STORYBEAT WITH STEVE CUDEN

STEVE CUDEN INTERVIEWS NOVELIST LESLIE TALL MANNING – TRANSCRIPT

ANNOUNCER:

This is Storybeat. Storytellers on storytelling. An exploration into how master storytellers and artists develop and build brilliant stories and works of art that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators of all kinds find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Thanks for joining us on Storybeat. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great Storybeat episodes to you. Well, my guest today, Leslie Tall Manning, is an author of adult and young adult novels. She started her writing career at Cal State Long Beach in the late ’90s when, as a theater major, she took a playwriting class and subsequently a novel writing workshop. Since then she’s seen her work performed in the college arena as well as five of her books published. In 2002 Leslie left southern California for the sleepy South and considers North Carolina her home.

Today she’s an award-winning novelist. Her adult novel Gaga received a Self-E Library Journal selection, and her YA novel Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town received the Sarton Women’s Literary Award and the North Carolina Author Project Award. When Leslie’s not hanging out with the characters in her head or conducting research for writing projects, she speaks at libraries, schools, and book clubs. As a former English teacher, she spends her evenings working as a private tutor helping students become the best writers possible. Having the desire to combine her books with theater, she’s currently adapting her most recent novel, Knock on Wood, into a stage musical. She’s proudly represented by a favorite Storybeat guest, Dr. Uwe Stender, at the Triada US Literary Agency. So it’s a fantastic pleasure for me to have the brilliant Leslie Tall Manning join me on Storybeat today. Leslie, welcome.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Hi, Steve, thank you for having me. I don’t think anyone’s ever called me brilliant before.

Steve Cuden:

Well, there’s a first time for everything, and there’s some truth to that, is there not? Because you’re well published and well received. So let’s talk about your beginnings. Where did you start to think of yourself as someone who might want to put words to paper or computer, or whatever that was? How early in your life, how young were you when you first started thinking about storytelling?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I think I started thinking about storytelling from the time I was probably a baby. I think my mother told me once, she’s no longer with us, but she had told me once that I started singing before I started speaking. So I was always humming in the crib, and then I got a little bit older and I started telling stories to neighborhood kids, and on rainy days in western Maryland I’d sit in my bedroom or on the front porch writing little plays. And I think I’ve always been a storyteller. I liked making up stuff, borderline lying, to the neighborhood kids and playing house and pretending to be characters and writing plays for my three sisters and making them act in my little shows. So it’s always been-

Steve Cuden:

So you were writing really from the very beginning of your life, you just didn’t know you were a writer at that time. You were always telling stories.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I believe so. You know, it’s interesting now that you mention it, I was always an avid reader, I’ve been reading since I was about five. And I was always ahead of the curve in reading, but it never occurred to me to become a writer. That was never anything that ever entered my mind until my final year of college.

Steve Cuden:

Indeed. So at that point when you were in college and you started to take classes, you were in the theater, right? You were acting, correct?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I was actually a general theater major. I put myself through college, it was very difficult to do, I worked full-time as a waitress. And so I couldn’t really perform in the nighttime shows, and because of that I ended up becoming a general theater major, which was this conglomerate of all the different facets of theater, from production to stage management. And I loved it all. And so the only opportunities I had were with the day repertory theaters.

Steve Cuden:

I see.

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I did a lot of work.

Steve Cuden:

I see. But you had had a lot of theater experience at the point that you left school. But it was, and I’ll tell you, we have a very similar history a little bit in terms of when I was in undergraduate school in the theater, because I too have that in my background. I was going to be both an actor and a director, but not a writer. But I then took playwriting classes at school, and that then turned me on to wanting to be a writer. So we have that similarity in our backgrounds.

Leslie Tall Manning:

When I read your bio I saw that and I found that very intriguing, actually. And southern California.

Steve Cuden:

And southern California, indeed. Okay. So did you start to write while you were in college, in classes? Was that your very first time starting to pen things?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I had written a little bit here and there. I always got straight As on papers, my research papers, term papers, they used to call them term papers. Straight As, and it never occurred to me that I could do anything with that. I had friends who would ask me to write poetry for them for their boyfriends. I had a friend who lost a cat, she said, “Could you please write a poem for my cat?” I was always writing but never thought about it any more than just for fun. Theater was always my thing. I had actually been in Hollywood for some years and did a lot of movie extra work. Went back to college in the late ’90s when I was already in my late 20s.

Steve Cuden:

Wow.

Leslie Tall Manning:

So yeah, I went to college very late, I had studied acting in Hollywood before that. So it wasn’t until college when I cracked down and started hitting books that I realized, number one, I was pretty smart, which I never knew I was. And number two, that I had what it took to be a determined student. And number three, that I could pretty much do anything I wanted. And the writing class that I took, which was my first writing class in college, which was a playwriting course, was mandatory. I had to take it, so I took it. And I got the bug, it bit me hard. And I couldn’t stop writing. And it was written by hand, this was pre-computer. So I actually wrote this hour and a half long play by hand and then put it on the typewriter and typed it up the day before it was due. And my instructor really liked it. And then the following semester, which was my final semester of college, I had the opportunity to have it performed and I directed it.

Steve Cuden:

Wow. That would have been a huge experience. All right, so the theater then has informed, would you say, all of your writing subsequently? If you hadn’t had a theater background and theater training, do you think you would have come at the stories you’ve told since the same or would it be very different?

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s hard to answer an alternative universe question. But I would say probably not, because in theater, as you know, and especially as an actor, you’re constantly learning about characterization. Characterization is everything in a play. A novel is a lot of setting and a lot of internal dialogue and things like that, but plays and novels both have characterization in common. And so as a play writer and an actor, you get really deep into a character’s role. You know what they had for breakfast even if the audience doesn’t know. You know what their religion is even if the audience doesn’t know. And it does transfer to writing for sure.

Steve Cuden:

Sure, sure. Well, you understood prior to being … Prior to thinking of yourself as a writer, you understood what it meant to be a character or a fictional character, and you understood that there was some kind of background on that thing called character prior to your being a writer. So that was an innate understanding once you got to the notion of being a writer, I assume.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes. And I do think also, as a child, reading a lot, reading plays and reading stories and reading novels and make-believing and having a great imagination, I think that also lended itself, number one, to going to theater to begin with, and then subsequently becoming a novelist, which also was just by accident.

Steve Cuden:

Do you have a sense of when, after, I’m assuming it wasn’t right away, but after a while, you had a sense that you were actually pretty good at it? Do you have an idea in your head of exactly when you went, “Hey, I’m not too bad at this”?

Leslie Tall Manning:

So without trying to sound cocky in any way because I am about as far from cocky as you could get, I’m very humble and I’m very aware, self-aware of the moment that I write and the moment that things come to me, but I have to tell you, that first play and when it bit me, I knew it. I knew I had a knack. I knew that it was … I don’t want to say easy, because nothing you write is easy.

Steve Cuden:

No, it shouldn’t be.

Leslie Tall Manning:

There was just something that clicked. They say it’s a calling, and I think I got it. But I didn’t really get it with playwriting as much as I got it with novel writing, which came a little bit later.

Steve Cuden:

That’s interesting. So the novel writing obviously was not first. But that’s where it really clicked for you, was writing prose rather than writing pure, mostly dialogue.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Correct. I found that … So in my senior year, that final semester, I needed one more elective to graduate. And so while I was directing the play that I had written, I was also taking a novel writing workshop that I snuck into by lying about my prerequisite. And I just wanted to be part of it just to see. And it was almost like playwriting went out the window the second I started writing a novel. It changed my life forever. I’ve been doing that for 20 years now.

Steve Cuden:

You literally took to it like a duck to water. You just started swimming right away.

Leslie Tall Manning:

There was absolutely no question in my mind that that’s what I needed to do with my life.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so at some point you then moved from southern California to North Carolina. And so how has North Carolina changed your perspective on characters and stories, and how has North Carolina then started to inform what you do?

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I grew up in western Maryland and moved to California at 19. And then when I relocated about 20 years ago to North Carolina, I never wanted to go back to the Northeast, but I’d always wanted to come to the Southeast. And when my husband and I explored it we found this little town called New Bern, which is on a river, we sail, and we just knew it was for us. And I also knew in that moment that this is where I wanted to write. I loved writing in southern California, I had different offices and different houses and whatever, little beach houses on Laguna Beach close to Mesa, California, and in LA. But the second I came to North Carolina, again, it was like that strange feeling that I had the first time I started working on a play or a novel. It all clicked. I knew this is where I needed to write for the rest of, probably the rest of my life.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Hurricanes or not. Hurricanes or not. Because we have them. Learning about the people here, the cultural differences between people, the way people mingle or lack of, the way there’s Spanish moss everywhere, graveyards everywhere. I live in an old Victorian house, thank God it’s not haunted, but many are. There’s just so much character in this town that it does really feed my imagination as well as my desire, I think.

Steve Cuden:

I don’t see how it …

Leslie Tall Manning:

I think it influences everything that I write. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t want to do it.

Steve Cuden:

Right, I don’t see how where you live doesn’t inform what you think about and people you meet and characters and so on. Where you live has to have some kind of an impact, and my imagination tells me in what you do that you take a lot out of that particular region of the world. Phraseology, idiomatic expressions, the way people think and act, etc.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And I feel like, I don’t know about reincarnation or anything that woo-woo, but I have this weird feeling when I’m in a certain place that I’ve been there before, or that it’s a guidepost that’s telling me I’m on the right path. And that’s how I feel here. Yes, the South has a very deep history in the United States, a very old history.

Steve Cuden:

Very.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Some of the oldest history. Much of it’s embarrassing history, but it’s history nonetheless. The music, the fiddling. I play violin, and since I’ve been here I’ve been listening to so much fiddle music. And the country music and the mountains, the Appalachian mountains. See, we’re just like California only on its side. So we run east to west very long. We’ve got the coast, we’ve got the central cities, and then we’ve got the western mountains.

Steve Cuden:

That’s true, I had never thought of it that way. But yeah, you are sort of like California flipped on the side.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Steve Cuden:

California’s a gigantic state, much bigger than most states, probably not as big as Texas and probably not as big as Alaska, but it’s big.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s true, it’s very culturally different depending on where you go.

Steve Cuden:

Absolutely.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Where here, you go to the coast and I don’t understand what people are saying. I can’t even understand their accents. But you go to the mountains and it could be the same way in some of the smaller towns in those mountains. So it’s really just neat, it’s a neat place to live.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so let’s talk about novel writing. You write for both adults and for YA, young adult. Do you have a preference? Is one more enjoyable for you, or are they just both the same, just differently?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I have no preference. I don’t dictate what I write next. The characters in my head do. So I come up with an idea, I mull it around for a few days, if it makes it to a Post-it, ooh, that’s the first step.

Steve Cuden:

Ooh.

Leslie Tall Manning:

If the Post-it makes it to the desk, that’s a good sigh.

Steve Cuden:

Ooh.

Leslie Tall Manning:

If the Post-it makes it to a file, maybe not so good. So I probably have a file with 1,000 ideas in it, and only three or four are sitting on the desk. And it’s just by happenstance, I seem to be writing adult, young adult, adult, young adult, adult, young adult. Even though I didn’t really plan to do that, it’s how it’s worked out.

Steve Cuden:

It’s come out that way. So it sounds to me like you’re cleansing the palate with one or the other.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Correct. Again, I don’t really have a lot of control. I think that all my control is editing when the book is done. But in the moment I don’t even remember writing sometimes. I just write.

Steve Cuden:

So that reminds me of Steven King’s famous quote where somebody said to him, he’s probably been asked many times, “Why is it that you write horror?” And his response is, “What makes you think I have a choice?” And so that’s what you’re saying, is you don’t have a choice. This is what’s now on your plate, period.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes. Now, obviously I can jump in any time I want to and change things. I can change the path of a character. But I think it’s important for a writer, at least for this writer, to allow herself to be open and let it happen. They say there are two kinds of writers, I don’t know if you’ve heard this phraseology before, plotters or pantsers.

Steve Cuden:

No, I don’t know that phrase.

Leslie Tall Manning:

A plotter is someone who has an outline and they know from beginning to end exactly what each scene is going to be.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I think William Faulkner was that way, and probably other famous writers like Ernest Hemingway. But then there’s the pantser on the very other extreme. They’re the people who just, oh, they let it fly. Whatever they need to write they write that day, and however it lands, it lands. And I sort of fall somewhere right in the middle. I have an outline, I don’t always follow it. But I have one. I always have a middle, I always have a … I’m sorry, I always have a beginning, a middle, and an ending before my book ever starts. Then when I start to write, I connect the dots.

Steve Cuden:

So you don’t necessarily plot in detail, but you plot it out somewhat. You have some direction.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Correct. I have tried plotting out in detail, and it ended up changing so much from that original detail sheet that it’s actually a little bit frustrating. It gets stressful, like you’re not meeting up to the expectation of something that you’ve set for yourself. So I try not to set the bar too high.

Steve Cuden:

So it’s interesting, because I come from many, many years of writing teleplays, and in teleplay writing because you’re not working alone, you’re always working for someone, and there’s always others, usually more than one other, that are reading what you’re doing, the plotting becomes incredibly important, that you detail it out. Because everyone has to put their two cents in on what that plot is, what the detail of it is. So you’re not working in a vacuum like you would do with a novel, where you’re working alone until you’re ready to give it to someone.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s true. In a teleplay don’t you also have to follow really strict path, like the arc has to be where it has to be, and it’s got to …

Steve Cuden:

Yes to a certain extent. It depends upon the show and the showrunner and so on. What you find that you aren’t running into as a novelist, because you’ve never … We’ll get back to this in two seconds. You’ve not written a series of novels based on the same character, correct?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I have not and I have no plans to at this time. It could change.

Steve Cuden:

All right. So when you’re in a series, a TV series, what’s different about it than novel writing is that somebody has created what I call, it’s my own phrase, the sandbox of the show. So when you’re in the sandbox you have to play within the construct of the sandbox. You can’t go outside that sandbox or you’re in violation of the show’s overall parameters. But in a novel, if it’s not following a series of things you can go whichever direction you want. The other thing-

Leslie Tall Manning:

I’m sorry, that’s true to an extent when it comes to writing. But when it comes to actual publishing, that could be a different story.

Steve Cuden:

Well, now you are dealing with the others, the publishers, the editors, if you’re dealing with those folks. They’re going to come in and want to put their feelings and stamp on things, at least a little bit if not a lot. So it depends upon who you are and what you’re doing. My guess is that, going back to Steven King for a half a beat, my guess is he doesn’t get terribly heavily edited. At least not now. But someone who is not in that league of the upper 50 writers in the world, they’re probably getting a lot of scrutiny from people because they’re putting their money behind it.

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s unbelievable. I love editors, I love all of them, they work so hard to make books the best they can be. They’re not out to get any writers, and I think a lot of writers think that. But they work in tandem with their publishing house and their list of featured books and their writers. They want to see their writers succeed.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

So they only give the advice and only slice and dice what they really feel can make that book sell and make that author who he or she needs to be.

Steve Cuden:

Of course. Yeah, no, they’re always, in their minds, always looking out for the best interests of you and, of course, them. They’re not just interested in just you.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And the reader.

Steve Cuden:

Sure. Of course, and the reader. I’m going to ask you a question I ask lots of different creative people, and it’s an interesting question to me so I like to ask it, which is, what for you makes a good story good?

Leslie Tall Manning:

For the listeners who don’t see my face right now, it’s, “Oh my gosh.”

Steve Cuden:

It’s terrible.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Pretty big question. As a writing teacher there definitely is a format to follow, where you have an exposition, which is where you get characters, you have rising action where things start to happen, you have some inciting incidence where a little bit of conflict occurs, you have your climax at the top, you have your falling action where things start to get tied up, and then your exposition, also known as a denouement, where everything’s tied up in a pretty bow, at least to an extent.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And I really follow that path. So I believe every book needs to have that. Unless you’re doing a series where the end’s a cliffhanger, or you’re writing something abstract. And there are some abstract or magical realistic authors who write in an abstract way. But for a formal novel I would follow that path. I think you have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think everything needs to be tied up. Even if everybody dies at the end, it needs to be tied up. It doesn’t have to be a pretty bow, it could be a scrappy black bow. But it needs to be tied up in the end. I think that your characters need to have back stories even if the readers don’t know it. I think every character, even the minor ones, need to have a goal. And I think that the main characters need to achieve those goals, even if they’re not always in their best interests.

Steve Cuden:

Well, I would say that you just gave us a master class in about a minute and a half as to what’s involved in storytelling. You’ve just in a nutshell encapsulated all the important elements without going through the rigamarole of having to actually write something. But you need all of everything that you’ve just said, which I think is very powerful. And so listeners, listen to this section of it again, because Leslie’s just hit it out of the park in terms of what makes a story work. And without those elements, and then there’s more to it obviously, but without those elements I think that it would tend to be somewhat flat or not that interesting or compelling.

Steve Cuden:

Are there places where you seem to find yourself constantly turning to for ideas? How do you get your ideas? Do they just come to you in the blue, in the shower, while you’re cooking?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Yes.

Leslie Tall Manning:

In the shower, how did you know that? I find when I do the mundane. I love to paint, so I don’t mean painting, I mean I have an old house so I’m always doing woodwork, painting the baseboards or painting the crown molding or whatever. And I find when I paint-

Steve Cuden:

When you’re done there, come on up and do mine.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I’d be happy to. When I’m painting, when I’m sweeping, vacuuming, I do a lot of housekeeping. Doing laundry, driving, taking a shower, this is when ideas tend to come to me. Now, sometimes it’ll happen I’ll be watching a Netflix show with my husband, and he’ll look over at me and he’ll go, “You’re not watching the movie any more.” And I’ll say, “Oh, sorry. I just got an idea.”

Steve Cuden:

You zoomed out. You’ve gone into that zone place that people go to where you’ve lost track of time, you don’t know where you are, and you’re thinking.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so your ideas come to you from wherever. And you’re saying, which I find is always interesting, you’re saying that some of your ideas, if not most of your ideas, come when you’re not thinking about ideas. They just come to you.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Right. And I think I’ve heard about some very famous musicians, composers, playwrights, that ideas come to them in their dreams. That’s never happened to me, ever. I’ve never dreamt about a book, a plot, a character. Never.

Steve Cuden:

Me either.

Leslie Tall Manning:

No, it’s always in my wake, it’s always when I’m awake. Usually something that’s done by rote. For some reason it opens up other channels in my brain, I guess, to be open to ideas. I’m not really sure why. I’m sure a psychologist …

Steve Cuden:

Well, a lot of creative people will say things like, “It came to me as a blot out of the blue.” They’ll say things like, “It’s a gift from God, I’m just a channel.”

Leslie Tall Manning:

Sure.

Steve Cuden:

People will say these things because most of the great geniuses of the world, and I’m not talking about just creative people, scientists, engineers, etc., they very much will say, “I’m not the actual generator of the idea. I’m just the conduit and it’s coming through me.” Do you feel that for yourself too?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Absolutely. But there’s another piece to that puzzle, and that is, if you’re a channel and you really feel that you’re a channel and you feel that it’s coming through you as a conduit for whatever reason, you better jump on it. And many people are idea people but they don’t do anything with the ideas. “Oh, I had that invention idea 10 years ago. I thought about that movie.” Well, okay, that’s great to shout whatever, but I feel like the next step is doing something with that idea. If you really want to see it come to fruition you’ve got to make it happen.

Steve Cuden:

Right. Absolutely right. There are lots of people that I’ve dealt with over my time in the world who have come to me and said, “I’ve got this great idea. It’s X, Y, and Z. Would you write it?” And I go, “No, you write it. It’s your idea, not mine.” And so what it is is people think that they are coming up with something clever and unique, but they don’t know how to execute it. And it really is all about execution at the end of the day.

Leslie Tall Manning:

It is.

Steve Cuden:

I always say ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s what you do with the ideas that makes a difference.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Absolutely true. And I don’t think I’ve ever been to a book signing of my own, my own book signings, where somebody comes up to me and says, “You know what you ought to write? You know what you ought to do?” I get that as much as, “You know what I’m working on?” I get those.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so how many pages a day do you, when you’re in mode, how many pages a day would you say you write on average?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Well, see, here’s the thing. Some writers do go by page number, and I don’t. So it could be anywhere from five pages to 20 pages. It just depends. Right now I’m working on a musical, it’s a whole different thing and I’m adapting it from a book.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, yes.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And so I’m copying and adding music as I go, so it’s a completely different thing. I might do two pages. But they’re very full pages.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I know a lot of writers do that, they’ll give themselves a limit or they’ll give themselves a max. And I’ve never done that, ever. Not with page numbers and not with word count. I just write and it just comes. I’ve never had writer’s block, ever.

Steve Cuden:

Well, that’s a great gift. Many writers have it. It’s usually something other than actual block.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Right.

Steve Cuden:

But that’s a great gift that you’ve never felt like you had to step back and come back to the table again. You’re just sort of there all the time. I think that’s a gift.

Leslie Tall Manning:

The only time I ever had an issue was when I had sent a book, my agent had sent a book off to an editor at a large publishing house, she loved it, and decided to give me 30 pages of things she wanted me to change. And she wanted me to get rid of one character and bring another one back to life and all kinds of things. And for two months, I cried almost every day while I worked on that. And so in that situation I can get a writer’s block perhaps, or become a little bit frozen. But with my own stuff, never.

Steve Cuden:

Well, you’re fighting your natural instincts because somebody else is trying to impose theirs on you.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s probably true.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. All right, so let’s talk about publishers. We’ve already talked a little bit about publishers. I think this is a huge part of a writer’s life when you’re a novelist or a short story writer. You have worked with publishing houses and you’ve also self-published. And so those are two different worlds. Do you prefer having a publisher, or do you prefer being a self-published author?

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I’ve never traditionally published. I am a 100% indie author.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, is that right?

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s correct. And this is really important, because indie authors used to get a bad rap and they don’t any more.

Steve Cuden:

No.

Leslie Tall Manning:

We’re winning a war. I just went to a conference in Tennessee because I won an award before all this stuff happened. And so I have dealt with traditional publishers and they have edited my work, some of the top five, I’ve worked with them. So I can discuss that with you, but working side by side with these publishing editors, who are phenomenal.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah.

Leslie Tall Manning:

But I am an indie author. I’ve published five books indie, I’ve written 14.

Steve Cuden:

Wow. So okay, I didn’t know that, that’s very good to know. The Martian, if you know that movie, was based on a book that was self-published.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s true.

Steve Cuden:

So all these things can … Well, they influence who you are, because now you think of yourself as an indie writer. You don’t think of yourself as needing a publisher, right?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I don’t think of myself as that, you’re correct. But I do eventually want to be a hybrid. I do want to traditionally publish still.

Steve Cuden:

Okay, why?

Leslie Tall Manning:

For whatever reason … Why?

Steve Cuden:

Yeah, why do you want … You’ve now proven yourself in the self-publishing world, or the indie world.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Because I haven’t done it yet. So it’s a goal, it’s on my goal list.

Steve Cuden:

Great.

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s on my bucket list.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah.

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s something I still want, I want to meet an editor, work with an editor, have this great bond with this other person that my agent hooked me up with, and make it this really cool collaborative thing. And I have really yet to do that. It’s very isolating writing by yourself. And you’re not with other people, and you’re only alone with the characters in your head. And I would like to see what it’s like to collaborate with an editor and work side by side. I have done it, but then for whatever reason the book wasn’t taken or the editor moved to a different house, which is common.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And they don’t take the book with them, so, you know, things happen.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah. Well, I hope that you get to what your goal is on that, because I think it … Look, the world has changed in a great way. People are right now, we’re talking today in the middle of the coronavirus epidemic, pandemic. And people are not going to bookstores to buy books, they’re going to buy them online if they’re going to buy them at all. They might buy them Kindle-ized, they might buy them in some electronic form, or they might buy them through Amazon or some other publishing, some distribution chain online. So nobody knows when they get your book, if it’s a solid physical book nobody knows that it’s not a publishing house.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Oh, no, not at all. And I think people, again, I think it’s a stigma that’s gone. I think people are over it. I read indie authors all the time.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Remember, indie encapsulates a lot of things. You could be with a small publisher, a small press, and still be considered indie because you’re not with the top five. There are only five or six publishers that are considered in the big group. So I think writing is the key, if you want to be a writer, write. If you want to traditionally publish, good luck. It’s a very long process. Self-publishing at least cuts the time by however short you want the time frame to be.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, I’m self-published too, and the grief level is much different.

Leslie Tall Manning:

The what level?

Steve Cuden:

The grief level. There’s not as much grief in dealing with other people.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Exactly, absolutely true. Absolutely true.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so let’s talk about notes though. You have received notes and you’ve dealt with them, and you’ve struggled with them in one way, shape, or form. What is it about notes that you can advise people? Is there something that you have in your head where you say, “This is a better way to take a note and to deal with it than this other way”? Do you have some thoughts on that?

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I think it depends on who’s giving you the notes. Okay, if it’s a top editor, take them very seriously. If it’s a line editor and they’re looking at grammar, take that seriously. Now, if a top editor says, “I need you to kill this character, blah, blah, blah,” and you really feel like it’s an integral part of the story, talk to the editor about that. Just have a discussion.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Relay your concerns and your fears. That’s what they’re there for. I don’t think editing’s dry, except for grammar and certain formats. Now, if you’re in a novel writing workshop and you’re with a bunch of other novelists and they give you pages of notes, you take it or leave it. Because it’s your story ultimately. I’ve seen people destroy their books based on other people’s notes. It’s a tragedy.

Steve Cuden:

Well, this is what the major complaint in screenwriting is on a parallel level, because you’re always working with some other person, a producer, a director, an actor, and the editor, whoever it is, there’s some other person involved. And it’s really common for a screenplay that’s very good to get destroyed by all the various notes. So in your world you’ve received notes and you then, you’ve already told us that you were pulling your hair out, so to speak, in trying to make the notes work. And ultimately what did you do, just reject them all? Or did it destroy your work for you? Or how did you handle it?

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s a good question. With a traditional publisher, this one editor that I mentioned, she asked me to make all these changes, and I actually did all of them. And the book became better. And the book is now self-published and it does quite well.

Steve Cuden:

So it worked out.

Leslie Tall Manning:

So it worked. What she told me worked. So I did what she asked. I think if the notes had come from, for example, my agent, he’ll give me notes, he’s a very avid reader and he knows what he’s doing. He knows the industry.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, yes.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yeah, he’ll look at my book before he ever goes to shop it, and he’ll give me pages of notes. And I’ll come back with him and say, “You know, I agree with this but I don’t agree with that.” And he’ll say, “Okay.” Because ultimately it is my story, so he lets it ride.

Steve Cuden:

Well, right, at the end of the day people don’t pick up your book and say, “Oh, look, it’s written by Leslie and Uwe Stender.” It’s got your name on it.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s right, he respects that a lot. At the end of the day he allows it to be my story.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so let’s talk for a moment about being a teacher, because you do that too, that’s another part of your world. What would you say, when you’re looking at your students, what would you say are the common mistakes that you see repetitively that people should think about if they’re out there in the world right now trying to think about writing a book or story that they should think about not doing?

Leslie Tall Manning:

So I’m a private tutor now, I quit teaching many years ago to write full-time and tutor part-time. And tutoring allows me to eat. So I have private students, I’ve been with some of them for 12 years, first grade through 12th grade.

Steve Cuden:

Wow.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I’m a study skills expert, so I also teach them study skills.

Steve Cuden:

Tell us what study skills are.

Leslie Tall Manning:

The best way to study, how to do flash cards, how to study with mnemonic brain tricks to help you remember things, how to keep their notebooks in order, how to stay on top of things. And by the time they’re high schoolers they’re acting like college students. They’re amazing, they’re really independent.

Steve Cuden:

It sounds like it’s almost education hygiene.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes, that’s a great way to put it, I should put that on my business card.

Steve Cuden:

Education hygiene. Did I just make up a phrase?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I think you did. And so as far as writing goes, one of the biggest issues I see, and it’s not on purpose, it’s completely accidental or incidental, is plagiarism.

Steve Cuden:

Plagiarism.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes, young people read examples of an essay or they read examples of a short story, or they read examples of a poem, and they try to do that exact thing. Because they’re still young and they haven’t found their voices yet. So I have to really push them to stay away from those. They can find things within the writing that they can use, but they’ve got to be really careful not to use the writing.

Steve Cuden:

Well, what’s the oldest student that you have? How old are they?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Senior in high school.

Steve Cuden:

Okay, so they don’t have any real life experiences to draw from, so their experiences in storytelling usually is coming from stories they’ve seen and heard. So they’re …

Leslie Tall Manning:

Right, exactly.

Steve Cuden:

They’re pulling their references, they’re pulling their thoughts from what was interesting, great, cool, whatever, to those things that they’ve already looked at.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Right. And it’s really no different, it’s really nothing different from critical thinking skills. So a little kid will say, “Oh, I like this political leader or that political leader because my mom said, my dad said, my whatever said.” And as they get a little bit older, they start critically thinking on their own and making their own decisions. And their writing changes too. Their writing matures. It’s a natural progress. But I push that early. I push it early, I push those kids to think out of the black and white box and go into the gray areas. Dig deeper into emotions, find memories that can help you with your writing. Find moments in time or advice you were given or an incident that happened to add to the writing. Even a research paper you can make creative.

Steve Cuden:

Well, of course, and better when they are. I assume you find, like I do, that the more you write the stronger you get at it. It’s like a muscle.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes. And the more you read.

Steve Cuden:

And the more you read, sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Absolutely. But you’re right, it is a muscle.

Steve Cuden:

Do you find yourself reading a lot while you’re writing?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Sad to say, since the whole coronavirus thing I’ve been a little out of sorts, as many people have been.

Steve Cuden:

Everybody’s out of sorts.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yeah, I finally, I was going to the gym five days a week, and I’ve had to figure out what to do. And I finally have a workout program in place. I think I was watching way too much Netflix and taking a lot of walks, which is fine, that’s great. But I have a book on my end table that I’m going to start tonight. So I haven’t really read in about a month.

Steve Cuden:

I’m talking about while you’re in a writing mode. When you’re writing your books, when you’re in the middle of writing and it’s intense, do you find yourself also reading, or do you back off of the reading?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I don’t think it makes a difference for me, because my reading time comes later in the day before bed, about half an hour in bed before I put out the light, and my writing takes place from 11:00 to 2:00 in the morning. And so I don’t really … No, it doesn’t influence me or not influence me.

Steve Cuden:

Interesting.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Or maybe it does and I just don’t know it.

Steve Cuden:

Well, I’m asking only because there are certain writers who can’t read other work while they’re in writing mode.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I have heard that before. I do have a friend who’s working on a young adult book that’s about a particular subject, and she refused to read anything on that particular subject for fear that it would influence her writing.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I’ve never worried about that before.

Steve Cuden:

Interesting. Are you a researcher? Do you do a lot of research?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes sir, I do. I love to research, it’s one of my favorite things to do. One of my young adult books, the one that won two awards, I had to do about a year’s worth of research. How to milk a cow, how to use an outhouse, what women wore in the 1800s. Oh yeah, almost all my books. Even a contemporary novel, I will do months of research, months and months.

Steve Cuden:

Can you tell us how you can milk a cow while you’re in an outhouse?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Oh, no, not at the same time. Though I think I see a story there.

Steve Cuden:

That was a joke, by the way.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I know that.

Steve Cuden:

That would be a …

Leslie Tall Manning:

No room in the outhouse for that cow.

Steve Cuden:

No, not unless it’s a really big outhouse.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yeah. That’s great.

Steve Cuden:

Okay, so how do you refresh the well? Do you have something that you can tell us about that, is it just watching Netflix? Is it just taking a break? How do you refresh yourself? How do you let that well fill back up?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Well, I have a schedule that’s very strict to start with. I write Monday through Thursday from 11:00 to 2:30 or so, and then I go to tutor. So because I already have a pretty set schedule, and then I tutor from 3:00 to 8:00, my days are pretty booked. So I have to replenish on the weekends. Friday I do all my housekeeping and shopping, and then Saturday and Sunday I do some marketing. And I might take a drive in the countryside. My husband has a really cool Vespa, we’ll take a Vespa ride. We might go sailing, walk around the river. Nature, I think, is really important to me. I like to be outside when I’m not cooped up inside.

Steve Cuden:

What happens if you’re … Okay, so you’re a four day a week writer with three days off. And what happens if you get to Saturday and all of a sudden this big inspiration hits you and it’s like … Do you feel the urge to go write?

Leslie Tall Manning:

It’s never happened.

Steve Cuden:

It’s never happened.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s the truth. I have been on this schedule for over 15 years, and so it’s brain memory, I think. Because the schedule’s so ingrained I just don’t … Now, there are times when I’m between projects. When the musical is done I’m going to put it down probably for two months, probably come back to it. So I’ll have a two-month hiatus like an actor would between movies.

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Leslie Tall Manning:

During that time, what do I do? I might pick up my violin and play a little bit. I might write some poetry or maybe write something else, maybe get more reading done. To replenish there’s really nothing strict that I do.

Steve Cuden:

It’s just, like you say, you never get blocked, you always have fertile ideas in your head. So that’s very useful.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yeah, I’ve always felt that I’m one of these people who’s just been blessed with energy. I have a lot of energy. I am an extrovert, so writing alone seems like that’s counterintuitive. But I get energy from my characters, I guess. And so because I have all this energy I just don’t find the well dry very often, and I just don’t get those blocks, luckily.

Steve Cuden:

Well, you are lucky. A lot of people do get blocked, and so that’s good that you don’t, and that’s a gift, like we said earlier.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I agree with you, I’m very blessed.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so we’ve been on for a while now and we’re going to start to wind things down. I’m just wondering, you’ve obviously dealt with a lot of people over time one way or another. And you’ve been around for a while doing this. In all of your experiences, can you relate to us a quirky, offbeat, oddball, weird, funny, strange, unusual story that you’ve been through?

Leslie Tall Manning:

Sure. So I was living in San Diego and I was dating a guy, this was back in 1985. And the reason I tell this story is because I want writers to understand that stories can come from our own experiences. And this is definitely an experience I had that led to a particular book, which I’ll tell you in a moment. So it was 1985 and I was dating a guy who “sold tickets” for a living. And I do the quotation marks with my fingers because …

Steve Cuden:

Sold tickets, he was a scalper.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Yes, back in the ’80s it was a big job. And I was down by the San Diego sports arena, and this guy that I was dating took me in a limo and my sister in a limo, and we went to see Hall & Oates.

Steve Cuden:

Okay.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And before Hall & Oates came on stage, Corey Hart, he was a famous good-looking singer back in the ’80s, he sang “I Wear My Sunglasses At Night.”

Steve Cuden:

Yes.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Came out and sang with his band, he was looking through the audience to pick somebody, and he pointed to a really pretty girl over at the far end of the room with big boobs and big blonde hair, and the bass player pointed to me. So I jumped up, I was in the front row. I jumped up and ran to the stage, and I got on stage, and Corey Hart was like, “What’s she doing up here?” I was totally dressed like a prep, I had docksiders on and a t-shirt or sweater, my hair was all feathered. And I sang “Sunglasses” with him, and he gave me his Ray-Bans. But I was such a goob, I was in theater and my background’s in music, and I go, “I’m going to harmonize with you and I’m going to make this song really great.” And he’s looking at me like, “Who in the H are you?” So I sang “Sunglasses” with him.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Then I go off stage and there’s guards back there and they’re like, “What are you doing back here?” And they put me back down in the audience, I made my way back to my seat. Well, in those days it was a really big deal to get a photograph of yourself with a big singer. Today everybody has phones, but back then the only people with cameras allowed into a concert were the professional photographers.

Steve Cuden:

Sure, sure.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Well, my ticket scalper date knew the photographer, got the picture for me, and I’ve got a big blow-up version that I keep in my office of me and Corey Hart, or Corey Hart and I, singing on stage. Because I’m wearing his Ray-Bans, which someone apparently stole from work one night. But it was a fantastic moment, and the reason I tell that story, love that story, is because I think it really shows how we can throw our fears to the wind. And that story ends up becoming a centerpiece of my book Gaga.

Steve Cuden:

Ah.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Which is about an undercover groupie who has to get a story from a comeback rock band. And she ends up on stage and doesn’t handle it well like I did.

Steve Cuden:

So it came right out of your own personal experiences.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Absolutely. Stories can come from anywhere, but one of the first places they should come from is your own life experience if you have them. Hopefully you have some life experiences.

Steve Cuden:

So that was back in the ’80s. I assume that there’s no video of it on YouTube that we can find?

Leslie Tall Manning:

You know what, I don’t know. I’ve been on a couple of game shows too, those are on video somewhere.

Steve Cuden:

What game shows were you on?

Leslie Tall Manning:

I was on Card Sharks.

Steve Cuden:

Card Sharks.

Leslie Tall Manning:

I won $3,500 on Card Sharks, Eubanks, what was his name? I forget his name, Eubanks. Bob Eubanks.

Steve Cuden:

Bob Eubanks.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And then I was on Super Password with Bert Convy, may he rest in peace.

Steve Cuden:

Wow.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And I met Phyllis Diller. I’ve had a really fun life. LA was fun for me.

Steve Cuden:

Well, good on you, as they say.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Good on me.

Steve Cuden:

All right, so last question of the day. What kind of advice can you lend to those that are maybe just starting out in the business or in a little bit and trying to get to that next level? Do you have a good piece of advice or a tip for them?

Leslie Tall Manning:

You know, I have so much advice that I could do another hour show with you, because I actually do this in conferences. I give advice. I would have to pull from that the most important thing, I think, really, in today’s world. People are always trying to sell you what they know, which is fine. I’ve read so many great books on writing, they’re phenomenal. I know you’ve written some, I’m about to order your book about Broadway. So I’m excited about that. But I really need to tell writers just coming into the game to create your own journey. Anybody can tell you, “I do it this way so you should too. I did that so you should too. And this is the magic potion. This is magic.” It’s like snake oil. There’s no magic.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah, there isn’t.

Leslie Tall Manning:

And I don’t know who’s going to get a brass ring or not. I don’t know who’s going to write their first book and publish big, or write 40 books and finally publish on their deathbed. I don’t know, look at Edgar Allen Poe. But then look at Steven King. Everybody’s got their own story. So find your own journey, and it begins with sitting down and doing it and making a commitment to that particular story. If you don’t sit down and do it, it’s not going to happen.

Steve Cuden:

This is very wise.

Leslie Tall Manning:

You have to create your own journey. Take advice from other people, filter through it, decide what works for you, and then leave the rest behind and create your own journey. Because each of us in life in general, that’s really what we’re here to do, is create our own journey.

Steve Cuden:

Well, one of the things I teach, which is right in line with this, which is great to hear, is the actual secret to successful writing is butt liberally applied to chair.

Leslie Tall Manning:

That’s right.

Steve Cuden:

And that’s what-

Leslie Tall Manning:

I actually have a little note card in my office that says, “Butt in chair.” It literally says, “Butt in chair.”

Steve Cuden:

There is no substitute. You can’t go down to the corner store and buy yourself a new novel. You have to do it yourself and that requires sitting down and doing it, or a play or a book or whatever. In Beating Broadway, which you alluded to, there’s a chapter called, “The Rules For Writing a Musical.” And rule number one is, there are no rules. So just what you said. There are no rules to this. There is a form that people understand, you write a novel and that will follow a form that we’re used to seeing, characters introduced, going through some kind of conflict, trying to reach some kind of a goal and a resolution and all the rest of it. That’s all going to be in every book you’ve ever written. But there are no rules to how you get there. And that you do need to follow your own path. That’s such wise advice, and …

Leslie Tall Manning:

Right, I’m glad. And I hope it helps people. Because I think a lot of writers are convinced that they need to be a certain person or write a certain way, and that doesn’t make any sense. That would be like telling somebody how to live their life, and you just can’t tell somebody how to live their life. Just do the best job you can.

Steve Cuden:

Absolutely right. Well, been talking for almost an hour to Leslie Tall Manning, who’s one of our great writers of today, so I recommend you check her out online and find whatever her books are and check them out and read them. Leslie, it’s been a great pleasure having you on Storybeat today.

Leslie Tall Manning:

Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful to be here, and actually been an honor to talk to you, so thank you. Stay safe.

Steve Cuden:

And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Storybeat. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great Storybeat episodes to you. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden. And may all your stories be unforgettable.