Fantasy Novel Written - where to next?

caroljohn

Hi
Just wondering if anyone can help my brother has completed a large novel 150,000+ words, it is a Fantasy novel and i think is very good, but he doesn't know where to go with it next.
Are there any agents in Ireland that deal with Fantasy novel or anyone have any recommendations or helpful advice.
thanks for the help

EileenG

For a start, edit it down. A first novel of 150,000 words will be next to impossible to sell. Get it under 120k if possible. It shouldn't be that difficult, there's usually a lot that can be cut and it improves the book.

What type of fantasy, adult or children or young adult? If it's YA or child, then it's worth trying O'Brien, even without an agent, but they'll want it a lot shorter. If it's adult, you might need to look at English agents and publishers.

Has he just finished his first draft, or is this a polished and edited novel?

smcgiff

I wouldn't worry so much about the length.

What an agent/publisher will want to see is the first three chapters and a synopsis. If a publisher thinks a book is well written then 150k words wont matter in the slightest. Also, I wouldn't have thought 150k words excessive, and the usual guide for an adult novel would be minimum 100k words and i've seen less than 250k words. However, fantasy novels tend to be more wordy than most. However, quite a number of YA books would be under 100k words.

The synopsis is key, and he will need to put as much work into that as the novel itself.

Ireland is very limited - and there are far more fantasy publishers and agents in the UK.

Your brother would do well to go to his local library and ask for the Writers and Artists yearbook, where he will find a list of publishers and agents especially those that deal in fantasy. Alternatively it can be bought in Easons.

It's great that your brother has finished his novel, alas the hard work starts now.;)

Good luck!

EileenG

According to agents and publishers who were at a couple of publishing seminars recently, the length does count. A well established writer can carry a very long novel, but a newcomer needs to fit the standard size. Even JK Rowling didn't get so wordy until she had a couple of best sellers under her belt.

Memnoch

I'm not sure the rules of word count are AS strict for Sci-fi and fantasy readers as those tomes tend to be quite weighty and readers of the genre seem to almost expect it now.

But of course the issue of the first novel is still quite a thorny one.

Antilles

Memnoch wrote: »

But of course the issue of the first novel is still quite a thorny one.

Admittedly I've never been published, but everything I've read on the topic says your first novel shouldn't be a tome. Even if the writing is very good, a bigger book will be considered riskier if it comes from a new writer.

That said, fantasy does tend to have a higher pagecount. I guess it comes down to whether the book is as tight as it can be without sacrificing quality.

smcgiff

Antilles wrote: »

I guess it comes down to whether the book is as tight as it can be without sacrificing quality.

That's it in a nut shell.

Most first drafts would benefit by a good 10% reduction. Even a page or paragraph can benefit from such. I'd challenge anyone that has written a page to force themselves to cut, say, 10% of the word count to see if it reads better. It nearly always does.

However, good writing will get published - heck plenty of the bad stuff does. Paging JK!

EileenG

Pretend someone is paying you a euro a word to cut, and you'll be amazed how many adjectives are surplus to requirement.

I've edited quite a lot of stuff over the years, and I can generally cut a third off a piece before the author even realises I've touched it.

Teferi

About length - Brent Weeks wrote the entire Night Angel trilogy before seeking a publisher. And honestly, it's the best fantasy novel I've read since I set my eyes on LoTR about 10 years ago.

smcgiff

EileenG wrote: »

Pretend someone is paying you a euro a word to cut, and you'll be amazed how many adjectives are surplus to requirement.

I've edited quite a lot of stuff over the years, and I can generally cut a third off a piece before the author even realises I've touched it.

Fantasy novels can be different as they can be very plot driven where cutting a third may necessitate losing some of the story - not necessarily always a bad thing, but may still seriously affect a work and not to be undertaken lightly.

Regarding editing - it's a great tool to employ. And there's a lot to be learnt from editing poor work. Alas, as I've also found, it's a lot easier than culling your own darlings.

EileenG

Teferi wrote: »

About length - Brent Weeks wrote the entire Night Angel trilogy before seeking a publisher. And honestly, it's the best fantasy novel I've read since I set my eyes on LoTR about 10 years ago.

I'm not saying it's impossible to sell a long fantasy novel. It's just making things a lot more difficult than necessary. If a publisher is faced with two equally good novels, but one will cost twice as much to produce as the other, guess which one gets the rejection slip?

And let's face it, none of us are very good at editing ourselves. It usually takes an objective eye to say "The action starts in chapter two, so ditch chapter one. And cut the adjectives, and the flowery descriptions, and any internal monologue that lasts longer than a page...."

OP, get your brother to send me a page of his MS, and I bet I can cut it by a quarter without him ever noticing a missing word.