mattio wrote:
A few people have mentioned GGBP's "criteria" - can anyone explain what this would entail?
Well, generally speaking, I would say that the books GGBP accept tend to be those which are attempting to be as authentically EBDish as possible in ethos, setting, structure, length, language, plotlines, character developments, etc. So, usually covering one term, usually set at the school, usually with a girl / girls as the main character(s), written in the third person, with authentic-as-possible style / language for the period (so, my
Robin had a different set of slag etc. from my
Juliet, for instance) and not covering plot points that EBD wouldn't have covered (for instance, I was asked to remove or rewrite a whole chapter about Bill's sad home life, as at the
Juliet part of the series, it was felt that EBD wouldn't have discussed the background of any of the staff - or not in much detail, anyway. If my book had been set later in the series, this might have been more acceptable) (and KB was, I think, asked to think again about a section of
Peace which was set in Australia - Con Stewart's POV, I think it was, and I seem to remember it became a letter).
When I wrote
Juliet, they were also keen for the book to be about the right length for an EBD story (so, 60K-80K words) split into about the right number of chapters (20ish), each of those being of about the right length...
Robin, being an earlier title, they weren't quite so rigorous, but I think any comments on EBDisms and non-EBDish content from readers of the various fill ins have been noted and have led them to get progressively more thorough in maintaining as much EBDishness as possible.
All just my opinion, of course. And it's not like there's a list of things that have to be included. And there are exceptions - just as EBD had exceptions, with her holiday stories and with
New Mistress. But again, there are commonalities between EBD's holiday CS books and the non-school fill in (
Bettanys) - they feature the core family as the main characters, for instance....
Muellers, by the way, fits in the Easter term between
Jo Returns and
New, I think.
Hope that all helps!