A Full Story

I’m going to preface this post by saying that everything I’m about to say is honest. Maybe too honest. But I want to tell the story and I think it’s something some people might want to hear. So, you know….

Months ago, I was working on a new WIP I’ve since titled THE BUTTERFLY GHOST while querying my (then) latest manuscript, WORLD’S EDGE. I’d entered WORLD’S EDGE into contests and gotten significant feedback from my critique partners. I’d done revisions and more revisions. It was a story about parallel worlds and a girl with a genetic destiny and I loved it.
 

I got some great feedback from a few agents, one of which said she’d love to read more if she didn’t have something similar in her pipeline. A few others sent responses to partial requests saying that they liked my writing, but they didn’t connect with the story itself. Query me with something else sometime, they said.
 

A few days after receiving one such partial rejection, I got an email from an agent asking for my full manuscript. Agent loved my concept and even tweeted about how awesome my pitch was. The catch was that Agent wanted my MS exclusively. I hadn’t been asked this before, so I sent word to my critique partners: What do I do???
 

My CPs suggested I give her the full exclusively. Still feeling dejected after the partial rejections, I followed my CPs’ advice. Full sent. During this time Agent and I chatted back and forth via email and, honestly, I loved Agent. We had things in common, and not just our reading preferences. We joked and I laughed out loud more than once. I was so hopeful. Agent said I’d have an answer in seven weeks.
 

Seven weeks may seem like a long time; when you’re querying a book, however, seven weeks isn’t as big of a deal. Or so I thought. I stopped querying WORLD’S EDGE, knowing I couldn’t give any other agents any pages while Agent had my full exclusively. Instead, I focused on THE BUTTERFLY GHOST.
 

I finished the initial draft of THE BUTTERFLY GHOST. I waited a little while, then went back and made some revisions, then sent it to my CPs. After a few weeks, I got notes back from CPs…and loved what they had to say. Most of their suggestions were minor, easy things to fix with another read-through or two. A few of the larger details would take more time. I got to work.
 

Sometime during this second round of revisions on THE BUTTERFLY GHOST, I had a disturbing thought. It’d been weeks since I’d sent my full to Agent, but I wasn’t really stressing out about Agent’s answer. Instead, I was more interested in working on THE BUTTERFLY GHOST. I shoved the thought aside…which only made room for another. What if, I panicked, Agent wanted to represent WORLD’S EDGE but didn’t like THE BUTTERFLY GHOST? I was falling in love with THE BUTTERFLY GHOST. I was starting to dream of seeing it on a shelf in a bookstore. And I was realizing a few things about WORLD’S EDGE.
 

As much as I thought I loved WORLD’S EDGE, I was beginning to see its flaws. For one, voice. Agents and writers all talk about voice, this elusive quality of narration that makes the main character (or an omniscient narrator) vibrant and real. Did WORLD’S EDGE have voice? I wasn’t sure. But I knew THE BUTTERFLY GHOST did. Also, everyone in the publishing world is concerned about marketability: Will it sell? For WORLD’S EDGE, I wasn’t so sure. But THE BUTTERFLY GHOST?
 

Then came another thought. I’d written WORLD’S EDGE a couple of years ago, before I started to seriously pursue querying, before I knew what I was doing and what it’d take to get there. Since then, I’d revised it…but maybe those revisions didn’t matter. Maybe the concept was good, but my writing wasn’t ready. Maybe I wasn’t ready.
 

Writing THE BUTTERFLY GHOST had been a completely different feeling. I was in over my head, but in a great way—I was always thinking about it even when I was doing other things. I was twisting and turning the plot, taking something that started out so small and making it bigger. I was so consumed by my main character’s voice that sometimes I found myself talking like her. I loved my newest story.
 

So when eight weeks had passed and Agent sent me another email, I wasn’t surprised that it was a rejection. Agent’s explanation was short, but I could read between the lines. I knew what Agent was thinking and why. And (here comes that honesty I mentioned at the start) I wasn’t only okay with Agent’s decision not to represent WORLD’S EDGE, I was also relieved.
 

Because that meant I was free to pursue THE BUTTERFLY GHOST. I could enter it into contests without worrying about what would happen with Agent and WORLD’S EDGE. I could focus on THE BUTTERFLY GHOST’s query and pitch, knowing that, finally, I was ready. And my manuscript was ready.
 

So I’ve submitted my materials to Brenda Drake’s Pitch Wars contest. I’m nervous again, knowing that I have to wait until September 3 to find out if any of the contest’s mentors like THE BUTTERFLY GHOST as much as I do. But it’s a good kind of nervous, one where I think I’ve got a good pitch, a great query, and a book that I love. And maybe someday, depending on how things go, I'll query Agent with THE BUTTERFLY GHOST.