I'm a sensualist in pretty much everything, including writing, but sensual to me doesn't necessarily mean detailed. I like using descriptions like freight trains: ten words should imply fifty, if I'm doing my job. (italics mine for emphasis).

Yessss! What I love about your work, and go over with a would-be writer's magnifying glass and a wistful trace of envy. "How does she do that!"

why not make the fault be that he can't see the good in someone he holds in contempt?

I dunno. I can't have too much good in this guy, because he needs to be the villain of the piece to keep the plot moving. However, hopefully at least some of my readers will pick up on the fact that the villain is weak and desperate rather than mustache-twirling evil, and that even so he probably wouldn't have tried to solve his problems by blackmailing Anna and Jack if they hadn't both snubbed him earlier in the story.

But it's early days yet. I've only just now finished Chapter Two. Maybe Jack will reveal enough flaws to avoid Marty-Stu-ishness as I go along.

My characters are too civilized. Bet you a million dollars nobody says that about me.

However, hopefully at least some of my readers will pick up on the fact that the villain is weak and desperate rather than mustache-twirling evil, and that even so he probably wouldn't have tried to solve his problems by blackmailing Anna and Jack if they hadn't both snubbed him earlier in the story.

Susan, that seems to make it even easier .' Weak and desperate' is far more interesting than "mustache-twirling", as we all know; and if the tragedy (conflict, whatever word you'd like here) is that they've brought this situation on themselves by small human foibles, and are now looping it and caught in it, then you're really getting into the full banquet of Austen.

Well, by eschewing Mortal Enemies and spy subplots, I'm already deeply in Austenish territory, at least for a Peninsular War romance--the war matters, of course, but the character conflicts are all about money, class differences, and sex.

Yeah. Real bad guys stopped tying people to railroad tracks...I'm guessing it's a union thing.

Susan, yup - but I was thinking more about the way in which those particular human foibles are handled. Always remembering, of course, that I love "Persuasion" above all else in the Austen canon.

You'd probably like Anna, then--it's a bit Persuasion-esque, come to think of it, albeit with a radically compressed timeline.

You're probably right. I'm nuts for "Persuasion".

Bev, Deena, sending you new stuff.

Damn. I'm 0-for-3. Just heard back from the editor at Harper Collins, the final place I sent a partial after the Oct. conference, and this is the first rejection that's actually making me a bit discouraged and self-doubting:

Thank you for sending LUCY AND MR. WRIGHT. While I thought this was a charming concept, I'm afraid I wasn't sufficiently engaged by the writing and ultimately thought the story wasn't strong enough to distinguish it from other books within this competitive genre. Therefore, I must decline interest.

"Charming concept?" I feel damned with faint praise. And this is the first person I've run across who apparently doesn't care for my writing itself.

t angry rant And what's this about distinguishing it from other books in the genre? At least I'm not submitting yet another implausible suspense scenario with Napoleonic spies, or yet another series about a group of brothers or army buddies. t /angry rant