Empress Theresa - what do you do with unlimited power ?

[Jeko]

I say assumptions because all he does is list assumptions about my story which are contradicted by the story itself, which he has not read.

So you have many solutions:

1) Let him read the story.
2) Find a way to stop him from commenting.
3) Use size 4 font next time, it's a lot more shouty than bold.
4) Be nice?

Frankly, when he was talking about emotional stakes, you only gave events. Events aren't emotional. Events cause emotion, and it's the emotion caused that's the emotional part. Put a cheesecake in front of 4 million North Koreans and you'll see how emotionless you can make that scene.

You seem to have an answer for everything. It's just not the right one. Not yet, anyway. Whether you want the right one or not will mean whether your story eventually gets published or not.

I went through a time when I thought I was king of the writing universe. Through the help of others, that side of me is still being fought back every day. Some day it'll die completely, I hope. But only as long as I keep listening to others. A wsie man has many advisors.

Moeslow's advice is some of the best I've heard. The changes you need to make this sell are BIG, and so are his comments (in the sense of quantity, and quality).

[empresstheresa]

I went through a time when I thought I was king of the writing universe.

The laughter of literary agents changed that, hunh?

[Jeko]

The laughter of literary agents changed that, hunh?

No. I didn't sumbit anything to any agents in that time.

Neil Gaiman, Bruno Coulais, Henry Selick and everyone on this forum changed that. The first three gave me the direction to go in, and the lattermost people pushed me towards it.

Hoepfully, I'll have a finished manuscript to polish and perfect before I finish my A-levels. Then I'll edit it so much it'll be a completely different story by the end of it all.

Things to look forward to.

[moeslow]

The laughter of literary agents changed that, hunh? [/COLOR]

If all you are doing is trying to please them, then you will fail. Readers decide what is good, literary agents follow suit. They can't predict anything or determine if something is good. They are business men/women looking to pay their children's college tuition. They aren't looking for the next Atonement, or War and Peace, or Infinite Jest, and from the sheer volume of absolute garbage that is published, you can clearly see they just look at trends. After Twilight, they bombarded the book selves with teen angst novels. After Hunger Games, now they are bombarding it with dystopian novels.

So, you can either follow suite and be another blip in a trend, or write something that is going to create a following and give you some pride in having published it. It's not hard to get a book published. All you need is competence in prose writing and a teen love triangle sprinkled with a water downed mythology. Easy.

You don't even have to create anything anymore. Just write fan-fiction and then Find and Replace character names. So stop insulting people who are trying to write something they love because they disagree with you.

James Joyce spent NINE YEARS peddling his book. He was rejected by 18 times. You think that stopped him? Nope. That book was Dubliners. If something as magnificent as that book can be rejected, then we have nothing to be ashamed of in our rejections. Never fear rejections or be ashamed of them.

[Sam]

Off Topic:

There's nothing magnificent about Dubliners. For that matter, there's nothing entirely great about any of Joyce's work. He said himself that he wrote most of it to keep professors and academics in work for the next 100 years. It's mostly rubbish written for rubbish's sake. In my opinion.

Having said that, I understand where you're coming from.

[moeslow]

Off Topic:

There's nothing magnificent about Dubliners. For that matter, there's nothing entirely great about any of Joyce's work. He said himself that he wrote most of it to keep professors and academics in work for the next 100 years. It's mostly rubbish written for rubbish's sake. In my opinion.

Having said that, I understand where you're coming from.

I love the book. It's my favorite amongst his works. I read it simply for the writing. I read a lot of books on rhythm and English prose and I'm blown away by Joyce's sentences in Dubliners.

As for the 100 years quote, that is for Ulysses. Dubliners was not written because he wanted to write rubbish.

[Jeko]

Moeslow: On what you said - I was browsing the young adult section of my library today for new authors, and it was as if every book I picked up was some sort of rubbish romance, covered in a layer of fantasy or similar brain-rot.

'What if the one you love is the one who has to betray you?...'

Carry on while I vomit in the corner.

ET: At least you're not writing that sort of paff.

[moeslow]

Moeslow: On what you said - I was browsing the young adult section of my library today for new authors, and it was as if every book I picked up was some sort of rubbish romance, covered in a layer of fantasy or similar brain-rot.

'What if the one you love is the one who has to betray you?...'

Carry on while I vomit in the corner.

ET: At least you're not writing that sort of paff.

It's how the market works. Readers tend to feel comfortable reading the same story. They understand it, expect the reversals and payoffs. The most profitable market is the teenage girls. The will buy the books, and more, they will go see the film. It's a built in system and agents understand that.

What is important to learn from those books is that character drama sells. People will read 1500 pages (everything is a trilogy these days) because they want to find out how their favorite characters end up doing. You can have a great concept, but if you don't have character drama, no one will want to buy your book. So, when you writing your great concept, keep that in the back of your head and watch out for moments ripe for drama.

[Jeko]

Your advice is sublime, moeslow.

[Leyline]

The only character I can think of that never changes is Rorschach out of the Watchmen comic. He was the same person the whole way through and he had to be killed by another good guy because he refused to change who he was.

Even vulcans end up changing.

Ha. I still have a home-made t-shirt that reads Rorschach Was Right.