Book Blurbs and Pets Revisited
The cruise portion of our vacation ends today. I’ll be homeward bound soon, but we’re spending a few days in Barcelona first. I mean, we’re here, and not likely to come back.
Since I couldn’t know what kind of access to cyberspace I’d have on the trip, (not to mention my decision that this trip is a vacation), I opted to revisit another post for today. This one from August of 2021.
My previous editor asked if I would read one of her debut author’s upcoming releases and provide a one-or-two-sentence “blurb.” She said it was a romantic suspense, which is a genre I’m familiar with.
Now, I don’t put much stock in author recommendations. I had to grovel for them for that first Blackthorne book, and dreaded doing it. I was an unknown with a couple of books out from a digital-first publisher. (No Amazon yet.) One author acquaintance said, “Sure. Send me three quotes and I’ll cobble something together.” Never even asked to read the book. Another said she read just enough to see that I knew what I was doing.
Nevertheless, I agreed to give the book a try.
I was reading along, my internal editor refusing to shut up, but overall, the writing was clean and easy to read. It was a little slow-moving for my taste, as the suspense element wasn’t brought in until later than I would have expected, but then … about ¾ of the way through the book …
The protagonist, who by now had received threatening emails and phone calls, came home to find a box on her doorstep. Upon opening it, she discovered the mutilated body of a cat. Not just any cat, but a stray she’d semi-adopted.
Mind you, this was not a serial killer, dark mystery/thriller type book. This was, overall, a romance with some suspense elements. And a mutilated cat.
Very early in my writing career (2004 according to my files), I attended my first writer’s conference. At a workshop given by the late Barbara Parker, she said she’d made the unforgivable mistake of having a mutilated cat show up in a box on the doorstep at the protagonist’s house. And, even worse, the protagonist had a young daughter. Parker said readers sent hate mail, and warned that killing a pet was an absolute no-no. Her book was a legal mystery, so her audience wasn’t romance-oriented, yet they still screamed.
I told her my manuscript included a character with 2 cats, and I had poisoned them (you’ll never know the delight you can light up in someone’s eyes until you holler between your office and the Hubster’s and say, “I need a way to kill a cat,” which is an entirely different story that I won’t go into here.)
My plan was to have one survive. The incident would 1) force my character to deal with emotions he’d denied; and 2) provide a critical clue for solving the overall mystery.
She gave me an emphatic “NO.” So, in the final version, both cats survived.
I passed this information on to my editor, who said she was warned against harming children or dogs, but nobody’d ever mentioned cats, and that she would bring it up with the author.
At this point, I asked a couple of my best-selling authors of romance and romantic suspense friends what they thought. I’d been slow in my read, and I knew my editor wanted my quote to appear in the soon-to-be-published book, but I was very uncomfortable putting my name on a book that would likely anger readers.
One said she refuses to blurb books anymore, saying there’s nothing to gain. (She also suggested I have my assistant be the one to tell my editor, but my dog can’t type.) The other author said “never recommend a book that you don’t love madly.” Until the cat incident, the book was good, but I wasn’t madly in love with it.
Ultimately, I told my editor I wasn’t comfortable putting my name on the book, and she said she understood, and another author she’d asked to read it said something similar. In the end, the author deleted that thread.
All right, TKZers. Floor is open for discussion, either on the harming pets topic or book blurbs in general. I know of numerous authors, who when asked, “What do you read?” will say, “About all I get to read these days are books my publisher sends for blurbs.” Are their recommendations enough to sway you to buy books? Or do you think they’re writing what their publishers want to hear? If you were asked to blurb a book, where would you draw the line?
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Beyond the Frame
When the camera lies, who do you trust?
When deepfake photos threaten their careers, dog-park friends Evvie and Colton become each other’s only allies. Evvie, who vanished behind her camera years ago to escape a painful past, uncovers humiliating fake images of herself.
Colton, an insurance adjuster with ranch roots, trusts her eye on a suspicious claim. A family emergency pulls them to Wyoming—where Evvie’s own dangerous secret waits.
Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
I’m on the road—or the seas. According to my itinerary, I should be on a boat anchored at Mykonos today. I’m revisiting a post from May, 2022. Since I’m scheduling this before I leave, I have no way of knowing what kind of internet service I’ll have, so forgive me if I don’t respond to comments right away. And, I intend to go ashore and do some sightseeing!
If you’ll pardon a little BSP, Beyond the Frame is now out in the world. This is a stand alone, although there’s a possibility it might spin off another book. Or two. Not something I had in mind when I started writing, but as the book drew to a close and I was doing all the editorial reading, I noticed some potential sequels. Subconscious at work?
Agatha Christie Room
Many authors talk about hitting a wall at about the 30K mark, and I’m no exception. At that point, I usually wonder if I’m going to have enough story for a whole book. Since I’ve finished over 30 of them, the answer seems to be yes, but that doesn’t stop the doubts from creeping in.
I hit another wall somewhere in the 60K neighborhood, which is where I am now in the current WIP. “Wall” is probably the wrong term. Raging river is probably a better term, because now, the nagging question becomes whether the book is ever going to end. This is where I need to get into my version of plotting.
At this stage of the process, I look at my “notes” file to see if I had any ideas that need adding, fleshing out, or cutting. I also get out my handy legal tablet and make handwritten, almost legible notes of threads that I have to deal with. That means for the last 10-20 thousand words of the book, I’m plotting.
Eventually, everything gets addressed. At that point, I’m ready to print the whole thing using my “fool the eye” technique, and see how it holds together.
There are always interruptions to the writing process, even when you’re diligently writing.
That’s always a problem with research. You pick up fascinating tidbits like the Sandhills Calving System and include it in a family discussion. But will it move the story forward enough to justify those 135 words? Nope. It’s in my “snips” file in case it turns out to be needed, but research should follow the iceberg rule. Most of it’s under water, and shouldn’t show on the page.