Agent's Interest/Involvement

[Mark.W.Carson]

I'm curious,

I'm going on a year in my current WIP, which, in all fairness, is my largest written undertaking and my first attempt at writing a book. This may sound cocky, but I KNOW I have a good story. My writing is getting much better, and I plan on making sure it is damn near perfect before I start querying. Now, I also understand that agents are all different, like flakes of snow, but in your experience, Nathan, do you find that when you were an agent, or stories from other agents you have spoken with, that a story, or a hook, will make you want to fix something that might not otherwise be "right?"

Essentially, I'd boil my question down to this:

Suppose you got a query that got you interested, and then read some of it, have you ever thought to yourself: "This is not quite what I want, but boy, does this have potential. I want this."?

How much of it was based on the query or the partial/full? Did it ever lead to phone calls with the author to go over things a bit more?

[Nathan Bransford]

It varies from agent to agent and project to project, but it really has to be close before an agent will take it on for a revision. You have to see a path from A to B. It's not enough to have a good idea, the execution has to be close enough that an agent can see how the writer can plausibly get there.

Hope that helps!