Fiction Writing Made Easy

#89: Student Spotlight: How She Used Short Stories to Hone Her Craft (and Publish Her Debut Novel) with Pauline Yates

March 21, 2023 Savannah Gilbo Episode 89
Fiction Writing Made Easy
#89: Student Spotlight: How She Used Short Stories to Hone Her Craft (and Publish Her Debut Novel) with Pauline Yates
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Show Notes

In today's episode, I’m sitting down with Pauline Yates to talk through how she used short stories to hone her craft and publish her debut novel. Here’s a preview of what’s included:

[03:05] An introduction to Pauline Yates and her story, Memories Don’t Lie.
[03:55] How she used short stories to hone her craft and practice submitting her work to publishers (and spoiler alert: she’s now published many of her short stories!)
[13:45] Pauline’s take on what it was like to work with me (and how there was one little thing I kept harping on—if you know me, you know it was scene structure)
[18:40] How she develops her characters and “spends time” with them until she knows exactly what they’d do and how they’d behave in any given scenario
[24:55] The aspect of writing Pauline struggles with the most—and spoiler alert: it’s worldbuilding—plus, what’s she learned about worldbuilding during revisions
[37:25] A behind-the-scenes look at her experience querying over 30 agents before finally finding her dream publisher in her own (Australian) backyard
[50:25] Final words of wisdom and advice from Pauline

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Links mentioned in this episode:

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