Lynn Painter’s ‘Trust Fall’ is for the Rom Com Lovers and So Are Her Book-to-Screen Adaptations (Exclusive)
Find out what Lynn Painter has said about her upcoming hockey romance adaptation!
Key Takeaways
- Lynn Painter shared what teen drama served as inspiration for her new novel.
- Painter says Wes and Liz from 'Better Than the Movies' are her 'magical children'.
- The Young Adult rom-com queen shared a few of her favorite rom-coms of all time.
Wes and Liz. Alec and Dani. Damion and Julia. Three fictional couples that have—or are about to—snag the hearts of millions worldwide, courtesy of Lynn Painter.
It takes a specific type of romantic comedy enthusiast to create a truly beloved, relatable couple with a page-turning storyline and that’s exactly what Painter has been doing since her 2021 debut novel, Better Than the Movies. The rom com follows Wes Bennett and Liz Buxbaum, neighbors and frenemies, who begin to fake date in order to get the attention of Liz’s lifelong crush.
“They’re my magical children and I love them so much,” Painter said of Wes and Liz in an exclusive interview with Woman’s World.
But Better Than the Movies was only the beginning. With a movie adaptation in the works and a third novel on the way, Painter has continued delivering the heart-racing, butterfly-inducing romantic comedies her readers love. Among them is Fake Skating, which follows childhood best friends Alec and Dani as they unexpectedly reunite after years without contact.
Now, Painter is introducing readers to a new romantic world with Trust Fall. The novel follows Julia, a small-town girl who discovers that her elderly neighbor—and a secret multi-millionaire—has left everything to her and her family. The only caveat is that Julia and her family must live in the Upper West Side for at least six months while she and her brother attend an elite private school.
Enter Damion, a mysterious handsome tutor who is there to help Julia keep her grades up. But what she doesn’t know is that Damion is the great-nephew of her family’s benefactor and is determined to prove they tricked him into it. But the more time he spends with Julia, the more his plan unravels as they fall for one another.
Painter spoke with Woman’s World about Trust Fall and the upcoming book-to-screen adaptations of Better Than the Movies and Fake Skating.
Woman’s World: Trust Fall takes a bit of inspiration from Gossip Girl and it’s blended with small town life. What inspired you to write this book?
Lynn Painter: It started out as, “What’s my next book going to be about?” I thought of a lottery book, but it didn’t end up going in that direction at all. But then I thought how funny would it be to have this fish out of water where a girl learns her family won a big lottery. Her parents have always wanted to live in New York, so they decide to just up and move. I started moving pieces around and I ended up pivoting to where they find out they’re inheriting all of this money as long as they move to New York and do all these things, and it kind of spun from there.
I wasn’t a big Gossip Girl viewer when it was out, but once I got the idea [for the book], I thought, “Am I being too unhinged? Maybe I should watch a couple episodes of Gossip Girl,” and then I watched it and thought, “Oh no, they’re so much more unhinged,” but it gave me some room to play… It was really fun for somebody like me, the midwestern, small city sort of person, to imagine what it would be like to be in a Gossip Girl-type situation.
A lot of us who grew up in other parts of the country always feel this connection to New York because of Friends and You’ve Got Mail. There’s always this feeling of, ‘I know I’ll love it if I ever get to go.’ Then the first time I went to New York, I knew I was right. I loved it. In January, I said to my husband, “I think we need to go to New York for book research.” So it was a reason to go there and make sure I had the subway line right that she would take and to walk around the neighborhood where she would live.
WW: Damion and Julia have the perfect enemies-to-lovers storyline. How do you determine what type of storyline and trope your characters have?
Lynn Painter: It’s usually a hybrid where I have an idea and then it ends up changing. When I started writing Trust Fall, I didn’t know they would ultimately have the conflict [they do have]. Their meet-cute at the beginning [of the book] was super charming. Then they discover who each other are and just sort of fall apart. I ended up changing it to a meet-ick, where immediately they’re like, “Oh, I hate you.” So I never really have an idea where it’s going. I have a general idea of how I want their relationship to be, but nailing how it actually goes down is usually a journey.
WW: How do you create such real characters like Damion and Julia?
Lynn Painter: I would love to say it’s a craft thing, but honestly, I’m just a really messy person. When I read a book and the characters are perfect and they’re these amazing professionals and Type A—I don’t understand those people. When I was in my 20s, I was calling my mom saying, “They’re gonna shut off my phone, can you send me some money?” I’ve always been kind of a mess, so, inadvertently, I write characters that are a little bit messy. They might be Type A and have it together, but whatever it is they’re dealing with—whether it be anxiety about the relationship they’re in, or the relationship with their parents—I feel like my brain tilts toward the the stresses of those things, and maybe that’s what feels authentic because we all struggle with it.
When you’re writing characters, you don’t know if they’re coming off authentic or not. You hope they do and you’re striving for it. My favorite part of writing is characterization. Like with Damion, he actually loves cats, and then you start to think through his backstory with pets. All of those little things end up making characters feel real because it’s the tiny micro things that we all sort of spin out about.
WW: Let’s talk about Better Than the Movies. What do Liz Buxbaum and Wes Bennett and their story mean to you?
Lynn Painter: It’s really funny because they feel like more than characters to me—they’re almost like children. It was my first book, and I was hoping somebody would read it and then it became this thing I never expected. People related to it. Then I wrote the sequel, and I hate sequels. I never watch them. If they end up kissing at the end of the movie, I think, “Why would we want to destroy them for the sake of another movie?” I’ve never seen Bridget Jones’ Diary 2. I’ve never seen Miss Congeniality 2—I hate them.
When my publisher asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to write a sequel?” I was, like, “No, never.” And then I came up with an idea. [Wes and Liz] wouldn’t just break up, but sometimes life gets in the way and changes your plans. So if something from outside of their relationship were to change, maybe I could do a sequel. So I wrote Nothing Like the Movies and I had to torture poor Wes and they had to go through so much to come back together. The sequel was really hard for me as a writer but they’ve become super meaningful to me.
WW: Now the book is being adapted into a film. How are you feeling about seeing that story brought to life?
Lynn Painter: The whole process is just bigger and cooler than I ever thought it was. In my head, when I pictured casting and directors, I just imagined that one person decides and that’s it. But there’s the round of audition tapes, then they have the ones that move forward come in and audition, and they do chemistry reads where they have the characters do the scenes together to figure out who works best. It was so interesting to me because when I write, especially with this book, it’s just nameless, faceless [characters]. Like Wes just has dark hair and dark eyes, so millions of people physically could be Wes Bennett, but it had to be the person who could deliver that cockiness, but still have the vulnerability and the quick snappy banter.
I was just over the moon when I saw Beatrice [Kitsos] and David [Iacono] together. When they deliver their lines, I’m, like “They are better at being Wes and Liz than I am.’ I feel like they’re nailing it more than I did when I wrote them. Now, when I work on stuff, I hear their voices as Wes and Liz.
WW: Fake Skating was an instant success, earning a massive fanbase and a movie adaptation. What has that whirlwind been like for you?
Lynn Painter: It’s been wild because a lot of times, a book will be optioned—which means somebody essentially reserved it—and it’ll be years. Better Than the Movies has been optioned for years, and it’s just been quiet. Fake Skating was the opposite. The book came out and a couple months later, we were signing contracts and they’re talking about when they’re gonna film it. They’ve got Josh Boone as the director, who did The Fault in Our Stars. There’s also this whole group of women creators and executives who I feel like really get the rom-com as opposed to just saying, “Oh, we want to get a hot hockey player.” They know it’s about Dani [Collins] and her story and their childhood, so it’s been really lovely and I’m so excited. They’re gonna start filming that in November, and it comes out next July on my birthday.
WW: Fake Skating feeds into that pop culture hockey obsession that is all the rage right now. Was it that hockey craze that inspired you to write this book?
Lynn Painter: It did. It’s funny, because when I was thinking through what my next YA book would be, I thought I would write a YA hockey book because we all love hockey romance. At the time, I didn’t feel like there was a lot of that. I have all these cool cousins in Minnesota and my nieces all played hockey, so it was a reason to go up to Minnesota and connect with my cousins and watch some hockey and do some research. So I went up to the Twin Cities and spent hours at the high school hockey practices and I ended up falling in love with this hockey community. Instead of going to cool bars downtown after the game, all the parents go to the Croatian social hall and all of these things that I was unfamiliar with.
All of a sudden, I wanted to write this story of somebody who didn’t grow up with all of this that seemed so cool, and what it would be like for a fish out of water to land in that environment. A kind of found family story. So it went from being about a hot hockey guy to being a story about these two people who sort of grew up together, came apart, and now their worlds are colliding again. It was a gift to me, because it was a surface level romance and then it became this story that I fell in love with. Now, I wish I could have grown up in a hockey community in Minnesota.
WW: Is romantic comedy the only genre that has ever interested you to write about?
Lynn Painter: The first books that I wrote were straight up romance as opposed to romantic comedy. But I’m not a serious person, and I’m not great at plotting. So the only other thing I could see happening was something with dark humor, like a cozy mystery where two characters are falling in love and stumble over a dead body and have to figure out who’s responsible for the corpse. I could maybe do something with that, but I don’t think I could ever write anything serious.
Although, when writing Trust Fall, at the beginning of each chapter I was going to have a quote about New York City or the Fall. I gathered all of these quotes and by the time you finish a book, there’s 50 [chapters] maybe. Then your copy editor says, “Hey, I don’t know if you can use this because of this reason.” So we scrapped it. Then I thought about having the dead guy, Remington, quote something about New York at the beginning of each chapter. That ended up being my favorite part of writing this book.
It was fun because nobody wants a backstory when you’re reading about two people that you want to kiss. You don’t really want to listen about how great the dead uncle was. It’s important information, but do we want to hear this hot guy describe his uncle, or do we want to see him flirt? We want to see him flirt. So it ended up, in a backwards way, becoming a great way to expose character through a tiny description.
WW: What is your favorite rom com of all time—or your top three?
Lynn Painter: I don’t think I could ever choose one. I think When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail should be lumped as one because they’re the autumnal canon. Pretty Woman, 10 Things I Hate About You and you know which one is so slept on? Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. No one delivers snappy, fast banter so lowkey like Hugh Grant in that movie. Miss Congeniality, too. It’s not really looked upon as a rom com, but Sandra Bullock brings so much rom com energy to it that it’s such a good one. I could go all day. I could never pick.
WW: What about your favorite book?
Lynn Painter: I was obsessed with the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren. Lately, all of Ali Hazelwood’s books, too. Everything she writes, every sentence is funny and self-aware and smart because she’s all of those things. She could write a book about a pancake and you know this is gonna be the hottest pancake you’ve ever read about, and they are gonna have the most complex, wonderful relationship. She’s just so good.
WW: Are there any other upcoming books that you’re working on?
Lynn Painter: In April, I have an adult rom com coming out, Cowboy Like Me. I’m back in my cowboy era apparently, and now I’m drafting another YA for next fall.
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