transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 1:
[01:54] Hi there and welcome to our show, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. I'm bestselling author Bianca Marais, and I'm joined by CeCe Lyra of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Watters of PS. Literary. Hi everyone, welcome back to another Books with Hooks. We are starting off as we usually do by diving straight in. CeCe, can you please kick us off with your query letter?

Speaker 3:
[02:20] Let's do this. Dear CeCe, years after a tragic event tore them apart, two former best friends finally fall in love just as the past rises up, threatening to destroy their relationship forever. I am writing to seek representation for How to Be Good, a dual point of view accessible literary novel of 94,000 words. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the evolving intimacy of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, the morally complex characters in Heart the Lover by Lily King, and the vivid sense of place in The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. I noticed that you are looking for literary novels with morally ambiguous protagonists, as well as dysfunctional families, and I think this will be of interest to you. Thank you for everything you do on the podcast. You have transformed the interiority in my writing in particular. Esther and Louie grew up in households where love was conditional. So their unconditional love for each other was everything. Until at 13, Louie sent their classmate plunging from a cliff. Esther wanted to believe it was an accident, but she saw what happened. Their friendship tore apart. One sweltering summer, 10 years on, Esther and Louie return to the coastal English village where they grew up, and where their friendship imploded. Both still live in the shadow of their overbearing families. Louis is shame-himmed into doubting his dream job offer, while Esther's mom insists she continue the career that's destroying her. Rekindling a friendship with one person who truly understands is sweet relief. They become close. Neither mentions what happens on the cliffs. As the heat intensifies, they teeter on the edge of falling in love. But Louis sees reluctance to talk about the incident that destroyed their original friendship unnerves Esther. She can't go on without knowing why he acted the way he did on those cliffs. But Louis can only live with himself by suppressing the memory. As summer wanes, he can save their friendship by giving Esther the explanation she must have. Or, while revisiting the past, destroy the closest bond they've ever known, this time forever. I've been writing for 15 years and have had some success with fiction competitions, including a place on a previously Miss Lexia adult novel competition, Launtless. I currently work part-time as a doctor in Oxford, England, so I can write on my days off and live on a village at the edge of the Cotswolds with my husband and imaginary cat. We're about to move and get a real one. Thank you for your consideration, Claire.

Speaker 1:
[05:03] Awesome, CeCe. Thank you. What was the word count there and then tell us your take on that.

Speaker 3:
[05:08] The word count was, drumrolls as I am counting as I look at the manuscript, 428 words. On the long side, although I must be honest, it didn't feel like a long query letter to me. It's one of those things where you could have a high word count, but the reading could feel like it went by really fast. It's kind of like time. Sometimes five minutes can feel like an hour and five minutes can feel like 30 seconds, and so much of it is how we feel. Okay, from the top, you're calling this an accessible literary novel, and then my brain just opened up like 12 different tabs when you said this. So part of me is like, wait, but that's suggesting that if you don't say it's accessible, that literary fiction isn't accessible. And I don't know that I like that. Part of me is like, well, just who cares? Like literary fiction is like all genres, something that's not for everyone. So maybe this person is saying that, you know, it has crossover appeal to readers of other categories. I don't know, I have 12 tabs open on my ring right now, and I will not go through each of the 12 tabs because that is exhausting. I don't know how I feel about that term. To be clear, it would never dissuade me from reading a query letter or appreciating the pages. Like the point of this podcast is to dissect the query letter, which is what I'm doing, but this would not be something that would bother me if this were a slush pile situation. Really, thank you so much for your kind words. As we record this, I am halfway through my interiority course. So the fact that I have transformed the interiority in your writing is really, really sweet. Thank you so much. I loved the disruption. Like the whole, oh, these two people, they grew up in houses where love was conditional, and then they have unconditional love for each other. Doesn't that seem sweet? So my brain is going down this road of, oh, this is going to be a sweet story. Oh, how sweet. And then one of them sees the other pushing someone off a cliff. That is very surprising to the brain. The reader brain likes surprises, so that was very, very good. I really liked that. It made me wonder though, as I finished reading about the plot, is it dual timeline? Because I don't know if there's enough plot in the present-day timeline. Just because, like, okay, they rekindle and then what? Like, we spend however many words, I already forgot, 94,000 words. Do we spend 90,000 words or 85,000 words with them just figuring out what happened in the past, kind of like rehashing the past? It's not that you can't do that in literary fiction. There's so many literary novels out there that have very little plot and just tons of character, and it's all about the execution. So it's not that it's necessarily a problem, it's something that I'm always on the lookout for is, are there sufficient plot points to, I guess, keep the reader turning the pages? And then if the plot points aren't the reason to turn the pages, what else is going to be the reason? And we talk about that when we talk about the pages. I also really liked the comment about the imaginary cat. That was really sweet. So thank you for sharing.

Speaker 1:
[07:49] Thank you CeCe. Okay, Carly, handing it across to you.

Speaker 2:
[07:52] All right. So I really like this title, How to Be Good. I'm not entirely sure that I understand how it relates to the rest of the book necessarily, but it is a good title. And once we read the pages, I think it's a bit more clear, but in the query, I didn't really understand the title, but it is a good title. So I'm like a little bit torn about it, but good titles can get you pretty far, especially at this stage. So good job for a good title. I agreed with CeCe, like, do we need this word accessible? What is it doing? Especially so early in the query letter, if you have any sort of word early in the query letter that can, you know, provide an agent with any reason to pause, you really have to think about whether you need that word. So if both of us are kind of stumbling on that word, that's something to think about. Now, dual POV. That's just that both sides, Esther and Louis, we have their equal point of view into this situation. What I struggle with about here is everything hinges on Louis sent their classmate plunging from a cliff. If we get Louis' point of view about what happens, then we're going to know really early on the crux of everything. So the reader is kind of getting what they want really early. So then what's potentially the point of reading the rest of the book. Or if you do dual POV and don't tell us till the very end, what was the situation that led Louis to send the classmate plunging off a cliff, then you have the reader on the hook for the entire novel. The reader is going to think, well, why didn't you just tell me about what happened on the cliff? So CeCe wants to jump in here, what do you think?

Speaker 3:
[09:27] I mean, Wild Dark Shore did it, right? We know we have everyone's POVs and we know what happened to Hank from the beginning. I mean, we don't know, but the characters know, and they withhold it, the whole novel, and it works. So it's possible, that's the thing.

Speaker 2:
[09:41] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:42] No, no, no, 100 percent. I'm just saying it's so hard to pull off, but it can't be done.

Speaker 2:
[09:47] Yes, I totally agree. Exactly. So hard to pull off totally can be done. And the fact that CeCe is citing a best-selling novel written by a very talented author suggests that is such the caliber in which is required to be able to pull that off. So I never say that something can't be done. I always want to be surprised and I always want somebody to pull it off. But I'm just making sure that the author understands how high the bar is here to pull this off without irritating the reader while keeping us entertained. It's just a tall order, right? There's no reason why anybody needs to shy away from a tall order by any means. But I can see how this could be a struggle. And I think there's a lot of ways that this could fall apart, I guess would be my main note. And also the reader is going to think which is a classic love story question, which is why can't these two just sit down and talk? Like classic love story thing where you're like, what is it that these people can fall in love with each other and yet not talk to each other? And literary fiction can do this really well because there's so much of that like cerebral and we're in our own head and it's possible. It's all possible. But the fact that this person had accessible literary fiction in the opening line makes me wonder how all of this is going to come together. Those are kind of all of the thoughts that are swimming in my head here. In terms of the author bio, genuinely love it. I have a question about, I've been writing for 15 years. That part I'm a bit like, huh, you've had some success with the fiction competitions. Miss Lexia is a British women's magazine, which I know of. Why the 15 years? Is it a classic case of like, I want to talk about how I've been writing for so long? Or because of my agent brain thinks, what made you turn from casual hobby author to wanting to be a novelist? I wonder about that shift in the mentality and why now? I wonder about a lot of that. I'm assuming it's because maybe you were doing your medical training and now you have more time, and this is how you want to balance your life between medicine and creativity. But those are some things that go through my head.

Speaker 1:
[11:48] Thank you, Carly. CeCe, will you let us know what was in those opening pages?

Speaker 3:
[11:53] Let's do this. We have Esther, our protagonist, just in her head, dreaming of the surf, the fact that her ankle is hurt, that she won't be able to surf, that it's a problem. Then she sees something in her peripheral vision and she looks and meters away, there's a pair of women having an orange picnic blanket. What transpires is that they just got engaged, yay. But the one who got the ring lost the ring, can't find the ring. They're like, oh my God, where's our ring? Esther actually sees the ring, but doesn't tell them, just doesn't tell them at all. And she thinks to herself in her head, through her interiority, she thinks that she doesn't have the gene to be a doctor. She doesn't use the term gene, but to be a good doctor, you have to want the best for people, but she just doesn't have it. And then she goes back afterwards to get the ring, presumably, or to look for the ring, but the ring isn't there. And then she imagines the women finding the ring. And then she also thinks about the doctors that she works with Lyla and Kimberly, and how they really care about their patients. They remember their names and stuff, but, you know, Esther doesn't. And she really wants to quit, but she has the opportunity to do good as a doctor. So that's her situation.

Speaker 1:
[13:14] Thank you CeCe. Sounds like a lot of interiority there, and you are the queen of interiority. So tell us what you think.

Speaker 3:
[13:21] I want to make something clear before I go on to my notes. It's so well written. Like it's very well written. This person can write very well. I did have like some line level stuff that I caught, like some repetition that didn't feel intentional. But it's so minor. We're talking copy edits. Such minor things. It is very, very, very well written. I believe that I was inside a real person's head. I did. It is incredibly well crafted. I think the submission is a really good opportunity to talk about surprise, the role of surprise in storytelling, especially in the first five pages. Surprise is essential for storytelling in all elements, including the beginning. And here we do have something that's very surprising. Our protagonist finds an engagement ring that these two people are clearly looking for, and instead of picking it up and giving it to them, our protagonist just keeps walking away. She doesn't give them the ring, doesn't even say, hey, the ring is here. And that is surprising because as a reader, you expect her to go, hold on, here, let me help you. However, in order for the surprise to truly be leveraged, in order for you to take advantage of this great plot that you included, I need some indication in her interiority of how she's processing this. And I'm not saying I want the fulsome answer about, why she's doing this with the root cause in her foundational wound. That'd be too much for the first five pages. But I want hints. I want little sprinkles of hints. For example, it could be a thought about how one year ago, she would have been on her knees picking up the ring and handing it back to them with a smile on her face. But ever since what happened, she can't. Bam, curiosity seed. Now, I'm like, ooh, what happened a year ago? Or it could be a thought about how she's doing them a favor, how maybe they won't keep being engaged if they don't find the ring because marriage doesn't work. So now I know about her relationship to marriage. It could be something completely different. But my point is in order for Surprise to truly, truly, truly be leveraged to its fullest potential, I can't just have the character do something that's surprising. I need to see how they process that with some hints that make me curious. I don't need to understand why a character did what they did. That is not essential in the first five pages at all. I do need to have a sense of why they think they did it or what is orbiting around their why. Like I don't have to agree with them at all, at all, at all. But I have to have those hazy contours of their reasons at reach so that I can go, hmm, okay. And I'm going to fit all these puzzles together, all these puzzle pieces together to make a person in my head. Okay, so my second note, we have her thinking a lot, a lot about how she isn't cut out for this doctor thing. You know, and there are, there's some really insightful paragraphs about this, very well written. I highlighted it. Our Substack supporters will be able to see it. Where I'm highlighting it and going, oh my God, this is so insightful. I love this. This is great. Towards the end, there's another reference to it. You know, there's, I'm going to read a little bit from it. They really care about their patients. They remember their names. They remember their diagnoses. Esther doesn't remember details. Everyone seems to have a chest infection. And at this point, I'm like, okay, it is interesting that she's the outsider. Smart story setup. Everyone else is born to be a doctor in her mind, but she isn't. This feeling of being an outsider, very powerful. But what does she make of it? Like, I need a little bit more of what she makes of it because this is literary fiction, right? And literary fiction, the truth is that since the plot isn't what keeps us turning the pages, it's the depth. It's not about moving the story forward as much as it is about moving the story deeper all the time. And I need that depth in order to think that, okay, I can spend 95,000 words. So again, really strong writing, very, very strong setup. I am, I am curious, like I did read this and I go, huh, I would have kept on reading. Like, good job. I do wonder, however, whether, and again, this is why I need to know where, where authors are in the process. But I do wonder, where are you in the whole process? You know, like, is this like a third draft? Is this a first draft? Like, where, where are you in your process? Because if you're early on, then none of my notes probably are going to be surprising to you because you're like, yeah, I'm figuring this out. But if you're like, I'm querying, then I think that you might be querying too early because I don't quite see the depth in the first five pages. Maybe it's different later that I would need to see.

Speaker 1:
[17:39] Thank you, CeCe. Okay, Carly, across to you now.

Speaker 2:
[17:42] All right. I feel like the query in the opening pages aren't fully matching up because I was pitched a book that was very focused on relationships and potentially this friendship love story. Then I felt like these opening pages, I felt so distant from this character and the choice about why she chose to walk away from that engagement ring that she saw. She suggests that by watching this potential engagement that she has these, I don't know, kind of feelings about watching it, whether she should be helpful, whether she shouldn't. But we never really get to the heart of what was pitched to me in the query letter. Like to me, if I saw this query letter in Manbox, requested the pages, which I sent to my Kindle, which I would read later, I would forget what book this was related to based on the query that I requested. Like I'm feeling like these are very separate concepts, which makes me wonder where we are in the process. Is this book finished? Are we pitching a book that is imagined to be versus the book that it is? I have a lot of thoughts about that. But coming back to the actual pages that are in front of me, I agree with CeCe. The most interesting point of these pages is when she finds the ring, but walks by it. That is incredible. That is like, you know, claps to you. I don't know if you can hear me clapping on my microphone. That is great. I absolutely loved that part. That was very, very well done. The rest of it, I just felt so distant from her because she still felt so distant from her own life. And when you pitched me an accessible literary novel, and I felt actually very far away from this character, I struggled with that a little bit. This is a classic case of this book was pitched to CeCe and this book was not pitched to Carly. And there are reasons why you pitch different agents for different things. Because I really like the idea of a complicated love story. But what I'm seeing here is really starts off very internal, suggesting to be internal. But again, I actually feel very distant from her because she feels like she's sleepwalking through her life. So I feel like I'm watching somebody sleepwalk through their life a little bit, which just felt really distant for me personally. A classic case of somebody's taste is one way, somebody else's taste is going to be a different way, and that's why you pitch different agents. Because I think CeCe could see more of the interiority and the depth that was there than I could see as somebody who reads a bit more for where we're going in the novel in these opening pages. So those are my thoughts.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 1:
[23:17] Okay, Carly, we're now handing it across to you. Let's hear your query letter.

Speaker 2:
[23:21] Dear Carly and CeCe, thank you so much for all you do for writers. In Somewhere Only We Know, my YA contemporary romance with survival elements. A girl who doesn't believe in love gets stranded on a deserted island with the one boy she tried to avoid. As they fight to survive, she's forced to confront the grief that made her stop believing in love and the boy she might be falling for. Complete at 62,000 words and set in the tropical islands of French Polynesia, it will appeal to fans of Nicola Yoon and KL. Walther. Eighteen-year-old Emmy Davis stopped believing in love the day her mom died two years ago. If she's learned anything from grief, it's this, letting people in only leads to losing them. If that's the case, why bother? So when she heads to a South Pacific island for her high school grad trip, all she's looking for is a decent tan, time to herself and maybe a fruity drink with a tiny umbrella. What she's not prepared for is fellow hotel guest Ben Fox. Annoyingly hot and somehow impossible to ignore, Ben has troubles of his own. And yet he's a master at getting under her skin in all the wrong or maybe right ways. She vows to avoid him, but when a snorkeling trip goes horribly wrong, she ends up stranded with him on a deserted island. Relying on Ben for survival means actually talking to him and trusting him, and she'd rather drink sand than do either. But with no food, water or rescue in sight, Emi's arms length policy crumbles. As the days stretch on amidst the palm trees and turquoise water, their connection grows, making it harder to keep her guard up. Emi must decide if falling for him is a bigger threat than the island itself or the only thing keeping them alive in a place that doesn't care if they make it home. I'm originally from Los Angeles, which inspired Emi's hometown setting. My experience as a critical care nurse helped shape the physical realities of Emi and Ben's struggle to survive. I'm a member of SCWI and have a degree in English slash creative writing from the University of Southern California. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Speaker 1:
[25:06] Awesome, Carly. Thank you. What was our word count there?

Speaker 2:
[25:09] So we came in at 380 words. All right. So the title, Somewhere Only We Know. This is a reference to a song that millennials know. I don't know if this is a reference that the Gen, this would be Gen Z's, it wouldn't be Gen Alphas reading this yet. How old are Gen? Gen Alphas, old Gen Alphas, young Gen Z's. I don't know my YA age group at this point, but would they get this reference? Maybe, maybe not. Is that important? Maybe, maybe not. It could just be a lovely line and that's completely fine as well. So this gets stranded on a deserted island business. This requires immediate suspension of belief, which is tough. It is not impossible. I actually think you do a really good job at this because we think in this day and age, it's actually really impossible to be stranded on a deserted island. Obviously, in the Polynesian islands, there are so many of them that I actually, I will get to this, but I actually do believe this story. So I think you did a good job at the suspension of belief, which is good. The word count, 62,000 words. There's a lot to happen in 62,000 words actually, which I think is a good thing. So I'm definitely excited to see how much we actually accomplish in 62,000 words. I think that's great. Time period. You don't suggest, oh, you do say contemporary. Yeah, contemporary. So we're going to suggest that they have phones, again, which comes back to this whole, would teenagers be willing to put down their phone for a snorkeling trip so that they could end up being deserted? Again, I think that you do a good job at this, but just flagging, for some people, that might be hard for them to believe. The hotel guest, Ben Fox. What gives me a tiny bit of it is that you don't actually say how old he is, you just say fellow hotel guest. I think you need to drop a, is he a teen, is he young, like low 20s? I don't know, I'm like, do we need an age drop here just to frame this a little bit better as, whether they're relationally suited? Question mark doesn't need to be answered necessarily, I'm just flagging that as something that I had a question mark about. I think one of my biggest question marks about this query, and I actually really like this query, is just the tone. Is this supposed to be cute? Is it supposed to be suspenseful? It could be both, but I'm actually not sure about the balance between these two things. I think it's gonna be a really intense novel, which sounds great, but should we be thinking that they're not gonna survive? Or is it a romance where it's a happily ever after ending, because all romance have a happily ever after ending? So I'm just not sure our balance of suspense and happily ever after, and what exactly that tone is gonna be, because there's a lot of cute travel novels, but the fact that they're for days with no food and water and rescue, and then you say in your author bio, your critical care nurse experience helped shape your understanding of this, I'm like, how dark are we going here? So I'm not sure, I'd like a little bit of a nod to how dark, how suspenseful, you know, in terms of that balance. I would love to know that, but I thought it was really strong.

Speaker 1:
[28:07] Thank you, Carly. Okay, CeCe, your thoughts?

Speaker 3:
[28:10] I was really curious when I read this. I thought it was a really strong query letter. Good job. Good, good job to the author. I have like the tiniest note for you. Like it's so tiny. So there's a line that reads, relying on Ben for survival means actually talking to him and trusting him and she'd rather drink sand than do either. Wouldn't it be relying on each other for survival? I mean, first, as a feminist, let us not say that it is just the girl relying on the boy. Right? Let's just say that. And as a feminist, CeCe, don't say girl. She's a woman. I'm sorry. But also, it's not just the fact that she has to rely on him that's weighing on her. It's the fact that he has to rely on her. Having to help someone, having to be there for someone is a toll on people as well. So actually, emotionally speaking, I do think that we should be highlighting both sides of this. It is a very small thing. But again, point of the podcast, I guess, is to point out all the things big and small. But yeah, really good job.

Speaker 1:
[29:05] Thank you, CeCe. Okay, Carly, what was in those opening pages?

Speaker 2:
[29:09] All right. So we open with our main character at work. She is working at some store. I'm assuming it's a retail experience of some kind because she's folding clothes and there's jewelry. She also seems to work with her best friend. The two of them are chatting as they're working. Their shift's almost over. They're counting down the hours. Her best friend's boyfriend comes in, they chat to them a little bit. Then her mom, who we know has passed away, her friend comes into the store, which triggers our protagonists to want to just run away. And amidst all this, they're kind of just chatting about their boyfriends in high school and the trip that she's going to be leaving on tomorrow.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] Thank you, Carly. Okay, what was your take on that? Right place to start?

Speaker 2:
[29:52] I really liked this. I thought that was really strong. I think the teen banter... I made a note about the teen banter because I'm like a 38-year-old woman and then I wrote like LOL in my comments. So clearly, I'm probably cringe for just like typing the words LOL. But I did really like the banter. I thought it was very teen authentic to the best of my abilities as not being a teenager. But I really, I liked it. I thought it was really strong. I like the interaction between the two of them. I really liked the line because she's talking about how her best friend has a boyfriend now and she says, you know, but she's into him. So I'm trying to be supportive even though I think it's a mistake. Most relationships are. I love that she just like, you know, has these strong opinions and she's just like, you know, don't want to bother with that. I think a lot of teen girls can relate to that moment where their best friend gets a boyfriend. They're like, well, don't want to deal with that. Overall, I thought it was really strong. I didn't really make a lot of notes. You know, I was really curious by the end about why when she sees her mom's former best friend, her mom passed away, you know, sees the mom's best friend walk in, why her instinct wasn't to talk to her instinct was to run. Love that. You know, I mean, clearly she's a teenager and feeling all of her feelings. So I felt like this was a very accurate portrayal of a teen experience and I didn't really have a lot of, you know, inline notes other than, you know, am I cringe for writing LOL.

Speaker 1:
[31:11] Thank you, Carly. Okay, CeCe handing it across to you.

Speaker 3:
[31:14] You are not cringe, Carly. As the youngest one of our group, you are not cringe because if you're cringe, we're cringe and we can't be cringe. Our first line, our first line reads, whoever said you can't outrun grief? Well, I've got a boarding pass and tanning oil that says otherwise. It's a good line. I like it. I don't think it's your first line. I worry it's a little too on the nose, thematically speaking. I would have preferred to be surprised by her reason for going on this trip. I think the reader brain would most likely assume a teenager is really looking forward to getting away because she wants to get away from some boy or because she's looking forward to an adventure or like all these teen reasons. Then we could have had the surprise of her reason being grief when her mom's friend comes into the store and that would have like recalibrated everything in my brain. That would have been more, in my opinion, of course, just a guess more powerful way of introducing the themes of grief and how she's trying to outrun grief. It just felt way too... When I say on the nose, I think honestly, if I were a listener, I'd be like, this is very confusing to me. I'm supposed to deliver pages that match the query letter, but it can't be on the nose. I just mean, at the same time, that you do have to deliver pages that match the query letter, we can't be unsurprised by all the five pages. Like, we need to discover something in the first five pages. And so I think that if you were to set it up in the way that I'm suggesting, or any other way that would reveal surprise, it could be a little bit stronger. Also, when she was talking to her friend, like the dialogue, I was curious about what she was not saying. I'm always looking for what's being left unsaid. The most obvious example of that is, you know, she's telling her friend, you know, take it up with my dad. Maybe you can convince him that you can come on the trip. But like, is her interiority going, actually I'm looking forward to being alone? I mean, she wants to kind of like, maybe spare her friend's feelings. Or maybe she's going, I really do hope she'll talk to my dad because I really want her there. Like just extra layers and the layers don't have to be contradiction. Doesn't have to be like her saying A and meaning B. It could be her saying A and then her interiority giving us just more context on the intensity of A and the importance of A. But yeah, otherwise, again, really strong. We had some really strong submissions today, I felt. There was a whole paragraph, not even a paragraph more, that I highlighted, Substack supporters, we'll see it. Where just the way you introduced a surprise, a disruption to the protagonist was really strong. You were zooming in and zooming out in a really masterful way and it was very conversational and fun. So good job.

Speaker 1:
[33:49] Thank you so much CeCe. Just a reminder to our listeners that we've now got the Meet Your Dream Agent segment in our Substack. It's so interesting already to see the contradictory advice and the contradictory takes that we have in terms of query preferences, and what one agent thinks about voicey queries compared to what another agent thinks. This is an excellent way for you to get to know agents a lot better, because they answer a ton of questions. Some of them give excerpts from query letters they've received, but it's also a great way again to see the subjectivity that we're constantly speaking about.

Speaker 3:
[34:28] Basically you're saying it's a great way to be confused. It's a great way to be confused, everyone. Go look at our Substack. Go be confused.

Speaker 1:
[34:36] No, seriously. No, it's a great way to meet the perfect agent for you, because when you feel like your feelings on something aligns with someone else's feelings on something, then it feels like a love match. The problem is with querying is that you don't know very much about agents. You can see their manuscript wishlist and you can follow them on socials, but you don't really get into the nitty-gritty of the things that really make their hearts flutter when they get a query letter. Definitely subscribe to the Substack for that to see the different takes on that, and maybe you will find the one. Right. Carly and CeCe, thank you so much as always for your excellent advice, and we will see you next week for our author interview. Bye everyone. If you'd like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters is a literary agent at PS. Literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are only that of her as a podcast co-host, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS. Literary Agency. Have you been sitting on the fence about signing up for the Beta Reader matchup, or have you signed up before but haven't yet found your writing soulmates? The next matchup is the last one for the summer, so don't snooze on it. Get matched up with those writing in a similar genre and or time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs. Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for this 3000 word evaluation. This particular matchup will be open to registrations from now until the 1st of June, with the matchup emails going out on the 2nd of June. For more information and to register, go to biancamarais.com and go to the Beta Reader matchup page.