Episode 85
How to Get the Most Out of Interviews with Melanie Hemry
In this episode, we’re talking with Melanie Hemry, an award-winning nonfiction writer who specializes in telling real stories of real people in a captivating way. Today, she’ll teach us the techniques she uses in her interviews, how she coaxes her subjects to speak about often personal, and often difficult journeys, and how she identifies the heart of each person’s story.
LINKS:
- MelanieHemry.com
- Watch a FREE webinar from Chris, Gena, and Rene to see how to best prep for your next writers’ conference at https://www.writingmomentum.com
- Receive your conference prep checklist AND an exclusive coupon code for this year’s WRITERCON at https://www.writingmomentum.com
- Liz Wilcox's Email Marketing Membership at https://writing.fyi/liz
- Get your FREE Move the Needle goal-setting for authors ebook at https://www.writingmomentum.com
- Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let's get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Writing Momentum Podcast.
Speaker:I'm Christopher Maselli, and I'm here with my wife Gena.
Speaker:How's it going, Gena?
Speaker:It's going really good.
Speaker:I'm excited about today's interview because this is not only a fabulous
Speaker:writer, but a fabulous friend as well.
Speaker:And so I'm really, we've been talking about having our guest
Speaker:here with us today, Melanie Hemry.
Speaker:And so we're just, I'm excited to have her and to hear what she has to say.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Hey, Melanie, how you doing?
Speaker:Hi, Gena.
Speaker:I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker:Oh, we're glad to have you.
Speaker:Now, for those of you who don't know, Melanie, she is an award-winning
Speaker:author and she has more than 60 books to her credit, including the Jerry
Speaker:Falwell, His Life and Legacy book.
Speaker:And she's a popular ghost writer, so she doesn't write a
Speaker:lot of stuff in her own name.
Speaker:A lot of times she writes, for other people.
Speaker:And she's a winner of the prestigious Guidepost writing contest, and
Speaker:her work has been published by Reader's Digest, Believers' Voice of
Speaker:Victory Magazine, and so many more.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's, those are quite the credentials, Melanie, do you feel
Speaker:like you have all those credentials?
Speaker:I feel like I'm 30.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it was funny, just before we started, you said we were talking I
Speaker:said to you, wow, you got, over 60 books and you said, yeah, but not
Speaker:a lot of those are in actually my name, six of them are in your name.
Speaker:All the rest are in the name of what, who you go ghost wrote for.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So that's interesting.
Speaker:You've ghost wrote for all these people and with every ghostwriting assignment
Speaker:that you have to do an interview.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that, I think when we talk to writers, they're like, oh, interviews
Speaker:make me nervous because a lot of us are introverts and we're like, I don't
Speaker:know if I want to go and do interviews.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think that's one thing though, whenever I read your writing that I can tell that
Speaker:you've had a really great interview.
Speaker:Anybody who has read Melanie's work, you know that she brings a lot of
Speaker:story into her nonfiction work and you read it and you don't just read
Speaker:it from this distant place you really get immersed in this story and in
Speaker:this subject, and I think that's what comes from a really great interview.
Speaker:I think you have the potential, at least to write in that position.
Speaker:Would you agree with that, just like getting deeper into it?
Speaker:I really do, and I've got quite a system because I've been doing interviews.
Speaker:Almost monthly for magazines and then many books require
Speaker:weeks of interviews sometimes.
Speaker:Jerry Falwell, I did nine hours of interviews a day for a week.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah, in Lynchburg.
Speaker:So you learn a lot along the way and, I've got a system
Speaker:that I'll share with you guys.
Speaker:If you don't mind me jumping in, let me tell you the one thing that
Speaker:you should never do in an interview.
Speaker:Oh, let's hear it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You should never get somebody to interview and then say, tell me your story.
Speaker:Now why is that?
Speaker:Is that 'cause they don't know where to start or because you're
Speaker:gonna get the wrong stuff?
Speaker:Two reasons.
Speaker:Actually three.
Speaker:One reason is because they don't know what you need.
Speaker:They have no idea what you need unless they're a published author.
Speaker:They're not gonna know what you need, and most of them aren't.
Speaker:But the second thing that people don't realize, and nobody told me this when I
Speaker:started, I had to learn it for myself.
Speaker:They're nervous.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They're really scared that you're gonna say something like, tell me your story
Speaker:and they don't know what you want.
Speaker:And they're really, even though they're trying to act real brave
Speaker:when you're interviewing somebody, please remember they're nervous.
Speaker:They don't know what you want or what you wanna say.
Speaker:Now, there are exceptions to that.
Speaker:When I interviewed Phil Driscoll, I was going through my process and he went,
Speaker:Hey, Melanie, this is not my first rodeo.
Speaker:He's been interviewed a million times.
Speaker:But yeah, this is exception.
Speaker:Most people have not been interviewed that many times, and if they have,
Speaker:it may be for something different.
Speaker:Even at Believers Voice Victory, a TV interview is very different
Speaker:than a magazine interview.
Speaker:And so in order to deal with their fear, their anxiety about what's going
Speaker:on, when I set up the interview, I always talk 'em through the process.
Speaker:Which is I'll need you either in person, depending, or on the phone
Speaker:for at least an hour and a half.
Speaker:And so we need to find a time that you've got that long.
Speaker:Now, if your story is longer, we may go longer, but give them a timeframe.
Speaker:Also, I tell 'em, please be thinking about timelines, like something happened
Speaker:in April of 1995, and then a few months later this happened because I explained
Speaker:to 'em, I may not write it sequentially, but however I tell their story, I
Speaker:want it to get my timeline as accurate as possible before it goes to print.
Speaker:And then I also let them know at the beginning I'll be asking you questions.
Speaker:And that makes 'em relax.
Speaker:Because they know they don't have to come up with answers
Speaker:that they haven't been asked.
Speaker:It's kinda like you become a coach, right?
Speaker:You're coaching them through the whole process.
Speaker:Do you know in your mind when you start an interview here's
Speaker:where I want to go with it?
Speaker:Or is it kinda I'm not sure where it's going, so I just know I need
Speaker:to walk 'em through a process to see where we, where it leads?
Speaker:I think both are true.
Speaker:And when I first started this journey many years ago, I wrote
Speaker:down my questions because I didn't want to get nervous and forget.
Speaker:I don't write down anything anymore because I've been doing this for over
Speaker:30 years, except the one question that I ask every single interview,
Speaker:and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker:But, when I start an interview, I always record all of the contact information.
Speaker:So I know I've got that recorded and I can easily get to it.
Speaker:I'll tell you, when you said you've got a system, my ears just perked up
Speaker:'cause I love systemizing stuff, right?
Speaker:'Cause it makes it easier, I think as the writer to know that, okay here's
Speaker:a series of steps I can count on.
Speaker:For leading me towards success.
Speaker:'cause I've done interviews before and they're very scary to even do as
Speaker:a writer because you feel like, okay, am I going to get everything I need?
Speaker:I don't want to have to call 'em back 10 times because I forgot to ask something
Speaker:or forgot to go somewhere or I didn't ask that hot button question in the moment.
Speaker:That would've really brought everything together.
Speaker:So yeah, I love the idea of a systemized approach to this.
Speaker:Yeah, if you just want to jump on in, let's jump on in.
Speaker:Okay I begin, okay, let me back up.
Speaker:I get more information than I'm going to need.
Speaker:Sometimes I tease them and say, I'm gonna get everything except your
Speaker:social security number, but if you're willing to give me that, I'll take it.
Speaker:No, but I don't usually say that, but no, I get more information than
Speaker:I need because that information will shadow how I write their story.
Speaker:And so there's two reasons.
Speaker:I begin with this question every time, where were you born and raised?
Speaker:What did your parents do?
Speaker:Did you have brothers and sisters?
Speaker:Give me your backstory.
Speaker:Were you raised in a Christian home?
Speaker:Now I do that because I'm gonna go sequentially through
Speaker:the timeline of their life.
Speaker:In this hour and a half, and I'm gonna start back there.
Speaker:But the other reason I do it is I can almost feel 'em going, oh, I
Speaker:don't, I know the answer to that.
Speaker:And that doesn't have any emotion to it or anything.
Speaker:They can just, they can rattle that off.
Speaker:That's, it's very easy to give.
Speaker:And that sort of starts them thinking, oh, this is not gonna be hard.
Speaker:And you can almost feel 'em relax.
Speaker:And then, I will say this.
Speaker:Last week I did an interview.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:This man is the executive director of a major ministry, and when I contacted
Speaker:him to get a time to interview, he was flying, ministering all over Africa.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:He's been an executive pastor at a major church in Texas.
Speaker:He is really, Big, right?
Speaker:So I didn't know anything except what he is now.
Speaker:So I started the question, tell me about where you were born.
Speaker:Tell me about your parents and did you have siblings?
Speaker:He goes he told me where he was born and raised.
Speaker:He told me he had three sisters and that when he was five years old, he
Speaker:watched his dad murder, his mother.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:After his dad was sentenced to 50 years in prison, he and his sisters were put
Speaker:in a foster home, and the foster father sexually molested all of his sisters,
Speaker:the whole all the time they were there.
Speaker:And beat him mercilessly and things went down downhill from there.
Speaker:Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:He ended up being in a mental hospital, diagnosed with all
Speaker:kinds of, what he had was rage.
Speaker:He had a lot of anger and a lot of rage.
Speaker:He believed God hated him, and he ended up being on the streets homeless,
Speaker:a drug addict that for many years.
Speaker:His story was just like, oh my gosh, how did he start that way and end up here?
Speaker:Which is just, the transforming power of God, no other explanation to it.
Speaker:If I'd have just started with where he is now.
Speaker:Would I ever have known that?
Speaker:So did you not know that before the interview?
Speaker:Was that just suddenly oh, this is new information, new revelation?
Speaker:That then would and I don't know how that wouldn't completely form
Speaker:the article or form the book.
Speaker:Completely form the article.
Speaker:Because when the story came out in the newspaper the newspaper said, see, he and
Speaker:his mother and father were going through a divorce, and while he was out of town,
Speaker:she went on a date and took him with her.
Speaker:So when dad got home, he's five.
Speaker:He said, what'd you do while I was gone?
Speaker:Mommy and I, and went here.
Speaker:And that's what, and so the newspaper said that what this guy,
Speaker:five-year-old said, provoked the murder.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:How guilty do you feel?
Speaker:So he's taking the full responsibility for everything that happened.
Speaker:And that's on his shoulders then.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So it turned out to be a, just a staggering story, but you don't ever
Speaker:think somebody's gonna be that far down and become who he is today?
Speaker:I had no idea.
Speaker:So that's the reason I like to go in my interviews.
Speaker:I'll start with a birth family.
Speaker:What was their childhood like?
Speaker:Were they in a Christian home?
Speaker:Did they ever hear the gospel?
Speaker:You find out if there was abuse.
Speaker:You find out early things, and then I take 'em in segments.
Speaker:What about your grade school years?
Speaker:What about through middle school?
Speaker:Middle school and high school?
Speaker:And I take 'em through that, asking for a timeline as close as they can
Speaker:remember it along as, so I'm getting the major plot points you say.
Speaker:And so I have, so a few questions that I ask every time.
Speaker:One of my best things is what happened next?
Speaker:And that just spurs them on to share more.
Speaker:And then the other thing I've found is even if I'm on, rather I'm on
Speaker:a phone interview or a personal face-to-face interview, they need
Speaker:to have some response from me.
Speaker:I wanna keep him going, but I'll, now I didn't have to remember
Speaker:to do it, when to respond.
Speaker:When he said he watched his dad kill his mother, I was like, what did you just say?
Speaker:Or you wanna make something along the way.
Speaker:If it's on the phone interview, I always try to say, oh my goodness.
Speaker:How did that make you feel?
Speaker:What helped you get through that?
Speaker:Do you remember what the weather was like that day?
Speaker:So you were driving a Mustang, what color was it?
Speaker:Because you wanna make many scenes.
Speaker:As you go along you wanna get as much detail as you can.
Speaker:I love that you're pulling, you're getting those details, but I can tell as you're
Speaker:asking these questions, you're getting to the emotional, you're getting that
Speaker:emotional level to those questions.
Speaker:So the details aren't just, It was a sunny day.
Speaker:You've automatically tied those details to the emotions that they were feeling, which
Speaker:you get that so much in your writing.
Speaker:And I love how you're talking about sequentially because I have
Speaker:interviewed people before that they start telling me their story and
Speaker:then they'll jump and I'm trying to, in my mind, I'm trying to track.
Speaker:What, wait a minute, how did that happen?
Speaker:And I've got, all of a sudden I've got these questions and I've gotta try to
Speaker:get the answers, get the connections, the thread that, okay, how do we get
Speaker:from, how'd you get from here to there?
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Question that you always wanna ask in every interview, never leave it out,
Speaker:is what were your blackest moments?
Speaker:Because for instance, on this interview I did last week, I thought his darkest
Speaker:moment was probably when he was in a drug addict hotel and he was suicidal.
Speaker:I thought that was what he'd say.
Speaker:You know what he said?
Speaker:That's when I heard about the newspaper article that claimed it was what
Speaker:he said that provoked the murder.
Speaker:He hadn't that.
Speaker:You don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker:So yeah, I used to always say, what was your blackest moment?
Speaker:But a lot of times I'm interviewing a man and his wife, they may
Speaker:have had different black moments.
Speaker:And as you both know, the black moments are your story problems and the story
Speaker:is the engine that runs everything.
Speaker:So you want that as much as you can get it.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's so good.
Speaker:Okay, so you've started off by getting just some of the basic details.
Speaker:Then you asked some of these.
Speaker:Provocative questions.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Provocative questions, or just questions to lead them to the next step.
Speaker:So what happens next?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I'll use your your prompt.
Speaker:That's a good one.
Speaker:So the thing about it is that sometimes, occasionally they'll
Speaker:just get off on a rabbit trail.
Speaker:Now occasionally the rabbit trail might be gold.
Speaker:But sometimes it's a real snoozer.
Speaker:Here's what I found, is that unless it's ruining your interview, I try to listen.
Speaker:People don't feel heard anymore.
Speaker:They want somebody to hear 'em.
Speaker:So while they're on a rabbit trail, I know it's being recorded.
Speaker:'cause I record everything.
Speaker:We can talk about that in a minute, but I have a pen and paper and I'm writing
Speaker:down all the things I want to know.
Speaker:So that when I reel 'em back in, then I say, okay, before we go any
Speaker:further, or I may wait till the very end and say, let me just ask you a
Speaker:few things I was wondering about.
Speaker:And I've got my questions written down there of what else I want to know about
Speaker:their story, get 'em back on point.
Speaker:And also to find out the information I need.
Speaker:I will tell you I've had different people that have been
Speaker:so interesting to interview.
Speaker:I interviewed a pastor in Florida.
Speaker:I was there with him, and he is still a friend today, but
Speaker:he had really bad A D H D.
Speaker:The man could not, it wasn't that he wasn't willing to stay on track.
Speaker:Yeah, he couldn't stay on track.
Speaker:And so we were in the boardroom at his church and he's talking and
Speaker:going everywhere, every direction.
Speaker:And I would do this.
Speaker:Raise your hand.
Speaker:You know what he would do?
Speaker:He wouldn't let me ask, he wouldn't let me talk.
Speaker:I got so tickled.
Speaker:I burst out laughing.
Speaker:So while he was doing that I was writing down all the questions that I need.
Speaker:And so generally at the end of the interview, Sometimes he'd be, he'd
Speaker:feel like he got everything out and I'd say here's some more questions.
Speaker:If that didn't work.
Speaker:He and his wife always took me out to dinner in the evening somewhere
Speaker:overlooking the ocean, and I set my little recorder and I said, I had
Speaker:some things I forgot to ask you today.
Speaker:And his wife would keep him track.
Speaker:But you don't know what you're gonna get into.
Speaker:One time I interviewed someone for B V O V and they had been in another nation
Speaker:and their job was to dismantle bombs.
Speaker:During the entire interview, all he would do was read to me from the military log.
Speaker:Oh really?
Speaker:You're like, I could read from the military log myself, right?
Speaker:I want to hear from you.
Speaker:And I thought, we may not have a story here.
Speaker:I did everything I could.
Speaker:How did I make you feel?
Speaker:He would go back and read.
Speaker:How did that make you feel?
Speaker:He'd go back and read what was on the log.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:Oh, 400 hours, approach truck in the road and refuse bomb.
Speaker:So what I did was I did intensive research about the country they were in the time
Speaker:they were there the month, the day, the weather, how bad the mosquitoes were.
Speaker:So I had him on the side of the road, tried not to slap mosquitoes
Speaker:while he watched the terrorist, and then I built the story around that.
Speaker:At that time, the people I was writing for wanted to me to send
Speaker:them all my interview tapes.
Speaker:They listened to the tape and read the story and thought she made it up.
Speaker:So they called me and said, we want you to call him and read this story to him
Speaker:and record it and send us his reaction.
Speaker:And I thought that's really a good idea because.
Speaker:What he's going to.
Speaker:So I did that.
Speaker:I called, I had it recorded.
Speaker:I called him, I read him the story and he finished and he
Speaker:goes, you got it just right.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:I think it's something that you have to know about interviewing.
Speaker:A lot of people think you can't put anything in there
Speaker:that they didn't actually say.
Speaker:But you can do research.
Speaker:And set up scenes.
Speaker:And also there's something called the human condition in that.
Speaker:I was interviewing a 90 something year old woman.
Speaker:This is the story that won me the guidepost contest, and she had
Speaker:fallen and broken her hip, and I took the story down there for
Speaker:her to read, to get her approval.
Speaker:And she looked, she had piercing blue eyes and she's smoking a
Speaker:cigarillo in the hospital bed.
Speaker:And she looked at me and said, I didn't tell you that.
Speaker:And I said, that's correct.
Speaker:She goes, so how did you know?
Speaker:I said, because I figured at your age most of your friends
Speaker:had died and you felt lonely.
Speaker:And she said, boy, I do.
Speaker:So there are things that you can imagine.
Speaker:And you've known people, your own grandmother, your own mother, your
Speaker:own situation and you can, there is a human condition that you can write in.
Speaker:So when you've got that fine line between what your coming up with on your
Speaker:own and what the interviewee actually said how do you make sure that you are
Speaker:telling the truth of the whole thing?
Speaker:Do you just make sure that they've had a chance to read it and then as
Speaker:long as they approve, you're good.
Speaker:See with guidepost who is where I started writing, they have a policy
Speaker:is that every one you interview, we'll see the finalized story.
Speaker:It will not go to print until they have a chance to correct
Speaker:anything that's wrong and then they sign off on it that it's true.
Speaker:And then they give them 25 extra copies, saying thank you
Speaker:for letting us run the story.
Speaker:So when I started writing for Believers' Voice Victory, I
Speaker:asked them to do the same thing.
Speaker:And we all have, since I started, so we, I have the confidence in where
Speaker:I write, they will see the story.
Speaker:And anything that's not right, they will get corrected before it goes to print.
Speaker:But I don't do it.
Speaker:For instance, on my first story for Guideposts that I ever sold them
Speaker:was the Edmund Post Office massacre.
Speaker:And I knew it happened in August, it was cold, and I didn't know, I interviewed
Speaker:a survivor, a guy that was shot.
Speaker:And so I went, I crawled over the crime scene tape to look at
Speaker:where he fell through a window.
Speaker:Because if he fell on the carpet, it would feel scratchy.
Speaker:But if he fell on the tile, it would feel cold.
Speaker:So I wanted those details.
Speaker:He didn't tell me how that felt on his face, but I found out.
Speaker:Do you find that those details are a lot of times what makes
Speaker:the story really come to life?
Speaker:Is that what it is that people latch onto versus just telling an overall story.
Speaker:Here's what happened.
Speaker:Is it the details that make the difference?
Speaker:It really is because on the second story I sold to Guidepost, a woman couldn't
Speaker:swim and she and her husband were at the lake and the lake started flooding
Speaker:and the Ranger told him to get out.
Speaker:He said, I'll stay here and button up the boat.
Speaker:You take the car and go home.
Speaker:The water washed her in the lake and she hung on a tree with snakes for three days.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:When they rescued her, I can say it this way, they rode the boat up
Speaker:to her and got her out of the tree.
Speaker:Now what do you see more clearly if I tell you they wrapped her in a yellow blanket?
Speaker:That's, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:You're pulling on the senses, aren't you?
Speaker:You're pulling on, you're not just telling the story, but by that
Speaker:emotional or by that sensory connection.
Speaker:All of a sudden we sink into the story with you and it just.
Speaker:You don't have it to get it in the interview.
Speaker:Of course you can do research, but now I didn't use the yellow blanket
Speaker:or the floor on Mike Biggler's face, but I always get more because
Speaker:I don't know what I'm gonna need.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:That's really good.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Someone's just getting into this.
Speaker:What are your overall.
Speaker:Yeah, you can ask that, but I wanna ask about technical side of it too.
Speaker:Oh, that's right.
Speaker:We're gonna talk about too, let's do that first.
Speaker:'cause you mentioned that there's a, that you have some.
Speaker:I'm sure you have your favorite ways of doing this, just
Speaker:technically how to pull it off.
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:And things have changed for me since technology's changed.
Speaker:I really like using rev.com.
Speaker:And I know Otter is another example, but I've lost an interview on Otter
Speaker:and when I lost a four hour interview on rev.com, they found it for me.
Speaker:On my cell phone, I have the call app for rev.com and the face-to-face
Speaker:app, but I never do an interview.
Speaker:If you're gonna use.
Speaker:Any kind of recorder with batteries, you don't ever, I don't care if you've
Speaker:used the batteries once for another interview, you put new batteries in there.
Speaker:And I never do an interview without my phone being plugged
Speaker:in to where it can't die on me.
Speaker:No matter how long we go.
Speaker:And it only has to die once.
Speaker:And you decide that's never gonna happen again.
Speaker:And I always charge my AirPods for a long time before I do an interview as well.
Speaker:And if they start, if it's a long interview and they start going
Speaker:down, then I'll take one out and plug, charge it, take the other
Speaker:out and plug, keep one in my ear.
Speaker:But I, so I do rev.com and that, and rather it's on the phone or rather
Speaker:it's face-to-face, it's recorded, and then I upload it from my phone to them.
Speaker:They usually, by the next day, I've got it transcribed word for w ord.
Speaker:And then, so I take that transcript and I copy and paste it into a Word document,
Speaker:said, Christopher Maselli's interview.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Now the entire interview.
Speaker:Then I go through and mark the timelines where everything goes.
Speaker:And then I have another document that said Christopher Maselli's timeline.
Speaker:And I put all the contact information up top, and then I start childhood.
Speaker:And I go down the, so everything is in a sequential order, and
Speaker:that is what I used to write from.
Speaker:Oh, that's good.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:So you're not taking the transcript and starting to rework it or anything.
Speaker:You're starting with the fresh document, but you've got all that research on the
Speaker:side there that you're pulling from.
Speaker:Yeah, and for instance, when I'm working on a book and I've
Speaker:done interviews, then I will.
Speaker:I was writing a book about, about a family, and they moved
Speaker:from Texas to this town in California that had a lot of gangs.
Speaker:So I did all this research on the town.
Speaker:And you copy and paste it right there.
Speaker:What's the details of where you found the information, if you have to cite that?
Speaker:And so by the time I'm ready to write, I have everything.
Speaker:And if I'm actually doing fiction, then I have everything in.
Speaker:In sequential order according to the plot points in research.
Speaker:And this is, you just use Microsoft Word for all this?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Just keep it simple.
Speaker:I've never had time.
Speaker:I've got Scribner and I've never had time to learn and I didn't have time
Speaker:to get on and have you teach me.
Speaker:Better take the time to learn.
Speaker:I can't tell you how many people tell me that with the, with things like Scribner
Speaker:or other programs, they're like, they got this stuff and they're so excited
Speaker:because it can save 'em so much time.
Speaker:But there's such a learning curve that they're just like, I'm
Speaker:just going back to my notebook.
Speaker:I'm good with that.
Speaker:I know it works.
Speaker:Now Melanie, you are going to be at WriterCon coming up here
Speaker:in just a few weeks, and it's actually, I say in a few weeks.
Speaker:It's it's a couple weeks after this podcast.
Speaker:It's in a couple weeks, but it's also every year.
Speaker:It's an annual event there in Oklahoma City.
Speaker:What are you talking about this year?
Speaker:This year Gina Lynnes and I are doing a class together on writing nonfiction that
Speaker:sells, and we're going through some of the things that we see that are being missed.
Speaker:That are authors, especially new authors.
Speaker:Good.
Speaker:Oh, that'll be so good.
Speaker:That would be worth the cost of the conference alone, I imagine.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Actually was gonna do something else, but Bill said we were really a low
Speaker:on nonfiction this year and ask, and we thought, Hey, we can fit, do that.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker:I gotta tell you, this interview has been.
Speaker:It's been really rich.
Speaker:So power packed.
Speaker:Rich is the answer of good information here.
Speaker:This is the kind of interview I could just go back to and listen to multiple times.
Speaker:Just to make sure I catch everything.
Speaker:And I think our listeners are gonna feel the same way.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Such good stuff.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:If you've been listening and you've enjoyed this interview, please
Speaker:rate, review, subscribe, share.
Speaker:Let someone else know how good this was, and share it with them
Speaker:so that they can find it, and so that it can improve their writing.
Speaker:Remember, we're not in this alone.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:That's why we do things like these podcasts so that we can
Speaker:all learn from each other.
Speaker:Because you know what it is together, what Gena?
Speaker:We have writing momentum.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
