Writing is Rewriting

I have been dutifully sending off query letters since early March on Rules for Giving, as well as the months’ worth of queries I sent off in November and December. Those agents that do respond have passed on asking to see additional chapters or the entire manuscript. I did have one exception who asked to see the first fifty pages and a ten-page synopsis, but he ultimately passed, too.

This morning I sent out another query letter. This was just as the agent asked, a query letter only with no accompanying material. An hour later I received a response: “… we have decided that your project is not the right fit for … and so we are going to pass at this time.”

This response tells me one of several things:

• I misread the research and my novel really is not the kind of work they would represent.
• The agent blew through my query in fifteen seconds. It didn’t fit their cookie-cutter formula, and this was a form rejection.
• My query letter sucks.
• My novel sucks and my description of it accurately depicts that.
• I caught this particular agent before their morning coffee, a time when nothing makes it out of the slushpile.
• Or … it could be any one of a dozen other reasons why queries get rejected.

It is time for a rewrite? I just don’t know what to rewrite. I have two choices. I can rewrite the novel, or I can rewrite the query letter. Oddly enough, in the last week I have been visited by ideas for rewriting both.

Query letter—It occurred to me earlier this week to write my query letter from the perspective of the protagonist, Gavin Oliver, telling the agent about this story in which he is the hero. The novel catches Gavin in about the worst week of his life: confronted by the daughter of an old girlfriend who wants to know the secrets of her mother’s demons, secrets that are Gavin’s demons, too; a former partner who has stolen Gavin’s largest client; and Gavin’s wife, jealous over the prospect of the old girlfriend and pissed off about the business, moving out of the house. Maybe a missive from Gavin himself would be a more effective query.

Novel—My first chapter starts where the story starts, on a golf course. It sets up some questions and ends with a revelation. I think it sucks people in. I little father into the story, the fourth chapter, is a flashback. The hero is nineteen and accompanying his girlfriend as she sits in a crowded reception area, waiting for her turn to have an abortion. It is a situation that not many people experience, but at the same time more people than you would think are in that position, and probably a few you know. It’s a riveting chapter.  Perhaps the novel would be better served if it was the opening chapter. As a friend points out, though, only a few agents have asked to see the first fifty pages and presumably read that far. My observation is premature.

This is my question for the weekend.  

See ya’ later.

WhatIfYouCouldNotFail.com by Tim Sunderland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

 

Comments

[Nancy Dent Eckert]

We rewrite all the time, no? Well, except for Robin Hobb, Miss Lightning Fingers (and the mind to go with that).

The description of this particular work immediately reminded me of delightful novels of yesteryear, wry and, therefore, compelling.

Today's agents are all about money, the day of the gentleman/woman agent not even a distant memory except by those who knew them.

I will say that I was startled at your use of a plural pronoun, "their" instead of his (or hers), gender dependent. It amused me because you are not lacking in education, as well, you're smart, and smart is in another category.

[Tim Sunderland]

I did not want to reveal, or come close to revealing, who the agent was. I could have said "his or her," but it was Friday afternoon and the golf clubs were calling. :0)