4:13 Podcast: Talking Story With Karen Kingsbury [BONUS]

Karen Kingsbury: It was trusting the Lord and being able to say, okay, even if it all falls apart, then this day did I live this day well? Did I make the most of sharing his light and love, his joy and peace with the people around me? Did I live my life for Jesus to lead others toward him today? If this is the last day I get, and when the movie never happens, if the theaters never open, is it enough that we did this and we did this path and we made an impact on the people around us? And the answer was always yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Have you ever heard the phrase "talking story"? Well, I got to go to Hawaii once and I learned what it meant. Well, you are about to learn what it means today also from and with none other than New York Times best-selling author, and now film producer, Karen Kingsbury. We got to talk about all the elements of story, how she creates her stories, the power of story, the impact of story in your life, and I'm telling you, you are going to love getting behind the scenes with this amazing, brilliant woman. So settle in, get ready, we're going to do some talking story with Karen Kingsbury.

K.C. Wright: Welcome, welcome to a bonus episode of the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you and I up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengths you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, hey, friends. I am so happy that you have tuned in, because this is going to be a good episode. One of the most interesting conversations I have ever had. And, of course, it's interesting because it's with none other than Karen Kingsbury. We've had the opportunity to partner in ministry in the past, and shared the stage with her at different events like Fresh Grounded Faith and Women of Joy. And I'm telling you, the woman is the real deal. You know she's a prolific author. But here's the fun thing. So many of her books have already been put into Hallmark movies and on TV, but she is doing a feature film. And that's why we're popping into your ears right now, because I want to make sure you have plenty of time to get excited and buy your tickets so that you and all your BFFs and your family can go, because it is going to be amazing.

So you get to hear from me and K.C. all the time. I think right now I just need to stop talking, let K.C. introduce our girl, and let's hear from Karen.

K.C. Wright: The number one New York Times best-selling novelist, Karen Kingsbury, is simply America's favorite inspirational storyteller --

Jennifer Rothschild: She is.

K.C. Wright: -- with more than -- breaking news -- 25 million copies of her books in print. Her last dozen titles have topped best-seller lists, and many of her novels are under development with Hallmark Films and as major motion pictures. Her Baxter Family books are being developed into a TV series slated for major network viewing sometime next year. Karen is also a professor of writing at Liberty University. Hello?

Jennifer Rothschild: Wouldn't you like to be in one of her classes?

K.C. Wright: Oh, my word.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right?

K.C. Wright: In 2001, she and her husband, Don, adopted three boys from Haiti, doubling their family in a matter of months. Today the couple has joined the ranks of empty nesters living in Tennessee near five of their adult children. And I got to meet her and her husband last year at Fresh Grounded Faith Springfield. It was awesome.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. Aren't they amazing?

K.C. Wright: They're precious.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: They're the real deals, y'all.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: All right, enough. Here's J. R. and Karen Kingsbury.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Karen. So I was thinking this morning before you and I talked, you know, one of my favorite things, I got to go to Hawaii and I had this fun conversation with this lady. And when we were done, she said, "Oh, I just love talking story with you." And I said, "What?" And she said, well, in Hawaii, that's, like, part of their casual -- it means you've had a casual conversation, a chit chat, shooting the breeze kind of thing, and they call it talking story. And I thought, that's what I want to do with Karen Kingsbury. I want to talk story about story. Okay?

Karen Kingsbury: I love that.

Jennifer Rothschild: So we're going to be doing some talking some story, and then at the end we can do the hula. Okay, kidding.

All right. So I want to start with this, though. Because we all know you as the name on front of a fiction book that we all love. Or many fiction books we love. But I want to know just a little bit of your backstory. Like, what was your journey into writing? Like, what was it that inspired you or prompted you to start just being a storyteller?

Karen Kingsbury: You know, Jennifer, I mean, the Lord made me to tell stories. Like, there's no question. When I was five years old, I remember getting some paper, stapling it together, and writing some lines on it. And they were all slanted. I was five years old. They were, like, heading down the page. And I wrote a book -- a story called "The Horse." And even the "horse" was spelled wrong. Horse was -- even "horse" was spelled completely wrong. And I just had this story in my heart about a little horse who came to a family's house and was hungry for dinner and they gave him some leftovers. No idea where that came from. I was not one of those girls who loved horses. They usually bite me. But it was a thing that I -- once I wrote it, illustrated it, I looked at it and I thought, I wrote a book. And there was just no stopping from there.

So I wrote for our -- you know, I wrote short stories constantly. I wrote for our middle school, its creative magazine, and then the high school newspaper. Got my college degree in journalism. And all along the way, whenever I would write short story, I would take it to my parents. And my mom was more of that left brain, like, "Get your homework done and make sure your room's clean." She was amazing at keeping us all on task. My dad would read those stories, and he would get tears in his eyes. And he would just kind of, like, look up and then look at me and say, "Karen, one day everybody is going to know your writing. And one day someone has to be the next best-selling author, and I think it's going to be you."

So that's what I took from college. I worked as a journalist at the Los Angeles Times and then at the L.A. Daily News, and then I began writing books. And it was really an answer to prayer so that I could be home with our first-born child, Kelsey. And once I started writing, I wrote four true crime books, which was weird because I was not -- I didn't read true crime, I didn't want to write about it, but it was an answer to prayer to be home with our child and work from home. And then I started writing what I do now, life-changing fiction, and I haven't looked back.

Jennifer Rothschild: So when you were a journalist, did you cover the crime beat? Or what did you cover? Was it general journalism, or did you have a specific field?

Karen Kingsbury: You know, I started with sports of all things. Not because I played sports. I really was just -- I could write -- I loved writing emotional stories. And there weren't a lot of emotional reporters writing emotional stories about sports, so they would put me on the big feature stories. And I truly enjoyed that. I didn't know the game stuff that well. In fact, my dad went with me to the first game story I had to cover. And this was just a secret. Like, the L.A. Times never knew this. Here I have an L.A. Times -- you know, Karen Kingsbury, L.A. Times Staff Writer. And I go and I cover this game -- it was just a high school game. I started low on the totem pole, of course. And my dad went, and he sat in the stands. And on the way back to the office, he said, okay, here's what happened. It was number 20 -- and, like, told me -- like, he had done all this -- taken the stats. So then I went into the office and I wrote the story because of what my dad had done.

And then it wasn't too long, maybe a couple of years later -- it was either, like, go on the road with these pro teams or move over to another part of the paper. And I didn't want to go on the road, and I didn't want to be in the locker room, you know. I was ready to take a shift into something else, and so they put me on the front-page Sunday feature. So my job was to take kind of the story of the week, whatever that might be. Maybe, you know -- usually it was a tragedy of some kind, because it was the news, and do the emotional longer story for the Sunday feature, for the Sunday front page. Which was, you know, one of the most honored positions really. And I was about 10 or 15 years, maybe younger than the others. But walking with Jesus. And by then -- I didn't start off walking with Jesus and the whole thing because I didn't become a Christian till I was in my mid-20s.

But, yeah, so a lot of the stories were true crime stories. And it was one of those stories that I sold as a freelancer, just freelanced it to People Magazine, and an agent saw it, and that ended up becoming my first book.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. It just shows that the gift of God was in you, and it showed up in different seasons and different ways that you expressed it. But it was the gift of God.

And so now here you are and you're writing life-changing fiction. And so there is typically an element of faith, and so I'm curious, do you intentionally weave faith into your narrative, or is that just a natural part of what you do? Or does it depend on the book?

Karen Kingsbury: You know, it's always very natural. It's funny, I kind of usually have some sort of -- I imagine some kind of problem, some sort of situation, and I think, I don't get that. Like, how does that person forgive that person? Or how did that marriage make it? Just something kind of comes up and it stirs my emotions. And then God begins to put a movie in my head. And it just kind of pours into my heart and then I just -- it's going to stay there until I put it on the page. It's all him. I feel like I'm completely the stenographer. You know, I'm like the girl in the courtroom just -- I'm typing as fast as a person can talk. It's all just downloading from what God has given me as a movie in my head onto the page.

And so the way I look at it is -- I see that picture in four parts. You know, like, a secular author writes about the physical and the intellectual and the emotional. But I'm going to write about all those three, physical, intellectual, and emotional, but I include the spiritual. I just don't cut it out because it's so much a part of what I see and feel.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I think that's so interesting that you see it as a movie. And when you think about it, Karen, I mean, we are body, soul, and spirit, so to ignore the spiritual part is to not write a complete narrative.

Karen Kingsbury: Right. Even if they're running toward God or away from God. I mean, my characters are not all walking with Jesus, but they are aware -- there's an awareness of an emptiness or there's an awareness that, you know, other people can see in them. If it's a minor character, if it's a really bad, bad character, person who's doing bad things, there's certainly an awareness that there's darkness around that person. So it's just the spiritual element is -- I never have to think about how do I weave it in or how do I patch it over here? It's just a part of it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. I love that, because it should be. It's a part of all of our lives.

And so you mentioned, you know, that you are paying attention to the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the spiritual. So let's talk emotion, because people really do identify deeply, emotionally with your characters because they're so relatable. And so I'm curious, how do you develop them and how do you breathe life in them?

Karen Kingsbury: Yeah, you know, the characters are like real people to me. By the time I have outlined -- you know, I do a character development page for each character. Might be two pages. Whatever it might end up being. And then, you know, I outline the story, and then I am spending time with those characters in a way that it just feels like they're real. I can see them. And they're not based on people I know, they're just actually people that God has placed in my heart.

It's a level of POV. I mean, technically what we're talking about on the emotional is I'm writing in third-person point of view and I'm alternating points of view. So if it was a story about you and me and Phil, Dr. Phil, we would say, okay, maybe this chapter is Dr. Phil. And then the next chapter is you, and then it's me. And then I might circle back to Dr. Phil, and then maybe back to you. So it's bouncing about, but I'm alternating points of view.

And then I've written into something that we now call deep point of view. So as we start, it just feels like third-person point of view. But as you get going into that character, layers are removed and you get into the deep point of view, even into what they're thinking. And that might be in italicize. It might even sound like first person. But it's so deep because I'm right into the heart of that character. And I tell you, Jennifer, honestly, I'm crying sometimes when I'm writing a scene. It's so emotional to me, and I'm so in the deepest, deepest part of that character's heart that it's affecting me. And my husband will walk by and just kind of give me a look like (making sound).

Jennifer Rothschild: I remember you telling me one time a story of you were finishing writing, or you were in the middle of it or whatever, and Don walks by and you're crying, and he's like, "What happened?" And can you tell us that story?

Karen Kingsbury: Yes. It was a dear character, Irvel, and she was in Sunset Hills Adult Care Home. She was a person suffering with Alzheimer's. Her husband, Hank, her love of her life -- they were World War II kids, teenagers, and ended up having a very dramatic story, and then were just, you know, in love with each other for all of their days. He had passed seven years earlier. But in this home, she would wake up, Irvel would get her tea, and she would sit down in the front room and she would just think that Hank was coming home from fishing. And one of my major characters, Ashley Baxter, worked there. And so she would say, "Irvel, are you okay?" And she would say, "Yep, I'm just waiting for -- sipping my peppermint tea and waiting for Hank." And other workers there would say, "Irvel, Hank's been dead seven years," like, trying to get her back into, like, the real place that she was in. But Ashley would just say, "Well, tell me about Hank," you know, and just leaning into it. So anyway, I loved her. I loved Irvel. She was the grandmother I never had.

And now it was time for her to pass, and I was writing that story. And I'm writing more and more and more slowly, and finally, you know, Irvel takes her last breath. And I just had to set my laptop down beside my chair and just have a good cry over losing Irvel. I was just, like, literally crying, like, just grieving her loss. And my husband comes into the room. And he's, like, bounding through the room looking for a sweatshirt, and he stops, like, cartoon, like, dead in his tracks. He's like, "Honey, what's wrong?" I said, "Oh, honey, it's -- Irvel died." And so he gets this dramatic, like, "Oh, no." He pauses for a second. "Do we know Irvel from church or from school?" And I said, "Honey, no, she's one of my characters." Now he just, like, kind of levels his gaze at me and rolls his eyes a little bit. He goes, "Well, honey, I don't feel sorry for you. I mean, you killed her."

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that so much. Oh, my gosh.

Karen Kingsbury: It's so funny, honestly, because he told me, he goes, "Just backspace, please. Bring her back. What do you have to do?" Just like, "Well, it's not that hard." And I said, "No, you can't just bring her back."

But, you know, my last book, just once I did bring her back and I told her World War II love story with Hank. So I finally took his advice and I did bring her back.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that so much. Oh, my gosh. And that right there explains why your readers connect so well emotionally.

So you've said a couple of things that beg this question. I want to get just slightly technical or in the granular, because different authors do different things to write. Okay? So you had already mentioned you kind of see this movie in your head or you think of a problem, you know, how could I solve it? All right. So I am curious, though, what your creative process may be like. Like, would you happen to have any rituals or habits that you usually include with your writing routine?

Karen Kingsbury: Well -- okay, so if it's actually, like, a writing day. So first I do all the prep. I mean, it's like that's the reporter in me, I think, that has to do the research first. And especially with a book like World War II. That was -- I mean, I did a month or two of research just watching documentaries and reading and trying to really grasp, you know, which ships were in which part of the ocean and which dates lined up with what. It was very important to me to be accurate.

But normally, you know, I don't write historical. And so it's just knowing those characters that I'm outlining. And I have to love my outline, because to me the outline is the map, and I don't want to -- you know, if I'm swimming across the ocean, which is sort of how I see writing a novel, I don't want to swim nine miles in the wrong direction. So I have to love, love that outline.

And then now it's time to write. Okay. So lately -- because we have four little grandboys, Jennifer, and I do not want to miss time with them. So, you know, there were times when I would jump on a plane and go four days here or there. I can write pretty quickly. I can do a novel in, you know, less -- two weeks or less is about what it takes for me to -- you know, once I'm tapped into that and, like, I've prayed and said, "Lord, place me into that movie that you put in my heart," it just pours out. And it pours out pretty close to what you end up reading.

But now we have a theater downstairs, so I just go down into the theater, put a YouTube clip on of, like, the beach, like a 10-hour -- as if I'm actually sitting at the beach, like, just waves and birds and the breeze and the trees. And then I put on some instrumental music and I pray, pray, pray. And then I begin. And I just take that Chapter One and, you know, you're just carving out white space one word at a time and one chapter at a time. And I get lost in it. And I know that happens when all of a sudden, like, five hours have gone by and I'm like, what in the world? It feels like it's been 15 minutes. I'm just in another world.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow. In the zone. That is so cool, Karen. I love that. And it is remarkable to me that you can produce it basically in two weeks. But it's because you've lived with it for two months or six months or whatever with research and outlining. That is so cool.

It's interesting to me also that you use only instrumental music. Because I'm the same way. And it's because I cannot ignore a word. So there can be no extra words around me when I'm writing.

Karen Kingsbury: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So no lyrics.

Karen Kingsbury: That's exactly right.

Jennifer Rothschild: So one of the things also that I want to go toward -- because you've already mentioned some specific books. Okay. So one of the things that I heard you say is that when you finished writing "Someone Like You," you told your hubby, "This will be a movie." Okay? So give us an idea of that emotional experience. Because you clearly saw it as a movie first in your head, you wrote it, and then you thought, okay, this is going to be a movie. Kind of give us an idea of that experience.

Karen Kingsbury: Yeah. When I finish a book, I usually do have, like, a victory lap or something. Like, I put my fist in the air, "Yes," you know, "Yes." And sometimes I'll even say something crazy like, "Ah, that is so good," as if I read it, right? I really feel like the first reader. It's God's story. And when I just listen to him and obey and just -- if I just had a seat belt sometimes, I'd stay in my seat longer and actually even get it written faster. But it's his thing. And so when I say, "Oh, that's so good," that's not -- and anybody who didn't know me would be like, that's, like, a little arrogant. Please don't say that. But it isn't like that. For me, it's just that I -- it's like all glory to God. Thank you, Lord --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, I get it.

Karen Kingsbury: -- you gave me this story from this movie in my head. But with "Someone Like You," when I finished it, it was different. And it was this -- like, I could hear the voice of God in a whisper saying, "This will be the first movie." And I just got chills. Like, really?

And this was the -- so this came out in 2020, right during the pandemic, in the spring. So I had written it like the year before. And, you know, I think at that point, I wasn't ready to even acknowledge something as big as making a movie. Because other people were making movies on my books, and those were good, and very blessed and honored to have that experience a number of times with Hallmark or, you know, one other theatrical movie that happened ten years ago that just had a limited run. And even the Pure Flix TV series A Thousand Tomorrows, all of that was great and I was very, very thankful, but it wasn't the movie that God had placed in my heart. So even though I heard him say that, it wasn't like I just rubbed my hands together and said, okay, let's get started. I was like, oh, sure, you know, like, someday far off in the distance. And I think there was just -- there's a fear there. Like, to make your own movie means you got to figure out the funding and you got to do all of it yourself, you know. So it was a little bit of a -- I kind of just tabled it. I just thought, I'm just going to table that. And at that time, Pure Flix was working on the Thousand Tomorrows, and I thought I'll just let Pure Flix do everything. They love Jesus, you know, this could be good. But it wouldn't go away.

And then the day came when I was talking about it, how I would have done this or I would like to do that. And my husband, who has always truly been this -- you know, he's a coach and a teacher. And I love the days when I'm cheering for him and keeping score for him and he's the one in the center of the ring. But a lot of times it's me instead, and he's the one behind the scenes who is praying and who is encouraging me and listening to story ideas, and my best friend.

And he came to me this one day -- this was, like, in probably spring, maybe May of '22. He put his hands on my shoulders and he looked me in the eyes and he said, "Karen, if we have to sell everything, God wants you to make a movie. Let's do it."

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Karen Kingsbury: It was just amazing. It's like this moment that I will never forget. And, you know, I had spent those few years as a sports writer, and all of a sudden this analogy came to me. How in pro baseball, the batter is up to bat. And if the pitcher is going to throw a fastball, which is often, that batter has a half of a second to decide whether to swing or whether they're going to let the ball go by. And maybe it's a strike and you're not going to get to run the bases. And so I thought that's us right now. Here comes this fastball, and we have a half a second and we need to swing the bat. And we did. We swung the bat.

I started writing a script for "Someone Like You." I brought my son Tyler, who's my writing partner on scripts, I brought him into it. And then I asked him to pray about being the director. I knew he was ready, he had directed some other things, but he had never done a full-length theatrical feature. Everyone has to have their directorial debut someday.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Karen Kingsbury: So he prayed about it. And his only hesitation was, "Am I really ready, Lord?" And after a few days of praying, he said, "I feel like I am," and so we were off to the races. I mean, it was just weeks later, we opened our house as the production office. Which, you know, Jennifer, I wouldn't probably do it again, I wouldn't, because I think it needs a more professional setting normally. But in this first case, like, every day we had a little devotion. Not everybody's a believer on a set, you know, and cast and crew, whatever. But we had 50 people meeting at our house. And we had the art department downstairs and the wardrobe department in another area, you know. And we had room for it, and we just -- you know, we fed them really well, and they loved it. They were like, wow, we've never experienced anything like this.

But it was -- I remember when the first actor arrived to town and was coming to the house for his fitting. And he had parked and was walking up, and Tyler looked out and he said, "Well, guess there's no turning back now."

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, and I remember reading -- I don't remember which article, because I've read several articles about this movie -- one of the actresses saying after she had read the script, she knew she had to do this movie. I wish I could remember which one it was. But as I read it, I thought how special that was, because -- and the other thing I'd like to say to our 4:13ers is Karen Kingsbury does everything with quality. So I have no doubt about the level of professionalism and quality and attention to detail that this movie is going to display. And we are encouraging everybody to head to the theaters on April 2nd. That's when it debuts, is that correct, in theaters, on April 2nd?

Karen Kingsbury: That's right. Yeah, theaters every -- opens nationwide, yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: And we want to be there because we want to make a dent so that everyone -- so that the industry knows that we are all there to watch this movie. And it's a beautiful story that you need. I mean, I need. I loved it. And even the trailer is so inspiring. We'll have a link to that also on the Show Notes.

Okay. But, Karen, I could listen to you all day, but this is going to have to be our last question. Okay? All right. So you inspire me personally. Your stories have inspired millions. Okay? So I want to know what inspires you. Okay? Now, when the details of your craft get difficult, when the fear of making a movie becomes a little overwhelming, when you're just having a normal Karen in the kitchen day and you're frustrated or you have anxiety or whatever, or when you're even reading someone else's work, what is it and who is it that actually inspires you?

Karen Kingsbury: You know, the answer is the answer that maybe people might say is kind of an easy or cliché answer, but it's actually the truth for me. It's Jesus. It's my relationship with him. That if it's hard -- like, when we were heading into making the movie and we knew -- you know, we were using our savings, Jennifer. That was a huge, huge risk. And everyone recommended, don't do that, all the financial people we know, but we just felt God was calling us to do it. And I realized, you know, a COVID outbreak or an accident or someone -- I'm hiring actors I don't even know, and if they didn't show up to set. Any of these things could have derailed us and destroyed the project, and you just couldn't go there.

It was trusting the Lord and being able to say, okay, even if it all falls apart, then this day, did I live this day well? Did I make the most of sharing his light and love, his joy and peace with the people around me? Did I live my life for Jesus to lead others toward him today? If this is the last day I get, and when the movie never happens, if the theater is never open, is it enough that we did this and we did this path and we made an impact on the people around us? And the answer was always yes.

And it comes back to -- and even on days when you might feel afraid or when I might feel anxious about something, I really quickly turn to Jesus and I hear him saying, "It's just earth." This is just earth. We have so much ahead. And so what impact we can make here, we will do by the grace and strength of God alone. And the rest, hey, we have eternity, so we don't have to worry about it.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's just earth. It's just earth. I'm telling you, I am using that phrase. It's just earth. It's just earth. We can trust him with every single bit of it because it's just earth. I'm telling you. Wasn't that powerful, K.C.?

K.C. Wright: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: It takes a lot to leave me speechless, but I'm just saying wow right now. Jesus is clearly her inspiration. It was trusting the Lord. Remember she asked, even if it falls apart, did I live this day well? If this is the last day I get, is it enough that we made an impact on the people around us?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

K.C. Wright: I know you said you were talking story with her, but I'm telling you, that woman was talking wisdom right there.

Jennifer Rothschild: A to the men.

K.C. Wright: The gold nuggets were falling.

All right. So get her book, go to the movie. You need it, you'll love it, you deserve it. It's called "Someone Like You," and it releases in theaters on April 2nd. So get all your friends, get a babysitter, get your tickets. And you can get all the info you need at this website: someonelikeyou.movie. Or just a quick scroll on Facebook. It's everywhere.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's everywhere, yeah.

K.C. Wright: Or we'll also get you there, of course, through the Show Notes at 413podcast (gets tongue tied) -- I'd like to buy a vowel.

Jennifer Rothschild: Sorry. Keep going.

K.C. Wright: 413podcast.com/Karen.

Jennifer Rothschild: There you go. You did it, K.C. You did it.

Listen, she is the real deal. Truly wise and humble and brilliant woman, and I trust her. And I am so grateful for her life, her public ministry, and her private integrity. So have fun at the movies, and do not forget to turn off your cell phone. Okay? You can remember that because -- well, you know, you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. All right, I can.

K.C. Wright: I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: And you can.

K.C. Wright: You can. (Singing) Let's go to the movies.

Jennifer Rothschild: I knew you were going to sing that.

K.C. Wright: (Singing) Let's go see the stars.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's so Broadway of you, K.C.

K.C. Wright: (Singing) Let's go to the movies, J.R.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well done.