Literary agent Donald Maass ran his breakout novel seminar in San Jose Costa Rica, no San Jose California this weekend. My sister attended, telephoning this reporter before the Saturday night mixer.
San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley and I wondered what genre dominated among the attendees. So close to Google HQ in Mountain View, so close to the Roman garrison at Monterey, yet distant from Hollywoodland, what are forty writers in the Valley likely to work on? When I attended Don’s class in Seattle it broke down this way: 21 fantasy, 12 traditional romance, 8 traditional sci-fi, 3 romantic sci-fi, 3 historical fantasy, and one noir thriller.
Terri has written a mystery that centers around a quilt show. She’s a quilter, so that makes sense. Her classmates are probably venture capital specialists or software engineers so I’d speculate the manuscripts breakdown like this: 1 quilter mystery, 4 venture capital thrillers, 11 vc romantic suspense, 7 fantasy Google Rules the World, 9 paranormal venture capital thrillers, 2 books about traffic, and 1 burning Angles, ruddy cheeks adventure about the sacking of York.
Donald Maass is an excellent teacher and the class is worthwhile if you fit one of the following categories: a working novelist, close to publication, or have two or three training novels under your belt. His focus is on writing novels that will perform well in the marketplace; if you’re at the beginner level, try reading The Career Novelist or the Breakout Novel Workbook before investing in the class.