Fiction Writing Made Easy

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
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:

P.S. Did you know that I have a Facebook group just for fiction writers? In this private group, we talk about all things writing, editing, and publishing fiction. It's free to join and you can request access here. Hope to see you there!

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