The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

In today's Books with Hooks , Carly and CeC e kick it back old school and both discuss the same three submissions. During the chat, they address dialing back on the exposition in the opening pages; keeping it to two comps and not trying to tick off all the genre boxes; not starting a story with the protagonist imagining too much; matching descriptions of surroundings to what the character is f...

In today's BONUS EPISODE, Bianca first chats with Rosie Walsh , bestselling author of The Love of My Life, about when a story forces a plotter to become a pantser; figuring out how to work in backstory after the midpoint twist; pulling a manuscript apart and putting it back together multiple times; how the only way to learn how to write a book is writing one; knowing how to pitch your book des...

In today's Books with Hooks, Bianca is joined by guest agent, Emmy Nordstrom-Higdon from Westwood Creative Artists , who looks at four query letters.  Emmy warns against tokenism and avoiding vague comps that might oversell your work. They also discuss reputation clauses and their growing prevalence in contracts; why editors and agents are wary about debut novels over 100 000 words; how ‘quiet...

In today's Bonus Episode, we spotlight two awesome indie authors and publishers. Bianca first chats with Maggie Smith , author of Truth and Other Lies , about using the same title as another book; being able to collaborate on the book cover with a smaller publisher; running your marketing campaign as an indie author; giving ARCs to early readers and how running a campaign on NetGalley to get r...

In today's Books with Hooks , Kelly and Paul join Carly and CeCe to discuss their submissions. During the segment, we discuss the difference between dual timelines and flashbacks; the importance of your ‘opener’ and what that is; the importance of striking a balance between interiority and external plot at the beginning; and the new initiative we have to help you with your comps! After which,...

In today's Bonus Episode, Bianca chats with Jesse Thistle , author of the bestselling and award-winning memoir, From the Ashes, about the difference between memoir and biography; thinking about what you want the ‘message’ of your memoir to be; speaking to universal elements of your memoir; the emotional/psychological effects of writing memoir about traumatic events; and Jesse's advice to m...

In today's Books with Hooks , Carly and CeCe tackle two queries each. In the process, they discuss how you have less time to get to the inciting incident in a YA novel; being mindful of ‘telling’ that doesn’t move the storyline forward or is irrelevant; why too much interiority isn’t good in a query letter and how to replace interiority with plot; avoiding redundancies and repetition in your q...

In today's BONUS EPISODE, we do a deep dive into the romance genre. Bianca first chats with Farah Heron , author of Accidentally Engaged and Tahira in Bloo m, about the sub-genres of romance; how romance is defined; the difference between romance and women’s fiction; The Bridgerton Effect; structure and plotting for romance; and tropes in the romance genre. After which, Bianca chats with publi...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe are joined by Mire and Katy who have submitted their work for critique. They discuss not losing the plot in a quest for being true to the emotionality of the story; making sure that one character isn’t just a vessel for the other in a dual POV story; toeing the line between making the reader curious and leaving them frustrated; making sure that if yo...

In today’s BONUS Episode, Bianca chats with three awesome authors writing multi-POV stories across various genres. First up is Kim Fay , author of Love & Saffron , who talks about how being a bookseller influenced her writing; how writing is a craft and every sentence matters; letting the words flow when the magic happens; and including a piece of yourself in the story you want to tell. Next i...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe kick it back old-school to review the same three query letters. During the segment, they discuss avoiding flowery language, especially in a query; avoiding "reviewing" your own work and letting the pages show what kind of work it is; pitching your story rather than your writing; making sure you have the right category/genre, so that the right...

In today's BONUS Episode, Carly chats with Andrea Dunlop , author of We Came Here To Forget , about comps and why they’re so important; what it feels like to be out on submission; writers not getting what they need in terms of knowing how to market themselves and their books; a day in the life of; and NaNoWriMo goals. After which, Bianca chats with Nick Petrie , author of The Peter Ash Serie s...

In today's Books with Hooks , Carly and CeCe are joined by Kathy and Leila who have submitted their queries for critique.  During the segment, they discuss why it’s important to frame a memoir as ‘why does this book have to be out there for others?’; why it’s okay to not have your hook fully fleshed out in a memoir query because agents are there to help you finish the job; how, in non-fiction,...

In today's BONUS EPISODE Bianca first chats with Mark Greaney , author of Sierra Six, about writing espionage mysteries, putting your manuscript aside to work on something different so you can come back to it with fresh eyes; using every project as a learning experience;  immersing yourself in your research; writing a series; listing your characters if you have a lot of them; and how to manage...

In today's Books with Hooks , Carly and CeCe each tackle two query letters. In the process, they discuss the importance of not only having internal conflict, but also having external conflict so that you can create a proper hook; the difference between women’s fiction and romance, and a larger discussion of what ‘women’s fiction’ actually is; making sure the types of stakes of your novel match...

In today's BONUS EPISODE, we do a deep dive into experimenting with structure. Bianca first chats with Mitzi Angel— publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and editor to publishing phenomenon , Sally Rooney —about the structure and unusual POV that Sally chose for Beautiful World, Where Are You. Mitzi also takes our listeners' questions about Sally's work. After which, Bianca interview...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe are joined by Layne and Peter . They discuss the importance of having a clear antagonistic force that the reader is scared of/rooting against; having a uniting factor in multi-POV stories; the difference between a premise and a hook; balancing being literary in a thriller/upmarket novel; and how you can sneak in an effective prologue.  After which, B...

In today's bonus episode, Bianca first chats with Seressia Glass , author of The Love Con , about all things romance as Seressia kindly answers listener questions about the genre while sharing invaluable insight. After which, Bianca chats with Julia from Scrivener about what value the writing software can add while helping streamline your writing process.  Find us on our socials:  Twitter: @TS...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe each take on two query letters. They discuss being cognizant of including descriptive features of the characters that don’t actually add any information/teach us anything about the character themselves;  the trick of re-writing a scene in a different POV to really fine-tune emotional feelings within a scene; ensuring that dramatic questions in your p...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe are kicking it back to the old format in which they look at the same three queries together. They discuss how important it is to show that there's enough plot and escalation to merit a whole novel when writing a query; the pitfall of using the term "crossover"; being mindful of when your book is coming off as quiet or too interior to the...

In today's Bonus Episode, Bianca chats with two awesome guests. The first is Genevieve Gornichec , author of The Witch's Heart , who discusses querying a book that's ten years in the making when you’re not sure if it has a place in the market; the whirlwind of quickly getting an agent and book deal; turning your NaNoWriMo novel into a successful book; avoiding info-dumping through dial...

In today's Books with Hooks, guest agent Veronia Park joins us from Fuse Literary to discuss Joanne's and Gaylen's submissions with them. In the segment, Veronica chats about straddling the line between two age categories; knowing, with MG fiction, who your target parents and teachers are because they're the ones who're going to be putting your book in their children’s hands; w...

In today's Books with Hooks, guest agent Veronia Park joins us from Fuse Literary to review four submissions. During the segment, Veronica discusses having the query vibe matching the sample pages vibe; under-promising and over-delivering with the sample; ensuring you have stakes at the end of each POV paragraph in the query; when not to include the prologue in the sample pages; and the three-...

In today's BONUS EPISODE, Bianca chats with Janet Forbes and Dimitris Havlidis of World Anvil about how the right writing software can take your writing to the next level. Janet and Dimitris discuss how they came up with the World Anvil software and the many ways it can assist with world building for those working in speculative or historical fiction. They also break down the ways in which the...

In today's Books with Hooks, Carly and CeCe are joined by writers, Michele and Lynne , who have submitted their work for critique. Carly and CeCe discuss writing a story from the perspective of the other; ensuring you have done lots of research to tell that story properly and sensitively; not starting the opening pages with a lack of curiosity; fear or desire as conveyed through surprise; and...