As a writer, I think the most irksome aspect of submission is rejection with no feedback.
For agents, it has to be dealing with floods of unprofessional or inappropriate manuscripts. But even well-written manuscripts are rejected. Here’s a lament I recently received:
“I've been shopping a novel for a year now, and quite a few agents have expressed interest, but when they read the first three chapters, they all say the same thing--it's engaging, the characters are wonderful, but this is a midlist book and they don't think I can sell it. They all sign off with the fondest wish that someone else will take on the project.
“Now, I thoroughly enjoy getting long, handwritten rejections (if you have to get rejected, that's the way to go,) but ‘This book is midlist, and I don't think I can sell it in this market’ leaves me wondering: is there something I can do to make it less midlist? If the critiques were more specific--the story doesn't start soon enough, the prose is too purple, the chapters are too long--something, anything! then I could revise it, but what do you do with a book that everybody likes but nobody thinks they can sell?”
My response to her went something like this: My feeling about the agents who responded that they couldn't sell a midlist book seems disingenuous to me. There are clearly many midlist books being sold. They could be saying they only want to invest their time and effort on potential big sellers. On reflection, if an agent thought she could sell a manuscript, do you really think she’d give a fig that it was midlist?
With so many manuscripts swarming to an agent, they can skim the cream. Seems to me the two paths to representation are that the agent either 1) strongly believes that they can sell a manuscript, whether they like it or not, or 2) passionately likes a manuscript that they hope they can sell. My guess, this writer’s manuscript fell somewhere in between 1 and 2 with those agents.
She wrote back:
“I didn't want to believe that the agents were lying to me; so many of them said the same thing, that I just assumed it was a fact: the fiction market is too tight to try to sell a midlist book. Personally, I like your version better, and it gives me hope that I'm not wasting my time or my postage in continuing to try to shop it. It's actually with an agent right now after she requested it; I'm really crossing my figures.
“I know a lot of people would be horrified, but I'd really like a critique list to be honest. ‘I don't like your main character because...’ or ‘There's nothing wrong with the writing, I just don't like your story,’ or even, ‘You need to go back and study grammar and punctuation before submitting again.’ Those in addition to concrete, revisionable suggestions like, ‘This story doesn't start until X chapter, revise until X chapter makes sense as the first,’ or ‘This book meanders and Y subplot doesn't help it. Cut that subplot and 5000 words for a tighter story.’ Totally wishful thinking on my part, I know; it would just be nice to know exactly how something failed, even if it's just a ‘failure’ of taste, you know?”
(I offered this writer a free critique of her opening chapters, and she took me up on it. My reaction: good characters and professional writing but, for me, not enough tension in the story. I doubted the agents found the compelling storytelling they need to make a sale. She’s thinking it over.)
Getting agents or editors to draft specific suggestions or criticisms for the bulk of manuscripts they receive isn’t going to happen…but why can’t they give feedback if we provide a checklist? They already know what they think and why they’re rejecting a submission, so it should take less than thirty seconds to zip through a checklist.
How can it benefit each of us? Dedicated writers, those capable of learning and improving, can glean insights from knowledgeable agents and editors to improve their work—those oh-so-valuable “other eyes.” That can make their next submission closer to the mark, if not on it. And that’s good for the agent/editor.
CALL FOR CHECKLIST ITEMS
Writers, let’s see if we can get some answers. Please email me with your idea of checklist items that would be helpful to you—they would apply to submission of actual narrative, not to a query letter. Feedback items should be general enough to apply to any novel (much will also apply to non-fiction, but I want to tackle fiction first).
Agents, send me the top ten problems that turn you off.
When we’ve developed a good list, I’ll make it available to everyone free of charge.
C’MON, GET INVOLVED!
Please let me hear from you. Even better, email me with an example, published or unpublished, of something that peeves you or you have a question about, and I’ll level a beady eye at it. If it’s from your own work, tell me if I can post it or if you want a “private reading.”