The Pinball Effect in Fiction
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Bianca Marais, Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra
4.8 • 842 Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Books with Hooks episode, Bianca, Carly, and CeCe dig into two submissions—a YA fantasy query and a memoir/nonfiction hybrid. They unpack why centering a protagonist matters, how to sharpen specificity in quests, what makes prologues succeed (or fail), and why memoir queries need a clear narrative arc. Expect candid advice on worldbuilding, dialogue, experimental structures, and how to position your author bio so agents take notice.
EPISODE UPDATE:
Dear TSNOTYAWers,
We recently made the difficult decision to remove one of the submissions from this episode.
Writers who submit to our show do so voluntarily for a chance to have their work shared on our platforms under our popular critique format. When a writer submits to our podcast, they are not only giving us permission to share and critique their work—indeed, they are requesting that their work be shared and critiqued on our show. When a writer has their work selected, that writer is taking a spot that could have gone to another writer.
The writer of the work that was featured in this now-edited portion of Books with Hooks contacted us claiming that they had not given permission to share their work on our podcast. This claim was extremely confusing to us, since our records indicate that they did, in fact, submit to our podcast. This writer also stated that we had violated their copyright, an accusation which is patently untrue.
We are upset by the comments made by this writer, as well as the fact that they took a coveted spot that could have gone to someone else.
We work very hard to offer a free service to writers. We are grateful to those who share their work with our show, thus allowing for a communal educational experience. Running a podcast is a costly endeavor, and producing an episode is expensive. Editing an episode after it airs is also expensive as it involves additional production time both for the audio of the podcast and for the video on YouTube.
Although we were under no obligation to do so, we have decided to take down the part of the episode in which we shared and critiqued this specific writer’s work. This decision is solely done out of kindness and empathy.
We have asked the writer in question to refrain from submitting to our podcast again.
We are very sorry that this Books with Hooks now only features one submission instead of two as we really try to get to as many submissions as we possibly can to give you as much value as you deserve.
Sincerely,
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
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 | The holiday season is around the corner, and I love hosting, but there's so much stuff needed |
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| 1:09.3 | Sale ends December 7th. |
| 1:12.6 | What's up, everyone? This is Cece. If you're a long-time listener of this podcast, then chances |
| 1:18.0 | are you've heard me talk about the importance of writing on a line level. And of course I have. |
| 1:23.2 | Because while movies get to rely on lighting, soundtrack, acting, and special effects, |
| 1:28.5 | books rely only on words to make a story come to life. |
| 1:32.5 | Which is why the writing matters so much. |
| 1:35.5 | My question to you is, are you confident about your writing? |
| 1:39.7 | Do you feel like it's at the level it needs to be to stand out in the competitive publishing |
| 1:45.2 | landscape? |
| 1:46.5 | If you're like most writers, I know, then you're always looking for ways to improve. |
| 1:51.4 | Well, what if I told you that there's a way to supercharge your learning experience by hacking |
| 1:57.3 | writing on a line level? |
| 1:59.5 | That's right, hacking it. I've developed an original four-day course, Hacking, writing on a line level. That's right, Hacking it. I've developed an original |
| 2:02.7 | four-day course Hacking writing on a line level that will show you specific techniques |
| 2:08.4 | to elevate your writing on a word level, sentence level, paragraph level, and scene level. |
... |
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