rschaefferbooks.com
@rrschaeffer
AGENT
Suzie Townsend
WRITES
Science fiction, fantasy, horror
BOOKS
NOT EVEN BONES (2018)
ONLY ASHES REMAIN (2019)
WHEN VILLAINS RISE (2020)
HMH
Rebecca Schaeffer is the author of NOT EVEN BONES, ONLY ASHES REMAIN, and the forthcoming WHEN VILLAINS RISE. They’re about a girl who dissects monsters and sells their body parts on the internet. Not Even Bones was recently acquired by Webtoon, and you can read the serialized graphic novel version online now.
PUBLISHING BACKGROUND
I wrote and queried a number of books before I got my agent and book deal.
EXPERIENCE
I was a Pitchwars mentee in 2016, and then a mentor twice. I’ve also mentored in Author Mentor Match previously, and I’m excited to mentor again.
I came into this industry very blind, and I wish I’d had someone more experienced to explain things to me and help me with the bumps on the road. I enjoy mentoring and helping writers make their books the best they can be, as well as guiding them through what happens next.
I’m looking for character driven, fast paced science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I accept all sub genres, and I love interesting, unique world building, complicated characters, and dark, twisty storylines. I especially love monsters (even more if they’re the main character), interesting takes on aliens and artificial intelligence, and genre blends that I haven’t seen before.
- Fantasy
- Sci-Fi
- #ownvoices
- LGBTQIA
- Urban/Contemporary Fantasy
- Horror
I read all subcategories of SFF and horror from military SF to cyberpunk to gothic horror to historical fantasy!
I am however, not the best fit for romance, even if it has speculative elements. Romance subplots are fine though! Basically, if your book would go in the SFF or horror section of the bookstore, submit it to me, and if it would go in the romance section, it’s not the right fit for me.
- Edit Letter (Big Picture developmental feedback)
- Line edit (dropping notes into a Word Document)
- Skype or phone call
- Freestyle in chat
WORKING STYLE
I’ll do a full read of the book and give large scale, overarching notes on structure, pacing, and character. After that, I’ll read the revision to see how it was executed and give more scene level notes before we move to querying.
Someone who’s not afraid to put in the work to make their book the best that it can be, who will take my notes, run with them, and adapt them in ways I never thought of to make their book even better.
I am a very character driven reader, so I have to be engaged with the main character to keep going. I really like three dimensional, fully realized, interesting characters. Morally ambiguous characters, villain narrators and antiheroes are my favourite and always will be. I’m really not a fan of self sacrificing hero(in)es, or people who want to save the world because it’s the ‘right thing’ to do. I would much prefer a book from the point of view of the person trying to destroy the world. Or if they’re saving the world, they’re doing it for purely selfish reasons. Villain forced to save the world is a great trope. I also really deeply love stories where it’s unclear who the ‘good guy’ and the ‘bad guy’ are.
I’m also a huge fan of non-human main characters, whether they be monsters or demons, artificial intelligence or alien. I love stories that play with what it means to be human, and how we navigate the gray areas of different forms of creation and sentience. Give me your flawed gods and your androids hungry for life.
I love really richly created world building, things that look and feel extremely different from our own, that have been well thought out and take me in different directions. Whether it be the far reaches of space, an alternate reality, or weaving magic into historical times. I’d especially love to see non-western inspired settings, particularly from authors of that culture.
In horror, my tastes run speculative. I adore Lovecraftian horror full of eldritch monsters, and I love the atmosphere and haunting feeling of gothic horror. I’d really love to see a creative, original space horror too! Cults, faustian bargains, curses, I love it all.
I absolutely adore alternate realities and books with world hopping, so if you have one of those please submit it to me!
I enjoy humorous SFF, whether that’s a horror with black humour, or a fantasy that is very tongue in cheek and subverts a bunch of the stereotypes in fun and interesting ways.
Finally, I’d love to see a really interesting genre blend. Give me your vampires in space, your cyberpunk Aztec empires. Surprise me!
DO NOT SEND ME:
- Stories that start with the main character’s birth and no action occurs until they’re fifteen and we’re already 200 pages in. I am too action oriented for this style of story.
- In a similar vein, you can submit books over 130k, but think very carefully. I adore a well done epic, but your pacing and character have to be STELLAR for me to want to do that kind of reading investment. I find that almost every time someone gives me a book over 110k, it has serious pacing issues and needs to be significantly cut.
- novels with rape.
- Love at first sight.
- Werewolves (I don’t mind shape shifters, I’m just not a fan of pack dynamics and controlling alpha males. If your werewolf book doesn’t have either of those things, feel free to submit to me)
- That sub genre (usually in UF) where the main character is horny all the time. I don’t mind if there’s sex or romance in a book, but I’m personally not a fan of stories where lust is always on the main character’s mind.
- Controlling or dominating Alpha male love interests. I’m absolutely fine with assholes, villains or evil love interests but I deeply dislike alpha male types. Because people always ask me for clarification on this, here’s an example: Does the villain tie her up and leave her hanging over a pot of boiling acid to be slowly lowered in, and she has to Macgyver her way out, and vows vengeance on him but somewhere along the way they end up allies/lovers? Cool! This is fine! Sounds fun!! Does the man shove her against a wall, pin her arms, and when she asks him to let her go, he refuses, tells her that he knows she has the hots for him, so she doesn’t ‘really’ want to get away? NOPE. I am absolutely not interested in those kind of dynamics.
- Master-slave romances. Not my thing.
- Fantasy worlds that are extremely sexist. They’re just not my taste. In historical fantasy, period appropriate sexism is fine.
Books
* Jade City by Fonda Lee
* An Unkindness of Magicians, by Kat Howard
* Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
* Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
* Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
* The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
* Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
* House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Boddard
* Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington
* This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
* Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno Garcia
* The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht
* Illuminae by Jay Kristoff and Amy Kaufman
* Lock In by John Scalzi
* Lost Boy, by Christina Henry
* Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
* Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
* Every Heart a Doorway Seanan McGuire
TV/Anime/movies/comics
You, Russian Doll, Fullmetal alchemist, Tower of God, Death Note, Attack on Titan, Unordinary, Aggretsuko, Dexter
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