[Nabeel]

Dear All,

I haven't yet found an agent who'll accept my draft novel. But I have found one who's interested, and negotiations have started.

I think we've all heard the expression 'kill your babies'. It's applied to the forms of radical revision you're sometimes required to do on instructions of agents. The infanticide has started.

I won't attempt to give you a detailed summary of the situation, but the main issue is that the agent objects to one voice in my novel. This voice is bitter, cynical and funny. It's also arcane, verbose, and (according to the agent) sermonizing. I suspect that the agent is going to require annihilation of this voice.

Any advice on how to react? And on how to deal with agents in general?

I feel surprisingly tense about this. My first (unspoken) reaction was this voice is essential, and cannot be removed. I'm now moving to a second position: how could this voice be adapted in order to become what the agent would regard as acceptable?

For the record, I've been trying to find an agent for six months, and this is the 19th agent I've approached.

Any advice would be welcome!

much thanks,

Sharif