Episode 30: Conversations on Building Characters with Nick Thacker

Cassie Newell (00:17)
Welcome to episode 29. I'm Cassie Newell and I'm here with my co-host Angela Haas. And this month we're doing a character study where we are looking at what it takes to create a character that readers will love. In this episode, we're talking about characters we've written and diving into our processes. All right, Angela, it's a heavy topic and you, my friend, are the queen. I love your characters. So first of all,

Angela Haas (00:42)
Yeah. ⁓

Cassie Newell (00:47)
Who is your favorite character you've currently written? Do you have a favorite? You have to pick a favorite.

Angela Haas (00:51)
I probably, yeah, I probably,

shouldn't have, I shouldn't say this, but it's my sidekick in my superhero series and his name is Elliot S. Driver. And he, he was kind of a reader favorite too, an editor favorite. And he just took over for me. He was so easy to write because he's the comic relief guy.

Cassie Newell (01:11)
Have fun.

⁓ okay.

Angela Haas (01:20)
And I could

just picture him and how he talks and how he moves and who he is. And part of me is a little upset that, well, I won't give away that spoiler in case you haven't read my book one, but his ending, I kind of itching to rewrite, but I'm going to bring him back in a different story because I loved him so much. But he's the perfect example of a side character that takes over.

I was having so much fun writing him and then I left my main character the focus of the entire book. My editor was like, okay, well, we love Elliot, you know that your protagonist is an emotionless blob. Do you understand that? I'm like, ⁓ really? Okay, I guess I got to get on her. So yeah, he is my favorite. What about you?

Cassie Newell (02:02)
Yeah.

I love that. I think

every writer has that editor that's like, okay, on your secondary character, they are secondary, right? I've had that happen too.

Angela Haas (02:14)
I see what you're doing. Yeah.

She was like, you've,

yeah, she's like, you've got Elliot nailed, we love him, what about your protagonist ⁓ emotional wound? And I was like, ⁓ I guess, I guess I better do that.

Cassie Newell (02:30)
Yeah.

Whoa, so fun. Whoa, so fun.

Angela Haas (02:37)
Yeah, who's your favorite that you've written?

Cassie Newell (02:40)
I think she's my favorite because she was my OG for writing and kicked it all off. And that's Willow Warrington. She was my main character in my series, The Unwanted Series, and starts off with book one in magick. And the reason I wrote her, it was really interesting at the time. Now this isn't, it was published in 2016, you know,

To me, there wasn't a lot of female characters that could rescue not only themselves, but the male interest as well. That was my total purpose for her. And I mean, she, as we talked in a previous episode, episode 27, she has some breakdown moments, right? Things aren't going well. She has a fight with her love interest because he's basically ghosted her after a very traumatic event that he's dealing with.

Angela Haas (03:17)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (03:37)
but you don't ghost people, people. You need to talk and communicate. ⁓ So yeah, I wanted this female to represent a number of different things. And I think I pulled it off pretty well. ⁓ Also with growing up in high school, your friends that you think are your rock in high school do not always carry over into adulthood. So I represent that also. ⁓ Yeah.

Angela Haas (03:40)
Right. Right. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (04:07)
I think she's like always going to be like my OG favorite. And by the way, fun little Easter egg. I am a huge Buffy the vampire slayer fan. And that's where Willow's name comes because she's also a Wiccan. She's the Wiccan queen. And so yeah, that's where her name comes from. So that's always fun. People are like, you like Buffy? I'm like, yes, I did. Huge Buffy fan. I even have the comic books.

Angela Haas (04:16)
Of course, Avi.

⁓

Cassie Newell (04:36)
So ⁓ yeah, loved Buffy, but yeah, that's my favorite.

Angela Haas (04:40)
Awesome. That is so awesome. Yeah, I like my side characters better. They're a little easier. ⁓ Even in the romance, the side characters took over and now they're gonna get their own holiday romance. And so it's like.

Cassie Newell (04:49)
Yeah.

but they should cause

they're awesome. And even I was like, I would read that. Maybe I shouldn't be one of your alpha readers. I'm awful. I'm like, I want to read that.

Angela Haas (05:03)
I just, don't know why the side characters, no, I want you to. That's why you

should be my only alpha reader. No, I think, I wonder why it's so easier to write side characters. I think there's not as much pressure on them. And so for me, they just sort of come out. And I think sometimes when I am not thinking about how perfect I need to make them because they're sidekick.

Cassie Newell (05:14)
haha

Yeah.

Angela Haas (05:31)
I just write with abandon. And then there's so much more that goes into writing the protagonist or the leads that I kind of write the sides first and then go back and layer in. because I just had to, especially ⁓ Stella Walsh, who is my first superhero character in First Strike, I had to just

Cassie Newell (05:45)
Really? That's an interesting process.

Angela Haas (06:00)
make her two-dimensional to get through it. Because the side characters were easy. I created Gary, my emotional robot. I wanted him to have just this really basic Earth name, but he is... And the sci-fi bros would not agree with me, but I just kind of was like, well, we're going to download a emotion like updates for him. And so he's going to be a little more emotional. And he, I don't know, I just...

Cassie Newell (06:13)
Mm-hmm

Angela Haas (06:27)
He was so much fun to write because he also is the perfect like counter character to my Finneas Rex who's the captain and I had so much fun creating them. But that's because my strength as a writer and my Clifton strengths that's the test we refer to for those of us maybe joining late. It's a Gallup personality test and

Cassie Newell (06:28)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (06:54)
It helps you as an author because it shows you where your strengths and where some of your not so strengths, I don't like to call them weaknesses because we make it all work for us. But my number one strength is strategic, which means I'm a problem solver, which means that I'm constantly just putting the plot together as a puzzle piece. Now, my number two strength is individualization and that helps me create characters. But all my emotion strengths are way at the bottom and that's

Cassie Newell (07:19)
Mmm.

Interesting.

Angela Haas (07:23)
I

wish I would have known that as I was fighting myself writing First Strike because I really struggled with the emotional depth of Stella, even though I could see her and I knew who she was. She's a surgeon, so she has sort of a rigidness about her personality and a God complex and I could see all that, but I had trouble bringing her emotion through. Whereas like I was just having a ball. Now when I was...

Cassie Newell (07:45)
Interesting.

Angela Haas (07:50)
with the side characters. I was having a ball writing the side characters. Now with Rachel Kicklighter who was the main character of my romance, that was a little easier because I could weave some of my own experiences into hers. We've all had a terrible breakup. We've all had an ex that was awful. And I could just be like, well, I really love potatoes. So so does Rachel.

Cassie Newell (07:52)
I did too.

right.

Angela Haas (08:18)
I those are like the, I'm not dealing with superhero powers. I was just like, what does she like? What does she not like? How does she talk? She was easier, What about you? are some, have you ever had a character that just was like challenging you to write? And how did you fight through that?

Cassie Newell (08:19)
Yeah.

know, challenging wise, I mean, so speaking of Clifton strengths, my number one is relator. So characters come pretty natural to me. And I can mimic character personalities super easy. Once I'm in their head, like it just speaks to me. I know that sounds odd when writers say, the character led me but it's like, you just know them so well, it helps to write them.

Angela Haas (08:43)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Cassie Newell (09:03)
I think I had more of a hard time with my recent work in progress for my female character more so because she is a director at a company and she's also experienced some inequality issues and there's a romance at play, there's

Angela Haas (09:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (09:29)
a lot of things that are going on and I just didn't want her to come off as a bitch because I'm in a day job that's very demanding and leadership oriented and you have to be really cognizant of being human, although being direct, which males get away with but for females, it's a little different to be assertive and yet still kind.

Angela Haas (09:34)
Right.

Cassie Newell (09:57)
So that was a little bit of a struggle. Although my editor said I did fabulous, so I felt really good about it. there were points of that that were hard because it was interesting too, because I also decided from my alpha reader not to go back and forth between my main female character and the male. So it's just her point of view all the way through.

Angela Haas (10:05)
Yeah, of course.

Interesting,

okay. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (10:28)
Well, and that was part of your advice because

it was such a strong theme. With him in there, she easily became what I didn't want her to become. Because that's how you see it through his eyes or through other male eyes. And I was like, no, I can't have that. It's not how I want that to work. So I don't know, there's some strategic elements, I think, in creating your characters and how their voices are seen. ⁓

Angela Haas (10:39)
Right.

Cassie Newell (10:56)
How do you start though with your characters? Is it a visual thing? Is it a voice thing? Is it a personality thing? I mean, you even said you started off with your side characters first. Like how does that come to you?

Angela Haas (11:10)
I first have to feel like create an image somewhere, whether it's finding something similar on Pinterest, I have to figure out what they look like. So then I can start to see how they might move and talk. And then I figure out what their Myers-Briggs personality is.

Cassie Newell (11:15)
Mm.

them.

Angela Haas (11:29)
because we've talked about this, but I do a lot of trainings with that and I understand what those parts of your personality, how those people respond to things, how they react. Are they introverted? Are they extroverted? Because that's gonna tell me a lot about how they react to each other and things that happen to them. ⁓ I always try to figure out what their little quirks are.

Cassie Newell (11:29)
Right?

how you respond.

Angela Haas (11:58)
Do they collect something weird? Do they, not weird, I mean, we all, mean, my husband loves to collect garden gnomes. That's not a weird thing, but it's a little quirky, you know, for a man who is an accounting major. like, you know, do they have some little habit? My main hunky

Cassie Newell (12:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, not everybody does, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (12:21)
alpha male Tom Hardy inspired character from First Strike. cracks his knuckles when he's nervous because that's the only way you see his shell break is it's like a release for him and he's cracking his knuckles. Stella hears his knuckles crack and knows it's him and doesn't see him. So is there a quirk? Is there something? Do they bite their nails? Do they bite their lip when they're nervous? Do they tap their knee? And then that also gives me like

Cassie Newell (12:34)
wow.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (12:49)
when Scout was nervous in Seconds to Oblivion she took her shoes off. it was a freeing thing for her. She just, she had to take her shoes off. And so that you knew when you saw her shoes were off that she was anxious about something. And then that, I saw there's a lot of planning. I don't just sit and write them. I have to like make storyboards for who they are and figure out their personalities and see what they look like.

Cassie Newell (13:11)
Really? That's such a planning

thing.

Angela Haas (13:15)
I know I'm more of a planner now. What about you? How do you start? When you just have an idea. Do you have a name first? Like the name I have to have first. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (13:22)
Yeah, have an idea. Yeah, names drive me. I

love names names drive me I usually I don't always know the last names ⁓ upfront, but I'll know like the first names usually. So for sweetheart scones and stories, which was brand new adventure for me. Last summer when I sat down and I was just on my iPad kind of plotting it out. I was like, I need four best friends.

two of them are going to be twins, ⁓ know, fraternal twins. I just was like, that's how it's going to be, you know, and I kind of just, it just started developing for me. I knew the first name I wanted was Callie. I had a friend who had a baby and named her daughter Callie, and I just always thought it was pretty. And then I was like, starting to kind of develop their personalities with the tropes. I just kind of wrote the tropes across and I was like, okay, I really want this female to be super strong.

And to me, Brittany was just a really strong, hearty name. And I wanted Izzy to be fun, fun and flirty. Like, as I've said, I love found families and this kind of archetype. So I had these personalities that work well together, balance each other out. Like, Callie is the heart, you know, of this group. And then you've got Brittany, who's kind of a ballbuster.

and creative type and a romantic at heart, although she won't show it because she's had some, some divorce and other things in her life. And then Izzy, I wanted her to be fun and flirty and just girl boss extraordinaire, ⁓ which worked out great. And then Nic I just wanted her to be the opposite of Izzy as a sister.

Angela Haas (14:50)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (15:09)
so she's a little bit more introverted, although she's a, she's a girl boss too. So there's some similarities, but I wanted them to be a little different. And it was so fun with the narrators because they follow, I think they followed, you know, in the written words because Izzy's voice is higher and Nic's voice is lower and more introspective. And it's, it's really interesting to see how other people interpret it. But for me, it's

Angela Haas (15:32)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (15:36)
names, personalities, tropes. And then I just kind of dive in from there. I am very visual. So I cast. That's like some

Angela Haas (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (15:45)
of the first things I do is really casting to see them. Sometimes I'm casting actors, sometimes I'm casting characters from other shows. And I'm like, okay, this is how they're going to be like, except this, because I always like having my own twists, because well, I'm that person.

Angela Haas (16:04)
⁓

Cassie Newell (16:06)
But yeah,

Angela Haas (16:06)
yeah.

Cassie Newell (16:07)
I tend to do it like that. And it's fun because right now I'm in the throes of the next series and it's just continuing on. like now I'm building this like family tree of, okay, this and their couples and then this and their couples. Like, because I'm just trying to integrate everybody you've met in some form of fashion, you know, while I'm introducing new characters as well and growing this town.

So the story bible is huge and the tree is just a growing. But

Angela Haas (16:41)
Hello.

Cassie Newell (16:42)
I also really wanted southern names. So I was very cognizant of that, especially for the male characters as well. I wanted strong at the point, you know, southern names. Macon is a strong southern name. There's a town in Georgia called Macon.

And it was interesting because one of my alpha readers was like, how do you pronounce his name? She lives in Canada. And I was like, it's bacon, but with an ⁓ because she was like, McCann, like she just didn't know, you know, and I was like bacon, but with an ⁓ Macon. She's like, okay. But like, Holt is very Texan. Like I just try to appease where their regions are set to. Yeah.

Angela Haas (17:10)
Well, that's Yeah.

Yeah, that's

great. Yeah, I, I totally pictured Jessica Chastain, that actress as Stella from First Strike. And then I'd watch all her movies so that I could memorize her face looks like when she's smiling. I don't know, it was helped me to describe her a little bit better. But yeah, the names and

Cassie Newell (17:42)
Mm.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Angela Haas (17:52)
That's all so important. then, I mean, have you ever had a character sort of change as you are writing them? Like you started out and then you're like, you know what? No, they're like this. Sometimes I have to get to know my characters. Like I start out with a vision and then I'm like, yeah.

Cassie Newell (18:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, I have to write to get to know them. I love doing dialogue exercises

back and forth. So in my young adult fantasy, I have a guardian group and ⁓ the fellas if you will. So Riddian, Talon, Quinn and Cross and Cross is a behemoth of a man. And he's very strong willed and he's kind of the muscle. Not that none of them aren't muscle, but he's like the tank kind of guy. And

I wanted him to be super, super strong and kind of gruff and kind of, you know, intimidating the intimidator out of the group. And God, he was a side character that took over for me quite a bit that we're talking about. But I had to have dialogue moments just with the five, well, four of them without the without the head of the guardians in there just to see how they interact. So it's almost like

Angela Haas (18:44)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (19:06)
almost like play acting, right? So I'm verbally talking as Rudy and because I had that voice down. But I needed to have the smart ass comments and hit backs from cross and then I needed to tell him who's this educated, like the book guy, you know, and then Quinn, who's the medic, the gamer, like how would they talk back, you know, so I had to like

Angela Haas (19:08)
Right.

Cassie Newell (19:31)
just practice a little bit. know writers hate the idea of practicing and it not being in your prose, but it helps. And I just took time to practice that and how they would respond to each other. For the females

Angela Haas (19:45)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (19:45)
that came much more naturally to me, but for the males in that group, and it was my first foray of being published for that, I just, wanted to get them right. So yeah.

Angela Haas (19:57)
Yeah, exactly.

I'm always more challenged to write my female characters and I don't know why. And I think, again, I think there's more pressure to make them so much more likeable because

the articles I've read and I've gotten feedback from, you readers were much harder on female characters. We're not as forgiving of their choices. And that's a shame, but I've also found myself doing the same thing. Like there's some books that I've read are like, ⁓ I hate the woman, but I love the man. I'm like, no, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. And it's like, why are we so tough on our female characters? But I feel pressure.

Cassie Newell (20:30)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (20:38)
to have the females like, and really look at their choices and make sure they're not making choices that are going to irritate the reader. I want them to make sure that they're a good friend, you know, and because really there's so much that has come out and I don't think we realized it as we were watching it when it was first on in the nineties about how Carrie Bradshaw is actually the villain of Sex and the City.

Cassie Newell (20:39)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (21:07)
There could be arguments for or against us, but if you rewatch now, she's actually a horrible friend. she actually is a horrible girlfriend sometimes and her choices are terrible. And I think I'm like, you know what? What would Carrie Bradshaw do? And if it's this, then I'm going to write the opposite.

Cassie Newell (21:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it. I love it. Well, that leads me to

this question. Do you need to like your characters to write them?

Angela Haas (21:39)
I think so, at least my mains. mean, but then there's so many times when I actually, my villains, actually started liking. And I'm yeah, you gotta make them a little bit more villainy then, because if you like them too much, then the reader's gonna root for them. And we all wanna root for some villains, You know, sometimes they just have to be bad villains and...

But I think I have to like all my characters or else if I'm not writing them passionately and I enjoy it and like them, then something's gonna come through and it's gonna fall flat. So.

Cassie Newell (22:01)
Yeah.

So

in testing this, Willow has two best friends, Lucy and Emily. And one of them becomes a turncoat on her ⁓ at the end of the series. And that was really hard to write because I had to give her a reason to hate Willow, even though this has been her best friend for years. To hate her.

Angela Haas (22:26)
Mm.

Cassie Newell (22:41)
to hate her so much that she wants to kill her or be part of a conspiracy to kill her and maintain that. ⁓ And yeah, I hated her. I hated her so much, but she had such a purpose to the plot. And it was important and I had to stay true to that

the whole time. And it was hard sometimes to write her because I really didn't like her. And I think part of it too was

Angela Haas (23:05)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (23:09)
my adult mother coming out like, where is her mother? Of course she doesn't have one, you know, where

Angela Haas (23:14)
Right.

Cassie Newell (23:16)
is her best friends like smacking her over the head going, what the hell is wrong? Wake up. And I do have those moments for Willow and her, but it's too late because Emily's just kind of agreed to do what she needs to do for Lucy. So it was difficult. It was really hard for me.

Angela Haas (23:33)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (23:36)
I definitely enjoy writing romance to the effect of having fun, quirky characters, not necessarily characters you hate, but you just kind of put up with like the crazy, crazy matchmaker lady. It's always around trying to coupleize everyone and

Angela Haas (23:51)
Right.

Cassie Newell (23:55)
all the things, but, ⁓ yeah, I, there's definitely a difference, I think in the type of genre you write too.

So I don't know, I didn't like her, but it had to be done.

Angela Haas (24:09)
Yeah. And what advice would you give authors who are, starting out and trying to develop good characters? I think for me, you have to...

first start with what we talked about in our first episode of this month is what are your favorite characters and why? why do you identify with these characters? Why do you like them? What is it about them that makes them so loved? And then see if you can translate that. And, you know, we always recycling things. are, there is such a thing as a character archetype and you can look up the character archetypes and learn about,

the mentor in fantasy, action, adventure, and I think even in romance, know, there's always the best friends, and you can start building a world around your main character. And then, you know, how do those the world around them make your character do this or that, and they always have to be making a choice in every scene. And there should be like the conflict.

Cassie Newell (24:47)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (25:12)
and consequences that's from J. Thorn's Three Story Method they do have to always make a choice and they should face some consequences. And if you can start there, and the basics.

Do you want their names to mean something or is it just a name? I like having interesting last names that aren't just so cookie cutter and think about their quirks. know, what little habits do they have? Do they have a bad habit that you can use to make them a little more three dimensional, can come into the story? ⁓ Those are some things I think you can do to start.

Cassie Newell (25:44)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (25:49)
just from scratch writing characters. What's your advice? Like if you're coaching someone who's saying, don't know where to start with my characters, where do you start?

Cassie Newell (25:57)
Yeah. Well, if they

don't know where to start with their characters, but they have an idea of the plot. So it's it's one of two things, right? You're either developing your characters and then fitting the plot or you have a plot, usually when you're starting out and you're adding characters to it, right? Because story is characters, my opinion, point blank period, like it's characters, it's the human experience and how

Angela Haas (26:14)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (26:23)
they make decisions to move through the plot that you've created. So it would be if you had a specific plot, what does the character need to decide for the next plot point? Like what drives that? I have this really fun client where we were developing their character arc, which I think in the beginning, you just need to know where they're starting. And then as you're writing, you can make those decisions and watch them grow, right?

And her point was she knew where they were starting at this goalpost at the very beginning, but she didn't know where their arc should end. And this was so fun and it worked a couple of times now. And I use, I find myself using it because I think it's really simple. I do love the emotion thesaurus. It's fabulous, but this is another way to go about it. So pick an adjective.

Angela Haas (27:03)
.

Yes.

Cassie Newell (27:18)
of your character for the main personality point. Let's say they're stubborn, for example, go to the thesaurus and find the antonym stubborn. So they're going to be open minded at the end, some

type of open mindedness at the end of the plot. And you've got to show them stop being a stubborn in their decisions, allowing other people to interact with those decisions. You know, maybe they're alone and stubborn.

and now they're more open-minded and have people around them. That is a character arc, and that helps to start building that personality. So if you can make goal posts for your main characters, then that will help drive that, especially if you're not a planner, and she wasn't, she's more of a pantser, to write and discover, that will really help you. So if you can just give your characters one adjective,

to one of their main adjectives, you can certainly add more because that's how you get complex characters, but and drive them to their antonym, which is usually a pot a more positive growth outcome. Unless you're writing an anti hero, it works the exact same way. ⁓ Do that for the goalposts. It's super helpful. ⁓ I did that

actually in my work in progress for my novel, The Pink Tax of where she stood on her ideas

work, life and love. And so that was really fun. And I think if you can connect those dots as you're writing, your readers feel really satisfied. Even

it's in your head, and they don't know that, they will interpret it the right way every time, every time.

Angela Haas (29:03)
that's a great method. And I think that that can be really helpful for people who are a little stuck.

I also try to pick out some, what's the one thing they have to get over, but I like to pick an overarching theme for my characters. And for the superhero ones, like First Strike, Stella, the theme of that was, you're stronger together. You don't have to do it alone. Her whole journey was trusting her team.

Cassie Newell (29:16)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (29:29)
because she's a surgeon and so she's used to kind of calling the shots, making the decisions, even though she has a team, but she's upended from her team on Earth and brought to a new team. And then it's her trusting those around her and embracing the found family. So, but then the opposite was true for Scout in book two. She had to, she was so codependent on everyone around her. She had to trust that she could do it by herself.

Cassie Newell (29:42)
Right.

Mm.

Angela Haas (29:58)
you know, she has the strength inside her by herself. And for the romance, my theme for My Plus One was all about how does trauma from your past relationships really impact you and how love, the love of a good person can get you through that. So picking those themes and like those are the issues I wanted to tackle. And specifically in My Plus One Equals You, I tackled the issue of

Cassie Newell (29:58)
Right.

Hmm.

Angela Haas (30:24)
men can be abused too. We always hear about battered women syndrome, but there is something it's not battered men syndrome, but it's the emotional abuse that men can sustain in relationships and how they stuff it down, don't ask for help and don't talk about it. So that was the theme. And I built Cameron around someone who had

Cassie Newell (30:26)
Mm-hmm.

Don't address it. Yeah.

Angela Haas (30:47)
survived a really abusive ex and what does it look like for him to be able to love again? So I like picking those themes and then that's sort of like, well, here's what my character would do based on this thing. And yeah, those are kind of how I guide that.

Cassie Newell (30:59)
Yeah. Yeah. The theme and

their personality around that. Like I did the same thing with Jackson. So Jackson in the Pink Tax I wanted the juxtaposition of somebody fighting for equality being male versus being female for her. And I wanted this mature kind of complex male that's still fun and challenging and kind of a goofball, but yet super supportive.

Angela Haas (31:05)
Exactly.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Cassie Newell (31:29)
out of nowhere and she never had that from a male figure. And so the other piece to that is, you know, at one point his mom was a single widowed mom and he saw the inequality of that, So I think, you have to have backgrounds for those things and also bring them into your writing, like in the dialogue, in a flashback, whatever.

Angela Haas (31:31)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (31:54)
probably not a flashback editors are probably screaming at me, but definitely in the dialogue and how they respond to things with their backgrounds and personalities. I'm one of those people I'll be really honest, I do not do huge pages of background, the colors they like this or that. I don't do that. I do a quick, physical appearance, quick background, quick hobby, quick, where did they come from?

Angela Haas (32:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm not like that either.

Cassie Newell (32:22)
a little bit about their family and then I roll. And usually those things are kind of coming out as I'm writing, like I said, practice and just kind of doing the dialogue. My first drafts often look a little bit more like a screenplay anyway. I'm pretty dialogue heavy and that's how I find out their personalities. But yeah, especially in a novel, not so much in short, but maybe sometimes it just depends when I'm stuck.

But yeah, I think you have to challenge yourself too as to why a character is acting a certain way and then build it into their background. But don't let the reader guess what that is. It needs to be clear to the reader why they are struggling or why they are helping or why they are supporting at some point in your book. It just can't be out of the blue because otherwise it becomes two dimensional.

Angela Haas (33:16)
Yeah, well, and then it makes the reader not trust you ⁓ if you have these surprise things that happen. And that's why I don't do those character sheets, too, that you can find them online and maybe they're helpful to some like it's just, you

Cassie Newell (33:20)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (33:30)
What are their political beliefs? What is their religion? What is their favorite color? Now, if those details are pertinent to your story, that's great. But if your character's favorite color has no bearing on the plot or their development, we don't need those details. Sometimes those details bog us down and then it's if it's too much for the reader to sort through.

then it feels like they are reading a character sheet and not like something that they can visualize as a real person. ⁓

Cassie Newell (34:03)
Yeah, it needs to

be moving. It needs to be actionable. Yeah, don't lecture me. I will get right out of that book. So yeah, I don't want to be lectured. I want to live it. So, all right. Any personal updates for you? Like what's going on here?

Angela Haas (34:05)
Yeah, yeah. So, right.

Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Cool discussion. I

just really trying to write my holiday romance, which I think is going to be called The Bodyguard Clause like Santa Claus.

Cassie Newell (34:35)
I love

it. I hadn't heard that yet. You heard it here first. The bodyguard clause. I love that.

Angela Haas (34:39)
That's the new title. Yeah.

of falling

in love with it's yeah I guess you're supposed to have a holiday romance in your arsenal as a romance author so this will be my holiday romance so just started outlining and but there's a bodyguard twist in it so yeah that's mine

Cassie Newell (34:55)
what I'm doing to my holiday romance.

I love it.

So I should be writing Midnight Kiss Countdown and Cupid's Sweet Conspiracy. Those are my next two in my arsenal this summer, and I need to knock out.

Angela Haas (35:09)
Nice.

Fantastic.

Here we go. We can do it.

Cassie Newell (35:18)
Yeah. And that will complete

the holiday matchmaker series in my little town. So I'm super excited about this too. I know. Yeah, I'm still fiddling with who's going to be in the third book. This is funny. So I am actually going to have these narrated again, ⁓ with audio books, and I already have that scheduled. And the

Angela Haas (35:24)
That's great. Those

Nice.

Cassie Newell (35:43)
female narrator said something in a podcast we were on for the first series where she was a little jealous of the male narrator because he got to do all these different accents. Because I had somebody from Texas and then somebody from Georgia and then you know, I was kind of all over with my males. And she was kind of in Georgia, you know, just in Georgia. And I thought, you know what?

Angela Haas (36:01)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (36:11)
could do something a little different for book three. I might could play with that. So I'm kind of fiddling with the idea of somebody having a completely different accent. So I don't know, we'll see how that works out. But ⁓ yeah, so I'm gonna try to finish writing all my holidays this summer, which is kind of nice, cool me down mentally in the heat of the summer. And then yeah.

Angela Haas (36:14)
Right.

That's cool. I love it. I love accent.

I think that's fantastic. Good. Yes. Good. Yes, you've been going nonstop. wow. I'll see if you can do that. I'm not sure.

Cassie Newell (36:41)
I'm going to take some time off from writing for a little bit. And it's just going to be editing and enjoying, I think. My goal is to take November and December off. We'll see if that works.

Well, if I write, it will be for

complete joy without pressure of timeline. That's kind of where my head is. Like I just, I don't want to have to have a deadline. Yeah, I'm not as productive at the end of the year either. I'm just not. And every year I push myself, I'm miserable. I'm like, I'm just not gonna do that. I don't think.

Angela Haas (37:05)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, a flood of pressure. Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (37:29)
So, yeah. You're like, I'm not stopping.

Angela Haas (37:30)
rooting for you. Well, I

haven't cranked out as much as you. ⁓ yeah, I gotta, I'm gonna try to get two out this year. Well, three, and then we'll see. See what happens. So yeah, so two more. Yeah, so then the third. But then I have a whole new series to start. But we'll talk about that later. Hmm. Okay.

Cassie Newell (37:39)
Yeah.

Well, wait, you already have one out and you just finished two.

I love it.

Table topics. Okay. Hit me.

Angela Haas (38:00)
Here it is. Would you rather

be an American Idol judge or Supreme Court justice?

Cassie Newell (38:12)
Would I rather be a Supreme Court justice or an American Idol judge?

well, the longevity of being a Supreme Court justice is probably like job security versus an American Idol judge. I don't know. I love music so much that could be fun, but I don't feel like that's my bet. I don't think being a judge is my background either. I don't think I would enjoy either one of those, but if I was forced to, I guess, I guess, I don't know. I don't.

Angela Haas (38:25)
Right.

Cassie Newell (38:46)
I feel like Ginsburg is like throwing lightning at me right now. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't feel I have a background for you.

Angela Haas (38:50)
Right. Well.

just imagining. you were, yeah, I would be, I would love to know the process, you know, but when you're a Supreme Court justice, there's a lot of pressure on you for you never, you're gonna, you're always gonna have the wrong answer for someone, you know, but really being, I mean, I'm not saying that they are all like this. I'm just saying the purpose of it is to be objective, to really weigh each case against the Constitution. I think

Cassie Newell (39:07)
Yeah.

of course.

Angela Haas (39:25)
because each case is so different, your job would be just like so incredible. So I would probably pick that, but I also almost went into a career of criminal justice. So I'm kind of fascinated with that side anyway. So, and they're not all criminal cases, but it's just like, I imagine some of the things that land on their desk, you're just like, really? God. ⁓

Cassie Newell (39:37)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I think I would have a lot more fun as an idol. Judge. But yeah.

Angela Haas (39:51)
Oh, of course, yeah. No, that would be fun. But I think it would be

interesting to be a Supreme Court justice. So anyway, it's all interesting. Yeah, I know. Who writes these questions?

Cassie Newell (40:00)
my gosh. Yeah, what a combo.

Yeah, what a combo there. All right. Well, thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps us out with visibility. Next week, we're talking with Nick Thacker about what it's like for him to write from a female point of view and what advice he has for women writing male characters. This is going to be so much fun. yeah. Till then, keep writing, keep doing. Bye.

Angela Haas (40:30)
yeah.