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I had two first-chapters consultations with authors this week where each asked a specific question: How close to ready to submit are my first fifty pages?

In reflection it’s a logical question, but to my surprise I hadn’t been asked it before in these one-on-ones.

I know firsthand how tempting it is to want to get your story into someone’s hands as early as possible, especially when you’ve been laboring at it for a long time, or working in isolation and are eager to move forward.

But you don’t usually get a second chance to query the same manuscript with the same agent, so it’s crucial not to squander your chance to make the strongest initial impression. Take the time to turn in your best work.

But how do you know what that means, or when you’re ready?

First chapters

Are your first pages accomplishing what they need to accomplish? While these pages are no more important than the rest of your story, they do set up the promise that the manuscript must deliver on, and of course offer a strong hook to engage the reader and make them want to hitch a ride with your characters on their journey.

Read more: “Forget the First Line; Focus on First Pages”

That means readers need to see who your characters are from the very beginning in enough depth and clarity to make us invest in them and be curious enough to want to take that ride. We need our appetites whetted by seeing them wrestling with a problem or situation, one that ideally reflects or sets up their arc. You must establish meaningful stakes, create some kind of tension, and get the story in motion.

You must quickly establish a clear, propulsive narrative throughline, and create questions and uncertainties that make readers want to know what happens, how it’s resolved. You must orient the reader with clear, consistent POV; plant our feet with specific, concrete context that helps us understand your characters and their situations—the backstory—without pulling focus from the main story or stalling out its forward movement. Stakes must rise; the plot should thicken; momentum should stay strong; and the character should be the engine that drives the story.

Is the prose polished, the voice strong? Voice is one of the most important elements in hooking a reader, what will set your story apart and make it stand out. Strong voice is fresh, unique, distinctive, and sure-handed—but it should never draw attention to the author’s hand—a tricky balancing act to perform.

Have you had any feedback on the pages? It’s not a requirement, but it’s extremely helpful to get objective eyes on your story to ensure that what you think you’ve conveyed on the page is actually what’s there. When an author is filling in the blanks colored by the rich vision in their head, it’s not always easy to know how much of their intentions are clear to the reader, and outside eyes can help reflect this back.

Full manuscript

I think one reason the question in my consultations surprised me is that first pages are only that—the opening salvo of a story, even if they’re the most polished and alluring of hooks. When I was dating I met plenty of people who made a strong first impression that didn’t hold up as I got to know them; you have to deliver on that initial promise with the rest of the manuscript. Is it as carefully honed and solid as your submission pages?

If all goes the way you hope, the agents you query will be asking to see your full, and while you may not get a response for weeks or even months (or, memorably in the case of one of my novels, nearly two years), if your submission materials are excellent and cross the right agent’s desk at the right time you may get a request immediately.

It’s okay to ask an agent for some time before turning it in, but it might also risk compromising their view of your professionalism or experience: If the story wasn’t ready to go you shouldn’t have been querying. (This is a business that runs on deadlines.)

That means tending to the full manuscript with the same level of care and depth and detail as you do those first fifty pages. They make a promise that the rest of the story had better deliver on. (For an extensive guide on what makes a story “ready,” download my free Self-editing Checklist.)

Read more: “How Do You Know When Your Story Is ‘Finished’?”

Once you’ve honed your story into its best possible shape, do a gut check. Probably among the most frequent responses I hear when I offer an author editorial feedback is, “I had a feeling that wasn’t working.” Many writers can be their own harshest critics, but they also often have good story instincts. If you’re not sure if something is coming across as effectively as it could, then there’s a good chance it isn’t.

If you haven’t been able to figure out exactly what’s not working or why, this is where feedback can come in handy (or consulting with an editor). Guide your beta readers and crit partners to the kind of feedback that will help you find and fix problems with my Beta Reader Questionnaire.

Fix those issues before you submit—the days of editors or agents painstakingly shepherding authors to a fully polished manuscript, à la Max Perkins, are pretty much gone. Industry pros are expecting a work that’s close to publishing-ready, especially if you aren’t an established author.

Oh, and darlings? Format it correctly. Nothing says “amateur” like a manuscript that doesn’t conform to industry-standard formatting: double-spaced, standard 12-point font (this ain’t the time for Comic Sans), one-inch margins, and no extra spaces between paragraphs within sections.

Submission materials

But remember that submissions aren’t just about your manuscript excerpt. It’s also crucial that your query materials be as strong as possible. Most agents will start there and decide from them whether they even want to take a look at the manuscript, so these materials should be rock-solid—and conform to industry standards and expectations.

Learn what’s expected from queries and synopses in my “How to Write a Query Letter” posts, parts one and two.

A few surprisingly common missteps to avoid:

• Don’t call your story a “fiction novel”—it’s the hallmark of a novice. First off, the phrase is redundant; by definition a novel is fiction. But also it’s not a novel until it’s published; right now it’s a manuscript—and clarify the genre.
• Don’t confuse the story with the theme; agents and editors might be interested in the latter, but what they’re selling is the former—lead with what happens in the story and then you can add a brief line about its larger meaning.
• Don’t be cocky or blow smoke. Compare yourself to George Saunders or say you’re the next Stephen King and agents are going to roll their eyes and pass—just as they will if you tell them why they’d be fools not to sign you, with all your talent and the story they’ve never seen the likes of before. Trust me, they have.
• But don’t be self-effacing either. (“I know you’re busy and probably have a lot of other great stories, and I’m just a new author but I hope you’ll give me a chance…”)
• Don’t be a dick. Don’t ever be a dick (here or in any other walk of life). It’s a small business and agents and editors talk among themselves. Lay into one for how stupid they are not to sign you, and you’re likely to be persona non grata everywhere.

The total package

It’s not essential, but it may also be helpful to have some kind of established online presence before you submit. Consider having at least one active social media account, or maybe a website (if you have stuff to put on it yet).

Just like when dating many people will cyberstalk their new romantic interest to look for red flags or find out whether they’re worth pursuing (my husband told me about the shape and size of my backyard after one of our first dates…yet surprisingly I married the creepy bastard), an agent who’s intrigued by your pages may check to see if you have begun to create a platform and do reader outreach and have connections, determining whether you are a risk worth taking.

This isn’t strictly necessary before you start querying, but agents who sign an author are assuming a great amount of work before they ever see any financial payoff, and most will hedge their bets by choosing authors they think have the best chance of appealing to publishers. And a big part of that is how many books they think you can sell, based in no small part on your visibility and platform.

Fortify yourself to deal with rejection

Chances are you’re going to get some. (Tough business, this—long odds.) Plan to cope healthily with it now, because it’s going to feel like ass when it happens, and you don’t want it to derail your querying or writing efforts.

Find your peeps to support and comfort you now. Practice reminding yourself that each rejection is simply one person’s opinion based on a myriad of factors, none of which you can control, and that none of it is a reflection on your worth or your story’s.

Keep writing.

Read more: “Handling Rejection (and What Rejection Letters Mean, and Don’t Mean)”

We’re human, so we want acceptance and validation and reward. We’re a little bit neurotic, most of us, so we want praise and acclaim. We live in the world and most of us must earn money to survive, so we want to be paid.

Most of all, perhaps, we’re creatives, so we want to share our creative work.

It’s all so understandable that we’d be eager to get our writing into the hands of the people who can help make some of that happen. But doing that successfully means offering up our best effort—and that can take more time than we’d like. (I guarantee you that it will.)

As I told one of the authors I was consulting with this week, if you picked up a violin, how long do you think it would take before you could realistically play well enough to be chosen for the Vienna Philharmonic?

You’re working to master one of the most complex, complicated art forms I know of, and to compete in the elite ranks of a phenomenally competitive industry. It can take time to get to that level.

But, baby, you will if you keep at it: Work at your craft and your story, grow as an artist, persist and be resilient.

Remember how you get to Carnegie Hall: Practice.

Weigh in, authors! How do you decide when your story is ready to query or submit? 

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