Almost accurate, yet utterly useless

[rj_anderson]

When giving advice on how to write a good query letter, I've often heard agents and editors recommend that authors compare their ideas to something that's already out there. For instance, I've heard one paranormal romance author describe her books as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets James Bond". Well, I just came up with a description of Wayfarer (the sequel to Knife, which I am currently brainstorming) that amused me greatly:

"It's like Thomas Covenant meets Watership Down. With faeries."

Hee!

Comments

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

*boggles*

I'd probably read it, just to see what that was like. :-D

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the Watership Down angle would pull me in all by itself. *g*

Mary Anne

[meril.livejournal.com]

...well, it's useful if you're trying to point out that the book is a whole boatload of wrong... ;)

Sorry,

[thefish30.livejournal.com]

I just read that aloud to my husband. His reaction:

That's going to be bloody depressing. I might not be able to read it.

Don't mind him, he likes all your other stuff.

Re: Sorry,

[kerravonsen]

Yes, well Thomas Covenant is bloody depressing.

Re: Sorry,

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, you can at least reassure him that it's the "unbeliever" part of the Thomas Covenant equation I was going for, not the "afflicted with leprosy, bitter, and massively depressed" part.

[kerravonsen]

I love it. It has now bumped off the description which used to be my favourite one-liner of that kind: "A cross between Star Wars, Georgette Heyer and James Bond" (about some of the Liaden books).

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'd probably give it a go - in spite of finding the Thomas Covenant Chronicles completely unreadable - just what to see how anyone could achieve such a thing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who loves to see people taking the seeming impossible and creating great works from it!

[jcobleigh.livejournal.com]

If I heard someone describe a book to me like that, it wouldn't make me excited to read it. I've read Thomas Covenant and am glad for the experience but can't say it was altogether pleasant.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

This is why I said it was an essentially useless description, and really only meant it as a joke. You can say something is "like" something else, but in what specific way? I'm currently reading John Wright's Orphans of Chaos and there's a quote on the cover comparing it to the Narnia books. So far, I don't find it anything like Narnia at all, apart from a few superficial details. But apparently that reviewer thought otherwise.

I'm really not a big fan of the Covenant books either; but they were the first thing I thought of to describe my hero's skepticism in the face of the fantastical.

[ladyjaguar.livejournal.com]

I flung the first Covenant book against the wall after the first 100 pages. It was, as dolorous_ett said above, unreadable.

It saddens me, though, that people -- at least some of them -- who make decisions as to which books will or will not be published can't stand for a book to rise or fall on its own merits, without comparison to something else. It is absurd, as your "blurb" demonstrates. I think it reflects badly on the reviewer/editor/whoever: it says to me that the individual hasn't the intellectual apparatus to come up with fresh and original things to say in a review.

That kinda turns things on their heads, doesn't it? After all, one of the demands put on writers is that their work be fresh and original, no?

H'mmmm . . .

Makes me glad I'm doing non-fiction; we don't run into that so much as fiction writers do.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I flung the first Covenant book against the wall after the first 100 pages.

It took me six tries over the course of three or four years to get past that point, myself -- I'm not even sure why I kept trying. But once I did, I roared through the rest of the series. Not that I would claim them as favorites, but after that first enormous hurdle they became much more interesting, and Covenant a significantly more tolerable character.

But I agree. I really don't care for the whole comparison business.

The book world has movie producer values?

[(Anonymous)]

That whole, "It's like Lord of the Rings, but with Bunnies" style of pitching originates in the Hollywood film scene. You can have so much fun with that. I guess music gets summed up that way too. "Heard that new Christian band?" /"No. What's it like?" / "Alanis Morisette, meets Metallica, meets Jesus".

Warren

The book world has movie producer values?

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

That whole, "It's like Lord of the Rings, but with Bunnies" style of pitching originates in the Hollywood film scene. You can have so much fun with that. I guess music gets summed up that way too. "Heard that new Christian band?" /"No. What's it like?" / "Alanis Morisette, meets Metallica, meets Jesus".

Warren