I have been writing (good) and having health issues (bad), so I've been quieter than I would have liked. However, before I can get to a number of other things, we have a publishing kerfuffle to discuss. Yes, another one. It's gotten pretty bad.
The short overview from the Guardian:
YA authors asked to 'straighten' gay characters: Authors say
(
Read more... )
Reply
Yeah, that was my best guess from the wording of the statement. I'll add that in.
Reply
Reply
But yes, in general, right now the mainstream of YA sff is books with a single narrator in which all the characters are defined by how they relate to him or her. There are exceptions, of course, and I tend to prefer those. I like ensemble stories. But they're a very hard sell right now.
Stranger is a riff on the old Western story of a stranger who comes to town and shakes up everyone's lives. Ross is the stranger; Yuki is one of the people whose life gets shaken up.
So yes, lots of people thought it should just be about Ross. That would be a perfectly good story. But it's not the story we want to tell.
Reply
Beautifully said.
I'm self-published, and early in my career I got a fairly steady trickle of industry folks who told me they thought I could publish my work "for real" if I would change this or that, usually meaning tighten up the sprawling plot and tone down the sex/the gay (or make it all about the sex). A few of them were agents who attached an actual offer to represent me to it, most were just offering it as advice.
"That's not the story I'm interested in telling" was part of my stock response.
Reply
Leave a comment