Hi, everyone. We're glad you're here. This is the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast. Get ready to have your world rocked. As we dive into the wild and sometimes wacky world of self-publishing. We are three fabulous bestselling authors. I'm your host, Kimberly Todd with my best friends.

K. C. Luck

and Jamey Moody. 

Join us as we discuss the joys of writing, challenges of self-publishing, and anything else that tickles our fancy. 

Hey there. Welcome to episode 22 of the Three Lesbians and a Pen podcast

I'm Kimberly Todd. I'm here with my friends, KC Luck and Jamey Moody. Today, we're talking about what makes a setting great, but before we start what's been happening with KC?

Well, I'm back home not to make it sound like I'm not glad to be back home because I do love where I live in a beautiful state of Oregon, but you know now I have to kind of go back to the day job after the podcast and check all my emails. So, it's a little bit of a bummer. But I really enjoyed my vacation.

The two weeks was fantastic saw lots of beautiful sights. So, I'm very inspired now to get back to writing. So hopefully that's just the bump. I need to get a book done.

That's good. Maybe you'll be in my situation soon because I do have a book done.

Mmm

and I just sent it to my art team. And that was very exciting. And I'm working on all the release stuff, which, I'm excited to release the book. It's going to go out on Friday, February 22nd, two 22. I thought that would be easy to remember.

Yep, I like 

And then I watched the Grammys last night and they were great. Chappell Roan was great and one new artist. So, yay for the gays.

And, that's pretty much been my week. How about you, Kimberly?

 I have been editing my book, And the other thing that I did, I don't know if you guys ever take the time to clean up your writing space and make it more zen, because, well, maybe you guys are zen. Mine have freaking sticky notes everywhere and inspiration crap.

So I did that and that made things a lot better. And then the other thing, I don't know if anyone, listening, if you guys haven't signed up for The Sapphic Quill from Jae, you should, because I just got her email.

I think it came out yesterday and she pointed out something that I did wrong. I had, on my website, I have the email capture, you know, sign up for my newsletter and I just picked a form and embedded it in, you know, I looked at it, looked fine, but it had the last name. Evidently people don't want to give their last name and they might.

be and I don't even do anything with it. So, I went in and edited it this morning. So, it's just the first name. So, you might want to sign up for the, Sapphic Quill just to get information that's helpful to all of us.

Right, yeah, I haven't read that one yet. It's still in my mailbox with 8 million other things. But yeah, she always has great advice, so absolutely sign up for it. Just go to Jae's website, jae-fiction. com, I do believe is the actual web address.

You go there and you can sign up for all kinds of stuff. 

And then I just have one funny thing, so my wife found an almost 11-pound ham that instead of being $47, it was $4. So, we were like yes! And we made a huge ham this weekend.

Was it spoiled? Four dollars!

No, you can't even believe it. We thought it was wrong. So, I said, get it. So, we, cause we like ham.

Anyways, we made it. We ate so much ham yesterday, but now two people, we have, it's an 11-pound ham. We have almost 11 pounds of ham left. So, anyone out there that has a recipe for leftover ham, feel free to send it me. 

That's 

because I don't know what the hell to do with all this ham.

You can freeze it. Can't you freeze ham? Yeah, 

we 

froze it but there's still a ton left 

I'm sorry 

over.

We don't live closer to 

each 

other.

sandwich, 

Yeah, that's funny. Four dollars. Right now, with eggs being, as good as gold, getting a four dollar ham is a good deal. Yeah, 

Yeah,

Right. 

it's crazy. 

Our eggs are $14 in New Jersey

Holy 

I don't 

about 

No joke?

Uh-huh. The cheapest, if you can find them, are $7.20,

Wow. Well, I haven't looked recently. I'm going to go to Costco probably today. And I'm really curious to see what the egg situation is. I think there's been a run on eggs. So, maybe there won't even be eggs there. But,

I think they limit them like toilet paper during Covid. 

Yeah. 

 My new lesbian friends happen to have chickens and I have 

an egg connection. 

Fresh eggs are always way 

better.

That's always a thought too. Where I live, I can get fresh eggs probably. So do we get any texts, KC?

We did get one text from Cheryl. She always loves the Hawaii setting. Which, I've set a book in Hawaii. Always another sunset set in Hawaii. But she would like one with an active, volcano. So maybe I need to write an action adventure in Hawaii. Where there's a volcano actively doing things.

Yeah, that'd be kind of cool.

Yeah, you're the action-adventure girl.

Exactly. So maybe that'll be the next one. We'll see. I got an email in response to my newsletter and in it they said that they are following the show and they really enjoy learning about the process. They're not authors, but they like knowing about what we go through to make it happen.

And that was Manishka, so thank you for adding that in the note and keep listening. That's great.

cool. 

Yes, she emails me too. She emailed us some questions

for the Ask Anything episode when we get ready to do that. Uh

Perfect.

Nice. 

um, we had emails from Jules and Cheryl and a few others that would love to see the rugby storyline. So, I don't know about that, but we'll see. But that's the emails we got.

How about anything from Instagram, Kimberly?

Yeah, Jules, she said she loves our show and it makes her laugh and that she's actually learning a lot from us. So that made us feel good. 

Thanks Jules. 

That's why we're doing it. 

So today we're talking about what makes a setting great. KC, you wanna start us off?

So basically the setting is the backdrop for the story. When you think about it, maybe in a play or something, it's what you're looking at behind the actors as they do their job, but it's also in a story what is behind the main characters.

And you want to make sure that it's something that the readers can relate to, but you don't want to overwhelm them with details. So we're probably going to talk about that a little more, but it needs to add feeling to the story. I don't add a lot of details, but I do try to make sure it's a show don't tell.

So I can add in, weather and smells and everything and make it more interesting that way. But yeah, that's how I use setting. How about you, Jamey? How do you use setting?

Well, you know, it depends on the book because, sometimes I'm a little more detailed. For example, in my Lover's Landing series, I tried to describe, the setting because, the majority of the books take place at this, retreat, this hideaway, sort of like a resort. And I tried to describe that so that people would get the feel of everything and know where these people were, where my characters were, because there's a lake with a small beach. And then there were hiking trails and then there's a restaurant. And then there's these cabins all through the woods. So I tried to describe that cause I wanted them immersed there.

And so they would be feeling what the characters

feel. But then in others, maybe they're, just in a small town or something like that. I don't have to get quite as detailed about it. This series that I'm about to release is about astronomers and the stars. And so I did describe the observatory where they are in the Davis Mountains.

Tried to describe that and the huge telescopes to give them an idea of what these folks are doing. And then this small town feel of the town that's at the bottom of the mountain.

Gotcha. Sounds cool.

 I do the same thing. I think, we all pretty much had the same kind of response. So I find that if I read something and someone gives too much of a description of the setting that it can throw you off. So I agree with KC and Jamey that you need to leave the descriptions just enough so that the reader knows where you are, where the character is, and how, it influences their story arc or is relevant to the plot.

And if you put in there too much detail, I think it can pull the reader out of the story or get boring and you kind of flip through the pages.

Or it can confuse them if you've described something and they've got it one way in their head and they're like, you said they went to the right and the door is supposed to be there, those type of things, it could confuse them if they really pay, and some readers do really pay attention to that kind of stuff.

It makes the story for them.

Hmm.

Yeah, and I think too much description too, at least for me, slows down the pacing. You can just say she opened a Diet Coke. And I know that what happens there, you don't have to tell me that it fizzed, that 

she poured it, that she put the can down. 

 She just opened the diet Coke. That's all we need to know we assume that she's going to drink it.

Okay. I'm drinking a diet Coke right now and that fizz, that first fizz in the morning.

That's what It's 

now. Yeah. you might wanna, you might want a little description on that. Kimberly

I don't know. I, It depends, if it's champagne maybe and you're about to have

you 

sex, 

There you 

you know, 

You need to see the bubbles 

Yeah. yeah.

But I totally agree with you that sometimes it can be a little too much and I think as a reader myself, I will just gloss over that stuff. I will just be like, Yeah, that's way too much.

I don't need to know, there's gravel on the side of the road and there's a picket fence along the way and then the side of the field, there's three cows while I'm driving down the highway. I mean, that's great, but I just want to know that I'm driving down the highway through a farmland area and I can kind of get that in my head and I hope that the readers can too.

Yeah, and I think that's basically, we want them to use their imagination, so they feel immersed in the story.

Right. Unless. Those things that you're describing on that country road have something to do with the story, you know, but if they don't, you're right, you've just got to get them in that mindset and that feeling and zip on down the road.

Like a dead body under the stone wall or something.

Yeah, maybe something like that. 

Yeah. If they see that, okay, maybe that's, yeah.

Yeah, that's dead bodies, they crop up. Yeah, you know. I love it. But yeah, but going back to what Jamey was saying about making sure that you don't confuse the reader, I actually know some authors, and Jae is one of them, who will actually map out like the apartment, and the town, and, even if it's just a romance, I know people do that in fantasy, because they have to have a very detailed world that they're building, but I've yet to do a map out of an apartment complex, but I probably should sometimes, because I have them walking through courtyards, then there's no courtyard, and it's like, a little 

 That series I was talking about, the Lover's Landing series of mine, I patterned, that whole area after a place I grew up. I live near a lake, and there's a resort there that, I call it a resort. It's just a little, getaway place with cabins and a restaurant and it's right on the lake, but I mean, that's where I grew up and, it was easy.

I didn't have to draw the map like you're talking about because it's not that far from me. And I even went and took some pictures and, in my newsletter, I, shared those to try to tell people, kind of try to help them, I guess, picture it when they're reading the books.

That's always cool.

I had to do that for V.A.M.P. I didn't do as in depth as Jae, but I did have sketches Serena's penthouse looked way different than Brooke's penthouse, and also the way to get into the secret lab. I didn't want to forget that you had to push over, a big cabinet to get in and different things like that.

So I would kind of draw it, just like a sketch, like a floor plan. 

hmm. 

And that way, when I went to three a year later, I could

look at that and 

Yes. 

out, you know, what happened.

Yeah. I wish I'd 

Now see, that's where research trips can come

in, because the series I'm doing on the observatory, I went this past summer to do research and went through the tours and everything. So I don't get real, bogged down in the science of the stars in these books, because it's way over my head.

But I wanted to have a good idea of what goes on so that I could share it with my readers, and they felt like they were there.

Mm hmm. hmm.

Yeah, and I've done research trips too when I had, one of the vampires was being held captive in a cave. You can imagine a cave and you can Google it, but I really wanted to go to one. So there's a cool, cave system in Pennsylvania. So my wife and I took a trip there. And that was really fun because you got some pictures that you could use to 

Mm-hmm 

the experience.

you know, the writing.

Mm-hmm

Yeah, researching is a lot of fun, especially when you can visit, like you're saying. It's always a tax write off. You can go to Hawaii and then write a book about Hawaii. It's always a good idea. But it's also fun for the reader, like you were saying, that where they learn something. I've gotten some feedback on that as well, that they can learn something about the culture or learn something about the stars.

So they like being, taking along the journey for something like that. So setting can really help with that.

I'm excited in this book because, they talk about some different, Nebula in the sky. That's one romantic scene that's in the book. And I was able to include those kind of like an appendix in the back of the book. The characters describe it, but then they'll be actually able to see what they were seeing.

So hopefully that'll all work 

out. That's what I tried to do.

Yeah. 

That's with vellum, folks.

 all kinds of stuff like that in Vellum. Yeah, but that's cool. 

I 

ha 

out. It looks good right now. And the ARC team seems to love it. So hopefully. 

Let's talk about senses. That can be part of the setting because not only do you want the reader to see where you are, what about the other senses? How do they become involved? Do y'all use those in your settings?

Not as much as I should.

I do, I try to include the smell of something if it's important. Not just to say, you know, the rose smelled pretty, but something important to the action that's happening.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That's definitely

Yeah, I do that all the time. In this particular book, one of the, main characters is from that small town in the remote part of Texas. And so she has a sultry drawl like your friend Jamey Moody talking to you now. And so I mentioned that, several times in the book because the other main character loves it.

You never know what, my particular drawl may be offensive to some 

people's ears, but other, but some people love it. So I use that and I do, smells, but I use all of them. I try to think about the things that they're hearing, where they are, or, I just think it adds a little extra in there.

Yeah, when I first started out, I actually had a sticky note, on my monitor that told, me include the senses and that apparently has fallen on the floor somewhere. So, I haven't been doing that enough, but you're inspiring me to put a new one back up there and try to remember that maybe they do care about, you know, the weather.

I think 

it 

you know, to me, to me, you don't want to go overboard, obviously, same way with describing this setting and everything. But yeah, I 

Yeah. 

and there is a good thing.

Do you ever have your characters eat?

So yeah, sometimes.

That's another thing that people sometimes leave out. So they've been going for weeks and they've never once had something to drink or eat.

Yeah.

Yeah, mine do. sometimes I don't want to be too creative, on what they're eating. You know, some people really get off on that stuff too, if you're a chef like 

ha. 

you could probably. use that.

In one of my books, one of the characters is a foodie. So I did include some dinners where they had elaborate meal because the person was a foodie. That's an instance where you would do it. You don't do it all the time. 

Mm hmm. Right. But I think that's cool. Yeah.

So, I actually have a scene in my sports romance, Can't Fight Love, where they are in an Italian restaurant. It's kind of a key point in the book where they keep going back to this Italian restaurant and I really get into some of the descriptions of how things smell, you know, the garlic and things like that and the taste as it, rolls over the tongue.

So, I do include it more than I probably realize now that I'm thinking back on some of my books, but yeah, it's really fun to include that cause people want to have that sensory experience, but I've also noticed that sometimes the setting could actually be almost like a main character.

Like have such an impact on the story, that, for example, in my Darkness Falls series, the city of Astoria is a big piece, but also, if you think about the environment, a world without electricity, that is part of the setting, but it is so huge, it impacts every character, that it's almost more than a setting, it's almost more like a character.

Right. Weather will do the same thing. in this new release, there's a big storm that, Celeste is trying to drive through, to get to her destination. And there's a lot of thoughts she has during this storm. And, the readers going to be right there in the car with her.

 If you can describe it, you know, and so they're going to be like, Oh, are we going to make it because they're in the car with her?

And I also think the setting can help the mood. So, if it's a BDSM room for a mistress, you know, this just the way you described the room can already set the setting and what's going to happen. Or if it's a romance and it's just a sweet romance where they have, the bed with the flower petals on it and champagne or a really noisy train station for a meet cute.

Something like that.

 For sure. And next thing I was going to say is write what you know in your settings like Jamey was saying, but wow, well, Kimberly, are you writing what you know there? Some of those are very interesting settings.

Yeah. 

I did include a few of 

those. No comment. 

Yeah. Woo hoo. All right. Back to the sex episode.

We go. Oh

man. 

I wasn't going to say anything, but yeah, there's research and then there's write 

what you know. 

Exactly. 

One thing I want to point out about the setting, man, when I first started writing, I don't remember how I came about this, but if you have, towns or cities in your books, name them, even if they're 

fictional because, I mean, you just keep saying the town they're in or whatever, and you don't give it a name that seems to bother a lot of readers.

And so, yes, most of my books are set in Texas because is what I know, but I have made up, the names of towns in some of them, even though they may not appear in Texas, but they're still in the general area that gives people an idea. Yeah. Or if they're in, some of mine take place in the Dallas area.

So, it's a big Metroplex. So that tells them where they are, but name your towns.

Yeah, I cheat a lot with LA and Portland. You'll notice a lot of my books are set in Oregon because I know Oregon so well, but yeah, I do that same thing. stick to my state.

Yeah, and the same for me. I've lived in New England, Connecticut, New York . and Jersey. So, all of mine are from towns in those areas, but I changed them. So, it might be White Wittering and I'll call it Wittering or something. I'll change it just a little bit, but everyone, if you're from the area, you'll kind of catch on. Oh, she might be talking about that town. 

Mm hmm. 

Mm

Mm hmm, but I think it's important because you don't want them wondering about something or be turned off about something at the beginning of the book when you don't tell them what town you're in so I think that's important to go ahead and either do a fictional name 

of the 

name or the real name

Yeah, one of the problems with using a real name like Portland is I actually have my Ruby's Bar series, set in Portland at a gay bar, which people have actually written to me about, you know, I was looking in Portland and I can't find that bar. So like, no, you won't find that bar there. It's not a real bar. 

But that's okay. I put mine in a general area in Texas in several of my series and the one before this you I had several cameos from those other characters because they're in the

vicinity and they showed up at these places and my readers loved it. 

Hmm. Mm. They do. Mm hmm. 

So pretty much it is write what you know, because you're a much better author if you can, especially locals like my mother, for instance, she reads a lot of thrillers and she said, Oh, someone wrote a book that's set at home. And I said, they did. Cause usually hear about it in our small town.

And she's like, but they obviously did not live here. She was definitely.

And I'll just leave it at that. She just said a lot 

more and I was like, okay. I said, well, that's all right. They tried, but there are some authors out there that do an amazing job researching and then they get their ARC readers or people that they ask for people that live in the town or state that they're writing from and try to get some of the isms of the locals But I find that I'd be too afraid that I would mess it up. I don't know.

Mm hmm, mm

But you can do it because my very first book was set in the Virgin Islands and one that I released this past year was the same thing because I did a lot of research in the Virgin Islands. I would really love to go and I haven't, but I think the book was authentic 

hmm, Yeah, the nice thing is YouTube, there's travel YouTube channels for any place in the world, so, yeah, you can visit just about anywhere if you're willing to do the research. Yeah, and then on that line, when I wrote Mafia Girl, Maybe? I had to go to Calabria, so I used Google Earth. And I drove in to where the Mob is, and I wrote, what it looks like around, the, landscape and all of that. Like going through the town of where they're from. So it was, as authentic as I could make it without being in the Mob.

We don't want you in the

mob. no, thank you.

That's cool. So, there's ways to do it if you can't actually go there, That can make your book seem real.

Be real for the reader, exactly.

And don't forget the senses.

So, for next week, we're going to be talking about, how do you get your ideas for your stories?

And the question therefore is going to be, readers, what makes a plot believable for you to like the book? And are there certain things you like to see? Once again, back to, please help me figure out what I'm writing next. So, I'm just going to go back and listen to all our podcasts and figure out all the things that I've been asking the readers to tell us so I can write my next book.

But...Girl you have been to Hawaii and been on a two week road trip I know, I've said it in Sedona or something where I absolutely loved, exactly. And for authors, what's an out of the ordinary way an idea has come to you for a plot? So, let's have those. 

Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening.

Thanks everybody. Talk to you next week.

Have a great week. Bye! 

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to reach out to us, you can contact us by email at contact@threelesbiansandapen.com with the number three spelled out or on Instagram, Facebook and X at Three Lesbians and a Pen using the number three. And finally on our website, at threelesbiansandapen.com, we look forward to hearing fr