Friday, September 14, 2007
 

Great News from S-Man


Shnakvorum Rikoyoch (Greetings, Friends).

Big news on the agent front. Two weeks ago I got word from an agent that he's interested in representing me. Which is quite exciting! But there's a bit of a snag. He wants me to make some changes to Starfire first, and only after those are made will he make his final decision regarding the manuscript.

Many of the changes aren't anything big, some wording issues and such. But there are a few I'm not sure how I feel about.

The first isn't necessarily something I disagree with, but it does feel quite daunting to me. Character descriptions. The agent thinks I need to cut back on the specifics on many of the descriptions because they drag on too long. I can see his point, but part of me rebels against it. I mean after all I'm dealing with ten-plus characters and dozens of different Saurian species, all of which are drastically difference in size and appearance. I need to make sure the reader can see that. But at the same time I suppose that if I let the descriptions go on too long then the important parts get lost in the mix. So I need to find the right balance and flow. Hopefully I can do that to the agent's liking.

The issue I’m less accepting of is that the agent thinks I have too much of the Saurian language in the book, especially words without clearly stated definitions. Removing Saurian words is something that I think would greatly impair the feel of the book and the sense of seeing an alien culture in action. And I can't be stopping for every word to give a definition. Especially since I have a glossary included with the book. And how do you use an English word for something that is completely alien anyway?

But then this is a question of whether I’m willing to give some in order to be represented and hopefully published. So I suppose I will have to go back and look at exactly how I'm using some words and the frequency of usage and the contextual clues to definitions. I must admit I have found a few places where I think I've been able to be gentler on the uninformed reader, and hopefully that is mostly what the agent is looking for.

Thanks to all of you for your encouragement. I hope you all get the chance to read Starfire for yourselves one day.

--S-man

Posted by ~ Bailey Truitt @ 7:00 AM
Comments:
Hey, that's great! Go for it, S-Man!
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 7:22 PM
 
Congrats! Let us hear how it goes with the agent.
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 7:23 PM
 
I REALLY want to read Starfire.
S-Man is my favorite Kanner Lake character, and when I read in the back of "Violet Dawn" that StarFire was a real book, I flipped! So good luck with that agent, and keep us updated!
Posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10:59 AM
 
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