Purgatory's Pit of Doom

Leigh.Lyons · Feb 16, 2011

soulcascade said:
*scratches head* Leigh, and yet THAT author gets published but if one of US tried to get a book with a similar character published? We'd get the old boot in the a$$

Soul, your comment wouldn't have stung so bad if it were not for the R I got on a full today.

She said she loved the voice, the characters and fell in love with my writing, it was just the story... you see, she didn't love it as much as she thought.

She did tell me to send her anything else I have though. That's good.... right..?

charmingbillie · Feb 16, 2011

Leigh.Lyons said:
Sometimes, I think the "Mary Sue" argument can be valid. If an Author writes a character that looks exactly like her and has most of her personality and all the boys (literally every male who enters the book) OMG so so so LOVE her.... yeah, I say that's a Mary Sue (I'm looking at you L@urell K H@milt0n and S+ephany M3yers).

But the boy with boobs thing pisses me off too!

I don't disagree that the original label was valid or that there are still those sorts of characters around, though mostly in fanfic in my opinion. But lately I hear it applied VERY broadly and mostly to put down either characters a person just didn't like or, and this is the one that irritates me, competent women characters. I refuse to use it as a short-hand criticism anymore.

kellion92 · Feb 16, 2011

(((Leigh))) If they want to see more, that's good.

Billie, I see your point on the "Mary Sue" thing -- In a critique group or review, definitely better to say "I didn't find this character believable because..." But in the Pit, anything goes.

(I have never read fanfic and I only learned that term recently. There are so many worlds out there...)

soulcascade · Feb 16, 2011

{{{{{Leigh}}}}} aw hell

I don't get those types of R's. If someone loves so many things about a story can't they at least OFFER to work with someone??? And if they don't like the plot/story itself, how on earth did they get to the end of the ms? I donno smells like 'cop-out' to me

Leigh.Lyons · Feb 16, 2011

kellion92 said:
(((Leigh))) If they want to see more, that's good.

Billie, I see your point on the "Mary Sue" thing -- In a critique group or review, definitely better to say "I didn't find this character believable because..." But in the Pit, anything goes.

(I have never read fanfic and I only learned that term recently. There are so many worlds out there...)

I used to love writing fanfic! It was some of my mid-level writing practice. It helped me look at what was needed to make a story continue, what could be cut and analyze the characters so that what I wrote seemed like a continuation of the story rather than "And then (character here) put his thing in (character here) and it was sexy!!"

Leigh.Lyons · Feb 16, 2011

soulcascade said:
{{{{{Leigh}}}}} aw hell I don't get those types of R's. If someone loves so many things about a story can't they at least OFFER to work with someone??? And if they don't like the plot/story itself, how on earth did they get to the end of the ms? I donno smells like 'cop-out' to me

It smells to me too.

But she did request that I send anything else I have and said that I have the makings of a best seller. (<-- made me cry out loud. I was like "WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT IN A REJECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I have a UF book that I am revamping that I think may be up her alley. It's fluffier than the one I sent her (a kidnapping case rather than a murder mystery).

soulcascade · Feb 16, 2011

OUCH Leigh. That is one hell of a painful R

I do think it's a good sign she asked to see more work...I think she was trying to give you hope even though she was giving you an R on that project, but those things tend to hurt worse

ink wench · Feb 16, 2011

(((Leigh)))

Soul, I think it's a matter of whether they think they can sell something, regardless of the work involved. The market is evil.

Leigh.Lyons · Feb 16, 2011

ink wench said:
(((Leigh)))

Soul, I think it's a matter of whether they think they can sell something, regardless of the work involved. The market is evil.

Hello, I'm the publishing world. Please take a number. Ah, 12,584,687,461, you'll be here a while. We are currently considering number 6. Snookie got to jump the line. What? Are you upset? Leave then.

Cricket18 · Feb 16, 2011

soulcascade said:
{{{{{Leigh}}}}} aw hell I don't get those types of R's. If someone loves so many things about a story can't they at least OFFER to work with someone??? And if they don't like the plot/story itself, how on earth did they get to the end of the ms? I donno smells like 'cop-out' to me

Leigh.Lyons said:
It smells to me too.

But she did request that I send anything else I have and said that I have the makings of a best seller. (<-- made me cry out loud. I was like "WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT IN A REJECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Gah! These types of passes make me crazy, not that it's a far leap. "I love everything, now just write something publishable."

Also, if you have the makings of a best-seller, then why wouldn't this agent scoop it up?? It makes no sense, and frankly, it pisses me off that an agent would say that, but then pass. Seriously, WTF?

I'm now considering an empty inbox a victorious day.

kellion92 · Feb 17, 2011

Empty inboxes are so frustrating. I'm not sure what a good query strategy is though -- I'm doing it very impulsively.

I should write a synopsis but that's so boring it's hard to make myself do it when I sit down. OK, I'm going to make it a multi-tasking project. I can't write actual prose like that, but if I have my synopsis open, surely I can add a sentence on here and there.

ETA: I didn't mention it here because I tweeted it, but my group blog is giving away query critiques (including actual agents doing the critiquing) here: http://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/2011/02/follower-love-month-agent-query.html

No pitch necessary. Honestly, I could use the critiques myself but I'm not eligible.

ink wench · Feb 17, 2011

Cricket18 said:
I'm now considering an empty inbox a victorious day.

Me too. I'm beyond the usual time for hearing back for several agents with fulls, and half my queries seem to be lost in cyberspace because they've been ignored by agents who respond. So meh.

Kellion, nice contest! And if I had a query I wanted critted, I'd enter.

(Also if I had a blog account that could "follow." I don't think you can do that with wordpress though.)

kellion92 · Feb 17, 2011

ink wench said:
(Also if I had a blog account that could "follow." I don't think you can do that with wordpress though.)

Er, I doubt we'll be checking up. You could follow the blog on twitter or through google though or just promise to visit again and I'll see if I can pull some strings

Oh, and it doesn't have to be a completed WIP either.

soulcascade · Feb 17, 2011

'The market is evil. ' <- this

'Hello, I'm the publishing world. Please take a number. Ah, 12,584,687,461, you'll be here a while. We are currently considering number 6. Snookie got to jump the line. What? Are you upset? Leave then. ' <- haha! So true!!

'I'm now considering an empty inbox a victorious day. ' <- THIS back in the day when I was agented and on sub and the bad news kept poring in, I felt this way, too

Kellion queries/synopses make me batty. IMO they are NO indication of whether or not the author is a 'good' writer because query writing and fiction writing take two different skills to do. I know agents need to get a feel for what the story is about...but come ON! I hate queries but synopses make me cry. They are the devil.

ink wench · Feb 17, 2011

Oh yeah, the synopsis is just plain evil. Total torture device.

Kellion,

I do follow you guys on twitter, but I don't have anything in need of critting right now. The draft of my WIP's query is sure to change because the themes are changing as I write. Too bad you guys can't enter your own contests!

Red-Green · Feb 17, 2011

Pleh. That is all.

kellion92 · Feb 17, 2011

QR. I'm not sure it should count because this agent was such a long-shot -- 6 partials requested in the last 750 queries, and all were rejected. Oh well, I said I didn't know what I was doing.

soulcascade · Feb 17, 2011

{Kellion} All you can do is try. There's no way to know if a long-shot agent will request or not until you hit send

kellion92 · Feb 17, 2011

Yeah, she reps a couple of my favorite books. Worth trying. Still, I was unreasonably hopeful.

Snappy · Feb 17, 2011

ink wench said:
Me too. I'm beyond the usual time for hearing back for several agents with fulls, and half my queries seem to be lost in cyberspace because they've been ignored by agents who respond. So meh.

This drives me insane. I am always paranoid that my query/partial/full didn't make it through dreaded cyberland, when I see others (especially on querytracker) getting responses, even if an R when they submitted after me. ACK! :Headbang:

ink wench · Feb 17, 2011

(((Kellion))) Boo, but it doesn't hurt to try.

Red-Green · Feb 17, 2011

There's nothing reasonable about hope, so it was worth a shot.

kellion92 · Feb 17, 2011

I appreciate that agent for a couple reasons: continuing to accept queries, and responding quickly. Yay for both. Very admirable.

Shuemais · Feb 17, 2011

I sure hope this is the right thread -- never thought I'd have multiple choices for commiserating before. :scared:

I finished my first "actually-submission-worthy" project last summer and spent the next several months going back and forth between editing, getting what few opinions of available readers I could, and sending queries. Got a lot of rejections and two positive responses. Sent a partial to the first, rejected. Sent another partial to the second, and was asked for a full copy. Spent nearly the whole month of September twitching with anticipation and hope, only to get yet another rejection; was told that the agent "didn't feel passionate enough" about the project.

I've been tweaking and editing again since then. Cut out about 10k words off the finished project, and I'm working up the courage to send out queries again. I just wish it was that easy...

Many apologies if I derailed anything or posted in the wrong thread.

Leigh.Lyons · Feb 17, 2011

RedScylla said:
There's nothing reasonable about hope, so it was worth a shot.

Purgatory's Pit of Doom

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