by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, as part of querying your novel, you’re supposed to compare or “comp” it to other works. I’ve thought and written about this before, but this time seems like I may actually have to sit down and write a query letter where I do that.
The big plot twist of all of this is, of course, that I don’t really read that much fiction. The last time I read thrillers was, well, the Stieg Larsson Millennium series. Since then, I’ve pretty much only read scifi stuff or non-fiction.
I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I suspect, that in the end, I’m just going to be honest and “comp” my novel to The Girl Who Played With Fire. This is a passion project, after all, so, lulz, I am just running off of passion at this point. I am well aware that it’s very possible that I will fail on a catastrophic way because I don’t query right…but at least I will get to go through the experience.
That was always the point of all of this — just to have something to look forward to and to see how far I could get before it was absolutely clear I would fail. I continue to think about a few scifi novels that I would be a lot easier to “comp” to other scifi novels.
But, for some reason, I continue to be obsessed with this particular thriller idea that I’ve bee working on for way too many years.
