Mememe Allyson. BTW, backflung on the first one.

Want More!!! WantWantWant.

You know that form rejection letter I got the other day? I just found out the agent in question is no longer with the agency--since he's supposed to be at the writers conference I'm attending in October, the organizers are trying to find out what's up. I.e. is he working, either setting up his own agency or joining another agency, if so is he still interested in our conference, etc.? It's apparently a very recent thing, probably between the time I submitted and when I received my rejection.

Anyway, am I right in thinking maybe my rejection meant nothing at all? IOW, any queries sent to him just got the form rejection?

Anyway, am I right in thinking maybe my rejection meant nothing at all? IOW, any queries sent to him just got the form rejection?

It's certainly suspicious. Would they allow you to resubmit to a valid agent?

I don't know--I suppose it'd be worth a phone call, and I might, depending on what I decide to do with the manuscript. Depending on how it does with the agencies and contest that have it now, I might decide it's too flawed to market in its current form, and that I'm better served by finishing and polishing the new novel. Which, if nothing else, has a stronger plot and a more popular POV choice (third limited rather than first).

Susan, that sounds auto-genned to me.

Allyson, want more. Said so. Saying again. Want more. And since I don't know Tim? I can gauge the feelings-effect without a problem.

Back from Minneapolis. Zonked. Heading back out shortly.

Is there a new challenge today, or did I miss it?

Challenge #20 (escape) is now closed.

This week's challenge is a "scene" challenge (like the very first one, which was to drabble 2 people seated across from each other at a table): a group of people is gathered together, and all of them are looking down. Drabble away!

t edit Heh -- Deb beat me by 12 seconds!

Very Cold Snow

I do a headcount as I walk into the dressing room: there are eleven people bending over the scarred old table, the round clean mirror, awaiting their turns, avid and useless.

Five are band members, three are roadies. The rest are groupies or sycophants, empty pathetic people desperate to rub shoulders with celebrities.

The lead guitarist glances up, a rolled dollar in one hand, the cocaine laid out on the mirror. He grunts, and goes back to his line.

There are days when I hate the fact that I have to be grateful my musician's main vice is only booze.

OK, I redid the opening of Anna to get into the story quicker by killing her husband in the very first scene. On the first page. In the second paragraph. No one can accuse me of wallowing in the backstory this time around! t shakes tiny fist at contest judges

Anyway, the way I handle it is by a two-paragraph semi-prologue in third omniscient before plunging right into third limited, hero POV, where the hero and heroine meet. They don't know her husband is dead, but the point of the intro is that the reader will, and will view the heroine's unhappiness with her husband (when we switch to her POV 7 pages in) through the lens of wondering how she'll feel when she knows the truth.

So. I'm rambling. Here's the intro:

CHAPTER ONE

Spain, June 1811

The mounted patrol, dressed in dazzling fur-trimmed blues that marked them as British dragoons, turned for camp. They had been out scouting for days with nary a sight of the French, and now their thoughts turned toward hot dinners and bedding their women, perhaps even in that order.

They were utterly surprised when shots rang out from a scrubby little copse on the hill to their north. A blond captain, tallest and handsomest of all the officers in the regiment, fell from his chestnut gelding, his forehead shattered by a musket ball.

My writers group thinks that I need to set the scene a little more, both in terms of descriptive detail and historical background. I kinda agree on the descriptive detail, though I don't want to overdo it when the whole point is to kill the handsome blond guy and get on with the story. But for historical background, really, I think most people who read the genre at all could get the basic gist from the location and the mention of the British and the French. I'm not expecting them to know enough to write a dissertation on the Peninsular Wars, but I feel like most people know this is the age of Napoleon, that he conquered most of Europe, and that the British fought him. But my writing group disagrees.

Susan, I agree with you on the amount of detail necessary in the above scene.

I also think that the rejection you mentioned before is probably something sent to everyone who submitted to that agent -- when another editor left where I used to work, there was no getting through her stuff and mine as well, but I had to reply to everyone (since she unkindly left a big mess in her wake). Form letters get the job done, but while they do suck, know that this one is probably just a matter of clearing up behind someone and in no way an opinion on your work.

-----

Drabble #21:

“It’s hideous.”

“Hideous doesn’t even begin to describe it.” But she couldn’t look away, even though dread and something close to nausea had begun to battle it out in her gut. Apparently the others couldn’t either. They huddled, squinting, furrowing, once even sniffling.

“But it’s…God, there are truly no words,” one of the others murmured. “What is that exactly?”

“I don’t think I want to know,” she said, sinking into a chair, still staring down at the monstrosity laid out before them. “It looks…rash-producing.”

“Synthetic.” The girl to her left shrugged. “Down to the lavender ribbon. Your typical bridesmaid nightmare.”

Hey Allyson, I'd read your stuff too, if you want. (I don't know that I could do fiction-writers any good.)