pensiveThis is a problem. I can't think of a good place to split it -- everything in the book works together toward the ending. There are a couple of chapters which I could conceivably cut, but they serve so well to establish Malachi's character, and they introduce the police detective, who plays a small but not insignificant role in several other scenes. If I cut him out, we lose Rena's only real ally in the book.
The alternative, of course, is to say no to this agent and keep going along the path toward self-publishing. There are arguments for and against that, mostly having to do with the prestige of being a "real" author vetted by a publishing company. The profit share is far less, and the work of promoting the book still rests pretty much with the author.
Sigh. What to do?
And, as an aside, I do realize that I am INCREDIBLY lucky to have gotten even this far with an agent, even though there is every possibility that even if I do cut it down she might read the complete manuscript and decide that it isn't the project for her after all. I wish every writer out there were blessed with problems like this.
