So, I entered MAGE STORM (aka STORM OF MAGIC) in Pitch Slam and got in. The results finally went up this afternoon. I got a request for the query and first 50 pages. Great!
But the agent's name was familiar. Not, just "I've heard of her familiar." More like "Didn't I just query her?" familiar.
Yes, as a matter of fact. I queried her back in October and received her rejection in February.
I sent off the query and fifty pages anyway.
This isn't the first time this has happened to me. It's always just a bit of a buzz kill on the excitement of getting a request.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Either (a) she didn't remember seeing it before, or (b) it never got to her before and was rejected by the agent's equivalent of slushpile reader.
Probably (b), though (a) has a history. There were a couple of editors notorious for rejecting much-praised stories (or demanding revisions), then accepting the stories on resubmission (without revisions).
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm baffled by how this Pitch Slam contest is organized and judged. I read the "teams'" entries. I read the rules, processes, etc. What I see is a group of ambitious, struggling writers acting as judges, and an "executive" selection process still to go. Is the executive bracket the actual literary agent or agents?
The entries all read in the same everyday conversational slang langauge as tens of thousands of authonomy.com entries, the same language of common, everyday social networking slang generally, for the misused "musts," "whens," "buts," and "as's," unnecessary tense inconsistencies, and static verbs. The entries also generally leave little to the imagination, writer directly, unequivocally addressing readers as if lectured to at a public assembly, and hardly any, if any, reflector viewpoint intimacy.
Okay, these writers by and large are proficienct with basic everyday discourse grammars, versed in basic formal term paper writing skills. Is that enough craft skill, emotion, expression, and appeal for creative writing artistry? For a literary agent's and, hopefully, publisher's notice?
The audience, readers and writers, seems to me generally to be like-minded, of one language aesthetic: social networking slang dialect. Is that where young people's literature, and writers thereof, is now?
For whatever reason, it amused the organizers to set this up with a music (mostly not the kind I listen to) theme. That's why the "Call Back" round, etc.
Yeah, the "execs" refer to the agents.
*shrug*
It's their contest, I guess they get to do whatever makes it fun for them.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
So, I entered MAGE STORM (aka STORM OF MAGIC) in Pitch Slam and got in. The results finally went up this afternoon. I got a request for the query and first 50 pages. Great!
But the agent's name was familiar. Not, just "I've heard of her familiar." More like "Didn't I just query her?" familiar.
Yes, as a matter of fact. I queried her back in October and received her rejection in February.
I sent off the query and fifty pages anyway.
This isn't the first time this has happened to me. It's always just a bit of a buzz kill on the excitement of getting a request.
The same type of situation happened to Jim Butcher. It wasn't a pitch slam, he met the woman at a con. But she had rejected him and later changed her mind.
Posts: 5289 | Registered: Jun 2010
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
