Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I have two sort of technical questions about sending my MS (not that that time has come yet, but hopefully it will soon...)

1. My novel has a Part One and a Part Two. Currently my chapters start over at Chapter One at the beginning of Part Two. Do you think an agent would want the chapter numbers to keep going straight on through just for clarity's sake? Or would they probably not care?

2. I have a quote at the beginning of each "part". Should I leave those in? Or would the agent think that was annoying and/or pretentious? What do you guys do about quotes?

Thanks guys. I know agents' opinions would vary, but just wanted to hear what you all think.

THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE might say something about chapter structure.

I just looked at Stephen King's CHRISTINE, which has a Part I, Part II, and Part III. King numbered the chapters straight through; in other words, Part II begins with Chapter 20 and Part III with Chapter 43.

About the quotes, if you are worried that they might seem pretentious, I would ask some trusted readers to look at your pages and tell you what they think. Another issue: you need legal permission to quote some material, like music, but I believe you can quote poetry without permission. One of the experts here can advise you better than I can.

otherside89girl wrote:I have two sort of technical questions about sending my MS (not that that time has come yet, but hopefully it will soon...)

1. My novel has a Part One and a Part Two. Currently my chapters start over at Chapter One at the beginning of Part Two. Do you think an agent would want the chapter numbers to keep going straight on through just for clarity's sake? Or would they probably not care?

I personally don't think any single book should have two chapter ones. Nor have I ever seen this.

2. I have a quote at the beginning of each "part". Should I leave those in? Or would the agent think that was annoying and/or pretentious? What do you guys do about quotes?

Thanks guys. I know agents' opinions would vary, but just wanted to hear what you all think.

Nathan has said that he would want to see the material as he would submit it to editors. Makes sense. So if you do have quotes, you'd better include them. I would, to any agent. They need to see the whole project.

As for permission to use, I believe Nathan has stated that at the query stage one can just use them, and then seek permission if the project will go forward (rather than investing time or money up front).

In reply to the second question, I wonder why you are asking about the inclusion of the quotes at all -- why would they be in the novel if they weren't absolutely essential to the reader's understanding of your work in the first place?

For the first question, I can (unfortunately) only think of Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn that had split its text into parts, but I can't remember if the chapters started over at the beginning of each part. Maybe check that out.

Thanks everyone! I'll leave the quotes and re-number my Part Two chapters.

I think the standard for parts is just to have them listed as such in the table of contents, with a blank page (except for the headline: Part Two) in the ms itself. Chapters should run normally.

If the quotes are essential, then they belong. If published, you'll likely have to receive permission to use them or acknowledge them, but cross that bridge when you come to it.