Zibby Mag

Book jacket biographies don’t tell us nearly enough about the authors we love. That’s why Zibby Mag launched the Author Snapshot, giving readers an inside look at the lives and work of our favorite writers.

This week we’re featuring the successful dynamic duo Christina Lauren! Their latest book, The True Love Experiment, publishes May 16th, so pre-order here!

You’ve clearly had such success writing as a duo. What is your writing dynamic and process together?

After twenty-nine books, it might sound crazy but our process is different for every book. We’ve learned that real life—kids, seasons, travel schedules, spouse flexibility, workload—looks different all the time, which means we have to be flexible in our process. Unless it’s impossible—like during a pandemic—we always outline together. Christina lives in Utah and Lo is in California, so we meet up and spend a few days working through the idea. We hang out, watch movies together, cook, go out to dinner, and in the midst of all of it we talk out the story. We write everything down as it crystallizes until we feel like we have a pretty good skeleton. Then we go our separate ways and start writing.

Sometimes we divide by character or chapter and write in chronological order, uploading those chapters as they’re completed and eventually combining to edit extensively. Other times one of us might be drafting while the other is doing revisions on other projects. No matter how we do it, we’ve learned to be flexible about the process.

What do you think are the most rewarding and most challenging parts of co-writing a novel?

Every single day we know how lucky we are to do this job with our best friend. Not only do we get to make stuff up together, but we travel to all these amazing places together, too! There’s always someone to share the ups and the downs with, and if we’re stuck there’s a second brain to help figure it out. Because there are two of us, we can divide and conquer, which is great because there are parts of the process that one or the other is better at or enjoys more. We joke that being coauthors is our superpower. There are some drawbacks of course, but they are few and minor in comparison to the positives. We write at different speeds, so that’s something we have to factor in, and because we live in different states, we can’t just pop over to each other’s house for a spur-of-the-moment brainstorming session.

What inspired you to write a sequel to The Soulmate Equation?

When we finished The Soulmate Equation, we thought we were done in that world. Then we went on (virtual, because of the pandemic) book tour, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that at every event we were asked multiple times if Fizzy’s book would be next. Fizzy was a total scene stealer, and we loved her voice, but could she be the star? Book besties are often there for comic relief, or to help support and guide the heroine/hero on their journey. By the end of The Soulmate Equation, Fizzy seemed to mostly have her life together, so what were her vulnerabilities? What roadblocks would she meet? Then it hit us: a compelling Fizzy to write would be a Fizzy who had lost her joy. Once we had that piece, the rest of it began to fall into place.

How do you think readers will respond to The True Love Experiment, and is there anything you hope they take away from the story?

Our characters rarely speak for us, but when Fizzy talks about the importance of chasing your joy, and what her readers mean to her, that is coming straight from us. We hope readers can tell how much fun we had while writing this book and, like Fizzy, how fiercely proud we are of the romance genre and its readers. Most of all, we want our readers to have a blast reading this one. If our books give readers a tiny oasis away from the real world, we feel like we’ve done our job.

Does your approach to or thought process around book tour and your pub day change with each new book you publish?

People are always surprised when we say it never gets easier. Even twenty-nine books in, we never get over the nerves and the worry about how readers will react to the book. We never feel like we can just coast—nor do we want to. If anything, we work harder with each book release. We do promo for longer and are always looking for new ways to reach people and get them to support bookstores. We go on longer tours and try to meet as many readers and booksellers as possible. We’re constantly thinking ahead to what we want to do differently and better next time, both in the outward reader-facing part of the job, and how we dream up the ideas and execute them in a way that captures the initial spark.

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners and best friends Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA TODAY, and #1 internationally bestselling authors of the Beautiful and Wild Seasons series, Dating You / Hating You, Autoboyography, Love and Other Words, Roomies, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating, My Favorite Half-Night Stand, The Unhoneymooners, Twice in a Blue Moon, The Soulmate Equation, Something Wilder, and The True Love Experiment. You can find them online at ChristinaLaurenBooks.com and @ChristinaLauren on Instagram or Twitter.