How using an Id list changed the way I write

On Jennifer Lynn Barnes' Writing For Your Id talk, tapping into your weird little interests, and the hyper-specific personal Ids I wove into I KILLED THE KING

Hello, and happy August! Also, how is it already August?! This has been an incredibly busy summer for me. I got married! I wrote some books! We honeymoon’d in Yellowstone and saw the famous wolves!! I got my Master Rain Gardener certification! I raised my first black swallowtail butterfly! (Okay, some of these are bigger events than other, but all were joyful!)

As I dive back into projects, I’ve been thinking about what it means to balance Writing As Profession and Writing As Passion. I keep coming back to — as I always do — Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ Id List method, which changed how I approach my work for the better.

So let’s talk about it! Make yourself a cup of something tasty (this morning, we’ve got cold brew with Chobani sweet cream), get comfy, and let’s catch up!

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What’s in this newsletter?

• Craft thoughts on using Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ Id list method

• On my desk

• Off the page

• What I’ve loved lately

• Wildflower of the month

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How tapping into Id changed the way I write

I’ve talked before about writing for an Audience of One — that is, this idea that I have to love whatever I’m writing, and trust it will find the readers who like the same things I do.

But how does one do this intentionally? How do you approach writing for pleasure as an actual craft? And what happens when my audience of one — that is, me — kind of hates my story? What if I’m burned out, behind on my deadline, and convinced there’s nothing special here? What then? Is there anything to be done?

When I was newer in my career, I didn’t quite have an answer for this. I took a very “the only way out is through!” approach and white-knuckled my way through drafts, often unnecessarily. And while I do believe cultivating the skill of being able to hit deadlines even I was sick to death of my book has benefited my career — writing can’t always be fun! — there is a practice that’s made the work more enjoyable, and better, at all stages for me.

And that is keeping an active Id list.

I first listened to Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ brilliant Writing For Your Id talk back in 2022. (You used to be able buy the talk, but it was taken down. I desperately hope it'll pop back up somewhere again someday!) Barnes bases her talk off of a simple idea — that books are “pleasure technology”, and that there are universal Ids — power, wealth, touch, beauty, competition, and danger — that, when all present, tend to give a book or movie or video game the chance to go supernova. For Barnes, it’s the answer to the question many of us ask: why that book?

The Hunger Games and Twilight are two titles she uses when presenting examples of how all the universal Ids are present. (It had truly never occured to me that much of Katniss and Peeta’s time in the Capitol prior to the Games….is a makeover scene. In Barnes’ words, the beauty button is getting pressed over, and over, and over again.)

In her talk, Barnes explains her observation that a lot of breakout titles tend to be debuts filled with not only the six universal sixs, but what she calls “personal Id” — that is, things not everyone might love, but that author certainly does. As an author progresses in their craft, things that might seem too self-indulgent, too corny, too cliche tend to get edited out. (Think special colored hair, strangely colored eyes, love triangles, and any of the manner of self-indulgent and fun tropes and traits that tend to get books and characters labeled as “Mary Sue’s.”)

The problem with this, she posits, is these personal Ids tend to be what readers love and they’re a part of what makes a book unique. You can have a perfectly plotted and excecuted book, but if there’s no specific joy in it, it can lack that extra something that makes a book stick.

So Barnes invites authors to do the opposite. Instead of editing out Id, why not use it as a craft tool? In her talk, she pauses so the audience can create their own pauses Id list split into four categories — character, place, detail, and plot.

If you’ve never written an Id list, I highly encourage you to pause, set a timer for five minutes, and do the same. Come up with as many personal Id’s as you can. No, really. Do it. I’ll be here when you get back — and it will make the rest of this newsletter a lot more fun.

All right, do you have your list? Great.

Let me show a bit of mine. I picked these at random and actually added a few while I scrolled, but some of my readers might notice a repeating pattern here…

Character:

• Surprise! I was insert magical creature the whole time!

• Defiantly gentle characters

• An underdog

• People who Don’t Want Power, and thus are best suited for it

• Heroes who are bitter about the fate they’ve been handed — but still step up to the cause

Place:

• Rooftops

• Castles

• Swamps

• Old creepy cities

• The ocean

• Tunnels / mines (bonus if it’s a secret route under a city)

Detail:

• Characters getting their hair brushed or braided

• Hidden weapons

• Men kneeling

• Cloaks

• Magical rings that warn danger is near

• Dragons. Just…dragons. Put anything with dragons in a book, and I’m immediately more interested.

Plot:

• Magic with a terrible cost

• Festival/party scene happening while Danger Looms

• MC being cared for by their “enemy” when they fall ill

• “Oh no! We’ve been isolated by this storm and must shelter in place together!”

• Assassin falling in love with the person they were supposed to kill

Now, there’s a good chance some of these do nothing for you. Maybe all of them do nothing for you. But I’m equally certain at least one person reading this newsletter read one of those bullet points and went, my god, yes, I LOVE that in books.

That’s the joy of personal Id.

My debut The Ones We Burn — which has by all metrics has been my most successful book so far — is teeming with personal Id. (The cabbage man from ATLA literally has a cameo…for some reason.) There’s a lot of silly, self-indulgent Id in that book, fueled by the fact I was twenty-two, writing for myself, and didn’t really believe it would ever be published, but there’s a particular chapter I think of as the penultimate example of my debut self leaning into self-indulgence.

In what is a largely bloody, emotional book about a teenage political assassasin processing her own abuse while falling in love with her enemy, I pause the entire story right before the big showdown so that the characters can have a birthday party.

It’s ridiculous. It was my favorite scene in that book to write — and it’s the scene, by far, that I get the most reader messages and fanart about.

Now, while I did do a bunch of Plot Craft Stuff in that chapter to justify its existence, I also can’t ignore it is full of Id. Characters realizing they’ve become each other’s found family? Check. Emotional scene with confessions at sunrise? Check. Teenage characters forced to grow up too fast finally acting like irresponsible kids for once? Check. Scary, monstrous characters not knowing how to handle being treated with kindness? Check! Birthday cakes, weird but meaningful gifts, snarky characters being sweet, and scenes on a roof top? Guess what all happens to be on my Id list!

Are there readers that hated that scene? Certainly! But others really loved it! Like a lot. And if I wrote that book now, while it would absolutely be a better book from a craft perspective, there’s also a very good chance I might have considered the cutting the birthday scene out of fear of it being too indulgent/cliche/corny etc.

I think that’s a part of the trap of improving your craft; I’ve gotten so merciless with my own work, that sometimes it’s difficult to justify keeping something solely because I love it, and the more I write, the more I hear readers voices — both good and bad — about what they loved and hated about my previous work. I’m proud of my ability to revise mercilessly, but I know more than anyone how easy it is to edit the joy out of a book.

Now, nearly ten books in, I’m working on doing the opposite.

I KILLED THE KING is the first book where I’ve ever tried to approach the story with Id as an element of craft from the beginning. I scrolled through (and updated) my Id list in preparation for this newsletter and started smiling when I realized just how many of my personal Ids are present in KING.

Here’s just a few of them!

• Weather as antagonistic force

• …and weather shifting or amping up to reflect the mood of a scene

• A royal who doesn’t want the throne — and is trapped by the sense of obligation they feel to their role

• Irresponsible necromancer literally being haunted by the dead

• Plant magic

• “I’ve always loved you. Don’t tell me you didn’t know” confessions at the worst possible time.

• Family curses

• An antagonist who kind of has a point, and in a different story, might have just been the hero

Honestly, this entire newsletter could be a list of all the Id woven into King. And while that book still proved tricky in revisions (why did I think a six-POV magical murder mystery would be easy?) I did find that working in as much personal joy as possible made the entire project feel more worth it, even when it was hard.

Now, am I saying that just because I filled that book with Id that KING is going to be a success? Definitely not. Barnes isn’t either; she makes it clear that there are so many factors that go into a book having a chance to break out — marketing, timing, luck, a good cover — but the Id element can help give it soul a chance to go further if it all of those other factors work in the title’s favor.

I won’t know if we did our jobs with King for a while. As with all books, I probably won’t know until it’s “too late” — that is, the sequel will be done, and I will have moved on to other projects.

But I do know that I love that book. It’s full of so many strange, niche, weird things I love.

All I can do is hope it finds the people who the same weird things that I do.

I KILLED THE KING will be out next month!

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On My Desk

After all the fun this summer, I’m back to work, and just in time — we’re a little over one month out from the publication of I KILLED THE KING!

After selling this book in early 2023, it’s surreal that KING is finally hitting shelves soon. Publishing timelines are a funny thing. We’re already revising the sequel, so as the world meets our motley cast, we’re already working on our goodbye. So it goes!

Some KING updates and news:

• There’s currently a Goodreads giveway running for print copies of KING you can enter

• If you’re a bookseller, a friend let me know I KILLED THE KING is a free ALC for booksellers on libro.fm this month!

You can preorder KING wherever books are sold.

Also on my desk:

• I’m deep into edits for my next middle grade, MILO & THE MONSTROUS BETWIXT, which has been so fun to dive back into. This book is pure Id! I’ve written it with all the reluctant readers I’ve met on my school visits in mind, and I’m hopeful I can do it justice!

• And on the WIP side, I’m still plugging away at Zelda book. I’ve been putting my Id list to work as I revise with my agents and dive further into research, which has been a lot of fun! There’s no way of knowing what will happen with this, but for now, I’m enjoying that special stage of a project being just for me.

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Off The Page

I’ll admit — whenever I heard people say that their wedding was the best of their life, I didn’t really get it.

On our wedding day, at one point during the reception, I stepped away. I watched as our family and friends danced, drank, and laughed, and two truths hit me at once. Every single person in this room was there because they loved us — and never again would every person gather for us like this again. And I got it. It’s not the party or the cake or the dress or even the vows; it’s the combination of all of them together, witnessed by everyone you’ve ever loved.

There’s a reason I’m always writing about love — how it changes us, how it saves us, and how it shapes us. I’m incredibly blessed to be surrounded by so much of it.

Best day of our lives, no contest.

After our wedding, we went to Yellowstone for what would become my favorite trip of my life. This was actually my first national park! We spent three days there and still didn’t see all of it!

There are so many moments from that trip I loved — the communal enthusiam of strangers standing on the side of the road in Hayden valley at sunset, whisper-celebrating the appearence of the famous wolves, the miles of rolling mountains and valleys straight out of a fantasy novel, the jaw-dropping size of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, waking up at 4am to beat the sunrise in Lamar Valley — but my favorite part, truly, was just the wonder of experiencing the impact of history unfolded around us and the sheer wonder of the park and the wildlife it protects.

At one point in our trip, I had a chance to chat with a woman from the UK, who put it pretty simply when she said, “You Americans don’t know how lucky you are to have this much protected land.”

I believe she’s right. A lot of us take these parks for granted — we assume because they’ve always been here, they’ll always be here. But it takes an incredible amount of time, effort, and collaboration to preserve these spaces. It’s up to all of us to preserve this gift for future generations.

Bison, yellowstone wolves on a wolf watcher's scope, more bison, grand prismatic, Lamar valley at sunrise, and my husband and I at 5am that sunrirse smiling because we saw pronghorns!

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What I’ve Loved Lately

Reading: This summer has become one of reading far too many books at once, but I finish The Nature Of Oaks and The Serviceberry. I’ve set a goal to catch up on my challenge and read ten books in August!

Listening: I’ve been enjoying Tyler the Creator’s new album Don’t Tap The Glass while also being on a Cortex kick. And because of a local karaoke star, I’ve been very into America’s The Horse With No Name and songs that fit that vibe.

Watching: Although I’ve been light on television, I did inhale all of Frieren last week thanks to a perfect recommendation from a friend!

Random: Did you know that we’ve been waging a global war against a flesh-eating parasite with radioactive flies since the 50’s? I didn’t. This kurzgesagt video on a genuine marvel of human collaboration and science is one of the weirdest and most interesting things I have watched in ages. So, yes. My random recommendation is a video about nuclear flies. Enjoy!

Wildflower Of The Month

Do I constantly mess with this newsletter’s structure? Yes. Am I determined to keep this section? Also yes. Allow me introduce you to the surprise star of my garden these last few weeks — spotted bee balm (monarda punctata)!

I adore this funky bee magnet. Spotted bee balm starts off very unassuming — growing in low, green, leafy clumps and looking, frankly, a bit like a weed. But as it prepares to bloom, the leaves will begin to bleach pale, almost whitish green. The flower opens up in these gorgeous, spotted tiers, and then those white leaves turn pink!

Spotted bee balm has drawn so many different bees and wasps to my garden I’ve never seen before. There’s a big rock near where I have my patch planted, and some mornings I’ll just sit there and watch them work. So far I’ve identified carpenter bees, sweat bees, honeybees, mason bees, and green sweat bees, plus tons of wasps and bumblebees I don’t have the eye to ID just yet.

This plant also has an extra special bit of meaning — it’s one of the species I grew from seed as wedding favors for our guests! So it’s extra special to watch this plant thrive and know it will also be blooming in their gardens of so many people we love next year.

The native range map for you!

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That’s all I’ve got for you this month! I’ll be back in September ahead of the release of KING.

Stay curious!

-Becca