Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.
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Mindy: We're here with Caroline Kepnes, who is the author of all of the You books featuring Joe Goldberg, who is just about one of my favorite people which makes me feel somewhat guilty, which is what we will talk about quite a bit. First of all, the next book in the You series comes out on April 25th - For You and Only You. The You series is the basis for a very popular TV show on Netflix. Pretty much everyone I speak to I have told to read these books. Let's just start by you telling us a little bit about the new one and what Joe is going to be up to next in For You and Only You.
Caroline: Yes. Well, thank you for having me here, Mindy. I love your podcast, and I appreciate being here. And I think it's wonderful that you say that you love Joe and that it says something about you. I feel like that's what started me with this, of finding this voice and wondering why it put a smile on my face. And every book is like this journey into his problems, but also the problems with our society. So it's like a kind of pick your poison thing where I'm like... the first one, of course, starts in New York with these Ivy League elites who think they're better than him and the girl caught in the middle of that. And in every book, like that's the deal that he sees the world mistreating a woman who he loves and he goes and tries to fix it. So this time around, we have Joe at Harvard University. He was very good with the pandemic, with the lockdown. He wrote a book and pulled off a kidnapping and did his little online sleuthing and managed to get himself a spot in a fiction writing fellowship. He's in this fellowship. It's supposed to be for undiscovered writers. That is what it said. But that is not the case. And everyone has a life and some success. And if you know Joe, you know that that's kind of not fair. There is a girl in the class named Wonder who is from Boston and didn't go to college and works at a Dunkin Donuts. I'm not going to start speaking in an accent, I swear. Instead of dealing with his own insecurity and his ego issues about writing, I mean, how convenient that he gets to project all of it onto her.
Mindy: Like I said, Joe is somebody who... I think all of us have those darker instincts and some of us are more in touch with our shadow selves than others. I'm pretty deeply in touch with mine. There are things that I don't do either because they are immoral or illegal. It could be one. It could be both sometimes. But you know, there's something that stops me from doing some of the darker things that I want to impulsively do. Joe doesn't have that problem.
Caroline: For me, there's something liberating about that. I like going into that space of like, especially the way he's obsessed with calling everyone entitled... It's like, how could you be more entitled than if you just go breaking every law and every social code?
Mindy: But he doesn't see that. Which has a little bit of a charm to it in a way, because we all have our blind spots.
Caroline: Yes. Oh, do we. Yes. Part of this book... Wonder does a lot of reviews on Goodreads, and with every book too, I'm exploring some form of social media. And in this one, he learns about her through her Goodreads reviews that are very revealing about herself, but in a way where she's very intelligent. But it's part of my basic fear. I grew up in the 80s and I just basically have been taught to be afraid to tell people things. And it fascinates me the way we all joke and we all get into rabbit holes and we can know a lot about someone. But it's like, you really can. I guess I just love going into that fear of when you put yourself out there, sometimes Joe is watching. You probably are the same way with that overactive imagination and taking everything as evidenced in your work to a very dark potential place.
Mindy: All day, every day. I want to talk about that. That's really interesting. It's an odd mind space to live in where most of the time, because I live in the country, I live very much rurally in Ohio, but I travel a lot. So I'm in big cities a lot. And because of my fairly cocooned life that I have out here, I generally feel safe all the time. And so when I'm out in the general public in a larger place, I mean, most of the time I'm not in any danger. But because of my imagination...
Caroline: Yeah.
Mindy: Everyone. Everyone is potentially going to kill me. I am always looking for the exit in whatever room I am in. I'm identifying possible weapons in case I need them.
Caroline: I am sitting with my back against the wall. Yes. You live in that space - an open space. I in some ways am more afraid. There's this place I like to go hiking where I grew up. On the one hand, you're totally isolated. For whatever reason, there's no one ever there. And you're, like, deep in this marsh. And then in the back of my head, I'm like, "This is the most dangerous place in the fucking world. I am alone. My cell phone barely works. Anyone could be here. Anyone could jump out from those dunes." And in some ways in the city, I always feel safer, and even if I'm walking around with headphones on, I just feel like, "Well, there are all these witnesses everywhere." And like you said, the majority of us are okay.
Mindy: I had a friend who got married and, you know, went to live in the city, and she had a very difficult time adjusting. And she kept telling me, "I don't feel safe. I don't feel safe." And I knew the part of the city she was in, and I'm like, "Dude, you're fine. Like, nothing's going to happen to you." Really if you think about it, living out in the middle of nowhere like we have our whole lives is actually more dangerous because there might be less people, so there's less of a ratio of people that could possibly hurt you, but if only that one person decides to, you can scream your head off. Nobody can hear you. You're done.
Caroline: It's the In Cold Blood of it. I read that in high school. I read it over and over. I feel like I did two term papers because I was just like, I will only read and write about this book and the possibility that whether it's random or intentional, you're a sitting duck and you're an isolated duck. There's a reason the ducks are in a group together in the lake, you know?
Mindy: So off topic. You brought up ducks so I just have to follow up with this. Are you familiar at all with the duck penis?
Caroline: Oh, very familiar. I've watched many videos. I don't remember how I originally learned, but every once in a while it's a really good Google. Some new tidbit to learn when you go back to it.
Mindy: I'm so glad that I'm not a female duck.
Caroline: Yes. I mean the violence with them, and there's a spot near where I grew up where they kind of gather and you can see them together, like working things out. And I just feel like the nastiest courtship rituals and the possessiveness and the violence.
Mindy: Pretty often, if it's a water based sports that they're enjoying, the female will get drowned.
Caroline: Yes. Yes. I mean, and the way that that's like just built into their system. What a world. What a world.
Mindy: So I just ended up learning about duck penises, and then, you know, it was one of those things where all of a sudden duck sex was like everywhere. I listened to a podcast and there was supposed to be like hunting and trapping and stuff, and they ended up just like really going into explicit duck sex. And I was just like, "Oh my God!" It was a... It was a real day. I had to turn it off. Like I was going through the drive through, and I'm like, "Dude, I got to turn this off."
Caroline: But then again, like the person at the drive through, maybe they learn about it and get turned on to it. Not turned on. Wrong word. But you know... but yeah, it is one of those things that it's like when you're trying to find shoes. So everywhere you go, you see shoes.
Mindy: Yep.
Caroline: And with duck sex... I heard it, there was something about it in a TV show or movie, I'm not going to remember what, a few weeks ago. But I remember thinking, if you didn't know about that, it would just go over your head. It was just like part of the dialogue. It wasn't a whole thing, but it's out there. People know.
Mindy: People know. I mean as soon as I saw a duck penis to you, you were like, "Oh, yeah, I know."
Caroline: And I love that moment of like, you tee it up and I'm like, "I'm not going to know what she's talking about." And then, "Oh! Duck sex! I know about that."
Mindy: We can absolutely converse about duck sex. So speaking of just like, sex in general. I read recently Penn Badgley, who plays Joe on the show, gave an interview where he said he doesn't want to do sex scenes anymore because he doesn't feel that it is appropriate within the context of being a married man and it's a way that he wants to show his fidelity to his wife. And for one thing, my first thought was, "Man, you must be the best actor in the world. Because you feel that way, and then you play Joe."
Caroline: Yeah. Yes. I mean, I think that's a personal choice thing, right? It's so personal. That's where acting freaks me out. Even in season one, I remember being on the set. He has to do everything twice because the voiceover acting with his face and his body and thinking all those sick thoughts and standing there. Anyone can use that moment to say, "You know what? This doesn't work for me. I don't want to do it." I think it's just good for the world because so many jobs in life are the exact opposite... Where you feel like you can't express your personal feelings about them, your preferences, or if you do, you might not be in that position anymore. I say, this is good. You know, like, what do you think?
Mindy: I thought it was awesome. I don't think that monogamy is cool in our society. Anybody can do whatever they want. It doesn't bother me at all. Like everybody has their own ways and they should go about that.
Caroline: That's you. I think that's the best thing to take away from it, because I can just as easily imagine a couple, whether they're both actors or one is, and they're good with it. It's such a thing between you and your partner and also your personal comfort zone. And it's an interesting thing too, because it's part of the age of hyper communication and just so much knowledge, you know. You figure years ago, there were probably actors that had this policy, or some degree of it, that we didn't know about because we just didn't have so much information thrown at us every single day. That's the thing that blows my mind about living the way that we live now. That's just so overwhelming when you think of us being a kid and waiting for Sassy Magazine to come out once a month.
Mindy: Oh yes, my Sassy and my 17. If I can just get one more glossy photo of Christian Slater, I will be so happy.
Caroline: Yes.
Mindy: It's really interesting what you're saying about the amount of media that we have in our faces all the time, because I was not even looking for information about you, about the show, about Penn Badgley. Nothing like that. It was on the front page of CNN.
Caroline: Oh, my God! I didn't know that. Wow! For the writers doing the show, it's like having a new circumstance and twist to deal with in storytelling. You and I can do whatever we want in our book. Have anything happen because no one has to use their physical form to bring it to life. The reader does that in their head.
Mindy: Then talking about the media. Like I said, that story was front and center for me on CNN, and I wasn't even searching for it.
Caroline: And that's fascinating because like, I love that that's news.
Mindy: Let me tell you, I scrolled past everything else and I read that. So... You were talking about how each of your books also in some way is kind of about or focusing on some form of social media in a way that is a little bit darker... A darker shade. And of course now everybody has their favorite podcast. Has someone else's voice in their ear constantly.
Caroline: Yes.
Mindy: I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit more about how you approach that because You, the You series, very much is social commentary.
Caroline: Yes. It's a commitment that I made in the first book. I remember the day that Lou Reed died, and I put it in the book. I didn't intend to write a series. Toward the end, when I wanted to do another, it was like, "Oh, boy. These take place now in this world right now." When the pandemic happened... Oh, this is an interesting conundrum because, yeah, like the way as a writer, you have those choices. You can write a world where it doesn't happen. You can mention it, or you can full on tell a story about it. And I loved the idea that we were all kind of living in this and figuring out how to deal with it in our stories and as we deal with it in real life.
So that's what got me started with this book where I had ended You Love Me with him in Florida in this place of mourning. And I had thought a lot about Florida Joe. I was alone. I'm like to me... Everyone was in some situation that is not the way they intended for their life to be right? If you're married and you love someone, you never meant to be together 24 hours a day. I like to be alone, but I never meant to be alone 24 hours a day. My first draft was... I started doing it with him having the fellowship over Zoom. Him using all of these new tools to get to people. And then it was like, "No, this is a book." And we're still, especially at that point I was like, "I can't write about this at length yet. Not that much." You know what I mean? So then it was like, okay, I'm going to send him to school. And he's going to be in the room smelling all the people and seeing them and eating with them. And yeah, it was, it was exciting because it was living vicariously through him, you know?
Mindy: It sounds like there's going to be a lot of inside baseball as far as writing and publishing goes in this one.
Caroline: It's his perspective on it, and he's very sure of himself. You know, he wrote this novel and I feel like in the way of living vicariously... oh God, to have his ego for an hour. What we could do with it! And then to see him be around these people and slowly realize that these people have done their work, and that if he shares his work with them, they're going to be allowed to say bad things about it. Which of course requires that he find a way to kind of one by one, discredit, find every flaw, so that they can't affect him. And then that was the fun suspense for me with it. Because there's such a difference, right, between sitting alone and drafting it out and looking at your pages and exposing yourself to the world. I loved him sitting there with this bomb, with his book, in the sense that, like, what's going to happen if someone doesn't believe in him? And what's going to happen. And in that way, the girl that he liked, the books, the way they're always kind of talking to each other. Wonder writes, and Wonder is very sure of her process. And she is in no rush to get published. He takes it upon himself to change her approach to writing. Which is, in part, because he cares about her, but also because, of course, it allows him to avoid dealing with his own insecurities. It was very fun to give him a new job. Yes. To put him around other people who can handle their shit.
Mindy: That's the best place to put him.
Caroline: Yes. It just did feel like tingly good, right? Like I'm excited for you to read it. It's a good way to feel before a book comes out, right?
Mindy: Oh, yeah. It's an amazing way to feel before a book comes out.
Caroline: I had so much fun naming the other writers and their books. And now when I go into a bookstore, I'm like, "Wait a minute. They don't have one book by Sarah Beth Swallows?" And I'm like, "She's not a real person!" Like, of course they don't. They're all fake.
Mindy: It's a good example of how real your characters are to you. Something else I wanted to bring up. A book that I just love that I think probably gets lost a little bit because of the fact that You is just so amazing and so popular. But you wrote a novel called Providence. I love that book! It's really good. I wish people would talk about it more.
Caroline: I know. Thank you so much. And that's like... It moves me so much when people say that because, exactly... Like You. I feel like it's like a middle school bully situation where not only are there now 4 You books, right? So Providence is just on its own out there, and it's its own thing. And it makes me so happy when I learn that someone has found it and enjoyed it, and I have such a soft spot for them in my heart.
Mindy: I love that book. I listened to the audio. It is quite good. I just loved it. I loved it so much, and I ran it down because I had... I had read at that point I think the first You book. And I was in a slump, and I could not find anything I liked. It was one of those weird times, and I was like, "Hey, I'm going to go see if Caroline Kepnes has written anything else." Then I was like, "Oh, she has." And I listened to Providence and God, I just loved it so much. So I was wondering, as a person that has had just a tremendous amount of success in this one arena, and you kind of already answered the question, but is there a part of you that is just like, "Man, I wish more for this other book."
Caroline: First of all, I want to go back to something you said about the moment for a book, because I love that so much. And something that makes me crazy about book culture is that like, here are the books to read this month! Here are the books to read this week! Here are the books to read today! And it's like the beauty of a book is that it never goes away. Sure, even if it goes out of print, you never know what you can find in a clearance bin at a used store like anywhere. And so I love when we're reminded that we can go find books. That there is no expiration date. Yesterday, I did a podcast and they were talking about Providence too. And the woman started out with like, "I am the biggest fan. I love it so much." And it's such a nice surprise that, yes, it just makes me happy because I would love for more people to find that book. And especially when it comes from readers, and especially author readers, who have that reaction to it, it's just a very good feeling. So right, you just always want more people to know that there's this other thing that I did that you might also like.
Mindy: You said, author readers... I wrote a book called Be Not Far From Me. It's about a girl that's lost in the Smoky Mountains. And she's out there for like a month, and she has to survive with just the clothes on her back. I started working on it, and as I was writing it, I was so pissed at myself because I had never thought about the fact when I pitched this idea that my main character is alone for 99% of the book. Alone. She has nobody to talk to. There's nothing for her to bounce off of. The environment isn't changing. She's in the woods alone for 99% of the book. And I was like, "Mindy, you fucking idiot. You have done this to yourself, and you are stuck. And you are in the woods with her." But the best thing that happened with that book is I would get, you know, texts, emails, DMs from fellow writers that would say, "How did you write a book where the main character was alone pretty much the whole time? That is incredible." And I was just like, "Thank you. Thank you for understanding how hard that was."
Caroline: That gave me such a good feeling to hear you say that, because that's my favorite part of writing once you're through it. But you know that moment when you're... You said it like, "What the fuck did I do to myself? What did I do?" Because I think that's where the best of us so often comes from. When we screw ourselves over, both in the way of deadline and also procrastinating and writing fast go together. You accidentally paint yourself into a corner and that just like you... Then you have no choice but to get out. Like you can always eventually feel that in the writing. In the pages.
Mindy: Absolutely. Absolutely. My panic is inside of that girl who's trying to get out of the woods. Last thing. Why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and then, of course, where they can get For You and Only You which will be out on April 25th.
Caroline: Yes. Well, you can get For You and Only You at your local bookstore. You can find it online. Hopefully, if they don't have it in your bookstore, you can go in there and be like, "Hey, you know what book you should have?" You can find me on Twitter for my wonderful retweets. Like, that's the bulk of what I do when I go on there and participate. You can find me on Instagram with book pictures, and I do have a Facebook page. And then there is kind of a secret place on Facebook that is called Caroline's Cage, and that's run by some readers who have been there ten years because it was 2013 when they got advanced copies of You. So yeah, that's a good group. Is that it? Are those the places?
Mindy: I think you got all the places.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.