: Re: Can I shop an unfinished novel? I've been writing a novel that addresses some very current themes. My belief is that if I can get it out there quickly, it will succeed well. I'm working

@Goswami879

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It's true. It should be completed, polished, and ready to go.

This is because:

A) it's nearly impossible for you, a first-time novelist, to know how much more time you need until you've got the project as good as it can be. Writing a book to a publishable level is a lot more than just finishing the first draft. Before you submit your work to an agent or publisher, you should have written the first draft; polished it through as many subsequent drafts as are needed to make it as good as you can make it; found good beta readers to go through it and give their feedback (and this takes time, and it's really not right to rush people who are doing you a pretty huge favour); made whatever revisions are necessary based on their feedback; and then, ideally, pulled your attention away from the book for a while so you can come back to it with fresh eyes and give it another thorough reading/revising. Until you've done all this several times, it's going to be really difficult to be sure how long it will all take.

B) it sounds cheesy, but you really do have only one chance to make a first impression. There are some agents and publishers who will accept a resubmission if the work has been substantially revised, but for many of them, it's a one-shot opportunity. You will, I assume, want to start with your 'top' candidates first. If you send them work that isn't totally polished, you'll be ruining your chance to work with them. And while many agents and publishers are slow to respond to queries, others are quite speedy (I was just reading about two-minute turn-arounds for some agents asking for partials), and you don't want to ruin the relationship with them by having to confess that you're not quite done with the product you've just tried to sell them.

C) There are a lot of flakes out there, trying to get published, and sorting through them is a big job for publishers and agents. You need to do whatever you can to set yourself apart from these people, and querying an unfinished MS will move you in the wrong direction.

I absolutely appreciate the impatience you're probably feeling. One of the hardest things about novel writing is the long, lonely time you have to go through before getting any feedback or reward for your hard work. But I don't think early submissions are the answer. Join a writing group, and share your MS with them. Post a chapter on-line, and look for feedback in the comments. Read it to your dog, if that helps.

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