Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Terry Northcutt is a Writing Coach and book lover! She coaches fiction and nonfiction. You can find her at https://www.terrynorthcutt.com/

Background

Oil! by Upton Sinclair was first published in 1926 and 27.

Genre: It is a political and social satire, as are several of his other novels.

Setting: Oil! is loosely based on the life of Edward L. Doheny and the company he founded Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, and the character Eli Watkins, who is an evangelist, is loosely based on the famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. The scandal in the book is based on the Teapot Dome scandal, which we talk more about in the show. The book is set during the Warren Harding administration during which oil leases were given to private companies on Navy land without competitive bids.

Additional Notes: There is a movie adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and it's called There Will Be Blood, but it is only based on the first 150 pages or so of the novel and departs quite clearly from the story that's in the book.

Theme: This book explores economic and social issues (such as capitalism versus socialism vs. communism) and injustice through the eyes of an initially naive character who comes of age as he’s exposed to new ideas and experiences.

Things we thought Sinclair did well as a writer :

• Effective First pages

• • Connects us to the child’s point of view really well, showing things a child would really do, see, and say.

  • It shows us that the son, Bunny, is a “mini-me” who copies his Dad, who is aptly portrayed as following rules, order, and the standards he lives by.

  • Gives a good idea of the Californian setting, shows the main two characters who have a lot of conflict, and driving, ahead of them.

• Good choice of a naive character who doesn’t have assumptions, pays great attention to all the things happening, to all the different viewpoints to figure their ideas out alongside the reader. This is a case in point of using Story to explore social issues and give social commentary well, so as not to sound preachy or message heavy.

• This book is really good at showing how character choices shape the plot and also their arc, especially with Bunny’s, Dad’s, and Paul’s arcs.

• This book is good example of a third person omniscient narrator who kind of flies around and gets in everybody's head, but also has his own voice and way of presenting the story.

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Terry

Terry Northcutt is a Writing Coach and book lover! She coaches fiction and nonfiction. You can find her at https://www.terrynorthcutt.com/

an AI thriller. As usual, there is a lot to talk about.

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Terry Northcutt is a Writing Coach and book lover! She coaches fiction and nonfiction. You can find her at https://www.terrynorthcutt.com/

In this episode we discuss The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Terry Northcutt is a Writing Coach and book lover! She coaches fiction and nonfiction. You can find her at https://www.terrynorthcutt.com/

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Today’s show is a conversation with the author of Born of This Fire, a novel of the Anthony family. Jeanne Gehret is the author of several books and you can find out more about her here. (and buy her book!)

The authors she suggested for reading are Louise Penny and Jacqueline Winspear.

Find out more about Save the Cat here.

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Terry Northcutt is a Writing Coach and book lover! She coaches fiction and nonfiction. You can find her at https://www.terrynorthcutt.com/

On today’s episode, Terry and I will be giving feedback on first pages submitted by writers. Writers who submit receive their first page back with written notes. Comments on the podcast are not the complete feedback, but give an idea of what to expect when you submit a page.

Below are the elements we will be use for evaluating the first pages:

• Orienting the reader to the time and place

• Introducing the main character and providing a key aspect of the main character relevant to the conflict—a strength or the hint of a flaw

• Giving a sense of an initial problem or conflict or introducing the main problem or conflict

• Hinting at the theme—bonus points!

• Hooking/engaging the reader. Readers generally give a book 1-3 pages before they decide to continue reading. It is super important to hook them early.

• Writing style and language use.

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

PATSY C. ROBERTSON is a native North Carolinian. Her entire career and educational achievements were in computer technology. This fascinating industry allowed her to travel extensively, domestically and internationally, and meet various types of people along the way. These experiences stoked a sense of adventure, finally leading her to write her first novel.

A Concoction of Lies

She wants to engage readers in thrilling multicultural fiction that depict the blended relationships and experiences of African Americans and people within the communities that make up the global African diaspora.

Find out more about Patsy and get her novel here: https://patsyrobertson.com/

Books Patsy recommends:

The Color of Water by James McBride

The Baker’s Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

Writers who are serious about their craft work with Robin to elevate their novels and create the stories readers crave. Let her be your novel whisperer.

Learn how to work with Robin and Readerly Book Coaching at http://readerly.net

Subscribe to the Tea Break Newsletter to get monthly notes to your inbox about books and writing.

Submit Your First Page for a Critique on the Podcast Here.

Background

Published in 2023 by Farrar, Straus, Giroux. This is Jemc’s fifth book. She has written three novels and two short story collections. Her breakout might be considered The Grip of It, which is a horror tale about a house that has a mind of its own.

Genre: Historical fiction, loosely defined; Literary, with a dash of humor.

Setting: Bavaria, Hungary, Vienna

Additional Notes and reviews:

Review by Annie Sauveur

Interview with the author

If you choose to pick this one up, keep in mind that it is literary and takes a LOT of liberties with the historical facts, as generally agreed upon.

If you are enamored of Sisi and are always looking for more about her, then give it a try. If you are inclined to be frustrated with anachronisms, maybe don’t.

Theme: Questions about identity, about how people can have everything and still be miserable. About how an existence without purpose makes us unhappy.

Things we thought AUTHOR did well as a writer

that we would like to emulate.:

• The Story Questions: the main question seems to be: What does it mean to be happy? How can humans be happy? Or you could substitute satisfied for happy. What makes a meaningful life? Ludwig and Sisi are immensely privileged, but they seem determined to squander every advantage and be unhappy and without purpose in their lives. They embrace things they think will give them purpose , but none of them do. They are, essentially, performing to an Empty Theatre.

• Author Voice: The author does an excellent job of inserting a chatty narrator who comes across like a gossipy aunt telling the reader the story. It is engaging, and often intrusive, but for the kind of story she is telling, it works. Even though the novel jumps around in time and places, the narrator keeps the reader engaged and grounded in the story of these two very unhappy people.

• Literary Fiction: Read this for a good example of what it means to be experimental. This is not linear, it is also not strictly historical in the way that most historical fiction is. There is commentary, there are anachronisms, but it is done with a light touch and with an effective telling to get to the point the author is making, which is not to strictly tell the story of these two people’s lives, but rather to examine how it is that they had everything and nothing at the same time.
  Satire: Part of the challenge of reading this book is that it is satirical. It never pretends to be giving the reader the real events or the real people. If the reader expects traditional historical fiction, they will be disappointed. If they read with an open mind to see what the author has to offer on this topic as an admittedly non-historian, though decent researcher, then they may enjoy it immensely. Looking at the cover is your first hint that it might be a little out of the ordinary, and it is a good example of why covers are important and how much work they do in setting the reader’s expectations.