“A premise is not a plot”
What an excellent post by New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. Worth reading whether you’re an aspiring or an established writer.
And it helps explain why a lot of us published authors have to say no to requests to read other people’s unpublished manuscripts. Sometimes our agents have had to lay down the law.
Robin,
Will you read my unpublished manuscript?
-P
Totally, Patrick. I hope it’s super, super long so I never get to do my own work. And does it have zombies? I don’t get zombies at all, so if the book were really confusing on top of being super long, then my agent would be so, so happy that I said yes. She’d call me in a few months and say, “Um, weren’t you supposed to be done with the new book by now?” And I’d say, “Yeah, but I’m still on page 22 of Patrick’s unpublished manuscript, trying to figure out the zombie hierarchy! Can you blame me?”
Anyway, back to work.
Hi, Robin! Thought I’d stop by.
I liked that article… I’m keeping my current project pretty close to the vest, because it’s high concept, and anyway, I don’t want to talk too much about stuff unless/until a sale happens. But I can’t imagine trying to hide something from an agent/editor.
I don’t know why it is so hard to understand.
It’s a simple equation of length of zombie time modified by the extent of zombie injuries, plus the sum of zombie points of all your converted zombies.
Good to know! puts me a little at ease! XD thanks! hehe
Hey, no problem, Dylan! If you have any more questions on the zombie hierarchy, just post them here. What ever you do, don’t be a zombie’s first…
Hi back, Katie! I’m with you on keeping the works-in-progress under deep cover–in part because if I talk about a book too much while I’m writing it, I feel like I’ve already written it and then I don’t feel like writing it anymore. Know what I mean?
Patrick, all I can say is they told me there would be no math.
Dylan, glad to put you at ease! Unless you were talking about what Patrick said, and it’s his zombie explanation that put you at ease, in which case I’ll let you two sort that out.
Um, actually Patric I was taking about the post… *awkwardturtle* Erm, yeah anyways… *coughcough* But I’ll definatly let you know if I have any questions at all about the Zombie… whatchamacalit… Definatly! haha
Great post, Robin.
Patrick, I’m currently writing a 15 hundred page trilogy (because trilogies sell!) about time-traveling mermaid vampire pirates in Tudor England. However, your unpublished manuscript about zombies makes me think that I’ve missed out on something crucial. Would you be amenible to merging our manuscripts? I was thinking about making Henry VIII a zombie (you know, with that festering wound in his leg). If you’re interested, my agent will call your agent and we’ll work out the details.
P.S. Hi Robin!
*snort*