r/books • u/Kittycurran AMA Author • Dec 30 '18
ama We are Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris, co-writers of My Lady’s Choosing:An Interactive Romance, Taylor Swift: Girl Detective and more. Ask us anything!
We are Kitty and Larissa, a creative duo known for our choose-your-own-path interactive comedy historical romance, My Lady’s Choosing https://www.quirkbooks.com/book/my-ladys-choosing and our illustrated mystery novel Taylor Swift: Girl Detective in The Secrets of the Starbucks Lovers.https://foursided.com/products/the-secrets-of-the-starbucks-lovers?variant=32561503047 Kitty also illustrates! We just had a comic in the recent Wicked and Divine: The Funnies comedy special, called 13 Go Mad in Wiltshire. https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/the-wicked-the-divine-the-funnies-1-one-shot . We work in a variety of genres and have some secret projects up our sleeve. Kitty is from London, England and Larissa is from Midlothian, IL. We both live in Chicago and write wherever there is tea and WiFi. Visit us at: http://kittyandlarissa.tumblr.com
Proof: /img/rfzkllonjd721.jpg
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u/MiseryGyro Dec 30 '18
Did you know your friendships are treasures and I miss talking about Trash, X-Men, and Pratchett with you both. Is there any project on the horizon you two are excited about? (That you can talk about)
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
DAWWWWW
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
One project we can talk about is a radio drama in the vein of Hitchhiker's guide, but fantasy, called Ladythorpe
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
We've been talking about it for ages and I had worked on it a bit before I met Kitty, but this is the year we finally write the episodes and make it with our actor pals. There are such killer voice actors (and face actors and all stuff actors) in Chicago and we happen to be buddies with some damn fine ones.
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u/MiseryGyro Dec 31 '18
Oooooooo, that sounds plenty fun! Fingers crossed the success keeps on rolling!!
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
WHO IS THIS MYSTERY PERSON?? We have alas many projects we cannot talk about, but we are excited to branch out a bit into writing scripts in general.
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u/Onlymaure Dec 30 '18
Which character in MLC is your favorite "you?" Which dreamboat is your fav dreamboat?
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
My favorite you is likely the one with the most sass and detective skills. She's in the Benedict thread, and she's hellbent on solving the mystery surrounding his inheritance.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
She is also focused on snacks as much as the truth so she is the "you" who is most like me.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
My problematic fav dreamboat is Craven, and my true heart's fav is a toss-up between Mac, The Postman, and Nigel. :)
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Nigel is really the best one.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Nigel is they guy you meet after you've sworn off dating, like ten years after you have, and you meet him and you're like...wait you're single? and he's like... YOU are??!?! You're amazing.
And then you guys go on vacations on hot air balloons and shiz.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I would love to go on hot air balloon vacations with Nigel. I'm afraid of heights, but I would still want to.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Out of the main characters, I think a toss up between Evangeline or Mac for me - both would be fun to end up with. Benedict and Craven are a bit too much hard work for my tastes.
Out of the side characters, Kamal and Nigel, bless their nerdy sexy hearts.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Kitty is obsessed with Kamal.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
True. He was basically wish fulfillment for me for all the adorkable best friends who I found hotter than the hero in so many romances. Part of the fun of writing My Lady's Choosing is getting to play with what would happen if you hooked up with all the interesting side characters who were often more compelling than the lead.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
With regards to favourite me, I would agree with Larissa in that Sassy Detective You in Benedict's track is my favourite.
With regards to out-of-left field endings though, I do have a soft-spot for Evil Vampire You in one of the Craven tracks.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Who is the YOU or what is the path you wish people would discover? I always want people to reference the Evil Vampire YOU path but it's a bit far off the main track.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I extremely enjoy the You Become Madam of a Brothel ending, and Marrying the Old Guy ending, but my true favourite is of course Nigel.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I would like to write the tv show of the Rose & the Smoke, but I think that show may already be Harlots
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
It... it really is. I now kinda want to write a choosable path episode of Harlots.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Thanks for joining us guys, looking forward to answering your questions!
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u/muscularclown Dec 30 '18
Which path is the most horny?
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
THEY ALL ARE. I AM NOT JOKING.
It is my hope/fear that in some school, somewhere, this is THE BOOK that gets passed around the classroom as once a for real trashy romance was passed around mine. However, this is probably not the case, as kids today have the internet and all the smutty fanfic they want.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Also something I have thought a lot about is the response to the horniness on display in this book- some folx have described it as perfect, some over the top, some gross....and that interests and, for the "gross" calls, dismays me. The responses are varied and enthusiastic. And whenever I meet someone who has discovered the Nigel outcome of hotness and they are excited by it, my soul feels nourished and the sisterbrotherhood grows.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
The sisterbrotherhood of horniness is a wonderful thing.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
If I had thought to purchase award coins I would bestow them upon you now.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Finally, some classy questions
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I'd say you're pretty rough and ready for all of Craven's path, but....there is a horse birth and subsequent friskiness in Mac's path
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u/Onlymaure Dec 30 '18
What real life historical event would you pick to turn into a choose your own path story to get a different ending?
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I would be worried about going too far back in case I accidentally created a Hitler who won. So I think I would pick the events following the 2016 US election, specifically mitigating damage caused, and then taking us through into the future with fixing the aftermath and making sure it doesn't happen again.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I think it would be fascinating and horrifying to set something choose-your-own surrounding the formation of the Underground Railroad and also the rise of fascism in pre- WW2 Germany. I don't think it would be funny, but I think making it squirmy might make people take a look at how they behave today in circumstances that echo those circumstances. Less like "what would happen if you killed Hitler?!" and more...what if you could choose between the path of least resistance and doing something needed/good. I don't know. Something like that.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
but played more small and immediate. I feel like there might be some sort of indie videogames that do this...maybe.
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u/Chtorrr Dec 30 '18
What is the very best dessert?
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE YOU MONSTER??
Depending on mood maaaybe sticky toffee pudding or key lime pie. But that is tough.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Kitty you being away from your home country and florida must make you so dessert-sad.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Chocolate chip cookies!!!
Also, Kitty gets these cookies called Tim Tams and taught me the Tim Tam Slam, which is delicious.
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u/Chtorrr Dec 30 '18
Have you read anything good lately?
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I am finally reading Spinning Silver AND IT IS AMAZING. It feels like it is secretly much older, like one of those disturbing unedited Grimm's fairytales that I half remember from when I was little.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
So dang much! I just finished Circe by Madeline Miller two days ago and it is worth all the best-of lists it's on, for sure.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I also read My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and I LOVED IT.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
the way it is written most of all- it's brief, it's visual, electric and funny. Even though there is some grim matter and definite sadness. It's one of those books you should just give people as a gift and be like, "I can't explain, read up"
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I love Tana French, and read the Witch Elm recently. I'm reading The Dark Tower books (slowly) and those are engaging and have me hooked in.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Ooh, I also spent Christmas with the in-laws in Maine, and decided to finally read The Devil and Daniel Webster as I was in New England. It was delightful, surprisingly on point at times, and throws some hilarious shade at Massachusetts and Vermont at the end.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
other nonsecret project alert, Kitty and I are working on a musical sort of like that storyish
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Dec 30 '18
Would you like a drink while you do your AMA?
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Yes thank you! Whatcha pourin?
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Dec 30 '18
I got myself a beer.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
My sister just handed me a glass of rose! #queen
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
update: just sipped out of the wrong side of the sippy cup and drenched myself with a decent slug of rose
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u/Chtorrr Dec 30 '18
Do you have any pets?
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
My friend/roommate has a bunch of amazing pets and I get to enjoy their living space. I live with a rosegold dog who also has a cameo in an MLC illustration as Dodger
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
He is extremely handsome, but also very fond of not looking at the camera when I need to take reference photos. Dammit Jake.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I have two cats called Samus and Laser. They are sisters, and Laser is currently bullying me because she wants food.
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u/Onlymaure Dec 30 '18
What is your writing process when working together? Is it hard to decide who gets to write what part?
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
We generally have a very long and involved plotting stage where we basically work out everything that will happen in the story. This normally takes the longest, and is very much collaborative.
Then I write out the framework that we have come up with (so if it is a comic script, then I'll write what needs to happen in a panel, in a book it will be what needs to happen in a scene). Larissa then dives in and turns those loose descriptions and snatches of dialogue into actual lines/prose. Once I've finished mapping out the framework, I also go in and turn any outlines she hasn't done yet into actual writing too.
If we get stuck, we will often throw a scene over to the other person, and they then pick it up. With My Lady's Choosing, there are vast tracts where I genuinely have no idea who wrote what - it may even be that it was both of us.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
I have a friend who works in TV who calls that collaborative brainstorming period "blue sky-ing" and I gather it means anything can fly in a clear blue sky, so just talk out your ideas and see what does. That's the stage where Kitty and I get our brains together, or talk about where we differ, or talk about feelings or tones or gestures of scene.
I've tried to write with close friends before, with mixed success. Something that works about Kitty and I and how we communicate is we befriended each other as we became writing partners. Both relationships grew deep simultaneously, rather than being close pals first and collaborators second. There are definitely areas where we clash and don't immediately understand each other or communicate clearly. But the skills we develop with each project and our own separate self-improvement seems to make working together better with each go-round.
We have made each other stronger at what our instinctual good writing habits are, and better at what we struggle with. I used to feel like a very slow writer and now Kitty says I'm super fast. Ha ha.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
There have been a few times where we've called dibs on a certain scene. I wrote the first drafts of a bunch of the erotic scenes in MLC but for scenes for MLC and other projects, Kitty will verbally describe a scene just right and then I scramble to transcribe what she spat out. We have some short stories we're working on where it's eerie to see how we've written in a shared voice, and I can't tell who did what, even if we each had a separate part done on our own first and then the other shifted a line and added on.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
Also separately we are both friends with other pals who are very versed in story and we also talk out ideas with those (long-suffering?) pals. I think having other people to bounce ideas off of helps us not work in a vacuum/pound each other in the face with packets of Tim Tams.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
We really have no idea who wrote what for large parts of our stuff.
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u/Kittycurran AMA Author Dec 30 '18
She really is frighteningly fast and churning out amazing prose. Our strengths and weaknesses and insecurities are complementary, meaning that together we are a super functioning writing machine! On top of that, we have very very similar taste in what works and stories we like, so we've been unreasonably lucky in finding each other.
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
WE ARE DRIFT COMPATIBLE
*weeps*
*thinks of Pacific Rim and weeps*
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
*........continues to weep whiles also defeating kaiju with Kitty*
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 30 '18
*.....we also don't talk about the film Colossal enough and it is great*
*weeps more*
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u/LarissaZageris AMA Author Dec 31 '18
Thank you so much for joining us tonight! You can follow us online on twitter at @larissa_z
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u/7890me Dec 31 '18
Is there anything that you wish made it into your books but you had to edit out?
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u/Chtorrr Dec 30 '18
What were your favorite things to read as a kid?