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Pat Dunlap Evans

Changing Directions

Updated: Jul 20


I'm doing a total rewrite on my mystery ICE AND FIRE, the sequel to OUT AND IN. The rewrite was due to a law enforcement change in Hawaii, where the novel is set. Revising names, titles, responsibilities, and procedures has been tedious and time consuming, but I didn't realize how much these changes would also alter character dynamics.


In addition to the law enforcement changes, I came to the conclusion I must fictionalize the place names where major action occurs. Search / replace is great for this sort of stuff, but dreaming up new Hawaiian names and acronyms takes time. Also, when weaving through a document of 270 pages, I keep discovering "things" where I either goofed or my copy editor missed. And there were quite a lot.


Regardless, today I am HALFWAY THROUGH. And perhaps this delay was for the better, since I hope to query literary agents to rep this one, rather than publish via my imprint A.M. Chai Literary. Problem is, many agents take summers off, while others attend writers conferences in glamorous destinations.


I've attended six writing conferences and usually had great times connecting with other writers. But also I found most literary agents at these venues are rather off-putting. I remember a writers conference in Austin that advertised that all agents would be open to free pitches during happy hours. But when I looked to find one particular agent who interested me, she and about 15 other agents were gathered in an inward-facing circle, backs to us attendees. Clearly, their body language said, "Do not approach." And I wasn't about it.


I also remember an agent in San Francisco who told me after I'd waited thirty minutes to pitch her, she would never rep a novel in which a woman was threatened by violence. Whuh? Gosh, my BACKSTORY plot involved a serial killer stalking my heroine. I got a little teed off at that agent, but did not say what I wanted to, that a whole lot of mystery plots have damsels in distress.


I could go on about writers conferences and literary agents, but this note is to say, my writing winds are now blowing in the right direction. Yay.

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