Video Transcript (computer generated - may contain errors)

Sara Gentry: Welcome writers. I have got Nancy Clements here with me. Welcome, Nancy.

Nancy Clements: Thank you.

Sara Gentry: I am so excited to have Nancy with me today because we are going to get a little nerdy here writers, but we're going to have fun with all of this, and let me introduce you all to Nancy just a bit. I know her very well, but the rest of you might be meeting her for the 1st time. So Nancy is a writer and an Author Accelerator certified book coach, and she owns and operates Second Act Book Coaching and specializes in supporting analytical individuals who crave a project manager's expertise to handle the framework, freeing them to indulge in the art of storytelling. And I come from a math background, and Nancy comes from an engineering background. And so we both feel pretty strongly about perhaps more analytical people having this creativity to write a novel. So that is what we're gonna dig into here today. So why is it? Do you think  I'm just guessing when people find, Oh, I'm an engineer, and oh, I'm a mathematician like people's eyes are like. And you're a book coach, like, what is that about? And so what is it about the stigma of the stem fields that provides some kind of disconnect when people hear like writer and stem person like we can't be in the same room together. Why do you think that is?

Nancy Clements: Yeah. Well, 1st of all, let me let me 1st say, Sara. So thank you for inviting me today. And you know I think myself, and coaches and writers all over the the metaverse are really happy for your leadership and dedication to sharing programs like this one. So like, I'm really excited to be here. So you asked, so why does it?

Sara Gentry: What is it about the stem? Yes.

Nancy Clements: Yeah, it stops them. Well, I think it even stopped me. For a long time, because I didn't come to writing until I was an adult, you know. I always hear those stories about people who have been writing since they were 6. Well, that wasn't. That wasn't me, but I think that what holds people back from being novelists are that they don't think that they're creative enough, or they don't have that emotionality. But I do. I have come to believe that. You know. We learn craft just like we learned calculus. And just like we learned computer programming or engineering, or whatever. It's something that comes with learning. But I do think that we don't always think of the creative mind that writes books is the same as the analytical mind that does engineering and you know, there's this myth about right brain people and left brain people, and that you know, I think I've read enough articles to know that that's not really true. And when you add on to that the complexity of what engineers do or innovators do when it comes to technology and science and all that kind of stuff. I don't think people see that creativity that takes to do. That is the same kind of creativity that fuels storytelling. But you know, I I believe that is the same creativity, and probably more so because engineers and scientists work within like this small box, right? And so they have to really dig deep to figure out new solutions. And I think that we do that in novels as well. Yeah.

Sara Gentry: I love that because I have often felt the same way that that creativity is most apparent, based on like the boundaries that we have to work within. I think sometimes people think I can be more creative if I have all the choices available to me. And I'm like, no, actually, I think you're more creative if you have, you know, a very prescriptive kind of thing. And it's like, now, how can I create something that's innovative and unique out of this thing. That's like, like you say, like within the box. So I love that. I love that framework for it. Yeah.

Nancy Clements: And I don't think writing a novel is not unstructured.

Sara Gentry: No, thank goodness.

Nancy Clements: It's hard. It takes a long time. You've got all of these things happening. The characters, the plot, you know. If you write thriller. You're talking about red herrings and clues and all this other stuff. It's very complex. And so I think that it does. It takes that kind of creativity that really comes from a stem, a stem background. Yeah, you know. And if I have to say that there's something that's missing. Maybe it's on that emotionality side. But the same thing is that novels are written with universal themes, right? The ones that connect the deepest to people are about universal things that are true, for everybody it doesn't matter what you do for work, or where you went to college, or what culture you come from. Right and so I kind of feel like that depth again, can be learned as part of craft.

Sara Gentry: Yeah.

Nancy Clements: It's part of everybody's wheelhouse.

Sara Gentry: No, I agree. So we've kind of skirted around some positive aspects that we bring if we're for our stem background here, for you know. I I think that people who come from stem probably feel a little bit nervous about dipping their toes into the writing world, and they might feel imposter syndrome more than writers who are coming from an English degree, for instance. But I mean what? Let's live it up here with the stem people, I mean, what are the positive characteristics, attributes whatever we wish to call them, that stem people can bring into writing a novel specifically? 

Nancy Clements: Yeah, I would say that the biggest thing that I you know, I don't know if I would list them one to 10 or whatever.

Sara Gentry: Sure.

Nancy Clements: Biggest thing would be like world building. One of my most recent favorite books, is Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir, and he was a software engineer. And just thinking about everything that went into that book, right? It's space travel. It's computer technology. He had to learn somebody else's alien language, had to do biology. Think about all the stuff that went into that book is just crazy. By the way he's the same author, wrote the Martian, and both books. I know that of course the Martian was turned into a film, and I understand that they're making Project Hail Mary into a film now, too. So I'm really excited about that. So yeah. I mean world building anything. Sci-fi. If the world is really steeped in real science, I think it holds up to the scrutiny of you know, somebody wants to question that world. You know there's also in thrillers, which is what I love to write and read, you know of all these intricate plots. And so I think that engineers and scientists can take a really massive problem and break it into smaller parts. And so that helps to, you know, create and dole out all the revelations and the clues and the red herrings and so I think that that's somewhere else that they could really excel.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, for me. It's cause and effect. Like, that's where I see it come most frequently, and I'm sure some of that has to do with the mathematical background, especially in higher level mathematics. You know what you're starting with and what you're trying to prove. And so you have to figure out how you're going to get from point A to Point B, in a step by step process that makes logical sense. You can't skip around and do things out of order. They have to go in a sequential order. And so that is where I have found it to be most helpful. On the writing side. Yeah.

Nancy Clements: And making it probably less a dozen things being methodical, being disciplined, being you know, I already mentioned breaking down complex problems. But I think there's a ton of different ways. I think that they would.

Sara Gentry: Yeah. And I don't think we can overstate the project management, because that does often overwhelm writers, and that's a lot of times why they will abandon a project because they they haven't considered the overall scope of the thing, and then they get stuck in the middle, and they they can't get out not to say that stem. People don't get stuck while writing. But I think just kind of knowing what the overall process is that you're going to do in order to accomplish the thing is really helpful.

Nancy Clements: Yeah. And I, you know you bring that up because it made me think that I really like outlining. I mean, we're very different in that sense. I'm really an outliner, and I've come from, you know, from my background. I've done that a lot, but I know that you're.

Sara Gentry: No, no, I am a hundred percent outline. I am firmly in the outlining camp. I got spreadsheets.

Nancy Clements: Oh, even better. And yes, my blueprint is in a spreadsheet.

Sara Gentry: Yes, yes, a hundred percent. So I am definitely on board there. What? What have you found either in your personal experience or in working with other writers, since you do work with writers who tend to come from these similar backgrounds. What have you found to be most challenging?

Nancy Clements: I think, understanding the lingo.

Sara Gentry: Hmm.

Nancy Clements: And you know when when you get a lot of you're showing, not telling, or you're telling, not showing, or that you're there's there's no emotional connection, those kinds of things. And when you kind of talk about it sort of at a high level. I think those are tough to figure out. And I think that's where reading extensively comes in practice getting feedback. All of those things, I think, are really important. For someone who's new. When I was creating my own course. I took that into consideration that I started with the sort of back story, right of a character to figure out where they've been and what do they believe, and what is wrong about their beliefs? Necessarily? And I was really cognizant about giving concrete examples, because those concrete examples would then be like, oh, that's what they mean by interior thoughts, or that's what they mean about how the back story is affecting, how their revelation or how they're going to have revelation. So yeah.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, I agree. I love that you pointed out examples, because especially in math and computer science. And I would assume engineering as well. It's like very common in our textbooks, as we are learning principles of things to see an example of it in action. It's like as opposed to somebody just saying, You know, this is how you add, it's like, you actually see examples of how it's done, and usually examples from different angles like. Here's how it's done in this circumstance. And here's a different kind of way. You might apply it, and I think that can be so helpful to apply that to writing as well. Writing and reading.

Nancy Clements: Yeah, you know, it's interesting about, you know how math and science and engineering have all changed so much in the advent of computers, because I remember when I was 1st starting out when you did those examples, you got a feeling for the numbers because you did everything sort of longhand and I think that's that's missing today, and I don't know if that's a tangent, or if there's a you know it, it means something to the conversation. But there, there was that, yeah, feeling that you knew you were in the right realm. Which has been a bit lost. And I wonder if that's the difference between, you know handwriting your story versus putting it all in scrivener, you know.

Sara Gentry: It could be. I I like to do a fair amount of work by hand, just because I feel like I can be more free with it. It feels more official when it's being typed in a computer. To me.

Nancy Clements: Too many and too many chances to edit.

Sara Gentry: Yeah. So okay, so for people who might be coming from stem, we hope that we are encouraging you to pursue your novel like, yes, you absolutely have the right to write but are there any, maybe specific suggestions or tips you might have for people who might be breaking into this for the 1st time.

Nancy Clements: Yeah, I mean, but you know, a lot of them would be kind of the same tips that you would give to all writers. Yeah.

Sara Gentry: That's fair.

Nancy Clements: Leveraging what you know. If you want to write a story about a bridge engineer, you know, or you're a bridge engineer, and that's what you know. Then, you know, write a story. I'm waiting for someone to write a story about a bridge engineer. but you know. So writing what you know. But also, you know, in that same realm, maybe it's not engineering related or science related. But you know, if I apply that if something happened to me 20 years ago. I have that thing happen to my characters because I you know you know it so deeply. You know how you felt about it? And so, you know, definitely put that kind of stuff in your novel. You know I would use definitely real scientific principles, especially if you're doing something that's sci-fi related. I think that that's important. Get feedback. I mean, I think I already mentioned some of that last time. Was it to or earlier to you know write often, get feedback. Read. The things that you want to write, read in that genre and get familiar with it. Who are the good writers? What are they doing? How can you emulate them?

Sara Gentry: And I also think depending on where people are coming from in stem. So I have more experience in academic circles. So coming from the world of Academia, where the journal scientific journal writing is just, it couldn't be more opposite of writing a novel. And so if you're coming from that background. Writers. You're going to have to remove passive voice from your writing, and you're going to have to make things not sound so wooden. Maybe bring in a little more personality and things like that, and that's where I do think it can be helpful to accelerate your learning by working with somebody, whether it's a a teacher at a local college, or a book coach, or an editor, or whatever that looks like. I do think you'll learn more quickly what you need to do in order to maybe break some of those things that are not only accepted but expected. When you're writing more for that academic market.

Nancy Clements: Yeah. And I actually have a book. Suggestion is, Lisa Kron's book Wired for Story, because I think that people from a scientific background would really like to understand what story does to our brains. And we'll really love reading. You know what she wrote there, it's a book about connecting with your readers, and how to do it. So yeah.

Sara Gentry: Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Alright. So I wanna make sure that we let folks know how they can connect with you. Because you also? Why? Why don't you tell us what types of writers you typically work with.

Nancy Clements: The genre that I love I already mentioned. It is thriller. So thrillers and I'm just starting to get into romance if you can believe that. But thrillers are definitely my thing. But I tend to like to work with people who are like me, who are very analytical and want to sort of do this step by step process. In fact, I have a course on my website called Engineer Your Thriller. It's a 4 part online course. It talks about theme, villain, the crime. And then the hero, it actually can be applied to other genres as well. But it was written for a thriller. It comes with a psychological questionnaire. It comes with a workbook and I use examples from pro popular thrillers, the ones that I love. So you can get a feel for what writers are writing about in the thriller genre.

Sara Gentry: No, that's great. And what is your website? We'll have a link to it. 

Nancy Clements: Okay, yeah. My website is secondactbookcoaching.com. You can find me there.

Sara Gentry: Awesome. Yep, writers, we will have links to Nancy's website, the course and all the ways you can connect with Nancy online. And we always are happy to connect with fellow stem nerds in the writing world. We have to stick together. Right? Well, Nancy, I just wanna thank you so much for joining me, and for this conversation.

Nancy Clements: Thank you, Sara, and thank you, everyone who watched.

Sara Gentry: Alright writers. Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll catch you next time. Bye.

Nancy Clements: Bye.