I was caught a bit on the hop by a full request this week, which happened only a couple of hours after I'd sent a preliminary email and then been asked for the first 100 pages of my manuscript.
I'd be meaning to take another quick pass through the novel in the usual lag time waiting for the response, but having received the request, I fired over the latest version immediately.
This weekend I've spent a few hours taking out superfluous dialogue tags (which is a bloody quick way to improve the flow of your novel, incidentally), and was surprised at just how many I hadn't already nuked.
So now I face a dilemma. The agent in question has only had the novel for a few days and is going to get back to me within 3 weeks. Should I contact him to let him know there's a newer version available? It would give me a better chance, I think, as the old version has several sections in it with "he said" and "she said" where it's obvious who's speaking and it makes me look a little bit clueless (though I might just be being pretty finickity in terms of thinking about the details - the underlying story and dialogue are the same, and it's not like I've put in much other than "said" as tags). But at the same time I don't want to email him and look like an idiot by suggesting it.
What do you reckon, folks? Ask if I can send the better version, or just rely on the one I already have?
I'd be meaning to take another quick pass through the novel in the usual lag time waiting for the response, but having received the request, I fired over the latest version immediately.
This weekend I've spent a few hours taking out superfluous dialogue tags (which is a bloody quick way to improve the flow of your novel, incidentally), and was surprised at just how many I hadn't already nuked.
So now I face a dilemma. The agent in question has only had the novel for a few days and is going to get back to me within 3 weeks. Should I contact him to let him know there's a newer version available? It would give me a better chance, I think, as the old version has several sections in it with "he said" and "she said" where it's obvious who's speaking and it makes me look a little bit clueless (though I might just be being pretty finickity in terms of thinking about the details - the underlying story and dialogue are the same, and it's not like I've put in much other than "said" as tags). But at the same time I don't want to email him and look like an idiot by suggesting it.
What do you reckon, folks? Ask if I can send the better version, or just rely on the one I already have?
