Fix it or keep trying?

Sorry about the rejection but at least the Query letter worked.

Only one Agent's response so far but it would seem the opening may well need attention - initial connection with characters is what prompts turning pages.

You may wish to consider popping the opening Chapter into the appropriate SYW Forum and see how others react.

I see you finished the first draft last month and I assume it underwent subsequent editing and polishing beyond the pure grammar and historical aspects.

Perceived flaws in the opening pages are often reflected throughout the manuscript.

Don't despair. Agents have a handful of go-to rejection phrases like "I liked it but I didn't fall in love with it" and "I just couldn't connect." It sounds like one of those "it's not you, it's me" things. I wouldn't change anything yet. If you got a bite with just 5 queries out, you're doing great.

If you get more of that kind of feedback, then maybe consider revising.

I pulled for revisions after three fulls and two partials in which the rejections were giving relatively specific feedback beyond "can't connect." In fact, the last full rejection, I wrote back and told the agent how much her comments resonated with spots where I felt the book was weaker but couldn't quite pinpoint why. I asked if she'd be willing to look at a revision in March or so, and she said yes.

If you're getting a lot of the same feedback, and it's specific to your book, then yeah, look at a revision. If not, keep going. a 20% request rate is awesome.

In this case I wouldn't worry about it. It just means that the book wasn't quite right for them. Send to a lot more people. If you can hold out the one-in-five request rate, you'll have an agent before long.

The fact that she didn't point out anything negative is a good sign.

Read this, and then decide.

SquareSails said:

Without knowing how far in she read, I'm not sure if I have a problem throughout the book, or if the problem is in my initial chapters and she treated the full as a partial and just gave up. Surely, if she couldn't connect, she wouldn't have read the entire manuscript anyway, right?

Click to expand...

Maybe it was just that agent. Send it out again and see, just in case. If no one says yes, then it doesn't matter how far they read, because you have a problem that has to be fixed.

Imagine you're browsing in a bookstore. You're intrigued enough to pick up a book and start browsing its first chapter. While you admire the author's background and technique, it just doesn't grab you. It doesn't connect. What do you do? You close the book and put it back on the shelf.

This is reality, as basic as gravity. Readers only care about what you're going to do for them. If you don't connect, they stop reading.

Let's assume you send your book out some more, but no one says yes. What should you assume is the matter with it? I don't know. What I do know is that all of the components of fiction -- plot, character, setting, etc. -- have to work together like the parts of a machine. By that, I don't just mean they have to work together smoothly, though they do. I mean they have interacting and interdependent functions like machine parts, and if they aren't linking up properly, your book is not going to work.

(A useful rule of thumb: if readers say there's a problem with your book, they may not be able to describe precisely what it is, or tell you how to fix it, but they're right about there being a problem.)

(Unless they're completely inept readers, of course. That does happen, but it shouldn't be your first hypothesis.)

If readers experience whatever-it-is as an inability to connect with your characters, something basic is not working properly. It's possible that you're only getting it wrong in your first few chapters. If so, that will have to be fixed -- not a negotiable issue -- but it'll take less work than rewriting the whole thing, or setting it aside and writing another, which is what you'll otherwise be looking at.

So. Send it out some more and see what happens.

Since email has made sending and handling a full as easy as sending and handling a partial, I haven't given a full request any particular weight.

But even if you send a paper full, there's no difference between it and a partial as far as how much the agent will read. Which is: exactly as much or as little as she needs to in order to learn whether the project is for her. On the other hand, you can't assume that the agent only read part of your MS because she responded in a couple days. My agent read my full overnight.

"Didn't connect with the characters" is a nebulous criticism without further specifics. It doesn't necessarily mean the characters were badly done, only that this one agent wasn't drawn to them. Which happens to the readers of published work all the time.

All you know for sure is that the agent wasn't excited enough to take you on as a client. One of those other four agents might be, or one of the next five agents you query, or the next five, or the next five.

When to revise is a tricky question. I pulled my now-agented MS for revision not because I got a single specific complaint but simply because I had a niggling feeling I could make it stronger, with a more streamlined opening and plot line and one less POV character.

Do you have any niggling feelings?

That is very good advice.