[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_04]: Hello everyone. [SPEAKER_04]: If you're watching us on YouTube, you already know it's just Carly and myself today are fearless leader Bianca isn't here. [SPEAKER_04]: Be we will miss you, but you know what?
[SPEAKER_04]: Our listeners will miss you even more because Carly and I. [SPEAKER_04]: We're good to do this. [SPEAKER_04]: We're game, you know, we can rally, but we always fumble. [SPEAKER_04]: So, so we'll miss having you here. [SPEAKER_03]: There's something about, like, the books with Hugsbury fumble because we don't fumble when we're doing our segment shooting a shit, our Monday show. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why. [SPEAKER_03]: There's something about the like queuing each other.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like the off the cuff maybe between the two of us. [SPEAKER_03]: We need to be able to kind of kind of mediate us going back and forth on books with us. [SPEAKER_04]: It's that too, and also like when her Bianca isn't here, the comments also say, I missed having Bianca's perspective as a writer because I feel that she adds that extra dose of [SPEAKER_04]: You know, the creative hat of someone who creates as opposed to like two agents who are focused on market stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and let's just say a bit more sympathy. [SPEAKER_02]: She gives me more sympathy maybe for them. [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing, the other was trying to do here. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what, thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for saying it. [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, Bianca, you add a much-needed dose of empathy to our critiques. [SPEAKER_04]: But we will do our best. [SPEAKER_04]: So, Carly, will you kick us off and read that first query letter? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, here we go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dear the shit team, there aren't enough words, even for our writer to appropriately convey my gratitude for the wealth of knowledge I'll share through the podcast newsletter workshop in social media. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_03]: Carly based on your interesting contemporary romance by LGBTQ plus authors, I am pleased to share I love you to TWO, 79,000 words, about a bisexual woman who accidentally falls in love with siblings on reality TV.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fans of Love's Blind, [SPEAKER_03]: The love triangle sounds grief in Taylor Jenkins reads one true love and the second chance dual timeline of kiss her once for me by Alison Cochran will enjoy this forbidden celebrity romance. [SPEAKER_03]: Madison Highland has spent her life under the relentless glare of the camera thanks to her celebrity mother and the reality TV show High Life.
[SPEAKER_03]: When a passionate vacation romance with Samantha Ensign Heartbreak, Madison's left-questioning is she'll ever find authentic love again, or if her name will always preclude that. [SPEAKER_03]: Two years later, she takes a leap of faith with Todd Love, a reality show where contestants get engaged, a sight unseen, after dating on either side of a wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's supposed to be promoting high-life brand, but Madison hopes to meet someone who will love her for what she is away from Hollywood. [SPEAKER_03]: Whole Simmons steadfast Brian is everything Madison thinks she wants.
[SPEAKER_03]: Amanda who shares her desire for a quiet life, their world when engagement seems like the freshest start she's great, but when Madison meets Brian's family, and this government his sister is Samantha, the woman she's never stopped loving, old feelings for kiddo. [SPEAKER_03]: with three hearts on the line, and secrets threatening to unravel on national television as the wedding approaches Madison Musk and Frontier fear of the spotlight, for a shot at true love.
[SPEAKER_03]: My love of reality TV romances provides an ideal backdrop to explore when real life collides with the one on screen, though thankfully have never been involved in a love triangle. [SPEAKER_03]: A DC born writer, I'm at the tail end of an international nomad year with my wife and five-year-old son. [SPEAKER_03]: but not writing reading or updating at queer media review bookstagram. [SPEAKER_03]: I am the CEO of Real Estate Services Company.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I said, do the full manuscript. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_03]: Teddy Thomas. [SPEAKER_04]: All right. [SPEAKER_04]: What did you think of that query letter and let us know the word count as well? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: Teddy did us the favor of summarizing. [SPEAKER_03]: So 35 words excluding 31 for the T-Stot Yoth paragraph. [SPEAKER_03]: We always appreciate those paths on the back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so a couple of things to do out of the top, which is the first one, we'll see, you know, just recorded in the episode of a shooting the shit on Monday, where I talk about reality TV show books. [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not sure which is gonna come first. [SPEAKER_03]: I think the shooting the shit up so we'll come first and then this one will have fall load based on our timeline. [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, so I talk all about reality shows and how I feel about them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, so let's get into it. [SPEAKER_03]: So I feel like I said this before, but I may be I can explain why I feel this way or try to explain why I feel this way. [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it's an agent. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't always have to worry. [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes it's just I feel this way because somehow of all of the stuff I've consumed and all of the knowledge and the industry, these things just get kind of biases in my brain.
[SPEAKER_03]: But one of the reasons I personally struggle with reality TV showbooks, one is maybe that I'm not a reality show junkie. [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't mean this in a bad way. [SPEAKER_03]: I just don't consume enough of it to be like in the zeitgeist with that all the time, know all the memes, know all the characters, and yes, I call them characters. [SPEAKER_03]: I know the humans. [SPEAKER_03]: but they create characters on TV for themselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm just not like into that world enough. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's probably one of our challenges. [SPEAKER_03]: The second one is we heard this from our foreign rights manager. [SPEAKER_03]: She talks about the song, the time that reality TV show doesn't travel sometimes in the same way to all these different markets. [SPEAKER_03]: So it doesn't always have foreign rights potential in a big way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this isn't to say that I don't sign up books just because or they do where don't have foreign rights potential? [SPEAKER_03]: But it is something you think about when you think about kind of the global picture for a book. [SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes this falls under the quote, you know, two American quote, bucket of books and whether they can and can't travel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lots of reality shows obviously do travel, but it is something that [SPEAKER_03]: can be seen as very American. [SPEAKER_03]: And the third, I think, just being the kind of amount of, like, buy-in that you have to create in terms of, like, building this world. [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes I find the reality showbooks that I see in terms of, you know, books that are pitched to me. [SPEAKER_03]: They're a little bit one note in terms of, they're just trying to create a TV set environment.
[SPEAKER_03]: When I think the type of book that I would be looking for would be something that kind of somehow is able to kind of critique the reality show industry in a way. [SPEAKER_03]: And I know this is a more commercial book. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a contemporary romance. [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe it's job is a two critique culture. [SPEAKER_03]: That's okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: If it was able to kind of fit that in their critique reality show culture while it was doing this, I think that'd be very meta. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that would be very cool. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's why we talked about on the shooting mission episode we talked about the compound and why we think the compound works as a reality show book because it's a little bit more kind I don't want to say experimental. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not super experimental of the GMA pick, but it's a lot more surprising in terms of the way that it just presented in terms of the setting. [SPEAKER_03]: So, those are some reasons that I feel the way I do about reality TV. [SPEAKER_03]: I would love to be wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: I would love for somebody to end up sending me a reality show book that completely knocks my socks off and I don't know if the compound came into me.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I saw the pitch how I would feel about it, if I read as soon as I read the pages, I'd be hooked. [SPEAKER_03]: But sometimes I have that little like, oh, a reality show book. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's kind of my long-winded answer to that. [SPEAKER_03]: I really love this hook. [SPEAKER_03]: So, by sexual one who accidentally falls in love with siblings on reality TV, I mean, this really, it is a very strong hook.
[SPEAKER_03]: One thing that I worry about with this one is the coincidences. [SPEAKER_03]: It's another one of my longstanding threads that I love to talk about on this show is I get the egg around coincidences. [SPEAKER_03]: Like how could it possibly be of all the humans in the world that this is the love triangle that ensues? [SPEAKER_03]: So I made a note of it where I think the kind of coincidental element is coming in. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, just Brian, know this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just a man at the know that like what does everybody know? [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: Again, not all of this we can always convey in a query letter itself. [SPEAKER_03]: but I have a lot of questions about coincidents and how we can guard against coincidences because I'm a little bit worried about that here. [SPEAKER_03]: Let's see if I had any other notes here. [SPEAKER_03]: I really like your bio.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I love that you are a lover of reality TV show romances. [SPEAKER_03]: That's great. [SPEAKER_03]: As I said, there are lots of agents out there who [SPEAKER_03]: definitely understand this world and are very dialed into it. [SPEAKER_03]: And again, if you are attempting to somehow critique reality TV show culture, then I think you should say that in the query, because agents like me would be like, what are we trying to do? [SPEAKER_03]: What are we trying to say?
[SPEAKER_03]: And once you get into the pages, we kind of get a little bit more of the celebrity culture. [SPEAKER_03]: And how this character feels about their role within the larger structure of internet fandom and celebrity fandom. [SPEAKER_03]: So I think there's a lot to work with here. [SPEAKER_03]: what you're trying to say about the reality show industry and here if you can, if it fits.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, that's just a little bit selfish, but I also think that would serve yourself well with other ages. [SPEAKER_03]: So you see what did you think of this query letter? [SPEAKER_04]: I had the same thought that you did about how we just talked about this on shooting the shit, right? [SPEAKER_04]: I read this and I'm like, oh my god, we literally just had a conversation about love island.
[SPEAKER_04]: And by the time this episode airs, if anyone who's listening who does also listen to shoot the shit will have heard it, I am actually a huge fan of Love's Blood. [SPEAKER_04]: I have watched not all seasons because I got into it late. [SPEAKER_04]: I usually get into these things late. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I usually let my friends tell me whether I'm going to like it or not, because my friends know my taste really well.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they told me you're going to like love is blind. [SPEAKER_04]: And I did. [SPEAKER_04]: I enjoyed it. [SPEAKER_04]: I think I've watched. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how many seasons have watched maybe three. [SPEAKER_04]: But I like it. [SPEAKER_04]: I have fun. [SPEAKER_04]: I love the psychology behind it. [SPEAKER_04]: I am such a cynic when it comes to these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet I'm like drawn to it, which is such a... [SPEAKER_04]: weird contradiction that still makes sense in my head. [SPEAKER_04]: So I really like the hook, I agree with Carly, the hook is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_04]: The elements of co-incidence didn't bother me because again, I think I was so into the idea of like, oh my god, it's going to be like, love us blind, but in a novel and imagine what you can do being inside someone's head, like imagine the layers that you could [SPEAKER_04]: have access to, because whenever I watched TV, I miss having access to those layers. [SPEAKER_04]: So I was super excited. [SPEAKER_04]: I thought the plot was great.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought the author did a really great job of setting up the protagonists, like situation in the world, her place in the world. [SPEAKER_04]: What kind of power she has, what prowess she doesn't have, what she ultimately wants. [SPEAKER_04]: And then sending her off on this journey where the plot kept escalating. [SPEAKER_04]: So I thought that was great. [SPEAKER_04]: And I also, [SPEAKER_04]: thought to myself this is going to make me sound like such a sadist.
[SPEAKER_04]: As I was reading this, I thought to myself I would love it if this actually had happened on love as blind. [SPEAKER_04]: Are you kidding me? [SPEAKER_04]: They leave the pod and then she, one of the she's right, I have a favorite she, which I will not name. [SPEAKER_04]: She realizes that her ex [SPEAKER_04]: is the sister of the guy she chose, like, what, like that's just so cool, so juicy. [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, apologies for being sadistic, but I thought this was great.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was totally hooked. [SPEAKER_04]: If this query letter had been sent to me, just as a normal query letter, not an educational opportunity, I would be scrolling down so fast to read the pages. [SPEAKER_04]: So the author did a great job. [SPEAKER_04]: All right, Carly, will you let us know what happened on those opening pages? [SPEAKER_03]: There we go. [SPEAKER_03]: So we start with chapter one. [SPEAKER_03]: It says Cancun. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to argue this is a prologue.
[SPEAKER_03]: We can get into that later. [SPEAKER_03]: But this is called chapter one Cancun. [SPEAKER_03]: And so our main character, Madison, is in the elevator. [SPEAKER_03]: She is trying to go down. [SPEAKER_03]: She starts on floor 19. [SPEAKER_03]: She's picking up the phone talking to a friend of hers. [SPEAKER_03]: and they're talking about kind of like what they have going on in their lives. [SPEAKER_03]: They're talking about their work.
[SPEAKER_03]: We find that the Madison is like potentially having a panic attack. [SPEAKER_03]: She's really trying to get out of whatever situation she's trying to get out of. [SPEAKER_03]: She's counting down the elevator floor is trying to get out of there. [SPEAKER_03]: Chiding with her friend, a friend's talking about the project she works on. [SPEAKER_03]: She seems to be a reality TV show producer.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she's kind of pitching some ideas of different reality shows as they're going down in. [SPEAKER_03]: the elevator. [SPEAKER_03]: The elevator starts to slow and then she's like getting worried somebody's going to come in it and so she's like very very high alert mode.
[SPEAKER_03]: She gets out of the elevator so it's goodbye to the friend and then somebody recognizes her from her family television show that we learned about in the query letter and touches her and she's very like us is not feeling good. [SPEAKER_03]: Somebody a woman cuts in kind of grabs her by the arm and is like oh that's not how you think it is.
[SPEAKER_03]: She looks like her but it's not her and steers her way just to intervene to kind of get [SPEAKER_03]: kind of apologizes for grabbing her, but obviously concessions doing the right thing here. [SPEAKER_03]: They have a very short conversation and that's where it ends. [SPEAKER_04]: And what did you think of the execution? [SPEAKER_04]: Did it work for you? [SPEAKER_04]: Did it make you curious? [SPEAKER_04]: What are your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, so what I really liked about this was the countdown.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that you say like what floor she's on It's like 1918 and then we have bit of pros 15 14 bit more pros and like we're counting down the floors in the elevator I love that I love it to King time clock of any kind I also like the sense of urgency one of things I really liked was [SPEAKER_03]: In the first line, she says, Madison Highland tucked herself into a corner of the elevator and stabbed the button for the lobby.
[SPEAKER_03]: She bowed her head, the white baseball cap covering cap for face. [SPEAKER_03]: I love the stab the button. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like push the button. [SPEAKER_03]: Like if somebody hits that elevator button really hard, clearly there's an urgency there. [SPEAKER_03]: So I really like that. [SPEAKER_03]: And then the covering of the face, we get the sense. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like she really wants to get it at that situation. [SPEAKER_03]: I really enjoyed that.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was something I was a bit confused on which was I think a name or I don't know if you can you can let me know if this was maybe like a copy of paste error of some kind, but there's a name that says it's small a big zid big are small a. [SPEAKER_03]: Azra. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if this is Azra's name, Azra chooses to write their name as small, a big, zed, big are small. [SPEAKER_03]: I think I need a bit of context to this name.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, out of context, I kind of dislike this is a name. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, clearly the person she's on the phone, with her best friend, knows who Azra is. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe a little bit of context there would have helped, because it seems like a straightforward book and not experimental, so I was just a little bit unsure about the spelling of that name, that jumped out to me. [SPEAKER_03]: But, [SPEAKER_03]: really the biggest pluses here were the ticking time clock.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love that kind of going down the elevator. [SPEAKER_03]: I think, you know, the energy in terms of the interaction, I think, was done pretty well like the intervention that kind of happened. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it was done pretty well. [SPEAKER_03]: Overall, what I keep reading probably, but I also haven't learned anything new that I haven't learned in the query letter yet. [SPEAKER_03]: So that's what makes me think this is a bit more of prologue.
[SPEAKER_03]: than it is a chapter one. [SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence of like whether we're starting this in the right place, that the fact that I'm on the fence about whether we're starting in the right or wrong place makes things that we're probably starting in the wrong place. [SPEAKER_03]: But again, I really like this going down the elevator business, that really, really works for me. [SPEAKER_03]: See see what we your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I feel like we're just going to agree with this one, and I don't want to repeat myself, but on the name, I think I understood who Azra is, it's her mom, her boss, the spelling is just because she's this reality TV person who wants to spell her name differently because she wants to be, I don't know, like a celebrity, like special, whatever, I don't recommend it. [SPEAKER_04]: find another way to make her mom special or you know how Madonna only has one name like do that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_04]: Do something else. [SPEAKER_04]: It is very distracting. [SPEAKER_04]: It was very distracting for my eyes and you have good pages. [SPEAKER_04]: These pages are super polished while written and keeping with the genre. [SPEAKER_04]: and then I got to her name and the line reads hardly. [SPEAKER_04]: As her nose, I haven't been out. [SPEAKER_04]: And I wrote in the note, I said, I assume this is intentional.
[SPEAKER_04]: The lowercase A and the uppercase Z. Right? [SPEAKER_04]: And then uppercase R again, lowercase A again. [SPEAKER_04]: So like the A's are bookending it and lowercase. [SPEAKER_04]: with the Z and the R uppercase. [SPEAKER_04]: But to me, I'm like, my eyes are like, what? [SPEAKER_04]: And you want to remember, you are clearing agents who are reading hundreds and hundreds of queries, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Hundreds and hundreds of sample pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that sounds unfair. [SPEAKER_04]: I know that someone's probably listening and going, well, but I don't want to take that into consideration. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, I want someone to look at my work with fresh eyes. [SPEAKER_04]: But I'm sorry, if that's just not reality. [SPEAKER_04]: like it or not, I don't think that this is smart, and I really feel very strongly that you should change it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But whatever this is accomplishing, you can accomplish it in another way, and you won't have any downside to this other way. [SPEAKER_04]: I thought the Paradise Trials was evil and genius. [SPEAKER_04]: I also want that reality TV show to exist. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just further exposing myself as a sadist.
[SPEAKER_04]: for people who are not our substock subscribers, Paradise Trials is essentially a TV show in which newlyweds, it's not that we're going on a pre-paid honeymoon, but then they are dropped on a deserted island with minimal supplies to test their bond. [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's what it is. [SPEAKER_04]: She's talking to her friend about it. [SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, I read that and I was like, I think you'd be a great reality show producer.
[SPEAKER_03]: You'd be like, how can we make this worse? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, how could we up the tension up the stakes? [SPEAKER_04]: 100% but I get sued for torturing people. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, clap it up. [SPEAKER_04]: So. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_04]: I think I think this is not what I'm supposed to be doing as a human, but also I am supposed to be doing it as a producer.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, my note, my big picture note here other than the name, which is an easy fix actually ties really nicely with Carly's note about how to Carly's taste and and also to my taste. [SPEAKER_04]: We want reality TV show novels that will say something. [SPEAKER_04]: Now, a story is what happens. [SPEAKER_04]: The say something is the larger meaning, the zooming out that comes to the story. [SPEAKER_04]: It's psychological acuity.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's depth, it's some type of truth that you're exposing about the human condition. [SPEAKER_04]: It's an argument you're making. [SPEAKER_04]: And it's never smart to start with that, whenever you're pitching your story. [SPEAKER_04]: You wanna start with story. [SPEAKER_04]: It's very important to start with story. [SPEAKER_04]: But I need to have a sense of what that meat, what that depth is.
[SPEAKER_04]: Or else it becomes, and again, mean, I know this is me, but it becomes like a reality TV show novel that's just like every other reality TV show novel. [SPEAKER_04]: And there's so many. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's kind of like the Gilmore girl'sization of reality show, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Which I think we're trying to avoid in this day and age. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I just think that again, I spotted opportunities for depth in your pages that if it's in keeping with in your vision, you could take this a step further. [SPEAKER_04]: You could add more depth to this. [SPEAKER_04]: The situation where she says leaving the hotel without a bodyguard was a rookie mistake. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, but she's smart. [SPEAKER_04]: She wouldn't make a rookie mistake. [SPEAKER_04]: So why did she? [SPEAKER_04]: When was the first time she didn't that?
[SPEAKER_04]: What does it say about her? [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you are doing it on surface level. [SPEAKER_04]: There's a line where she reads, I'm a commodity. [SPEAKER_04]: And she has opinion, she has thoughts. [SPEAKER_04]: She's an interesting character. [SPEAKER_04]: I see it, but I see it surface level. [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe with like one layer of depth. [SPEAKER_04]: We need eight different layers of depth. [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_04]: The fact that these are the first pages is no excuse not to have it. [SPEAKER_04]: If your vision is to have the standout in the market. [SPEAKER_04]: And I think it is. [SPEAKER_04]: Another example is, there's a moment where she's talking to her friend and her friend Teezes, hot date. [SPEAKER_04]: And in her head, she thinks to herself that makes her laugh because despite what the tabloid suggested, she was always single. [SPEAKER_04]: She was always alone.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I kept thinking maybe she would say something like her friends all assumed that she got angry [SPEAKER_04]: lying about her dating life, first lying that she dates everyone. [SPEAKER_04]: But really, she got mad that the tabloids weren't right because she wishes she could have a dating life.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like something like that, you know, like just adding more layers to her character so that when it comes time to have the stories plot points, [SPEAKER_04]: Result in something media or juicier, something with teeth, yeah, that'll really help having those plot points there, having that character development there will really help. [SPEAKER_04]: So, I don't know, I think you have the start of something special.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just don't think it's query ready, and I know you're not saying it is, by the way, to the author who's sending this, but I do like it. [SPEAKER_04]: I do like it. [SPEAKER_04]: I think there's potential. [SPEAKER_04]: I just think that, [SPEAKER_04]: for my kind of taste, and I'm getting bedding car at least to your base to what she said, just need more, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think what are the issues also, I think coming back to one of my issues with reality TV show, books is that when we're watching reality TV show, SCC was alluding to, like we are watching, we are experiencing it in such a passive way and to become a book about reality TV, we want behind the scenes, like we don't want a passive experience, we want to know everything that's going on.
[SPEAKER_03]: why she is, the way she is, how she feels about her celebrity identity, how she feels about, maybe the wealth that's been built in the family through this reality show. [SPEAKER_03]: So we don't want to watch it. [SPEAKER_03]: As if we would watch a show, we want to go really, really deep here. [SPEAKER_03]: But one of the reality show books that I really, really like, one of the only reality show books that I've really, really liked, which is one to watch by Kate Stamend London.
[SPEAKER_03]: This came out in 2020. [SPEAKER_03]: I believe, [SPEAKER_03]: I adored that one. [SPEAKER_03]: And to me, well, that one was doing different was it was a plus-size character, right? [SPEAKER_03]: So we have to do something in order to kind of infiltrate that industry and you say, oh, you know, this character feels like a commodity. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, there's just so much that we can do to critique this world and have a, you know, backstage view into this world.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is right for opportunity. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think this author sees that. [SPEAKER_03]: So Teddy, keep going, keep going on this one. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, keep going, I like that. [SPEAKER_03]: All right, well, that is it for this one. [SPEAKER_03]: And now, a word from our sponsors. [SPEAKER_03]: All right, we are back, everybody. [SPEAKER_03]: CC, will you read us Molly's query letter? [SPEAKER_03]: Let's do this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dear Bianca, CC, and Carly, your weekly dose of wisdom and encouragement keeps me going on this wild writing journey. [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm excited to share Arctic futures, my 89,000-word Clifine mystery set in the insular high-stakes world of Alaskan firefighting.
[SPEAKER_04]: Blending the fierce environmentalism of Charlotte McConaughey's, once there were wolves, with the twisty storytelling of Jody Pickle's leaving time, my novel follows a woman who will do anything to defend the land she lost. [SPEAKER_04]: 28-year-old Smoke Jumper Lee Frost doesn't jump out of airplanes for the thrills. [SPEAKER_04]: raging through Alaska's backcountry and threatening its remote villages.
[SPEAKER_04]: After her PhD project devastated the glacier, it was supposed to protect. [SPEAKER_04]: She fled to Alaska, joining in a lead all male fire crew to fight climate change from the front lines, not from an ivory tower. [SPEAKER_04]: But when she discovers a bizarre sludge that appears to be killing fish native Alaska's depend on, she fears her past has caught up with her.
[SPEAKER_04]: As Matthias, a world renowned glaciologist and her former lover, stolen her innovative glacier growing formula and unleashed it in the Arctic despite knowing its destructive consequences, Ben Lee's fire boss helps her investigate the source of the mysterious sludge. [SPEAKER_04]: As they brave deadly wildfires and crumbling glaciers, Lee gets closer to the [SPEAKER_04]: And she learns he's not just trying to grow glaciers.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's created a technology that can cool the climate and needs her help to clean it. [SPEAKER_04]: Leave finds herself swept back into Matiasis' orbit, but a spate of unusual grizzly attacks downstream of his research site make her question the technology's true danger.
[SPEAKER_04]: With her world-on-fire, Liam is decide whether to join a moonshot effort to override climate change or put her faith in people [SPEAKER_04]: I'm a journalist in Fairbanks, Alaska, where I ski and bake excessively to get through the long winters. [SPEAKER_04]: I published my first book in 2021 with the University of Alaska Press, finding true north a memoir about rediscovering the Alaska frontier through stories of indigenous people and pioneers.
[SPEAKER_04]: My reporting for Alaska Magazine and Alaska Public Radio has taken me out on the sea ice with the Indo-Piac wailing captains and across the tundra with cute furry sled dogs. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm currently a science writer at a national lab where we try to change climate every day. [SPEAKER_04]: I would love to send you the full manuscript since you're the Molly Reddick. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much, UC. [SPEAKER_03]: What was the work count of this one and what was your analysis?
[SPEAKER_04]: One day we should have a bloopers episode where people can see how many times I fumble when I'm reading the query letters. [SPEAKER_04]: So the word count was 415. [SPEAKER_04]: I will start from the top. [SPEAKER_04]: The very first paragraph. [SPEAKER_04]: I think the author did a great job at the hookbook cook, right? [SPEAKER_04]: I know that to add all. [SPEAKER_04]: I know the word count. [SPEAKER_04]: I know the genre. [SPEAKER_04]: I understand the hook.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, I understand what kind of story I'm getting into and this is why I love this formula so much. [SPEAKER_04]: I like it when query letters first give me the metadata and then tell me what the plot's going to be about. [SPEAKER_04]: Because by the time I'm reading the plot, I know what shelf it would sit in so I'm like, okay, I'm prepared. [SPEAKER_04]: I know what kind of book to expect. [SPEAKER_04]: I know what kind of tension to expect.
[SPEAKER_04]: I also thought moving on to the plot paragraphs, the author did a really great job of sharing the story setup. [SPEAKER_04]: So your story setup is everything that happens before page one. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't like the word backstory, I think it has a connotation that gives people the wrong impression. [SPEAKER_04]: It's not necessarily something that's shown through flashbacks or anything.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's essentially like what happened to your protagonist before their journey that starts on page one begins. [SPEAKER_04]: And here we have the fact that her Ph.D. [SPEAKER_04]: program.
[SPEAKER_04]: did the opposite of what she wanted and it's very compelling to know that this protagonist is going to start her journey on page one with this level of failure behind her if I'm being honest because failure is actually a really great motivator for change and I understand why she fights the fires. [SPEAKER_04]: I understand why she puts herself in danger. [SPEAKER_04]: I understand why she lives in this place. [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, great job there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Story setup is super important. [SPEAKER_04]: Story could really only be as strong as it set up and the author did a fantastic job here. [SPEAKER_04]: When it comes to the plot points present timeline, right? [SPEAKER_04]: The actual book, not the set up. [SPEAKER_04]: Everything was going great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I understood every single plot point until the major dramatic question or M.D.Cute. [SPEAKER_04]: That question is, and I'll read it to you guys again, with her world on fire, Lee must decide whether to join a moonshot effort to override climate change or put her faith in people and their ability to change. [SPEAKER_04]: Again, I was following every word of the plot. [SPEAKER_04]: I could see it in my head. [SPEAKER_04]: I could shoot the movie trailer.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I got to this line and I'm like, I don't get it. [SPEAKER_04]: Because this choice, it's unspecific. [SPEAKER_04]: And I also don't see how their mutual exclusive can't she overwrite climate change and have her faith in people like I just don't understand what the choices choices are a great way to have the protagonist. [SPEAKER_04]: be in a position where they're pressured.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're pressured because they have to choose A or B. Choices are great, but the way this choice is framed, I don't understand what the choices are if I'm being super honest, not with the specificity that I need, and I also don't understand why they're, why can't she pick both? [SPEAKER_04]: Storytelling is about change. [SPEAKER_04]: And as I look at this query letter in front of me, the changes here are clear.
[SPEAKER_04]: The plot points are solid, but I'm not clear in what it culminates in. [SPEAKER_04]: And that's what the climax is. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what the major dramatic question is, right? [SPEAKER_04]: Like all these plot points have to culminate in what? [SPEAKER_04]: And I get that the author wants it to be a choice, but I personally don't see how it is. [SPEAKER_04]: And maybe I'm missing something. [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's just my brain. [SPEAKER_04]: That's being slow.
[SPEAKER_04]: That happens sometimes. [SPEAKER_04]: I also want to say that if you're listening, [SPEAKER_04]: And I thought you'd a great job with the author paragraph of showing me why there'll be authenticity in the story when it comes to her scientific knowledge and all that. [SPEAKER_04]: So I really liked that. [SPEAKER_04]: How about you, Carly? [SPEAKER_04]: What did you think? [SPEAKER_03]: So the line that you highlighted was the exact line that I, I mean, I highlighted many lines.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that was also where I was like, huh, but okay, we'll get there. [SPEAKER_03]: So from the top here, [SPEAKER_03]: I think that this person does have a super unique hook, which is definitely going to help them stand out.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Clifi is really hard because as very real, as climate change is, it is depressing and [SPEAKER_03]: books in the space don't really tend to move as many copies because people want to escape how challenging our contemporary world is and maybe go off into another place. [SPEAKER_03]: But for a clarifying hook, I actually think this stands out quite a bit. [SPEAKER_03]: The leaving time comp is quite old.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking if you need a comp on that screen Alaska, this one's historical, the great alone. [SPEAKER_03]: Christina Hannah also a bit old though. [SPEAKER_03]: But as I was reading this, to me, this is way more sci-fi than sci-fi than sci-fi.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know most sci-fi could have a sci-fi element to it, but I think we need a sci-fi comp here, because we definitely get into some science fiction here, I think with this like, unless this were something I don't know about healing our planet, this is definitely sciencey, much more sciencey. [SPEAKER_03]: So I definitely think we need a sci-fi [SPEAKER_03]: I also really like the story setup. [SPEAKER_03]: This is a very strong setup.
[SPEAKER_03]: This will definitely get people's attention. [SPEAKER_03]: There's two things that trip me up. [SPEAKER_03]: I never want this the word sludge. [SPEAKER_03]: So this person made it all the way to having a PhD or they didn't finish their PhD. [SPEAKER_03]: They made it all the way to a PhD. [SPEAKER_03]: in climate science. [SPEAKER_03]: And we're using the word sludge. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we need a better word here. [SPEAKER_03]: That really tripped me up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I just nobody in the science industry. [SPEAKER_03]: I think in a context like this, we'd use the word sludge, like used it twice. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: Is there a better word? [SPEAKER_03]: Is there more sciencey word that we can use for this? [SPEAKER_03]: It just fell juvenile compared to the type of word that we could use here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe that's just me, but I'm just going to flag that you might want to check with your beta readers on that one. [SPEAKER_03]: Then the next thing that tripping up was the exact same thing that trips you see up with a role on fire, Lee must decide whether to join a moonshot effort to overwrite climate change or put her faith in people and their ability to change. [SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden, I thought, what is the insating incident of this book?
[SPEAKER_03]: What are we actually covering in this book? [SPEAKER_03]: This is a lot to covering this book. [SPEAKER_03]: If we're trying to do all this plus talk about her faith in people, I just couldn't, I couldn't figure out this is throwaway line. [SPEAKER_03]: I kind of think this isn't a bit of a throwaway line, and I mean throwaway isn't like, I got to find a way to wrap up this query. [SPEAKER_03]: I got to find a way to kind of, I don't know, hit on some of the notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm trying to hit them medically while pulling it all together in the movie trailer version of this. [SPEAKER_03]: That's why I call it like a throwaway line. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean more like a summarizing line. [SPEAKER_03]: So it didn't really work for me. [SPEAKER_03]: If this is a throwaway, summarizing line. [SPEAKER_03]: It made us question everything that we just read and I agree with CC on that one. [SPEAKER_03]: Author Mario is great.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think there's a lot of things that are really standing out here. [SPEAKER_03]: I think one of the themes of the show today has been like, how can you stand out within a category that is really busy or potentially has its challenges? [SPEAKER_03]: Both of the hooks we saw today are stand out in their categories.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely and both query letters are really well written like you guys did a good job like there's room from Experiment, but we see a lot of query letters. [SPEAKER_04]: So that was awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to give an opinion on the sludge I like sludge because I think there would be yeah, so I feel like there would be an official name like a scientific name that I won't know But then like as a as jargon as like a playful thing they call kind of like we call the slush pile slush [SPEAKER_04]: Most agents have great vocabularies, I think, right, but we still have slush, you know, like I think it just ends up happening where you use silly words.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody in the comments on YouTube, everybody on the reals watching this, let us know what you think. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you like the words sludge in a scientific context? [SPEAKER_03]: Do you like the words? [SPEAKER_03]: Do you like the words? [SPEAKER_04]: I know I'm gonna lose on this one. [SPEAKER_04]: I know, but I just think it's realistic. [SPEAKER_04]: I think technical people end up using words that sound juvenile for serious things just among themselves, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I interpreted it was, okay, we don't know what this quarter-cooked sludge is. [SPEAKER_03]: Therefore we can't give it an official name. [SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of how I read it, which again makes sense, but to me, it still doesn't excuse. [SPEAKER_03]: Like, like, I think you give a color to it and just scrolling back. [SPEAKER_03]: Mysterious sludge. [SPEAKER_03]: Do we have a color, a bizarre, so she got a bizarre sludge and then it's a mysterious sludge.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, is it something under the surface? [SPEAKER_03]: Is this something on top of the surface? [SPEAKER_03]: Is it small? [SPEAKER_03]: Is it big? [SPEAKER_03]: What's its texture? [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I have no scientific background in yet. [SPEAKER_03]: I am asking you to have a question of this because, [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's bizarre. [SPEAKER_03]: It's mysterious. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's making it seem much flutter.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you remember that movie late nineties movie? [SPEAKER_04]: Of course like the really funny Robin Williams movie with flutter. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I watched it. [SPEAKER_04]: I watched it as a kid. [SPEAKER_04]: I mean [SPEAKER_04]: I think I don't know. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how old I was like I remember watching it in the movies with my friend And I remember laughing and anyway, it's making me think of Fluffer now.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we went from a Sludge to slush to Fluffer and we're just being very silly today. [SPEAKER_04]: Bianca, you have to be here. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I was probably that I are being silly too. [SPEAKER_04]: So do silly. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, CCC run us through the pages here. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so the protagonist.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so first of all, the chapters called jump June 24, [SPEAKER_04]: The protagonist's leaf frost is on a plane and she's about to jump and she wasn't usually so nervous about jumping that's established and we see description of the towers of smoke that are rising from the tundra and we meet Ben. [SPEAKER_04]: who asks the crew, who's ready for flames, and the crew says they are. [SPEAKER_04]: And Lee's thinking to herself like, I'm not, but you know, I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: She catches Ben's eyes, and Ben looks at her in a way that is different. [SPEAKER_04]: And then she, her hand, clutches her side. [SPEAKER_04]: And then we learn that that happens because she hurt her ribs, you know, she's healed now, but in a different jump. [SPEAKER_04]: And in fact, this is woven into her anteriority, the fact that, you know, she had a bad season last time because she got hurt, but now she hopes that this won't happen again.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we also meet Gilbert, who is fighting for his home. [SPEAKER_04]: He is local and he is thinking to himself, you know, I'm going to do this because I'm going to save my home. [SPEAKER_04]: And she thinks to herself, this is one more reason why I need to have my head in the game. [SPEAKER_04]: It isn't just a forest that he was fighting for. [SPEAKER_04]: It was his home.
[SPEAKER_04]: So then we have more description on the camaraderie and on the logistics and the airplane does what it he needs to do and they jump and know the fear, the fear flies away. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what happens. [SPEAKER_03]: All right, and what did you think about those pages?
[SPEAKER_04]: OK, so I want to go through notes, and then I'm going to give my big picture note, which I'm like, seriously worried about how I'm going to explain this, because I feel it, but I don't know that I can explain it. [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, you are starting with direct quotes in italics. [SPEAKER_04]: For anyone listening, do not start any book with direct quotes in italics, just don't do it. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there's this one book that does it, and it does it well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that book's the exception. [SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to be the exception? [SPEAKER_04]: Just don't do it. [SPEAKER_04]: We are in her head, you know? [SPEAKER_04]: You don't need direct thoughts and italics as the first sentence. [SPEAKER_04]: It's a pep peeve of mine. [SPEAKER_04]: It's purely a matter of taste. [SPEAKER_04]: You should do whatever you want, but you also shouldn't. [SPEAKER_04]: You should do what I'm saying. [SPEAKER_04]: Because yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I really liked that when Ben is saying, who's ready for the flames? [SPEAKER_04]: We have her act one way, but think something else. [SPEAKER_04]: Casem between action and interiority is what makes this connect with character because the reader feels like they have an insider access to the protagonist psyche. [SPEAKER_04]: And while all of the other characters present see one type of person, the reader sees a much deeper type of person. [SPEAKER_04]: So I love that.
[SPEAKER_04]: You also did a great job when it comes to writing tension on a micro level. [SPEAKER_04]: the paragraph where we see Ben looking at her and that gaze is intentional and lingers on her beat too long. [SPEAKER_04]: That paragraph, that line, that first line, and that paragraph, made me curious because I'm like, why is he looking at her in that way? [SPEAKER_04]: wire his eyes lingering on her beat too long. [SPEAKER_04]: And then you have another line which her hand goes to her side.
[SPEAKER_04]: And my brain already starts going away. [SPEAKER_04]: This guy is looking at her. [SPEAKER_04]: Her hand immediately touches her body. [SPEAKER_04]: What's going on? [SPEAKER_04]: And then we have another line where we get the explanation. [SPEAKER_04]: And it doesn't feel like explanation at all. [SPEAKER_04]: It feels super natural. [SPEAKER_04]: Where we learn that, you know, she did have an injury last year.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that, of course, bends eyes on her, [SPEAKER_04]: are all about concern. [SPEAKER_04]: But the way you framed that a beginner writer would have been like explaining first and then mentioning the eyes second. [SPEAKER_04]: And I love how you framed that. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I want all our substock subscribers to go to that paragraph, it is on page what pages this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Three, it's just an excellent way of how the order of how lines unfold can build tension on a micro level. [SPEAKER_04]: So that was excellent. [SPEAKER_04]: I really, really congratulate you on this because you're a great job. [SPEAKER_04]: I love the metaphor. [SPEAKER_04]: of the dragon.
[SPEAKER_04]: The author's using a metaphor of the dragon to illustrate the fire, you know, like the dragon reared its head and snapped its tail, breathing a wall of red hot flames across the tundra. [SPEAKER_04]: It's on an actual dragon. [SPEAKER_04]: It's just the metaphor of a dragon. [SPEAKER_04]: That's what the fire is. [SPEAKER_04]: Love that beautiful smart. [SPEAKER_04]: Love how you described fear. [SPEAKER_04]: Fear was a monster under the bed.
[SPEAKER_04]: More you hid from it the bigger it got. [SPEAKER_04]: So beautiful. [SPEAKER_04]: Like I thought this was well written, [SPEAKER_04]: She did feel like someone who exists in the world. [SPEAKER_04]: She didn't feel like someone who was created for page one. [SPEAKER_04]: But I must say, and this is where again, I'm as an agent. [SPEAKER_04]: So Carly has said this before, and I fully agree. [SPEAKER_04]: We feel it's instinct. [SPEAKER_04]: Does this work?
[SPEAKER_04]: Does this not work? [SPEAKER_04]: Is this story syllable or not? [SPEAKER_04]: And we can try to explain why we put in a lot of effort in explaining why or why not on this podcast. [SPEAKER_04]: We want this to be a good educational experience. [SPEAKER_04]: But first we feel it's almost like we couldn't clue before we elaborate, but it's not a conclusion because a conclusion is rational and this is not rational at all. [SPEAKER_04]: It's all gut. [SPEAKER_04]: It's all emotion.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all like did this make me curious. [SPEAKER_04]: Really great way to think of curiosity. [SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of like hunger. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't decide whether something makes me hungry, whether something makes me salivate. [SPEAKER_04]: It either does or does it, you know? [SPEAKER_04]: Like is my mouth watering? [SPEAKER_04]: Then I'm hungry. [SPEAKER_04]: I'm salivating. [SPEAKER_04]: Is my mouth not watering? [SPEAKER_04]: Then I'm not hungry.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then didn't make me hungry. [SPEAKER_04]: And here, these pages did not make me curious to read more. [SPEAKER_04]: And if you're like the world's biggest mean person saying this and I hate it and I don't want to be saying it, but I also don't want to lie. [SPEAKER_04]: It might be that you're starting in a wrong place because you're starting in a spot that has action. [SPEAKER_04]: And I've talked about this before. [SPEAKER_04]: Action does not equal curiosity.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is [SPEAKER_04]: It might be that there's no disruption, you know, she expects to jump off a plane and she does and yes, we learn things along the way, but again, we're not reading this book to learn about her, we're reading this book to feel with her and to be surprised surprise is a big part of it like I wasn't surprised when I read these pages.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I need to be, I know that that makes me sound like I have a lizard brain, that just needs to be surprised all the time and needs to be stimulated kind of like a child. [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, that's how most humans are these days. [SPEAKER_04]: We live in a world where people have no attention spans, and we need to be surprised right away. [SPEAKER_04]: And I know that's a tall order, but I just like, something isn't working. [SPEAKER_04]: I think you need more attention.
[SPEAKER_04]: tension requires disruption. [SPEAKER_04]: Speaking of which, I am teaching a class my very popular writing tension class. [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be a four day course this time. [SPEAKER_04]: It starts in October, so if you're listening to this, check out my Instagram page for the link. [SPEAKER_04]: But one of the things they talk in that class is sources of tension. [SPEAKER_04]: If you don't have lots of sources of tension, your tension will fall flat.
[SPEAKER_04]: And here, I think that what you might need to do is add sources of tension. [SPEAKER_04]: almost like here's an example what if one of the people who's on the plane is not someone she expected like is that even possible where she would board a plane depending on the number of people in how small the plane is she didn't see someone at the very end and she only sees him later
[SPEAKER_04]: again, that could be something that's bigger like a surprise that that person's there and, you know, she didn't think they would be that might be a surprise again, I don't know what it is I realize that it's not my job to to to suggest changes, but my brain can help it my brain always thinks of suggestions and I always mean it in a way of don't follow what I'm saying because there's just no way it's it's to be good for coincidence that I'll get it right, but maybe it could.
[SPEAKER_04]: Prompt you to think about this and bring some a little bit more because I do think it's good And I think the potential of your lived experience here and the authenticity that you'll bring to these pages is awesome But I don't think that this is working as it is like it's just not making me curious It's not making me hungry. [SPEAKER_04]: It's not making my mouth water So I think you should consider rewriting this keep a scene just not in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_04]: How about you currently? [SPEAKER_04]: What did you think? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's really, that's really interesting and I had a lot of different notes. [SPEAKER_03]: I felt like we were on quite a roller coaster, right? [SPEAKER_03]: This is a very aggressive scene. [SPEAKER_03]: I've just like being in the air, the jumping, the drama, one of the things I thought that this authored really well was really slow down time.
[SPEAKER_03]: All of this wouldn't have been happening really fast going from like, [SPEAKER_03]: You know, being up in the air, did it like opening the door. [SPEAKER_03]: The jump, like all of that would have happened so fast. [SPEAKER_03]: And the way that this author was able to quite literally, in my opinion, like slow time was very successful. [SPEAKER_03]: But whether that services the larger story here, I think was what CCC's getting out with this question.
[SPEAKER_03]: To me, it felt like a short story. [SPEAKER_03]: It felt like a closed loop, it felt like a closed scene. [SPEAKER_03]: Right, everything that happened happened. [SPEAKER_03]: in a way that may perfect sense and perhaps this person was just sending this in because this felt like a contained sample of their writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, again, we're here to we're here to give you feedback and I think the writing is really over all really strong So smart what you're saying right now. [SPEAKER_04]: It did feel like a short story.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god I mean a short story story, but yeah, no, I think that's my thought But okay, starting at the top of your first line There's no such thing as hell leave for us to hold herself, but as she watched the horizon and filled with flames She wasn't sure she believed it
[SPEAKER_03]: Great first line so kudos to that, but next we had some like going through all of her feelings right this is a section all about her feelings Essentially about the jumping and obviously the jumping is the is the plot-y business But she says usually she wasn't so nervous about jumping. [SPEAKER_03]: It was the best part of the job colon like love and sex and drugs and chocolate all wrapped into one [SPEAKER_03]: that felt very generic to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are those everybody's favorite things? [SPEAKER_03]: Why are they her favorite things? [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like dark chocolate or I don't know, a certain type of drug or, you know, the love and the sex of the person that she loves. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_03]: Like it just felt a bit like a list of things that people are supposed to feel our hedonistic pleasures. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think that we need to get more specific there or that needs to go because a lot of the writing is much better than that. [SPEAKER_03]: Then we talk about ban on the first page. [SPEAKER_03]: So [SPEAKER_03]: who's ready to beat some flames. [SPEAKER_03]: Ben Yel is blowing curls flying everywhere, setting off a course of whoops and helly as from the seventh smoke jumpers, huddled around her.
[SPEAKER_03]: Even if we can just get like a reaction to Ben, or just her because really we just have a reaction to the setting for most of these pages, we rarely actually get a reaction to Ben. [SPEAKER_03]: does bed inspire her, does she trust Ben? [SPEAKER_03]: It just seemed like he was part of the scenery, he was part of the setting, where is he ends up being a crucial part of this book, again, which we kind of know from the query letter.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the fact that we didn't actually spend any real estate on Ben, and I don't think we need a lot of real estate, it could just be like, I've heard his pep talks before, this one felt no different, and that was terrible, don't write this. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I think, how does she feel about his pep talks? [SPEAKER_04]: This is where Bianca would add the empathy, be like, see, it's harder than it looks and she'd be right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, a better pep talk than me, but I'm imagining, okay, I can't stop with the sports metaphors. [SPEAKER_03]: We're going into football season, but like, you know, they're ready to go on the field. [SPEAKER_02]: You see, it's like having a sports bed of course again. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, he Everybody has their shoulder pads on. [SPEAKER_03]: They've got their jerseys on.
[SPEAKER_03]: They're ready to go out through the tunnel to the football field Like what's the thing that Ben is gonna say to get them out the door right this is their first jump of the season Again, should this be the first jump of the season to start the book? [SPEAKER_03]: That's another question mark I actually don't think it should be the first jump of the season [SPEAKER_04]: What is it jump of a season? [SPEAKER_04]: People are jumping in football? [SPEAKER_04]: What?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm back to fire. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm back to fire. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, okay. [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, and since it's just doing fine, I don't know what's happening. [SPEAKER_03]: It's worse than I do. [SPEAKER_04]: I like jumping from planes. [SPEAKER_04]: That part I like. [SPEAKER_04]: I don't have football. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'm leaning in football the night. [SPEAKER_03]: See, we are not. [SPEAKER_03]: We're talking about football. [SPEAKER_03]: We're back to the smoke jumpers.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ben's, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Like Ben, what is Ben going to say to them to get them out of this door? [SPEAKER_03]: That's what I wanted it. [SPEAKER_03]: What is a reaction? [SPEAKER_03]: Was this a good pep talk? [SPEAKER_03]: Not his best pep talk? [SPEAKER_03]: Why didn't he give the best pep talk? [SPEAKER_03]: Did he look at her? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, he was giving the pep talk. [SPEAKER_03]: This is what I want in that exact moment.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very small amount of real estate, but a little bit there. [SPEAKER_03]: I also wanted to know more about this practice all winter, she goes, she practiced all winter, nailed her training jumps to this spring. [SPEAKER_03]: What kind of training are we doing? [SPEAKER_03]: Is she gonna five days a week in the gym, training, strength training, working with a new physio, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: She trading in the air like I think we need some specifics there kind of goes back to my like sex drug so I'm rock and roll comment above like what does getting ready for this season mean how hard is she working as a woman does she have to quote unquote work harder than the men to maintain a certain amount of strength I don't know if they're one things out there right but those are the specifics I think that would really matter here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Another line that I really liked was beneath her feet, the miniaturized grailing river twisted in turn, like blue silk through a tumbling green quilt. [SPEAKER_03]: I love that imagery of the quilt in the silk of like how fast a river would be moving by you. [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely adored that. [SPEAKER_03]: That was really incredible.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and my last note was really kind of what we already said, which is I really like that we slowed down time to experience this because all of this would have been happening so fast, so fast, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Like the way that they just be, you know, the scenery be flying by, then they see the jump point like they have to go. [SPEAKER_03]: There is no time. [SPEAKER_03]: So I did really feel like we did slow down time in a nice way.
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe again, that weren't so line in these pages, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Of how she feels like she gets slowed down time, which she does this job, or which she looks at Ben, time slows down, something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: is really did feel like a short story or a prologue or a closed scene of some kind, which is I think what CCC's getting at where it's like we're not actually curious to go on because we have an endpoint here, something has to go wrong, something has to malfunction. [SPEAKER_03]: And I know you're like dropping this off at five pages because we ask for five pages because this is our show. [SPEAKER_03]: But what could happen here?
[SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden everybody jumps and she's the last one to jump and there's a malfunction on the plane or she realizes she doesn't have her lucky [SPEAKER_03]: you know like something has to go wrong here at this moment if this is going to be a stop point but ultimately your job is the author is to continually get us to turn the pages so just because I'm saying this is five pages so what it actually it is five pages so yeah you got to be getting us to turn the page every time so
[SPEAKER_03]: And Grant, that is it for today. [SPEAKER_04]: It's the hardest job. [SPEAKER_04]: Listen, we know this. [SPEAKER_04]: It's the hardest job in the world because as a storyteller, your job is to seduce and seduction is the art of creating desire. [SPEAKER_04]: Your job is to create desire in another person. [SPEAKER_04]: You love the note about the short story. [SPEAKER_04]: It was brilliant. [SPEAKER_04]: It got to the heart of what I was feeling.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, why isn't this working? [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, you're right. [SPEAKER_04]: Because it felt contained and satisfying at the end. [SPEAKER_04]: Like, I didn't need more. [SPEAKER_04]: You know? [SPEAKER_03]: Start on the plane and on the plane. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_04]: Well, Bianca isn't here. [SPEAKER_04]: So we acted up. [SPEAKER_04]: We laughed and made jokes. [SPEAKER_04]: We did not stick to the script, people.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so Bianca, I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_03]: Don't tell us. [SPEAKER_03]: Don't tell on us. [SPEAKER_04]: How did she not listen? [SPEAKER_04]: Probably she's too busy. [SPEAKER_04]: So don't tell on us, people. [SPEAKER_04]: With the adults leave, the kids have fun. [SPEAKER_03]: But tell us what you feel about sludge. [SPEAKER_03]: I do want to know why she's thinking about sludge. [SPEAKER_04]: And about football.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to lose on both counts because [SPEAKER_04]: It's just so weird, it's such a weird sport. [SPEAKER_04]: First of all, people don't play it with their feet and it's not shaped like a ball because it's an oval form. [SPEAKER_04]: So why do we call it football? [SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, and then why do we call it actual football soccer? [SPEAKER_04]: It's just so weird, it's so weird. [SPEAKER_04]: Everything about the sport is weird.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so down on my sports analogies, I'll do some more cooking analogies and that'll, if we go, have a great day, everybody. [SPEAKER_01]: Bye everyone! [SPEAKER_01]: CC Lera 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.wshermon.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: 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.