I just attended a writers conference this weekend, and during the agent panel (consisting of Kristin Nelson, Becca Stumpf, Miriam Kriss, and Donna Bagdasarian), someone asked: "Can a writer pitch you a manuscript they haven't finished yet?" and in unison they all answered NO!!!
But here's an amusing story. On Friday, during this conference, I was in a critique workshop led by St. Martin's editor Daniela Rap. It was a small group of 8 writers, all of us having submitted in advance the first 10 pages of a manuscript, finished or unfinished, for critique. What a great opportunity to get professional editorial feedback, right? I wasn't expecting the editor to like it enough to ask for the book, especially since its not a genre she works with (I write urban fantasy, she's strictly thriller and suspense). But she did ask me to send her the full, and I had to tell her that what she'd read was all that exists of the book... so far, anyway. She was really disappointed. I felt kind of bad, but it wasn't supposed to be a pitch session. It was a critique! But I told her about the completed book my agent has, so that made her happy and she asked me to have my agent call her right away. Sometimes timing is everything.
