you might want to consider doing some research into jungian symbolism and archetypal theory, then. a couple of useful books would be "the hero with a thousand faces" by joseph campbell, which is a chronically dry and dense read, and "the writer's journey" by christopher vogler, which unpacks the campbell, and uses loads of examples from film. there's also "man and his symbols" by jung himself, which is very accessible.
I've done a lot of fairly informal and haphazard research into Jung already (but would he have it any other way?
) I know the hero's journey, at any rate, and the common archetypes. But that's all ground that's been covered before, by other better authors. Another portrayal of the hero journey is nothing new. It's the particular telling of it that becomes important.
Though I'm being presumptious. I don't actually know yet whether there's anything new about what I'm doing. That's why I have to test the project on others. For me at least, talking about it analytically can only do so much good.
sounds bananas to me, unless your doing something insane with the tense: there are plenty of novels written in the present tense. i've written one, and it's probably my most accessible. can you ask for more specific feedback, cos people being thrown just be the present tense really does sound odd.
I'm not doing anything insane with the tense - you saw that already. I plan to post another piece for them and see what they say. It switches tense partway through. The thing I'm concerned about is potential readership - it's a tough market and publishers will know that, so even if the people rejecting it are doing it for petty reasons, they'll still be taken into account surely. I suspect it's partly a genre thing, the hardcore F/SF people being strait-laced, which would mean looking for more alternative publishers. What are some of the present tense novels you know?
