Getting An Agent (Part 3) Your Manuscript First Page
My upfront disclaimer: I don’t have an agent yet to represent me for my first book, Kill Crime (thriller/mystery/crime-77,000 words).
Submission Count for Kill Crime
For the first three weeks starting 5 April 2018:
Total: 20 Submissions- 17 still pending, 3 rejections
Waiting on Agent Meetings
I could have sent out 100 query’s the first week, but I’m glad I didn’t. By sending a few out at a time, even without direct feedback, I kept learning.
For example, last week I learned of a Writers Conference in Houston and I have scheduled two pitch sessions with two agents who have listed that they are interested in thrillers. One is a younger agent with a top 100 agency, the other is a very experienced agent but he is the sole agent at his agency.
I still sent five query letters out this week, but two were sent to the agents I am meeting on the 4th of May. I’m not sure that is appropriate, but I am hoping they’ll read what I sent because they are meeting me and maybe I’ll be ahead of the power curve on the meeting. I did put in the subject line to them:
“Query-Meeting You 4 May-Kill Crime-Thriller/Mystery/Crime 77,000 words”
Query Letter/Synopsis/First Page
Query Letter/Synopsis
See the first two parts of “Getting An Agent” where I talk about and show my query letter and my one page synopsis.
The First Page of Your Manuscript
The agents ask for the first five pages, the first ten pages, or the first three chapters, but I guarantee many times they don’t get past the first page of your manuscript. If there is a mistake and it could be subtle, they may go on to the next submission.
My book has been beta read by many people, edited four times, and proof read three times. I think it’s pretty tight. I have learned and corrected my book for many things including: dialogue variation, points of view, and formatting and many other things. What a trip this has been and it’s not over yet.
Then I decided to take one more look at the first page of my manuscript. I had two editors I’d never use before edit as detailed as possible, my first page. The cost to me was $5 each on Fiverr.
To my shock, I learned about something new, even after four edits and a lot of work on Kill Crime. What I learned from this exercise is that one should not have a dialogue attribution combined with action in the same sentence.
Must Read
Read this question about mixing dialogue attribution with action, but the gold is in Mark Baker’s answer. It is a must read, you will learn something.
My Example from my book Kill Crime
As It Was On My First Page
“Who are you?” Wilson screamed as he swayed from one leg to the other, absently making a fist with his non-gun hand and swinging his arm. “What do I do? What do I do?” He rattled off as he stared at Case.
The Fix
“Who are you?” Wilson demanded. He was skinny; hairy legs in white athletic socks supported a concaved torso with a wife-beater t-shirt and boxer shorts with hearts. He made a fist with his free hand and swayed on his feet. “What do I do? What do I do?”
This not only fixed the dialogue attribution and action problem, but also the dialogue placement. This one page exercise also made me realize that dialogue should not be buried in a paragraph if possible. You will notice “What do I do? What do I do?” was moved from the middle of the paragraph to the end. Two improvements were made on my first page.
The Whole Book Needs To Be Great Too
Of course your whole book needs to be great, but I would hope if the agent gets into your book, they’ll get involved in your story and not stop reading for some minor infraction or the writing rules/guidelines. Neither of the two fixes made to my first page were wrong, it’s just that the fixes make it potentially a little better. Yes, I’ll read my manuscript and fix these two issues throughout the book.
Top 100 Agencies
If you didn’t read my first two parts, I wanted to add this. Start with the best. Still working the top 100 agencies based on book sales. Everyone on that list should be doing business as straight forward as one would hope. https://literaryagencies.com/list-of-literary-agents/top-literary-agencies/
Meeting the Agents on 4 May
I’ll send out a few more queries next week, but I am very excited about the meetings I am having. I will of course give a good update when that happens.
