Thieves' Gambit, Ep. 3: The World As It Is
The opening of a book establishes The World As It Is, and Kayvion Lewis’s Thieves’ Gambit is no exception. Lewis masterfully establishes Ross Quest’s world of international thievery and how she relates to it, including her desire to escape into something more normal.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that would be nice. I mean, for all sorts of reasons, not just international thievery.
[Music intro]
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 the world as it is. I'm Anne-Marie Strohman and I write for children and young adults as well as short stories for adults.
Erin Nuttall: Hi, I am Erin Nuttle. I write for children and young adults, mostly young adults.
[00:00:29] 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. So Erin, let's start with vocabulary. What terms do you wanna define for us today?
[00:00:41] Erin Nuttall: Well, since our episode is about world as it is, let's start there. World as it is, is the foundation of the world that the reader is entering. It includes things like setting, main character's desire. It sets up the reader's expectation for the book. The world as it is helps define what type of book it is. If it's a thriller or a mystery or a fantasy, we know right away um, by the way the world is described.
[00:01:06] Anne-Marie Strohman: Can you give us a, a concrete example of what you mean here?
[00:01:09] Erin Nuttall: Sure. An example would be, a book that starts with the world as it is, is Hunger Games. We see Katniss’s world and understand what her life looks like, her desires, her obstacles, her family's dependence on her. And we learn all of this before the inciting incident. And knowing this information makes her decision to take Prim’s place in the games all the more of a gut punch for the reader. We as readers understand how big the sacrifice is that she's making and why she's making it.
[00:01:40] Anne-Marie Strohman: I think some of those themes of world as it is, are gonna come up later telling us the why and why this is important to us. But what is our next vocabulary word?
[00:01:50] Erin Nuttall: It is Latin actually, and it's in medias res, and it means in the middle of things, in story or in writing. It means jumping in during the middle of a scene. We get directly into the actions. It's a fast-paced, high energy way to enter a story. And it's frequently used in action books, thrillers, mystery stories, those kind of things.
Several Percy Jackson books start in medias res, including The Son of Neptune, where right off Percy is fighting Gorgons. Also in Iron Man where Tony Stark is in a caravan in the desert and the caravan is attacked. A battle commences and Stark gets kidnapped. So those are stories that start right in the middle of things. A drawback is that the reader doesn't know the character or the stakes, and the reader might not be invested in the outcome of the action. But this is also why it works well in sequels because the reader presumably is already invested in the characters.
[00:02:49] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. And in a, a series based on comic book characters, there's kind of an assumption that people will know a little bit going in, or that we know it's a superhero movie, there's a superhero, so we should, we should care right away.
[00:03:03] Erin Nuttall: And with Iron Man, you know, they do things to definitely show to the audience right away. You can tell this is a group of bad guys attacking a group of good guys. If, if you're looking at it like in a Western, that's why they have the white hats and the black hats, right? So that we care right away, even if we don't know why Tony Stark is a good guy yet.
[00:03:27] Anne-Marie Strohman: So how do these concepts, the world as it is, and the technique of in medias res work in Thieves’ Gambit? And I know this is what we're doing for the whole episode, but can you give us a quick overview?
[00:03:39] Erin Nuttall: Right. So Thieves’ Gambit does a great job starting in medias res while including world as it is info. It can be a tricky thing to do, but that's why we're talking about it because Kayvion Lewis does it so well in this. So we get that it's a thriller. We get that we're gonna see a lot of action, but we also learn about our main character so that we care about her right away. So we meet Ross when she's twisted like a pretzel inside a cabinet while on a job. We don't know yet what the job is, but we immediately start to get pieces of her world.
So let's start with a quote from page one, where we meet Ross.
So we know she's in a cabinet. That's pretty much, and that she's on a job. And then she says, “If I were a normal person, my legs would be in a coma right now. But I guess Mom's intense flexibility training comes in handy for jobs like this. I'd been crammed in here on the secluded side of a mansion for about three hours scrolling through my dummy Insta. Over the last few months stalking accounts about dorm life had become more addictive than K-dramas on Netflix.”
So right away we get that she's waiting for something exciting to happen. She's on a job in a mansion. That she has dummy accounts. And that she's stalking dorm life. So we get quite a bit of Ross's life right there. And by page two, her job starts. So it's not a slow start. We don't spend a lot of time in the cabinet. And she says, “I cracked open the cabinet door, slipping my fingers under to take the weight off the hinges so they wouldn't creak. A simple trick, but one I'd known since before I could write my name. I took a peek out.”
So we get that the job is starting and we also get that she's got some specialized skills, the flexibility training, the finger trick for, for that. So we get pieces of her world while we know that some excitement is about to start.
[00:05:42] Anne-Marie Strohman: That moment in the cabinet is so important for building character and establishing the world as it is. And so let's dive in more deeply to that world as it is. I like to think of it as the context for this specific moment of the story that's happening. So in a story that's in a world or part of the world that's different from what most readers have experienced then the author has to do some significant work.
So let's look at the different elements that Lewis brings into play, and let's start with the title. So, we're in a world of thieves and particularly thieving families.
[00:06:17] Erin Nuttall: Right. We learn right away that Ross is part of a family of thieves and that there are family thieving empires. Which is a super fun place for a story to take place because it's not part of a normal life. And there are a lot of opportunities for excitement. But right away we learn about Mom. As we talked about in the last episode on theme, the first line of the book is “A Quest can't trust anyone in this world except for a Quest.” And then it goes on. “So when a Quest, particularly Mama Quest, tells me to curl up like a Twizzler, twisted into a pretzel inside a cabinet so small, it would be illegal to keep your dog in a cage the same size, I trust she has a good reason for it. Or at least whatever I’m stealing is going to be worth it.”
So right there we have the beginning of some excitement. She's in this tiny space, but we also get that Ross has the same belief system as Mom. And that is going to set up the emotional world she lives in and it foreshadows the choices that she'll make. We don't see the seesaw yet of how Ross feels about trusting others, but we just see her fully bought into whatever Mom says goes.
[00:07:36] Anne-Marie Strohman: And like we talked about last time, that theme of trust is so important as it goes through the novel. So as readers, we have to believe in this world and we wanna be in on the fun of it. So how does Lewis help readers buy into this world, into Ross as a master thief?
[00:07:54] Erin Nuttall: So this is one of the things that really sucked me into this book right away, was how much authenticity Lewis builds into this role of a international thief, this teenage international thief. We already mentioned the dummy social accounts, the fingers under the hinges, the flexibility. We find out later that she has a bracelet that is a weapon. She talks about different ways of opening doors. There are named cons, like the jigsaw job. On page five, she, gives you a pro tip that if you don't have a way of getting your product out undamaged don't bother at all. And then just right after that, on page five, still, she has a fun fact about motion sensors. You can trip up most with a $5 laser pointer off of Amazon. So there's things like this that are super fun and just really pull you into this world really quickly. Ross has a black box email that's uncheckable, untraceable. She talks about agility practice. And the thing that is super cool I think, is that we don't get this just in the beginning, but we get these kind of things throughout.
Now, the ones I just read, those are in the first two chapters. You get 'em right away, most of them in the first chapter. There are all sorts of little tiny references to this world that help you believe that Ross is indeed a successful international thief.
[00:09:26] Anne-Marie Strohman: I love all these trappings of thievery that she sets up here. Ross kind of tells us that she's skilled at what she does, but we get to see that in action in this first sequence too. So the world as it is also offers up an opportunity to set up things about the character that are gonna be necessary later in the story. So are there any particular special skills or characteristics that Lewis sets up here for Ross?
[00:09:50] Erin Nuttall: So she sets up in this first scene where Ross is in the mansion and she was stealing a vase for her mom, that she has a special talent of mapping locations in her mind. Throughout the book, this talent serves her well. But this is when, when we are introduced to her talent of mapping locations in her mind, and I tell you, I wish I had that talent, but I don’t.
[00:10:14] Anne-Marie Strohman: I wish I had it just for writing. I have to like draw maps because I can't do it in my head.
[00:10:19] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, that would, that would be nice. I mean, for all sorts of reasons, not just international thievery.
[00:10:25] Anne-Marie Strohman: So part of the world as it is, is who this character is in this world. And we found out a little bit of Ross's relationship with her mom that's really front and center. But we also find out that she's struggling with what she wants her life to be like and what she lacks. So can you tell us about that?
[00:10:43] Erin Nuttall: Yeah, so right in the beginning we learn about Ross's desire to go to gymnastics camp. She wants to have a regular life. We heard a little bit about it when she was on her dummy Instagram. She was looking at dorm life. She says, “I emailed a lot of college summer programs for high schoolers in the middle of the night a few days ago when our house felt the loneliest and the thought of spending weeks on a bustling campus with other kids my age was the most refreshing.” So right away, that's page two. Right away we get, this is part of her world, is being lonely. She's just with Quests or she's alone. And that is something that she wants to change.
[00:11:26] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah, we really see that lack of peer relationships and that lack of a normal childhood and youth and that shows up in other ways in this scene too,
[00:11:34] Erin Nuttall: When she's in the middle of the heist. So she's left the cabinet. And she is heading toward her target, which is, an expensive vase, I believe. She says “I was no stranger to lonely houses. If I blinked for too long, I might've thought I was back in our family's home on Andros.”
We get a little picture of her using her brain map skills, and then she comes into another room and she said, “I picked up the farthest frame” 'Cause there's a dresser with a lot of framed pictures. “A beaming group of college kids posed on the steps of a red brick building. In the bottom corner in neat black script: freshman year.
Memories, relationships. I could steal the picture, but I couldn't take those. If I wanted them I'd have to earn them for myself. Away from home. Away from Mom.”
So right away, like this is page three. What I like is this is in the middle of a job so she's in a high stake situation, and yet we're still getting peaks into her desire and her feelings.
So I think those’re just really well done here.
[00:12:45] Anne-Marie Strohman: Well, and that word earn is so interesting. I'd have to earn them myself. Like these relationships and memories, they don't just happen, but there's something that you have to be worthy of, you have to take risks for. Just her whole mindset about the world is in that word earn.
[00:13:03] Erin Nuttall: Well, and additionally she's a thief and thieves don't, I mean, I suppose they earn it in that they expend effort to steal the item, but typically people don't think of thieves as earning something. So I think that there are several times actually throughout the book where she uses these words like earn for a thief that I find just like a nice little cherry on top.
[00:13:28] Anne-Marie Strohman: Vocabulary for the win.
[00:13:29] Erin Nuttall: Yes. One of the things that I love, love, love is she's in the middle of this job and she comes across a cat, and the cat is lonely. And the cat all of a sudden becomes, a representation of how Ross herself is feeling there's this paragraph in chapter four. She said, “When I was a kid, I binged vlogs on pet adoption while Mom was gone on long jobs.
That was before I realized nothing without Quest blood was ever setting foot in our house. Animals included. Siamese cats are popular because they're gorgeous, but they also get lonely. Without companions they tend to die early. I had a feeling the owner of this isolated house hadn't thought too much about getting their cat a friend.” Oh, is so well done. I just really love that.
[00:14:22] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah, and it gives us a, a save the cat moment later, like literally a save the cat moment when she well, she saves herself by distracting the cat and then leaves the cat. And that's a way that she saves it as well.
[00:14:37] Erin Nuttall: She, well she's used to represent how lonely Ross feels but then she's also a problem 'cause she starts meowing and is noisy and purring loudly and becomes a liability because Ross might get caught.
[00:14:53] Anne-Marie Strohman: And it reinforces the idea that you can't trust…
[00:14:57] Erin Nuttall: Right.
[00:14:58] Anne-Marie Strohman: Anything but a Quest, right? Like even this lovely cat is not something you can trust.
[00:15:03] Erin Nuttall: Exactly.
[00:15:04] Anne-Marie Strohman: So the book actually starts with that rule, right? Never trust anyone except a Quest. And in this world as it is section, this is also a spot where writers can establish rules that carry on through the book, both from the character's worldview, and then just plain old rules. So what other rules does Lewis lay out?
[00:15:24] Erin Nuttall: Well, we've already talked a little bit about the, make sure you can get your item out, your product out undamaged. And then there's also, don't get caught, and, get the item no matter what and the very first sentence of chapter two, “The first words outta Mom's mouth after a job are never, are you okay, Ross? Instead, it's, you have it?” And those are the main rules that we get and they add to the world as well because all of them, are part of a job that is high tension, high stress.
[00:15:57] Anne-Marie Strohman: Ugh. That moment with Mom or reported moment of what Mom says is just—it does so much work, right? It shows so much about their relationship.
[00:16:06] Erin Nuttall: It really does. And so I just loved this beginning because lots of times you get one or the other, you're like Hunger Games where you're meeting Katniss and her family and her world, and then the action starts, or you get Iron Man where Tony Stark is getting attacked and kidnapped right off the bat. And I really like how, Kayvion sets this up so that, we are in a high intensity moment where we also get to see what's going on inside Ross's head and what her desires are and what her emotional world looks like, what the rules of her life are. So she just gives us a lot, in an exciting environment.
[00:16:49] Anne-Marie Strohman: So much I feel like in action, it's easy to think you can just rely on the tension of the situation itself, the tension of the circumstances, but it just amps up the tension so much more when you have that emotional investment as well. When it's not just external circumstances, it's what the character wants or it's a character you care about who might get caught.
Or this character's relationship with her mom that's kind of implicit in how she's doing this job and the complexities there. Last season we talked so much about things doing double duty and here, there's all these moments that are just part of the story, but they do so much work and I really admire that.
[00:17:30] Erin Nuttall: Agreed. It's something that I work hard at doing is trying to get things to do, you know, multiple jobs, double or triple duty. But it's hard, it's hard to do. And it's impressive when somebody does it so well.
[00:17:43] Anne-Marie Strohman: And it almost never happens in a first draft. Right?
[00:17:46] Erin Nuttall: Oh, I can't imagine. No. [Laughter] No. But if you can do it in your 27th draft, then awesome. Then, you know, go for it. Do all 27 drafts until you get there.
[00:18:01] Anne-Marie Strohman: Like we talked about last time with introducing the theme so strongly in that opening chapter, in the opening section, it's likely that a lot of these elements are things that grew in revision and after the story was done, coming back and making sure all these things are layered in to give it the texture and the tension and amp it up.
[00:18:22] Erin Nuttall: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's possible that this was the very last thing that she wrote, right, because once you write the book, then you can know, oh, I need, you know, these are things that I need to do. Revision is our friend, I think is, is, is what we learn from that. Anne-Marie, what is this episode's Cool Gadget?
[00:18:45] Anne-Marie Strohman: Well, I chose a cool gadget that you actually mentioned briefly. My Cool Gadget today is the $5 laser pointer off Amazon. But it's okay 'cause I'm gonna say more things about it. So it does show up in the first chapter as we saw, and she uses it to get out of the mansion she's in with this priceless vase.
And here is the section. It says “a laser pointer was tucked in the side of the case. I angled the beam into the motion sensor on one side of the window. Fun fact about motion sensors. You can trip most up with a $5 laser pointer. They only detect motion when something disrupts the beam connecting them so I made sure that the beam was always there, keeping my laser pointed directly at the sensor while I slipped out. Simple things work best.” And I chose it because it's a moment that connects readers to Ross. We've seen high stakes. We're expecting gadgetry and she's in this wild world of thieves.
But she also shops at Amazon and uses this $5 laser pointer. She's just a normal kid. And it shows her ingenuity too, and it establishes this concept that simple things work best, which is something that as she's designing heists later will come into play. And so that little laser pointer does a lot of work, and that is why I chose that gadget.
[00:20:02] Erin Nuttall: It is an excellent gadget because it also helps her escape when the cat is being extremely loud.
[00:20:09] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yes. And that's another wonderful thing. Like it's introduced, we think it's done, we think it's served its purpose, and then it comes out later to solve an even bigger problem. And that's such a, a great thing for an object to do.
[00:20:24] Erin Nuttall: It is, and it's been really fun exploring this world, the world that Ross Quest lives in, and learning about the high stakes international thieving rings and, what makes her tick.
[00:20:37] Anne-Marie Strohman: Yeah. So Erin, I forgot to ask you earlier, what are you taking away from today?
[00:20:44] Erin Nuttall: Oh, I for sure am taking away, the idea that, that you can do both. I think that it is super cool that we get to learn about Ross in a tense situation. Even if we're writing something that's not a thriller or an action book, I think we can look at our scenes you know, what else can the scene do? What about you?
[00:21:09] Anne-Marie Strohman: I'm taking away actually that a quiet moment can do a lot of work in an action sequence like that moment in the cabinet where we have tension because we know something's about to happen, but we get this kind of almost like a lazy moment, right, where it's just quiet and she's flicking through social media and nothing's really happening, and yet that scene is doing a lot of work to set us up for what comes next. So looking for those little moments where there's a little breath or a little breather that I can use in my writing for Advantage.
[Music outro]
[00:21:42] Anne-Marie Strohman: That's it for today. If you're enjoying this podcast, you can find more content like this at kidlitcraft.com.
Find us on social media @KidLitCraft, and you can support this podcast on Patreon. We've also got T-shirts, and you can find them and some drinkware and phone cases and other things at Cotton Bureau, and we'll put a link in the show notes.
[00:22:01] Erin Nuttall: Please download episodes; like, rate, and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen; and let your writer friends know about this podcast. We can't wait to nerd out with you.
[00:22:11] Anne-Marie Strohman: Thanks for joining us. See you next time.
