The Last Five Pages

popmuze

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Having just come across the incredible last page of THE GREAT GATSBY, I was wondering if anyone had ever submitted the last five pages of their novel to an agent instead of the first five with their query? I've also been considering a blog post "An open letter to the 150 Agents who have yet to respond to my query." Has anyone ever succeeded in getting an agent's attention through these types of "alternate" moves? I remember once, back in the day, when I was looking for a job, I sent around my resume as a baseball card, with a creative bio on the back reading: Bats: R, Throws: R, Votes: L. I got a lot of interviews out of it, some employers posted it on the cork board in the lunchroom. People would stop by when I was being interviewed to congratulate me. I was offered a job at a magazine like True Detective, but turned it down for a staff writing position at a music magazine, my dream job, for $50 a week.
 
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CassandraW

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I cannot see why any agent would be swayed in your favor by your last five pages. However brilliant they are, no reader would ever get to them if the preceding couple of hundred pages were not compelling.

It is the opening that will hook (or not hook) the reader as well as the agent. That is why those are the pages they want. Of course, the remaining pages must also be compelling, but if the first few are not, most will never get to them.

The point of sending pages is not simply to prove you can write. If that were the case, you could provide random pages from another manuscript or a letter to your Aunt Bessie. The point is to lure the agent into wanting to read the rest of that particular manuscript -- and convince him/her that a reader will want to do the same.
 

Aggy B.

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Not to mention most agents would likely take a query like that to mean you either a) had no knowledge of the publishing industry or b) hadn't read their submission guidelines.

You might find a few that would appreciate you thinking "outside the box", but I'd imagine them to be few and far between, and in the meantime you'd risk permanently burning bridges with everyone else.
 

CassandraW

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Moreover, such a move would give the impression that your first couple hundred pages were NOT up to snuff -- if the writer thought the first five pages were anywhere near as good as his last pages, surely he would have followed instructions/the customary procedure and sent them. Therefore, if I were an agent, I would assume the all-important first five pages were crap; hence the desperate ploy of sending the ending instead.
 

ElaineA

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Unless you're done with finding an agent forever, I wouldn't do that "open letter" either. IDK how it can end up sounding like anything other than sour grapes or a scold, even if it's couched in terms of "this is my awesome story." The implication is "See what you're missing?" We all have complaints about the query grind. Agents know it, editors and publishers know it. If you're still querying in hopes of trade publication, it might be better to be the prospect agents want to work with, not one they'd just as soon avoid.
 

CassandraW

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regarding your baseball-card-as-resume comparison --

I'm not entirely opposed to doing something unorthodox to stand out from the crowd in certain situations. When I applied to law school, I attached a humorous several-page-long political satire written in heroic couplets to my applications for a couple of the top schools as an extra writing sample. Trust me, this is not normally done -- but it seems to have worked. I got into those schools.

However, I think this sort of thing works best when you are competing against a pool of very similarly qualified individuals all going for a necessarily limited number of spots, and there is some benefit of showing that you have character traits (in addition to your resume) like spunk, humor, imagination and initiative. Your standard qualifications must be absolutely up to snuff or your ploy will likely just look like an eye-rolling gimmick.

When you are sending a manuscript, all the agent cares about is that manuscript. However many others are sending queries, if your manuscript doesn't compel her, you're sunk. As noted above, if the first five pages aren't gripping, it doesn't matter if the last five pages are.

And as far as showing that you have character traits like spunk and are willing to take an unorthodox approach -- that might be something an employer or a school would care about in considering you, but it's unlikely to be something your agent will care about.
 
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CassandraW

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Unless you're done with finding an agent forever, I wouldn't do that "open letter" either. IDK how it can end up sounding like anything other than sour grapes or a scold, even if it's couched in terms of "this is my awesome story." The implication is "See what you're missing?" We all have complaints about the query grind. Agents know it, editors and publishers know it. If you're still querying in hopes of trade publication, it might be better to be the prospect agents want to work with, not one they'd just as soon avoid.

Oh, god, yes. You'd gain nothing by the open letter, and you'd stand to lose a great deal.
 

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I agree with the others. I think doing things your own way rather than following protocol is more likely to come across as clueless than impressive.
 

mayqueen

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You're far more likely to gain an agent's attention if you follow their guidelines and have a fabulous manuscript than if you try something out of the box. You don't want to come across as clueless (as Fruitbat said) or difficult to work with.

Personally, I've always found the last five pages the easiest to write. The first five pages are hell. So for that reason, I completely understand why agents ask for the first five pages. You have to show that you can craft prose, yes, but you also have to show that you can establish conflict, character, and setting, in that order, in an effective and engaging matter. Readers don't pick books up off the shelf (or download the sample) and turn to the last five pages first.
 

Cyia

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Having just come across the incredible last page of THE GREAT GATSBY, I was wondering if anyone had ever submitted the last five pages of their novel to an agent instead of the first five with their query?

Yes they have, and they've also tried submitting five random pages because they feel those pages are the strongest in the manuscript. It doesn't work.

1 - guidelines exist for a reason.
2 - if you give up the ending, the agent has no reason to ask for more pages. A query is an enticement to read; don't spoiler yourself.

I've also been considering a blog post "An open letter to the 150 Agents who have yet to respond to my query." Has anyone ever succeeded in getting an agent's attention through these types of "alternate" moves?

Do you have a large enough blog audience that such a post might be read? If yes, then you should probably be mentioning your blog audience in your queries to show you've got an established presence. If no, then it doesn't matter. No one will read it.

Also, informing agents that they're so far down on your list that you've already queries 150 others is going to backfire should you continue to query and have an agent look you up online.

Remember that agents Google, and your latest post will be the first thing they see.

I remember once, back in the day, when I was looking for a job, I sent around my resume as a baseball card, with a creative bio on the back reading: Bats: R, Throws: R, Votes: L. I got a lot of interviews out of it, some employers posted it on the cork board in the lunchroom. People would stop by when I was being interviewed to congratulate me. I was offered a job at a magazine like True Detective, but turned it down for a staff writing position at a music magazine, my dream job, for $50 a week.

But in publishing most of the gimmicks have been tried, ad nauseam. Quirky gifts, photographs, etc. Agents don't like them. All they want is a query.
 

LaneHeymont

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If an agent asks for the first 5 pages, for the love of turkey burgers, please put the first five pages! Look at following submission guidelines as the first test. If you fail (can't follow the guidelines an agent INTENTIONALLY set forth with good reason) why should we ask to see more?

Gimmicks rarely work. Sell an agent on the merit of your writing.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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In addition to all the reasons already cited ... endings just don't have the same impact without everything that precedes them. I adore the ending of The Great Gatsby; it's one of my favorites ever. But if I'd read those pages FIRST, I might have dismissed them as overwrought prose and trite symbolism. Even if you're the world's most amazing prose stylist, the rest of the book gives your readers the reason to care how it ends.
 

Toothpaste

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Another thing about gimmicks: creative gimmicks can work in the business world because they are unique and show that you can think outside of the box. But in a creative field, such gimmicks are not a sign of thinking outside of the box. They are a sign that you are yet another eccentric artist who doesn't know how to be professional.

Basically think of it like this: you want to show that you can be the opposite of the stereotype. In business that means being creative. In creative fields, it means showing you can be professional. Being professional, basically, IS the gimmick :) .
 

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I've read quite a few open letter blog posts to agents. There was a rash of them for a while a couple of years back when e-submissions became more popular. Some were kind of sad - especially if the writer had attached chapter samples of their *first novel ever* and you could see they probably needed a few more years in crit-sessions and slogging it out with practice to get to a submittable state.

There was that blog post with the guy who was submitting to every agent under the sun about his manuscript, complete with overwrought reactions to his rejections!

The really angry ones were vicariously entertaining but so, so, creepy.
 

popmuze

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Thanks for the comments. I can always depend on the folks here to keep me from throwing myself off the bridge.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Gimmicks always attract attention. Unfortunately, that attention is bad about ninety-nine percent of the time. But, yes, gimmicks have worked. I remember a book about spontaneous human combustion, maybe the first written, and it made the rounds forever, bringing in rejection after rejection. Then it was submitted after burning the edges of the manuscript all around. It sold, and made a mint.

To work, a gimmick has to be good, it has to be clever, and it has to display a sense of humor. The only gimmick I've seen work on a fairly regular basis has a strong element of humor, and, in fact, pokes a bit of fun at the writer, not at agents or editors.

Gimmicks are always a big risk, but they can also offer big reward. You never know what will work. While not really a gimmick, I remember Art Spikol writing an article about needing to find a writer for his agency. Writer after writer after writer sent in lengthy, impressive resumes. All but one. That one sent a one line resume. It listed no previous jobs or anything else. It simply said, "I can flat write."

There's always the urge to make someone prove a statement like that. Spikol called him in, and offered him the job on a trial basis. The man was correct. He could flat write, and he kept the job.

Gimmicks, stepping outside the accepted boundaries, doing what everyone says you should not do, most certainly does pose big risks, but as I said, it can also offer huge rewards. The trick is finding a gimmick that will do no harm, even if it does no good. This much I know, the person who never takes big chances is the person unlikely to succeed at anything. As Ray Bradbury said, "Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down." I fully believe this.
 

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One other thing. While not a gimmick, I certainly went against a lot of professional advice when I first started writing. I cold called an agent, a TV producer, and a Hollywood producer. The agent offered representation, and both the TV produces and the Hollywood producer asked for scripts.

Now, I knew how to give really good phone, how to be natural, friendly, humorous, while still talking business. Talking on a phone comes naturally for me. But had I listened to the uniform, never to be violated advice, then, at best, my career would have been delayed a long time, and might never have grown wings. Ray Bradbury again.
 

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Personally, I don't think I do anything so well that I can not follow the directions. Most agents take on 1-3% of the submissions they see. I wouldn't recommend doing anything that would make them already feel like you don't belong in that small group. Follow the directions and let them know you're easy to work with! Maybe an established star could get away with that, but for the rest of us, there are guidelines.
 

Niiicola

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How about taking all that time you'd otherwise spend coming up with a cool gimmick and using it to make your first five pages utterly spectacular?