Happy Tuesday, TSNOTYAWers!
As always, we hope you didn’t miss yesterday’s episode of Shooting the Shit which always includes a wealth of information! Plus, this time, talk of Heated Rivalry! 🔥
Then, today’s newsletter edition, exclusively for our paid Substack subscribers, is a jam-packed one! We apologize that a glitch sent it out a week early without some of the information, so please give it another read even if you saw parts of it before!
We kick off with an awesome essay titled How to Know Where to Start Your Story by Larissa Pham, author of Discipline who begins by saying:
“Every piece of writing really has two timelines: the chronology of the work as it reads from the first sentence to the last; and the chronology of the events that the text covers. Almost 100% of the time, these timelines aren’t the same.”
She goes on to ask an excellent question:
“For me, the key question is: When do decisions begin to matter for the reader? Or, another way of putting it: At what point do your characters’ choices start to have real stakes?”
It’s a must-read!
Malcolm Kempt, author of A Gift Before Dying, drops all the truth bombs as he discusses the detrimental impact social media can have on aspiring authors’ productivity. Since it’s the month for turning over new leaves, you might want to seriously consider what he has to say.
Then, we have a super interesting follow up piece from Alyssa Sheinmel, author of Such Sheltered Lives, who writes a follow up essay from Friday’s edition about changing voice and changing genre:
“When I first got the idea for my new novel, Such Sheltered Lives, I found myself torn between two different approaches to the story—one for adult readers, and one for teens. In fact, I wrote two versions of the book’s opening chapters before I made up my mind which genre this book would be.
The interesting thing wasn’t how different the two versions were, but how similar.”
To show you what she means, Alyssa gives you two version of the same scene from chapter three of the novel, the first chapter that’s narrated by Florence. First, from the finished novel in which Florence is nearly forty years old; and then from an imagined version of the novel in which Florence is sixteen. In both, Florence is on her way to Rush’s Recovery for the very first time, having been sent away to rehab after a violent run-in with another popstar.
If you’re playing around with genre or POV, you don’t want to miss this one!
Finally, Rachel Sarnoff, a former journalist and two-time TEDx speaker, pens an excellent essay about Sustainability and The Big Five Publishers: Who Does It Best?
Also, congratulations to Emily C. Earnest and Bradley for winning Deep Dive registrations!! Only 11 sleeps left! Woooo hoooooo!
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading! ❤️
❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
This Week on ‘Shooting the Shit’
In this week’s episode, Carly and CeCe chat a little bit about everything from unreliable memories and heated hockey romance TV shows to what they’d actually change if they had a magic wand over the publishing industry. They dive into big, bold industry wishes—higher pay across publishing, transparency around marketing budgets, no taxes on books, better royalties, fact-checking nonfiction, escrow accounts for advances, and more competition among publishers. It’s candid, nerdy, opinionated, and exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes publishing talk writers love.
