Five Year Writing Goal
I’m taking part in Misha and Beth’s Five Year Project and my five-year goal is to write a novel and get it published. This is my update on progress this month.
Feedback on The Reluctant Scribe
A children’s literary agent kindly read my manuscript, The Reluctant Scribe, and she gave me very encouraging feedback. She said I have “created a compelling narrative, with a well-drawn setting and a beguiling central character.” This is fantastic news and really boosted my confidence.
She goes on to say, however, “I don’t think it will work as a teen novel.” The reasons, as she had previously discussed with me, are:
- The central character is too young to appeal to a teen audience. Little Zhang Ji is only 12, turning 13, during the course of the novel, and teenagers prefer to read about characters slightly older than themselves.
- The genre, historical fiction, is a disadvantage.
- The novel lacks an essential strong ‘hook’ to attract publishers.
To turn it into an adult novel, the agent suggested I might add an adult viewpoint, running alongside the voice of Zhang Ji. And I could mix up the timeline. These ideas certainly have merit, but I am worried about deviating from the simple POV I’ve chosen. I fear my horrible, intrusive, know-it-all narrator voice might start hijacking the narrative.
Next steps: turning the manuscript into a novel suitable for adult publication
Undaunted -(OK somewhat daunted but still undefeated)- I have done the following:
- Changed the title of the novel to “The Tang Warrior“, in the hope this is a catchier hook for an agent or publisher.
- Sent it into Jonathan Cape during their open submissions month.
- Attended a writing conference and noted down the name of an agent who might be interested in the themes within the novel.
- Asked WriteStars for help and arranged for an author of historical fiction to look at my novel and advise on how to turn my Reluctant Scribe and Tang Warrior into a publishable adult novel.
I should have the author’s advice on this by the end of July. All I need to do is wait…
In the meantime, I am working on a short non-fiction book about improving your memory, which I may self-publish as an e-book.
And, I am thinking about my next fiction novel, possibly the novel I always intended to write about the adult life of Zhang Ji, provisionally entitled The Reluctant Eunuch
But July is Camp NaNoWriMo and I am going to try to write a 50,000 light-hearted romance. A brief outline is already done. I’m going to use Scrivenor – a truly wonderful programme – and am going to start fleshing out the outline into a proper synopsis shortly. The important thing, I think, is to get the timeline sorted out and decide which of my two main characters is going to narrate each section. I’ve never tried to write a romance before. Should be fun!
Ruth Livingstone 
Sounds like you’ve got it all in hand Ruth, and thanks for those links, will take a look later. You’re making progress, that’s the main thing.
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Yes, progress, I suppose. At a crawling pace.
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Well done, Ruth. You sound like you really do have a proper plan laid out for your writing and publication. Good luck with Camp. I’m not doing it this time, I need a break and I’m waiting for a ms assessment too. Fingers crossed yours is what you hope for 🙂
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Sorry to hear you’re not doing the camp, but we all need some R&R time too. Look forward to hearing about your progress with your manuscript.
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Sounds like you got some great feed-back from that agent. All the best with reworking your story. 🙂
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I’m reworking my story, too, Ruth. It’s tough. In fact I’ve been running away from it for 2 weeks, so yeah…very hard.
Oddly enough I don’t mind a protagonist’s age, but publishing is a business and I figure professionals in this field know what they’re talking about.
Good luck with the rewrite! As for the historical fiction–I thought paranormal (YA and adult) were in glut. I imagined historical would be a fresh change. -shrugs-
And talk to me about this light-hearted romance. Are we thinking Harlequin/Mills & Boon? :–)
What’s your username on the Camp? I’d love to add you.
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Hi Hana. Yes, hard to second guess the market and who knows, maybe historical fiction will become the NEXT BIG THING! The light-hearted romance will be an exercise in crafting a story within constraints. I’ve discovered, with historical fiction, that I like working inside of rules. In historical fiction, the rules are based on research. In romance, the rules are based on a formula.
My NaNo name is RuthL. But I can’t work out how to add people in the Camp – it seems different from the November NaNoWriMo!
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Ooofa, that’s a tough one, to need to change the age. A concept in literature that isn’t very old, and that the market now relies on like it’s oxygen!
But a hook is a big deal. That’s the “why we care.” I’d suggest reading “Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence” by Lisa Cron. There’s a section in that book which REALLY opened up my eyes.
http://www.amazon.com/Wired-Story-Writers-Science-Sentence-ebook/dp/B005X0JTGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404104911&sr=8-1&keywords=lisa+cron
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Thank you very much for that suggestion. Am currently reading ‘Write to be Published’, by Nicola Morgan – very readable and very informative. Will added the Wired one to my reading list.
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I think the more points of view you get on your novel, from different people, the better off you’ll be! You seem to be doing all the right things.
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Your manuscript sounds very much like the sort of thing I might read, especially if you change it so it is no longer ‘YA’. I’m not sure that having a 12 year old main character is such a big deal— I mean, in the novel Ender’s Game the main character starts out a lot younger than that and it didn’t stop that book from being a wild success.
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