You can't go wrong with Vachss' series about Burke, the ex-con, paedophile-busting, anti-hero. Having said that, if I recall, the first in the series - 'Flood' - was Vachss developing his style, which comes into its own in the following novels; but still worth reading for the setting up of Burke's 'family' alone. It's also worth catching his session on the 'Writers on Writing' podcast (4 July 2006), where he talks a lot of sense, and has some surprising views, on how to get into the industry and how to survive once there.

Elmore Leonard has written oodles of books, and I'm sure you must have seen at least a few of the film adaptations, e.g. 'Get Shorty', 'Out of Sight'. His 10 rules of writing have been talked about on WW before, but if you haven't seen them, they're here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE3DD103BF935A25754C0A9679C8B63

Terry

Many thanks, Terry, I'll check that info out.

Tiger

Go for it!
It is very positive that this person is even willing to discuss things with you in detail. They are busy people and obviously see promise in you. Structure is a usual problem. I'm about to have my first book published and have embarked on the second, to which only yesterday my agent mentioned the dreaded S word.
It's somthing that can definately be fixed.
Well done!

Thanks, Lola, that's very encouraging. Conrgratulations on your first book, and good luck with the second.

Tiger

Today was the day I spoke with the agent about the ms. There's a full post-mortem over at my blog:

http://sarah-crawl-space.blogspot.com/2008/02/agent-input.html

Here are some gems which I thought might interest people following this thread:

“Crime is a brutally rational genre with an almost Puritanical discipline in terms of plot, motivation, evidence, reasoning and conclusion. At the same time, it has the potential for the most gothic exploration of the inner reaches of the soul.

“What makes a good crime novel is the contrast, and the tension, between the creepy and the mundane.

“Narrative tension is crucial but good plot is more important than too much plot – lose the codes and complications.

“Settle on a single strand of story and go deep – dig down into the psychology.

“The more gothic the ingredients (and gothic is good – we all love gothic), the greater the need for logic and resolution. The premise, the core of the story, has to work in these terms.

“You need to plot out a very very tight story. Take away all the trappings and work out which story makes psychological sense – focus on that story.”

She also said this, which spoke to the debate here about revisions vs starting over:

“Revision can be harder than starting over. If you do decide to rework this story, it might be best to show the revision to someone who hasn't seen the original, but I’d be very pleased to see a new story from you.”


Thanks to everyone who gave me a solid steer on how to get the most from the conversation. I found it really encouraging. Best of all, she stressed - twice - that she wouldn't have bothered spending 40 mins telling me what was wrong with the ms if she didn't believe my writing was great and that I could produce a "really really impressive novel".



Tiger

Hi Tiger

Thanks for posting that. Useful to us all.

That's an exciting development (just read your blog.) Hope it all goes well in the rewrites.

C

Many thanks, Susannah. I'm glad it was helpful stuff.

Sarah