Newsletter December 2024 - So close I can taste it
If I were pitching Under the Diamond Moon as a movie, I might say "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Matrix"
Hey everyone,
I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! Ours has been fairly chill and filled with family time at home with some visitors from out-of-town, lots of great food, and drizzly weather.
This week I finished writing the big climax, and then another chapter! I have three chapters to go to wrap everything up! The big scene turned out better that I had imagined six or more months ago when I dreamed it up. Back then, I just had a idea: "Lan [redacted] the [redacted] while the battle rages around her." Now I have a full scene that blew my mind while writing. All the ideas that I dreamed up the story came together in that moment. I can't wait for you all to read it!
I hope to finish the rough draft by the end of the year, but it'll be tough. That's just an arbitrary date though. Nothing special. I'll have it done in a week or two, and then I'll take a week off or so to relax and let my brain reset. Next comes editing, and that requires a completely different mindset.
Along with editing will come the early stages of querying. Once the story is polished, I'll search for an agent. To do that, I need to have a polished query letter. The most critical components of the query letter are the "comps". Comparable books that quickly let the agent know where the book might go on the bookstore shelves and that there's already a market for that type of story. Plus they can get a quick idea of the story. If I were pitching Under the Diamond Moon as a movie, I might say "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Matrix" or something like that. For novels, I need to find two to three novels published in the last three years. Each one needs to be comparable to an aspect of my story: character, setting, and theme.
My current writing efforts (when I'm not composing) are devoted to searching for recent books that might make good comps. If you have suggestions, please let me know. I'm looking for the following key phrases: techno thriller, ticking clock thriller, heist, near-future science fiction, archaeology, climate, magic in the real world, new adult protagonist, graduate student protagonist.
I have a few books in mind, but already they are getting too "old" to be used as comps. Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson (2021) was a huge influence on the setting: near future thriller where climate change has caused massive problems. Impact by Douglas Preston (2010) is a modern day, ticking clock thriller with a dash of sci-fi. My to-read pile includes more recent stories like Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow (2023), which is a near-future story focused on climate change problems. Another is Hopeland by Ian McDonald (2023) which is a another climate book but has magic and time travel. I've not read it, but the reviews have me intrigued.
Anyway, the point being that I have a lot of book searching and reading ahead of me. In other words, good times!
Best,
Todd
