But what helps is that there are sort of big areas where we can sort of say, look, I defer to. You're the. You're the person in this respect. Like, you've got the knowledge. I should trust you.

[12:36] Marissa: Yeah. No, and that's another thing I'm really interested about, too, is, you know, because that's. There are, of course, pros and cons. Pros and cons to being, you know, fully 100% in charge, and pros and cons with having a partner and someone to bounce ideas off of and someone to, you know, tackle half of the work. But, of course, one of the cons is that you're not fully in control. You both have to be satisfied with every decision. So how do you solve those conflicts? Like what? Do you have any strategies that you've adopted?

[13:09] Austin: Yeah, I mean, you know, honestly, just sort of to preface, we agree on way more than we disagree on, and this should seem like a foregone conclusion, but it's really not. We like all the same books and movies and tv. We like stories for the same reasons. We admire the same things in plots that we feel are executed particularly well. So a lot of the time, if somebody advances an idea, the other's going to say, oh, wow, yeah, that is great. As far as the parts where we conflict, it's a lot of deferring to the other's stronger skill set in one area or other. And when that doesn't work, sometimes we just trade off.

[13:46] Emily: Yeah, just say, you got that? It's my turn.

[13:49] Austin: It's my turn.

[13:50] Emily: Or we barter. We'll be like, I'll trade you this thing if you'll give me this one.

[13:54] Austin: And that reflects an understanding that we're trying to develop, you know, that is applicable to life, too. Like a lot of these things, as Em said, they seem like they're under, they're really important when you're negotiating that specific point, but it helps us to sort of remind ourselves to zoom out and think about that. A lot of these choices are actually pretty micro.

[14:14] Marissa: And I can imagine, too, that you kind of talk about where you defer to each other, or you say, like, okay, I'll give you this one, but I want this one. Because naturally there's just going to be things that one of you might care about more than the other, you know? And it's like, well, I would prefer it this way, but clearly this is really important to you, so I'll let you have it. And. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And it sounds kind of just like being married.

[14:41] Austin: It is, exactly. It's very similar.

[14:43] Marissa: Yeah. Okay, well, let's talk. This is one of those interviews where I'm like, I'm so interested in this that I'm like, we should probably actually talk about the book at some point. You do have a new novel out. It just came out. Would you tell listeners about heiress takes all?

[15:02] Emily: Yes. So heiress takes all is a ya heist novel about a disinherited heiress, a 17 year old disinherited heiress who decides to get revenge on her horrible father by pulling a heist at his third wedding. And she assembles a crew of classmates, maybe a former teacher and has to fend off ex boyfriend who is in the bridal party and lots of other scheming relatives.

[15:27] Marissa: All right. So when this was pitched to me, I got so excited, in part because I just love heist. You put heist in the description, and I am all for it. But that made me curious as I was preparing for this interview. Why. Why heist? Why are so engaging to us?

[15:48] Austin: Yeah, I mean, you know, we likewise, we are huge fans, and this was an idea that was, you know, pretty different from some of our others, and we. We knew we needed to write it. We just, like, loved it so much. You know, there's. There's a lot wrapped up here. There's characters who are sort of always one step ahead and. And think faster than us, and we're sort of racing as the reader to figure out what, what, you know, what they're trying to engineer while we stay one step ahead. We found this as we were plotting out the book, that it was like we were planning the heist ourselves. And I think that every reader loves the feeling of seeing something that really could happen actually come together on the page.

[16:30] Marissa: Emily, what about you? What do you love about heist?

[16:33] Emily: Oh, man. I think it is just like, I think the crew, it's a lot of fun. You get a lot of inter crew dynamics. Everyone has their own motivations. And so you're wondering, is this crew going to come together? Are they going to fall apart? And it is just a lot of, I feel like there's just a lot of creativity that has to go into, like, coming up with a heist. And so you want to see, like, what is this gonna look like? And how is. How is these characters. How are these characters gonna pull it off? It's just, it's like a little mystery.

[17:01] Marissa: Mm hmm. No, I think. I think that's those. That phrase. How are these characters going to pull this off? Is probably, for me, like, one of the biggest elements of a heist. And it's a little bit of watching people who are smarter than me come up with really brilliant plans. But it's also, as a reader, knowing that things are going to go wrong, you know, and there's always that question of, like, oh, but this isn't actually. It's not all going to go according to plan, so how are they going to adapt? And I think that's so much fun. It's so fun.

[17:39] Austin: It was for us. Yeah. It was like, we weren't, we weren't just planning one heist. We were actually planning, like, three heist.

[17:45] Emily: Yeah, because how does it go?

[17:46] Austin: Because we have to figure out what it looks like at these different stages when the paradigm has shifted in a way that our character, of course, didn't predict. Because where would be the fun in that if she could?

[17:55] Marissa: Mm hmm. All right, so you've mentioned that Emily is more of the plotter, the outliner. What was it like clauding the heist? And then when you went from outline to drafting, were you able to kind of stick to the outline? Because I have it in my head that for some reason, I feel like a heist novel, which I have never written myself. It seems like one of those where you would start with a plan and then it would fall apart just like in the actual story.

[18:27] Emily: Yeah. You know, like, so for most of our books, like, we. I mean, for all of our books except this one, really, we. We are really diligent outliners, and we really follow the outline because that's part of the co writing is if you're. You can't just go off into separate directions, then you don't have a coherent book anymore. So we really try to stick to the outline that we've come up with. But for this, as you're saying, like, we. I, you know, I plotted the outline out after our brainstorming. You know, Austin came up with, like, we should have a baker in the crew, and he would come up with these pieces, or, like, this could be a twist later on. And so I would take those pieces and be like, okay, how do I build a puzzle around these couple pieces? We already have? But as we got into the drafting, we did start coming up with, like, well, we could throw this French into things and. And add another twist or add this other complication. And it did get more twisty.

[19:20] Austin: Yeah.

[19:20] Emily: And it was fun to do that. It kept it fresh.

[19:23] Austin: We kind of. Kind of kept trying to outdo each other in terms of, like, coming up with cool twist or, like, you know, no, this could be. This could be even one step better. And that was, that was what was actually harder than things falling apart in the drafting, which, you know, we. We tried to stick to the outline as close as we possibly could, but just kept pushing ourselves.

[19:42] Marissa: I love that. That sounds like one of those big pros of having a co writer, that motivation to, like, be better. How can I be better?

[19:52] Austin: And two brains coming up with surprises. I know I said it was just one brain put together. It was really like we were trying to surprise each other. And when we did, so, that was the best feeling, being like, wow, like, that's like, I wasn't even thinking about that.

[20:06] Emily: Yeah. We use each other as, you know, the first test audience and be like, is this gonna work? Is this cool?

[20:11] Austin: Yeah.

[20:12] Marissa: Yeah. No. And there are a ton of surprises in this book. It is definitely one of those books where, like, you throw a lot at us, a lot of twists, a lot of, like, dynamic relationships happening and people who are working together that you didn't know. There's just a lot of that which was really fun. Were there things or were there moments in writing where you kind of backed yourself into a corner and then were like, well, now what do we do?

[20:42] Emily: Yes, absolutely. There's a part at the end where, like, they're about to get caught. And, like, I know when I read other people's books and they put these characters in these positions, and I'm like, okay, this is. How is the author going to get out of this one? Like, they have made this an impossible situation to get out of, and it's so riveting. You're like, okay, I have to see what's going to happen. And we're on the other side of.

[21:03] Austin: That, let me tell you.

[21:04] Emily: We're like, well, we got to figure out how they're going to get out of this. They're about to get caught. And it was, it really was challenging but really fulfilling at the same time. It's a lot of fun to try to figure out what is the one piece that if you move slightly, it can unlock everything.

[21:20] Marissa: Mm hmm. So what do you, what do the two of you do? Like, do you go and go out to dinner and, like, let's figure this out. Do you have.

[21:28] Austin: Yeah, a lot of the time I do that or, like, a dog walk or something. We'll, we'll just, it really helps, actually, to brainstorm this, this stuff out loud. Out loud. Because oftentimes the other is thinking not just, like, of new ideas, but on sort of, like, a totally different direction than the other of, like, where do we, you know, a different, a different resource to draw from, a different type of inspiration to connect there and kind of be like, wow, I wasn't, I wasn't even thinking on those lines.

[21:52] Emily: I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure lots of writers experience that sometimes just talking about, like, a plot hole or issue that you have helps you figure it out. Like you're explaining it to a friend or, or somebody, and as you're talking, you're starting to understand the problem. And that really, we do that all the time as we're explaining issues to each other. We're sort of figuring it out, but on the, it's just a little bit easier because the person we're explaining it to does already have a lot of the content.

[22:18] Austin: Right. Already knows.

[22:19] Marissa: Right. No, that's such an excellent point, because I do think that we've all or most of us have experienced that we're just talking through it. Even if you're talking, like, to a cat or a brick wall, verbalizing it does trigger something. I know my husband who never has any idea what I'm working on or any context whatsoever. I'll sometimes try to kind of explain what it is, what the problem is that I'm running into so hard to be learned.

[22:51] Austin: Okay, let's start at the beginning.

[22:53] Marissa: I promise you're not getting it right. And he's so good. He tries so hard to be helpful. And I'm like, sure, none of that works.

[23:05] Austin: We do that, too.

[23:06] Emily: Yeah.

[23:06] Marissa: Yeah. Calling all authors and book marketers. If you're looking to increase sales, there's a marketing agency that specializes in optimizing and advertising on Amazon. Amplify Marketing Services was founded by Franklin, who has been in the book business for more than 20 years. Amplify has promoted over 30,000 books, and they invest millions of dollars each year in Amazon ads. Head to Amplifymarketers.com to explore their free articles, or set up a free meeting with Franklin. That's amplifymarketers.com dot. Do you want an encouraging writing community with critique partners twice a month? Masterclasses, opportunities to be in an anthology or connect with literary agents, valuable publishing advice, and more? Then you have to check out the Red Herring Society. It's a monthly mastermind group hosted by savvy best selling authors Mary Weber and CJ Redwine. And by using code happywriteredherringwriters.com comma, you can try the first month for free and start elevating your career today. Again, that's code happywriter@redherringwriters.com. dot okay, you also mentioned one of the things that we love about heist, and I 100% agree with this, is the cast of characters. You know, there's, there's something, and I'm sure somebody has written, like, a one person heist, which, I don't know, I guess maybe mission impossible or kind of like one person heist ish or James Bond. Kind of.

[24:53] Emily: Yeah.

[24:55] Marissa: But, but for me, there's so much at the draw of the heist is the cast, the ensemble, these very different personalities coming together and also the skills. And here, you know, we've got the baker, we've got the hacker, we've got the driver, we've got, you know, everyone has a role to fill, and it's just so fun. It's fun watching them have to work together. It's fun having them have to problem solve together. So one thing that I'm curious about is what came first, the characters or the heist? And then have to figure out, okay, what kind of characters do we need to pull this off? What was the order there?

[25:37] Emily: That's a great question, because we actually very firmly came the crew first and then the heist. We knew that there was going to be heist at a wedding, so that, like, that was already from the first sentence we ever said about this book, was a heist at a wedding. And when we were sitting down to brainstorm what this pitch would look like, we came up, we were like, oh, what are. Who are our characters going to be? And of course, we knew our main character, the mastermind. We came up with a love interest. We came up with the villain, her father. And then we were like, let's take some people for the crew.

[26:07] Austin: Come up with a great crew.

[26:08] Emily: And so for the example, like Austin said, we should have a baker because it's a wedding. And that just seems intuitive.

[26:13] Austin: And I just wanted there to be, like, at least one non traditional high school.

[26:17] Emily: Right, because it's a ya novel. Like, let's make it, you know, it's be fun. And we sat there and we're like, how are we going to make a baker relevant to this heist?

[26:26] Austin: It forced us to come up with one of our favorite platforms.

[26:29] Marissa: Yeah.

[26:30] Emily: Would you recruit a baker? And so asking that question, why would you recruit a baker? Gave us the first stages of the heist because we had to answer that. And then when we answered that, that came up with, okay, well, the issue is this, and therefore, we need to make that a barrier that our characters have to deal with. And that for each character, we kind.

[26:49] Austin: Of came up with the puzzle in reverse.

[26:51] Emily: Right, puzzle in reverse. Like, this is what they're going to bring, which means this is what they're up against.

[26:55] Austin: They were really fun to come up with because we wanted to sort of like Deontay's baking. We wanted to make sure that they were unique ya spins on the typical heist rules. We didn't just want to, like, go down the checklist of getaway driver, et cetera, et cetera. We wanted to make sure that they reflected what felt like teen archetypes or had a relationship to the youth of the characters, and that our swaggering decoy tomorrow is like a drama kid, and you know that archetype. And if they have a getaway driver, what kind of a getaway driver is a group of 17 year olds going to have? And hence McCoy was born. And so it was fun to come up with them as characters, and then the plot sort of constructed itself from there.

[27:34] Marissa: All right. I am particularly intrigued by McCoy. He's one of my favorites. I really. I love the whole cast. I don't even know if I could choose a favorite. But what I love about McCoy is that he's not a teenager. And so many, you know, ya heist, of which I love so many ya heists. But that's kind of like, the inclination is it has to be a group of teenagers. And here, like, let's have a mid twenties something teacher.

[27:59] Austin: That was Emily's idea. She's like, there's to be one random adult here.

[28:03] Emily: It would be funny, and you would have this outsider who is trying to hang out with these teenagers and, like, not be, like, creepy, but also, like, trying to be cool. But he's not cool. Cause he's older.

[28:14] Austin: He's actually more hapless than a lot of them in most ways that he's long on the wisdom.

[28:19] Emily: Of course, it helped. He actually said from the beginning, let's have a former teacher be in there. And then we were like, well, actually, that makes a ton of sense because there are some spheres in a heist that a teenager simply doesn't have access to. And so it made a lot of sense that Olivia would recruit somebody who could pose as a security guard. You can't get a 17 year old to convincingly pull that off. And so it helped build her heist and, like, build the realism a little bit of the heist. If people are like, oh, a bunch of dangerous Campbell heist, it's like, well, there's one adult, so we use them.

[28:50] Austin: When we need them.

[28:52] Emily: But it was also just a lot.

[28:54] Marissa: Of fun, and it's also worked so well. You know, McCoy kind of becomes a foil for the rest of the characters and for Olivia specifically, because it's like, on one hand, you look at this group of teenagers and this one adult, and the logic tells you, oh, he must be the responsible one. He must be the one. But really, he's one of the weakest links. And it's like, it just elevates everybody else.

[29:22] Austin: We wanted him to be. Yeah. A foil for. For both the teens and for the adults, because, of course, there's, like, there's a. There's a deep revenge message encoded in all of this. And. And Olivia's attitude and her relationship to the adults in her life is very much informed by a contemporary dynamic where teenagers righteously have a lot to be upset with and feel put upon and robbed by those who have more money and power and influence in them. And so we wanted McCoy to represent an adult figure who was on the right side of it in a couple ways. He is actually kind and caring and looks out for them and isn't necessarily the most influential person in their group, but has compassion that represents a sort of hope for people like Olivia.

[30:06] Marissa: Do either of you have a favorite of the cast?

[30:09] Austin: It's really hard.

[30:11] Emily: Kevin, for me, really enjoy.

[30:13] Marissa: I love Kevin.

[30:14] Emily: I do.

[30:15] Marissa: He's hilarious.

[30:15] Austin: He's a real winner.

[30:16] Emily: Yeah, we really. That one was one that we kind of said, well, what if somebody gets, you know, they're teenagers. Somebody wants to hang out with them while they're pulling a heist? And so are you going to recruit this person or try to or be mean to them and send them away? So he was a lot of fun, and finding ways for him to be useful was a challenge.

[30:37] Austin: Yes. Which we just reified into humor.

[30:40] Emily: Yeah.

[30:41] Austin: We love Kevin. He was a ton of fun to write, and we love when people say, I was really annoyed by him at the start, because our philosophical approach to Olivia is that she's somebody who the rest of the world undervalues and wouldn't expect this kind of smarts and ambition and cunning and determination from. And so we wanted to model that experience for Olivia herself and for readers to see somebody and write them off as one kind of person, and then as you see what they can do and what's in their heart, you kind of look at them differently when it.

[31:14] Marissa: Comes to character development. Is one of you more the character master, the characterization guru? I'm not sure really how to say that. Is that very much a team effort?

[31:29] Austin: I'd say it's actually pretty, pretty team effort.

[31:32] Emily: We come up together with, like, when we come up with an idea, we then come up with, okay, well, what is this character, and what is it that they, you know, want versus need?

[31:41] Austin: Right.

[31:41] Emily: And that is where we start. And then, of course, when I'm outlining, more layers come out because you need more things to play with in the full course of the book. But that central, like, what is the. Like, the inner conflict in this character is something we work out together.

[31:58] Austin: Yeah. And, you know, it comes. Emily does a lot of it in the outlining because it's so fundamental to why characters do the things they do. But I do believe it's a team effort in that when you're writing them on the page, their thoughts, their reactions, the little nuances to the ways they do things, people's character comes out that way, too. And so sometimes the deeper, you know, and fuller picture of their psychology emerges only in the prose.

[32:23] Marissa: All right, we've talked a lot about outlining and drafting. What about revision? How do you tackle revisions as a team?

[32:32] Emily: It's. I honestly don't know how people do it without a writing partner. It's so, like, I feel very spoiled. I think that once you've gone into, like, writing with a co author, it's, like, very hard to go back because you can kind of, especially if you have a co author who likes doing the parts of a job that you do not like, it's very hard to give that up. So I do not really love to do a revision. I find it really hard to go in and, like, mess up the threads that are, like, already there and then have to, like, smooth them out again. I find that so hard, and Austin is really good at that, and so I rely on him a lot for that. How it usually works is that. I'll say, like, here is the note we got. I think this is a way we can address it, but I have a hard time actually, like, implementing that. It overwhelms me to go into the book and do it, you know, I see.

[33:17] Austin: It's very helpful for me, the other direction, because I get to get assigned stuff to do. Emily sort of points me in a direction. This is what we need to do. And then, yes, I'm very good at the surgery, but it's helpful to sort of have the idea.

[33:28] Emily: All the authors out there who write by themselves, I salute you, because it is. I don't know how you do it all between, you know, all the passes of the. That you do of the manuscript, reading it so many times. We can trade that off, too. We can get a fresher set of eyes, and it really is, I think, a benefit to us personally that's so, so interesting.

[33:49] Marissa: And it's very true that, you know, for a lot of writers, you tend to have writers that prefer drafting and then some writers revising, and it's, you know, just separate ways of thinking of the art or whatever.

[34:04] Austin: Yeah, we're no exception. It's just we get to rely on the other person for the part we don't like. Yeah.

[34:09] Emily: So all those, like, people who want to co write out out there, like, find out if you're somebody who likes drafting, revising, and then find somebody who likes the other.

[34:16] Austin: Build out your team. It's like moneyball.

[34:18] Marissa: Step one.

[34:20] Emily: Yeah.

[34:20] Marissa: Oh, my gosh. So. But then I'm also curious. So, okay, you say, Austin, we need to do x, y, and Z. Austin gets in the manuscript. He tackles these chores. Do you ever then go in and be like, ah, no.

[34:36] Austin: This thing.

[34:36] Emily: How could you do that? Constantly?

[34:38] Austin: That happens at the end. Always.

[34:40] Emily: Every time he does something, I then go in and I'm like, I have notes on it. And we go back and forth. Everything is. We've gone over, like, everything probably three or four times. Every time we make a change, it's just a constant negotiation. And I think that it gives us our final drafts, or even our first drafts is really, like, our fourth draft, because we're not ready to let anybody see it before leave each like it.

[35:06] Marissa: Yeah. Well, and I cannot imagine, because for me, I'm one of those writers where I like to make my manuscript as clean and pristine and complete as possible before I give it to my critique partner or my editor. When I. When Joanne and I, my social media guru here on the podcast, she and I co wrote a middle grade that's coming out this fall, and that was the first time I'd had the experience of, like, write a chapter, let somebody else read the chapter and give feedback and edit the chapter. And it did take. You know, we had to adapt to that because that's a really scary thing to be. Like, I'm not really ready.

[35:50] Emily: Don't judge it, but it's very vulnerable. Yeah.

[35:53] Marissa: Scary.

[35:54] Emily: Yeah, it is. You have to really trust your collaborator because you're putting something out there that is. They're. They're literally going to critique it. That's their job. And it's.

[36:05] Austin: I try to just focus on the relief of it. Like, yeah, that's one way to look at it. But, like, honestly, the way I choose to put it into my head is like, oh, thank God I only have to do 90% of this.

[36:16] Emily: Like, somebody.

[36:16] Austin: Somebody else will fix all the things I screwed up.

[36:19] Emily: And I don't know if you've experienced this, too. Also, beyond revision, the huge benefit of having a co author that we find is all the emotional parts of writing a book, the highs and the lows are shared. And anytime there's so much rejection in this business, and anytime we face rejection, we have somebody to pick us up. But more than that, we know how much we believe in each other, and so if you're getting hard on yourself about a rejection, it's easy to be like, well, wait a second. Like, I don't think that he deserves to feel that way. So, like, why should I?

[36:54] Marissa: Yeah, no, that's a really good point. We talk a lot on this podcast about the importance of having your people, having a group, a network of authors, writers, people you can, like, bounce ideas off of, but also just to support each other. And that's a huge, so important part of this career. And, yeah, you guys have, like, a. You built in support system.

[37:16] Austin: Yeah.

[37:17] Marissa: No, that makes a lot of sense. All right, and then my last, like, co writing question, because the other, like, huge part of the career equation is going through the publishing channel and promoting a book. How do you go about splitting those tasks?

[37:40] Emily: We really do split them. So we do find a huge advantage to it.

[37:45] Austin: We can totally just share the work. I mean, it's similar in that there are skills that each of us have that the other is lucky to benefit from. I take a lot of the photos, and then Emily writes the Instagram captions, just for example. And as far as promotional assignments, pieces of writing and stuff, we trust each other enormously to characterize our partnership and the. The book well, because, you know, we both understand it so intimately, and so it's really just a benefit to get to sign these tasks out and then read something the other's written and say, wow, okay, that's great. Sign it off.

[38:18] Emily: Yeah. And we can do the other parts too. So much of being in the community is going to events and meeting other authors, and I'm much more of a shy, introverted person, and Austin's really unafraid to just, like, walk up to someone and introduce himself, and we really take advantage of that and stick to our strengths. And we've met so many wonderful friends, and I feel like I wouldn't have met them if I didn't have somebody willing to make the introduction for me.

[38:49] Austin: It's kind of you.

[38:50] Emily: Yeah.

[38:51] Marissa: You're really selling this co author thing.

[38:53] Emily: It's great.

[38:54] Marissa: It really sounds fabulous.

[38:56] Austin: There's no other way we would ever do it.

[38:59] Emily: Yeah.

[39:00] Marissa: Oh, that's so great. And actually, I was curious at one point if either of you had any ideas or plans of ever going and doing any solo work, but it sounds like the answer.

[39:09] Austin: We really do.

[39:10] Emily: We've actually written a book with a third author, so we.

[39:13] Austin: Yes, we like co writing so much.

[39:17] Emily: We have a pen name fantasy coming out in the fall that we wrote with Bridget Morrissey, and that's how much we love co authoring.

[39:26] Marissa: I am also curious about that. So it starts to sound like too many cooks in the kitchen.

[39:33] Emily: It's.

[39:33] Austin: You know, we have had a long running group chat, and it's helpful to think of the brainstorming process as similar to the group chat. We just. Each of us is offering ideas, and we all like the same kind of stuff.

[39:45] Emily: There's non division in that one. It is multiple povs, so it's not. We don't, like, have a say in what Bridget writes and vice versa. Whereas when Austin and I write together, it is like one voice. Like, we write everything together with. With our three collaborators. It is. Each. Each gets a chapter.

[40:03] Marissa: Interesting. Now, and I can see how that would work, dividing the povs. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I'm intrigued. And I do just back up just a little bit because I was just thinking about you guys being in an airport, ready to go to a book event, and as just one more benefit to having a co writing partner to be on book tour, there's so much pressure to being the center of attention to giving events, giving speeches. Q and a, all of this. Do you sit down and come up with a presentation together in advance, or kind of. What's your strategy there?

[40:48] Austin: We have done so when called upon, but, um, for. For events, for questions and stuff, we, you know, we've talked about this book for years as we hammered out every single detail, and so it comes very naturally to, you know, to sit up there and treat it like a conversation almost between each other sometimes, because that's what we've been doing for every dinner for 15 months.

[41:10] Emily: Yeah. It is nice to feel like you, when you're doing an event, you're not alone up there, and that you, no matter what, like, know you'll have a good rapport, like, with each other. Right. And so we can. We do events by ourselves a lot, and it doesn't feel, like, as much pressure when it's as if you were just one person kind of launch your book by yourself.

[41:30] Marissa: Right? Yeah. No, and that's. That's really interesting because I know there's a trend in touring right now where if an author is on tour, then a lot of times, you know, we'll try to find another local author at that tour stop who can, like, interview us. Right.

[41:45] Emily: Yeah.

[41:46] Marissa: And so that's a really common way of doing it so that you don't feel like you're just alone on stage. That's so much pressure to have to come up with a speech and a presentation. But it would be different that, I mean, you're not, like, really interviewing each other.

[41:57] Austin: You're like.

[41:58] Emily: We do. You do sometimes the opportunity to kind of just, like, ask the questions that we might not have asked without. Without the excuse.

[42:07] Austin: Yeah, it's a good forum.

[42:08] Marissa: Interesting. Do you ever, like, try to trick each other? Like, trip each other up? Like, which of the scenes that I wrote do you dislike the most?

[42:18] Austin: We should start doing that. It's always fun when we like. Very occasionally, though, the other's response will surprise us to something. And that's always a fun moment.

[42:27] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be fun. All right. Are you ready for our bonus round?

[42:34] Emily: He's dead.

[42:36] Marissa: What book makes you happy? And I'll let you decide who wants to answer this first here.

[42:42] Emily: Like, all books.

[42:44] Marissa: All books.

[42:45] Emily: Okay. I can pick one. So I would say Emily Wilde's encyclopedia fairies, a recent read of mine that made me really happy to read.

[42:53] Austin: That's a good. That's a good choice. I'm actually going to say a book for much younger people, which is Artemis fowl, which has been on my mind because it is about a young mastermind. He's obviously quite a bit different from Olivia in a number of ways, but I remember feeling like, when I was an unathletic kid in elementary school, this morally ambiguous hero who was super smart was very inspiring.

[43:16] Marissa: What are you working on next, other than this three co writer? Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that and what the book is. But I'm also curious if you have any other work between the two of you in the pipeline.

[43:29] Emily: Yes, I think we can share that. We are working on the sequel to Eris takes all.

[43:34] Marissa: Oh, yes. All right. I was wondering, because you're very excited at the end that there.

[43:39] Austin: Yes, it's the setup that is set up at the end. And it's our first sequel that we have ever written in ten or eleven books or so. And so it's been very difficult but also really wonderful to get to spend more time with these characters.

[43:55] Marissa: Nice.

[43:56] Austin: And then, yeah. We have our co written fantasy with Bridget Morrissey. This will be fun coming out in September.

[44:02] Marissa: And is it a high fantasy?

[44:04] Emily: Yes, it is. It's called this will be fun.

[44:08] Marissa: Lastly, where can people find you?

[44:11] Emily: Best place to find us is on instagram. I'm Wibs Inc. Ink. And then through me, you can get to Austin.

[44:18] Austin: Yep. I'm Austin. S b. Easy. Unlike my last name. Yeah, that's where we do a lot of our everything.

[44:24] Marissa: Do you guys not have, like, a co.

[44:28] Emily: We asked, like, when we got our first book deal, we're like, should we do this? And our publisher was like, no, just say individuals.

[44:34] Austin: Not sure what the logic was, but it's been fine.

[44:36] Emily: Yeah.

[44:36] Marissa: Okay. No, that makes. I'm curious about that, because written all of your books together, it seems like a natural fit to do it together. And also, like, promotion can be such a headache. Why would you want to have two?

[44:49] Emily: I know, I know. We've just, we're just following the instructions we were given and here we are.

[44:55] Marissa: Oh, that's funny. I'm sure they thought that at some point, like, at some point they're going to want solo careers. Clearly.

[45:00] Emily: Yeah.

[45:00] Austin: We do wonder.

[45:01] Emily: We weren't, you know, we were just dating. Anything could have happened back then.

[45:04] Marissa: Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay, well, I guess I can see the logic then, but in hindsight. All right, wonderful. Emily Austin, thank you so much for joining me today.

[45:16] Austin: Thank you.

[45:16] Emily: Thank you for having us. This has been so much fun, and.

[45:19] Marissa: I'm glad that it worked out at the airport. There's no interruptions.

[45:23] Austin: Worked out great. You haven't heard anybody's gate assignment called, have you?

[45:29] Marissa: All right, readers, be sure to check out Eris takes all. It is available. Now. Of course, we encourage you to support your local indie bookstore, but if you don't have a local indie, you can check out our affiliate store@bookshop.org, shop Marissa Meyer next week, I can hardly contain my excitement. I am going to be chatting with Tomi Adeyemi about the conclusion to her best bestselling legacy of Orisha trilogy, children of anguish and anarchy. Please don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app and follow us on instagram. Happywriterpodcast. Until next time, stay inspired, keep writing, and whatever life throws you today, I do hope that now you're feeling a little bit happier.