In part one of this series, graphic novelist and literary agent Tori Sharp shared tips on pitching to publishers, how story guides design and the challenge of creating honest art.
Now, in part two, Tori talks about stories as “sense-making” devices, urges the importance of “celebration breaks” during long projects and shares her experience as an autistic artist.
Once again, our production coordinator, Mari Gonzalez Curia, who is currently seeking representation for her first original graphic novel, joins me as co-host…
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This is the second in a two-part series.
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Chris: How does your role as an agent change the way you think about that pitching process you went through with Just Pretend?
…but also I’m curious if it affects the way you see things for Stand Up!
Tori: There’s something so special about being on submission for your first book.
The first time, when I got the call that I had an offer, I spent all day walking around and crossing the street and I don’t think I even looked to see if there were cars.
Chris: Oh my!
Tori: It’s like you’re floating.
I was like, “Okay, something really good happened, let’s make sure to not die.”
Chris: Yeah, right.
Magical Or Terrifying?
Tori: It’s becoming so normal to me to pitch and to have either my projects out or projects for my clients that it’s nice to be in contact with these clients and to remember how excited they are about it.
It’s like when people are afraid of flying…
…and then you get on a plane and you look at the flight attendants and it’s the most normal day of their life.
When I think about my clients or anybody who’s having all of this anxiety about pitching, I wish I could give them a little of that sense of normalcy about it.
Chris: Hmm. Yeah.
Tori: I don’t want to dull the excitement and the emotions of it because it’s such, like, a vibrant part of the experience and of life.
…but nervousness makes us suffer, too, along the way.
…where it might be helpful if that was a little quieter and if we just thought of it as a job that some people do and a job that we want to do that’s not a guarantee but just as ordinary as anything else that we could do with our lives.
I want it to feel magical but I also want it to not be terrifying
[LAUGHTER]
Shouldn’t You Be More Excited?
Chris: Yeah.
Fairly recently I did a visual development job for Sony Pictures Animation and I got to work on the protagonist for this movie that’s not announced yet.
Tori: Oh, wow.
Chris: I was thinking about how…
It wasn’t quite this thought in my head, but it was a little bit like, “Shouldn’t you be more excited?”
…and I was excited about the personal relationships. That was more of what was making me feel enthusiastic about the project.
…and I kept thinking, “If twenty-six-year-old Chris was told that he was gonna be designing the protagonist of a Sony Pictures Animation movie – the same studio that made Surf’s Up (which I think is one of the most beautifully designed animated films ever)…”
I don’t know. I would explode or something.
It would just be this amazing thing.
…and it is an amazing thing, but my initial reaction was more about, “Okay, what’s the prompt? We’ve got a job to do.”
…and I guess I should also add that, from a personal perspective, I also was not freaking out either.
…because that’s the other extreme, right?
I could have also had all this worry about, “Oh my god, but it’s the protagonist. Oh, no, this is too much pressure,” and all the things that could go wrong amplified because it’s a more important character and on and on…
…and that wasn’t there either.
…not “just another day at work.”
…not quite that normal.
…but, you know, game face.
Tori: Yeah, it can help us slide into the work with less resistance, which is really nice.
It is that vibrancy of life that I worry about dulling though.
Taking Celebration Breaks:
Tori: When I realized that my reaction to selling my most recent book was fairly muted (I think I was more viscerally excited in the moment about getting into a new D&D group than I was about selling a new graphic novel)…
…and I was like, “Okay, wait, let’s think about this.”
…because one of them is definitely a higher priority to me.
…but is not as new. So I’m not freaking out about it as much.
I feel like I am trying to do a better job of intentionally sitting back and letting myself feel what it means to me to get to continue this as a career.
…especially because my goal with doing comics was never to sell a graphic novel.
I was always thinking of it as, “I want to be a career graphic novelist.”
Each book helps me achieve that dream.
Chris: Right.
Tori: I have a friend in my writing critique group who’s really good about this.
I can get so in my head about all of the little details and really get my game face on (like you were talking about) and she’ll stop me and just be like, “Wow, this is huge. You really need to just luxuriate on your laurels.”
She’ll say stuff like that.
That’s a great reminder that we can help along those feelings of pride.
…which do have a place in helping us continue to be satisfied in jobs like this and keep that passion alive and keep the work sustainable.
Chris: That’s amazing.
What a great friend to speak a truth like that in a way that’s respectful and communicated in a way that’s in your best interest.
…and that’s special to have friends like that.
Multiple times throughout my life, I’ve realized I’m not celebrating enough.
I have certain friends who were like, “Let’s have a party,” when they accomplished something.
…and I’ve already been thinking about the next project or the next goal before I was even eighty percent of the way toward the one that I just accomplished.
This is something I’ve really tried to do and I forget seventy percent of the time still, but at least thirty percent of the time, I remember to slow down and just celebrate.
Just get out of the studio, go outside, go have lunch at our favorite restaurant or whatever it is…
Try and just take a moment and mark that moment.
Why “Get Out Of The House” Is Good Writing Advice:
Tori: I think moments like that are part of writing, too.
If there’s a part of our brain that’s saying, like, “We shouldn’t slow down or stop or, even take the time to celebrate,” I like to remember that you have to get away from your studio to find things to write about.
If we want to feel the stories of our own lives playing out and understand how to write about that kind of thing for characters, it’s helpful to actually observe them and be mindful about them.
We read a whole book to get to the end where the characters succeed at something and to feel those, like, “full circle” moments.
Chris: Yeah, we need the celebratory moment at the end of the movie.
We need the montage of the Ewoks playing the Stormtrooper helmets like drums.
…not just the Death Star blows up and then: Cut. Roll credits.
Stories As “Sense-Making” Devices:
Mari: Your first graphic novel, you said that it’s a story about using story as a healthy escape, and that’s something I really loved.
…and in this new one, it feels like comedy.
It’s a thing that the characters use to connect and to make sense of things and to help each other through difficult times.
Tori: Yeah, yeah.
Mari: …and it’s something that I really love to see and it really resonates.
I’m just curious about your thoughts on story and comedy as ways of sense-making and connecting and making life more special.
Tori: Yeah, it puts the tools in the individual’s hands if you give them the ability to process what’s going on in their lives through mediums that make them happy.
So, it was a huge part of Just Pretend. It, essentially, was in the theme.
…this element of escaping into stories and the tension between escapism and addressing what’s going on in our lives.
I think it’s probably going to be a part of all of the work that I do. I’m working on a third project and, now that you’re mentioning it, it’s making me think, “Yeah, that is a common thread between all of the books and something that I feel like is super important.”
…and it’s like a different kind of creativity in each book, a different therapeutic tool that’s very positive and enriching.
I would hope that readers would take it in stride and feel inspired to branch out into whatever kind of creativity helps them feel more able to approach their emotions and that can be playing the drums or being on stage in theater or comedy or writing or reading.
Neurodivergence & Artistic Development:
Tori: A big part of why this is so important to me is probably because I grew up neurodivergent and not realizing it. So, finding out that I’m autistic and that I have ADHD later in life made sense of a lot of this.
I felt like the world around me was very perplexing and everybody was even speaking a different language and that story offered this structure that I could put the situations into and work through them personally to try to understand and cope.
It is like an exercise for learning how to communicate what’s going on inside of ourselves with the people around us to honor that they probably do want to understand and help a lot of the time, and that a lot of the miscommunications that happen could be avoidable.
It’s at least worth giving it a chance.
When I was growing up, I didn’t feel like a lot of the people in my life or my educators were very focused on teaching how to communicate.
…which, I think, is getting a little more attention these days from what I can see of people talking about working with kids or different parenting styles, which I think could be really positive.
So, hopefully, all of my books will help add to that conversation about how there are different methods that certain people might need to communicate, right?
…because nothing is one-size-fits-all.
So we need to give a range of different tools that kids can use to figure all this stuff out.
Good Teachers Are Good Listeners:
Chris: I quote my dad all the time about this, but he says, “Teach the student first and the subject second.”
Tori: Oh, I love that.
Chris: The student first and the subject second…
…and I live by that, personally.
…and that’s always the way, right?
A curriculum is not one-size-fits-all.
You have to listen to the student and you have to invest in them emotionally as well as professionally. When you do that, you make that empathetic connection, you can start to create knowledge together, collaboratively.
Tori: Yeah, we have to listen in order to teach.
The People Who Can Only Hear Your “Voice”:
Tori: …and that’s very in line with something I’ve heard a few times on your podcast: “There’s someone out there who can only hear your voice.” That’s something that’s stuck with me so deeply.
Thinking about all of the books that I write, I feel like I can’t give the tools that will work for everyone.
…and that’s not my job.
I’m trying to reach the specific people who it will help.
There was one mom who reached out to me saying that her daughter had read Just Pretend at least thirty times.
Chris: Wow.
Tori: …and so I was like, “Okay, she can hear my voice. That’s cool.”
Chris: Yeah.
Tori: …and that makes it more okay that it’s simply never going to be for everyone.
Chris: Yeah. That’s just so moving.
Mari: Yeah.
Chris: That’s why we do it, right?
Goodness gracious.
Yeah, that’s really powerful.
Mari: It really does resonate.
With both graphic novels…
I think after reading both, like, “Oh, this is making sense of a time through the lens of the clarity that being a grown-up brings.”
Tori: Hmm.
Developing Adult Characters In Stories For Kids:
Mari: I definitely saw what you were mentioning before about how being a grown-up doesn’t have to be this boring thing. I definitely see that in all the grown-ups in the story. It’s like, “Oh yeah, this is who these kids will become, eventually. These are the role models and none of them are boring adults.”
Tori: I think I designed the cool grown-ups for Stand Up! before I designed all the kids.
Chris: Wow.
Tori: Yeah, it was really important to me to show really validating adults.
There’s kind of one exception that’s a bit of conflict in the story but, in general, the very close adults to the kids accept that they have all these idiosyncrasies and really embrace them and nurture that in them and don’t try to fit them into a specific mold. I wanted adults who show a lot of respect to kids as individuals and receive that same respect in return.
…to have it more like the adults and the children are talking to each other as people instead of talking to each other as an adult and a child. So it was really fun to have some scenes where I could model that with the characters.
…and I also really liked having the opportunity to show, alternative family structures too.
…which is not quite what you’re talking about, I suppose, but thinking about the adults brings this up too, where three adult women raising two kids.
So it’s like a group of best friends from art college who grew up and then two of them had kids as single moms and they’re all just raising the kids kind of Full House style, and I want to continue seeing more of that.
Books have such a powerful ability to just normalize all sorts of things that, for some reason, in our society are just not accepted. So that’s a big thing that I’m passionate about with making these stories.
Chris: Again, the audience motivation…
Your investment in the well-being of the people who will read your books and who have read your books.
Tori: Yeah, it’s so motivating for me.
Feeling “Seen” By Stories:
Tori: My critique partner, (who reads everything that I push at her, and she’s wonderful and so smart about writing and story) we were talking recently about our motivations for writing, and what I’ve described is mine.
I think more about the reader (or about what I needed as a kid, I suppose) than about what I want now.
…and then while I’m writing, it’s still all stuff that makes me happy now, but that’s not the core of what I’m creating.
…and my critique partner was saying that she wants to write the book that is exactly what she wants to read now.
…and she still arrives at really incredible stories, but it’s a completely different way of approaching this.
It’s also a valid way of approaching it.
I don’t want to make it seem like you have to draw from some altruistic place, necessarily, to tell good stories. I think if you are writing something that’s exactly suited to you, there’s going to be someone else out there for whom that’s exactly suited as well.
Chris: Yeah, just to feel seen, even in a fandom kind of way, is meaningful and it’s incredibly connective.
“Oh, you like dinosaurs too!”
Tori: Both make people feel less alone.
Chris: Yeah.
Yeah, it’s amazing.
Mari: …and there’s something really special about finding a graphic novel or comic or movie or anything that feels like that. It feels like, “Oh, I wish I found this, you know, ten years ago, twelve years ago, however long ago.”
I definitely have a few of those on my shelf, and I know that they made it there because of that. It’s like, “Oh, you should have arrived sooner but, okay, I’ll take you home now.”
Tori: I’ve had books that I’ve read that felt like exactly what I needed in the moment. I would see myself so keenly in the protagonist and then reread them a few years later and not relate at all, and I just love that too in terms of like personal character growth.
I guess the book did its job and I figured some stuff out and I no longer need to relate to this character like I used to.
Chris: Almost like a cast on a broken arm.
Tori: Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. It’s amazing.
I’m curious what those books are for the two of you.
I’m thinking of Three Shadows for the unapologetic, unflinching sadness and melancholy of that book. Artistically, it feels like a folktale that is hundreds and hundreds of years old.
…and then Blankets by Craig Thompson, was one of those like you’re describing, Mari, were you’re just like, “Where was this book?!”
(It’s been around for a while, but somehow I didn’t encounter it.)
I’m curious about the two of you.
…what, those books are that resonated with you in a way that helped you see yourselves.
Mari: This One Summer made me weirdly nostalgic for the seaside here even though I think it’s set in Canada.
…and it makes me nostalgic for the seaside near Buenos Aires, but it’s like, “Oh yeah, this is how these summers felt.”
Chris: Yeah, it’s a beautiful book.
Tori: It’s gorgeous.
Mari: I just thought of another one.
I don’t know if it’s available anymore, but Cry Wolf Girl by Ariel Ries.
…relating to you know, fear and feeling like you’re “crying wolf.”
She’s the same author as Witchy, which is a webcomic.
That one made me cry. Like, really, really cry.
Starting to read it and just start weeping and being like, “Oh, you know, a couple of years ago, this would have been huge.”
It’s still huge today, but…
Chris: Mmhm.
Mari: …where have you been?
Chris: Yeah. Right.
[LAUGHTER]
“Where have you been all my life?” Literally.
Yeah, how about you, Tori?
Tori: I was going to say two of the books that I read on my way over to Seattle (when I was moving from my hometown out to the west coast to pursue being a cartoonist) were Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Delilah Dirk And The Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff.
Both of them have these stories about people leaving a very safe place to go on these adventures. That’s a typical hero’s journey but the way that these characters were written were very impactful to me.
…and in Howl’s Moving Castle, I used to relate so closely to Sophie, the main character.
(The book, for anyone who hasn’t read it, is drastically different than the beautiful Miyazaki film.)
…and there is this element of Sophie being very young and someone who hasn’t sought her fortune yet or left and gone out to find out what life has to offer, who’s already given up and is living more like she is at the end of her life than as if she’s at the beginning.
…which is something I related a lot to.
I was not a very adventurous person or somebody who felt very brave very often so, seeing Sophie untangle herself from this complacency and from these beliefs about herself, page-by-page, made a huge impact on me.
Chris: Wow.
How Has Your Mindset Changed?
Chris: In a word, how would you describe your mindset in those early years of making magazines with your friends and then your earliest comics work?
How you describe your mindset in a word?
Tori: Oh, man.
“Infinite.”
Chris: Mm…
Tori: It was like I didn’t know enough to feel contained to the things that I now know. It was “anything goes” and so much fun.
Chris: Wow.
Yeah, that resonates.
…and so how would you describe your mindset now?
…in a word?
Tori: “Intentional.”
It feels like I have the tools to say what I really want to.
Chris: Wow.
So “infinite” and “intentional.”
I sense that there is a lot of that “infinite” mindset though, still at play.
What’s your relationship to that now hearing yourself say that out loud?
Tori: I think that sometimes I have a longing to tell stories outside of the niche that I’ve found within children’s graphic novels, but I’m still so happy to be making comics for that audience.
So when I think about “infinite,” it’s comforting.
I still am only a few books in and there’s hopefully, lots more that I could do through my career and my life.
Chris: That’s awesome.
I love it.
The Best Advice You’ve Ever Received:
Chris: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Tori: There’s advice that my dad gave me about a year ago when I was making some big decisions and I asked him, “How do I know if I’m making the right choice?”
…and he said, “It’s the right choice because it’s your choice.”
Chris: Wow.
Tori: Obviously, there are other factors that go into making a choice, but if you’re a person who, like, ends up taking responsibility for things that aren’t yours, or if you don’t want to disappoint people, sometimes simplifying it that much is exactly what you need.
Chris: That’s powerful stuff.
…And The Worst?
Chris: …and so what’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?
Tori: I went to a school guidance counselor in middle school about somebody who was bullying me.
I was in a lot of contention.
…and the advice from the guidance counselor was that I had to be so friendly to them that they wouldn’t feel compelled to bully me, putting the responsibility on me for how somebody else is treating me.
Chris: “Kill ’em with kindness” kind of thing?
Tori: Sort of, or be so unobtrusive…
Chris: Oh. “Be smaller.”
Tori: Yeah, yeah.
Chris: Oh, yeah.
It assumes that your response to other conflicts in your life is always going to be, “Oh yeah, just get out of the way. Just stay out of the way.”
It’s very anti-art.
Tori: I mean, maybe that’s why I’m writing such loud characters now.
[LAUGHTER]
Chris: Yeah.
That’s really insightful.
I’m glad you did not take that advice, Tori.
I’m glad you…
[LAUGHTER]
I’m glad you didn’t just “stay out of the way.”
The Magic Feather:
Chris: Well, last question…
Our album art for the show is an elephant holding a feather.
This is, of course, a reference to Dumbo.
Dumbo has a magic feather that’s not actually magic, right?
He holds onto it in order to fly, and then (spoiler alert) as he grows as a character, he realizes that, “Oh, I don’t actually need the feather to fly. I can fly without the feather.”
What’s your magic feather?
Tori: My “magic feather” might be caution.
I’m somebody who is strategic and practical and likes to really know every possible avenue before making a decision. It affects my life outside of art, but also when I’m thinking about what projects I really want to do in the future.
Sometimes it helps to be able to shut off the very practical, calculating part of your mind and the anxiety. You’re going to be less satisfied doing the work just because you’re deciding based on, like, what you could lose instead of what’s true to you and what you can gain.
Feeling desire and honoring that can give a lot of clarity about what we should do with our careers and personal lives.
Chris: Yeah, it’s a balance, right?
Obviously, there are people who would benefit from being more cautious.
…learning to look before you leap, right?
Then there are those of us who might tread so lightly that we realize sometimes you just got to go for it.
Tori: I’ve mentioned a bunch of stuff I’ve heard on your podcast before. I hope that’s okay.
…but there’s one other takeaway I had from an earlier episode of, “Unlikely things happen all the time.” I think it might have been another thing that Jenn Ely said.
…and that attitude, I slid into it very naturally.
It was something that really helped me to break into publishing.
It’s part of the numbers game. This is how my brain calculates risks…
Everything can kind of become a 50/ 50. Like, “It’s so unlikely you break into publishing, but it either happens or it doesn’t. So, 50/ 50, chance either way. Might as well give it a shot.”
…but then, if you take that attitude a lot, it can also apply to bad things happening. Right? Like, “I want to travel. 50/ 50 chance something bad happens while I’m traveling.”
Finding a middle ground, for me, is super important.
Caution is not always virtuous.
[LAUGHTER]
…whereas, other people who maybe are way more impulsive could benefit from it.
Chris: Yeah. How do you see that manifesting creatively?
Tori: I would like to be willing to fail at more things.
Projects like this webcomic that I’m never going to start…
I say I’m never going to start it because there’s a big part of me that worries I’ll just never finish it.
So much of my time is dedicated to perpetuating this precious career I’ve broken into but I don’t want to feel trapped within that either. I want to be able to play, regain that infinite feeling that we were talking about before, and just take risks.
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Credits:
I’m your host, Chris Oatley, and our production coordinator is Mari Gonzalez Curia. Our music is by The Bright Sigh (which is me) and this show is made possible by The Magic Box Academy.
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