Setterfield

I haven't read the novel, so I'm going out on a limb here, but if something's done well, no matter how many people say not to do it, nothing else matters.

Maybe there's a conspiracy.

That works too.

In response to your post I went and read the first few pages on Amazon. I agree that the prose sounds mannered and old-fashioned, but I assume that is intentional. It very much had the tone of a gothic romance. The voice is very distinctive and really does leap off the page at you....one of those 1st person books where you start to hear the character's voice rather than your own.

I do also wonder, however, how any sort of old-fashioned or mannered novel can make it past the slush pile. A great query, maybe?

Or the old saying -- It's not what you know, it's who you know.

BiggerBoat said:

I do also wonder, however, how any sort of old-fashioned or mannered novel can make it past the slush pile. A great query, maybe?

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Ellie

I was just going to say that.

Literary journals and contests do that all the time. Former students, friends, girlfriends and relationships are published first, thats the way it is. Another obstacle to overcome. The book is just okay to me, nothing great.

I want to read this one.

Or it might have been published because it's actually rather good? Just a thought.

I've read much more of this style from British writers, I think it's less of a red flag to publishers there than it is in the US.

I enjoyed the book - but the incongruity you mention, Diviner, really p'd me off.

Diviner said:

I just read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, her first novel for which she got big bucks. Her prose is wonderful, vivid and well paced, but I was astonished that her book is so old fashioned it seems original. She has red-haired, green-eyed characters. In the opening she uses three forms of "to be" in the first three sentences. And her plot depends upon a wild incongruity, which readers readily accept.

I enjoyed the book thoroughly, not for the sensational elements in the plot (murder, incest, deception, rape, madness) but because the MC works in an antique book store and is an avid lover of both books and story, and because I really liked the prose. The organization of the novel is inventive and enthralling, too.

But I am left wondering how Setterfield found an agent so easily and got such big bucks for a first novel. She seems to have ignored so many things spoken of almost as gospel here and is still so successful.

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You answered your own question when you wrote I enjoyed the book thoroughly, not for the sensational elements in the plot (murder, incest, deception, rape, madness) but because the MC works in an antique book store and is an avid lover of both books and story, and because I really liked the prose. The organization of the novel is inventive and enthralling, too.

This is exactly how she found an agent so easily, and how she got big bucks for the novel. Any novel than can make a reader feel this way should find an agent easily, and should get big bucks. That's what it's all about.

And what's wrong with characters who have red hair and green eyes? I love real women who have red hair and green eyes, such as my wife, and most of my fiction contains at least one such character.

I got so carried away with such women that I really blundered in one novel. During the editing process my editor called and said, "Did you realize you have four characters with red hair and green eyes?"

To which I replied, "Uh, well, no, I didn't realize that. But I love women with red hair and green eyes."

"That's good," she said, "because I have red hair and green eyes. But four is too many. Suppose we cut it to one?"

We cut it to one.

And "to be" verbs are not bad things. To the contrary, to be verbs are wonderful tools, and when used properly, should never be avoided.

Know

Who you know will get you about as far as, "Hi, how are you?" Writing is a business, and no one risks their career, and thousands and thousands, or even millions of dollars because they know you. Who you know can even be a disadvantage, and can make you have to write even better to get published just so no one can claim bias.

know

billyf027 said:

Literary journals and contests do that all the time. Former students, friends, girlfriends and relationships are published first, thats the way it is. Another obstacle to overcome. The book is just okay to me, nothing great.

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None I know of do this. I find it amazing that some people believe this. If it were true, literary journals and contest winners would be pure junk, and darned few are. Most of them are filled with quality front to back.