-bb

I’d like to clarify that I would not actually recommend that the author fictionalize this story and make up why the healer disappeared, since it’s the original research that informs the true story of this interesting forgotten man.

I suggest that one way to sustain the framework of a modern-day detective story with a step-by-step uncovering of what really happened in the past, is to use the author as the character who learns about this story in its incomplete and mythical form, then gradually uncovers the truth, piece by piece, through the narrative drama of the author’s own research in the field.

Alan

On the question of novel vs. nonfiction, however, if the story were fictionalized and told “from the inside” (that is, the healer’s point of view), I’m doubtful that it could be an effective mystery. Mysteries, as I understand them, must be told from the outside, by an observer or investigator, and the the mystery revealed at the novel’s conclusion. As Alan rightly stated, the book is a biography, but it moves forward within the framework of a modern-day detective story–a device that allows the narrator-as-detective to explore, contemplate, speculate, and analyze the healer’s motives in a way that traditional biography cannot. In the end, the mystery of the healer’s disappearance is solved–but only after a step-by-step, piece-by-piece, argument-by-argument journey into the past.

In some cases a chapter outline and no fewer than two chapters — first and last — can attract the attention of an agent who receives an author’s first novel, especially in the mystery, sci-fi, or romance genre. Less so with literary novels, and overall it’s better, I think, to have the entire book completed.

If you do have a completed novel, not all of the other elements of a proposal are necessary, but a hook and platform are advisable.

Good luck,

Alan

I’m curious though, my understanding is that agents, publishers don’t really look at novels until the manuscript is complete. Is it true they can be sold (like non-fiction) in proposal form.

Or is it that after it’s written, they need to have a strong proposal? Look forward to more.

If it is not a conflict of interest for you, I would love to see more critiques of prescriptive non-fiction props.

(PS I really loved the idea of the biography–the second project– being a novel. I think it would be a great read from the inside and then, the author could make up why the healer disappeared, which is VERY intriguing to me!)