A day late...but the same amount of dollars

So I made a commitment to post every week on Sunday but such commitments are easily broken when thwarted by a hangover.  Seven or eight gin martinis rendered this writer incapable of meeting this duty.  I suppose I'd feel guilty if I had some followers - but I don't so...I don't.

No more news to report on the representation front; but I'm not really expecting any for a few more weeks. The latest batch of correspondences which went out last week will most likely not be answered for a few more weeks. I'm being patient for the time being and using this period to work on some of my other stories and build my repertoire.

But meanwhile, I'm marking time.

Slight Breakthrough

So I spent the week trying to improve my hook and therefore, my query.  The assignment I've given myself was to find a way to explain my plot in a way that revealed a more specific genre. So I wrote another letter and tried it out. Here's my first paragraph:

"This is my first novel. I currently work in an office in downtown Pittsburgh where I negotiate supply contracts. I'm just an average guy with an insatiable curiosity about the world and a compulsion to explore that curiosity through writing. I have a B.A. in Communications. There are currently three things which interest me most: Cosmology, Economics, and World Affairs.  I studied Economics and World Affairs while in college; but, in my adulthood, I have taken a somewhat informal interest in Cosmology - meaning I read everything I can while also periodically engaging several professionals in the field. I don't know enough to have a degree; but I do know enough to see how the Universe’s state of accelerated expansion serves as an apt metaphor for the relationships of its inhabitants."

It's a little more biographical than I'd prefer but the agent, on her website, said that this is what she wanted. I wrote this first paragraph with the intention of laying the ground work to explain the significance of my title. The final sentence introduces a connection between the larger Universe and its connection to the people. The second paragraph then connects the story to the current historical moment and ties this in to the future state of the world in which the novel is set. My final paragraph went over my modest history of writing credits.

Now while I didn't knock the socks off any agents yet with this revised query, it did yield my first non-canned response:

"You sound like a thoughtful intelligent guy and so I hate to be negative. Especially since the scenario you present isn't all that far-fetched, definitely not something I'd call science fiction. probably something that falls into the area of dystopian future, which has become something of a hot area.  But it is not my area, and so despite your thinking of it as literary fiction, editors are likely to see it as more in tune with those who do dystopian books. That's not a crowd I know, so I don't see myself as the most effective agent for you. Keep the submission around and you're likely to connect with an agent who is more fluent in this area. Good luck."

It was the first time an agent ever bothered to tell me something useful about my project.  Even though it was a rejection, this agent pointed me in the direction of dystopian literature...which wasn't something I ever considered as a "genre".  So, as you can imagine, this response gave me a much-needed boost of confidence. 

I plan to continue with this particular explanation when querying agents who work in the dystopian area. Of course, I will have to tailor the other portions to the specific guidelines listed on an agent's website but at least I now know two things which I hadn't before: 

1. Approach agents looking for dystopian literature. 
2. The new hook I have written has at least been able to pique one agent's interest...it's just not the right agent for this work.

Hopefully I will be able to affect the right agent in the way I affected this one.  I have regained the energy to keep slogging through.  Maybe next week's entry will reflect even greater news.

Another Week...

Happy Labor Day, Visitors.

Wife and I just came back from a cookout with some of our dearest friends.  I took the opportunity to practice my "pitching" skills with regard to my recently completed novel.  The friend hosting the party proved a good sounding board. I've been thinking a great deal about my hook and while I shy away from referring to this particular work as science fiction, I can't deny the presence of such elements.  Kurt Vonnegut once had a similar dilemma. 

I think it's in the introduction to Slaughterhouse Five where Vonnegut writes about his reluctance to accept his work as science fiction because such works were typically urinated upon by literary critics.  But despite such critical obtuseness - which unfortunately is too common - the genre bears many titans...Vonnegut, of course, being among them.  Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick have accomplished much in making the genre respectable from a literary standpoint; and it would be insulting to discuss such literary success within the genre without mentioning HG Wells and Jules Verne. And who could neglect the woman whom I regard as the mother of science fiction - Mary Shelley?

Science fiction works best when embedded as a sub-genre within literary fiction - meaning, the story attempts to articulate a uniquely human truth which is only discoverable after considering humanity's relationship with technology.  And given the accelerated state of human culture, one that changes so rapidly in the face of new means, how can anyone decry as irrelevant the only literary genre which considers the effect such convenience bears on the human condition?

The problem is that the genre is host to much pulp. There are many who would regard such a description as an insult but I do not use the term disparagingly. Pulp exists to apply to most people most of the time.  This is to say that it is merely common, not necessarily bad. Comic books are pulp and I don't think I know any avid readers who weren't first introduced to the written word via comic books - avid male readers at least...I tend to find females more attracted to the works of Judy Bloom and R.L Stine.  

As we age, our tastes change representing a migration from such humble beginnings toward greater and more complex characters and plot lines.  Critics are always looking for that next step forward in identifying new narrative truths which is why they are reluctant to regard Stan Lee similarly to a Ray Bradbury...not that one is better than the other, but they are each experimenting with two grossly different storytelling methods and are therefore incomparable in any literary sense.

There's no doubt that the crux of my novel rests in technological advancement - namely, whether or not the presence of a maintenance assessment application in a robot constitutes an instinct of self-preservation.  I'm reluctant to describe it this way because it sounds like the plot of a plethora of pre-existing tales of living machines. Terminator, 2001 - hell, even Short Circuit all deal with this theme.  So I need to describe this plot element while differentiating it from existing narratives. 

This will be my homework for the week.