Requested attachment question

[WriterInChains]

Recently, the wonderful assistant of a fabulous agent asked for a partial based on an e-query. She said I could either send it as an attachment or hard copy. I sent a hard copy and am not feeling great about it -- I truly wish I would've sent the attachment, but I took one look at Word's green squiggly lines and opted for hard copy.

Would either of them have taken one look at those underlined sentence fragments and zipped back a fast rejection? Or the proper nouns that Word thinks I've misspelled -- would that be a red flag?

I apologize if this is inane, I've over-thought it ever since I mailed the partial: they're professionals so obviously they understand Word, but I want to appear as intelligent as possible and those squiggly lines and proper nouns bother me so maybe an agent would also be bothered?

I searched a few sections of AW but couldn't find any mention of this. If it is too inane, you can blame my favorite history prof who told me: "If you're wondering about it then someone else is too, so just ask."

Thanks for any/all input. The angel on my shoulder says I won't need the info, but she's never had a novel published either. :)

[ORION]

No not at all.
What happens with my agent is that her assistant prints it out and puts it in her read pile. It is not likely that they will read it right on the computer. I would presume many agents do the same.
The agents who blog discuss that they prefer hard copies.
When they give you a choice they mean a choice.
Some people worry about the weird things that happen on their email queries and attachments. There are much much better things to worry about like if your writing is great.
JMHO

[jkorzenko]

That question never even entered my mind, but it's a pretty good one. I doubt very much any agent is going to read directly from the screen and if they do, they'll ignore those squiggly lines. I know when I crit someone's work -- I ignore them. They don't even register. But I agree with Orion, I'm certain an assistant prints it out.

J.

[Stacia Kane]

I'd bet they've turned off the grammar and spell checks for that very reason.

[WriterInChains]

Thanks for being the voice of reason! I appreciate all of your comments -- and now I really wish I'd e-mailed the partial, while the wonderful assistant was still excited about the eensy one I sent with my query. Oh well, live and learn!

Orion: That's why I sent the h.c., because I've read on so many agent blogs that they read anywhere & everywhere & wanted to make my pages as easy as possible for her. I'm worried about the writing, but after spending almost 2 years on the ms I'm more worried about accidentally shooting myself in the foot. :)

DQ: Hadn't thought of that at all, but maybe they do? Maybe I should too? (For some strange reason, I want ice cream! ;))

[victoriastrauss]

If you'd sent it via email, she'd probably have printed it out and taken it home with her, so by sending hardcopy you saved her the trouble. Maybe she'll be grateful to you!

You can easily turn off the green squiggly lines by unchecking the "check grammar and spelling" option in Word. The agent would probably simply have ignored them anyway, because I'm sure she's aware that what Word considers to be grammatically correct rarely equates to good writing.

- Victoria

[WriterInChains]

Thanks, Victoria. That's why I opted for snail mail in the first place -- trying to be nice. I just hope their enthusiasm will still be there when they get to my pages. :)

I'll have to look into disabling the green squigglies -- at least after I know I don't have any more instances of "teh" when I meant "the". Sometimes those guys really bug me.

[HorrorWriter]

Caren,
When you make up words and use unusual names like I do, you tend to ignore Word. It is actually sometimes wrong as far as sentence structure and sometimes spelling, etc. Example, the word traveller can be spelled, traveler or the aformentioned, traveller. Word counts the 2 LL's as wrong. One is the verb form, the other is the noun form. I know Word can be screwy and inaccurate. To confirm this, my high school English teacher is one of my Beta readers! Yikes! And she still uses that evil RED pen too! :flag:

[WriterInChains]

Hi HorrorWriter: Thanks for your comments! I've found Word to be wrong too, so I probably should've figured industry professionals would know this. But, it's the first time a heavy-hitter has asked for anything from me so I wasn't really thinking straight.

BTW, love your User Title! Now I have to listen to that song again. :)

[HorrorWriter]

You're welcome, Caren! Thanks about my user title. I love that song too! Shhh, don't tell anyone what song it's from. Let them figure it out! Anyway, good luck with said agent!;)