Question on R&Rs

You might want to email the agent. I submitted an R&R a month ago. I asked the agent if she wanted me to summarize the changes and she said she'd rather I didn't. Her thoughts were that either the revisions would work or they wouldn't and knowing what I'd done ahead of time might influence her reading of the revised manuscript.

I wouldn't bother the agent over something like this. She's not going to auto-pass either way. Just keep it brief. I had an R&R from an agent who was also vague about the changes she wanted. When I sent it back, I touched on her few big points in 2-3 sentences simply to let her know I addressed them but without specifying how.

Good luck!

IMO, it's a bit weird that an agent would specify that they don't want to know about the changes. It doesn't hurt to include them in a separate doc. They don't have to read it if they don't want to.

Part of the reason my agent asked for an R&R in the first place was to see how I'd handle editing suggestions. Showing my thought process was key to that.

I submitted an outline that listed any major changes chapter by chapter, then included a few paragraphs summarizing tweaks to characters, dialogue, etc., along with my thought process on those.

Even if the agent doesn't want a review of the changes, it may be beneficial for you to summarize them for yourself. It helped me see the big picture effects of my edits.

Of course, every agent is an individual and will have their own wants and needs.

Leahzero's idea is good. Including a separate document allows the agent to look at them if she wishes to. I would be very brief about changes. Most agents are more concerned about the material they are reading than they are about your process when it comes to an R&R, but it may vary.

The following outlines a process I did AFTER signing, but it may be helpful because it is something easy for an agent (or editor or author) to review swiftly.

When I made revisions, I did a TOC or table of contents. I listed chapters by number and summarized each chapter in 1-3 sentences. The BONES of each chapter in a way that someone who had no idea what the book was about could comprehend it.

As I did this, at the end of each summary, I either made a note *no changes, or a noted the changes I had made, say *deepen Sally's character, or *change meeting to McDonald's. This way someone who had read the previous version could look through and see each individual change and how it played into the entire structure.

I also made revisions to tighten the language of the book, make meanings clearer, and change my setting. Something like that I would mention in an e-mail.

A document like mine is one that you could send along easily. It's professional, easily understood, and it would also allow her to work with you on any further alterations if there are any. It's a very useful tool to rework a manuscript. You can easily go into it and erase all your * notes and have a neat, clean chapter summary to evaluate pacing later on.

Hope that helps.

When I did my R&R, it never crossed my mind to have any sort of separate summary. I just emailed it back over with a reminder that these were the changes we had discussed. I can see how it might be a good thing to include, though.

COchick said:

When I did my R&R, it never crossed my mind to have any sort of separate summary. I just emailed it back over with a reminder that these were the changes we had discussed. I can see how it might be a good thing to include, though.

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Same here. In my email that had the revision attached, I just wrote a quick paragraph detailing the major changes I made (added chapters from X's POV, deepened X character, rewrote the ending) and I wrote a little sentence about how much stronger I felt the manuscript was and in what ways.

Thriced. I don't recall exactly what I wrote, but it was along the lines of:

"I moved up the inciting incident by a chapter so that the action begins and the stakes become apparent sooner. I introduced the backstory of X and Ys relationship in order for the reader to better understand why they react to each other so intensely during Scene A, and I tightened up the place descriptions to keep up the pacing". Or something to that effect.

The reasons for the changes mean nothing if the changes do not pull the manuscript together in a way that grabs the agent's attention.

Congrats on the request, and good luck!

When I was offered to revise and re-submit, I did write a brief summary paragraph in the e-mail to say my major changes appeared after a certain chapter. (Since the agent's feedback indicated that that's where the story started to weaken.) I didn't want it to appear like I had only made surface-level changes, which might be the impression only reading the first few chapters.

I think you can mention what you took out if you want, but the how and why of it probably aren't needed.

When I request revisions, I like to read the revised ms with the freshest eye possible. I don't look at the cover letter with "I did this/that/theother" until after I've read the whole thing.

It either works or it doesn't. Why you made/didn't make the changes is immaterial to me. Amazing minds have been known to disagree on stuff.

And here all this time I thought agents popped out of a big machine in the sky like identical, literary-talented robots; perfect and predictable.

I'm crushed.

Of course, you're still perfect, Ms. Reid.

The key to an R&R is to take the agent's comments seriously and don't revise in a superficial fashion. If you revise thoroughly, the changes will be evident. You shouldn't have to list the changes. This practice led to me landing my agent.

However, you're not going to ruin your chances if you do submit a short paragraph, but IMO it comes off being a bit defensive.

But some agents will request that you let them know where you made the changes. So as with many things related to writing/querying, it depends.