Around two today, I meet with one of the Final Three–a crew providing feedback for the novel. This meeting marks the third to last stop before shopping the novel. Once implementing the revisions from the Final Three, I’ll read the novel twice more, then do rigid line edits of the first fifty pages. There’s a reason for the cutoff point.

Fifty pages marks the traditional upper bounds for a partial manuscript request; agents ask for about that much content if they like a query. Occasionally an agent might opt for the whole project straight out. A full manuscript request happened just once for me without a partial first, and I have read that occurs very rarely, so I shall not expect it.

The point is that the manuscript be ready at a moment’s notice to submit in whole or in part when a request for material arrives. The only work necessary is prepping the envelope and going to the Post Office.

I do not come to this point in the road lightly. There are a finite number of agents who handle fiction, and there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for second impressions. Whatever I shop around has to be quality. While I may have doubts about a project as a marketable concept–a certain amount of second guessing is unavoidable, the alternative being arrogance, which is its own demon–I stand by the story and the time invested without a regret. What’s on the page will be the best I can do. Beyond this round it’s getting older, not necessarily better. Therefore, more edits will not grind out further improvements, only delay the process.

I’ll post more about the Final Three on the 12th, after meeting with reader two.