Your thoughts?

[Ginger]

I’m looking for feedback on something that I’ve been pondering for a while.



I recently completed the final draft of my horror novel. I believe it to be a strong and original plot, with nothing similar to anything Stephen King wrote, and definitely no vampires.



Here’s the problem. I’ve been researching agents and very, very few of them have horror listed under what the represent. Everything I read seems to say that horror is a dying breed!?



Am I shooting myself in the foot by calling it a horror novel? Should I call it a thriller instead and hope a potential agent gets past the first sentence in the query? Although it does not contain much gore, it does contain supernatural elements and is designed to frighten and horrify, so I’m pretty darn sure ‘Horror’ is the correct genre.





On a side note, do your query letters usually open with something like, ‘Dear Agent, I am seeking representation for my horror novel entitled ------,’ or do you go straight to the hook after ‘Dear Agent.’? I’m thinking that if the latter is the case, hopefully my hook will get them before they realize it’s the dreaded ‘horror’ novel! :Shrug:

[La Reine]

I don't know anything about horror, but you might try posting this in the agent thread as well. Also, search around. I remember reading something similar thread on this issue too.

[Garpy]

If you can describe it as 'thriller' then I reccomend you do so. Dean Koontz writes what I consider to be King-esque horror, and I believe you'll find his books under the thriller banner, as well as horror.

If there's some supernatural content, then maybe you could call it a 'supernatural thriller'. If the supernatrual content is arguably ambiguous (ie: whatever spooky things happen, might just be in the character's mind) then you could perhaps label it 'psychological thriller'.

Stephen King I think went a long way to cornering that sort of soft-horror market, and for my money, it wouldn't hurt to suggest your work is in a similar vein. He still sells well...and I've often heard mutterings amongst pro's in the publishing biz about 'looking for the next King'.

[Lindsey]

This is just my opinion.... but I would much rather pick up a book under the thriller genre than horror. That is all I have to say, sorry.

[stormie]

In my mind, horror represents gore. Thriller represents either the psychological or supernatural.

As for starting off your letter, some say to state something about how you found that particular agent or editor, others say to start off with a hook. It's your call. Just make sure you have that hook in there, and that you can say it in three or four sentences.

My two cents!

[SRHowen]

For query letter help see here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13531

[scribbler1382]

Everything I read seems to say that horror is a dying breed!?

If you listen to the pundits, horror has been "dying" since about 1985. And while the publishing industry doesn't necessarily correlate to the movie industry, think about all the movies that have come out in the past 2 or 3 years and how many of them were horror. Horror isn't going anywhere. It will always exist. BUT (and this is a huge but) it tends to exist under other names for the most part, lately. Be it SF, Fantasy, suspense, thriller, etc., I find a huge amount of the books I read in those genres would be classed as Horror back in the day.

So, unless you've got heads popping off every few seconds, what you have is a dark fantasy, or SF/Thriller, or a Psychological Thriller, or (you get the idea).

Once you get an agent to read it and represent you, they'll advise you on how to categorize your work. In the meantime, find some authors you like who write the same kind of thing you do and go after their agents.