Thieves' Gambit, Ep. 7: Relationship Arcs
Like character arcs and story arcs, relationship arcs can span the course of the novel, explore themes, reveal and challenge the main character, and complicate plot lines. In Episode 7, Erin and Anne-Marie examine Ross’s friendship arc with Noelia and her romance arc with Devroe.
Things we mention in this episode
KLC’s Ask the Author Book Club, February 25 guest author is Michael Leali
Our episode on Romance in Buffalo Flats (Season 1, Episode 8)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the movie)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the series)The movie with sexy banter during fight scenes with Ryan Reynolds, the Rock, and Gal Gadot: Red Notice
Emma Kress and her YA novel Dangerous Play
Get your copy of THIEVES’ GAMBIT from Bookshop.org and support the podcast!
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Erin Nuttall: Maybe it's a country where the only food you get is grapefruit. One of them is gonna starve to death.
[Music intro]
[00:00:05] Anne-Marie Strohman: Welcome to season two of the Kid Lit Craft Podcast. This season we're doing a deep dive into Kayvion Lewis's YA thriller Thieves’ Gambit. Today we're focusing on relationship arcs. I'm Anne-Marie Strohman, and I write for children and young adults and short stories for adults.
[00:00:22] Erin Nuttall: Hi, I am Erin Nuttall and I write stories for young adults.
[00:00:26] Anne-Marie Strohman: On Kid Lit Craft, we look at mentor texts to discover the mechanics of how writers do what they do, so we can apply it to our own writing. Just a reminder that we're hosting the Ask the Author book club this spring, and you can check out details on kidlitcraft.com. Our next guest is Michael Leali, and we'll be talking about his middle grade story, The Truth About Triangles, and I'm super excited about it.
[00:00:50] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that's gonna be super fun. We had such a great time with Stacey Lee and I am way excited to chat with Michael about Truth About Triangles. It’s such a fun middle grade book.
[00:00:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: And we would love to see you there. So come nerd out with us in person on Zoom. So let's get into this episode of relationship arcs. Erin, do you have any vocabulary or concepts that you would like to start with today?
[00:01:12] Erin Nuttall: I do, in fact. So we're talking about relationship arcs. So that's a little bit different than a character arc, which is what I think a lot of people think about when you're thinking about arcs. So a character arc is a transformation or interchange over the course of a character's journey.
So you might go from a character who's lazy to hardworking, or selfish to compassionate, or a whiny baby to a murdering Sith Lord. So those are your character arcs options, and I know I'm gonna hear about that last one from some loved ones who think I am too hard on Anakin, but I tell you, I am not. A relationship arc, however, is a little bit different. It just describes the journey between two characters. It focuses on how the dynamics between characters change. Their level of trust, intimacy, conflict, or support as the story goes along. So, for instance, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, enemies to friends. It can be less dramatic than that. It can be from strangers to friends or even just different changes in the relationship between sisters, for instance. A relationship arc can follow a pattern much like a story arc. So that is something to keep in mind that you want in your relationship arc. You still need struggles and wins and moving forward and having setbacks just like you would in a, a regular story arc.
[00:02:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: So can you walk us through just those pieces that you keep in mind when you're thinking about a relationship arc?
[00:02:44] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. I do think of it a lot like a story arc. So I want there to be a dynamic relationship. I want dynamic changes, actually. So I, I wanna think about that. So you can look at it similar to like the hero's journey or other story arcs. So you have a starting point, an initial state of the relationship that could be allies or enemies or strangers or lovers.
You can start close and end up with a relationship that separates or the reverse. You have an inciting incident, an event that disrupts the status quo of the relationship and sets the arc in motion. So you wanna think of it that way. So if you have like a sister relationship and the sisters are really tight you're gonna wanna inciting incident where the sisters, experience something that changes that altogether or threatens that, or just adds a new dynamic to the relationship.
You also want things like obstacles and challenges, conflicts, misunderstandings, betrayals, or external or internal pressures that will test the bond of the relationship. And then you want growth and change. And the reader gets to see how the characters navigate the challenge and their connection can either strengthen or weaken that relationship connection. And then an ending point, a final state of the relationship. They could be closer or estranged or broken or transformed. So it really does follow a, a story arc or it can follow a story arc. And I think it allows for deeper meaning in that relationship if you give it these aspects, these pieces.
[00:04:17] Anne-Marie Strohman: So when you're working on your own stories, do you actually like map out and write down all these elements of the relationship arc, or is it just something that you keep in mind when you're writing?
[00:04:28] Erin Nuttall: I think a little bit of both. Usually when I have a relationship, I think about where I want it to end up, and I think about the things that will help me get it there. I like to, like, write a little bit of romance in most stories. And so if I want it to end up that the couple is together then I know I'm gonna need like a kissing scene. I'm gonna need a scene where—where there's pushback between them, there's gonna be misunderstandings, those kind of things. I will say, I don't always write it out, but I certainly have written it out in the past.
[00:05:01] Anne-Marie Strohman: Cool. So speaking of romantic arcs, in our last season when we were talking about romance in Buffalo Flats by Martine Leavitt, you talked about this concept of physical intimacy versus emotional intimacy, and it seems like that might be relevant here too.
[00:05:18] Erin Nuttall: It is. This something that we look at, especially for romantic interests. Physical intimacy is when two people share physical moments of closeness. And this can be, if you're looking at a relationship, it could be anything from a shared glance to a touch, a handhold, a kiss, sex. Any of those things can be considered physical relationship. Emotional intimacy is similar, but it's emotional connections rather than physical connections. So a big way characters, for them to become emotionally intimate is when they share information or vulnerability about each other. And actually you do see these in enemies. I think that is why we frequently get the big villain reveal: why I was doing this, why I've been torturing you, and that is actually an emotional intimacy that the villain is establishing with the hero. So we want for emotional intimacy, it's when they share information about themselves and especially vulnerable things or things that are a secret or things that somebody else might not know.
[00:06:16] Anne-Marie Strohman: I do think in talking about enemies, we often think of the hero and the villain as being very far apart, but often they're actually quite close together or the story wouldn't happen.
Like there's, there's caring there.
[00:06:30] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:06:30] Anne-Marie Strohman: Or the story doesn't happen. So yeah, there is that, that connection and intimacy there.
[00:06:35] Erin Nuttall: So if you have your soulmate or your soul nemesis, if you want the reader to feel like they're deeply connected, then you need to have emotional intimacy and I think that if you really want a really good bad guy, then this is a way to do it. And if you want to have like a really good romance or a really good friendship, or a really good sibling or parent, these are the things. Emotional intimacy is really what connects the reader emotionally, if you can believe it.
And I think it's easy to forget about that and when we're writing, because it's not an action, it's not physical. It's not something that people take and do. Right?
[00:07:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. So we do have that whole episode on romance where we do talk a lot about physical and emotional intimacy in a romance setting. But let's widen out to just this idea of tracking a relationship arc. Why is it a good thing to track this arc? How does it help you in manifesting your story on the page?
[00:07:34] Erin Nuttall: A reason that you'll want to track the arc of the relationship is for pacing reasons, for story reasons.
If it's too fast, it can be unbelievable. Too slow can be super boring. You're like, when are these two gonna get together? So that's kind of the overarching pacing. But if you look at it more piecemeal, it can be annoying if your character is in the middle of something intense or an action scene and out of the blue they're thinking about how hot the guy across the room is.
Or all of a sudden they're like, I wanna kiss you. No, I wanna kiss you. And they're like, but we're, we need to fight off these ninjas first. That can be super annoying and it is something that is emotionally inconsistent with what's happening around the character.
And I will say that this is something to watch out for. It's easy trap to fall into because you want your character to be like, oh wow, he looks so good. You know? But you don't want them necessarily to be thinking about that when you're in a, you know, maybe a verbal confrontation with a teacher or something. That would be very weird and annoying to the reader. And the reader would be like, what’s wrong with your character?
[00:08:46] Anne-Marie Strohman: Well, it's all of a sudden kind of a tone shift in the middle of a scene. Right? And it's almost like—we've talked, I think we've talked on here about pause button violations. Maybe we haven't. Where…
[00:08:57] Erin Nuttall: I don’t think we have.
[00:08:58] Anne-Marie Strohman: …you kind of pause in the middle of a scene. Yeah. So it's the, the idea that you pause in the middle of a scene to have either: a huge flashback or a lot of interiority or thinking about something totally unrelated to what's going on. And then you hit play and the scene continues. And so those little blips, when you move over to, you're in an action fight scene and you notice the hot guy across the room and there's like a description of his smoldering eyes, like all of a sudden we're, we've paused the fight and we've moved, we've made a tonal shift to something outside the immediate moment and then we're back in it.
It might be more realistic to have like, notice him, but just be like, why is that person watching and not helping me? You know, some kind of reaction and then later come back around like, oh, now that I think about it, he was kind of hot, right? So you wanna be careful of those tone shifts.
Be careful of those pause button violations.
[00:09:58] Erin Nuttall: Well, and it's a tone shift, but it also messes up the pacing of your action scene. Right?
So it just messes up a lot of things. And I personally rely on movies for a lot of things. They're faster than reading, a lot of times. You get the extra visual of what's happening. If you want kind of like sexy banter in the middle of your action scene, I would suggest watching some movies that have that.Because you can do both, but you have to be super careful. So like there's Mr. And Mrs. Smith, which is an oldie. But then there was one with uh…
[00:10:32] Anne-Marie Strohman: A new show.
[00:10:33] Erin Nuttall: Oh, I have, that's right.
[00:10:34] Anne-Marie Strohman: There’s a new series. It's so good. It’s so good.
[00:10:36] Erin Nuttall: I haven't— Oh, that's good to know. I'll have to check it out. Yeah.
But then there's like that Ryan Reynolds and the Rock, and I forget who the female lead is, but there's a lot of sexy banter while fighting.
[00:10:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: But I think the, the other thing too is that if you're going to do that, you have to set up the story so that that is appropriate. Like we should know that this is a comedy action thing, so that when the comedy happens in the middle of the action, we expect it, or we're surprised in a good way.
[00:11:09] Erin Nuttall: Oh, for sure. Because it goes back to your idea of tone. You don't want a tonal shift. You're doing this, you know, coming of age story. Suddenly there's a fight scene, which can happen. You can have people get in a fight in a coming of age story. But then you have sexy banter in the middle of it, and that's gonna be, it's gonna be like, what is happening? I don't know what I'm reading.
[00:11:29] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, what stage in writing are you looking at these relationship arcs? Is this like before you start a draft, in the middle of drafting, after you've completed a draft and are heading into revision, your sixth revision, where are you looking at these and blocking them out?
[00:11:45] Erin Nuttall: I really think it depends on your own personal writing style. I like to have at least a concept of how I want the relationships to go before I start doing anything, when I'm just trying to figure out who the characters are and what they want, what their obstacles might be. So I like to have at least an idea of some of this beforehand. But, you know, no worries if you don't know the path of your relationship or any of it. Start with what you know, and you can layer more, but it is worth considering when you add or introduce a character to your manuscript, there's a few things you can think about. Like how does the main character react to this new character? Where does the relationship begin for the reader? 'Cause if these are, you know, fully formed humans, then they either have not met this person before, or maybe they already have a relationship with this person. They could be friends, frenemies, strangers, enemies, related by blood, related by the foster care system.
There's a wide variety of how they could know each other, and that's something that is helpful for you as the writer to think. Okay, now I have Matt and he's joining Aisha, and how do they know each other and what's their current relationship? Just when you introduce 'em. Just so that you as a writer know that and you can decide when you explain that to the reader. And that can definitely help you as you're plotting but it can help you also to get to know your characters better and for sure save steps later. But, you know, if you're the person who just spills whatever's in their mind as it comes out, then go for it and then later be like, oh yeah, Matt and Aisha, they dated a long time ago, but they had a really bad breakup or whatever.
[00:13:27] Anne-Marie Strohman: Okay, let's dive into Thieves’ Gambit. I am excited to look at these relationships and we're gonna look at two today. We're gonna focus on Ross and Noelia. And when we talked about her big cast of characters last time, we talked about how she was introduced, Noelia being a focus person. She's the first one that Ross encounters in the basement room of the museum at the beginning of the thieves’ gambit.
And then we'll talk about Devroe, who's on the other end of that introduction scene, and that also highlights him as well. So we're gonna highlight those two. So we looked a little bit at how the friendship is introduced last time. But remind us, where are we starting with Ross and Noelia?
[00:14:08] Erin Nuttall: So we meet Noelia like you said, when we're meeting the big group of contestants, when Ross first is introduced to all the contestants in the gambit, and she is the first one. And it is such a great introduction and if you want more about that, listen to our last episode if you haven't already. But I'll just tell you a little part of it. This is how Ross describes her. She says, “Noelia Boschert had been a recurring cockroach that kept crawling into the corners of my life.” So, those are big feelings. And it's something that helps Noelia stick in your memory. You know, she's gonna play a big role because of those big feelings.
So when I was just talking about as you introduce characters to your main character, think about the relationship that they had before. And that's what we know. We know something happened between these two girls before and it caused major emotions. and so that's great. That's great for the reader, right?
[00:15:06] Anne-Marie Strohman: And we don't need to know all the details of it right away. Like that is revealed actually quite soon after. But it gives us this sense of that relationship and using a metaphor. I love one of our friends, Emma Kress—go read Dangerous Play—
[00:15:22] Erin Nuttall: Oh, for sure.
[00:15:22] Anne-Marie Strohman: She collects one sentence descriptions of characters and just has lists of them to inspire her.
And I think she should add this one to her list because it's a great metaphor that gives you such a clear sense of where this relationship stands at the beginning. So Erin, take us through how the relationship changes. How does it work in the rest of the story? When does this become kind of a bigger part of the story or is it at the beginning?
[00:15:50] Erin Nuttall: At the beginning, there is that nemesis vibe for sure. And this is also, you know, a thriller/action book. So there is a lot going on physically. So what Lewis does is she has Noelia show up over and over, and she's consistently a foe with scattered moments where the girls see similarities between themselves. And usually it's not just Ross noticing something, but Ross notices Noelia noticing. Not always, but often. Lewis sets this up really well because the girls see the similarities between themselves, but then always Ross remembers Noelia's betrayal. And so that is what we see over and over and over. We see them clashing in the gambit, in that competition. We see them uh, seeing themselves in each other. And then we see Ross remembering the betrayal until the 88% mark.
[00:16:50] Anne-Marie Strohman: That is very specific.
[00:16:51] Erin Nuttall: Well, I went through and figured out a lot for pacing actually on this book 'cause I was curious how she set it up. ‘Cause I feel like the pace is so fast and yet as we've talked about, it's not a short book. And yet it goes quickly. I wanna know how she did it. So we're at 88%.
[00:17:12] Anne-Marie Strohman: So what happens at 88%?
[00:17:13] Erin Nuttall: 88% is when Ross finds out about her mom's betrayal by putting her in the gambit. Ross thought she chose to do the gambit on her own and that she chose to do the gambit in order to save her mom. but at the 88% mark, she finds out that her mom betrayed her. Her mom staged her own kidnapping and then set Ross up to be in the gambit. So that is just huge for Ross. And then she also finds out, and Noelia finds this out too, they learn that Ross's mom betrayed both of them when the girls were young and friends. Through the course of this, we find out that they had been friends when they were little. They were very similar. They really bonded as eight or ten, something like that, year olds. And then they both think the other betrayed them but that didn't happen. That was all a farse set up by Ross's mom because Ross's mom wanted Ross to not trust anyone but her. Which kind of shot herself in the foot there with the betrayal. But that's another story.
So after that the girls sort of have a tentative truce. It's pretty tentative 'cause there's still a lot of years where they have been trying to undermine each other whenever they have had the chance. So that is on page 321 and by the time we get to 10 pages later, Noelia is standing up for Ross in front of other people. So Devroe doesn't believe something that Ross is saying. Ross thinks she saw one of their competitors doing something shady and Devroe doesn't believe it. This is what happens. “Noelia scoffed, ‘If Ross said she saw him, then she saw him.’” And so this is a big shift in the relationship. And not only did she do that, but then Devroe, he, his jaw clinches and he's kind of angry about it, and Noelia just cocked an eyebrow, daring him to say something else. And then she actually goes on to continue to support Ross. So this is huge. And after this, their relationship, is on a much speedier track to being closer. It takes a while still before they're able to be like fully reliant on each other. There's a few more incidents where they're building their trust. But that right there is huge, and that is the big shift. It's sort of like their inciting incident is at the end, but we also know that this is not a standalone book. And so in the pacing of the entire book and then in the pacing of the entire series I feel like this is really well placed,
[00:19:47] Anne-Marie Strohman: Well, and she gets to use Noelia so much in the first 88% of the book as that antagonist nemesis. Like she gets a lot of mileage out of Noelia. And then to have this shift makes it—because we've seen them fight in different ways and compete in different ways, having this change feels so huge because of that.
So she's really built up to this moment by making it so bad, and then we get that more information that the betrayal happened, her mom's betrayal happened, and then that shift in relationship. And I like that you mentioned that it's not a straight, like all of a sudden we're besties. They have to work at it. It's unsure. It's not a stable friendship, or allyship even, at the beginning like in this section. Like they’re—the beginning of this relationship or this retooled friendship, it takes time.
[00:20:40] Erin Nuttall: Right. And like you're saying, she does get a lot of mileage outta Noelia. Noelia in a lot of ways is the face of the gambit for Ross. She is her direct competitor. She is the one that Ross feels like is equal to her in the thieving world that they live in. so Lewis gets a lot out of Noelia in that way. So yes, this is a massive shift and in line with Ross's real difficulty to trust it is difficult for them to rely on each other. When they do and they are successful, it is fun as a reader to see the change.
[00:21:20] Anne-Marie Strohman: So that is Noelia.
[00:21:22] Erin Nuttall: Yes,
[00:21:23] Anne-Marie Strohman: Let's turn now to your favorite part of this book, Ross and Devroe.
[00:21:28] Erin Nuttall: I don't know if I would say that. I do like romance, but there's a lot of fun parts.
[00:21:34] Anne-Marie Strohman: Tell us about, we looked closely at that introduction of Devroe last, in our last episode. Remind us of what happens at the—the opening here.
That brush of a hand.
[00:21:45] Erin Nuttall: Yes, that was a good memory. Maybe it's your favorite part.
[00:21:49] Anne-Marie Strohman: It is totally my favorite part.
[00:21:51] Erin Nuttall: Last episode, Ross meets all of the players in the gambit at once basically. And Noelle is the first one who's introduced to the reader and to Ross. And then the last one is Devroe and yes, there's like a little brush of the hand. And when she looks at him—So this is a great place for the, in his smoldering eyes that you were talking about because she is evaluating all of her competitors. And then she sees him and she's breathlessly face-to-face with a new boy, another black person, his British accent. He's sharply dressed. He has a Rolex. His hair is just how she likes it. She says he was beyond handsome and he knew it and he used it to his advantage. So we have a lot of positive and then we have Ross's I don't really trust people sneaking back in.
And so then right from there, she says, “I mentally chided myself. Ross Quest was not going to be the girl who started swooning over the hot guy after five minutes” Which fair.
[00:22:53] Anne-Marie Strohman: We all know that's not true.
[00:22:57] Erin Nuttall: But, fair, right? She doesn't wanna be distracted by this beyond handsome boy for sure. So he's a stranger, that's the beginning of the relationship, who is attractive to her and she is making herself intentionally not trust. So that is where we are.
[00:23:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: So take us through some of the twists and turns in this romance.
[00:23:18] Erin Nuttall: Okay. So we know from their meeting that she finds him instantly attractive, and he immediately shows his attraction to her. He wants to partner with her on their very first test of the gambit which she is like, no way, Jose. He calls her beautiful, and she's like, yeah, take a walk player. And she just refuses to trust him. So that is, that is how we go back and forth, back and forth. And trust is, as we know, a difficult thing for, for Ross to do.
[00:23:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: So what gets in the way of their relationship? I don't read tons of romance, but when I do, I always get super annoyed if there's romantic tension, but the couple can't get together for like a super dumb reason, like he likes grapefruit and I don't. So does Lewis fall into that trap?
[00:24:09] Erin Nuttall: I really hope there's a book where that is like the…and I would love to see how that, how that's resolved.
[00:24:17] Anne-Marie Strohman: Wouldn't you?
[00:24:19] Erin Nuttall: Maybe it's a country where the only food you get is grapefruit. One of them is gonna starve to death.
So because we know that Ross has a difficulty with trust and because we know that Ross is super focused on saving her mom, those two things are believable when they become the major obstacle for this romance. Devroe is constantly like, I'm here for you baby. And she's constantly like, yeah, you're cute. But no, I've—I've gotta keep my mind, I gotta stay focused. They do have lots of cute flirty moments. There's tons of cute flirty moments. But they're always followed by Ross's internal reminder not to trust anyone, especially someone that she is attracted to. So we can do a little quote about that.
She said “I knew exactly what he was doing. He literally just told me.” So they had just had a conversation about he liked to play games with girls, but that he was enjoying this game with her 'cause he genuinely liked her and so it made it extra fun.
And she said. “And still I couldn't stop myself from reacting, just like you said. I looked away. Hopefully not blushing too furiously. ‘Why are you playing with me? I think we established, I can see your strategy.’ ‘Because I like you.’ I scoffed. ‘What? I'm not allowed to use my tricks on someone I actually like? If anything, that's when I should use them.’ ‘You don't like me,’ I insisted, bouncing one of my feet under the table. ‘You just met me and it was love at first sight.’”
She goes on, “a tiny thrill ran through my body,” and then we have where her stakes are which is important for us. She says “accidental or not, his knee brushed mine under the table. My tummy did a little silly wobble and sobered me up. Ironically, letting me know that he liked that I could see through him or whatever didn't change anything. Falling for that, allowing him to make me feel this way because I thought we were playing a mutual game, was dangerous. How long before I forgot to call him out? How long before I just liked it? Just trusted him. Ross Quest is not here to play games with handsome con artists. Ross Quest is here to save her kidnapped mother. I could almost feel myself hardening. My shoulders, my face, my heart. The machinery was setting back where it was supposed to be.”
So this is a really good example of a lovely flirty moment where Ross reminds herself of the stakes and reminds herself of the issues.
[00:26:51] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, there's gotta be a kiss in this romantic relationship. How does that play in, how does the physical intimacy part play in here?
[00:27:01] Erin Nuttall: So what we have is an almost kiss at 56% which was interesting. And it is stopped by Ross and when she again remembers her—the stakes of her mom and that she could be putting her mom in danger. But then we have an actual kiss at 80%. And I'm not gonna read the whole thing. I wouldn't want to distress you, but I will read part of it, which I thought was really a great metaphor. “He tasted perfect, like trying my favorite candy for the first time.” So, yeah, pretty great.
[00:27:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: Very sweet, very sweet.
[00:27:39] Erin Nuttall: Very sweet.
[00:27:40] Anne-Marie Strohman: So when we look at the book as a whole, their relationship kind of functions on a lot of different levels. We definitely have this romantic part that we've been talking about, but they're also rivals in the gambit and they're forced to be partners in the gambit, and then at some point they kind of become friends.
And then there's this romantic thing. And it, it reminds me about this emotional and physical intimacy that you were talking about. How do those factors come into play?
[00:28:06] Erin Nuttall: So, yes, their relationship has a lot, plays a lot of different roles and, as a competitor in the gambit it plays a part in the beginning and then again at the end. But most of the time the, the two of them are in partnership because they end up splitting the competitors in half. So it's one group versus another group. And so Devroe becomes one of the gang, right? And the friendship that way is very similar to her friendships with the other members of the group. But, she's only flirty with him or he's only flirty with her, however you wanna look at it.
But what I think is really interesting is there are after every physical or romantic interaction, except that kiss at 80%, Ross immediately has trust issues. So anytime there's a physical interaction, a romantic physical interaction, she reminds herself of the stakes. She immediately is like, no, I'm not gonna do this. But whenever they have emotional intimacy scenes where they have conversations where they learn about each other she does not have that reaction at the end of it. And especially they have a really— one where they both really open up to each other a lot and she does not have trust issues. In fact, they go on to have that luscious kiss scene. And so I could be wrong, but going through, that is what I noticed. I noticed that physical intimacy brought up her walls, but emotional intimacy brought them down. And that was just spot on. I really liked how Lewis did that.
[00:29:39] Anne-Marie Strohman: Does she ever get to the point where she fully trusts him?
[00:29:42] Erin Nuttall: She gets pretty darn close. I think that's probably depends on how you interpret it as a reader. I felt like there was still some hesitancy, but I think some readers might look at that and be like, no, she's fully on board with that guy. It's close enough though that when he betrays her at the 96% mark, it's all the more devastating.
[00:30:04] Anne-Marie Strohman: So we've gone over these two relationship arcs, this friendship arc with Noelia and this romantic arc with Devroe. How do these connect to the overall story of Ross's growth and to the themes? We've definitely hit upon this, but I think it—it would help me to kind of solidify them in my head.
[00:30:21] Erin Nuttall: So the biggest theme is trust, right? And so we see in her relationship with Noelia just a lot of distrust. And then finally budding, little buds, growing of trust with her. And then with Devroe, we see lots of buds of trust that Ross just snips right off before they can bloom. And then as she's getting closer and closer to having a real, trusting relationship is when Devroe betrays her. So there is a lot of interplay between the theme and these relationships. They’re definitely showcasing the different ways that Ross has trust issues. Thanks a lot, Mom. But we can also see the growth that even as people really close to her, like her mom and Devroe that they break her trust, she's able to continue trying to, and experimenting with trusting Noelia, and we didn't really talk about it, but she does make headway with trusting the other kids in her group of gambit competitors who she had been working with. And that's huge for her, to have those relationships where she's feeling like more positive, more trusting.
[00:31:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Because that Devroe betrayal right near the end, just like is the nail in the coffin that leads us to trust no one. Right? Like we definitely get that with the mom betrayal, that's seed is planted. You know, she…Now she knows she can't trust her family. She thought maybe she could trust her friends then. And then boom.
[00:31:54] Erin Nuttall: And then boom. Yeah. That cute guy that she kissed.
[00:31:59] Anne-Marie Strohman: Ugh. So sad.
[00:32:00] Erin Nuttall: Yeah.
[00:32:01] Anne-Marie Strohman: So Erin, what are you taking away from today?
[00:32:04] Erin Nuttall: Do not trust those cute guys. That's what…no, I really need to remember to use the interplay of the themes and the character growth. 'Cause I feel like Lewis did this really well where she had Ross struggle really hard with trust. That struggle was used in her relationships with characters. So what about you, Anne-Marie? What are you taking away?
[00:32:33] Anne-Marie Strohman: So I'm taking away actually the options that I have in pacing these relationship arcs. The idea that the relationship with Noelia changes so late in the story is really kind of empowering. Like I maybe will have a friend…that I can even have a friendship that changes late, right?
That it's downhill, downhill, downhill, competitive, competitive, competitive. And then there's a shift. I often think of them in a more gradual arc or of this like center almost kiss at the midpoint and then moving toward the end. But there are a number of options for those relationship arcs.
[00:33:09] Erin Nuttall: Right. Although do remember, keep in mind that Lewis did seed the idea that Noelia and Ross still kind of liked each other. They still kind of related to each other throughout, so that it wasn't like, I hate you. Oh, maybe we can be friends, out of nowhere.
[00:33:25] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Right. Yes. Setup is everything
[00:33:28] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that's, there you go. That's a good thing to also take away. Setup makes a huge difference. Okay, so Anne-Marie, what is this episode's Cool Gadget?
[00:33:40] Anne-Marie Strohman: So it's again an object. Well, it's an object and a concept instead of a gadget, but you will see what I mean. The object I wanna talk about today is connected to what I talked about last time. If you'll remember, we talked about this jigsaw job and how Ross's mom had sneaked a fake vase into the mansion to glue together to replace the vase that she was stealing.
So we have this concept of a jigsaw job. So late in the book, the Thieves’ Gambit Ross's team has to steal a sarcophagus from a glitzy auction in Cairo. And this concept of the jigsaw job returns. Not enough that we know it at first, but the reveal of the end shows this connection and it's a super smart one.
So when they get to Cairo, they know they have to steal the sarcophagus that's being auctioned off and outside the hotel Ross sees a fake sarcophagus that some protestors have. She says to the reader, “Devroe and Kyung-soon hit up the reception counter. And I kept watching the protestors and their replica sarcophagus. An idea was beginning to take shape.” She points out the fake sarcophagus to Mylo and acknowledges that a plan is forming, but she doesn't tell him what, and she definitely doesn't tell us what.
So later, as the team is planning, Mylo tells the team, “did you guys know the sarcophagus has been completely disassembled and put back together like three times? The archeologists who found it cut it into pieces when it wouldn't fit through the tunnel from the tomb. You can still see some of the welding lines.” And then the story goes on. Noelia's team takes over this plan after overhearing the bug in Ross's jacket. And after Noelia's team takes off with the sarcophagus or what we think is the sarcophagus, Ross, Mylo and Kyung-soon unpack crates with pieces of the real sarcophagus and so she's done a jigsaw job.
And Lewis has managed to hide it from us a little bit as we go along. So this is kind of the big reveal. We may have figured it out. We have all the pieces. Har-har. But so we don’t miss it, Ross says, “If only mom could see this. My jigsaw job made hers with a vase back in Kenya look like baby's first heist. She'd lose her mind in all the best ways if I got to tell her about this. When I got to tell her about this.”
So I love the continuity that we haven't heard about this jigsaw job until this moment. Again, it was in the beginning and she just left it. And then she does this great callback that brings back that initial scene.
And we can see how smart Ross is and how smart Lewis is as a writer. And it also provides this really great way to bring Mom back into the story and to show Ross's confidence at this moment that she will win and she will save her mom. So it's the jigsaw job, but it does a lot of work here.
[00:36:32] Erin Nuttall: It really does. And I do think that yes, I think for the reader, you get an idea, they're probably gonna use that fake sarcophagus somehow, but we don't know how they're going to trick the other team or trick whoever it is they need to trick, and honestly, I had forgotten about the jigsaw job and Mylo's kind of throwaway comment. So yeah, it was really fantastically done.
[00:36:56] Anne-Marie Strohman: Right. Yeah. Because it's in the midst of a bunch of other pieces of the plan, right? Like it's a very comprehensive, complex plan. And so we're focused on how are they gonna get the right person to win the auction, and how are they gonna find this team, and how are they gonna get from here to there? And so there are so many logistics that we're trying to follow that I missed that the jigsaw job might come into play, and I totally forgot about it
[00:37:21] Erin Nuttall: Yeah. No. Well, and it's, we'll talk more when we have our heist episode, but it is a perfect piece of a heist. Like she just did a really good job.
[Music outro]
[00:37:33] Anne-Marie Strohman: So that's it for today. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more content like this at kidlitcraft.com. Find us on social media at @KidLitCraft, and you can support this podcast on Patreon. We've also got t-shirts, and you can find them at Cotton Bureau. We'll put a link in the show notes and also go register for our Ask the Author book club. Don't miss our conversation with Michael Leali. Well, he will spill on Post-Its.
[00:37:59] Erin Nuttall: Oh yeah. And Michael is so, like, his brain is so fascinating, so like his writer brain. So it will be a really interesting conversation and it'll be full of great writing tips. And then also you'll get to hang out with us. And then—I know that's probably the biggest selling point right there. Please download episodes; like rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen; and let your writer friends know about the podcast, about our book club, about Anne-Marie's amazing classes that she teaches on writing. You can find all of that on kidlitcraft.com, and we can't wait to nerd out with you.
[00:38:41] Anne-Marie Strohman: See you next time.
