Writing The Novel Proposal, Scalzi-Style

February 28, 2008
I started to watch a talk SF author John Scalzi gave at Google Headquarters, until I realized it was almost an hour long. You can check it our yourself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZN6GA4JsOs

What amused me no end was, John posted one of his first novels online, serialized, and it was picked up by Tor. Then he was asked by the editor if he wanted to contract for another book. John said "sure" although he points out that the gist of the offer might very well be "we got one book cheap, how about two?"

So they asked John what the second book would be and he said: "Man solves intergalactic crisis through action scenes and snappy dialogue."

You know? Really, that's all publishers really need to know. (It may be less than they want to know, but it's probably all they need to know).

Cheers,

Mark Terry