The Favour
Hello lovely people who read my blog. I have a favour to ask. I have written a manuscript which now stands at an atrocious 119,500 words (212 word document). Recently I went to a conference and I had an appointment with an agent, and though she said that my idea is interesting and my writing is fantastic, debut novels usually come in at about 80,000 words. Ideally, I need to cut about 20,000 to 40,000 words to be published but I’ve already edited and revised the thing to death. I am really at a loss as to what can be cut at this point (I cut 9,000 words when I came home). I am aware that the market has already moved on, and the agent urged me to write something else and publish that first. While this will not be my debut novel, it is still way too long.
Recently I was forced to move from my city into a small urban community in the north. To say the least, there are no writing communities here (heck, there are only a handful of people in this community). In the city I moved from there is a writing society, but they made me feel small and pathetic for the things I write. I really need help editing. I take this extremely seriously and I am willing to work with others to help edit their work, but be warned that I don’t hold back. I’m not out to be negative, but I’m blunt. I also don’t like it when people sugar coat their criticisms about my work. I won’t be offended, don’t worry.
The Story
Elevator pitch: My book is a literary horror about an emotionally immature girl who is torn from her parents’ home and is offered to be turned into a vampire. To escape her troubled home life she gladly accepts. As the nights roll on her creator is distant and secretive, and her vampiric abilities weaken but she develops the ability to destroy light. When the demons arrive and torment her, she realizes that they share some eerie similarities. It is also apparent that her memory is flawed; she is missing events and people and time to the point that she does not know who she is anymore. Only her maker can repair her memories, but once she confronts him, he is abducted by a rival House of vampires.
After my last revision this has been significantly “cleaned up” from the original. There are sexually suggestive themes but no sex scenes. Mentions drug and alcohol use. Occasional swearing, mostly the F-bomb, but not from the protagonist. I like making people uncomfortable, so if you’re squeamish my writing probably isn’t for you, and that’s totally ok.
Yes, it is about vampires. It doesn’t have a traditional love story (it’s complicated). Is it YA fiction? No. I base this as a librarian, and that I have a sister in the YA age-range and I wouldn’t give it to her to read, and she’s mature for her age.
Want to Help?
You can email me (email is listed on my Blogger Profile) and I can email you the first 51 pages, which is the first 5 chapters, in .doc format. If you want me to look over something of yours, reply to the email I send you with your stuff attached in the email. When you’re done with the first 51 pages you can tell me what you think and request more pages, or request more pages and tell me when you’re done reading the whole thing. Just tell me how many more pages or chapters you want. Or you can just tell me what you think and not ask for more. No problem.
Because this will probably not be my debut novel, time really isn’t of the essence. If you want to contact me now to read it over during the summer vacation, that’s great. No pressure. You don’t have to have a PhD in English to read this. I don’t need this to be analysed, no essays. Informal, what you liked, what you didn’t like, my mistakes with spelling, grammar, or factual inaccuracies. Especially what you think can be cut and why, or if you notice huge holes. Since my first revision I fear that I’ve cut something important and didn’t realize it.
TL;DR
I wrote a novel. Want to help me edit and revise it? Fiction. Literary horror with vampires, demons, and child abuse. Female protagonist. Contemporary. First-person POV. PM me for details.
Thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment