Any ideas on what this might mean?

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RG570

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I was expecting this agent to pass, and all in all I'm not totally discouraged by the rejection. I just don't really know how to take it.

He wrote that my characterization was "not bad but a bit off". The only other thing he said was that the pacing was "choppy".

The first point, I have no idea. Does that just mean he just didn't gel with what I was doing, or is there some technical error involved in my writing? And as for choppy pacing, I don't really get what this is referring to. I mean I did start off quite fast, then let the story breathe for a bit . . . it was all conscious effort, and I never thought it would be seen as "choppy".

I just wonder if these are the type of things that would be looked at universally among agents, or if it's just a case of the one guy not being into it. I'm not sure how to react to this.
 

scarletpeaches

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Maybe he found it difficult to go from fast-paced to slower-paced. It might be that you didn't make the transitions in a manner that was to his taste. Maybe he prefers consistency - fast-paced or slow-burning from the first page to the last, who knows?

Even in fast-paced thrillers you need to let the reader catch his breath from time to time, but you don't want to let the action drag, or info-dump. Maybe this was what they meant?
 
triceretops

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Maybe the transitions were very fast or abrupt, like moving a character from one to scene to another quickly, yet when you got to those scenes, they are fairly static. Gosh, just thinking out loud here. I think these dog gone agents and editors try to be deliberately nebulous for reasons unknown to us. Kind of like pat responses that confuses us enough to resist the urge to write back and say, "Eh, what did you mean by that, dear sir/miss?"

A character who is a "bit off" could mean so many damn things, you end up throwing your hands in the air to surrender. Again, a response that says so much, but says nothing.

Send that puppy out again, my friend. See if that dog will hunt.

Tri
 

RG570

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Yeah, it's like I thought as I was writing it that I had to avoid boring scenes where people are doing nothing, like transitional phases, although I do have a few. I made a conscious effort to make it Not Boring, and now it's "choppy".

Are responses like "a bit off" common? I've had it a couple of times for various pieces, and it makes me wonder if I'm doomed to be not quite bad enough to say "this is bad" but not good enough to nail it forever.

I mean, on one hand, "not bad" seems like a good thing. I don't know, it's just bogging me down with my current project now, and I'm second guessing every word I write.

I guess it doesn't much matter . . . the guy was taking too long so I did a bad thing and sent it to a small press on my own a month ago, so I'll have to wait and see what they think.
 
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