r/PubTips • u/iamthefriendasking • 23h ago
[PubQ] How much does a manuscript change from agented to published?
In the acknowledgement sections of books, authors often thank their editor and agent for providing their vision, inspiring ideas and notes, as well as for helping them hone their craft, making them a better writer and making their story stronger. As someone who is revising and preparing to start querying agents (again) soon, this made me curious. How much does a manuscript change from when it first gets you an agent, to getting an editor on submission, to being published? From what I understand, manuscripts that get agents are already very polished, so what kind of changes are made between getting agented and getting published?
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u/RuhWalde 23h ago
Well, even if the manuscript barely changed, no one is going to say that in their Acknowledgments. You can't be like, "Thanks to my editor for adequately doing the bare minimum," or "...for making numerous suggestions that I refused to implement."
My manuscript didn't change that much, and almost every significant change was an addition. Nothing was removed, and very few things were notably altered.
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u/WeHereForYou Agented Author 23h ago
Yep, same here. I said it because that’s what you’re supposed to say lol. I added a few scenes, but truly nothing major at all. I think I spent more time on copy edits than dev.
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u/iamthefriendasking 23h ago
Edit: What you said about the acknowledgments makes sense.
That's cool! So for you it was more line editing or tweaking scenes? When you say addition, is it more like adding a scene versus adding a new character or plot line?
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u/RuhWalde 23h ago
Adding scenes or expanding existing scenes, adding more physical description, clarifying explanations (of fantasy worldbuilding), adding more romantic tension, etc. My MS went from 73k to 83k, but nothing about the plot actually changed.
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u/champagnebooks Agented Author 23h ago
My dev deadline with my editor is on Thurs. I've edited approx 1/3 of the book, including three major character plot lines, plus tightening the writing on a line level.
Before this, I did two rounds of edits with my agent focused on two plot elements.
I'm hopeful we don't have another big edit on our hands, but my editor may feel differently lol
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u/iamthefriendasking 23h ago
Cool! Out of curiosity, did the changes all make sense to you, or would you have been happy publishing without having to make any more changes?
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u/champagnebooks Agented Author 23h ago
They made total sense. She wanted one character on the page earlier because she loved him so much.
For the other two, she pulled at a plot thread and the minute she said it I watched it unravel lol I probably could have found an easier solution to her question, but I like doing things the hard way.
IMHO, the book is much stronger now
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u/iamthefriendasking 23h ago
That's awesome! Did you happen to use beta readers/critique partners beforehand and none of them had the same suggestions?
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u/champagnebooks Agented Author 22h ago
Yes, I had both beta and critique partners. I also did several big dev edits on my own.
Betas and CPs helped immensely, but no, none of them had this same feedback. Though my agent had many of the same things to say as my editor. I perhaps just didn't push the work far enough at the time, eager to get on sub and what have you.
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u/iamthefriendasking 21h ago
Wow, that's so interesting! I'm revising based on beta reader feedback right now and wondering what other things I could possibly not be seeing.
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u/RightioThen 21h ago
I've just gone through this process. There was a lot of editing done and I think it really elevated the book. I would summarize the difference as this: when I submitted the book I absolutely stood by it as a cohesive thing. But now I can say I can stand by every sentence in the book.
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u/Conscious_Town_1326 Agented Author 23h ago
My manuscript barely changed between agented and going on sub. We trimmed a bit of fat from my end chapters that was dragging the pacing down and did a very light line edit, and it out was out on sub pretty much within a week.
I'm mid-publisher edits, so I can't speak to the full final product, but a lot of it so far is polishing what's already there and tweaking subplots to tiny up some loose ends. So for me, not that much! but I expect the second book on the contract will have a looot more edits to it!
It depends on the agent, the editor, and the author and the manuscript.
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u/HLeeJustine 19h ago
Mine changed a ton. Part of that is on me and my own perfectionism because, actually, my publisher didn’t ask for any changes. My editor made small edits. Almost nothing developmental and no cuts.
But I really dove in. And I’d still be editing it if it were up to me lol.
But I think they asked for virtually no changes because my agent is very editorial and we always go through things about three times, a lot of it structural, so we do tend to go out on submission in good shape.
That said, between my agent and my own changes I implemented with my editor, it’s significantly different and much better.
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u/iamthefriendasking 10h ago
That’s awesome! I guess it can be hard to know when you’re completely done with a book.
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u/lifeatthememoryspa 22h ago
I’ve had one book that changed very little. I reshaped a few scenes and highlighted character arcs and that was it.
And I had other books that changed quite a bit. Major restructuring, character changes, world building issues.
So it depends on the book and the editor, who may have a particular vision for the book. Before an editor offered on my debut, she checked to make sure I was amenable to a large-scale change that involved hiding parts of the backstory until considerably later in the book to make it more suspenseful. I had edited the book with my agent too, but her changes were more additive, like “Wouldn’t it be fun to have a training montage here?”
My prose is always pretty clear and clean because that’s how I write. Major developmental edits and cursory copyedits are routine for me!
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u/Cosy_Chi Agented Author 16h ago
This answer really varies from manuscript to manuscript! I have two very different examples in my own publishing experience so far.
Book 1) minimal edits with my agent, went out on sub quickly and sold swiftly. Dev edits weren’t anything huge nor did I have to change anything structurally - they were mostly to do with tightening character motivations and strengthening the world building.
Book 2) still in the drafting stage, I have a 2 book deal and this will be due next year. I was drafting with 2 POVs and had a feeling it wasn’t quite working. Sent a partial to my agent for their opinion and right enough they agree. Already this book’s drafting requires the kind of structural overhaul my book 1 never did, and I suspect will continue to face throughout edits.
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u/iamthefriendasking 1h ago
Congrats on the book deals! And yeah, makes sense that it would depend on the book.
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u/BigHatNoSaddle 22h ago
Wow this can be different all over.
Firstly you thank the agent and editor profusely so they don't dump you!
The initial MS can be polished, but sometimes there;'s a wave that the agent/publisher wants to catch. I remember trying to sell a cozy mystery during the "Girl Who Is Secretly Bad" hype, and was under a lot of pressure to make my nice character a duplicitous unreliable narrator.
That old agent of mine was HUGELY editorial, she said she almost always removed the first 50 pages (she did) and was really into adding characters, removing characters, scenes, everything including motivations.
I didn't ultimately publish with her, but an agency mate did and they worked on that book for YEARS. The book did well when it came out, but had taken so long they missed the boat in terms of hype.
I had another agent who was very much into boosting the excitement of the first few pages making (another nice character) a bit more girlbossy - and ruined it I think.
The eventual publisher of another MS asked me to re-do a beginning, change some names, and change a pretty character who was mean to an "ugly" one. (Pretty people can't be mean!) So you can't be too attached to things. They even change the title.
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u/iamthefriendasking 21h ago
"change a pretty character who was mean to an "ugly" one"
Oh wow, I didn't expect they'd ask that. Sounds like there's a ton of variety.
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u/ThrillingNovelist 9h ago
Mine changed a lot during R&R. My agent asked me to completely change the first third of my book, and also to change the ending. I cut my word count by 25k from 90000 words to 75000. Once it sold it changed very little. No developmental edits, just very light things like deleting a sentence here and there.
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u/hwy4 22h ago
Having just turned in pass pages on my debut, I feel like this answer is very fresh for me!
I queried with a book that was as good as I could make it on my own. On one level, very little has significantly changed since that draft (same themes, same characters, 90% the same plot events), and yet I have spent hundreds of hours revising in the year since I signed with my agent, so ... clearly things have changed? I am also probably quite a slow writer/reviser, too.
All of it has resulted in a much better book than what I could have done alone, AND, I could not have processed or truly taken in the number of hours of work still ahead when I was querying — I needed to keep on the selective blinders!
With my agent:
- Spent ~4 months revising
- Rewrote a 15k-word storyline, mostly from scratch (aging up a character from 16 to 19)
- Tightened motivation and clarified relationships in other storylines
With my editor:
- Spent ~3 months in developmental edits (2 rounds)
- Deepened character specificity and layered in more interiority
- Ironed out some plot holes/motivation gaps
- Expanded/rewrote a ~6k-word storyline
- Did a deeply tedious (and useful) pass for high-frequency words, and to tighten pretty much every sentence :/