Alamodoc
I wrote a YA novel based in the 1890s in Texas. Of course the characters ride horses and indeed, they live on a ranch. With a few exceptions query letter responses suggest either the agents don't like the era or it's not their type of material. I've actually gotten several nice, non-form-letter responses suggesting the early chapters submitted are good, blah blah blah.
I'm thinking the fact I put the plot in this 'cowboy' age is making it commercially unattractive and recategorizing what was intended to be simply a young adult novel into the Western genre. If my theory is correct, I've got neither fish nor fowl: not Western literature in the pure sense because of the reader audience intended, and not a good YA book because kids want to read about themselves.
What are your thoughts on a rewrite, keeping the same location and story-line, but pushing the time frame up a hundred years, contemporizing the characters, etc.?
I'm thinking the fact I put the plot in this 'cowboy' age is making it commercially unattractive and recategorizing what was intended to be simply a young adult novel into the Western genre. If my theory is correct, I've got neither fish nor fowl: not Western literature in the pure sense because of the reader audience intended, and not a good YA book because kids want to read about themselves.
What are your thoughts on a rewrite, keeping the same location and story-line, but pushing the time frame up a hundred years, contemporizing the characters, etc.?