Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Tic tac toe

I don't often get good books. That's no secret. But I'm pretty sure my new assignment gives me three in a row of complete, utter bullshit. Here are some highlights from the client questionnaire:

Provide a thorough summary of your book.
Sorry guy's can't summarize a very complex plot in under 30,000 words.

Great start. You can't write a summary of your own book. Well, here. Let me summarize it for you: another fucking vampire book.

Describe the specific tone, themes, and mood you would like your book to convey to readers.
OK, this is multi-faceted. Here's the partial list:
Light-hearted
Seriously tragic
Gothic
Intellectual
Awe-inspiring etc
There 
is tragic love, revenge, horrific brutality and triumph over extreme adversity. 

But wait! There's more! Characters will also be happy, sad, mad, mildly irritated, anxious, perplexed, sleepy, and constipated. And if you order in the next twenty minutes, you'll also get hungry, spicy, husky, throbbing, and smirk. 

Side note: I do love light-hearted horrific brutality.

To which books would you most like to see your work compared? Which author(s) in your genre do you admire?
Author Franz Kafka - the characters in my book are subject to unpredictable horror and tragedy.

Kafka?! You're comparing yourself to fucking Kafka?

Describe your target audience by factors such as age group, interests, education, gender, etc. 
Vampire fans. Millennials (18 - 30 y.o.) Fans of Twilight. The book may possibly turn out to be very popular among girls/women as strong, intelligent women are integral to the plot.

Clearly this author is male. I can't wait to read what he thinks a "strong, intelligent woman" looks like.

Is there a rule you would like for your editor to disregard because you have purposefully gone against convention in your manuscript?
If a sentence which is grammatically incorrect, it's most likely because I intended it that way because the grammatically correct version would seem stilted.
I have intentionally omitted many commas to maintain good flow. I've used apostrophes to keep the readers' flow.

Read that first sentence again. So you're telling me that would have sounded stilted if you'd written it so it actually made sense?

I also assume the use of "guy's" in the summary question is to "keep the readers' flow." 

Or perhaps this guy is a fucking moron. Grammar does not bend to your will, asshole.

What sets your book apart?
There are too many ways to spoil plot twists in this book - there are a lot of plot twists.

I'll bet there's a werewolf. In vampire books, "plot twist" always means there's a werewolf.

What aspects of your writing are unique and define you as an author?
I want them to actually THINK about things sometimes. I also want them to have to look up the meaning of a word - like we did in the old days.

You know what millennials love? Being talked down to. I'm seriously loving it right now. That's right, asshat. Your editor is a milennial. Plot twist!

1 comment:

  1. Pretty excited for the upcoming blog posts - this was better than any trailer for a movie.

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