[SPEAKER_01]: and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm best selling author Bianca Marie, and I'm joined by C.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Books With Hugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are celebrating Christmas, Merry Christmas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to us on your holiday.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're so glad that you are with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dear, Kylie and the T's not your team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for taking the time to read this query.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have loved wearing your books with excitement, while working on my novel, and I look forward to your wisdom, humor, and generosity of feedback.
[SPEAKER_00]: ABC's The Bachelorette made its egg at the Christie's death on the Nile and made debut novel Death of the Bachelorette 80,000 words.
[SPEAKER_00]: A classic who done it with a cozy romance well and through this mystery's perfect for those who enjoyed the Zayney reality TV atmosphere in Jessamax as well as the Golden Spoon, and the single POB character building of Nida Proces The Made.
[SPEAKER_00]: For years, Diana tried and failed to get her mother to partake in her favorite not so guilty pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love overboard.
[SPEAKER_00]: A show where 10 perfect tens compete for a chance to win the heart of America's sweetheart and a lucrative career in SpawnCon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until one disastrous night when Diana covers the truth, the handsome, globe, trotting host of the love overboard isn't just an infamous lady's man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the absentee father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Diana never thought she'd
[SPEAKER_00]: Now one year after her mother's passing, Dan isn't just watching her favorite TV show anymore, she's molded herself into someone sparkly enough to be cast as a data.
[SPEAKER_00]: For its 25th season, taking her lifelong fandom to its ultimate bittersweet extreme.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cruise ship is docked, the champagne is pop, and the vineyards are blinding beneath studio lighting.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as the dateers work themselves up to falling in love, things begin to go over eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, it's merely reality TV sabotage.
[SPEAKER_00]: A stolen kiss, a sprained wrist, a karaoke song played out of turn, but when a body is discovered, everyone becomes a suspect, especially Diana.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a chemical engineer by day and aspiring author by night when I'm not working or writing you'll find me in a dance class, bingeing reality, TD, or walking, Michael
[SPEAKER_00]: I also had the pleasure of receiving a 10 page critique from redacted and editor at redacted who requested the full manuscript in her inbox again once I'm agented.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your consideration, redacted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some calling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the word count there and what was your take on that?
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody's getting so good at writing in their word counts for us, so thank you everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this one clocked in at 305.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's because everybody wants to like subtract their little welcome greeting, so they're like 305 excluding paragraph 1.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys are all adorable.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not keeping track that closely of, you know, of how long everybody's hello paragraphs are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have a lot of comps going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have obviously the bachelor has to kind of ground this,
[SPEAKER_00]: the 25th anniversary of a, you know, reality show, such as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're assuming it's the bachelor.
[SPEAKER_00]: She says it's a bachelor.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got death on the Nile.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a golden spoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have the mate.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of comps.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think we definitely just need to keep it to reality TV show books because obviously there are a number of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we need the egg at the Christie, I mean, unless this is like one of those things where it's deeply inspired by kind of like follows the exact plot beats of it, which it doesn't sound like it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like it's more related to reality TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so I would keep the golden spoon, but I would keep the reality TV calm and and find something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that gets at the the who done it if there isn't a
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't be using the maid and I wouldn't be using Agatha Christie.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this query letter follows, you know that style for those of you that obviously aren't looking at it like I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: It follows the every paragraph is like indented.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just keep it all left aligned because you don't have it when you paste this into an email you can't keep this perfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, first line of every paragraph in dense, so just like keep it all left aligned just to make it easier for yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make it easier for us, and I know some people just like to follow, you know, classic letter format, but just to show you guys just a classic left alignment is fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like, and I am totally going to admit something here which you guys can roast me for.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have never seen or watched or seen on stage, Mama Mia.
[SPEAKER_00]: But isn't this similar to Mama Mia where they're like searching for a lost dad?
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that the plot of Mama Mia a little bit?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was kind of like, is that something that could work here potentially because we're, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's both of both Bianca and Seester kind of looking at me like, no, okay, not right at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I think they, I mean, it's been so long since I've watched it, but there was something about a dad, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The, the, went, all the guys invited to figure out which one was the dad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time we go, we travel together.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to watch shows.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you've never watched Momma Mia.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've never seen Momma Mia.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're doing with your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, watch Momma Mia.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's excellent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's excellent.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's excellent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because Momma Mia is all about being like light and funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: plus the whole plot is like there are three men who could be her father and one of us her father we have to figure out which one the character here already knows who her father is she just wants to see it close to her okay I thought this like travel missing dad piece okay ignore me everybody clearly my beautiful theater history musical theater history is not up to par okay so not mommy yeah ignore my note on that
[SPEAKER_00]: So the other, okay, so I got a couple a couple question marks here, which is, you know, when I was reading this, so I obviously I read this in person before I read this on the show, so I'm like reading it multiple times.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was reading this to make notes, I totally forgot about the dead body until I got to the bottom of the query letter.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was reading it this time, I was like, you know, in the flow, so it came a little quicker in my mind, but I definitely was like, well, we need to make sure that this is way more clear what is happening with this dead body.
[SPEAKER_00]: a classic who done it but we don't say murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean who done it is generally to be no obviously we're looking for a crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm more looking for something that happened but I don't know if it's clear enough that this was a murder and that the bottom was like oh dead body I'm like okay what have like to have been reminded of that earlier and the other thing that's a huge question mark for this query is where is this romance?
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the top it's you know a cozy romance
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about her pulling yourself together for this job on reality TV, and then we talk about a murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have no idea where this love story is coming from.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that's on purpose, or if it's just wasn't able to fit in the queer letter, but it can't fit in the queer letter, then it's clearly not important to the books and then why we call them as a romance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got a lot of questions about that, and so it actually doesn't seem like a romance to me at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a huge question mark.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and then the author bio paragraph we had, I had the pleasure of receiving a 10-page critique from redacted and editor-up redacted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just a reminder, and I can't see this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this person didn't like, I can't see it, because it's not like blackout, it's just not in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if this isn't a big five editor, I'd a big five imprint, take this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to want to keep this in unless it is a big five publisher, just so you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, C.C.
[SPEAKER_01]: handing it across to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about the comp, like the maid, just because I feel like that novel is so, like the protagonist's interiority is so quirky, so unique.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a voicing, a very specific way, and at least for me and maybe other agents are different.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I see the maid as a comp, I'm going into the pages expecting that same level of
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've read the pages and they're really strong, but that voice isn't there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's just not that kind of book I'm gathering, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that kind of voicing into your already driven book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, not sure it's the best comp because it didn't put me in the state of mind that I felt like would most benefit the author.
[SPEAKER_02]: If this were a query in my inbox, I definitely love the idea of like a ho-done it with a cozy mystery because just extra opportunities for tension.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have the love story.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we always say this in publishing.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you have a really strong love story in your story, people automatically will want to hear about it more.
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll move up the queue.
[SPEAKER_02]: It does a bigger chance that it'll sell in the foreign markets.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, love stories help sell a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're so important.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's no indication of the love story in the query ladder to Carly's point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that it's probably because the writer was like my query ladder has already 300 words.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't fit it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, you have to find a way to fit it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be fair, there's a lot about your cray letter.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's really well written, but unnecessary.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, we don't need the lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: The champagne is popped.
[SPEAKER_02]: The veneers are blinding.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're really great atmospheric lines that I appreciate.
[SPEAKER_02]: You write really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're not actually adding plot points to the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're adding mood and mystery.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that mood and mystery should have been established like with one line from the get-go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have space to cut and then add the love story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would especially like to see the love story,
[SPEAKER_02]: be a meshed with the who done it's central conflict now she's into this guy I mean I'm assuming that we don't know she's into this guy but then he might be the color or or he might think she's the killer or something else right like you really want those plot points to come together and to feel like they could not be separated no matter what because they're so organically tied I will say this though
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a really fun motivation to make someone go on a reality TV show, like trying to find her dad who's the host.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't seen that, that's fresh, that's original.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine myself pitching it in a way that's like really, really fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'd read this immediately if it weren't my Korean box because I love a good reality TV show novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always like, this is fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Close setting, forced proximity.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, alcohol's flowing tensions are rising.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has a goal that's hidden from everyone else.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to be like, oh, I really rooting for her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, super fun, who loved it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK, Carly, can you tell us what was in the opening pages?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we start with a prologue called After, which is a prologue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it starts with our main character, who has essentially found a dead body of some kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, you know, should I run?
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I scream?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she's the only one around.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're by the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, you know, she's kind of just running through what she should do basically in terms of like who's going to find this body, you know, I'm all alone, what should I do, things of her mom, what her mom doing that situation, she's worried that the interns would be the first person to find the body, so she's trying to work through some of that in her mind and then she says a normal person would scream, so she's like, okay, I'm going to scream screams and then that is the end of our prologue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we start with night one week one, so rewind back to the beginning here,
[SPEAKER_00]: We are welcome, essentially, as it sounds on the first day of the show with the host, Adam Perez, who was kind of doing the opening scene, essentially, where they are filming him, welcoming everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are kind of doing a couple of takes of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're kind of getting behind the scenes of how the operation works.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wants to fix her makeup before the next scene.
[SPEAKER_00]: She asks somebody and they're like, ah, I'm not qualified for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she's like, okay, it's
[SPEAKER_01]: I was turning with Jenner's satellite about her book, The New Year's Party, and we were talking about the genre and having a flash forward prologue to the dead body, especially if the murder comes quite late in the actual story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were discussing why hers were so well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Carly, you'll take on this one and the rest of the pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, in theory, I like an opening like this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is really dramatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one of the things that we talk about a lot of times where we think about when we're pitching, whether it's the author pitching the agent or the age of pitching an editor, when we think about we're pitching this book, it's fresh, you know, what is an editor going to come to this way, if it's an agent going to come to this within their mind, we think like everything has to be on the page.
[SPEAKER_00]: But,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know books come with jack-a-copy manuscripts come with pitchletters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do have a bit of context here as nobody's gonna essentially open this up and be like, what is this about?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm okay with this just being a dead body on the beach.
[SPEAKER_00]: I generally think it works.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the issues that I had that was we stayed a little bit too much with like thoughts about the mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I think we were just trying to ground this again and it's like mother-daughter story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought we maybe stayed with some thoughts about the mom too long, but I really liked when she said, you know, I'm wondering why didn't I, why didn't I scream a normal person, what a screen by now, so they'll give them what I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: She screams and then she says, it's not for the body, not at all for them, for the noise, like so much these past two weeks for the performance.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I like that, it kind of like grounded us in the concept of performance and reality TV and in my opinion,
[SPEAKER_00]: the best reality TV show books are not as like satirizing, but they're like contextualizing reality TV within the larger culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I liked that we leaned into this performance element of what was happening here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my problem though, with the with these opening pages is the following.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a very dramatic prologue followed by incredibly bland opening pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean that in the sweetest way possible, because clearly this person was trying to be like, ah splash, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-
[SPEAKER_00]: chapter can be so hard because it's like, all it is is just establishing things, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's establishing what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the first day of the job, the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just found it so predictable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in my mind, it's not that it has to be of equal, like, dramatic or theatrics.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's that
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing surprising is happening in these opening pages and my mind instead of her being like, oh, I need to go check my makeup She should have broken a heel and then she should have been like, oh my shoe broke.
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I gonna do now?
[SPEAKER_00]: We need a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have absolutely no problems in these opening pages in my opinion
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think she has to break a heel and then be like, what am I going to do instead of going to the intern can I fix my teeth and the intern's like no it's like shit we got feets of skulls shoot So they're then they go into the underbelly of the situation and there's like an upstairs downstairs moment so like that's kind of what I was hoping for right away we're going to go deep
[SPEAKER_00]: into how the system works as opposed to everything we already know about reality television.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my issue with these pages.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that it doesn't, it doesn't start in the right place.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the way that it was approached, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, it just took the air of the tires for me personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Kali.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, CC, we know you like a good disruption.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's your take on that?
[SPEAKER_01]: The ProHot works really well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I find I would suggest an edit to the first page.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the line that reads, should I run question mark?
[SPEAKER_02]: Should I screen question mark?
[SPEAKER_02]: Should I check the body for a pulse question mark?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's more question marks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that really where my mind just went question mark?
[SPEAKER_02]: Twice question mark.
[SPEAKER_02]: And more, fair or not.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually don't think it's fair at all, but it's reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excessive questions, especially in the very beginning, can give the impression of an underdeveloped protagonist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think authors mean really well when they include that.
[SPEAKER_02]: They go, my character is running through options.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want your character to run through options, but don't make them explicit questions so early on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have them really go through the options as statements as opposed to questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a small tweak that makes a big difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, you are not competing against books in bookstores.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're competing against books in a slush file.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see a lot of underdeveloped work in the slush file.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you don't want to give the impression that your book is underdeveloped.
[SPEAKER_02]: What it's not, a lot of agents make snap decisions, one reviewing pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's just not in my opinion, the best way to position your very first page.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the prologue did a great job of establishing a mystery and the establishing the protagonist's relationship to Carly's point performance to help people see her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her interiority was different from her actions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was alone and that's like amazingly hard to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you managed to make her interiority have a contrast between her exteriority, like that was really impressive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, great job.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first chapter, my note reads, and, again, sub-stacks supporters will be able to see this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed the prologue, but chapter 1 felt too tame for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: There wasn't a disruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her interiority really wasn't adding juicy layers and contrast to her exteriority, and there was no surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know this seems unfair because people might be thinking, but the prologue has the big surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: The prologue is juicy, and guess what?
[SPEAKER_02]: When your prologue is juicy, that just means your chapter one has to be just as juicy if not more.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't get a pass because of the prologue.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, you just established your bar, and now your bar has to be met or surpassed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair, unfair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing about publishing is fair, so I don't even know where addressing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's just the reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a problem sure, but it's more than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also her interiority revealing layers.
[SPEAKER_02]: The disruption and the first chapter, it has a very specific job.
[SPEAKER_02]: The job isn't just to catch the protagonist off guard.
[SPEAKER_02]: The job of the disruption is to then reveal layers of power dynamics.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that could be further deepening of existing power dynamics in a way that reveals complications.
[SPEAKER_02]: or it can be a power shift, meaning power goes from one person to another that protagonist could lose power or gain power that is very important and that is the job of the disruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: Too many people add disruptions in pages going here, disruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a surprise, but there's no link to power dynamics.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there is no link to power dynamics, there will not be threat, there will not be temptation, there will not be tension, there will not be curiosity.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a reality of storytelling.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I urge this author to do in chapter one what she did in the prologue, because that in the prologue, she nailed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing, Cicin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, before we move to our next query, let's let's hear from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, right, Cicin, can you please kick us off with your query, Lita?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dear Bianca, Cicin, Carly, thank you so much for all you do for that community.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a treat to listen to your show every week, and I'm thrilled by the chance to get some feedback from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Below is the query to my debut novel, coming in at 330 words after this paragraph.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you enjoy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where the Cold Water's Run is a 78,000 word, literary, hard debut, exploring marital collapse and folklore.
[SPEAKER_02]: Set in an isolated alaskan town, the narrative combines the emotional intimacy
[SPEAKER_02]: of Julia armfields are wives under the sea, with the folkloric dread and isolation of Andrew Michael Hurley's Velolony.
[SPEAKER_02]: It explores themes of marriage, isolation, decay, and love.
[SPEAKER_02]: The novels may focus is on the relationship between the two main characters utilizing the supernatural horror elements as a pressure cooker for their problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spencer has lived
[SPEAKER_02]: Lately, however, that life seems to be slipping away, and he can identify why.
[SPEAKER_02]: His wife, Emmy, is withdrawing from him.
[SPEAKER_02]: His hobbies have lost their luster.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not until Emmy suggests the trip to Alaska late in the year that he realizes he doesn't understand his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not fully.
[SPEAKER_02]: He agrees, hoping to spark something between them that's long been missing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Soon, the couple must decide whether to venture down to a strange isolated town glimpsed from a mountain top.
[SPEAKER_02]: Despite Spencer's initial hesitation, he acquiesces to Emmys' desires to go down.
[SPEAKER_02]: The town welcomes them with open arms, offering charming conversation in an inclusion Emmy hasn't found elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spencer isn't fooled by the warm welcome, however, something sinister is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: He sees it in the growing storms at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: The empty tributary system, the fragments of poems spread throughout the village, his warnings to Emmy are met with opposition.
[SPEAKER_02]: both from his wife and the inhabitants of a rapidly deteriorating society.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spencer must confront both the town's quiet menace and the widening chasm between him and any, before the night swallows them whole.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a current education major at the University of Cincinnati with the focus in English.
[SPEAKER_02]: I live very happily with my wife and two sons.
[SPEAKER_02]: We recently moved from Alaska, and storytelling is at the heart of our family life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your review,
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, what we should take on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's let's go from the top the first paragraph, which is where we like to see all the metadata.
[SPEAKER_02]: You do have title and genre and word count and comps.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think however that you are leading with things.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is very theme forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hear that this is an exploration of marriage twice.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hear about the isolation
[SPEAKER_02]: I think query letters should be hooked forward, not same forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love that you notice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always say this because it's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it when writers have almost psychoanalyzed their own things and their own work to draw out to the themes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's brilliant.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't think you should lead with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would remove the highlighted portion of Stacks and subscribers will be able to see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's essentially the second half of the,
[SPEAKER_02]: of the first paragraph, it's utilizing too many words and you will need words for my my next notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first plot paragraph, it's a lot of words to identify the protagonist's place in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like to see query letters the first line of the plot paragraph should establish the protagonist's place in the world which is essentially the status quo and the next line should
[SPEAKER_02]: reader of the query letter, why the destruction is such a big deal because it contrasts with the status quo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's an entire paragraph on the status quo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of unnecessary detail.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would tighten it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's an example of what it could say.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Spencer's wife Emmy suggests the trip to Alaska, he is surprised, but ultimately agrees in the hopes it'll spark something between them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's been missing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, it's missing things like his life is predictable.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he realizes he doesn't know his wife, but these are not details that he didn't acquire letter, like you have to get to the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think one line as opposed to multiple lines, this writer is falling into the trap of, I'm a very foisty writer, so I'm gonna make my query letter voisty too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate a voisty query letter, but you're essentially using up too many words to convey what is a pitch.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so next paragraph after that, I felt confused.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we spent a whole paragraph talking
[SPEAKER_02]: The next line is they must decide to venture down to a town and like venture down from where.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then pretty soon the next clause told me from a mountain top, but all of a sudden they're in a mountain top.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this went from very zoomed out to very zoomed in without any sense of control in the movement.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt, if I'm jarring to me, I had to go back and be like, did I miss something and I hadn't missed anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that to me, I was like venture down from where I'm so confused.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it went from macro to micro really quick, like the randomly climbed a mountain top, I just didn't understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when the line, the line that read the town welcomes them with open arms, I'm like the entire town welcomes them, that's so weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that's the goal, the goal is for it to be weird, because there's something weird about this town that it just happened way too fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the plot points didn't, they weren't building off each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: They felt like they were isolated plot points.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, okay, when it comes to the
[SPEAKER_02]: the menace, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the fact that the town is scary and Spencer can can tell that it's scary, but his wife can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Horror works really well when we fear for and fear with the protagonist.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the point of horror.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to feel fear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because ultimately we want to be brave, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the second part of a horror story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to understand why someone is willing to be brave and face this
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, what is the reason why the bravery is merited and I need to really to that need to be like, yes, I would be brave to in this protagonist's shoes.
[SPEAKER_02]: His motivation is here to, you know, to protect his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can absolutely get behind that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what is the threat?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the threat right now is to vague.
[SPEAKER_02]: the night swallows them whole.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: The inhabits of a rapidly deteriorating society.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, are they zombie though?
[SPEAKER_02]: They actually deteriorating like their faces?
[SPEAKER_02]: Warnings to Emmy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Warnings about what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, they're poems correct throughout the village.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just deeply confused.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I see vagueness in a query letter, my...
[SPEAKER_02]: Instinct tells me the writer doesn't want to get too specific about the plot points because they don't want spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: But remember, everything up to the climax is fair game.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, I'm talking about the midpoint climax specific.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you get to share plot points.
[SPEAKER_02]: you get to share specifics on the fear factor, because if you don't, I'm like, I get that he's being brave, but brave against what?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the threat?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, beyond the general the town is threatening sure, but what does that look like?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think this needs revising, because right now especially your genre is very hot.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yay.
[SPEAKER_02]: most of me this is ready to be queer, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, you need your query letter to really convey a specific fear or it's going to just be like, okay, well, what's special about this scary town that I don't know what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, calling handing it across to you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to bill out what CC said and then I'll run through my notes, which is like this whole thing about people not wanting to like get at the juiciness of their story.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because and I'm trying to figure out a nice way to say this, but like everybody querying has this main character energy right where they're just like my story is great and this pitch is great in this agent is you don't go to focus on and I am the main character of my own journey and then they think well the agent is going to read this and then they're going to be the simple and then they're going to request it and it exists within this ecosystem of them being the main character but again when agents request things I'm reading this hitting the favorite button in my emails.
[SPEAKER_00]: sending it off to my sister to go request it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the main new script comes back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I have to jog my memory and then two weeks later I'm reading it in my eReader.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the amount of disk could act between reading the query letter to reading the sample to reading the partial to reading a full to putting it down to take my kids to hockey to picking it back up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm trying to say?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like
[SPEAKER_00]: that amount of time is so expansive that this idea of I can't tell you what's happening in my book in my query letter because it's too important that you don't know it in this moment is so disconnected from the reality of how we read query letters and so nobody's doing themselves justice by holding back the juiciness.
[SPEAKER_00]: you have to tell us what's happening in your book because if you don't then we won't request it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, it's just one of those things that I'm like, ah, you know, I just wish that my writers understood that lengthy drawn-out process because that's the reality in which you are querying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, back to my actual notes here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_00]: pretty much, you know, echoing everything C.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: said, so I don't need to kind of run through every exact thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did write a hook for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you realize that you didn't actually write a hook.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you did was talk about themes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You talked about the feelings about the themes, and that was pretty much it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and the problem with me trying to write a hook for you is that you don't give me enough information to actually write you a really great hook.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need to rewrite this hook, but something to the effect of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spencer only agreed to his wife and he's impulsive trip to Alaska to save their failing marriage, but he soon realizes that the two charming isolated town they discover is a trap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Forcing him to decide if he's fighting to save his wife or fighting to save himself from her, from the world, from this, whatever this sinister thing is, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you need to pack in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't actually know what is sinister about this town.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get the idea that, again, maybe these people are not
[SPEAKER_00]: who, you know, there's something up with these people against zombies, is it climate change?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you can tell us what the sinister element of the story is, that's how you have to kind of build this in, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, why are they on this trip?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the conflict of this trip and what's coming after them?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's basically what we want to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've made notes about like, what to cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what's actually important and I think my ultimate struggle with this query letter is that there is so much ambivalence in this query letter It's like, I don't know how I feel about my marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how I feel about this town like cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, the the reader needs to understand what's going on I don't We need to focus on the plot itself not the characters feelings about the plot in the situations that they're in and I think that's what is happening here
[SPEAKER_00]: I think at the end of the day, my biggest question is what is actually the sinister element here, but it's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason I'm like so frustrated, and I'm like, clearly, there's something happening here in this town.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to know what's happening in this town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please tell me so that I can read it and be interested in this town, because I want to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where my frustration lies in CCC's laughing at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get it right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm frustrated, and I wish that we had this author on the show with us, and that is where it'll end.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love frustrated Carly.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love frustrated Carly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the best Carly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't happen very often.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is frustrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why you guys should watch on YouTube as well because then you get to see the expressions and CC like really.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of emotions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a huge hand talker and I'm surprised I didn't whack my mic over more often.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, CC, let's go to the actual pages.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's in them?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your take on them?
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to stop laughing because this is for not comedy or okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get it together, CC.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, years were up into these pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a chapter one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's called hiking, the chapter.
[SPEAKER_02]: the protagonist is watching his wife walk ahead of them on like and he asks can we stop and she clearly doesn't want to stop and she's surprised or you're tired already and he nods he's been tired throughout this whole hike and she's like well we have to go because we need to reach the top to watch the sunset we don't have a lot of time and then he asks to see the map because it doesn't trust her with maps
[SPEAKER_02]: He realizes that actually they're not going to make it at all because they spent too much time in the parking lot and she's like, well, you shouldn't blame me and he's like, I'm not blaming you, but you know, there's we're just not going to make it like there's there's no way we're going to make it and she says, well, we could make it if we can't hear so they're like, okay, and instead of he's about to reject the idea when he's like, okay, maybe so then he looks around and that's where we we stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it sounds like we've got quite a bit of conflict there, but is it working?
[SPEAKER_01]: What should take on that?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, there's no conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is this whole conflict thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, like, listen, maybe it's because I've been married for 14 years, but this whole give me the map.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is not conflict.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just like a Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that I would ever be reading a map because I cannot read a map, but, okay, from the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're also like, when is he going to be on a mountain looking for a map here, but, you know, I understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can relate to the marriage element.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which one is less likely the mountain or the map?
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably the mountain is even.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, because I'm not going to do either of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly navigates for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: as soon as the chapter hitting was hiking cc was like oh my god this is horror yes this is horror exactly exactly at least there's no like sports with balls flying around because that's scarier but anyway i'm gonna start with a micro comment and then i'll go to the macro and the micro comment's gonna get me in trouble but i have to say it i debated saying this or not i know it's gonna get me in trouble i know i'm gonna get dm saying how could you say this i'm saying
[SPEAKER_02]: Line one, first page, Emmy was beautiful, not beautiful in the traditional sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was something about her face, we get a long paragraph about her, her parents.
[SPEAKER_02]: Page two, Emmy smiles were something to behold.
[SPEAKER_02]: She may not be beautiful in a traditional sense, but I was always drawn by her smile and then more on her face.
[SPEAKER_02]: I assume this is intentional, but you need to know how this makes me feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just me, just one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm just one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are a man, I assume, based on your name and just general context.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are writing from a male perspective, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: This man won't stop talking about how his wife is traditionally beautiful, like twice in two pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this really the look you want to go with?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it is, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it should be truly, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fair not, I just, whenever a male character is describing a female character, especially when the author is a man, I don't want to hear that her beauty is in traditional twice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like once find the twice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this is really what you want to highlight in your story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to admit it, it makes me go, ugh, I hate this character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like shut up about your wife's non-traditional beauty.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go look in the mirror, go talk about your own beauty.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I don't want to hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do not want to hear it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I am projecting my own stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course I'm projecting my own stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: But guess what, all of life is projection.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what every human being does, all day long.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you should be highlighting it once per page in the first two pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, maybe you're listening to this and going, I want you to hate the sky.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want you to be frustrated with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, fair.
[SPEAKER_02]: Could we be frustrated about something else as well so that that is really intentional?
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like if the frustration is intentional, you have to really dial it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, right now it's this lukewarm thing, where it's kind of annoying, but not totally annoying, and I don't know how intentional it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still on his feelings about his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he thinks to himself, I'm not good at maps and I didn't read this map ahead of time, like he's not prepared.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why does he want to see the map then?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this a traditional guy who's like, I can read maps in my dumb wife's can?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this what's happening?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm not getting that vibe that in terms of the author's intentionality, but I'm getting that behavior from the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just don't get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it to me, it totally threw me off.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I tried to be this again being like,
[SPEAKER_02]: part of the story that's bothering you, but try to look for other things.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now I'm going to talk about other things.
[SPEAKER_02]: The scene is, the scene work is very strong, like I knew exactly what was happening at every time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I hear literary fiction, and the author is promising me literary fiction, I imagine lots of depth, lots of interiority, and lots of psychological acuity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't get that here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a lot of him tracking her movements, tracking her face, tracking her expressions,
[SPEAKER_02]: which by the way keep keep all this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it when I'm pretending this is observing someone else and tracking their reactions because you can get the pinball effect, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was no depth after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And literally fiction especially, we really need that depth right away because that depth is what makes literary fiction so special, that level of psychological activity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe the listeners are thinking, well, what do you mean by depth?
[SPEAKER_02]: So when he picks up the map and when he's annoyed at her for having waited too long
[SPEAKER_02]: And when he's trying to show effort to not be so tired, what does this reveal about their larger dynamics?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what about their relationship?
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you reveal, can you pause and zoom out and reveal through what's happening in scene?
[SPEAKER_02]: Has he always tried to keep up with her and always felt like he wasn't enough and feels largely inadequate?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this a recent revelation ever since what happened last year?
[SPEAKER_02]: And what happened last year?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna be a curiosity that I'm gonna be like, ooh, something happened last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: Never since then, he's been feeling inadequate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or maybe it's a situation where she used to admire me.
[SPEAKER_02]: How can it possibly get that back, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Ever since what happened with Christopher, host Christopher, I don't know someone she had a fair with, this Christopher, his brother, I just don't know what, again, I want to carry out city seeds and I wanted depth and interiority.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there really wasn't none of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of interiority very well written in terms of what was happening in sea.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you keep that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But also zoom out and give me social emotional framework, which is essential for psychological acuity.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also think that the disruption you have right now, which is them realizing they're not going to make it in time, feels really tame.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for literary fiction, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can have a really tame disruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: As long as, again, the interior already is doing the heavy lifting of revealing these layers of power dynamics and relationship driven conflicts and things
[SPEAKER_02]: that are going to show up in the present so that we can then have theories about what might happen in the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really about genre here and in literary fiction, you need so much more depth to be able to keep the reader hooked.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did that or you have to choose a different place to start.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my two sons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay,
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, all great notes from CC, like usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to start with my global note and then move into my individual notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think I am diagnosed with, I think the major problem is with this sample, which is what I call blank page syndrome.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I actually don't believe that these characters existed before this moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't conceptualize what their marriage looks like at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't conceptualize how long they've been married.
[SPEAKER_00]: what their previous fights were about, you know, just all these little details and he's so obsessed with her face, I see he mentioned, which was like so irritating because if you're married to somebody for a long time, the face is just their face, like
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, we love them and know them and you can contextualize it as you grow together.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel like these guys are newlyweds, and so I'm like, what are these guys fighting about if they're newly married and they don't have the depth of backstory together in this richness of shared history?
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess that's what I was really missing, it was like a shared history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have they hiked before?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would they go to Alaska to go on a hike if it's like, oh, she always navigates when we hike?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why when I look at the map because every time we've done, you know, when we were in Yellowstone, she did this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I just do not believe that these characters lived before this moment, and that is what I'm really, really struggling with.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to me, that's the core problem here.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things I think that could really help these pages is, again, peppering in these little, like last time this happened this or the last time we had this fight, the length, last time we hiked XYZ.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I was really hoping for, and again, kind of going back to my earlier frustration with not knowing what was going on with the sinister elements is, this whole sun going down thing, is that because that maybe they had planned out that they could have gotten there by the time that the sun
[SPEAKER_00]: was going to set normally, but because of this whole like sinister town in this town, there's something going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's got a weird like we had planned out that, you know, we could make it for miles in XYZ amount of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But why is the sun setting faster?
[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's like completely not aligned with your story, I understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what I was hoping for.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hoping that there was a major disruption in the story that was related to what did the sinister elements.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's how they're going to end up in this town because they have to go into the town because it's on set earlier, something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's kind of what I was hoping for because I think what it comes off to me is that these two people have been married very long So what are they fighting about?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're inexperienced hikers who don't actually know how to plan for this situation Because I just don't really feel like we're getting into the actual drama of the marriage.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see she was talking about like throwing a Christopher
[SPEAKER_00]: or the drama of a hiking trip where it's like somebody rolls an ankle and that's why they're slow and they're not going to make it and then there's real compassion between the marriage of why did you have to go freaking rolls ankle when we knew we were trying to get up this freaking hell you know pick a better time to roll your ankle you know anything like that's kind of what I was hoping for from the like deeper marriage elements kind of coming through and I just didn't really feel like we got this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing we can't get
[SPEAKER_01]: And for those not watching on YouTube, Kali was waving her hands again.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was getting very worked up again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, thank you so much to Kali and CC for the last books with Hook's critique of this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will be back on New Year's Day with two author interviews and we look forward to kicking off the year with you then.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, thanks everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_01]: CCLera is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the Submission Guidelines at www.wshoman.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency.
[SPEAKER_01]: But a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Kali on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co-host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS literary agency.