We all know that trends in fiction come and go, and authors usually can't write fast enough to keep up with them. But if you have a historical novel manuscript on one of these hot topics languishing in a bottom drawer, why not dust it off and try to find a publisher now? You don't want to miss the boat.
Mary Magdalene
Knights Templar
Jane Austen
biblical women
Royal women - extra points if they're one of Henry VIII's wives, or Marie Antoinette
Male artists and their women
Edgar Allan Poe
Psychiatry and/or madness
Old New York
Historical vampires
Regency/Napoleonic spy novels - extra points if chick lit
Think about it. How many current historical novels fit into one of these categories -- or, even better, more than one?
(Inspired by a Dilbert cartoon from last week that's making the rounds)
About Me
- Sarah Johnson
- Collection management librarian, readers' advisor, avid historical fiction reader, NBCC member. Book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and Booklist reviewer. Recipient of ALA's Louis Shores Award for book reviewing (2012). Blogging since 2006.
What about one where Mary Magdalene is reincarnated as Anne Boleyn and later Marie Antoinette, both of whom spend a great deal of time investigating something about the Knights Templar? I could surely also work in something about artists painting Anne and Marie's portraits, and maybe the artists could have mistresses who go mad.
ReplyDeleteI'd start writing this very minute if it weren't so frigging hot here.
I'm just waiting for the day when someone decides to turn Poe into a vampire.
ReplyDeleteA fellow Dilbert fan! My partner was laughing over that cartoon last week. Give Dogbert a contract, say I.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me remember Bennett Cerf's legendary advice for a surefire title to make the bestseller list. Perhaps it should now be updated to "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog, Templar."
ReplyDelete