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Avocado ([info]white_serpent) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2009-04-17 16:05:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:authorwank, elitism, publishing, special snowflake syndrome

But why isn't your book selling?
It's all the fault of literary agents, who are single-handedly destroying literature everywhere!

Excerpt:

The substantial and nearly unassailable wall that separates you from us has been under construction for decades. You can find the names of its architects and gatekeepers on your telephone-callers list, and in your email in-box. They are the literary agents—that league of intellectual-property purveyors who bring you every new manuscript you ever see, those men and women who are so anxious to gain access to the caverns of treasure they believe you sit upon like some great golden goose that they would likely hack one another’s heads off were they not united by one self-serving mission: to ensure that quality fiction never hits your desk.

Just a tiny bit of entitlement, elitism, and self-delusion.

And some responses...


(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]doyle
2009-04-18 11:40 am UTC (link)
I'm not going to troll the wank but looking at her first page on Authonomy? Man, she could use some concrit. If she's genuinely sending this out to professionals (and calling it literary fiction) I feel embarrassed for her.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2009-04-18 01:12 pm UTC (link)
To be fair, I've seen published authors with somewhat similar styles. Of course, I've wanted to take those books and *fling* *THUNK* them across the room, too.

And yes, concrit would be good if she would take it. I suspect she wouldn't.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]doyle
2009-04-18 01:25 pm UTC (link)
I've certainly picked up published dreck plenty of times but usually there's an attempt at humour or (an overly) descriptive literary style or something. This is just so... boring. Mind you, it might get red-hot after page 1 but I didn't get beyond the whiny cipher of a main character sitting in a room that's apparently blank apart from an exam table, having a robotic exchange of mundanities with a nurse who's given a string of adjectives in place of a personality.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kosaginolegion
2009-04-18 01:37 pm UTC (link)
I admit, it usually takes more pages for me to realize there's nothing about the characters or the plot to hold my interest. She managed that by the time I got to her discussion of how her nice clothes were getting too snug now.

The number of published books that cause me to react that way in the first page are rarer, but they do exist. Of course, if I tried to read each and every book that crossed my path I suspect that number would be radically higher.

That said, she seriously needs to get over herself/her character.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]pocketfox
2009-04-18 04:17 pm UTC (link)
Good lord, even her characters are full of entitlement.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]seiberwing
2009-04-18 04:27 pm UTC (link)
Wow, what a wimp of a main character. The evil doctor's in the room two seconds and she's near to weeping.

I'm at a loss at how we're supposed to sympathize with a bint like that.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]caffeine_fairy
2009-04-18 09:19 pm UTC (link)
Dear Lord it's dreadful.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]vzg
2009-04-19 12:57 am UTC (link)
Admittedly, if I'd already paid for it I probably would have pushed myself to read more, and it's possible that I'm predisposed to disliking the author (given the above idiocy), but I got to the fifth paragraph and stopped.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]issendai
2009-04-19 03:02 am UTC (link)
As slush goes, it's not bad at all. The dialogues need severe pruning--too much ping-ponging between speakers for too little information--and the characterization needs help. I'm not buying for a minute that any doctor on the planet would say what Dr. Graves did unless the story is about Chloe's suit to have him delicensed. And surely there's a less laborious way of establishing that Chloe is a damp, miserable creature. On top of all that, it's in present tense, which is usually an arty way of making the action fresh and immediate... but the whole point of Chloe's personality is that nothing about her is fresh and immediate. It just makes you feel exactly how slowly time is passing.

Yeah, she's not unpublished because agents don't appreciate her undiscovered genius. She's not awful; there's something there. But there's not enough of it there yet.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]chibikaijuu
2009-04-19 03:22 am UTC (link)
It just makes you feel exactly how slowly time is passing.

I actually liked it for that - but there is absolutely no way I could stand an entire novel of it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]issendai
2009-04-19 03:46 am UTC (link)
It's definitely a small-doses effect.

It reminds me of a movie of Iphegenia, which starts with sailors shuffling about the beach listlessly, waiting for the winds to start up so they can get underway. FOR FIVE MINUTES. You never know just how long five minutes is until you spend it staring at the screen, rotting of boredom, while bored sailors shuffle about getting sunburned on a boring beach as the director counts all the awards he's going to get for depicting boredom so well.

(In a fine moment of irony, I remember nothing else about the movie except the boring beginning.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]chibikaijuu
2009-04-19 03:20 am UTC (link)
Ew. I mean, I like a good depressing and/or funny novel with an unlikeable protagonist, but the writer has to know that the protagonist is unlikeable, and make something else about the novel likable.

She does not do this. Also, her characterization is crap.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]willywanka
2009-04-19 04:48 pm UTC (link)
She sounds exasperated--for no good reason Rita can think of.

BECAUSE YOU ARE AN IDIOT, RITA! Dear Author, it's not good when I want to kill your main character in under 10 exchanges.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]alleyprowler
2009-04-19 07:17 pm UTC (link)
Is she seriously denying that this is chick lit? Seriously?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]agilebrit
2009-04-20 02:39 am UTC (link)
*pounds desk* THIS IS SERIOUS LITERATURE AND SHE IS SERIOUS AUTHOR. YOU JUST CAN'T SEE HER BRILLIANCE FOR WHAT IT IS.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]alleyprowler
2009-04-20 04:25 am UTC (link)
Yeah, that's kind of what I thought.

It has all the depth and social commentary as a Cathy comic strip. Excuse me while I go self-actualize through the latest diet and shoe- shopping.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]agilebrit
2009-04-20 02:33 pm UTC (link)
Hey, now, I think that might be an insult to Cathy. At least Cathy is entertaining on occasion.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]lady_ganesh
2009-04-23 09:37 pm UTC (link)
Let's do a quick accounting:

-- Ungrateful stepchildren

-- Diet-based plot and structure

-- "Darkly handsome" doctor she's irrationally attracted to

Smells like chick lit to me!

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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