Last week, I attended my second Chesapeake Writing Workshop in Arlington, VA. Our speaker was Brian A. Klems, Online Editor for Writer’s Digest. The workshop covered some of the basic nuts and bolts of publishing and offered the opportunity to not only pitch (for a fee) some of the agents on hand, but also to have the first page of your work read aloud and critiqued live by a panel of four agents–sort of like The Voice, but for writing.
The “Writers Got Talent” portion of the day didn’t really hold any surprises for me, but a handful of some of the more seasoned attendees noticed that the mood in the room, as page after page was rejected by the agents (some after just a line or two, not even making it to the end of the page), grew increasingly hostile. Some of these aspiring writers in the audience were really angry at the agents, who were, I’m sorry to say, just doing their jobs, the same ones they do every single day, at a pace that can drop hundreds of submissions a day into their inboxes. 
I’ll be honest, I felt bad for the agents on hand, because I’m sure they could hear the grumblings and see the glares (though they’re agents, so they are unbelievably tough), so I took a lot of notes on the comments the agents were making, because as writers, folks, these are the kinds of things we ignore at our peril. Think you’re ready to submit to an agent? Read through my notes first–you just might thank me someday. Not sure what some of these things mean? Well, that right there’s a red flag for you, but send me a message–I’m happy to clarify.
WHY AGENTS STOP READING:
- Not to an agent’s taste (means you didn’t research your agent thoroughly enough)
- Cliches
- Opening with a time or a date
- Opening with a line of dialogue with no sense of character, context, or setting
- Beginning in media res
- Voice issues
- Overwhelming words/”Purple Writing“/Overwriting
- Predicability
- Clunky, too many descriptors
- Unoriginal
- Too much passive voice/telling, not showing
- Using Film/TV storytelling techniques, like prologues or infodumps, that don’t work in written fiction
- Switching narrators w/out contest
- Abuse of reader trust
- Too much exposition, not enough scene
- Directly addressing the reader
- Flat or dated humor
- Out-of-context breaking of the 4th wall
- Lack of world-building in dystopian genre
- Dialogue that’s for the benefit of the reader and not organic to the characters
- Writing not polished enough
- Delaying investment in character
- Heavily covered topics, like funerals, covered in the same old way
- Starting with backstory or dialogue or character’s inner thoughts rather than scene–does not mean lines of dialogue
- Lack of familiarity with the intended genre of your work
I could go on, but that’s a pretty long list as it is. The bottom line is, you only get a minute or two to make that good strong impression on an agent, so your query letter and your submission better be outstanding. Good luck, and keep writing!
Just so we’re clear: Agents are NOT the enemy.