Today’s special guest is author Emma Barry and we’re chatting about her new humor-filled romance, Funny Guy.
Bio:
Emma Barry is a teacher, novelist, recovering academic, and former political staffer. She lives with her high school sweetheart and a menagerie of pets and children in Virginia, and she occasionally finds time to read and write.
Emma’s mission statement about her books is here, and here’s where to start with her backlist. You can subscribe to her newsletter here.
Welcome, Emma. Please tell us about your current release.
In Funny Guy, Sam is a successful comedian who does standup and appears on a sketch comedy show that tapes on Saturday nights in New York (maybe you’ve seen it?). His life gets turned upside down when his ex-fiancée releases a hit song extolling all his flaws to the world.
Besieged by media attention, Sam decides to wait out the storm on the couch of his childhood best friend, Bree. But while they’ve been inseparable for more than 20 years, there are two things that Bree has never told Sam: she’s applied for her dream job across the country and she’s in love with him.
But as the two of them are stuck in her tiny apartment together, all their hidden feelings will emerge and everything will change.
What inspired you to write this book?
I love songs that absolutely skewer the singer’s ex. Is there any more devastating pop lyric than, “You gave away the things you loved, and one of them was me” from “You’re So Vain”? But I’d always considered the matter from the perspective of the singer.
One day, something flipped, and I began to wonder what it would be like to be the object of such a song, especially if you were a public figure and everyone was pointing and laughing at you. The book grew out of that seed.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When my third novel came out and received a nice review in Publishers Weekly…and my publisher passed on my option material in the same week. I went from a high high to a low low, and that was when I realized I wanted to keep writing and marketing books. Writing went from something I was doing for fun to something that was part of my identity.
How do you research markets for your work, perhaps as some advice for not-yet-published writers?
I try to follow interesting people on social media, and I pay attention to the flow of their conversations about their reading and writing. I pick up books on their recommendations, and I sometimes talk my writer friends into reading them with me so that we can pick apart their craft. I also skim the Amazon bestselling romance page a few times a month. Sometimes the books that sell well and the books that are buzzy are not the same ones.
But while commercial writers have to understand trends and be able to talk about their work in relation to the market, the most important thing is to develop your own voice and taste and your distinctive brand. With commercial fiction, we’re all swimming in the same tropes. How can you tell differently from anyone else? That’s what matters.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I frequently write a dialogue-only version of scenes first, and then I go back and fill in the description, inner monologue, and action. I layer those bits into the conversation, dialing them back and forth until the scene is properly full.
Maybe I should write screenplays instead?
What type of project are you working on next?
I’m going out on submission with a contemporary romance series set during a film festival that I’m really excited about, and I’m picking away at a dark academic romance with romantic suspense overtones. It’s moody and cinematic, and I’m having a wonderful time writing it.
Links:
Website |Kindle/KU | Audible | Books2Read | Goodreads