Hi, I'm Kelly Yang. And I'm Katie Camelo. And you are listening to StoryKind, our new podcast. Hello, hello, Kate. Kelly, you know how happy I am to see you. I'm so happy to see you, my friend. So where are you this week in terms of your writing journey? Remember how I was talking about in an earlier episode, how I keep that running list of ideas in the back of the notebook? There's been one in there that I've carried around for I don't know how long, maybe like four years now. And I just the other day in this kind of like a little bit of downtime between drafts on another story thought, oh, I know another part of what goes with that story. So in the notebook, I also keep a detailed kind of like index of when when a different part of the story gets added. So I'm not writing that, but that thing that has followed me around for at least four years, it's like it's coming clearer and clearer in my head. I count that as writing too. I definitely count that as writing. Anytime when you're thinking, when you're like writing lines down on a scrap piece of paper, sometimes I'll just be in a restaurant and I'll write something that someone says that's funny on a napkin. Absolutely. That all counts. All that counts. All that counts. And you know what else counts? And then I'll hear your update is being patient. Yes. Being patient. With yourself and with the story. So letting yourself know that it's okay to mess up and try again. It's okay. So I'm just waiting. I've sent the thing into my agent, which is just a synopsis. And we'll see what she says. Oh, patience, right? There it is. Yes. And today's question for us on writing is how do you come up with great characters? Oh, do you want me to go first here? Because my answer is short. Oh, go ahead. I doubt it's short because your characters are so great. I want to hear. No, no. It's like I here's my here's my answer, Kelly. I have no idea. Yeah. I mean, like, I remember like once I was giving a, I was talking at a university and I was told in front of the graduate students that I was going to be talking to them about character development. And I, I'm like, I have nothing for you. I don't know how it happens. Do they come fully formed in your head? I just, much like, you know, that earlier conversation that we had about not having an outline as I'm feeling my way through a story, basically what I'm doing is following the characters through the story and getting to know the characters through the story. So I never feel like I make them up, develop them. It is more like I, you throw things at them. I discover them. They're real people. I don't, you know, I don't, you know, somebody said, okay, here, draw this chart of character traits. And it was the same way I felt when I'm presented with, you can't write the story unless you outline it. It's like, I can't do it that way. So what about? No, I think that's great. I mean, well, first of all, so I think I have to think about what makes a great character in order to answer that question And to me a great character is one that is slightly flawed right I love round characters I think they more interesting I think they more interesting you know in more interesting people people are flawed and we're dealing with a lot and sometimes you know it comes out in weird ways so I like to have a character that is spunky and surprises me and maybe, you know, has a secret or two and is overcoming something. It's working through something internally, right? And we'll get into this in terms of the internal plot of a story, which is what I love about your story so much, Kate, is that the characters are working through something. They're always working through something internally. And I- It's so funny because it just makes me think of this thing that I read about W.C. Fields, which probably nobody even knows who he anymore. But he was a comedian and a performer and he juggled all the time. And somebody told him, analyzed his juggling and told him how he did it. And he's like, I had no idea. And then he couldn't juggle for like eight years. So I'm like, oh no, we're going to talk about the interior of the characters, which I do really well. And it's like, how do I do it? I don't know. The character does it. And it's interesting. Do you feel like, well, let me ask you this. Do you feel like when you're writing the story, do you feel like temporarily you kind of become the character? No, not become it, but rather there is a part of me. And I mean, don't you feel that way that there's a part of you in every single character? Absolutely. So there's that. And there's also, I, I, I'm so with you about round characters because people are never this or that, and they are complex. Yes. We are complex. And that is one of the things that I, as a reader, come to fiction for again and again, is not only to see that other people are struggling, but also to see that other people can change. This is one of the huge lessons that I got from fiction, not only from reading it, but from writing it. Right. You can change who you are in the world. Yes. And, and that is so much of what character is to me, I guess. I've never really thought about it that way before. It is watching somebody own their existence. That's what telling a story is, you know? I love that. That's so true. And that's where we're getting the empathy as the reader, right? Because I say empathy, that's where it comes from. Yeah, because we're reading what someone else is going through or like, Oh, wow, I didn't even thought about that. I didn't even think about all the things they're going through at a home and like financial issues and this and that they're struggling. And it just hits you over the head, like, Oh, wow, there's so many layers to people that we don't think about and books tell us and that is one of the reasons why we gain empathy when we read. Right. You know, and I'll say one more thing. It's a brilliant full circle thing there, Kelly. Thank you. But all the way back to the character development before we go on to our funny question, that sometimes in airports or any place where there you know people streaming past and I just look at face after face individually like I be sitting in the airport and people are you know walking down the concourse Every single one of those faces has a story behind it. And, and, and if I knew that story, it would change how I looked at the person, you know, and that's, that's what fiction does for us, you know? Yeah. Yes. And it's encouraged me to want to ask those questions when I meet somebody. Like, tell me, tell me your story. I want to know. And you know what? Sometimes it'll completely change the dynamics, right? Like, even sometimes when someone's not very nice or, you know, they're being kind of mean. But if you stop and ask them, like, well, how was your day-to-day? Like, what's going on, right? Tell me something. Tell me, what did you eat for dinner last night? If you ask them something, they'll just change. They'll be like, oh, wow. Okay. Let me, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that, and that, that is like, that's the great gift of everybody has got a story and that you don't know what it is. You do not know what they're carrying. So, and we're hoping that this podcast inspires people to want to tell their story because my life got better once I found the courage to do that. And you know what? It took a lot. Right? No, we should do, we should, we should have an episode just on courage. We'll do that. Yes, we'll do that. So today's silly question is for me, are hamburgers really your favorite food? So in the front desk series, Mia really wants to have hamburgers. She has been used to being forced to share her burger with her parents. And you know what, growing up, I remember that a 39 cent burger at McDonald's, do you still remember the days? It was like Wednesdays, 39 cents, McDonald's hamburgers. That was the thing we look forward to the most because it was affordable. And you know what, it became like, it became a luxury to have a 39 cent McDonald's burger. and so I think that's where it comes from. My favorite food isn't actually burgers though now. I think it's like I'm a huge pasta person so I love anything with pasta and I also really like dumplings. What about you Kate? What is your favorite food? I'm just thinking that the McDonald's hamburgers were 19 cents when oh my god I love them. I love all food but I would put pizza right up there at the top and also when you're saying pasta you know I My father's side of the family is Italian. So I grew up with a lot of pasta. But my favorite food is what anybody who loves me cooks for me. And I am like, I live in a neighborhood where I can walk to a lot of friends' houses. And they're all great cooks. So whatever they're making. Oh, you're so lucky. Yeah, right? That's great. And I love that you live in a community where you have friends right next to you. It's fantastic. It's the best. Yeah. I miss that. I used to live 15 minutes away from my best friend in the Bay area, but then I moved to LA during COVID and I haven't really made a lot of friends here because it was really hard to meet people during COVID. And it it harder to it always hard to make friends but it harder to do it when you an adult you know we need to do a show just about friendship yes yeah it so important and on that note we hope that you will tell us your favorite story about your teacher and librarian who's made an impact on your life and email those to me I also want to share my story about Mrs. Bailey from third grade who was my third grade teacher and at the time I was making a ton of spelling mistakes and a ton of grammar mistakes when I was writing and I would get back my writing from her and of course there would be lots of red marks because she was wonderful and corrected everything but I sort of got got the feeling like I wasn't ever going to be able to do this because I was never going to be able to stop making my atrocious grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes and I went up to her one day and I said I'm just feeling really discouraged here. I don't know what to do. I can't help but not really know this English well, this language well, because it was my second language. And I told her that and she told me, you know, you can fix your spelling. You can fix your spelling and you can fix your grammar. That's all easy to fix. But you have something that's a lot harder to get, which you already have. And I said, what is it? And she said, you have a lot of emotion. oh that's so fantastic yeah you're right it's kind of like you know when i see somebody wants me to read something that they've written and it's just like it can be a mess grammatically it can be a mess you know with punctuation but if it has a voice which is exactly that's connected to that emotion thing then that's great the rest of it is easy to fix i want to say that I went back to the small town where I grew up in 2016 and did a signing. And one of the people who came through the line was somebody who had grown up. He was three years older than me. He was in my brother's class. And now he was the librarian at the school where I went to. And when he came through the line, he gave me an old library card. Because remember the library cards? Yes. And where you would check it out, you would write your name. Yes. There was my name on it. It was Mary Poppins Returns. I had checked it out. And you still had it? Yeah. And so it was like, it just, it knocked me over to look at this card with my name on it. Wow. And it's like, to me, it was everything that a library is, all the magic of it, just like, you know, it's so. What a full circle moment. That's Mr. Nichols. He's the librarian now, but he wasn't when I was a kid. that was Mrs. Murphy. So, yeah. Oh my goodness. That, you know, and that's the thing about librarians that they just, they see and recognize all these little things. Like somebody must have kept that card and for years, you know, and because they saw something special in you. Well, I don't know. I got that card somewhere. And at some point I'll, we can, when we show our dogs, I'll show my old library card. I love that. I love that. Thank you so much for listening. So send us your stories, send us your questions for me and Kate. We are at kellyyangauthoratgmail.com and we will see you back here next week. Bye Kelly. Bye everybody. Thank you. Have a creative week.
