What Would You Do? Make a pop up submission, without a finished manuscript?

Amusement Dover, East Kent, UK

Afterwords

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Nov 28, 2018
Wrexham
Hi!

I'm new here and I'm finalizing my first novel; Virtual Dreams. I've completed three drafts of it so far and I've now moved onto to a distillation process to cut down all my excess sentences, double adjectives and the like. I really like the look of the pop-up submissions format and I think it might be useful to give me a steer on my opening. I've already cut it down and I think I'm onto a winner, but I'm not sure. I'd really like to make a pop up submission to get a feel as to whether I've got something good, but on the rare chance that I need to follow it up with a full manuscript, I won't have anything ready to submit. Should I submit and if I'm lucky, just say I'll have something in a couple of months? Or get the manuscript finished and submit then, but risk wasting a couple of months on the wrong changes or what might be a bad concept?

Thoughts?
 
I'd say not to worry about that, and go for it, and get that feedback on your opening earlier rather than later :) Think really carefully about the blurb too. Good luck with it, whatever you decide to do.
 
Hi Robert. As you'll probably already know, the submitting process, whether to Pop-up or literary agents, is certainly not a quick one! So I think you have plenty of time to review your manuscript. Personally, even if you think your work is ready to go, I'd watch several past Pop-up submissions (and tonights of course) and then look again at your manuscript; I wish I had! We all know how important it is to grab the reader within a few pages but actually seeing the review process and hearing how crucial those opening few paragraphs really are, especially to an agent, was a real eye-opener for me. So much so that if possible, I'll be re-submitting my own submission to Pop-up.
 
Keep working on it. It may not air for a few weeks, Robert, hence the sooner you sub the better. The line-up is looking pretty much in place until Pop-Ups stop for Christmas. Meantime, poke about, join in a bit, and you'll get access if you don't have it yet, and you probably don't....you haven't yet posted often enough....to the Writer's feedback forum.
 
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Amusement Dover, East Kent, UK

Afterwords

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