[SPEAKER_03]: there and welcome to our show.
[SPEAKER_03]: The shit no one tells you about writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: 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]: Hi everyone, welcome back to another box with hooks, our 200th and segment actually.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have done 225 of these
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, last time I told you guys like, are we even going to be needed anymore?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, AI is coming for all of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we're like, okay, 225.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clearly, you guys have stuck around to enjoy us for this many years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: CC, how are you feeling?
[SPEAKER_03]: Stem in a wise.
[SPEAKER_04]: Stem in a wise.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have all the energy in the world.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's never been an issue.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just like, how are people still listening to us?
[SPEAKER_04]: After 225, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you to everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's so lovely.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's all I've lead to here from brand new listeners who found us and then have gone all the way back and listen to everything out.
[SPEAKER_03]: So they've even I knew listeners have gone all the way back, which is amazing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so let's dive in.
[SPEAKER_03]: A colleague, can you please read us your query?
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go, dear Carly, thank you so much for all you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the show, and I've been an avid listener for years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not in our earp meets the last of us in blazing bright at 100,000 word dual POV Western Horror, inspired by the real life Buffalo Bills Wild West Show, just with more ghosts and cannibals.
[SPEAKER_02]: This suffoc and feminist historical reimagining will appeal to fans of the Unbroken by CL Clark in Outlawed by Hannah Knors.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's 1851 and there are two types of people, brights and fleshes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The have's and have not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Only brights can gain power and immortality from consuming gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: And California's gold rush is booming.
[SPEAKER_02]: Himalayan's blazing bright wild west show is all bright women.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they've made their fame and fortune through violent performances on horseback where death is the star of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: But not real death when everyone is immortal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Emily and his power hungry will stop at nothing to achieve for ultimate goal to take the show overseas to London, chasing the dream she's had since her mother told her she was worthless.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the goal is weakening and running out and as women in her show start dying and not coming back to life.
[SPEAKER_02]: She turns to an alternative form of power, killing and eating fleshes, which turns out to be even more potent to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only problem is that Emily and his girlfriend Rose doesn't agree with her methods.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rose joined the show long ago when it was about skills and
[SPEAKER_02]: She wants desperately to go back to that but violence, cells, and Emily in begins bringing flashes into the show to fight each other to the death.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rose ultimately runs away with another woman taking two of Emily's captured flashes with them.
[SPEAKER_02]: When flushes start coming back as ghosts and seeking revenge on brights, Rose finds herself fleeing deadly spirits in addition to her murderous cannibalistic, jilted, ex-lover.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rose and Emily and up on opposite sides of a supernatural world war.
[SPEAKER_02]: How much death will take to end the violence and can Emily and Rose ever find the re-back to each other after so much has happened between them?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a queer Latina woman and when I'm not reading, I'm writing my horse.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is my debut novel, May I send you the full manuscript.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Kali.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, we've had quite a few stories about cannibalistic stuff lately and again, last time we were like, do we need to have a trigger warning or an and CC disagreed?
[SPEAKER_03]: What do we say with this whip?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think because in the opening paragraph, it says cannibals, I'm like, I feel like that's that word should be your trigger warning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I think this one doesn't need it by any means.
[SPEAKER_02]: The word count 393 on this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to just go back to something that CCC said because CCC, I was started to ask, hey, can we know where people are at in their journey so that that can help us inform a little bit about like how we talk about the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for this one, this author still the process of writing and seeking early feedback and guidance, which is actually really helpful and then as CCC said early on when we were deciding whether to do this and we'll kind of frame the way that we give the feedback.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to let everybody know that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially with agents listening, if you want to request this, it is still under development and just letting you guys know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so there's a lot of cops going on in this opening paragraph, which makes me think, again, because this person is still developing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is kind of like, here's my brain dump of everything that I was inspired by, that I think will be an eventual comp.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's just a lot in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The middle piece should actually be a hook.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd swap out the kind of just with more ghost and cannibals.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the line that should actually be the hook.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you're just kind of throwing around words like ghosts and cannibals, but like that should be a little bit more of the hook.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this one's going to be tricky to kind of nail down into a hook, which is maybe why it is absent.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's obviously a lot going on, but definitely work hard at figuring that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back, we just spoke about everybody who goes back and listens to the show many times on the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've talked about different hook formulas.
[SPEAKER_02]: So go back and listen to one of my hook formulas.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to run through your different ideas about how you think you can build a hook into this, especially when it's a bit more complicated.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have in the second paragraph, which is just kind of the first plot paragraph, a couple suggestions about word choice, it is a very kind of like punchy concept, it is, I had to read it a few times and because obviously I'm reading it for the show, I would read it a few times because I want to give feedback and I want to understand what's going on here, if I was an agent who got this in my slash pile, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going to read it for you, I'm going
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I would go back and read it that many times.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I really liked the hook, if I really liked the comps, if I really liked the title, I probably would read it a few times if I'm like, okay, I want to get to the heart of this, but just letting you know that I did have to read it a few times.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so the last line of the first body paragraph, it's not real death in everyone's immortal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would swap out not for never.
[SPEAKER_02]: because I just think it's a bit of a stronger word.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's never real death whenever it's immortal.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a bit stronger than it's not real death, whenever it's immortal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a small word choice there for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so let's get to the second paragraph it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I'll kind of talk about the concept as a whole.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the second paragraph, it's all about Emily and I need to take the show overseas to London.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't understand why she would want to go away from the gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand, you know, she talks about the other people and she can get the gold from other sources.
[SPEAKER_02]: California Gold Rush, Gold Gold Gold, and then all of a sudden she's willing to go to London.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you frame the query, there's those all those expectations built around California Gold Rush.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden we're going to London.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't understand the why of that piece necessarily.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then our last body paragraph, we are in a supernatural world war.
[SPEAKER_02]: really cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: How long is this book going to be?
[SPEAKER_02]: 100,000 worth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that enough to do all of this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't even know where the Insighting incident is because there's so much time spent building up.
[SPEAKER_02]: everything kind of to explain this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't understand the inciting incident.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't understand how all this is going to happen in a hundred thousand word, novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then at the end of the queer you talk about, can Emily and Rose ever find the way back to each other after so much has happened to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we want them to find the way back to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: This sounds like one of the most unhealthy relationships I've ever heard in my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why would we want these two to get back together?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we need to talk about this also in the, I'm going to talk about this bit more in the pages
[SPEAKER_02]: If this book isn't a love story between these two, it's a dual POV, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So if this isn't a love story between these two POVs, is it like, is it lovers' enemies' lovers?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it lovers' enemies?
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I just don't understand where the reader emotional payoff is if these two aren't really going to have, it doesn't necessarily need the most healthy relationship ever, but the reader to understand why these two belong together.
[SPEAKER_02]: or the reparations that Emily will kind of try to, what she's gonna try to repair with Rose after putting her through this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are some of my high level thoughts about the concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, because you're still writing this, I don't know where you are necessarily in the writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a strong concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, as I said, the framing, where's the inciting incident?
[SPEAKER_02]: And why do these two need to be together?
[SPEAKER_02]: And why would the reader even want them to be together after everything that they've been through?
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are some of the parts that I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I ask a question because I've been seeing a lot of people talking about dark romance and is that not about like dysfunctional relationships people who actually shouldn't be together and to make his lives miserable and stuff or is that an incorrect understanding of that it really depends on the dark romance I've only read a couple dark romances but it's always very clear because it's like romances are hard of it that these two are meant to be together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's the part of a dark romance is that even if they're doing dark things, these two are soulmates.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know if that helps a little bit, but that's a distinction for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, okay, thank you, Collie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, CC, handing it across to you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so I had the same question about the Insighting Incident.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wondered if it might be the fact that the gold was weakening.
[SPEAKER_04]: So actually highlighted that line, I said, hey, is this the Insighting Incident?
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, because you are still working on this, it is totally fine and normal.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm even healthy that you're still grappling and wrestling with these questions.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if it were a query letter that we're ready, we would have to very clearly see in setting incident first escalation, second escalation climax, those beats.
[SPEAKER_04]: have to be there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know there's one listener going, why does it have to do anything?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's my book, you do you?
[SPEAKER_04]: You do you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Actually, just remember there are conventions in there are expectations whenever an agent is reading a query letter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Fair not, it is life.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought there was a lot of plot.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I will say that this is a strong suit in this project.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are so many query letters we read where it's just vibes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sometimes quite excellent vibes.
[SPEAKER_04]: But like there's not actual story happening, and you measure plot points by a really simple metric change.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if it's changed, the protagonist did not see coming, that's actually better.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if it's changed, that's oscillating between victories and losses, that's better times too.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I do see a lot of that here, and so I think that you have the bones of a really strong story.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just think that to your point, writer, who's listening to us, you're still working on it, which is so normal.
[SPEAKER_04]: I did wonder about, like, how can we possibly go through all of this?
[SPEAKER_04]: Interpeo views in a hundred thousand words, but hey, you know, the greats do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, so this is the part where really wearing your hands and whenever you're ready, you're ready.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was a really strong concept.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just love cannibalism stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you know, it's just fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: It says that she's wearing red.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like, below her thirsty sea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's just fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it gets fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is a fun thing in a story.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I was so disappointed when that TV show, what does it call?
[SPEAKER_04]: The one where the soccer team hits the island.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was so good the first season, and then it got bad.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yellow jackets?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yellow jacket.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: like, and cannibalism and angry and then we also have the dual timeline where they're like women because they're like obviously adults at the second timeline and they're angry and they have rage.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I have a lot of rage and so I'm not accountable but maybe there's like a part of me that wants to live by curiously through these cannibals.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't really strong concept.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think if this person can pull off what they're trying to do, they definitely have something here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so we are now going to pages, Kali.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's in them and what you'll take on them?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so we have a timestamp of June 1851.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are in New Mexico territory and we are in roses point of view.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we come to know over a few pages is
[SPEAKER_02]: Emily and Rose are in one of these kind of battles that their performances that they're doing with their wild west troop.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know right away, it takes a couple pages to know, but basically imagine kind of like a gladiator style thing where these two are kind of, you know, I imagine in a ring going at each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: riding their horses around, they get their guns out, they're doing a big pistol show.
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole time, we're in Rose's point of view, so she's kind of talking about how she's really angry at Emily, but she looks beautiful, and she's very frustrated, and she knows what's gonna happen gets out the pistol, says the horses look beautiful with their gold, mains, everything's kind of wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of Rose's like expecting what's gonna happen in this show that they're going to perform.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they shoot each other,
[SPEAKER_02]: Emeline goes down as if she's dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: We understand later in the text of the immortal piece We obviously know through the query that there are mortal, but it's very like strong and vivid on the screen Or on the page.
[SPEAKER_02]: I should say I imagine it very cinematicly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very vivid on the page that of you know shooting going down The crowd kind of thinks that she's dead and then we get something really unexpected which is Rose kind of thought that was the end of the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Emeline
[SPEAKER_02]: stands up, comes back to life, shoots the horse that rose as on, rose goes down, and then, you know, this wasn't part of what they planned, so she's obviously very flustered by it, and then Emily comes over and then also shoots rose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that we again, we understand it's part of the performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: wasn't really what they expected.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rose is really upset.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, obviously it still hurts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we kind of understand it still hurts to get shot even though she comes back to life and Emily is just kind of saying like it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously Rose is pretty shook and up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they talk about the gold running out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Please tell me the horses are immobile because if the horse gets shot, the horse is dead and I'm like, I don't mind people getting shot and cannibalized, but I don't want the horses to be it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they are hurt.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are hurt.
[SPEAKER_03]: They come back to life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't die.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're hurt.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's that like something that should be a trigger warning in the...
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you don't feel like animal cruelty or whatever it should be a warning in the query letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it's it's one of these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, trigger horn is always one of these things that are so frustrating because things that are triggered to me are different to you, which is different to CC and different to other agents.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that animal cruelty is something that CC feels really strongly about I'm an agent who's always been I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm able to dissociate my feelings from what I'm reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: and maybe that makes me less sensitive than other agents, but I've never needed trigger warnings personally because I'm able to kind of dissociate, again, call me crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm here for a shrink, whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you mean for animals?
[SPEAKER_01]: You never needed them for animals or it won't turn around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need trigger warnings at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that sounds crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, but you just said you needed it for the cannibalism and the last querying letter.
[SPEAKER_01]: That won't be disagreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I talk about, I'm like, Rowan and my sleeves, I'm like, I can't get dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but you did, didn't you?
[SPEAKER_02]: I, because I'm trying to provide an educational show for every other people would need it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to do my best to protect everybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm sweet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to protect our listeners.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to protect you guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tried to protect all the other future agents that are going to see these queries.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Personally, need Carly as the literary agent do not need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have never needed them.
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, that's just be personally.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand we are in a different era where people feel very differently about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I feel about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I understand what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't need it for the animal cruelty only because it is very, it's kind of, it's just obvious, you know, like if you're reading about horses in an arena, yeah, and they're guns like, yeah, like, I would just think that it was very good.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would just expect it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't like it, but I.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I never, I, here's the thing, I never see a downside to including it because it's not hurting anyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't think, like, I think one end out if you include it great, you're protecting the people who need it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have said this before.
[SPEAKER_04]: I read this in Roxanne Gaze.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I forget what was the essay.
[SPEAKER_04]: But she essentially says, and I'm paraphrasing.
[SPEAKER_04]: The thing about trigger warnings is that they provide safety and that she thinks that it's actually a little wild that people would expect to feel safe in an unsafe world.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's always been how I personally felt.
[SPEAKER_04]: But of course, you know, people like I wonderful.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's wonderful that people get to feel safe.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like it's a wonderful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and again, I'm not saying that I feel this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another counter argument to trigger warnings is that some people feel like
[SPEAKER_02]: You're kind of giving away the heart of the novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, is it a spoil?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, archery or warnings, spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people feel that I actually spoiler to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't like spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a spoiler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they can't be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, where, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I feel like trigger warnings are coming up a lot lately.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's in the water.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's one of those things where nobody agrees on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had all
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I ask because I'm the one who men's the podcast emails and I'm the one who gets the emails in which people are like, you really should have warned us about this content.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is why I asked because they are people out there who just listen to the podcast and get it said that we didn't pre-warm them about certain things.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if there's listeners who get worked up, then they certainly readers who are going to get worked up.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just hear like mud.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I've said the show before like there's an e-for explicit beside this program every week every week There's never not a need for explicit so I mean I think you can assume we're gonna go to some dark places on this show Yeah
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, Kali back into what was your take on the pages?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: As you can see from my portrayal of what happened and there's a lot happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it was very interesting and I, you know, I slipped up and said on the screen because I actually felt found it very cinematic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was very compelled by it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I was on the horse with her going through the scene.
[SPEAKER_02]: When her scene partner betrayed her by not following through on the plan for what the act,
[SPEAKER_02]: was, I was like, dare she, like Emily to self-selfish.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I really, I did actually really, really enjoy this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some small notes about just like line level stuff where, you know, I had a note like I don't understand how this action triggers this feeling.
[SPEAKER_02]: So everybody who subscribes to our sub-stack will be able to see some of my line level notes on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had another line note, and this is actually for everybody.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to read out a line that ends in a question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to explain why it's more powerful for it to be a statement than a question.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was the question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did Emily and always have to look so good when Rose was this angry with her?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's fine as a question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's so much more powerful as a statement.
[SPEAKER_02]: Emily and always looked good when Rose was angry with her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the difference to me is the question is YA.
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, like the question of like, why did Emily always have to look so good when Rose is just angry with her?
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, that's like a YA framing of like ringing the reader into like this conversation about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I find it much more adult to be period.
[SPEAKER_02]: Emily and always looked good when Rose was angry with her.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, it could be personal preference there, but I find it much stronger when we're ending with the period as opposed to the question mark.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I think might be a bit of a weakness in the first kind of two pages is how much we talk about the gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we're really trying to prove our point here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Rose always had thought a good horse was worse the weight in gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rose squinted as she tried to aim at the back of Emily's head.
[SPEAKER_02]: The horses were fast with gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: We get it, you know, I think you've done a good job of establishing the kind of power behind that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to evolve the conversation, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, how do we go from just
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, horse equals gold to what about the gold that her starting to worry about the gold weakening is this the show when the gold runs out like that's the kind of
[SPEAKER_02]: that's where we need to evolve this conversation about the gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was overall really taken with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I understood that they were immortal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was still upset, you know, when they went down, I really liked the unexpected moment of her scene partner, Emily and like turning on her and not following the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that was good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also found, and this is really hard to do, which a lot of you guys know, if you're writing fantasy or anything world-building, is how do you explain what's going on in the supernatural world, while staying in plot, like staying in scene,
[SPEAKER_02]: and so I thought a really good job was done here when she's talking about getting shot and she said her head still rang with a pain of getting shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gold would always heal her, but she felt every moment of the bullet shattering her skull, the ligaments and her knee tearing apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bones in her calf fragmenting under pistols crushing weight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything mending itself back together after the agony of her body re-arranging herself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it spoke to like
[SPEAKER_02]: The betrayal and the pain that she's feeling from her scene partner doing that to her, but also explained to us, oh, this is how the body heals with gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought that was a really, really good job of that happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, coming back to the love story piece, which I'm not going to let this go like if these two are faded to be together.
[SPEAKER_02]: there has to be very early on and it could be, you know, this happens on page 789 and we're just missing it on pages one through five.
[SPEAKER_02]: There has to be the moment where we understand why Rose and Emily are faded to be together.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of Emily just doing whatever she wants.
[SPEAKER_02]: We understand she's selfish.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's very well established in the query letter.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we need to know why Rose puts up with this.
[SPEAKER_02]: This toxic relationship, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do people stay with their views?
[SPEAKER_02]: you know like why would you and it's also a talk to work environment like why would she stay in this environment the reader is only going to put up with us for so long the reader will not want to you know continue to be putting up with this so there has to be that like if it is true love what you're trying to establish in your story not to say that you know an abusive relationship is true love or I'm not trying to conflate any of these two things together I'm just trying to honor the story that you're trying to tell here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to understand what this element of true love is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think it necessarily has to be a sexy, but it has to be Evelyn being nice to Rose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like there has to be something where we understand the why of this relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because right now this just looks like a toxic work of our men, where this person has kind of been love with their boss.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK, Collie, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, CC handing it across to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know how much you like being surprised in opening pages with something unexpected happens.
[SPEAKER_03]: So let's hear your take on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like this is a really interesting situation because my read was totally different.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like totally, totally different.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm always saying like it's subjective.
[SPEAKER_04]: And even when I read my slash pile and I'm alone when I do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always think, like, like, would another agent feel differently probably, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: To me, there was nothing surprising about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that the protagonist was surprised that the horse was shot, but the reason why the surprise didn't land for me is because I would not feeling the active emotions.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a removal to her tone, like almost like she was resigned, and I think the reason behind this is because this was a routine scene for them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like they've done this a million times.
[SPEAKER_04]: More or less the same thing always happens, even the fact that she's shot the horse, like she's done that before, we know it because of dialogue and dialogue she says, you know I don't like it when you do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Meaning she's done it before.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think that for me,
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if it's a matter of, you want to start in this place like the routine, you know, arena, gladiator, arena, and you just have to dial up the emotions, or we should start in a different place.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I, even when Pistol died, Pistol was very shot and very dead, and I'm reading this and I'm going,
[SPEAKER_04]: But we're in the act of emotions, like why does it matter?
[SPEAKER_04]: Is pistol essential for surviving?
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there an emotional attachment to pistol?
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it concerned that he's hurt, even though he'll come back?
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to know what the urgency was in the emotions.
[SPEAKER_04]: Her sentences were very clear, but it was very action-packed, this is true.
[SPEAKER_04]: And on a screen, it would work.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because on a screen, you're not inside someone's psyche.
[SPEAKER_04]: But in a book, it's different.
[SPEAKER_04]: In a book, I need to know layers and layers of psychological processing with every action that happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it wasn't working for me, but again, this is so subjective.
[SPEAKER_04]: I feel like this is one of those situations where it's, you know, what how someone feels about a book says as much about them as it does about the book, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: So this, this is me saying something about me as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I get 1,000% agree with Carly's point about the love story.
[SPEAKER_04]: I actually pulled up a little note.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said, okay, I'm noticing that the major dramatic question hinges on like will they find their way back to each other, but this person seems awful.
[SPEAKER_04]: Why wouldn't we want them to get together?
[SPEAKER_04]: I love a good and likable character.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do not get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am fine with people behaving badly, but when it comes to the love story, if that's the story is engine, the reader needs to root for them.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't, I just can't imagine the reader rooting for you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Stay with this person who is like, blassey about herself, isn't this?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, just very casual about her cruelty if I'm being very honest, it's possible that we'll go to her point of view and we'll have so much context on why she's acting this way and we'll understand like all these things are possible, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like we only read five pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, I don't know to me to me that removal was real, but I love the concept.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, thank you both before we move on to CC's query letter first, the word from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, CC, please read us your query letter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, let's do this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi there, CC.
[SPEAKER_04]: With high concepts and speculative twists on your wishlist, I'd love for you to take a look at never enough time.
[SPEAKER_04]: My 70,000 word debut high-concept book club novel.
[SPEAKER_04]: Any bot by CNN Greer meets forever interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Read.
[SPEAKER_04]: It follows the events that unfold after a dying mother so terrified that her husband is incapable of looking after their young children is forced to recreate herself using AI to make sure their worlds don't fall apart when she's gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: What could go wrong?
[SPEAKER_04]: Juni and Benny believed they were unbreakable until having children broke them.
[SPEAKER_04]: still Benny's happy enough living selfishly, as though he doesn't have children.
[SPEAKER_04]: Meanwhile, Juni's full of resentment but keeping all her rage inside.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is, until she's told she's dying and fears for her children's happiness without her.
[SPEAKER_04]: A conversation with her bestie who works in tech presents her with a way to live on with her family and keep running the home properly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Creating an AI version of herself is the answer to all their problems or so she thinks.
[SPEAKER_04]: With many left navigating a future he didn't choose, things soon start to take a dark turn.
[SPEAKER_04]: Juni 2.0 begins to manipulate him.
[SPEAKER_04]: His children preferred Juni 2.0 to him, and he uncovers big betrayals Juni kept from him while she was alive that leave him questioning everything about their marriage.
[SPEAKER_04]: When his children being taken away from him becomes a very real threat, unable to see another way out of the mess he found himself in, will Benny rip his children's mother from their lives for a second time and break their hearts all over again.
[SPEAKER_04]: Never enough time as a feminist cautionary tale exploring the messy dysfunctional reality of marriage.
[SPEAKER_04]: what grief could look like in the future and the consequences of men's overreliance on their wives and AI assistance.
[SPEAKER_04]: To get things done, at its heart is a deeply human question.
[SPEAKER_04]: In the face of loss, what lengths would we go to to stay with the people we love?
[SPEAKER_04]: for to keep the people we love alive.
[SPEAKER_04]: A North Ender and a copywriter by trade, I've worked with advertising agencies across Manchester and London for over 14 years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now also a mother by accidents, both times I know how.
[SPEAKER_04]: My time is split between keeping them alive, freelance copywriting and crying over the very real horror that AI is stealing the career I've worked so hard to build.
[SPEAKER_04]: Through my tears, I've managed to write this manuscript and love every minute of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much for your consideration.
[SPEAKER_04]: Davidson.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, CC.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, how many words did that clock in it and what was your take on it?
[SPEAKER_04]: This came in at 433 words.
[SPEAKER_04]: I read the hook and I wrote a little note saying this is brilliant.
[SPEAKER_04]: I read the plot paragraph and I wrote a little note saying sign me up.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have so many questions.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the power of a curiosity-inducing premise.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't understand how the POVs are going to work.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like if Juni dies, how do we get Juni's resolution at the end?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like there's a million questions.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't care about any of the questions I have.
[SPEAKER_04]: Holy care about is give me the pictures.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was deeply impatient as I read this query letter, because I'm like, this is great.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a brilliant concept.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's timely.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can imagine what's the author's name Abby Abby.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can imagine your agent pitching this to editors and editors leaning forward.
[SPEAKER_04]: Their eyes widening and going give this to me now.
[SPEAKER_04]: The query letter is brilliant.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I love it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm obsessed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just great job.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's my note.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, hard praising, indeed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, let's see if colleague agrees.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I had really small notes, you know, just in the, like, why is the title and bold italics?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, see, see, you were so enthralled, you didn't even catch all the small notes here.
[SPEAKER_02]: She just chooses to save it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I caught it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, that's the thing, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, when we like something, we're like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Rules, rules, like it's fine, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll fix it later.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's true, that's life, like that's how our job works.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which, sorry, Molly, can I just jump in yet?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we know CC wearing the processes or if there is?
[SPEAKER_03]: Was this one of the submissions that we've decided out of here?
[SPEAKER_03]: ready to query.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, carry on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I had the email open.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, CC.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but they, they said they're ready to query.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, so just small things, it could be because this person's British and they're just following the British kind of protocols from, you know, there, there are, there are kind of different standards sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if that's what they are trying to do, then that's obviously fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, and for North American pitches, usually we're doing all
[SPEAKER_02]: When I read it the first time, I thought it was the husband's mother, because it says, if follows the events that unfold after a dying mother, because you think when a mother dies, you're kind of thinking of somebody elderly, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: When I see dying mother, dying mother, so terrified that her husband is incapable, and then I'm like, of looking after their young children.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just, I don't know why we would call this person a dying mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: If in the next line, we get the young children piece.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just call it a wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't call her a mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just something about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just it took me too long to put together her age potential age and that trip to me up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this this part is probably going to work in this author's favor.
[SPEAKER_02]: and probably one of the reasons C.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: really liked this, but the fact that, sorry, I'm at a swear everybody, the fact that this fucking idiot husband can't get his shit together and be a good dad, like
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, ready to rip up my pages, start a little fire.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, man, wow, rage, rage, rage, rage.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am so irritated by this husband.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so irritated that this wife is putting up with this bullshit for years of raising these small children.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I understand there are women that are in these marriages.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know that there are people in these partnerships and I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're eating and so if you're gonna set it up like this and I know the whole point and again We'll get to the feminist rage piece at the end here But if you're gonna set it up like this you really have to pay off the really has to be a pay off here because if I have to read 70,000 words of this husband in a fucking idiot like I'm just not gonna do it
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's why I'm like, sees you love this pitch so much, and I'm like, I just am ready to be mad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready to be really mad.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that's why I loved it.
[SPEAKER_04]: The anger.
[SPEAKER_04]: I look at all my friends with kids, young kids.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not my friends with grown kids.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is one exception to what I'm about to say, and I mean literally one, I'm type of dozens of women.
[SPEAKER_04]: All these men would die if they died.
[SPEAKER_04]: But these men would not know how to run the household, these men would not know where anything is, they would need five AI assistance of the most, you know, like it's, it is, and by the way, the friend who's the exception is you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you, if you, if you, if you died, no, it is, it is actually you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I think Mike could do it because he's a great dad and a great husband.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know anyone else in your situation, Carly.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyone else?
[SPEAKER_04]: Everyone has, I'm sorry, I'm saying useless husbands.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, when it comes to taking care of the children?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, everyone.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad my friends don't listen to this podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: They would be like, no, they would, I didn't really mod it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Me for saying it, or they would send it to their husbands.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, God, for not giving me friends who are writers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say this lovely to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: None of my friends are family listed to this show.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're just very thankful that all you've seen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you back to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm mad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like mad about the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I understand that it's common.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it is very dark.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the third paragraph is the never enough time as a feminist cautionary tale.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's glory in the messy dysfunctional reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually don't think we need that paragraph at all, because I mean to all of that from the body paragraph, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you see, you put all that together before we got to that paragraph, yeah?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would potentially take that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, I just felt like sometimes, and I know there are agents, obviously, that just skim things, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt teensy made and fantasized by that paragraph because the type of agent that you wanna work on this novel is the type of agent that would put all of that together by the time they got to that paragraph.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: decide if you want to kind of decide if you want to keep it.
[SPEAKER_02]: C.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: said she loved it as is, but I'm kind of like, I probably put all that together before we got there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But do you know what it is?
[SPEAKER_04]: I, I don't know if you do this.
[SPEAKER_04]: When I read, when I start reading up crayon letter and it's just so good, like the story, so good, I don't even finish it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I always say it's my degree.
[SPEAKER_02]: You think and then you're like give me the page.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just scroll, scroll pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: So yes, yes, our job is to offer this person feedback on the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: 100%
[SPEAKER_04]: I would skip it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like again, my emotional response is different from my intellectual one, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is one of these things where like when this person became a client, I would grab that paragraph and then think about how I was going to frame my pitch by infusing a lot of these themes into the work that I was going to do to write this pitch.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I would use that potential paragraph for.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I had put all of that together by the time that I got there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, all right, we're going to go to the pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: CC will you tell us where it was in them and you'll take on them.
[SPEAKER_04]: So the protagonist, Juni, we have a timestamp that says now, she is telling, we find out that she's actually telling AI, right, this is a conversation she's having with AI about the worst day of her life.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we know that it's a conversation she's had before and she's wondering, hey, every time I tell it, do I tell it differently?
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's the day she found out that she has terminal, you know, cancer and it's very scary, obviously.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we get a little bit on her relationship with her husband, like how the Interact, she tells us straight up that she refused to treatment and that AI is not supposed to tell her husband this, but if if AI ever does tell her husband this, then AI should frame it in a positive way, she says exactly what AI should say, that, you know, she wanted to enjoy her last moments with her children.
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, she's very clear, like you shouldn't tell him, he doesn't need to know any of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's very, very clear.
[SPEAKER_04]: She thinks about how she wishes he had taken more pictures with her children, worried less about the way she looked.
[SPEAKER_04]: She thinks about how she's doing her job as a copywriter, but it's a job that's almost obsolete because of AI, but she needs to do it to pay the bills.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, and that's essentially what happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's hear you take on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, this is gonna be really, really hard.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been doing this.
[SPEAKER_04]: for, I guess, 225 segments.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it doesn't get easier.
[SPEAKER_04]: You'd think it would get easier.
[SPEAKER_04]: You'd think that I would feel desensitized to say these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't, if I think it's worse, it's worse, step to 225 segments, but I believe in honest direct feedback, so here it goes.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not ready to put.
[SPEAKER_04]: The query letter is brilliant, amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: In my opinion, the execution is not working.
[SPEAKER_04]: This to me is a situation where you have a brilliant brilliant premise, but the execution isn't there yet.
[SPEAKER_04]: There are two possibilities that I see that could be happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: Possibility number one, this is the one that I really, really hope is the case.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is kind of like a prologue, a sneaky prologue, and so the issue is the prologue.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, if we had kept on reading, I would have seen brilliant chapters that were working, and I'm going to talk about what they're not working as I can do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Possibility number two,
[SPEAKER_04]: The execution isn't working as a whole and I don't like this one because it's going to mean a lot more work, but I cannot tell you which one that it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's also the action of another possibility that I'm not thinking of.
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is it not working?
[SPEAKER_04]: On two fronts, front number one is a storytelling front.
[SPEAKER_04]: She is removed.
[SPEAKER_04]: She is resigned.
[SPEAKER_04]: She has very little emotions.
[SPEAKER_04]: She has beautiful empathy emotions.
[SPEAKER_04]: I highlighted a few lines that were really beautiful and made me feel empathy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Making the reader feel empathy is great.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is not sufficient.
[SPEAKER_04]: curiosity comes from active emotions, fear and desire conveyed through surprise.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no surprise here.
[SPEAKER_04]: It rules are a little different for prologue in which mood and mystery are the goal, but there is no mystery here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Because the mystery of the query letter, which is the big secret she's keeping, we find out, at least I think we do, which is the fact that she refused treatment and her husband doesn't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all very like cards on the table.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're doing cards on the table.
[SPEAKER_04]: And
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think it's working because it is leaking all attention.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, all the tension in this brilliant premise.
[SPEAKER_04]: I did highlight lines that I liked and I want you to know this and, you know, sub-stacks supporters will see this.
[SPEAKER_04]: You will see this very realistic things that she would think, like, the thing about not worrying about her appearance.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is a thousand percent what someone in the situation would be thinking.
[SPEAKER_04]: So very good job there.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there was just, again, the storytelling wasn't like the framing of the information wasn't working.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the second part, oh god, he doing this, okay, second part.
[SPEAKER_04]: The enemy, I'm putting my Grinch hat on.
[SPEAKER_03]: The enemy.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is why people need to watch on YouTube because you need to see the Grinch hat people.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I hate to see the Grinch hat.
[SPEAKER_03]: This outfit is great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do I look, Charming?
[SPEAKER_04]: Should I go?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: We recorded the week before the Maceala and let me say this outfit belongs in the Maceala.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just saying.
[SPEAKER_04]: Delaware's product, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_04]: C.C.
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's Grinch hat?
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a got to do not like saying this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, the enemy of good writing isn't bad writing.
[SPEAKER_04]: The enemy of good writing is bland writing.
[SPEAKER_04]: The writing here is very, very bland.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like it is overwritten.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is some technical things that need to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you do think it's because she's writing to the chatbot?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think this is what we have to figure out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one possibility.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a very strong possibility.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know because we would have to read so much more to properly diagnose it, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And even then we'd have theories.
[SPEAKER_04]: We wouldn't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that for this to work, this high concept of market novel that has this brilliant premise, you would need voicing writing.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a thousand percent a matter of taste.
[SPEAKER_04]: Writing is always a matter of taste.
[SPEAKER_04]: The kind of writing I like.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not talking like hybrid or literary writing, which I also love, but I'm not talking about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm talking about that kind of writing that is voicing in a way that has personality and rhythm.
[SPEAKER_04]: That is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about writing on a line level.
[SPEAKER_04]: People think it's about copy editing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is not love copy editors.
[SPEAKER_04]: Love love love, but I'm not talking about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I am talking about personality rhythm and flair.
[SPEAKER_04]: that's missing here.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm just going to say, see, see, see, have you finished yesterday or yet?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't finished it yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still in the opening section.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this reminds me of like, what, like, this is trying to be what yesterday is in that opening section of like establishing all of these tensions, like the way that you pitched this and how layered and complicated you pitched this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought we were going to get an opening like yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where it's like actions aren't
[SPEAKER_02]: matching, you know, what they're saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're setting up all of this tension.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're setting up all of these layers in the dynamic and the household.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if this person hasn't read yesterday or yet, I would read that because I think that would shape if you want to keep with an opening like this and I agree with you, I don't necessarily think it's working.
[SPEAKER_02]: That could be a good idea to see like how do you build all these tensions while trying to establish the way that you're talking to the real.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's fair.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's fair.
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess an easier way to do it might be easier.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what it's easy, but another way to do it might be like put us in that scene with her in that moment where she's actually finding out and her emotions are raw because I don't know why talking to you AI in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I would actually see us like us to see a scene prior to that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I think you might have B disease because B has this disease.
[SPEAKER_04]: She always keeps moving her books to, you know, to earlier scenes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, if you showed us a scene of her household before the diagnosis and I could see how much is on her plate, like that mental load.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it has to be an interesting scene, obviously.
[SPEAKER_04]: That could be a great scene.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we could see the diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, and again, if you want a prologue fine, but it can't be a prologue right all the tension is leaking.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or else I have to put my grandchild on and be really neat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think, I don't think it's ready, but hey, you know what?
[SPEAKER_04]: This is an industry that trades in subjectivity.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope I am wrong.
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope you find the agent of your dreams truly I do.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you come on the podcast to tell us the story of the creative leader.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just not the creative leader, just the story of the novel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome, CC Colly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest issue is like, I didn't believe she was having a conversation with a chatbot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, either she was writing a letter to input into the chatbot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or, I don't, I just didn't believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's just not actually how people interact with chatbot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like in real life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just, I didn't believe that because when you interact with a chatbot, you're like, hey, chat, did, did, did, did to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then chat replies this and then you reply.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have never interacted with a chatbot.
[SPEAKER_04]: I would not know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like literally another.
[SPEAKER_04]: I believe, I just don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that's how, like, for example, when I'm, because usually you're asking chatbot a question or the alternative is that she's preparing this as like building the base for the AI, we're going to get technical, but like you'd be building the base for the AI agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you would prepare documents and information to give to the AI chatbot, but that's boring.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's boring, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's what CC's getting at, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where it's like, we don't want to watch you prepare your documents to feed into your
[SPEAKER_02]: become mumbot, you know, we want scene.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want action.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is very dramatic and very sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that we're not crying, reading about this mom, learning out she has a terminal diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's tough, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's a tough, tough place to start.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we've diagnosed a few issues here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We really like the concept, you know, I don't think we can be anywhere clear about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we really genuinely think you have something here.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's just, it's not working here on the page.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, it could be a classic case of, you know, branding on page six and by page seven, you know, something wonderful and magical is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's so flat.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've just, I would love to see so much more life here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because this book is about life.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about living.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's about what happens when you're not there, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for it to just feel so flat, talking to tech, tech that, that little tech that,
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: We believe in you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We believe in you, Abby.
[SPEAKER_02]: We really do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully it's just a sneaky problem that can be removed and the first chapter will shine with jazz hands.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's crossed for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And for the author, if it makes you feel better, if this weren't my slush pile, because the premise is so strong, I would keep on reading, because like we get 10 pages in the slush pile, not five.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I would push myself to keep on reading, because I would be really excited to find a gem.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like there is that and I'm not saying every agent would do that, but like I have more time, so I would do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and you've got a wonderful query letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, to celebrate.
[SPEAKER_03]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like bad query, not great, opening pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you've got, you've got a lot going for you there.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK, Colleen, CC.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for anyone who wants to submit for books with hooks.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go to the chat about writing, website and go to the books with hooks tab.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can ask specify whether you early on in the process or later on in the process, which does help inform our critique.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll be back with another books with hooks in two weeks time.
[SPEAKER_03]: by cclera is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to query cc, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wshermon.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency.
[SPEAKER_03]: 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.