Thieves' Gambit, Ep. 12: The END, a satisfying ending that sets up a sequel
In our final episode of season 2, Erin and Anne-Marie take a closer look at THE END of Thieves’ Gambit, specifically, how Kayvion Lewis creates a satisfying ending for this novel and at the same time sets up the sequel.
Things we talk about:
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Erin Nuttall: Ah, knife to the heart, or maybe knife to the back.
[Music intro]
[00:00:06] Anne-Marie Strohman: Welcome to season two of the Kid Lit Craft Podcast. This season we're doing a deep dive into Kayvion Lewis's YA thriller Thieves’ Gambit. Today we're focusing on finishing the story and setting up a sequel. I'm Anne-Marie Strohman and I write for children and young adults and short stories for adults.
[00:00:24] Erin Nuttall: Hi, I am Erin Nuttall and I write mostly for young adults.
[00:00:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: On Kid Lit Craft, we look at mentor texts to discover the mechanics of how writers do what they do so we can apply it to our own writing. And we wanted to let you know that we have two workshops coming up in May. The first is May 10th, The Sticky Note Plot with David Macinnis Gill.
[00:00:45] Erin Nuttall: I have been through his sticky note workshop. And it is excellent. I'm super excited that we are able to offer a workshop from David for our fans because you will learn a lot and he is amazing.
[00:01:00] Anne-Marie Strohman: And the next one will be Writing a Novel with Touchstone Moments with Lindsay Lackey, who I can tell you is also awesome. And these workshops really compliment each other well. David's focusing on the plot side and Lindsay's focusing on the character side. And if you've learned anything from this podcast we hope that it's character and plot are so intensely integrated that you need both sides. So take both.
[00:01:23] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, for sure. And I have not taken a workshop from Lindsay. So I'm excited about this to see what new things she, she has to teach me. 'Cause you know, I'm kind of nerdy about these things. I like to learn more. We also have our final Ask the Author book club this month, and we will be talking with Lindsay Lackey about her middle grade novel, Farther Than the Moon. And I don't know if you have been listening to our Ask the Author book clubs or if you've participated, but they are super fun. You really get to know the author and you get to learn about their process, which is always fascinating and I'm excited to learn more from Lindsay.
[00:02:03] Anne-Marie Strohman: So you can sign up for workshops and the book club at kidlitcraft.com.
So Erin, this is our last episode on Thieves’ Gambit, and appropriately we're talking about the end of the novel. And as we've mentioned, this novel is not the end of the story. The next book in the Thieves’ Gambit series is called Heist Royale, and it came out in November 2024.
So I'm excited to dive in.
[00:02:29] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. Well, I will say when I read this, Thieves’ Gambit, originally, I did not know that it was not a standalone book. And so I think it will be interesting to talk today about how she's able to have this standalone story that also leads the reader into the next book.
[00:02:47] Anne-Marie Strohman: So let's start with vocabulary. What do you have for us today?
[00:02:50] Erin Nuttall: So it may feel really elementary, but I just wanted to have our vocabulary word be sequel. I looked it up. Just curious to see what the dictionary world and AI world have to tell me about its definition.
And it is a continuation of world and characters. And each book is complete in itself. And I just loved that definition because that is what you hope when you're reading a sequel. You want the first book to be complete in itself, but then you want to be excited for the next book and the continuation of the world and the characters.
[00:03:31] Anne-Marie Strohman: So let's start with Thieves’ Gambit, and its own ending, looking at that book that's complete in itself. The book ends for me in a really satisfying way. So how does Lewis pull off that ‘this book is complete’ ending?
[00:03:46] Erin Nuttall: I agree that it has a very satisfying ending, which is not always the case in a book that has a sequel. And sometimes as a writer, you may really want a big cliffhanger, you may want Han Solo frozen in Carbonite, right? And have your readers be like, oh, what's gonna happen?
You may want that. And you still get that feeling, but maybe not as intensely at the end of Thieves’ Gambit because it is a story that's complete in itself. For me what gives it that satisfying ending is that she really closes the circle on that idea of the theme of trust. You know, if you've been listening to this and you know, we talk about this a lot, that the theme of the book is Ross's ability to trust people. And Lewis sets it up right at the very beginning in the first sentence, in the first scene, in the first chapter. All of that is set up and then she has a journey with trust throughout the whole story. And then the last line, she sums it up for us, where Ross tells us that she has a new rule. So her first rule, her original rule is trust only a Quest, AKA, someone related to her. And then her last line, her new rule is trust no one. So having that, that closed circle, I think it really gives me that satisfaction.
Is that what you are feeling or is there something else that makes you feel like, that brings that satisfactory ending for you?
[00:05:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. I think for me it's a lot of, she closes out all those threads, right? We have the thread with the mom's kidnapping. We have the thread with the aunt's kidnapping. We have the end of the gambit itself. She has contact with Kyung-soon, near the end as well. So people have filtered out. So it's just her and Devroe left at the end. We still have this kind of satisfaction of these little connections going back. And we also get that lovely reveal at the end where she sees all the people who have been watching the gambit, who she recognizes from different scenes, that if we think back, we have seen all those people as well.
[00:06:02] Erin Nuttall: Right. I did not anticipate that. Yeah. That they were watching it like a play.
[00:06:08] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. So we get that satisfaction of like, oh, this story is bigger than Ross thinks it is.
[00:06:14] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:06:15] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. And we get a little more of a peek into the organization and what they want. And so all these reveals and all these closed circles help it feel really satisfying. I'm not left with a dozen questions about what really happened.
[00:06:31] Erin Nuttall: Along those lines. We have the desire line that Ross has, and that's, you mentioned, a lot of those, the friendship one, a normal life. All of those threads are taken all the way through and those circles are closed. So I agree that makes it very satisfying as a story on its own. So it can totally standalone. That can be the end of the book. It's not the most hopeful ending, but it can totally, it can be the end and you can be like, yeah, I'm there. Right?
[00:07:02] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. And so we've talked a lot in our pacing episodes about where the events of the story happen within the course of the entire novel. Are there elements of structure or plot pacing that come into play with this ending?
[00:07:18] Erin Nuttall: So I think the way that it ends is really interesting and in some ways I feel like it sort of has a double ending. And I think that does lead to the setup of the next story. But as we said, it also does not mess up the integrity of the first story. So we have Lewis hitting all of the regular story marks that you might have.
So there's excellent world building. There's an exciting inciting incident. There's the midpoint turn, a climax, a denouement. You get all of those things. But we kind of have a, like I said, I see it as sort of a double ending because you have a lot of those story marks that come to the end of the gambit, and then you have those story marks that are part of the bigger story that's going to unfold in the next book. So we have more than one All is Lost moment. When Mom reveals her perfidy. Right? And, and that's like 352 and I think there's only like 364 or something like that, pages. We'll just call it that. We'll say it's 364, so it's, you know, in the last 12 pages of the book. We have this next All is Lost moment. And so that is really awesome. Obviously it's like a defining moment in Ross's trust journey. But then because it's sort of drawn out then we get these last moments setting up the next book. But if you're like me, you didn't know there was another book. It's only as these moments are coming that I'm like, huh, I wonder if this is not going to be, and that's probably only also because I am like a, you know, I'm a structure nerd.
I imagine if you're just reading it for the fun of reading, you won't even think about that. You're just like so involved in the story. Right? So I like that dual use of those last 12 pages where you have sort of your double ending/set up for the next book.
[00:09:27] Anne-Marie Strohman: You do need that 12 pages to end the first book, I feel like, right? Like there's the end of the gambit proper, but we haven't gotten to the prize winning part.
[00:09:36] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:09:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: Then we get twist, twist, twist. And…right?
[00:09:42] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:09:42] Anne-Marie Strohman: The twist of the mom. The mom's betrayal. We get the twist of now she has to pay for the aunt's release with her own labor, and we get the last twist that her time, that she's gonna have to work with Devroe. And the time starts now.
[00:09:59] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:10:00] Anne-Marie Strohman: So in that last little sequence, we get those extra twists, which feel to me like a satisfying ending. And as you mentioned, they also are set up.
[00:10:11] Erin Nuttall: So I do think that that is interesting. 'Cause you're right, we would not have had a satisfactory ending without it. But it's definitely hitting some of those story marks for a second time and I haven't actually thought about it until just now, so it would be interesting to look at other action thriller books to see if that's common, to have the double ending where you have the action end and then the emotional end.
[00:10:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: I would guess so.
[00:10:40] Erin Nuttall: Yeah I imagine that you're right. Well, if you're doing a thriller where you actually are engaging in an emotional side, which a lot of thrillers give a cursory nod to the emotional side. But if you're really engaging the emotional side of the character, then I think that you're right, that you would have to have, or you would want to have that sort of, that double ending. And maybe some of them have a double beginning, but because Lewis was so adept at her beginning, she was able to do it all at once,
[00:11:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah, I mean, I think in the beginning, like you have Ross's beginning, and then you have the gambit beginning as well, and so then you have the gambit ending, and then you have like the Ross's ending. So I think it bookends.
[00:11:25] Erin Nuttall: I think that is a really good way to think about it. Look at how smart you are.
[00:11:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: And I also think that the other piece is that we have seen throughout the book how she will get to kind of a climactic moment or a big moment, and then we think it's like, oh, that's as big as it can get. And then it gets bigger and then it gets bigger. So she has these moments of layering on or like amping up the tension or adding stress, and so it makes sense that she didn't have it at the end. It would feel weird, right? We need that at the end too, where it goes to 11. The consequences have gotta be bigger than we think they are. Like losing the gambit is just, oh, well now I can go home to Mom and auntie. Like that's not satisfying. Right? Like there need to be bigger consequences for losing the gambit.
[00:12:12] Erin Nuttall: That would be super boring. You know, it's interesting. Quite a few years ago I had a cute teenage babysitter and I was taking her home and she had been reading, I think it was the last Twilight book, and I was asking her how she liked it and she was super mad because she felt like the ending was so anti-climatic. And she went on at length about it. And as someone who generally roots for nonviolence in a story…[Laughter] Because what happens is they're, they're supposed to have this big battle at the end, and then they don't.
And so it is interesting to think about that reader's disappointment. I mean, there is no battle and obviously in Thieves’ Gambit, but there's more of an emotional battle, I guess. So yeah, it is an interesting thing to think about how you use that time to set up and to not dismantle your story, but close out your story.
[00:13:12] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. Close out your story and like in this case, it is a downer ending, right? Like Ross is ending up worse than she was at the start of the book. Have you seen that Kurt Vonnegut lecture that he does where he talks about the shape of stories?
[00:13:28] Erin Nuttall: I haven't.
[00:13:28] Anne-Marie Strohman: That's a great one. We can put it in the show notes, but he talks about, you know, you start on an average day with an average person and then, they might have good fortune and then ill fortune and then their fortunes rise again. And so they have that shape to the story. And then Cinderella, you're starting very, very low and you get built up and she's at the ball and it's very high. And then the clock strikes and her fortunes fall. And then the prince comes and finds her and she's not as low as she was before, but then she goes up to, he says, off scale happiness.
And I think in this case, you know, Ross is starting out where, she's, at first, like in a pretty good situation, right? She has a life that's provides for her, she has family. The thing that she's missing is friends. So there is a lack there, but she's starting out in like fairly good circumstances. And then when her mom is kidnapped, everything tanks.
[00:14:28] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:14:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: And then at the end of the story, it's not just that her mom was kidnapped, but her mom betrayed her. She's lower than she was before.
[00:14:35] Erin Nuttall: True.
[00:14:35] Anne-Marie Strohman: And she’s had some heights when, with the relationship with Devroe, with these connections with other characters, with this reconciliation with Noia, with succeeding at some of the heists, thinking she's gonna win, being smarter than the organizers. But then at the end she's ending up lower.
[00:14:52] Erin Nuttall: Right, which is a great place. Oh, are you gonna say the same thing? We're twins. It's a great place to start the next book.
[00:14:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: So talk to us about how that ending sets up the next book.
[00:15:03] Erin Nuttall: Well, I think you described it really well, because now she is in this really low place and now we like her and we are rooting for her. And so we want her to dig herself out of that. Right? So there's that. But the other thing that I think is really interesting is because we were just talking about like these closed circles and actually, they have like a little crack or something in them because she doesn't trust her mom, obviously, and she doesn't trust her romantic interest of Devroe, but she has friends. She has Mylo and Kyung-soon, and now Noelia. And so she's starting to have this network of other people so that is possible that she could be in the next book continuing to explore that trust theme. And Ross may end up reevaluating from trust no one to my trust is earned or something, right? And same with, you know, she has this desire line met of friends, but she has a new desire line of getting out from under the thumb of the organizers, right?
[00:16:16] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. And even more, this conflict with Devroe, I think, sets up a lot. I pulled actually the first paragraph from the next book, which starts six months later. Um, it says Heist Royale, and it starts on Ross's birthday, January 13th. And she and Devroe are on a job together for the organizers and they're at some big stadium concert. That is where is the scene where it starts. So it was very different from the opening of Thieves’ Gambit.
[00:16:45] Erin Nuttall: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Anne-Marie Strohman: But it starts like this. “If I pretended hard enough, I could almost believe the fireworks bursting over the stadium were for me. According to my phone it was still 11:47 PM but that was Rio time. Back on Andros it was January 13th already. Close enough. It was my freaking birthday, and all I wanted was to see one debonair vest-wearing traitor destroyed.”
[00:17:07] Erin Nuttall: Ah.
[00:17:07] Anne-Marie Strohman: And then, Devroe talks into her earpiece. Right. And they have banter, which I know you love.
[00:17:13] Erin Nuttall: I do.
[00:17:15] Anne-Marie Strohman: So even from that very beginning, we know that she doesn't trust him. She's sticking with that at the start, but there's this added revenge.
[00:17:24] Erin Nuttall: Well, it's interesting that it's six months later too, because she has a year contract, so she's halfway through and a reader might think that she would fall back into her pleasant feelings for him, maybe.
So yeah, so we have those circles that have cracks. And then, like you were mentioning, we have these new avenues to explore. So she's not working for her family anymore, she's working for the organizers and she has to work with Devroe. And clearly she still doesn't trust him. And yes, like you said, there's revenge. And who doesn't like a good revenge?
[00:18:01] Anne-Marie Strohman: The thing we haven't mentioned is he won, so he got a wish and he delayed his wish.
[00:18:05] Erin Nuttall: Okay this is again, I was just about to bring up the wish 'cause ah, we're in sync today.
Yeah, so then we have the gambit wish that Devroe has. And I don't know if you ever watched How I Met Your Mother but they had this slap bet. The cast of characters would do these bets with each other. And I don't, I totally don't remember. It's been too long to remember how it was set up. But anyway, if you ended up winning the bet one of the characters would have like a cache of slaps and they could just slap another character for no reason out of nowhere or for whatever reason they personally held and you just didn't know when the slap was coming. Right?
And I feel like it was a great story tool. Because when it came, it was like, ah, such a surprise. And then you got to refer back to a different, you know, a different episode and then you got to continue whatever was going on. Like, it's just such a fantastic story tool.
And I think that this is what that reminds me of, is the slap bets of that show. Don't go back and watch it. I'm sure it does not hold up, but it did have some interesting story tools and that was definitely one of 'em. And that's what Devroe has. He has his gambit wish. And at the end of this book, of Thieves’ Gambit, you know, the organizers were dangling the eradication of Ross's entire family. I mean, hello, talking about ratcheting it up to 11. Now, as a reader, I wasn't super worried about that because I personally, even though he betrayed Ross, I thought he's a good guy. He's not gonna eradicate a whole family.
[00:19:49] Anne-Marie Strohman: Not in the page and a half left that we have left of the book.
[00:19:54] Erin Nuttall: But we still, but we also know he betrayed her. And so while he might not eradicate her whole family, he's still out for himself. And it could still be devastating for Ross. So there's a lot that could happen and that we're teased with in those last few pages, right? It is just really well done because she closed a lot of stories and then left or started new, new circles if we're gonna continue with that metaphor. She started new circles for the next book. I just can't emphasize how happy it makes me, that it was a satisfying ending for this book, for this story, and then gave me enough to want to read the next one.
I hate, hate, hate the Han Solo in Carbonite endings. That's just me. Some people probably love 'em. Some people love 'em, but…
[00:20:49] Anne-Marie Strohman: That way we knew there was gonna be more. So..
[00:20:52] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Although my husband was a young child and saw that in the theater and was like, what?
[00:21:02] Anne-Marie Strohman: The downer. That second book, second thing in a trilogy is always a downer.
[00:21:07] Erin Nuttall: That's probably why we have moved to more duologies than trilogies.
[00:21:10] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, what are you taking away from today?
[00:21:14] Erin Nuttall: I'm taking away, I think basically what I just said about how important it is to give your readers satisfaction in the original story and have that be just as important as laying the foundation for your next story. What about you?
[00:21:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: I think I'm gonna be thinking a lot about how the action, plot and emotional plot resolve, whether that's resolving at the same time or resolving one first and then the other and how that might mirror the beginning of the book. I think that's a really smart, that book ending, I really like.
[00:21:45] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. And I do like that idea of sort of the double bookends on those that I hadn't really thought about. So… So I've been waiting. What is today's Cool Gadget?
[00:21:54] Anne-Marie Strohman: So as promised, I'm bringing back the meteor bracelet for an encore performance. In the last episode, we talked about the bracelet's practical use as a weapon, and we saw that in action in the museum scenes. And today I wanna focus on its emotional use, particularly how the bracelet comes into play in Ross's relationship with Devroe and this big theme that we've been talking about: trust.
[00:22:17] Erin Nuttall: Objective correlative!
[00:22:19] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah, well. Endowed object, but…
[00:22:23] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, I guess…I guess, yes you're right. You're right. Oh, dang it. I was hoping to sound fancy. Endowed object would've also sounded fancy.
[00:22:34] Anne-Marie Strohman: Also sounded fancy
[00:22:35] Erin Nuttall: I could have said that, but I couldn't remember that term, honestly.
[00:22:39] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Well, if you had come to my free workshop on making emotions concrete, you would've heard a lot about endowed objects. And actually. I will be teaching that workshop again in the fall in an SCBWI region, so…
[00:22:52] Erin Nuttall: Maybe I can come then.
[00:22:54] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. But it is an endowed object, which means it's an object that is endowed with meaning that often has resonance in an emotional way. And so here is what happens. This is in the last half of the book when they're in the sarcophagus heist section. And it's right before Ross and Devroe are getting ready for their reconnaissance.
And we really haven't seen the meteor bracelet that much in between, if at all since the museum.
[00:23:19] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:23:20] Anne-Marie Strohman: And Ross is getting dressed up in her fancy red dress, and she goes to pull on her meteor bracelet. And Devroe is like, this thing is too grungy, you're gonna give yourself away. And she insists like, fine, I'll leave it for tonight. We're not going into anything dangerous. It's just reconnaissance. But she insists she's gonna wear it the next night. And he says, “Perhaps we can have it colored gold by tomorrow. That color looks good on you.” And then he gets all flirty about some gold beads in her hair and she is totally distracted by that.
[00:23:48] Erin Nuttall: It was very cute scene.
[00:23:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yes. I didn't do my Devroe British accent. Maybe later.
[00:23:55] Erin Nuttall: Oooh.
[00:23:57] Anne-Marie Strohman: The next day as she's getting ready for the auction, she can't find her bracelet and she calls it “my weapon, my security blanket.” So we know that she's reminding us of that emotional resonance that it has for her already and she's sure Devroe has taken it.
She texts him asking where it is, and then when he arrives to get ready for the auction, she asks again and he ignores her. And after they get ready, she says, “Okay, it's time. Where's my meteor bracelet?” And then here is where the object becomes something even more than a weapon or a security blanket.
And I'm gonna read this section for you without the accents. “Devroe deflated a touch like he'd been hoping I'd say something else. He drew a thin silver box tied with a shiny gold bow from his tux jacket. He wrapped it. Talk about dramatic. ‘I told you I'd give it back,’ he said. I snatched the box and ripped the ribbon off.
‘You know, it's not a gift when it was already mine.’ I popped open the box. When I saw what was inside, I went still. It was so familiar, yet different, more beautiful. What used to be a grungy aged silver was now rose gold. It looked like a piece from an edgy Tiffany collection, something that would be totally overpriced, but sold out in minutes.
I drew it link by link from the box, marveling at the way it sparkled under the light. Devroe took my wrist and helped me wrap it on. ‘I told you it would need to be camouflaged if you wanted to wear it tonight.’ I soaked in the warmth of his fingertips as he slid on the ring and snapped the metallic ball into place on it.
‘Now you can wear it anywhere without looking like you just left a biker club.’ A little flutter swept through my heart. It was just a weapon, but it was more than that. He took something I'd had my whole life solely for practicality and made it stunning. I fumbled for words. How did he know I'd like this?
It was the best gift anyone had ever given to me.”
Whew, all that. Like we've got all that time dilation, like it's slowing down. We're in the moment. There's all that sensory detail. And she tells us it is endowed now. He's taken something that was just practical and made it stunning. “It's the best gift anyone had ever given me.”
And so Ross really feels seen. It shows this deep connection. It shows that Devroe is aware and paying attention to her and is so thoughtful in this moment.
[00:26:23] Erin Nuttall: It is really thoughtful. And then the other thing you mentioned, that she's been seen and I think that's like, we haven't really talked about it that much, but it is one of the reasons I think she wants that more normal life and she wants friends is because she wants to be seen. She feels sort of taken advantage of by her mom. Like that her mom just assumes she's gonna be there and gonna be her right hand man always. And isn't ever like, are you okay? Or, thanks for your help. She's just like, okay, next thing. So it's extra impactful, I guess, is the best way to put it.
[00:26:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: So then Lewis brings this object back one more time, and it is at the end when she arrives at the ballroom and the bracelet becomes this connection to Devroe in the face of his deception. So here is what Lewis writes, “lit with a spotlight in the middle of the ballroom, was a figure standing in wait. Devroe.
Just a few hours ago, I was wrapped in his arms. I'd naively let myself fall for him. I'd done the unforgivable. I’d trusted him. The rose gold bracelet he'd given me was still around my wrist. Did he take pride in that? I unclipped my meteor bracelet fully prepared to use it.”
[00:27:37] Erin Nuttall: Ah, knife to the heart, or maybe knife to the back.
[00:27:41] Anne-Marie Strohman: A meteor bracelet to the throat. After this betrayal, then, she turns it into a weapon again, right? And a weapon that she's ready to use on him. So Lewis uses this object to show us so much about Ross and so much about her relationship with Devroe and so much about her trust at different stages. So I really like that as an cool gadget, an object, endowed object.
[00:28:09] Erin Nuttall: Endowed object. Excellent. Yes. Yeah, it's a super smart device. Because, you know, at the very beginning we learn about Ross through it. She doesn't like guns. She doesn't like the mess of knives.
[00:28:22] Anne-Marie Strohman: Or syringes.
[00:28:23] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, So we learn about her through it. And, but we also learn that she's not someone who is going to let herself be taken advantage of. So she has this alternate thing. And then as you said, we get this extra added connection with romance and trust. ‘Cause she's been keeping Devroe at arm's length. But finally he gives her this lovely bracelet and it's like you know, big heartfelt lean in.
And I do think it's really interesting, “the rose gold bracelet he'd given me was still around my wrist. Did he take pride in that” as though he had like this whole devious plan, which honestly, I mean, maybe you can tell I still love Devroe a little bit because I don't think he did. I don't think he had this plan. I think he had to betray her, but…
[00:29:15] Anne-Marie Strohman: I think you'll find out in Heist Royale and you'll be happy to know that like the paragraph after the one that I read from Heist Royale, he is super flirty and she is super annoyed that he's still flirty.
[00:29:27] Erin Nuttall: I love it. I love those banter scenes. So we have this object that is just so useful as a story tool.
[00:29:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yes, it's a great way to use the object in so many different ways, and I encourage people to find an object in your story that you can layer more stuff onto.
[00:29:49] Erin Nuttall: I bet there's stuff that you could just, you don't have to be like, what could this really important thing be? It could just be something you've already written. I would imagine that Lewis wrote the meteor bracelet, 'cause that was a really cool weapon that she thought of and then later was like, oh, look what I could do with it. Right? So I mean, I imagine, I don't know, but if it were me, that's how it would happen.
[00:30:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah.
I think we've done it. Erin. 12 episodes.
[00:30:18] Erin Nuttall: We did it. Yay. 12 episodes.
[00:30:19] Anne-Marie Strohman: I have another question which is, now that we've been through 12 episodes about the craft of Thieves’ Gambit, how do you feel?
[00:30:27] Erin Nuttall: How do I feel?
[00:30:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: You mentioned at the beginning that you chose this book 'cause you wanted to figure out how to write a thriller. Do you feel like this has helped you?
[00:30:36] Erin Nuttall: Oh, for sure. and it's also hurt me because now I think, ugh, look at all that work. I don't know if I can do it.
[00:30:45] Anne-Marie Strohman: You can do it. I know you can do it.
[00:30:48] Erin Nuttall: Well, I appreciate that. It's helped me because I will say that I was definitely giving a short shrift to the emotional side because I would say that the bulk of thrillers do give a short shrift to the emotional side, but. I think the main reason I liked this so much is because there were so many emotional tie-ins throughout the story and so it helped me really like Ross a lot and want to root for her. And so I do think that it has definitely helped me and then also, recognizing that it still goes through a lot of the same story markers, just the same plot points that we see in most Western lit, it's kind of comforting to realize, oh, I know how to do that part. So there's that. But yes, thinking more about emotional side has actually definitely slowed down what I've been doing in the preparing for the writing because I wanna make sure I hit that and do a good job hitting that.
But I think that that will help once I start the actual writing, if that makes sense.
[00:32:00] Anne-Marie Strohman: Awesome. I’m glad.
[00:32:01] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, no, me too. If there's anything somebody wants to write, I highly recommend taking a book you like apart and figuring out what it is that the author has done. Because you do, you learn a lot or you can listen to us do it.
[00:32:17] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. Well, and in the, the Writing Middle Grade for Picture Book Authors class and the Writing Middle Grade and YA Novels class that I teach that's what we do. I have everybody read one book together and then that's the example that I used through class.
And then each person picks their own novel that's like something they wanna write. And then they do those same exercises with that novel. And it's really amazing to see what people are learning and taking from those books. 'Cause every book is different and every genre has its own stylistic choices. And voice is different. Like there's so many things that can be different in a book, and so looking at something that's like what you wanna write is so, so valuable.
[00:32:59] Erin Nuttall: Yes, I totally agree. I think it's maybe the most valuable thing I learned in our MFA program. But I also think it's valuable to see what you don't wanna do.
And that's not even like a diss on the books 'cause there might be something that you think they've done well, but it doesn't quite suit what you're trying to do. And then you could find somebody else who did it the way you want to do it or I guess you could just go off on your own. But I don't know why you'd wanna do that.
[00:33:27] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. My friend Jackie, when she gets to a place where she's stuck and doesn't know what to do in the book, she pulls three or four other books and reads just that section. So…
[00:33:35] Erin Nuttall: Mm.
[00:33:35] Anne-Marie Strohman: She’s working on endings. She's like, something is not quite working about my ending. And so she broke down the endings of four different novels and pulled a little something from each to try and experiment with her own.
And that's been really successful for her.
[00:33:48] Erin Nuttall: That is super smart. I, kudos to her for doing that. 'Cause it is kind of like side writing where you're like, what, I wanna do the fun part of writing, right? I don't wanna do this extra stuff, but there's so much that you learn doing the extra stuff. So I have really enjoyed seeing actual mechanics of Thieves’ Gambit and how they play out. 'Cause honestly, I read it so quickly initially, and I just enjoyed a lot of it. I mean, by saying that is, my brain works in a way that I almost always am taking apart pieces of books when I'm reading 'em and kind of like a puzzle. So if I read something super quickly, it's very rare like that. And so to do that. And then we were talking about, you know, what do we wanna do for season two? And I thought, oh, I enjoyed that book. Let's do it. And I did not realize how full of lessons it was.
[00:34:48] Anne-Marie Strohman: And lessons that apply to more than just thrillers. Like I am not writing a thriller. I'm writing sad, contemporary stuff, and I've really found a lot of things from this book applicable to my own writing, so…
[00:35:03] Erin Nuttall: Well that’s awesome.
[00:35:04] Anne-Marie Strohman: I appreciate you choosing it.
[00:35:05] Erin Nuttall: Well, good.
[Music outro]
[00:35:05] Anne-Marie Strohman: That's it for today. And this season! The Kid Lit Craft Podcast is produced by me, scripted by Erin, edited by Ander Nuttall, with music by Trevor Strohman. And if you enjoyed this podcast, you can find more content like this at kidlitcraft.com, where you can sign up for classes, workshops, book clubs, and read a lot of craft articles on various topics, including endowed objects.
Find us on social media at @KidLitCraft and you can support this podcast on Patreon. And we have T-shirts that you can find at Cotton Bureau. There will be a link in the show notes.
[00:35:40] Erin Nuttall: They're very soft and comfortable T-shirts. Please download episodes; like, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen; and let your writer friends or all your friends, your grandma, your parents, anyone you think might be interested about the podcast. And who wouldn't be interested? Obviously. We gave you a fascinating season after an already spectacular season in season one. So… Anyway, we can't wait to nerd out with you.
[00:36:10] Anne-Marie Strohman: Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next season.
[00:36:13] Erin Nuttall: Woo! I just had to add that since it was our last…
