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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Hi! Everyone! Welcome back to premium day of crime writers week. I'm Michelle with pro-rating aid. So happy to see you coming back as you're filtering in. Please drop your location in the chat, if you can see and hear me, and then we can see where in the world you are joining us from.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I see some familiar names already. North Carolina, Chicago, Kentucky. Welcome everyone. I'm going to drop some links in the chat for you

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: as you're filtering in. If you can see and hear me drop your location in the chat.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We are back with Samantha Scowl today.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and we have a really fun workshop in store for you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Hello! Hello, everyone!

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: It looks like you can see and hear me. Just fine.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So I'm going to go ahead and drop those links again for anybody that

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: just entered.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I see a question about the replays on the Hub.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: The replays will be on the hub at least for 2 weeks.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and then they are also moving to our community page next week. But if you want to download slides or get links or anything like that, I would definitely get those within the next 2 weeks

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: before the page is unpublished.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: All right, we're gonna go ahead and get started with our housekeeping notes.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Your replays are added to the premium day hub, and those are being posted throughout the day today, so you can go ahead and refresh, and then you'll see them start popping up. They are posted as soon as they're done being processed by Zoom and Youtube.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So they will be there. All of our audio transcripts, slides. Any extra session resources will be there. And the slides for Samantha's presentation today is they are from a Google drive link. So it looks just a bit different in that session description, just because the file is is so big.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: so you will just click on it, and then you can view it and download it that way, but it is in right underneath her bio. You'll see it there.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: so these replays will be added to the hub, and then also to our community page. They will be there by next Friday, so you can see them there, plus. You can see all of our previous writers. Week replays as well. So there's a lot of media there for you.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you would like to keep talking crime writing, join us over in our free private community. The link is on the hub. You just log in with your pro writing 8 account information, and it lets you write in. You can go to the Event Recordings Section, where you will see all of the replays I just told you about, and then you can also go to the live event. Chat to talk to fellow attendees from this week, and future writers events.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: There's a lot there, and we would love to have you come. Check it out.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If you have a minute to spare, we would really appreciate it if you could fill out our type. Form, survey. It is linked for you in the chat

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: is also on the premium hub and on the regular hub

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: it just takes a couple of minutes, and you can tell us what you really liked about the event. What you think we could improve for next year. It helps us to plan these out. Know what kind of workshops you're looking for and also help us just keep these events going in general. So the more feedback we have from you, the more it helps us

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: reminders for our session today. If you have any questions for Samantha, please put them in the QA. We don't want to lose them within the chat box. So. But you are. Please feel free to chat with each other throughout the session today in the chat, just make sure that next to 2 you are selecting everyone, because by default your messages will just be set to come to the host and panelists

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: so, and

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: again links to anything for for premium day. Any of our replays. Those are on the premium hub. It is different than the regular hub. So you'll want to make sure you are going there.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So thank you so much for coming back and joining us for another live session. I'm so excited to introduce you to Samantha. Scow Samantha Scow. She her is an author, accelerator, certified book, coach, and agented author, who specializes in coaching mystery thriller and romantic suspense authors from novel planning all the way through agent pitching and especially loves twist, brainstorming, figuring out pacing issues and the hell that is revision.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: She is the co-executive director of thriller, fest international thriller writers, oops, sorry annual writing conference and a frequent volunteer mentor for the Women's Fiction Writers Association, an enthusiast of homemade sourdough and cheese of all kinds. She also adores scary stories that keep her up at night, and good red wine. Welcome, Samantha, we're so excited to have you back again.

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Samantha Skal: Thank you so so much, Michelle. Hi, everybody! I see some familiar names in there as well. It's so good to be back, and I just adore pro writing aid. And yay WA. Yes, exactly. Okay. So I am going to share my screen. Here, give me just a second.

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Samantha Skal: There we go. So this is a 1st pages live coaching and ama premium session again. Thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited. As Michelle just said, This is me. The other thing that did not make it into my bio this time was that I'm the co-founder of a writing Retreat series called Shadows and Secrets. Writing retreats. And I also love rainy day kayaking, which, since I live in Seattle, is a very

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Samantha Skal: easy thing to make happen. So this is the retreat. I won't mention it again. But if you're curious shadows and secrets, retreatscom, we're gonna do it in a haunted hotel in Salem in September, and we are still accepting applications. Okay? So in the next 40 min, I am going to live coach. Some pre submitted 1st pages from 4 delightful writers, not 3 so we'll spend about 10 min each on each of them, and then they're gonna do a Q&A

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Samantha Skal: and ama at the end, and then I have this free handout maximizing beta, reader, help if you came to my session earlier in the week. It's the same thing. So if you've already seen it, then you can look at it again or not. And that is everything the link to go to my resources. Page Michelle. I can copy and paste the center if you can grab it from

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Samantha Skal: the previous session. Providing aid dash resources at the end of my website. And if you're curious, these are all my links. So I'm going to. I'll put this back up at the very end.

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Samantha Skal: But for now I am going to

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Samantha Skal: share the 1st person. So we're going in alphabetical order here.

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Samantha Skal: which means that so sorry I should have found, where are we?

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Samantha Skal: who is the 1st one?

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Samantha Skal: I think it was. Okay. So is everyone okay with names being said. I blocked off any kind of identifying information with email and all of that. But there are 4 people who submitted. So we're going to go through all 4.

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Samantha Skal: And it's just a reminder that when I do share these these words, these, this is a safe space. We are judgment free. We are curious when we ask questions and the goal here is to give all 4 of these very brave writers who submitted their pages a chance to be live coached and to interact while I talk. And so hopefully, all 4 of you are here. Those names just to kind of call them out which Michelle hope

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Samantha Skal: hopefully, it's okay, is Walt Kucher, Dave Rama City. Hopefully. I'm saying that right?

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Samantha Skal: Mark Morzinski. Sorry again for the pronunciation. And then Amy Wasp is the last person. So we're gonna go in alphabetical order. So I'm gonna start with Walt. So, Walt, if you are here, oops! That's not.

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Samantha Skal: Yes, it is. My God! Where did it go? I'm so sorry

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Samantha Skal: it's Friday. Here we are.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Walt and Mark are here in the chat.

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Samantha Skal: Excellent. So, Walt, if you want to just kind of relay your questions as I go, because I know we're in webinar format. So when you won't be able to like, show your screen I'm just gonna go through and give you my feedback. And then is there a way to Michelle to have him be able to talk or no.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I can check. I will let you know.

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Samantha Skal: Okay, yeah. I mean, if if Walt, if you just want to type questions to Michelle in the meantime, we can just have her kind of be your voice. So

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Samantha Skal: this was really really fun. So just for the people that don't know, I took just the 1st 10 pages. There was no description of the story or anything. I don't know anything about it, except that I'm making the assumption because of Crime Week that this is going to be some kind of mystery, thriller or suspense. And so the 1st thing I noted with waltz was a palette of deception was a really fantastic title, very evocative. It made me immediately think

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Samantha Skal: of kind of an art heist. Something a little cozier. And then, we have, you know this immediate setting, this town of Brevard in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I'm thinking, North Carol or North Carolina. Hopefully. I'm right on that. That was where my brain went. But if I don't have the geography right, please correct me.

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Samantha Skal: It all just feels very very cozy, and all of that I read further, I was pleased that it did feel like a cozy mystery so well done there. My 1st impressions matched what? What I was thinking, and so the 1st question I had for you, is this chapter title? Is this, that is this a time or a chapter title? Because midnight in the Blue Ridge could be both and typically with chapter titles. If you're if you're going to be

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Samantha Skal: anchoring on a time, it helps the reader to have it be like below, and then also, like 12 Pm. Written out, or 12 am. Rather written out, so that the reader understands. That's that's a time, and not just an indication of something creepy like midnight, you know. So little note there on that

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Samantha Skal: The other thing to note which all 4 of you actually had, I think, was doing chapter titles is a very personal choice. It can work beautifully. The one con is that sometimes it can indicate to the reader what's going to happen which can reduce suspense. And so this one, obviously, this is a chapter title, Midnight in the Blue Ridge. It just lets us know, like, Okay, we're in the middle of the night. And again, this sort of anchors in time as well. But it just

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Samantha Skal: it. It sets this the setting in the tone which doesn't give anything away, which is perfect. But if you were to say something like the last time he saw me or something. Then, obviously, that's going to reduce the suspense because we know what's happening. The writing here was really beautiful. There was very gorgeous imagery.

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Samantha Skal: it was really, really evocative, like, I sunk right in. And I felt like I was just in this town. I'm picturing midnight. I'm picturing. I mean, it's probably because it's hot everywhere, right now, but just like a really warm night.

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Samantha Skal: And it really it really drew me in so well done there. The 1st big question I had for Walt was, this seems like omniscient Pov, which can absolutely work but I'd love to hear more about your choice to go that route. It's generally more common in literary fiction versus mysteries, will or suspense, including cozies. And there are some pros and cons that I would love to talk about with you

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Samantha Skal: through oh, yeah, you're you're up on the screen now. So if you're comfortable, sharing like just where that came from for you, so that we can talk about it.

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Samantha Skal: If that's all right.

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Samantha Skal: Nice to meet you. By the way.

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Walt: Thank you. Good to meet you.

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Walt: Yeah. It's just something that I liked writing in.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah.

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Walt: Only because I can get a little more

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Walt: background information in the story

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Walt: to help kind of flush it out.

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Samantha Skal: Totally written.

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Walt: No worries both ways, but I kind of like this one.

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Samantha Skal: Awesome. Yeah. So this is a perfect answer for everybody, and well well done. You know it's whatever works for your vision and for how you want to tell the story. And so, if you've tried it, multiple ways, and this is the one that that you laid it on that felt right, then, by all means go for it.

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Samantha Skal: The the pros of omniscient art as well said, being able to give more information to the reader about what's going on. You can do things like seeing behind somebody. Cause you're kind of I use this example during Science Fiction week, and it ended up working really well, so forgive me, but like picture like a little alien sitting on your head, and the alien is your Pov. And so in 1st person the aliens like on your face.

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Samantha Skal: and you're seeing through the alien. There's literally no differentiation between you and the alien. 3rd person is the alien is like directly on your head, and can only see what you're doing right. It's little eyeballs, or here looking down, but you're looking in the same direction like the eyeballs don't rotate backwards. Omniscient is like it's hovering above you.

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Samantha Skal: and it can see all the way around. It can see everything it can hop over here. It can do all kinds of things. So hopefully, that helps kind of explain what the rules are. One of the big pros is obviously being able to see everything. One of the big cons is head hopping, which can get a little bit confusing for the reader. Sometimes, if it's done too frequently, or it's not indicated with, you know, there's little ways to indicate that you're you're changing position

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Samantha Skal: in omniscient narration. And while you did quite well. With this there was a couple of places. I noted. That I called out over in the comments here that

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Samantha Skal: where where we had hopped to somebody else. We knew what somebody else was thinking, even though we were kind of following this main character, Mary.

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Samantha Skal: and so again, typically the reader is going to assume that the 1st person we meet Mary Westcott. In this case is the person we're going to follow, and the person we care most about as we're entering into the story. And so, you know, we kind of, we sync from really, really high into low, with omniscient here. And we're now in her living room. We know that she found herself unable to sleep.

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Samantha Skal: There's all this really evocative language here that like kind of lets us know that something's gonna happen like holding its breath awaiting a revelation. Very, very beautiful, very, you know, kind of foreshadowy. But in a great way it wasn't heavy handed at all. And then, you know this. All these words, like tingled anticipation, unraveled like all these, kind of lead itself into a cozy mystery as well. So well, just to double check. Is this a cozy? Am I right on that.

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Walt: Yes, ma'am, you are correct.

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Samantha Skal: Excellent, excellent! Well done! It's always great when the when the reader gets it right out of the out of the gate, so

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Samantha Skal: You'll note that on all of these I've gone through, and I've done a I'm a from a big commenter. I like to ask questions, and then, when I was able to, and I felt comfortable doing so because I felt like I understood where you were going, I suggested some changes, and so with this one

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Samantha Skal: by 11 am. All the ladies were present. That was just a guess as to what time it might have been later in the day, but just something to anchor when they are actually meeting, because we went from the night before where she's thinking about the meeting, and then we have the next morning, which is a fine indicator of time, has passed, but we don't know what time she called everybody, and when they actually met, and so, using words like hastily, you had freshly. And then, with a sense of urgency, you know, showing

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Samantha Skal: the

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Samantha Skal: showing the hastily brood tea versus telling that she did it with a sense of urgency is a very minor change, but it can sometimes sink us further into the story.

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Samantha Skal: And then this is where I got a touch confused. And I feel like it's something that is is going to be easily explained through your vision, through the story, and then just adjusting some things. But we have this woman who is excited about solving crimes. And so sparkling typically indicates to the reader like excitement. And you do have excitement and concern here. But sparkling is is happy. It's effervescence. It's

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Samantha Skal: something that is doesn't really contain any pain. And then we learn that somebody that they know has died, and that's the murder mystery that we're about to solve. And so

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Samantha Skal: that was a little confusing to me. It was like, Okay, do they know this person? Are they close to her? They seem to be, but they sort of move through the grief pretty quickly. And so I was wondering about if I had that right. And if that's not correct, if we can talk about

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Samantha Skal: what your intention was, and how we might change the language a little bit to show what your intention was. So if you're comfortable telling me a little bit more about that.

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Walt: So Mary is the amateur sleuth.

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Samantha Skal: Okay.

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Walt: Sort of the head of the

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Walt: what I'm going to refer to later on is the Tuesday Night Book Club that.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah.

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Walt: Reads

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Walt: murder mysteries, and then tries to solve them themselves before they get to the end of the book.

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Samantha Skal: Amazing.

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Walt: And then they do that. They try and do that with real life

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Walt: mysteries in their own town.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah.

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Walt: She knew the victim, but they were not close friends.

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Walt: They were both long time residents of the same small town.

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Samantha Skal: Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. Then the way that the way that the grief was like, okay, we're sort of grieving, just as a fellow human as opposed this being a very personal grief, and so that that tracks

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Samantha Skal: I would say that you could call this out and say, you know,

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Samantha Skal: like, you have an omniscient narrator here, and so the narrator can make comments on how the person is feeling, which is an interesting pro of omniscient Pov. And so.

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Samantha Skal: her eyes sparkling with a mixture of excitement and concern.

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Samantha Skal: You know you could say something like

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Samantha Skal: Oh, on the fly! Here

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Samantha Skal: was, you know.

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Samantha Skal: the excitement was

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Samantha Skal: potentially inappropriate, given the fact that somebody had been murdered. But you know Mary didn't care, because this was the thing that like

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Samantha Skal: brought her a lot of joy. Was the amateur sleuthing something like that to explain, because that kind of thing helps the reader empathize and understand the context of what's going on without bringing in their own personal assumptions. And so, when I found out that this woman had, you know, local artist Evelyn found dead in studio. This is a great way to reveal it. We're only on page 2. So we know this is a murder mystery.

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Samantha Skal: And you have this wonderful introduction of all these people, which was really well done. By the way, this is really hard to do.

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Samantha Skal: Where you have all these different characters, and you're introducing them all in the 1st chapter. You have just enough information here to let us know who they are. And one note on this you have 2 lawyers. I might consider making one of them something else. Just so you can refer to them as the lawyer, the

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Samantha Skal: free-spirited artist, the librarian, etc.

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Samantha Skal: So. But when we learn this we have the room fell silent. That seems that seems to indicate that

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Samantha Skal: you know they felt something personal for this person.

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Samantha Skal: and then, you know, we have this mysterious atmosphere. We don't know if we're potentially dealing with something that's a little bit, not in reality. Is there any kind of fantasy element to this? I'm just living giving you the questions that Kip came up as I moved through this.

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Walt: There is not.

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Samantha Skal: There's not okay. So I would. I would make that very clear. So the reader doesn't wonder because somebody who picks up a cozy, and you know, cozy. Span the gamut. You can have fantasy. You can have sci-fi. You can have like more romance, heavy cozies, and so make it clear. It's on the here and now which you did with the Brevard North car, you know Blue Ridge Mountains all of that but mysterious atmosphere. I would suggest.

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Samantha Skal: you know, calling that out from the narrator's perspective, and be like, you know, not actually mysterious. But just. There was a shocking number of deaths in this small town or something.

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Samantha Skal: because that's the other thing about Cozy's. That's really funny is that there's always a small town. There's always like these amateur sluice, and they're really fun because they always get solved. But they're for a town of like 5, 10,000 people. There's like 20 murders, and

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Samantha Skal: it's a hilarious thing to note for the reader, but it's kind of like a tongue in cheek like, Hey, I'm the author. I'm playing with you, and I recognize this, and so did mysterious atmosphere refer to just like the vibe in the town? Or is there something else going on? Or was that just atmospheric.

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Samantha Skal: you know.

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Walt: Atmospheric.

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Samantha Skal: Okay, yeah, so totally fine. But I would just explain it a little more, so that the reader knows what you mean by that cause my mind immediately went to. Oh, are we potentially gonna be dealing with something supernatural here?

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Samantha Skal: And then, as we move through this all flowed really well. I added some dialog tags, which is just a smart thing to do when you have this many characters, particularly if they're all one gender which they are in this case. We have some great background.

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Samantha Skal: This is where I got a little touch, a touch. Confused again about their personal relationships. It was like a weight of sadness. If this isn't a personal grief, it's a weight of sadness that you know at being a fellow, human, or, however you want to phrase it.

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Samantha Skal: unshed tears quivering with sorrow. You know nostalgic smell faded. All of these are very great body actions. But they do show quite a bit of grief.

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Samantha Skal: and for people who don't, you know, aren't like close personal friends with this person, it's fine to have them feel something. But I think this maybe goes a touch too far in terms of

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Samantha Skal: because we very quickly move into like, Oh, okay, let's you know we're laughing. And we're talking about how we're gonna solve this. And we're deciding to amateur sleuth this I would maybe back off from this level of emotion a little bit. Just so. The reader understands. This isn't something that's very personal. It's just a collective sort of someone has been taken from our community. And that's really kind of scary.

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Samantha Skal: Does that make sense? Or did you mean it to be more that you know they are feeling a lot, but they move through it quickly.

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Walt: No, I think that makes sense.

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Samantha Skal: Okay.

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Walt: Just one quick question.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah.

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Walt: You could just send all these.

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Samantha Skal: We sure will. Yeah, Michelle has all 4 of them, and she's gonna send them to you all individually.

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Walt: Dip.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, of course. Yeah.

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Samantha Skal: so you know, as we move through this story, I'm gonna keep us on time. We have like, 3 more minutes, and I wanna make sure you have time for questions. We have some some great flow of, you know, explaining the background. And why Evelyn was so special, and you know the the like impact of her art on the world.

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Samantha Skal: In that we have a couple of places where we've already been introduced to some of these people, so I called that out, you'll see that in the comments. And then I want to get down to where we switch into another chapter. So this is when Evelyn.

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Samantha Skal: when the the officer actually finds Evelyn. And here is where we had a touch of head hopping. So it's really good. I really liked what you did with the Povs here, because we have this person coming. And we just learned about this murder from the 1st chapter, and, like the, you know, 24 h later.

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Samantha Skal: And then we're moving back in time to the to the time when this person, when the officer actually found the body.

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Samantha Skal: And we have this fun thing with the dog.

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Samantha Skal: which I really liked. By the way, it's it's another like trope in cozy mysteries that works really, really well. People love that so well done. But then we have. You know, we have Officer Chapman and Erin Roberts, and we're in Chapman's kind of head here. We're following him. But then we flip to Erin down here, and then

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Samantha Skal: Nick. Danger the dog! We're almost following his head as he's moving through it, which is fine.

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Samantha Skal: but I would make it much like, do what you did here. But then flip back to a human. If you're going to do that, if that was not the intention, you can have

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Samantha Skal: something like, you know. Chapman watched, or Erin watched, or whatever to show that we're still kind of following one person or the other, so I'll stop there.

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Walt: Those are meant to be seen changes. It's a little hat.

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Samantha Skal: The little hashtag. Yeah.

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Samantha Skal: So that it it absolutely can move. It's an indicator that something has changed to the reader. I took this to be not a scene change, but a pov change. Because we're still in the same kind of place and time. Was that okay? Yeah. So that works, I would just suggest

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Samantha Skal: flipping back away from the dog once you're done with him. So there would be another hashtag like here.

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Samantha Skal: because we're still we still kind of feel like we're in the dog's head. Here. We're following the dog closely, and then we're going back into the human? And does that make sense.

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Walt: Yep, it does.

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Samantha Skal: Okay, cool. Yeah. So you'll see. I called out, these places where we have a little bit of this. But overall, this flowed really? Really? Well,

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Samantha Skal: It was. I really liked it. I'm very intrigued. I want to read more. And

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Samantha Skal: you know these little edits that you'll see. I got a little more confident as I as I read through. But you know, stuff like this, it's just

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Samantha Skal: I.

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Samantha Skal: This gives us a little bit more about what people might be thinking. Interiority like this is really important because it tells the reader where we should be focusing our attention, which, of course, is misdirection, or it could be actually, here's the real clue, reader, and you're supposed to clock this. But also I'm gonna go with the Pov character. Look over here because the Pov character is sure that this is what happened. And so that's 1 place where you could sort of increase the suspense here is adding a little bit more about what people think

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Samantha Skal: is going on at the outset, you know. Like, if this is a murder, and you. You know you do have some of that where they're unsure about what's actually happening. Yeah, it worked really well. I liked it. So thank you so much for for turning this in and

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Samantha Skal: I have talked for a long time, so do you have any questions that I can answer quickly.

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Walt: No, I I really appreciate what you've given me so far. I mean, it is a 1st draft, and actually haven't even finished the 1st draft of completely. But

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Walt: yeah.

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Samantha Skal: So you have an.

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Walt: Questions.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, this is great. It's it's you. You're a beautiful writer and I really enjoyed reading it so thank you so much.

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Walt: And it's actually book 2 of a series. So.

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Samantha Skal: Oh, cool. Yeah, that's great. Well, good luck. I hope that. I wish you all the best, and making this happen, of course. Alright. So now I am going to move on to

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Samantha Skal: and we are probably gonna go a little bit over if you kind of guess. Okay,

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Samantha Skal: Oh, my God! Where that was! Well, where did Mark go? I must have closed marks.

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Samantha Skal: give me just one second. Okay, we're just gonna go with. We're gonna skip to Dave Ramositsi while I find Marks again.

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Samantha Skal: And we'll just go through the ones that I can easily see, and we'll get through all 4. Okay, so, Dave, you are up next, and you were here right.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I'm looking back through the chat, Dave, if you are here, give us a shout.

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Samantha Skal: Also. What am I actually sharing? Where did it go?

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Samantha Skal: There we go.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I know that Mark is here.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I'm not sure about Dave.

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Samantha Skal: Okay. So

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Samantha Skal: is Amy here?

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Samantha Skal: Amy Wasp.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Amy, if you were here. Give us a shout in the chat, please. I will look through the participant list.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: What was the last name.

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Samantha Skal: So Dave might be Dave Logger or Dame Rama City.

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Samantha Skal: And then there was a 4th person.

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Samantha Skal: Thanks for bearing with us guys Mark Ramzinski.

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Samantha Skal: I'm totally butchering that I am so sorry

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Samantha Skal: if he is here, I can do his next mark is here. Okay, so let's do mark next because we.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Just mark. Okay, I'm gonna allow Mark to talk.

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Samantha Skal: Excellence.

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Mark: Yeah. Good morning.

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Samantha Skal: Good morning!

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Hi, mark.

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Mark: Hey!

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Samantha Skal: Alright.

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Samantha Skal: and of course

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Samantha Skal: I swear I'm good at this.

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Samantha Skal: Do this all the time. Wouldn't be able to tell. So Mark, how do you pronounce your last name because I keep butchering it. I'm sure.

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Mark: It's Bro. Zinsky.

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Samantha Skal: Rosinski. Okay.

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Samantha Skal: cool name. I like it. So this was awesome. I really really liked it.

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Samantha Skal: I'll go into all of that in just a second. But I just wanted to call out for everybody. I've obviously blocked off Mark's personal information. Didn't wanna accidentally reveal where you live. But this is a perfect title page. This is what it should look like. The parts that are blocked out are his address and email address. The only thing I'll consider adding, is your phone number as well? And then this is exactly where the total word count

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Samantha Skal: be. And this is exactly the formatting for all of this.

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Samantha Skal: a tiny, tiny note on word. Count. Is this like?

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Samantha Skal: Is this your 1st novel? Is it can be. Your debut, is it? Are you an accomplished author?

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Mark: Is a debut. Novel.

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Samantha Skal: Okay. So in general, there are obviously exceptions to this, but in general keeping it below 95,000 words is a goal, and the reason for that is.

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Samantha Skal: there's there's many reasons. But when you're querying, and when you're going out traditional, traditional publishing, and you know, trying to go down that path. The anything over a hundred is just more expensive to print. Obviously, there are changes in the world. We have a lot of digital printing. We have just digital, you know, and so word count doesn't matter quite as much as it used to in that respect. But the other thing is that agents generally, when they look at Debus, look at things over a hundred 1,000, and sort of think like, Oh, maybe it's not as edited as it could be.

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Samantha Skal: and it might be as edited as as it can be. But it's a it's a like a yellow flag, I guess, for an agent, and so if you can cut it down or get it to be below that 95 mark. If you really wanna aim for the for the gold medal like around 85,000 seems to be a happy place right now.

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Mark: So a question. So it's a historical mystery.

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Samantha Skal: You. You have a little bit more leeway, then? Yeah, so historical.

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Mark: Once I've looked at it have been like 110 to 140,000.

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Samantha Skal: Yep. And are those published, or is that debut length.

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Mark: So I don't know that.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, so that's usually, you know.

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Samantha Skal: I don't know. We can all name examples of books that are like, I mean Diana Gabaldon. Her books are like 400,000 words, right? And she is also historical. And so with historical and fantasy, you do have a bit more leeway, I would say, up to 120 for fantasy historical probably around, you know. 101 0 5. So you're not out of the ballpark there.

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Samantha Skal: but just in general tighter is better. I didn't actually notice anywhere where I was like. Oh, you could totally cut this, and so you're in good shape from the pages that I saw

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Samantha Skal: but just wanted to call that out so.

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Mark: Thank you.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, of course. So again, super atmospheric, like

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Samantha Skal: I I just, I am so curious about all these characters. I found my brain, making all kinds of of leaps into being super engaged with who these people are, and what they want, and what what secrets they might be holding

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Samantha Skal: and so to give everyone kind of some some background. And, mark, please correct me if I'm wrong. You know we have. It's it's historical, right. We're in 1889. We're in Budapest. We we understand that immediately which is wonderful anchoring. By the way, you never wanna leave the reader wondering like where and when they are, you want them to just be able, like sink in which you absolutely have done. The voice here is incredible. It's just.

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Samantha Skal: it's immediately engaging. We have a very distinct narrator who owns this coffee shop which we understand because of things like my responsibility.

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Samantha Skal: We have the goal, which is, I own, this coffee shop and I want people to be comfortable. This sentence, I thought, was just absolutely genius, but it also made me think that this person is like a former spy. And they have, like an ulterior motive for making a comfortable coffee shop where conversations can happen. I could have been wildly off on that. And so that was my 1st question to you

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Samantha Skal: like was that part of your intention, or is that part of where the story is going to go.

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Mark: Yes, so he has a military background, and he worked in a military investigations before he owned a coffee shop.

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Samantha Skal: Okay? And is he going to be someone who

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Samantha Skal: has? Is that going to come into play for.

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Mark: Yes.

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Samantha Skal: Okay, yeah, so this is really, this is a really wonderful way to do that. And this was an excellent example for everyone to see, of

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Samantha Skal: showing and not telling. There are some places where telling absolutely needs to happen in mystery, solar suspense like we we do need to understand what goals are. So it's okay to say things like. And it's encouraged to say things like my responsibility, my goal. You know all those things. Let us know who this character is. This is so subtle, and it immediately made me

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Samantha Skal: think like this guy is there to listen. He's a professional eavesdropper and so I just wanted to call that out as just like, Well done, like we're. We're the 3rd sentence in 4th sentence, and I'm already like, yep, I get it. This guy is going to be the person we follow, and we're on his side.

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Samantha Skal: that Sunday evening. This is a very minor kind of very subtle thing that made me think that the narrator is looking back at what has already happened as opposed to experiencing the story in real time. And so was that intentional? And what is your intention? Yes, okay.

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Mark: So there's a very short prologue that comes before this that he's recounting to his nephew

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Mark: this case that he worked on.

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Samantha Skal: Okay. So it is looking back, and he already knows he's he's telling the story from the standpoint of like, I'm looking back in my life.

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Mark: 40 years back in his late yep.

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Samantha Skal: Okay, cool. Yeah, that's great. So this is perfect. Then and for everyone else, you know, there, there are 2 standpoints of a story. You can do as Marcus done here, where the narrator

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Samantha Skal: and the main, the Pov character is talking about what has happened in their life. They know how it ends, but they are telling the story to the reader in such a way that the reader doesn't know how it ends, or you can have someone like we just had with Dave's, where you're entering the story, and they are experiencing it as it moves through time.

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Samantha Skal: 2 very distinct Povs. They both work beautifully, but just be consistent with it, because if that's the kind of thing that can low key kind of just throw the reader for a loop, and they won't understand where they are. What's happening. So good job with that

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Samantha Skal: I wanted to know a bit more in the background of what our proprietor

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Samantha Skal: How he's translating all these things around him. So you have this beautiful description. You have like we sink into this coffee shop. We are there. We feel like we're sitting at a table right next to him, watching all of this happen, which is amazing. But, Robert, is that how you say that.

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Mark: That's right.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah. So you know, this is a great description, like we. I sometimes saw him in the evenings. He generally reserved the time for his wife, you know, and then we learn that that he's there for a reason. You know he has this meeting, and he's a little bit nervous.

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Samantha Skal: Right. Am I making that up, or does that?

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Samantha Skal: That is right. Okay.

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Mark: That's the next character.

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Samantha Skal: That's the next character. I'm sorry, anyway. So he notices Robert, and everything that anyone notices in a mystery is going to be clocked by the reader and low Key something to remember. And so part of the reason we all read mysteries. I'm making this broad assumption, but hopefully this resonates with you all is, we want to be brought in and presented this puzzle so that we can solve it. And we are using the Pov character

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Samantha Skal: to understand what we should be paying attention to with the trust in the author that the author's not going to show us a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't matter.

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Samantha Skal: And so this is what you what you get when people say. Oh, that was really tightly written, that was very tightly plotted.

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Samantha Skal: I really like I sunk into it. I you know it was meaty, like all those words that make us feel like we were really into it, and we're really absorbed. That is, author and reader, trust, and the trust is very high. When a reader enters the book, it can very quickly dissipate if we start showing them a bunch of stuff that they that's not relevant to the story. And I am not saying you were doing that. I'm just using this as an example of like. We're noting Robert here so clearly. Robert is an important character.

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Mark: Is the sidekick, so.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, perfect. So this is, this is a great way to show it. So we were clocking already, like, Okay, Robert's 1 of our people got it. And then we understand that you know you have this kind of

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Samantha Skal: the excessive conversation, like we can all resonate with, you know, not wanting to just hear 2 people talk, one that's not really relevant to us.

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Samantha Skal: and then this was a really good translation as well like I understood the need for peace. This is our narrator showing us like I get that. And here's why. And so this is not info dumping, because it is very relevant to what's happening and story present. So good job. And this was also like you told us in 3 sentences that there was a lot that went on with this person, and

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Samantha Skal: then we learn his name right away. So I just wanted to compliment you on that. It's it's really really good

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Samantha Skal: And then there's some places that I called out where? He's asking these questions. And because I had made this initial assumption that you know he's more than he seems. He's not just a coffee shop proprietor. I wanna know why he's asking this I wanna know if he's like fishing for information, or if it's truly just conversational. This is the kind of thing that can build empathy with the reader for your pov character. And so when he asks, What's new in France?

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Samantha Skal: Why is he curious about something that has happened in the past? Is he checking up on something that is already done?

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Mark: That's a great point. It's it's kind of nonsense, stock. The next 2 paragraphs to small talk right? Showing a little bit humor between the 2 little bit of banter but it's not like driving to the plot unless it

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Mark: reveal something about their character.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, exactly. Well, it doesn't have to drive to the plot right like this can just be small talk for the sake of small talk. But if if the narrator, if Matte is that how you say his name.

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Mark: That's right,

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Samantha Skal: If mate is telling us I'm making small talk for the sake of small talk, because I'm bored, then we know right? Or if he's like, what's new in France? Because oh, there was this thing that I did in France, and I'm curious if that's made the news yet, or whatever like that tells us a lot more about him.

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Mark: And point.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, bone. Deep weariness was one of his specialties made me laugh. It's a really good observation.

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Samantha Skal: and then all of this, it's it's telling, letting us know about their relationship. And so you might get the edit suggestion at some point that, like this stuff could be moved to later, because really the point of this 1st chapter is to get us to the part where we learn about the horse and the the guy being murdered right? Or, you know, dying and so

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Samantha Skal: this could be something to consider moving. I I quite liked it. It sort of established. The pacing is like this is going to be not like seed your pants action adventure like nonstop. You know, we're gonna sink into this and we're gonna sink into the setting, and we're going to

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Samantha Skal: have this person lead us through the story kind of like like, almost like Sherlock Holmes ask. You know, like we're having a lot of time just just sitting and being in the story, which is a different. It's a deliberate choice. And you did it really? Well, if that was your intention. If that was not your intention, then we should consider moving some of this stuff to another chapter.

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Mark: It was my attention. So that's good, great, good!

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Samantha Skal: Excellent.

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Samantha Skal: okay. And then this sentence, this seemed directly contradictory, which made me think it was a code.

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Samantha Skal: And so again, this is, I'm just letting you know, like Reader feedback when we learn that someone has a history and military intelligence, and we had those that beautiful description just before, about a little bit about his past, and so when Robert says this to him, but he knows he cares a little about financial matters all of a sudden, it's like, well, what does that mean? Then why is he telling him? And so

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Samantha Skal: it just, I think this is yeah.

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Samantha Skal: There's there's an opportunity there to increase suspense. And let us know a little bit more about both of them. If that was literally just, you know, Robert, making small talk. Then maybe consider cutting that. But this jumped out to me is something where it was like, oh, are they like talking in?

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Samantha Skal: They have deep history, with intelligence, or something.

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Mark: Oh, no good point. Great, great, thank you.

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Samantha Skal: Awesome. Yeah.

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Samantha Skal: and then, couldn't remember seeing him in the evening. This is fantastic. It seems like something remarkable is happening which it is right. This is the inciting incident where we're learning about what's actually happening. And mate is going to enter into the story. And so.

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Samantha Skal: you can see my! My questions here is like, what does Matte make of those 2 meeting at this time of night? Does he think that Robert lied to him about why he was there. Does he not think? Was it planned, was it not, you know, like all these kinds of questions can be in mite's interiority and can misdirect

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Samantha Skal: because it's probably not gonna be right and also sorry. The AI also, it engage us more with Matti's way of looking at things because he's our guides. This story. So he's the one who's telling us what we should care about.

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Mark: Right.

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Samantha Skal: yeah. And the rest of this flowed really, really? Well, like I, you know, we we learn about the horse we learn about

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Samantha Skal: this person.

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Samantha Skal: I

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Samantha Skal: rode the stallion and then

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Samantha Skal: and then died right like there was.

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Mark: You got thrown. Yeah. By the way.

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Samantha Skal: Got thrown. Yeah. And so as we get through this like, it's really good background. And we understand that Gustav is upset about it that you'll see as we get through this. I wanted to know what mate makes of this. Does he think that this is a mystery that needs to be solved. Is he truly just trying to help his friend out? And that's a loaded question, because this is a murder mystery. At this point, we assume

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Samantha Skal: that it is because we were learning about a body on the 1st chapter. So if that is not your intention, then let's talk about how we can fit your vision, and so tell me a little bit more about where you were thinking. There.

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Mark: Yeah, so

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Mark: so I've you know what I what I'm trying to establish here is that initially

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Mark: matte is kind of downplaying this and and kind of calming. Gustav. Say, you know what you just. You're getting overly excited, and since he's such a close friend, and Gustav was a mentor. He's wants to be supportive of him. Say, you're you're you're kind of exaggerate. It's you know. You're seeing things that didn't happen.

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Samantha Skal: Okay.

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Samantha Skal: okay, so that is wonderful for mate to say out loud.

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Samantha Skal: If he's thinking there's actually something going on inside. We want to hear that on the page, not through dialogue, but through him, thinking it and being like, Oh, I gotta calm my friend down. But Whoa! Something's definitely happening here, and that's the thing that'll draw the reader in. And that was kind of my last big note about this. It flowed really. Well, I really liked it.

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Samantha Skal: You did a great job.

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Mark: Thank you.

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Mark: No, I see I just got back Beta, reader, feed feedback, which was pretty good

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Mark: and so now I'm gonna

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Mark: looking for the next step with it.

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Samantha Skal: Awesome. Yeah. Well, good luck. I hope to see this out in print. Someday it was a really fun story.

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Mark: Well, I hope so too.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah.

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Mark: Thank you so much.

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Samantha Skal: Of course. Yeah.

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Samantha Skal: all right. So that was Mark.

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Samantha Skal: did we find Amy or Dave.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Not yet, Amy and Dave. If you are here, give us a shout. I do see.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: and Amy without a last name, but I don't know if it's the right one, and I don't wanna

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: call her out.

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Samantha Skal: It's not.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: If it's not Amy Wasp.

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Samantha Skal: Alright. Well, we'll go through both of these if either of you are here, and you just don't want to talk. That's totally fine. I'm happy to go through everything and

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Samantha Skal: just let you watch this later. Being on stage is not for everyone. So that's totally fine. So I am going to do Dave's first.st it seems like Dave Logger Lager is his. I pronounced that like the beer that's accurate. Is the pen name he's using. So that's wonderful.

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Samantha Skal: alright, so this was great as well. So we have. This person row who's our main, our main character. This is Book 4 in this series, which is amazing. So you know, I love jumping into series when I don't know the past, because it's a really, you know, this is, this is an excellent way to use new beta readers as well is like, how much information do you have to relay, so that the person

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Samantha Skal: person can sink in. A new reader can sink in but we're not like info dumping so so much, and it's kind of an art form. If you read, if you have a favorite series that you've read, you'll notice that there's like recycled paragraphs often that end up in the 1st couple of chapters. It's just like, Okay, here I am. I live in this town. I'm a cop, whatever and just enough so that we can understand what the what like the trauma is and what they're about to be

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Samantha Skal: dealing with. And so we meet Ro here. And we do this really, really well, Dave nailed this. So we understand that

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Samantha Skal: this person, Kate, was gunned down. It really really affected her. We understand that these 2 people, Mike and Tuck are very important, and she had to be supportive for them. We don't know whether Mike and Tuck are, you know, belong to Kate as people, or if they belong to roe as people, we understand that she's we make the assumption that she's a cop because we have dispatcher on the radio and typically dispatch doesn't call you if you're just a civilian

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Samantha Skal: and then we also have some great some great anchoring in terms of where we are. So just before one Am. Was here, there were some other really good notes below or not notes, but words to indicate that it was the middle of the night, and you know she's we learn very quickly that she's like crying and having this full on grief.

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Samantha Skal: the sorrow and English. It's right here, actually sobbing and howling like anyone who's ever experienced deep grief like that knows what that feels like. You have to let it out. You can't. You can't like just push it down because it'll come out at some inappropriate time. And so we understand that she's dealing with things which tells us a lot about her. It's painful. It's a lot. And then she's having to be forced into this new situation. So in terms of setup, like immediately engaging. I really liked it.

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Samantha Skal: Some little minor questions here. I didn't know what Mr. Pete was. I'm assuming it's the car. But I wasn't really sure what that was. And so you might have just a little tag here that says alone, and, Mr. Pete, my, my! It police issued vehicle, or whatever and then Fort Armstrong County.

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Samantha Skal: My brain went to Texas. But I don't know if that's actually accurate. So you know, we have nearby pasture cows. We know this is somewhere rural. If you don't want to actually say the State like you could just say general geographic location like the middle of the country, or, you know, 50 miles from the nearest big city, or whatever it is. But we don't really know if this is even in the Us. We make the assumption it is. But

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Samantha Skal: you know, just those kinds of things like the more anchoring you can do for the reader upfront. It doesn't take much, and then the readers like got it, you know. I can picture this. I'm in a cow field with, with, you know, corn or like grass all around me, and there's some grain silos, and I'm in somewhere in the Midwest

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Samantha Skal: So really great anchoring.

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Samantha Skal: The Haskell's voice, like the slightest of slight insistence. All this is really good, very subtle indicators of who row is as a person, and so she's never not responded to a 1st call before so clearly. Something is very, very wrong, and we understand that she's dealing with this grief. But she's also somebody who cares that she didn't respond to that 1st call. So that was very, very well done.

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Samantha Skal: the, you know, these little suggestions are just like kind of clarity stuff. And it. It just helps the reader understand what's going on. So they aren't confused.

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Samantha Skal: this reaction here. So for everyone else like, you know, I read the 1st 10 pages. I didn't go further than that. We she gets called on a domestic disturbance call. She goes. And she's like this total Badass. And it's really, really cool. She's a cool character. But these reactions like Oh, shit!

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Samantha Skal: And then we learn that she was all too familiar with this. And then we learn that she has been there several times before, but this time is worse. And so this reaction confused me a little bit in retrospect. Once we actually get into the domestic disturbance.

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Samantha Skal: because we.

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Samantha Skal: you know, she seems kind of like, not that concerned about it, because she's done this so many times, and so this could be like instead of Oh, shit, or something else like that! It it oh, shit! Indicates sort of like fear or anticipation, and she doesn't really seem that bothered and particularly since it's a it's a domestic disturbance like she would be bothered. Typically and so why isn't she? Is the question that we have?

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Samantha Skal: So this could be one of frustration, just a little more clarity there. It would make a really big difference. And then this was, I know, another point, her being the closest, closest, closest officer. I just got a little confused, so I suggested an edit there.

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Samantha Skal: This was one place where we know we know it's the middle of the night. And so how does she know that there is A big barn with 2 silos of 100 yards away, couple of things. She could know this town so so well that she knows exactly where she is based on where she is. It could be a very, very like Bright Moon. So she actually is able to see sort of like daylight.

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Samantha Skal: Or this was just author intrusion like we forgot that it was night, which, by the way, happens all the time to me. I have to like literally track like what time of day it is when I'm writing, so I don't do this

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Samantha Skal: and so I would suggest, you know, if this is, if it's true, black. It's kind of stormy or something. Then. That can also build anticipation because storms build anticipation. And she could be looking on Google maps and understand that this is where she is. She it could be a moonlit, you know, very beautiful night, and she can look over and know kind of roughly where she is, you can make these closer. This could be something that's like 20 yards away, etc, etc. But just a note to kind of. Remember that it's the middle of the night. And so how do? How can she see?

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Samantha Skal: And then this is where you know we learn that she knows.

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Samantha Skal: The this family she understands what's going on with them.

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Samantha Skal: We understand that the wife

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Samantha Skal: always insist that nothing happens and that got into. I'm actually kind of bummed that.

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Samantha Skal: that we're not able to talk about this because I wanted to hear what the vision was about, what row understands, of what the wife is feeling. Because she's coming into this with a lot of grief and a lot of pain. She's in a very vulnerable state, but she's still a police officer who can care and who can put that down? And she hates this guy as do we as the reader, the the person who's doing the beating because he's awful. He's he's, you know. We learn very quickly. He's

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Samantha Skal: abusing a child, and he has abused his wife.

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Samantha Skal: But there was a bit of like as a police officer, a little bit of reader confusion and potentially straining reader logic about how Ro would not understand.

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Samantha Skal: That people in abuse situations don't always react the way that we might hope that they will because they can't. And so, psychologically, I would. I really wanted to just chat about like what the vision was there. And what row does understand does understand. It does not understand

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Samantha Skal: and just make sure that we're getting that through, because readers will bring their own

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Samantha Skal: assumptions and their own understandings of the psychology behind what's going on here. This is dark stuff. It's really it's uncomfortable to read. It's uncomfortable to go through with Ro as she approaches this situation, and you know she's a woman herself, and so and she takes this guy down, and she turns out that she has all these skills. And it's amazing. But she kind of almost is angry at the wife for not pushing back, which is a very reasonable

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Samantha Skal: emotion for her to have, but it also indicates that she hasn't been trained in what might actually be going on psychologically, as one option for what the wife might be feeling, or you know, maybe the wife's in on it. I don't know. There's all kinds of things that could be that could be happening here. But we want to see that in rose interiority and how she's translating what's going on around her, so that we more deeply understand

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Samantha Skal: row herself. And then also what the context of this story is like, what should we be paying attention to and so

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Samantha Skal: sorry I probably should have, Trigger warned people on the top of this. This is this is a bit of an intense scene. But hopefully, you know we do. We do end well, like row takes this guy down and he's gonna go to jail, and it's great. And she has this very delightful anger at him, and

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Samantha Skal: she she stops the thing from happening, which is really really great.

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Samantha Skal: So that's what most of this is, we have some great background about why finds bullying to be so personally unacceptable, and part of it we just we assume this is part of the reason that she became a cop to begin with. And so all of that flowed really really well. One note again on reader, logic, and just bringing in assumptions is like, you know, I'm not a cop. I don't have any family who are cops. I don't talk to cops. Typically, something has gone wildly wrong.

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Samantha Skal: But I do know that domestic disturbances, just from probably like TV and movies and stuff, they never send anyone alone. And so a couple of things. This could be because it's so rural. They do send people alone because there is no one else to be able to back her up

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Samantha Skal: She could wait for the backup and watch, and then understand that this thing is happening right in front of her, and she has to go stop it, which is why she goes in on her own. But if we don't know that at the top we're wondering why she makes why she made the decisions that she does. And so we have her get to this scene. She sees what's happening, and she immediately is like, no, I have to stop it right now that all works really well. But the backup thing is like a question in our head as to why she wouldn't.

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Samantha Skal: Why, she wouldn't wait, and as she's driving over there like, why, she wouldn't make sure that the backup was like right behind her, because these things can escalate very, very quickly.

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Samantha Skal: Then, you know, I I moved around some stuff. I got a little a little more confident as I read through and and absorb this writing but this was something that you had a little bit further down, and then

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Samantha Skal: the her grief momentarily pushed aside. That's an edit to explain the connection to the previous chapter cause we're in chapter 2, and so we entered Chapter one with her, going through this intense, really this intense grief cycle and feeling all these feelings. And so this is more just

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Samantha Skal: it. It's like an anchoring. It brings us back into the chapter, because readers don't always read all the way through as much as we'd like them to. Sometimes they read a chapter at a time, sometimes they read a few pages at a time. And so anytime we have a new chapter. You have great anchoring here with the time.

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Samantha Skal: but we need some anchoring with the emotionality as well.

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Samantha Skal: And then all these other edits. They're all suggested edits. There's nothing that you know I'm not. I'm not. I'm not precious about what I suggest for people. It's more just like this is what it could look like. If you wanted to be what it could look like when somebody gets a little confused, and how we might fix it. And so in all of these, as you all are reading through like

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Samantha Skal: take it or leave it, but understand that the reason that I suggested these things is because I got a little confused as the reader, and so this could be another way of saying it. But word choice totally yours. All of that. Yeah.

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Samantha Skal: This is a little bit weird. Just talking to myself about this, Dave. I hope that this is helpful in the end, when you're able to watch this and then we see her arrest him. We see her in this like kind of

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Samantha Skal: like comedic horror position where she is like the wife is trying to stop her from arresting her husband. Because, again, you know, various psychological reasons this can happen. And we have this big man that she's subdoing. And we have this child that has been abused. And she's in this really tough spot, because it's just her there. And then her partner shows up.

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Samantha Skal: And it's almost, you know, like understands that this is a little bit. It's a little bit ridiculous that she's able to handle all of this, and that is where where we end. You know, we get into. The partner shows up and he helps, and that is as far as I got in the 10 pages. So

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Samantha Skal: really well done, like immediately engaging. We understand a lot about who Ro is, and you know we understand that she has this this temper that she's been dealing with, and she's learning how to channel it. And we and I can predict, I hope, that that's gonna be a part of her arc and how she operates in the world. So very well done. I really enjoyed it, and I hope

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Samantha Skal: that you as well can have this out in the world if it's not already. I I she's a great character, and I enjoyed reading her so

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Samantha Skal: good job with that. And then Amy, has Amy raised her hand yet?

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: No, not yet.

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Samantha Skal: Okay.

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Samantha Skal: so, Amy, you are. Last, but certainly not least. We went alphabetically.

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Samantha Skal: And so let me pull yours up.

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Samantha Skal: Another just stellar atmospheric sync us in immediately to the story. All 4 of you really nailed this, which, by the way, is not always the case. We I don't know if providing it just attracts a lot of talent, or this group, just, you know, happen to be just pretty exceptional. But all of these stories like, we immediately sink into the story we have great anchoring.

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Samantha Skal: The voices are very strong. The narration is very strong, like there's a lot to really like about it. So good job, all 4 of you,

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Samantha Skal: and Amy. I lived in San Francisco for about 10 years, and so this was like close to my heart. I could very much picture all of this. You did a really good job with all of it. So the voice here, another one like it's an eye 1st person alien over your eyeballs. Right? It's really wonderful. We we understand completely who this person is. There's very strong

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Samantha Skal: I don't wanna keep saying strong voice. But that's really what it is. It's like this, this feeling that we, this person, is unique and has a unique perspective on the world. And as we're moving to the story, we have more and more questions, and we're more and more engaged. So really, really, really good job, a couple of things about this 1st paragraph. The fog rolled in on its little cat feet. That's obviously a reference to that. One very famous poem that I think has been wrongly attributed to Mark Twain.

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Samantha Skal: If anyone knows who actually wrote that, you can pop it in the chat or tell me

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Samantha Skal: But this narrator could note that, and in that way indicate to the reader that they understand where it came from. And it's not just something that they themselves came up with. It's a super famous quote. And this narrator, who's a little bit snarky, a little bit edgy, might well be like. You know what a you know, what a delightful comparison, but also like

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Samantha Skal: kind of you know, the fog gallops today, or, you know, rolled over me like a tsunami or something. Because the fog in San Francisco is its own beast. It actually has a whole Instagram called Carl the fog that. Somebody has anthropomorphized for it, and it's a delight if you're curious. The other thing about this corner Mart turns out to be a deliberate misspelling. But we don't learn that

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Samantha Skal: until like the 4th paragraph. And so I liked what you did here. I initially was like, oh, that was a that was a typo like it. Just, you know, this happens. But then we learn that it's deliberate. And so

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Samantha Skal: I'm not exactly sure how to call that out. I think it probably works just as is the way you've revealed it.

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Samantha Skal: But it did pop out to my reader. Brain is like, Oh, that's a typo. And so that is one of those things that can potentially disrupt this author. Reader, trust. If we're seeing a typo in the 1st paragraph, or what we think is a typo. And so you might want to consider

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Samantha Skal: moving like rearranging some of this, so that corner Mart deliberately misspelled, or something

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Samantha Skal: or like, you know, I loved the way that it was misspelled, just something to indicate that the narrator understands that it's a misspelling, and that, you know, increases the trust or keeps it where it where we started.

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Samantha Skal: this was no ordinary morning. Today I was a man on a mission. It's amazing. We understand immediately that this person has a goal, and then we learn it's about candy bars. It's not really about anything else. And so that was kind of a twist like we don't really know. We know it's going to be a murder mystery, probably, or some kind of mystery. But we don't understand what the goal is, and so we make some assumptions, and then we, our assumptions are turned on their head when he's like, Well, I'm here to buy candy bar, but I can't remember which one I wanted. It's wonderful. I really liked it.

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Samantha Skal: really, really good writing, really great translations of what's going on in this store, Mr. Park, the owner, is an absolute delight, and I could picture him exactly.

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Samantha Skal: one of the bigger things that I got a little confused about. And again, I'm sorry that you're not here, Amy, to answer these questions so just like, use this as a think about an answer. When you read this, or when you watch this when we're done, is this person is a private investigator. We learn pretty quickly, but he can't remember

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Samantha Skal: a lot. And so, and we also. He also seems to have like this, supernatural ability.

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Samantha Skal: And so, as a private investigator having a bad memory, it's an interesting characterization. But I got a little confused as to why people would trust him if he can't remember

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Samantha Skal: basic things. And the candy bar choice like fine. You forgot what your friend wanted. That's no big deal. But then there was some other stuff of you know. He forgets that he's even there to buy a candy bar, which sort of starts to indicate that maybe he's an unreliable narrator, and so, if that was intentional, then I would lean a little bit more into it and have him be like people pay me. But you know, part of my

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Samantha Skal: part of my superpower is that I do forget things. So I see things fresh every single time or something. And just sort of again build the trust with the reader that the narrator understands that this is a shortcoming that he's actually using as a benefit or something like that.

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Samantha Skal: yeah, what had I been looking for? So you know this, this is exactly where it popped out. It was like, why would anyone trust him? To do this work? And so

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Samantha Skal: the great description about Molly

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Samantha Skal: I really liked like this is just a character in the store who works at the store, and she's we can see her exactly. Just really, really good job. And this actually fits really well with other comments I had about slang and dialogue. So what yeah is. And gonna you know, like all these kinds of like combined words, putting them in dialogue is exactly where they should go, but I would use them sparingly, and I would use them only when combined with characterization like this. And so

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Samantha Skal: she's a teenager. She's, you know. She's going to be kind of combining her words, and we learn later that she has this very kind of distinct way of speaking and so it works. And so what you did here works but to just to everybody.

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Samantha Skal: gonna watcha, like all those things are going to jump out as typos and kind of like

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Samantha Skal: leap from the page to the reader as they're reading in a way that potentially is not that intentional? And so be very careful when you use words like that. Having somebody say.

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Samantha Skal: What are you looking for? Is not going to jump out and it's going to just you can use characterization for other things, and it won't stop the reader in their tracks, whereas whatcha is like, we start to picture it. Really, it's like putting in putting something in all caps or exclamation points, or something like it really jumps out, so use sparingly and use intentionally.

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Samantha Skal: As we move through, we learned that he has this magic 8 ball. He uses which was really really fun. I really liked it. I liked how you revealed what it was, too, because I sort of saw it coming, and then wasn't sure. And either. You'll see here, like, okay. So it is a magic 8 ball. A touch more above about what he had in his pocket, and how big it was would be helpful. Just so. We aren't confused about what's going on.

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Samantha Skal: and then we have this thing. Small powers run in my family. So this, this is sort of a potentially like super natural, extra natural, whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it, situation, where he has more powers than the average person, and this is why he gets called to help.

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Samantha Skal: And then, you know, by the end of the 1st 10 pages we understand that he's there. Because Mr. Park needs help. There's money being stolen, and he's going to be pulled in to solve this mystery, and we're off to the races. It's

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Samantha Skal: it's really, really cool. And you also have this thing for special processing and management. Quasi government agency soups like all this fun stuff. All of that is very clear upfront. We're only on page 6. And so we understand exactly what kind of story we're gonna be dealing with I really liked it. I wanna keep reading I thought you did a great job. And again the atmosphere and the voice and everything is super strong, and I'm very, very

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Samantha Skal: very, very into it. So good job, all 4 of you.

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Samantha Skal: This was just an absolute pleasure to be able to dive into these stories. This is why I do this work. And it's just the best is getting to be a part of this formation. So

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Samantha Skal: yeah, think.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: So much, Sam, this was great. We do have some questions. If you want to answer, try.

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Samantha Skal: Of course. Yeah, yeah.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: I know it's past time. So, thanks to everybody who's still hanging on with.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, thanks. Everyone.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Let's see. An anonymous attendee says, how do agents feel about seeing swear words?

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Samantha Skal: So I myself love swear words I. So I'm gonna you know, grain of salt. I think that it depends on the agent, and depends on the publisher. I have heard that.

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Samantha Skal: In general.

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Samantha Skal: many readers like, Okay, how do I say this?

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Samantha Skal: This is a quote from from a teacher I had once. He was like the Midwest, which is generally a little bit more religious and a little less likely to like swear words tends to listen to books on audio in the car with their children. And so if you have swear words that's going to be something that they automatically can't buy because they're trying to protect their kids on the coast. You end up with people who potentially don't care quite as much. Those are gross generalizations. But the overall

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Samantha Skal: advice was basically like, if you don't need it, don't have it. And only do it in dialogue.

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Samantha Skal: But I think that's a personal choice, right? Like I don't mind it at all. I I appreciate swearing. And so it's it's 1 of those things where like, if it's if it fits the character and it serves the story, then do it. There is a gratuitous level where it becomes really kind of over the top. So find the balancing act, and in terms of what agents want like, they'll let you know. No, I don't. I mean, unless somebody is stating on their website, like, I don't like swearing. Please don't put this in here.

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Samantha Skal: then, don't they may not. They might not be the right agent for you, anyway. But

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Samantha Skal: yeah, it's it's if it suits the story, then keep it. If it doesn't, then don't you know it's not the kind of thing to put in because you feel like you have to.

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Samantha Skal: That makes sense.

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Samantha Skal: Yes.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Barbara asks further to the comments about Walt's choice to show Mary's suspicions. Can you talk about the difference between writing omniscient Pov and showing the characters into interiority.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah. So this is part of the thing that's that's not not as easy with omniscient because we do have this big filter. We have an outside narrator who's looking

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Samantha Skal: at the story as it's happening. And so you can dip into their heads. It's sort of like to use my weird, alien example like it's like the alien like sinking into somebody's brain and then popping back out. That was super gross. I'm sorry, but you know

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Samantha Skal: The

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Samantha Skal: the omniscient pov

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Samantha Skal: is a little bit removed, and so you're not going to have that interiority as easily as if you do with close 3rd or 1st and part of the reason that mysteries and solars and suspense are so engaging, I think, is because we do learn what people are thinking and what their theories are, and you know the one in Budapest, like, we have a lot of interiority

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Samantha Skal: about what could be happening versus what is actually said out loud and so you can have a lot more tension that way if you do. If you do close 3rd or first, st as opposed to omniscient, where you're going to be a little bit more removed, and

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Samantha Skal: you're going to have something like, you know. Mary thought this

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Samantha Skal: but it's from the narrator's perspective. So the narrator is not going to really know. It's going to be like a guess based on body action. And

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Samantha Skal: all these other things. So it kind of depends. It's just about consistency. If that makes sense like, I'm not personally the the biggest fan of omniscient with

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Samantha Skal: Mts. For those reasons I think it's

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Samantha Skal: it's easier for the reader to sink in if we can see through somebody's pov. But I think it can work very beautifully, particularly in cozies. Because you're getting closer to kind of that Sherlock Holmes Vibe. And, like all of that, was very omniscient, right? Like we're kind of following Watson. But we're also understanding what Sherlock is thinking. And

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Samantha Skal: actually, technically, Sherlock might have been closed. 3, rd now that I'm thinking about it.

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Samantha Skal: it's been a long time since it's been like 20 years since I've actually read one of those. But hopefully you get the point, and that makes sense. But please use a follow-up question. If I didn't answer that.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Mary asks how you'll consider a short prologue originally written, which serves a triple purpose listing triggers, establishing contract with the reader and updating on the situation. Consider it as a series epic fantasy, mystery, adult oriented. Thank you. So I guess she wants to know how you would consider.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah. So I'm a big fan of

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Samantha Skal: indicating to the reader the type of book that they're about to read, using little scenes like that. So a prologue where you know, let's say you have something that's super violent, or you have some difficult subjects. Colleen. Hoover. Verity did this actually like she has this sort of unrelated

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Samantha Skal: and this does not spoil it at all. But Verity is a dark book. There's a lot that happens that is like very trigger warning all over the place, and I don't know that she actually had a trigger warning at the front. But the 1st scene of the book. We watched someone graphically be killed. And so that's that's a subtle indicator to the reader that this is not going to be the type of book that you're going to be able to like.

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Samantha Skal: I don't know. Listen to in front of your 4 year old, right like this is, gonna be something that's gonna be rated. R, and so having a prologue with some kind of violence, or, you know, adult content, or whatever is a really good way to let people sink in, and the other way is just to put a forward in the book and be like, Hey.

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Samantha Skal: I wanted, you know this book deals with with these, with these issues, and so consider yourself warned. But showing versus telling is often better with that, you know, like a lot of haunting haunted house books are gonna have something where the

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Samantha Skal: the language is super creepy, or you're gonna have like

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Samantha Skal: something terrible happening to somebody like murder mysteries and thrillers often start with somebody being stocked in the woods. For that reason. Right? Sets the tone.

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Samantha Skal: And then we're like, okay, so what happened. And who is this person, and what's going on? And that's how we got sucked in so big fan of those. But you know, prologues are one of those things where people will fight about it all day on Twitter. So if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Susan asks, is it important to always note the day and time when starting chapter one.

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Samantha Skal: I don't think so. I mean, the assumption, unless we're told otherwise, is that we're in the here. And now it's kind of just like today.

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Samantha Skal: If it's a certain time of year, and that matters that kind of anchoring can make a big difference for the story. So you know, in the one in what I assumed was Texas like that? Anchoring really helped? Did we need that tag? Not necessarily. We understood pretty quickly that we were in a cop car in the middle of a field at night. And so you can do those things by showing the reader through the description of what's happening in the scene.

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Samantha Skal: in certain situations it becomes very important what time it is. But those kinds of things also. Readers don't clock them every time they read right. They're going to read the words versus the chapter subtitle.

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Samantha Skal: so it it can help, but it's only if it serves the story,

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Samantha Skal: and I. I sometimes find them distracting like if I have to keep track of what time it was at the top of the chapter. So I understand what's happening like I'd rather just be told and reminded through like the character looking at their watch or being like, Oh, my God! How has it only been 10 min. It felt like 4 h, or you know, whatever it is.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have an anonymous question. You talked about the overall length of debut novels. What are your thoughts about? The length of opening chapters of a thriller.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, what a good question.

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Samantha Skal: so I have seen all this advice recently about keeping your chapters really short, because people's attention spans in general are much lower than they used to be, and we like to snap through things.

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Samantha Skal: I personally believe that it it needs to.

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Samantha Skal: It needs to fit the story which I keep seeing, which sounds like a cop out answer. But I promise it's not aiming for about 10 pages per chapter, like 22,000 to 2,500 words.

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Samantha Skal: is is a decent sort of benchmark. Really, it's about what happens in the chapter and trying to keep your writing as tight as possible. So 1st chapters are hard, right? We have to introduce our character. We have to establish the setting. If we're writing Mts, and we're hitting genre expectations. Something's gotta happen at the end of that 1st chapter. We don't have to have it all resolved. But well, obviously wouldn't cause the whole book. But, like we have to find the body, we have to find the thing that's scary. We have to

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Samantha Skal: enter into the story in some way. And so

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Samantha Skal: that's a lot to have happen in 10 pages. Can it be 15, probably. But you may notice that a lot of agents request the 1st 10 pages for a reason, and that's because that's how long a generous reader is going to give you before they put the book down or keep going. A lot of people are. 1st page first, st paragraph, book, jacket, copy like. The sooner we can get in and hook people the better.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have another anonymous question. Can you explain head hopping, and how we can recognize this.

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Samantha Skal: Sure. So head hopping is what happens when we have a consistent Pov or like, we're looking through the alien eyeballs on the front of our face or up here, and we're all of a sudden over here, knowing what this person is thinking without asking them. And so let's say, there was somebody else in my little office here with me, like if I'm telling this story. And then I suddenly switch their viewpoint where they're looking at me that's head hopping. If it's been established that we are looking through my Pov.

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Samantha Skal: The difference to this is you can use those little hashtags to indicate that you're moving narration to somebody else. I like to tell, like beginning writers make it a new chapter. That's the easiest way of establishing like, oh, we're switching around completely.

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Samantha Skal: but you can do it kind of mid chapter. As long as you indicate to the reader what's going on? Head hopping is.

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Samantha Skal: it's different povs, right? So like, if you have a multi pov story.

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Samantha Skal: it's called multiple pov for a reason, head hopping is where it happens like mid paragraph, or mid mid scene, or something, and there's no indication. That's when the reader goes like, Oh, wait what I'm I'm confused. I thought I was being told the story through this point of view and not over here.

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Samantha Skal: it's super easy to do. It's it's very common. It's not something to be like ashamed of. We all do it. But it's something that Beta readers will usually catch, or an editor will definitely catch. Cause once you start looking for it. You can't unsee it.

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Samantha Skal: yeah, hopefully, that helps

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Samantha Skal: basically is to reduce confusion. We want the reader to never be confused because that pulls readers out of the story, and then they stop reading, which is never our goal.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Mark asks, would you recommend a line, edit and or copy edit before querying for an agent.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah. So

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Samantha Skal: the truth is like the world has changed a little bit. Publishing houses have fewer staffers and fewer editors, and so the impetus is on agents to find like ready to publish stuff.

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Samantha Skal: And so there's this whole other market of freelance editors of which I have one. That help people get their books in as good a shape as it they possibly can be. So then, when they go to an agent, there's less work that has to happen, and the agent is more likely to say, Yes,

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Samantha Skal: Do you need one? Maybe not right like, if you if you have beta readers, and things are going well, and you know you're pretty confident that you have reduced the number of typos down to like an acceptable level, which is like a small as little as you can get it to be.

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Samantha Skal: yeah, if if you know that something, if you know in your heart, or your gut, or whatever you wanna go by that something is wrong or it's not working. Then maybe hire someone to do a manuscript evaluation. If you struggle with grammar, or you struggle with typos copy editing absolutely worth the money.

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Samantha Skal: It can make a huge difference. But there's also programs like pro writing aid and other stuff that'll catch that stuff and help you. Those are tools that are available to us, and thank goodness for them. That can really make a big difference, but the goal is to get what your story as close to perfect to your vision as possible before you go to an agent. Agents are not in the business of

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Samantha Skal: completely working with you to rewrite something, although there are revise and resubmits, and that kind of thing. But that's only if they can see like, we're 90% of the way there. And we just need a little bit of a tweak

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Samantha Skal: but books are not being sold on like, unless you're you know James Patterson, or something like it's not. They're not being sold on sub anymore, or

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Samantha Skal: on spec, right? Like, we don't have

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Samantha Skal: a synopsis, and then, unless you have an established selling record like Debus, do not have that. We have to be completely ready with a full manuscript before we go to an agent, and then the agent sells that, and then hopefully, we're off to the races. But

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Samantha Skal: yeah, it's the bar is higher than it ever has been.

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Samantha Skal: yeah.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: We have a question from Susan regarding using slang. She's writing a ya about a teenager and she says you mentioned the slang of watcha, etc, is not good. She has grandkids who have jumped in to offer to help with today's generation. How they talk! She wants to bring that in. But how does she do that, and yet find a good balance with the slang in her.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, good question. So

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Samantha Skal: it's not that slang is not good. It's just that it jumps out to the reader and so use it sparingly, because you can picture like we. We sort of. Everyone reads differently, but like the way that I absorb books is like, I hear it in my head as I'm reading

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Samantha Skal: particularly dialogue. It's like, I'm not saying every word in my head, but I'm I'm absorbing it in that way. And so anything that's misspelled technically, which you know slang would be is going to hop out to me in my editor brain. And my reader, brain is like, Oh, I have to stop for a second and and absorb what this looks like. Maybe say it differently.

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Samantha Skal: whatever. And so, if you have a series of words that are brand new or slangy, you know. People don't understand them. The reader is gonna stop and clock it, and then move on more slowly, as opposed to just having it roll really smoothly over them. And so it also depends on the age of your narrator.

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Samantha Skal: If your narrator is 15, which they would be in a Ya novel like they're going to be using words that are going to fit the lexicon for that age group.

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Samantha Skal: And so there will be slang in the dialogue, but it may. The goal is to be consistent and to use it sparingly, because going to gives the same thing as gonna it just doesn't jump out to the reader.

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Samantha Skal: And even though you know, I don't say I am going to do this today like I when I speak, I'm from California, like, you know, I also like, combine my words in in real life versus what I write.

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Samantha Skal: But yeah, hopefully, that answers. And somebody, I think, just posted the longevity. If you explain the slang from the narrator's perspective, then you've extended. The reader will get it right. You can make up stuff.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright, we'll just do one more question. This is an anonymous one. I have a 1st in a series paranormal, cozy mystery at 40,000 words. Agents won't look at it, but very positive betas I'm contemplating trying to make it longer, but it feels like plot stuffing or word stuffing to me. I'm planning a longer second book. Should I try to make book one longer, even if it makes it feel off, or let the second meet a word length, expectation.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, so 40,000 is a little too low for a full length novel like the bottom limit, I would say, is probably 70

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Samantha Skal: And so there's a little bit more there, if you feel like it's truly plot stuffing. Don't do that. Maybe try to make it a novella or a short story, or

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Samantha Skal: take out a little chunk and sell it as a short story if you can, something like that. But

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Samantha Skal: those those lengths, those word, count lengths that are expectations for the genre. That's because readers want to sit and sync into a book for 3, 4, 8 h, whatever 40,000 is just. It's in that weird middle range where it's too long to be a Nobela, which is like 10 to 15 and too short to be a novel, which is at least 70. So can you come up with subplot? Can you have, you know, add another whole character like.

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Samantha Skal: Have you know your main plot, be the 40,000 words, and then have, like a whole subplot that's actually like the final twist or something. It involves a pretty heavy revision. But there are ways to think about like what we add to a story that can make it like flush it out from 40 to something bigger or just work on the second book, and then maybe the 1st book will come to you as some future date, with like making it more complex.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, it's tough. I'm sorry I've been there.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Alright. Thank you so much to everybody who came and who submitted their work. I know it's not an easy thing to do. And thank you again, Sam, for staying for an extra almost half hour to to.

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Samantha Skal: Yeah, thanks. For.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Thanks to.

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Samantha Skal: Nice here. Michelle.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: And we we've already had someone ask if we can do this again at the next writers event. So we got a really a lot of great feedback. So we're really happy with how this all went. We have 2 more session. Well, we one more regular session today, and a final networking event the next ones the next rep webinar starts in about 34 min, so we will see you then. And thanks again, Sam, it was great having you.

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Samantha Skal: Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody.

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Michelle @ ProWritingAid: Bye, everyone.