✨Solving the Mystery of How to Write Compelling Whodunnits with E.C. Nevin's "Suspect Equation"✨

Also inside: query critiques; the path to publication never runs smooth (even for buzzy books); how to fall in love with self-promotion; and how to spot the "right" idea

Happy Tuesday, writing friends!

Last week was 📕Books with Hooks 🪝week on the podcast, so you can find Carly and CeCe’s written query critiques below (ICYMI, CeCe referred to one of the queries as having “possibly the best hook we've seen”—so we’re pretty sure that makes today’s written critiques required reading).

Today you also get a Q&A with author Erica Peplin, whose buzzy debut (Work Nights) is getting compared to the likes of Sally Rooney. But before you let your green-eyed monster loose, you might want to read on to find out just how long she and her agent spent working on her manuscript before they considered it finished. Anyone discouraged by how long it’s taking them to get their own ms right should take comfort in this reminder that everyone’s process is different, and that quality writing doesn’t just magically appear on the page—it takes work (even after you’ve got your “Yes!”!).

When you’re committing a year (or two. Or more) to something, you don’t want to think it might end up all being for naught. But how can you know if that idea you’ve got for a book is worth pursuing? By reading today’s funny and encouraging essay from Hazel Gaynor (Before Dorothy) on the slippery nature of ideas, how the right ones have a way of finding you, and how to tell if they really are the right ones. And just as not all ideas are necessarily good ones, not all ideas are new—even if you’ve never seen them anywhere else before. So what do you do if that not-so-new idea is the one you can, in Hazel’s words, “truly and honestly stamp [your] bleeding writer’s heart all over”? What then? As it happens, Hazel’s been there (with her latest, no less) and has wisdom to share.

We’ve also got a video today from mystery writer E.C. Nevin (A Novel Murder) who shares her thoughts on the essential elements for crafting a compelling mystery. Nevin’s secret for successful strategic manipulation of reader expectations to create suspense and surprise in storytelling includes something she refers to as “the suspect equation.” In addition to the need for multiple suspects, what makes up the suspect equation? You’ll have to watch to find out! 😉

Finally, literary agent Kate McKean is back with a follow-up to her excellent video in our Friday issue. In her essay This Discomfort of “Selling” Yourself, Kate goes deeper on the cringe-inducing topic of self-promotion, offering tips for how to reframe the way you think about it to overcome what she calls that “used car salesman” feeling (your book is not a lemon you’re trying to pawn off on some unsuspecting schmuck!). She includes an eye-opening anecdote about Bonnie Garmus’s bestselling Lessons in Chemistry that may just do the trick when it comes to changing your mind about self-promotion’s ick factor.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️

❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team

P.S. Today is the last day for Gloria Chao’s contest—enter now!

See last Friday’s newsletter for more details!