Ten years ago, I submitted my first novel to several literary agents. I had worked hard on it – multiple drafts and revisions after feedback from half a dozen beta readers – and was proud of the final product. It was a thrill to get “full” requests – a second step after agents have read a sample and see potential to sell your project to publishers. Getting an agent to read your complete book is not easy.
Nothing prepared me for what came next: a string of rejections with feedback that felt like a kick to the stomach: “not a standout” “too long and slow” (it was a page-turner!) “was not compelled to keep reading.”
The feedback was crushing. I was experiencing a common rite of passage for aspiring fiction writers: the jaded indifference of the publishing gatekeepers. When you spend all day reading manuscripts, and see how rarely even the most surefire projects catch on, the enthusiasm level vanishes.
Curiously, the exact opposite happens to an elite core of authors who have friends in all the right places. Their mediocre works are heaped with superlative praise to the point that you wonder if you have read the same book they did. Such is the case for this summer’s presumed blockbuster The Plot.
Here is a sampling of some of the enraptured fans of the book:
It’s amazing how the standards change when you’re on the other side. If a newcomer had tried to sell this manuscript, snooty agents would have pointed out that most regular suspense readers will predict the culprit about halfway through. It’s not difficult to do because there really only are two suspects. They might have pointed out that the plot-within-a-plot is the stronger story and gently suggest starting over with that story as a more central focus. They probably would have said that the ending was too predictable. And a few of them would have raised issues with the core ethical dilemma: is Jake’s infraction really all that serious? And at least one of them might have gamely mentioned the ’80s movie D.O.A, which, ironically, had a similar plot.
These professional reviews clash enough with my own reading experience that I feel like I’m reading the author’s grad school references. Are these all just professional contacts currying favor with a colleague?
Maybe. Or maybe there really just is no accounting for taste. To each their own.
Books Smitten 