Stats/Responses to my Query (need advice)

Ask your beta readers--is there too much back story? Often there is. Besides, you don't have to ditch your ms. Just edit a different version and see if it appeals to her. If you don't like where that goes, you've got the earlier version to return to.

Offer her what she wants but keep a copy of your MS "as is".

Sometimes in the heat of the querying battle, it's hard to remember that everything isn't on the line. Good luck.

Lara said:

My gut feeling is I need to stop submitting and revise more, but it is very hard to be objective. But I love your suggestion about editing a different version. (Believe it or not this didn't occur to me, although it seems quite obvious now that you mention it *blush*)

thanks!!

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Are your betas readers or writers? I've found that some the most useful critiques come from avid readers who have no desire to write. They offer a different perspective, more reflective of the reading public as a whole.
I like the idea of revising for that agent, but keeping the original.
The response you have received so far is fantastic for so few queries. You clearly have an excellent query letter and a great story. As a bunch of other folks on here just told me, hang in there. It will happen.

I hope you are using querytracker.net!

If you have serious doubts about whether the ms is ready or not, set it aside and continue working on the next one.

Come back in a month.
Print the ms out.
Reconsider the beginning of your tale.

How?
Here's the five-step plan of specific things to do.

1) Pick up the first three pages only.

Do these first three pages put you in an interesting place?
Does something happen?
Does that action affect what is going to happen in at least one scene after page fifty?
Do we connect with at least one character and her problems?
Do we understand who she is and what she wants?

2) Now set the first three chapters to one side and look at the beginning of Chapter Four.
What action takes place before this point that is wholly necessary to tell your story?
Could you start the story here?

No, really. Could the story just pick up right here and it would all be understandable and the plot would work just fine?

3) Next, slip a paperclip onto page 10, page 23, page 37 and page 48.
Read the story quickly from the beginning. When you get to the bottom of a paperclipped page, set it down.
What intriguing question fills your mind right now? Is it so enticing that you must pick that manuscript up and read on?

4) Ok.
Now, take out two colors of highlighter. Yellow and fuschia maybe.
Go through the first four chapters.

Use yellow to mark a line along
-- dialog, (with the exception of someone explaining and telling stuff,)
-- dialog tags,
-- a character thinking about something or someone they can see right in front of them,
-- an action that is happening onstage right now,
-- the POV character touching, tasting, smelling or hearing something,
-- the description of something the POV character can see.

Use fuschia to mark a long line along
-- anything that happened in the past,
-- a character thinking about something that is not immediately in front of them,
-- the description of something the POV character cannot see,
-- anything related to a character who is not present,
-- one person explaining anything at all to the other person,
-- one person telling the other person what happened somewhere else.

Do you have lots and lots of yellow?
Maybe 80% yellow?
That is the here-and-now of your story.
If the reader is not in the midst of the here-and-now of your story . . . where is she?

5) Finally, just read the first five chapters.
Do you care about these people?
Do you see them headed somewhere?

CGs on the excellent response to your query letter.

Yes, if you have any doubts about your opening, keep a copy of the original and tear into a new version. You might want to hold off further querying until you're satisfied with any revisions.

Seven 'rejections' from literary agents, especially ones with those elusive comments, should not be enough to make you halt your submission progress, although the aforegoing advice is extremely helpful.

It also depends whether you're doing multiple submissions, and the quality of the agents you are approaching. I would keep going for a bit longer before tinkering with the manuscript you've worked on for so hard and so long.

I don't think you should come to any conclusion based on 5 rejections. You've stirred some interest, and that's a good thing. Your query must be good. And, what manuscript doesn't need some tinkering? If you want to do the tinkering now, based on your judgment, I don't see what's wrong with that --- but if based on the opinion of 1 agent, well, no I'd first see what others have to say.

Put the entire issue into perspective. If your concerns were based on rejections and similar comments from 25-50 agents, they would probably hold water. But based on 7 submissions?

ccarver30 said:

I hope you are using querytracker.net!

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QueryTracker has been dead since last night. Another reason not to use online services for more than gathering information.

Lara said:

Actually, it's only 5 rejections so far . One partial is still pending, and then the agent who asked me to start someplace else is still pondering what I sent her in response to that.

I don't think I'm going to halt the submission process, because I genuinely don't think the MS needs a TON of work. But I do think it needs tinkering. I'm just getting the feeling the query is better than the MS, you know?

In answer to the other two issues you raised, I am doing multiple submissions, but very, very few. And the agents I've queried have all been 'quality'-- that is, I'm finding out all I can about each one before submitting. Slow and painful, yes.

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It seems to me that you're doing everything right, and when you reach the stage where a publisher appoints you an editor, your manuscript is highly likely to be tinkered with anyway.

Please bear in mind the current, awful recession, especially affecting the entire publishing industry, which is already reeling from the rise of POD and e-readers. And Amazon. And Celebrity publishing. And . . . no more, it's depressing me to write it down.

Lara said:

So in your example, a yellow-heavy chapter would be a good place to start, and a fuschia-heavy chapter is gonna be backstory and I should...work that info in elsewhere? and/or cut it?

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A yellow-heavy chapter is not rat-poison layered on the hemlock or anything . . . but it's a ringing bell that 'you are not in the here-and-now of the story.'
Which is maybe where you want to be.

With backstory . . . you can add it when the reader needs a dollop to understand what is going on.

And when you get to the end of the first draft you can always go through and drop in little bits of colorful past events where you think the driving pace of the ongoing action needs to be slowed down a bit.

Lara said:

The final query led to an email from the agent asking if I could start the manuscript somewhere else. She said she'd like to read more but that there was too much backstory in the first chapter.

Am I panicking /wasting time if I start revising the whole MS based on this last agent's response? It's the first meaningful feedback I've gotten from a real, live agent.

Also, it seems I get a good response to my query and that's it, so I've been wondering if the MS needs tinkering.

(Edited to add that I did send her a revised version of Chapter 4 & 5 to respond to her request that I start somewhere else, so I suppose technically that is another partial that is pending).

Thanks for any feedback!

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I think you should take a long hard look at the ms and consider revising it. Piling back story into the first chapter is a very common mistake. Sending the agent who made this comment later chapters is a also a mistake unless you rewrote those chapters to be the start of the work. The agent is asking you to launch your story from a different launch pad, not show her the middle of the flight. You seem to be getting good responses to your query so it's likely well written. But the response rate on your partials and fulls is not so good, indicating there is a problem with it. So I would definitely make any change that gets the reader into the story faster and gets rid of the upfront backstory stuff. Weave that backstory in later somewhere (assuming it's really needed at all -- try to consider deleting some of it.)

Just my two cents.

Beth