[00:13] Rachel: Hey writers, welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Emily: I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And I'm Rachel.
[00:21] Emily: And today we're going to talk about what the fuck agency is it I love talking about agency because it's so important, but I find it's one of those terms that writers are like, yeah, I know what it is. You're like, of course I know what it means. But you can't actually put it into words. But you don't want to sound like at least this was my experience. I was like, I don't want to sound uneducated because I don't actually know what this means, but I don't get it.
[00:54] Rachel: Well, that's the thing. I think that's the important part, I think definition wise. Oh, okay, that's easy. I think it's easy to understand. It's tough to put in practice. I think there's usually a disconnect between how it's explained and then how to do it on the page, or how to plot it or how to plan it. People, I think often we talk about this when we talk about plot and character outlining and the way that you outline from bottom to top story fundamentals down. It just is like there's so often a disconnect between the craft knowledge that you know and the implication of that knowledge onto the page.
[01:30] Emily: Yes, absolutely. So today we are going to break it down real hard. It's a real simple building blocks and really give you steps for how to actually go about doing this. Okay, so let's start with the definition of rolling my eyes. Because we were just like, you get the definition, but the definition is important.
[01:53] Rachel: We will tell you what it means.
[01:56] Emily: Yes. So agency is simply the drive and capacity to make choices, right? So your characters need to both want something and they also need to have the capacity to make choices in the pursuit of getting that something. Which sounds really simple, but it means that your characters need to be making choices on the page and they need to have the ability to which I think is often something that's tricky is that we put our characters in situations where it can be really hard to figure out how to give them choices. But they need to want something and they need to be acting in pursuit of that something. That's the other thing. It's like sometimes characters want something but we're not seeing them going after that thing on the page. So these goals and these choices are what drive a story forward.
[02:50] Rachel: Yeah, I think you just nailed it. Where the important part of agency is that they really have to want something. And so often our characters don't have a clear drive, like a clear desire. So then how are they supposed to make choices to get that desire if they don't know what they want? So these ideas of goals and agency are so tied together that the understanding and the implementation of these two topics. Like they have to go hand in hand. Your character has to want something because that's how that they make choices to get it. And if they're not making choices to get it, then do they really want that thing? So they're like cyclical and they work hand in hand. Characters need goals in order to have that agency.
[03:38] Emily: So if you've ever heard the term of a Mary Sue, which is this is another one of those things, right? Like those terms that get thrown around. For the longest time I was like, yeah, I know what a Mary Sue is, but I didn't actually. So a Mary Sue type of character happens when a character is being pushed along by external influences, right, versus creating action by making their own choices. And so the reason that we don't want that and we want characters that are making choices and engaging with the story is that your reader is living vicariously through your character. And so they want to feel like they are in the story, making choices, making things happen, because otherwise it just feels like we're getting pushed along. And that doesn't make for as engaging of a read.
[04:25] Rachel: Even with the term Mary Sue for a second. I think so often the reason I brought this up is I was having this conversation with a friend of mine where she was like, oh, this character is such a Mary Sue. And I was like, no, she's not. Like she wants she has very strong goals. Like, she's doing a lot to get her goals. And my friend was like, well, no, but she's just so perfect. She's so like cookie cutter version of Girl. And I was like, number one, I disagree. But number two, a Mary Sue, the perfect cookie cutter version is still not having goals. Like that version of that character, like the princess type who's just being pulled along, strung along. Those characters don't make choices. Those characters don't have agency. Those characters are being pulled along. And the reason that they seem so cardboard and bland is because they don't want anything. The reason they seem so cookie cutter and perfect is because now we're going to get into patriarchy for just a second. Those Mary Sue characters that are the perfect princesses are the version of women that we're told to be where we have no choices, where we are just an amalgamation of a man's view of what is right. So anyway, characters meet strong goals, but they need to want something. And their pursuit of that thing gives them depth and realness and uniqueness compared to other characters. Like, no two characters are going to want the same thing for the same reasons. So by giving them those desires, you're going to make them unique. You're going to make them strong. You're going to make them stand out from the other, quote unquote, mayor Suez out there that do nothing and that are just perfect cardboard replacements of What Women Should Be and rant patriotic rant over.
[06:25] Emily: I love it. Okay, so basically what we've filled you so far is agency is the driving capacity to make choices, and your characters need to have goals, right?
[06:33] Rachel: Okay.
[06:34] Emily: So you probably have heard that your characters need goals. You probably worked on your characters goals. So great. Okay, we've got that right. Now what do I do with that?
[06:44] Rachel: Right?
[06:44] Emily: How do we break that down? And so we love to talk about goals in the context of you have these big overarching goals, which are like the story goal that carries your character through the whole story. But then you also have scene goals, which is what your character wants in each specific scene in the story. It's what they're going after in each specific scene. And those two things need to be tied. But also having them tied gives you the opportunity to really build a cohesive story and make sure that you understand why scenes are important to your story. And if you've ever had the question of, like, how do I order my scenes? What needs to come first and what needs to come second, it all comes down to this is like, how are you seeing goals tied to your story goals?
[07:37] Rachel: Yeah. So let's throw out some more definitions. So story goal is what your character wants in that greater external narrative. Your character is going to have one all consuming goal. It's what they're actively and passionately fighting for throughout the story. It's the thing that they know that they want. It's what's driving them on this journey to be in your book. Whether or not this is what they consciously want, whether or not it's like, right. This is what they're trying to get, and this is what they're trying to do throughout the story. So if you're like, what's my story about? What's my character doing? Well, they should be doing something. Save the prince, uncover the mystery, solve the solve the murder, win The Hunger Games. Like something big that they're doing. The scene goal is what they want in one specific scene.
[08:34] Emily: Yeah.
[08:36] Rachel: So it's like they're pursuing this big thing like win The Hunger Games, but then in every scene, they're doing something to get closer to that goal. So that would be like, find water so that you don't die of dehydration. I was like, that's a scene goal. Katniss is still trying to do that in that scene, but it ultimately points toward her story goal of, I want to win the Hunger Games.
[09:02] Emily: Yeah. Okay, so bear with us for a second because we're going to break story goal into two pieces because it's important to look at the two kind of levels of what a story goal is. So your story, when we're talking about that external, all consuming thing, right, winning the Hunger grains, but they're actively and passionately fighting for we're talking about their external story goal. So their external story goal is the thing that they consciously know that they want, whether they're aware of why they want it or not. So this is where sometimes they're going after the wrong thing and they're going to realize what they actually need later. This is what we're talking about. We're talking about that external thing. They consciously want it. It's what they're trying to do during the story. It's what's driving them and the reader to care, right? We want Katniss to win the Hunger Games. And it's external. It is outside their body. It is outside of their emotions. It is something tangible that they are trying to do. And then on the inside, the second layer of the story goal is the internal story goal. So the internal goal is the thing that they really deeply want, right? So this is soft and subconscious. It's often buried, it's often hidden. It's a desire that's driven them through most of their life. It's something that just is really deep in their soul, and it's something that they will want regardless of how the story goes, where the story starts, anything like that. It is something that is individual to their unique humanity, something that they really want out of life. And it's the desire that's going to connect them with the reader because it's some kind of universal human want, right? Something like wanting to be loved, wanting to be seen, wanting to be safe, wanting to be appreciated, respected, right? Those are things that most humans, in some way, some form or another, can get behind. And so this is inside their body or emotions. So the way that these two things are tied, the two story goals, the external goal and the internal goal, is that the internal goal is the thing that they really deeply want, even if they don't know it. And they're going after their external goal because they think it will give them their internal goal. They think that by achieving their external goal, they will also achieve that internal, deep human desire. Can you remind me for a second what Katniss is?
[11:33] Rachel: Since we were using that, we just redid that. I think it had to do with safety.
[11:39] Emily: She wants safety for her family. She wants to protect her family. And so she wants to get home. She wants to win The Hunger Games because she wants to get home to protect her mother and her sister.
[11:51] Rachel: Yeah.
[11:51] Emily: And she feels that they will not be safe as long as she is away from them. And so that's what makes her catnip. There could be a million reasons why she's trying to win The Hunger Games, but what makes her her is that human desire to protect her sister that any reader can get behind. We all know what that desire to protect our loved ones feels like. And so those are the big goals that are driving the story, right? You have this external thing it's tangible. It's pushing the story forward. And then you have this internal human desire that is driving that external goal that the reader can really connect with. So those are story goals. We haven't talked about steam goals yet. I'll let you take that one.
[12:34] Rachel: Well, I want to do another example of story goals because we were just talking about this in the tenacious writing Slack about revenge plots. And as we were discussing, I was like, this fits so well with I mean, obviously, but revenge stories fit so strong here. And in our tenacious writing slack, we were discussing The Count of Monte Cristo. Have you read the book or seen the movie?
[12:59] Emily: I have not. My husband recently watched the really old movie of it.
[13:04] Rachel: There's, like, a 2000s movie, which I really enjoy. And then I think there's an older and older version.
[13:10] Emily: Yes, it was a very old version.
[13:12] Rachel: Like black and white. Okay, I'm drawing from the movie right now. So the Count of Monte Cristo is a revenge story. It follows this man who his best friend is a count, and he is in love with this woman. They plan to get married. His best friend is jealous, and so his best friend basically betrays him, gets him arrested, taken away to prison. And then while he's gone, he tells the girl that he died. And so his best friend marries the love of his life. Makes sense so far. Yeah. I'm not hoping anymore. Okay, so the man is sent off to prison, is in prison for like, 15 years, like, something really long, and he's just thinking about revenge that entire time. He wants revenge on Count Mondayo, who is his best friend who betrayed him. And so he learns and becomes strong, and he makes friends with this guy in prison who teaches him everything he knows anyway. And then he escapes from prison, assumes the identity, a fake identity of the Count of Monte Cristo because he finds a treasurer that funds his revenge plot. He becomes the Count of Monte Cristo, and his goal is to get revenge on his best friend. That's the story goal, revenge on Count Monday. Go. His internal story goal is that he wants healing. He thinks that if he gets revenge on Count Monday, he will be vindicated, it will be justice, he will be healed. He will finally, like those 15 years he was in prison, he'd be able to make sense of them because he assumed the revenge. He got what he wanted. And he learns on this journey that revenge is not what he wants. What he really wants is love, the love of the woman that he left or that was taken from him. And so they get together, they fall in love again, and he realizes, okay, that's what I wanted the whole time. He's healed through love, the love of his family, not through the revenge. So anyway, I think it works so well because he has such a strong story goal, get revenge. And everything that he does is get revenge until he gets a taste of his internal goal, which is the healing, the love that he really wants. And his arc is about letting go of that revenge to achieve his healing, the love that he needs. And in revenge stories, the bad guy, like, always gets justice. So Count Monday gets the justice that he deserves. But anyway, it worked so well, and we were just talking about it, so I had to share it as another example.
[15:54] Emily: Yeah, no, I think that's great. Revenge is a great one where there are a million internal reasons why we might want to get revenge on someone. It could be guilt, it could be desire for healing, a desire for love, a desire to be seen. Right. And so that's what makes your character so unique, is what's driving them and why. Okay, so we've talked about that story level, those big goals you want to break down what scene goals are for us.
[16:22] Rachel: Yes. So that scene goal definition I gave earlier is what your character wants in one specific scene. So let's go back to counter Monte Cristo. He wants revenge on Count Monday. Go. So in one scene, he throws a ball so that he can get closer to Count Montego. So his goal in that scene is to earn Count Mondego's trust. But he knows that's one step closer on his revenge plot. With Katniss, for example, her external story goal is to win The Hunger Games, but a scene goal that she has is to find water, to find shelter, to save ru like it's. They're all different stepping stones. Scene goals are basically stepping stones towards the story goal, the ultimate thing that they want.
[17:14] Emily: Yeah. Does every scene, every single one, have to connect to your story goal? That's a question I get a lot.
[17:25] Rachel: Yes, that's a one word answer. Yes, they should. But to go a little bit deeper into that yes. And this is how you create cohesion and strength, and this is how you tie agency into these goals, is that every single scene, the character needs to be pursuing something. They have a plan, they're going to do something to get what they want. And so they're pursuing that thing in every scene, and it drives the plot forward. It's their goals. And then we're going to talk about scene choices. But those two things together are what drive their story forward to make it a logical step by step process to get them to the story goal, that they want to get them closer to it. So how do them choices tie into.
[18:13] Emily: All of this, fit into this? Yeah. So we talked a lot at the beginning of the podcast about how agency is the capacity and drive to make choices. So the goals are the drive part, right? The drive to make decisions because you want something right? But you also need to show your character making decisions in the pursuit of their goals, making difficult decisions, making flawed decisions, right? You want to put them in situations in which they must make a decision about how to move forward, because those decisions, always the decisions we make, every decision has consequences, right? And so when you give them the opportunity in every single scene and yes, we mean every single scene to make choices, then you are engaging us in their agency, but also their personality, because you get to understand how and why they make the choices that they make, and that makes them a three dimensional human being. We've talked a lot about internal obstacles before. We're not going to talk about it a lot today, but that flawed belief that they have that they need to unlearn for this story is going to show up in those choices. And I was just talking about this with a client actually yesterday or Friday, because yesterday was Sunday, the last work day. But I was just talking with the client about how in order to really show agency on the page, you need to give them multiple options so you can't force them into a corner where there's only one decision that they can possibly make, because otherwise we're not really seeing them make a decision. You've boxed them into a corner and they have no choice. And so part of what you want to think about for each of those scene choices is what are their options on the page? Are you giving them an option to make a better heeled decision and are they not choosing it and making flawed decisions instead? And you want to be giving them those kind of forks in the road in every single scene. And they might be really small, they might be really big, but you want to make sure that whenever they have a choice or make a choice on the page, a big choice, that they have options because otherwise it's not really a choice.
[20:29] Rachel: Yeah, that's so funny that you were talking about this last week, because so was I with one of my clients where we were doing her backstory. And this particular character has a very traumatic backstory, and she had a lot of trouble coming up with choices for this character because it just felt like they were pushed into a corner every scene, or they were so traumatized or victimized that what were they supposed to do? That kind of came down to it. How are you supposed to react when you have experienced a trauma? What do you do? And she had a good conversation with a friend and then came to speak to me about it on our coaching call that even victims have choices. They don't have to be like awesome. I mean, awesome in the case of like, yes, that is favorable. They don't need to be favorable choices, but everyone still has choice. And once that set with her. She said it a couple of times throughout a call and she said it in her exercises. Even victims have choices. What she came up with for that character and how that character was going to react to the scene, they were brilliant. They were so brilliant, they were so thoughtful and it was such a strong, like, yes, that is how that character would respond when they were in a very traumatic and difficult place. So I've also seen this question too, of like, well, what if this character is in jail and they can't get out? What if they're captured? What if they've been captured? That happens a lot in fantasy. And what are they supposed to do? Your character still has a choice. They still need to have something to choose to do. Even if it's not favorable to them, that still is a choice. People still make choices when they're stuck between a rock and a hard place all the time. They just do the best with what they have.
[22:17] Emily: One of my favorite examples of this is from A Number in the Ashes by Saba to Hear. There's this excellent scene, I'll try not to spoil the book, but there's this excellent scene at the end of the story where one of the point of view characters has been arrested and he is going to be executed. He's in jail. He's in prison. His execution is happening later that day. Like you would say, this man has no choices. But the whole point of the story is that he does. He has a choice as to how he goes to the gallows. And I won't spoil anything that comes after that. But it's brilliant because it's like the pinnacle moment of the whole story is that, yes, you have choices.
[23:01] Rachel: Brilliant.
[23:02] Emily: So good.
[23:03] Rachel: Yeah. Yeah.
[23:04] Emily: OK. You want to break down just let's zoom out again for a second. We've got story external and internal goals and then we have seen goals. So you want to break down the Avatar example?
[23:15] Rachel: Yes. So I am a huge fan of Avatar the Last Airbender. It's a fantastic TV show if you've never seen it before. And for some context, it is a children's show. So if you're going to watch it, give it a couple of episodes to like, grow on you. But these characters, it's so good. It really is so good. And it has so many great examples of like, well told stories. You probably hear us talk about principal all the time, but right now I'm going to talk about Avatar. Eng is the main character. So Ang is the long lost Avatar. He has disappeared from the world for 100 years. He wakes up after this time jump to find out that the Fire Nation has conquered most of the world in his absence. As the Avatar, it is his job to keep balance in the world. So this is a big issue because the Fire Nation never should have taken over the world, but they were only able to do it because he had disappeared at the beginning of the story. This is like the story's catalyst. It's called Book One, but it's season one of the story. Zuko, who's the Fire Nation prince, discovers him and tries to capture him. And Ang then realizes that he has to set off this mission set off on this mission to master the four elements in order to save the world, in order to stop the Fire Nation's oppression. So Ang's external goal through all three seasons of the story is to master the elements and bring balance to the world. That's his job as the Avatar. But on the inside, internally, he's driven by this need to rid himself of the guilt of abandoning his purpose. So he disappeared because he essentially ran away, and then he got caught up in a storm and frozen in ice. But it never would have happened had he not run away from his purpose. And because he did that, it plunged the world into a war. And he feels so much guilt about this, so he's going to bring balance back to the world because he feels so guilty that he left it and this happened. So he's on this journey, he needs to master all four elements. The only one that he's mastered at the beginning of the story is Air. He's an Airbender in one scene on this journey, he knows he needs to master Earth bending. So he goes to the Earth bending kingdom and he meets an Earth king named Boomi. And Boomi gives him this test and says if he completes this test, bumi will train him in Earth bending. And so his scene goal at that moment is to complete the test so that he can be trained in Earth bending. He needs to be trained in Earth bending so that he can master all four elements. And once he masters off elements, he can bring balance back to the world. So they're all connected. The only reason that he ever went to the Earth kingdom in the first place was to be trained in Earth bending. And the only reason that he agreed to this test from King Boomi is because King Boomi will then train him. So it's a lovely little like, each step of the way, Ang has to do something different. Aang has to complete this other goal in order to complete the story goal, the external goal of bringing balance to the world. And once he does that, this shows that for 15 years, he does. He brings balance to the world. Yay hooray. And along the journey, he makes friends, he finds love, he builds friendships, and that is what rids himself of the guilt. So he does fix the world, but he finds love and healing along the way.
[26:57] Emily: So good.
[26:58] Rachel: Yeah.
[26:58] Emily: So you can kind of see how there's that chain of effects. If I do this one thing in this moment, then this will be possible and this will be possible. And then up until you reach that external story goal, I've got two caveats that I want to add before we kind of jump into some actionable questions and wrap up here. The first is now I'm like, what were they? Okay, so the first is that that external goal is often so the external story goal, the thing that's driving the story, is often not something that is driving the story, necessarily until you break into the second act. So it's not something that your character is going to to open the story with. Aang doesn't open the whole story of Avatar with the plan to master the four elements. Some stuff has to happen in Act One before he gets there. Katniss doesn't open the Hunger Games planning to win the Hunger Games? Some stuff has to happen before she finally commits herself to, I'm going to win. First she volunteers to say sister, and then she gets swept up into the training, and then she finally decides, I'm going to try to win. It just as a caveat. A lot of times people get hung up on that external story goal being something that's present on page one, and it doesn't necessarily need to be and often isn't, but the internal goal is something that is very long standing. It's a deep human desire that's been driving them for a really long time, probably most of their life. It's the thing they desire the most. And so just a little bit of difference between those two things. And then the other thing I wanted to add before I forget it is we said at the beginning, yes, every scene needs to be related to your story goal in some way, pushing towards your story goal in some way. But you might have the question of, well, what about the quieter scenes? What about the relationship building scenes? What about those slower scenes, the romance scenes? The romance scenes? And the thing that I'll often say is you don't want to make it feel like if you take a break from the story goal, from pushing towards the story goal, you risk making the story feel like it's gone on a tangent, and so you want to avoid that as much as possible. But there are transitional moments. So I think Avatar is a really great example because there are a lot of quieter scenes where the kids who are helping we're all working together to master the four elements to bring balance back to the world are traveling a lot. So you get a lot of travel sequences where they're traveling to achieve their story goals, but they're following internal goal driven scenes where they're driven by a is driven by ridding himself of guilt. And so whatever's happening at a smaller level are steps towards that. And so just make sure if you're having trouble tying it to that story. Goal that at least it's tied to that internal or the external story goal. That at least it's tied to the internal story goal. Otherwise, it will feel very much like a tangent.
[30:17] Rachel: Yeah, you know what? You're completely right about Ang. So, Ang, as a character, again, this is a kid show. These are kids. Ang is extremely playful. He is constantly he's mischievous. He's always trying to have fun. He's always trying to get the kids around him to have a good time. He makes jokes, he does pranks. He's a very funny character. But it's driven because he's trying to outrun his guilt. He's constantly having fun because he's trying to avoid that crushing weight of him abandoning the world. So you're so right that even in those slower scenes or in those playful scenes where it seems like they're just having fun in a river, they're not. Ang is, like, driven. He's trying to avoid all of this guilt, and they end up having, like, a reckoning of that in the third season, where he has to address that. He has to realize that he's been avoiding his own pain the whole time. That's such a good example, and I don't think I've ever really realized that. So I'm glad you said that. Yeah.
[31:24] Emily: Because otherwise you can feel like, oh, I didn't mean to write a super plot driven thriller. Like, I wanted to have Romancy moments and French moments and all of that. And you still can. But just make sure that those moments are being driven by the internal goal, at minimum.
[31:39] Rachel: Yeah. Love that.
[31:42] Emily: Okay, so let's jump into how to do this.
[31:45] Rachel: Yeah. How do we create story goals? How do we create scene goals? Let's start with story goals. So the first question that we ask ourselves is, what is your main character fighting to accomplish throughout the story? What's the main plot's focus? What is this book about? What problem or obstacle are they facing that they need to solve or fix or overcome? What does your main character actually want on the inside, whether they know it or not? So if they're fighting to get this big thing, this problem that they're solving, why are they doing that? Why do they care? What do they hope to get out of it? Those questions are going to help you drive both those external and those internal goals and make sure they are connected. We need to go into that deeper why of why they want that big thing. That's what can get us closer to the internal goal of what they're driven by.
[32:38] Emily: Absolutely. So then when you're looking at your scene goals, a question that I will often ask, because it can be hard, right? You have, however, let's say, 60 scenes in your store, right? And you're like, how do I make sure that each one of these is driven by the story goal? Without being repetitive? So I'll often ask or suggest, zoom out. What is the character's plan for achieving their story goal. Aang's plan is to first master the four elements. That's his plan. And so his plan to do that, you can keep breaking it down. Well, his first plan to do that is he needs to master the Earth element or whatever one comes first.
[33:16] Rachel: Waterbedding. waterbedding. Okay.
[33:20] Emily: First he needs to master waterbedding. And so how is he going to do that? Well, his plan to do that is XYZ. And so you could keep breaking it down until you get okay, what's the first step of their smallest plan, the most tangible plan? That is a really good way to figure out those story goals. And then how can you break those plans into smaller bites, into smaller steps? And how can you use those as building blocks from one scene to the next?
[33:49] Rachel: Yeah, that was really helpful for me as, like, a more discovery driven writer, is understanding these two things, but then knowing that scene goals are just the broken down plan of how to achieve your story goal. I always would get stuck in act two and be like, what's going on? What are my characters doing? Like, I don't want them to run out of steam. I don't know what's happening. But once I understood well what's happening is being driven by what they want and how they plan to get what they want, then it becomes a lot easier to come up with or to ideate on how do they plan to get what they want? And how can my plot make that harder for them? Or what are they going to run into as they're making scene choices? So if you're normally driven on the panting side of the spectrum, just keep in mind that they are trying to get something, and they need baby steps to do that. So what are they going to do for each of these steps in each of these scenes that's going to build towards that story goal and that will help you feel less like you need to plot everything, but still give you the cohesion and the direction and the agency and the focus that your draft needs in that really big act too.
[34:57] Emily: Yeah.
[34:59] Rachel: Okay, cool. So we have an event coming up. Emily, would you tell us about this event that's open to everybody? Absolutely.
[35:09] Emily: I'm so excited about this. So we are leading a master class open to anyone and everyone who wants to come called how to Craft a Page Turner. So this class is going to be on March 24 at 01:00 p.m.. Eastern, and it's going to dive deeper into exactly what we've been talking about today. We're going to go even deeper into the external and internal story goals and how those are tied by your character's flawed belief. We're going to break down even more how story and scene goals are tied together by the magic of what we call Pivot plans and how Pivot plans line up to story structure, really. We're going to give advice on common blocks and challenges that relate to these issues. Like questions like, what do I do if I run out of ideas? Or I don't know what comes next, or I'm stuck in act two. We're going to break all of that down for you, and we're going to do a live q and a. So the class is going to be $25, and there will be a recording. So if you can't come live at 01:00 p.m. On March 24, then you will get the recording of it and you can enroll. Sign up, join us.
[36:26] Rachel: Join us.
[36:29] Emily: At goldenmayediting. Compageturner. And we'll put that link in the show notes. But it's going to be amazing.
[36:36] Rachel: Yes, it's super fun. These slides, we've made them already, and they are fantastic. Chef's kiss on fire. Brilliant. So come March 24 at 01:00 p.m., and like Emily said, if you can't make it live, you still want to buy the class because you'll get the recording. Everyone will get the recording, and you can watch it as many times as you want and use this to help you drive your characters and your plot at the same time. So, yes, that link will be in our show notes, so sign up there. All right. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[37:16] Emily: Sign up now to get our free email course, the magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[37:26] Rachel: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Bye.
