Got an email from an agent saying she’d thought about sending me a full manuscript request, but there was an element she didn’t like (and she was very specific about it). I agreed. We went back and forth, and she said I should resend a partial when I’d revised. She also said (and this is the really important part), that even when an agent already had my full manuscript, if I decided to make major changes I should let them know and send the revised version. This would never have occurred to me. So I did send the new version to the agent who had the full version and she was happy to get it.
This was an unnecessarily long way of saying what I could have summed up in one sentence.
At any rate, if anyone should sign me as a result of her excellent advice, I’m sending her flowers.*
*Or chocolate. Yeah, chocolate, good chocolate—not that cheap Valentines Day stuff in the cardboard heart boxes.
An Actor, a Writer, and a Rabbi's Wife Walk into a Bar... 
That is really nice of her! Any hints about what the advice was, or is it too specific to help anyone else?
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She said I had included too much back story and it interfered with the humor, pacing and voice. Ironically, the back story was a sort of “photo bomb.” I let myself be overly influenced by my usually excellent critique group. I don’t think they were that familiar with the genre, Cozy Mystery, and thought the MC need some reason beyond nosiness for getting involved—that the stakes had to be upped, somehow. I’ve happily returned to good ol’ nosiness. It’s funnier and the pace is faster.
So I suppose the more general message is 1. Don’t let the back story get in the way of the writing and 2. Not everything has to be fraught with meaning. Silly and funny are good, too.
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