let me explain the beanbag chair thing

or, how i get into character

Dear readers,

WELL! August really did slip away to a moment in time, didn’t it? In fact! The entire summer sort of slipped, at least for me—I’ve had some derailments here and there (very cautious me, walking into the Taylor Swift concert in June, my first truly big outing since the pandemic began: “i’m going to get covid at this, aren’t i,” and in fact I did 🫠), but to be honest I’m happy to be headed into September. I’m looking forward to some cooler temperatures and some more structured days, and my hope is that all of you are feeling some excitement for these fall months, too.

what i’m working on

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working on something new, as in something so new that there’s really no point in saying much at all about it, because I’m basically in what can only be described as a sort of “discovery” phase. But I wanted to write to y’all about that phase, since some of you requested to hear about how I come up with characters.

And this is where the beanbag chair comes in.

Back in January, I was fortunate enough to do an amazing release week event for Georgie, All Along at one of my all-time favorite bookstores, East City Bookshop. My very good friend Sarah MacLean (have you read Knockout, omg, pls I loved it so much) moderated, and one great thing about doing events with Sarah is that she loves talking about the craft of writing, and she’s so talented at getting audiences to engage in discussions about it. That night, one topic we touched on was how to write characters who feel real to readers—characters who sort of leap off the page and live inside you even after you’ve put the book down. You know those characters, right? The ones you’ll have a passing thought about six months later? You’ll think, “I wonder how Imogen and Tommy are doing these days?”, as though they’re your close personal friends and not the brainchild of a brilliant writer.

During that discussion, I shared one of the tactics I use during this discovery phase of my writing, and that’s to develop what I can only assume many people would call extremely overzealous character profiles. Profiles (sometimes also called “character sketches”) are pretty common ways of brainstorming for a book—pick up any craft book worth its salt and you will likely find material guiding you through prompts to get to know your characters: “Personality,” “Physical Description,” “Internal Conflicts,” etc. I do these sometimes, and they are very helpful, and I expect they work fantastically well on their own for a lot of writers, especially those who find it easier to get to know their characters as they go.

But for me, whose process in general is pretty slow, I need a lot more knowledge before I can put a character on the page. Signposts like “Personality” will only prompt vague answers from me, and I can never seem to get the kind of specificity I long for with rubrics like these.

So what helps me is to ask more focused questions about characters—wildly, sometimes goofily specific questions that I let linger in my head all throughout the day, no matter what I’m doing. Think of me in Target at two p.m. on a Wednesday, looking for my multivitamins and wondering, Would Reid Sutherland ever buy multivitamin gummies? The answer is no, he would not; he would wince slightly at the very prospect. Picture me staring down at the touchscreen at a Panera Bread and knowing in my bones that Nora Clarke hates ordering her lunch off a touchscreen; in fact Nora probably only went to the Panera because someone else picked it. Imagine that I’m remembering this one girl on my dorm hall during my freshman year of college, and all of a sudden I’m asking myself, Would Georgie Mulcahy sit in a beanbag chair? She would, of course! But if you’ve read Georgie, All Along, and if I’ve done my job right, you know that Levi Fanning would never sit in a beanbag chair. He would look down at a beanbag chair and think, That’s not for me.

I want to be clear: Reid Sutherland never encounters multivitamin gummies in the pages of Love Lettering, nor does Nora Clarke ever engage with a touchscreen ordering system in Love at First; there is no beanbag chair moment in Georgie. But I think what’s happening for me in these moments is that I’m making the characters feel as a real as possible to me—I’m inhabiting them at the smallest, most mundane moments so that I can understand them for the big ones. I’m learning their voices, their subtle expressions, the tiny preferences that speak to who they are and how they see themselves and what they’ve been through. And it’s not as though I write all this down—I’m not going to Target like, time for my character fact-finding mission in this aisle of throw pillows! It’s more that I’m letting my brain passively acquire detail as I move through my day, kind of like how we acquire small details about the real people we meet and get to know throughout our lives.

I’m not telling you any of this because I think it’s like, great writing advice—I’ve said before that writing advice is almost always useless without lots of context attached to it, and I stand by that. But there’s this fantastic book by writing coach Becca Syme where she talks about knowing your strengths and working to “align” them—basically, maybe you’re not a fast writer, but you do enjoy mining for depth in characters, so you will make your process (and your life) more fulfilling if you lean in to that strength. For me, this character stuff is how I lean in to what I think (hope) is a strength of mine. If it sounds like a strength/point of enjoyment for you, too, maybe try being mindful of moments in your day that prompt reflection on the characters you’re dreaming up. You never know what question might unlock something so essential about who your character is deep down.

what i’m reading

As I mentioned above, I’ve had some derailments this summer, so my TBR is a bit more backlogged than usual, but I do want to tell you all about two advanced copies of debuts I’ve read this summer that you should absolutely have on your radar for next year!

The first is Myah Ariel’s When I Think of You, which is out on April 16th, 2024. This is a second chance romance set in the world of movie-making. The heroine, Kaliya Wilson, is a filmmaker whose career has utterly stalled…until she gets a huge career opportunity to work on a film that’s being directed by one of Hollywood’s most promising up-and-coming directors. The only problem? That director is her ex, Danny Prescott.

I really loved this one—I was immersed not just in the story of Kaliya and Danny finding their way back to each other, but also in the story of Danny’s film being made (and in the story of what Danny’s film was about—his parents’ own love story). If you like a layered, slow-burn romance, I highly recommend!

Oddly enough, another standout debut I read this summer is also about the world of Hollywood—that’s Yulin Kuang’s How to End a Love Story, which releases on February 27th, 2024. In this one, heroine Helen Zhang is an acclaimed writer of young adult novels, and her work is being adapted for television. It sounds like a real dream come true…except one of the screenwriters on the project is Grant Shephard, with whom she shares a fraught and very tragic history. This is such a complicated look at love, and I thought Yulin did such exceptional character work in this book—it’s the kind of romance that really has you wondering, for awhile, if these two people can really make it work, and then they do, and it’s so rewarding.

Anyway, I know there’s a wait for both of those! But I couldn’t resist telling you about them, and encouraging you to preorder, if you can. Preorders are so key to a book’s success these days, especially for debut authors.

updates on the other side of disappearing

You might remember that my next book is out on March 24th (looks like B&N already has a preorder link up!), and I hope to have a cover reveal for you soon! Earlier this month, I attended the SIBA/NAIBA Fall Trade Show to talk about this book with a host of independent booksellers—what an honor! Here’s what Linda-Marie Barrett, Executive Director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Association, had to say after reading The Other Side of Disappearing:

Kate Clayborn’s The Other Side of Disappearing is more than a love story; it’s also a suspenseful mystery that sparks anger, obsession, and deep insecurity among the family and researchers who seek answers. Jess and Adam narrate in alternating chapters, navigating a growing attraction while pursuing leads around Jess’s mom’s sudden departure with her con-man boyfriend ten years earlier. The ways Jess and Adam bring their ‘scars and all’ vulnerable selves into the relationship, their earnest and sometimes funny soul-searching, and a powerful scene of revelation that was so heartbreaking I almost had to look away, made this the kind of read I could not put down. I already miss these characters and hope they return in another story!

What an honor—I am truly so excited for all of you to meet Jess and Adam.

Everyone, thanks for being part of this little community with me. Love y’all and hope you’re taking good care of yourselves out there.

xoxo

kate 🖤