A few weeks before Christmas, I completed the first draft of Rivers and Roads (I'm pretty confident I'm going to keep that as the title, this time.) By now I've entered it all into electronic format, done a couple of structural overhauls, and several passes through with an eye to basic line-edits. Today I'm going to complete the line-edits of the final chapter. This means I'm about to embark on the Beta Reader phase of this manuscript. I'm excited about that!
I am the opposite of excited about what I need to do once my BBRs start reading. That's when, according to my List O' Goals '22, it'll be time to hit Query Manager and start compiling a spreadsheet of agents who might, possibly, be excited enough about this novel that I should consider querying them.
It's not that I dread rejection. Rejection is just proof to me that I am a Real Writer(tm)! It's just that queries are supposed to state the novel's genre, and cite comps.
"Comps," in literary-speak, are books or authors published recently (preferably in the past two years) to which I can point and say "If you liked that, then you will love this manuscript, because it has the same premise and atmosphere in a similar setting." I could probably find any number of books that have the same basic premise and atmosphere, or the same atmosphere and setting, or the same premise and setting, but never all three.
My readers have informed me that what I write is "Contemporary Southern Gothic Fantasy" and I like that. I'll run with that as my genre even though it, technically, does not exist. Trying to find comps, however, fills me with an overwhelming sense of frustration, dread, cynicism, anger, outrage, bitterness, hopelessness, and the urge to throw any device on which I'm searching for comps through the nearest window (whether or not said window is open.)
People tell me I should just say: "Imagine Urban Fantasy Title A meets Literary Magical Realism Title B," and this is good advice. But would I really be able to get away with saying things like: "Imagine Twilight has grown up into an intelligent woman who can spot a toxic relationship a mile away but has no time for them anymore because she's too busy saving innocent ghosts from paranormal TV show hosts" or "Imagine Allison duBois finally dumps her whiny-ass husband and moves to Innsmouth."
(Or could I get away with this? I don't suppose it would hurt to try… If it would, please stop me before I do it. Thanks.)
Amazon often tags my books as "Urban Fantasy," but it wouldn't work to try to hook an agent with this claim. They'd be disappointed at the lack of, well, an urban setting, mainly. But also the lack of sexy supernatural shapeshifters who lust after mayhem. The only mayhem in my distinctly non-urban fantasy settings is committed by human denizens. Agents who represent Urban Fantasy would be irritated that I had wasted their time by "not doing my research," or "not understanding the market," and rightly so.
Amazon also often lists my work under "Magical Realism," but I've learned the hard way that people who love Magical Realism do not like my work, because there's (and this is a direct quote from a review) "too much magic." Apparently you are not allowed to come right out and reveal that the magic is actually real, in Magical Realism. Any magic alluded to must never be proven to exist anywhere but in the POV's highly unreliable head. Well, I don't mind reading that kind of thing, but it's not what I write (and I'm really not interested in ever writing it.)
I think what I write is closer to Realistic Magicalism. Too bad there is no such genre.
At least, there isn't one now. But maybe there will be, someday when authors start using my work as comps.