request for full ms.

Both. They want to read more of it in HOPES of publishing it.

About 1-2% of those requested actually make the cut. That's why it's so very important that what you send is your best possible work--from grammar, to spelling to plot and characterization.

Lila, it simply means "so far so good" and it's quite common in the business. It's an indication that (from this reader at least) that things are looking good--you've got a sufficient hook, good or adequate characterization, pace, plot etc., and that they are inclined to want more to see how it develops. Next step: they'll look for that dratted mid-book drag, lively conflict, and ultimately a satisfying resolution, with the rest of the book. The odds are slightly better from partial to full because you have demonstrated talent and craftsmanship so far. There is oodles that can go wrong though with the rest of it, though. However, it is a great accomplishment to get that far.

Percentages? Just worry about the aprox 2 percentile you want to be in for acceptance, and then after that the percentile drops again once an agent begins to send it out to the big scary marketplace.

Now, big hugs and congrats on that, BUT get right back to querying and working on your next book. Nail-biting, pacing, and over-wondering is a way to madness.

Good luck

Triceratops

percentage

LilaDubois said:

Does anyone know what the rule of thumb is that causes editors to ask for the full ms? Is it something that they really might like to publish or just something that they want to read more of?

Does anyone know what percentage of requested full’s are actually accepted?

Click to expand...

I'm assuming we're talking about unpublished novelists.

Part of this answer depends on who the editor is requestiong the full manuscript from. If he's asking a writer directly, I'd go with Cathy's percentage. One to two percent tops. If he's asking an agent for the full, the percentage can go way up. Depending on who the agent is, and how much the editor trusts her judgement, the number can go up to as high as ten to fifteen percent.

But it's a rare and top agent who has proven herself this trustworthy.

When I was an editorial assistant, I requested plenty of manuscripts because I was eager to find something publishable. As to why I requested those particular manuscripts - well, the first three chapters were readable, intriguing and had potential. Nothing in the chapters or the synopsis screamed 'reject me, reject me'.

But of course many, many manuscripts go downhill after the first three chapters. Whether this is because writers polish partials at the expense of MSs, or because it's easier to begin something than continue/finish it well, I don't know. Also, I ultimately rejected most MSs because even if they were competent, they just weren't special enough.

I'm in the same boat as you Lila. Waiting, trying to not let it kill me.Trying to understand how this all happened.

Worse, even though I made the ms. the best I could, I found on a later pass--because I can't seem to stop editing now-- a sentence that should've been deleted but wasn't. It'll throw the editor right out of the story.

But I do have rising conflict and lots of stuff adding tension, my story isn't boring-- who knows? Maybe I'll survive.

In the interim, I'm trying to be super disciplined about writing my next novel and forcing myself to stop editing a submitted ms. already! I must be borderline OCD b/c once I'm in the editing groove it's painful to stop.

The one thing I keep telling myself is that my odds of getting published are much higher than usual at the moment. Am I ready for that? No. I have a lot of work to do in order to live up to these odds and fretting about the ms. in process is a good way to waste all my time.

And even if it all ends in rejection, this has been an invaluable experience. I can make it out of slush. My crappy synopses must not be so crappy and my writing holds up to professional scrutiny. I'm on the right track... if I stay focused.

V

Mistri:

I would love for you to talk more about how ms. went downhill after the first 3 chapters. Did the writing regress to 'green' levels as if the polishing only went so far? Or did the plotting poop out?

Would you say a 'competent' story was usually lacking tension or conflict? Or something else? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

V

It's not a number game. It's a process. First a query. So far so good. Then a partial. Interesting, I want to read more. Then the full. But an agent can only represent so many clients. They have to absolutely LOVE the ms. and think it's marketable to take you on. Every step of the process is actually a tougher race.

What we see is that a lot of new writers spend so much time perfecting their first chapters. They get to the full ms. stage, but the rest does not match the quality of the beginning. It falls apart in the middle, or worse, the end: sloppy writing, poor characterization, plot holes, etc. My advice is: Get the first chapters great, but the rest should be even better.

"It's a process. First a query. So far so good. Then a partial. Interesting, I want to read more. Then the full. But an agent can only represent so many clients. They have to absolutely LOVE the ms. and think it's marketable to take you on."

I went from partial to full ms. request and I hope they love my story, but I also believe it is marketable in its genre. Fresh and new, but rooted in what has come before.

"They get to the full ms. stage, but the rest does not match the quality of the beginning. It falls apart in the middle, or worse, the end: slopping writing, poor characterization, plot holes, etc."

I did my best to avoid all that. I still fret a lot about whether or not I actually did avoid all the pitfalls you mentioned. But the plot does hold up even after the umpteenth reading. I am no longer objective about characterization because I am sick of my book at this point, and fantasize about throttling my characters as I am so very tired of them. During the writing and the first few editing passes, I loved my characters though. And the plot logic is definitely there.

We'll see. The odds are 50/50 between yes and no. Myself, I can think of a million reasons for yes and another million for no.

Meanwhile, I plan for the best and prepare for the worst, which is part of the reason why this interminable wait drives me schizo.

V

Hi Viola,
It's both fun and awful to wait for a response from an agent. Congratulations on getting this far, and keep going on your next project. That way no matter what happens you'll have another novel in the works, even better than this one. Good luck--keep us posted!
Lauri

I just can't figure out why someone's next novel is definitely going to be better than the one that's now circulating and coming so close.
I've had three novels published and I'm torn as to which was the best, the first or the second.
As far as my (roughly) 15 unpublished novels, none is anywhere near as good as the one I finally finished in 2005 and have been polishing ever since. I figure, if I'm so close, it's got to be within my power to get the thing over the top to the next level.
As far as my next, who knows if the idea is even half as good as what I've already finished.

Well, I think most people learn from their past experiences and their writing improves as they gain more and more experience. I don't know what to say about your work, but I hope this novel is a success.

Viola said:

Mistri:

I would love for you to talk more about how ms. went downhill after the first 3 chapters. Did the writing regress to 'green' levels as if the polishing only went so far? Or did the plotting poop out?

Would you say a 'competent' story was usually lacking tension or conflict? Or something else? I'd be interested in your thoughts.

V

Click to expand...

It's hard to explain, and something (this is a cop out) best learned by reading piles of slush - first as it comes through as a partial, then as the full manuscript arrives. Sometimes the writing regressed, as you put it - though usually not very much - but more often the plot didn't live up to the potential of the first 3 chaps.

Plotting (and I'm not talking about outlining) and pacing are difficult. A story can start off well, then suddenly start to drag. Or perhaps too much time is spent with one character, while another is doing lots of interesting things off-screen. Maybe a conflict that sounded good in the synopsis becomes unbelieveable in the manuscript. There are a million things that can let a good beginning down.

As for competency... this is another hard one. A competent manuscript doesn't necessarily lack conflict or tension - but it might not exploit them fully. Often when I think of 'competent' books, I think back to romance slush I used to read. These books had often passed through several critiques (or close personal editing) and had nothing wrong on a sentence level. Similarly, the structure and characters and so on might be fine. But there would be nothing extra to lift the novel up above the rest of the slush - nothing special or unique about that story or that writer's voice.

Mere competency is what I'm scared of when I read my own work. Being competent isn't bad - but what's difficult is seeing whether you're better than that. I know I can't do it (re. my own novels).

This is why editors say you need to be better than good.

I think I know what you're talking about. Sometimes the words all fit and make sense but the concept behind them has fallen apart. There's a story with progressive action, but it's lacking the spark of a soul. You know it when you see it, but it's hard to explain.

"nothing special or unique about that story " Personally, I think, with some forethought, authors can avoid this. I look for what's not on the shelves and what's not being sold to editors in my genre. I look for ideas in the dark untouched corners of my genre and so far that has been the right approach for me. I also make sure every section of the story has a hook, something bright and shiny for the beginning, middle, and end.

"Or perhaps too much time is spent with one character, while another is doing lots of interesting things off-screen."

I see this one a lot in critiquing. This is another one I think is easy to spot, it's surprising to me that so many people struggle with it.

"Mere competency is what I'm scared of when I read my own work. Being competent isn't bad - but what's difficult is seeing whether you're better than that. I know I can't do it (re. my own novels)."

Well look at it this way, if you're competent it means you've got the basics, just need to tweak the formula you're following. Being competent still puts you ahead of 90% of the people submitting. And you probably have enough critical experience that I would be surprised if your work was just competent. You know the problems, you've seen them in action, and that's half the battle. I bet your writing is just fine.

I don't know if you follow Evil Editor's blog, s/he's been doing the first 150 words, but the flaws are so obvious his feedback is not much use to me. I wish he would give some more subtle examples of flawed writing (i.e. showing 'competent' writing and why it fails to shine)--once you get to a certain point in the learning curve, learning how to avoid the more nuanced pitfalls of craft is critical and there seems to be a lack of information on it.

The thing I notice a lot in the writing of others is that the words don't actually say what they're supposed to. The wrong image is used, or the ideas are mismatched or don't hold up under questioning. Not so obvious as a mixed metaphor or a gaping plot hole, but certainly a microtear in the fabric of the story's reality, enough so that it would be a pass. However, to the reader's eye, the story would probably read fine, at least superficially. I've done so much editing recently that I'm hyperaware of it when I see it now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

V

Yes, Evil Editor is great, but I believe he only puts up the really bad (and therefore funny to take apart) excerpts and queries. These are very useful of course, but it would be nice to see the just-okay ones as well

Good

popmuze said:

I just can't figure out why someone's next novel is definitely going to be better than the one that's now circulating and coming so close.
I've had three novels published and I'm torn as to which was the best, the first or the second.
As far as my (roughly) 15 unpublished novels, none is anywhere near as good as the one I finally finished in 2005 and have been polishing ever since. I figure, if I'm so close, it's got to be within my power to get the thing over the top to the next level.
As far as my next, who knows if the idea is even half as good as what I've already finished.

Click to expand...

It pays to remember that in publishing "good" is defined as "marketable," which is defined by "How Much Money Will It Make?"

Chapters

One thing to remember about chapters, and why having a full manuscript requested still does not put the odds in a writer's favor.

I've read many a partial that was very well-written. The full manuscript also proved to be very well-written. But what the full manuscript often does not turn out to be is 1. Marketable. 2. A good story start to finish. 3. Original. 4. Logical.

All the first three chapters really tells an agent or editor is whether you write dialogue well, sometimes whether you know what goes into a good character, etc. Butthose first three chapters say nothing about how well you can write a novel. It really doesn't have anyting at all to do with teh writing going downhill after the first three chapters. That can be fixed with a minimum of fuss. If you can write the firstthree chapters well, I can be pretty sure you can fix any writing problems in later chapters.

But writing well does not a marketable novel make. A sustained, entertaining story, good characters who develop as they should, good structure, good pace, good rhythm, good arc, tension in the right places, conflict of the right kind at the rights places, mood and tone, a plot that holds together from beginning to end, etc., etc., are what make a novel marketable.

Three good chapters can give an agent or editor hope that the full novel will have all these things, and this is why a full manuscript is requested. But in all truth, only one or two percent of requested novels actually do prove to have all these things done well enough to make the cut.

How well the first three chapters are write usually have very little bearing on how good, or how marketable, the overall novel is. While a well-written partial is important, without it few will ask to see the complete manuscript, that partial, no matter how well it may be written, in no way means the complete novel will have a story, characters, plot, conflict, tension, on and on and on, that can hold my interest all teh way through.