Querying Too Early

A real query from someone who didn’t read this blog post!

Guilty as charged.

I queried too early.

In October 2019, I was working on an insane case that ate my soul, my sleep, and all the hours in my day. After the close of fact discovery—a big landmark in litigation—I took off four days to go to a house in Williams, AZ by myself and write with the goal of finishing my first draft. I punched out that last word with gusto and celebrated by drinking wine and running around the living room with my hair on fire.

I know what you’re thinking, and no, I didn’t start querying the next day. But I did send out my first query on February 13, 2020, and it was still too soon. After my first draft was completed, I sent the manuscript to two writer friends and a prior teacher for feedback. I also gave it to my husband. One of these people loves me (I won’t say who) so his feedback was congratulations! and there’s a typo on page 199! I spent the next few months revising based on their edits, but I never forced myself to take a step back and spend some meaningful time away from the story and the characters so that I could come back and examine it with a critical eye. Every writer I have ever spoken to about editing recommends taking at least six weeks away from your manuscript before returning to it for a revision. In On Writing, Stephen King suggests writing with the windows closed (meaning don’t let anyone else see your work until it is finished so that you are writing only for yourself), then putting it in a drawer for six weeks. I heard the advice, I understood the benefit, and still I didn’t do it. I was eager and ready to move forward.

Once I sent out a round of eight queries, I figured there was no point in further revising my manuscript, which caused me to take that six week break I really needed to come back to my manuscript not as its writer, but as its reader. When I did, I was shocked to see how much work it needed. My characters felt blurry, the structure was out of order, and the beginning was a DISASTER. A prologue?! Was I drunk!?

I was humiliated. I pictured the agents laughing mercilessly at my ten page sample. (To be clear, all the agents I have ever spoken to were extremely respectful human beings who would not laugh mercilessly, but I was tailspinning.) So, I wrote off those eight agents and signed up for two Catapult classes (one that, thanks to kismet, focused on fixing those critical first 30 pages.) A couple of times in the months that followed, impatience got the best of me and I queried two agents, telling myself that since it would take them two or three months to review my query, I’d be ready by the time they’d potentially ask to see the full. Of course, this backfired—one of them got back to me within a week asking for the full, and I wasn’t ready. I’m thankful for the harsh wakeup call I got from querying too early, but there are much safer ways to swallow a dose of that particular pill.

You can only query an agent once, and most writers query their top agents first. So, if you query too early, chances are the agent will reject it, and you’ve blown your only shot. How do you know when you’re ready?

Here are my lessons from the school of hard knocks:

It’s been at least six weeks since your last round of edits. And between every round of edits before that, you’ve taken a six-week break.

After those six weeks, you read it again and couldn’t think of a single thing you’d change.

You’ve printed it it out on REAL paper and read it like a book, preferably on a bench in a public park while pretending you bought it at your local bookshop.

You’ve taken a Catapult class on how to write a query letter.

You’ve let at least three other people read it. One of them can be the person who sleeps in your bed, but not all three!

Your manuscript won’t be perfect when you send it out. I bet most writers even read their published books (after six weeks) and find at least a phrase they’d change. But if there’s a little voice in your head telling you more work can be done, listen. It’s probably your main character whispering in your ear. And it’s annoying because you’re excited! I get it. But if she’s not ready, either are you.