Warm welcome to our new listeners, be sure to follow us on Instagram @88CUPSOFTEA to keep up with our latest posts and Instagram stories where we announce new episodes and essays,  feature our favorite quotes, and host Instagram Story takeovers by some of your favorite authors. So make sure to head over to https://www.instagram.com/88cupsoftea/ so you don't miss out on the next takeover!  --------------------------------------- Have you been researching different ways to strengthen your craft? Or how to build tension in stories? How about strategies for finding time to finish your manuscript? We talk about it all and more with Marie Rutkoski. Marie Rutkoski is the author of The Shadow Society, the Kronos Chronicles, and the New York Times-bestselling Winner’s Trilogy. We begin our conversation by discussing her love for storytelling and the role her family played in inspiring her to craft stories. We'll learn how writing her dissertation in college taught her how to structure a novel and inspire the idea behind her first novel. We then move on to discuss her newly published novel The Midnight Lie, her experience crafting a queer romance, and her heartwarming coming out story. She shares how hiring a freelance editor can help strengthen your novel before entering the querying process, how to craft persistent tension in your story, and how to avoid cultural appropriation and underrepresentation when writing about a culture separate from your own. And later, we discuss a writing strategy that can help you craft your novel while working full time and unique ways you can practice the art of storytelling away from the page. Please say 'Hi' to Marie on Twitter! https://twitter.com/marierutkoski Head over to her shownotes page at https://88cupsoftea.com/marie-rutkoski to find the resources and books mentioned in her episode, tweetable quotes, and the timestamps of highlights throughout the entire conversation.