you can never go home because you fell asleep for a thousand years and when you woke up and returned there, your society had changed, your house had fallen and all of your friends were dead. you can never go home because you made a choice and were shattered into pieces and your home was destroyed in your wake. you can never go home because someone took you and changed you against your will and although your home is the same, the person who belonged there is dead. you can never go home because you committed a crime and your family expelled you and even as they extend a hand of reconciliation, you will never forgive them. you can never go home because your home was a person and someone murdered her and now you drift and grieve to the point of insanity. you can never go home because you never knew your sister but she gave you every opportunity you have and now she’s dead and your parents see nothing but her in your eyes.
You can’t go home because home hasn’t changed at all, and that’s the problem, because wherever you went changed you too much for home to recognize
[An optional brief introduction, no longer than 2 - 3 sentences, perhaps where you elaborate on the #ownvoices of your manuscript, or pointing out certain things in your manuscript that the agent asks for. I reiterate that this paragraph is optional. Unless you have a very specific reason to be querying this agent—for instance, if they tweeted an MSWL for a heist novel and you’re querying a heist novel—there is no relevance, so don’t include this paragraph.]
[The first paragraph of your summary introduces the world, the main character, and their Normal. For instance, Cynthia lives in the times of a pandemic and works to continue living in their new normal. Every day, Cynthia choose to get up and keep living and making the most of their situation while trying to find something to do to be useful.]
[The second paragraph of your summary introduces the plot. To continue with the above idea, Cynthia has been tasked with trying to find a cure to coronavirus, but all they have to work with in their home is duct tape, tangerines, Tylenol, and a never-give-up attitude.]
[The third paragraph introduces stakes, aka what will happen if Cynthia doesn’t discover a cure with the resources they have at home. Luckily for them, however, a woman named Jane they had a one night stand with needs a place to crash after she was evicted. Cynthia agrees to let her stay as their roommate, especially because Jane brings with her the missing ingredient to the cure for coronavirus, a magic bean she stole from a giant–but there’s only one magic bean. If Cynthia and Jane can’t find a way to make more beans, they might be sent to the realm of giants forever.]
[The closing paragraph goes like this: Complete at 89,000 words, THE MAGIC BEAN is an Adult contemporary fantasy with potential for a companion novel. I believe it will appeal to fans of Erin Morgenstern and Naomi Novik. Briefly explain who you are and share what you’re comfortable with about yourself—I say I’m 26, headed to grad school for archiving, and that the book is #ownvoices for genderqueer representation. Also mention if you have any connection to the publishing industry. I mention who I was previously represented by, why we amicably parted ways, and that I’ve mentored in many writing contests.]
[Final closure: Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you again!]
[Best,]
[My name]
[My phone number and, though optional, my twitter handle]
*i’ve been in the publishing industry for nine years now, have mentored many authors who went on to be published by the Big 5, and worked in writing contests to help writers, not only with their manuscript, but with their pitch and query letter and comps etc. i know what i’m about 😉
The author’s barely concealed fetish being slowly edited out in each successive draft as the characters evolve away from it and it meshes less with the complex themes being explored, forcing the author to start a new work barely concealing the fetish.
i would kill for the confidence of novelists who write genius-poet characters and then actually write samples of the “genius” poetry in the book. if i were a novelist writing a genius-poet i’d just be like “trust me, the poetry’s real good.”
Random, but a really handy way to make things seem creepy or
wrong in horror is to make them incongruously neat or clean:
In the middle of a horrific battlefield, you find one corpse
laid aside neatly, straightened and arranged, its arms crossed neatly across
its chest
As you walk through the garden, you gradually realise that
the oddness you’ve been noticing about the trees is that they are all perfectly
symmetrical
As you move through the abandoned house, you realise that suddenly
that there’s no dust in this room, no dirt or cobwebs
You hear hideous noises coming from behind a locked door, screams
and pleas, and visceral sounds of violence. When you manage to break down the
door, there is no one there, and the room is perfectly spotless
In the middle of a horrific battlefield, a hollow full of
churned mud and blood, you find five corpses cleanly dismembered, each set of
limbs or parts neatly laid out in their own little row
You witness a murder, a brutal, grisly killing that carpets
the area in blood. When you return in a blind panic with the authorities, the
scene is completely clean, and no amount of examination can find even a drop of
blood
You run through the night and the woods with a comrade,
pulling each other through leaves and twigs and mud as you scramble desperately
towards freedom. When you finally emerge from the forest, in the grey light of
dawn, you turn to your companion in relief, and notice that their clothes are
somehow perfectly clean
You hand a glass of water to your suspect, talking casually
the whole while, and watch with satisfaction as they take it in their bare hand
and take a drink. There’ll be a decent set of prints to run from that later.
Except there isn’t. There are no prints at all. As if nothing ever touched the glass
You browse idly through your host’s catalogue, and stop, and
pay much more attention, when you realise that several items on a dry list of acquisitions
are ones you’ve seen before, and it slowly dawns on you that each neat little object
and number in this neat little book are things that belong (belonged?) to
people you know
Neatness, particularly incongruous neatness, neatness
where you expect violence or imperfection or abandonment, or neatness that you
belatedly realise was hiding violence, or neatness that is imposed over
violence, is incredibly scary. Because neatness is not a natural thing.
Neatness requires some active force to have come through and made it so.
Neatness implies that the world around you is being arranged, maybe to
hide things, to disguise things, to make you doubt your senses, or else simply according
tosomething else’s desires. Neatness is active and artificial.
Neatness puts things, maybe even people, into neat little boxes according to something
else’s ideals, and that’s terrifying as well. Being objectified. Being asked to
fit categories that you’re not sure you can fit, and wondering what will happen
to the bits of you that don’t.
Neatness, essentially, says that something else is here.
Neatness where there should be chaos says that either something came and
changed things, or that what you’re seeing now or what you saw then is not
real. Neatness alongside violence says that something came through here for
whom violence did not mean the same thing as it does to you.
Neatness, in the right context, in the right place, can be
very, very scary
And fun
Reminded of something in the last Mistborn book that still stands out to me that is basically a variant of this post:
If the numbers are repeatedly perfect that is not normal.
In the story people were randomly getting sick in groups, and every single time exactly 16% of people got sick. Or, as close as you can get to 16% when you can’t have anyone be like, 3/4s sick, which did on one occassion lead to exactly 16 out of 100 people getting sick.
The example they used, to explain why that was weird, was that if you heard a knocking sound at random intervals, you’d assume the wind was knocking something around. But if the knocks were coming at equal intervals, or to a rhythm, it’s cause someone else is there.
Nature can be regular, but it isn’t a precise regularity. Precision means deliberation.
I don’t think I’ve quite figured how to describe a character’s appearance in third person limited when the character in question is the one the POV is attached to
You can mention it when there’s sensation attached? Like running a hand through [color] hair, or pulling on [color] [texture] shirt. Or reminiscing about another pov, a mother remarking on the color of the eyes or a friend complaining about lengthening height. Or how it interacts with or compares to the environment! Too close to the color of flesh, or the same width of their shoulders or whatever. You can be sneaky.
ik i’m treading very old ground w/ this observation but it just baffles me how many people who regularly consume media are completely unaware that sometimes the author intends to irritate you or make you uncomfortable. on purpose. and that doesn’t necessarily mean that the media is bad
dude stop trying to garner context and character traits from the objects in my room i know youre doing it. stop clicking on shit im not gonna tell you about - oh that picture is of me and my dad. yeah he’s not really in my life anymore i just keep it around cause im sentimental- DUDE
anyway the thing about fanfic is that it’s not essentially bad or good; it’s essentially amateur. some people are absolutely out there writing award-worthy prose (some fic writers ARE award-winning writers IRL!), but that’s not the point. the point is that we’re all telling campfire stories. it’s a community, and it’s a way to spend some more time in the worlds and stories that we love.
The most important thing you can do in this life is write hyper-specific fanfiction for you and six other people. Don’t believe anything else you read.
