Your Manuscript Has Been Edited By Top Professionals—But You Still Get Rejected. What Gives?

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It also features first-page critiques. Want to be considered? Submit your question or submit your pages.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by The Writing Consultancy. Stuck on revisions? Work with an expert editor to revise and submit your fiction or memoir. Get started here >> Submit your manuscript to schedule your free 20-minute call with award-winning author and editor, Britta Jensen.

Question

My manuscript has been edited by two top editors on the east and west coasts. Yet, it has been declined by more than 250 fiction agents who merely decline by form letter. I have no idea what could be wrong. I have a great story, but maybe for the wrong time. I am not a BIPOC author and my characters are not BIPOC, which seems to be a lot of what agents are looking for.

—Rejected and Dejected in Miami

[Editor’s note: We asked this writer for their query and first pages so we could best assess the situation rather than guessing. The following answer is based on a review of those materials.]

Dear Dejected,

There are three reasons your book is getting rejected:

The query isn’t selling the book or your professionalism.The book feels dated (despite the argument in the query that it’s in tune with current events).In the first 25 pages, as the story flickers to life, it’s drowned in an ocean of backstory.

Let’s talk about the query first. An author’s query must establish three things: this story is compelling, this author understands the conventions of publishing, and the book has a market.

The query’s description of the plot and themes make the book sound like a downer, and it’s unclear where any hope, triumph or change appears. What’s the lead character’s choice? Where does she take an action that transforms her world?

Most queries are 250–350 words, with some narrative nonfiction stretching to 450–500 words. This query is 750 words. No matter how well-written it is, sending a 750-word query announces, “I don’t know much about how publishing works.” Plus the query is missing some key elements—the book’s word count and genre (women’s fiction).

Half of the 750 words are themes, comps, social issues and cultural movements more suited to self-help or narrative nonfiction than women’s fiction. It’s great to offer quality comps, though. Comparative/competitive titles show agents that readers are buying books like yours—but their purpose is to show current buying patterns. Of the seven books, three documentaries, two news organizations and three celebrities mentioned in the query, only three of those media qualify as “current” (within the last few years) and only one of those is a book. For a novel, list two or three comps, books or TV/movies, that are fiction.

Authors should also watch out for reviewing their own book. Assertions like “readers will sympathize” and “an emotionally gripping tale” ring false in queries. Let the agent discover those characteristics when they read the manuscript pages.

Now let’s address the current events angle. In addition to some other arguments that the book is relevant today, the query says, “In 1979, parental kidnapping was not widely considered a crime. Despite 40 years of new national and international laws, it remains a persistent problem today.” The book is set in 1979, and while feminism, parental custody battles leading to kidnapping, and mental illness in children are very much modern topics, we think differently about them today. Issues that seemed insurmountable to the most conservative couples in 1979 (but who will cook the dinner if Mom works?) are no longer the main focus. Mental illness is diagnosed and treated very differently, and there’s a much greater awareness of mental health in children.

Without a compelling reason to look at these issues in 1979, it feels like we won’t learn anything new. Most of the problems faced by Lena, the main character, would be handled very differently now. Unless the book is truly a deep dive into the 1970s/early 1980s (like Daisy Jones & the Six), readers will have a hard time understanding why the story is relevant now.

The backstory trap: In the first 6,500 words of the book, there are 450 words of story—when Lena’s husband calls a neighbor to say he’s taken the children in violation of a custody order. Before that, we get quite a few pages of motherly adoration of children, descriptions of children, descriptions of mom’s activities. After that small burst of story (which has a nice chunk of tension and stakes!), we get a full chapter of Lena’s parents’ personal history. Then a full chapter of Dad’s parents. Then a full chapter of the couple meeting and falling in love.

Writers often do this work of uncovering the characters and their pasts, and that work feels a lot like writing a book. But this level of backstory is the preliminary discovery phase, like the documents an attorney requests before putting together a passionate opening argument. Based on the pages I’ve read, it’s likely that the story doesn’t actually start for another 25 pages, and you might consider pulling out that 450 words of story to open the book, then cutting everything else until Lena takes an action towards getting her kids back. (And why have him call a neighbor? Why not have Lena be the target right away?)

Here’s the bottom line

Due to the long query and slow pages, the book is being rejected even before agents engage with the writing. And there are a couple of intriguing details—Lena sleeps on the sofa while the kids get the bedroom, and there’s a lot of potential in a Not Without My Daughter-style story set among Americans.

But overall, the writing needs work. There’s a lot of telling and explaining, instead of bringing the reader into the scene with the characters. Lena is described as “sly,” shown as calculating, and her inner monologue is anti-feminist in a way that’s off-putting to current readers, so it’s hard to want to spend time with her.

The Mexican parents are introduced stereotypically, and if an agent makes it that far, that’s the nail in the coffin. They won’t make it to the discussion of Henry’s ethnic and racial slurs, which seem irrelevant to the plot thus far.

I hesitate to criticize your previous editors. I don’t know what you (and they) started with when you began the process, and moving from a journalism background to a novel is challenging. As an editor myself, sometimes I work on a book for long enough that I’ve lost the big picture. Recently, a client made a big change in her book, in consultation with a new reader I’d recommended, and I felt like an idiot for not noticing that change had been needed the whole time. I’ve also watched a client work on a book for a long time that I knew wouldn’t sell, but I also knew they needed to finish and discover that for themselves.

This is probably not your debut novel. This manuscript is either source material for a new story, not just heavily revised but completely re-envisioned—or it’s a practice book.

Don’t shop this to small presses. Don’t self-publish. The same elements in the query, story and writing that aren’t attracting agents will also not attract readers.

Instead, consider what you love about this story, and why you feel compelled to write it. What matters to you about this heroine? The query focuses on the larger cultural context and mentally ill toddlers; the book opens with the daily minutia of her motherhood. What does Lena want? What choices does she face? How must her life goals change, and how must she change along the way? Most importantly, what’s powerful in her hopes and wishes, fears and dreams, that causes her to take action, to change, and to change the reader with her?

The process of finishing a book is a victory in itself. I have a memoir I’ll never go back to, and a novel that may not see the light of day. But writing our “practice” books teaches us not only how to write a book, but that we can. You can write a book. You did. And the world is waiting for what you write next.

—Allison K Williams

Addendum from Jane: For those reading the comments, you’ll see some seek a direct response to the writer mentioning she’s not BIPOC—but she sees agents and publishers actively seeking BIPOC work or BIPOC characters. The implication is she’s getting rejected because she’s white or because her characters are white. Given the challenges that Allison has described, that is obviously not the case. Allison shared on Twitter, “It’s hard to understand why our queries get form rejects. ‘Because I’m white’ isn’t even in the top 100 reasons. Celebrate publishing’s (still too slowly) growing diversity. Buy books by BIPOC, analyze what made them strong enough to publish, learn and grow.”

“Rejected and Dejected” is one of countless writers I’ve heard ask a similar question, although it is usually phrased in a different way. Oftentimes people are afraid to express this at all, or will only whisper it in private. So we hope this post shows that a writer’s best strategy, always, is to pay attention to their craft.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by The Writing Consultancy. Stuck on revisions? Work with an expert editor to revise and submit your fiction or memoir. Get started here >> Submit your manuscript to schedule your free 20-minute call with award-winning author and editor, Britta Jensen.