Some of those great old books are a lot longer than you
think, Patrick. Small print can be misleading. I remember
being amazed to discover that James McKimmey's SQUEEZE PLAY
turned in at 65,000 words.
Also, I wouldn't extrapolate too much from rejection slips.
Each one is a (sometimes) creative way of saying: 'we aren't
confident we can sell this'. That's all. Usually. In any
case, short books sell all the time. Tim Krabbe, Guillermo
Arriaga, Ken Bruen, Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis, Dan
Rhodes, Duane Swierczynski, to name but a few. Megan Abbott's
QUEENPIN is only 40,000 words. I doubt Sara Gran's COME
CLOSER is that long. Novels are as short (or as long) as they
need to be. Jonathan Smith's THE WOLF is currently selling
for significant figures all over the globe -- and according
to The Bookseller, it's a mere 35,000 words.
A short book to look out for: Tom Piccirilli's THE FEVER
KILL, out in December. A modern Gold Medal. If I wasn't
already blown away by Piccirilli, this one would do the
trick.
While I'm at it, let me recommend Craig McDonald's debut,
HEAD GAMES, written from the point of view of a 50's
pulpster. It's out now and it's one hell of a ride.
Al
----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick King
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Books by the
pound
--- Dick Lochte <
dlochte@gmail.com> wrote:
> My point, not that I always have one, is that
I
> can't think of a case where
> an editor told a writer: I love the manuscript,
but
> make it longer. Usually,
> it's the writer, too much in love with his (or
her)
> words to edit or, worse
> yet, to accept anyone else's edit, who
is
> responsible for the fat book.
It's happened to me, personally. 3 agents and
1
publisher told me, this is a good idea but it's
42,000
words. Rewrite it for 80,000 and we may be able
to
sell it. I of course, being me, said 'The great
old
books didn't have to be 80,000 words.' The one
agent
who was still kind enough to respond to that
stupid
e-mail of mine, said short books do not work in
todays
market.
I'm working on a good story now and it will be
80,000
words before I let it go. Maybe then I'll rewrite
the
other, but frankly, it feels finished to me. I
could,
of course, be wrong!
Patrick King
__________________________________________________________
Tonight's top picks. What will you watch tonight?
Preview the hottest shows on Yahoo! TV.
http://tv.yahoo.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 15 Oct 2007 EDT