#amquerying

Rejected!

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment
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And so the time draws near, that inescapable fate of the writer. The time for inevitable rejection.

I’m finally approaching the finish line of my 8th manuscript, PLAGUE OF CATACLYSMS. When I say the finish line, I hope I mean kind-of-the-starting-line. But that, of course, depends on if I see slightly less than 100% rejection.

Ah, rejection, my old friend. Nemesis, really, but we know each other so well that it’s hard to tell the difference at this point. How does a writer deal with that rejection? In my case, poorly.

But! I’ve decided to look for some positive in the rejections. By taking the viewpoint that in getting rejected, that means I’ve tried, I gave it my best, and that’s more than many people have accomplished? No.

No, gross! Losers always whine about their best…

Instead, I’ve created a document where I can paste all the “encouraging rejections” I’ve received. The few (and it’s very few) that include positive personalized feedback or encouragement. I’ve also augmented it to include feedback I’ve received from industry professionals through freelance editing hires or charity auctions. As I gear up for the first round of queries for PoC later this month (yes, I realize the acronym is a bit awkward nowthesedays, but the title is awesome so 🤷‍♂️) I thought I’d share a few of the entries.

A rejection from the slush pile for my previous MS, THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS:

Thank you so much for giving me the chance to consider THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS. I was excited by your query and the premise of your book. It’s clear that you’ve devoted a lot of hard work to this project, and your passion comes through in your writing. However, while there is a lot to be commended, I struggled to connect with the manuscript in a meaningful way, and therefore don’t believe that I would be the most effective champion for your book.

OK, not exactly glowing praise, but something positive, at least. More than a form letter, ya know? At least she recognized I tried hard and gave it my best 🙄

From an agent I pitched TOP to at a conference, who gave me a full MS request:

Thanks so much for reaching out and for the opportunity to read your book, The Obsidian Pyramids.

You have such a strong narrative voice and I liked the amount of thought and detail that you applied to your world-building, especially when describing the ancient ruins and the power of the pyramids. Your writing has a very cinematic feel to it, which made for an engaging read.

However, while there was so much to love about your book, I found that the amount of information and backstory overshadowed Alaeric’s character. I unfortunately did not emotionally connect with him [sic] character as much as I had hoped to in order for me to take this project on in such a crowded market. I am so sorry that I do not have more positive news for you! But please know that I sincerely do like your writing style and believe that you are very talented! 

Well, at least this agent recognized I’ve got talent! And a strong narrative voice!

I also participated in Pitch Wars, and one of the writers I submitted standard materials to sent me a brief email, even though she didn’t request the full MS:

Hi! I just wanted to drop you an encouraging note to let you know that The OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS was in my top twenty. I thought the concept was really cool (and you wrote a great query — kudos!), and I wish you all the luck with it! I hope you’ll keep me posted.

I think she received around 200 submissions, so top twenty is pretty solid.

A few months later, I received a full MS request from the slush pile for TOP, which led to… my very first R&R! The original response to my full submission:

Thanks for sending OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS! I think the concept is fantastic, and I love the setting. There’s so much potential here! That said, I got a bit distracted by Alaeric’s internal dialogue and the balance between description and external dialogue. Just to expand a bit, Aeleric spends a good amount of time in his head asking himself clarifying questions about what’s going on. It’s always best to avoid that internal dialogue and either nudge the reader to ask those questions themselves or show that the character would be thinking them through action, physical response, dialogue, etc. The less time in a character’s head (“telling) and the more time showing through action, the better. Secondly, you have such a rich world here but the balance is much more heavily weighted towards dialogue than description. I’m all for fast pacing, but we do need description to set the scene and help us feel grounded in the world. Description of where we are, who’s doing what in the moment, etc. 

I don’t normally respond with this much information, but the manuscript and concept is absolutely worth it. If you want to revise and resubmit, I’d be happy to take another look. Either way, best of luck and happy writing!

And the response to my revision and resubmission:

Yes, thanks so much for sending OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS! You really did execute my editorial suggestions, and I think the manuscript is much stronger for it. Unfortunately, though, I’m afraid the voice still didn’t capture me in the way that I hoped. I’m going to have to pass, but I really do appreciate your revision work and the opportunity to read. Please don’t be discouraged…publishing is a marathon, not a sprint, and you just need one person to catch that shared vision. Best of luck to you!

Son of a 😡

Fine, well, even if I have a strong, cinematic, narrative voice, I guess it’s not the right voice, at least for that MS.

And so, after that, it was time for me to move on to my next project, PLAGUE OF CATACLYSMS. No rejections yet, encouraging or otherwise, since I haven’t started querying, but I’ve hired some freelance editors to critique my drafts, and here are a couple pieces of positive feedback I’ve received:

Editor #1:

Thank you so much for letting me dive into Plague of Cataclysms! It was awesome to experience the deep world that you’ve built and to get to know all of your characters. You have a great eye for detail, for action, you have phenomenal chapter transitions, and as I mentioned before, you can certainly see the influence of Brandon Sanderson. Plus, that ending! What a cliffhanger! The pain of being an editor is wanting book two, and knowing it isn’t written yet!

I loved to see how your three main characters slowly weaved their way to each other. It is one of my favorite aspects of Sanderson’s writing that I think you captured beautifully. I also enjoyed that your characters were very morally grey. No one was necessarily the “good knight” to save the day, but everyone was just trying to survive while handling their own baggage. Those types of characters truly speak to readers, so it is phenomenal that you’ve built that into all three that we follow.

Editor #2:

I had a chance to sit down with your work this afternoon, and honestly, I’m so impressed. This first chapter of yours is in truly excellent shape, and your query letter is probably only a revision or two away from being ready to go.

I know that I promised you an editorial letter that addresses any big-picture issues that I spot in your first chapter, but… I don’t think there are any. This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t find any big-picture issues with the manuscript as a whole, if I were to read more, but the chapter that I did read is in stellar shape. Your narrative voice is so strong, and the details of your world, both large and small, are incredibly clear.

Call me Dr. Strong Narrative Voice 😎

These particular editors have pretty strong credentials in the publishing industry, so I find these comments especially encouraging, though they still found plenty of constructive criticisms to give me, which I’m still working on incorporating into my revisions.

Even so, rejection is inevitable. Inevitable, yet painful. I already have my next MS planned out, and I expect to start writing the first draft within a week or two of sending off the first round of queries for PoC, so if nothing else, I hope some of my rejections are encouraging. Preferably, something else: an offer from an awesome lit agent.

Deep in the Query Trenches

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

After 17 months of hard work on my most recent MS, The Obsidian Pyramids, I sent out my first round of queries seven weeks ago; four rejections so far, but I’m still waiting to hear on four others. I also decided to enter #QueryKombat last minute. We’re supposed to hear who made the cut (64 out of 428 entries will make the tourney) next Friday.

I’ll try to keep track of my query adventures here, starting by posting the current version of my query and the first page of my MS (this is essentially the submission to #QueryKombat).

Query:

Dear [Agent],

Twelve obsidian pyramids have stood since before memory, conferring arcane powers upon those who seek them out. Most who pursue them become Endowed, acquiring one of twelve special abilities. But a few unlucky initiates are instead marked – physically and spiritually – as Accursed, and are treated as little more than animals, thought to possess stained souls.

Alaeric Helskor is one of those unlucky few. After years traveling lost and alone, he’s visited by a mysterious shadow-woman who grants him the unique ability to temporarily siphon Endoweds’ powers – but only after he’s slain an Endowed of matching ability. Promising him redemption, she convinces him to travel to Lake Celes, where a self-proclaimed prophet named Ben Tobagho has taken control of ancient ruins that contain the secrets of the pyramids and their creation.

After an Endowed poisoned his daughter years ago, revenge sparked in Tobagho’s heart; he now plots the destruction of the pyramids and the end of the Endowed, playing on the fears and jealousy of normals – men and women who’ve never visited the pyramids. When the shadow-woman prompts Alaeric to steal a mystical artifact from within the ruins, he quickly makes himself Tobagho’s enemy.

As Tobagho’s vitriolic message spreads and his power grows, Alaeric becomes caught in the middle of the ensuing war between Endowed and normals. To save the pyramids, and the shadow-woman who granted him his powers, he must expose Tobagho as a fraud. But the prophet holds all the cards, and Alaeric must decide if redemption is worth his life.

THE OBSIDIAN PYRAMIDS is a 110,000 word adult high fantasy that melds the western-style setting and innovative magic of Brandon Sanderson’s THE ALLOY OF LAW and the morally flawed yet likeable characters of Scott Lynch’s THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES.

I work as a portfolio manager for Crabel Capital Management, and I earned my B.S, M.S., and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Marquette University. My greatest writing influences include Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, and Jim Butcher.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Regards,
Kevin Indrebo

First page:

Alaeric pressed his body against the rock outcropping that concealed him, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword. He controlled his breathing, keeping it slow and calm. The eerie silence of the late afternoon was loud in his ears.

Below, the woman who’d been tracking him picked her way along the gully. Her blood-red hair stirred as a slight breeze picked up, and she glanced around, eyes wide and alert for anything – not the look of someone who assumed she was alone. Days since he discovered her, this was the first time he’d managed to gain the advantage and get a good look at her.

She was quite striking. Beautiful, even. She wore tight, black leather pants and a matching jacket, with a small bedroll strapped to her back. She walked with an otherworldly grace, one that made her appear out of place among the stunted plants and rocky, dry terrain. Like a thorny, vibrant flower in a dying, unkempt garden.

A Dancer. No doubt about it. She floated over the uneven ground Alaeric had stumbled and struggled his way through a few hundred heartbeats earlier. A high-level Dancer, at that. Too high for Alaeric to sense how many pyramids she’d seen.

This complicated things. For a time, when he first noticed the signs, he’d wondered if he was imagining the woman’s presence in his wake. The djinn knew he was having a fuck of a time distinguishing real threats from fake these days. But even when he’d convinced himself someone was tracking him, he’d still held out hope it was a simple brigand. Simple, but persistent. Alaeric may not have looked like much of a target, but out here, in the lonely and vicious Miraji Desert, some folks were desperate.

The Epic in Epic Fantasy

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I had the flu. I had it bad. I get sick somewhat frequently, partly because I fly a lot, partly because I drink too much and that probably weakens my immune system I can only assume. But I haven’t had the flu much since I was a kid. This was definitely the worst I’ve had it since I turned 18.

I couldn’t get out of bed for 3 days except to go to the bathroom. Could almost eat nothing.

It was also hard for me to sleep during the day, feverish and sweaty that I was. Fortunately, I had one little piece of luck on my side. Something that made it easy to get through. OK, not easy, but possible. I was reading Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer (Stormlight Archives 3) at the time.

Now, I read a lot of big books (I love big books and I cannot lie). Epic fantasy has always been my thing. I used to go to the bookstore and randomly choose books from the fantasy section based on which one was the thickest.

But I’m pretty certain this is the longest book I’ve ever read. Over 450,000 words. More than 1200 pages in hardcover with basically no margins. That’s about four Kevin books in one.

The final sequence, which involved about a thousand threads converging on each other in an epic confrontation, was the equivalent of a normal-sized novel. And holy shit was it emotionally exhausting.

It was incredible, and the only bad part about it was: I was sad it finally came to an end. 450,00 words and I wanted more immediately.

I want to be able to write like that. To create something so epic, so gripping, so dramatic, an epic fantasy reader can read the longest book she’s ever read and think it was too short.

But I can’t. Or at least, I can’t imagine ever getting to that level. I’ve learned more from Brandon than any other author, and I think a lot my strengths as a writer are similar (though not as good by any means) to his. To do what he did in this book, though? I just can’t imagine ever having that ability.

But it doesn’t mean I won’t try. I just finished the fifth draft of my seventh novel, The Obsidian Pyramids. Shortly after publishing this post, I will be embarking on one of the scariest, most painful, frustrating experiences a young(ish-in-a-way) writer can have. I will be sending out the first round of queries.

Pray for me. If you do that sort of thing. I’d say have a drink for me if not (or if so!), but I will be having plenty for myself this weekend, so I think I have that covered.