Opinion needed on my world.

[AnyaKimlin]

My honest opinion at present is they are probably well intentioned, but very badly organised. The standard reply quoted is in the assessment, but there are personalised bits as well. The tech suport company when I reported the complaints were pretty good, and I haven't said anything I haven't got the emails/screen shots to back-up.

They've always complied with things they said they would, responded to emails etc but it's been slow. However because I am poor have never been able to afford to give them anything except my entry fee lol

 

[Susan Boulton]

AnyaKimlin,

You don't need a third party of any sort to refer or submit your work to an agent, just polish your manuscript and your synopsis/pitch and do it yourself. You just need to research agents and find one who is rep'ing similar work to yours.

Also jeans, bras, whatever, it does not matter what you call the clothes, it is the story that counts. Yes, it is good to know where your work fits, but from what you have said I see your work as a YA fantasy, submit it to an agent that deals with YA fantasy.

The fact that they are pushing the matter of an experienced literary consultant/marketing expert that can help you and they are offering to find one for you, is to me a big red flag and means run away as fast as you can.

Never pay out any money to anyone to help you submit to an agent or publisher even just a basic fee.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks SJAB - I haven't got any money to give them lol so I'm safe from that point of view. I think I'll just call it YA Fantasy and leave it at that.

Thanks.

 

[alchemist]

The link from mouse just illustrates what a minefield the publishing world can be.

Re your story, I'd echo what others have said. When you mentioned possibly changing the whole story to fit with one person's pigeonholing of Fantasy, I thought "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" If the story is good enough, it will stand on its own.

If somebody is determined to pigeonhole you, and you really need it, maybe find an established author who your work is similar to and reference them.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thanks that had been my major concern - world, story and character are inextricable lol Not sure how serious I was - there was a little of what the hell are you on woman when I read it I'm calmer now and realise it can't really be changed.

The world was created as I wrote the story, and the character is the first person narrator. It's his coming of age story. Character is such a pampered brat he'd die in a medieval world lol

 

[chrispenycate]

I think the history of British monarchs would suggest that pampered brats – or, at least, royal pampered brats – are not as easy to kill off as all that.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

He's not a medieval pampered brat though - he's very much a modern pampered brat. They wouldn't need to kill him, because a week without central heating, hot showers, his mobile phone, music and internet -- he'd be doing it for them.

They do try killing him off and don't find it so easy. In a more modern setting they struggle, but he just wouldn't cope in a medieval setting. (His reaction to being shown a cell at the monastery where he will saying is perfectly intune with this). His brother on the other hand possibly would.

OK will be quiet about my darling ...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That's ok, though, our characters often work in the setting they're in and to change it would change them. since I turned up here, like a (very) bad penny, I keep thinking I should change mine from sci fi, but my main character isn't going to fit easily to fantasy, and it's not where I see him. Quite frankly, I'd rather he never seen the light of day than be forced into a square hole.

So, the question is motivation; if you want to sell it and you think you need it more generic, then consider change.
If it's to write it the way you see it and believe it, and selling's secondary then keep it as you have it.

The middle ground? Not sure, still struggling with that one at this end.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Not sure at this stage there is a middle ground. It either stays a modern fantasy set on another world or it gets scrapped. I made it medieval it would become a completely different character, story and setting, so it would be better to work on my other two projects.

That was my problem when I read it - I realised if she was right and the setting was too out there to be published the project could not be as she put it ''easily fixed''.

 

[AMB]

A few questions and a couple of thoughts.

You say your planet has an English speaker from when an 'ark' left Earth in 2010, so your planet might speak a variant of English. Were your people already on your planet then, or are they descended from the people of the ark? You say it is like 2011 Earth, but what year is it really? Could the word jeans have evolved into something else?

I take it the planet has the right plants to make the fabric, or at least some analogue? Denim is a type of twill weave and made from cotton. Might what you are calling jeans actually be something slightly different made in a similar way?

A quick read up on wikipedia, and you could probably come up with something that is essentially still jeans but called something else, possibly from some other part of their manufacture.

Or you could stick with what you have. I'm not saying you should change it, just offering potential ways you could if you wanted to say something else without having to alter everything.

 

[Peter Graham]

Whether or not it is a valid concern is a different matter, but I suspect the reason for the original comment was that jeans have a very specific cultural iconography in our society. The same might be said for leather jackets, pints of lager, dance music, underpants worn to the armpits so as to show off some tacky designer label or Celtic knot tattoos worn in the form of a stamp on the lower back.

There is clearly no point doing the rabbit/smerp(?) thing, but taking the big hitters of our cultural iconography and putting them in another world without our context might jar somewhat. It will all depend on how well it is done, of course, but to my mind, the potential objection to doing it is solely because it risks undermining the willing suspension of disbelief.

Julian Rathbone took it to extremes in his largely execrable The Last English King in which, amongst the serried ranks of self-referential howlers, we were introduced to a bard who was clearly supposed to be Bob Dylan and who was entertaining the Great Unwashed with Blowin' in the Wind. Friend Rathbone doubtlessly thought he was being rather clever and/or was putting our ancestors into a context which would show us that they were Just Like Us Really (and he got it published, so perhaps he was right), but for me, it undermined the suspension of disbelief.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Toby Frost]

Actually, I quite like Rathbone's stuff. Each to his own, eh?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm just not sure what else I would call the trousers of whatever the world's durable denim equivlent is, worn by teenagers and adults alike. Something like fatigues, chinos, combats etc would be equally cultural and far off the mark. To me it makes sense their puritan ancestors from Earth would develop denim or something very similar and call them jeans. Calling them anything else would be calling a rabbit, a smerp or maybe a hare. I suppose I could call my mobile phones - communication devices but that seems naff.

If someone gets an image of a big lad wearing a t-shirt and pair of denim jeans standing in his barefeet with messy hair - in front of a man in medieval style regalia in a medieval built palace - then that is the image I was aiming for.

Having reviewed it in the cold light of day - I don't think it is confusing unless a person is expecting a medieval style world, but that should be put to bed by his reading material in the first line anyway.


I liked Rathbone too - but I took it as humour, parody etc. Like with Diagnosis Murder (medical drama with Dick Van Dyke), once I realised it was supposed to be funny actually I was addicted lol

 

[Hex]

sigh. This is the third time I have written this comment -- my timing's been bad in terms of servers -- but if I was reading this book, I would prefer 'jeans' to another term. Anything more self-conscious would pull me out of the world. If they are jeans, call them jeans and move on.

(I hadn't encountered Rathbone before -- he sounds fun)

 

[Peter Graham]

Actually, I quite like Rathbone's stuff. Each to his own, eh?

Absolutely!

Regards,

Peter

 

[Toby Frost]

That said, I did grimace at the Starbucks bit in Kings of Albion. If you thought The Last English King was excessive...

Anyhow, on the original topic, the excerpt to my mind gives only the slightest feel that this is anything other than a boy growing up. I think calling it high fantasy is a mistake: that gives a different impression and will probably disappoint some readers.

As to modernisms, provided they're not utterly glaring I personally don't mind. My image of their kingdom was one of those Ruritania-type city states so beloved of Disney films where a sausage-vendor from New Yoik discovers they're actually princess: small, vaguely Austrian although modern and, for somewhere with an absolute monarch, unexpectedly nice.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm just going to call it fantasy despite the fact it does have a magic system, fictional world, and other races/creatures etc. The only thing distinguishing it from high fantasy is the fact it isn't set in an historical time.