Mina Murray From Girl Of Lore Resets The Standard And Stage From Melanie Dale

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Hello and good morning, Melanie.

Good morning.

Oh my gosh, is this video audio only?

Yeah, it's at radio.

Yes.

That's fantastic.

I'm so glad you say that

because we live in this generation

where the moving pictures take away from the physical story.

And you being an author,

you totally understand this in the way of,

if I let you see everything,

then you're not going to get the story.

Well, I like seeing people when I'm talking to them,

but it can also be distracting.

So it's nice to just hear your voice and be able to focus

on what we're talking about.

And we're going to be talking about girls of Lauren.

I'm going to take this into a weird place right off the beginning

because I've been doing some research

because I buried a writing instrument.

And I'm going to be using it this coming October.

And so in one of the things that I learned about that

was they say that that's where lore comes from.

It's when authors do things with their writing instruments

and then get the energy of the universe around them

to come to their pages.

What did you experience?

Definitely the lore that happened for me

involved a lot of sitting in a chair with my dog in my lap.

I didn't bury anything, but actually my character in the book

Mina does bury something in the backyard.

And there's a couple scenes of burial in girl of lore.

So yeah, I can go with that.

See, I knew there was a reason why I'm digging this Mina

because I mean, there's a lot of things that Mina does

that really captures my attention.

And I think at first I'm thinking,

oh, it's only because it's a simple name.

This is going to be, you know, I'm not going to forget it.

It's going to be memorable.

And then you start reading about Mina and you're going to,

oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Mina, Mina Murray's name comes from Dracula.

So it's this whole book is just a love letter to my favorite novel.

Yeah.

So now what inspired you to go in that direction?

Because I mean, that seems to be a, you know,

all of a sudden you're now letting us inside your likes and dislikes

and journeys and steps growing forward.

Yeah.

Dracula has been my favorite novel most of my life.

And I remember when my son was in middle school,

he was a reader.

And he was kind of falling in between the scat

between middle grade fiction and YA fiction.

And so I handed him a copy of just the original,

Brandon Stoker's Dracula,

to get him interested in my favorite story.

I thought he'd like it.

And he gamely tried to read it and got caught up in,

you know, the older language.

And he kind of, he kind of fell off

when Jonathan Harger was still trapped in the castle.

Like he just, he couldn't plow through it.

So really, I thought, how can I make this,

how can I make this more just,

just an easier lift for him as a middle schooler

and something that's more relatable to his life?

So I was like, what if the characters from Dracula

went to high school in a small town in Georgia?

So we live in Georgia.

I'm looking out my window right now at the swamp in our back.

Yard and all the critters that crawl around back there.

So my characters which started in Dracula

kind of evolved and became just this really fun,

Southern Gothic story of high schoolers in Georgia.

So yeah.

And it all started because of my son trying to read Dracula

in middle school.

And does that involve doing some editing and stuff

and utilizing the power of the word without going overboard with it

when you get their attention?

I mean, I write, like I always write.

And I think middle schoolers are smart.

And if there's a word they don't know,

they'll figure it out.

And so I did not at all talk down to them

or change the way I would write it to any adult.

It was more about centering the characters

as 15 year olds in high school.

And some of the friendship issues

and some of the things that they are challenged with

just being in high school,

making friends, dealing with bullies,

dealing with not knowing what's happening in their own minds.

You know, Mina struggles with OCD.

Yes.

And so a lot of the monsters in this book

are her questioning, is this in my head

or is this actually happening?

So, and that comes, I also have OCD.

And so I am very aware of that struggle.

So it was fun to be able to create a character

that I could see myself in and that hopefully

kids reading the book will be able to recognize

if they struggle with OCD as well.

And then for people who don't,

maybe just get a glimpse into what those of us

who struggle with it deal with the doubt,

the struggle to trust yourself.

And so this book is really a journey

of Mina learning to trust herself.

And you forgot that it's also the fear of danger.

I mean, there's a sense of fear that a lot of people

don't understand, but it is physically there

if we would just take the time to listen.

Yeah, yeah.

There's fear and there's also humor.

It's funny.

I wanted kids to have a good time with it.

I had a fun time writing it and so the dialogue

and the situations the kids get themselves into.

It's spooky, but also you're going to have a good time.

But see, I like spooky because when I visit the schools

and I talk with the students,

that's their attraction, that and graphic novels.

And so I was going to ask you about that.

Are you going to go in the route of graphic novels

for the future when it comes to girls of lore?

No, I have no idea what the future holds.

I'm currently working in that girl of the lore universe

and having fun with some new stories.

I will say Mina Murray, one of her hobbies,

one of the things she spends a lot of time doing is drawing.

She's a graphic artist.

And so she sits in the cemetery and spends a lot of time sketching.

She makes comics.

So I'm excited to see her continue to develop her skills

within the world of girl of lore.

I'm so glad that you included that sketchbook

because on my side of the world and how I can really relate with it

was that Mina, to me, is like somebody that I can really relate with,

not only with the OCD, but also with everything

that she's doing inside that sketchbook

because I want to look.

And it's only because I am a daily writer of 32 years.

I know what's in my pages.

I want to see what's in hers.

Yeah.

So do you think, would you rather see, like, someone give you that

this is what she's drawing?

Or would you rather, as a reader, be able to picture it in your head?

I was hoping that it would be the one where she's building a relationship

because if she's pictured it inside her head,

then we're going, ah, okay, I don't see those pictures I got to go.

But this way when she's sharing it, that's sharing more of her with me

and we're not stuck in an avenue of assumption.

What do you feel?

I think you could go either way.

I think, you know, as a reader myself,

I love being able to picture.

Well, a perfect example.

I just read Project Mail Hail Mary

because I want to go see the movie.

And so picturing it in my head and what Rocky looks like

and what the spaceship looks like in everything.

I've got this idea of what it is in my head.

I'm also looking forward to going to the movie

and seeing how they created that for film.

You know, and all of a sudden, Grace is going to become Ryan Gosling

when I see it on the film.

You know, but so I think there's a benefit to both.

Visual and just being able to imagine our heads.

So maybe that's the beauty of the book coming out without pictures

to begin with.

It's an opportunity to layer in pictures in the future.

I can build on that.

And only because I just saw the interview

and Ryan Gosling wanted to make sure that Rocky was on that set

and it wasn't CGS and it wasn't any type of computer AI action

that they really built that Rocky.

When he does those scenes, Rocky is there.

So that in reality, that's the sketchbook.

That's a hey, I'm sharing with you the sketchbook.

So I mean, so I'm coming from both angles on this as well.

I love that.

The world of like the Gothic world that I created.

And I think Gothic in general, it's just such a visceral world.

And I really wanted to build that up around Meena of just this world

that she's got creeping vines and creeping critters all around her.

And the sense that even within her environment,

that things are attacking, things are ominous and looming over her.

Even, you know, as she's just living her high school life.

And so it's been really fun to kind of layer in all of those

Gothic elements as I've done, you know, just pass after pass

of editing the book.

So it's a book that I feel, you know, yes, it's words,

but it feels very tangible as I read it.

And I'm excited for kids to read it to get that feeling

of that Gothic world just really tangling on the page.

Please do not move. There's more with Melanie Dale coming up next.

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The name of the book, Girl of Lore.

We are back with author Melanie Dale.

Readers want to go someplace,

and that's the one thing that you offer in Girls of Lore

is that you give me that texture to where it's like,

I'm there.

How do you know you're there?

I just feel it.

There's just something here in these paragraphs that say,

I'm there.

Good.

Thanks.

But to get there, my God, I cannot believe what you're

editing processes like or what you're doing.

You're not being a perfectionist on that computer.

Are you to make these scenes pop out like that?

I could never be a perfectionist.

No, I would never turn anything in.

I'd never make a deadline if I was a perfectionist.

I'm so thankful to have an incredible editor on this,

Jessie Smith with Simon and Schuster Aladdin.

She has been such a godsend to me.

I just continue to send her things and then she suggests ideas

and I feel like she really helped me put together

Mina's inner life and what's going on in her head

and just really be able to layer in those gothic elements.

So yeah, it's definitely felt like she helped me

kick it up a notch and really bring the story forward.

So I'm just so thankful for her.

Don't you think that every one of us are like Mina?

That we all do have those characters in our head

because it always reminds me a beautiful mind from Russell Crowe

and that nobody could see the characters that were walking

with him.

He could, he knew those monsters existed

and it's like we all know it.

And I think that going through this with Mina

and why I would like to see the pictures is so

I don't have to live in my head.

But maybe that's what the connection is.

That we're all going, that's me.

This is me she's writing about.

She knows me.

A lot of, I mean, I do think a lot of people struggle

with intrusive thoughts and struggle with,

we all have a whole inner life that no one else can see

what's going on around them.

And I remember my husband reading an early draft of this

and him saying like, wow, nobody thinks like that.

And I was like, come into my head for a moment.

Like a lot of people think like this.

So we all, we all think so differently.

And so that's what I love about reading

because you get an opportunity to spend a few hours

in someone else's head.

And I do think it, it helps us with empathy

because we're able to learn more and see the world

through other people's eyes through these characters

or reading.

So then when London's secret began to begin to come out,

I mean, do we, are we living vicariously through London?

I mean, because all of a sudden, now Mina is now part

of the circle.

She's part in, she's in the center.

So it's like, as a writer, it's like, okay,

what were you thinking when you took that chance?

When you felt it, that was like, okay,

this is part of the story.

We're going to go here.

London, and that's part of Gothic literature, right?

Like the world around you almost becomes a character

in and of itself.

And so the idea of having a small town in Georgia called London,

London really had to be a huge part of it.

And London is the setting of so many

of my favorite Gothic novels.

And certainly it's a huge part of the story

of the original Dracula.

So creating my Southern Gothic version of London

was really special and figuring out the lines

between going to high school and all of the normal things.

There's a homecoming dance.

There's a football game.

All of the normal high school life.

But then how can we, how can we also add in that tension

that we're feeling of something's lurking in the shadows,

something's lurking in Venus brain, you know,

and all of that.

So it was fun to find those dark corners

within her high school world.

Well, I'm glad that you didn't rush it off to New York

or to sit there and say, oh, this story takes place in Seattle

or Vancouver or it even takes place in Hong Kong.

I love that you kept it Southern like that

because that to me is where I always,

I always think of the fans and followers

that go to London, Georgia.

And you know what I mean?

It's like, oh, where are you going?

I'm going to London and they'll know.

Anybody who's red girls of Laura

are going to go, you are.

And all of a sudden,

you see that, that peaks the interest of everybody.

London, Georgia is a combination of a whole bunch

of towns around me where I live.

And it was really fun.

I would just drive around and dream,

looking at all of the different places

kind of around my little patch of Georgia.

It was really, it's fun.

It's really special.

It's probably the most personal thing I've ever written,

which is funny because I've written a lot of non-fiction.

So this fiction novel has been one of the most personal things

I've ever written.

So when you're writing and you've got that Georgia swamp

outside your writing space,

are you watching that as you write?

Because I'm sitting here overlooking this forest here in South Charlotte.

Overlooking a lake, the slow-moving stream.

These are my muses.

They are what give me energy as a writer.

What about you?

Absolutely.

We have armadillos that come into our backyard

and tear up our yard.

We have deer come through our yard constantly.

This is kind of fun.

We had an alligator in the swamp kind of behind my house.

His name, he was a town legend.

His name was Flat Creek Floyd.

And I'm saying in the past tense

because during the editing of my book,

he actually got hit by a car crossing the highway and died.

It's so sad.

But I have immortalized him in the pages of Girl of Lore.

There is a character in there called London Larry.

And he is an alligator.

And he is my Flat Creek Floyd,

who used to roam around my backyard.

He didn't come up into my backyard,

but like back in the water in the wetlands behind it.

He would be back in there.

And occasionally someone from town would see him

and post a photo on Facebook or Instagram.

So yeah, there's a lot of the life that's right outside my backyard.

The other day, I was coming home and there was a vulture.

On top of my roof.

And I was like, I'm living in a Southern Gothic novel.

This is so cool.

Well, you talk about the armadillo.

Of course, I'm going to go right to my

Native American spirituality animal tools here.

And it says that armadillos represent clear boundaries.

It's time to retreat rather than trying to make headway.

And the situation is it says it requires you to dig deeper

into discovering any underlying deceit or evasiveness.

Oh, my God.

It sounds like mean as life.

Oh, my gosh, underlying deceit and evasiveness.

Yep.

Who knew?

I had no idea the imagery that I was seeding into the novel

with the armadillo.

I was just thinking about the big rubbery dinosaurs

that lumbered on my backyard.

That's crazy.

Where can people go to find out more about you?

Because they need to jump on this and give you some love

and to find out more about you and girl of lore.

God, thank you.

My website is MelanieDale.com

and I am on Instagram and Substack as Melanie are Dale.

You got to come back to this show anytime in the future.

I love the way you break down a story

and you bring the realities of where we are as writers

in our situations.

And you make it a part of the story,

which to me, that is the legacy of why we write.

Hmm.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for having me.

Well, come back to this show anytime.

The door is always going to be open for you.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Be brilliant today, okay?

Okay.

You too.

You might not be able to drop everything in Book of Ticket to Italy,

but you can go to the theater on April 10th for you, me,

and Tuscany.

Will Packer, the guy who produced Girl's Trip,

brings us a brand new rom-com with all the ingredients

of your favorite classics.

Heart, huge labs, and sizzling chemistry,

set in the enchanting vineyards of Tuscany.

You, me and Tuscany is the escape we've all been waiting for.

The movie stars, Halle Bailey, and Reggae Jean Page

and it's the perfect crowd-pleasing film for date night

or a night out with the girls.

Get your rom-com on with you, me, and Tuscany,

directed by Cat Corro, only in theaters April 10th.

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