Only some people will buy your book — duh, nobody likes everything. You need to have a general idea which readers will enjoy your work: readers of Stephen King? Robin Talley? Chuck Wendig? The questions “Who will the readers be?” and “Where does it fit on the shelf?” really ask: what genre/subgenre is it and… Continue reading The same spot on the shelf
The first page needs some description in order to ground me in the world and in the protagonist’s experience. Many rejected pages I see have either too much or not enough. Go for immediate, sense-based details and don’t wander away from what’s happening. Your first page must be active, but don’t simply say what happens.… Continue reading Your first page: sensory details
The past few weeks saw a surprising number of queries with protagonists named Kaedin, Kaeden, or Kaelin. It’s coincidence of course: people are subtly influenced by the same media and name their protagonists similar things the same way baby names have trends. I see strange trends like this all the time. One week saw an… Continue reading Strange trends
Everything I mentioned thus far on this blog–crafting a good first line, keeping description simple, hooking me right away in a query–are standards I judge queries by. I have to sort a lot of queries quickly, and these basic measures are nearly always enough to tell me if you’re good. I know on occasion good… Continue reading Feeling shallow
I’m tired of preachy books. Between all our agents, our agency accepts nearly anything–if it’s good enough. That does not include preachy books. Sometimes they preach politics: fictionalized futures of what would happen if we elect [candidate]. Sometimes they preach religion: Christian fantasy about the world ending or how a man’s self-sacrifice converts his atheist… Continue reading Tired of preachy books
Most of our rejections aren’t because the books are bad: the stories’ bones are fine. We reject them for pervasive, structural, totally-fixable flaws. Three main ones: #1 – The book sounds like a rewrite of [popular title]. The author is creative, but still figuring out what they write. By imitating other authors’ styles and plots,… Continue reading Why you were rejected
In writing, varying the lengths of paragraphs is important. Dialogue is one way to alter the pace. I frequently see sample pages that replace dialogue with verbal asides, thinking this is an acceptable substitute. The author feels the need to let us in on the character’s thoughts but doesn’t want to say them outright. Either… Continue reading Characters talking to themselves
When rejected, some authors email back to disagree. (Oddly–or perhaps not–all are men.) Usually they leave it at, “You’re missing an opportunity.” Sometimes they want to debate. In my rejections, I give one thing the book did well and one thing that caused me to reject it. It takes me twice as long to write… Continue reading Don’t respond to rejections
A run-of-the-mill programmer, Tiffany fills her days crunching code in between evenings with Netflix and drinks with her coworkers. When a job higher up the food chain opens, Tiffany seizes the chance to escape the cube farm and interviews for it. But everything ends in disaster and lands Tiffany, now friendless, without a job or… Continue reading “Everything goes wrong”
At least once a day, I have to reject a book purely based on genre. Our agents all keep me updated with their preferences. If you send a memoir to Agent X but she’s not repping them, I either send it to Agent Y who does rep memoirs, or reject it because none of our… Continue reading Rejections for genre
