Episode 31: Tips For Creating Compelling Romance Characters with Sue Brown-Moore

Angela Haas (00:17)
Welcome to episode 31. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell and this month we've been doing a character study and discussing how to craft characters readers will love.

If you're passionate about writing stories where heroes become their best selves, you'll love today's guest. Sue Brown Moore is a book revision coach who helps authors craft character-driven fiction that touches hearts and changes lives. Her empathetic approach breaks traditional story design roles to put character transformation first.

Welcome, Sue, and thank you so much for being here. I am so excited to dive into some of those things that you're doing for authors. So thanks for being here.

Cassie Newell (00:55)
Thank you.

Sue Brown-Moore (01:01)
Thank you for

having me. I'm really excited. Anytime I get to talk about romance, I'm excited. Like it doesn't matter if you're the person next to me at the bus stop or if you're a waiter in a restaurant, if you're a romance writer or reader, if you say, read books, I'm like, do you read romance? And then we are off. So I'm really excited to talk about romance writing with people who actually read and write romance.

Angela Haas (01:07)
Yes.

Cassie Newell (01:08)
All right.

Angela Haas (01:19)
Yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Yep, that's what we're all about. I guess I want to touch on something that I read in your bio. What is your empathetic approach that breaks the traditional story design rules that puts character transformation first? Can you touch on that a little bit since we're talking about

Sue Brown-Moore (01:45)
Yeah. So empathetic. I am of the mindset that you should write what you feel and the way you feel it and the way you write it. I don't believe that there is any one prescriptive way to write a book or tell a story or have a relationship. I think that all of the things that go into the writing that make you you are just as important as the elements of the story itself.

So when I'm working with an author or when I'm teaching frameworks for writing, it's less about how to do it and more about what the purpose is. So we're approaching it from the perspective of the benefit to the reader and the benefit to yourself as the writer and what you bring to the story. Not so much, you must have act one, act two, act three, and you must have this specific ⁓ POV and first person present tense is...

Angela Haas (02:30)
⁓

Sue Brown-Moore (02:36)
never correct or is always correct. Like none of that stuff matters.

really matters is who you are and who your ideal readers are and what makes you both happy in that overlap of like a Venn diagram

Angela Haas (02:40)
Right. that's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Already. That's like life changing advice.

Cassie Newell (02:53)
Yeah, I love that because there's so much

within this industry that will tell you it must be this way. It must be that way. It must be this and I, I love creative freedom. And in fact, sometimes I like to walk my own path. But I also want to take advantage of understanding the best way for myself to be successful too. So I think it's a little bit of both. And I'm curious, do you ever

Angela Haas (02:59)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (03:23)
talk about marketing as you're doing the creative aspects with your clients.

Sue Brown-Moore (03:29)
Sometimes, so I will back up a step and say that as a former developmental editor, it's very easy to get in the weeds when you're working with somebody. So developmental editors do story work. So we care about character arcs, scene flow, high level plot structure. We care about the things that make the story feel like they make it what it is, right? The story. We're not as concerned about line level things or like grammar and such. Although I do like a ball edited.

Angela Haas (03:29)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (03:30)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (03:58)
developmental edit. Let me just put that out there. If you're working with an editor, please put some effort into making it readable. anyway, ⁓ the question was, ⁓ I got on a tangent. What was the question?

Angela Haas (04:02)
Thank

Cassie Newell (04:05)
Yeah.

The question was, do you ever talk about marketing as you're in the creative process with writers? Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (04:13)
Yes. Thank you. I do this a lot. I have

squirrel brain and I am distracted by shiny things and tangents. yes, so sometimes I do like if I'm doing a developmental edit, which is these days very rare. But if I'm working directly with somebody and I find something in line, I might like highlight it, especially in like a Microsoft Word document, like highlight it and tag it with a comment like, hey, hashtag marketing.

Angela Haas (04:18)
Yes, yes, no, same.

Cassie Newell (04:19)
No worries, me too.

Sue Brown-Moore (04:40)
consider this for character voice or for a tagline or something like that. But more, I do less of that these days and more of the work in like a high level capacity. So I have a group called the StorySource Story Society, which is for published romance writers who are working toward their next publication, whatever book you're working on, who wanna take that next step in your career, whatever that is for you. And so we do talk about marketing in our group calls, which is once every two weeks.

Angela Haas (04:41)
Okay.

Sue Brown-Moore (05:09)
and we share techniques and tips with each other. Some of that comes from me and it's just sort of off the cuff stuff, but some of it comes from the fellow authors. So it's really just opportunistic, right?

Cassie Newell (05:17)
Sure. That's great.

Angela Haas (05:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's okay. ⁓

Cassie Newell (05:22)
That's great. I know that was not a character question, but I was just curious.

Sue Brown-Moore (05:26)
I do love marketing though. mean,

the more I do it, the more I love it, because I have to do it for my own business as well. And I think it's one of those things where initially you're like, oh, I don't want to do it. God, this is so hard, right? Yeah. And then the more you learn about it and the more you get into it, and it's like if you're a data-driven person or if you're a visuals-driven person, you can find something about the marketing process that appeals to you in a creative way, and you can really lean into that piece of it. And then, know, firm out to your assistant or, you know, a coworker or somebody who's working with you.

Angela Haas (05:36)
Yeah, that's me.

Sue Brown-Moore (05:55)
the other pieces that you don't like as much so that you can continue to excel in that creative journey that fulfills you and not drains you.

Cassie Newell (06:03)
Yeah, I agree.

Angela Haas (06:04)
Yeah, yeah.

I want to circle back to what you were saying about there's just no right way. But I mean, sometimes I think there are universal rules for characters though, right? Or can we just do whatever we want? I think that's what I struggled with.

after my first book, you're getting feedback from reviewers or just other, people reading it. And you're wow, I never considered that my character would be seen this way. But I love them. But some readers did not like this way that I did this. sometimes what gets overwhelming when you're a new author is that all the advice that comes at you and you're like, wait a minute, I have to do it like this or no, this person did it like this. And they said, this is how you have to do it.

And how do you find that balance of like, there's tropes, there's character archetypes for a reason, but you still have to find your own voice in the story. How do you balance that for the listeners who are in that zone where they're feeling that overwhelm right now?

Sue Brown-Moore (07:06)
That is a really, really good question. And there's a two part answer. I have a two part answer for that. The first piece is think about who you're taking feedback from. So anytime somebody gives you feedback, who is that person? How are they relevant to you? And do they overlap with your goal, with your writing? So high level, when you publish a book or when you write a book, just stepping back to the writing process, when you write a book,

Why are you writing that book? What is the purpose of that book? Is it for publication? Is it for personal enjoyment? Is it? I don't know, right? That's a you question. If it's for publication, then you have other questions that open up because who is your reader? Who are you going to try to sell this book to? Because we really don't care about messaging for anybody who isn't your reader. The only people you care about writing for or publishing to, marketing to, are people that you actually want to love your book. Don't just read your book. Love your book.

Angela Haas (07:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (08:00)
connect with it, resonate with it. When you start thinking about it through that lens, then you start thinking about, but who am I asking for feedback, advice, criticism, right? Because if you're asking people who are not your target audience and you're expecting them to give you advice that's useful for you in a productive way, it's gonna be a disconnect. You might struggle. So then you're like, well, I don't know who to listen to. I'm not sure whose opinion is important. So that's why it's really important to understand who are your people.

Angela Haas (08:19)
Hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (08:28)
And if you're like working with a critique partner or an editor or an agent, anybody, doesn't matter who they are. If they aren't like looking for what you're actually writing and who you want to write toward, then their feedback, I'm not going to say it's not important, but it's less important. You'll take, you'll look at it through a different perspective with a different eye, right? So they might tell you they didn't like something and that might be a good thing. It's like looking at those one star reviews on Goodreads who are obviously the wrong target audience for that book.

Cassie Newell (08:51)
Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (08:56)
Those reviews are actually good signals for the author that you did a really good job niching down and hitting your themes. The second piece, well before I get to the second piece, did you want to talk, did you want to chat about that at all? Because I will just keep talking. Okay.

Angela Haas (09:09)
Yes!

just like hanging on your every word. I'm just over here. No, keep going. Yeah. No, that's great. Oh yeah, no, we will, trust us. Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (09:14)
I have to give like chat breaks because otherwise I'll just go on for like 30 minutes and just go off on like I'll be in a whole other country by the time that you're ready to talk. So ⁓ if you want to say anything, you can just interrupt me and that's fine.

Cassie Newell (09:30)
We will.

No that was great. think knowing your why as to what you're writing for and how you're going about it is always key. And I think just to bring it back to characters a little bit, and my favorite to talk about is romance characters. There are so many stereotypes, if you will, in romance that we love them or hate them or leave them.

whatever, whatever that is. But it's interesting to me as someone who's a little more experienced, that I've gotten myself in a loop of some of these stereotypes. And then I start to challenge myself to try to break them. But then I also go back to, but is that really what my readers want? I think that's my writer heart, what I want, but not necessarily what my readers want. So that's always a fun little battle.

Angela Haas (09:59)
you

Cassie Newell (10:26)
around that, for example, what's your I'm just gonna ask the question, what's your hot take on romance breakups? Because there's this whole thing about the third act breakup, you know, and it's such a common beat, and even reviewers will point it out. you know, there was a third act breakup or this or that. So I'm kind of curious from your perspective.

Angela Haas (10:37)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (10:50)
what's a better alternative for emotional tension? Because that's what it is. It's about pulling them together, pulling them apart and getting back together, right? That that's the emotional tension that a lot of writers utilize. and usually it's some kind of miscommunication, right, as to why they broke up in the first place. So I guess, you know, I'm curious as to your thoughts about the third act breakup, is there an alternative? How do you connect that emotional tension?

Sue Brown-Moore (11:17)
That's a really good question. I, this is a pet peeve of mine as well, too. I, I do not believe, I do not believe that romance books must have a breakup. What you do need. So they're okay. There's romance beats, right? So if you're a romance writer or a reader, you may not realize it as a reader, but as a writer, you should know there are, there are genre beats and beats are basically expected moments in a story. And every single genre, every genre has beats. Every genre has tropes. You're going to have to have to include both.

Angela Haas (11:21)
⁓

Sue Brown-Moore (11:47)
both separately and together in your story. What's commonly referred to as the breakup beat is really to me the spend time apart beat. So they don't have to break up, they just have to spend some time apart. Now that gets a little bit more complicated too because it doesn't have to be a physical apartness, it needs to be a psychological separation. So you can have a forced proximity situation like if these two people are trapped in a space station together.

and they literally cannot get away from one another, you can still

Angela Haas (12:17)
Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (12:18)
have that they spend time apart beat because psychologically they have pulled away. They are like distancing themselves. And the purpose of this beat is to allow the character psychological growth. So it's part of the hero's journey. It's part of the character growth arc. I teach this on five stages. There's five stages to that growth arc that we see within a story or within a series if it's an expanded growth. But typically if there's

usually in romance, there's two growth characters. So you'll have, I'm going to use male-female just for simplicity, but this is not true, of course, for all romances. And some have more than two characters. Some only have a single growth arc, but let's just assume in the traditional style, you have a male-female relationship and both have a growth arc. At some point in the late second act, if it's a three act, or early ⁓ third act, you're going to have to have a time when the characters realize

Angela Haas (12:52)
Sure. Yeah, of course. Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (13:15)
Ooh, this thing that's been holding me back that I'm really scared of. I have to face that and I have to figure out like I have to get my shit together as a person so I can figure this moment out so that I can move past it. Because until we move past that thing that's holding us back, we cannot be a full romantic partner to somebody else. That's why this beat exists. So the breakup does serve that purpose. Generally, what really irritates me is when it is because of a miscommunication that could have been solved if somebody had just

Angela Haas (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (13:44)
had a conversation, just have the conversation, right?

But when you design your story so that it's not based around a conversation, it's based around an intrinsic character friction with themself, like a reason that they cannot move forward, that's maybe causing other relationship issues, that is relatable. Even if there is a breakup, that's still relatable because it serves a character purpose. It's not just a thing that you put in there as plot armor.

Angela Haas (14:11)
Yeah, that's really helpful because I think when I was approaching my romance and trying to plot out the beats for the first time, even though I had written romantic subplots, but if it's a subplot, you don't have to hit all of those beats. You just sort of have to have two people coming together, I think, because the other action and other stuff going around them serves as part of like the push and pull. But

in the romance that was just the romantic comedy, really struggled because I think I was still writing from that hero heroines journey where you have the long night of the soul that sort of like, okay, this is it. This is everything they've been working towards to overcome to find love. How do you get there? How do you trigger that? That it's such an important moment and it can go sideways and

I really tried to do it where technically my couple wasn't officially together. It was like Ross and Rachel. They were on a break when something happens. Okay, they're on a break. They agreed to take a break and something happened and then there was a misunderstanding, but

I tried to put all this stuff in place. know, Rachel was really being kind. She couldn't really just text about it because it was the night before a wedding and she didn't want to take focus away from her bride and the groom. She just was like, okay, we'll deal with this for now. So it really was only a 24 hour true misunderstanding. But there were some readers who were just like, ⁓ third act breakup, we hate it. But then

Sue Brown-Moore (15:43)
you

Angela Haas (15:44)
I see now no one likes enemies to lovers, but that used to be the number one trope. Yes, I'm seeing that flood IG and Threads that these influencers are now saying we're done with them and we hate enemies to lovers. Then I'm like, okay, well, all right, you can put your whiteboard away and just stop it, you

Sue Brown-Moore (15:48)
Wait, what? What? No. No, no, No.

Cassie Newell (15:54)
I love enemies to love us.

Sue Brown-Moore (15:56)
I do too.

Cassie Newell (16:00)
Well, I think...

think there's an aspect of why they're done with it because I've seen a

few of it too. But I don't like enemies to lovers when it's such an ingrained hatred that you can't foresee who's going to give in first, then it doesn't make sense. There's always a side that gives in first that never really hated the other person. It's like the little boy that pulled the girl's pigtails, but he really

Angela Haas (16:22)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (16:33)
you know, liked her the whole time. And she's like, you are such a jerk, you know, stop, stop hurting me or what have you. Not that I'm talking about physical pain, but just teasing type pain. So I think there's a difference though, because I've seen some of the paranormal romances where you're just like, it's not like a Romeo Juliet kind of thing of their families. It's like ingrained hatred from the very get go. It's like what

what magically happened because there's no buildup there's no aspect that they had to come together to work together to respect one another to get over that I don't know I love I love good banter and all romances and enemies to lovers is definitely one of my faves

Angela Haas (17:09)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (17:22)
the key to writing good enemies to lovers is there's no true hate. If you hate someone, you can't love them. the you can, it's going to take a long time, right? But coming from a place of true hate, one, it feels bad. Like as a romance reader, I'm here for the fantasy. I'm here for the happy feels. Like I know there's going to be some unhappy feels because you got to have a roller coaster to have the highs and lows, right? But coming from hate is a really, really long journey. So I think that

Cassie Newell (17:41)
Yeah, exactly.

Sue Brown-Moore (17:52)
generally really good enemies to lovers is where there's a dislike, but that dislike is based in something that is a reflection of self. So if I were to date myself, I would probably hate myself. I would hate that person, because I'd be like, ah, all the things I dislike about myself, I see it reflected back at me, right? And that's the purpose of that spending time together romance beat is so that they can realize the give and take and what they bring to each other, how they help one another realize these things they need to

Angela Haas (18:04)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (18:09)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (18:21)
you know, recognize about themselves and

overcome about themselves. I love enemies to lovers. I, so I kind of want to like take a sidestep here and talk about the opinions of people who are driving the trends. Right. So I don't watch book talk. I'm not, I'm not on social media. I took a big old, uh, heck no break from social media in 2019 when a lot of stuff happened in our industry.

Angela Haas (18:34)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (18:46)
And I just, I'm

done with it. I'm not gonna do it anymore. So I'm there for like very basic things on Facebook and Instagram, but I don't follow any of the like book talks or stuff because I just, don't, it's not my thing, right? It's too performative. So whenever I hear somebody say, ⁓ people don't like it anymore. I'm like, okay, but which people, right? So like, don't get in your head about so-and-so influencer said they don't like this thing. That's great for the people who like the kind of stories they like.

They are a perfect taste curator voice, but that may not be you. So you have to find the people who are your taste curators. I used to be a blogger, so this is something that I did before I was an editor. And they're not going to appeal to everybody. When I was a blogger, my taste did not appeal to everybody. But I developed a following of people that liked what I liked and they took my recommendations. So I would really only then promote or read, try to read books by authors I thought might be in my scope of like. Else I'm just creating discord and chaos, right? So...

Angela Haas (19:42)
Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (19:44)
Just, I would say just

Angela Haas (19:44)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (19:45)
like warning to people out there who are like, but the person said that they don't like third act breakup. They don't like enemies to lovers. They don't like this trope or that trope, which is probably gonna change every month, right? But that's just opinion of people who have a specific reader audience. Does that reader audience overlap with your intended reader audience as a romance writer? That's the question.

Cassie Newell (20:04)
Right.

Yeah, I love it.

Angela Haas (20:06)
Yeah, that that's

helpful for me to hear because I think I was coming from a place of being unsure of myself. I think that's where it starts. I think that's where you can get more influence. And I was following the people I was told to follow on Book Tok and the romance influencers. But then I started to notice myself because I had that insecurity.

Sue Brown-Moore (20:20)
for sure.

Angela Haas (20:30)
It's like, no, I'm gonna change my story like this because this influencer. then I started to see the trend where they change their mind and you're right. is some, not all, we don't wanna generalize, but a lot of the popular ones are performative. They're trying to get a reaction. They are trying to rile people up. And so where I was following their advice, I started to be like, wait a minute, this person's not a writer. You can be a reader and you can have opinions, but until you are writing and knowing the work it takes to craft all this stuff,

and to stay current with reader trends, Unfollowed . 10 accounts because they bring out that whiteboard and they're like, I hate this, don't ever do this. And then it's like, okay, tune out the noise, write what you think is a good story and start there. It doesn't mean ignoring the trends and tropes, but it was just too in my head and it became noise and I had to get rid of it.

Cassie Newell (21:25)
Well, I think everything's

cyclical too. So one minute vampires are hot, the next minute they're not, you know, then it's werewolves, then it's back to vampires. No, it's rom-coms. It's hockey romance. You know, it's like all the things. And yeah, it just, it cycles. know, romantasy was paranormal for the longest time and now it's got its new category and you know, all the things. just, I don't know. I don't listen because I'm stubborn headed.

Sue Brown-Moore (21:37)
And now it's romanticy.

Angela Haas (21:39)
Yes.

Yeah, nope.

Sue Brown-Moore (21:53)
Me too.

Like I'm the same. I'm very stubborn. Like one, don't tell me, never tell me what to do because I will do the opposite unless I think, unless I think you're trying to manipulate me, in which case I'll do nothing. Right. So I'm just very like paranoid about who don't manipulate me. But because that's how I'm so I'm so sensitive to marketing. Right. So like I have just come to a place where I, I really only care about what I care about when it comes to reading books. I don't care if this is a bestseller. I don't care if it's in print. I don't care. Like if the author is an unknown, I do not care.

Angela Haas (21:58)
Exactly.

Cassie Newell (21:59)
Opposite.

Angela Haas (22:03)
Right.

Cassie Newell (22:06)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (22:22)
I'm just looking for the experience that I want to, it's the fantasy. What fantasy do I want to go on today? Do I want Cierra Simone angst? Do I want Lauren Blakely good feels? Do I want something like really sweet and candy and like, you know, over the top ridiculous? Do I want, you know, a romantasy that's gonna tear me apart and put me back together? These are all reader experiences that we choose intentionally. And I think nobody can tell you as a reader or as a writer, what's right.

Angela Haas (22:32)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (22:36)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (22:51)
And that's what I love about this genre is we have so much creative control on both sides.

Cassie Newell (22:56)
Yeah, I agree. Although, yeah, I would love to be a bestseller one day. No, don't take that away from me,

Sue Brown-Moore (23:03)
Hey, I'll be happy for you when you become a bestseller for sure. But as a reader, like I don't look for the bestseller tag because all that means like as somebody who has been an acquiring editor, who has been in the publishing side, like all that means is that somebody put money behind that title. Now, sometimes like in the case of ⁓ Fifty Shades of Grey, which came out of fan fiction of Twilight, which was its own kind of massive explosion. Those do they sort of

Cassie Newell (23:07)
would love it. I would love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (23:30)
There are breakout titles like that that do organically evolve. But then usually when they're mega successful, it's because somebody put money behind it. you know, USA Today bestseller, New York Times bestseller, those come from lists of specific sales from specific bookstores. They're, they're gamed, right? So as a reader, knowing that, don't, I don't look for that. I look for recommendations. Honestly, to me,

Cassie Newell (23:38)
Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (23:50)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (23:51)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (23:54)
the best way to discover new books and for you as an author, the best way to get discovered is to

This is going to be such obvious advice, but newsletter swaps, right? So when Lauren Blakely is one of my one-click, like one-click means I don't care what you wrote, I'm going to buy it. Like without looking at the title, I will buy the thing, right? So Lauren Blakely is one of my one-click authors that I just love. And anytime she, in her newsletter, which I read every single one she sends, if she recommends books in the bottom, I check them out. So like that is so powerful, right? Build your newsletter.

Angela Haas (24:04)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (24:04)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (24:25)
Right? Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (24:28)
Get with authors who are your same overlap audience. We're working together, not against each other, right? That is really how we grow.

Cassie Newell (24:32)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (24:34)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (24:35)
Yeah, absolutely.

Angela Haas (24:35)
Yeah. I agree. Does... We keep... We keep... Romance is the fifth character. Yes. Now, the whole business, it's all part of it. I think marketing romance is a character. It's the villain to me. But whatever.

Sue Brown-Moore (24:38)
I know we were supposed to be talking about characters, but I'm telling you, I will preach about anything.

Cassie Newell (24:42)
romance is the character all on its own, the whole business.

Sue Brown-Moore (24:55)
You

Cassie Newell (24:56)
Sometimes it works out. I don't know. I'm the positive

one right now this year on marketing, but I think that Angela.

Angela Haas (25:04)
Yeah, I just want to ignore it. I just want to write more books. it's just about balance too. think, you know, there's some days where I don't want to do any marketing and I'm not going to do it. I'm just going to write today. And then I take a day and an hour and be like, what can I do for this hour? What can I schedule? What can I do? that's really, that's all I can do. That's the best I can do. You know, so that's where we are.

well, what tips can you give authors for where to start with creating a character? sometimes it's like, I have a story idea and that's it. I have a title and that's it. I was listening to a song in my car and I have a random scene and where do I do with it? course there's no right or wrong, but do we pick the tropes first and then start

characters around that?

Sue Brown-Moore (25:49)
So circling back to that, why is my storytelling style empathetic and different? It's because of this. There's no right answer. So the answer is where are you starting from? as I can be a very frustrating person to have a conversation about story with because I'm always going to bring it back to you. I'm always going to ask you what you want and what you think, because it's not about what I think, it's about what you do. But ultimately it comes down to what is the soul of the book? And for me, the soul of the book in a romance,

Angela Haas (26:01)
You

Next slide please.

Sue Brown-Moore (26:19)
is the character journey, the transformation. ⁓ In what way does this hero or multiple heroes become a better version of themselves? And then once you understand that, what is that theme? What is that messaging? Because that is what everything in the story needs to sort of stick to. That's the cohesion is that character

transformation arc. If there's discord there, if they don't play together nicely, if they don't like resonate in a way that works with the readers that you want to serve, there's gonna be this like,

Like this, I'm not really sure what's wrong with this story, but something's off, right? So my recommendation, if people are like, just Sue, just give me a general answer. Like, my gosh, one thing. Okay, the one thing is backstory. Do a backstory exercise. So

Angela Haas (26:52)
Great.

Sue Brown-Moore (27:05)
choose your hero, even if it's from a scene. Like let's say, right now I have this exercise I'm doing with my story source, a society called the Lit Stage. And I love this exercise so much because it helps you like get in.

to one moment and then just go. Just let your creativity go. So imagine this like one moment in your mind and there's some criteria around this. But let's say that there's a spotlight shining on a stage and there's a stool that's been tipped over and a microphone with a guitar sort of laying discarded. What happens next? Right? Then you just write the scene. What happens next? Because once you start exploring what happened, then you can look at what you did and say, okay, but why did that happen?

Cassie Newell (27:39)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (27:47)
And then you can start doing character studies, right? So now we really care about who is this person? What wound do they experience in the past? Why do they feel the way they did? What, how did they grow up? How has this, their, who they are, how's their past influenced what they're doing in their future? Can those things be changed? Should those things be changed? These are all the questions that we can think about as we're writing so that you don't get stuck in that moment of like, well, now what, right? Because it always comes back to the character. It's always about the character.

Angela Haas (27:53)
.

Cassie Newell (28:09)
Yeah.

I love that. This just happened to me. So I'm writing book two, I write short romance. So they're two hour reads for the busy reader and they're small town and a lot of the time, because it's kind of like a little soap opera in my head in this next series, I have all these other characters and then I'm moving side characters over into their own stories and things. And I have a married couple.

that have split over the holidays, and I'm getting them back together. And I was like, why would this man not be there for his family? With his twin boys and his wife, what could he have done that she would have kicked him out for? And then I and I was making him a workaholic because he was afraid financially. And then it was like, but why would he be afraid of that? Okay, so maybe his dad was gone. And he had to be the financial breadwinner.

for his younger brother and sister and their family. So then it was like, ⁓ crap, I have twin five-year-old boys. And it was just build my business bigger, bigger, bigger. And he just put the business first. So then I was like, okay, but then how do I get him to where she lets him back in? And it was really me thinking about his past and how his brother was like, we can hire people. Let me do the job.

Angela Haas (29:28)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (29:37)
And of course, the brothers in book three. So then it helped me build the backstory for the brother to get over into the third one. But you know, you do you have to take a minute and sometimes you don't know those things until you start writing them out. That happens to me a lot.

Sue Brown-Moore (29:53)
Yeah, that's such a good, such a good example of a couple of things.

One, like how you just develop the story as you're writing it. And two, like using that backstory to sort of build on the themes that you have and then move forward. Like now you have another story that came out of it, right? But I think what, one of the questions I get all the time that I think is really important to talk about is how do I write a better story in the first draft? How do I write the best story in the first draft, right? How can I not have to revise? And I think like all of my answers, there's no right answer because for

Cassie Newell (29:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (30:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (30:23)
Some people, especially

once you're established as a writer, you your brand, you know your style, you you've got your systems down like personally, internally, and you understand who you're writing for, you can turn out pages, right? But some people have to discover as they write. This is me. I don't write romance, but I in everything else that I do, it is I'm a discovery creator. I have to discover it as I create it. That means I'm never going to have a perfect first draft. I'm probably not even going to have a good first draft.

Angela Haas (30:27)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (30:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (30:51)
But

at least I know that my creativity lies in that process. So I can build time in for myself to say, okay, you're gonna need probably three or four revisions and they're gonna take you some time and you need to give yourself three or four times longer than you think you do to get it done when you're making appointments with other people like editors or cover designers or whatever. So I think one of the things writers, especially romance writers get really down on themselves about is, well, I read a really messy first draft or...

My writing is so crappy. It takes me forever to get it right. No, no, no, that's fine. You're just discovering it as you write it. And sometimes the most beautiful pieces come from messy beginnings.

Cassie Newell (31:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, I tend to like to plot, but I like loose plots. And I'm a skeleton drafter. And so I'm very much what I call a quilter. So when I skeleton draft, it's probably more of an outline to most people, like a really big outline. And maybe more like ⁓

Angela Haas (31:35)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (31:48)
a screenplay, because I tend to do the dialogue to kind of get the personality of the characters. And then I go in and I

Angela Haas (31:52)
you

Cassie Newell (31:57)
pluff it out, you know, with all the scenery and other things. ⁓ Because I also have to be very aware of my word count, which is a killer ⁓ with short sometimes. And ⁓ yeah, I have to move, move, move. So there's my tensions usually are not third act

breakups. It's usually the inciting incident before you even get in my story most of the time, because I don't have time for it.

Sue Brown-Moore (32:24)
You were talking about writing like word count is so strict. Writing short is so much harder than writing long. It's, I mean, it is tough. And like, I really love a well-written novella or even a short story. I'm talking like 17 to 25,000 words. That's the like, shorter than that is fine. But like, want some time to get into it, And you really, there's...

Angela Haas (32:31)
I can't do it. It's impossible.

Cassie Newell (32:34)
Love it though.

Sue Brown-Moore (32:47)
there's only so much you can fit on the page. So like you said, you do have to have things like the inciting incident off page. And for a romance, it's even harder. you almost, it almost needs to be, these people have met before, like second chance works really well in short stories because the reader

Cassie Newell (32:50)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (33:01)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (33:01)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (33:03)
believes it. It's relatable. It's not like insta-love, fated mates. Although if that's your thing, totally cool. But it's in real life, fated mates is not as common, I would say. So yeah, I think.

Cassie Newell (33:09)
Yeah.

Right?

Sue Brown-Moore (33:16)
That's another like pressure point that we put on ourselves is, well, I can write a 90,000 word story. Why can't I write a 20,000 word story? Because they're different skill sets. It's hard.

Cassie Newell (33:23)
⁓ yeah, I really enjoy it. But I have to tell you, ⁓ I wrote a novel recently and going back into short, it threw me it threw me so hard. So I was like, I don't know if I can but you

Angela Haas (33:26)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (33:38)
know, you get back in the groove of it. I don't know. It's really interesting to me because they do have to know each other. I only had so far, ⁓ two couples that I've written that have met.

the first time everyone else there's a background for them obviously husband and wife this is second chance obviously that I just spoke on I mean that's much more relatable than them never having have met it's really difficult but I I did kind of a fated one for one that's coming out next year I told my editor she was like I loved it I'm like I'm never doing this trope again in contemporary romance

Angela Haas (34:14)
huh.

Cassie Newell (34:15)
I don't know what I was thinking. It's never happening again. So you also have those breakthroughs as a writer, like this was the worst thing possible I could have done to myself. You know, there are definitely tropes, I think, in romance that are well, it depends on the writer, they're a little easier than others, depending on the

Sue Brown-Moore (34:16)
Ha!

Cassie Newell (34:35)
sub genre that you're writing into.

Angela Haas (34:37)
Yeah, I agree with that. you obviously killed it with your short stories, Cassie. They're amazing. I'm trying to find ways to cut because I've got a 105k romance novel. Although I noticed Emily Henry's and Lucy Scores, those are not, those are not

Cassie Newell (34:42)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (34:56)
short novels, they are long. And so I think whatever the story needs to be, that's what it needs to be. But I do agree that like Second Chance is definitely easier in a short because you're just talking about their second chance and can weave in what happened, but it's not, totally starting from scratch. that leads me to, what are some characters we don't like seeing in

romance you had talked about before Sue the alpha hole character. How can we what is an alpha hole to you because I love that concept and how can you avoid it is challenging I think sometimes I don't think it's fair that women are like yeah I know how to write men whatever you know men are just as complex beings you know they're not you know they are.

Cassie Newell (35:22)
you

Sue Brown-Moore (35:25)
yeah.

Yeah.

Cassie Newell (35:43)
No, I'm just kidding.

Angela Haas (35:46)
We gotta give our meds some credit here, you know, I mean.

Sue Brown-Moore (35:47)
I mean, they're

simpler in some ways, more complex than others. There's a nice balance there, I think.

Angela Haas (35:52)
Yeah, yeah,

exactly. Yeah. So how can we avoid the alphahole ones?

Sue Brown-Moore (35:55)
But yeah,

well, first, I think we should define what an alpha hole is for anybody listening who does like, what are they saying? So alpha is like alpha asshole basically is what it is, alpha hole. So for me, and I had to really think about how to define this because especially as romance readers and if you get into certain tropes that have like these big followings and that's like where you spend all your reading time, there's certain like givens, right? Like you sort of just know about like,

Angela Haas (36:21)
All right.

Sue Brown-Moore (36:23)
with the H.E.A. in romance. We just expect it. It's going to be there. It has to be there. That's the point. Or maybe, you know, H.F.N. There's got to be a happy ending through a love story, right? Same thing with alphaholes People who read them like, know, this is just what I expect. I know what it feels like. Right. So I had to sit down and be like, OK, what is an alphahole How would I define this? So I came up with its characters doesn't have to be men. I say this is gender agnostic, but tends to be men in romance because romance is typically written by women and

Angela Haas (36:24)
Thank

Sue Brown-Moore (36:52)
power struggles

within society and all of the history that goes along with what makes romance romance. But it's characters who have obvious power in the story. So that's usually money, positional authority, like a CEO or billionaire or something like that. Those characters who have that power, who think they know what is best for their romantic partner, again, still non-gendered here, and they're gonna push that thing on that person.

Cassie Newell (36:55)
Right.

Mmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (37:20)
regardless of what the person is saying, hey, no, I don't want that. Because sometimes in romance, no means yes. And that's changing more in modern romances. So, alphaholes really play into that no means yes theory because they think they know what is best and they think they're doing the best thing. as a reader, I'm like, back off, bud. Like, I don't need that in my life. I don't need you to tell me what to do. I'm my own person. I will say that there are some readers who love that.

Angela Haas (37:27)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (37:27)
Hmm.

Angela Haas (37:48)
Thank

Sue Brown-Moore (37:49)
And I think this sort of goes into that, dynamic of the relationship power dynamics. Like, what do you want in a relationship? What do you look for in a relationship? How deep do those power dynamics go? Is it, we're talking like full life power dynamic shift, somebody usually has more power than the other all the time, or is it in certain situations? Is it only romantically? Typically in alpha holes, it's the whole story. These people, I'm gonna say these guys, because typically it's men.

Cassie Newell (37:50)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (38:17)
are just

in charge of everything all the time and they believe that they should be. And that is where it becomes frustrating for me because I'm just like, my God. And it tends to have, they tend to be paired with heroines, typically women who are, have not stepped into their power yet, who are ⁓ meek, maybe even clumsy. Like if you want to use the 50 shades reference or Twilight reference, right? Yeah, right. Like that's a really good example of an alpha hole. Christian Grey is an alpha hole.

Angela Haas (38:18)
⁓

Cassie Newell (38:38)
Yeah, I was thinking exactly of the day the shoots.

Sue Brown-Moore (38:46)
Even

Edward Cullen to some degree is an awful hole because they know what's best and they're going to take actions no matter what you want for what's best.

Angela Haas (38:54)
So there's an alpha male character and then there's an alpha hole and the alpha hole has nothing in it. It's just.

Sue Brown-Moore (38:59)
Yes.

Angela Haas (39:02)
It's just a hole. We're writing romance here. We'll keep it clean because we could go the other way. but there's alpha male characters like when I first started reading romance. See, when you're writing superhero fiction, you're taught that the women must rescue the men now You know, the superhero female is the one with all the power.

Sue Brown-Moore (39:03)
You

You

Angela Haas (39:25)
and the male is just that supportive, wonderful guy. I've started seeing that in superheroes in general, just film, TV, whatever. But when I started reading romance, I was like, wait a minute, isn't this the alpha male that we were supposed to be getting away from? the fantasy is there this strong, powerful male who's either gentle on the inside, totally flustered around the female,

and takes care of her but doesn't take away from her. So I had to learn who that guy was, but I have noticed, some of the age gap ones I've read, where the older male is just this like refined master of life, and you have this vapid, just totally alpha female character, alpha whole female character, or what's the opposite of an alpha?

beta hole. I don't know what I'm saying. let's just go with it for now. But I just like I was I've been reading some of these were like the female like there's nothing there. And then the male just swoops in and makes everything okay. and some of these are

Sue Brown-Moore (40:21)
Omega hole?

Angela Haas (40:35)
best sellers. So there's a reason they have 30,000 reviews and USA Today, New York Times best sellers. I've been over here in action adventure. I thought these are things that we are avoiding. And I had to really shift because I'm like, is this just the fantasy or I don't know. You know I'm saying? I had like 80 questions and 50 made up words in there. So I'm sorry.

Sue Brown-Moore (40:54)
thoughts about this. have so many thoughts about this.

Angela Haas (41:00)
Sort through all that.

Sue Brown-Moore (41:01)
So I think there were like, that was

actually like, I could do an entire series of podcasts on just questions from that alone. But ⁓ the thing that came to mind first was, ⁓ there's three, there's really kind of three pieces. One is who curates what scene. One is what do the readers actually want? So we're looking at reader profiles. And two is how far has the industry evolved at the point when a story has been written? So when you think back to things like Twilight, Twilight was, I don't know.

Angela Haas (41:08)
Thank

Cassie Newell (41:26)
Mm.

Angela Haas (41:29)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (41:30)
than a decade ago. Like I don't even like to think about that because it makes me feel very old. But it was a long time ago, right? ⁓ So when you're thinking about these stories that are like, yeah, but Twilight was so big and 50 was so big. Yes, but look at when they were written and also like they inspired an entire subgenre. Like there are a lot of like big name, very successful authors today who have massive followings. Like you were talking about hundreds of thousands of five star reviews.

Cassie Newell (41:32)
think it's 30.

Angela Haas (41:33)
Ugh.

Ugh.

Cassie Newell (41:36)
Sorry.

Angela Haas (41:38)
See?

Sue Brown-Moore (41:59)
because they came out of this, what is now a mature genre, right? That happens, that evolves over time. So like Cassie was saying earlier, everything is cyclical. At some point that's gonna go out of style and then it's gonna come back in. It's gonna have a little bit of a twist when it comes back in, like paranormal and fantasy romance are now coming back in as a romantasy, right? It's different, like the romantasy of today is not the paranormal romance of yesterday, but there's a lot of similarities and there's crossover in the reader audience. But I think too, we have to think about

Where is romance evolving to? Because the purpose of romance, as far as I see it, is to empower women and humans, really humanity, because women are humans. We are half of the human race. empower people who are disempowered to become their best, happiest selves. What does that look like today? Because what it looked like 20 years ago is not what it looks like today. And what it looks like today is not going to be what it looks like even next year or five years from now.

Angela Haas (42:47)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (42:54)
right?

Sue Brown-Moore (42:55)
So when we're talking about these vapid female characters, they probably originally existed to serve a specific purpose and we have now evolved beyond that purpose. So that's what I always come back to is, you

know, what is the purpose of the story? Who is it appealing to? What is the message of it? What am I supposed to take away from this as a reader? And is that the thing I want to take away? Do I even want to go on this journey? And when it comes to alpha holes, I'm done with them. I don't want that journey anymore.

But there was a time when I did, I liked it, I enjoyed it. Because like you said, a powerful partner, I'm gonna say partner, because it could be, you could have a femdom too, who's novel, right? But it's a powerful partner who you can depend on to take care of you, to know what you need intuitively, which is a whole other pet peeve of mine that we probably need to talk about. But just somebody who's got your back and also is sexy.

Angela Haas (43:25)
Right. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, exactly.

Cassie Newell (43:33)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (43:45)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (43:48)
Yeah.

Sue Brown-Moore (43:49)
They're sexy and they appeal to you on like this primal level

because according to the media, only people who have an eight pack who look like they live at the gym and are like alpha and in charge and rich, those are the people who are worthy of love. And that's such bullshit. And I think as a genre, we are starting to overcome that, but it's a slow process. So we are still seeing some of the artifacts of previous generations.

Angela Haas (43:55)
Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (44:16)
But mixed in with that are still reader preferences. As a reader, if you're like, Sue, shut up, I like alphaholes Great, read your alphaholes.

Like read what makes you happy, right? Like that is the whole point of our genre is being freaking happy. Okay, I'm just gonna keep going.

Cassie Newell (44:25)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:30)
Well, there you go. Done.

Cassie Newell (44:32)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:32)
The end. Yep. ⁓

Cassie Newell (44:34)
I have to tell you though, I'm okay with more alpha males, you know, deciding what's for dinner, taking the initiative, doing those things. Yeah. my gosh. I just wrote this in book two where he was like, I remember us cleaning the kitchen and you said this was a form of foreplay. So he cleaned the kitchen. yeah. That's the trick. It is.

Angela Haas (44:39)
Yeah. I think so. ⁓ we are really

Sue Brown-Moore (44:40)
Yes. And cooking that dinner and cleaning that bathroom without you having to tell them.

Maybe that's the trick. Is that the trick? You tell them it's for, ⁓ babe, I think this is really sexy.

Angela Haas (45:01)
talking dirty right now. We're talking dirty right now. Literally. Literally.

Cassie Newell (45:02)
It's very sexy. It's such a turn on.

Sue Brown-Moore (45:05)
You

Cassie Newell (45:08)
But you know, it's

interesting because a lot of times I think newer writers tend to cookie cut their characters, and they don't add in those little spices of life, that I just spoke on or what you just spoke on in terms of, characterization where they're not all six pack abs, and things of that nature. You know, women have hips and if...

this woman has had twins, she's gonna have some hips, and, other things and you gain weight and you lose weight together. I do think romance though, if you can pull it off, it's really about a partnership. Long term, there's always that lust in the beginning, but it's always those pieces at the end that you're rooting for, there's always the initial attraction, but yeah, how, how

Angela Haas (45:53)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (45:56)
how would you advise newer writers or even more established writers not to fall victim to the cookie cutter character physically?

Sue Brown-Moore (46:05)
Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think I was just thinking about this when you were talking just now is separate in your mind what you're writing as aspirational for yourself. Like, I wish that I were this size. I wish that I had this color hair. I wish that I had why do why do romance heroes always have blue eyes? They always have blue eyes. It's a thing like I don't know why it's the striking blue eyes of every Hollywood actor. Right. Why like ask yourself, why am I why do I want to write this character? Is it because

Cassie Newell (46:21)
Mm.

Sue Brown-Moore (46:34)
I want to be like that. I want to be skinnier. I want to feel more attractive. I wish I had whatever XYZ, right? And if that is, if it's for you because you need to write it, then you write that character. Do an exercise. Get it out of you. Like write what you need to write to be happy in your writing life. But also keep in mind that might not be what you're going to publish because now we have to think about who am I writing for?

What do my readers actually want to see? Am I writing for women who are in their 40 to 60, 65 age range? Because if that's so, I'm probably not gonna write perfectly skinny 22 year old girls in short little black dresses in high heels because that's harder for that age group, the demographic, I guess, to identify with. So really it comes down to, okay, I need to write what I need to write for me because psychologically that's important because you're working through something there, right?

Cassie Newell (47:13)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (47:20)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (47:27)
But on the flip side, what's actually gonna be right for my story and what story do I wanna tell? And once you understand, like you start asking those questions, you'll get clarity on which direction to go based on your own answers.

Cassie Newell (47:39)
Yeah, it's really good.

Angela Haas (47:41)
Yeah.

Well, I think we're gonna have to have you back on at some point because there's just so much, there's so much, we need like four hours to really dive into great characters with you. before, yeah, I know. But I wanna talk about Story Sorcery for a second. Can you, cause I'm currently doing that with you, although.

Sue Brown-Moore (47:53)
This is my whole business is characters. That is what I focus on. I love characters.

Angela Haas (48:06)
summer retail season hit and I've been like, I can't wait to fall where I can actually like really immerse myself in it. But I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed the small group setting for me because sometimes I've been in cohorts and there's 30 people and you just can't really like get to know or connect. But can you tell our listeners a little bit about what you're doing with that and how that's evolving when it's available kind of stuff.

Sue Brown-Moore (48:35)
Yeah, thank you for allowing me to plug it a little bit. It's still in pilot program. So I started this, I had this really weird start to my year. I'm a person that likes to plan, but I'm very bad at like delivering on the plan. So I love the planning process. It's like my creative zone. It's super happy. I'm like bullet points. I'm going to do, I'm like a plotter who never follows the plot, right? Like that's me. Yeah. So I, in January, I made this.

Angela Haas (48:38)
boy.

Sue Brown-Moore (49:00)
big plan where I was like, okay, this is exactly what I'm doing for every month of the year. And here's how many hours it's going to take me. And

like, I did everything. And then I looked at that after two weeks of work and I was like, yeah, I don't want to do any of that. I'm done. I got to do something else. And so I had this crisis for like a month where I'm like, my God, what am I going to do with my business? Like, where am I going to go? I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing. I'm so, I'm so burned. And I had some discussions with some colleagues of mine and I realized that I really wanted to create a space where I could go back to connecting.

Angela Haas (49:12)
Right. ⁓

Sue Brown-Moore (49:30)
personally with writers. I used to be a developmental editor for about seven years and I stopped because I could only work one-on-one. I had a ceiling, had an income ceiling. But also I found myself getting too in the weeds with those stories and I couldn't truly serve them because I was too caught up in myself, right? Like I needed something different. So I took a couple years apart from that and then I only did like, you know, one to many workshop type stuff and I did no one-on-one work.

And I realized that I wanted a combination. So I created the Story Sorcery Society to be a combination of the education and learning in little bite-sized pieces, tiny bite-sized pieces that you can do in like an hour or less in a month. Combining that with the small group work where you get to actually talk with colleagues who are on your level and also get feedback from somebody like me who has a lot to say about basically everything.

Angela Haas (50:01)
Right.

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Sue Brown-Moore (50:25)
in the romance genre, clearly, right? So I made it very small for a reason. So there's a fairly

rigid application process. You have to be a published romance writer in at least a 50, 50 ish, 55,000 plus word. So not short stories, not anthology, like under your own name. So you must be published in the romantic fiction genre, which also includes romantic urban fantasy, romantasy, the things that have strong romantic components.

And you have to be working toward publishing a story, a romance story right now. No, you don't have to have a publication date, but you have to be actively working as a romance writer because the stuff that we're talking about is it's relevant to now. It's relevant to keeping you moving forward. Like what is your next goal in your business? Do you want to up your income by a certain amount so that you can replace your side job? Do you want to ⁓ make a best seller list? And if so, what is the reason for that goal?

Angela Haas (51:01)
So,

Mm hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (51:22)
and what are the steps to get you there? So my mission with the Stories for a Story Society is to help romance writers who are in that sort of mid-list muddiness to figure out where am I going? How am I gonna get there? And to give them a really strong, empathetic, happy support place to be.

Cassie Newell (51:32)
Mm.

Angela Haas (51:43)
Yeah, no, it's been great and the people are great and I love it because there's nothing wrong with being at different levels. I was a person who had didn't know what I was doing and hadn't written anything. It was just starting. There's a, there's cohorts and definitely a place for that.

But I love this because now that I have published a couple novels, I'm not starting at zero. So my, issues that I'm dealing with are a little bit more unique than how do we do an inciting incident? What do we, I don't need that help, but some of the niche marketing and like, yeah, I've got this situation where how do I have a third out break up or break up with that a misunderstanding. That's a pretty like specific need.

Cassie Newell (52:12)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (52:27)
that you have when you've already been writing and publishing. So that's why it's so amazing. mean, it's hard. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (52:29)
Right.

Sue Brown-Moore (52:31)
And who do you ask, right? So like when you have those questions as a writer and you're working in a silo,

maybe you have an editor, maybe you have an agent, maybe you have beta readers, but it's different to be able to just go to a place and say, hey, I have this question and I trust you because you are me. You're basically me, right? You're a different version of me. So like that kind of feedback system is so important to help you grow. Because I think you're right. There is a lot of beginner level content out there. And then there are things like RAM.

Angela Haas (52:50)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (52:50)
Writing.

⁓

Sue Brown-Moore (53:01)
which are way high level, right? So what is the middle space? How do we fill the middle space? Yeah, because like you can't be super high. You can't be Nora Roberts until you go through the mid list, right? Well, some people can, I suppose you can like break out, but typically most people, it's an iterative process and you learn and you grow and you can make a big back list and then you're gonna start marketing your back list, right?

Cassie Newell (53:03)
Mm-hmm. The middle space, yeah.

Angela Haas (53:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Cassie Newell (53:16)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (53:23)
Yes, absolutely.

Cassie Newell (53:23)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (53:25)
So we can put the link, but we're can read, where can listeners find you

Sue Brown-Moore (53:30)
Currently, I can't remember the URL, but I will give you the link for that. I am, there is a wait list right now. So I'm basically doing a cohort style onboarding. So every three months is the plan. So right now we're in our second founding member closed pilot cohort. I'm hoping to do the full like official launch in late September for starting in October. So it will be the fall, it be the first major cohort, I hope. ⁓ And.

Angela Haas (53:55)
Okay.

Sue Brown-Moore (53:57)
Once that happens, I'll bring everybody in to start the cohort at the beginning of the three months and then we'll have sort of like a to get getting to know each other time. And then

if you miss that, that's totally fine. There's a wait list and I send you information when you're on the wait list to keep you to let you know what's going on. It's like, here's what to look forward to. And here's the things that we do. And is this the right place for me to answer those kind of questions? So in that URL, if you join, if you read the requirements and you're like, hey, that's totally me, join the wait list and you will get all the information that you need.

once it goes live.

Angela Haas (54:28)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (54:28)
Awesome.

Angela Haas (54:29)
Well, the cat butt has appeared and that's usually the sign that we wrap up. No, it actually happens perfectly timed. When the cat butt appears, that means there it is. So I need to ask, ⁓ we need to do our table topic. Of course, share everything, yes.

Sue Brown-Moore (54:32)
Is that the sign?

Oh my gosh, I love it. Oh, can I share one more link with your listeners? Okay, so

Cassie Newell (54:46)
Hmm.

Yes.

Sue Brown-Moore (54:51)
I have, this is totally free. It's called my Character Arc Worksheet. So we've talked about characters. I love characters so much. Like that transformation journey is the most important thing. And so I have a Character Arc Worksheet that you can download on my website, totally free. It's basically like guide you through the five steps, the five stages and how to fill them in and what's the key component there.

Angela Haas (54:58)
Yay!

Sue Brown-Moore (55:13)
So go to Hi.SueBrownMoore.COM / author next door podcast and that will take you right to it. You just sign up and I will send it to your inbox.

Angela Haas (55:22)
That sounds amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's great. And we'll put it on the YouTube and all the other links as well. okay, I think this is, we feel like we're rebels. So this question is, if you could hang out with any band of outlaws, who would it be?

Cassie Newell (55:23)
Well, thank you so much for that. That's great.

Band of outlaws.

Angela Haas (55:42)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Brown-Moore (55:44)
I don't know any bands of outlaws.

Angela Haas (55:46)
Well, it could be like Bonnie and Clyde or something, know, who? Bands of outlaws. Think bigger, like think historical outlaws.

Cassie Newell (55:54)
Mmm.

I'm

thinking romance.

Sue Brown-Moore (55:59)
I'm going in my romantic fiction world because that's all I know.

Angela Haas (56:01)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (56:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, me too.

Angela Haas (56:06)
Yeah, okay.

Sue Brown-Moore (56:07)
Okay, well,

I would hang out with Bones from the Nighthunter series because as far as the vampire world goes, kind of are, they're not outlaws, but they're kind of rebels. They're doing things different and they're really upsetting things. If you go through the whole book series, they kind of revolutionize the vampire power structure. But ⁓ the whole Bones set up, think, talking about book boyfriends, he's not my original, but he's my longstanding favorite, even though those books are long over. So I would totally hang out with.

Angela Haas (56:12)
Ooh.

Okay.

Sue Brown-Moore (56:37)
phones and flat and all of them. My favorite.

Cassie Newell (56:41)
Awesome.

Angela Haas (56:42)
Kathy.

Cassie Newell (56:44)
So right now, well, J.R. Ward has been a long time fixture and immediate click buyer for me for like over 20 something years. Can't believe it's been that long. But ⁓ she's just now on Passion Flix and they just had season one and then it got me rereading the books, which was ridiculous because I have a TBR that's obscene. ⁓

Yeah, I would want to hang out with the original Black Dagger Brotherhood because that would be awesome!

Sue Brown-Moore (57:15)
They are totally rebels.

Yeah, they're outcast rebels for sure.

Cassie Newell (57:19)
Yeah, they are. So yeah, I was like, Jesse, Jesse James? No, I want the Black Dagger Brotherhood. Yeah, I want to meet the blind king and I need to meet V and Butch because they're my two faves

Sue Brown-Moore (57:26)
Give me wrath.

Angela Haas (57:27)
Well, that's.

Sue Brown-Moore (57:32)
I love them.

Angela Haas (57:33)
I

would, if there's like a real life Thomas Crown, the art heist people, I would want to be part of some, some like harmless art heist that doesn't hurt anyone. Like some gazillionaire who has a bunch of art and is not going to notice one piece missing like the Italian job. That's how I would want to hang out with those people. So, ⁓ they're all characters anyway.

Cassie Newell (57:36)
⁓

Hahaha

Sue Brown-Moore (57:58)
Yes.

Angela Haas (57:59)
Thank

you to Sue Brown Moore. We so appreciate you coming on and thank you listeners for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. really helps us with visibility. Next week, new month, and we're talking about how to grow your business as an author. Until then, keep writing, keep doing. We'll see ya.

Cassie Newell (58:21)
Thank you, bye.

Sue Brown-Moore (58:23)
Thanks for having me.