I announced a few weeks ago that I decided to cancel the self-publishing release of my gaslight fantasy story, No Rest for the Wicked.
Editors from two different publishing houses read the novella, and they both decided to give me a combination of pass/accept. The first to respond said I needed to work on my pacing, but I was onto something good. She recommended a wonderful resource that I am sure many of you have heard of, Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! And asked me to stay in touch about possible working together.
The second editor to respond approached the Mistress of None series in a different way. From the beginning, she was asking me how I felt about novel-length works rather than novellas. I certainly planned to be writing novels, and I started to wonder if she was right about changing my approach. Even before she read the full manuscript, I had begun to outline a new take on the series.
By the time she emailed to say she was passing on the novella, I expected that to be her response. When I looked at the two things I had been viewing as separate books, I realized how much more powerful the themes would be if I had longer to develop them in a single work. She invited me to resubmit if I could give her something at least 70k words long. And I decided to take up the challenge.
I hadn’t quiet finished novella #2 yet, so armed with Blake Snyder’s insights about writing emotionally satisfying fiction, I started a new outline and revision from the beginning of novella #1. In total, bringing the two together came out at over 83k words. I’m thrilled with the result, and I’m looking forward to sharing it with you! As a novel, No Rest for the Wicked has 45 chapters, so there are plenty more excerpts coming your way.
I still have no idea if that will be with a publisher or on my own, but progress continues for me, Vi, and our plans for world domination– I mean, publishing the books, of course.
Haha…yeah…that’s totally what I meant…
Phoebe Darqueling 