AFN #140 Unnatural Autumn
It's too warm for November! This is a problem!
Hi all! Thanks again for your continued lovely responses to the newsletters. I’m also gratified to see that I’m still picking up new subscribers—welcome! There’s some useful links at the end in the “Housekeeping” section, but before you ask a question in the Google Form, I implore you to spend some time reading through the archive to see if I’ve answered your question before. In some cases I have, as recently as a few weeks ago! I’m going to work on organizing a post that links issues by topic so information is a little easier to find, but please do some reading before you ask. (I must have answered the “where do I find information about agents” question several times over the five year course of this newsletter.) But seriously, thank you for reading. Back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.
PUBLISHING QUESTION OF THE WEEK
QUERY QUESTION: In a romance with elements of women's (friendship) fiction and a dual POV, is it imperative that the query be written in dual POV? The two POVs are heroine and hero. The hero's POV occurs every five chapters, approximately. Thank you. Your newsletter lightens my day. I'm a newbie here.
Awww, thank you! I’m so glad you find the newsletter fun—I hope it’s also helpful. In terms of your question, it basically depends! I always think if you’re doing a dual or multi POV query, it’s good to keep the basic query structure in place within the mini-POV sections. That structure is: Character + Desire | Conflict | Stakes. That might look something like this:
PLUCKY HEROINE would like nothing better than to forget about LIFE EVENT, and is determined to make her SMALL CUTE BUSINESS a success. But when she gets to SMALL TOWN and discovers that LOVE INTEREST/ENEMY has his eye on the same piece of real estate, she’s determined to beat out the handsome LAWYER/DOCTOR/OTHER SMALL BUSINESS OWNER. If she doesn’t, she loses all her money—and might break her heart, again.
LOVE INTEREST/ENEMY was all ready to expand his LAW FIRM/DOCTOR’S OFFICE/SMALL BUSINESS until PLUCKY HEROINE came into town. With her charm and beauty she soon has his landlord seeing stars, and the lease that was just about to be his may slip out of his grasp. If he loses the space, he’ll have to start from scratch—and he doesn’t know if he has the strength to rebuild.
This is obviously not a very good example, but I hope the structure I’m talking about is clear. From here, it’s a bit more of a delicate dance—molding and combining their two conflicts and stakes so that the reader is excited to root for their relationship. Where I worry is that it sounds like the heroine has more on-page time than the hero—the kind of 50/50 POV split in a query might work if it were a more even on-page distribution, but might be misleading if the hero is less present.
Regardless, as you’re writing your query, read the cover/jacket copy of comp titles—how do other titles that you’re comparing your novel to handle the dual POV element? Do they concentrate on one voice? Do they try to utilize both? The more examples you read, the more you’ll be able to figure out what structure works for your project.
WHAT I’M READING
I did not move onto Absolution, mostly because rereading the Southern Reach trilogy would have meant schlepping around my enormous omnibus copy. Instead I picked up a book I bought in London: Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seichō Matsumoto, translated by Beth Cary. It’s not a honkaku mystery like The Honjin Murders by Seiko Yokomizo or The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji, which are more in the Agatha Christie-Golden Age tradition. Inspector Imanishi is closer to Maigret than Poirot: instead of the little grey cells, Imanishi turns to haiku and endless cigarettes. This novel was written in 1960, and is very much concerned with a changing Japan, as the inciting murder centers around a group of intellectuals inspired by art and music from the West. Highly recommend! As a bit of a brain reset, when I finished with Inspector Imanishi I picked up Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe. So far it’s fascinating, if you are a particular brand of dork like me!
THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY
I spoke too soon. “The Caps are good this season, y’all!” “Ovi is definitely going to catch Gretzky’s record!” With wings of wax did I fly toward the sun, and now I reap the price of my hubris: Alex Ovechkin was injured last week in a game against the still-unnamed Utah Hockey Club, when he took leg-to-leg contact from Utah player JackMcBain. He’s out week-to-week as they evaluate the injury. He hobbled out in the third period—he’d already scored two goals, bringing his tally so far to 13 goals this season (a feat he didn’t reach last season until February.) Famously, Ovi is The Great 8, the Russian Machine: for nearly twenty seasons the motto has been Russian Machine Never Breaks. Before this he’d only missed 59 games in his entire career to injury. At 39, it’s honestly impressive he hasn’t missed more. Compare 59 games missed to Sidney Crosby’s nearly 200—most due to concussions. Head coach Spencer Carberry, a man who looks more and more like a Scooby Doo villain every time I see him, says that this isn’t season-ending; for Ovi’s sake and ours, I hope not.
HOUSEKEEPING
Do you have any questions about the publishing industry? Requests for advice? Thoughts on your recent reads? You can leave them as comments, replies to this email, or fill out this Google form to ask anonymously!
For my sins, I have reopened to queries.
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