Writers With Wrinkles
Authors Beth McMullen and Lisa Schmid iron out the wrinkles in writing, publishing, and everything in between . . . One podcast at a time.
Writers With Wrinkles is the go-to podcast for aspiring authors, and those in the trenches, who want to successfully publish a novel...or ten! Join us each week as we dive deep into writing and the publishing industry, providing expert interviews, insightful discussions, and practical tips. With our engaging and informative format, you'll get the guidance you need to navigate the complex world of publishing. Start your journey today!
Visit www.WritersWithWrinkles.net for more info.
Writers With Wrinkles
BONUS: First Pages: How to Hook Readers Fast in MG Fantasy
In this bonus episode of Writers With Wrinkles, Beth and Lisa critique the first page of a new upper middle grade fantasy novel, Kiki Won’t Be Goddess of the Underworld. If you’re an MG author looking for feedback on opening pages, strong character voice, or how to start your novel in the right place, this episode delivers clear, practical writing advice you can apply immediately.
Beth and Lisa read the full first page aloud and break down what works, what needs tightening, and how to improve pacing and clarity. They discuss why this submission has such a strong middle grade voice, how to avoid confusing world-building when mixing mythology, and what every MG writer should consider when crafting a compelling first chapter. Their critique highlights common pitfalls—like starting the story too early or overloading the reader with details—and offers smart strategies to create tension and hook readers fast.
What listeners will learn:
• How to craft a strong MG narrative voice
• How to clarify world-building in a fantasy opening
• How to identify where your story truly begins
• How to balance detail, pacing, and stakes in the first chapter
• Why breadcrumbing tension keeps young readers engaged
• What emotional dynamics resonate most with middle grade readers
This episode is perfect for writers revising their first pages, querying a middle grade fantasy manuscript, or trying to understand what grabs literary agents and young readers from page one. Beth and Lisa’s feedback will help you sharpen your opening, strengthen your story structure, and build a clearer path into your world.
Links & Resources
Submit your First Pages: writerswithwrinkles.net
Upcoming guest episode (Dec. 8): Mari Kesselring, Publishing Manager
Subscribe & Connect
Don’t miss future episodes of the podcast! Subscribe, rate, and review Writers With Wrinkles wherever you listen. Submit questions for Ask Beth & Lisa at writerswithwrinkles.net or follow them on Instagram @writerswithwrinkles.
Inspiring and hilarious stories of creatives successfully navigating their careers.
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Beth McMullen: Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen.
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Lisa Schmid: And I'm Lisa Schmidt!
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Beth McMullen: And this is Season 5 bonus episode of Writers with Wrinkles. Now, we are doing this totally off the cuff, because I did not write any notes for the intro, so, I think we did pretty good. What do you think?
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Lisa Schmid: I think you're a madcap, and I don't even know who you are.
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Beth McMullen: We set our names and the name of the show. And again, bonus episodes. What these are, we just make them and put them up, so if something happens that we're like, we gotta talk about this right now, we're gonna make an episode and we're gonna put it up.
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Beth McMullen: We've decided to do first pages as bonus episodes, because that allows us to do…
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Beth McMullen: more of them, more frequently, and get them out to you quicker. So, hopefully, that works for you guys.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, and we did get a lot of feedback. We've gotten a lot of feedback lately. People are, like…
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Lisa Schmid: Sending us lots of messages.
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Beth McMullen: We are taking over the universe.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.
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Lisa Schmid: We are. My friend… I have a friend that sent me, like, she sent me a little, group chat snap, or a snap of a group chat, where they were talking about riders with wrinkles, and I was like, oh my god, people are talking about us, that's crazy.
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Lisa Schmid: Sometimes when we're sitting here recording it, I find… I'm just like, is anybody gonna listen? Like… People actually…
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Beth McMullen: I feel like that with everything that I do. Like, if I write something, does anybody care? Probably not. I don't know, maybe. Yeah, we have been… we kind of… I feel like we leveled up recently, because suddenly we're getting lots of
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Beth McMullen: feedback on, and maybe it's, like, the topics, or maybe it's just, like, discovery, people are stumbling upon the show,
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Beth McMullen: But, all good, and we thank you for tuning in, because without you, it's just Lisa and I talking to each other, which we would do anyway, even…
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Lisa Schmid: I do it all the time.
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Beth McMullen: But it's more fun to have you along for the ride, right?
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Lisa Schmid: Definitely. So we did get feedback where people, wanted to hear the first pages. I think the first time we recorded, our first episode, where we did not read the page,
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Lisa Schmid: We were trying to do it for time's sake, and just, you know, streamlining it, but we got a lot of feedback from people saying that they want to hear the first page, so we have switched over to that.
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Beth McMullen: So we are now…
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Beth McMullen: reading first pages, but we're only doing one per episode. Yeah. Because it does make it a little longer, but honestly, like.
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Beth McMullen: If you feel like you've lost some of it, you can go back and listen to it again.
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Beth McMullen: So, that actually makes it, you know, it's not like… you can rewind, as we used to say in the olden days.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah.
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Lisa Schmid: Be kind, rewind.
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Beth McMullen: Back in the days when we were old and wrinkly, right?
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Lisa Schmid: We're showing our wrinkles there. Be kind, rewind.
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Beth McMullen: We are, we are.
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Beth McMullen: So we're reading the full page, we are still not sharing names, but we are sharing all the other content that we get, and then we're going to talk about the…
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Beth McMullen: the pages. And this week's bonus episode
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Beth McMullen: is an upper-middle-grade fantasy, which, like, come on, how fun is that?
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Lisa Schmid: It is fun. It is fun. It's… and we have so many, it's get… we have a lot of bonus episodes to get through, because we.
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Beth McMullen: Yes.
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Lisa Schmid: And they're still coming in.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah, and that's kind of what motivated us to switch over to this bonus episode approach. We can do more episodes, and we can get them out to you faster, because otherwise we were…
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Beth McMullen: Doing them once a month, which is not enough for the amount of pages that we've received, and we want to make sure that we're helping everybody who's asking for help.
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Beth McMullen: And that we get these, these pages back out to you. And as a reminder, we also email the author directly with
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Beth McMullen: our feedback. So, if you are the author of a particular First Pages episode, don't worry about trying to write everything down. You will get it back in a more organized fashion, probably, than the way we talk about it.
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Lisa Schmid: I know, we're a little chaotic. I've decided that.
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Beth McMullen: I feel like that's our brand, though.
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Beth McMullen: Chaos is king.
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Lisa Schmid: I… yeah, we are. We're chaotic.
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Beth McMullen: Well, and I also feel like we try… we don't… I mean, there are people who obsess over something before they try it. They want everything to be…
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Beth McMullen: you know, perfectly aligned and organized and ready to go, so that when they roll it out, it's as close to perfect as they can make it. And we are actually the opposite of that. Like, we'll try anything, some of it works, some of it doesn't, and I think that, like.
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Beth McMullen: That's just our style.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah. Well, you, yeah. And you're always, like, whenever I message you an idea, I'm like, what do you think about this? You're like, okay.
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Beth McMullen: I… I mean, I think my… one of my… the best things about me and the worst things about me is I always say yes.
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Lisa Schmid: You do!
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Beth McMullen: And then sometimes later I regret it, but, you know, most of the time I don't. And honestly, like, what's the harm that can come from trying something? You can… you don't have to do it again. You can always just say, no thank you, once was enough.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, well, that's… a lot of our first episodes were…
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Beth McMullen: Like, I like to refer to him as a little wonky. Like, I wonder if when people first start listening to us, that they're like, I'm gonna go back and listen to the first one, and they're like… Oh, God, I hope not, please don't.
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Lisa Schmid: is it happening?
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Beth McMullen: If you are listening for the first time, do not go back to the beginning. Actually, we could have been a lot worse, I think that, but we learned quite a bit in the first, maybe, 10 episodes, so…
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah, go back and listen, but you…
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Beth McMullen: It comes with a warning label. It's a little discombobulated.
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Lisa Schmid: I dig… I would say that I feel like we're,
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Lisa Schmid: we are improving, and… and I can… it's always nice when we do an episode and we get lots of feedback or messages. Like, on the last one where we talked about,
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Lisa Schmid: you know, contracts that aren't great contracts, that you're trying to decide. We've gotten several messages about people who are in that very same position, who are just like, I got an offer, it's not a good offer, and I was thinking about taking it, or I was vacillating back and forth, and it really helped me make a decision.
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Lisa Schmid: And that's kind of, like, I'm not… you know, we're not encouraging people to throw away offers, but we just want people to always, like, think about the big picture.
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Lisa Schmid: And, you know, because it's… if you want to be here for the long run, you gotta be thinking about everything in big picture.
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Beth McMullen: You have to drive the bus.
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Beth McMullen: You can't let the pigeon drive the bus, you must drive the bus yourself.
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Beth McMullen: And by bus, I mean your career. So, take, you know, take control. Take control. Don't be shy. Don't feel like…
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Beth McMullen: You should feel extreme gratitude that somebody has offered to publish your work. Like, they need you as much as you need them. It is a two-way street. I think sometimes writers forget that because we're so, you know, we're like…
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Beth McMullen: Needy, and a little bit, like…
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Beth McMullen: desperate feeling at times, which, you know, we all are, and that's totally fine and normal and not bizarre, but I think you also have to pull back from those feelings a little bit and look at it objectively.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, and I think that when you do get an offer, it's so amazing, because, you know, you know, everyone knows how hard it is to get an offer, and it feels like… same thing when you're going to sign with an agent, and you're seeing all these red flags, and you're like, is that opportunity ever going to present itself again? So you're… you're almost like, I better take it while I can, like, we're so…
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Lisa Schmid: Like, ahhhh.
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Beth McMullen: You know, I want, you know, I want this so bad.
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Lisa Schmid: That we make decisions that aren't…
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Lisa Schmid: Clear, rational thinking, because we're so, like, you know, wanting this so bad, and knowing how very hard it is to get
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Lisa Schmid: Even, you know, one foot…
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Beth McMullen: forward each time. Totally.
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Lisa Schmid: And the progress of, of… trying to get published. So, we get it. We've been there. I've been there.
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Beth McMullen: We're here for you. Okay, let's move on to our first pages.
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Lisa Schmid: Alright!
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Beth McMullen: Because I really like this one, it's fun.
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Lisa Schmid: Alright.
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Beth McMullen: The title of this upper middle grade fantasy is Kiki Won't Be Goddess of the Underworld, which I love the title. Right off the bat, I'm like, this is funny.
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Beth McMullen: Okay, so here's my reading. I wish that I could read, like, a… like an audiobook, actor, but I'm not that good, so I apologize in advance.
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Lisa Schmid: I'll be critiquing you afterwards.
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Beth McMullen: Okay, give me the critique of my reading, and I will just hit stop recording and this show will end.
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Beth McMullen: Okay, here we go.
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Beth McMullen: They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but falling is for the weak. Me? I'm taking a running start and leaping as far as I can.
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Beth McMullen: Hayden can stuff it with his orders, God of the dead or not. Besides, he won't find out about my transgressions until after I've already committed them. That is, as long as all goes to plan.
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Beth McMullen: I swipe my black and neon yellow mountain biking jersey from my drawer and shove it in my duffel for later.
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Beth McMullen: Hayden'll kill me for this, but better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. I know, I know, most kids call their father dad, but it's not like that with me and Hayden. More than his kid, I'm his spawn, heir to his throne. And like Hayden, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve. They don't call me the devil's daughter for nothing.
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Beth McMullen: I reach for the handle on my black-as-night closet door. Its eerie carvings, spiders, Frankenstein heads, and witch hats put a smile on my face despite the mourning circumstances. It's distinctly underworld.
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Beth McMullen: I wipe away the cobwebs stretching across the frame, a gift from the mansion's resident spider, my friend, Tarantella. I really loathe destroying such an intricately woven design, but it's the only way into the closet.
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Beth McMullen: As I'm rummaging from my gloves and knee pads, there's a knock on my bedroom door. It swings open, and Hayden appears, a wicked smile on his crimson face. Great. Exactly who I wanted to avoid this morning.
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Beth McMullen: I kick my duffel into the closet, hoping he hasn't noticed, and sheepishly shut it behind me. He furrows his caterpillar brows, narrows his dark eyes, and strokes his long goatee. It's just how he looks. Mean. I can see why people shudder in his presence.
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Beth McMullen: At the moment, he's wearing his most formal attire. The red ceremonial cape draped around his shoulders taunts me with its reminder about today's lizard bake, a tedious political gala he's demanding I attend.
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Beth McMullen: Good morning! His eyes glisten like shadows as he throws open my curtains and a tinted red sunbeam cascades across the floor.
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Beth McMullen: It's good!
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Lisa Schmid: Good, it's good. The first thing when I first read this, I wrote in, letters, or just in bold letters, we've got voice, exclamation point.
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Lisa Schmid: Really good.
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Lisa Schmid: What did you think when you first…
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Beth McMullen: I think the voice is a pretty major strength, right? It's bold, it's snarky, it's confident. I think it is a great fit for the upper-middle grade genre that she's writing towards.
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Beth McMullen: You've got some humor, you've got that rebellious attitude that I think works really well with this age group and kind of sucks the writer in, or the reader in.
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Beth McMullen: Pretty quickly.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, I loved it. So that, I mean, that was the first thing. The first line, I was just like, we've got voice, it's happening already, right now. And I love the opening lines. There's, like, little things that I would probably tighten it up, because I think it's, like.
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Lisa Schmid: It's such a bold line that you could almost make it a little bit shorter, just to, like, make it an exclamation point.
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Lisa Schmid: I love, okay, they say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but falling is for the weak. Oh my god, I love that on so many levels. Like, right there, it just says who the person is.
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Lisa Schmid: And then I would… I don't know if I would take the me, I'm taking a running start and leaping as far as I can. I think I'd leave that in, but then it says, Hayden can stuff it with his orders. She has comma, god of the dead or not. I would put it, Hayden can stuff it with his orders, period.
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Lisa Schmid: God of the dead are not.
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Lisa Schmid: Like, every… I feel like everything needs to be kind of punched up, do you know what I mean? Just like…
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Lisa Schmid: This is such an exclamation point of moment.
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Lisa Schmid: So that's just, like, little things where you're just kind of, like, this is your opening line. What do you think about that?
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Beth McMullen: I… also liked… the opening lines. I think…
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Beth McMullen: There is a little bit of confusion about Hayden.
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Beth McMullen: Are we in Greek mythology?
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Beth McMullen: Are we not in Greek mythology? Are we in a mash-up? Because…
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Beth McMullen: Very soon thereafter, two paragraphs, we're referring to her as the devil's daughter. So…
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Beth McMullen: Hades, if that's who we're supposed to be here, and the devil are not the same, and Hades was never referred to as the devil. I think there's a little bit of clarifying
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Beth McMullen: like, you're mixing Hades, Devil's Daughter and kind of demonic visual cues. Is that intentional or unintentional, and it needs to be clarified super quickly, because it's a little distracting. For me, it was a little distracting. Like, I didn't know…
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Beth McMullen: what potential universe I had landed in,
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Beth McMullen: And I want to see that clarified quickly at the beginning, and that might just be…
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Beth McMullen: removing the devil's reference, the devil's Daughter reference, even though it's a great line, because then you're like…
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Beth McMullen: you're leaning more toward, sort of, Greek mythological roots, and you are not kind of muddying the waters with this whole other set of, stories that
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Beth McMullen: that might just be confusing for the reader. So I want to see that. I also feel like…
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Beth McMullen: You've got apple falling from the tree and running and leaping.
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Beth McMullen: those don't align, I would like to see…
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Beth McMullen: one of them, I would say maybe, like…
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Beth McMullen: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but falling is for the weak? Is she implying that she is like her father, but because she's like her father, she'd never fall from that stupid tree, because she's, like, too badass for that? Is she trying to get away from him? Is there a way to, like…
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Beth McMullen: Tweak that opening line so that it just flows better through the next Couple of, of, of lines.
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Lisa Schmid: I thought, you.
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Beth McMullen: beginning.
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Lisa Schmid: Well, in reference to that, I felt like…
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Lisa Schmid: So, when it says the, apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but falling is for the week, period. I almost think she should take out that next sign, because it… she's already implying that she… to me, I took it as, she's not weak.
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Lisa Schmid: And so, she's, you know, by that next sign, me, I'm taking a running leaping start, you know, running start. I don't think it's necessary, because it's already implied in the first line that she said. Does that make sense?
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Beth McMullen: I actually… yes, totally. I actually have a note that says…
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Beth McMullen: Is this your first sentence? And I highlighted, Hayden will kill me for this, but better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Because that line does everything of the first paragraph.
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Beth McMullen: with much… in a much tighter way, and with a lot of economy, right? Because now you're like… or you can even say…
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Beth McMullen: you know, you can make some reference to that very quickly thereafter, the reader knows that Hayden is the father. But by saying, he's gonna kill me for this.
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Beth McMullen: You're implying she's gonna do something he's not gonna like, she's gonna go against the rules, but she doesn't care, because, like, she'll just ask for forgiveness later. She's not the kind of kid who's gonna ask permission. She's gonna do what she wants to do.
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Lisa Schmid: So I feel like you could chop off that whole beginning, and start right there.
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Beth McMullen: And then you can add in the, the, you know, where she goes to the drawer to get the mountain bike jersey, you could put that underneath, too.
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Lisa Schmid: Oh my god, yes, that is perfect. The Hayden will kill me for this. That is the perfect first line.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah.
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Lisa Schmid: I would say so.
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Beth McMullen: too.
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Lisa Schmid: yeah, Hayden will kill me for this, like.
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Beth McMullen: Right.
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Lisa Schmid: emphasize it.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, no, that's your first line. Isn't that funny? Like, sometimes it's one of those things where it's… thankfully, it's not the first… the second chapter. The second chapter is your first page.
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Beth McMullen: I actually just wrote a whole substack about that, because more often than not, people start in the wrong place.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.
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Beth McMullen: Now, some of that is, like, you're just… warming up, right?
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah.
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Beth McMullen: it's like doing dynamic stretches before you go for a long run. Like, you're trying to get ready, you're trying to, for riders, get in the voice. Like, how do I… how do I get in the voice? I'm trying to get in the voice, and then… then you're off to the races, but you're off to the races on, like, chapter 5, right? And…
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Beth McMullen: you end up having to cut out all that stuff at the beginning. This is like a micro version of that, where it's really just a matter of, what, like, 3 sentences? 4 sentences that you don't need, because your fifth sentence
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Beth McMullen: Says everything you need to say in a much more concise, better, cutting way that matches the voice perfectly.
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Lisa Schmid: Hey, you know what's really interesting is that as we're talking about this, I'd be really curious to see, like, what it is she's doing, that this is leading up to, because I almost feel like if she drops in the action.
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Lisa Schmid: it's… it would almost be better. Like, I feel like right now, now that we're talking about this, like, we're just… we're setting it up, she's in the bedroom, but it's like, is that really interesting enough, where if you drop it in the action, which is probably starting to happen on the second chapter, that's probably where the book starts. Now that we're talking about it, this is very reminiscent of something I always do, it's where I'm setting it up.
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Lisa Schmid: figuring out the character, trying to lay the groundwork, and this is when my evil critique partner, Catherine, always says.
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Lisa Schmid: your story starts on the second chapter, and it's so… I feel like…
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Lisa Schmid: this is… this reminds me of my first, chapter for Heart and Souls, where I was in the bedroom and setting things up, and then she's like, yeah, you need to start in the second. She was right. So I'm wondering, like, what that second chapter is, like, why not… let's just drop it right into the action.
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Beth McMullen: I absolutely agree. I think that if we were reading…
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Beth McMullen: you know, 25 pages of this, we would see the action starting, because that's the…
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Beth McMullen: that's the stakes. Like, she's doing something she's not supposed to do, and there has to be a reason for that, and that's the stakes. And we need those stakes up front, especially with…
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Beth McMullen: Middle grade, because we're in this… we're in this attention economy where you get, like, 10 seconds to prove that you're worth sticking around for, and…
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Beth McMullen: I think that if you… if you can convey, first of all, the universe, which I think is gonna be pretty cool, and you can convey this rebellious character, and that she's rebelling against a god,
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Beth McMullen: And you can put her into a dicey situation that she's in because of her own choices, then you've got, like, heart-pounding action.
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Lisa Schmid: Right.
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Beth McMullen: And you're not sacrificing voice, because this author has a very good grip on her voice.
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Beth McMullen: Yes. And you are…
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Beth McMullen: immediately revving the engine, right? Like, you're… you're… you're starting with a bang, and I think that's definitely something for her con… her to consider, even if we haven't read beyond the first pages. I think… I think that's an important thing for her to think about.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, and it's something… I think it's something we've all done, is, you know, working it out, like you said. So it's just that there's so much good stuff in here that I think.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah, there's a lot of really good stuff. Like, it's smooth, it reads well, I love the imagery. One thing about the setting that I had a note on, other than clarifying the mythology lane, like, which lane are you in for the mythology? That's kind of a larger question.
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Beth McMullen: I feel like…
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Beth McMullen: that larger question is related to the specifics of this environment that she's presenting, and I worry it might be a place where readers feel a little bit unanchored right away, which you don't want,
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Beth McMullen: So, like…
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Beth McMullen: Are we… we're in the underworld now? What version of the underworld is this? I think a couple of… of…
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Beth McMullen: words right around the closet and Tarantella moment would work well to say, here's where we are, and, this is why, you know, what this closet is about. Like, we… it's…
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Beth McMullen: you know, it exists in this larger setting. Just a little bit more clarification, so you're not…
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Beth McMullen: guessing. And part of that is, I think, by clarifying the mythology.
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Beth McMullen: in your own head, so you know where you are, I think some of that will flow naturally from having those questions answered. Because the details are great. I love the details. They're, like, really creepy. You can really see it. The red sun beam, I thought, is really great. Like, you can… you can see that.
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Lisa Schmid: And the other thing I, you know, keep in mind is, like, I love details, but sometimes if you overdo details, it can be distracting. So, for example, she said, I swipe my black and neon yellow mountain bike jersey. I'm like, do we need that? Can she just say, swipe my mountain biking jersey or my biking jersey?
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Lisa Schmid: From the drawer. It's just, like, it just gets… when you bog down sentences with too many details, it loses that pacing, because a lot of times, readers will kind of, you know, glide over that anyway.
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Lisa Schmid: And so it just be careful with too many details. I know we like to get really creative, and, you know, I do this too, where you're just like, I'm so smart and so creative. I'm a writer.
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Beth McMullen: Well, I think you have to make decisions about the details. Like, I would recommend in this type of story that you're using those details to ground the setting, like, ground us firmly in this underworld, so that…
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Beth McMullen: Like, the bike jersey color is less important than, you know, the sky outside is always, you know.
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Beth McMullen: gray, or something that makes us really see where we are. Because you do, like you said, you can't have too many details, so the ones you do have, you have to use judiciously.
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Lisa Schmid: Yes, and there's one thing that really, it popped out at me, and especially when you're… you're setting the tone for who somebody is, she was… she described his, his cat… his brows as caterpillar.
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Lisa Schmid: And that just, you know, all I could think of is the guy from up.
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Lisa Schmid: You know, the guy with the bushy eyebrows? You know what I mean?
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Beth McMullen: I think…
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Lisa Schmid: I know this is such a small, weird little detail, but I want something more sleek and sinister, you know, not something
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Lisa Schmid: for, you know, his caterpillar a brows, which is… it's always fun, but it's like, all I see is, like, somebody, like, an old school teacher, or.
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Beth McMullen: Right.
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Lisa Schmid: So I would try to make it something more sinister that falls more in line with the persona that you're trying to project on the, you know.
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Lisa Schmid: page.
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Beth McMullen: Yes.
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Beth McMullen: Yes. I like the humor. I think that, the lizard bake thing made me laugh. I think that's…
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Beth McMullen: Good, I also think that there is an opportunity to…
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Beth McMullen: If you're going to start with this scene.
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Beth McMullen: Like, say you feel like this is the appropriate place to start, rather than potentially later on in the pages.
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Beth McMullen: that you have to tease a little bit more about the thing that she's gonna do that she's not supposed to do, a breadcrumb about the plan. What happens if she gets caught? Like.
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Beth McMullen: raise the stakes enough that the reader has to know what she's gonna do.
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Beth McMullen: So, if you're not dropping right into the action, and you can actually even do this if you're dropping right into the action, because you will have a breath or two before you're in it, and you can explain
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Beth McMullen: what happens if this goes wrong? What do I stand to lose if I get caught executing this crazy plan of mine?
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Beth McMullen: So again, you can still have that… that breadcrumb tension, even if you're dropped right into the action, but if you don't, if you start with her in this kind of before the stuff gets rolling.
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Beth McMullen: then I think by teasing the…
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Beth McMullen: the potential of the plan, or again, what she stands to lose, or what's gonna complicate it, you get more engagement from the reader. They're kinda… they're… now they want to know.
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Lisa Schmid: Brown.
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Lisa Schmid: Well, and it, it, you're right, it just… it has to be, you just, you need action, like, heading into it right away.
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Lisa Schmid: especially in this day and age with, like you said, short attention spans. And this is something, you know, with, when I was doing Heart and Souls, I cut that first chapter, but I found a place for it later on in the book.
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Lisa Schmid: Because it was… I needed that… that scene in there, but it wasn't that first chapter, because sometimes you're just like, oh, it's such a good chapter. I just took that whole thing and kind of put it someplace else.
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Lisa Schmid: and changed it up a little bit, and it worked really well. So that's the other thing. It's like, you can almost use this if maybe you like it so much, and move around your chapters.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah, and I think that… that is actually a pretty common thing, where you're… you're introducing stuff that you don't need to introduce yet, can wait till later, or it's better later, or it's just not catchy enough to start with. Yeah.
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Beth McMullen: I think that, you know, just because you are not starting in a specific place anymore doesn't mean that you're losing all of that detail. It can go in other places.
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Lisa Schmid: Yeah, there's another thing… Oh, go ahead. Oh, go ahead.
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Beth McMullen: I was just gonna say, I loved the,
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Beth McMullen: when she's hiding the duffel in the closet, I like that… that's kind of a classic middle grade moment of rebellion, which I like. Like, she's already… we know she's up to no good. What… what is… what is the no good? That… that's the fun part to find out. I think the…
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Beth McMullen: relationship tension, like that independence versus control between Kiki the Kid and her dad gives…
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Beth McMullen: Readers of this age group.
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Beth McMullen: something to attach to emotionally. Like, a lot of people… a lot of people in this age group are gonna relate to that, well, I want a little bit more freedom for myself. So I think that's gonna resonate with the… this age group.
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Lisa Schmid: Oh, yeah, because in middle school, that is where kids are… and sadly, I've gone through this, where your middle school kids, they are pulling away from you. And before, where you were the, you know, the center of a parent's universe, now they're, like, pushing away, and they're, you know, asserting their independence.
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Lisa Schmid: And they're… they have secrets, and they all have secrets, and they, you know, they're doing things that we don't know anything about, and that's, you know, from the role of a parent, you know, you can kind of… it's… you can see how these kids, like, want to have that. Their world is expanding, and it's without their parents.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah.
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Lisa Schmid: So kids relate to that.
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Lisa Schmid: One of the things I was gonna, just going back a moment, where I talked about how I'd rearranged that chapter, or dropped it in someplace else, something you told me when I was writing Ollie Oxley was to get a bunch of, index cards and write each chapter, like chapter 1, chapter 2, and what was kind of the bullet point for that chapter, and then lay it out on my
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Lisa Schmid: table.
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Lisa Schmid: And so that I could kind of go through it and make sure it flowed well.
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Lisa Schmid: And so that's one thing… that's a… that helped me with that book immensely. And so, that's something that's a really good,
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Lisa Schmid: you know, it's a good thing to work out by just filling it all out, laying it out on your table, and getting a big picture of it to see the flow of it. Because you might find a place for another chapter.
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Beth McMullen: Yeah, and I think it also helps you figure out if there's stuff you don't need. Right. Right? Like, there's no… this does not flow logically to the next chapter. I don't need this here, I need something else here, or I don't need any of it, like, it attaches well to the chapter before the chapter I'm getting rid of.
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Lisa Schmid: So yeah, there's a lot of… I think there's a lot of…
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Beth McMullen: opportunity… like, I… I think we get stuck in this idea that we can't restructure our work, that it has to exist the way we originally laid it out, and that…
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Beth McMullen: isn't true, and more often than not.
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Beth McMullen: you will benefit from that restructuring, because you've just had a longer time now, by the time you get to the end with this manuscript, and so you're going to be able to see things that you couldn't see when you were on Chapter 2.
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Beth McMullen: So now, suddenly, you will see that Chapter 1 no longer has the bang for your buck that you thought it did, because you've gone through this whole long writing process, you know your story better, you know, like, what the beats are.
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Beth McMullen: And maybe that's no longer something that you need, or you need to move it. So, I think there's… it just makes sense, if you think about the whole of the writing project, that you're going to rearrange things.
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Lisa Schmid: Now?
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Beth McMullen: So, okay, we obviously like this a lot. I would definitely be… jump into Chapter 2 and keep reading,
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Beth McMullen: Top priority revisions, in my mind, are clarify the mythology lane early.
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Beth McMullen: sharpen the stakes a bit about what she's up to. I think ground us a little bit more firmly in the setting by just tweaking a few of those details.
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Beth McMullen: And I love the idea of maybe rearranging, strengthening that opening line to match that very strong voice that follows. Like, I think lean into that voice, it is absolutely the shining star of these pages.
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Lisa Schmid: 100%.
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Lisa Schmid: That's a good one. I saw it.
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Beth McMullen: It was the gift.
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Lisa Schmid: My hands, I rub my hands together, I'm like, here we go!
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Beth McMullen: I know, I'm a sucker for the upper middle grade fantasy. Obviously, I've written some, so, you know, it's my… I'm always happy to read it. So thank you for submitting, and to the author, we will be sending you all of these notes in a much more coherent fashion, so that you can have them for your own
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Beth McMullen: purposes, and… We hope to see Kiki won't Be Goddess of the Underworld on a shelf.
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Beth McMullen: In a bookstore, sometime soon.
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Lisa Schmid: Yay. Yes. Yes, please!
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Beth McMullen: Yes, please, more of that.
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Beth McMullen: All right, everybody, thank you for joining us for our bonus episode of First Pages. Keep your eyes open for more of these, they will be coming your way every week or two for the foreseeable future until we run out of pages, which hopefully we don't. If you're thinking, like, I don't know, maybe I'll send my pages, send your pages! You have nothing to lose.
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Beth McMullen: And on December 8th, we have an episode with Mari Kesselring dropping, which I think is going to be very interesting. She's an editor, and we hope that you will join us for that. And until then…
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Beth McMullen: Happy reading, writing, and listening! Bye, Lisa!
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Lisa Schmid: Bye, Beth, bye guys!
