I am Pleased to Share Breaking News of Life in this Crowded Marketplace
A few months ago I sent a query about of Flamingo Dawn to a publisher. The query was a three paragraph pitch and they emailed in due course requesting the opening chapters. I sent them off with a little writer prayer during the dog days of August. This morning they wrote, asking for the full manuscript. The email included some observations that included the following:
“I hate the first page. Don’t like the main character, the setting, the violence, corruption or descriptors; object to simile near the bottom of page one. Rest of the sample okay.”
“Don’t like the non-sequential nature of the narrative. Did like dialogue, and one of the villains. Like the complexity, but this is not my favorite kind of thing, too noir.”
Okay. I’m thrilled that they want the entire manuscript. I’m a little worried because Flamingo Dawn is unconventional; the structure is defined by events that occur between noon on the first day and noon on the second where the story ends. Each character has some information about what is going on, but none of them know the whole story. Their povs are defined in part by the time of day or night they enter the fray; each of them is a life threatening circumstance triggered by one event, a murder in Rhinebeck, New York. The dead man is the chief of NYPD’s Intelligence Division. His killers have the names of every undercover cop in the city on a stolen disk.
The book is a murder mystery and the main character has to solve it. He doesn’t really want to dig too deep because he’s having an affair with the prime suspect; the reader isn’t sure whether he’s trying to protect her or his own career, because, at times, he does both. His ex-partner is an undercover cop experiencing the direct fallout of the crime; his cover is blown, his partner is dead and he joins forces with a criminal to survive the night.
Anyway, the manuscript is on its way, a paper boat bobbing in the swells. I’ll keep you informed as things develope. It’s very exciting and rather than anticipate rejection, I’ll enjoy the notion that they asked for it, which is why we write this stuff, isn’t it?