✨Bessie Flores Zaldivar on How Trusting Your Reader Makes You a Better Writer✨

Plus, Lucy E.M Black on "writing stories that hurt," and two brand-new query critiques!

Happy Tuesday, writing friends!

If you’ve ever gone through periods where the writing has felt hard, if you’ve struggled to put something painful on the page (or if putting something—anything—on the page has been painful, the words like pulling teeth), if sometimes you’re not sure why you bother… A) Know that you are not alone, and B) You should definitely not skip today’s edition of our newsletter exclusively for our paid members.

Our Author Q&A this week is with Bessie Flores Zaldivar whose frank, genuine and thoughtful responses to our questions contain so much wisdom we’re cooking up a plot to weasel our way into the circle of writing friends they talk about calling up, so that we, too, can have a direct line to their insights. Don’t miss the writing advice Bessie has found most helpful on their journey—it’s a game-changer. Bessie’s debut Libertad is out today (Editor’s Note: I’ve just started it, and it is gripping stuff!).

We’ve also got a compelling essay by Lucy E.M Black, on the subject of writing stories that hurt. These stories can be wildly popular, with devoted legions of fans (think A Little Life), while others consider them “trauma porn.” If you’re writing something emotionally challenging and are looking to find the balance between “addressing difficult topics” and “traumatizing readers” you will definitely want to read Lucy’s insightful piece.

And, of course, as always on Tuesdays, we’ve got two new written query critiques from Carly and CeCe just for you! Today Carly and CeCe’s notes on plausibility, interiority and focusing on the facts, for a historical fiction query and one for an adult horror novel.

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team