Over the past three years, INTERN has written manuscript
critiques for many would-be authors, of whom some have gone on to find
representation, go on submission, and basically get the publishing ball
rolling, and some have not (at least, not yet).
One of the neat things about freelance editing is that you get to be a fly on
the wall throughout other writers’ journey towards publication, and INTERN has
observed some interesting patterns amongst her clientele. Here are some factors
that differentiate the soon-to-be-agented writers from the writers who have a
little further to go.
1. They’ve been at it
for a while.
In INTERN’s experience, the novel that lands the agent is almost never a client’s first manuscript. In fact, the
clients who get in touch with one of those ecstatic “OMG agent!!!” e-mails a
few months down the road have almost
always written two or three other manuscripts, and perhaps even done a
round of querying for one of them before deciding to move on.
See also Querying Euphemisms, “This is my first novel.”
2. They already have
a grasp of some of their manuscript’s problems.
In general, writers who accompany their manuscript with an
e-mail along the lines of “I know the middle section’s dragging, but I can’t
figure out what to cut” or “the plot gets all tangled up after page 200, ack,
help!” are closer to representation than writers who have no idea how to gauge
the quality and/or doneness of their own manuscript. The ability to self-assess is a strong predictor of
future writing success (at least, among INTERN’s self-selected and completely
unscientific sample of editing clients).
The less experienced the writer, the more they tend to
expect a yes/no, pass/fail type answer: “Is it any good? Do I have talent? Huh,
huh?” Because they are less able to identify their manuscript’s strengths and
weaknesses, they assume it must either be uniformly good or bad.
In contrast, writers who are a little further along tend to
ask a very different type of question: “What do I have to do to take this
manuscript to the next level?” They have some awareness of their manuscript’s
strengths and weaknesses, even if they can’t quite put their finger on the
specific reasons that certain things are failing to work.
3. They are willing to
make drastic changes.
An editor’s mandate is to make a manuscript the best it can
possibly be. With that in mind, a critique or editorial letter will sometimes
recommend massive and seemingly mind-boggling levels of plot changes,
restructuring, and reimagining.
In INTERN’s experience, a disproportionate number of clients
who e-mail a month or two after a critique saying, “Okay, so I went ahead and
deleted Character A and rewrote Part II to take place in Setting B while
scrapping plotlines C, D, and F and WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE?!?” end
up agented within the year.
This is not to say that writers who decide to move on to another
project instead of investing the time and emotional energy in resolving a
quagmirish manuscript are wrong. Far from it—it all counts towards #1,
experience, and besides, INTERN can hardly think of a change more drastic than
moving on to another project completely.
4. They value
improvement for its own sake.
The soon-to-be-agented writers get just as excited about the
prospect of finally nailing that
subplot/scene/ending/character as they are about the possibility of getting an
agent and book deal. The manuscript isn’t a means to an end (“get me an agent
and a book deal and faaaame!”) but a thing worth perfecting in itself, because
it is right and proper to do your craft well.
Love for the craft is a strong indicator of future success
because it means that the writer in question is more likely to carry on in the
face of the inevitable stumbles and disappointments—to hang in there long
enough to get to the “agented” stage.
5. They are friendly
and professional.
This is undoubtedly a result of INTERN’s highly unscientific
sample pool, because lord knows that plenty of cranky, unreasonable and
downright insane writers get agents and book deals every day. But it bears
noting: 100% of INTERN’s editing clients who now have agents are
well-organized, articulate, friendly, and reasonable —or perhaps more to the
point, they are capable of projecting a well-organized, articulate, friendly
and reasonable image in their communications, regardless of how stressed out,
incoherent, frantic or insecure they feel on the inside.
**
This is not to say that every writer who has been at it for
a while, who is invested in honing his/her craft, who is willing and eager and
earnest and well-researched will find an agent and go on to happy book dealdom
and do it in a timely fashion. Some books are harder to sell than others, and
the publishing industry is insanely fickle and slow and unreliable. Suffice to
say that the writers whose eventual agenting INTERN has been lucky enough to
hear about have all shared certain qualities* (other than the obvious, talent).
*for what it’s worth, INTERN suspects that #1, experience—as
in sheer number of hours spent writing and revising—is the most important of
the five, as it tends to lead to the other four automatically. So if you are a not-yet-agented
writer who is reading this and wondering how it applies to you, take heart and write more.
