Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum. *waves*

I am writing a book in the same genre as Girl, Interrupted and Prozac Nation, about my struggle with bipolar.

I've written about 5 chapters so far and have had very good feedback from people who have read it. I was wondering, do I need to complete writing the whole book, or can I submit the first 3 chapters with a synopsis to an agent now?

Non-fiction is commonly pitched on 3 chapters and a synopsis, fiction very rarely so. (Yes, you do hear of agents taking it on, but it's rare, and even rarer to get a publishing contract that way: it's newsworthy because it's rare.) Memoir - which is what you're writing - is somewhere in between, but in many ways the book trade handles it in the same way as fiction.

I would suggest that it's dangerous to send something out until you know it's as good as it possibly can be, and you can't know that until you've finished it, and gone back and revised it in the light of everything you've discovered in the writing. If you send it out now, it's conceivable that you'll get some feedback which will help you to develop it, but, realistically, it's not so likely: the vast majority of rejections are just standard, 'Sorry, not for us.'. And if you do get feedback that you're not sure about, or which really runs counter to what you want the book to be, would you be willing to push it in that direction, when there's no guarantee of it being taken on anyway? Most writers find they only know what a book really is when they've finished it, and can then judge feedback much more hard-headedly.

Of course it would be thrilling to have an agent or even a publisher take it on on the basis of a few chapters, but you also need to think about the implications of writing the rest of something so personal under contract, to a deadline, for a company which has paid for a certain kind of book. What if it doesn't turn out like that as you write? It's not like the Complete Guide to Hamster Care, where you can be pretty sure what it's going to be...

If it's not so much a deal now that you want, but feedback on how it's going before you go further, one possiblity would be to pay for a report from an editorial service - The Literary Consultancy, Writers Workshop (in the interests of full disclosure, I do fiction reports for them), Hilary Johnson, Cornerstones, and so on. They'll be honest about your work and the market, but will give much fuller and more constructive feedback than you'll get from most submissions.

Very good luck with it, anyway.

Emma

<Added>

Ooo, sorry, got diverted by your interesting question, and forgot to say, Welcome to WriteWords, and do give the Site Hosts a shout if you need any help or explanations.

Hi, Tryhardwriter, and welcome to WriteWords

If you have any questions, just ask.

As Emma has already said, it is important to send out your best work, rather than an early draft. If you've spent time polishing the first 3 chapters, you could upload them on showcasing sites like Authonomy for feedback, but if you submit it to Agents be prepared to have it rejected simply because you haven't finished it yet.


- NaomiM

Thank you ever so much for your thoughts. I have worked hard on polishing what I've done so far, so maybe I'll try Authonomy at this stage.