[SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by CC Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello everybody!
[SPEAKER_03]: You are back at books with hooks with Carly and CC.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you guys are watching this on YouTube, which you should be, I want to point out that I am wearing my blue jays shirt today, because the Toronto blue jays are doing so well, and it's not a podcast, unless you talk about sports, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, this is how we're going to climb the rankings, guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: We got to climb the rankings by talking about sports on our podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is baseball.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, this is the base wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the base wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, it says blue jays over here, but yeah, I'm wrapping Toronto blue jays today.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I lived in Boston, my friends made me go to a red socks game.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, of course you had been in a fair way.
[SPEAKER_03]: We feel so bad for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was wildly hungover that day like wildly over.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like the snacks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: The snacks were very yummy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't understand anything that was happening though.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I know the rules really well because for PE class the only reason why past PE class was the written exams.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I memorized all the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was just boring.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the balls kept going back.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like just no.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: well listen we got a repturano so there we go we're getting in our sports content and also this is a shooting the shit episode this is a books with hoax episode so we should follow the rules and get you our program yes let's do it okay so i will ask currently to read the first query letter here we go
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear Kylie, your podcast with CC Lair is rich in inspiring, also thank you full stop.
[SPEAKER_03]: Based on your wishlist, I hope you will be interested in representing the precise man.
[SPEAKER_03]: Complete at 95,000 words of market historical fiction with both a mystery and metafiction lurking with him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ned, tell me, the humorless master of the rebels, struggles to maintain his position and reputation in Jacobian London.
[SPEAKER_03]: His carefully structured life as collapsing, his wife is dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Official quarters lost.
[SPEAKER_03]: He now works in a smoky tavern.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is deeply in debt to the manipulative Edward DeVaire, and he was the last to see the tavern serving woman alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Desperate as he faces accusations of murder and treason.
[SPEAKER_03]: He begs assistance from the playwright who despises him, and the tavern keeper who's animated beauty terrifies him.
[SPEAKER_03]: With their help, till the musk and friend is over past emotions in order to uncover the truth.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you can escape debtors prison, the hangman, and labyrinth of conspiracy, he may find both friendship and love.
[SPEAKER_03]: One more twist hides within this thrilling tale of betrayal of hypocrisy, redemption, and will Shakespeare.
[SPEAKER_03]: The precise man reports to be the transcription of utilities newly discovered diary.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, the scholarly annotations and glosses slowly reveal a parallel story that of an academic who like to lean has utterly lost his footing in the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: The precise man will appeal two readers who love Maggie Oferes, hand-knit, light-born by
[SPEAKER_03]: Brent Salish worked for Microsoft through the 1990s and 2000s, then spent another decade teaching business skills to lawyers.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has contributed short-sourced anthologies published in the United States in South Africa.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's also directed a number of Shakespeare's plays, and he is neither a doctor, nor an academic.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, it clocked in at 313 words.
[SPEAKER_03]: So not super long for this one.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like as a concept, very interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think our word counts on point.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do think we have three genres here, three genres in one.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of like a market historical mystery, metafection.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't really get it's comps until the bottom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Normally, we do comps at the top, where we recommend, you know, comps at the top, completely up to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does help frame the story a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that we just stick with that market historical fiction.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think the meta fiction is doing us any good here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just makes it seem more complicated than it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a story within a story is a better way to describe it than potentially meta fiction.
[SPEAKER_03]: So starting with the character's name, so we start with Ned Tilney as that body paragraph.
[SPEAKER_03]: It looks like a synopsis to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just like default synopsis.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it makes me think that you kind of just pluck this synopsis and try to turn it into a query from there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would think about a way to reword this paragraph because I find that these are
[SPEAKER_03]: sentences in general, there's white shoppy, not very long.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the next body paragraph, we start to get longer sentences, which are a little bit more interesting, but I don't know, I just found it very, very choppy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you call him the master of the rebels, I don't know what that means.
[SPEAKER_03]: What did they do?
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm assuming this is something to do with the theater world, which we figure out eventually, but I didn't really understand.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also don't really understand who the murder is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it the wife?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it in his his like also he was the last to see the tavern serving woman alive was that the wife or who was that and what exactly is happening with who is dead How does he potentially feel about that is he actually involved in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just have a lot of questions about the actual story.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do love a fictional will Shakespeare.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will say I think that is a huge huge selling point.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do love that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think we really just have to simplify the story a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're making it sound more experimental than it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, obviously, we're going to find out in the execution exactly how experimental it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I don't know how exactly we can simplify this because again, I haven't read the whole story, but instead of the choppy sentences, figure out a way to help us know what the inciting incident.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't feel like I know what the inciting incident is essentially because we're just kind of like, here's some facts about,
[SPEAKER_03]: Ned, and here's Will, and this is his drama.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's just a lot of big stuff happening here, like his carefully structured life is collapsing.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to be honest with you, that line, carefully structured life is collapsing, could be copy and paste it into every single query that we ever get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Every character's life is collapsing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone, why also be reading a story about this character?
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't want to see anybody writing these lines, because they kind of drive me nuts personally, but I can get off my high horse about this.
[SPEAKER_03]: The wife is dead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great.
[SPEAKER_03]: How does he feel about this?
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously back then, people did not always marry for love, and there's a lot of complicated things.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just so factual.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, makes it feel like a synopsis.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I would probably rewrite most of this, if not all of it, to just get at the little bit more of the heart of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there is something super interesting here because he clearly has to dodge, you know, the debtor's prison, all of this sort of stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we also end up with, like, he may find both friendship and love.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are they both with Will Shakespeare?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this a gay romance?
[SPEAKER_03]: I love this for our characters, but if that's not true, I don't want to project that on these characters either.
[SPEAKER_03]: So again, lots of question, we like, I don't feel like I really have an understanding of what happens in this book to be honest, but a fictional Will Shakespeare will
[SPEAKER_03]: Regarding the biopereograph, I don't think it needs to be in third person.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would probably do this in first, just because it kind of stood out to me a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's kind of my main note.
[SPEAKER_03]: See, see what did you think about this one?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, honestly, you echoed all my comments.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I started reading the plot paragraph,
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't pick up on the fact that it was probably from a synopsis, but I think your diagnosis is right, but I have a little note here that says, and again, our sub-stacks supporters will be able to see this, but I said, this isn't how you write pitch copy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just sharing facts about the protagonists.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not giving me a sense of plot causeality.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the inciting incident?
[SPEAKER_02]: How does it escalate?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot that's unclear and
[SPEAKER_02]: that kind of lack of clarity, I don't think is serving your story well.
[SPEAKER_02]: The line that reads, he was the last to see the tavern serving woman to life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that to me was probably put there to indicate that he is a suspect, but then why not outright say it, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like she was murdered and he is a suspect, and so he must investigate to save himself from prison, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the line that says he's facing accusations of murder and
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think so, but what about the treason?
[SPEAKER_02]: The treason, like the serving woman, I don't believe would cost the two treason, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Treason is against whatever king or queen or.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so again, how does treason play into this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just not sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess my thing is,
[SPEAKER_02]: There are query letters that have to be edited, and then there are query letters that need to be rewritten.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am saying this with love, this needs to be rewritten.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, completely rewritten.
[SPEAKER_02]: Put this aside, just don't look at it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I want you to get at least at least 30 books that you adore and I want you to sit down and I want you to literally write out, like you can use, you can do it by hand, you can use your computer, whatever you want.
[SPEAKER_02]: Write out the pitch copy on the back of those books again like literally like you're transcribing it, right as you read it That's gonna train your brain to think and pitch copy language.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and then try again and do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do this rinse and repeat until you find that voice You are focused on facts, and that's just not what you're supposed to be focused on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're supposed to be focused on story Okay, sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I forgot we don't have Bianca
[SPEAKER_02]: We are great today.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're so great with that Bianca.
[SPEAKER_02]: Being with this, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: She's gonna get so mad if she listens and she knows what we're like doing a small talk, talking about sports.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's gonna get so mad.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's gonna be like, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I read a tight shit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, I listened to the Amy Polar podcast, which I love, plug for that podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And whenever the producers in the background laugh, it always makes me laugh.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like that would have been a moment if we had like producers.
[SPEAKER_03]: They would have laughed.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we had producers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Carly, will you tell us what happens in the opening pages?
[SPEAKER_03]: Alright, here we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we start off with an introduction, and it's not called prologue.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's called an introduction, which is a letter that explains from a academic in the present day called Dr. Brent Salish, who is presumably the author of this book, London 2024, pretending that they have found this net till these diary, laying out
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, basically an academic analysis as somebody would do in this environment of we found this diary and you know the following pages are how we brought this to life in a modern way for the modern reader.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then we start with chapter 1.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a setting in the pub
[SPEAKER_03]: Ned and the barkeep woman who is mentioned in the query letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a bunch of footnotes because presumably this is attempting to be an academic text.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our simulated academic text, so we have kind of the interactions between them.
[SPEAKER_03]: arguing about something, there's some banter, they're kind of trying to undermine our Ned character because he is the one who gets to decide what plays go on.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think this is what leads to the treason that was mentioned in the query letter, but there was somebody who got to decide, again, what plays were presented to the queen and they're talking to him in just about the situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lots of dialogue and that's where it ends.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and what did you think of the execution?
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually really liked the introduction.
[SPEAKER_03]: I did think it was kind of cheeky to be like, you know, this diary was found in the British libraries, that I just, I generally liked.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was a great way to kind of bring the reader.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if this is again, what we're attempting to do for the story, it didn't come off super experimental, which is why I think this queer letter needs to be rewritten.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: The person who is presumed to have found it is the author of the actual book, Dr. Brent Salish, because he is not a doctor.
[SPEAKER_03]: He says this, like he does not have a doctorate is what I mean.
[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't have a doctorate, as he says, it is query letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like he's representing himself.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't think that the author, like, Brent himself can pretend to have a doctorate in this situation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which to me, that's like, it's not meta.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's misrepresentation.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think you have to find another character.
[SPEAKER_03]: another academic character to play this part.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's my take on the introduction, but I actually did kind of love it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I have some thoughts about these footnotes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they are a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reason I think they are a bad idea is because it's a bit of like a yellow red flag situation here because, again, whether you think it's yellow flag or red flag is kind of up to you, but we are going to base our entire foundation of assumptions on this book from the first page.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything from style to tone to format and half of this first page is two foot notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the idea behind footnotes, again, as any studious person, such as myself that went to university and got two degrees nose, the footnotes are there when you need to, again, go a little bit deeper or find the source.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or, again, there's something that didn't fit within the actual paragraph, and there was no need for it in the actual paragraph.
[SPEAKER_03]: Therefore, it is just supplemental material that you go to, in case you wanna read a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_03]: not everybody reads footnotes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the fact that this person put half a page of footnotes in here, knowing that most people don't read footnotes was just kind of strange to me, because if something was integral to the story, then it should be in the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: It shouldn't be in a footnote.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's just me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, getting on my high horse, about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's presume again, this is a reenactment essentially of a diary entry.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that we would be spelling things out as much as we would.
[SPEAKER_03]: This feels very much for the reader because if somebody was writing a diary, they wouldn't like recount how every character looks and acts in the opening pages of every diary because they would be living in their mind.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I would say sitting with CC doing the podcast, CC's wearing her glasses, herish, reddish pinkish lipstick and of
[SPEAKER_03]: Cream, boba blazer, partying, cream, blazer cardigan with stripes.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I just, I wouldn't do that in my diary.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would just talk about what CC and I were talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just sound that bit odd.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, for example, he says, Isabel Swift is short, slightly rounded in the way, small of breast with hair of damp straw, green eyes and a round face that carries beauty, despite markers of the pox.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just don't think that, again, somebody that he would interact with all the time, he would write in his diary like that, that just seemed a bit strange to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was just really took me out of the story to be like, I think he's just doing this for the reader and I found that a little bit odd.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also didn't really feel like we got to the root of this kind of frenemy relationship between these two male characters, between Will,
[SPEAKER_03]: and net.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a lot here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think this is very interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clearly it is a symbiotic relationship.
[SPEAKER_03]: They need each other, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Will needs him to approve the play and net needs will to give him plays to put on presumably, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So like these two need each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I just don't really understand the banter
[SPEAKER_03]: at one point, they say his words sting.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was like, why, like, why do it was word sting?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are we getting at here?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's insulting his professional abilities, I guess, but I guess I just understand why he cares so much about this job.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I just didn't, I just couldn't figure out the heart of the why of it all.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I really did like the setting and the kind of the tone of this except for the part where he describes what the woman looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like that part.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do like this reimagined Shakespeare world.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will limit, I guess I'm a sucker for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you see what it you think?
[SPEAKER_02]: The hook is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, fictional Shakespeare great.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say and this is a hundred percent a matter of taste.
[SPEAKER_02]: struggle with metaphiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it's fine, but when it's too on the nose and in my opinion this is, I can't handle it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, for example, did not like the introduction.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not like the letter and I actually when I saw that it was signed by the author, I was like, wait.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we just read a whole paragraph about how he's not a doctor, not an academic, not and then I'm like, but why would you use the same name?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I even thought, you're the
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I think it is because he's signing the query letter.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just had so many questions and that kind of confusion You know, this is the opposite of what I think a writer once what an agent is reading pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: I Go into a world you created.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm supposed to be seduced by this world I am not supposed to be going wait.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this wait hold on let me read this again because maybe I missed something like that is the worst now When that happens one of two things could be the cause
[SPEAKER_02]: The first is you need to work on your story.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second, and I think this is actually what's happening, is I am not the right agent for the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and in this case, I think I need to recognize this about myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I need to pre-no-practice self-awareness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't love these kinds of stories where you have so much overt and explicit metaphiction, like we have the letter, we have the author's name, then we have the footnotes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just way too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are
[SPEAKER_02]: novels that have a story within a story that I really enjoyed, but they're just a bit more subtle, you know, and I guess that's just my taste.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I do think that it was, you know, very well written in Polish in terms of like the scene work.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew what was going on and you who was talking, the interior yardie was very precise and
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew what the character was thinking and feeling and that does take work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I recognized that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just did not feel intrigued by the story itself because I wasn't in the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't get sucked in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, matter of taste, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's just one of those things.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, thank you so much, Susie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, we're gonna turn it over to your query letter now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you read it for us?
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, dear Cecilia, this person called me Cecilia.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, if you look at being scolded, dear Cecilia, I hope you're having a lovely summer so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a big fan of your podcast, which I watch on YouTube, yay, shout out to YouTube, and I really enjoyed the episode you did for the fold, which I attended this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also connected with your manuscript wish list.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so excited to be querying you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Given your interest in dark thrillers, dysfunctional protagonists, feminist stories, female friendships, and moral ambiguity, I hope that you will consider my completed 99,000 word of market thriller, Bibliomaniax.
[SPEAKER_02]: My novel blends the seeking of connection and self-discovery through literature, explored in the novel The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joyfaller, with the murder vigilante justice and eventual female rage depicted in the television show,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been 12 years since Furia Shah watched her abusive father kill a man.
[SPEAKER_02]: No matter how hard she's tried to shake off her past, she's lived with the kind of crushing loneliness that won't let go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now as a college student struggling with depression for Ria joins a book club of classmates, she's only ever studied from afar.
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally included in a group of friends, she's desperate to ignore their rent flags, but when a devastating murder takes place during a book club meeting for Fariah, Fariah, I don't know how to pronounce this person's name, I feel so bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their accessible club leader is not just interested in debating and dissecting his prized books.
[SPEAKER_02]: He draws out ideas on torture and control from the most wicked stories on his shelves.
[SPEAKER_02]: As Samuels' real-life crimes begin to mimic the dark novels chosen for their club, Faria is determined to get justice for Samuel's victims and save herself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unable to turn to the city's corrupt police force Ferrier rallies together a group of wronged women to devise a plan inspired by her favorite novels to get rid of Samuel, to get back at her father, and to get away with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: With its greedy exploration of toxic friendships, female rage, class privilege, and intellectual obsession, Bibliomaniacs, will appeal to fans of Julie Tennis dead by Leanne Zank.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some questions for you by Rebecca Makai, and Babel by RF.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hold a Master's Degree in Gender Studies from the University of Kuazulu, Natal, along with an undergraduate degree in psychology and politics.
[SPEAKER_02]: Through writing scholarships, I have completed a writing course with author Traci's Qs.
[SPEAKER_02]: a novel revision course at the writer's center and a manuscript publishing course with authors publish.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although my heart remains in my birthplace of South Africa, I now call Canada home where I live close to Toronto with my mother and siblings.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for considering my submission.
[SPEAKER_02]: I look forward to the possibility of working with you best wishes Aziza.
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Susie.
[SPEAKER_03]: How many words was in this query letter and what was your
[SPEAKER_03]: counting the words, because I forgot to do that, because I am not a good student.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so this one came in at 454 words.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, in case you're listening, I was totally joking when I said I feel scolded when you said Cecilia.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's totally fine to call me Cecilia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't want anyone to think that I was serious.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't mind at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did notice that you said, you know, I'm excited to be querying you and I'm assuming you're writing that because you're practicing your query.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to make super clear to everyone who's listening when you submit to the podcast, you are not querying CC, you're not querying Carly.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are submitting to an educational resource in which we share notes and thoughts and offer suggestions on improvement and also compliments.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so again, I just want to make that super super clear and I'm pretty sure that you know this,
[SPEAKER_02]: picked up on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to make that abundantly clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you watch us on YouTube, but also the idea of people watching me is terrifying.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is one of those situations where like half of my brain is going, please your God, don't watch me and the other half is going, yeah, you've got to watch us because we need to improve our YouTube.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, running a podcast after everyone listening is a lot of work and involves a lot of costs.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're always trying to like
[SPEAKER_02]: And YouTube gives us no revenue, but maybe one day it will, so we're like, yes, please watch us on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, this is my YouTube rant title, Bibliomaniax.
[SPEAKER_02]: This title to me speaks of like full club fiction, you know, I guess more relationship driven, it doesn't say thriller to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't get thriller.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cover art could potentially convey thriller like the word bibliomaniax with an awesome cover art.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could potentially get that vibe.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might get some of my questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: How attached are you to this title?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have a lot of comps here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have comps in the metadata paragraph up top.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have the Jane Allison book club and then you have you And then you also have comps in the bottom right like too many comps To make comps you're going to pick two really awesome strong comps and you're going to lead with that and the first paragraph Don't do this to our brains.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know a lot of authors think hey, but if I use two comps and the agent doesn't like these two comps
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm shooting myself on the foot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to book in my query letter and add more comms at the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the more books I mentioned, the more chance that the Asian going, that's so exciting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like that title.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a really bad idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just confuses us.
[SPEAKER_02]: It causes whiplash.
[SPEAKER_02]: You do not want whiplash.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I also, you know, recommend title should be in all caps or italics that you prefer italics.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like all caps because italics can often get wonky with formatting, but just remember everyone listening all caps, please.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, okay, Plop Perica, let me obsess about the part that I care about the most.
[SPEAKER_02]: This reads, for Rea joins a book club of classmates she's only ever studied from afar.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to read that twice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because study afar, I thought of study abroad, and I thought, wait, the book club is virtual.
[SPEAKER_02]: Later on, I understood that she meant more like, she was an outsider looking in.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's an outsider looking into a group, and she was studying them in the way and anthropologist studies someone, which everyone does.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone does, you know, you study groups that you don't belong to, you look at their mannerisms, you look at their, you know, who's the group leader, all that, that's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wouldn't use that verb.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say maybe she admired them from afar, you know, like I just think that the sentence could be confusing and so I would not give yourself that problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I also want to say something.
[SPEAKER_02]: The exciting incident seems to be she joins the group and the plot escalation seems to be the murder like that seems to happen early on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Insighting Incident and Plot Escalation, especially when it's in keeping with the genre, like murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have devastating murder takes place during a book club meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: After that, I was expecting investigation.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's a suspect.
[SPEAKER_02]: She needs to, I don't know, again, plot points that would escalate that further tying it to her because she wasn't murdered.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't her friend who was murdered to the best of my knowledge.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how does that murder tie with her?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we need after the murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, making it the protagonist's problem to solve.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, what the author did here was shared lines that felt really like a really odd follow-up to the murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: It felt like the author took her time to give context.
[SPEAKER_02]: When really the best thing to do after you say there's a murder is to launch into more plot points about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, you were giving context on the murderer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think that you should be doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that you need to reframe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's also a line that reads as real life crimes plural, begin to mimic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then I'm going to wait with you more than one murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's what I'm supposed to be learning about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's the plot point that I think you should get to and clearly your book has lots of good for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was confused about that and then the line that reads get back at her father.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do not understand how these things are tied.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that that is her story set up, witnessing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That gives her really interesting, motionality and emotional makeup to work with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean it's super cool if you're going to be able to like, tie this thing that happened in her past to the present plot line, but I don't get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need to get it or remove that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just want to say like again, lots of potential here because thriller, murder, campus setting, like this is all really awesome, but I was confused about a lot of things as hopefully you can see.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I do think I need a little bit of work, Carlyne.
[SPEAKER_03]: What did you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think this has tons of potential.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we're coming at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: from often times from the wrong angle here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our comps, I agree with CC.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a campus novel.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why we don't have any campus novel comps.
[SPEAKER_03]: These comps are quite old.
[SPEAKER_03]: Both of them were books.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then became television shows slash movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the books themselves are now older.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we definitely, we need to completely update all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I also made a note of like, I don't understand the logistics of the plot.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the insating incident?
[SPEAKER_03]: How many murders?
[SPEAKER_03]: And how did this all not stop?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because people knew about it, then couldn't these murders stop?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I read this as there's more than one murder.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if I'm that confused about what's actually happening in the plot, I think we have some issues.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we have more cops at the bottom, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like why do we have more cops at the bottom?
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, the only campus novel here is I have some questions for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that one definitely needs to come back towards the top of that the vibe that we're going for.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think a lot of this could be straightened out by just being a bit more straightforward with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not the thing that you're trying to like pull an over on us, but really just laying things out in a much more straightforward way is the goal here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: What parts of this is supposed to be something only for IONOs versus what the rest of the campus knows versus again what's happening in the larger campus community so I just don't again I don't understand like so it says when a devastating murder takes place during a book club meeting so
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, was it in front of them?
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it just at the time of the meeting?
[SPEAKER_03]: Did other people like witness it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who else was around?
[SPEAKER_03]: Was this murder reported?
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, there's just a lot of things I'm not fully understanding.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think this one needs to rewrite a top-to-bottom rewrite.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'm kind of of two minds on the title.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It kind of reminds me, and, you know, again, this person would not know this because it seems like they the birthplace was South Africa, but there was a show when I was a kid called animating acts, which was like, again, all this North American or just Canadian.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it kind of reminds me of like animating acts, but Biblio maniacs, and then we're trying to get in like Biblio, the book part, the maniacs.
[SPEAKER_03]: But something about this Portman Toa feels a bit childish to me, feels a bit young.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it could be, again, it's a campus novel, so the use element here can come into play.
[SPEAKER_03]: So those are kind of my notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't really have like a concise analysis here, other than I think it needs to be done again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a maniacs was world life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't say that it made its way to South Africa, but it made its way to local countries with different names though.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then, okay, you know, as TV shows do, okay,
[SPEAKER_02]: Rolog, which is a letter, so a Pistolary prologue, addressed to the unlucky person who finds this letter and signed by our protagonist, where she basically says, you know, I killed him and these are my reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sorry he died, I'm sorry I had to kill him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we go to chapter one, which starts at the time stamp one month earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: The protagonist is on a bus ride on the way to university, and she's not doing well, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Internally through her interior already, we know that she's really, really struggling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she is very open about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of a sudden, someone, she calls her go de-locks.
[SPEAKER_02]: sits next to her and Goldilocks is like popular right and she's thinking to herself oh my gosh get it together because it's popular girls talking to you and the popular girl just says sorry not girl woman woman cc the popular woman stars a conversation with her about you know what are you reading and there's a lot of friendliness coming from her and she asks what are you doing after class we should hang out and she
[SPEAKER_02]: make something up and tries to act cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we learn through her interiority that she is thinking of, and I do want to stress content, note here, trigger warning really.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is thinking of ending her own life because she's struggling so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, there's going to be a little bit of discussion on this for anyone listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when she gets to the end and you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I would consider not ending my own life because, you know, Goldilocks will speak to me after class.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe if that happens, I'll consider not doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that is what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Susie, what did you think about the execution of this one?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so, small note, let's talk about the prologue first.
[SPEAKER_02]: Prologue, prologue that our episillary are, especially hard to pull off.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like this one was very, very on the nose and very, very plot convenient.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is writing a letter for someone who, we don't know, she calls us the unlucky person, confessing to murder, signing her name.
[SPEAKER_02]: That I don't buy.
[SPEAKER_02]: She needs to get this off her chest so bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: She walks into a police station and confesses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, if she were moving this inside a time capsule that will only be open in 100 years, I would get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: because she would want to confess but by in a hundred years she'll be dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I totally get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also understand that, you know, the first pages make it clear that she is thinking about ending her own life and so perhaps she wrote this letter thinking that she wouldn't be here, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: given whoever found this letter.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just for me it didn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really thought I was really well written.
[SPEAKER_02]: I loved the line.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sorry that he died.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to be the one who killed him.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is both my confession and my goodbye, which again speaks to the idea of she probably is still thinking about ending things.
[SPEAKER_02]: but for me, it was not the best beginning.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do like, however, the idea of establishing that she's going to kill someone and then going back in time and having the a month earlier timestamp.
[SPEAKER_02]: That I really like, I just don't know that the letter is the way to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it is, if you're like really serious about this letter, then I don't know, I just, it has to feel less convenient to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wondering, like, why not make it a bird's eye voicing prologue, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe because you don't want us to know if she's going to be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then maybe, I don't know, an article, I just, the letter to the work from me is what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we go back in time a month earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a line that reads.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's saying that she's feeling a persistent feeling of sinking, a weight on her chest.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, I'm going to read a little bit of the writing for you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I had to explain this persistent feeling of sinking this weight on my chest to people who just didn't get it, I would say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Imagine what it would feel like if you were an Indian mother discovering that your friend of me son got into med school while your own man child's son filmed prank TikToks as a career.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or if you were a Gen Z, who attracted only three, measly likes on your thirst-trapped selfie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or if your favorite professor refused to give you a reference letter for grad school, or if your hard-earned promotion went to your boss's Tesla driving nephew.
[SPEAKER_02]: But worse, inexplicably worse.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am all for sharp specifics, sharp specifics are awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think these sharp specifics are working.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't seem to connect to her reality and they all seem unlinked.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them is about rivalry, like the front of me situation, and then one of them is about aging, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other one I have no clue, and then finally the other one is about being passed over for nepotism.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, this to me is not the best way to frame your story or the protagonist's emotionality.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say it seems like you know her really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like you know this person, I can just tell when I'm reading a book and someone has like real depth, the protagonist has real depth, she clearly has real depth.
[SPEAKER_02]: But these sharp specifics are not doing her depth, the justice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I will also say that, you know, it got a little repetitive.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like a big meeting saying this, but there are a lot of lines about how, oh my god, it's a miracle that Goldie locks is talking to me because I'm essentially pathetic.
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't call herself that, but like I'm a loser.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm pathetic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you
[SPEAKER_02]: once is fine but you don't need to keep repeating it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that Goldilocks just talks to her at all out of the blue way to plot convenient.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't recommend it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would find a way for that to be intentional.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can come up with something clever.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that you're right until you're already very well because you do something that I recommend that everyone does, which is the protagonist is observing another character.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the protagonist says, you know, she adjusted her beige wool sweater.
[SPEAKER_02]: which she had paired with oversized brown slacks.
[SPEAKER_02]: It should look boring, but it didn't on her.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would have looked like my grandfather's clothes on me.
[SPEAKER_02]: A very important technique that I really encourage all writers to do is when a protagonist is describing another character after the sharp specifics on the appearance or whatever else you're highlighting.
[SPEAKER_02]: bring it back to the protagonist.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meaning, oh, on me, those clothes would have looked like grandfather clothes, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a great way to tie things to the protagonist to maintain your protagonist as the son of your story, as you end son, and also to develop the protagonist and this other character that's there, like two birds once done, horrible expression.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I really like that you did that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm talking about something big picture, which is the fact that
[SPEAKER_02]: this protagonist is thinking of dying by suicide, but then towards the end she's like maybe I won't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This reminded me of the wedding people by Alison.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how to pronounce her last name, a spatch, a spatch, I don't know, a spock, whatever her last name is, brilliant, a brilliant author, both her novels are fantastic, highly recommend a notes on your sudden disappearance and the wedding people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But on the wedding people, we are introduced to a protagonist who is arriving at a very fancy hotel and this is very atypical for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we know this is big deal for her big deal day.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's weighing fantastic outfit and she's arriving at this hotel and this is a huge thing for her and there's a wedding party at the hotel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's only when she is forced to interact with the bride because they're taking the same elevator together, I believe, that she discloses the fact that she is thinking of dying by suicide.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why am I bringing this up?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, the way that she brings up the fact that, you know, she's thinking of dying by suicide, it's all in her interiority, it just hinges on her confessing to the reader.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't think that's the most compelling way to share that, and I feel
[SPEAKER_02]: awful and frankly terrified of giving this note because I'm talking about how to make someone thinking of dying by suicide more compelling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I am because it's a novel and we're supposed to make people curious.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is my job at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh, this is such a big subject matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please don't anyone think that I'm trying to be insensitive here.
[SPEAKER_02]: But essentially like, if you're going to start with that, I don't think it should be on the nose interiority.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you should.
[SPEAKER_02]: make it a reveal.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, not have her just be thinking about it so blatantly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her interiority is way too transparent right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Storytelling is a deduction and the biggest thing about seducing is figuring out what to withhold, what to reveal, when to withhold, when to reveal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you're revealing too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also don't think that for someone who has these thoughts in her mind, the mere conversation would be enough to make her
[SPEAKER_02]: But maybe that's your intention, maybe your intention is to show that, you know, she, she would, she's just so desperate.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that the mix of this person approaching her and just randomly talking to her for no reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the mix of her just telling us, you know, what her intentions are, it just makes it way too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, way too much, way too early.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would rethink how to start this.
[SPEAKER_02]: In case the authors thinking, well, there's a reason why Goldilocks approached her.
[SPEAKER_02]: The protagonist doesn't know the reason, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's actually some maybe even nefarious reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fine, that's a really interesting reveal.
[SPEAKER_02]: But for the protagonist and for the reader, there has to also be another reason, not the true reason, obviously, which we will later find out if that's the case, but we still need another reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or else, again, to plot convenient, plot convenience is often the death of first pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I go, I don't believe what this would happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, those are my notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that we're dealing with a really sensitive subject matter here and so what everyone listening, please take care.
[SPEAKER_02]: Carly, what did you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, I feel like I also don't have the happiest of notes because I think what is happening here, which also encompasses CC's notes, is it to me it feels like this is in adult writing a child and it's coming off as an adult writing a child and so I think that it is a bit simplistic in how we are approaching this because so if somebody's taking the bus to university, we can assume there anywhere from kind of 17 to 21 years old.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to me this again, this is a child.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're pitching this as an adult book to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is actually new adult, especially the way this is written, even young adult.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually don't think that the way that this is written is an adult book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm making all these presumptions based on five pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just didn't get adult vibe.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the difference between this and your comp of Rebecca Makai's, I have some questions for you is that is written from the perspective of the adult professor, not the child who is in the class.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so this is about the children in the class and I call them children like I know when you are a University so you don't feel like a child but most of them legally are and if you know you're still in that like new adulthood So I felt like this was very much an adult.
[SPEAKER_03]: I felt like I was watching an adult writer Try to write young and it wasn't coming off right so the section that CC highlight it actually was a section that I highlighted which was Discovering your friend and me son got into med school your old man child son to film Frank's on TikTok
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually highlight that as well, because she is Gen Z.
[SPEAKER_03]: So why would she be taking herself out of that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess, but she'd be gen Alpha at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: But so let's say she is Gen Z, a young Gen Z.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why is she separating herself from her own cohort like that to say,
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the first thing, feel like you're an Indian mother, discovering that your friend and me son got into med school while your own man child son filmed TikToks as a career or if you were Gen Z who attracted only three measly like she would say like my generate like what if you were me who only attracted three measly likes on her third trap selfie because maybe that did happen to her to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's like talking about her own
[SPEAKER_03]: cohort as other than her, therefore she doesn't feel like she is of the cohort.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so maybe this is somebody who's like an old soul, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, maybe this is an old soul character.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can run with an old soul character.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then later on, you say her last sentence, we should hang, echoed in my mind like a scratch CD and a record player.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, what does she know about CDs?
[SPEAKER_03]: What does she know about record players?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you wouldn't put CDs to your own player.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe that's an error that you would make.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, maybe that is a young error.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're like, I have it.
[SPEAKER_03]: These little discs, I put the modern record player.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the pin drops and the needle drops.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just felt like these...
[SPEAKER_03]: completely chaotic references, which is like not in communication with each other at all, and I actually really liked that whole, like, you know, imagine this happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually really liked that section, but I just don't like how it doesn't place this character within the context of time and space.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just makes them feel so observant.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, maybe that's the goal.
[SPEAKER_03]: This character is trying to be an also another
[SPEAKER_03]: situation of their own cohort, of this own moment, of this own scene, of this own setting, but I just did not work for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't, again, this could be like CC said earlier, a case of this is just not for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: This to me is YA, and I just, I can't place this character within time and space right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe, again, this is just not for me, unfortunately.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, that was really interesting what you said about her, her age and her being a child, I
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I had to realize that when I read it like I didn't do the the mental math, but you're right, it she does read like an adult writing like a teen, you know, yeah, that's true, that's true tons of like I think this is an incredible hook I want to say that I think this is an incredible hook I think there's so much potential here I just don't think that everything's in communication with each other, but
[SPEAKER_03]: You got a great hook and a great hook and take you pretty far.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's true.
[SPEAKER_03]: So good luck.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good luck working on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you everyone for joining us for another books with hooks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bianca will be back soon, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: We promise.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the whole mess that we're doing won't last forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: You won't have to deal with our messy messy ways forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to stop us there before we make any more mistakes by guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: CCLera is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the Submission Guidelines at www.wshoman.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast,
[SPEAKER_00]: are solely that of her as a podcast co-host, they do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS literary agency.