Question for all you lovely people with more experience and know-how than I have:
I sent out queries to a number of agents for the original version of The Eldest Sister. With the rewrite, almost everything but the character names and basic premise has changed - tone, plot, character personalities, even the title (I currently don't have a title, but I figure time enough to figure that one out when the rewrite is complete).
If, in six months or whenever this beast is ready to pounce upon an unsuspecting world, I send queries to the same agents I queried before, do I mention that this is the same MS as before (none of them even asked for a full, so it's not like they read beyond the first ten pages-three chapters which various agencies request along with the query) only substantially changed (and hopefully improved), or just assume that they have forgotten all about the bland query letter from however many months previous?
My hunch is to not even both to mention it, but I wanted other people's opinions before making the final call. And even though I'm not nearly ready to present this to agents yet, it's never too early to start thinking about it, right?
If you've queried these agent and they said no, you should move on to other agents.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately this is how it goes--one crack at an agent, that's it. Waiting until you're sure your book is 100% as best as it can be is the best course.
in that case, maybe i should just go ahead and change the character names, stop calling this a rewrite, and admit that it is basically a brand new story, just with the same starting point as the first? because that's really what it is.
ReplyDeleteThis is a toughie. If the book is truly a new book with new everything, than I don't see a problem with querying it again. However, agents don't recommend slapping a new title and new characters on an old book and trying to pass it off as something different if it hasn't significantly changed.
ReplyDeleteIf an agent requested pages on this one in the past, you could mention in the query that this is a revamped version. If the premise intrigued them the first time, they might be willing to give it another shot. If they aren't, at least you tried.
Good luck!
I would never be daring enough to try to pull the wool over an agent's eyes by just changing a few surface things and re-querying - I have too much respect for them! This story is changing more and more drastically the further I get into it, though, and at this point, really and truly, the only thing it shares with the original is the basic premise. Which, the more I think about it, makes this kind of a moot question. I really am just going to have to start thinking of these as two completely different stories, just so I'm not binding myself to a certain path that the story itself doesn't want to take!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your input!