Double Hooks & Power Imbalances

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

Episode: Double Hooks & Power Imbalances

Date: February 26, 2026
Hosts: Bianca Marais, Carly Watters, CeCe Lyra

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Episode Overview

This episode features another deep-dive into the craft and business of writing, focusing on how to sharpen your queries and pages. The hosts, Bianca, Carly, and CeCe, critique two query letters and the opening pages from emerging writers. Key topics include how to make your manuscript stand out, the importance of strong interiority and psychological acuity, the concept of "double hooks" (especially with twin protagonists), urgent stakes and pacing in thrillers, and the centrality of power imbalances in effective storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Books with Hooks Segment: YA Dystopian Query Critique - "Modified"

[01:59–12:33]

Query Breakdown

• Premise:
  YA dystopian about Winter Edelweiss, a science prodigy who fails a societal "modification" procedure, leading to upheaval in her status and life. Twin sister Aurora passes the test; they swap identities to rebel against a corrupt system.
• Double Hooks:
  • High-concept world + Twin swap/identity switch.
  • High external and internal stakes—government oppression, public execution, sibling dynamics.

CeCe's Feedback ([05:16–09:13])

• Strengths:
  • Great disruption early in the query ("spent her whole life over preparing for modification, but then she fails").
  • World-building and complex stakes well established.
  • Quote:

    "Twin swapping is a thousand percent compelling. So great job there." – CeCe [08:07]

• Suggestions:
  • Avoid abstract internal stakes in the query: focus on concrete external plot points.
  • Clarify causality in the protagonist's journey—make the connection between failure, feelings, and world circumstances more precise.
  • Add a sentence tying the initial disruption (failing modification) to the climactic reveal for narrative full circle.

Carly's Feedback ([09:30–11:01])

• Strengths:
  • The "twin twist" is the strongest, should be even more prominent (“lean into the twin double hook”).
  • Title is category-appropriate.
• Suggestions:
  • Query is too long; trim details about the ending. “The job of the query is to hook an agent, not explain everything.”
  • Let agents be curious about how things are solved; avoid over-explaining.

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2. First Pages Critique – "Modified"

[11:07–12:46]/[12:46–21:27]

CeCe's Critique ([12:46–17:35])

• Strengths:
  • Story opens at an inciting incident: the public modification ceremony.
• Areas for Improvement:
  • Too much “story-splaining”—factual worldbuilding without emotional filtering. Need to blend facts and character emotions/thoughts.
  • Quote:

    “The point of interiority is to see how your protagonist processes [details]. What takeaways they gather, what discomfort they experience…” – CeCe [17:17]

  • Example: Contrast in twin’s nails (manicured vs chewed) could reflect character’s deeper insecurity, pride, jealousy, or longing—but the emotion is missing.

Craft Insight: Interiority and Psychological Acuity

• CeCe explains the tiers of interiority (knee-jerk reactions, attention hierarchy, memories, judgments, theorizing/fantasizing). “Even in five opening pages of bestselling books, all these layers exist.” – CeCe [18:55]
• Action beats can layer worldbuilding, character, and emotion together (Bianca [20:38]).

Carly’s Agent Perspective ([21:27–23:47])

• Notes YA dystopian as a saturated market; the “twin hook” is what sets this book apart—lean into this sooner and with more prominence.
• The story needs to “sing” for an agent to drop everything for it: open with elements that set it apart (“the twin hook is essential”).

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3. Books with Hooks Segment: Thriller Query Critique – "Such a Good Girl"

[25:17–30:38]

Query Breakdown

• Premise:
  Meg returns to her hometown after decades, following her sister’s mysterious disappearance years prior. The current case of another missing young woman, Caitlyn, parallels her sister’s. Meg finds her sister’s diary and uncovers secrets.
• Author Note:
  Query includes mention of self-published romance novels (10,000 copies sold), seeking traditional publishing for thrillers.

Carly’s Feedback ([27:11–30:38])

• Strengths:
  • Compelling premise: protagonist returns home, cold case, found diary, another missing girl.
• Suggestions:
  • The hook is buried; needs to be at the very top. ("When Meg returns to Echo Falls... she discovers her missing sister’s 1996 diary, which links a cold case to a modern day kidnapping.”)
  • Bio should state self-publishing experience more succinctly; focus on partnership, not sales detail.
  • Elevate urgency and clarify present-day stakes.

CeCe's Feedback ([30:42–34:33])

• Urgency & Stakes:
  • Urgency lacking: needs a tighter ticking clock or clear reason the investigation must happen now.
  • Stakes feel “secondhand”—it’s about her sister and a stranger, not personally visceral enough for the reader.
  • Encourage emphasizing how Meg’s investigation puts her own life in danger (personal stake/escalation).
  • Cautions about too much diary reading as action—it slows pace in fiction.
• Technical Suggestion:
  • Specify dual timeline or not, clarify structure in query.

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4. First Pages Critique – "Such a Good Girl"

[34:37–42:14]

Carly’s Feedback ([34:37–39:48])

• Strengths:
  • Mystery is presented quickly: missing posters, reference to sister’s disappearance.
• Issues with Opening Scenes:
  • Small-town grocery store scene with cashier feels unrealistic; the cashier recognizes Meg despite only being in town five years.
  • Tone and atmosphere do not match the genre’s potential (“I want the world to close in on her… more atmospheric.”)
• Suggested Fix:
  • Make character recognition plausible, or leverage a prop (e.g., “Mrs. Barnhart’s sweater”) instead of forced dialogue.

CeCe’s Feedback ([39:51–44:30])

• Power Imbalance:
  • Every opening should establish power dynamics—here, the scene with the cashier lacks any power imbalance or tension.
  • “You cannot start a story in a place with no power imbalance. You just can't.” – CeCe [41:30]
• Emotional Calibration:
  • Emotional response needs to come before thoughts: visceral reaction to missing poster should hit first.
  • Avoid overwriting—don’t repeat information.
• Scene Purpose:
  • If the only reason for a character interaction is to share information, it’s not serving the story. Elevate tension, atmosphere, or rethink the character’s purpose.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Double Hook Craft:

  "I would lean into the twin stuff as much as possible. The plot itself, the double hook being like the twin hook... you don't have to over explain the ending." – Carly [10:30]

• Interiority as Superpower:

  “Plot is what happens. Interiority is how your protagonist processes what happens. And psychological acuity is why it matters.” – CeCe [00:30]

• On Story-Splaining:

  “There are many, many paragraphs...in which there is absolutely no emotion, no filtering through her interiority. The author is focused on collective world building.” – CeCe [13:15]

• Power Imbalance Mantra:

  "You cannot start a story in a place with no power imbalance. You just can't." – CeCe [41:30]

• On Stakes in Thrillers:

  "I don’t want secondhand fear and secondhand urgency...it needs to be personal, visceral, urgent, and it needs to escalate." – CeCe [34:20]

• On Query Basics:

  “The job of the query is to hook an agent, not explain everything.” – Carly [10:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• CeCe's intro on interiority & promotion of her course: [00:00–01:34]
• YA dystopian query ("Modified") read and feedback: [01:59–12:33]
• First pages critique for "Modified": [11:07–21:27]
• Thriller query ("Such a Good Girl") read and feedback: [25:17–34:33]
• First pages critique for "Such a Good Girl": [34:37–44:30]

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Tone and Style

• Direct, practical, and occasionally irreverent: Laughter, metaphor (e.g., "lizard brain"), and candid “truth bomb” moments.
• Supportive critique: Hosts balance encouragement with honest assessment (“Brava!” and “That is a harsh truth, but necessary for a thriller.”).
• Pedagogical: Frequent craft lessons—interiority, action beats, emotional calibration, power dynamics.

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Final Takeaways

• Make your manuscript stand out by leaning into unique hooks—especially quick and clear in saturated genres.
• Openings must combine external action with immediate, visceral character interiority.
• Power imbalances and tension are non-negotiable—never settle for scenes without them, especially at the opening.
• Queries should hook, not summarize; burying the lead or providing a blow-by-blow erodes interest.
• Stakes must be personal and escalating, particularly in crime/thriller genres.
• Always be intentional with every line and scene—if its purpose is solely to deliver information, reimagine to serve tension, character, or conflict instead.

For detailed written notes from the episode, including line edits, listeners are directed to the Substack (for paid subscribers).

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Transcript

[A]

What's up everyone? This is Cece. Do you know something I'm always looking for when I review the slush pile? Strong interiority. Well written interiority shows what your protagonist is thinking about in a way that is realistic and interesting. It propels the story forward instead of holding it back. But it doesn't stop there. A strong writer will leverage interiority into a superpower, into something I call psychological acuity. Think about it this way. Plot is what happens. Interiority is how your protagonist processes what happens. And psychological acuity is why it matters. It gives a book depth and meaning and staying power. All breakout books have psychological acuity. You have been asking me to teach a course about psychological acuity for years.

[B]

Years.

[A]

Well, it's finally here. Why did it take me so long? Because my courses take years to build. They're dense, they're thorough, and they're filled with examples and specific techniques. So this five day course begins on March 2nd. We'll have an optional interactive component. Students are invited to submit excerpts from their work for a chance to have them critiqued live during a class. If you're ready to take your writing to the next level, join me for Writing Interiority and Psychological Acuity. Don't worry if you can't attend live. The sessions will be recorded. And for more information, check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.

[C]

Hi there and welcome to our show the Shit no one tells you About Writing. I'm best selling author Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Cece Lehrer of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of P.S. literary. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another Books with Hooks segment. As per usual, we are diving straight in. Cece, can you please click kick us off?

[B]

Let's do it. Dear Cece, First I want to thank you, Carly and Bianca, for openly discussing the mysteries of the publishing world. As an amateur writer without many connections to this industry, it's wonderful to feel like I have a trio of mentors to be real with me. The below query is complete at 384 words. I'm seeking representation for modified, a YA dystopian novel. 82,000 words about a 16 year old science prodigy who risks her life to upend the barbaric society she belongs to, while also hopefully overcoming imposter syndrome in the process. Modified has the thrill of deadly class divides found in Rebecca Dasenbaker's SoulMatch and the tension of a protagonist living a double life seen in Taylor K. Magia's We Set the The Dark on Fire I believe you'll be interested in this project based on your love of smart female protagonists dealing with high stakes situations. Winter Edelweiss spent her life over preparing for modification, so it's a shock when she inexplicably fails the procedure. Mods are granted artificial perfection in one specialty, while no mods are segregated and sentenced to a life of mindless servitude. When Winter's natural intelligence is dismissed, she's left questioning the legitimacy of the government she's faithfully followed her whole life. And when Winter's sister Aurora successfully mods and snags Winter's dream apprenticeship, their separate fates seem clear until Aurora shocks Winter with a plan to twin swap. Winter will pose as Aurora at the apprenticeship, giving Aurora the freedom to join a rebel group seeking to dismantle the corrupt government and Winter the chance to research why no mods fail. But the apprenticeship is hosted by the very government agency responsible for their way of life, and getting caught means starring in their next public execution for both of them. As Winter struggles to maintain the charade, her unexpected ally becomes the cute but reckless Xylo Ziraf, nephew of the agency's president. Even though Xylo discovers Winter's true identity, he offers partnership instead. As they both grow suspicious of the agency's intentions, Winter hacks into a lab computer and discovers its true horrific to perfect a new procedure that will turn no mods into emotionless, compliant slaves. And after she and Xylo are betrayed and captured by the his power hungry ant, Winter must rely on her unenhanced talent to stage an escape, expose the agency's atrocities, and upload a critical file that proved no mods are not inferior, a revelation that could collapse their entire societal structure. I graduated with a BA in communications and have been writing professionally in my marketing career ever since. I'm a member of Liberty State's Fiction Writers. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

[C]

Redacted oh wow, cc as someone who likes dystopian fiction, that sounds really interesting to me. So let's hear your take on that.

[B]

Right? I thought so too. I mean, this person was like, you're gonna love this because it has all the things you love. And people say this to agents a lot and I'm always like, am I gonna love it? Because that's just how the brain works. When we're told how we're gonna feel, we offer emotional resistance. It's my lizard brain in action. This person was right. Just saying. I don't rep ya. Okay, but the Story sounds so great. I will, however, give you notes because this is why you submitted to our podcast. So, first paragraph. I like that your first sentence is that she spent her whole life over preparing for modification, but then she fails because that's. That establishes an expectation and a disruption. So that was very well done. However, the next sentence there is about the world, and the sentence after that reads, when Winter's natural intelligence is dismissed, she's left questioning the legitimacy of the government. So first sentence did a really good job. And the next two sentences were about world building and then interiority, because a protagonist being left questioning something isn't the most compelling plot point. As discussed on the show. We want plot points to capture external events, not internal events. Interiority is very important, but not for the query letter. I'm also not sure if there's causality between the fact that she failed the modification because her natural intelligence was dismissed. Having read the pages, I think I have a better sense, but it just. It just confused me. Like I didn't know whether she failed the test and then her intelligence was dismissed. And I don't know what dismissed even means in terms of one's intelligence being dismissed. I just thought it was too big picture, too zoomed out. The good news is that the paragraph after that is filled with really juicy plot points. The twist about her twin wanting to take her place and them swapping is genius. Like, so genius. Love that. Really smart, really intriguing, really compelling. There are some things in storytelling that are just naturally compelling, and twin swapping is a thousand percent one of them. So great job there. I also really liked that you made the stakes very clear. The fact that they could both, you know, star in a public execution. So it's not just her, but it's also her twin sister. So amazing job establishing the stakes. Something that I was curious about. It didn't bother me. It wouldn't be a deal breaker by any means, but it did give me pause. Is this. At first we are told she is, like, faithful to the government, right? But then she fails the test, and then we have her questioning the legitimacy of something. And then after all these plot points, we have her suspicious of the intentions. So I'm thinking, okay, first she's questioning, now she's suspicious. That makes sense. But at the same time, her twin sister offered, planned, in fact, to join the rebel forces. So her twin sister must not drink the kool aid, right? Like, she must not believe in this government. And is that intentional? And if so, it just made me, like, curious. Because if they're so close as twins. Wouldn't she have known this about her sister? And wouldn't she be worried about her sister being in the rebel band? And again, none of these are things that have to be in the query letter, but it did start making me wonder in terms of the story. They just didn't know if it was intentional or not. Another that really caught my attention was this. This whole journey begins because she fails her test and she agrees to twin swap because she wants to find out why she failed. But there's nothing about a discovery towards the end. So I think we need a line about that too. We need a line about, you know, how the big reveal is actually tied to the real reason why she failed the test, to have that full circle moment. And so we can really feel that organic feel of the story coming together in a way that, you know, bookends everything, like the very initial disruption. In the end, it's tied to the major reveal. So, all in all, you did a really good job of making me curious about a world that is very complex.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Which is hard to do. And you did it all in 384 words. So all the applause. Brava.

[C]

Amazing, CC. It's now got me wishing that I had a twin sister who was really good at parallel parking for my driver's license. Alas, not. So I'm just gonna have to get better at parallel parking. Okay, Carly will be handing it across to you.

[D]

All right. So many good notes here. So one of the things I'm actually working on a reel about this, which is actually really funny that this came up today, which is I was listening to Amy Poehler's podcast, and she had Ryan Coogler on this week, and he was talking about in Sinners how they have a twin H. And he said one of the things he really thought about when he was crafting Sinners was that it has two hooks. And so this is what I think we need to lean into more is this whole, like, twins double hook thing. And we'll talk about it more when we get to the pages. But just tying all my podcasting together here. So I love the twin stuff. I think that really works here. I think we're. We have a really, like, on brand title. I think that kind of fits into the category here. I feel like the query is too long. I feel like the last two paragraphs, I just feel like we're over explaining the situation here. I always come back to the idea of a query's job is to hook an agent. And so I don't Think we need to know all of this about, I don't know, like, that they're betrayed and captured by the power hungry ant and then the like. I just don't. I think if the query is doing its best job, that we shouldn't have to over explain the ending. Because if this query finds the right agent, then you don't need to over explain it. I don't know. And maybe for an agent that's on the fence, if they think, well, this is this. It takes this long to explain the, the pitch, then, you know, is this for me? So I don't know. I would lean into the twin stuff as much as possible. The plot itself, the double hook being like the twin hook. And if you lean into those two things enough, I don't think you have to over explain the ending. So I don't know. Those are my thoughts.

[C]

Thank you, Carly. Okay, Cece, can you let us know what was in the pages and then your take on them?

[B]

So the protagonist is at the gym, which is usually filled with like applause and cheering, but now it's really silent. There's an army there. And what's happening is they have the four banners of each modification option. Physical, intellectual, tactical, and Dexterous. And the protagonist is thinking to herself that this is not how she pictured this day. She pictured it as a pep rally. And instead, you know, it's very like silent and anxious with armed guards. And so she's with her twin sister and her twin sister is nervous and she's nervous too. And she's thinking about, you know, how her twin sister has manicured nails and she doesn't. And the procedure begins and one person goes up and they get assigned and then another person goes up and they don't get assigned. Like they become no mods. And they have a very dramatic reaction and another person goes up and same. A very different dramatic reaction, right? Like this person becomes aggressive, the other person and screamed. And so she's in. And throughout this all we're in the protagonist's head and she's explaining and describing what's happening, how it's the longest five seconds of her life whenever each person goes up and their brains are scanned. And so, yeah, she's holding her breath as, as the 37th brain scan screen remains unchanged. And it's, it's, it's dire. So, yeah, that's it.

[C]

Well, sounds to me we have like a really strong inciting incident. I mean, most books we sort of go, well, why does the story open now? Why today? This seems to answer that. What Was your take on the pages themselves?

[B]

Yeah, I definitely think it's starting in the right place, but I don't think it's starting in the right way. There is a difference. Place refers to the location in the story. And to your point, yes, the disruption is working really well here because it's a high stakes moment. But way has to do with execution. It has to do with can you really connect with character? Meaning can you make the reader connect with. With the character and can you create emotionality? Can you really, you know, hook. Hook the reader's emotions and can you make it emotionally gripping? And so that, I think, is what needs work here. So there are many, many paragraphs. Our substack supporters will be able to see this because I kept highlighting them in which there is absolutely no emotion, no filtering through her interiority. The author is focused on collective world building, and collective world building, especially for the genre, is very important. We need to know what the world looks like. But the way the sentences are written, it's all factual. There are lines and lines on facts, on the world, which can sound like story splaining. And that really just removes the reader from the story. As a reminder, story splaining is when you introduce an element of the story. It could be anything. It could be like setting custom world character in a way that's framed in a very dry, purely objective way and placed in a way that feels forced. So every book has dry sentences, right? Like, not all sentences can be filtered through opinion or through emotion. That's normal. But if there's too much story explaining, then that kind of creates this feeling of I'm just reading about facts. I'm not really inside someone's head and I'm not really feeling what they're feeling. And given the great choice of place in the story, like, she should be feeling really big emotions, right? She should be having really, really specific thoughts. So I think there's a lot of focus on the world building, and that's coming at the expense of character, which I don't think we want. I think we want to do both. And you can do both. Right now there's sentences on world building and then sentences on her thoughts. And really it's about baking in these sentences together. Right? Like the one sentence should do two things. It's about compressing, not so much about adding or removing. When it comes to dosage, and so many writers have questions on dosage. Is this too much? Is this too little? Dosage is really more about doing two things at once than it is about cutting or adding, although it sounds like I'm saying the same thing, but they're actually different. Okay, so specific things. Just so we're not talking about this in general terms. It is established from the very beginning that when she pictured this day in her mind, she pictured pep rallies and cheering and, you know, a lot of excitement. However, there's guards and anxiousness, and everyone's silent and you could hear a pin drop. My question is, why does she expect. Why did she expect something different? Is it because usually these ceremonies are joyful and today ceremony is an exception? And if so, why isn't her interiority theorizing about the reason why today is different? Or even giving an opinion on the reason if she already knows the reason? I'll give an example from our real world. Imagine that you have a high school senior at their graduation, and they've always pictured this day. Because, come on, you always picture this day from. Probably from the day you're, like, in middle school, even lower school, right? Like you pictured your high school graduation. But imagine a senior in June 2020. They would be going in their head. I did not want to be doing this via zoom. Like, I don't get to be with my classmates my whole life I've been dreaming about this. Or they might be going, thank God this is via Zoo. I've been dreading this day my whole life, and now I get to do it over the safety of my home, whatever their opinion is. But my point is, because we had Covid. Covid changed the entire graduating experience of all these people throughout the world. Although not everyone graduates in June. But I. But, you know, in certain parts of the world, some people do. And so this is what I'm talking about. We have a protagonist saying, I did not expect this. I expected Pepperelli. But why? Why is this her expectation? It's not enough to tell me that her expectation was something different. It needs to make sense. Especially because, like, if there's a reason why the army is there and the army usually isn't there, I bet it's a juicy reason. So why aren't you telling us? I really wanted to know. And then I'll also share. This is a macro example, right, of interiority that's missing. I'll share a micro example. There's a line that reads, she's talking to her sister, and she's looking at her sister and just looking at her physically. Her crimson hair is being lightly tugged and twirled by her freshly manicured nails. Something that differentiates us. I've never had my Nails done instead, they're chewed down past the fleshy parts of my fingertips. This is a really good example of someone who is adding just enough facts that could actually be a gateway to really interesting interiority. But that's missing in these pages, right?

[A]

Now.

[B]

Let me explain. We have a contrast between her and her sister. Her sister has manicured nails. Her nails are chewed up, bitten down, right? Great. Contrast is awesome. But don't stop at establishing the facts of contrast. Go deeper. Reveal her place in the world. Reveal her vulnerability, her insecurities, her sense of self, all her deep and messy emotions, including positive emotions. It needn't only be negative. How does the fact that her sister's nails look different from hers land inside her? Does she take pride in not being vain? Assuming she thinks her sister is vain for having her nails done? Does she think it's awesome that they share that one difference? Does she like the fact that she's different? Does it make her feel good? Does she not like it? Does she wish they could be the same in every single way because it makes her feel closer to her sister? Our listeners might be thinking, you know, Cece, you're always asking for more layers of interiority. And these are the first five pages. There's only so much a person can do. And I actually disagree a little bit with that because the point of interiority is not to share facts. The point of interiority is not to have a protagonist looking at someone's nail and telling me that their nails are different from this other person's nails. The point is to see how your protagonist processes them. What takeaways they gather, what discomfort they experience, what this reveals about them as a person. My interiority course, it's called Writing Interiority and Psychological Acuity starts in, I think it's a week from now. It starts on March 2nd. And if you're, you are enrolled in that, you are going to see how we talk about the four ways that we can filter interiority. The first way is all about the emotional makeup and it's knee jerk reactions and its unconscious ways like bias, fear, desire, blind spot. The second way, or the first tier, I should say, since the first, very first tier, I don't call first tier are things like memories and urges and attention hierarchy. Then after that we have another tier which is all about like judgments, opinions, even assumptions. And then we have a final layer which is so important, which is when you really start to play chess with your own mind, which is when you start to theorize and fantasize and project. And I'M saying all this because actually, in the first five pages of most breakout books, you have all these tiers. Even though it's just five pages. I've studied hundreds of them. I know this. And so you have a really great opportunity here because you have twins. Like, this is. This is such a gift in terms of contrast, right? And you have a really interesting society that clearly has really wacky and interesting power dynamics. So I want to feel her fear, you know, I want to feel her active emotions. I want to get her perspective. There are way too many paragraphs here that are just about the world without being filtered through her many tiers of interiority, and I want that. So I hope my notes are useful to you. I know I've. I've given you quite a lot to think about, but I think that if you were to rewrite this, filtering the whole world building and the events through her unique perspective, you might have a really, really special submission here.

[C]

Thank you, Cece. And just a reminder to the writers out there, you can do so much with action beats as opposed to dialogue tags. Remember, dialogue tags are he said, she said. If you say something, the character said, like, holy moly. Or whatever. He looked out the window of the rocket ship at the three moons shining brightly and yearned for Aurora to be standing next to him. Right, We've got an action beat there. That is world building. We know it creates setting. He's in a rocket ship, world building, there's three moons, and he's yearning for someone, Aurora, which gives us a curiosity seed. So when you're trying to bake in all of these things, don't be afraid to use action beats for interiority, world building, etc. Etc. Don't feel like you have to separate them. Okay, Carly, we're handing across to you now.

[D]

Yeah, everybody's made excellent points. I. I think my biggest issue with this submission is it is really well done, and yet I have no idea how this is going to stand out because there are so many YA dystopian books out there. So as an agent, I'm thinking, okay, I. This could be a good submission, but what's the difference between a good submission and a submission I have to spend all night reading that I have to throw everything aside so that I have to sign it, so that I have to clear my schedule so I can sub it next week? And as an agent who is a generalist, I work on very few books across categories, if that makes sense. So maybe an agent who is a specialist in this category can see the Differentiation. But I guess for me, the twin hook is so crucial to this story, and yet we are burying it. Like, I did a quick, you know, how many times is the word mentioned? Twin is only mentioned twice in these opening pages. And to me, the twin hook is essential to making this stand out amongst everything else. So I think everything that's happening on these first five pages has to happen in one page. I think we have to establish the twin double hook really quickly. Like the hook of the book, the twin hook. Why are they different? Why are they, you know, how are they different? How are they the same? The mods going wrong. That has to happen on the first page. And yeah, those are the things we have to establish. So I think we're spending way too much time on. You know, I didn't expect the gym to ooze anxiousness and be lined with armed guards. Well, guess what? Your reader did. Your reader did expect that. Because we've read a hundred dystopian YA books. And so if your reader expects that, then you're setting the reader up for this moment of, okay, so what? And so Cece is alluding to, obviously, all these great elements of interiority that need to happen. But as the reader, you have to think about, how am I going to surprise the reader faster? And I think that's the mods going wrong. That's huge. Maybe a mention of the twin swap or like, can we allude to the twin swap? I don't know. There's. There's just. There's so much good stuff here. And I do think this has a great first hook. As I said, the hook of the actual book, a great second hook, the twin hook. But we're taking too long to actually get to the elements that are actually going to set it apart in the first five pages for an agent like me that's a generalist and is going to work on few of these projects. So it's just a case of, like, I think this is really good. But you know, what makes it great are the things that are going to sing to a lot of different agents. And those are my thoughts.

[C]

Thank you, Carly. Okay, before we hand it over to you for your query, first a word from our sponsors.

[D]

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[C]

Okay Carly, let's hear from you.

[D]

Dear Carly, Cici and Bianca, you have all been so helpful on my past queries. I have a specific question for this one. I self published four romance novels last year but would like to pursue trad Pub for my thrillers. I'm not sure how to approach this in a query. I'm seeking representation for my 80,000 word thriller such a Good Girl, which blends diary revelations like in Stacey Williams Forget Me not. With an older narrator and dark academia atmosphere like in Rebecca Mackay's, I have some questions for you. Meg left Echo Falls decades ago after her 19 year old sister Emily vanished without a trace. But after years of failed fertility treatments and a recent divorce, Meg reluctantly agrees to help her mother run the family bookstore over the holidays. It doesn't take long to see why her mother fled town for a meditation retreat. Missing person posters blanket Echo Falls. The face on them isn't Emily's, but a young woman named Caitlyn, and the similarities between the two close in on Meg like a looming storm. While working at the bookstore, Meg discovers Emily's journal, missing since her disappearance in 1996. As Meg delves into her sister's words and sinks further into a bottle of wine with each page, her sister's voice pulls her into the past and into an obsession she can't escape. Emily's diary reveals secret after secret, an illicit affair with a married professor, a mysterious new friend, and interactions that suggest Meg didn't know Emily as well as she thought up. As Meg tracks down the people mentioned in the journal, one name keeps coming up. Caitlyn's. The deeper Meg digs, the clearer it becomes that the two disappearances are connected. Meg must uncover the truth about what happened to her sister, not only to save her own sanity, but to try to save Caitlyn, or she may become the next woman Echo Falls forgets. When I'm not writing, you can find me working at a library, painting with my child, or writing indie romances. I published four last year and sold over 10,000 copies between them. Traditional publishing feels like a better fit for my thrillers. Can I send you the full manuscript? Warm regards to Cole Barton.

[C]

Awesome, Kali.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

Okay, what's your take on that?

[D]

All right, so she so graciously wrote in the word count for us, which is 321 words without the introduction. I love how everybody's like, without my introduction, they're always like, how can I shave off, like, an extra 15 words or 20 words? Always makes me smile. Because you have to include some kind of introduction of some kind of I see you out there, everybody trying to shave off your words. Okay, so a couple things. I feel like we are missing the hook, right? So, like, does this. Does Nicole. Does this writer think that the hook is that first paragraph of plot? You know, Meg left Echo Falls decades ago because I don't think that's the hook because it kind of just lands on, you know, helping her mother run the family bookstore over the holidays, then, you know, if we think, okay, is the hook before that? If you're including the diary revelations and the comps and the dark academia, the. That's not really a hook either. That's just giving us factual information about why the comps are relevant. So an example of the character, situation, complication, hook. So what is your character? What situation are they in? And what is the complication that they find themselves in? Would be. When Meg returns to Echo Falls to run her mother's bookstore, she discovers her missing sister's 1996 diary, which links a cold case to a modern day kidnapping. And obviously, you can expand on that a little bit if you want to get into, like, what the cold case is. But we have to kind of really set the tone for what is actually happening that is the thriller, right? Because, like, if I read the first half of that, I'm like, where's the thrills? Like, I don't understand what's happening here. I love this idea that the woman is reminding her a lot of her sister. All that is great. And I love when we get to the end and we're like, they're actually connected. What this? This is a great hook. You're just completely burying the lead here. So we definitely need to center that hook much more upright because I don't understand what the present day hook is really. Because again, this, for me, this falls into the situation of this sounds like a great book, and yet why does this matter to Meg? And obviously your sister going missing is tragic. Like, you know, like horrific. Can't even imagine how horrible that would be. But it isn't you personally that this is happening to, right? So we have to figure out, is it the divorce element here, like, her coming to come back? I'm really interested in the line about as Meg delves into her sister's words and sinks further into a bottle of wine. With each page, her sister's voice pulls her into a past, into an obsession she can't escape. So I like this, like, is it unreliable narrator business? You know, why is she drinking so much? Can we trust her? Can we trust her memories? You know, again, it's something that has been done before in terms of the unreliable alcoholic character, but it's tried and true. Like, you know, it's one of those tropes where it is really intriguing to the reader to try to figure out what's going on in her psyche and can add an extra psychological element to the plot. So I think that is all very interesting. So I think if you just figure out how to put the hook at the top, I think you're gonna have some more success here. And your question about how do I fit in this kind of wording about wanting to do trad pub for your thrillers? Great question. I would say with your author bio, I wouldn't include the copies sold. I would say something like, I found success self publishing romances. I'm looking for an agent to partner with me on my thriller career. And then that just says, like, I understand both worlds. I'm looking for a partner. I know why I need a partner without kind of over explaining with the copies and things like that. But, yeah, I think it sounds really interesting, Nicole.

[C]

Thank you, Kali. Okay. Cece handing it across to you now.

[B]

I love a good person disappears. Other person has to investigate story. I know that there's a lot of them out there, but it's just One of those hooks where there's so many fun ways to do it, so many fresh ways to approach it, and it really gives the story a very clear structure and a reason why it's so compelling. What we also need, I think, is urgency. The line, you know, to save her own sanity, but to try to save Caitlyn, or she may become the next woman. Echo fall forgets. I. I worry about the pace in terms of, like, well, why does this have to be solved in X days? You know, like, does it have to be solved in X days? Preferably it does, because you really want that ticking time tension. And if so, why? And I. If there's a possibility of it being like, you know, something about the similarities between the case and perhaps other cases that the protagonist has uncovered lead her to believe that she has 14 days to do this. You know, like just some type of, like, time tension, urgency. I don't know if that's even possible in the story, but it helps because to Carly's point, which I agree with, is Meg is the protagonist, right? Her emotional connection to this is her sister, and that is super, super tragic. It did happen decades and decades ago, and there's no sa. So then the person Meg is trying to save is Caitlyn, who is a stranger to her. Of course she empathizes with Caitlyn. Of course she feels there's a lot of empathy. But empathy and curiosity are different emotions, right? They're totally different emotions. And for a reader to spend 80,000 words with this character, with this protagonist who is spending all her time searching for someone else who she has no personal connection with, that is a hard thing to pull off. It is possible, but usually when it does happen really well, it relies on certain plot points. Plot points. Like, for example, her own life starts to be in danger because she starts unraveling this conspiracy theory. And unbeknownst to her, she puts herself in danger. So that's a complication that really adds that layer of urgency and of personal stakes. Or she is framed. That's another way that this is often done, right? Like, because she starts investigating, all of a sudden, she. She starts being framed for this. So she needs to investigate even more now, or else her freedom is at stake. My point is this needs to be more urgent to her situation in a way that goes way beyond what you're framing, which are things like, to save her own sanity. I am so sorry to say this, because it sounds harsh, but to save her own sanity is not enough for a thriller. You know, like, just, like truth Bomb moment right here. It is just not enough in life. It is in life. It's enough for you to investigate, but in storytelling it's not. So I think we need more. Another thing that I also thought of is this. There's a lot that's riding on the fact that she's reading her sister's diaries. Is this like a dual timeline situation? Like one timeline epistolary, one timeline present? If so, I think you need to specify that. And if not, I'm worried about the pace because how much time are we spending with her sitting around reading a diary? That is a very boring scene in film. It works because what happens in film is that the protagonist sits down to read and then we go into whatever she's reading. Like the images that are on screen start to be whatever she's reading. But that doesn't work so well in books. So again, it can be done. You mentioned comps that do it. I get it, but I'm just worried about the pace. So this, that's something that my, my antenna go up whenever I hear this. I always go, is this going to be one of those thrillers that's not Pacey? Thrillers need to be Pacey. Yeah, essentially, I don't want secondhand fear and secondhand urgency. I. I feel very strongly that it needs to be personal, visceral, urgent, and it needs to escalate. And you have given me great plot points, but they are secondhand. So that's my take.

[C]

Thank you, Cece. Okay, Carly, what's in the pages?

[D]

All right, so as is alluded to in the query letter, we have our character who is headed home. As she is driving, she feels like she's kind of looking for her sister. She sees a flyer when she stops at the grocery store to get some groceries because she's fresh in town. She sees the Caitlin Walker poster that has her height, her weight, her hair color, and her age, which reminds her of her sister. She grabs her shopping cart for some groceries, goes up and down the aisles, and as she's kind of going through putting a couple things in her cart, she gets to the checkout and she's looking for a self checkout because she doesn't want to interact with anybody, but there is not. So she has to interact with a human. And they kind of do have a little chit chat while they are checking out. It turns out that the person at the register who's cashing her out knows her mother knows why she's there, and they kind of just talk about her being kind of Fresh back in town and going to run the bookstore of the groceries that our character is getting. She has two bottles of wine for her quick grocery trip, point of interest. And then she turns back, gets into her car, drives to the house and just kind of has a bit of a kind of connection with her memories about her two story white Victorian house that she remembers from growing up.

[C]

Okay, Carly, thank you. Right, the age old question. Are we starting in the right place?

[D]

I really like that we get into the mysteries super quickly. That is something that I felt like we didn't get with the last query on today's show. And I think on in these pages very quickly we figure out, you know, we have missing person, we know the sister's missing, we know why she's going home. There's always the question of the like protagonist returning home. Super, you know, well worn trope for many reasons. It connects with a lot of people, provides a lot of opportunity for story and time and change all of those things. Family dynamics. So, you know, I think it's. Is it fine? Yes. It's hard to know if there could be a better opening with not reading the rest of the pages. I think what I struggle with with these pages is the interaction between Meg and the cashier. I was very confused by honestly a lot of it. Because if she hadn't been home in such a long time, then I don't know how this person recognized her as the daughter. I don't know, it just, it just seemed very obvious that she recognized her. But like, how would they recognize her? She hasn't been in town.

[C]

And could that be fixed by the cashier saying, you look so much like your mother, you have to be her daughter. Like, things like that.

[D]

That feels forced to me. Again, totally a possibility of like a quick fix. It feels a bit forced to me. Again, not impossible. It could be. Maybe she has on her mother's sweater or jacket, which she always wore and it was like, that's, you know, it has a special brooch on it. So they're like, oh, that really looks like Mrs. Barnhart's jacket with the brooch. Why do you have that? You know, like, I think something a bit more like that as opposed to my next note was just going to be how this was a very earnest interaction between Meg and the cashier. This did not provide any, any level of atmospheric tension or this like seriousness that a thriller often brings. And the kind of like the, the closeness of a small town in the dark and going home. And I keep doing this because I'm Like, I'm a hand talker and I just. I feel like the world should be closing in on her a little bit in this, like, small grocery store. Feeling small, feeling contained. And it was. Anyway, it was just this very earnest interaction with the cashier and that I found really did not serve the book as well as it could. You know, even something like, you know, she was looking for the self checkout. And then she says, after picking up the rest of my essentials, I roll my cart straight past the checkout stand where a perky young blonde is wiping down her register and beg the universe for this grocery store to have put in a self checkout aisle since I was here last. It's been years. It's possible if you're in a town and you're looking at the cashier, then where else would the self checkout be? Like, I just don't understand the, like, logistics of a human walking through this grocery store, I guess. And maybe I'm projecting this town to be a bit smaller than it is and, you know, maybe self checkouts are around the corner. But in every second self checkout I've been to, it's like, there's the cash and there's a self checkout. So there's not this, where do I go? It's like you're taking in the experience all at the same time. I guess I had so many reservations about the actual physicality of this scene that took me out of the reading experience. I don't think there's anything wrong or bad about what's happening here. I think I just, again, was just taken out of the scene so many times because I would have restructured it in a lot of different ways. And it's not that it doesn't have to be a checkout scene or it doesn't have to be a coming home scene scene. I would just have the interaction completely different. I would have it much more atmospheric, and I would have so much more kind of through lines between her past and her present and how all these things are kind of coming together at this moment before she comes home and sees her house again. But those are my thoughts.

[C]

Thank you. K. Okay. Cece.

[B]

Yeah, I. I kind of wanted to build off of what Carly said in terms of the cashier interaction. Maybe I missed something, but right now, she hasn't been in this town in decades. We're talking decades. Okay. She pulls up to literally, like, have someone swipe her groceries, and, you know, she can. So she can bag them, and the first thing this person says to her Is. So you're staying over at Mama's place. And there's no indication through interiority or dialogue of how the person would know this. It can't be because she recognizes her, because the cashier says she's only been in town for five years, so that does not add up. And I swear this is not me being nitpicky. Maybe you're thinking, okay, but that's an easy fix, Cece. She'll put the sweater as Bianca said. Yes, yes. But.

[C]

But.

[B]

But here's the thing. My question to you is, why do you want the cashier to know? Because to Carly's excellent point, if someone knows something about you before you're ready to reveal it, that can add tension, you know, that makes someone feel vulnerable, but only if you activate interiority and atmosphere and mood. And you haven't. So I think that's. And again, I think you haven't. And I suspect this is my suspicion. My armchair psychologist. No, Armchair story fixer. That's not a good title. Here's my diagnosis. Whatever my title is, I think you want to establish information. And you were like, it can't be info dumpy, so it can't be interiority. So I'm going to have her talk to this lady. And there's no power imbalance here. You cannot start a story in a place with no power imbalance. And you cannot start a story like that. You just can't.

[C]

You're not allowed.

[B]

I am saying you can't do it, okay? And so if this cashier is the person that you want her to be talking to, then you have to totally change the power between them. The power dynamics between them. And if you're like, no, actually, the cashier is a nobody. I just really wanted it because I wanted to convey information. You're right. Then change it up. Change it. She's no longer going to be talking to the cashier people. The cashier has got to go. So, anyway, I fully agree. I fully agree with Carly's diagnosis. If this interaction is just being like, it not only makes no sense, it's not serving your story. And again, we don't know enough about the plot points to know whether there might be something nefarious actually about this cashier. But if there is, you haven't indicated it through curiosity seeds or clues. Another thing I wanted to talk about.

[A]

About.

[B]

Watch out for emotional calibration. This is something I'm always looking for in the first five pages, because your protagonist should be feeling something. And if the emotional calibration isn't right in the first five pages. Chances are it's not right throughout the entire manuscript. I will offer an example. The protagonist is inside the grocery store. She sees a missing poster saying Caitlin Walker. Height, weight, hair. And this is what we get after that. Okay, I'm going to read it to you. Emily was 19, around the same height and weight. If I squint, it looks just like her. A chill slithers down my spine. That's the whole paragraph. Three sentences. What you need to do, in my opinion, is invert the order as soon as she sees the missing poster. The first thing that we should get after that is visceral emotion. Because we feel before we think, especially when it comes to visceral emotions. This is a non negotiable in storytelling. Go study thrillers. Go study other books that have deep, deep fear. Fear conveyed through surprise, of course. Not fear. The protagonist was expecting to feel. She wasn't expecting to see this poster. So the second she sees it, first the chill needs to run down her spine. Then we need to get her interiority processing. Emily was 19, same height and age. If I squint, I just look like her. It sounds silly, me saying, oh, move this line up. It actually makes a big difference in terms of emotional calibration. Big, big, big difference. And it's a mistake, a common mistake. I see. And it's one that's easily fixable if you know what to look for. So I think it's really important to do that. The other thing is that I felt that you might be a little bit of an overwriter. I highlighted a couple lines where you were like, saying the same thing twice, one time right after the other. And that often happens when the storyteller is like, anxious to make sure that we really get know about something. And so they say it twice. And trust me when I say you don't need to say it twice. We. We got it the first time. And. And yeah, I. I like the idea of her coming back home because there's a lot that can be leveraged here. But I think that you should pick a part in like, you should build this scene, this coming back home scene, in a way that includes disruption and power imbalances and all these other really great elements that ramp up the tension.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you, Carly and Cece for your feedback. You will find their notes in Tuesday's substack so that if you're a paid subscriber, you will find them there and you'll be able to see all of them written down next week. We will have our author interview, so we will see you then. Goodbye everyone. Cece Lira is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the submission [e-mail]. carly Waters is a literary agent at P.S. literary Agency, but her work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast are solely that of her as a podcast co host and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency.

[A]

What's up everyone? This is cece. Do you know something I'm always looking for when I review the slush file? Strong interiority. Well written interiority shows what your protagonist is thinking about in a way that is realistic and interesting. It propels the story forward instead of holding it back. But it doesn't stop there. A strong writer will leverage interiority into a superpower, into something I call psychological acuity. Think about it this way. Plot is what happens. Interiority is how your protagonist processes what happens. And psychological acuity is why it matters. It gives a book depth and meaning and staying power. All breakout books have psychological acuity. You have been asking me to teach a course about psychological acuity for years.

[B]

Years.

[A]

Well, it's finally here. Why did it take me so long? Because my courses take years to build. They're dense, they're thorough, and they're filled with examples and specific techniques. So this five day course begins on March 2nd, will have an optional interactive component. Students are invited to submit excerpts from their work for a chance to have them critiqued live during a class. If you're ready to take your writing to the next level, join me for Writing Interiority and Psychological Acuity. Don't worry if you can't attend live. The sessions will be recorded and for more information check out my bio on Instagram or the podcast website. I'm looking forward to seeing you there.