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IKEA Business Network. I

1:10

became really obsessed with

1:12

how can I make a

1:14

reader belly laugh? And

1:16

I would just go I would just

1:18

write and I would just pray to

1:20

God that I would surprise myself You

1:24

know that I could startle myself with a

1:26

laugh Welcome

1:30

back to working. I'm your host Ronald

1:32

Young Jr. And I am

1:35

your other host Isaac Butler Isaac

1:38

Wonderful to be chatting with you again today as always

1:41

Tell me whose voice did we hear at the top of the show?

1:44

That was Sally Franson. She's a

1:46

novelist her first novel wonderful novel

1:48

called the ladies guide to selling

1:51

out Came out

1:53

a few years ago. She has a new novel out

1:55

called big in Sweden She is also gotta say my

1:57

best friend from graduate school and So,

2:00

you know when your best friend for graduate school has a

2:02

new big novel coming out You gotta invite them on your

2:04

podcast I'm sure you have other reasons

2:07

to want to talk to Sally Franson right now In

2:10

fact, I do beyond the fact that Sally's

2:12

just a wonderful writer. She's very funny. She's

2:14

really joyous She's taught a lot of writing.

2:16

So she has a lot of great craft

2:18

stuff Which I think you'll hear in this

2:20

interview her current novel has a very odd

2:23

Genesis, which is get ready for this

2:25

ready Ronald ready Sally won a Swedish

2:28

reality show competition Where

2:31

Americans go to Sweden to

2:34

like discover their roots. It's on Swedish

2:37

public television It's a

2:39

huge hit over there. She's like a minor

2:41

celebrity in Sweden and This

2:43

novel is about a fictional person going

2:46

on a fictional Swedish reality show about

2:48

discovering your roots and it's

2:50

lovely It's hilarious and I just I just thought everyone

2:52

would get a real kick out of this that Really

2:55

does sound incredible. I'm very excited to hear

2:57

this interview But I'm sure

2:59

you have a little bit extra for

3:01

our slate plus members. Oh,

3:04

yeah, absolutely We we talk a lot about

3:06

reader expectations You know one of the things

3:08

that Sally has grappled a lot with over

3:10

her career is trying to figure out what

3:12

her feelings are about sort of being pigeonholed

3:15

into the quote-unquote women's fiction label and how

3:17

she feels about that and also about the

3:19

kind of tropes and expectations that that carries

3:21

with you and so this this

3:23

conversation that Extrovert is sort of about how

3:26

she's kind of solved that to smuggle in

3:28

the things she wants to talk about Using

3:31

the devices the reader is expecting and

3:34

if you're a member of slate plus you'll hear all

3:36

of that at the end of this episode If

3:39

you aren't it's really easy to join as

3:42

a slate plus member You get to

3:44

hear extra segments on this show and

3:46

others like the culture gab fest and

3:48

Karen feeding the parenting podcast Formally known

3:50

as mom and dad are fighting. You'll

3:52

also get bonus episodes of podcasts like

3:54

slow burn And of course, you'll never

3:56

hit a paywall on slate calm to

3:58

learn more go to slate Okay,

4:02

let's hear Isaac

4:04

Butler's conversation with

4:07

Sally Franzen. When

4:20

you hear a good idea, it's natural to

4:22

do a double take. That's

4:24

what you might do when you

4:26

hear Discover will automatically double the

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cashback you've earned on your credit

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card at the end of your

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first year with cashback match. Wait,

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cashback is something so good you might

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do a triple take. Get

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rewarded no matter who you

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are or how much you

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spend with Discover. See terms

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at discover.com/credit card. Sally

4:51

Franzen, thank you so much for joining us

4:54

on Working. Thank you so much. It's a

4:56

pleasure and a joy to be here. Your

4:59

new novel Big in Sweden is out this

5:01

month in bookstores everywhere. Just can you tell

5:03

us a bit about what the novel is

5:05

about? Yes, it is about

5:08

a down on her luck woman

5:10

living in Minneapolis who in a

5:12

fit of drunken peak applies for

5:14

a Swedish reality TV show, which

5:16

is sort of like the amazing

5:19

race meets finding your roots.

5:21

And to her surprise, she gets cast

5:24

and she launches off for a trip

5:26

to her motherland only to have her

5:28

life turned upside down and her priorities

5:30

reexamined along the way. And spoiler alert,

5:32

this is based on a real life

5:34

experience I had. Yeah, I

5:37

was just about to say this book does

5:39

have a kind of curious backstory. You won

5:41

a Swedish reality show in real life that

5:43

bears a striking resemblance to the one in

5:45

the novel. Can you just tell

5:48

us a bit about that experience? Yes. First

5:50

of all, I will just say for legal

5:52

reasons, it's nothing like my actual experience. Yes.

5:54

Yes. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You'll see that disclaimer.

5:57

In fact, at the top of the book.

6:00

Yes, I went on a Swedish

6:03

reality show also in a fit

6:05

of peak, although not drunken. I

6:07

was having a really hard time

6:09

working on my sophomore novel and

6:12

I wanted to shake things up a little

6:14

bit. My friend Emma Turge, also a novelist,

6:16

said, you should go on a TV show.

6:18

And I said, that is tawdry and unseemly.

6:21

I just might do it. And then I did. What

6:25

was going on with that novel? Why was that novel kind of

6:27

not working? I made a

6:29

classic sophomore novel mistake when after my first

6:31

book came out and the world kind of

6:33

told me what it was, which

6:36

I both agreed and disagreed with. I said,

6:38

I'm resetting my ambitions. It's time for me

6:40

to write the great American novel. It

6:42

will be a treatise on America. It will

6:44

also have some elements of magical realism. It

6:46

will not be funny. And there

6:48

will be fainting goats. And it will be

6:50

a lot about kind of fractured polarities within

6:52

our country. And it will take place

6:54

in 24 hours. And

6:56

I just ran aground

7:00

immediately because

7:02

it's really hard to write a novel

7:04

that feels like homework. You know, you

7:06

have to be so self-motivated to get

7:08

started on something anyway. And I can

7:10

only really write novels if I feel

7:12

like I'm getting away with something. So

7:15

what was it that the world was telling you

7:17

that that first novel was that you agreed and

7:20

disagreed with? It

7:22

did not occur to me that

7:24

I was writing women's

7:26

fiction. It didn't actually

7:29

occur to me that I

7:31

wasn't writing what I thought was

7:33

kind of satirical literary fiction until

7:35

they put a hot pink cover

7:38

on my first book and then sold

7:41

it in bulk at Costco next to

7:43

David Baldocchi. And I was like, whoa,

7:46

you know, like, I didn't think this is what I

7:48

was doing. And, you

7:50

know, in some ways that worked because it

7:52

meant people discovered my work while in line

7:55

at Costco. And then I also felt

7:57

like that was a little

7:59

bit misleading. because while it

8:01

also had a lot of gags and

8:03

was funny, it had teeth

8:05

to it. So if people wanted

8:07

an Emily Henry novel and then went to A

8:09

Lady's Guide to Selling Out, my first

8:11

book, I think they were, in fact,

8:13

I know they were sorely disappointed based on

8:16

the Goodreads reviews. Oh, no, you read your

8:18

Goodreads reviews. No, I did

8:20

pre-pub. I was like, I

8:22

mean, how wonderful. And I remember someone being

8:24

like, Casey Pennergast is so unlikable. That was

8:27

the name of my protagonist. And I thought,

8:29

she is? I

8:32

mean, part of what you're talking about there

8:35

is this interesting, weird aspect of the publishing

8:37

process, which is that there's the book you

8:39

write and then there's the language

8:41

to describe the book you write so

8:44

that the company that has paid you for

8:46

the book can make their money back. Yes,

8:48

I think that's really true. I

8:51

mean, I remember when I first saw

8:53

the galleys of my first book

8:55

and then, you know, saw the

8:57

marketing campaign, I was like, whoa, you

9:00

know, this doesn't feel right. And

9:02

then my agent was like, you know, they're kind of going to

9:05

do what they're going to do. Like, let's just, we're just going

9:07

to have to ride the rapids

9:09

of this and kind of see how it

9:11

ends up, which is, I think, kind

9:14

of, I don't know, there's

9:16

some humiliation involved in that for me. But

9:19

then also a kind of letting go, which

9:21

is a maturation process, you know, where

9:24

I don't get to tell you what

9:26

this is. You know, once it's

9:28

published, it's really out of my hands. And

9:30

I think for a first book, I had a lot

9:32

of kind of gripping around that, and

9:34

now I have a bit of YOLO around

9:36

that. I'm like, you tell me what this

9:39

is. For our

9:41

listeners who actually don't totally know

9:43

this industry, Argo, what is, quote,

9:45

unquote, women's fiction? Women's

9:47

fiction is, well, I mean, it's kind

9:49

of a funny designation because...

9:52

Given that most readers of all books are

9:54

women, right? Right, right,

9:56

right. I think women's fiction is

9:58

story. that

10:00

feature a woman or

10:02

women as protagonists and

10:05

female characters who are undergoing

10:07

some sort of growth arc.

10:09

So there's nothing inherently wrong

10:12

in the genre at all. I mean, I think it's

10:14

the rebranding of a very

10:16

misogynistic term called Chiclet. So they

10:18

tried to kind of take

10:20

it back and mature it, but it still

10:22

feels like this bizarre, you

10:25

know, ghettoization of female stories, especially

10:27

when, you know, you're not gonna

10:29

put any Philip Roth novel in

10:31

a men's fiction section, you

10:33

know, which is about male characters

10:36

undergoing growth. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

10:38

totally. Did you find that, you know, in

10:40

moving on from that book and stuff like

10:42

that, that you had just kind of hang

10:44

ups around that label you needed to let

10:46

go of or? Yes, I

10:48

think I kind of had my

10:50

great American novel in mind because

10:52

I had a lot of internalized

10:54

misogyny around this idea of women's

10:56

fiction. You and I together went

10:58

to a classical MFA program, you

11:00

know, which specialized in literary fiction.

11:02

So that was my training

11:05

and apprenticeship. And the

11:07

way that I kind of wiggled out of

11:09

that trap I set for myself, which was

11:11

rooted in my own shame, you know, I

11:13

don't hold anyone else responsible for that, was,

11:16

you know, I got back from doing this

11:18

reality show, which was a very, very silly

11:20

thing to do. And I said,

11:23

I am going to write the silliest book

11:25

I can think of. And that, you know,

11:27

set me free. I just was like, I

11:29

don't really, if I can

11:31

give people a good time and make people

11:33

laugh, you know, they can put

11:35

a dancing monkey on the cover. I'll go be

11:37

a dancing monkey at book events. Like I'm

11:40

not, you know, how people

11:42

decide to market this is no longer

11:44

my responsibility. I just want to have

11:46

fun and share and

11:48

like make art that delights

11:50

people. Right, right, totally, totally.

11:52

Which is, you know, a

11:54

very different goal from a lot

11:57

of what people set out to do in various

11:59

novels. which I'm not criticizing, I think that's

12:01

wonderful. You and I have talked all the

12:03

time about our love of comedy and the

12:05

importance of bringing joy in. And I know

12:07

we both love like Dawn Powell and other

12:10

very, very funny novelists. What other works were

12:12

you sort of turning to or do you

12:14

think of when you think of providing joy

12:16

to the reader? Yes, I

12:19

went back to two of

12:21

my sacred texts while drafting

12:24

or really outlining Big and Sweetin.

12:26

The first was Nora Efron's

12:29

Heartburn, which is a hilarious

12:32

novel about a very

12:34

dismal real life circumstance, which is that

12:37

her husband left her when she

12:39

was seven months pregnant. And then

12:41

she wrote this incredible revenge novel about

12:43

that happening. And

12:45

actually there is the main

12:47

character of Big and Sweetin, Pauline, is

12:49

in group therapy, which features at the

12:51

beginning of the end of the book. And I stole that, lifted

12:54

it right out of Heartburn because

12:56

the main character there is also in group

12:58

therapy. And then the other sacred texts I

13:00

went back to was Helen Fielding's

13:03

Bridget Jones's Diary, which

13:05

people have conflated rightly

13:08

and wrongly with the delightful

13:10

movies of the same name.

13:12

But that novel is a

13:14

work of comic genius. It

13:17

is on the line level so

13:19

funny. I mean, really,

13:21

really like these one

13:24

liners that are just bracing. And

13:26

I was like, oh, I wanna give

13:28

people something like that where they can lose

13:31

themselves with a first

13:33

person narrator who feels like their best friend.

13:36

And those were kind of my north stars.

13:40

Got it, got it. You mentioned that being on the show

13:42

was ridiculous or that the show was a very silly thing

13:44

to do. The show is out in the world, people can

13:46

watch it, so it's not like there's any spoilers that we

13:48

have to worry about. Can

13:51

you talk a little bit about the silliness of the

13:53

real show and how that inspired you? Yeah,

13:55

so the show is,

13:57

I'm not joking, probably.

14:01

in the top three most

14:03

watched reality shows in Sweden. They're

14:05

Swedish Idol, very popular, Robinson,

14:08

which is Swedish Survivor. And then there's a show

14:10

that I was on called

14:12

Alt for Sveria, which in Swedish means everything

14:14

for Sweden. And the premise of

14:16

it is that these Americans with

14:19

Swedish heritage who have never been to

14:21

Sweden come, they get

14:23

an education in Swedish culture, and

14:25

they compete to win a

14:27

family reunion. So there's no cash prizes.

14:29

And the relatives that you meet if

14:31

you win are like, you know, fifth,

14:34

six cousins, like whoever you related to

14:36

that did not emigrate to America. And

14:38

so the I

14:41

think the reason that it's so silly is

14:43

that it's played very earnestly, right? So like,

14:45

there's like a light propaganda

14:47

at the heart of the show,

14:50

which is, let's show these

14:52

Americans what a wonderful country Sweden

14:54

is, so that they may want

14:57

to move back here and also

14:59

feel ever so slightly ashamed

15:02

of America, which you know, you don't have to convince

15:04

me twice. And then the the

15:06

competition element, which was my least favorite

15:08

part was truly I

15:10

mean, some of the stupidest stuff I've done

15:13

in front of now millions of people, you

15:15

know, it's like playing ring toss, getting

15:18

in an old jalopy and drag

15:20

racing around a dirt track. Watching

15:23

my dignity truly evaporate, I mean, just

15:25

like go away and be like, Oh,

15:28

I guess it is time for me

15:30

to hook a microphone under my bra

15:32

and then sob publicly in a field

15:34

of flowers. And you're like, Yeah, that's

15:36

what I'm doing today. Like, right, like

15:38

I'm so interested in how fast a

15:41

personality can dissolve when

15:43

the cameras are on or just when you're out of your

15:45

own context. Was it faster than you thought

15:47

it was going to be? Oh, yeah, it was like four days. It

15:50

was like, you got it, got it, got it. You only

15:52

could hold out for four days. I think four days if

15:54

you read my journal, it's like, I

15:57

can't believe the difference between the public

15:59

and the private. whatever

20:00

and like the

20:02

advantage of not having phones while we

20:04

were filming is that I was crammed

20:06

into this sprinter van with nine other

20:09

Americans that I could not Google. I

20:11

had no context for who came from

20:13

all of the corners of America and

20:15

I had to meet

20:17

them in the moment as

20:20

we both were and figure out how

20:22

to get along and

20:24

that was radical. That remains one

20:26

of the most radicalizing kind of in the

20:29

best way experiences of my life that you

20:31

know I can really really love and care

20:33

about people that are

20:36

so different from me that

20:38

it seems like we would want to ring each

20:41

other's necks and we did want to ring each

20:43

other's necks you know but I just heard from

20:45

one of my former castmates last

20:47

week. She lives in Florida. She's

20:50

a big MAGA supporter you know

20:52

anti-vax and when we've

20:55

talked about those things it's been very

20:57

contentious but I mean I I really

20:59

love this person right I really love

21:01

this person and that love goes past

21:03

our identities. Yeah yeah and

21:05

you wanted to translate that kind of

21:07

into the fictional world of the book.

21:10

I wanted to translate that because that

21:12

feeling is one of

21:14

the most profound feelings I've ever experienced

21:16

and I don't you know thank

21:18

God fiction is not instructive

21:20

and it's not therapeutic

21:22

except to kind of maybe accidentally

21:25

but it can't evoke feeling and so that yeah

21:27

that exact feeling I was like I really want

21:29

to share this with people. We'll

21:35

be right back with more of Isaac

21:37

Butler's conversation with Sally Franson. This

21:49

podcast is brought to you by Slate Studios

21:51

and SAP. AI is

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24:53

So please tell us your challenges

24:55

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ring at 304-933-WORK.

25:09

Now let's return to Isaac Butler's

25:11

conversation with Sally Franson. Did

25:14

you write the novel and then sell

25:16

it or was it sold off like

25:18

a treatment or an outline or? Love

25:20

this question. We'll talk turkey about a

25:23

process all day long. Thank God I'm on

25:25

this show. So

25:28

I got back from filming

25:30

September 2021.

25:32

My agent knew I was going. I

25:34

called, she called me maybe a week after I

25:36

got back and I was like, Oh, Sally, how

25:38

was it? And I was still kind

25:40

of super wound up from the trip and I was

25:43

like, Oh my God, I

25:45

really know what it means to love people. And

25:47

there are no borders except in our hearts, you

25:49

know, just like really kind of loony. And she

25:52

was like, I think you should try writing about

25:54

this. And I was like, well, what about my

25:56

other book? And she was like, um, yeah, you

25:58

put that aside. She

26:01

didn't like the other one. So

26:05

she was like, why don't you write 50 pages and see

26:07

how it goes? And

26:10

I got out my big piece of butcher paper. I

26:15

covered the floor of my office. I

26:18

wrote an outline very kind of loosely based

26:20

on the emotional beats of the episodes. Not

26:22

my actual experience, but some of the emotional

26:24

beats that I had. I

26:29

had to sell this on spec just with these

26:31

50 pages. And

26:33

so we sent it to two houses

26:35

that had been interested in my first novel. The first

26:38

one said no. And

26:40

then the second one, Kate Ninslet Mariner

26:42

said yes, thank God, because

26:45

I really wanted to write the book. Can

26:48

we talk about this big piece of butcher paper on the floor

26:50

of your office part of the process a bit? Yes.

26:53

I feel like... I

26:56

like how you just offhandedly said, you know, I got out my

26:58

big piece of butcher paper. You know

27:00

how you do. Every writer has their big piece of butcher paper

27:02

they use to cover the floor of their office. I

27:05

started this with Ladies Guide. I don't know where

27:08

I got the idea, but

27:10

I wanted...one of the things I really

27:12

battle against... I wonder if

27:14

you feel this way, Isaac, with being a

27:17

writer is I absolutely hate that it can

27:19

become a cerebral experience. I feel

27:21

like to create an emotional

27:23

experience for someone else, it

27:26

has to be in some part

27:28

a physical and physiological experience. So

27:31

the butcher paper has

27:33

become kind of a

27:36

cheat into that physiological experience by,

27:38

you know, really covering

27:40

probably, you know, like a 10 by

27:43

8 foot area and

27:46

then getting out my Mr. Sketch markers

27:48

or Sharpies and just starting to draw.

27:50

And I'll color code like green

27:53

is for character and red is for setting, all

27:55

of that, kind of where I want the book

27:57

to go. And I love

27:59

that it can be... so messy

28:02

as a recovering perfectionist, you know,

28:04

where it's okay that it looks

28:06

like I'm trying to hunt

28:09

down the zodiac killer, like it's better if it

28:11

looks like I'm trying to hunt down the zodiac

28:13

killer because it means that you

28:16

know, it can be this big sprawling

28:20

chaotic beautiful mess before it

28:22

has to get translated so

28:25

rudely into linear characters and

28:28

fluctuation. That's wild. No, I love that. I

28:30

love that. I'm probably two in my head

28:32

and then I start like my,

28:34

the closest I come to that is handwriting

28:36

instead of typing. Yeah. Like when I'm trying

28:38

to brainstorm or whatever I hand write, I

28:40

often hand write the first chapter of something

28:43

or if I'm blocked on a piece of

28:45

writing, I hand write it and a voice

28:47

comes out of that. I've noticed like it's

28:49

just it's weird. It's just physically a different

28:51

experience and it unlocks something. It

28:53

does. Well, because you were trained as an

28:55

actor too and were in the theater so

28:57

long. Well, directing you think in three dimensions

28:59

with other people. I mean, it's very weird.

29:02

It's like you don't, I mean, you do

29:04

a lot of thinking on your own, but

29:06

the most important thinking is like out

29:08

loud in front of and

29:11

with other people using everyone's bodies. It's

29:13

like a very strange experience.

29:15

Oh, I love that. Well, that reminds

29:17

me another thing I did while after,

29:20

so after I sold Big in Sweden, I had

29:23

maybe nine months to get a

29:25

draft back to my editor. So

29:27

it was a crisp timeline

29:31

and I became really obsessed with

29:33

how can I make a reader

29:35

belly laugh, right? How can I

29:37

go from like my

29:40

body crawling around on the floor

29:42

to linear text to a

29:45

bahaha, you know, from a

29:47

reader. And so I took several

29:49

classes with Christopher Bayes, the

29:52

clown teacher at the Yale School of Drama, because

29:55

I think I was interested in picking up

29:57

some of your kind of acting skills. Like

29:59

what What can happen in me physically

30:02

where I can really feel

30:04

free to be that vulnerable, to be

30:06

that silly and ridiculous, and make myself

30:08

laugh that hard with

30:10

the hopes of trying to pass

30:12

on that kind of anarchic energy

30:15

to a reader? Were

30:17

those over Zoom, I assume, since you live in Minneapolis

30:19

and he's in New Haven or New York or whatever?

30:21

Yeah. So, yeah. So,

30:23

he lives in Brooklyn, his studio is in Brooklyn.

30:25

And because we are on the tailwind of COVID,

30:28

he was still running Zoom classes too much with

30:30

my great good fortune. So, I was able to

30:32

take classes with him all through the fall of

30:34

2022. And

30:36

he's in the acknowledgments. I mean, I

30:38

think he's a comic genius. And

30:41

what was the style of clowning?

30:43

Was it like, lakak, physical storytelling

30:45

work? Or was it like juggling?

30:49

No, no juggling. It

30:52

was physical

30:54

work in the body that led

30:56

to emotional work in the body.

30:58

So, I think really his project

31:00

is opening up the

31:03

aperture of your body and

31:05

your heart wide enough that

31:08

you and your audience can

31:10

be moved, surprised, shocked, and

31:12

then open to those really

31:14

big baha belly laughs and

31:16

maybe some of those big

31:18

boo-hoo tears too, which he

31:21

says the baha and the

31:23

boo-hoo are like linked

31:25

inextricably in our bodies. I

31:28

heard one actor say that the way they

31:30

cry on cue is they like exhaust

31:33

all of their breath. And then that can

31:35

literally become either laughing or crying at the

31:37

tail end. You just sort of decide which

31:39

one it is. I tried it, it didn't

31:41

work. But for them, that was like literally,

31:43

because laughing on stage or on camera with

31:47

the appearance of spontaneity is almost as hard

31:49

as crying on cue. They're both very difficult

31:51

things to do. Right? I believe

31:53

that. When you're laughing at something that's not necessarily funny

31:55

to you anymore. Right. Right. And

31:58

so there I know at least one. one actor

32:00

who would agree with that physical idea that

32:02

they're both sort of the same impulse just

32:04

taken in different directions. Oh, I

32:07

had never actually thought about how hard it must be,

32:10

especially for a film actor where, you

32:12

know, in a close up, like how

32:14

do you have that look spontaneous? So

32:16

in the exercises that I would do

32:18

with Chris, you know, he would lead

32:20

us through these physical warm ups and

32:22

I would find that border place between

32:24

laughter and crying and I would sometimes

32:27

go back and forth between those two

32:29

and I just thought that was incredible.

32:31

And then the other thing

32:33

that he taught me to

32:36

do was he runs this exercise and it's

32:38

called the flop and then your job in

32:40

the class is to go up and to

32:42

try to do something really well and fail

32:45

at it and

32:47

you have to really, really try so that you can

32:49

really, really fail and, you know, it's

32:52

totally humiliating even though the stakes are so low. But

32:54

I was alone in my office on a Zoom of

32:56

12 people, all actors, I think

32:59

it was the only non actor and

33:02

the vulnerability of that I realized was,

33:04

you know, I'd been hiding from that

33:06

for my entire life, my entire career

33:09

and it became so funny. You

33:11

know, the harder that I was crying as I

33:13

was, I don't even remember what my thing was

33:16

that I flopped at, but the harder I laughed

33:18

or the harder I cried, the more people laughed

33:20

and it wasn't malicious, you know, it was like,

33:22

I see you. That is so

33:24

human. You're not hiding from me anymore. I

33:27

love you. And I even

33:29

get goosebumps remembering that, you know, like that's

33:31

the kind of emotional timbre I want to

33:33

be working in. Not wit. I think I'm

33:36

over wit in terms of I don't want,

33:38

I don't need to, I hope I don't

33:40

have to prove anymore that I'm, I'm clever

33:42

and have a good sense

33:44

of humor. You know, I want to get underneath

33:46

that to this. So

33:50

how does, how does that kind of physical

33:52

work translate into words on the page? Yeah.

33:55

I mean, like torturously. I

34:01

think the way that it worked

34:04

some of the time, not all the

34:07

time, was I treated

34:10

my writing period like

34:13

a physical acting session where

34:15

sometimes I would be walking, you know, I

34:17

have a treadmill underneath my desk or I

34:19

would be standing, right? And I would put

34:21

on like athletic clothes and I would kind

34:24

of, you know, do some like

34:26

stretches, I get my body going

34:28

and I would just go, I

34:30

would just write and I would

34:32

just pray to God that I

34:34

would surprise myself with a

34:37

laugh, you know, that I would surprise myself

34:39

with a line or something that I wasn't

34:41

going to try to construct, you know, something

34:43

clever, but that I could

34:45

startle myself into a new way of seeing, right?

34:49

A new metaphor or

34:51

a new understanding of a character or allowing

34:53

these characters to be in the novel, to

34:55

be as unruly as they really are. And

34:58

sometimes that really worked, you know, feeling

35:00

like I was stumbling upon something that

35:02

wasn't my kind of super ego or

35:05

ego wasn't responsible for. And in those

35:07

moments I was like, yes, you

35:09

know, I'm cooking with gas now, baby. What

35:14

is it like to write a

35:17

novel that you've sold,

35:20

you know, versus Ladies Guide to Selling Out,

35:22

which you wrote in its entirety, if I

35:24

remember correctly, before I went to market with

35:27

it. What, what other than

35:29

the very tight timetable, because nine months seems

35:31

insane to me. How

35:33

were those experiences different? I

35:38

think a first novel has such energy in

35:40

its own right or first book I'll say,

35:42

you know, it's like you, I

35:44

feel like I had spent my entire

35:46

life gearing up to write Ladies

35:49

Guide and I put the entirety

35:51

of everything I thought I knew

35:53

about the world into it. Just

35:55

like, you know, so I feel like there,

35:57

I had so much. I

36:00

had a lot of wind at my back making that because

36:02

I feel like I had a lot of

36:04

things I wanted to say. I had

36:07

a lot of energy and ambition. I wanted to

36:09

prove to myself and other people that I could

36:11

do it. And then, you know,

36:13

what I thought was going to be my second novel, that

36:16

really stalled out because I didn't have that same energy. I

36:20

think for me, writing

36:22

to a deadline and with an

36:24

editor in mind was really helpful.

36:27

And feeling like I was ever

36:30

so slightly under the

36:32

gun, you know, I felt like I

36:35

had from sometime in the summer to I think January

36:37

of 23 to get my draft in. And

36:41

I was like, oh, I don't know

36:43

if I could do this. But I

36:45

like that feeling. Especially for writing comic

36:47

fiction, right? Where there's, you

36:49

know, the speed of comic fiction is

36:52

faster than, you know, a drama.

36:56

And I felt so purposeful.

37:00

I felt like, oh, now it's time for me to

37:02

go do my job. And I

37:04

felt like it's so hard sometimes to

37:06

think that a novel matters, you know,

37:08

and I was like, well, it

37:10

matters in the sense that I'll get in trouble

37:12

if I don't do it. And I liked that

37:14

feeling, too. I mean, I liked school. I liked

37:17

having homework. Yeah, I mean, my version of

37:20

that is that I feel like I've sort

37:22

of lost the ability to write on spec.

37:24

Yeah. Because I pitch an article before I

37:26

write it. Right. I'm not like writing an

37:30

essay, which comes from the French

37:32

for to try the mind as

37:34

a hawk swooping around the topic,

37:36

you know, or just

37:38

free writing. Like, that's just not how I do

37:40

it anymore. You know, like it's a job. I

37:42

mean, it's many other things, but one of the

37:44

things that is is a job. And

37:46

it's very weird for me when I

37:48

don't have a deadline or whatever to

37:51

like free write in the morning

37:53

or whatever. Like, I just I just have so much trouble

37:55

doing it. I, my friend

37:58

from my childhood. friend

38:00

said, you know, like when

38:02

you're not working on a book, are you writing for

38:04

fun? And I just laughed in his face. You know,

38:07

I was like, why?

38:09

Right. Whereas during grad school, I wrote every, I mean,

38:11

literally seven days a week for three years. Do you

38:14

know what it is? Like I just wrote every, you

38:16

know, I just wrote it all the time because yes,

38:19

trying to learn how to do that. You're trying to learn

38:21

how to do it. Yes. Your

38:24

first novel is

38:26

in the sort of long adaptation

38:28

phase for the screen. And I know you've

38:30

thought you've taken playwriting classes, thought about screenwriting,

38:33

stuff like that. How much of that, not

38:35

that you're writing these for the purpose of

38:37

being optioned. I'm not, I'm not talking about

38:39

on a mercenary level. I just mean flitting

38:42

between those worlds. How has that kind

38:45

of shaped your craft and process as

38:47

a fiction writer? You know, whether

38:50

it's from being in

38:53

that world, and I didn't, by the

38:55

way, even know what an option was

38:57

until honestly, probably two weeks before my

39:00

first book came out. I mean, it just

39:02

really hadn't occurred to me, but I feel

39:04

like my consciousness is so shaped by movies

39:07

and TV, which I love. I

39:09

mean, I know you do too,

39:12

Isaac, but like, I just, I

39:14

really love visual storytelling. And like

39:16

now that I'm further along into

39:18

my career, I see, you know,

39:20

IP, IP, IP is just like

39:22

the name of the day. And

39:24

so like, does that

39:26

kind of worm into my consciousness?

39:29

Sure. But what I

39:31

feel faithful to first and foremost is

39:33

being able to tell a great story.

39:36

And a novel

39:38

is the way that I think I can do

39:41

that best because of my skill set. And

39:43

because like, I have so much creative

39:46

control in a novel, you know, if

39:48

you start writing like a spec script

39:50

or whatever, like a, probably no one's

39:52

gonna make it. And B, everyone starts

39:55

coming in three pages out

39:57

of the gate with their notes, you know, and

39:59

to have some and publish a novel. Of course,

40:01

you're still running a gauntlet, but you need a

40:03

lot fewer people to say less, and you

40:07

need a lot less money. And so I

40:10

think those worlds, for me, they

40:12

really feed each other, because

40:14

I love movies and TV, but my

40:16

fealty is to fiction for sure. Right.

40:18

It is wild how little creative control

40:20

people have in the film world.

40:23

For my friends who are screenwriters, I'm like, what?

40:25

I know. I know. Pray for me that I get a little

40:28

bit more creative control with Big in

40:30

Sweden, not Gunwood. I

40:32

pray for you.

40:35

And I'm also so grateful

40:37

to you for coming on the show

40:39

and talking about your process. I love

40:41

the book. I love you. The book

40:43

is very much you, and it's

40:46

just great to talk to you about it. Oh, thank

40:48

you, Isaac. This has been just a treat,

40:50

and I could talk to you about process

40:52

and anything all

40:54

day. Up

41:03

next, Isaac Butler and I will talk

41:05

more about reality television, butcher paper, and

41:07

adapting projects from one medium to another.

41:10

Stick with us. Thanks

41:49

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A-M-I-C-U-S, wherever you're listening

43:31

now. Mr.

43:35

Isaac Butler. I absolutely

43:38

loved that interview. Sally's

43:41

premise for writing a book comes from a

43:43

wild place, being on a reality show. And

43:46

I am old enough to remember when

43:48

reality competition shows first started, and the

43:51

big ones like Survivor, The Amazing Race, and

43:53

Big Brother were typically the shows that everyone

43:56

was talking about being on. Personally, I was

43:58

a survivor guy. and desperately wanted to get

44:00

cast on that show. What about you, Isaac?

44:03

Have you aspirationally wanted to do reality television?

44:05

And if you had to choose a reality

44:07

show, which would you choose to be on?

44:10

Well, first of all, I have to say, this might

44:12

blow your mind, I've never seen a single episode of

44:14

Survivor. I've never watched it. Come on, man. So if

44:17

you were to tell me, like there's

44:19

the town council or something and you hold a

44:21

stick. Tribal council, stop it. Whatever, okay, so yeah.

44:24

It's a torch, not a stick. What's wrong with

44:26

you? All right, all right. You

44:28

know, these are the ones that I watch.

44:30

I'm not saying this because I have dignity.

44:32

I'm not like, oh, I'm too big to

44:34

have watched Survivor. I've watched multiple seasons of

44:36

the real world road rules challenge, my friend.

44:38

Yes, that's my show. Whoa, really? So, you

44:40

know, yeah. Yes. I haven't watched

44:42

in a long time, but in my 20s,

44:44

when I was underemployed, I watched a lot

44:46

of the real world and the road rules

44:49

and the real world road rules challenge. The

44:51

one show, the one reality show, as you

44:53

know from previous episodes that I'm absolutely ride

44:55

or die for is Top Chef. Top Chef,

44:57

yes. If I could be a

44:59

guest judge on a Top Chef episode or

45:01

even just like the guy in the corner who

45:04

occasionally makes jokes and then is like, these scallops

45:06

are gritty, you know, when they're having dinner,

45:08

I would love that. Of the

45:10

big ones, the thing that I think I

45:13

would have the most fun doing or would maybe

45:15

be the best at, even though I'm not sporty,

45:17

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is the amazing race,

45:19

I think. Because my wife and I are both

45:22

kind of project managers at heart, producers at heart,

45:24

and I think we would be good at that

45:26

kind of problem solving and also we've

45:28

been together long enough that like one of us, if

45:30

one of us gets a little snappy with the other

45:32

because we're tired, it's like not actually that big a

45:34

deal. Now, did you ever have

45:36

a fantasy of going on the real world? Did you

45:38

have one of those where you like, maybe I'll apply

45:41

to be on the real world people? I actually auditioned

45:43

to be on the real world. Oh, which season? I

45:46

don't know which season it was because all I know

45:48

is it was a season of the real world and

45:50

it would have been, they weren't specific about where it

45:52

was going to be, but it was

45:54

sometime before they did the Washington DC season,

45:57

which is right around when it started getting really, bad

46:00

and they had to start adding gimmicks to make it

46:02

better and all that like real world and then halfway

46:04

through the season all your exes move into the house

46:06

like when they started doing stuff like that. Oh

46:09

yeah so I wanted to

46:11

be on the real world but I remember when I auditioned

46:14

I was unwilling to

46:16

do what other people who were auditioning

46:18

were willing to do which was be

46:21

combative in a group interview

46:23

in order to make themselves stand out and I

46:25

was like I know I'd be great on the

46:27

real world but if this is what it takes

46:30

to be on the show then I don't I don't think I really want to

46:32

be a part of this. Incredible. So

46:36

I loved your question about the butcher paper

46:38

and the casual way that Sally mentioned using

46:40

it to write her outline. I think all

46:42

of us probably have things that work for

46:45

us in terms of getting our writing or

46:47

work done but for me anytime I have

46:49

to do some serious reading I must leave

46:51

my apartment to do it. Local coffee shop

46:54

at the pool just somewhere outside of my

46:56

regular environment actually gives me the energy I

46:58

need to concentrate and read. Do

47:00

you have any unusual habits that you

47:02

do in order to get work done?

47:04

What's your equivalent of butcher paper? Well

47:07

sometimes I feel like I'm the most normie writer on earth

47:10

because I don't have any like I spread out a big

47:12

butcher paper on the ground or I do an interpretive dance

47:14

or you know I what

47:16

was it Robert Bly did I go into the

47:18

woods with the drum and you know strip off

47:20

all my clothes or whatever.

47:22

This is going to sound a little

47:24

pretentious. I read this interview once

47:27

that it was a very long time ago that

47:29

David Foster Wallace did for McSweeney's and

47:31

at one point he was talking about how

47:33

all of his work habits are about outpacing

47:35

his own laziness and desire to procrastinate. So

47:37

for the purposes of that interview like his

47:39

workspace at that time was like the floor

47:41

of the children's section of his local library

47:43

because it's just like he just he would

47:45

just work somewhere until he got too used

47:47

to working there and then too able to

47:49

figure out how to procrastinate in that space

47:51

and then he would move on to somewhere

47:53

else and I feel like I have something

47:55

similar to that except it's like a cycle

47:57

like I work at home until I can't

47:59

work at home anymore. Then there's a one

48:02

or two coffee shops I go to and I work

48:04

there until I know all of the staff and we're

48:06

just talking about their lives. Then I go back home

48:08

for a little bit and then I find a new

48:10

place. And like, that's kind of how it works. The

48:12

most butcher papery thing I do, and I mentioned this

48:15

in the interview, is hand write. Whenever I'm stuck on

48:17

a piece, just like whenever I

48:19

have writer's block or whenever I haven't figured out the

48:21

voice yet or whatever it is, I

48:23

just start handwriting the piece

48:25

on a piece of paper because something's gonna come out

48:27

of that. There's something about the physical act of doing

48:30

that that I find really powerful and it just bypasses

48:32

a lot of, I don't know

48:34

the weird bottlenecks in my brain that

48:37

my mom who was probably listening

48:39

to this probably thinks that's hilarious because I have

48:41

terrible handwriting. I learned how to type when I

48:43

was eight years old. She taught me how to

48:45

touch type. And I type like 95 words

48:47

a minute since

48:50

I was 10 or something and I have the handwriting

48:52

of a second grader. It's crazy

48:54

and my wrists cramp up quickly. I

48:57

should not be handwriting, but that is the thing I do

48:59

to get my cell phone stuck. I

49:01

love that idea. Some people say go for

49:03

a walk, but you're essentially taking- That's another

49:05

great one. Yeah, but you're essentially combining both

49:08

because you're taking your hands for a walk along

49:10

the paper and they're also actually getting writing

49:13

done, which is a good idea. Yeah,

49:15

totally. I also find I go through periods

49:17

where literally it's like the computer is the

49:19

problem. And so if I just am writing

49:21

on my iPad in a Google

49:23

Doc, I can get more work done than I

49:26

can on the computer, even though I'm not really

49:28

using either for anything procrastinatory. It's just, I don't

49:30

know, it's just weird. You just have to keep

49:32

changing it up and making it fresh, especially

49:34

when you're doing a long haul

49:36

project like a book. Yeah, that makes sense.

49:40

Something has to change or else, at least if you're me,

49:42

you get bored. I get it, I get

49:44

it. And that resonates with me. You

49:46

asked the question about adaptation and

49:48

this idea of writing the thing or writing

49:51

the thing for it to be optioned for

49:53

something else, like a television show or a

49:55

movie. How pervasive do you

49:57

think that idea is are

50:00

currently writing and creating new work.

50:02

I know that personally I always

50:04

think about my project in every

50:06

possible form simply because in terms

50:08

of financial stability long-term adaptation

50:11

makes life easier but how

50:13

do you think this idea is impacting creators today?

50:15

Is it good or bad? You

50:18

know I don't think it has to be

50:20

either good or bad. I think you know

50:22

it's just a fact of life. Everyone

50:24

has to be making a living and writing

50:26

pays worse now than it has in any

50:29

time in the last 50 years right? So

50:31

if you're writing and particularly if you're writing

50:33

stuff where the genre is quote-unquote commercial and

50:36

I'm not again that's descriptive that's the how I

50:38

mean that right? Obviously it's gonna

50:40

be in the back of your mind somewhere. I

50:42

have had two pieces of mine optioned this year

50:44

one was a book and one was an article

50:47

and in both cases that just came as a huge

50:49

surprise you know I was like why does oh someone

50:51

once thought they see a movie in this or a

50:54

play in this or whatever it is and

50:57

it's nice. But

51:00

I really wasn't I really wasn't thinking about that.

51:03

I think that there is a negative

51:05

side of it that we have started

51:07

to see play out more

51:10

in industries than an

51:12

individual people's work. So for example

51:14

you know lots of magazines

51:17

want to get into the having their

51:19

stuff optioned for a miniseries game and

51:21

so you see a big uptick in

51:24

weird true crime stuff right? Yes. And

51:26

that wouldn't be a problem because there's great true crime

51:28

out there except sometimes it feels really under baked. Yes.

51:30

And you're like oh this under baked true crime thing

51:32

exists so that it could be optioned for a podcast

51:34

and it's you know a miniseries and

51:37

a this and a this and a that and

51:39

that's what they're really caring about here. And

51:42

I think the other place where I've seen it

51:44

a lot and this is because of my science

51:46

fiction fantasy book club is in that world. I've

51:50

really felt in

51:52

a way that is hard to describe that

51:55

work published in the last five years has

51:57

much more been leaning into here. here are

51:59

the recognizable tropes, here are the things I

52:01

am doing. Like there is somewhere in the

52:03

back of that person's head you can just

52:05

tell there is the possibility that it could

52:08

be optioned. Whereas if you look at like

52:10

1970s sci-fi, right, when

52:13

no one would possibly imagine that

52:15

a Samuel Delaney novel was going to

52:18

get optioned or whatever, it just wasn't on

52:20

people's radar. And so they're really thinking of

52:22

the book as the final thing. And that

52:24

is really where their attention is going. So

52:27

I think it can have negative connotations, but I

52:29

also don't think there's any shame in it. You

52:32

can still do great work while thinking about, oh,

52:34

you know, if this got turned

52:36

into a TV show, that would be awesome. You know,

52:38

there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I think having

52:41

an eye to the pipeline is not a

52:43

bad idea, but you're right. I'm now seeing

52:45

a lot of work where the

52:48

whole job was the pipeline. Like the

52:50

whole job was creating, you know, a

52:53

relatable character that you can see on

52:55

television more than it was like a

52:57

dedication to the story. Because

53:00

if the story is good, it'll adapt. Yeah,

53:02

totally. But like, if you're just writing, thinking

53:04

of only the pipeline, I

53:06

think you're hamstringing your characters in some cases.

53:09

Well, I mean, the other thing, and you and I

53:11

were talking about this off mic earlier today, I mean,

53:13

the other thing is like, what pipeline right now? I

53:15

mean, that's the other, it's like you never know what's

53:18

gonna happen. I mean, maybe, you know,

53:20

everyone I've talked to in TV is like,

53:22

no one has any idea what's going on

53:24

or what the future holds or what people

53:26

wanna see, right? It's like the movie field

53:28

is contracting, publishing is contracting, podcasting is contracting.

53:31

Everything's contracting right now. So for

53:33

all you know, particularly when you're working on, you know,

53:35

a book, spending three years working on a book or

53:38

whatever, the industry is gonna look totally different by the

53:40

time the book comes out than it does right now.

53:42

So your primary consideration always has to be making

53:45

the best work of art that you can. Agreed.

53:50

That's about all the time we have for

53:52

this week. We hope you enjoyed the show.

53:55

If you have, remember to subscribe wherever you

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get your podcasts, then you'll never miss an

53:59

episode. And just a reminder

54:01

that by joining Slate Plus, you'll get

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54:11

more, go to slate.com/Working Plus. Thanks

54:13

to Sally Franson and to producer Cameron

54:16

Drews. Cameron, I promise we would never,

54:18

ever eliminate you at our

54:20

Survivor Town Hall. Tribal council!

54:23

We'll be back next week with Ronald

54:25

Young Jr.'s conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning

54:27

cartoonist Darren Bell. And until then, get

54:29

back to work.