Episode 177: Book Lovers by Emily Henry

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Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re thrilled to share a conversation talking about one of our favorite romance reads – Emily Henry’s Book Lovers.

A witty, multi-layered, and thoughtful love letter to stereotypical rom-com villainesses (like Patricia Eden from You’ve Got Mail and Meredith Blake in The Parent Trap) as well as a meta romance on books themselves, the story focuses on the driven and deep-rooted city lover book agent Nora Stephens, who has been dumped multiple times by men who found their happily ever afters in a small town. At risk of falling into her own story trope cliché, her sister suggests they go on a small-town trip of their own to a place called Sunshine Falls for Nora to have her very own small-town experience. But once there, she keeps unexpectedly running into her nemesis in the book industry, editor Charlie Lastra.

In this episode, we talk a lot about the delightful and sharp dialogue. Things likes:

  • That the dialogue back-and-forths are never direct responses that could be assumed or that are expected. Instead it’s like a tennis match where the responses have a spin, go deep, or are a little askew – which keeps it fresh and surprising for the reader.

  • The nuances in the responses from the secondary characters to Nora’s dry and slightly off-beat sense of humor reveals a lot about characters actual and potential relationship dynamics. It’s a great signal that shows the differences but also the bond between Nora and her sister Libby, the similarities of mind between Nora and Charlie, and the disconnect with someone when the sharp quips fall flat.

  • Little things - from inside jokes to small details that at first seem to have little significance come back around and pay off later in the story or are dug into further over time to reveal character. They may start off as things that feel like they’re throwaway, but they’re used to help develop the story over time and establish and deepen character rapport.  

Towards the end of the conversation, we talk about the wonderful and complex sister relationship between Nora and Libby that makes up the heart of this story and how authentic that felt – both the tension and the love. We feel this is a great book for studying how to believably establish and develop character relationships and writing great dialogue.

As we close this episode, Fable mentions how Emily Henry’s dialogue reminds us of Nora Ephron films like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. We also are preparing a class on dialogue using these films as examples, which we plan to share on March 2nd at 10am AZ time. We’ll share more details on our Instagram as we get closer to time, but we hope you join us!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Fable mentions how much she enjoyed Emily Henry’s YA speculative novels. Here are those titles in order of publication:

Fable mentions some dialogue writing advice Emily Henry shared on “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing” podcast. That episode is:

As we close this episode, Fable mentions how Emily Henry’s dialogue reminds us of Nora Ephron films like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail. We also are preparing a class on dialogue using these films as examples which we plan to share on March 2nd at 10am AZ time. We’ll share more details on our Instagram as we get closer to time, but we hope you join us!

We’ve talked about Emily Henry’s YA speculative adventure story When the Sky Fell on Splendor on a previous podcast episode. That episode is:

Books and Movies Mentioned:

 

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

book clubBethany Stedman