Jennie Nash introduces a hot seat coaching episode where Author Accelerator coaches Stuart and Margaret work through Margaret’s new Blueprint for a historical novel set in Florence in the 1400s. Stuart helps Margaret pressure-test the story engine by differentiating two opposing forces—an Alchemist experimenting with mercury-based syphilis treatments and Savonarola (whom Stuart nicknames “Rolly”), who seeks to purge Florence to save souls—clarifying how each tempts protagonist Eliana.
They explore why Eliana is susceptible to each system, the emotional costs of her shifting allegiances, and how themes of disillusionment, integrity, belonging, and found family drive the plot. Key craft work includes defending character choices, making Eliana’s decisions feel inevitable and proactive, and strengthening Lena’s role as Eliana’s unconditional friend while likely keeping Lena out of POV to avoid narrative sprawl.
Visit Stuart and Margaret Online
Stuart’s Website: https://www.thebookcoach.co
Margaret’s Website: https://mcnelliswrites.com
Follow Stuart on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/misterswakefield/
Follow Margaret on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chiaroscuro.stories/
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Transcript
Jennie: [00:00:00] Hey, it’s Jennie, and one of the things I’ve learned from working with so many writers over so many years is that most of us don’t need more information. We need a framework for making progress and consistent support. That’s what the Blueprint Summer Challenge is all about. Starting July 10th, writers from all genres will spend six weeks using the blueprint to strengthen their books, get unstuck, and move forward with greater confidence.
When you enroll in the all-new Blueprint course, you’ll get the complete blueprint book, 14 video lessons, and coaching examples that show you exactly how the process works. And if you’re a paid podcast subscriber, you’ll also be invited to a series of live coaching sessions featuring me and Author Accelerator coaches.
We’ll focus on individual blueprint steps, answer questions, and coach writers through common challenges along the way. As an added bonus, everyone who enrolls in the course will be entered to win a blueprint revision with me and a live hot seat coaching session on the [00:01:00] podcast. I’m so excited to lead you all through the blueprint this summer, and if you’re fired up to join us, head to the show notes to see how.
Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. This is a hot seat coaching episode where we work through a real writing challenge in real time, and this is an exciting episode because instead of me being the coach, this time I’ve brought on two of my favorite book coaches, Margaret and Stuart.
And Margaret is working on a brand-new blueprint, and Stuart is coaching her through it. So you get to hear people who are not me, people who I’ve trained, working on the blueprint together, and you get to see different vibes and styles of coaching [00:02:00] and how a different writer responds to it. And I’m just so thrilled that these two are joining us to offer this to our listeners.
We’re going to hear more from Margaret and Stuart as the weeks go on, but I hope you enjoy this blueprint episode, and I hope it inspires you to join us for the upcoming blueprint challenge. This is the kind of work that you’ll get to do as we walk you through the blueprint, and you’ll have the chance to get matched with a certified coach at the end to get this kind of feedback on your blueprint.
It’s a fantastic thing to do whether you’re starting a new project, stuck in the middle of one, or about to revise. All right. Now let’s hear Margaret and Stuart
Margaret: Well, I just want to say thank you so much. This feedback was phenomenal.
Stuart: Oh, thank you. And, you know, thank you for inviting me back in, because this is the third project that we’ve worked on.
Mm-hmm. And I’ve seen this, uh, particular story in a very different [00:03:00] guise.
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: I’m really interested to see, don’t know how much, from romantasy to Florence in the 1400s.
Margaret: Yeah, quite a shift. Quite a shift from, like, the last days on Atlantis to in this thriving, you know, revived artistic world that also has this underbelly to it.
Stuart: Right. Yeah, and I, and I... One of the things that, that I thought was that Florence isn’t just window dressing. The story has to exist and can only exist in Florence.
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: And that really kind of works for me because, you know, sometimes you see, see, uh, or, you know, you read stories and they could be set in any city.
Margaret: Mm-hmm.
Stuart: So I really like that you’ve got that kind of cultural kind of moment in time, um-
Margaret: Yeah ...
Stuart: and that kind of real person adjacent story that we see [00:04:00] in,
you know, um, Silence of the Girls, was it?
Margaret: I love that book.
Stuart: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So- That was
Margaret: a good
Stuart: one ... so yeah, I, I, you know, I... It was just nice to get back into something that felt familiar in one way, but very different in many other ways.
Margaret: Thank you.
Stuart: So that kind of emotional core is still there.
Margaret: Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it’s... And you know, it’s interesting because originally Savonarola wasn’t gonna be part of this at all.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: But then as I was watching what’s going on in the world, I was like, you know what, it’s a lot of similarities here, folks.
Stuart: So obviously I’m, I’m gonna, you know, like just check in with you. What I’d like to do is think about pressure testing the story engine, really focusing on Eliana, your protagonist, so, and actually doing some pressure testing on the opposition.
Margaret: Okay. Sounds good.
Stuart: You know, get into their kind of heads. [00:05:00] What would make this hour feel most genuinely useful to you?
Margaret: I love that question. I, I definitely think talking about The Alchemist and Savonarola and, and the differences between them. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and actually I watched, um, I love The Great Courses, and I’ve been watching this, like, Villains Through History.
Okay. And I learned a lot randomly about Ivan the Terrible and Vlad the Impaler, and they were in a lecture in comparison to Henry VIII. And then at the end, the lecturer said something really interesting. He said, um, you know, “Vlad and Ivan both had, like, these moments of deep remorse.” Ivan would, like, retreat and pray for, like, a year over the horrible things he’d done, and then he’d come out and do it, and do it again.
But he was saying Henry VIII, whether because of a TBI or, you know, whatever the reason, seemed to have no remorse about most of the things that he
Stuart: did
Margaret: to other
Stuart: people. Who does that sound like?
Margaret: Yeah, exactly. [00:06:00] So I was thinking about that as I started thinking about ways to really starkly differentiate these two men and the, um, the, the, the, the forced bargain that they’re representing.
And what came down to it for me was, um, I ha- I’m still obviously doing my research. I have, like, a baker’s dozen of books that I’m working through, and some of them are very academic, so they’re taking a while. Um, but what I’ve learned of Savonarola so far is that he believed that by purging Florence of its vanities-
Stuart: Mm-hmm
Margaret: and doing some other horrible things, he could trigger the apocalypse and get Jesus to come back. So that’s-
Stuart: Okay ...
Margaret: his ultimate endgame, right? And there are people still doing this now-
Stuart: That’s right ...
Margaret: um, that think that current conflicts in the world will trigger the apocalypse and get Jesus to come back.
So, you know, to me, that’s, that’s such an interesting parallel that has [00:07:00] happened multiple times throughout history.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: It, it’s a belief in certain religious sects that this is how you actually make this happen, and this is why Jesus hasn’t come back yet, is not enough people have been killed or made to suffer, or there’s too much vanity in the world, or, you know, whatever, whatever your overarching reason is- Mm-hmm
that you can kind of trigger the apocalypse into happening. Like, it’s, it’s meant, it... You’re the one who’s meant to do it, right? So he seems to have had this belief that he was gonna be the one to bring about the apocalypse. He also believed that he was getting messages directly from God, so he believed himself to be a prophet.
Right. And he would have these visions, right? So to me, h- he’s, he doesn’t really have that remorse because he believes that this is like a divine calling for him. So anyone that gets harmed in the process is just part of bringing Jesus [00:08:00] back, and they’ll, they’ll, they’ll be rewarded ‘cause they’re gonna go to heaven.
You know, the, the fact that he’s causing them damage and harm on Earth To him, that’s purifying their souls in preparation for, you know, the apocalypse. So he doesn’t have the same sense of remorse, whereas the Alchemist, he’s trying to cure a disease, and he’s willing to do anything to do it. He’s trying to cure the French disease, which we know as syphilis, at a time when there’s this infusion of French soldiers into Italy, especially in Florence.
It’s occupied shortly before the story begins by the French. Um, so, you know, this, this disease, we know syphilis doesn’t kill you nicely, but neither does the, the treatment that people had for it for such a long time, which was mercury. So he, he’s doing a lot of testing, and where he sort of fits into history is there, there was, uh, an alchemist called Paracelsus, and I could be mispronouncing his name.
Mm-hmm. But he really pioneered the idea that the [00:09:00] poison is the dosage. In other words, you can take something that’s poisonous as long as you don’t take enough to kill you, and it can heal you. So I’m kind of, like, crafting the Alchemist character to be sort of like an inspiration for Paracelsus, who comes just a little bit later.
He’s, Paracelsus is born around the time my book is starting. He’s just a baby right now, but it’s the Alchemist, he has remorse for the pain he’s causing people, but he sees it as a greater good, that he’s trying to cure this disease. So that’s, that’s a primary difference between them, and then where that comes into Eliana’s life is that, you know, the Alchemist kind of treats it as like this is a necessary evil, and we feel badly about it, and we’re going to, you know, go to confession about it and do all of these things, and we’re, we’re trying to lessen people’s pain and suffering.
Mm-hmm. Whereas Savonarola is like, the more suffering people go through, the cleaner their soul will be when the apocalypse happens. So it’s like a reverse of how [00:10:00] they’re viewing this process, right? So
Stuart: you use this wonderful line which is, let me see if I can remember it. So the Alchemist burns bodies to save lives, and Savonarola burns lives to save souls.
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: Right?
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: Okay, marvelous. Good. Good. Okay. What, what makes Eliana susceptible to the Alchemist?
Margaret: Yeah, that’s a really great question. So she’s been living with him for almost 10 years now. Mm. He’s been her guardian. He saw something in her when her parents died, and he took her in. Uh, and she’s incredibly bright.
She’s educated, which is very uncommon for, for a young woman of her time to be as educated as she is, but she knows mathematics and Latin and, you know, all these things that she has access to through him. So he, he [00:11:00] kind of represents- This father figure, but also this access to knowledge. She’s got an incredibly vivacious mind, and knowledge was hard to come by, especially for women.
Right. So he represents the only belonging she’s known since her parents were alive, as well as this access to her insatiable curiosity.
Stuart: Okay. But her insatiable curiosity seems to have a goal. Yeah. And I, and I read that goal as resurrecting her parents.
Margaret: Yeah, which is kind of illegal. That’s a little bit of a- Right.
heretical necromancy.
Stuart: So if her parents were dead, dead, would she still have this susceptibility to him?
Margaret: I think if she knew him, potentially, because she’s got that double level, right? Like, she would still have that sense of belonging from home. So it, it wouldn’t be something that she’s, that’s quite as interwoven into her experience.
But I think if someone had offered [00:12:00] her the chance to learn alchemy and, and medicine and mathematics and all of that, I think she would be very interested in that.
Stuart: Okay. Why?
Margaret: I imagine that someone who has the brain of a lifelong learner but no access to knowledge would feel very stifled.
Stuart: Okay. And what were educated women...
What was the society’s view of an educated woman in Florence?
Margaret: It depended on her status.
Stuart: Right. Okay. So let’s talk about that.
Margaret: Yeah. So I mean, it, the Alchemist, who’s really probably more of a physician who does some alchemy, but I haven’t named him yet, and I’m still kind of like, you know, researching around him and stuff like that.
But- Yeah ... I’m just gonna call him the Alchemist for clarity’s sake. He has a palazzo. He’s not without status, but he’s not, he’s also not one of, like, the ruling families that contribute to the Signoria of Florence, right?
Jennie: Right. ‘
Margaret: Cause Florence at this time is basically an [00:13:00] oligarchy, though the main ruling family is the Medici, ‘cause they have all the money, or they have the most money or the most control of the money.
So, um, so he’s not one of those families, so he’s not, like, super politically involved in that way, but he is wealthy. So she has status. She would be someone that Savonarola would, would go after for having vanities, right? Fine clothing, paintings, stuff like that.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: All of that would be something that she would have to give up and, and does.
But for living with the Alchemist, she has this sort of permission.
Stuart: So let’s think about... So I wrote a few things down. Do you think this story is more about belonging, integration, grief, autonomy, or disillusionment?
Margaret: I think it’s most about disillusionment.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: Okay. All those other things are in there, but of those, I would say disillusionment.
And what do you do with that [00:14:00] after, after the other shoe drops, you know? Like, how a character, how a person can continue living and have some kind of hope for their life-
Stuart: Right. Okay ...
Margaret: when everything they believe in has...
Stuart: Okay. So let’s come back to belonging then- Okay ... because she’s disillusioned because she is living with the Alchemist.
He’s doing his thing. She’s learning things. She... I mean, chapter one is her crawling through sewage- ... trying to get something to help her resurrect her dead parents. And then she finds out that he actually killed her parents accidentally doing- Yeah, well,
Margaret: prudently
Stuart: So-
Margaret: He didn’t murder them, but
Stuart: you know.
Right. Okay. So-
Margaret: We’ll play manslaughter or medical malpractice.
Stuart: So in terms of sense of belonging with him, is it purely predicated on what she’s trying to achieve in terms of resurrecting her parents? What does belonging look like to her as the story opens?
Margaret: I, [00:15:00] I definitely think that she does care about him.
She does see him as probably more like an uncle, you know? Yeah. ‘Cause she, she honestly believes she’s going to be able to bring her parents back to life at first. Of course, she won’t be able to, but that’s one of the many disillusionments that she suffers. But for her, she, she does have affection for him, and he has affection for her.
You know, both of them are in a position where they don’t really have a lot of family.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: You know, I haven’t decided why he doesn’t have family around yet, ‘cause the family unit was so important in Renaissance Italy- Yeah ... that I, I need to do some more character work on him and kind of figure out exactly why he’s such, such a loner, as it were.
Um- And if indeed I want him to be that. That might change. I know he doesn’t have any children, so he sees her as his daughter, but she sees him kind of like as an uncle. So there is affection there, but I think a lot of it comes from the fact that honestly, without him, she’d probably starve to death. All
Stuart: right.
Margaret: Okay. And I actually, I noted [00:16:00] this down when somewhere, somewhere in, in response to your letter that, uh, in the first chapter I want to go back in and have her remember what starvation feels like.
Stuart: Ooh, okay. ‘
Margaret: Cause I think that bringing her parents back, if that worked, which is, like I said, it won’t, you know, she would leave the Alchemist.
So I mean, like her parents were poor. They were, they were moving from village to village doing, um, you know, field labor basically. Mm-hmm. So it’s not like there’s a lot of opportunity for her to- Mm ... be well off. She, she would have to give up her, her vanities, and her access to knowledge, and her access to regular food and, um, you know, a safe, warm environment and all of this.
So bringing them back has a lot of risk for her, and she would probably have to give up the caring relationship that she has with the Alchemist, but she’s willing to try it.
Stuart: Okay. Why? ‘Cause it seems like she’s in quite a good place, and not that many orphans [00:17:00] are running around trying to resurrect their parents if they’re kind of onto a good thing.
What is it that she doesn’t quite have the sense of belonging? What is it that she’s lacking?
Margaret: The Alchemist doesn’t really see her for who she is. He sees her as someone he cares about in his way, but also as a mind he can cultivate.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: You know, so he’s, he’s training her. She’s his apprentice sort of thing, which, um, and he thinks that she’s going to help him find this cure.
His love is driven by his ambition. Mm-hmm. And she feels that. She, she senses that. You know, that it’s not, it’s not the same love she got from her parents.
Stuart: Right. So is it unconditional love?
Margaret: Yeah. With that she had with her parents? Yes.
Stuart: Yeah. Okay.
Margaret: Is it unconditional with the Alchemist? I would say not. It has its conditions.
And you know, there’s, there’s also, by this point I’m sure she’s used to the different [00:18:00] culture of living in a wealthy home, but there’s different rules, right? Mm-hmm. So there was a large learning curve when she was adopted by this man- Mm ... of how to exist in this world that was so different to her that she would not have even been granted access to.
As a farm hand, she would never have been in a palazzo in Florence.
Stuart: So let’s, let’s, let’s think about like the deal breakers then. Okay. So she’s with an Alchemist who’s doing experiments. She knows people are dying?
Margaret: Not yet.
Stuart: Right. Okay. So she thinks he’s curing everybody?
Margaret: Either that or that he’s failing to cure them and that the syphilis is killing them.
Like, just that the cure didn’t work is what she thinks
Stuart: Okay. So it’s not the cure that’s driving her away, it’s the discovery that her parents died at his hands via his experimental work.
Margaret: Yes, and that he never told her.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Margaret: The breach of trust, yeah.
Stuart: Okay. So I can see why she’s going to bolt-
Margaret: Yeah
Stuart: him. So what makes her [00:19:00] susceptible to Savonarola?
Margaret: Yeah. So she’s just left an experience where, you know, if she stays, she has to be okay with using people in this way. And when she meets Savonarola, he’s preaching about the purity of the soul and how the elites of Florence are using the, the o- the oppressed and, and you know how they’re corrupt and this and that.
And so she’s just come from an elite home where that’s happening.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: So to her, she sees him as like the broom of that at first. Right.
Stuart: Okay. Now that’s, that’s fine. You can, you can say, you know, “Good on you” and keep walking, right? So then why does she feel like she then needs to belong to his, his thing and what he’s trying to do?
Is she just not putting the, putting the two things together that effectively he is doing [00:20:00] the same thing? He’s sacrificing people, the greater good, the uncounted.
Margaret: Yeah. Well, it, so it hasn’t escalated to that point yet. At this point, he’s preaching about, um, how Florence needs to purify itself, and she d- she sees that as just getting rid of the Vanities and, and being more godly.
And she also sees safety in joining this group, right? So when she leaves The Alchemist, she has no one at all. And she meets Lena first in kind of a, a, a scene I have had in my mind for a while, where she, she helps Lena, but it’s like, it’s... Lena is trying to get medicine for somebody who has syphilis, for one of the other, the courtesans, and Elliana stops her from getting duped, basically buying snake oil.
You know, like, there were so many people making fake everything. So she stops her getting duped, but Lena still doesn’t trust her, then they part ways. It’s a very kind of like preliminary interaction between them. But she realizes in, in that happening that [00:21:00] while she’s prepared to spot the charlatans who are pretending to be, you know, basically pharmacists-
Stuart: Mm-hmm
Margaret: she’s not prepared to live in the world on her own. You know, like her parents died when she was little. She never had- Mm-hmm ... to find work herself, and, you know, she has no prospects by herself.
Stuart: So where else could she go in Florence to be safe?
Margaret: She could go to a nunnery, but you usually have to pay your way in.
You know, you can’t just join for free. And I’m sure she probably has some money on her, but not a ton. Yeah. Not enough to, to pay for a living there. And the other option that is available to her is to become a courtesan and, and put herself in a position where she could contract this disease very easily.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: So, you know, she doesn’t have a whole lot of options from what I’ve researched- Mm ... so far. This could change a little bit as I continue to research. But from what I’ve learned so far, these are her choices, which are pretty slim pickings. I
Stuart: think it’s going to be important to make her proactive, [00:22:00] and it feels like her kind of, “Well, I’ll just fall in with these guys,” doesn’t feel like she’s really making a conscious decision.
It feels like- Okay ... she’s, she’s avoiding failure rather than moving towards success.
Margaret: Okay. Yeah, I can work with that. I don’t have an answer for it right now, but I can work with that. Okay.
Stuart: All right. Okay. Yeah. I think, and I mean, I just, I just think, I think characters can make ridiculous decisions. Yeah.
But I think as long as we understand Why they’re making them. You know? It’s like- Yeah ... it’s like teenagers going into the basement in a horror movie, right? Yeah. We can all be shouting at, at them, but occasionally some movies kind of get it right.
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: And you think oh, okay, yeah, that’s a perfectly valid reason to go down into the basement.
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I need to do a little bit more research on why people join cults, and also what is attractive about like, um, strongman [00:23:00] politics to people.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: Because that’s sort of how I’m thinking of crafting the Savonarola crew, is sort of like a, a little bit of a mix between those. So yeah, I, I think that’s a really valid point.
I don’t 100% have an answer for it yet, but I can definitely continue to, to work on that.
Stuart: What degree did it tie in with her appearance?
Margaret: What do you mean?
Stuart: Just being reunited with them in a different way
Margaret: Well, I guess maybe like getting to heaven. One of the things that Savonarola was not pleased with were plenary indulgences, right?
Mm-hmm. Which was the elite way of ensuring they would get into heaven. So finding another path, yeah, that, that could work. That could work, because by this point she’s realized she can’t resurrect them, and, you know, definitely if she tried outside of the alchemist lab, she would be discovered and burned for
Stuart: heresy.
Right.
Margaret: Like, the only reason she isn’t is because he cares about her and, and you know, when he finds out what she’s tried to do, he [00:24:00] doesn’t, he doesn’t turn her in. So you know, it would also probably... If he did, it would also probably lead to him being burned for
Jennie: heresy.
Margaret: So it’s a little bit of self-protection there, but also- Yeah
care for her. But yeah, that’s definitely worth thinking about. I, I could see that, um, that playing nicely off of how she tried to reconnect with them while living with the alchemist.
Stuart: I just, I just think there could be something in there if you’re-
Margaret: Yeah ...
Stuart: talking about lives and bodies and souls.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: And if that’s your kind of key into her, that when we- if the first thing we see her is trying to do is resurrect her parents, or at least gather the materials that she needs- Yeah
to try and resurrect her parents, what, what are we getting out of that, that first chapter? Is it that I need to belong and I need my parents to belong, or is, is... what’s her kind of center of gravity? Mm. And if she absolutely feels that she needs to be with her parents to belong, then [00:25:00] if she were to see some kind of opportunity with, with him, I’m just gonna call him Rolly, ‘cause I, I can’t keep saying- Rolly.
I didn’t think of him like
Margaret: that the entire time I’m working on this book. I love it.
Stuart: I, yeah, I, I was looking at a picture thinking, “Oh, I’m gonna have to say Savonarola- Savonarola ... like all the way for an hour.” Let’s, let’s just call him Rolly. Okay. So yeah, I, I do think there could be something in there that you could maybe just, just investigate.
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I wrote it down. Yeah?
Stuart: Okay, brilliant. I like it. I mean, ultimately you are the goddess of your own story, right?
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart: I, I just see something in there.
Margaret: Yeah, no, I think it’s definitely worth looking into, for sure. Um- ‘
Stuart: Cause there is that kind of- And considering ... seduction of the- Wh- which one of them do you f- does...
Obviously, I know that Rolli is a real figure.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: But which one of them, in your mind, in the book right now feels more real and [00:26:00] multi-dimensional?
Margaret: I think probably because he’s more of a character of my own creation and not someone I need to research more, at first, the Alchemist.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Margaret: But I have like, I, I have books about Savonarola, I- or Rolli.
I have his original writings and prophecies. I just haven’t had the chance to read through them yet, so-
Stuart: Right ...
Margaret: I think he’s going to become more rounded as I go. The, the main exposure I have to him, which obviously was dramatized and, and changed, was in the show, The Borgias. I think they did an interesting job.
From what I’ve learned already, they, they changed history for their own means, and I have no problem with that when it comes to fiction. Yeah. But, uh, I certainly don’t wanna rely on that as my source material.
Stuart: And then if you were to, to sit in judgment of them, would you judge them? I just, I just think as writers, we need to be really careful that we don’t judge our villains.
Margaret: Yeah. I mean, I honestly [00:27:00] think even though I did describe Savonarola as not having as much of a conscience, I do think both of them thought they were doing things for the greater good.
Stuart: Yes.
Margaret: I think that they both thought that, like, this was the righteous path.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: You know? I mean, Savonarola thinks he, he’s getting messages directly from God telling him to do this, and at the same time, whatever was true about Rodrigo Borgia, that’s Savonarola’s main opponent in his- Mm
political sphere, right? He did a lot of things a pope shouldn’t do.
Stuart: Yes.
Margaret: Mainly having a bunch of children. But like, so I, I can see why for him, he’s doing the righteous thing.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: And, you know, I think maybe it could have started out good. You know, like, let’s purify our souls, let’s not focus on commodities so much, and let’s not be ruled by money so much.
But it pretty quickly shifts into let’s stone all the gay people. Let’s- Yeah ... you know, burn all the [00:28:00] art. You know, like it, it takes off in a-
Stuart: Yes ...
Margaret: a weird direction.
Stuart: Yeah. No, no, absolutely. I mean-
Margaret: Yeah ...
Stuart: the world is on fire right now.
Margaret: Yes, exactly. And the alchemist to me is, is... You know, he genuinely thinks he’s gonna find a cure to this dis- this horrible disease that rots you from the inside.
And he believes if he can find the right balance of cinnabar, which is the mercury that you burn when you’re fluxing people, that he can do it without killing them. So he’s trying to find... He also thinks he can make an anti, like a, like a, like almost like a vaccine.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Using this, where people can come for, for treatment ahead of time.
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: And then not even get the disease. So he really thinks that he’s going to be saving people a lot of agony and eventual madness, you know? Mm. But he’s killing them in the process, and he just thinks that, “If I can just find the right mixture, you know, the right level-” That’s safe for people, [00:29:00] then all of this will be worth it.
All of it will be okay. And, you know, I don’t think that he’s a horrible person. He goes to confession every week. He feels poorly about the people who don’t survive, but he does feel like it’s for the greater good. So he... It’s, it’s sort of like, um, is a utilitarian wrong? You know? Yeah, so I, I try not to judge them.
I don’t think some of their actions are great.
Stuart: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I know, I, I just-
Margaret: Also living in such a different world, you know? They just came out of the Black Plague, and- Yeah ... the view on death was different too, so.
Stuart: Yeah, I, I think the more you can make him a man rather than an idea-
Margaret: Mm-hmm ...
Stuart: I think that will really, really help the reader kinda get in there and then be able to make their own judgments.
Margaret: Yes. They can judge.
Stuart: Yeah.
Margaret: I just wanna present.
Stuart: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I, I think if you do it, there’s this weird way that it kind of comes off the page, and suddenly it’s your voice and not their experience.
Margaret: Yeah, yeah.
Stuart: Okay, so [00:30:00] yet she becomes disillusioned with him and goes back to the alchemist. Now, I’m, I’m...
What is gonna stop this story from becoming a, a thing of, I think of, uh, L- Lemony Snicket? What, what is stopping this from becoming a series of disillusionments?
Margaret: Because the stakes get a little... Well, now I haven’t read Lemony Snicket, but things get a little higher every time. And also, by the time she goes back to the alchemist, she thinks she can convince him to stop doing this.
Stuart: Why?
Margaret: I don’t know yet. It’s a good question. I’m sure it has something to do with her parents. I’m sure, you know, may- maybe she gets access to his records and she’s like, “Look at how many people have died.” You know? Like, you’re not finding the cure, you know?
Stuart: Doesn’t she know this already?
Margaret: She doesn’t 100% know it because the fluxing is new.
It’s a new treatment-
Stuart: Right. Okay ...
Margaret: that he’s trying. It basically started around the time that the book starts, that people started doing this. So they had other mercury [00:31:00] treatments, but because this isn’t ingesting the mercury, he thinks that he can find the right amount- Right ... that it won’t kill people.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: He knows mercury is deadly, but he thinks that this is a new way of delivering it, that, you know- Mm-hmm ... “I- I’m only making them sit here till they start drooling like a mad person,” you know what I’m saying? Like they are, like they have rabies, you know? Says, “I’m only making them sit here, do this until then.
They’ll be fine. It’s totally great. It’s fine.” So, you know, he- He thinks that he, he genuinely thinks he’s going to find this cure/antidote
Stuart: Mm-hmm.
Margaret: And I think that when she comes back... Yeah, I kinda like that. She’s gonna... I’m writing that down.
Stuart: Because again, she needs a concrete reason that the reader can get behind that she would go back to The Alchemist.
Now I, I know that obviously isn’t the end game. Yeah. The end game is that she eventually just leaves Florence.
Margaret: Well, the [00:32:00] reason that she goes, that she goes back, like the external reason, is that she discovers Lena is volunteering to be one of these people who is trying to basically get like vaccinated against syphilis, and they’ve become friends by this point.
So she, she really thinks that Lena will die
Stuart: What do you mean by going back to him then?
Margaret: Going back to the alchemist? She goes there to try and stop, initially to stop Lena, and she can’t convince her. This is just coming to me now. She goes to the, the alchemist’s records to convince her, and then uses that to try to convince him that it’s not working.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Margaret: How does that sound?
Stuart: Yeah. I think as long as we really understand what is forcing Eliana to make these, these decisions that move her from one system into the next system, and then move her back to the original system, and it feels like the return to the alchemist kind of needs to feel inevitable.
Margaret: Okay. I [00:33:00] think, um, if I can play up the Lena bit- Mm-hmm ... a little bit- Yeah ... it will because they first meet when Lena’s trying to find a cure and buying it from a charlatan. And-
Stuart: So there’s that. So that’s where it kind of becomes personal because I really- Yeah ... think, think the more you can fold a story in on itself, and I think, you know, myself, I write historical fiction and speculative fiction, and it’s, it’s so easy to kind of sprawl outwards- Yeah, yeah
into all of these glorious wonderful things. But I think if you can fold that story back in and back in and back in on itself, then we definitely need to talk about Lena because she has this kind of... She’s like a lever- Yeah ... if you think about the story engine, okay? So what does she offer Eliana that no one else does?
Margaret: She offers her unconditional friendship. Basically, the kind of love that her parents offered. Not right away because she doesn’t trust Eliana [00:34:00] right away ‘cause Eliana is elite-looking, and Lena doesn’t trust that. So ultimately, though, they do become very close friends, li- like a sisterhood, you know?
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Sort of. And
Stuart: the- So what is that? What is that point? When does she kind of really begin to see Lena, and when does Lena really begin to see Eliana?
Margaret: It happens, I think, when Lena tends to Eliana a- and takes care of her. Maybe I put that in the, in the inside outline. It’s, you know, somewhere. Okay, so Eliana nearly passes out in the street.
This is when she’s already in with Zev and Roli’s, or Roli’s crew. Finds her and brings her back to the, the brothel and nurses her back to health in secret. So this is when they, they start to actually, like, see beyond what each other is in the world- Okay ... to the world of men, as it were.
Stuart: Okay. So- If we stripped away all of this historical surface, what is this book really [00:35:00] about?
Margaret: It is about extricating oneself from the systems that use us.
Stuart: Okay. So your view is that Eliana won’t end up in any other system?
Margaret: Well, she has hope of not ending up in another system. I mean, they leave Florence.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Right? I’m sure they’ll end up in another system. I’m sure of that. Is she sure of that? No, I think she has, um, uh, enough hope and, and naivete to, to think that maybe she won’t, you know?
Stuart: Yeah, yeah
Margaret: Even, so she’s in an interesting position because she can remember the hunger of being poor, but the elite also have this view of anyone who’s, like, working on the farms, that it’s like this, this lovely, peaceful, easy life, which of course it’s not. Mm-hmm. You know? So the kind of, kind of like pastoral grass is greener.
The, you know, they used to write poems about it, about how wonderful it must be to- Right ... to [00:36:00] be out in the fields all day instead of having to deal with political intrigue and all of that stuff.
Stuart: Okay. So if this was an... If this was a romance- Okay ... this would be a, a happy for now ending, rather than a- Yes
happy ever after ending.
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: Okay. Right. So what I’m really interested in now is what is costing Eliana, what’s the cost of her leaving, and what is the cost of her staying? If she stays in Florence, but still sits outside these two systems-
Margaret: She starves ...
Stuart: what, what’s the cost of doing that? Right. Okay. Now what’s the- Her own body.
Okay. So what is the cost of her leaving?
Margaret: Potentially that, but maybe not. She hopes that, that won’t be it. The cost of her leaving is the unknown, I think. Do you know the, the Biblical story of Lilith?
Stuart: Satan’s wife?
Margaret: No.
Stuart: I mean, d- do you know what my, my only- What? ... my only exposure is the character Lilith in Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Margaret: [00:37:00] Okay. On Netflix.
Stuart: All
Margaret: right.
Stuart: Was she like- Who is Lilith? ... the second woman or something?
Margaret: The first woman.
Stuart: Ah, she was the first woman. Right. Okay.
Margaret: And she was created equal to Adam out of dust, instead of being made out of Adam’s rib.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Eve was, right? And she refused to be subjugated to Adam’s will, so she elected to leave Eden and of her own accord.
So she self-exiles, and what happens to her then becomes a number of myths. Like, some people are like she’s the first vampire, she’s the mother of demons, she’s Satan’s wife. You know? Like, all manner of horrible rumors. So I won’t say her life was easy, but she was free of that subjugation, and that’s kind of the vibe that I’m feeling for the end of this book right now.
Stuart: Okay. So what does belonging... If Eliana’s goal is to belong, what does leaving give her? Like, where is she belonging if she’s leaving?
Margaret: She’s belonging with Lena. She has this sisterhood with her. They leave together. [00:38:00] Okay.
Stuart: And
Margaret: I think that- So
Stuart: my-
Margaret: Or, sorry, go ahead.
Stuart: So, so is belonging now a person, another place, or a system?
Margaret: Correct.
Stuart: It’s found-
Margaret: It’s found family, yeah. And I think the other important note for Eliana is she’s not only after belonging, she’s after belonging with integrity.
Stuart: Right. Okay.
Margaret: You know? So she could stay in Florence and belong. She could stay, you know, among the weepers with Savonarola. Yeah. She could stay with the alchemist.
Neither of them are pushing her away, like actively- Okay ... exiling her, but she can’t stay there and have integrity.
Stuart: Right. So what, what is she mistaking then for, let’s say, love, faith, or safety in these two different systems?
Margaret: Okay. Well, I think in a lot of ways she’s mistaking safety for love [00:39:00] in both situations.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Okay? Um, I think she’s... You know, she feels special with the alchemist, especially as a woman- Yeah ... a young woman, uh, to be able to access this knowledge and learn.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: So that feels very special to her. Um, I think, you know, with Savonarola she, she has several moments where she speaks to him directly one-on-one.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: And that also makes her feel kind of special and, and loved in a way, um, ‘cause not everybody gets to do that. Obviously he can’t talk to everybody one-on-one or he’d have no time to be preaching his, his prophets, right? As his, as his number of followers grow, he can’t hang out with everybody all the time on a one-on-one level.
But she has access to him that others do not have.
Stuart: So her inquisitive mind, the cost is that she’s unlikely to kind [00:40:00] of find that situation again.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: As, as a young woman with an inquisitive mind, she is effectively giving that up. Yeah. And I guess she kind of gives it up twice. She gives it up when she first leaves the alchemist, and then when she decides to, to leave for Florence, ‘cause as you say, he’s not trying to get rid of her.
Margaret: Right. He does, I mean, he does want her to marry. Especially once he realizes she’s trying to engage in necromancy and it could get them both killed. And like, “Maybe we need to speed this up and find you a husband.” ‘
Stuart: Cause husbands fix everything.
Margaret: Well, yes and no. It would get her out of his house, I guess that would make it less likely he burns for, for heresy.
But I mean, he, he’s not insistent on it, it’s just like a, you know, you’re past the age when you should’ve been doing this. Like, if you’re not gonna follow in my footsteps and do this the way I do it, then let’s, let’s get you on track for a successful life in another way. Um, and of course she, she doesn’t wanna do [00:41:00] that because she wants...
She, she’s focused on other things. But, you know. And also, I don’t want, I don’t want the story to have a romantic undertone. I did think about making her character male at one point, but I felt like with Lena that would make- Mm-hmm ... an expectation of a romance between them, and it doesn’t, it no longer feels right for the story.
Stuart: Yeah. And it is interesting to see how that’s changed from the original- Yeah ... story as well, ‘cause that was- Yeah ... romantasy.
Margaret: It was. It was. And then we even talked about it going in the direction of a Pride and Prejudice retelling. So this is quite different.
Stuart: Okay. Okay. So right now, where do you feel the story’s kind of foggiest?
Margaret: Where do I feel it’s foggiest? I feel it’s foggiest around things I, I need to do more research on before... You know, like I, I, I went to the letter. I feel really good about your suggestion to think about not making Lena a point of view character, and I’m thinking I won’t, because I [00:42:00] think... You know, when I, when I started to write as Elianna- Mm-hmm
I think her point of view is just so strong. And then the other thing that I think could be interesting to explore another layer of oppression is to have Lena be a POC, which then of course I would not want to make her a POV character. And that would be- Why, why
Stuart: is that?
Margaret: Why wouldn’t I wanna make her a POV character?
Uh, because I’m not a person of color, so I, I-
Stuart: Okay ...
Margaret: I don’t feel like- I don’t feel like that’s something I need to be doing. Of sitting in her point of view. I think it’d be more true to, to my understanding of the world, Eliana see her one way and then start to see her another way, as far as from what I’ve seen among other Caucasian people.
Stuart: Okay. So is Lena gonna have the wherewithal to pay for this vaccination, or is the vaccination basically free because it’s an experiment?
Margaret: It’s free ‘cause it’s an [00:43:00] experiment.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: There’s also, so in alchemy ... So I’ve been listening to this podcast, The History of Alchemy, which is great, and it takes all of my strength not to listen to episodes that are about people that happen after my story.
Just like- I
Stuart: love historical fiction writers. But- I don’t need to know that for my story, but-
Margaret: But ...
Stuart: I’m gonna spend six hours researching it anyway.
Margaret: Yeah. Um, I won’t say that I’m always successful in that endeavor, especially if I’m driving and-
Stuart: I’m exactly the same. Exactly the same ...
Margaret: but one of the things that’s come up in listening to it is the idea that alchemists had at this time that they shouldn’t charge for their services.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Because there was also, for a lot of people, a spiritual component to alchemy, and a lot of times they would, in order to avoid being burned for heresy, they’d be like, “This will work if God wills it.” Like, “I’m gonna do all this experimentation, and it’ll only work if it’s okay with God, so don’t burn me.”
It’s like that sort of thing, and I feel like that’s where the alchemist in my story sits, you [00:44:00] know? ‘Cause he is a religious man, and he does have faith, and I feel like he wouldn’t charge for this, ‘cause he, he does understand that he’s using people’s bodies.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: You know? And that there’s a cost there.
He’s just- Mm-hmm ... okay with the cost, ‘cause ... Well, not okay with it, but he’s willing to do it for what he sees as the greater good. So I don’t think he would charge for that.
Stuart: Okay. How is he able to function in the society then? Where’s, where’s his income?
Margaret: Inherited wealth. He probably has farmlands somewhere in Tuscany.
Like I said, I have to, I have to do more thinking about his family and, like, where he actually comes from. It’s interesting because some alchemist families that were wealthy encouraged the study of alchemy and funded it, and others did not. Yeah. And usually those were the alchemists who had to find a patron, and be like, “If you give me a little gold, I’ll make you a lot of gold.”
Stuart: But- Sounds like an investment banker.
Margaret: Exactly. Very much like the Medici, right? But of course, what they were producing [00:45:00] wasn’t actual true gold.
Stuart: Yeah, yeah.
Margaret: And it would take a while too, because they believed that gold had to mature over time. So it would take like a year to make a tiny little bit of gold, of gold.
And for anyone who’s listening to this and not seeing, I just air quoted
Stuart: that. Right. So let’s think about next steps.
Margaret: Okay.
Stuart: So we’ve, we’ve talked a lot about kind of the distinction between the alchemist and
Margaret: Savonarola. Yay, you did it. Good job.
Stuart: Yay. Um, I was on Google going, “You have the pron- pronunciation guide.”
Margaret: Savonarola,
Stuart: Savonarola.
Margaret: Yeah. I mean, it, it is phonetic. You have to just kind of like, let it, let it roll.
Stuart: Yeah. Savonarola. Okay. And I like that his first name sounds like Geronimo, but it’s not.
Margaret: Yeah. Geronimo.
Stuart: O- okay. So I really bo- what I really want you to do is, is, is think about those systems, not just in thematic terms.
Really want you to think about emotionally and [00:46:00] dramatically the kind of scenes that are in there, and I’ve seen them in your inside outline, and I think your inside outline has good cause and effect. I would just like to see the emotional piece coming up a bit.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Yeah? Yeah. And I know, I know more of that is really gonna come into the actual writing and getting the emotions on the page.
I really want you to think about emotionally kind of where is she? And this is where we come to, we need to think about the cost of decisions. So- I think, you know, the second next step I gave you was, like, to keep asking what her integrity costs both in practical, embodied, and lived terms. Yeah. I always want you to think about what is she sacrificing as she makes each of her decisions because everything that she’s doing she’s losing a little bit of herself-
Margaret: Yeah
Stuart: although she’s getting closer to, to the truth and Lena and the decision that she’s [00:47:00] ultimately going to make. But then the third piece is really pressure testing that causality around her shifts.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Um, like I said, if ... I don’t know if I said it in this, in this conversation, but elsewhere I say, you know, for every decision your character makes think of you are, you are their defense lawyer.
Margaret: Oh, I like that. Right? Yeah.
Stuart: So even if they’re making a stupid, stupid decision you need to try and defend that, okay? Um, which means the character must feel like- It’s either a desperate decision, if it’s a really stupid decision.
Margaret: Yep.
Stuart: I’m trying to escape the monster. I, you know, like, I- the basement is the only place I can go.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Um, only to find a bigger monster. But where was I going with this? Yeah, so all of those big decisions, even if they’re dumb ones, a reader will accept that if they really, really understand why the character’s doing it, like what their [00:48:00] internal logic is. And especially when we’re g- talking about going back to the alchemist, I know it’s to kind of try and s- save Lena, but also something that you said around not being, she’s not being exorcized from them.
She’s not being excluded. So we really need to understand, okay, I’m gonna give up everything. I’m gonna give up my access to knowledge, and I’m gonna go into a world where I don’t know if I’ll ever belong anywhere in any other system. That’s a big decision to make.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Right? So all of that has to be building towards that.
And then we’ve already talked about it, which is kind of getting Lena’s, deciding whether or not she’s gonna be a POV character, and it sounds like you’ve made some, some decisions around that.
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I, I, I tried to like, get myself into a scene with her POV, and I just, I couldn’t get there, you know?
Yeah. Which to me, that’s pretty telling. Like Eliana, I dropped right in. Like, we’re gonna [00:49:00] get visceral, we’re gonna get weird, we’re gonna, you know. And with Lena, it was just like, “Hi, how’s it going, Lena?” So yeah, I think that was very, um, astute. And, you know, I, I think I’m someone who loves multiple point of view, so when a new character jumps out, I’m like, “Oh, do you want to be a point of view character?”
Stuart: Yeah, same.
Margaret: But you’re, I, I think, I think you’re right. As soon as you read it, I was like, “Oh, does she need to be?” And it then, it just start- uh, it, it was something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I was like, “Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think she needs to be.”
Stuart: You’ve got a lot of complex stuff going on here, and you’ve got a lot of layers, and I think if you add another character into that, I think there might be a risk of you saying the same thing-
Margaret: Yeah
Stuart: more than once. We’re seeing two essentially disadvantaged young women, and I don’t know how many variations on a theme you can get from that.
Margaret: Yeah. Yeah.
Stuart: Okay. So we’ve talked for an hour. Does anything feel clearer now?
Margaret: [00:50:00] Yes.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: Yeah, no, it definitely does. And now Sav and Rollo has a fun nickname. No, ev- everything feels a lot clearer, um, because one of the things I love about this process, and about working with you particularly, and one of the reasons I keep handing you things to look at, is because you will ask me those questions, and you ask them in a way that it’s like, it’s okay if I’m like, “I haven’t researched this, and I don’t know.”
But you ask them in a way that’s like, “I need to come up with an answer for that. I need to have a response to that at some point.” You know? And it’s, it... They’re, they’re incisive and get me thinking outside of my own head a little bit. My tendency, I, I feel like I... What’s easy for me in writing is getting to the page, and getting the emotion there, and getting the sensation there-
Jennie: Mm-hmm
Margaret: and the body on the page. But what’s always challenging to me is I, my initial attempt at creating a story is way more bombastic than it needs to be, and way bigger than it needs to be. I always bite off more than I [00:51:00] can chew- Mm-hmm ... which is why your question about Lena as a POV character was such a great question, ‘cause it’s like, oh, this is my eyes being bigger than my stomach on the page again.
It’s like, do I need it to be a 1,200-page book? No, I don’t. I can make the point in a smaller s-
Stuart: Right. Right. And you know, like, like I, like I said earlier, I think if you feel this urge to kind of sprawl, stop yourself and fold it back in. I think the more and more intimate and the more and more human these stories become, the more universal they become.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: And they become accessible for people who aren’t necessarily interested in Florence in 1400. Right. Okay. So what still feels open but kind of usefully open now we’ve had a conversation?
Margaret: Definitely thinking about continuing to differen- differentiate her experiences with The Alchemist and Savonarola, and I think that that’s going to continue to clarify [00:52:00] as I do more research and do more planning around where he comes from.
I don’t really have his origin story yet in mind. Right. I know what he’s like. Mm-hmm. I can picture him. I can hear his voice. I don’t know where or what he comes from yet. I need to do some more character work on him, and this is, this is the interesting thing, for anybody not listening is this is not the point when I would usually have done a blueprint, so it’s been really interesting to do it at this stage before doing the research, because I feel like it’s gonna help direct my research so much
Stuart: more.
Good. Good. Oh, yes, please. Thanks. We see it with spec, spec fiction writers all the time.
Margaret: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it’s so important because, you know, like I said, I, I could go off in so many directions that are interesting, but being able to cherry-pick- Mm-hmm ... what I actually need to build the story is really helpful, and thinking about those two, ‘cause, you know, I, I think it’s very easy when you’re creating a mirror experience in a story for it to become too similar.
Stuart: Yeah.
Margaret: And then it’s like why do you [00:53:00] need both? The story could survive without it. I do think it’s important for this story to have both, but they need to hit her in different ways at different times, and the stakes need to build, so I think what I’m gonna do is I’m going to spend some time on the origin story for The Alchemist.
Okay. Kind of figure him out a little bit more. I’m gonna do my research, and I’m gonna build out two lists of the ways in which Eliana’s choices impact her relationship with each monster, quote, unquote.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: And, you know, I’m... In that list I’m, I’m gonna include, you know, what, what you said here about, you know, what it costs her in practical, embodied, and lived terms, so I’m gonna have that in a list so I can just list it out, and then I’ll come back, you know-
Stuart: Okay
Margaret: through that. So I think, I think that’s, that’s what I’m gonna do to get- To the, you know, in, in addition to the inside outline work that you suggested, ‘cause I, I like that work too. But just as I’m doing my [00:54:00] research, I think that’s a good way to take notes on it. I am someone who, like Eliana, I’ll just find that little rabbit hole, and it’s so fascinating, I just wanna live in it forever, but it doesn’t actually help the story.
Stuart: Oh, good. So okay, so what are the next one to two decisions you’re going to make? Not research, decisions. Next
Margaret: one to two decisions. I wanna make sure that I feel really clear on why Eliana is moving in and out of these situations.
Stuart: Yeah.
Margaret: So, um, I think those are the next deci- like, I, I think we made a lot of progress today on ideas- Yeah
for why she might make them, but I wanna get to a place where I’m like, “No, this is why she did that.”
Stuart: Yeah. And I- And then, yeah ... and I do think there’s something, I know I keep going on about it- ... and it is your story, but I do think there’s something in there about body and soul. Yeah. Definitely, ‘cause The Alchemist is all about the body, and Seven Rule is all about the soul.
Yeah. And- Yeah ... those are
two things that she’s trying to, [00:55:00] well- The first thing she’s trying to do is bodies, resurrect her parents. Is there something you can play with on the, on the soul side?
Margaret: Definitely, ‘cause she’s gotta get the souls into those bodies somehow, right?
Stuart: Yeah. The guy, the guy in Practical Magic.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Like, they resurrect in Practical Magic, like, he’s not really that guy, is he?
Margaret: No.
Stuart: And it happens in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, they bring back one of the guy’s brothers who dies in the mine, and he comes back. Like, it’s him, but it’s not him.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: So yeah, I definitely like that. Okay, right. So last question, if you were going to change only one thing after this call, what would it be?
Margaret: Ooh, that’s such a good question. If I was gonna change one thing after this call, what would it be?
Stuart: Fire from book coaches.
Margaret: Pardon?
Stuart: You said- Fire a book coach.
Margaret: No, never. Never. You are, you are my book coach. Yeah, I mean, like, so long as you want to be.
Stuart: I love your stuff. It’s great.
Margaret: Thank you. If I was [00:56:00] gonna change one thing, I think what I need to change is I, I actually think I need to have her and Lena become friends sooner.
I’m not- Okay ... 100% in love with the way that they do become friends- Okay ... because it doesn’t involve a lot of agency on Eliana’s part. She gets saved by Lena, then she’s like, then they become closer, and it feels very, like, this is a thing that just happened, whereas I think it would be more meaningful if it comes from Eliana’s agency somehow, especially because the mistrust between them.
You know, that, that’s something I came up with when I was gonna have Lena be a POV character.
Stuart: Right.
Margaret: She mistrusts Eliana more than Eliana mistrusts her.
Stuart: Okay.
Margaret: So I’m not sure that I like keeping that as the hinge of their closeness anymore. I, I think, I think taking that out and replacing it with something else and something much sooner.
You know, I might have Lena come to The Alchemist sooner. Um, maybe, I still like the idea of their first meeting being [00:57:00] Eliana stopping her from being, you know, duped by this charlatan. But I think having Lena try to go to the alchemist before the end of the book would be interesting- Mm-hmm ... ‘cause it gives Eliana a chance to stop her if she suspects that the mercury is still killing people.
Stuart: You know, I, I would... Have you read Gwen Hayes’ Romancing the Beat?
Margaret: Yes.
Stuart: Okay, marvelous. I would have a look at that-
Margaret: Okay ...
Stuart: through the lens of friendship.
Margaret: Okay. I like that
Stuart: better. ‘Cause there is that, “Oh, there’s this person. Oh, I don’t like that person. Oh, but there’s- Yeah ... something about that person.” Like, I think you could maybe play with that.
Okay. And then Lena becomes this kind of, there’s the golden thread that runs through your story, and Lena’s gently pulling it from her end.
Margaret: I like it.
Stuart: Yeah. Okay.
Margaret: Actually, you suggested that book to me.
Stuart: Did I?
Margaret: You suggested that book to me when this story was going to be the romance scene.
Stuart: See?
Margaret: It [00:58:00] all comes back around.
Stuart: I think you could use it for friendship. Yeah. I, I
Margaret: really do. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. Especially between two characters who don’t have that instant trust and connection.
Stuart: Yeah. There’s definitely something we could, we could learn in there. Well, thank, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
Um-
Margaret: Likewise. Thank you ...
Stuart: I always learn something from you, as much as, you know, I g- you know, I
Margaret: g-
Stuart: A- as much as I coach you, this is why I love working with historical fiction writers, because it’s just... I mean, we’ve Rome, we’ve looked at Ancient Rome, haven’t we? We’ve looked- Yeah ... at Atlantis. I know that’s not, you know, but we often, we talk about theory and that kind of stuff, and then obviously I’m learning stuff about Florence in 1494.
Margaret: Yeah.
Stuart: Yeah. Marvelous. Like being schooled every day. Well, thank you. All right. So, you know, the door’s always open if, if, you know, something pops up, just, just, just let me know, yeah?
Margaret: Yeah. Thank you.
Stuart: All right. Always a pleasure.
Margaret: Likewise.
Jennie: Thanks for listening to this [00:59:00] Hot Seat Coaching episode. We’re going to have Margaret and Stuart back another time, so stay tuned for that.
And in the meantime, let’s get back to work and finish what matters.
Outro: The hashtag amwriting podcast is produced by Andrew Perilla. Our intro music, aptly titled Unemployed Monday, was written and played by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their time and their creative output because everyone deserves to be paid for their [01:00:00] work
