← The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
From Books with Hooks to Published Author-How Writing is Rewriting
00:27:50
Author Interview Melissa O'Connor
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- [00:00]
Bianca Marais
Beta Reader Match up time is happening again. It's been so gratifying over the summer to be tagged in so many posts about beta readers who've become writing besties and who are still going strong many years after they were first matched. Some even travel to meet up and do writing weekends together, which sounds incredible. I can't guarantee any of that. That's entirely up to you. But what I can guarantee is that you'll be matched with a group of people working in your genre and or time zone who will critique 3,000 words of your work as you critique theirs. In return, you can sign up from now until the 31st of August with the matchup emails going out on the 1st of September. Head to my website Biancamarae.com and look for the Beta Reader Matchup tab. Hi there and welcome to our show, the Shit no one tells you About Writing. Hi, I'm Bianca Marais and I'm joined by Carly Waters and Cece Lera from PS Literary Agency. Hi everyone. Today's guest became obsessed with stories involving family secrets, betrayal and forbidden love after being gifted a box of used V.C. andrews books at the age of 10. She lives in Buffalo, New York, where she can usually be found cheering on her kids hockey teams and sneaking words on the page between games. It's my pleasure to welcome Melissa o'. Connor. Melissa, welcome to the show.
- [01:35]
Melissa O'Connor
Thanks for having me.
- [01:36]
Bianca Marais
It's so wonderful having you because this is one of our full circle moments. The amazing thing about doing books with hooks for so many years is that this year we've got a solid, strong lineup of authors who are now publishing whose work we looked at and critiqued somewhere along the way. And it's wonderful to see these works go from being submissions we get in our inbox to suddenly having covers to being out in the world to being on bookshelves. So we're super, super excited, Melissa, and we're going to go through everything shortly for our listeners. The book that we are talking about today is the one and only Vivian Stone. Really gorgeous, glamorous cover. And I'm just going to read you some of the flap copies so that you have some context. So the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets the marvelous Mrs. Maisel in this enchanting novel about estranged lovers reconnecting over mysterious tapes found in an attic and the old Hollywood secret hidden within them after her grandmother's death. 30Something Margot Dubois prepares to sell the house quickly so she can go back to a predictable life in Santa Barbara. There, no one knows she used to write and how Failing wrecked her confidence. While cleaning out the attic, she comes across eight unlabeled cassette tapes. Unable to use the damaged tape player, she calls in a favor from Leo, her first love and first epic heartbreak. And they strike a deal. He'll fix the player if he can hear what's on the tapes. When they manage to listen, the two are shocked to hear the voice of comedic legend Vivian Stone. Why did she record these tapes? And how did Margo's grandmother get them? Between listening to Vivian recount everything from her forbidden love for Hollywood's leading actor, to working under a misogynistic exec, to her chemistry with her co star turned husband on tv, Margot and Leo fall down a memory lane of their own. Margot is inspired by Vivian's tenacity and courage to keep fighting for the life she wants. But everything changes when Vivian reveals a secret tied to her past in this moving exploration of how it's never too late to start over. So, Melissa, something that I really want us to focus on in this discussion is the evolution of a piece, the evolution of a work from the query letter to the pages to everything else. And you can perfectly demonstrate that for us. So can you please begin by reading the query letter that you sent in to Carly in 2023 that we critiqued on the show?
- [04:06]
Melissa O'Connor
Of course. Okay, so it says, dear Carly, since you represent historical and women's fiction, I'm querying you with Vivian Stone. 89,000 words. Which is inspired by the scandalous on and off screen relationship of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Its gritty reality of stardom during the mid 20th century would appeal to fans of the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Daisy Jones, and the Six. Los Angeles, 1951. Vivian Stone is used to settling. Since she doesn't have the talent to make her dream of Broadway a reality, she turns to Hollywood, where looks trump all. When tall, dark and handsome actor Hugh Fox only wants friendship, that's what she takes. And after she makes a studio exec laugh, she slums it in comedy instead of the refined world of drama she craves. Then Vivian lands her first lead opposite playboy Kit Pierce and falls into the secret world of old Hollywood rules, filming for 40 hour stretches on pet pills, strict diets and sham dates. Though their on screen chemistry leads to an off screen marriage of passionate highs, their addictions drag them to devastating lows. Determined for a fresh start, Vivian and Kit pitch the sitcom Bobby and Clara she's dubbed the queen of comedy, making millions laugh. But her greatest joke is her life. Her marriage is in shambles, leaving her with two slivers of happiness, the show, which can't continue if they split, and Hugh, the friend she's in love with. She can continue to settle for slivers or she can risk them to pursue the love she deserves, knowing she might end up with nothing. As a freelance writer and editor from Buffalo, New York, Go Bills. My work can be found in texts from educational publishers. And last year I participated in Rogue Mentor, where I learned to work on developmental edits on a deadline. I Love Lucy reruns were a staple of my childhood. And when I'm not using characters from my favorite TV shows to demonstrate concepts for college students, I met an ice rink cheering on my hockey loving kids. Thank you for your consideration.
- [06:11]
Bianca Marais
Amazing, Melissa. Thank you so much. So can you tell us a bit about what the feedback was on the show in terms of this query letter and how you were able to use that and how the query letter evolved?
- [06:25]
Melissa O'Connor
Sure. So the feedback from Carly on the letter was pretty minimal. I think her biggest critique was at the end. She said my last line where it says she can continue to settle for slivers or she can risk them to pursue the love she deserves, knowing she might end up with nothing. Carly had said, I think you can do better with this line. It feels like there's a juicy plot happening here, so I could do more with that. And so I kept that in mind. But overall there was, there was, you know, pretty minimal feedback which kind of ties to what her feedback was on the show, which I think that, you know, I haven't watched it in a little while, but that she liked it.
- [07:04]
Bianca Marais
Amazing. So how long after the critique were you going out on submission? Take us through what that journey looked like for you.
- [07:13]
Melissa O'Connor
Writers talk a lot about. It's not just the premise of the book that can help you get an agent. There's luck and timing involved. And I feel like that was really seen in what I was querying this book because the episode aired March 30th of 2023. And then about a week later I had last minute decided to participate in. And I don't know if they're still going on or not. I don't go on Twitter anymore. But all those pitch contests that used to be happening on Twitter, last minute I decided to do one that was called Mood Pitch. Again, I don't know if that's still going on. And I didn't even know how to make a graphic at the time. I remember the night before. I now know A little bit about Canva, but the night before, I was telling my husband, who was a graphic designer, I said, I have these images. Could you put them together for me? I said, I don't know if I should do this or not. And he's like, well, you know, why not? So I did. And then, like I said, that was about a week after the episode aired, and I got a bunch of likes on that from agents to query them. And so combining the two, and actually, one of the agents who requested was somebody who had listened to the episode where Carly talked about my. My query letter. So she was already kind of ready to go. And so I think I. I got like 11 likes on that, and Cece was one of them, too, which is funny. And so I sent those out and got full request right away. And then I got an offer a week later, which felt really fast. It was from that agent I was talking about who had already heard about the query before. You know, she offered. I had sent out all my queries because I kind of felt like the feedback I was getting from all those likes and everything, I felt like it was kind of propelling forward. So I end up just querying everybody, which normally I would have gone slower, but because of that, I just thought I would just do it. And it ended up being six offers within a few weeks on that. So that's how I end up getting my agent that way.
- [09:17]
Bianca Marais
That is amazing. I love hearing that. And, yeah, for our listeners, a ton of agents listen to the show, and we've had agents reach out to us and go, I heard this query. Can you please put me in touch with so and so? So these things do happen. So how much did you revise the query letter after the show, and what did it look like in its form when you went out and managed to get your agent?
- [09:40]
Melissa O'Connor
Well, the funny thing is, I had submitted my query to the show. I think it was the end of November, December, and I didn't know, I think, until a couple weeks before the episode aired that it was going to be on the show. So I think it's really important for writers just to find between that and, like I said, the pitch contest, I think just be on the lookout for all the different opportunities that there are, because you never know. Like I said, I thought that maybe the pitch contest was going to be not worthwhile because I've done it before and nothing happened from it. But I think that it's always important to just try, try everything you can. So I wasn't expecting to be on the show. And so in the meantime, in those few months between submitting and querying, I re did my query entirely. And so I had the tough position of saying, okay, which query letter do I go out with now? Because Carly liked the one. But then the other one is the one that I had worked on with some critique partners and kind of refined, so I didn't know which one to go out with. I did end up going out with the one that I revised. I was a little unsure. I think I sent the original one to a few of the early agents and then as I kept going, I did the other one. So I have a second one which I'd be happy to share with you if you'd like.
- [11:00]
Bianca Marais
I'd love to. And would you be okay with sharing these with us in Word documents so we can put it in our newsletter? That'll come out the day after this episode airs because I think a lot of people would love to see it in writing as well. So for those of you who are listening who want to see this, this episode will air on a Thursday and we'll put both of these in our newsletter on the Friday. Okay. Melissa, will you read us the second query letter?
- [11:26]
Melissa O'Connor
Of course. Okay. Dear Agent, Inspired by the on and off screen marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi arnaz, Vivian Stone, 89,000 words is women book club fiction with strong romantic elements. It follows a woman who falls into comedy like the marvelous Mrs. Maisel while she explores the gritty reality of stardom reminiscent of the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and wrestles with mid 20th century stereotypes, as in lessons in Chemistry. Aspiring actress Vivian Stone will do anything to make people laugh. Quirky dialogue, you bet. Physical comedy. She can do a Scarlet o' Hara bit in a drape's turn dress get up. Vivian gets her big break in 1951 after she makes a producer cackle so hard he cries. But old Hollywood contracts dictate love lives. Since she isn't allowed romance with dreamboat Hugh Fox, she settles for friendship. When Vivian is cast opposite playboy Kit Pierce, America falls in love with their image as the perfect couple. Now this is a relationship the studio can get behind. While their on screen chemistry leads to an off screen marriage of passionate highs, their fighting drags them to devastating lows. Determined for a fresh start, Vivian and Kit pitch the sitcom Bobby and Clara. She's dubbed the queen of comedy, making millions laugh. But her greatest joke is her life. Her marriage is in shambles, leaving her with two slivers of happiness. The show, which can't continue if they split and Hugh, the friend she's in love with, Vivian can settle for slivers, or she can decide crying isn't worth the joy of making America laugh. So there is some overlap between the two, but there are some differences as well.
- [12:59]
Bianca Marais
It's a lot voicier as well, which I really like. So you. You definitely went with the voicey approach there.
- [13:06]
Melissa O'Connor
Yeah, yeah.
- [13:07]
Bianca Marais
And I liked how you positioned the comps as well. It wasn't just a string of comps. It was saying what part of each particular comp. And you went with the lessons in chemistry comp, which wasn't in the original one. Why? What made you add that one?
- [13:23]
Melissa O'Connor
Actually, that was one of Carly's critiques. In her feedback, she said, I don't think we need more than one Taylor Jenkins Reed comp. And so when I was reworking, and I thought, well, what else? You know, what else would be appropriate? And I was a little bit nervous because I know a lot of the advice is not to use very big names and try to do more recent ones. But I kept feeling in my gut that these were the very best comps. These were the very closest to tell you what the story was about. So I did break, I guess, the rules, if you want to call them that, to do this, because I thought. I thought it was important.
- [14:02]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. I mean, if the big ones are your best comps, then go with them. And they kept them in the marketing material, which is amazing. Which, I mean, often we'll picture something, and what the publisher decides to comp it to is entirely different. They obviously agreed because they kept those comps, which you would have heard when I read the flat copy. So now on the evolution of the work itself. Melissa, will you please read us the first page as the work was when you submitted to Carly? And then I'd like you to read us the first page of how the work is now in its published form.
- [14:37]
Melissa O'Connor
Sure. Okay. First page. Chapter one. Los Angeles, 1951. Another rejection. The lump in my throat grew the longer I stared at the notes scrawled at the bottom of the audition form. Can't act. Needs a vocal coach to get rid of her accent. The raspy voice is good for sexy roles, but she's not curvy enough for them. At 22, I could have been a housewife like the other girls I graduated with, spending my days gossiping after church, exchanging meatloaf recipes and driving to the market with a baby laying in a laundry basket of fresh linen. But the monotony of having dinner on the table every day at five like clockwork sounded like hell, even though the alternative was being torn apart in the hopes of one day seeing my name in light. It was better than attending garden club or playing bridge or perfecting my cross stitch. Can't act, can't act, can't act. The words thundered through my mind as the valet attendant opened my door and I tossed the paper aside before stepping out. My arches screamed from hours spent in paper thin soles, but I needed to meet the man Ruth hadn't stopped talking about for the past few weeks. I handed over the keys to my beat up Ford coupe and strode toward the bright lights illuminating Macambo, my heels clicking down the sunset strip.
- [15:47]
Bianca Marais
Wonderful. Thank you. Before you read us the first page from the finished book, just a word from our sponsors this spring.
- [15:56]
Carly Waters
Watching everything outside bloom. I'm also watching my kids blossom in their French immersion program at school. It's amazing, but also a big motivator for me, especially because we are headed to France next next month. I want to be able to join in more, you know, if you want to connect more with your kids language journey or maybe prep for your own adventure this season. Rosetta Stone helps build those skills Rosetta Stone is the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years, offering an immersive and effective approach that helps you absorb and retain new language naturally on desktop and mobile, wherever and whenever it fits your lifestyle. It is a trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. Spanish, French, Italian, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Arabic, Polish and so many more. There's fast language acquisition you can immerse in so many ways. No English translations. It's an intuitive process. And don't forget the speech Recognition True Accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. It's very convenient. Flexible learning anytime, anywhere on the go with the mobile app or on your desktop at your schedule. And there's amazing value Lifetime membership for all 25 languages for any and all trips and language needs in your life. Lifetime access. So don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. The shit about writing Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit RosettaStone.com today to get started and claim your 50% off today.
- [17:28]
Melissa O'Connor
Don't miss out.
- [17:28]
Carly Waters
Go to RosettaStone.com today and start learning today.
- [17:37]
Bianca Marais
Okay. Right. Melissa, can you read that for us please?
- [17:41]
Melissa O'Connor
Okay, the first page of the finished copy. Chapter one Margot Now I'll admit it. I'm A creature of habit. Change scares me. Or maybe it's less that change scares me and more that familiarity is reassuring. Living a couple of hours away, I don't often drive through my old neighborhood in Long beach, but whenever I do, it's like rewatching my favorite movie. Knowing what to expect means being able to savor the details. There's something charming about how the Pete's Hardware sign hangs slightly crooked and the mist puffing out from the decorative mug above the door to Blossom's Bakery. Even the red and white awning as I pull up to Rui's music is the same. It's been 20 years since I stepped inside, and I wouldn't again if not for the old shoebox I discovered this morning while cleaning out my grandma's attic. Inside was a note, a love letter to and from people I'd never heard of alongside cassette tapes. Probably mixtapes, but I couldn't check. The player I also found was broken, but I knew who could fix it. Before I can weigh the merits of being a coward, I gather the cassette player and the shoebox from the passenger seat and walk through the music store door. The bell above jingles, and nostalgia at being here again tingles down my spine. To the left are rows of sheet music. Book guitars hang from the wall above, while amps and keyboards sit in a display on the floor. Classical music pipes through the speakers.
- [19:05]
Bianca Marais
Amazing. Thank you. Okay, so from that original letter to Carly and the subsequent, it sounded like a single POV novel, one timeline, single pov. And when I read the flap copy, our listeners could hear it was D pov. And most of the focus was kind of on Margot's framing of everything when it came to Vivian. So can you take us through the evolution of that? Did you originally have two POVs? At what point was the second POV added? What did your editor say? Love to know.
- [19:41]
Melissa O'Connor
So the funny thing is, is that I had originally written this book as a dual pov. Dual timeline, like it stands now, with Margot in the present and Vivian in the past. And as an author who didn't have an agent and was looking at kind of the parameters of what is too long to submit to agents, I was a little worried that I can't exactly remember how long it was. It was. It was over a hundred thousand words. I want to say 110,000 words. And I was a little nervous that might be too long. So I made the decision to take out the present timeline, because in the original and as it stands now, it's definitely the minor timeline So I thought, okay, how can I fix the book so I don't need both timelines and would it still read just as well? So I felt like it did. I felt like it worked. And so that's what I submitted to agents, which, as you heard in the query, ended up being 89,000 words. So then I worked with my agent on edits, and we submitted it to editors, and the feedback we got several times was that historical is a tough sell right now, unless you're one of the big names. And my editor, in particular came back and said, I would really love this if it had a second timeline. I love the Vivian story, but I think that it could use a little something more. So then my agent, who didn't know that I had originally written this as dual timeline, I told her, I said, I have another version of this with all of that. And so we went back to my editor, who really wanted to see it, sent that to her. Obviously, I had to do some editing to get that back together, because I went through all the edits with my agent already. So then that did take some time, but putting it back together and submitted it, and my editor was like, yep, let's go. You know, she loved it. So that's how she ended up offering on the book.
- [21:45]
Bianca Marais
So what she originally did was like a revise and resubmit equivalent of what agents do. Right. It was like, I'm not offering. Now this is what I'd like to see. And if you can turn it around, send it back to me.
- [21:57]
Melissa O'Connor
Yep, exactly.
- [21:59]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. And so how long do you think that took? Like, I know you said it took a bit of a while to get it there. Can you estimate more or less how long I'm really.
- [22:07]
Melissa O'Connor
When I. We were talking about how we're both Capricorns. When I'm on a mission, I really can't be stopped. So I got it done within less than a month, a few weeks, probably, just because I wanted to make sure that all the plot points still worked and everything was still woven in correctly. And I did during our call with my editor, because we. We did have a call before she officially offered on that, and we had done some back and forth on what she wanted to see. She had never seen the present timeline, but what did she want to see? So I said, okay, so I have to take what I had and then incorporate what she suggested and make that all flow. So it did take a little bit of time, but not that bad.
- [22:52]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. And you know what? For our listeners, agents love doing this. Editors love Doing it because it immediately establishes how open to feedback a writer is, how. How sort of stuck in their ways they are. Are they prepared to pivot with things? Are they prepared to take, you know, feedback and turn it into something else? And then how long an author will take? Now, it's not to say you need to rush it. Melissa turned it around quickly because we're Capricorns and that's what we do, but rather take, like, four months with it and do a really good job and then turn it around, then, you know, rushing, that kind of thing. But it just shows how much a piece can evolve. I mean, here was Melissa with everything there. Then she second guessed herself. And this is why I say try not to become too obsessed with word counts up front, because I know on the podcast, Carly and CeCe are always like word counts. But if a story needs that other timeline, if it needs that extra point of view, then that elevates it, and those extra words elevate the piece. So how many words is the finished book now, Melissa? Is it back to the 110, or where are we at?
- [23:57]
Melissa O'Connor
No. So while we were editing, I did expand Margot's timeline a bit, because I did have it even shorter than it is now. So I expanded that and then reduced Vivian's story. I took out some chapters and scenes while working with my editor. So it ended up being about 101,000 words, I believe is the finished copy. I believe about 75% of that still is Vivian's story. So it is still the overarching story, but it has a little bit more of, I guess, a balance to it than when I originally submitted it.
- [24:35]
Bianca Marais
Yeah. And that just goes to show, it's a debut. It's over a hundred thousand words, and that's perfectly fine because that's what the story required. So sometimes, you know, it helps to listen to your guts, which you originally felt the story needed, rather than sticking to the rules of to get an agent, it needs to be this much. Can we speak a bit about the tension between the two timelines? So you've got Margot, who discovers these tapes, and it immediately plants curiosity seeds. We are immediately primed for Vivian's story because we're immediately curious about what Margot has found and also what it allowed you to do with two completely different love interests. I mean, you've got two different kinds of romance, sort of tropes or leading men, which you were able to develop both of them. So can you speak a bit about that?
- [25:25]
Melissa O'Connor
So the mystery, I felt like I really wanted it to Be something where you couldn't get the answers all at once. And that's why she originally finds seven tapes, but she knows based on what's written on them, it says one of eight. So we know from the beginning that one of the tapes is missing. And then she has the house that she's cleaning out and getting ready to sell it, and what happens if she doesn't find it? And so I was hoping that the whole ticking clock aspect would combine with the mystery element to make readers feel like, okay, it kind of gives it more of an urgency to the book and to her timeline. And so I tried to imagine myself if I had found a set of tapes, and I would be very curious, but I would assume that they were mixtapes still, I would need to know what was on them, especially when they're labeled like that, because I don't know. I mean, I grew up with more with CDs, but, you know, you would label what was on them, and so you knew that they were mixtapes or what kind of bands they had on them. And this had nothing. So for me, that's how I would. I would need to know. But then what if you don't have a tape player? Most people don't have those lying around. And if one is broken, how would you fix that? So that's how I brought Leo back in the picture. But I tried to. Every chapter I had of Margot trying to go back to that element of the mystery and are we going to find the last tape? And then giving little pieces throughout Vivian's story that then Margot can latch onto and they can have a discussion about. And which I was hoping that the reader would say, well, maybe start making theories. Right. Well, maybe this is the connection. Maybe this is what Margo's grandmother was doing. Or maybe it has nothing to do with her grandma. Maybe it has to do with this other person that Vivian introduced. So I kind of tried to throw a lot of options at the reader without being obvious that these were options, really. I was doing it through Margot's own thoughts and hoping that the readers would either agree with her or maybe they would come up with their own thoughts along the way. And so I tried to extend it as long as I could.
- [27:34]
Bianca Marais
Right. And what also ups the stakes of her timeline is the romantic interest. Right?
- [27:40]
Melissa O'Connor
It's the.
- [27:40]
Bianca Marais
This person who broke her heart, this person from the past, she kind of needs him to help her figure out what's on the tapes. But now they spending time together because he's invested. So it's that we have that. Will they? Won't they? What's going to happen with them? Tension in her timeline, besides the romantic tension in Vivian's timeline.
- [28:02]
Melissa O'Connor
Right. I know I'm at heart a romantic, so really the story has probably three love stories. And I just couldn't help but want to put all of my favorite things about love stories in this book. And. And I love the idea of a second chance romance. And so while we had this mystery going on, we also had a reason to keep them coming back together. Right. They were coming back together to listen to the tapes, which he's now invested in. And it helps them kind of go down their own memory lane of, you know, reminiscing about their time together in high school and their. Their parents and just different things that brought them together, which I thought was really fun to do because it's different than in the Vivian timeline because she meets the love interest for the first time. So we. We see that with her as opposed to this other one where it's, you know, a second chance.
- [29:02]
Bianca Marais
Yeah, Yeah. I love them both equally. I loved both of the romances. But, you know, what Melissa said is so important because when you have dual timeline chapters, it's so important that the two are in conversation with each other. The first one has got to have its own momentum, its own dominoes tipping forward. Things need to be forward momentum. Same goes for the past timeline. And they need to kind of be mirroring each other. And like Melissa said, it can gave things that were happening on the tapes that they heard Vivian say, gave Margot opportunity to discuss it, form theories about it. So here they were literally in conversation with each other. But those two really do need to be braided together. Melissa, our time is up. It's been so lovely chatting with you. Congratulations on the release of the one and only Vivian Stone. We will link to it on our bookshop.org affiliate page. If our listeners get it there, you will be supporting an independent bookstore and. And the podcast at the same time, and a debut author who we will be cheering along. So congratulations.
- [30:07]
Melissa O'Connor
Thank you so much.
- [30:08]
Bianca Marais
And that's it for today's episode. I hope you'll join us for next week's show. In the meantime, keep at it. Remember, it just takes one. Yes. Beta reader matchup time is happening again. It's been so gratifying over the summer to be tagged in so many posts about beta readers who've become writing besties and who are still going strong many years after they were first matched. Some even travel to meet up and do writing weekends together. Which sounds incredible. I can't guarantee any of that. That's entirely up to you. But what I can guarantee is that you'll be matched with a group of people working in your genre and or time zone who will critique the 3,000 words of your work as you critique theirs. In return, you can sign up from now until the 31st of August. With the matchup emails going out on the 1st of September, head to my website Biancamarae.com and look for the Beta Reader Matchup tab.