Random Rejection: The Panettieri Agency, “Long Before Dawn”
Posted by jamesviscosi on June 22, 2008
After our previous “random acceptance” anomaly, we’re back in familiar territory, with a rejection letter from a literary agent I was hoping to get to represent Long Before Dawn:
As you can see, the main reason for this rejection was that the vampires in Long Before Dawn are not “sympathetic”. There is a reason for this, of course, which I will attempt to put succinctly:
VAMPIRES ARE MONSTERS!!!!
Vampires are not sympathetic. They don’t “hate what they’ve become” and they don’t “prey only on those who prey on others”. They prey on anybody they can find. I know that ever since Lestat and his cronies came along, it’s been hip and cool for vampires to be tormented and misunderstood and mopey in an I-Paint-My-Lightbulbs-Black-And-Listen-To-The-Cure sort of way, but you know what? I detest those vampire sad-sacks. Okay, fine, I was a huge fan of Buffy and Angel and they had a couple of vampires who were sort of angsty and sort of self-loathing, one of whom (Spike, of course) was my favorite character on both shows, but these vampires were the exceptions. All the other ones were predatory scumbags. (And Spike didn’t get to be really self-loathing until the last season of Buffy, when he got his soul back and got rather whiny for a while. Fortunately he got over it.)
But, I digress. As you can tell by the above rant, I don’t care if “sympathetic” vampires make for New York Times bestsellers; I’ve got no interest in writing or reading about such creatures. So obviously, even if she had decided to represent me, it would have been an extremely poor fit and very likely wouldn’t have worked out.
On the other points raised in the letter, I eventually eliminated the omniscient point of view from the book. I very rarely use that POV anymore, and when I went back and edited Long Before Dawn for its Lulu release, those scenes went away or were rewritten.
She was kinda right about the sex, too; I did end up toning that down.
A little.
Kristen said
Have you sent out queries since writing the revision?
(And yeah, you and she probably wouldn’t have worked. Had she taken you, she may have tried to get you to change the whole heart of your story. Not worth it! You’ll find the right agent.)
Gina said
I don’t think I’d like vampires who “hate what they’d become”. I don’t want to feel sorry for a vampire.
She might not have known her reader public like she thought she did.
Amanda said
Hahaha…good point
I love your opinion of the “tormented and misunderstood and mopey in an I-Paint-My-Lightbulbs-Black-And-Listen-To-The-Cure” kind of vampires. I totally agree which made me crack up. Thanks!
Sharon said
Good point! Here is an opinion of mine, so take it for what it is worth. I think kids have gotten into the vampire thing too much because of the sympathetic vampire craze. (I’m not saying I don’t read them, because I do.) This was driven home one time when my niece and I were talking and I said something about the vampires in a book not being evil as they are traditionally. She was shocked and said, and I quote: “Vampires aren’t evil! They’re beautiful!” YIKES!
Vampy Vic said
Hahah cool a vampire discussion!! I missed this post, yes, even though it is way old
I guess everyone likes their own style of vamp, but I also don’t get why is so appealing about some whiney ” I wish I was dead, woe is me” kind of vamp, I mean we hate that type as humans, why would we like them as vamps?
Spike was my favourite too! I guess that a good vamp is a bit of both, because while there are no real rules and they should act as such, they should also have a human side, I mean full whiny with a conscience sucks, but them also a mindless zombie just hell bent on killing leaves the mystique of the vamp theme.
I just watched a show last night about Eleanore Ameile (sp?) and I can so totally see where the legend evolved, was really interesting.
I mean this is where the vamp stories started from, and the cold blooded killing machine is what it was, but I think it has evolved to a sexy thing, forbidden pleasure, I mean they call sexy people vampy.
And it comes back to the not dying thing, I think so many people are scared of their mortality that the whole “not dying” thing became romantic and that is how the Vamp progressed from a zombie like killing machine to sex on legs, wooing their victims before giving them eternal life…bah! I say who would want to like forever with a whiney “woe is me”, have no fun. wallow in self pity kinda guy or gal? eewwww.. kids these days?!
Oh crap, I can ramble when I get going hehe I will have to give your story a read! It’s so hard now days to find the time to sit and read a book
J