My book is, I admit, unorthodox. It covers dark subjects that most people wont touch and turns this into a strange laugh out loud humor that most people seem to enjoy, but few agents seem willing to touch. I have read several stories on here that would have little commercial interest but they are amazing just because of their uniqueness! I am bored of the same books that feel like they are all using a fill in the blank method for writing, just changing characters names and a few minor details but all, essentially, the same thing. If no-one else will write it, you may just have to write it yourself! What’s the craziest ideas you’ve had for a book and did you actually write the book? Sell it?
June 11, 2013
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison
About Everyrosehasathorn
MirrorScript 
June 11th, 2013 at 11:39 pm
That’s a really good point. It seems like traditional publishing has turned into a capitalist pop venture. I have a novel that is so close to completion, but the few times I have pitched it I get the same response; crickets. It has to do with a crazy missionary trip with an overbearing leader and a cocky 18 year old who wants nothing to do with religion, along with devils, drugs and orphans. I decided to perch on it and maybe self publish later. I figure I must not be ready in regard to my “following”.
June 12th, 2013 at 12:37 am
I feel a little less crazy with these responses! My book is also on religion but in a strange view that angels and demons are responsible for our myths on aliens and get their power not from magic but sophisticated technology and are genetically engineered to run off the energy that feeds their armor. I have God, the devil, fallen angels, double crossers, and all sorts of unethical behaviors you don’t expect from heavenly beings!
June 13th, 2013 at 2:12 am
Actually, that sounds very interesting. I’d read it. Some authors are getting new things out, but its rare. China Meiville’s “Perdido Street Station,” for instance. I still want to read it, if I can find my copy, but the first few pages were enough throw me for a loop. A human married to something that looks like a giant insect? Yeah, that’s a little different, anyway.
June 13th, 2013 at 11:37 am
Oh I’ve never heard of that one! Very unique!
June 11th, 2013 at 11:46 pm
I write to a niche market, so I’m going indie and not querying at all (for any skeptics, I used to work in publishing and this is a very informed decision). I write genre fiction with LGBT main characters and that’s a hard sell to big publishers. There was this mess a few years back where LGBT authors were being told to “straighten up” their books before they’d even be looked at. It left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.
So by industry standards, everything I write is crazy. But the craziest is probably a book I have planned for 2015 (yes, I really do plan that far ahead). It’s going to be kind of a fantasy epic, full of political intrigue and a lot of sex, both gay and straight, that has more to do with politics than romance. I’m excited about it, but it doesn’t really scream “marketable”, you know?
June 12th, 2013 at 12:33 am
lol no! Not at all! But it sounds like something the LGBT community would enjoy tremendously so I could see it doing well!
June 13th, 2013 at 2:20 am
Ridiculous, especially coming from corporate cronies who only have the bottom line in mind. What sells the most in fiction, movies, songs, whatever, is always “sex and death.” But publishers are afraid to try something new because of the same bottom line. They think that, more than anything, they need to sell “brand names,” just like any other “product.” Corporations have ruined the publishing industry, I think (just like everything else); or they have at least changed it dramatically and not for the better.
June 13th, 2013 at 11:38 am
Defintly agree!
June 12th, 2013 at 12:00 am
I’ve a LGBT epic fantasy that I’ve gotten many many compliments on, but never bothered to pitch (or even polish up very much before I threw it onto Smashwords so it wasn’t entirely lonely). It’s a huge story that lives in the back of my skull, and maybe someday I’ll complete it.
June 12th, 2013 at 12:29 am
Wow very original! I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a LGBT fantasy, you should polish it up and try self-publishing it online. It wouldn’t have a very wide market, but you could possibly capitalize on it being such a small niche I doubt you’d have very many competitors!
June 13th, 2013 at 2:22 am
It isn’t called an LGBT fantasy, but the main character of the “Last Herald Mage” trilogy by Mercedes Lackey is gay.
June 12th, 2013 at 12:07 am
I set out to invent a new cosmology, one that was based in present day reality but included speculative elements, and to avoid all of the usual urban fantasy/science fiction tropes.
So no vampires, werewolves, elves, zombies, etc. Instead I took some inspiration from William Burroughs, Phillip Dick, Clive Barker, and Samuel Delany, and a whole lot of my own imagination.
I wrote the book, and I did query some agents, but I never got any responses, so I decided to self-publish. It’s not selling in huge numbers, but I do seem to have picked up some readers who appreciate originality. I am currently working on a sequel.
June 12th, 2013 at 12:25 am
Ooooh nice! That sounds very original and interesting, I’m not surprised it’s doing well enough even for being self-published! It’s definitely harder to self-publish but you don’t have to change for mainstream acceptance!
June 12th, 2013 at 12:54 am
I have an insane idea for my YA science fantasy novel. Admittedly, it might be too insane, but I’m still going to write it because I love it, there’s so much fun to be had with it. I’m not really sure how to describe it, so I’ll sum it up like this:
Every myth, urban legend, folk story, fairy tale, and crackpot conspiracy theory is/was true- they’re just not entirely accurate. Cryptozoology, parallel universes, an interdimensional police force, black magic, a disgruntled superhero team, and an Egyptian deity are major plot points. I’ve got no idea how I’m going to get a publisher interested.
June 12th, 2013 at 10:01 pm
Oh that’s right up my alley! I love stuff like that, that’s kind of what mines about but about aliens being real, just misidentified and misunderstood.
June 12th, 2013 at 7:11 pm
I don’t normally recommend publications but go look at Black Static. It’s an old-fashioned magazine with some excellent stories in them. They push the boundaries with great writing. Good Luck with your book. 🙂
June 12th, 2013 at 10:04 pm
Thanks! I will give it a read!
June 12th, 2013 at 7:45 pm
I have begun pulling together ideas for a fictional novel about a small town girl’s journey to adulthood and the big city. It’s (very) loosely related to my life (and possibly enhanced), but the book would focus on specific, life-changing moments that may or may not seem like a big deal when they happen (not a chronological, step-by-step account of her life). I hear what you say about reading the same books over and over again, so I would want to make it unique. Based on the life-changing moments, I think it will be. We’ll see…. Good post!
June 12th, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Oh nice! fiction but reality too sounds very interesting!
June 13th, 2013 at 2:42 am
There are a lot of nice ideas floating around here. I’d love to read a few of them!
One of my WiPs is a dark fantasy set in prehistoric times among a people who have a fairly advanced magical technology. The main character is cursed, and destined to destroy everything she loves. But I’m still working on this.
I have a completed manuscript that takes place in the same world in modern times, so it’s sort of a run-of-the-mill dark urban fantasy. I’ve learned some of the reasons I’ve had difficulty publishing it. First, I really should have revised it one or two more times (even though it was already in the fifth draft – I’ve learned some things since I started writing it). Second, the main character is female and, in the beginning, kind of mousy. The normal convention in contemporary urban fantasy is a “strong female lead.” She gets strong later, but she will never be a “sword-wielding, gun-toting merc.”
I also have ideas for a couple science fantasies: a world with advanced tech with culture, society, and architecture similar to ancient Rome; a story about “spontaneous psychic evolution”; and one about humans who colonize another world already inhabited by a more evolved life form (energy beings). In the last, the energy beings call themselves “Fae” and describe their society in terms of Fae courts (Summer, Winter, etc.) to facilitate human understanding.
So I try to make just about everything I write genre-bending to some degree.
Well, thanks for visiting my blog, and good luck with your writing!
June 13th, 2013 at 11:42 am
I Agree, a lead women dosn’t have to be a strong charicter, mine is a compleate push over untill the middle of the book and even then she’s hardly wonder women, just human.
June 13th, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Cool, I like that. Mine will be powerful; she just won’t broad-shouldered, muscular, and carrying around heavy weapons. Still, they don’t have to be either way. Why should they? Their your characters, right? *Your* inspiration and *your* passion are needed to flesh them out, too.
June 13th, 2013 at 5:28 pm
So true. In life we have to find our own strength so why wouldn’t our charicters have to do the same. Life isn’t easy to portray it as anything else would be a shame!