Agent myths -- you must change everything

Recently, I've been blogging about myths that many of us hear about agents. I started this theme based on a few tidbits I overheard at a conference and just wanted to be able to throw my spin on things.

So, at that conference I heard an author talking about how you should be careful about the details you tell an agent about your story. The idea is that if you know an agent doesn't like things like... say... a story set on a star-ship, you shouldn't pitch that your story is set on a star ship and should instead highlight other aspects of your story.

And while I totally agree with the fact that you should highlight your strengths in light of what an agent is looking for, the advice I heard went farther than that. The advice was -- if an agent doesn't like a star-ship setting, you should be willing to rewrite your entire manuscript based on that even before the agent makes an offer or shows interest.

Here's the thing... agents definitely ask for revisions, even before signing clients. And I think trying to figure out whether to tackle those revisions and re-submit is a difficult choice. The advice I've seen most often is that if you agree with the revision requests you should go ahead and do them. If you don't agree, you should think twice. And I tend to agree with this.

But I don't agree with re-setting and changing everything about your story on the off chance that doing so will please an agent who hasn't even given an opinion on your story. To me, this ties in with my post from last week -- feeling like agents are these terrifying beats. They're not -- they're there to work with the author to present the best story possible.

When I was submitting The Forest of Hands and Teeth I was convinced that agents would reject me the moment they saw the word "zombie" in the query. Worse than that, I fully assumed that my query would be sent around from agency to agency to be laughed at. "Zombies!" they would all shout, "This girl wanted me to sell a book about zombies!" This is one of the main reasons I queried my agent, Jim -- I knew that he'd recently sold a book about zombies and therefore wouldn't laugh at me!

In the end, I took a chance with my zombie query and it worked out, even though I expected nothing but laughter. And so I feel very strongly that you shouldn't be willing to compromise your story on the off chance an agent may possibly not be interested. First of all, if you do it right, the agent will often be interested. Second of all, if you find the right agent, they'll love it.

So take that chance. Yes, be aware of the market and what agents and editors are looking for, but don't be willing to sacrifice your book because one agent might, on a whim, not be interested. You want an agent just as excited about your book, your ideas, and your writing style, as you are.

What do you think? Should you be willing to sacrifice parts of your book to gain agent interest?