How much does imperfect grammar put off an agent?
I've written a novel and looking back the story line was good but the grammar wasn't great. I submitted the book to a few agents and received some constructive comments which I took on board. I have rewritten the story and corrected many of the errors. For instance I removed gerunds. Now that it's complete I'm getting hung up on other issues for instance starting sentences with quickly. I don't want to put agents off accepting my work but does this honestly matter? Should I just bite the bullet and start submitting the novel again?
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Agents and publishers get so many manuscripts that they have to screen them quickly. Anything, especially in those first few pages, that makes you seem no better than average will get you rejected.
Most published books are commercial failures. I read that 90% of books for which royalties were advanced do not earn out the advance. Since publishers know they are shooting craps when they select a book, they are as fussy as they know to be.
Big publishers don't do the degree of editing that they used to, in order to keep labor costs down. So a first-time author needs to have their work professionally (or at least competently) edited before submission.
Get yourself a copy of the "Chicago Manual of Style" and read relevant parts.
I suspect, too, that if your grammar is shaky, there are other things wrong with your writing. Although it is targetted for mystery writers, I strongly recommend fiction authors of any genre read "Don't Murder Your Mystery" by Chris Reorden. It's not really about writing mysteries, it's about writing fiction well, heads above your competitors--who are also sending their manuscripts to the same people you are.
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While I wouldn't consider "gerunds" (or even adverbs) to be mistakes, if you're worried about your grammar, hire an editor to do a line-edit. Explain (if this is the case) that you're happy with the story and don't want a content edit, but you do want to polish your grammar, structure, word choice, spelling, and so on.
Publishers do have editors, but if your work is not already the best it can be, why would they waste their time and money on you?
So yes, IMHO, it does honestly matter, and you should make the effort to clean up your manuscript as much as humanly possible.
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