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The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

Murder, Metafiction, and Query Letter Mayhem

The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra

Education, How To, Fiction, Books, Arts

4.8842 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Carly and CeCe are back (with a little Blue Jays banter to start) to dive into two fresh query letters. In this episode, the hosts critique a historical novel featuring Shakespeare, conspiracies, and metafiction—but does the query overshare and under-pitch? Next up is a campus-set thriller with book clubs, murder, and female rage—great hook, but are the comps and execution hitting the right notes? It’s a hilarious episode you don’t want to miss!

Note: CeCe Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates. If you’d like to query CeCe, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wsherman.com. Carly Watters 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 P.S. Literary Agency.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

What's up, everyone? This is Cece. If you're a longtime listener of this podcast, then chances

0:05.7

are you've heard me talk about the importance of writing on a line level. And of course I have.

0:11.0

Because while movies get to rely on lighting, soundtrack, acting, and special effects, books rely only

0:17.6

on words to make a story come to life, which is why the writing matters so much.

0:23.6

My question to you is, are you confident about your writing?

0:27.7

Do you feel like it's at the level it needs to be to stand out in the competitive publishing landscape?

0:34.0

If you're like most writers, I know, then you're always looking for ways to improve.

0:38.3

Well, what if I told you that there's a way to supercharge your learning experience by hacking, writing on a line level?

0:46.3

That's right, hacking it.

0:48.3

I've developed an original four-day course, Hacking writing on a Line Level, that will show you specific techniques

0:56.5

to elevate your writing on a word level,

0:58.7

sentence level, paragraph level, and scene level.

1:02.8

This course begins on December 4th.

1:05.2

My favorite part about it is that there are clear,

1:08.2

specific examples in every single slide. No fluff, all actionable content.

1:14.6

And for the first time ever, we'll have an optional, interactive component.

1:19.6

Students are invited to submit excerpts from their work for a chance to have them critiqued live during a class.

1:25.6

I'm super excited about this new format because I've

1:29.0

seen it yield results in writers' works. And it works for writers of any genre as long as you're

1:34.8

serious about improving your writing on a line level and as long as you're a reader. So if you're

1:41.0

ready to take your writing to the next level, join me for this four-day course.

1:46.7

It's a fan favorite.

...

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