Episode 39: Crafting Thrilling Narratives

Angela Haas (00:18)
Welcome to episode 39. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell. And this month we're doing a deep dive into different genres. Today we're talking to my friend. I say that, she might not say that, but I say it. And best selling thriller author, Christine Daigle. Christine is a neuropsychologist currently working in brain computer interface.

Christine Daigle (00:36)
Yay. ⁓ I would say it, yeah.

Angela Haas (00:48)
Her latest novel, Heavy Are the Stones, co-authored with New York Times bestselling author, JD Barker, is available now. Her novel, Flatliners Resurrection, a reboot of the Flatliners movie franchise, also co-authored with JD Barker, is currently on submission. She's usually found with a glass of red wine, spoiling her cat, or wandering through weird art exhibits, ooh.

Let's talk about that. Welcome, Christine. Thank you so much.

Christine Daigle (01:15)
Accurate. Weird art exhibits? ⁓ how much time do you have?

Cassie Newell (01:19)
What's your latest one?

What's the latest?

Christine Daigle (01:24)
You know, it's been a little bit. I need to go and get to do more, but I just love weird, strange art. I'm like a fan of like Wyeth and like Chet Zar, who does, I have one of his paintings down in my basement. My husband won't let me put it in the upstairs because it freaks him out, but I love very strange and.

Angela Haas (01:42)
gosh.

Cassie Newell (01:42)
Ha!

Angela Haas (01:44)
Wyeth can get a little crazy. Yeah, Wyeth. But I thought you were gonna, do you like those kind of exhibits where it's, what is it, interactive? We have art gallery here and I was like, what is that? It's just a bunch of like rope glued to a wall. And then I saw a video of this art exhibit where this man is pouring dirt over a woman sitting there. And I'm like, huh, I don't know if that's art, but.

Christine Daigle (01:45)
unusual art.

Yeah.

Ha ha.

know

about that. like things that are unsettling. So things that I look at it and I go there's something not right about that that creeps me out. That's kind of my brand of art. Yeah, it does.

Angela Haas (02:17)
Nice. Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (02:18)
kind of matches Thriller Rider, right? I mean.

Angela Haas (02:20)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, so just for our listeners, tell us a little bit about your journey from, you know, all your neuro-brainiac amazing work to being a thriller author. Like, how did that transpire? Yeah. Take us back to your childhood, just basically.

Christine Daigle (02:37)
⁓ from the beginning? That's a story. Okay, well, so yeah,

my childhood, I did not want to be a writer. I know, like, there are lots of writers that say ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to write. That was not me. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was aimless, I suppose, for most of my life. But I was good in school. So I just did whatever anyone told me to do. They're like, you're good.

Cassie Newell (02:51)
Same.

Christine Daigle (03:05)
do hard sciences. So I said, okay. So I did a biochem in college. My plan, Angela, was to be a dentist.

Cassie Newell (03:15)
my god, that was me too!

Angela Haas (03:15)
my goodness.

Christine Daigle (03:16)
Yeah,

and not because I wanted to be a dentist because it was the quickest way to get out and make money because you could do two years of an undergrad and two years of dentistry and be done.

Cassie Newell (03:26)
and be done, yep.

Angela Haas (03:28)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (03:28)
I

have no manual dexterity. I cannot carve chalk or soap for the life of me. So I had to do something else. My cousin is a psychologist and he goes, you should be a neuropsychologist. I went, okay, I'm not doing anything better. So that's like my whole origin story. I had no idea what I wanted to do. And then after my internship, I got married, I had my son, I moved to Michigan.

Cassie Newell (03:44)
Wow.

Christine Daigle (03:53)
I didn't know anybody. Been there a couple years, I knew nobody. And I was at home with a newborn. And it was like the first time I had no cognitive stimulation. I was going out of my mind. Because newborns are the most boring potatoes in the whole world. So I'm like, I'm gonna write a novel, it'll be easy. I'll get that done, know, whip that out. YA fantasy's hot, I'll write that and I'll publish it. And boy, yeah.

Cassie Newell (04:08)
You

Angela Haas (04:08)
Right.

Yeah.

Cassie Newell (04:18)
you

Christine Daigle (04:22)
I wrote, I found a meetup group, I'm like, I wrote this. And they very kindly told me it was horrible. And that's how my writing journey started.

Cassie Newell (04:32)
Wow.

And you were like, give me more. And you just kept at it.

Christine Daigle (04:35)
Yeah, and I was like, okay.

Well, that's kind of my personality when people are like, you're not good at this, then I have to do it on steroids. I don't know, that's like my character flaw, I suppose.

Cassie Newell (04:46)
I know.

You

Angela Haas (04:49)
Yeah, I think that's a lot of us that, you know, we take it as a challenge instead of, a truth, which is, yeah, which is really good. So what does a neuropsychologist do exactly?

Christine Daigle (04:55)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ooh, so I do brain behavior relationships. So basically I collect data points about how your brain works. So when I started, I was working in a hospital in Detroit and I would test different things. So people who have ⁓ drug resistant epilepsy, I'd go in and do like eight hours of testing with them for things like memory, attention, concentration.

language, executive functioning, visual, spatial. And then they would freeze the part of the brain they were gonna take out. And then I would test them again to see if they lost like attention, language, memory. And so I do like things like that. And then head injuries. I did concussion assessments back in the day for a hockey team in Detroit, big one, and with a red wing symbol. And...

Cassie Newell (05:39)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (05:53)
Yeah, things like that. And I would do medical evaluations. And so people who are struggling with something, typically I would do and then kind of make a plan for them going forward. Now I actually work with kids. So I started in adults and now I do kids mostly like learning assessments, autism assessments, things like that. So yeah.

Cassie Newell (05:53)
I love it.

All

Angela Haas (06:15)
Wow, that's so rewarding. And it's so interesting because I don't know what the CliftonStrength is. I guess it's just input that makes you want data all the time and want to understand that.

Christine Daigle (06:16)
Yeah.

I'm a very nonverbal

girl, believe it or not. I'm a data nonverbal girl who writes books for some reason. I don't know.

Angela Haas (06:34)
Hmm.

Christine Daigle (06:35)
it's good. you know, I've kind of been doing the same thing. And so now I'm doing some brain computer interface just cause that's interesting to me. So we have some kids who are nonverbal and don't really have motor control. using that for them for socialization and play so they can do like pitching machines, Bumble machines, painting, choosing their snacks, working on some learning skills with, you know, kids who have never really had any.

Angela Haas (06:42)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (06:58)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (07:02)
autonomy over their environment. So that's fun. I'm doing a bit of that now. And it's external on the head. No implants. ⁓ Yes. So yeah, it's very cool.

Cassie Newell (07:07)
Wow.

Right, right.

That's great.

Angela Haas (07:15)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (07:16)
Now, how does your background associate with how you write characters? I imagine that they're a little bit interlinked.

Christine Daigle (07:25)
I would have to think so. I think I'm pretty good at understanding why people do what they do. So it kind of helps me with things like motivation. ⁓ Maybe when people aren't being truthful with themselves or others to kind of get some layers into that. Yeah, for sure.

Cassie Newell (07:31)
They do.

Angela Haas (07:45)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (07:46)
Right.

Wow, that's great.

Angela Haas (07:51)
So I read this book, by the way. This is the book, Heavy Are The Stones I wonder if there's ways to explain serial killers because sometimes you wonder if it is like a brain.

Christine Daigle (07:54)
yay!

Angela Haas (08:07)
injury or shortfall that makes someone want to hurt people. You know, you want to understand like why people make those choices. I'll never forget I ran over a squirrel one time. I was devastated. I ran over it and I was like, No, and I looked back and it gave this final

squeak and then I was dead and I was horrified. I can't imagine, we write fiction about other people taking other people's lives and I'm like, can you imagine? but you, I mean, you study like how to help people and, but have you ever studied that side of it?

Christine Daigle (08:27)
Yeah.

You

I don't know how far into the weeds you want to get into this because I don't want to get technical, but we can. ⁓ So there was a neuroscientist, his name was James Fallon, not Jimmy Fallon, James Fallon. And he was doing a study on sociopaths, you would call them. And so he was scanning people's brains and he had a pile of those. And then he also was

Angela Haas (08:45)
We can go weeds. ⁓

Cassie Newell (08:47)
you

Christine Daigle (09:07)
scanning his family because there was dementia running in his family and was looking for some early signs of dementia and did some of those scans. And it was really interesting. what his theory is, is that when some people look at something sad, maybe an injured squirrel or a cute baby or a little boy holding balloons, they process that kind of in their amygdala.

hippocampus area where they feel it emotionally, whereas what they call sociopaths process that in their frontal cortex, so intellectually instead of emotionally. So they're thinking about it logically instead of feeling it. So what's interesting about that is this neuroscientist when he was looking through his family's dementia,

Cassie Newell (09:36)
Mm.

Mm.

Christine Daigle (09:57)
recordings, he's like, I must have mixed one up and got one of the sociopath scans in here and it was his own. So, and then he got into this whole big area of called pro-social sociopaths, which are people who know right from wrong and maybe don't process things emotionally like other people do, but still know that like hurting you was wrong intellectually. What makes that leap into

Angela Haas (10:05)
my goodness.

Cassie Newell (10:06)
Wow.

Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (10:25)
hurting you is wrong and I don't care where you're now an anti-social kind of sociopath. I don't know, is it genetic, is it something that happened, is it the way something in your environment? I really don't have a good understanding of that. I watched all those Dahmer things and he had some issues growing, he had some pretty big traumas. So is it like, is that what it is? If someone had kind of.

Angela Haas (10:31)
to.

Cassie Newell (10:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (10:55)
been kind or been to a cheerleader for him at some point would have been different. Could be, right? Could have shaped his brain in different way, right? Yeah.

Angela Haas (11:01)
Right, yeah, so it could be, I yeah, and everyone

is so different, it's hard, but I really like finding patterns and seeing what the patterns are. And I mean, there are with sociopaths and serial killers, there are patterns, like hurting animals is like a sign that that's something to come because usually kids aren't totally into that. ⁓ Yeah.

Christine Daigle (11:19)
Yeah.

No, that doesn't feel good for most kids.

Cassie Newell (11:26)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (11:28)
Yeah, yeah.

Angela Haas (11:28)
Yeah, yeah.

So it's, it's probably environment, genetics, you know, all this stuff that just is like a big cocktail. Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (11:35)
epigenetic for sure. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (11:37)
Right.

So we're talking about different genres this month, and I know you write thrillers, and thrillers thrive on tension and pacing. How do you consciously structure a thriller so readers can't put it down? Are there any techniques or rules?

Christine Daigle (11:44)
Yes.

Um, you know, I'm not big on rules. think whatever works works. I can tell you what I do. Um, and mostly cause JD made me do it. This was the first thriller I wrote. So it was, it was nice because it was kind of a mentor relationship and he really outlined things for me very concretely, uh, pacing is king. So that I learned very quickly. you have a little more leeway in some other genres, but anything that was filler cut.

Cassie Newell (11:58)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (12:20)
Like if it was a joke and you think it's funny and it doesn't drive the plot forward, cut. So it's really, really a lot of ruthless cutting to make sure that that story, every sentence is moving the next sentence forward. If it's stagnant, I think, you know, by pacing, we go, what do we mean pacing? We mean your reading speed, the speed that you read. So anything that's slowing down your reading speed, cut. The other thing that I learned

Cassie Newell (12:42)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (12:46)
what in structuring is we always hear increasing stakes, but what does that mean when you say increase stakes? You're increasing setbacks for your main character, you're increasing obstacles, but you're also increasing revelations. So these things are getting more difficult and bigger and bigger and bigger as you go along until you hopefully get that last revelation, ⁓ obstacles set back all in one that just blows your audience.

mind, right? They call it the twist or whatever and they go, whoa. So you always want to be sequencing those obstacles, those setbacks, those revelations in a way that they organically are making sense so they get bigger. ⁓ And I tend to cut my paragraph length down as we're getting closer to that final paragraph. Chapter. Everything. Everything gets

Cassie Newell (13:17)
Right. Yeah.

Angela Haas (13:21)
Thanks.

Right.

Christine Daigle (13:45)
gets

tighter. So I usually write for thrillers about 12, 1500 word chapters. But when you're getting to that last kind of battle, they get 800, 700, 500. It gets more machine gun like until you're out and then into that resolution, denny ma, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, the breathing space. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I think that's mainly it. Like, yeah.

Cassie Newell (13:47)
really trimmed.

The breathing space. Yeah, I love that.

Christine Daigle (14:15)
That's most of it.

Cassie Newell (14:17)
Interesting. And I think that's something you can do across genres, really, when you're needing to move the pace along. I write short romance, and that's something I'm very conscious of, what's, where do I want people to breathe and have a part of the character versus where I want the speed to move them forward ⁓ in the actions and things. So that's really interesting. I love that.

Christine Daigle (14:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

exactly.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (14:44)
Yeah, because I think even after writing a steamy scene, they need to come up for air. You need to give your reader a break and have them be like, okay, whoa, that was a lot. know, at least I need that. but I think any format for any genre is ups and downs and curves. But I had to learn that too, writing the sci-fi is you can have really big

Christine Daigle (14:49)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (14:51)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (15:10)
action sequences, but then you need to have your fun and games too. You need to have, you do need to have that, think in, in sort of sci-fi fantasy, epic sci-fis. ⁓ There's always that moment where they are telling those jokes or I call it planning around the table, know, planning their next move and everyone's pacing and throwing out ideas. And that's kind of, least in the superhero ones that, but there's always that sort of breath where they're like, okay, what do we do next?

Christine Daigle (15:28)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (15:40)
How do we save our friend? but it's still moving the story forward. My question is, you had a really successful Vella sci-fi series. It was more sci-fi. It still had that pace, but it was sci-fi, so I guess there's a two-part question. And the first part is...

Christine Daigle (15:50)
It was very sci-fi. Yeah.

Angela Haas (15:59)
When you transition from science fiction, which is a lot of world building and, a lot of character, supernatural characters sometimes to thrillers, what did you have to do differently? Or was that a pivot for you or did it just come easily? Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (16:13)
⁓ yeah, was a huge pivot.

I was scared, honestly, when I said I would write it, because JD was like, have you ever written a thriller? I'm like, no, but I will. I'll write you a good thriller. So I was kind of scared because, I don't know, can I write a thriller? But I consume thrillers, right? So I just had to go back to what were the thrillers that I love? What did I love about them? How do I make that kind of transition?

Cassie Newell (16:26)
you

Christine Daigle (16:43)
And so I very heavily influenced this book, of course, by Silence of the Lambs, Seven those type of things. was like, I love those. So I know what works in those. know how those are structured. I know how a story is structured in general. So a lot of it just kind of translates over, because I was writing sci-fi adventure. This is also an adventure. It's just a very dark.

Cassie Newell (17:00)
in general, yeah.

Angela Haas (17:06)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (17:10)
real world adventure versus, you know, we're gonna have some time travel funsies adventures and that kind of thing. yeah, so it actually wasn't as difficult as I thought. I was scared because I'm like, I don't know if I can do this because I've never done this genre. But the genre hopping wasn't as bad as I expected at all. use what I used to be a craft junkie. So I've read so many storycraft books. I'm like, you know what to do just

Angela Haas (17:18)
Right.

Cassie Newell (17:19)
It's funny.

Angela Haas (17:21)
Right.

Christine Daigle (17:39)
apply that and it worked fine. Yeah.

Angela Haas (17:39)
Just do it. Yeah,

it's just in more of the real world. It's the same pacing. I went from sci-fi to romance, so that's an even bigger pivot. And I actually was starting to write a thriller series, but where I got stuck was just the research, just.

Christine Daigle (17:47)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (17:59)
I started to just get so stuck on that and it was inhibiting me just writing. I felt like I had to have all the information first. But what I was scared about was like, sometimes we're so desensitized. Is there really a twist that can really surprise us anymore? how do you make that?

Christine Daigle (18:05)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (18:21)
twist feels so impactful and something someone hasn't seen so they're not expecting it. Whereas like with romance, a certain amount of what readers expect you need. you're not, you're, doing kind of the same thing, but a little different. But even if it feels similar, readers want that. Don't thriller readers want something new and fresh every single time? Yeah. How do you shock people?

Christine Daigle (18:28)
you

Cassie Newell (18:45)
Shocking.

Christine Daigle (18:46)
Yeah, I

think that you do. I think that can feel gimmicky if that's all you've got is the plot twist. It's memorable, but it can also feel gimmicky. So I think it's always just tying that to character. Does the make sense with the character? I think plot is character. And character is action, and action is decision. And we can go through this. So I think they're intrinsically tied. ⁓

Angela Haas (18:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Cassie Newell (19:08)
Yeah, I agree.

Christine Daigle (19:16)
So I think if you really think about what are the values of my character, where are they starting, where are they ending, you may have a flat character, which is fine. How are the opponents mirrors of this value or this desire? How are they challenging them? It kind of helps for me just how the revelations kind of flow on their own. Like when I was writing this, I was kind of.

is always when you're writing, they're always about justice. Are you going to pick justice? And so it's definitely about that. And how are other people going to challenge justice? Like Silas is challenging because he also thinks he's doling out justice, even though he's a serial killer. But then there's another killer. And then we're looking at legacy. Like my detective really cares about her legacy. She'll go a little bit outside of justice to do it.

Cassie Newell (20:01)
Right.

Angela Haas (20:01)
Exactly.

Yeah.

Christine Daigle (20:13)
Silas cares about his legacy, but he thinks what he's doing is right. And this other one just cares about legacy. He will blow up anything or kill anyone as long as you remember his name. So it's kind of looking at the spectrum of that. And then what's gonna be kind of a twist or a shock to reveal that's surprising. And it is tricky for sure, especially thriller readers. They watch a lot of thrillers. They read a lot of thrillers. They can see stuff coming a mile away.

Cassie Newell (20:39)
mile away.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (20:40)
Right. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (20:41)
So yeah,

it is definitely difficult. I don't know that I have a great answer for that other than maybe think about it and then, you know, twist it, twist it, twist it. Yes. I knew it was coming.

Cassie Newell (20:43)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (20:47)
No, I think it's just...

Cassie Newell (20:50)
there's there's also a satisfaction to when you see it coming and you know it. You know what I mean? Like you're like, know this is how it's gonna be.

it's funny, because we have like a running joke in my house that I will figure it out before everyone else, no matter what it is. ⁓ There's only a few that stumped me. And it's so funny, like my husband will name them. It's these two.

Christine Daigle (21:01)
Thanks

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cassie Newell (21:15)
You know, it's so funny, but ⁓ I'm just curious, too. I feel the exact same way. I feel like story is character. And I'm just curious, was there a difference in how you approached characters with regards to thrillers?

Christine Daigle (21:16)
Yeah.

Yes.

You know, I don't think so. I have to know my character as a person. You know, what is their flaw, I guess, or weakness? How do I see them, their self-revelation by the end of the story? Where are they going on the spectrum from where to where? So that's what I'm looking at. Where are we starting? Where are we ending? What do you need to learn?

Cassie Newell (21:35)
Yeah, yeah, holistically, right?

Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (21:54)
Who are the people that are gonna help you on this journey? Who are the people that are going to challenge you on this journey and be mirrors of kind of your weakness and your need and your desire? So I kind of, like, how are they gonna attack you? Who's gonna help you? Where are we gonna end up? So I think really just thinking about like weaknesses and values and needs and desires really makes a person feel kind of whole. And I think that's across genres too,

Angela Haas (22:22)
So when Vella ended, tell us about that though, because did that influence you changing genres at all? Or did it just a new opportunity came out? Like how, that's a real pivot in your career, you know?

Christine Daigle (22:24)
and

Yeah, it actually... Well, you

know what's interesting is I was always kind of just like a poker until I liked writing, but obviously I have a busy day job. ⁓ I had a bunch of like, when I started writing, then I had a few years of issues with health in my family that I had to deal with. So I didn't really write for a few years. And then I was just kind of a casual writer. Then is right when I feel like it and see where that would go.

But when Vella came out, I was like, if I'm jump on, I guess I've gotta do this. And that is trial by fire. Anyone who has never tried serial fiction writing, it is a challenge. I was writing with my friend, we were writing under a pen name. We were writing two series when we started and putting out two chapters a week. So that's four chapters a week. And then we just went with the more popular series eventually, but we wrote it for years.

And it was years, yeah, it was like burnout by the time when Vella was done. I was kind of like, thank God I could take a break. ⁓ It was like, good. I think we were in the middle of what would have been the sixth novel when Vella, like if we're looking at novel lengths, kind of went away. And then we did put those out as, you know, just novels on, you know, KDP and.

Cassie Newell (23:28)
Really?

Angela Haas (23:36)
Right.

Cassie Newell (23:37)
You were like, yay!

Wow.

That's significant.

Angela Haas (23:49)
Wow.

Christine Daigle (23:57)
paperback and rolling, we can do that too, which is fine. But for me, it wasn't as much as a downer as it was from some people, because I was already writing the thriller. I started that right in 2022 before Vella was done. I think it published in 2024, but I started it in 2022. So for me, it kind of worked out nice because I'm like, okay, this is done. And I can move on to the new

part of writing, which was also very challenging. So it was just upping kind of where I was at and trying to be professional and make that more career oriented than when I was kind of being more hobbyist about it. So, yeah.

Angela Haas (24:40)
do you miss writing the sci-fi or do you plan to go back to that or?

Christine Daigle (24:44)
You know what, I've

been back and forth on it because it's hard. Because I wrote, you know, Heavy Are The Stones. It's got some high tech stuff in it, which is I like high tech stuff and we've got the psychology in it. And then I did Flatliners, which again is my brain stuff and high tech, which is more specfic thriller than Heavy Are The Stones, which was more straight up serial killer, even though it's high tech.

Angela Haas (24:56)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (25:12)
But I really like writing in that specfic thriller space where I can bring those things that I know from my expertise that are interesting to me about how the human mind works, how can we enhance human capabilities in ways that are here or like about to be here, they're coming. So that fascinates me. So combining that with a thriller genre in a way that's a little bit more grounded than

Angela Haas (25:17)
Sure.

Cassie Newell (25:17)
Hmm.

Both.

Christine Daigle (25:41)
some of the earlier sci-fi stuff I was writing, find that really interesting. So I think I wanna kind of continue in that specfic thriller space. It's kind of like Blake Crouch, but maybe even backing off that science a little bit so it's more grounded. That's kind of where I'd like to be. Yeah.

Angela Haas (25:57)
Right.

Cassie Newell (25:58)
That's exciting.

Angela Haas (26:00)
Yeah, and speculative fiction Yeah.

Cassie Newell (26:00)
You can see it in your facial expression how excited you are about it. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (26:04)
I love that. It's so cool. That's

fun.

Angela Haas (26:07)
⁓ Speculative fiction is exactly what though, because are other genres under that umbrella or is it its own special genre?

Christine Daigle (26:16)
You know, that's a good question. I don't know if anyone has a good definition, but I can give you my understanding of it. Specfic is where we think things are going. And to me, it's more near future. It's more grounded. It's not like we're going to have a warp drive on a spaceship, which I guess is technically Specfic too. But I think when they're talking about it in the industry, they mean it's a little more grounded and a little more closer to now than maybe far future.

Angela Haas (26:35)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (26:45)
If that makes sense. Yeah. And that's only my understanding. I could be completely wrong. And if I'm wrong, please email Angela and Cassie to tell me I'm wrong.

Angela Haas (26:45)
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Yes, please tell her how wrong my guest was.

it's an interesting genre. think it can, I like how it can encompass anything and everything in a way.

⁓ But what always trips me up is thriller versus crime or police.

Christine Daigle (27:07)
Yes.

Angela Haas (27:14)
procedural because this seems like still police procedural but it's got thriller elements. So what's the major difference between those?

Christine Daigle (27:15)
Yes.

Cassie Newell (27:17)
Hmm.

Christine Daigle (27:19)
Yeah. You

know what, I was thinking about that today, about the difference between crime and thriller fiction, and it's funny that you mentioned this, and I don't have a good answer. Other than in thrillers, somebody needs to die. And maybe in crime fiction, they don't. They usually do die. although they're, you know, I don't have a good answer.

Cassie Newell (27:37)
Yeah, they usually have a murder or something.

Angela Haas (27:41)
Is it when

you know maybe thriller is you the reader knows who the killer is and it's just that cat and mouse game like who's going to really win? You don't know. Yeah, you don't know. It's the Scooby Doo where they take the mask off and it's like yeah.

Christine Daigle (27:50)
versus the more crime mystery about unmasking who it is. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (27:54)
Mm-hmm. I was thinking of the Scooby Doo a minute. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

Christine Daigle (27:58)
It's the more Scooby-Doo. I was

reading a genre sheet just to look at the beats and it had it for crime and for thriller and I'm like, still don't know what the difference is. And I was trying to compare them side by side.

Angela Haas (28:14)
think they definitely blend. think you can have police, this has a lot of police procedures and you had to understand how law enforcement works to write this, but you have the point of view from the killer. And so I think in police procedural, you just truly don't, it's all the detective trying to solve the case, you know, but you always have a dead body first in.

Christine Daigle (28:16)
You do.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

Yes.

Angela Haas (28:40)
crime and police

Christine Daigle (28:41)
Yes.

Angela Haas (28:41)
procedural The dead body is like chapter one.

Cassie Newell (28:44)
Well,

yeah, and some thrillers don't even have a police component. Like if you think of like Cape Fear and things like that, you know, I mean, they're a sub line in the background, but it's a terror of a family.

Angela Haas (28:50)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right.

Christine Daigle (28:50)
Hmm.

Yeah.

it's a marketing label. I don't know.

Cassie Newell (29:00)
Yeah, it

could be, I'm curious on the world building side of this, since we were talking sci-fi, which is heavily world building and being in current, like, did you approach that differently with the thriller? Were you kind of like relieved that it's closer?

Angela Haas (29:01)
I'm

Christine Daigle (29:08)
Yeah.

I

did, honestly. I know Angela said she got a cut off. I barely did any research for this. I did a lot of Google Earth because it was set in Pittsburgh and I'm like, I need to look at streets. ⁓ A lot of real estate listings to look at houses so I can have like a consistent house. So I did a lot of that, which I don't do for sci-fi because I'm mostly, sometimes I do too, because I'm just mostly making it up. Anytime I needed something in tech, just did.

Angela Haas (29:19)
He

Cassie Newell (29:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (29:31)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (29:43)
Right.

Christine Daigle (29:46)
at the point I was writing and like, need to know how this works. So I would just dive into it. For like more of the police stuff and the fighting stuff, I just ask people who have expertise in that. I'm very lucky to have a Marine in my writer's group who tells me everything about guns and fighting and how to block with a knife and how to snap a neck. So thank you, Brian. I don't know if he'll listen to this, but he'll tell me if I've got it accurate or not.

Cassie Newell (29:50)
Yeah. Interesting.

Angela Haas (30:11)
Okay.

Christine Daigle (30:16)
You know, ask people. Police are happy to talk to you about their job. People who have been in armed forces are happy to talk to you about their job. The VR stuff, I just asked my son. I'm like, hey, how does this work? So yeah, it was good.

Cassie Newell (30:22)
Right.

Angela Haas (30:27)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (30:31)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (30:35)
Yeah, we did interview a retired police officer and he said the same thing. You know, there's a way to approach. his group is Cops and Writers but yeah, Patrick. Yeah. I'm still in that group for whenever I'm ready, but people are only too happy to.

Cassie Newell (30:35)
Great.

Christine Daigle (30:46)
yeah, Patrick. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (30:47)
Patrick. Yep.

Angela Haas (30:55)
answer that. It's just kind of, it's funny when I get those notifications and they're like, it's just all my normal Facebook notifications and then the snippet of what people are asking, like, how do you bury a dead body?

Facebook is not monitoring this group because there's some like, I've read things where I'm like, whoa, I hope you really are writing a novel. yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know authors who use chat GPT for research, but can you really rely on that?

Christine Daigle (31:11)
No.

this is really for fiction.

Cassie Newell (31:19)
Yeah, that's funny.

Christine Daigle (31:27)
I don't,

because I don't like, I don't trust it. I don't trust it.

Angela Haas (31:30)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (31:31)
Like, yeah, no, I had asked it something medical at one point and it was completely wrong and I was like, nevermind. So that was kind of the end of my asking Chad GPT for research things. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (31:38)
Yeah.

for references because I've done medical things before because I'm in my corporate

life is clinical research and I will ask it for references on things I'm like show me where you got this like prove your work you know like a typical scientist and if it jams up I'm like okay different question let me ask it a different way so yeah

Christine Daigle (31:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask something

that was very speculative and like, I couldn't really find the answer well. And then I put it in, I'm like, this doesn't sound right to me at all. And I'm like, so forget that. Luckily, in my writers group, we have an oncologist. So I just asked her, she's very smart. ⁓ Thank you, Jennifer. She solved that for me. Make writer friends. They have expertise like you won't believe. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (32:10)
Yeah.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Angela Haas (32:17)
Wow.

That's so great.

Cassie Newell (32:26)
Yep.

Angela Haas (32:26)
Mm hmm. Well,

it's just another reason that as indie authors, you can't do this by yourself. You know, you have to have a community around you that you can turn to for any types of questions, whether it's research or support or ideas. But that's why you have to. That's like number one. And I didn't have that for a long time. I just kind of had

Christine Daigle (32:32)
No.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (32:53)
a couple people that I talked to, but I wish I would have been in some of the sci-fi groups and, you know, just asking people. Just because I was thinking, well, superheroes, I don't really need the science of space travel. And I was wrong. The readers were like, actually, you do. you still have to tell us how they got to this planet so fast. And I'm like, ⁓ on the spaceship?

Christine Daigle (32:58)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (33:20)
goes fast. mean, what else do need to know? mean, but the readers are like, no, you need a few more sciency details in there. So if I do well, when I go back to finishing the sci fi series, I'm definitely going to make sure there's more of the science elements in there. So but as long as like, you've got to still make sure you don't bog down with so much tech, right? Because that can

Christine Daigle (33:29)
Thank you.

Yeah.

No.

Angela Haas (33:50)
really ruin your pacing. I mean, if you've just got tech and tech and tech doesn't the reader. Isn't that boring.

Cassie Newell (33:56)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (33:57)
Yeah, and then you're

writing a different genre, then you're writing hard sci-fi and that's a different readership. So you really do have to walk that line, right? Between I've done all this research and I'm going to put it in two lines for you in lay terminology. There you go. You know, so yeah, it is true.

Cassie Newell (34:10)
bright.

always

amazed with Andy Weir. Like I've read The Martian and Project Hail Mary and just all the facts that he throws at you scientifically that are so digestible is really quite amazing that it doesn't completely turn you off. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (34:17)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No, he does a wonderful job. ⁓

like the Martian was so fact-based and so good and such a good read. then, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (34:36)
And so, yeah. And I listened to it and on the audio and I was like, am I going to lose this? Like I was kind

of nervous about it. It's like, no, it was still entertaining.

Christine Daigle (34:48)
I liked Hail Mary because he was trying to do some more emotional character growth and it just cracked me up because he'd be like, my crew is dead and I'm sad. Now here's a bunch of science facts,

Cassie Newell (34:58)
Yep.

Angela Haas (34:58)
You You

Christine Daigle (35:00)
but still my crew is dead and I'm sad. And I just, loved it. And I was like, he's trying and we're trying to get more emotion in there. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (35:03)
I know. He's trying. Yeah, very, very much so. I loved it.

Angela Haas (35:12)
Well, one more question about Heavy Are the Stones since it was a collaboration. How do, how does a collaboration like that work? Because I was reading it, I almost couldn't escape into it because I was like, I wonder if this is what Christine wrote, you know, like, just like, trying to figure out who wrote what and I'm like, what if this is her exact words or his or, know.

Christine Daigle (35:15)
Sure.

Ha ha ha!

Cassie Newell (35:27)
Ha!

Christine Daigle (35:32)
Well, it's interesting.

Like, yeah, this was more ⁓ like ⁓ a mentorship type deal. where we, you know, I pitched a couple of things. He picked what he liked. And then I kind of worked on like a back cover jacket and we tweaked that. And then I did an outline and then he went over that and gave his opinions. And then I would write. And then once a month, I just turned stuff into him and he'd give me feedback.

and then rewrite. And we did that until it was like the best I could get it. And then he took it over and did his draft. So it was kind of like, I first drafted it with feedback, like mentorship feedback, and then he finished it off ⁓ once I had it the best I could get it. So that was an interesting experience because it was mostly like he was teaching me what he knew as we went, which was good. So I said that was bootcamp. would...

Cassie Newell (36:23)
Mmm.

Christine Daigle (36:27)
I'm like, I went through writer's bootcamp. But then when he asked me to write flatliners with him, it was a totally different experience. We did that live together in Google Docs versus me just sending them Word docs once a month and JD is a machine. He writes like four hours a day every day except Sunday. And he does that full time. I work a full time job. So I was also writing four hours a day every day for eight months.

Cassie Newell (36:44)
Yeah.

Right. Trying to fit

Angela Haas (36:53)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (36:55)
it in.

Christine Daigle (36:56)
Which

is the, I was like, this is the fastest I've ever written a book. So that was like bootcamp 2.0. Cause we did it in real time. I would first draft a chapter and he would finish it or he would draft it and I would come in and we just back and forth the whole way through it. So that was, there are two very different experiences on those books and they were both valuable. Like I learned a ton. I like it too. Like I like collaborating cause I'm very.

Angela Haas (37:00)
Mm hmm.

Cassie Newell (37:22)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (37:23)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Christine Daigle (37:24)
deadline responsive. So if I have a deadline and I have someone waiting on me, that pushes me,

Cassie Newell (37:31)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Daigle (37:33)
gives me a little bit more of adrenaline, makes me make sure I'm doing it. And I think writing a book faster, you keep that thread better too. So I can keep all that story in my head and the ending isn't different than the beginning, know, so different voice or whatever and you have go back and fix that.

Cassie Newell (37:42)
Yeah.

Did you have like a pre-meeting of what Flatliners was going to be? Or did you pants all the way through it? Okay, because I was like, it sounds like you're pantsing, but I can't imagine that. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (37:58)
Yeah. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. No, We had a pre-meeting. We outlined.

It took us a month to outline it before we started writing. So yeah, we weren't going in blind, but the chapters were just, who's ever writing it in and back and forth. So yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (38:07)
Yeah.

I love it.

That's great.

Christine Daigle (38:19)
Yeah, JD used to be a pantser, but then I guess James Patterson beat that out of him. So now he's a solid outliner. He doesn't pants anymore. ⁓

Angela Haas (38:19)
Wow. Yeah. Well,

Cassie Newell (38:28)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (38:31)
I've learned, I'm more of a plotter than I ever have been because I've learned that I need to outline and have a beginning, middle and end and at least because I would just start like writing random scenes and then hope that they went somewhere in the book but

Christine Daigle (38:36)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (38:49)
It actually wastes more of my time because then I end up like changing it or having to rewrite or, you know, I thought I had the ending to this one book. I was so excited. Final battle scene. And I was like, this character, I totally got rid of this person. So then I had to rewrite it all anyway. And it just, yeah. So plotting is, I know it's like, I told my friend the other day and she's like, I betrayed, we're supposed to be pantsers forever.

Christine Daigle (39:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (39:19)
And I was

like, you know, it's actually easier for me now.

Christine Daigle (39:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

I think your process changes. I always do whatever works for you, but I was a loose outliner than more of a militant outliner. And then we did serial, which was total pantsing for years. Cause I'm like, I don't know, just get a chapter out and you can't change what came before. And now I'm back to like pretty significant outlines. Like my outlines can be long. They can be 20, 40 pages before I'm writing. So yeah.

Angela Haas (39:47)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (39:51)
Yeah, I've learned that

writing short, I'm not as outline heavy as I am with a novel. Yeah. And I'm still very much a quilter. Like, I'm a lot like Angela in that I know the major things. And then as I'm going, I'm kind of discovery writing my characters as I go. Sometimes my ending will change, but I have a really good, like it will, the main thread of it.

Christine Daigle (39:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Haas (39:58)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (40:09)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (40:18)
is always how I picture it. I always know the endings, but yeah, that's kind of how

Christine Daigle (40:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think, you know, even

if you're plotting, you have to not be afraid to throw your outline out if it's not working for you, no matter how long you spent on it. I changed the ending to Heavy Are The Stones I threw it out, wrote a different one. Yeah. So you just get there and that's what happens sometimes, right? Yeah.

Cassie Newell (40:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I

just think of them as placeholders, like outlines are placeholders. And if it you veer off course, because it's better. You veer off course, because I remember I wrote this ⁓ draft for a firefighter book that will come out later this year. And I sent it to Angela and I was like, OK, I have a quirky female who has a potential head injury and she's going to say these funny, weird things. She's like, I think it needs to be.

Christine Daigle (40:41)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (40:57)
you

Christine Daigle (41:02)
Hahaha

Cassie Newell (41:08)
higher, like way higher in her responses. And it's like, you're right, I'm being too like, timid about it. You know, ⁓ so sometimes you really have to lean into things being exaggerated to for the funny.

Angela Haas (41:10)
No.

Christine Daigle (41:16)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Angela Haas (41:25)
I think the only other thing, if you're just starting out writing thrillers, what are some good newbie resources that listeners could be like, how do I even, where do I start? Like as far as even reading fiction, or was there a good like,

Cassie Newell (41:38)
Yeah.

Christine Daigle (41:41)
boy. Yeah.

Angela Haas (41:45)
Reference that you swear by that helps you when you are just starting to learn about the genre

Christine Daigle (41:51)
I always say read a lot of thrillers, but also read widely. Read everything. Reading is the best learning tool. I'm trying to think, you know, I read a ton of craft books ⁓ when I started. Now it's been a long time since I've read a craft book. And it's kind of like some of them I read too early because I didn't understand them. And then now going back and like, ⁓ now I understand it. ⁓

Cassie Newell (41:56)
Hmm.

even.

Mmm.

Angela Haas (42:14)
Right.

Christine Daigle (42:20)
Like I really enjoyed the Story Grid podcast when I was starting some of those beginning episodes to really talk about structure. ⁓ Take Off Your Pants is a good one. Write Your Story From the Middle. Those are all pretty beginner friendly. Like you can kind of just get an idea of what should a structure of a book look like? What should a scene look like? How do I drive things forward?

Angela Haas (42:24)
Yep.

Cassie Newell (42:31)
Yep.

Christine Daigle (42:48)
They all kind of say the same thing, just a different way. So they all kind of have the same, this is how you structure a story, but they say it differently, which I think sometimes repetition is good in those because then you're like, I get it. I didn't maybe get it the first time. The Save the Cat books, you can get some things from those. Those are pretty good, pretty easily understandable. I guess those are some places to start.

Angela Haas (42:52)
Mm-hmm.

Is there, is

there like a thriller centric resource that you've used for like maybe an intermediate? It has basic craft down, but is looking for that thriller.

Christine Daigle (43:24)
Mmm.

For thriller itself, like honestly, I think it's just reading the genre. For like more advanced craft book, John Truby, Anatomy of Story, like if you're beyond the beginners, that's a good one. There are so many good ones that people like. ⁓ But sometimes I think like you can get so bogged down in craft that the worst part is making craft conscious. It's like when you have a golf swing.

Angela Haas (43:31)
Just reading. Yeah, just really getting in there.

Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (43:38)
Yeah,

that's a good one.

Angela Haas (43:49)
Yeah, true.

Cassie Newell (43:50)
You don't

write?

Christine Daigle (43:55)
golf swing and you take a lesson and you break your golf swing. Just know when you read a craft book, you're going to break your golf swing for a bit. And it's going to take a bit to get it moved over from that conscious brain to where it's more subconscious. And you don't want it sitting up here where you're thinking, ⁓ is you know, did I do my mice quotient or like that? That's not good when you're writing, you've got to kind of be in flow. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (44:17)
is such a good analogy on the golf swing to be quite honest.

Yeah, I felt that intimately going from short to novel and back to short. And I think I said to Angela, I think I forgot how to write short. Because I was I was dragging it out. And I was like, I can't have this chapter. You know, yeah, it's Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:23)
you

Christine Daigle (44:31)
Yeah.

They are different, different skill sets. know people are like, try

write short stories for novels. I'm like, no, I cannot write a short story to save my life. Like I really can't. ⁓ And I don't know, like I've had this advice, I've been like, do write the short stories and you can get in the short story market. I'm like, those markets are as hard to get into as the novel markets. So if you think I'm going to, you know, this will be fast and I'll get in a market and then I'll get my name out.

Angela Haas (44:49)
No.

Cassie Newell (44:58)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (45:06)
I don't know how often that actually happens. Yeah, because those are sold well in advance. Like they have those spots taken by big names and there might be one or two spots and it's hard to break into the short story market too.

Cassie Newell (45:08)
Yeah, I think it's a misnomer. think it's also to that.

Angela Haas (45:10)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (45:15)
Yeah.

I think it's also kind of that dream. Well, in our podcast is more for the sophomore writer, if you will, but the idea that your first novel is going to be your breakthrough novel, right? That dream

Christine Daigle (45:27)
Yeah.

boy.

Angela Haas (45:35)
Now.

Cassie Newell (45:35)
too is a little bit naive, I think, for a lot of people. Usually the breakthrough or the big author that you're seeing that was an overnight success was truly not.

Christine Daigle (45:40)
Yeah.

they're not. I remember I was doing a conference with Sherry Priest and I forget what novel, I think it was for Bone Shaker. And she's like, I was in Overnight Success, but this is my seventh novel and I have a PhD in rhetoric. I'm like, yeah. And they're like, her debut. And she's like, but I wrote seven of them. So that always stuck with me. My first novel is Never Seeing the Light of Day. It was like,

Cassie Newell (45:49)
an overnight success, you know.

Yeah.

All right.

Christine Daigle (46:14)
Robert Jordan pastiche with a China medieval ending and it was dreadful. And I hope it's been deleted and nobody ever sees it.

Angela Haas (46:19)
⁓ boy.

gosh,

now I want to it, of course.

Christine Daigle (46:27)
⁓ man,

no.

Cassie Newell (46:30)
This was great.

Angela Haas (46:31)
Yeah, well,

thank you. This was really helpful and actually I got some ideas. Maybe I should write a thriller instead. No, stick to romance, Angela. Stop it. ⁓ Well, that's why I'm only reading romance right now because if I read anything else, I'll start to get ideas. So we don't want that. Here's what's next. Table topics.

Christine Daigle (46:33)
Thank you.

haha

Cassie Newell (46:41)
Angela, Angela.

Christine Daigle (46:52)
It's shiny. Yeah.

Angela Haas (46:58)
This is a weird one, but maybe, I don't know. What would be a good addition to the human body?

Christine Daigle (47:02)
Okay.

my goodness, what would be a good addition to the human body? I mean, I could use like a tail, I suppose. Like a monkey tail. I know, I always have my hands full. I don't know. Could I use that to pick up things? We used to have them, we lost them. Like bring tails back. I don't know.

Cassie Newell (47:07)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (47:14)
You

Right? Yeah. That's what I was thinking like, right? Right. Then there would be like

Cassie Newell (47:25)
I it. ⁓

Angela Haas (47:28)
whole romance novels like describing men's tales. Like, did you see his tail? my gosh. ⁓ yeah, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Fantasy. Yes, I don't read fantasy. It's already there, but it'd be like in the

Cassie Newell (47:34)
There are a whole set of romance.

Christine Daigle (47:36)
yeah.

Cassie Newell (47:40)
Yeah. It's called monster

romance. Yeah, there's the whole thing there.

Angela Haas (47:45)
I know, but it would be like

in contemporary romance because it would be like everyday. Yeah.

Christine Daigle (47:49)
That would be kind of fun, like just to do a contemporary

romance with tails, like nothing else. You just have like your little monkey tail, you just hang from something, pick something up. That'd be cool.

Angela Haas (47:54)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (48:00)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (48:00)
Yeah, I think it would be cool if we were born with like an extra set of arms like we just had two sets and then we can just like think of that homage. Yeah. ⁓

Christine Daigle (48:05)
I know.

I need more hands, that's really what I need.

Cassie Newell (48:11)
I think I'm gonna go

sci-fi on you. I think we should be born with an area in order to put in like a computer chip to like correct something. For me, I would love to be multilingual without having to try.

Christine Daigle (48:29)
Like the matrix is down right in there. ⁓

Angela Haas (48:30)
yeah. Yeah, just download

Cassie Newell (48:31)
Yeah, just download

it. I can speak to you can talk to me. I don't have to turn on my phone and go please translate and not let me sound stupid. ⁓ yeah, I would love that ability.

Angela Haas (48:32)
it.

Yeah.

That would be cool. Like even to a chip in your body, like, oh, my, my knee hurts instead of going through all these archaic, like, I'm sorry, an MRI, we can't change that. Like you can't shove me in a small tight tunnel. You have to look at my whole body and then that was just my knee. Like we can build rockets, but we can't make a better way to look at my knee. I just love a patch where it just goes in and fixes whatever, you know, that would be cool.

Christine Daigle (48:44)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (48:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christine Daigle (49:09)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (49:09)
Yeah, I mean,

being in the research industry that I'm in, I know that we are so much closer to designer medicine, you know, and I love that aspect of it. But I just be multilingual to be able to communicate, which I think is the strongest thing we need globally would be epic. It would be epic.

Christine Daigle (49:18)
Yes, what do we know about CRISPR technology? Let's talk about that.

Angela Haas (49:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Christine Daigle (49:33)
You don't trust the AI

glasses to communicate for you? ⁓

Angela Haas (49:37)
No. ⁓

Cassie Newell (49:37)
Well, first I would have to get my prescription in them. You know, I don't

know. I feel like I don't know. You know, now they have the new earbuds. Have you heard about this? The earbuds that that will listen and translate to you. But what I'm speaking of is the ability to hear it and speak it all at the same time with no with very little effort on my side.

Christine Daigle (49:48)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Haas (49:55)
yeah.

Christine Daigle (49:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

be very cool. Yeah, it'd be very useful.

Cassie Newell (50:04)
That would be very, it's very sci-fi futuristic, I know,

but we're talking tales.

Angela Haas (50:09)
You heard it here first, folks. It's all

coming to you. We predicted it. So we get credit when it actually happens. Anyway, thank you, Christine, for joining us today. Thank you, listeners. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps us with visibility. Next week, new month, and we're talking about different perspectives in writing.

Christine Daigle (50:15)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (50:17)
hahahaha

Christine Daigle (50:18)
Perfect.

Cassie Newell (50:21)
Thank you so much.

Christine Daigle (50:21)
Thank you.

Angela Haas (50:37)
different points of view. It's going to be an interesting month. So tune in for that. Until then, keep writing, keep doing, and we'll see ya.

Cassie Newell (50:45)
Bye.

Christine Daigle (50:46)
Hi.