Episode 324 - Writing Ensemble Casts That Keep Readers Hooked with Jennifer Probst
Are you getting value from the podcast? Consider supporting me on Patreon or through Buy Me a Coffee!
Amazon Music | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Overcast | Castbox | Pocket Casts | Podbean | Player FM | TuneIn | YouTube
Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment on YouTube!
Jennifer Probst discusses WRITING ENSEMBLE CASTS THAT KEEP READERS HOOKED, including strategies for developing believable character relationships and chemistry, balancing primary and secondary characters in series fiction, keeping relationship arcs consistent across books, and practical craft tips for writing complex casts that keep readers engaged.
Jennifer Probst wrote her first book at twelve years old. She bound it in a folder, read it to her classmates, and hasn’t stopped writing since. She holds a masters in English Literature and lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley in upstate New York. She is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over fifty books in contemporary romance fiction. She was thrilled her book, The Marriage Bargain, spent 26 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has been translated in over a dozen countries, sold over a million copies, and was dubbed a “romance phenom” by Kirkus Reviews.
Episode Links
https://www.jenniferprobst.com
Summary & Transcript
In this episode of The Indy Author Podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with Jennifer Probst about writing and managing large ensemble casts, with a particular focus on romance fiction, multi-POV storytelling, and long-running series. They discuss how authors can balance multiple characters and relationships without overwhelming readers, and how intentional craft choices help maintain clarity, emotional impact, and reader engagement.
OVERVIEW OF ENSEMBLE CAST STORYTELLING
Jennifer explains that she is frequently drawn to ensemble casts because she enjoys exploring interconnected relationships and the dynamics of communities. Ensemble storytelling allows authors to show how characters influence one another over time, rather than existing in isolation. However, she emphasizes that this approach requires deliberate structure and planning. Without clear focus, large casts can quickly become confusing or dilute the emotional core of the story.
She notes that ensemble casts appear across genres but are especially common in romance series, where readers often enjoy seeing familiar characters reappear and evolve. She adds that romance readers frequently become invested not just in a central couple, but in a broader cast of friends, family members, and future protagonists.
FOCUSING EACH BOOK AROUND A CENTRAL STORY
A key point Jennifer stresses is that even in a large ensemble, each book must have a clear center. One primary relationship or narrative arc should anchor the story. Supporting characters may have subplots, but those elements must serve the main arc rather than compete with it. She cautions against giving secondary characters too much page time before they are ready to carry their own story, as this can weaken pacing and reader satisfaction.
Matty highlights how this approach helps readers feel grounded. Even when many characters appear, readers know whose journey they are following in that specific book. Jennifer adds that clarity of focus also helps authors avoid the temptation to resolve too many storylines at once.
MANAGING MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEW
The conversation turns to multi-POV writing, which is common in ensemble romance and series fiction. Jennifer explains that she is careful about whose point of view is included and why. Every POV must earn its place by advancing the story or deepening emotional understanding. She avoids including a character’s perspective simply because it is interesting; it must be necessary.
Jennifer also discusses techniques for keeping POV shifts clear, such as maintaining consistent voice, clearly signaling transitions, and ensuring that each POV offers new information rather than repeating what the reader already knows. Matty notes that readers can become frustrated when POVs blur together or feel redundant, especially in long series.
CHARACTER DIFFERENTIATION AND VOICE
Jennifer emphasizes the importance of distinct character voices in ensemble casts. With many characters on the page, authors must work harder to ensure that dialogue, internal thoughts, and emotional reactions are specific to each character. She explains that she often develops a strong sense of a character’s emotional wounds, desires, and worldview before writing, which helps keep voices consistent.
Matty connects this to reader trust, pointing out that when characters feel distinct, readers can follow complex interactions more easily. Jennifer agrees, noting that readers will tolerate large casts if they can immediately recognize who is speaking and why their perspective matters.
PACING AND TIMING IN SERIES FICTION
Another major topic is pacing across a series. Jennifer explains that ensemble casts often work best when characters are introduced gradually. Rather than front-loading a story with too many people, she prefers to layer characters over time, allowing readers to become familiar with them before they take on larger roles.
She also discusses the importance of timing when spinning off secondary characters into their own books. Rushing this process can feel forced, while waiting too long can lead to missed opportunities. Matty observes that successful series often strike a balance between teasing future stories and delivering a complete experience in the current book.
READER EXPECTATIONS AND GENRE CONVENTIONS
Jennifer and Matty talk about how genre expectations shape ensemble storytelling, particularly in romance. Romance readers expect emotional payoff, relationship growth, and satisfying resolutions. Ensemble casts can enhance these elements by showing how relationships evolve within a broader community, but they can also undermine them if the focus becomes scattered.
Jennifer notes that being aware of reader expectations helps guide decisions about which subplots to emphasize and which to hold back. Matty adds that clarity about genre conventions helps authors decide how experimental they can be without alienating readers.
REVISION AND BIG-PICTURE THINKING
In discussing revision, Jennifer explains that she often evaluates ensemble casts at the structural level, asking whether each character’s presence serves the story’s goals. During revision, she may reduce or eliminate scenes that pull attention away from the core narrative. Matty agrees that this kind of big-picture review is especially important in ensemble fiction, where small additions can have outsized effects.
Jennifer also mentions that tracking tools, character lists, and series bibles can help authors maintain continuity, especially across multiple books. However, she emphasizes that tools should support creativity, not replace thoughtful storytelling decisions.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON WRITING ENSEMBLE CASTS
As the conversation wraps up, Jennifer reiterates that ensemble casts are powerful but demanding. They require discipline, clear priorities, and a strong understanding of character motivation. When handled well, they can deepen reader engagement and create a sense of continuity that keeps readers returning to a series.
This transcript was created by Descript and cleaned up by Claude; I don’t review these transcripts in detail, so consider the actual interview to be the authoritative source for this information.
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Jennifer Probst. Hey, Jennifer, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Jennifer: Hi, Matty. Good. It’s so good to be back with you again.
[00:00:09] Matty: It is lovely to have you back. Just to give everyone a little reminder of who you are—Jennifer Probst is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over fifty books in contemporary romance fiction, and her book THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN spent 26 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has been translated in over a dozen countries, has sold over a million copies, and was dubbed a “romance phenom” by Kirkus Reviews.
Jennifer was my guest back in Episode 267, “Using Romance to Write Stories with Heart.” We made a passing comment in that episode that I was so interested in that I wanted to return to it, and that is the idea of managing relationships in a cast of characters. We may be using some romance examples, but I think this is going to be a conversation that really applies regardless of what genre our listeners are writing in.
Jennifer, can you start out talking a little bit about what are the special challenges related to managing relationships in a cast of characters versus a one-on-one relationship or a more limited scenario?
[00:01:17] Jennifer: Yes. I was thinking about that, because normally, especially in the romance industry, you will do a romance novel and then you’ll introduce the hero and heroine, and then you’ll have the supporting character. Usually there’s one that you’re seeding for the next book in the series—the best friend or a coworker, somebody that sparks the reader’s interest. We’re told to be very careful writing that character, which is super fun because it’s fun for the reader to be like, “Oh, I think this is going to be the next story.”
And then you go into the next story. So there’s a lead-up, and maybe then you get the shadow of the first couple—in the next book, you’d get a peek in and see how they’re doing. I think that’s the average way to write a series. There’s all sorts of different series, of course, but writing a multiple cast of characters is a totally different breed.
Actually, this conversation couldn’t have come at a better time because I am literally writing book four in this brand new indie series that I wrote just for me, because I happen to absolutely love and am addicted to these big multi-character stories—usually the younger heroes and heroines where it’s a bunch of friends in a cast, and everybody has their own plot and character arc and love interest. A lot of the times in the group, the love interests overlap and coincide. So there are love triangles, it’s done in secret—think of it more like a soap opera but in a romance book form.
That has been probably one of the most challenging and fun things, because I wrote it with no expectations. It was a side project for me, and I did it as a serial novel. It took me about a year to write the 150,000 words. I’m also a pantser, not a plotter, so I never knew—there were seven characters and each one got a point of view. I would have to figure out, okay, this is maybe the main hero and heroine for this book, but all the other ones were just as important. So I was seeding all of these multiple points of view in each chapter.
One of the books that comes to mind is DAISY JONES AND THE SIX, if you remember that—that was in an interview-form book from Taylor Jenkins Reid. She juggled a whole bunch of the characters, not just the main singers of the band but also the other people in the band and the lead singer’s other wife, and all of these relationships that were messy.
I was such a soap opera fan and I love reality TV, and I just love all of those interactions. So I figured I’m going to write my own kind of reality TV soap opera with cliffhangers. I’m writing book four right now and it’s been successful—I really didn’t go into it thinking this was going to be a bestseller or whatever. I did it for me. I did it because I didn’t see that in the market. I was looking for books like that, and since I couldn’t find them, I said, “Let me write one myself,” and put no pressure on it. For the next year or two, I decided to see where it goes and just kept continuing because I liked it.
[00:05:12] Matty: I’m very interested in the idea of seven—well, first of all, I’m interested in the idea of an odd number when it’s a romance. I’m also interested in to what extent you think you could handle that if your intent had just been to write a standalone novel. Does that level of cast of characters require a series so that you can shift your focus over a series of books to different relationships? Or do you think it’s possible to juggle all that within a single book?
[00:05:41] Jennifer: I think you could juggle it in a single book if you’ve got maybe not seven—maybe you’ve got four main characters, like two main couples with a subplot, and maybe you can do a 100,000- to 120,000-word book. The thing is, anything’s possible—that’s what I love about writing. You can’t really say, “Oh, that really can’t be done in a book.” Look, maybe Lucy Score writes it. She writes those big major small-town books with a bunch of characters, and her books are just taking off, so popular. I think anything can be done.
But what I did for the book is it was going to be a one-off. I wasn’t even going into it saying, “Hey, this is going to be a four-book series.” I just wanted to explore where it would take me with the characters. They were young and they work at this hot restaurant in New York City. They want to pursue careers like acting and modeling and the creative arts, and they’re working in this restaurant, and they all become like a family—kind of a found-family setup.
Then what happens is everybody has these different roles. She’s got an enemies-to-lovers thing with her boyfriend’s best friend, and then she finds out that her boyfriend cheated on her, so she kind of goes to the best friend for revenge. And then there’s this musical group—one guy is a DJ, and he’s been in love with one of the good girls in the group secretly, and they’re friends. It’s this interwoven mess. You have to tease out each of the stories.
I think the key here is that in order for it to be a good series or a big, meaty standalone book, each character has to have a growth arc. Because if there’s no growth arc—if where they start and where they end up doesn’t change—it’s just not going to be as much fun. So you’re not just doing the growth arc for one couple; you’re doing it for single characters and couples. That’s a lot to take on.
And then you have to have different conflicts or it’s going to be the same kind of story. Maybe one was enemies to lovers with a love triangle, but then the second one came from a very gentle, slow friends-to-lovers thing. I know I’m talking tropes and it’s not all about tropes, but that’s an easier way to classify it.
And then I had a supporting character that was the villain—nobody knew she was the villain in the group. I’ve also redeemed her in this fourth book, because who doesn’t want a villain redeemed? When you say a villain, there are so many shades of gray. So you have a little bit of everything.
The new big one is TELL ME LIES—have you heard about that one? It was based on a Carola Lovering novel, and they made it into three seasons on Hulu. It’s very messy—it’s about a poisonous love relationship that leaks into everything, but everybody has an arc. All of her friends in college, everybody’s experimenting on their own. That reminds me of DAISY JONES AND THE SIX and FRIENDS—except FRIENDS is a comedy, so it’s not angsty and dark.
[00:09:36] Matty: Some of the things you’re describing in the romance scenario, I enjoy doing too. I’m thinking of my Lizzy Ballard thriller series, because there may be five significant characters in addition to Lizzy. At some point I wanted to make sure that every significant character had a chance to interact with all the other significant characters, because I found that every combination creates interesting dynamics.
A good example: there’s a situation—the only romance that enters into the Lizzy Ballard series is there’s a man who’s dating a woman, and at some point that woman switches her affection to another man. But these two guys have to keep working together, and every time I write a scene with the two of them, it’s so much fun because there is so much to plumb there. They have reasons to resent each other beyond the romantic consideration, but they also have reasons to respect and appreciate each other. Having that large cast of characters gives so many fun opportunities for character development, character revelation—even understanding more deeply, as the creator of the character, what they’re capable of under the surface.
[00:10:45] Jennifer: Yes. I love that—it gives you more playground. And there are more emotions. I love what you just described, because there are so many emotions to plumb there. They care about each other still, but then there’s this cringe feeling and this tension, because life is messy.
That’s what you have to lean into. Yes, I write romance and yes, that comes with an innate happily ever after, but what people don’t realize is it’s still a mess. And that happily ever after is at the present, but any happily ever after—your relationship has ups and downs before you get to the altar. And then the second part happens when you’re married and that’s a whole other basket of drama and emotion. It always changes no matter what stage of life you’re in.
As writers, we need to be very curious and we need to be like armchair therapists—and be open. That’s what I’m always telling my students: pay attention to everything because it’s all fodder for the emotion and conflict and stuff in our books.
[00:11:59] Matty: I was interested to hear that your book was over a hundred thousand words, because I always think of romance as being shorter. You’re giving some great examples of your own and others’ books that are not. Is each of the books that long?
[00:12:14] Jennifer: No. So what I did is I wrote it and it just kept going and going because all of these other characters had a lot to say and they were so messy. When I got to 150,000, I said, “Okay, I’m going to split it into two books.” And there was a perfect way to do a cliffhanger. I don’t do cliffhangers in my books normally—again, this was different. I think every writer has certain times where they go, “I need to write something different.” Something that’s not too market or too calculated to get published traditionally, but something that is exciting and different and cleanses the palette.
I had no expectations for it, but since I was looking for it, I said there’s got to be a space in the market for this, even though it’s not traditionally romance. Because there’s cheating in it and it’s messy, but it is a romance—maybe just not a conventional one.
After the 150,000, I had to keep going because then there was a whole other couple to investigate, and then the villain got paired up with another villain, and now they’re having a romance. I’m like, “This is insane—I didn’t see this coming.” So I’m just having fun. It’s like my own “Guiding Light” from back in the day where I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think this is going to be the last book in the series, and then we’ll have over 200,000 words total.
Everybody can do it differently. If you’re going in with a cast of characters—like FRIENDS or something more angsty like TELL ME LIES—I think you can see it more clearly. Maybe you plan it: “I want six couples, some secondary characters, maybe a younger couple and an older couple.” I love when the grandmother or grandfather comes in and you can match them up with somebody. I did a three-arc series for an elderly character in one of my trilogies, and they got their happily ever after in the third book. So many people emailed me—I was like, “But don’t you care about the main hero and heroine?” They were like, “What’s happening with the grandmother? Is she going to hook up?” So sometimes those surprises are there in this big cast of characters.
[00:14:34] Matty: At the end of the last Lizzy Ballard book—which I’ve been working on for a ridiculously long period of time—I needed to make sure that every character had the perfect wrap-up. As I was writing, I saw the opportunity for one of the characters to potentially have a romantic interest that gets referred to in a spinoff series.
It made me think about the balance between planning relationships ahead and letting them evolve. I think FRIENDS is a great example, because I’d be curious whether the people who started that show had any idea how the relationships were going to work out over the course of the series.
The other thing I feel is probably related is that sometimes when you talk about a cast of characters, the shorthand becomes “the ditzy one, the snarky one, the smart one, the dumb one.” I always cringe a little as a creator of characters when characters are minimized that way. So I guess I’m asking: do you need to go in having a general sense of the character—like “this is going to be the snarky one, this is going to be the dumb one”—or does that evolve, and as a result do the relationships among the characters evolve?
[00:16:23] Jennifer: I love that, because wouldn’t you love to sit down with the screenwriters? TV is such great fodder for writers. You wonder—when they started with Ross and Rachel, did they have any idea they were sitting on a treasure? And then Monica and Chandler getting together—I know nobody saw that coming. That must have written its way through after season after season when they were experimenting.
Maybe with TV, actors and actresses have certain chemistry that just comes off the screen, and you have to go with it. And don’t you find the same thing with writing sometimes? There are certain characters where you have them together in your mind, and then there are these surprises where you’re like, “Why does this feel like there’s chemistry between these two? Why doesn’t this feel right?” It’s that gut instinct.
So I think it’s a little bit of both—you can plot up to a certain point but then leave room for the surprises. I wonder: if you plotted everything out and it didn’t feel right on the page, you would probably pivot. You would probably go back to your outline and completely change everything. So you’re never written into a corner, I don’t think, if it’s not working.
What you said about cliched characters is so true. You constantly have to push back on that, because with a big cast of characters, it is so easy to fall into the ditzy blonde best friend, the really smart guy, the jock. But what I like to do is take that broad, awful cliche and then twist it.
When I started writing the Red series, I knew I wanted to have the Barbie-and-Ken couple—the gorgeous one who was always captain of the cheerleading team, has a million followers, everything seems easy because she’s beautiful and privileged. They call them the queen and the king of the club. But my whole point was to take that shallow cliche and start fragmenting and dissecting it. You start to see into her past—her father left to have another family, her mom is an alcoholic, she’s really been raising herself. She has all these issues. You start dismantling all of that to get to the real meat of the character.
Then I introduce another character who allows her vulnerability on the page. The hero gets to see it, we get to see it. Start with something that would make us cringe and then surprise us. Those are the best kinds of stories, I think.
[00:19:42] Matty: As you’re describing the idea of pivoting if you’re a plotter—I’m definitely a plotter, or a “framer” as I like to say. But I realize that’s not true for the romantic relationships. Going back to the two guys where the woman shifts her affections—as I was writing her relationship with the first guy, it became clear to me that they were together because there was an expectation among their families that they would be, and they respected each other and liked each other, but it wasn’t a sparky relationship. I kind of felt this was not going to pan out.
Then when the plot threw her in with one of the other characters—someone who on the surface was an even worse match—I thought, “That’s what would happen.” It wasn’t that the plot was dependent on them getting together; it was just going to be a satisfying or dissatisfying thing for the reader. And it was fun to say, “Oh yeah, of course in that situation these two people are going to find an attraction, fall in love, find ways to stay together.” I never thought about it before, but from a plotting point of view, I’m very much a plotter. From a romantic-relationships-developing point of view, I’m totally a discovery writer.
[00:21:11] Jennifer: That’s so cool, because I think in our culture, we just love all-or-nothing labels. “Oh, you’re a plotter or you’re a pantser.” But you just proved that there’s so much more nuance. You pants and feel your way through the romance, but then you plot the plot. That’s a combination.
I think it’s easier to classify—”I’m a morning writer, I’m a plotter”—we start with that, but there are so many surprises within. As we all know, each book is its own challenge. Only writers know that you can write 60 books and the 61st one will feel like you’ve never written a book before. I don’t think there’s any other career like that. That’s what makes it so interesting and challenging yet hard—you feel like you start all over and you’ve got to trust those instincts.
[00:22:25] Matty: It’s also interesting that the experience changes over a series. When I was writing the first book in either of my series, I didn’t know what these people were going to do. But by book three or four, it’s pretty clear what they are or are not going to do. So the further you go along, there’s that sense that the character is telling you what to do. And I think over time that’s true—even from a very practical point of view, if you get to book four, you can’t force a character to do something that’s completely out of character just to serve a plot need, unless you give them that legitimate backstory, like you were saying about the homecoming queen who proves herself to be a more complex person than the reader might first expect.
[00:23:15] Jennifer: Writing a series or a big book with multi characters is the same as binging a series. Readers and viewers will get very upset if suddenly—”I’ve watched this, I’m on season two now, I know who this character is”—and if they do something different, it feels false. So you have to kind of write your way through until you know those characters inside and out.
For me, it comes with the more I write them. When I write a book, I don’t really know—I only have a basic idea of what I want. I figure out exactly who that person is by the end, and then I’m super excited because I go back to the beginning and I know—”Oh, she wouldn’t do that,” or “This scene is wrong”—because now I know everything about them. So for me, the first draft is a discovery, and then I can write it perfectly because I know who they are.
[00:24:11] Matty: So I think the FRIENDS thing came up because when we were talking about writing romance, we had gotten into a conversation about FRIENDS versus MOONLIGHTING.
[00:24:24] Jennifer: Yes, we did. Are we showing our age? I don’t care.
[00:24:29] Matty: I think the context in the first episode was that FRIENDS worked in a way that MOONLIGHTING did not, mainly because once the main characters of MOONLIGHTING got together, nobody really cared anymore.
[00:24:44] Jennifer: It fell flat. I think a lot of those older series—the show would drop every week, and everybody tuned in for the kiss. Even CHEERS—remember Sam and Diane? The kiss, the kiss. How many seasons? And then it’s so delicate—you watch the ones that fall apart and they just can’t salvage it.
That was what we were questioning: what makes one thing work and the other one feel like, “Okay, this is just boring now—they’re together.” I think a couple of things come into play, like growth arcs. They’ve got to go from one set of challenges—which is usually the first book in a romance—to something new. They’re together, they kissed, they’re in a relationship, but now you’ve got to raise the stakes. That relationship has to be threatened.
I felt like with MOONLIGHTING, after they got together, it was the same stuff. When they fought, it didn’t even feel fun anymore because they were together and it felt like they were fighting to stay together. That wasn’t as much fun as trying to get together. So the spark has to continue with more conflict, another growth arc, another challenge. It just has to change. If it doesn’t change—if the leveling up isn’t good—it’s just going to fall flat.
[00:26:30] Matty: And how long can you string them along? At some point you just have to give in. But what I started thinking about was that MOONLIGHTING might have been more successful if it had been more of a cast of characters.
What I was thinking about was SEX AND THE CITY. Probably everyone figured Carrie would get together with Mr. Big at the end—I regretted it, but I may be in the minority. But watching her date all these other people, where everybody in the audience was saying, “Oh no, he’s a jerk” or “No, no, he’s great—don’t dump him for Mr. Big again”—the cast of characters can maintain the interest longer than it was maintained in MOONLIGHTING.
[00:27:18] Jennifer: Oh my gosh, how could I forget about SEX AND THE CITY? There you go—it’s a multiple, you get all the characters. You have these women, and Carrie is maybe the lead, but everybody cares about everyone and they all have their time to shine with different conflicts and coming together.
You are right, because that gives more balance, more conflict, more room to grow. I bet if MOONLIGHTING had another couple or really great supporting characters with their own conflicts, it could have supported another dynamic the way FRIENDS did, because you had Monica and Chandler and everybody had a different couple to root for. When one maybe got a little stale or needed to wait for a while, we were never bored.
[00:28:05] Matty: That’s pointing out something important—you don’t want every relationship pegged at ten all the time. FRIENDS is a great example: while one set of characters’ relationships was being really fraught, somebody else’s relationship was more stable. So the screenwriters could shift the audience’s focus from couple to couple and not have relationship exhaustion the way MOONLIGHTING might have created.
[00:28:37] Jennifer: That is so true. Variety—and that’s why I think it’s really hard for writers doing something like FIFTY SHADES OF GREY or the Crossfire series, where it’s three or four books with one couple. You’ve got them together at the end of book one, and now you’ve got to constantly change the dynamic of the relationship so the reader stays interested enough to be like, “Okay, can they get to marriage? Can they get here?”
When you have more characters to pull from, I think there are more opportunities to pull threads and follow them.
[00:29:29] Matty: Another lesson I’m learning from our conversation that’s applicable to the Lizzy Ballard book in process: this would be the last Lizzy-focused book, and as I was working on the draft, I kept being pulled into the stories of other characters—many of the scenes focused on this character who’s going to become the star of his own spinoff. I kept thinking, “This is a Lizzy Ballard thriller—I have to have Lizzy in every scene.”
But then I thought, maybe not. If I’m easing readers into something else, it makes sense that the drama of Lizzy’s story would tail off because that’s her goal—to have the drama of her life tail off. And the drama can shift to another character. Whether it’s a romance shifting focus to another person’s relationship, or a thriller shifting to another person’s ongoing story—that’s the benefit of having a cast of characters you can shift attention to.
[00:30:39] Jennifer: That’s such a great point. That’s what we were talking about—the plotting versus the instinctual. You were like, “Lizzy has to be in this scene,” because that’s what we’re told. And then your instinct was, “But no, because I’m going to be pulling her back.” And it felt right.
I did that with the Red series. The first 150,000 words—the first two books—were basically this one couple with everybody else, but I started to narrow in on the main pair and feed in everything else. Then they went to L.A. and I got them off the page. Now this other couple comes front and center—the villain and the slow friends-to-lovers love triangle.
In this final one, my first hero and heroine are back in New York and everything has imploded. Everybody slept with everybody else and lied to everybody else—there’s a reckoning. And now I get to decide where these relationships are going to go. I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it’s a lot of fun figuring it out. Sometimes you can pull back and it’s okay, because the other characters can step forward and take center stage.
[00:32:11] Matty: That’s interesting—the benefits of working with a cast of characters through a series, but then as you’re nearing the end, you have to think of a way to wrap it up. You can’t just stop. There has to be that reckoning, the perfect resolution for every character based on their history and personalities. You don’t have to know what that reckoning looks like from the beginning, but you always have to keep in the back of your mind that there has to be that scene where the resolution is achieved for all the characters.
[00:32:53] Jennifer: Yes, and it’s got to be satisfying. I kind of know who I want to stay together and who I don’t, but I tend to sometimes write toward an ending. I had done that with one of my Italy books—the developmental editor read it and said, “Oh my God, Jen, this is terrible. If she chooses A, this is going to happen, and if B...” And she said, “I don’t like it—what’s going to happen?” And I said, “I don’t know.” She said, “No!” But I had to write to the end to figure it out. Some writers have to do it that way, and some writers have the vision from the beginning.
[00:33:43] Matty: The one thing about FRIENDS that I’m very relieved about is I’m glad they didn’t make all the characters couples. I’m glad they didn’t have Phoebe and Joey become a couple, because what felt right for those characters was for them not to become a couple. It would have been too tidy.
[00:34:04] Jennifer: A little forced, right? I totally agree. Sometimes it’s okay—you can get your happy ever after not in a couple, because the happy ever after can be finding yourself, or going to your next challenge, or realizing you’ve healed. There are so many other ways of getting that satisfaction that don’t have to be “we are in love.”
[00:34:31] Matty: I think it was really healthy that they didn’t imply that everybody has to be a couple to be happy. Having a cast of characters gives you the opportunity to break a trope with a particular character in a way that balances out the expectations readers bring because of the genre.
[00:34:54] Jennifer: Definitely. And it’s exactly what you said with the mystery series—each genre has the reader expectations. We can play with edges, we can go past the edges. But I think knowing what you’re getting into—”Okay, this is going to satisfy genre expectations and be a little easy” or “I’m going to challenge things and push”—it’s going to work or it’s not, or maybe it’s going to work for a smaller niche.
I like not being afraid of stepping outside when you need to write something different, even if it’s a risk. I want to be doing this until I’m in my rocking chair to my last day and the pen falls from my hand. You have to find ways to challenge yourself to keep growing.
[00:35:49] Matty: So great. Well, Jen, I can’t think of a nicer way to wrap up our conversation about casts of characters—with that inspirational note. Please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:35:59] Jennifer: Yes, I will direct you straight to my website, jenniferprobst.com. You’ll get a free book if you sign up for my newsletter, and there are lots of freebies and fun things. I also do a whole section for writers—if you’re a writer, new or advanced or in the middle, I’ve got you covered with a lot of stuff there. So go there. And then of course I’m on every social media available, and I do message and respond to everything.
[00:36:24] Matty: Great. Thank you so much.
[00:36:26] Jennifer: Thank you so much, Matty. Good to be here.