: Re: Will the publisher/agent tell me what to write? I recently read this answer, which suggested that an author's first novel will be rejected, and the publisher will instead get the author to write

@Kaufman555

Vote Up Vote Down

Terry's answer aligns with my knowledge, but here's a little more I'd add that is relevant to your question.

Writers I know who have been agented are asked to revise their manuscripts before the manuscript is sent to publishing houses. I believe it was GGX or Galastel that explained: At the query stage you are competing largely with un-agented writers. At the agented stage, you are competing with published authors.

So, the agent may well request rewrites. But you still need a perfect novel going into your query stage.

Some writers I know write the query letter first, as odd as that sounds, because the query letter is what draws eyes to the novel as often as not. Then, with a top notch query in hand (and again, it was written with no constraints because no book existed as yet, except perhaps as concept) the novel is written. It sounds odd, but I've seen it work.

Agents read thousands of queries each year. Agents are human. Query letters bleed together. It might make sense to write the query first and make sure it kills.

(I'm on my 26th re-write of my first novel. Early rewrites were learning the technical details. Later rewrites had to do with story structure. Later rewrites addressed beta comments. Later rewrites were simply for flow and eloquence or based off of 'craft books' (Manuscript Makeover is a good one.) Current rewrite is following a new craft book dealing with emotional subtext. The idea of emotional subtext was nowhere on my radar in draft 1, or 6, or 9. I have at least two more re-writes in my future: Another beta read, another edit for flow.)

(0)

Login to post a comment!