THE NEXT CHAPTER – Switching Tracks
“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people ... that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is.” – Anne Lamott
After three years, ten drafts and 135 rejections, I’ve decided that historical fiction is not the fast lane to getting traditionally published. This was not a decision lightly taken, as I had done all the things we as authors are meant to do in order to perfect our submissions:
· Manuscript typo-free, fact-checked, active, with a strong opening, good flow? Ten drafts in, I will go out on a limb and say at least the last five drafts were worthy of evaluation.
Developmental editor consultation and input? Check.
Query letter refinement with Janet Reid, our late and beloved Query Shark? Check.
Solicit readers and review critique? Check.
Collect and refine comp titles? Tough one, since my feminist Civil War spy thriller set in England baffled some of the best minds at the New York Public Library research desk, but I was able to pull in some thematic examples.
Crisp, concise synopsis? Check.
Tight one-sentence elevator pitch? Check.
Clear, confident presentation of the material in my pitch? Check.
Identification of genre and audience for the work? Check.
Public reading of excerpts to knowledgeable audiences (to positive response)? Check.
Research agents and presses most inclined to address this material? Check.
Scrupulous compliance with submission guidelines at all times? Check.
Always use a proper salutation in the query letter? Check.
Personalize where possible and relevant? Check.
And yet, 135 rejections later, I’m putting it on the shelf, because there was one question that I could not satisfactorily address: Does anyone with a say in the matter actually want to go to market with what I’m writing about here?
That’s a killer, because I really do love the subject matter of this manuscript, and the treatment I’ve come up with for it. You just don’t read a lot of Civil War literature about the spycraft and diplomacy of the Union and Confederate delegations in Europe, or of the then-current world powers’ hidden hands in the American conflict, let alone adding gender constraints facing a highly capable female agent. And what were the Irish working in England up to after the famine? You can see, for example in Zadie Smith’s The Fraud, how larger questions, what might be deemed ancillary questions, come forward in a fresh light when treated as contemporary matters in historical fiction.
I’ve been hearing murmurs that the historical fiction market is “tough” right now, unless you happen to be writing Regency romance with a few historical figures making cameo appearances, or engage time travel or elves or some such extra-historical agency. Last time I looked, there was no Historical Fiction section at New York’s Union Square Barnes & Noble, just an unmarked table with a couple dozen stacks of books.
So I’m moving on to another manuscript, one that began as a cycle of interlocking stories some twenty years ago that I’ve been revisiting and refining off and on ever since. In revisiting this manuscript, I’m bringing a lot more experience and some lately-acquired skills to it, such as a plot plan to see what’s missing, what’s falling flat, who’s missing motivation or disappearing entirely. There’s a new query to write, a new pitch to develop, new comps to find, new markets and agent categories to explore.
That’s actually the easy part. The hard part is the leaving behind of a work I’ve lived with for quite a while. There’s comfort in being able to pitch a product I’ve essentially lived in at least part time for years. The characters are friends, the plot a bedtime story I’ve told myself over and over. I feel like I’m abandoning them, even if it is only a temporary diversion.
Because, in the end, it’s a plain fact that while publishers and their gatekeepers are telling me and all the tribe of scribes that we need to do more market research, branding, networking and platforming and all the other things publishers don’t overdo for the midlist anymore, I am not in this to gin up words, plots, characters or themes that do not provide joy. Fortunately, I’ve fallen back in love with my old manuscript. Wish me luck.
Keep on,
Andy