The Shit No One Tells You About Writing
Taking Big Risks That Pay Off & Breaking the Rules With Intentionality
14 May 2026
Chapter 1: What inspired Alessandra Ranelli to write 'Murder at the Hotel Orient'?
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What's up, everyone? This is Cece. So I recently grabbed lunch with an acquiring editor from HarperCollins who told me that the number of submissions she's been getting has nearly doubled. And I wasn't surprised at all because every agent and editor I know has been talking about how the volume of submission keeps increasing.
So personally, that is a wonderful thing, because it's more reading for me, but it also means I have more chances of matching with authors. I consider it a privilege to review queries on Books with Hooks, and of course, in my submissions inbox. But at the same time, I talk to writers who tell me that they wish agents would read more than a few pages because...
And I quote, my story gets better in chapter two. I have to be honest, this kills me. It's like me wanting chocolate chip cookies to have the nutritional value of kale. It's just not realistic. Like it or not, no agent, no acquiring editor is going to stick around to see if a submission gets better. It's not because we're mean. It's because we get dozens and dozens every day.
I know it's harsh, but ambitious writers embrace harsh realities. So here it goes. It's your job to make your opening pages irresistible, to make agents crave it, to make agents want to read more. That's why I'm so excited about my upcoming course, Starting It Right. How to begin your story in the best place and in the best way. I created this course after studying hundreds of books.
I've mapped out elements that are present in the beginning of all successful novels and memoirs. And I've designed checklists, actual checklists, that you can use to ensure that your story's beginning is seducing your reader.
we'll cover how to write a great first line different types of beginnings and how you can choose the best one the best place to start and the best way to start yes these are totally different things when it makes sense to add a prologue and when it doesn't how to frame your inciting incident in an appealing way
how to balance exposition and mystery, how to include context but not weigh it down with too much backstory, and what to do if your story has more than one POV or timeline. Most of all, I'm going to show you how to make readers want to turn to chapter two. Join me for this multi-day course designed to help you break through the noise.
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Chapter 2: How did Alessandra navigate the challenges of querying her first novel?
We're talking hundreds of slides with real-world examples and specific techniques, plus a super fun surprise that I can't wait to share. I hope to see you there.
Welcome to our show, The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. I'm bestselling author Bianca Murray and I'm joined by Cece Lira of Wendy Sherman Associates and Carly Waters of PS Literary. Hi, everyone. Today's guest is an American writer living in Vienna, Austria. She is known for her New York Times modern love essay, Two Kisses We Never Talked About.
As part of extensive book research, she left her career as a pastry chef and became a receptionist at a traditional hotel. She has the full support of the real hotel Orient and has been granted access to all of its rooms, even the hidden ones. Dun, dun, dun. Murder at the Hotel Orient is her debut novel. So here's a bit of flap copy for you. Don't be shy, darling. Ring the bell.
In modern Vienna, American Sterling Lockwood is the loyal concierge at the infamous Hotel Orient, where cameras are banned, aliases are required, and every guest has something to hide. After a double murder, Sterling must turn detective to clear her name. But uncovering the truth will require breaking the Orient's sacred code of secrecy while keeping a few secrets of her own.
For those of you who aren't watching on YouTube, I'm showing you a very battered, very lived-in copy of this book. And I know there's a lot of people out there who will think it's sacrilege and are gasping at how I could...
mishandle a book like this but this is what a book looks like to me once i've loved it and i've lived in it and let it live in me so there we go we will link to it on our bookshop.org affiliate page oh yeah we go and alessandra is holding a much neater cover That's, I love, I love both covers. They're stunning. Okay. So you guys must watch on YouTube so you can see them. Okay.
So I loved this book. We're going to dive into this book as much as we possibly can, but I want to go through this whole journey with you from when you got the idea to write this book to when it's sold. Take us through everything.
I don't think we have time for everything. It's a great story, but it really begins in the, like one of the worst weeks of my life. I had been Fired in German, dumped via text, and then rejected from grad school by ghosting via email. So things were not looking great for me. In Austria, when you lose a job, this was the first time I really got fired from a job.
When you lose a job, you still work two weeks.
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Chapter 3: What strategies did Alessandra use to pitch her book to agents?
And so I had my last shift. And then I decided to go out on a high note. I put on a cute dress, this polka dot dress that kind of demanded trouble. So it was a cute line cook. And I was like, maybe, maybe I'll get some luck on the way out. Did not get the line cook. But I got home and I thought, this dress needs more fun.
And I went out to the Los Bar, which is an American style cocktail bar in Vienna. And I had this really wild evening with a bunch of weird characters. And at the end of that night, this theater director in his 70s said, you know, if I were a younger man, I would invite you to the Hotel Orient. And I assume that he assumed I didn't know what that means.
So I said, first of all, I'm assuming you think I don't know what that means because I'm American, but I do. So how dare you? And second of all, would you please take me? I won't have sex with you, but like, would you take me? And I think he really thought that he would stand a chance once we got there and all of the romance took over. He was like, you know what? Fine. Why not live a little?
I'm in my seventies. So we took a taxi over to the hotel or Andy held my hand the whole way. And we walked in and I had heard about the legend of this place for a long time, but I'd never been brave enough to go because I knew that they weren't very welcome to outsiders. Or if you're too curious about,
And while he booked the room, and it was the room I dreamed of seeing, which was the Arabian Nights suite, I just kind of took a look around. And then we went into the Arabian Nights suite, which is modeled after the book. And it has this mural of Scheherazade and this big marble bathroom with a domed ceiling. It looks like the night sky. And I took off my stockings.
He took off his socks and rolled up his pants and we soaked our feet in the tub. And he told me legends of old Vienna and the hotel and said the last time he'd been there was 20 years earlier. And it was exactly the same. And we had this really interesting night. Eventually, like he put a real move on me and he had violated the terms of our agreement.
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Chapter 4: What unconventional marketing strategies did Alessandra implement for her book?
So I was like, I'm out of there because I realized that When we checked in, no one took our names and this guy could have murdered me, taken my wallet and walked out of the hotel. And I would have just been a nameless body in a room. And, you know, that would be the last anybody ever heard of me. So I realized I had to go.
I grabbed my shoes and my stockings and I ran into the hallway and I stopped at the front desk to chat with the concierge while I put my shoes on. And I remember I said, I had a great time. It's amazing. I didn't sleep with him. I didn't sleep with him. And she looked at me like, sure. And she wouldn't have cared. But I think my protestations just made it sound like I was lying.
And I said, you must love working here. And she smiled really big and said, I do. And I was like, you must see a lot of things. And she got more serious. And she was like, I do. And I left. And the sun was rising. And I wandered home. I fell asleep and I slept four hours and I woke up with a champagne headache and the idea for a book.
Amazing. Amazing. You never know where these things are coming from. And this is why I always say to people, to be a writer, you need to live. You've got to go out into the world. You need to interact with the world. You need to get messy with the world because this is where some of your best ideas will come from. Okay. So how long did it take you to write this book?
Was this the first book you ever wrote? And then after that, I want to find out like getting your agents, getting your publisher, take us through that.
Yeah.
So the very first draft of the book took me 13 months to write.
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Chapter 5: What led Mikki Brammer to transition from journalist to novelist?
Now, at the time, I had just been fired and I assumed I'd been rejected from this grad school program I'd been working for years to get into because the acceptance date had come And came and went and I didn't hear anything. And I sat with the idea for a few days because I had never written a novel before. Kept a blog. I did live storytelling and wrote poetry.
And I did professional storytelling, but as a side project, never as a main source of income. But I'd never written anything long form or that wasn't autobiographical in some way. So after sitting on the idea for a few days, what I actually did was I called my father, who is an Italian American accountant, and he's very tough love. And I said, I need you to sit down.
I have to tell you something and you're going to be mad at me. He was like, oh, God, what did you do? And I was like, everything's fine, but I need you to listen to the whole story. And then, you know, I need your advice. And then I said, there's this love hotel in Vienna that I went to the other night with a stranger. It's fine. It's fine. Don't worry. Father's having a heart attack. Yeah, yeah.
And then I'm telling him like, and I realized I could have been murdered. And the place feels like walking into an Agatha Christie home. Because your cell phones are banned and the entire place is like a time machine. They actually have rotary phones in all the rooms and a switchboard system. And I was in love.
So I explained just the initial seed of the idea, which was a murder in the hotel because it solves the cell phone problem and would feel like an Agatha Christie mystery, but could be set today. That was it. And then my dad got very quiet and he said, eventually start saving your receipts because they're going to be a tax deduction, which was his way of saying he believed in me.
So with his blessing, I took my, my mother died when I was 19 and she had a life insurance policy that left me something that I had been very careful not to use up. And this was what I used it on. So. I, with my dad's blessing, took some time before jumping into a new job and tried to write the book.
And because I'd never written a novel, the first thing I did was for about a month, I spent time just reading how to write a novel. And It was the following week. I was sitting at a cafe called Kleine's Cafe, which is in the book.
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Chapter 6: How did Mikki's fear of death influence her writing?
And it's one of my favorite spots in Vienna. And I was sitting at the counter writing the character sketch for who would be Fernando, who is the bellhop. And I think a character that everybody loves in the book. And I had showed it. I'd showed the paragraph to the bartender. And while I was sitting there, I got an email that I'd been accepted to the grad school program.
And I asked the bartender, I was like, do you have champagne? And he said, no, we have Prosecco. Why? And I said, I guess, I guess I'm celebrating. I got into that grad school program and he said, I thought you were writing a book and he poured himself a little Prosecco. Are you going to go? I thought you, he said, are you going to go? I thought you were writing a book.
And I said, yeah, I thought I was writing a book too, but I guess I, I should go, you know, I've worked for this for years. And then we clink glasses and he said, I think you're going to write the book. So yeah, I did it. It was the biggest risk I ever took. I threw away or I asked them to hold my spot for one year. I gave myself a year to try and get it together.
But when that year came up, I still didn't have an agent. I still hadn't quite finished the book, but I had just published an essay in the New York Times. So I felt confident enough at that point to take the risk, but it was the biggest gamble I've ever taken in my life. Yeah. How do I love all of that?
Was it that the essay in the modern love, did that make it easier for you down the line to find an agent or not really?
No, I really thought it might. But my modern love essay, which I'm very proud of, is autobiographical. It's closer to the work I'd been doing as a storyteller. And it's obviously a more moving subject matter. But I think Murder at the Hotel Orient is what I call a spicy whodunit. And it's deeply unserious. It's humorous. It's over the top.
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Chapter 7: What are the challenges of writing under a two-book deal?
It's reality amplified and put in a vintage soft focus glow. And so the Modern Love piece did earn me one agent who requested the full. But when I sent it, it was A, an early draft. But B, I think if you came into the project from reading the essay...
The book was not, was always going to disappoint because the essay was seven and a half years of a marriage boiled down into 1500 words and confronting mortality and what it means to love someone and be married. Like it was a huge thing in a small amount. And I do think Matha has some things to say under all the humor, but it's a very different beast.
And I found as well that later on, I had a wave of requests before I got an agent. And many of them requested, I think, because they were curious because there'd been such a big wave. And a lot of them started by reading my essay. And any agent who emailed me and said, my God, I've just read your essay, ultimately didn't sign me because they were expecting something different.
They were expecting me, not Sterling.
Yeah, it is interesting how sometimes that works in your favor and sometimes it actually works against you. Okay, so when you landed your agent, what did that look like?
So I finished the book. It took about 13 months. And in that time, I won a pitch prize, the Blue Pencil Agency pitch prize, which gave me a half hour meeting with an agent I loved. And I had entered the prize specifically because that agent was judging it.
And she had been recommended to me as a potential match from the only writing course I ever took, which was a Curtis Brown crime writing class. which was taught by Vasim Khan. And then they had a bunch of mentors who kind of managed the class. Vasim recorded the lectures. That's the only writing class I've ever taken. And I met with her. She believed in the project.
She mentored it a bit on the way and took a peek at some of the drafts. And by the time the book was ready, she was pregnant and about to go on maternity leave. So that was a heartbreaking moment. And I'd had some people who said they'd like to see it after the Dragon's Pen pitch contest as well at Harrogate, where I got four yes votes. So I sent it to them when I had earlier drafts.
But I think I hadn't quite figured it out at the time. And it was actually your podcast was part of the aha moment that really changed things. So in summary, I had Halfway through querying, I had created about 30 agents.
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Chapter 8: How do character dynamics shape the narrative in 'Good Joy, Bad Joy'?
I'd had four full requests, one near miss with this agent who I adore. And things just weren't quite clicking and I wasn't able to figure it out. So I said, okay, I'll take the 500 bucks I got for the Modern Love Essay.
And I decided to hire two editors just to look at the opening chapters because that agent had given me feedback that there were some character inconsistencies and I was looking and I could not see them. And I just wanted to be honest about this with the listeners. I do not think you need to hire an editor, but I hired one. Her name was Sarah DeSouza. She was amazing. And I hired two.
One did nothing. It was like, this is good and fix some grammar maybe. What she did was interrogate the opening chapters with the relentless curiosity of a toddler and pointed out that the book was supposed to be modern with a golden age feel. And because the setting is so old fashioned and there are no phones. it was confusing because it felt historical. And that wasn't cheeky and different.
It was actually just unclear to the reader. So that was one change I made was I signpost that in the beginning that Sterling crosses off the date on a calendar that sits between a rotary phone and a typewriter, a Ryan Middle typewriter. And yeah, what happened was I sent it off to the editor and then A week and a half later, I had a breakthrough and realized what I was doing wrong.
And I restructured the chapters. By the time I got her notes back, I had a completely different structure. And I had to look at her feedback fundamentally. So that's my advice when taking feedback is don't focus on the small picture. Focus on the big picture. But the two points she made were this feels historical. Or three points were, this feels historical. I want more.
And I put back a lot that I had cut out based on other readers who had looked at things or being told it was too slow. I had pretty much everything there in my drafts. And I threw it back in. And she said, why is Sterling, my main character, judging this couple for having an affair? And it's because I am judging them. So I am monogamous and I think you should ideally not cheat on your partner.
There are options. We live in a modern world. There are open relationships. That's fine. I think consent is important. I was judging the characters and it was so my worldview. I could not see it. But Sterling is what I would call an unethically non-monogamous pansexual lust demon. I love it. It probably feels accurate. You've read the book. So she wouldn't care.
It's her job to protect adulterers. It's an anonymous love hotel. That's the majority of the clientele who are going to be going there.
Yeah. So once you took your views out of it and made sure it was hers, then it felt more organic.
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