Why Editors Ask for the Middle: What Your Sample Pages Reveal

Writers usually assume the beginning is the most important part of a manuscript to share. It makes sense. The opening is where the hook lives, and writers spend endless hours honing it. That first line is rewritten until it bears little resemblance to the draft you started with. Whole evenings go into moving commas, weighing two nearly identical words, or shifting a paragraph around to see if it lands with more punch.