This seems to be regarding an incomplete manuscript tho. I have a completed second draft. Just wondering to what extent it should be revised into oblivion before someone will consider it. Does it need to be absolute perfections and ready to print as a debut or will an agent see potential in story/character/world and work with getting an editor that can perfect it?
How much to revise a novel before you query? (Split from: Too Attached to a Novel)
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Your manuscript is competing for attention with hundreds -- thousands -- of manuscripts. It needs to be the best it can be before submission. There will be other MSS with engaging stories, characters and settings. An agent is likely to pass on a poorly edited/unedited work before they get far enough into it to see the 'potential'.
You wouldn't fill your demo reel with ragged arse greenscreen work.
Only problem with that reference is, everything on my reel was approved and went to final picture. So perfect or not it’s 100% professional.
Subbing novels is the same. The days of long lunches with editors to scrap out the story in an incomplete novel are way way behind us, tragically. And getting an agent and then getting a publisher are both hugely more challenging due to the numbers game. Subbing is easier than it ever was before, which means subbing completed and polished work is much more the professional norm.
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Yes.*
They get enough perfect subs they don't need the ones we've chosen to half-arse.
*Some agents will ask for a Revise and Resubmit if they think the MS is close but not quite close enough, but I can tell you from experience the writing craft has to be rock-solid.
But I’m not a writer. So I have no idea what’s considered done
Not talking about half-assed. My point is. As new to writing I know the story in telling but I don’t know all the unwritten rules. My only instruction is from what I’ve read.
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This is part of the skill set you need to develop.But I’m not a writer. So I have no idea what’s considered done
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Ah, okay. The answer is there are no rules, unwritten or otherwise. A big part of writing is that you're doing it alone -- until you're not. Aim for print-ready copy.
We seem to have completely over-run the OP's thread, which is in Challenges. I'm very sorry for my part in that. Perhaps a mod could split off and house in the right place?
That is when you find a writing community and ask for feedback.But I’m not a writer. So I have no idea what’s considered done
Lucky for you, once you hit 50+ posts, you can share your work in the appropriate area right here. You already found a three sentence thread and got feedback there. A good way to get a feel for critique is to go to intro to share your work to see how it works here, then go down one more forum to share your work and see what is working and what isn't in the critique threads. At 50+ posts is also when you can start a thread in the forum for beta readers, mentors and writing buddies. That said, you can offer to beta read for others now, just like you are encouraged to critique others now, even if it is just "I liked this part" and "I got confused here".
Try shifting your thinking from editing "to perfection" to editing "to outsell everything else currently out there."
Set that as your goal. Why? Because you can read everything that's selling well. How deep to get into edit? As deep and deeper as the bestsellers are getting. Not to the point of 'perfect grammar, good characters' but well past that... as complex and layered and beautiful and compelling as a current bestseller.
Is your manuscript that good? That developed, that nuanced, that rich?
If you are not there yet, put more work in. That's my advice.
I'm not a trade published author, and I suspect it's for this reason. YMMV.
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I’m not at a device that makes it easy to split a thread, but this one is going to return the original post’s topic. People, please refrain from turning a thread someone started into a thread about yourself and your own writing.
Capisce?
Capisce?
I’ve moved the derail from this Conquering Challenges thread into its own topic. A reminder to all: please don’t hijack Conquering Challenges threads with your own questions. For most discussions, it’s okay to continue them with closely related questions, but tread a little more carefully in Conquering Challenges. In general, starting new threads is just fine, so if you have a question of your own, find the best-fit room and have at it.
Okay, now my thoughts on @rservello’s question: An unfortunate truth about fiction publishing is that there is enough competition for few enough opportunities that agents and publishers can be pretty demanding when it comes to the quality of work they will accept. Most agents and publishers will want to do a round or two of edits with the author, but they won’t invest the time for a full developmental edit or to clean up an extremely sloppy manuscript. So it’s on us to do the best we can do to get our manuscripts into publishable shape before we submit them.
For most of us, and particularly first-time novelists, that means banging out a manuscript and then giving it a once-over line-edit will not be enough to meet that standard. There’s a lot to learn about structure, characterization, and other aspects of craft, that most of us won’t get right without a measure of study and intention. Our first drafts will need deep developmental revision with particular craft elements in mind, as well as the careful line edits necessary to produce tight sentence-level prose.
Many agents you talk to will say that the most common mistake first-time novelists make is querying too soon. You really don’t want to do that, and blow your shot with an agent who might find promise in your ideas but just can’t invest the time it would take to lead you by the hand from there to a saleable manuscript.
That’s the rough news. The good news is that you’re here, and if you read, critique, and join our craft discussions, you will learn a ton about how to write good fiction. So, welcome, and good luck!
For most of us, and particularly first-time novelists, that means banging out a manuscript and then giving it a once-over line-edit will not be enough to meet that standard. There’s a lot to learn about structure, characterization, and other aspects of craft, that most of us won’t get right without a measure of study and intention. Our first drafts will need deep developmental revision with particular craft elements in mind, as well as the careful line edits necessary to produce tight sentence-level prose.
Many agents you talk to will say that the most common mistake first-time novelists make is querying too soon. You really don’t want to do that, and blow your shot with an agent who might find promise in your ideas but just can’t invest the time it would take to lead you by the hand from there to a saleable manuscript.
That’s the rough news. The good news is that you’re here, and if you read, critique, and join our craft discussions, you will learn a ton about how to write good fiction. So, welcome, and good luck!
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This is great advice. The best thing I ever did for my novel was beta read for other writers here. Not only do you create a relationship with other writers, giving advice to others has given me some great insight for my own work. And the beta readers I've found here have pointed out really important things that I never considered.
BTW, my book had already gone through 4 drafts before I asked anyone here to have a look. IMO it's better to think you are 100% ready to go before looking for feedback. It's a give and take community that works really well.
Also, I've seen a couple of agents say words to the effect of "I'll ask for an R&R but only if I know that - if done as I request - I'll make this writer an offer at the end." So, like @lizmonster says, the querying process isn't going to be some back-and-forth of agents helping polish and refine generally. It needs to be 9.9/10ths of the way there, because an R&R is a commitment on both sides, too.
I think time, and just plain writing and editing more, is the best way to improve. I know I've gone back to look at stories I remember being happy with 12-24 months ago, and (with the benefit of hindsight) seen places I know they could be improved now. What you feel is good enough today, you might not judge so generously in a year's time. Of course, the flip-side of that is to have an idea of "how much is enough" since you could edit and re-edit and re-re-edit forever, and never get around to submitting at all!
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I agree that it's both unwise and unreasonable to expect an agent or acquiring editor to assume the writer may have craft and editing skills beyond those shown in the submitted piece. Send your best work, because that's what they want and that's what they assume you are offering.
Your best work is competing with hundreds, thousands of other authors' best works for that agent's attention, and an awful lot of those other authors will have put their work through two structural revisions and three line edits and a lengthy proofread and then three beta readers and then another structural revision and two more line edits and another proofread and...
And one really solid way to better your own craft, to improve your writing, to get your prose to the level that total strangers will pay money to read it, is to write and then rewrite and then restructure and then revise and then edit and then polish and then proofread....
Your best work is competing with hundreds, thousands of other authors' best works for that agent's attention, and an awful lot of those other authors will have put their work through two structural revisions and three line edits and a lengthy proofread and then three beta readers and then another structural revision and two more line edits and another proofread and...
And one really solid way to better your own craft, to improve your writing, to get your prose to the level that total strangers will pay money to read it, is to write and then rewrite and then restructure and then revise and then edit and then polish and then proofread....
For each thing in a submitted novel that presents a challenge towards publication, your writing, story, and characters have to be all the more amazing for the agent/publisher to take it on and work with you with the potential problems.
As an example:
Let's assume you have an amazing query that absolutely hooks an agent, and they're excited to read all ten of the pages you included with the hope of requesting a full from you.
But you write in a tense that they don't love. It's okay. They can live with that. Many of their authors use that tense. It's not an auto-reject, just a point against.
Also, the first sentence has the POV character waking up. Sigh, that's the 57th one today. But that's easily edited (if they don't decide the wake-up was warranted), and they're still hopeful enough for the book because your pitch sounded so interesting.
Shoot, now the character's launching into an "As You Know, Bob" infodump that lasts for 5 of your 10 pages. When does the exciting stuff come in(?), the agent wonders.
Now that they're able to be distracted from the story enough to notice your sentence structure, these sentences are awfully wordy. You had a high/low/perfect word count and that could affect how the agent feels about the overwriting.
And there's quite a few grammar mistakes, too. You know what, the agent decides, this book is going to be too much work. Pass.
--
You can't do anything about agent's preferences in tense (or, like, if they hate stories that include cats, and a cat is a major plot point of your book, or whatever preferences a single agent might have), and sometimes you need to include things that are advised against because it is right for your novel. Those things are somewhat out of your control. So you do all the things that are within your control to make the book stand out in a good way, not a bad way. You polish it to the absolute best of your ability, then you get some impartial eyes on it to give you their thoughts, which you are free to use or ignore as is best for your novel, and you polish it up even more, and then when you feel you've done everything you can to anticipate potential problems and fix any that are fixable, that's when you take a risk on sending it out.
As an example:
Let's assume you have an amazing query that absolutely hooks an agent, and they're excited to read all ten of the pages you included with the hope of requesting a full from you.
But you write in a tense that they don't love. It's okay. They can live with that. Many of their authors use that tense. It's not an auto-reject, just a point against.
Also, the first sentence has the POV character waking up. Sigh, that's the 57th one today. But that's easily edited (if they don't decide the wake-up was warranted), and they're still hopeful enough for the book because your pitch sounded so interesting.
Shoot, now the character's launching into an "As You Know, Bob" infodump that lasts for 5 of your 10 pages. When does the exciting stuff come in(?), the agent wonders.
Now that they're able to be distracted from the story enough to notice your sentence structure, these sentences are awfully wordy. You had a high/low/perfect word count and that could affect how the agent feels about the overwriting.
And there's quite a few grammar mistakes, too. You know what, the agent decides, this book is going to be too much work. Pass.
--
You can't do anything about agent's preferences in tense (or, like, if they hate stories that include cats, and a cat is a major plot point of your book, or whatever preferences a single agent might have), and sometimes you need to include things that are advised against because it is right for your novel. Those things are somewhat out of your control. So you do all the things that are within your control to make the book stand out in a good way, not a bad way. You polish it to the absolute best of your ability, then you get some impartial eyes on it to give you their thoughts, which you are free to use or ignore as is best for your novel, and you polish it up even more, and then when you feel you've done everything you can to anticipate potential problems and fix any that are fixable, that's when you take a risk on sending it out.
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It is, but there's heaps of advice in that thread that applies to the completed manuscript:
so I think it's worth reading through that one as well as the current thread.
You need to make it the absolute best you possibly can.
None of this is meant to put you off, @rservello. Writing is hard, and the publishing business is merciless - but for many of us, writing that first draft is by far the hardest part. Many people never get to the end point of that, so you're ahead of the game. You just want to give yourself every shot at success, which means knowing a lot more about how it all works.
But you're on the way and you've found yourself in a good place to pick up some excellent pointers.
Good luck with the next step. For me, that would be putting this draft aside for a couple of weeks, and then (since I think you started it three months ago?) coming back with a clearer eye. I wouldn't be getting readers involved just yet - save them for the complete, polished, proofed stage because a good reader is a terrible thing to waste. In the meantime, you could do a lot of reads and crits in SYW. It's not mandatory, but critting other people's work is a great way to learn.
Good luck with it. Writing is hard, but it's such a privilege.
But you're on the way and you've found yourself in a good place to pick up some excellent pointers.
Good luck with the next step. For me, that would be putting this draft aside for a couple of weeks, and then (since I think you started it three months ago?) coming back with a clearer eye. I wouldn't be getting readers involved just yet - save them for the complete, polished, proofed stage because a good reader is a terrible thing to waste. In the meantime, you could do a lot of reads and crits in SYW. It's not mandatory, but critting other people's work is a great way to learn.
Good luck with it. Writing is hard, but it's such a privilege.