Patrick's comments (member since May 12, 2009)

Patrick's comments from the Literary Horror group.

Well...I would hate to discourage writers from taking risks, after all I believe most people get into writing not to make money, but because they have stories inside them that are desperate to be written and read. If you want to be artistic about it, you shouldn't play it safe, unless you are in it for the money. Good luck with your book but don't play it safe. I mean, the agent may know the markets but you already know a lot of people who like your book.

I don't know myself...I lost an agent who says that while she admires experimental novels, it is still a business and readers do have their expectations. Readers preferred to have some reasonable expectations of how the story works...something like a security blanket I would think. That's why readers gravitated toward vampire romance because they want to read another Twilght, or Spenser for Hire because they know Spenser or Hawk will kick ass while quoting from literature, and why they shy away from non linear narratives, especially by a new author.

But House of Leaves went beyond that, but at the same time, the book followed tradition by revealing letters, journals, articles, recording, and even a comic strip, and so forth like Bram Stroker's novel Dracula with interchanges of letters and documents.

The best answer I could give is if non linear narrative is the best way to tell the story, then go for it. But at the same time, the readers are not really impressed by 'bells and whistles', but by a capivating story that sustain his or her attention. There had to be a compelling reason behind this narrative otherwise the readers would tell you to just stick with the story.

Good luck on that. I can't really say for sure unless I read the work itself. Best advice I can give you is rewrite it more than six times and do it with the goal of reducing the amounts of words it take to tell the story.

How about House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski and China Mieville's elegant Victoria splatterpunk, Pediro Street Station, and The Iron Council?

I guess I will jump on the band wagon and nominate my book as well. It's more of a friendship story than a love story. gather the weeds