On Back Lists and Plot Twists with NYT Best-selling Author Samantha Sotto Yambao

Today, I'm delighted to have NYT bestselling author Samantha Sotto Yambao on the blog. (Sam was kind to me early in my writing journey, posting about my novel on her blog and giving me some good advice not long ago.)

Recently, Sam's career hit the big time, culminating in making the New York Times bestseller list with her wonderful novel Water Moon.

Take it away, Sam!

 

If you told me a year ago that I would be writing this post a few minutes after my UK
publisher revealed the new covers for the re-release of my entire backlist, I would not
have believed you. But the plot twist fairies had other plans.

I am not a shiny and new writer. When my debut came out in 2011 and met some mild
success, I thought there was no looking back. I was wrong. My option was rejected by
my editor and I had to write a new story from scratch. This book did not fare much
better. My sophomore novel would have died on submission if not for a Hail Mary save
that was only slightly better than not being published at all. The book was purchased for
no advance and was only released as an eBook in 2017. Still, I was grateful to stay
published and keep my foot wedged inside the traditional publishing door. I was wrong.
Again.

My (then) agent chose not to go on submission with my third book and so I decided to
self-publish it. I did the same for my fourth. With every new release, my readership
shrank. I wondered if this was my sign from the universe to change course, but before I
could even come up with my Plan B, 2020 made it very clear that I was not going to be
able to do anything new anytime soon.

And so I wrote. One last book. To stay sane. To say goodbye. To escape as far as I
could. When I was done, I sent it to my agent. Where it stayed, unread, for a year. It was at this point that I decided to dive back into the query trenches and unknowingly
embark on the strangest turn my publishing journey would take.

Offers from multiple agents.

A pre-empt offer the day after we went on submission.

International auctions.

A bestselling book with twenty-eight translations.

A second book that would hit the New York Times list a year later.

And now, a backlist that has found new life.

I wish I could tell you why all these things happened. If I did, I could probably write a
bestselling book on how to become an overnight publishing success. Unfortunately, the
only story I can share is about saying yes to yourself for almost twenty years, and
hoping that one day, someone else will say yes too. I don’t think such a book would do
very well, but then again, who knows? The plot twist fairies might have their own ideas.

Click here to go to Sam's website.

Click here to visit the Amazon site with all her novels.

Click here for Sam on Instagram.

A New Puppy!

We have a new puppy. She’s a seven-month-old yellow Lab we’re calling Jadis**. She’s also 80 lbs (36 kg). 

Basically, she’s like a two-year-old who weighs 80 lbs.

 This is what my morning is like:

 I walk downstairs.

 Jadis: Alpha Female (me), I am so, so happy to see you!! I will run to you with all the strength in my body so you will know how much I love you.

 Me: oofff. plop.

 Jadis (stream of consciousness): Why are you on the floor? Are you sad? I will lick your face. Ooo, your pajama top smells nice. I will taste it with my tongue. Maybe we can play tug-of-war with your shirt. That would be fun. See, I can pull your shirt hard. Oh, it ripped. You should buy a new one. Can I have the old one?

 Me: I need coffee. Lots of coffee.

Okay, this is not a me-in-my-pajamas-getting-licked-to-death, but this is pretty much the same thing. Me getting lots of doggy love.  

 **For those of you who haven’t read The Chronicles of Narnia’s The Magician’s Uncle, Jadis is the evil queen. I love irony, so our sweet girl carries a weighted name. (Our last dog was a female black Lab I named Jezebel. I just can’t help myself…)

Uncovering Secrets: How Writers, Readers and Film Buffs Discover the “More” in a Story

When actors are asked how they avoid depicting characters as clichés, many respond, “It’s there in the story.” When writers want to develop their characters, they often reread what they've written to uncover opportunities that already exist in the work.

When I write a scene, I begin by trying to get all my thoughts onto the page. While doing this, I can’t view the scene from all perspectives at once—all the people present plus the setting, which usually functions as a character. It’s only after time has elapsed that I can go back and observe the scene from a bird's eye view. It’s like turning the cylinder of a kaleidoscope and seeing a different image, a different perspective, with every turn.

The same is true for movies. When I view a film I love but haven't seen in a while, I find elements I missed the first time. This isn’t the same as aspects of the movie I didn't remember. These are actually things I couldn’t see before because no one can see everything the first time. Only by viewing the story with the benefits of time, distance and a fresh perspective do I notice what I didn't before.

For writers, distance is important because it not only gives us time away but also an emotional buffer so that when we return to the story, we’re looking for more than what we need to fix. We’re looking for the story to speak to us, tell us what it wants to be now. In essence, we’re going back in order to discover what the story already contains so that we can use these elements to deepen individual aspects of the work and the work overall.

One way writers deepen their work is to ask questions of the characters. (I thought this was weird the first time I heard it, too.) The questions usually take three forms. What are you not telling me (the writer)? What are you not telling the other characters in the scene? What are you not telling yourself?

 It’s in these liminal spaces that writers often find deep truths about the theme of a story, what it’s really about. We also discover elements of our characters that make them fully realized, individual, memorable. Similar to all conversations, an added benefit of asking questions is that we get at the underlying story elements organically, without imposing anything on the work. Rather, we enable what’s already there to speak.

This doesn't mean every character is developed to the same degree. Neither does it mean every character is good. What it means is that they’re more true to life because in getting at who they really are, we enable dimensionality and layers. This is the complexity actors aim for when portraying a character. Paraphrasing Konstantin Stanislavski, we can learn a lot from our cousins the actors, when writing, reading, or watching a film.

So the next time you go back to a novel or film you love, look for the hidden gems. Pay attention to what you're seeing. Not to what you remember. But what is actually in front of you. And don't discount those things that don't seem to fit. If they’re there, they have a place in the story, just as they do in everyday life.

 

Adele Annesi’s bestselling cultural heritage novel is What She Takes Away (Bordighera Press, 2023). Adele is also a curator for the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival. Her MFA in creative writing is from Fairfield University, and her long-running blog for writers is Word for Words. Adele’s podcast is Adele Annesi on Writing.

Lace Cap Hydrangea

 This beauty blooms underneath the deep shadow of a saucer magnolia. It always reminds me to slow down and not miss the hidden beauties in life.

Brrr! So Cold!

 

The pond frozen and dusted with snow. 

(I'm so thankful after I take the photo, I can run back into a cozy house. I'm very tempted to stand on the ice and see if it will hold me up. But the thought of plunging into deep, icy water keeps my feet on frozen ground.)

Ice Storm

 The other day, we had snow, rain, and ice. Thankfully, I didn't have to venture out and could enjoy the ice, captured by the photo on the crepe myrtle.

Book Review: My Parents' Marriage by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

 

I heard Nana read aloud a passage from My Parents' Marriage in a writing group I belong to, and my first thoughts were “The writing is so beautiful” and “I have to read this novel.” When the novel was published, I read it quickly because the plot was engrossing and the writing lyrical.

One theme in the novel is plural marriage. Because I know several women who have had their lives affected by plural marriage, I wanted to find out how Nana handled it in her book. She explored the pain and reverberating effects of plural marriages on the wives and their children with deftness and compassion. In the end, I enjoyed this novel and I came away from it a changed person.

A five-star read.

 Here’s the novel’s blurb:

 Determined to avoid the pain and instability of her parents’ turbulent, confusing marriage, Kokui marries a man far different from her loving, philandering, self-made father—and tries to be a different kind of wife from her mother.

 But when Kokui and her husband leave Ghana to make a new life for themselves in America, she finds history repeating itself. Her marriage failing, she is called home to Ghana when her father dies. Back in her childhood home, which feels both familiar and discomforting, she comes to realize that to exorcize the ghosts of her parents’ marriage she must confront them to enable her healing.

 Tender and illuminating, warm and bittersweet My Parents’ Marriage is a compelling story of family, community, class, and self-identity from an author with deep empathy and a generous heart.