Making It Up with Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance

"Since so many thrillers are based around some kind of crime—which is a break in our social order—it is the perfect vehicle to explore the human condition... Thrillers and crime fiction really allow for an under the microscope, us looking at what happens when the social order breaks down." — Lauren Nossett 

Lauren Nossett is a professor turned novelist and the award-winning author of the thrillers The Resemblance and The Professor. Her books have been Amazon Editors picks and featured in The New York Times, Buzzfeed,E! News, and Paste Magazine. Described as "elegant and thoughtful" by The New York Times and "impossible to put down" by Paste Magazine, The Resemblance won the ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel and was chosen as a Book All Georgians Should Read. Her next novel, Indie Darling, will release July 2026.

Among other things, Lauren and Carter discuss their experiences at writing conferences like ThrillerFest, maintaining a fast pace in a thriller, and how she completely rewrote her recent novel. At the end of their conversation, they make up a dark story using a line from Elise Hart Kipness’s Dangerous Play.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Writers, hello. This is Carter and welcome to this episode of Making It Up. Uh, this is just my podcast where two authors sit down and talk about whatever comes to mind. It's just a freeform conversation punctuated at the end by an impromptu storytelling that is usually a shit show. Um, but fun, but fun. And it was a good one this this time. I I think we did a good job, but I'll leave that to you to be the judge of that. Um, before we get to today's guests, um, I want to say I think we've got this whole Paris retreat thing figured out. Um, I am recording this on May 12th. We're about to sign a contract for dates in Paris, which are going to be May 3rd through 6th of 2027 for an intimate writing retreat in Paris, talking about suspense, talking about crime fiction, myself, Alex Finlay, Clemence Michelin, and hopefully some surprise guests. Um, this hopefully gives me enough time between now and when this episode launches to update the website so you can go ahead and register. Um, but you'll be able to find all the details at unboundwriter.com. I'm super excited for this. The space looks amazing. Um, it's going to be great. So check that out. All right. So today on the show, and a friend of mine, a friend of mine, Lauren Nossett. So Lauren is a great writer, and she has her upcoming book coming out, which is um Indie Darling, and that's coming out in July of this year. Uh, this is her third book. And so I know Lauren, and we we kick off the show talking about how much she does in terms of visibility, in terms of um, you know, newsletters, Substack, you know, social media, and and certainly networking and creating uh deep connections with other authors through going through conferences, which is how I got to know her. And I am part of this Thriller Thursday crew that she created that puts out um Substack newsletters along with a lot of social media behind it, where we talk about other people's books, we do interviews and all those kinds of things. But she is the you know, far and away, the driving force behind it. So she's um she's really got a very strong vision about how to reach readers, and it's fantastic. And we even reflected towards the end of the show that we haven't actually spent that much time one-on-one in person talking to each other. So this was a great opportunity for us to catch up. I had no idea she has a PhD in German literature, I think she says maybe German comparative literature. Um, I had no idea she wrote six books of uh six historical novels uh with a literary bent before she wrote and published her first thriller. Um, so I found out all this fascinating stuff about her, and it was really interesting um to talk to her. She's accomplished a lot um in what seems like a very short amount of time. And you know, to cap it all off, her first book uh won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel, which which again we talk about at the end. It's a really big deal. It's the Academy Awards of Thriller Writers, and she won, so she's very accomplished. Um, and again, Indy Darling is is out in this July. So you're gonna like this one, folks. This is my conversation with my friend Lauren Nossett. So you're my first um, you're the first interview that I'm talking to post Thriller Fest, um, which is actually really appropriate because when I think of you, Lauren, I think of like how proactive you are in terms of doing all the things I just taught at Thriller Fest, which was being a visible writer. Um you know, really what do we, you know, my I the theory I have is that writing a great book is now the minimum thing we have to do. Um that just kind of, if you're lucky, gets your foot in the door. But to stay relevant and stay known, you have to have a face out there. And I feel like you're so aggressive about that in a very good positive way. Um, was that something that just kind of comes natural to you? I mean, you're very obviously outgoing and you seem to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I mean, I I do I love that part of it. I think for me that has been when one of the greatest surprises and maybe best parts of becoming an author is getting to meet other authors. So that's something that I just love. And I mean, I was thinking about this this weekend because this was my fourth thriller fest.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

The first one I went to was in 2023. And I walked in to the opening reception, which at the time was in the Sheridan at the Sheridan and that big ballroom of like hundreds of people. And I I am an extrovert. I love people, but I walked in that room and I was like, I don't know, I don't know a soul. And I had that moment of panic, like, should I just turn around and go back to my room and just hide there for the next or the rest of the weekend? But luckily, I saw Wendy Walker, who had blurbed my debut, the resemblance we'd never met in person. I'd actually just DM'd her on Instagram and she was kind enough to say yes and read and blurb it. And I walked over and I introduced myself. And Wendy took me around and introduced me to so many people. And from there, now I feel like I had this amazing community to where I walked into the Hilton, you know, the first day this weekend and ran into, you know, five people I knew, which is which is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Right. Now you get to the point because I've been going since like 2008. Um, not every year, but most so before I was published. Um, and now you're like almost like if I go in there, I'm not going to get in 10 feet before I'm embedded in conversation, which is also great, but it's also kind of like there are so many people you want to talk to. Were you part of the when was your first book? When did you debut?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So it was in 2022.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

So then I did the part of the the debut author program. Great. So yeah, so I do that with Elena now. Um and and so we always set up at that Thursday night thing, we always set up a booth like for debuts. Like if you don't have anyone to talk to, we're just gonna be hanging out here all night.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I wonder if they did that before, because if they did, I totally missed it. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I think it's just been the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

I mean, that's so helpful because it is really, really overwhelming if you don't know anyone. And I've since now, you know, met people who are debuts or people who've never come before and tried to do what Wendy did for me and be like, okay, let me introduce you to those people. But it's it's amazing that I mean it's part of why it's exhausting because you're you're going from talking, you know, lunch to dinner to you know, whatever a happy hour to banquets, but it's it's all so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, and the and the other side of it all is you walk into that room the first time, it's not only it's full of hundreds of people, you start seeing these names like holy shit, that's a big name, just hanging out. Like, oh, there's Lee Child, like what am I doing here? Right, and it can be super intimidating, but we all find out that these suspense writers are the kindest, most I think I've never had any issue with anyone. No one's looking to backstab you, everyone's trying to support you. Um, you know, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

No, I mean, I think I 100% agree. I think every and everyone's so generous with their advice and with their feedback. And I think too, you don't know. I mean, there's just there's so much you don't know. I I I'm still learning now, you know, my third book's coming out, and I feel like I only now even know the questions I should ask. I I just knew so little, I didn't even know what I could ask for. But through having conversations with other authors, through even seeing what people are doing on social media, it's like, oh, okay, this is this is a potential opportunity. So when I was in New York, um, this pack, geez, was that only this past weekend, but this past weekend on Friday, I went to my publisher and I recorded my author's note, which I've never done before for this book coming out in July. But this book is a little more the author's note is a little more personal, and I just really wanted it to be in my voice. And I only knew to do that because I had seen someone else do it.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

And I was like, that's great. And every, you know, I don't think anyone sees anyone else as a threat, right? Having a vibrant author community, and therefore, you know, a great series of books coming out only, you know, lifts all boats. So I don't, you know, no one's making the decision like I'm gonna either buy your book or Carter's book. It's it doesn't it doesn't work like that. So and ultimately it is you that has to come through with the talent and the voice. Um, so I don't think anyone's ever shy about giving advice. If anything, I just find people, some people are just like kind of introverts and they just like shut down kind of quickly. They're like, all right, I've been here five minutes, that's enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

No, I mean 100% because you're right. That's the amazing thing about our readers, too. If a reader reads one thriller book by the author they like, they want to find other authors similar to that author and read more.

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

They may not be quite as insatiable as romance author or romance readers, but I do think thriller readers are they are always looking for that next thrill. So we don't have to worry that just because someone's reading, you know, if someone's reading your book, they might also like my book. So it doesn't feel like there's any kind of competition. If anything else, we are really good at recommending each other's books.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

And that being said, and obviously I'm talking out of my ass here because I don't know anything about the romance community except for what I read online and hear from other people. I agree that the fandom is fierce with romance, but I think it can also parlay into bitterness and you just hear more kind of controversy, I think, within that community than I think you do in the thriller community. Um, so I don't know. I don't know if there's a thing there, but I feel like the thriller community is pretty mellow.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I have a theory, and I've heard this said by other people too, but that because as thriller authors, we're getting out all of our violence on the page, it makes us very nice to interact with in real life. But I suppose in romance, if you're just putting just love and sunshine on the page, then maybe there's no nowhere else, there's no other outlet for it. Right, right. That's in real life. So it's any truth to that.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

The other side of that same coin is that we're getting out stuff that we that's scary that we can explore and be safe. And I think if I were exploring like all these amazing, beautiful sexual relationships, and then I finish the book and I'm like, I'm so alone, then I'm gonna reality doesn't live up to perhaps what you I like.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

We don't want to be a little bit more. That's a much more kind way of saying it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Um, so you're you're in Nashville. Um did you grow up there?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

No, I'm originally from Georgia and moved around a bit. And um, Nashville is actually the first place I kind of chose to live. It was where I moved after I was writing full time, and I just loved it. I kept doing long-term Airbnbs, and every time I would do one, I'd extend my stay. Yeah. Yeah. I just loved it.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Nashville's great. I've spent a lot of time there. Um it's grown a lot over the years for sure. What what was what was growing up like? Like what was were you a creative kid? Were you always inkling to write, or were you like me and like zero clue and went into business?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Well, I mean, so I was always writing. In fact, recently I had looked for this for ages um because I knew it existed. Um, and I looked in all these boxes my mom kept and couldn't find it. But I had written a story called The Specialist Key. And it was before before I'd learned superlatives. So it should have been the most special key. And it was, you know, a key that opened doors to all kinds of magical places. And that was in third grade because uh we had a teacher who just I think it seemed like an hour. It was probably only five minutes before started. But you know, when you're younger, time moves differently. But she allowed us just five minutes to write. And I worked on that story throughout that class and I illustrated it and everything. And my mom found it recently. So I got to so that's the first story I remember writing. And then I was always always writing or painting. I did painting for a while, but writing's nice because you can just you can pick that up anywhere. Where I think sometimes now I I haven't painted in a while just because to get out all the the supplies. Um, versus writing I can do on my phone if I have an idea. It's a little bit more accessible. But yeah, I I wrote a lot when I was little, uh, not as much in college, but then in grad school, I started writing again. And I actually wrote six novels before The Resemblance, which was my um the my debut was published.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

All right, let's let's back up a little bit because there's a lot to unpack there, obviously. So you you obviously have a very creative brain and you're you know looking for ways to express that, whether through it's art or through writing or or whatever. Did you make a that decision when you went to school to study something in the creative arts or were you practical and smart?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

So it's funny. I wanted to do, I went in thinking I would do international business because we had moved to Germany um when I was 12 and lived there. And I'd start learning German. And I just realized the world was much bigger than you know, our town in Georgia where I grew up, uh a suburb of Atlanta. And um and I thought that was practical, that would allow me to travel. But then I took a um a comparative literature freshman seminar. So it was we just we read War and Peace for the entire semester and discussed it with the professor, and it was lovely. It was like a semester-long book club for one book. And so I just I fell in love with comparative literature. What I didn't realize is that in the real classes, we would be asked to read multiple novels of very long lengths at once. And if you're a major, you're taking multiple classes like that. So every week you're reading a couple hundred page books and analyzing them. And I think maybe it probably helped me now so that I read pretty quickly. Um but but yeah, and then I ended up being a German and comparative literature double major was.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Totally different than me.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

More analysis though. It wasn't creative writing, it was it was analyzing other people's literature.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

But but but at basis, it's like analyzing story craft through obviously different, different um ages. Um which is which is profound because you know my I read if I I didn't I don't think I took a single class in college that required me to read a work of fiction. Um because I I went to hotel school. I was, you know, learning real estate finance and stuff like that. So I got into reading on my own. But the idea of writing novels without kind of a background, any kind of educational background of actual storytelling or story craft, it's just you just rely on your subconscious from everything you've read and everything you've watched, and then you just screw up a lot. Um, I mean, so when you sat down to write your first of the six novels that never went anywhere, could you tap it? I mean, you're not you're certainly not looking to recreate war and peace, but are you thinking about heroes' journey, characters arcs, you know, all those kinds of things, or are you just kind of going with what felt right?

SPEAKER_00 16:08

You know, it's interesting because even so now I teach creative writing classes, um, just one-offs for a nonprofit here in town called The Porch that are, you know, maybe once a week for four weeks or something like that. Um, but that's not what I what I taught or what I thought about in those comparative literature classes. So actually, the hero's journey, those are things that I learned much more recently as I started teaching more of those kind of classes. So I think I too, like you, was just a huge reader. And so I was trying to read like the authors I was writing. The first novel I remember writing was my master's thesis, it was about um the battle of the Teudelberg Forest, which was this battle. Are you familiar with this at all? Oh, okay, okay. Sometimes I say that and no one knows what I'm talking about. But but how that was then represented in German literature as Napoleon was marching on Germany and there was this huge nationalist effort, and they call back to this time. And I looked at the literary representation of Tuznelda, which was the wife of the German leader who united these three tribes against Rome. And then I wanted to take a stab at writing my own kind of literary version of this battle, but from the perspective of the wife uh Tuisnelda. It was awful. There was so much information dumping because I was learning so much about it and I was so fascinated both by the history and the archaeological finds, but then the literature itself.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

That's a very complex because you have not, I mean, obviously, not only do you have all the research and all the time setting, you have this interior voice that is so specific to and to capture that of the moment. I mean, that's scared, that would scare the hell out of me to even try that.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Well, and it was hard too, because and the Germanic people didn't leave any of their own written records. You really only have what the Romans are saying, and they're the ones who lost. And then and then, even just to imagine that, I mean, I people authors who write historical fiction, I just in forever.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

It's amazing of the level of or nonfiction, even where I'm just I'm blown away by how much work it is and how the meticulous detail.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I know, I just can't. I mean, and also I I I can see how you can get into the research, but then to convey everything you've learned in a way that is interesting and moves the plot forward and doesn't feel like info dumping, which I haven't opened that manuscript up in a really long time, but I I I know what I will find.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Right, right. Well, and we see it all the time right now in thrillers, right? We see like you can tell, like, oh, you can tell when they found out this piece of research, they've loved it because we don't need all of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

No. Well, and it is it is always interesting when you spend hours and hours and you start with, you know, a page or two of information and then it ends up being one line, you know, right? One line stays, but really that's all the reader needs. As much as as interesting as you thought it was, the reader might not, and it slows, especially in thrillers, that just it slows down which we need to to keep, you know, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

So yeah, I don't think people appreciate how much you have to cut out of a thriller. Like even when I'm working with a student, and it might be two sentences of description. I'm like at least cut out one, if not both of these. Because like two sentences can really slow down the momentum. And that sounds preposterous, but if you're going for a certain tone, it it does make a difference. It's not quote unquote literary fiction. So you have to be really careful about it.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Right. Yeah, I I feel like I learned that with my first two novels. Um, just because I had a narrator who just she pontificated a lot about the world, which I love. I love stuff like that. But it says all those little, you know, her making these connections and she was a bit jaded. And it was really fun to write. But then now I can go back and see, oh, even the beginning, I was like, I should have started on page three. I start with all this description and I should have started with there some line, like it was the screams that got me running. I'm like right now, I'm like, that's so genius. That's a great first one. I know, but it's all really pages of description.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Yeah, the interiority it can get difficult. You know, I tend to write first person present tense, so you're just in this person's head, right? And if you just have these long scenes where they're just like thinking about the world, they better love that character because they're going, otherwise, they're going, oh my god, enough of it. And so I'll get I'll get notes from my editor that'll be like, Yeah, we've been in their head a little. I'm like, but she's so smart and she's got such great observations. Like, we we get it. We never give the reader quite enough credit, I think. I think that that's a hard thing to learn.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

I think we also like to hear ourselves speaking through the characters too, which is sometimes those are the hardest, you know. The the line level stuff that I'm so proud of that I end up having to cut feel almost as bad as killing a dark, you know, killing a character to have to tell some of the line level stuff you're proud of.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

It's funny, like my editor or my editor, my agent just gave me notes on something I just turned in, and she had kind of said, I think we need to see more of a reflection of this person's mother who is deceased in the book. Um, and she said seen, and then I'm thinking about it. I'm like, I think literally one paragraph will accomplish, I think, the grounding what everyone, what she's thinking everybody will want. As long as it's a good paragraph, it doesn't take much. Um, you know, it's it's it's like seasoning, right? Just like just a pinch. People will get it, they'll absorb it. Um, so but that's I mean, that took me 20 years to learn that kind of thing. Of restraint, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yeah, I'm still learning, still learning, still getting notes, you know, cut out 10,000 words or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Well, yeah, we never we never nail it. Right. You know, every time I finish a book, I just had an interview this morning where I was talking about this. Every time I finish a book, it's I never feel like it's not like I don't feel great about it. I just don't know what to think about it. And I have to wait until I get feedback from my agent and my editor. But I can guarantee you there will be at least one to two months of work from my editor. You know, I've never had just like, yep, we've got a couple typos, but that's it, this never, never, and if you do get that, then you're probably wrong with the wrong editor.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Right. That means they didn't give it the care and attention it deserves. I mean, I think that is what part of me wants, right? You want the the good job, but also you know that just means they didn't give it the care that it deserves. But I'm curious, do you have to to sit with notes when you get them for a day or two before you and just kind of wrap it around everything before you dive back in?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Because it's too overwhelming, right? So my my agent will give me kind of an overall, and she's a pretty editorial agent, so she'll give me um kind of an overall thought, and then just literally line notes more about what she was thinking when she hit that page. And then you go, of course, the editorial letter is you know a beast within itself. And so scan it quickly, and then you know, your heart rate increases, and you're like, Oh my god, this is gonna be so much work, and then you just sit there and you try to be like, oh my god, this is gonna make it so much better, and and get into that mindset, but I can't dive in. And then when I do dive in, I'm like, what is the I always find the absolutely easiest thing to do first? Like, I don't like this one character's name, done, finding replace, check. All right, but yeah, it's you know, well, I I work an hour a day on it, so I just know I'm like, this is gonna take a while, and you know, it's hard to get overwhelmed if you're only doing an hour a day.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I've heard you say that before, and I was curious if you for the hour a day, if that's just when you're drafting, but it act it sounds like it's also when you're revising, it's just anything that you're doing. Touch anytime I I call it touching the book. Anytime you're touching the book, that's just in that hour a day.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah, yep, totally, totally. So, um, and then if I have to do something, if I'm doing multimedia or something else for the book, that's in the afternoon. But yeah, just touching the book or thinking about it, you know. Sometimes there's days if if your paint, if your pants are you're just like I'm just sitting here kind of thinking, and that might be enough. Hopefully, you don't have too many of those, but um, so then you go and you go on this this this rampage of writing six novels, um as one does. Um I'm curious about the psychology behind all of that. So I'm you know, this sound this sounds like it's kind of starting in school and then kind of immediate immediately following that. So I'm guessing you're working somewhere, but uh were you having the mindset of like come hell in high water, I'm gonna be a published novelist.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I don't even I don't even know that that's what it was. I think like a lot of writers, I just had to write. I think I was so what I did was I I got a degree in comparative literature and German. I took a paid internship at Portia Carr's um North America, which was um, they have office, their North American headquarters is right outside Atlanta. I very much did not like that job. Um and it was it was just an office job. I think I realized in that job I was not meant for an office job. And especially as an intern, I I learned a lot about public relations, which has actually been good for this field. And I had done public relations in college, but it was indie music PR. So very different. You know, you're going to shows and you're trying to do tour press for these bands going to college towns. That was fun. It felt more like damage control up portion, which was which was not as fun. And so a a professor, it was like, you know, their your miles per gallon had come out and they're trying to, you know, compare it to Camries just because there's more Camries on the road. Anyways, we don't like that. But uh, but uh uh a professor had reached out to me, a former professor, and said they were looking for master's students in the same program I graduated from at UGA who would teach and go to school. So I went back for that, and then I went on to do a PhD. And so I was writing the whole time I was a PhD in what? In German, German literature.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah, 19th century was my specialty.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

So the idea then on that side of your life is, you know, uh it feels like that the natural byproduct of that is is teaching, right? Um and and is that something that you would aspire to do, or you're like, I'd rather just be a novelist?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

No, I mean that's I so that's what I did. So I finished my PhD. I took, so I have to I have to backtrack a bit. When I finished my master's and I was applying to PhD programs and having professors in the department write me letter letters of recommendation, I will never forget the department chair at that time took me into his office, said, I will write your letter a letter of recommendation, but I strongly advise you don't get a PhD. There are no jobs. There are just there are no jobs in.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I wasn't going to say that, but that felt like the natural kind of output of that.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Right. But I think like a lot of people who pers pursue their PhDs and maybe authors too. I thought I will be the exception. I will work twice as hard as everyone else, and I will get the jobs. And so I, you know, I finished with a PhD. I already had kind of an academic book ready. And then I ended up going from visiting professor job to visiting. So I moved, I had moved out from Georgia to California for the PhD. I took a one-year position in North Carolina, so moved back across the country for a one-year position. From there, I got a three-year position that turned into a four at um a liberal arts college in Virginia. And in the fourth year, um, that ended up being COVID, but it also ended up being the year that I had gotten an agent. Um, and so I had been writing. I finally, the the difference between the six books I wrote before and the seventh book, the six books were all historical fiction, literary fiction. The seventh book was a thriller.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

And I just think it was something about I had a direction. I think all the other books, my plot really suffered. They just didn't have clear, they didn't know where they were going.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

But in a that's a lot of literary fiction, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

And a lot of what I was teaching and analyzing with students, and it felt like was the more, I don't know, highbrow thing to do because that's what I was reading and teaching. But then I realized with a thriller, you start with a crime and then you solve it, you know?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

And that already you had a direction of somewhere to go. And so I I knew when I I queried a couple of the books I had written before, but I knew with that one, I was pretty sure I had something special. And so I queried, I think my top five agents of those, I got mine and then um then the world shut down. So we sat on it for a year and then she pitched it. And that's when I got the book deal and then um and then started doing it full time.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah, it's funny. We talk a lot on the show about genre friction versus literary fiction versus whatever. And they're all just stories, right? You know, when we think of a thriller, we think of, you know, imminent threats, you know, whether it's a crime that's already happened or it's out tone, or it's just somebody going through something that has forces them to make decisions that maybe they wouldn't normally make. Um, but that doesn't mean it's absent of meaning, of character change, of you know, thoughtfulness, of tone, of theme. Um, it's just a different delivery mechanism. Um, so I mean, and yeah, I mean, I don't know. Uh and they sell better.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

100%. And not only that, but if you think about since so many thrillers are some kind of they're based around some kind of crime, which is a break in our social order. So it is the perfect vehicle to explore the human condition, which is often what we say literary fiction does, but of course, all fiction does that. But I actually think thrillers in crime fiction really allow for uh almost under a microscope, us looking at what happens when the social order breaks down.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, because I think all good storytelling is rooted around some kind of conflict. And I think once you get into crime fiction, that conflict is very unambiguous, right? It's uh and because it's unambiguous, the the readership is going to latch onto it much more easily. But you know, at the end of the day, it's kind of like what you want to write. You know, I would I never sat down and thought, well, you know, what is the most lucrative kind of book that I can write? I'm like, this is I have an idea for a story. It was my agent who told me I had written a thriller. I'm like, oh, I don't even know what that is. Right. So it's just, you know, yeah. But I grew up loving like Stephen King, or you know, and you read about this conflict and how you overcome this conflict, or you don't overcome it. And I find that fascinating. Um so so then what's what's interesting about you, Lauren, is that you because you really have this very obviously this very academic background, you have a uh, you know, six whole books, which is you know, that's a lot of books, um, that are kind of in the literary shape. Now you're writing more genre fiction, but do you see within this is Indy Darling going to be your fourth release? It's my third. Your third release. Do you find yourself still exploring within the realm of crime fiction where you think your voice maybe is ultimately going to be? Or again, and I say this because I know it was my fifth published book and my eighth total book, where I'm like, oh, that's my voice. I can look back at it, I'm like, that's my voice.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Yeah, it's interesting because the first two were very they were the same narrator, same voice. They were written within a world, set in a world that I knew. They were dark academia, they're set in a university setting, very much writing what I knew. What I had to research was more the police procedural part of it. Then Indy Darling is it feels more commercial. Um, and I've actually, I think after getting so many of the notes to pull back some of the literary, you know, the pontificating, all of the all the extra words, this one feels a little cleaner in that regard. But I don't know if it feels as much like my voice. I think I tend to be more long-winded. I think some of that is me self-editing after getting that, those notes, where the next book, which I've finished, I think it's it's in between. It's it's a little bit more literary. Um, but I think it it also leans, I hope it leans a little commercial too. So to answer your question, I don't know. I I really don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

I so I found when I switched, and it was the fifth book that I switched to first person present tense, single narrator, female point of view, and it just kind of fell out of me. Um I realized to your point, when you tended because you can write however you want to write, and whatever works, I was realizing when I was writing and I would get kind of a little precious and have these astute observations, I would start to realize would my character really think this? Um, in this moment, maybe a very tense moment, would you have this complete thought? And when I went to first person present tense, where everything was fractured and borderline stream of conscious, I would think this is how people this is how my character would think. And that doesn't leave a lot of room for deep observation, it leaves room for fractured observation that can be meaningful and poignant, but not you're they're not getting stabbed and describing the rose bushes in the front yard in their head. So in with Indy Darling, is it a single point of view?

SPEAKER_00 34:53

So it's interesting. There is a so Indy Darling was first of all, it was supposed to be the third book in the detective Kaplan series.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

So it's actually Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I I wrote that third book and then was told in gentle but firm toll uh terms to rewrite it as a standalone. So then it went through and it went underwent an entire revision where my original detective Marlett Kaplan, who's who's jaded, she's the one always pontificating about life and justice and truth, becomes Kelly Williams, who's a female PI who only takes on female, you know, clients. She loves Dolly Parton. She drives a little red sports car. She's gonna bake, you know, like people cookies. She's a totally different character. And so the kinds of things that Marlett Kaplan would think, there was no way Kelly Williams was going to think these things. And so it was a complete rewrite. And I I actually listened to a lot of Dolly Parton when I was writing her voice in the beginning. Um, and so it completely changed. She has a southern accent. It's just it's a totally different character. And so I think that also forced me to take out a lot of if Marlett was scowling at someone, Kelly's baking them cookies, right? So it's just a totally different, different character, different approach approach.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Well, I mean, that's fascinating because that's even more than a complete rewrite. That's a new book.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

It pretty, yeah, it pretty much is. And there's there's now like I had had another um, there's um there's a band, and so there were a lot of uh POVs from the different band members.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

I see.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

But then I was told to rewrite those, and those now what was in the band POVs are now TikTok videos of the band that are being shown by a TikTok. So those are also some of some of what is happening in the scene stays, but they're very abbreviated. And now from like this this video lens instead of that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

It's so even thinking about the narrator, like if you're trying to follow a similar plot thread, which you totally can do, but when you hit when you inject a totally different person to replace them, they make different decisions a lot of times. So you're like, they wouldn't go to this place now, so that scene has to be something totally different because they have a different brain, right? And and that must have been hard for you to like you know, the hardest thing about editing is just it's just a lot of work. I mean, that's the most basic way of saying it. And I think from a writer's perspective, we so much of our lives is spent, you know, taking the path of least resistance. And if we're in a corporate job, that's certainly the case. You know the definition of it's good enough, right? But when you're looking at your own creative work, you just can't do that. And if you do, it suffers. And so you really have to force yourself to say, this has to change, and it's gonna, it's gonna really suck. So that must have taken you months and months and months to do that.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Oh, it took so I mean, and it feels like it's breaking your brain, right? You just want to bang your head against the wall. I started writing that book in 2021 and it's coming out in 2021. And then you know, there are other things going on at the time, but yeah, it was it was I I hope to never have to do that again.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

But it's a learning process too. I mean, I I changed a book from third past to first present, and that took me four months and realizing just the voice totally changed, but at least it was the same character. Um, and I, you know, same thing. I wish I I hope I never have to do that again. That being said, what a tremendous opportunity to learn craft by going through something as tedious and as you know, mind-bending as doing something like what you did.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Yeah, and I do think I do think it's a better book. I do think it now that I am, you know, on the other side of it and honestly over a year on the other side of it, I can say I'm very happy that I did it and was forced to do it, but I was not at the time. So I do think it's a better book because of it. I think it's a more creative book because of it. I think I was forced to do things that otherwise I wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Um and just think about things in a different way. But yes, I would like to not do that. I know earlier you said you were a pantser, and I am too, but I'm trying to do more plotting. So I'm working on a, I think what would be my my fifth book, and I'm trying to plot it out a little bit more before I get into and just and that's I that's what I'm doing now. It's like I have probably 15,000 words, but to sit down and be like, okay, what is every all the beats I want to hit? Where is it going? Who did what before I sit down and write? Because I think otherwise I just end up having to do these huge revisions. And that's not to say it won't change as I'm writing. I know it will, but oh gosh, yeah, I think I'm just a little traumatized and I don't want to have to do anything.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

For sure, for sure. I remember, yeah, that that book that I just referenced. I mean, my editor was not crazy about it. Um, and it was my second to last book that came out, and then I finished that and I'm like, I am just gonna write an in-your-face, unapologetic, angry, straightforward thriller. And that became my breakout novel.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

You know, so you never tell me what you did, yeah. Yeah, was what you were talking about before the father she went to find.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

She went to find.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah, I love that book. And we were talking about how that voice just you know flew out of you. You can feel it, right? You can feel when it's easy for the author, I think, in the in the prose.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Like well, I I realize that I realize that first person present tense is my voice. Yeah, like that's I don't think about what voice serves the story. I think what am I good at? What can I naturally emote and write with? Um, and I second guessed it with that book because that character was so hard to get into because she's so different than me, that I made her third past, and then I realized I made her that much more distant.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Um, and so my editor was kind of put off by that. But it's it's it's all hard work. And to your point about outlining, I've you know, I've tried that too, and I think you just have to figure out what works for you. Um, I just I literally my brain doesn't work that way. Um, and you know, I so with this book that I'm turning in, I gave my my editor my first hundred pages, which is the first time I've ever done that, and I gave her an outline or a loose synopsis, and it's just totally different, you know, like after that first hundred pages, because I'm like, I don't know. Um, but yeah, so we'll see. We'll see if they're like, what what is this? But I just don't know how because I immediately deviate when I outline because I my brain can't think of the good stuff in the moment, it has to has to be having fingers on the keyboard time.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think every book is different too, right? That's just because you feel like you've learned something and then you sit down with a new story, and everything you you can take some of it, but then there's there's just things you don't know that you've got to figure out when you're writing the new stories.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Totally. And I don't want to ignore the fact that you won the I the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel, which is unbelievable. So, for listeners who don't know what that is, think of the Academy Awards for thriller writers. And you took home the grand prize for best first novel. What I mean, you don't really have the weird thing is you don't really have a lot of context around what that changed for you because it's your first book. But can you look back and identify because of that I had at least these other opportunities, or um, is it just a great thing to have?

SPEAKER_00 42:36

I think, I mean, it's interesting because when I won it, I was a debut author. I had I had no clue what I was even winning. You know, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

And this is almost a black tie affair with with you know a thousand people in a ballroom in New York City. So it's it's a big fucking deal.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Oh, I have a funny story about it being black tie. So I I knew I was nominated, but again, as a debut, you I I had no clue what was normal. I was like, maybe everyone's nominated for something you do. You just no one had told me how much of a big deal, which maybe was a blessing because I wasn't nervous, but it also I was just so excited to be at Thriller Fest. It was my first one. I was meeting all these people. It never occurred to me that I would win or have to make a speech or anything like that. And so I was like, oh, this is just cool to be nominated. I'm in the room. Look at all these people. I came down on the elevator. This was when I was at the Sheridan, and everyone was dressed in like sparkles into the night. I was wearing my conference there I had been wearing all day. And I said to people in the elevator, oh, I'm going to the the banquet. Is this, are you dressed for that? And they said yes. And I so I luckily I went back up to my room and I changed into, you know, a dress that was a little bit nicer and more appropriate to what um the event was. And then I sat down at a table and it wasn't my publisher's table. Um, I don't know if they didn't have a table that year or maybe I wasn't invited to sit with them. I don't know. Why, but I was sitting with a bunch of other authors and then I'm watching everyone who won get up and give a speech. And I had this moment of wait, if I win, I might have to give a speech. And then then they called my name and I was a little bit in shock. And I walked up there and I said something and blacked out while I was saying it because I wasn't prepared to give a speech. But what I do remember is I got off the stage and Sean Cosby, who's who is also at Flatiron Books and is now at Pine and Cedar, gave me a huge hug. That's all I remember. Sean Cosby gave me a hug after one of the things. I was so excited.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Maybe I do know I sat with him the next year because Flatiriner did have a table, and I sat with him and he won for either Razor Blade Tears or uh Blacktop Wasteland, probably. Yeah, maybe it was maybe it was Razor Blade Tears, but whatever. He will he won the best standalone novel and was sitting. So I got to give him his first hug. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah, he's a good guy. Please don't. Well, Lauren, we're gonna wrap up before we do. We're gonna do our little storytelling. Um, I've got three books picked kind of at random. Um, we're gonna choose one. We're gonna choose a random sentence from a random page. I'm gonna read that sentence. That'll be the first sentence and maybe a two-minute long short story. Um, we'll just alternate and then when it goes completely off the rails, I will kill it. Um, so you have to choose one of these books. I have uh our buddy Elisa's um Dangerous Play. Okay, um, Claire Macintosh's A Game of Lies, and Lisa Matlin's the only one who knows. So choose one of those.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Let's do Elisa's.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Okay, dangerous play.

unknown 45:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

So give me a page between one and two seventy 73. Okay, I'm gonna quickly scan page 73 and see if I can find something that is going to work. It's actually only two paragraphs at the end of a chapter, so I gotta um I have to find um all right, all right. You can just do whatever you want with this. Okay. Are you ready? I want air conditioning, air conditioning, and air conditioning.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Okay. Um, I want air conditioning, air conditioning, and air conditioning. She said as uh she got in the car, Jack looked over at her and said, Too bad and it hasn't worked in weeks. Gotta ride with the windows down.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

He knew air conditioning was the least of her needs. But he also knew it was going to be even more hot because of the canvas bag that he had taped around her head as he shoved her into the passenger seat of the car, handcuffed her to the seat, and slid into the driver's seat himself.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

This took a turn. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

We write thrillers.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

The the canvas bag itched her face. What started as a oh a fun game between friends. She was not sure it was still a game. She her breath got as far as she was starting to sweat as he kicked the car. He's already driving. As he accelerated. She uh reached over her hand and felt for his seatbelt.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Where are we going? She asked him. Jack paused for a few seconds before answering. It'll be about 30 minutes. And as she slid her fingers over to the latch of his seatbelt, without any plan of what she would do if she actually released it, she had a real thought about death. One that was stronger than any thought she had ever had before. That feeling when it could actually happen was much more fierce than she ever expected.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

But she knew for certain if someone was gonna die tonight, it would be him.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Oh, let's leave it there. That's great. That wasn't so bad.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

No, no, I mean, honestly, it was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

I know it always like it always gets dark fast. I did one once where, you know, because it's improv, right? So it's very yes and so you accept each other's premise and you just kind of go with it. I did one once and I forget even who it was with, but she kept throwing these really goofy, funny things, and it was hard for me because I'm like, I don't know what to do with this, but I had a you know, you can't just say, No, that didn't happen, and so we were just resisting each other. And I'm like, All right, I'll try to be goofy, but it's everything you always take it towards a thriller.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

I mean, is that just where your brain is going?

SPEAKER_01 49:21

You know, half the time it's the other person who does that first. There's a lot of knives, somebody always has a knife. There's like all it's just weird, so yeah, I don't know, maybe maybe it's me, but I mean I've done it now almost 250 times, and it's always stressful, especially when you have like a number one New York Times bestselling author, and you're like, Am I gonna look like an idiot for this? But they're always stressed out too, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Yeah, I think because that is the beauty of what we do, is we we have time to just sit on the page and no one's this feels like someone just read my first draft, which the thought makes me a bit a bit sick, right? Like uh totally unedited. Oh, that's a good analogy.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

We're normally as writers we get a lot of time to fine-tune and and especially as people who like the line level stuff to really make sure the the prose sings. I can't do that on the fly.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

I know, I know, because I immediately thought, like, oh, we just switched points of view. I'm like, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Well, I'm excited for the release of Indie Darling. When is it out again?

SPEAKER_00 50:28

July 28th.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

July 28th. Oh, it's gonna be soon. That's the when you're about two months out, that's like soon, but not quite soon enough. You're just like uh because it's been like hovering for months and months and months about years. I very much need just to learn patience, but it is I know that's one thing uh for an author is like you have to be patient because nothing nothing moves fast in this industry.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

No, nothing at all.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

What a great chance to catch up with you in a real conversation rather than just bits and pieces here and there when we see each other on the fly.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

I was thinking about that. I mean, we've been doing Thriller Thursday together for two years. We meet with the group to talk, we're constantly doing emails, and then you know, we have the lunches. But you know, this year we are on opposite ends of the table, and I don't think I've ever really just had a chance to talk with you one-on-one. And I was thinking about that before this. I was like, oh, this will be nice. This might be the first time that we've actually gotten to chat one-on-one without you know passing. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

And what I love, that's what I love about this podcast is like I just forget we're recording. I'm like, let's just let's just hang out and talk because I'm interested in you and what you have to say. So it was a great opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

So well, thanks for everything, and we'll chat soon.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

All right, sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Take care, Lauren. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 51:51

All right, that is it. That is my conversation with Lauren Nossett. That was a good one. I could have um, you know, I say this a lot, and it's true every time I say it, I could have spent a lot more time talking to her. Um, we we we I don't think we touched enough on craft. I was more interested to hear kind of how she approaches her her different books. We did a little bit, and you know, she made the point about now she's trying to make an attempt to um outline more for her next novel. But um, I think there was some more craft discussion there to be had, but um, it was already going a little bit longer than normal, and um we had to get to our storytelling, of course, which I think I think worked out just fine. Um, if you want to find out more about Lauren, just head on over to her website, which is laurennosett that.com. You can find out about her books out there, including Indy Darling. And you can pop on over to carterwilson.com if you want to check out my books. You know, my new book, When They Find Me, will be out this November. I'm very excited for it. It's getting a lot of buzz already, which is always gratifying to hear when we're still whatever we are, six months out or so. Um, and if you're interested in writing retreats, particularly the one that we have set up for Paris in 2027, head on over to unboundwriter.com. That is it. That is it for this episode of Making It Up. Um, we're putting these out one a week. So subscribe on YouTube and you'll get them, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Uh, until the next one drops, friends. Thanks for listening and take care of there.