Analysis

To get a better handle on the current market, I picked up a couple of novels at the local library. One can't go wrong with a proven winner like Anita Diamant of The Red Tent fame. According to the jacket flap, The Last Days of Dogtown would be considered a literary novel, since there is no murder mystery or shoot-em-up type action, nor is there a budding romance or love story.

The first chapter is sixteen pages long, and is filled with descriptions of the characters. Physical attributes are penned as each one is introduced, with enough backstory to place them in the overall scene. And then nothing happens. A suicide has brought the characters together, and I guess that the reader would want to turn the pages to discover why a man might kill himself, but the pacing is not high speed.

How perfect! Who is the agent that represented this novel, that looks for stories that unfold slowly? Surely I should send a query to her, someone who appreciates a style that I also prefer. After a few rejections that complained of slow pacing, I would be a fool not to pursue this person. It is easy enough to find out who represents whom through Publishers Marketplace
. So, what are the odds of getting Binky Urban to take me on? What is less likely than slim and none?

In a way, that explains why agents say that literary type fiction is a hard sell. Few agents rep it, and those that do are so swamped that they won't take on anyone new unless they are particularly stellar, and an unpublished author is not usually on top of the game. Back to square one. Anyone else out there like well written character driven narratives that move at a comfortable pace and then suck the reader in slowly?