Sneaky Prologues That Sizzle
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This week on Books with Hooks, Carly, Bianca and CeCe dive into a satirical body horror query with a killer premise: an aspiring influencer’s transformation takes a dark—and literal—turn. CeCe highlights the strong setup and voice but calls for more clarity on the transformation and its stakes—what’s the trade-off, and why does it matter? Carly flags issues with comps, positioning, and vague “impact lines,” reminding writers that specificity is everything. Bottom line, agents want sharper specificity, stronger stakes, and dynamic openings that could take queries from intriguing to irresistible.
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
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| 0:00.0 | Have you been sitting on the fence about signing up for the Bateser-read a matchup, |
| 0:04.5 | or have you signed up before but haven't yet found your writing soulmates? |
| 0:08.6 | The next matchup is the last one for the summer, so don't snooze on it. |
| 0:13.1 | Get matched up with those writing in a similar genre and or time zone so they can critique your work as you critique theirs. |
| 0:22.5 | Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for those 3,000 word evaluation. This particular matchup will be open to |
| 0:28.4 | registrations from now until the 1st of June with the matchup emails going out on the 2nd of June. |
| 0:35.3 | For more information and to register, go to Bianca Moray.com |
| 0:39.5 | and go to the beta reader matchup page. |
| 0:45.1 | What's up, everyone? This is Cece. So I recently grabbed lunch with an acquiring editor from Harper |
| 0:50.7 | Collins, who told me that the number of submissions she's been getting has |
| 0:54.7 | nearly doubled. And I wasn't surprised at all, because every agent and editor I know has been |
| 1:01.2 | talking about how the volume of submission keeps increasing. So personally, that is a wonderful |
| 1:07.3 | thing, because it's more reading for for me but it also means I have more |
| 1:10.9 | chances of matching with authors. I consider it a privilege to review queries on |
| 1:15.8 | books with hooks and of course in my submissions inbox. But at the same time I |
| 1:20.8 | talk to writers who tell me that they wish agents would read more than a few pages |
| 1:25.6 | because and I quote my story gets better in Chapter |
| 1:30.3 | 2. |
| 1:31.3 | I have to be honest, this kills me. It's like me wanting chocolate chip cookies to have |
| 1:36.3 | the nutritional value of kale. It's just not realistic. Like it or not, no agent, no |
| 1:43.3 | acquiring editor is going to stick around to see if a submission |
| 1:46.8 | gets better. It's not because we're mean, it's because we get dozens and dozens every day. |
... |
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